December 30, 2024 • 52 mins
In this chilling episode of Unholy Vibes, Alex sits down with the captivating Erykah McManus, Miss New Mexico, to explore her spine-tingling encounters with the paranormal. From eerie childhood experiences to working at the infamous Lodge Hotel in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, Erykah shares her unforgettable stories.
Discover the haunting legend of Rebecca, a ghost tied to a tragic past, and hear about the shadowy Hat Man often seen with ghostly children. Dive into the hidden secrets of the Lodge, including mysterious tunnels, a sealed pouch marked "For Rebecca, Do Not Open," and unexplained phenomena during renovations.
Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, this episode is packed with suspenseful tales that will leave you questioning what’s real.
What You'll Hear in This Episode:
- Erykah’s childhood ghost encounters and family hauntings.
- Paranormal experiences at the Lodge Hotel, including haunted rooms and chilling discoveries.
- The shadowy figure known as the Hat Man and his eerie companions.
- The spine-tingling mysteries of hidden walls, ominous chandeliers, and spectral echoes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up.
Erykah (00:01):
They had just found a hidden wall doing
renovations in the bar.
And I was like, why arewe unearthing things?
Within that same week, we founda pouch in the ceiling that
said, For Rebecca, do not open.
And of course, my coworkers open it, and
dump everything out.
There's crystals inthere, there's dirt in
(00:21):
there, and I'm like, whatare you guys touching?
Put it back!So and we put it back
exactly where we had it.
We're like, We're not touchingthis, we're not doing this.
We're like, okay, now weknow where to ghost hunt.
Alex (00:32):
Welcome to unholy vibes.
I'm Alex, your host.
And today we're joined byanother special guest, my
new friend, Erykah, go aheadand introduce yourself.
Tell us who you are.
Tell us all about you.
And yeah.
Erykah (00:46):
Beautiful.
My name is Erykah McManus, Ilive in New Mexico, I'm the
current Miss New Mexico, andI'm a tattoo enthusiast, and
you're probably never gonnasee another goth pageant
girl ever, so here I am.
I'm also a streamer and amom, among other things, and
(01:07):
that's pretty much the gist,
Alex (01:08):
Goth pageant girls.
We love it.
Fantastic.
No, the perfect niche, honestly.
Erykah and I, I guess we met,but like E met on TikTok.
I was doing what I do.
I go through different people'slives just scrolling around
and my tick tock algorithmjust puts me into a, in
(01:29):
front of a lot of goth girls.
I don't know whatthat's all about.
Anyway so I came acrossyour live and I don't even
remember what you were doing.
I do it for networking.
I go in and I say, haveyou ever seen a ghost?
It's my go to line.
And you said yes, if I remember.
And so I was like, cool,let's get you on the show.
I do, I love it.
(01:50):
I love just asking strangersabout their ghost stories
and their non ghost stories.
But the ghost islike the way to go.
That's how you get,how you get started.
Because I'll take anyscary story, ghost or not,
Erykah (02:00):
those are the best ones.
Ghost stories are the best ones.
Alex (02:03):
true.
I have a plethora ofthem just here now from
doing this for a while.
And even in my daily lifebefore I started this show,
I just, anytime I met someonelike tell me your ghost stories
because it just fascinates me.
So give me a littlebit of background here
Erykah (02:20):
yeah, a lot of my ghost stories happened
throughout my childhood,through my teenage years
up until I turned about 20.
Alex (02:29):
Okay.
Erykah (02:30):
And that's where it, I stopped going out and doing
a whole lot and then becamea mom, so my ghost stories
have kind of fizzled out.
But a lot of the intense oneshappened when I was a teenager,
whenever I worked at the lodgehere in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.
Very intense stuff.
Alex (02:48):
That's what piqued my interest.
When you messaged me, you werelike, I worked at this place
and I have all this stuff.
And I'm like let'shear about it.
I need that.
So give us some background,dive into it, tell your stories.
And I will do my bestto save my questions for
the end, but no promises.
Erykah (03:04):
Okay, I got you.
So my childhood, this willbe background, background
for what I'm about to explainlater on in the story.
When I was a child, me andmy entire family, so my mom,
my dad, my sibling, And I,we all saw ghosts, or we were
more inclined to see ghosts,hear ghosts, feel them, all
(03:25):
sorts of different things.
And that could be because of myforebears, like my ancestors,
and whatnot, but When we werechildren, my sibling would
see this big man sittingat the foot of their bed.
And I tried my hardest tostay up at night because I
don't want to see mysteryhat man sitting on your bed.
(03:47):
And there was one night whereI did see it and it scared
the living bejesus out of me.
I didn't know what to do.
And then whenever we woke upthe next morning, my sibling
was completely turned onthe other end of the bed.
So where their headboard is,their feet were, so they were
completely turned around.
And after that point I started,anytime I went to the bathroom,
(04:10):
I'd start talking to the ghoststhat were in the bathroom.
It was like, Hey,I'm coming in here.
Is that okay?
Like, I tried to befriendthem, so I never had
anything bad happen.
I don't know, I befriend tothe ghosts that never had
anything bad ever happen.
Whenever there, at least
Alex (04:25):
I'm a shy peer.
Don't look at me.
Ghost.
Oh,
Erykah (04:29):
now, not while I be in the bathroom.
Alex (04:32):
that's funny.
Erykah (04:33):
any time I went to go brush my teeth, any time I went
to go change in the bathroom,any time I went to go take a
bath, it was always, I'm comingin here, because that, that
instance scared me it's, itterrified, like as a child,
you're like, what is that, movedmy sibling, like, it, it was,
it was horrifying and then therewas, It was another night where
(04:55):
one of my great grandfathers onmy dad's side of the family was
in the hospital and passed away.
And my sibling woke up inthe middle of the night
and was like, freaking out.
And so my parents go to herand everything like that and
they're like, what's the matter?
And they didn't know thathe had just passed away.
But she shot up and shewas like, He's sick! He's sick!
(05:19):
And then later on in thatmorning, they found out
that he'd passed away.
Alex (05:23):
Wow.
Erykah (05:23):
So, that was pretty much our childhood.
When we get to like our10 to 11 age range, we
moved, which was awesome.
I was like, I'm so excited!Nowhere
Alex (05:36):
problem now.
Erykah (05:37):
we go! I know, I was like, oh
my gosh, not me anymore.
I'm so excited.
We moved found outthat a kid got hit.
So a kid lived at this house,and right across the street,
he had gotten hit and killed.
I didn't know that, and I wasI had the privilege and the
pleasure of getting his bedroom,so it was, it was great.
(05:58):
I was like, great, thiswould have been, like perfect
information beforehand, but,you know, my parents wanted
a house, so whatever, whatcan I do at 10 years old?
Um,
Alex (06:07):
that's kind of messed up.
Erykah (06:10):
I was like, okay, this is great, solid,
Alex (06:12):
no asterisks to my, no asterisks when
it comes to my rooming.
Okay, cool.
Thanks.
Don't tell me anything.
Erykah (06:18):
I got the big room, so who's really gonna complain?
Not me.
I got my own bed.
I didn't have toshare a bed anymore.
I was like,
Alex (06:26):
Wins.
Wins all around.
Hell
Erykah (06:33):
thing that happened in that house that I remember
was when we were moving in.
I was in my bedroom doingwhat I needed to do.
Getting things set up andthe door slammed on me.
And I was like,Whoa, went to my dad.
It was like thisdoor slammed on me.
Just so you know, first day inhere, this door slammed on me.
And he was like, it's the wind.
(06:55):
I was like, thewindows are shut.
It is not the wind.
So we kind of brushed itoff, we moved past it,
no big deal, whatever.
After that everything sortof died down a little bit.
I just did my thing.
I did sports, got out of thehouse as much as possible.
And there was a moment intime where everything was
very tense in our house.
(07:15):
Like family arguments weregoing on and everybody
in the house seemed likethey hated each other.
I was in the background.
I was like, not me.
I'm good.
But I was hanging out withmy sibling, having some
sibling time and I justfreshly cleaned my room.
And for me, that was anaccomplishment because
I never cleaned my room.
So I fresh cleaned myroom and I hear this loud
(07:38):
whooshing noise in my bedroom.
Like it sounded like.
A tornado had gone through thehouse, almost, and I went back
to my bedroom and everything inmy room, papers, were all strung
across the room, everything thatI put away was all messed up,
and then I had this lovely, I'mnot usually typically one to
get into like religious aspectsof things, but I, I walked in
(08:03):
there in the bedroom, and myporcelain dolls were knocked
down, I love porcelain dolls,they were all knocked down, and
one of them was missing a foot.
And then I had thisbeautiful, handmade, artistic
piece that was a cross.
Cause I was heavily Christianback then, and it was
completely flipped upside down.
Now, typically, I'm not theone to believe in symbolism
(08:25):
like that, but I, personally,Could not handle that.
I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Got my room clean, toldmy parents about it.
They were like, That's not,I don't think that happened.
I think you'll be fine.
And then I was like, okay,whatever you guys say,
like, I'll trust you.
I trust my parents.
I love my parents.
So I was like, I trust you guys.
(08:47):
And they're also likespiritually inclined to
see different things.
So I was like, I trust you guys.
And then I was messing aroundwith my DS, as teens do.
Um, if you remember, ifyou remember, I had the,
I got the fresh new 3DS inpink and I was like, I'm
gonna take some pictures.
And I used this effect thatwas I don't even, I don't even
(09:09):
remember what it's called, butbasically it kind of shifts the
colors and it turns everythinglike white and blue and black.
I don't remember what it'scalled, but I'd use that filter
and right next to me was a face.
Like, a giant face next tome proportioned correctly
and everything, and Iwas like, huh, grand.
Alex (09:29):
Hmm, I don't like that.
Erykah (09:30):
my mom, and she was like, okay, never mind,
you guys might actually be
Alex (09:36):
Delete, delete, delete.
Erykah (09:38):
Yeah, I kept that.
I still have it.
I'll have to find it oneday, but I still have it
Alex (09:42):
dude, take a picture and send it to me.
Erykah (09:44):
I will, I will.
You'll be the first personwho gets it, I promise.
I'll have to get throughall the cringe photos I took
as a kid, but that photois definitely worth it.
It's definitely worth it.
And then really everythingagain, everything died, like
fizzled out, died down, tensionin the house, died down.
So everything kind of died down.
And then my grandfatherpassed away and my mom was
(10:06):
my, my sibling was seeingmy grandpa in the house.
And then my mom saw himin a dream where he was
telling her to get out.
So we moved.
We moved like three hours awayto a whole different town.
No questions asked.
We just started a new life here.
We were like, okay,this is our sign.
So we moved here.
We all needed jobs.
(10:27):
I was 16 whenever we hadmoved over here to Cloudcroft.
And everybody kind of knowsthe story of the Lodge Hotel.
One of the oldest hotels inNew Mexico and notoriously
haunted hotel in New Mexico.
So my dad got hisjob first there.
He was like, yeah,that sounds great.
He gets a job there.
And then my mom gets a jobthere, and then I get a job
(10:48):
there, and then my siblinggets a job there eventually.
So all of us, again, together,in the Haunted Hotel, just
running the entire place.
It's a family unit.
Alex (10:58):
affair here, jeez.
Erykah (11:01):
So the Lodge Hotel has a famous ghost story.
Not one that I particularlybelieve in, but it's one
that everybody really does.
Associates with the Lodge,and it's Rebecca the Ghost,
the beautiful, red headedghost that wanders the halls.
Apparently she was achambermaid, so she'd clean
(11:22):
and also service the guys.
And her lumberjack boyfriendgot jealous and either killed
her and her love lover anddismantled all of their
parts, and dismembered,
Alex (11:34):
dismembered, okay, yeah.
Erykah (11:36):
dismembered, I was thinking of it like a Barbie, I
was thinking of dismantle, uh,
Alex (11:40):
Just a piece of furniture, no big deal.
Erykah (11:42):
yeah just dismantled them, they were dismembered.
dismembered and placed andscattered around the like
the woods and there's astory that they still kind
of run the halls there.
Another interesting fact is thatthere was a child A place for
children who had tuberculosisand everybody thought back
(12:05):
in the day, at least in NewMexico, the higher in altitude
you went, the cleaner theair was and it would clear
out your tuberculosis withthe clean and crisp air.
