Portals to Hell

Ooh, I just got a cold shiver.

Ooh.

what the **** was that?

What the **** was that?

is this place a portal to hell?

that's bones.

serious?

He believes that you're demonic...

...So this should really piss you off.

alright, here we are

in placerville, northern california.

Yep, and we're here to investigate the cary house,

which is the first hotel established in the town. Mm.

So allegedly, the spirits that haunt this hotel,

uh, get a bit physical.

They like to touch

and really freak out the employees.

We're here to try and figure out what the hell is going on.

how do you feel about this one, jack?

I never love sleeping at the location.

I don't know, I just never feel rested,

- 'cause I'm always like, ugh. - Yeah.

Let's do it.

cary house has actually a really exciting history.

So, the town itself was founded in 1854.

There was a major gold rush.

Obviously, a lot of people went there to look for gold. Yeah.

Some people were successful.

A lot of people were not successful.

California in the mid-1800s was literal wild west. Yeah.

There was nothing out here. Yeah.

And obviously, you know, being a wild west town,

a lot of people died from, you know, disease

or even suicide

or just mishaps that happened in the town. Yeah?

They actually used to call it hangtown... Ugh.

...Because of the amount of hangings that took place there.

There's people that think the whole town is haunted... Mm-hmm.

...But that it's concentrated at the cary house.

The hotel itself was built in 1849.

Uh, and I guess a lot of famous people have stayed here,

like ulysses s. Grant, mark twain. Mm-hmm.

Um... Some really, like,

key historical figures in america... Yeah.

...Which is kind of cool.

So, the cary house, was kind of, like,

built for the big money kind of folk

and eventually spiraled down into servicing the, uh...

Lower companions of the town. Yeah.

You know, prostitutes, gambling, things like that.

Yeah.

You know, people with bad intentions start coming

and they take over.

They've had so many employees quit over the last year

because they're terrified to be there.

Yeah.

The question that they have right now is

why are so many people quitting?

They know it's from paranormal experiences,

but what is happening that's so bad

to make that amount of people leave

in such a short amount of time?

oh, there it is.

Oh, cool.

Wow.

I mean, typical "portals to hell" fashion --

hear about a hotel

that's haunted by ghosts that keep touching people. Yeah.

So what do we do? We check in.

That's right. Let's roll.

Jack and I are gonna be staying here

with our entire crew.

I actually like staying at places like this.

Jack, I think, feels the opposite way,

because it can be very intrusive,

like you're never really stepping away from work.

You have to have your guard up

every second that you're in a place like this,

if you're staying over.

who is it that we're meeting?

Um, jen and josh.

Jen and josh.

- hi. Are you jen? - I am jen.

Hi, I'm katrina. And this is jack.

Hey, how's it going? Nice to meet you, jen. Hi. You too.

So, obviously we're here.

We've heard lots of stories, and we want to check in.

Alrighty. So, katrina... Yeah.

...You are gonna be in room 207 on the second floor. Okay.

And jack, room 212 on the second floor, as well. Awesome.

So how long have you worked here?

A little over three years.

Mm. And, like, what are some of the stories

you've heard from guests staying here?

Um, there are stories about a, um --

a woman crying.

We have journals that we put in all the rooms,

and that's a common story in a lot of the journals

from people that don't even know

each other, years apart. You know?

Have you experienced anything weird?

Yeah, yeah. A few things, yeah.

Yeah. Like what?

When I was, um, pretty new here and doing housekeeping,

I was cleaning a room.

I got poked in my shoulder

so hard that, like, I turned around

and really expected someone to be there.

You know, and there wasn't.

You know, it's interesting that that seems to be

the recurring piece of activity

that happens to pretty much everybody that comes in here

is being touched, being poked, being grabbed.

I'm not surprised that they're having employees quit.

It kind of has that uncomfortable vibe.

Hi. Are you josh? Hi. I'm josh. I'm the general manager.

Hey, nice to meet you. We're glad you guys are here.

Yeah. Well, thanks for having us.

It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so we have heard you've had some experiences.

- Yes. - Yeah?

So in about the whole five years that I've been here,

I have had a couple of experiences.

I'm not really a believer in this sort of thing.

So I kind of play it off in my mind

as not really happening or not what I think it was. Yeah.

But with how many people I've had quit from the hotel

and just all the stories

that guests tell me every morning,

it's led me to think something's going on here.

So how many employees have you lost in the last year?

11.

From paranormal activity? Mm-hmm.

They all cited because this place is haunted? Yes. Yes.

So it's hard to, like, keep the staff.

What's the most recent complaint you've had?

So actually, just yesterday, a guest came down and told us

that they were pulled out of their bed last night.

- Wow. - Hmm.

That's actually been a common occurrence here.

People freak out and decide not to stay here.

When people get pulled out of bed,

is it always the same room?

Usually it's gonna be on the second floor.

That's where most of the haunted activity's

actually taken place.

there's so many stories that we could go into

that gene's gonna tell you, as well. Okay.

There's so much history, so much hauntings.

Next, jack and I are gonna meet with gene

who is a paranormal investigator.

And I'm hoping he can shed some light

on why this place might be haunted.

- Katrina, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

I got the stories. Let's go.

Okay, great. Where do we start?

We can start over here at the, uh...

Base of the stairs, here.

This is kind of where it all starts.

a little history about the hotel,

the actual location started here in 1849

at the beginning of the gold rush.

It was the eldorado hotel.

In 1856, we had a huge fire in July,

and it decimated the whole town.

After that fire, the town was up and running

in three to four weeks.

We had hotels, bars, everything up and going again.

Part of that is that there were some secret societies

that basically ran this town.

They built it into what it became. Huh.

And one of those secret societies

was the oddfellows.

There were several in town,

but the oddfellows were one of the most prominent ones.

Their main purpose was to help poor people --

especially bury their families when they couldn't afford it.

So they were kind of like a charity of sorts.

Yeah, but what they've been finding

in oddfellows hall across the united states,

including the one down the street here,

were skeletons.

They're actually hidden under floor boards and walls.

And they used these in their very ritualistic meetings.

And this is kind of creepy, they stick a new member

into a dark room for several hours

with the skeleton. Mm.

So that they can become

face-to-face with their mortality.

Wow. Whoa.

A few of the owners after william cary --

he only actually owned the hotel for two years --

they were actually oddfellows.

So we kind of believe that a lot of that energy

may have been brought into the building.

Do you think they would have done some of that stuff here?

I'm sure they did.

This was the main, central place for people to come.

There's a strange connection

with this whole town to the oddfellows.