On the contrary, itkilled everybody.
Like anybody who came up herethey ended up passing away
from tuberculosis and there
Alex (12:22):
that's wild.
That's such sound science.
I don't know what the deal
Erykah (12:26):
I
Alex (12:26):
Why didn't that work?
Erykah (12:28):
how, I don't, I can barely breathe, I could barely
breathe when I moved up here.
What made you think it wouldmake you breathe better?
I don't understand the logic,but, New Mexico, who knows?
so they had a, a childward near, or a house for
children with tuberculosisnear the the lodge.
And a lot of children didpass away over in that
(12:50):
sanatorium, sanitarium, Idon't know what they call it.
They have signs all alongthe lodge that tell you
all of the history, whichis fascinating for me.
I read it every time Icleaned all the rooms.
I would stop by, I'd reada new plaque, and then
keep reading every day.
So, I got a lot of differentbits and pieces of information
of the hotel that I could.
(13:11):
The original lodge was builtIn the late 1800s and burnt
down in 1901, if I'm correct.
And then they had rebuilt it.
So, the new lodge that wehave isn't the original, but
it's still from the 1911s.
being a house
Alex (13:29):
It's
Erykah (13:30):
Yeah, it was still it was still old the rooms were
still original when I hadstarted there before we had
done the remodels, but beinga housekeeper there was the
scariest job I I had ever hadin my life and I have dealt
with People in pharmaciesolder people in pharmacies.
So To to go and say that thiswas the scariest experience
(13:52):
like it was it was horrificSo My second day there, I was
getting the rundown on how todo everything, and they had
shown me the tunnels where wewould go grab our linens, which
were underneath the hotel.
So we'd have to crawl throughthis little rabbit hole just to
get into where the clock in was,and then we would go underneath
(14:16):
the hotel and grab our sheets.
We also have a piece of our bar.
So I also have some olderhistory with that as well.
so we have one bar downstairswhere the workers are,
that's called the Red Dog.
It also has a tunnel thatconnects to under every room
(14:38):
in that hotel, and that doorwould randomly open, it would
randomly shut on people,the lights would randomly
turn on and off on people.
So my dad did most ofhis work underneath those
tunnels all the time.
So he would tell us, Everythingthat happened there before
I had started working there.
So I was already like,yay, I'm so excited.
(15:01):
I put in my applicationto work at this hotel.
I'm very glad I did.
But as a 16 year old, I waslike this sounds just fantastic.
my
Alex (15:11):
a great
Erykah (15:12):
day there yeah, already.
Already to a great starthearing all these stories.
my second day starting, itwas the rush New Year's.
I had started on New Year'sDay, and it was, it was busy.
So, they threw meon third floor.
Third floor is where we see alot of our children ghosts, or
our children spirits up there.
So, you'll hear like alot of running around.
(15:33):
You'll find toys upin the attic, if you
go up in the attic.
So my, my, my second day there,it was You're working straight
on the third floor by yourself.
And I was like, oh! Awesome!I love this!
I was vacuuming room 328.
And, is it 328 or 358?
It's been a while sinceI've been there, but I'm
(15:54):
pretty sure it's 358.
I was vacuuming That, thatentire room and then the
hall, I had made my way intothe bedroom and disconnected
the cord, plugged it in thebathroom and the main door to
the hotel room, mind you, solidwood, very heavy, it slammed
on me and I was like, I gottastart talking to spirits again.
(16:17):
I gotta start talkingjust to get through today.
And then I moved to 360.
360 is notorious forbeing our, one of our most
haunted rooms in the hotel.
I didn't know that.
So I, I go in there like,yeah, I can't wait to
finish this and get home.
Cause it was five o'clock atthat point, and I'm cleaning,
(16:39):
and I have one of my spraybottles fall off of my counter.
And of course, I'm like, Idefinitely knocked that off.
There's nothing else going on.
I knocked that off.
And then a toilet paperroll knocks off the toilet
seat, and I'm like, okay.
Y'all can stopmessing with me now.
And I exit the room to gograb some supplies, and I
walk back up to the door, andI heard walking in the room.
(17:04):
I was like, this cannotbe happening right now.
I thought somebody hadchecked in before check in
before they were supposed to.
It was like, I waspaging front desk.
I was like, There's somebodyin here, and they were like,
nobody's checked in here,and I was like, okay, solid.
So I open the door, and I goin, and there's nobody in there.
All, everything that Iheard stopped as soon
as I opened the door.
(17:25):
There was nothing in the room.
I was like, oh, thisis, this is horrible.
This is horrific.
I finish my shift, and then I gohome, and I tell my dad, and he
was like, oh, you went in 360?
You had to clean that room?
I'm so sorry.
But I was like,
Alex (17:41):
for the heads up.
Erykah (17:42):
I was like, you're so great.
Thank you for the warning.
I appreciate and Ilove that so much.
After that there's a chandelierthat I dealt with on third
floor that if you talked upto it, it would answer you.
Yes would be one flash,two flashes was no.
It was really weird andyou could only catch it
if it was you and anotherperson that worked there.
(18:04):
It couldn't be anybody visiting.
It couldn't be anythingelse like that.
It had to be another employee.
So, I would alwaysbe talking up to it.
Are you here?
What are you doing?
How old are you?
Are you young?
Are you old?
It was kind of like my littleOuija board, but a chandelier.
Like a tiny chandelier.
I was like, okay, this is,this is cool, actually.
(18:25):
This is cool.
Right below third floor,there's a connecting
staircase that goes to meds.
We don't have elevatorsin this hotel.
So anything we had to do, we hadto carry ourselves up, upstairs.
Horrible.
It felt like child labor, butI was 16 and I could work.
So, okay.
But there's a staircase thatconnects all the way down to the
Mez, which is our second floor.
(18:46):
We called it the Mezzanine.
It had a conferenceroom or a luncheon room.
And there was one particularhallway that is dark.
And I don't know if you know anylore about, like, silver backed
mirrors or anything like that.
a lot of what I've read isthat silver backed mirrors
can be entry points forhow spirits go through.
(19:09):
different rooms,different areas.
So we always had, we hadalso silverback mirrors
in all of our floors.
And there was one in particularin this skinny narrow hallway
where the light, therewas never a light there.
Anytime I looked up in there,it was like a sense of dread.
I didn't want to go in there.
I didn't want to work onthose rooms in that hallway.
(19:31):
It was very, ominous and that'swhere me and my coworker saw
what we considered our hat manor our version of a hat man,
just this tall black figurethat stood there and watched us.
And he always hadchildren with him.
So there children all with him.
Alex (19:51):
No.
Hey, hey, really quick.
Just really quick.
No.
You know what I mean?
No thank you.
Erykah (20:00):
I would always avoid that floor.
And then third floor alsoconnected to the tower.
We have a tower in our hotelwhere coincidentally enough,
there's a box of this elderlywoman's ashes up there.
She loved the lodge so muchthat she put her ashes up in
the tower, but that buddy wouldsee our famous spirit, Rebecca,
(20:25):
and they would always Spirit inthere and that's where they'd
always do like paranormalinvestigators would always do
their spirit box sessions Andthat's one of our our main
attractions to the hotel.
So
Alex (20:38):
Question.
Erykah (20:39):
Yes
Alex (20:40):
Was it really a main attraction?
Like, hey, come to the hoteland go in the haunted tower.
Like it just was, andpeople were like, we're
here for that thing.
Does that make sense
Erykah (20:49):
Yeah, yeah it in fact whenever they had their old
owners The original, like,not the original owners,
but an older set of ownersbefore our current ones.
They, yeah, early 2000s,they really made that place
known for the spirits.
It was, they even had abinder and they put papers on
every little stand or in thehallways, where if somebody
(21:12):
had an experience, theycould write it down and then
it would go in this binder.
So we had this.
Finder full of just ghostexperiences, paranormal
investigators photos, Ouijaboard sessions that people
have conducted in the hotel,
Alex (21:28):
That's
Erykah (21:28):
Pictures of furniture moved all the way to one
side of the hallway thatmy boss, my, one of my
original bosses had takenwhenever she came into work.
Um,
Alex (21:40):
So they sensationalized it to get
more visitors essentially,
Erykah (21:46):
yeah.
And that's where my mainthing with the hotel is.
I was like, I don't believein the ghost stories here.
Like it's an attrait's an old hotel.
It's very, you couldtell it was an old hotel.
And I was like, they justwanted to get some more
people to come in there untilI started working there.
And then it was, Oh, nevermind.
We got, they don't really liketo focus that on the hotel.
(22:10):
Yes, the restaurant in the hotelis called Rebecca's, but not a
lot of people really know thestory or have heard the legend.
It's just the restaurant now.
And they've kind ofstopped talking about a
lot of the ghost storiesthat have happened there.
So I like to keepit going every time.
Anytime I talk to anybodyabout the Lodge, I tell
(22:31):
them my ghost stories.
Especially when I work there,Have you, have you seen Rebecca?
Any, any guest would comeup, Have you seen Rebecca?
And I'd be like, Ofcourse I've seen Rebecca!
Alex (22:41):
So do you, when did you stop working there?
Do you still work there?
What's, what was thetimeline like you were
16 when you started?
Erykah (22:49):
I was 16 when I started and I stopped when I was 20.
Alex (22:54):
Okay.
Erykah (22:54):
Or right before I turned 20.
Alex (22:56):
okay.
So you were therefor a few years.
Erykah (22:58):
Yeah, I was there.
I took a little break forcollege, but I came back.
I always came back to the lodge
Alex (23:03):
so for you, it became kind of normalized how all
the spooky shit happening.
Yeah,
Erykah (23:12):
something weird happened you blamed it on
Rebecca and you moved on
Alex (23:19):
so I had a, I had a guest on previously that
was telling me about ahaunted like hotel ship.
It's called the Queen Mary.
It's in California and itjust sits on the water.
You can go stay at thishaunted ship hotel.
And that's kind of funnybecause I asked her, I'm
like, what do you thinkit's like being an employee
there at this haunted hotel?
And now we know you justdo the job and it kind of,
(23:40):
you just grow numb to it.
Erykah (23:42):
where I live there's like there's not really a
lot of opportunities for jobsYou either work in a hotel or
you work in a restaurant andI was good off working in a
restaurant So I was like hotelthat's what I have to do now.
Alex (23:55):
Haunted or not, I'm taking that job.
Yeah.
Erykah (23:58):
Yeah.
Alex (23:59):
So of all the experiences in your four years, what do
you think was like scariestto you that like shook you?
Was it the cleaningof the specific room
and hearing footsteps,seeing a specific thing?
Like what do you think is likeyour top walked away kind of
Erykah (24:18):
like you had said, a lot of things became
very normalized, so nothingreally shook me until we
closed down for COVID.
So I worked there wheneverwe had completely our state
made all the businesses shutdown and everything like that.
I had worked there andit was just the employees
that worked there.
We weren't allowing guests.
We were doing completerenovations of the hotel.
(24:41):
Which.
Was great.
I got to sift through a lotof the binder that is hidden
in the manager's office.
We got to go in, we got tolook at it, we got to read it.
So that was reallycool and interesting.
And after that, it was kindof like the ghost stories
started circulating back inyour head because you had
forgotten them for so long.
Like you're, it wasjust another shift.
It was another day.
You just worked.
But when you start reading alot of everybody's experiences,
(25:03):
you're like, you start to psychyourself out a little bit.
You get that littleadrenaline rush and you're
just like, Oh my gosh.
So me and my coworker,we're really into
the paranormal stuff.
We listened to a lot ofparanormal podcasts whenever
we were doing a lot of the.
Work with trim forthe renovations.
So we were like, let's go ona ghost hunt because that's so
much fun when the entire hotelis shut down, it's just us.
(25:27):
So we're like, okay, we'regoing to go on a ghost hunt.
And so, she pulled out allof her tricks and tips.
Cause she was Quitea bit older than me.
And they had just founda hidden wall doing
renovations in the bar.
That was a staircasethat connects to Mez that
connects to the third floor.
And I was like, why arewe unearthing things?
Why are we doing that right now?
(25:49):
Like that's
Alex (25:49):
open walls that go into stairs.
You just don't do it.
Erykah (25:53):
why are we doing that?
And,
Alex (25:55):
sealed it up for a reason.
I'm sure.
Erykah (25:58):
within that same week, we found a pouch in the
ceiling that had been covered.
Um, and it was a purplepouch, and it said, For
Rebecca, do not open.
And of course, my coworkers open it, and
just dump everything out.
There's crystals inthere, there's dirt in
there, and I'm like, whatare you guys touching?
(26:21):
Put it back!So we put it back, like, we put
everything in there, and we putit back exactly where we had it.
We're like, We're not touchingthis, we're not doing this.
So, we find the binder, westart going through these ghost
stories, we're like, okay, nowwe know where to ghost hunt.
Because now we have thetime to do it, nobody's in
here, we're not gonna botherany guests let's go down
and let's go ghost hunt.
So, me and my coworker, we'rewalking up to Miz, and I'm
(26:43):
pulling out my phone, andI'm just taking pictures,
and There's that tall manwith two little things next
to him, which I can onlyassume are what we think
the children from upstairs.
So we're like,Oh, this is great.
So we're going upstairs.
I pull out my phone.
I'm still taking pictures.
(27:04):
I'm using different typesof filters to kind of
sift through everything.
And then I see himupstairs again.
So as we're walking upstairs,he's already made it upstairs.
So he's there.
Waiting for us, and I'mjust like, I get goosebumps,
and I'm like, I don't wantto be up here right now.
But my coworker's like, no,we've already made it to the
(27:25):
third floor, we're gonna makeit to the tower, and then we're
gonna hit that hallway again.
So I'm like, okay, I can'tdeviate from our plan.
So we start talking into thechandelier, because that's,
that's just what we do.
And we're like, are you here?
And then it flashed,and we're like, no way.
And then we'relike, are you okay?
(27:46):
And then two flash and we'relike, no, he's not okay.
So we start justwalking the hallway.
We're like, okay, we're goingto skip the chandelier part.
That's fine.
And then a little smallerfigure appears at the end of the
hallway, which again, we thinkit's the, are the children.
I hope our children.
and then we decide, okay,we're going to go up to
the attic that connects tothe closet on third floor.
(28:08):
And So we go up, we makeour way to the attic,
which is an actual ladder.
We had to pull up an actualladder and climb up it.
And then we get up there and wenoticed that there's burn marks.
My dad had already explainedthat he thinks that this part
of the hotel had burned, butthey had just covered it up.
So we get up there and we'reshining our flashlights
and there's very obviousburn marks all over.
(28:31):
The third floor attic.
And my dad's like, what if ithad burned and somebody got
hurt and nobody knew about it?
And they covered it up.
So we're over here thinkingthat this could be a possibility
now, that it could have beena family, or it could have
been the kids that passedaway from the tuberculosis.
We had no idea at this point.
(28:53):
So we're continuing to walkthrough here and we find candy.
Mind you, the hotel shut down.
There's no guests, there'sno other housekeepers
are working there, it'sjust us and maintenance.
So we find candy upstairs.
So I add it to the littlecollection in the housekeeping
department in our littlecubby area, where we find
toys and we find candy.
(29:13):
We don't know where theycome from, but we find
little, little train pieces.
Either in front of thehousekeeping door, in attics,
like we just find littlechewing pieces everywhere.
So we just started collectingall of those, the candy, so
I, I, I grab it cause I knowwe're gonna go collect it.
And we go to leave, and aswe're walking out, that door
(29:33):
to the closet slams on us.
And we're like, Nope!Even right now, I'm
like getting goosebumps.
I'm just reliving it.
But I will admit, we did that.
We did that to ourselves.
So, we go down to that staircasethat connects to the mezzanine,
to the bottom section, andwe're going through that creepy
(29:54):
hallway where I always seethat hat man, where I always
feel a sense of dread and justOutright fear when I walk down
it, so I'm, I'm creeping aroundthe corner and I just feel this
overwhelming sense of heavinessjust cloud over my entire body
and I'm like we have to gothrough this, this hallway,
(30:17):
there is no other way out.
We up for that hallway.
And I was like, I'm notwalking back upstairs.
I'm not doing that.
So we walkedthrough the hallway.
I I take a pictureof the mirror.
I'm pretty sure I can findthe image, but there's a
face in that mirror, inthat silverback mirror,
of a child down below me.
(30:38):
And I was lookingthrough the pictures as
I was I took a picture.
Looking through it, andI was like, I'm leaving
this hallway right now.
So we walk out, and webolt down back to the main
lobby, and we stay therefor the rest of the shift.
And I'm walking out togo ask if anybody needs
anything before I leave, andI hear my name get called.
So I turn around and Iwas like, did you call
(30:59):
my name to my coworker?
She's an older lady.
So she's very serious.
She's like, I didn'tcall your name.
And I was like, you're lying.
Like, why are you lying to me?
This is going to send meon a, on a mental spiral.
Like my name.
And she was like, no, Ididn't call your name.
And I was like, interesting.
Because I just heard my name.
And whenever I heard myname get called and she
(31:19):
just flat out denied it.
I left, I left.
I was like, I'm not comingback until my next shift.
I'm not doing it.
Alex (31:27):
Oh, man.
She wasn't pranking you.
Um,
Erykah (31:30):
pranking me.
Alex (31:31):
no, that's, that is wild.
This place.
I'm going to have tocome see this place.
That sounds awesome.
Oh,
Erykah (31:40):
you to a lot of the rooms that I know
are more inclined tohave spiritual activity.
Second floor, apartfrom mezzanine, there's
the honeymoon suite.
That one's prettyintense to be in.
And then there's theroom where Two months
before I started workingthere, a man passed away.
Yeah, and they didn't knowwhat procedures to do.
(32:03):
The housekeepers didn't.
And nobody reallyinformed them what to do.
He was a healthy,older gentleman.
Went on the hike and then had aheart attack in the hotel room.
So
Alex (32:13):
Just adding to the pool of ghosts.
Very
Erykah (32:15):
yeah just adds to everything.
I love it.
So they accidentally took thesheets off and instead of red
bagging it, they circulatedit through the washing system.
And it is still to this day,circulating those shelves.
Don't know which ones they are.
Alex (32:31):
Blech! Oh, wow.
Erykah (32:34):
see them.
So I worked here.
I'll never stay here.
Alex (32:37):
Bring your own sheets, you know?
Just to be safe.
Oh.
Erykah (32:43):
have to stay during a heavy snowstorm, they
did have to stay the night.
Because I live in the mountains,I live in the altitude 9,
000 feet in elevation, so,we're pretty high up here.
And when it snows, it snows.
So a lot of the times, employeesgot trapped in the hotel
and had to stay the night.
And some of the stories I heardalone just from them made it
(33:04):
to where I never wanted tostay the night, ever, ever.
Alex (33:07):
So this is making a little bit more sense.
I'm looking upCloudcroft right now.
Is this like a ski kind of areabecause it's so mountainy and
snowy during the winter season?
These are all like ski resorts?
Erykah (33:18):
We, we do have a ski resort way down, but it's small.
This town is mostlyjust, it's kind of like
an oasis in the desert.
So you have straight desertin the basin, and then it goes
straight to our national forest.
So it's a huge forest.
Alex (33:36):
Forest.
Erykah (33:37):
Yes.
Alex (33:39):
Oof.
I genuinely may haveto come see this place.
I'm being dead serious.
Cause like, I like to go visit.
Well, my goal is to visitthese places, right?
Erykah (33:49):
Yeah.
If you would like to, just tomake it like an entire trip
for you, I could take youby the lodge, obviously give
you a tour, put you in somehousekeeper scrubs, so that way
you can get the same treatmentthe ghost gave me, like pushing
me down the stairs or tryingto push me down the stairs
when I'm carrying heavy bags.
that happened once, but
Alex (34:09):
cosplay for a ghost tour.
I'm down for it.
Erykah (34:12):
they're, they're malicious to the, to
the workers, to thehousekeepers specific.
Alex (34:18):
That's rude.
Oh,
Erykah (34:22):
that the other housekeepers, whenever
Rebecca died that theyhad covered up her murder.
Yeah, so I'm like, well, thatwould make a lot of sense.
Like glasses flying off ofthe bar shelves and everything
like that on the bartenders.
So, the ghosts kind ofdon't like the employees,
(34:43):
but they love the guestsfor whatever reason.
They love the attention.
Alex (34:47):
as wild.
And this place doesn'tstay pretty busy.
Like it's.
Pretty occupied by guests a
Erykah (34:53):
It's got a golf course.
It's the only golfcourse in Cloudcroft.
And it's, It's a prettypopular golf course.
In fact, it was one ofthe highest golf courses
in elevation in thecountry at one point.
Alex (35:05):
okay.
because in my mind whileyou're telling me all this
It's a functioning place, soI'm assuming, yes, there are
guests here, but in my mind,I'm like, oh, it's kind of like
The Shining, where there's likeno one there the whole time,
which doesn't make any sense.
Erykah (35:19):
COVID made it feel like the shining when I was, it was
just me and other co workers.
It was anywhere you look,anywhere you went, you had to
like look over your shoulder.
Every single time youwere just constantly on
edge every single day.
And especially when we wererenovating the entire hotel,
it was one of those thingswhere we were kind of riling
them all up at the same time.
(35:40):
So interesting.
It was very interesting.
Alex (35:44):
I like it.
And here's the thing.
Anytime you said thatsomeone's, that her ashes
were in the tower, right?
That's just a no no in my book.
You just, ashes.
So I've talked to a fewpeople that are like, oh,
haunted basement or hauntedthis, that or the other.
And several of them were like,yeah, someone's ashes were in
(36:04):
there and like, well, that mighthave been part of the problem.
You know,
Erykah (36:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Alex (36:11):
the older a place is, the higher likelihood hood.
It has to be haunted.
First of all.
And this place is oldand renovated and burned
and just have a lot ofhistory attached to it.
It seems like in alot of negative vibes.
And then you're like,Oh, let's just put a dead
person's ashes in here.
Like, that can't help.
Erykah (36:29):
She loved the place so much.
She spent all of hertime in the tower.
So she was like, I'll juststick my ashes in here.
And you can seewhere they're at.
Because it's kind ofgot like these pillars.
And then it's justgot one platform.
And then you can seethis giant wooden box.
And those are what I wastold where her ashes are.
And they even have a plaque.
(36:50):
of her picture up therein the tower as well.
Another fun thing, Judy Garlandhas signed her name on the
walls here, as did VincentPratt . So that's interesting.
Alex (37:01):
Yeah, yeah,
Erykah (37:02):
Yeah,
Alex (37:02):
is a hot spot.
This is quite the destination.
Erykah (37:05):
It is there's Pancho Villa has stayed at the
lodge before, and he wasvery famous down in Mexico.
And it was, it was a hotspotfor a lot of famous, the people
who were from Mythbusters,they stayed there at the hotel.
So we've definitely attracteda lot of higher profile
people throughout the years.
So we do have that historythere in the tower as well.
(37:29):
So fascinating.
Alex (37:30):
Very fascinating.
I'm fascinated.
Erykah (37:32):
much.
But outside of the lodge,if you, because it is like
seven hours out of your way.
I have also been to oneof the most haunted hotels
in El Paso, Texas as well.
I'm pretty sure ghostadventures did an episode there.
I watch it.
A lot of times because whatI experienced just walking
(37:52):
in the alleyway of thathotel made me terrified.
Now that place was burneddown, but it's still an
interesting experience.
And then you've gotthe El Paso High School
that I've also toured.
3 a.
m.
I was like, let's do it.
This is awesome, because I,I started going to like this
little ghost hunting phasewhen I lived in El Paso.
And whenever we were touringthere it was genuinely
(38:15):
a horrifying experience.
It is such an old, it's one ofthe oldest schools in Texas.
And I was walking,and they had like this
ledge that was high up.
And I looked at it, and Isaw somebody lunge at me,
so I ducked, and when Ilooked, nobody was there.
At all.
Alex (38:34):
I don't like that either.
Erykah (38:36):
a couple of areas around here that are pretty famous for
their hauntings, and I happenedto work at one for four years.
Alex (38:45):
So outside of the hotel.
And your experienceis in El Paso.
Does anything ever like happento you just in your personal
life, day to day at home,anything like that, or have all
these experiences been prettyisolated to those locations?
Erykah (39:01):
Other than these locations, my experiences
are can be isolated unlessI'm driving on the road.
There are Apache like, wherethe Apache Indians had had
little battlegrounds andsometimes when I'm driving
the main highway, highway82, I kind of get glimpses of
people walk in front of my car.
Alex (39:22):
Hmm.
Erykah (39:23):
I've, I've, sometimes I've stopped because I
genuinely thought I, and, theside of the road is a cliff.
So you kind of get to apoint where it's, or not
just a cliff, but like, it'spretty steep, so a person
shouldn't be walking there.
But then they walk rightin front of my car, so I
stop, because I genuinelythink I hit somebody, and
then there's nobody there.
Not a soul on the highway.
(39:45):
After that, I just stoppedchecking because it became
such a constant thing whereI'd see somebody walking
the side of the road andthen they'd just disappear.
Alex (39:53):
Hmm.
I don't like that either.
That's fun.
Better than, I mean, I mean, atleast you're not like swerving.
They're like, ah, we'regoing to get you and
you'll swerve off the road.
That's no
Erykah (40:01):
Yeah, I just kind of cut my losses and I'm
like, oh, you shouldn't havebeen walking in the road.
Alex (40:05):
Yeah, that's on you guys, sorry.
Erykah (40:07):
I
Alex (40:08):
There's no crosswalk here.
Erykah (40:10):
then I'm gonna be like, oh, I hit somebody and then
they pop up in the backseatof my car and I'm just like,
Alex (40:16):
No thanks, that would be the worst.
That would actually be theworst thing that's happened.
That's
Erykah (40:21):
yeah,
Alex (40:22):
One time I was driving from Utah to California.
And It was late, I was reachingmy destination, I still had
like 2 hours left , and I wasdriving, and I was by myself.
And it was one of thoselike mountainous kind of
winding roads, you know?
And it's one way, or like onelane each way I should say.
(40:47):
If I remember correctly,it's been like 5 years.
And it's super dark.
I didn't see anythingin the road, but I kept
seeing something inmy backseat actually.
And I would like peripherallyI was like seeing
something like it couldjust be like my headrest,
whatever, just peripheralsplaying tricks on me.
Right.
Cause you know how it islike, Oh, it's over there.
My mind's not reallyfocused on what that is.
(41:09):
But I keep seeing, I want tosay it looks like a woman.
Like, just like, I see the hair,like long, like white colored
hair and that's about it.
And I keep looking because I'mlike, there's no way, right?
Like there just isn't.
But the thing is like thenight before I had been
with a bunch of friendsand we were all telling
our scary stories and ghoststories and all this stuff.
(41:31):
And you just like bringin those vibes and they
kind of stick with you.
So you have to like playin the mood or like change
the subject or whatever tokind of like, let that go.
so I had like stayed up latewith all these friends and then
we end at like, I don't know,midnight one in the morning
and then I go to bed, wake upsuper early because I have like
a 12 or 13 hour drive and it'sjust kind of stuck with me.
(41:51):
So anyway, I digress.
I'm driving and this truck pullsup behind me and it's not like
a semi truck size, but it'slike, it's a pretty big truck.
It's like, I don't know, anyway,and it keeps flashing its lights
at me, and then it will pass me,and I'm like, I'm going over the
speed limit, like, a little bit.
So anyway, this truck keepsflashing its lights at me, and
then it'll go and like, getright up on my butt, and it's
(42:15):
higher up, so I'm being blindedby this guy, and I was driving
a Hyundai Elantra, so I'm kindof like lower down, and then
he would pass me, and he'slike a, he had like a big water
tank on his, on his, in likehis truck bed kind of thing.
And then he would get in frontof me and again, I'm going like
five over and then he wouldslow down to like 10 under
and make me ride his butt.
(42:36):
And then I would passhim because I'm like,
what are you doing?
And he would honk at me and likeflash the lights and he kept
doing this, kept doing this.
And I'm like, I, I don'tthink it was anything other
than just idiot driver,maybe I genuinely don't know.
But the fact that I waslike seeing something in my
backseat in addition to like,and he was doing this at the
same time I was seeing it.
Thing in my backseatpotential thing.
(42:56):
I'm like, I wonder whatthis could have been.
It could have been nothing.
I was very tired.
It was a long ass drive andwhen it gets late, I get
sleepy while I'm driving.
I could fall asleep drivingand which is not great.
So I genuinely don't know but Ithink about that every so often.
What if that guy like wasseeing something in my window?
I don't know.
I genuinely don't know.
(43:16):
It's probably nothing.
But anyway, nighttimedriving stories.
Erykah (43:19):
if he brought it in there?
What if it was him?
Alex (43:23):
We were going like 65 or 70.
I mean, he just cameand it happened.
I kid you not.
It happened four or five times.
He would like, ride my ass,flash the lights at me, honk,
and I'd be like, dude, I'mgoing over the speed limit.
He would pass meand then slow down.
I'm like, whathave I done to you?
What am I?
If you want to go fast,just go, just be gone.
(43:43):
Just go get infront of me and go.
Don't like break
Erykah (43:45):
I've heard stories like this where like somebody will
be in like a semi or somethingof that nature And they'll
genuinely, their main goal is tomake you crash, is to hurt you.
So they'll play tricks onyou, and then there is one
stretch of road, and I can'tremember what it's called.
(44:07):
But something essentially alongthose lines will happen, where
a truck will flash you, willlook at you, and will just
try to get you in a wreck.
And if that doesn't work, you'llsee somebody in your backseat.
If you acknowledge thatperson in your backseat, Then
they'll try to hurt you ortry to distract you and make
you crash kind of thing Idon't remember what stretch of
(44:28):
road that's on but I watchedsomething I think it's like
Highway 666 is what it wascalled or something like that
Alex (44:36):
I I could be thinking of something differently, but
I've heard similar, like weird.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Who knows?
That's the thing.
Who knows?
Erykah (44:44):
Whenever you say that I'm thinking about
that and I'm like, what ifyou wanted you to crash?
And that just, I'm like, no.
Alex (44:51):
This was a weird, like, this was on, I
think, like 85, like the80, Highway 80 going West.
I mean, I don't know.
It wasn't anything special.
If I remember correctly, itwas just, it was just weird.
But I think about itoften because I'm like,
I was, it was late.
I was tired.
And while I do, I dothis show, I love.
Spooky shit, and I'mfascinated by it all, but I
(45:13):
like to have a healthy amountof skepticism, you know?
And because it's, if I'm justlike, I believe everything
everyone says, then it's like,eh, I can't, I genuinely don't.
I want to look at it a littlebit deeper and say, okay, I
see where you're coming from,but also it could have been
this, but it could have beenthe thing you're thinking,
like, you know, it could havebeen that so with my own stuff.
(45:35):
And anyone who's everlistened to my show, I say
this shit all the time.
I'm not sensitive toscary or spiritual things.
I'm not on that wavelengthor spectrum or whatever
you want to call it.
I'm just not tunedinto that frequency.
So that's why I do this show.
I just like everyoneelse's stories.
Give it to me.
Nom, nom, nom.
I love it.
You know, I can't get it out.
(45:57):
But nothing really,I've had like two things
happen to me ever.
And that was one of themthat I just told you I don't
even know if that was athing I, I just like to live
vicariously through otherpeople and their scary shit.
It's fascinating to me.
I love it.
I'm in it for thelove of the game.
Erykah (46:11):
Right.
So anyway, we wentoff on a weird tangent
with my dumb story.
So I apologize.
It was, it kind of connected to my story.
So, I get it.
I get it.
Alex (46:20):
exactly.
Driving at night.
That is wild though.
And I have yet to, buthave a couple scheduled.
I've yet to have anyone withany like native horror stories.
anything native related.
So if you have any ofthose or know anyone with
those, send them my way.
Because I,
Erykah (46:37):
definitely know, living in New Mexico,
we're majority Hispanic,Native, and then White,
and then so on after that.
So, We, we definitely have a lotof stories involving not just
spirits, but cryptids as well,
Alex (46:55):
Mm-Hmm,
Erykah (46:56):
and then I've definitely heard quite a few stories, so,
my own, not necessarily as muchyou know, I'm kind of, you know,
A daredevil at night, I, alongwith you have some level of like
skepticism with some things.
So when I'm out with myfriends, it'll be, I'll
whistle in the dark.
I'll start whistling andthey'll genuinely freak out.
(47:17):
And I'm like,we're going to have a fun night.
Alex (47:22):
Yeah.
I, being that I'm notlike sensitive to these
things and I haven'treally had any experiences.
'cause I have, I've metpeople and I have friends
that are like, oh yeah,I see shit all the time.
I'm in tune with that.
I have this feeling that ifI were to go to this hotel,
or the theater I'm goingto in a couple weeks, or
whatever, wherever, I feellike nothing's gonna happen.
(47:44):
Well, I'm there.
I just feel like Iam a repellent to or
I'm just not again.
I'm just not ableto recognize things.
Maybe, maybe.
But then there are other peoplethat they're like, something
happens every time I go.
Well, dang.
I don't know if I should be
Erykah (47:58):
will say with this hotel, we had stayed there the
day before we had moved intotown and nothing happened,
not a thing happened.
It wasn't until I started,it was, it was whenever
I started working there.
Whenever my family startedworking there, that's
when we all startedexperiencing some things.
And it wasn't like everyday at work we were
(48:21):
experiencing something, butwhenever we did, it was.
It was usually something prettymassive to get our attention.
Alex (48:27):
That is very interesting.
Erykah (48:29):
if you antagonize the gu I'm not saying do
it, but I'm saying do it.
If you antagonize them justenough, they will So you know
that furniture slide that I wastelling you about, they have
no idea how that happened, butthey do know that a couple that
was staying there or it wasfriends, they were roommates.
I don't know what they were,but when they were staying
(48:50):
there, they were antagonizingthe spirits that were there.
They were calling herBecca and they were just,
they were going ham.
They were going ham on poorRebecca out there and all of
the furniture was moved on theirside of the, to their room.
So, um,
Alex (49:05):
Wild.
Erykah (49:06):
We also have the governor's suite that was
also on that end, that isalso a pretty freaky room.
It's every governor in ourstate has stayed in that room.
governor's suite.
Yeah, so That, yeah, it was allthe furniture was pushed
over towards that endand they actually have
a picture of it as well.
I mean if we antagonizea little bit,
Alex (49:25):
I'm not going to say I wouldn't, but yeah,
so yeah, if I can make atrip up there and you can
give me a tour, I'm down.
It's like, I'm here.
Might as well go hard.
You know what I mean?
Erykah (49:35):
I got all the furniture.
I have all the cool hotspotsfor you, don't worry.
Alex (49:38):
excellent.
Yeah.
We'll figure something out,but is there any other stories
that come to mind that youwant to throw out while
you're still here with us?
Erykah (49:46):
not particularly.
Other than drivingdown the road.
That's typically a daily thing.
Or a nightly thing,I should say.
So, it's kind of one ofthose things where I say
it once and that's prettymuch all that happens.
Alex (49:57):
Yeah.
Well, good.
No I'm satisfied withall of your stories.
I just wanted to make surethat you were like, Oh
wait, I've got one more.
Are you?
Erykah (50:03):
no, no.
I, I have, I have probably toldyou more of the ghost stories
than I have told any of myfriends or anything like that.
Alex (50:09):
well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you coming on and,giving us all the goods here.
This has been fascinating.
I think I will be planningon making a trip out there
just because I want to startvisiting more places like this.
So yeah, we'll haveto chat about that.
But thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming on.
I really appreciate it.
Go ahead.
If you want, go ahead and plugyour socials, if you want, tell
(50:31):
people where they can find you,
Erykah (50:33):
you can find me on TikTok.
That's where I domost of my streaming.
It is Mo Dope, Erykah,E-R-Y-K-A-H for Erykah,
because I spell it super weird.
And then that's super social
Alex (50:45):
Okay.
It's the cool fun way ofspelling Erykah, right?
Erykah (50:49):
I'm
Alex (50:49):
Excellent.
And I'll link that inthe description when
this episode publishes.
So, thank you again.
If you're listening, be sureto check out Erykah's TikTok,
watch her streams, give her alike, give her a follow, say
hello if you came from the show.
If you or anyone you know hasany good scary stories, whether
supernatural or not, like I'vesaid, demons, ghosts, aliens.
(51:11):
Killers, stalkers, neardeath experiences, cryptids,
anything, whatever.
I want them.
I'm in it for thelove of the game.
I just want more.
It's fascinating to me.
So please reach out at UnholyVibes Pod on Instagram, TikTok,
YouTube, or you can emailUnholy vibes pod at gmail.
com.
(51:32):
I also will takeanonymous stories.
If you're too scared tobe attached to the story
you're telling, we've hada couple submitted to us,
So yeah, I'm here for it.
Thank you again for listening.
Thank you, Erykah.
Coming on, remembereveryone stay spooky and
we'll see you next time.
Bye.
Coming up.
Erykah (00:01):
They had just found a hidden wall doing
renovations in the bar.
And I was like, why arewe unearthing things?
Within that same week, we founda pouch in the ceiling that
said, For Rebecca, do not open.
And of course, my coworkers open it, and
dump everything out.
There's crystals inthere, there's dirt in
(00:21):
there, and I'm like, whatare you guys touching?
Put it back!So and we put it back
exactly where we had it.
We're like, We're not touchingthis, we're not doing this.
We're like, okay, now weknow where to ghost hunt.
Alex (00:32):
Welcome to unholy vibes.
I'm Alex, your host.
And today we're joined byanother special guest, my
new friend, Erykah, go aheadand introduce yourself.
Tell us who you are.
Tell us all about you.
And yeah.
Erykah (00:46):
Beautiful.
My name is Erykah McManus, Ilive in New Mexico, I'm the
current Miss New Mexico, andI'm a tattoo enthusiast, and
you're probably never gonnasee another goth pageant
girl ever, so here I am.
I'm also a streamer and amom, among other things, and
(01:07):
that's pretty much the gist,
Alex (01:08):
Goth pageant girls.
We love it.
Fantastic.
No, the perfect niche, honestly.
Erykah and I, I guess we met,but like E met on TikTok.
I was doing what I do.
I go through different people'slives just scrolling around
and my tick tock algorithmjust puts me into a, in
(01:29):
front of a lot of goth girls.
I don't know whatthat's all about.
Anyway so I came acrossyour live and I don't even
remember what you were doing.
I do it for networking.
I go in and I say, haveyou ever seen a ghost?
It's my go to line.
And you said yes, if I remember.
And so I was like, cool,let's get you on the show.
I do, I love it.
(01:50):
I love just asking strangersabout their ghost stories
and their non ghost stories.
But the ghost islike the way to go.
That's how you get,how you get started.
Because I'll take anyscary story, ghost or not,
Erykah (02:00):
those are the best ones.
Ghost stories are the best ones.
Alex (02:03):
true.
I have a plethora ofthem just here now from
doing this for a while.
And even in my daily lifebefore I started this show,
I just, anytime I met someonelike tell me your ghost stories
because it just fascinates me.
So give me a littlebit of background here
Erykah (02:20):
yeah, a lot of my ghost stories happened
throughout my childhood,through my teenage years
up until I turned about 20.
Alex (02:29):
Okay.
Erykah (02:30):
And that's where it, I stopped going out and doing
a whole lot and then becamea mom, so my ghost stories
have kind of fizzled out.
But a lot of the intense oneshappened when I was a teenager,
whenever I worked at the lodgehere in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.
Very intense stuff.
Alex (02:48):
That's what piqued my interest.
When you messaged me, you werelike, I worked at this place
and I have all this stuff.
And I'm like let'shear about it.
I need that.
So give us some background,dive into it, tell your stories.
And I will do my bestto save my questions for
the end, but no promises.
Erykah (03:04):
Okay, I got you.
So my childhood, this willbe background, background
for what I'm about to explainlater on in the story.
When I was a child, me andmy entire family, so my mom,
my dad, my sibling, And I,we all saw ghosts, or we were
more inclined to see ghosts,hear ghosts, feel them, all
(03:25):
sorts of different things.
And that could be because of myforebears, like my ancestors,
and whatnot, but When we werechildren, my sibling would
see this big man sittingat the foot of their bed.
And I tried my hardest tostay up at night because I
don't want to see mysteryhat man sitting on your bed.
(03:47):
And there was one night whereI did see it and it scared
the living bejesus out of me.
I didn't know what to do.
And then whenever we woke upthe next morning, my sibling
was completely turned onthe other end of the bed.
So where their headboard is,their feet were, so they were
completely turned around.
And after that point I started,anytime I went to the bathroom,
(04:10):
I'd start talking to the ghoststhat were in the bathroom.
It was like, Hey,I'm coming in here.
Is that okay?
Like, I tried to befriendthem, so I never had
anything bad happen.
I don't know, I befriend tothe ghosts that never had
anything bad ever happen.
Whenever there, at least
Alex (04:25):
I'm a shy peer.
Don't look at me.
Ghost.
Oh,
Erykah (04:29):
now, not while I be in the bathroom.
Alex (04:32):
that's funny.
Erykah (04:33):
any time I went to go brush my teeth, any time I went
to go change in the bathroom,any time I went to go take a
bath, it was always, I'm comingin here, because that, that
instance scared me it's, itterrified, like as a child,
you're like, what is that, movedmy sibling, like, it, it was,
it was horrifying and then therewas, It was another night where
(04:55):
one of my great grandfathers onmy dad's side of the family was
in the hospital and passed away.
And my sibling woke up inthe middle of the night
and was like, freaking out.
And so my parents go to herand everything like that and
they're like, what's the matter?
And they didn't know thathe had just passed away.
But she shot up and shewas like, He's sick! He's sick!
(05:19):
And then later on in thatmorning, they found out
that he'd passed away.
Alex (05:23):
Wow.
Erykah (05:23):
So, that was pretty much our childhood.
When we get to like our10 to 11 age range, we
moved, which was awesome.
I was like, I'm so excited!Nowhere
Alex (05:36):
problem now.
Erykah (05:37):
we go! I know, I was like, oh
my gosh, not me anymore.
I'm so excited.
We moved found outthat a kid got hit.
So a kid lived at this house,and right across the street,
he had gotten hit and killed.
I didn't know that, and I wasI had the privilege and the
pleasure of getting his bedroom,so it was, it was great.
(05:58):
I was like, great, thiswould have been, like perfect
information beforehand, but,you know, my parents wanted
a house, so whatever, whatcan I do at 10 years old?
Um,
Alex (06:07):
that's kind of messed up.
Erykah (06:10):
I was like, okay, this is great, solid,
Alex (06:12):
no asterisks to my, no asterisks when
it comes to my rooming.
Okay, cool.
Thanks.
Don't tell me anything.
Erykah (06:18):
I got the big room, so who's really gonna complain?
Not me.
I got my own bed.
I didn't have toshare a bed anymore.
I was like,
Alex (06:26):
Wins.
Wins all around.
Hell
Erykah (06:33):
thing that happened in that house that I remember
was when we were moving in.
I was in my bedroom doingwhat I needed to do.
Getting things set up andthe door slammed on me.
And I was like,Whoa, went to my dad.
It was like thisdoor slammed on me.
Just so you know, first day inhere, this door slammed on me.
And he was like, it's the wind.
(06:55):
I was like, thewindows are shut.
It is not the wind.
So we kind of brushed itoff, we moved past it,
no big deal, whatever.
After that everything sortof died down a little bit.
I just did my thing.
I did sports, got out of thehouse as much as possible.
And there was a moment intime where everything was
very tense in our house.
(07:15):
Like family arguments weregoing on and everybody
in the house seemed likethey hated each other.
I was in the background.
I was like, not me.
I'm good.
But I was hanging out withmy sibling, having some
sibling time and I justfreshly cleaned my room.
And for me, that was anaccomplishment because
I never cleaned my room.
So I fresh cleaned myroom and I hear this loud
(07:38):
whooshing noise in my bedroom.
Like it sounded like.
A tornado had gone through thehouse, almost, and I went back
to my bedroom and everything inmy room, papers, were all strung
across the room, everything thatI put away was all messed up,
and then I had this lovely, I'mnot usually typically one to
get into like religious aspectsof things, but I, I walked in
(08:03):
there in the bedroom, and myporcelain dolls were knocked
down, I love porcelain dolls,they were all knocked down, and
one of them was missing a foot.
And then I had thisbeautiful, handmade, artistic
piece that was a cross.
Cause I was heavily Christianback then, and it was
completely flipped upside down.
Now, typically, I'm not theone to believe in symbolism
(08:25):
like that, but I, personally,Could not handle that.
I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Got my room clean, toldmy parents about it.
They were like, That's not,I don't think that happened.
I think you'll be fine.
And then I was like, okay,whatever you guys say,
like, I'll trust you.
I trust my parents.
I love my parents.
So I was like, I trust you guys.
(08:47):
And they're also likespiritually inclined to
see different things.
So I was like, I trust you guys.
And then I was messing aroundwith my DS, as teens do.
Um, if you remember, ifyou remember, I had the,
I got the fresh new 3DS inpink and I was like, I'm
gonna take some pictures.
And I used this effect thatwas I don't even, I don't even
(09:09):
remember what it's called, butbasically it kind of shifts the
colors and it turns everythinglike white and blue and black.
I don't remember what it'scalled, but I'd use that filter
and right next to me was a face.
Like, a giant face next tome proportioned correctly
and everything, and Iwas like, huh, grand.
Alex (09:29):
Hmm, I don't like that.
Erykah (09:30):
my mom, and she was like, okay, never mind,
you guys might actually be
Alex (09:36):
Delete, delete, delete.
Erykah (09:38):
Yeah, I kept that.
I still have it.
I'll have to find it oneday, but I still have it
Alex (09:42):
dude, take a picture and send it to me.
Erykah (09:44):
I will, I will.
You'll be the first personwho gets it, I promise.
I'll have to get throughall the cringe photos I took
as a kid, but that photois definitely worth it.
It's definitely worth it.
And then really everythingagain, everything died, like
fizzled out, died down, tensionin the house, died down.
So everything kind of died down.
And then my grandfatherpassed away and my mom was
(10:06):
my, my sibling was seeingmy grandpa in the house.
And then my mom saw himin a dream where he was
telling her to get out.
So we moved.
We moved like three hours awayto a whole different town.
No questions asked.
We just started a new life here.
We were like, okay,this is our sign.
So we moved here.
We all needed jobs.
(10:27):
I was 16 whenever we hadmoved over here to Cloudcroft.
And everybody kind of knowsthe story of the Lodge Hotel.
One of the oldest hotels inNew Mexico and notoriously
haunted hotel in New Mexico.
So my dad got hisjob first there.
He was like, yeah,that sounds great.
He gets a job there.
And then my mom gets a jobthere, and then I get a job
(10:48):
there, and then my siblinggets a job there eventually.
So all of us, again, together,in the Haunted Hotel, just
running the entire place.
It's a family unit.
Alex (10:58):
affair here, jeez.
Erykah (11:01):
So the Lodge Hotel has a famous ghost story.
Not one that I particularlybelieve in, but it's one
that everybody really does.
Associates with the Lodge,and it's Rebecca the Ghost,
the beautiful, red headedghost that wanders the halls.
Apparently she was achambermaid, so she'd clean
(11:22):
and also service the guys.
And her lumberjack boyfriendgot jealous and either killed
her and her love lover anddismantled all of their
parts, and dismembered,
Alex (11:34):
dismembered, okay, yeah.
Erykah (11:36):
dismembered, I was thinking of it like a Barbie, I
was thinking of dismantle, uh,
Alex (11:40):
Just a piece of furniture, no big deal.
Erykah (11:42):
yeah just dismantled them, they were dismembered.
dismembered and placed andscattered around the like
the woods and there's astory that they still kind
of run the halls there.
Another interesting fact is thatthere was a child A place for
children who had tuberculosisand everybody thought back
(12:05):
in the day, at least in NewMexico, the higher in altitude
you went, the cleaner theair was and it would clear
out your tuberculosis withthe clean and crisp air.
On the contrary, itkilled everybody.
Like anybody who came up herethey ended up passing away
from tuberculosis and there
Alex (12:22):
that's wild.
That's such sound science.
I don't know what the deal
Erykah (12:26):
I
Alex (12:26):
Why didn't that work?
Erykah (12:28):
how, I don't, I can barely breathe, I could barely
breathe when I moved up here.
What made you think it wouldmake you breathe better?
I don't understand the logic,but, New Mexico, who knows?
so they had a, a childward near, or a house for
children with tuberculosisnear the the lodge.
And a lot of children didpass away over in that
(12:50):
sanatorium, sanitarium, Idon't know what they call it.
They have signs all alongthe lodge that tell you
all of the history, whichis fascinating for me.
I read it every time Icleaned all the rooms.
I would stop by, I'd reada new plaque, and then
keep reading every day.
So, I got a lot of differentbits and pieces of information
of the hotel that I could.
(13:11):
The original lodge was builtIn the late 1800s and burnt
down in 1901, if I'm correct.
And then they had rebuilt it.
So, the new lodge that wehave isn't the original, but
it's still from the 1911s.
being a house
Alex (13:29):
It's
Erykah (13:30):
Yeah, it was still it was still old the rooms were
still original when I hadstarted there before we had
done the remodels, but beinga housekeeper there was the
scariest job I I had ever hadin my life and I have dealt
with People in pharmaciesolder people in pharmacies.
So To to go and say that thiswas the scariest experience
(13:52):
like it was it was horrificSo My second day there, I was
getting the rundown on how todo everything, and they had
shown me the tunnels where wewould go grab our linens, which
were underneath the hotel.
So we'd have to crawl throughthis little rabbit hole just to
get into where the clock in was,and then we would go underneath
(14:16):
the hotel and grab our sheets.
We also have a piece of our bar.
So I also have some olderhistory with that as well.
so we have one bar downstairswhere the workers are,
that's called the Red Dog.
It also has a tunnel thatconnects to under every room
(14:38):
in that hotel, and that doorwould randomly open, it would
randomly shut on people,the lights would randomly
turn on and off on people.
So my dad did most ofhis work underneath those
tunnels all the time.
So he would tell us, Everythingthat happened there before
I had started working there.
So I was already like,yay, I'm so excited.
(15:01):
I put in my applicationto work at this hotel.
I'm very glad I did.
But as a 16 year old, I waslike this sounds just fantastic.
my
Alex (15:11):
a great
Erykah (15:12):
day there yeah, already.
Already to a great starthearing all these stories.
my second day starting, itwas the rush New Year's.
I had started on New Year'sDay, and it was, it was busy.
So, they threw meon third floor.
Third floor is where we see alot of our children ghosts, or
our children spirits up there.
So, you'll hear like alot of running around.
(15:33):
You'll find toys upin the attic, if you
go up in the attic.
So my, my, my second day there,it was You're working straight
on the third floor by yourself.
And I was like, oh! Awesome!I love this!
I was vacuuming room 328.
And, is it 328 or 358?
It's been a while sinceI've been there, but I'm
(15:54):
pretty sure it's 358.
I was vacuuming That, thatentire room and then the
hall, I had made my way intothe bedroom and disconnected
the cord, plugged it in thebathroom and the main door to
the hotel room, mind you, solidwood, very heavy, it slammed
on me and I was like, I gottastart talking to spirits again.
(16:17):
I gotta start talkingjust to get through today.
And then I moved to 360.
360 is notorious forbeing our, one of our most
haunted rooms in the hotel.
I didn't know that.
So I, I go in there like,yeah, I can't wait to
finish this and get home.
Cause it was five o'clock atthat point, and I'm cleaning,
(16:39):
and I have one of my spraybottles fall off of my counter.
And of course, I'm like, Idefinitely knocked that off.
There's nothing else going on.
I knocked that off.
And then a toilet paperroll knocks off the toilet
seat, and I'm like, okay.
Y'all can stopmessing with me now.
And I exit the room to gograb some supplies, and I
walk back up to the door, andI heard walking in the room.
(17:04):
I was like, this cannotbe happening right now.
I thought somebody hadchecked in before check in
before they were supposed to.
It was like, I waspaging front desk.
I was like, There's somebodyin here, and they were like,
nobody's checked in here,and I was like, okay, solid.
So I open the door, and I goin, and there's nobody in there.
All, everything that Iheard stopped as soon
as I opened the door.
(17:25):
There was nothing in the room.
I was like, oh, thisis, this is horrible.
This is horrific.
I finish my shift, and then I gohome, and I tell my dad, and he
was like, oh, you went in 360?
You had to clean that room?
I'm so sorry.
But I was like,
Alex (17:41):
for the heads up.
Erykah (17:42):
I was like, you're so great.
Thank you for the warning.
I appreciate and Ilove that so much.
After that there's a chandelierthat I dealt with on third
floor that if you talked upto it, it would answer you.
Yes would be one flash,two flashes was no.
It was really weird andyou could only catch it
if it was you and anotherperson that worked there.
(18:04):
It couldn't be anybody visiting.
It couldn't be anythingelse like that.
It had to be another employee.
So, I would alwaysbe talking up to it.
Are you here?
What are you doing?
How old are you?
Are you young?
Are you old?
It was kind of like my littleOuija board, but a chandelier.
Like a tiny chandelier.
I was like, okay, this is,this is cool, actually.
(18:25):
This is cool.
Right below third floor,there's a connecting
staircase that goes to meds.
We don't have elevatorsin this hotel.
So anything we had to do, we hadto carry ourselves up, upstairs.
Horrible.
It felt like child labor, butI was 16 and I could work.
So, okay.
But there's a staircase thatconnects all the way down to the
Mez, which is our second floor.
(18:46):
We called it the Mezzanine.
It had a conferenceroom or a luncheon room.
And there was one particularhallway that is dark.
And I don't know if you know anylore about, like, silver backed
mirrors or anything like that.
a lot of what I've read isthat silver backed mirrors
can be entry points forhow spirits go through.
(19:09):
different rooms,different areas.
So we always had, we hadalso silverback mirrors
in all of our floors.
And there was one in particularin this skinny narrow hallway
where the light, therewas never a light there.
Anytime I looked up in there,it was like a sense of dread.
I didn't want to go in there.
I didn't want to work onthose rooms in that hallway.
(19:31):
It was very, ominous and that'swhere me and my coworker saw
what we considered our hat manor our version of a hat man,
just this tall black figurethat stood there and watched us.
And he always hadchildren with him.
So there children all with him.
Alex (19:51):
No.
Hey, hey, really quick.
Just really quick.
No.
You know what I mean?
No thank you.
Erykah (20:00):
I would always avoid that floor.
And then third floor alsoconnected to the tower.
We have a tower in our hotelwhere coincidentally enough,
there's a box of this elderlywoman's ashes up there.
She loved the lodge so muchthat she put her ashes up in
the tower, but that buddy wouldsee our famous spirit, Rebecca,
(20:25):
and they would always Spirit inthere and that's where they'd
always do like paranormalinvestigators would always do
their spirit box sessions Andthat's one of our our main
attractions to the hotel.
So
Alex (20:38):
Question.
Erykah (20:39):
Yes
Alex (20:40):
Was it really a main attraction?
Like, hey, come to the hoteland go in the haunted tower.
Like it just was, andpeople were like, we're
here for that thing.
Does that make sense
Erykah (20:49):
Yeah, yeah it in fact whenever they had their old
owners The original, like,not the original owners,
but an older set of ownersbefore our current ones.
They, yeah, early 2000s,they really made that place
known for the spirits.
It was, they even had abinder and they put papers on
every little stand or in thehallways, where if somebody
(21:12):
had an experience, theycould write it down and then
it would go in this binder.
So we had this.
Finder full of just ghostexperiences, paranormal
investigators photos, Ouijaboard sessions that people
have conducted in the hotel,
Alex (21:28):
That's
Erykah (21:28):
Pictures of furniture moved all the way to one
side of the hallway thatmy boss, my, one of my
original bosses had takenwhenever she came into work.
Um,
Alex (21:40):
So they sensationalized it to get
more visitors essentially,
Erykah (21:46):
yeah.
And that's where my mainthing with the hotel is.
I was like, I don't believein the ghost stories here.
Like it's an attrait's an old hotel.
It's very, you couldtell it was an old hotel.
And I was like, they justwanted to get some more
people to come in there untilI started working there.
And then it was, Oh, nevermind.
We got, they don't really liketo focus that on the hotel.
(22:10):
Yes, the restaurant in the hotelis called Rebecca's, but not a
lot of people really know thestory or have heard the legend.
It's just the restaurant now.
And they've kind ofstopped talking about a
lot of the ghost storiesthat have happened there.
So I like to keepit going every time.
Anytime I talk to anybodyabout the Lodge, I tell
(22:31):
them my ghost stories.
Especially when I work there,Have you, have you seen Rebecca?
Any, any guest would comeup, Have you seen Rebecca?
And I'd be like, Ofcourse I've seen Rebecca!
Alex (22:41):
So do you, when did you stop working there?
Do you still work there?
What's, what was thetimeline like you were
16 when you started?
Erykah (22:49):
I was 16 when I started and I stopped when I was 20.
Alex (22:54):
Okay.
Erykah (22:54):
Or right before I turned 20.
Alex (22:56):
okay.
So you were therefor a few years.
Erykah (22:58):
Yeah, I was there.
I took a little break forcollege, but I came back.
I always came back to the lodge
Alex (23:03):
so for you, it became kind of normalized how all
the spooky shit happening.
Yeah,
Erykah (23:12):
something weird happened you blamed it on
Rebecca and you moved on
Alex (23:19):
so I had a, I had a guest on previously that
was telling me about ahaunted like hotel ship.
It's called the Queen Mary.
It's in California and itjust sits on the water.
You can go stay at thishaunted ship hotel.
And that's kind of funnybecause I asked her, I'm
like, what do you thinkit's like being an employee
there at this haunted hotel?
And now we know you justdo the job and it kind of,
(23:40):
you just grow numb to it.
Erykah (23:42):
where I live there's like there's not really a
lot of opportunities for jobsYou either work in a hotel or
you work in a restaurant andI was good off working in a
restaurant So I was like hotelthat's what I have to do now.
Alex (23:55):
Haunted or not, I'm taking that job.
Yeah.
Erykah (23:58):
Yeah.
Alex (23:59):
So of all the experiences in your four years, what do
you think was like scariestto you that like shook you?
Was it the cleaningof the specific room
and hearing footsteps,seeing a specific thing?
Like what do you think is likeyour top walked away kind of
Erykah (24:18):
like you had said, a lot of things became
very normalized, so nothingreally shook me until we
closed down for COVID.
So I worked there wheneverwe had completely our state
made all the businesses shutdown and everything like that.
I had worked there andit was just the employees
that worked there.
We weren't allowing guests.
We were doing completerenovations of the hotel.
(24:41):
Which.
Was great.
I got to sift through a lotof the binder that is hidden
in the manager's office.
We got to go in, we got tolook at it, we got to read it.
So that was reallycool and interesting.
And after that, it was kindof like the ghost stories
started circulating back inyour head because you had
forgotten them for so long.
Like you're, it wasjust another shift.
It was another day.
You just worked.
But when you start reading alot of everybody's experiences,
(25:03):
you're like, you start to psychyourself out a little bit.
You get that littleadrenaline rush and you're
just like, Oh my gosh.
So me and my coworker,we're really into
the paranormal stuff.
We listened to a lot ofparanormal podcasts whenever
we were doing a lot of the.
Work with trim forthe renovations.
So we were like, let's go ona ghost hunt because that's so
much fun when the entire hotelis shut down, it's just us.
(25:27):
So we're like, okay, we'regoing to go on a ghost hunt.
And so, she pulled out allof her tricks and tips.
Cause she was Quitea bit older than me.
And they had just founda hidden wall doing
renovations in the bar.
That was a staircasethat connects to Mez that
connects to the third floor.
And I was like, why arewe unearthing things?
Why are we doing that right now?
(25:49):
Like that's
Alex (25:49):
open walls that go into stairs.
You just don't do it.
Erykah (25:53):
why are we doing that?
And,
Alex (25:55):
sealed it up for a reason.
I'm sure.
Erykah (25:58):
within that same week, we found a pouch in the
ceiling that had been covered.
Um, and it was a purplepouch, and it said, For
Rebecca, do not open.
And of course, my coworkers open it, and
just dump everything out.
There's crystals inthere, there's dirt in
there, and I'm like, whatare you guys touching?
(26:21):
Put it back!So we put it back, like, we put
everything in there, and we putit back exactly where we had it.
We're like, We're not touchingthis, we're not doing this.
So, we find the binder, westart going through these ghost
stories, we're like, okay, nowwe know where to ghost hunt.
Because now we have thetime to do it, nobody's in
here, we're not gonna botherany guests let's go down
and let's go ghost hunt.
So, me and my coworker, we'rewalking up to Miz, and I'm
(26:43):
pulling out my phone, andI'm just taking pictures,
and There's that tall manwith two little things next
to him, which I can onlyassume are what we think
the children from upstairs.
So we're like,Oh, this is great.
So we're going upstairs.
I pull out my phone.
I'm still taking pictures.
(27:04):
I'm using different typesof filters to kind of
sift through everything.
And then I see himupstairs again.
So as we're walking upstairs,he's already made it upstairs.
So he's there.
Waiting for us, and I'mjust like, I get goosebumps,
and I'm like, I don't wantto be up here right now.
But my coworker's like, no,we've already made it to the
(27:25):
third floor, we're gonna makeit to the tower, and then we're
gonna hit that hallway again.
So I'm like, okay, I can'tdeviate from our plan.
So we start talking into thechandelier, because that's,
that's just what we do.
And we're like, are you here?
And then it flashed,and we're like, no way.
And then we'relike, are you okay?
(27:46):
And then two flash and we'relike, no, he's not okay.
So we start justwalking the hallway.
We're like, okay, we're goingto skip the chandelier part.
That's fine.
And then a little smallerfigure appears at the end of the
hallway, which again, we thinkit's the, are the children.
I hope our children.
and then we decide, okay,we're going to go up to
the attic that connects tothe closet on third floor.
(28:08):
And So we go up, we makeour way to the attic,
which is an actual ladder.
We had to pull up an actualladder and climb up it.
And then we get up there and wenoticed that there's burn marks.
My dad had already explainedthat he thinks that this part
of the hotel had burned, butthey had just covered it up.
So we get up there and we'reshining our flashlights
and there's very obviousburn marks all over.
(28:31):
The third floor attic.
And my dad's like, what if ithad burned and somebody got
hurt and nobody knew about it?
And they covered it up.
So we're over here thinkingthat this could be a possibility
now, that it could have beena family, or it could have
been the kids that passedaway from the tuberculosis.
We had no idea at this point.
(28:53):
So we're continuing to walkthrough here and we find candy.
Mind you, the hotel shut down.
There's no guests, there'sno other housekeepers
are working there, it'sjust us and maintenance.
So we find candy upstairs.
So I add it to the littlecollection in the housekeeping
department in our littlecubby area, where we find
toys and we find candy.
(29:13):
We don't know where theycome from, but we find
little, little train pieces.
Either in front of thehousekeeping door, in attics,
like we just find littlechewing pieces everywhere.
So we just started collectingall of those, the candy, so
I, I, I grab it cause I knowwe're gonna go collect it.
And we go to leave, and aswe're walking out, that door
(29:33):
to the closet slams on us.
And we're like, Nope!Even right now, I'm
like getting goosebumps.
I'm just reliving it.
But I will admit, we did that.
We did that to ourselves.
So, we go down to that staircasethat connects to the mezzanine,
to the bottom section, andwe're going through that creepy
(29:54):
hallway where I always seethat hat man, where I always
feel a sense of dread and justOutright fear when I walk down
it, so I'm, I'm creeping aroundthe corner and I just feel this
overwhelming sense of heavinessjust cloud over my entire body
and I'm like we have to gothrough this, this hallway,
(30:17):
there is no other way out.
We up for that hallway.
And I was like, I'm notwalking back upstairs.
I'm not doing that.
So we walkedthrough the hallway.
I I take a pictureof the mirror.
I'm pretty sure I can findthe image, but there's a
face in that mirror, inthat silverback mirror,
of a child down below me.
(30:38):
And I was lookingthrough the pictures as
I was I took a picture.
Looking through it, andI was like, I'm leaving
this hallway right now.
So we walk out, and webolt down back to the main
lobby, and we stay therefor the rest of the shift.
And I'm walking out togo ask if anybody needs
anything before I leave, andI hear my name get called.
So I turn around and Iwas like, did you call
(30:59):
my name to my coworker?
She's an older lady.
So she's very serious.
She's like, I didn'tcall your name.
And I was like, you're lying.
Like, why are you lying to me?
This is going to send meon a, on a mental spiral.
Like my name.
And she was like, no, Ididn't call your name.
And I was like, interesting.
Because I just heard my name.
And whenever I heard myname get called and she
(31:19):
just flat out denied it.
I left, I left.
I was like, I'm not comingback until my next shift.
I'm not doing it.
Alex (31:27):
Oh, man.
She wasn't pranking you.
Um,
Erykah (31:30):
pranking me.
Alex (31:31):
no, that's, that is wild.
This place.
I'm going to have tocome see this place.
That sounds awesome.
Oh,
Erykah (31:40):
you to a lot of the rooms that I know
are more inclined tohave spiritual activity.
Second floor, apartfrom mezzanine, there's
the honeymoon suite.
That one's prettyintense to be in.
And then there's theroom where Two months
before I started workingthere, a man passed away.
Yeah, and they didn't knowwhat procedures to do.
(32:03):
The housekeepers didn't.
And nobody reallyinformed them what to do.
He was a healthy,older gentleman.
Went on the hike and then had aheart attack in the hotel room.
So
Alex (32:13):
Just adding to the pool of ghosts.
Very
Erykah (32:15):
yeah just adds to everything.
I love it.
So they accidentally took thesheets off and instead of red
bagging it, they circulatedit through the washing system.
And it is still to this day,circulating those shelves.
Don't know which ones they are.
Alex (32:31):
Blech! Oh, wow.
Erykah (32:34):
see them.
So I worked here.
I'll never stay here.
Alex (32:37):
Bring your own sheets, you know?
Just to be safe.
Oh.
Erykah (32:43):
have to stay during a heavy snowstorm, they
did have to stay the night.
Because I live in the mountains,I live in the altitude 9,
000 feet in elevation, so,we're pretty high up here.
And when it snows, it snows.
So a lot of the times, employeesgot trapped in the hotel
and had to stay the night.
And some of the stories I heardalone just from them made it
(33:04):
to where I never wanted tostay the night, ever, ever.
Alex (33:07):
So this is making a little bit more sense.
I'm looking upCloudcroft right now.
Is this like a ski kind of areabecause it's so mountainy and
snowy during the winter season?
These are all like ski resorts?
Erykah (33:18):
We, we do have a ski resort way down, but it's small.
This town is mostlyjust, it's kind of like
an oasis in the desert.
So you have straight desertin the basin, and then it goes
straight to our national forest.
So it's a huge forest.
Alex (33:36):
Forest.
Erykah (33:37):
Yes.
Alex (33:39):
Oof.
I genuinely may haveto come see this place.
I'm being dead serious.
Cause like, I like to go visit.
Well, my goal is to visitthese places, right?
Erykah (33:49):
Yeah.
If you would like to, just tomake it like an entire trip
for you, I could take youby the lodge, obviously give
you a tour, put you in somehousekeeper scrubs, so that way
you can get the same treatmentthe ghost gave me, like pushing
me down the stairs or tryingto push me down the stairs
when I'm carrying heavy bags.
that happened once, but
Alex (34:09):
cosplay for a ghost tour.
I'm down for it.
Erykah (34:12):
they're, they're malicious to the, to
the workers, to thehousekeepers specific.
Alex (34:18):
That's rude.
Oh,
Erykah (34:22):
that the other housekeepers, whenever
Rebecca died that theyhad covered up her murder.
Yeah, so I'm like, well, thatwould make a lot of sense.
Like glasses flying off ofthe bar shelves and everything
like that on the bartenders.
So, the ghosts kind ofdon't like the employees,
(34:43):
but they love the guestsfor whatever reason.
They love the attention.
Alex (34:47):
as wild.
And this place doesn'tstay pretty busy.
Like it's.
Pretty occupied by guests a
Erykah (34:53):
It's got a golf course.
It's the only golfcourse in Cloudcroft.
And it's, It's a prettypopular golf course.
In fact, it was one ofthe highest golf courses
in elevation in thecountry at one point.
Alex (35:05):
okay.
because in my mind whileyou're telling me all this
It's a functioning place, soI'm assuming, yes, there are
guests here, but in my mind,I'm like, oh, it's kind of like
The Shining, where there's likeno one there the whole time,
which doesn't make any sense.
Erykah (35:19):
COVID made it feel like the shining when I was, it was
just me and other co workers.
It was anywhere you look,anywhere you went, you had to
like look over your shoulder.
Every single time youwere just constantly on
edge every single day.
And especially when we wererenovating the entire hotel,
it was one of those thingswhere we were kind of riling
them all up at the same time.
(35:40):
So interesting.
It was very interesting.
Alex (35:44):
I like it.
And here's the thing.
Anytime you said thatsomeone's, that her ashes
were in the tower, right?
That's just a no no in my book.
You just, ashes.
So I've talked to a fewpeople that are like, oh,
haunted basement or hauntedthis, that or the other.
And several of them were like,yeah, someone's ashes were in
(36:04):
there and like, well, that mighthave been part of the problem.
You know,
Erykah (36:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Alex (36:11):
the older a place is, the higher likelihood hood.
It has to be haunted.
First of all.
And this place is oldand renovated and burned
and just have a lot ofhistory attached to it.
It seems like in alot of negative vibes.
And then you're like,Oh, let's just put a dead
person's ashes in here.
Like, that can't help.
Erykah (36:29):
She loved the place so much.
She spent all of hertime in the tower.
So she was like, I'll juststick my ashes in here.
And you can seewhere they're at.
Because it's kind ofgot like these pillars.
And then it's justgot one platform.
And then you can seethis giant wooden box.
And those are what I wastold where her ashes are.
And they even have a plaque.
(36:50):
of her picture up therein the tower as well.
Another fun thing, Judy Garlandhas signed her name on the
walls here, as did VincentPratt . So that's interesting.
Alex (37:01):
Yeah, yeah,
Erykah (37:02):
Yeah,
Alex (37:02):
is a hot spot.
This is quite the destination.
Erykah (37:05):
It is there's Pancho Villa has stayed at the
lodge before, and he wasvery famous down in Mexico.
And it was, it was a hotspotfor a lot of famous, the people
who were from Mythbusters,they stayed there at the hotel.
So we've definitely attracteda lot of higher profile
people throughout the years.
So we do have that historythere in the tower as well.
(37:29):
So fascinating.
Alex (37:30):
Very fascinating.
I'm fascinated.
Erykah (37:32):
much.
But outside of the lodge,if you, because it is like
seven hours out of your way.
I have also been to oneof the most haunted hotels
in El Paso, Texas as well.
I'm pretty sure ghostadventures did an episode there.
I watch it.
A lot of times because whatI experienced just walking
(37:52):
in the alleyway of thathotel made me terrified.
Now that place was burneddown, but it's still an
interesting experience.
And then you've gotthe El Paso High School
that I've also toured.
3 a.
m.
I was like, let's do it.
This is awesome, because I,I started going to like this
little ghost hunting phasewhen I lived in El Paso.
And whenever we were touringthere it was genuinely
(38:15):
a horrifying experience.
It is such an old, it's one ofthe oldest schools in Texas.
And I was walking,and they had like this
ledge that was high up.
And I looked at it, and Isaw somebody lunge at me,
so I ducked, and when Ilooked, nobody was there.
At all.
Alex (38:34):
I don't like that either.
Erykah (38:36):
a couple of areas around here that are pretty famous for
their hauntings, and I happenedto work at one for four years.
Alex (38:45):
So outside of the hotel.
And your experienceis in El Paso.
Does anything ever like happento you just in your personal
life, day to day at home,anything like that, or have all
these experiences been prettyisolated to those locations?
Erykah (39:01):
Other than these locations, my experiences
are can be isolated unlessI'm driving on the road.
There are Apache like, wherethe Apache Indians had had
little battlegrounds andsometimes when I'm driving
the main highway, highway82, I kind of get glimpses of
people walk in front of my car.
Alex (39:22):
Hmm.
Erykah (39:23):
I've, I've, sometimes I've stopped because I
genuinely thought I, and, theside of the road is a cliff.
So you kind of get to apoint where it's, or not
just a cliff, but like, it'spretty steep, so a person
shouldn't be walking there.
But then they walk rightin front of my car, so I
stop, because I genuinelythink I hit somebody, and
then there's nobody there.
Not a soul on the highway.
(39:45):
After that, I just stoppedchecking because it became
such a constant thing whereI'd see somebody walking
the side of the road andthen they'd just disappear.
Alex (39:53):
Hmm.
I don't like that either.
That's fun.
Better than, I mean, I mean, atleast you're not like swerving.
They're like, ah, we'regoing to get you and
you'll swerve off the road.
That's no
Erykah (40:01):
Yeah, I just kind of cut my losses and I'm
like, oh, you shouldn't havebeen walking in the road.
Alex (40:05):
Yeah, that's on you guys, sorry.
Erykah (40:07):
I
Alex (40:08):
There's no crosswalk here.
Erykah (40:10):
then I'm gonna be like, oh, I hit somebody and then
they pop up in the backseatof my car and I'm just like,
Alex (40:16):
No thanks, that would be the worst.
That would actually be theworst thing that's happened.
That's
Erykah (40:21):
yeah,
Alex (40:22):
One time I was driving from Utah to California.
And It was late, I was reachingmy destination, I still had
like 2 hours left , and I wasdriving, and I was by myself.
And it was one of thoselike mountainous kind of
winding roads, you know?
And it's one way, or like onelane each way I should say.
(40:47):
If I remember correctly,it's been like 5 years.
And it's super dark.
I didn't see anythingin the road, but I kept
seeing something inmy backseat actually.
And I would like peripherallyI was like seeing
something like it couldjust be like my headrest,
whatever, just peripheralsplaying tricks on me.
Right.
Cause you know how it islike, Oh, it's over there.
My mind's not reallyfocused on what that is.
(41:09):
But I keep seeing, I want tosay it looks like a woman.
Like, just like, I see the hair,like long, like white colored
hair and that's about it.
And I keep looking because I'mlike, there's no way, right?
Like there just isn't.
But the thing is like thenight before I had been
with a bunch of friendsand we were all telling
our scary stories and ghoststories and all this stuff.
(41:31):
And you just like bringin those vibes and they
kind of stick with you.
So you have to like playin the mood or like change
the subject or whatever tokind of like, let that go.
so I had like stayed up latewith all these friends and then
we end at like, I don't know,midnight one in the morning
and then I go to bed, wake upsuper early because I have like
a 12 or 13 hour drive and it'sjust kind of stuck with me.
(41:51):
So anyway, I digress.
I'm driving and this truck pullsup behind me and it's not like
a semi truck size, but it'slike, it's a pretty big truck.
It's like, I don't know, anyway,and it keeps flashing its lights
at me, and then it will pass me,and I'm like, I'm going over the
speed limit, like, a little bit.
So anyway, this truck keepsflashing its lights at me, and
then it'll go and like, getright up on my butt, and it's
(42:15):
higher up, so I'm being blindedby this guy, and I was driving
a Hyundai Elantra, so I'm kindof like lower down, and then
he would pass me, and he'slike a, he had like a big water
tank on his, on his, in likehis truck bed kind of thing.
And then he would get in frontof me and again, I'm going like
five over and then he wouldslow down to like 10 under
and make me ride his butt.
(42:36):
And then I would passhim because I'm like,
what are you doing?
And he would honk at me and likeflash the lights and he kept
doing this, kept doing this.
And I'm like, I, I don'tthink it was anything other
than just idiot driver,maybe I genuinely don't know.
But the fact that I waslike seeing something in my
backseat in addition to like,and he was doing this at the
same time I was seeing it.
Thing in my backseatpotential thing.
(42:56):
I'm like, I wonder whatthis could have been.
It could have been nothing.
I was very tired.
It was a long ass drive andwhen it gets late, I get
sleepy while I'm driving.
I could fall asleep drivingand which is not great.
So I genuinely don't know but Ithink about that every so often.
What if that guy like wasseeing something in my window?
I don't know.
I genuinely don't know.
(43:16):
It's probably nothing.
But anyway, nighttimedriving stories.
Erykah (43:19):
if he brought it in there?
What if it was him?
Alex (43:23):
We were going like 65 or 70.
I mean, he just cameand it happened.
I kid you not.
It happened four or five times.
He would like, ride my ass,flash the lights at me, honk,
and I'd be like, dude, I'mgoing over the speed limit.
He would pass meand then slow down.
I'm like, whathave I done to you?
What am I?
If you want to go fast,just go, just be gone.
(43:43):
Just go get infront of me and go.
Don't like break
Erykah (43:45):
I've heard stories like this where like somebody will
be in like a semi or somethingof that nature And they'll
genuinely, their main goal is tomake you crash, is to hurt you.
So they'll play tricks onyou, and then there is one
stretch of road, and I can'tremember what it's called.
(44:07):
But something essentially alongthose lines will happen, where
a truck will flash you, willlook at you, and will just
try to get you in a wreck.
And if that doesn't work, you'llsee somebody in your backseat.
If you acknowledge thatperson in your backseat, Then
they'll try to hurt you ortry to distract you and make
you crash kind of thing Idon't remember what stretch of
(44:28):
road that's on but I watchedsomething I think it's like
Highway 666 is what it wascalled or something like that
Alex (44:36):
I I could be thinking of something differently, but
I've heard similar, like weird.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Who knows?
That's the thing.
Who knows?
Erykah (44:44):
Whenever you say that I'm thinking about
that and I'm like, what ifyou wanted you to crash?
And that just, I'm like, no.
Alex (44:51):
This was a weird, like, this was on, I
think, like 85, like the80, Highway 80 going West.
I mean, I don't know.
It wasn't anything special.
If I remember correctly, itwas just, it was just weird.
But I think about itoften because I'm like,
I was, it was late.
I was tired.
And while I do, I dothis show, I love.
Spooky shit, and I'mfascinated by it all, but I
(45:13):
like to have a healthy amountof skepticism, you know?
And because it's, if I'm justlike, I believe everything
everyone says, then it's like,eh, I can't, I genuinely don't.
I want to look at it a littlebit deeper and say, okay, I
see where you're coming from,but also it could have been
this, but it could have beenthe thing you're thinking,
like, you know, it could havebeen that so with my own stuff.
(45:35):
And anyone who's everlistened to my show, I say
this shit all the time.
I'm not sensitive toscary or spiritual things.
I'm not on that wavelengthor spectrum or whatever
you want to call it.
I'm just not tunedinto that frequency.
So that's why I do this show.
I just like everyoneelse's stories.
Give it to me.
Nom, nom, nom.
I love it.
You know, I can't get it out.
(45:57):
But nothing really,I've had like two things
happen to me ever.
And that was one of themthat I just told you I don't
even know if that was athing I, I just like to live
vicariously through otherpeople and their scary shit.
It's fascinating to me.
I love it.
I'm in it for thelove of the game.
Erykah (46:11):
Right.
So anyway, we wentoff on a weird tangent
with my dumb story.
So I apologize.
It was, it kind of connected to my story.
So, I get it.
I get it.
Alex (46:20):
exactly.
Driving at night.
That is wild though.
And I have yet to, buthave a couple scheduled.
I've yet to have anyone withany like native horror stories.
anything native related.
So if you have any ofthose or know anyone with
those, send them my way.
Because I,
Erykah (46:37):
definitely know, living in New Mexico,
we're majority Hispanic,Native, and then White,
and then so on after that.
So, We, we definitely have a lotof stories involving not just
spirits, but cryptids as well,
Alex (46:55):
Mm-Hmm,
Erykah (46:56):
and then I've definitely heard quite a few stories, so,
my own, not necessarily as muchyou know, I'm kind of, you know,
A daredevil at night, I, alongwith you have some level of like
skepticism with some things.
So when I'm out with myfriends, it'll be, I'll
whistle in the dark.
I'll start whistling andthey'll genuinely freak out.
(47:17):
And I'm like,we're going to have a fun night.
Alex (47:22):
Yeah.
I, being that I'm notlike sensitive to these
things and I haven'treally had any experiences.
'cause I have, I've metpeople and I have friends
that are like, oh yeah,I see shit all the time.
I'm in tune with that.
I have this feeling that ifI were to go to this hotel,
or the theater I'm goingto in a couple weeks, or
whatever, wherever, I feellike nothing's gonna happen.
(47:44):
Well, I'm there.
I just feel like Iam a repellent to or
I'm just not again.
I'm just not ableto recognize things.
Maybe, maybe.
But then there are other peoplethat they're like, something
happens every time I go.
Well, dang.
I don't know if I should be
Erykah (47:58):
will say with this hotel, we had stayed there the
day before we had moved intotown and nothing happened,
not a thing happened.
It wasn't until I started,it was, it was whenever
I started working there.
Whenever my family startedworking there, that's
when we all startedexperiencing some things.
And it wasn't like everyday at work we were
(48:21):
experiencing something, butwhenever we did, it was.
It was usually something prettymassive to get our attention.
Alex (48:27):
That is very interesting.
Erykah (48:29):
if you antagonize the gu I'm not saying do
it, but I'm saying do it.
If you antagonize them justenough, they will So you know
that furniture slide that I wastelling you about, they have
no idea how that happened, butthey do know that a couple that
was staying there or it wasfriends, they were roommates.
I don't know what they were,but when they were staying
(48:50):
there, they were antagonizingthe spirits that were there.
They were calling herBecca and they were just,
they were going ham.
They were going ham on poorRebecca out there and all of
the furniture was moved on theirside of the, to their room.
So, um,
Alex (49:05):
Wild.
Erykah (49:06):
We also have the governor's suite that was
also on that end, that isalso a pretty freaky room.
It's every governor in ourstate has stayed in that room.
governor's suite.
Yeah, so That, yeah, it was allthe furniture was pushed
over towards that endand they actually have
a picture of it as well.
I mean if we antagonizea little bit,
Alex (49:25):
I'm not going to say I wouldn't, but yeah,
so yeah, if I can make atrip up there and you can
give me a tour, I'm down.
It's like, I'm here.
Might as well go hard.
You know what I mean?
Erykah (49:35):
I got all the furniture.
I have all the cool hotspotsfor you, don't worry.
Alex (49:38):
excellent.
Yeah.
We'll figure something out,but is there any other stories
that come to mind that youwant to throw out while
you're still here with us?
Erykah (49:46):
not particularly.
Other than drivingdown the road.
That's typically a daily thing.
Or a nightly thing,I should say.
So, it's kind of one ofthose things where I say
it once and that's prettymuch all that happens.
Alex (49:57):
Yeah.
Well, good.
No I'm satisfied withall of your stories.
I just wanted to make surethat you were like, Oh
wait, I've got one more.
Are you?
Erykah (50:03):
no, no.
I, I have, I have probably toldyou more of the ghost stories
than I have told any of myfriends or anything like that.
Alex (50:09):
well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you coming on and,giving us all the goods here.
This has been fascinating.
I think I will be planningon making a trip out there
just because I want to startvisiting more places like this.
So yeah, we'll haveto chat about that.
But thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming on.
I really appreciate it.
Go ahead.
If you want, go ahead and plugyour socials, if you want, tell
(50:31):
people where they can find you,
Erykah (50:33):
you can find me on TikTok.
That's where I domost of my streaming.
It is Mo Dope, Erykah,E-R-Y-K-A-H for Erykah,
because I spell it super weird.
And then that's super social
Alex (50:45):
Okay.
It's the cool fun way ofspelling Erykah, right?
Erykah (50:49):
I'm
Alex (50:49):
Excellent.
And I'll link that inthe description when
this episode publishes.
So, thank you again.
If you're listening, be sureto check out Erykah's TikTok,
watch her streams, give her alike, give her a follow, say
hello if you came from the show.
If you or anyone you know hasany good scary stories, whether
supernatural or not, like I'vesaid, demons, ghosts, aliens.
(51:11):
Killers, stalkers, neardeath experiences, cryptids,
anything, whatever.
I want them.
I'm in it for thelove of the game.
I just want more.
It's fascinating to me.
So please reach out at UnholyVibes Pod on Instagram, TikTok,
YouTube, or you can emailUnholy vibes pod at gmail.
com.
(51:32):
I also will takeanonymous stories.
If you're too scared tobe attached to the story
you're telling, we've hada couple submitted to us,
So yeah, I'm here for it.
Thank you again for listening.
Thank you, Erykah.
Coming on, remembereveryone stay spooky and
we'll see you next time.
Bye.
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