I've been to quite a few haunted
locations in my life and have had my share of paranormal experiences -- but
NOTHING compares to what I experienced at Zak Bagan's Haunted Museum in Las
Vegas, Nevada. I will be sharing my experience at the museum and sharing some
of the rooms. The rooms being talked about will be out of order than how it is
in the museum because I honestly cannot remember exactly the order in which we
went through. Spoilers ahead! Also, fun fact: my dashboard picture was a photo
I took when I visited the Haunted Museum.
I went to Las Vegas with my dad,
uncle, and aunt a couple weeks after I turned 21 back in 2017. I have been
watching and following the show "Ghost Adventures" ever since they
released their very first documentary, which led to their hit show. I had
always been fascinated with the paranormal and it was intriguing to watch for
me. I had made a list of all the locations they have investigated and I hope to
visit most if not all of them. Anyway, flash-forward to 2017 and I am visiting
Las Vegas. I was super excited to visit the museum but unfortunately, they had
posted and shared with fans that the grand opening of the museum was being
delayed. They didn't share why. My instincts told me that maybe that had some
setbacks from all the haunted objects in the museum and maybe something
happened with the building. I didn't think my instincts would be so spot on.
The cast of "Ghost Adventures" made an episode not long after I
visited Las Vegas in 2017 that the reason that they could not open when
intended, was because there was a massive fire and flood in the basement of the
building of the museum. There was no logical explanation how a fire started and
how the water heater leaked in the basement. As if things couldn't get any more
strange, the basement was the room holding the museum's most haunted object --
the Dybbuk Box.
I took a family vacation back to
Las Vegas in the summer of 2019, and I could finally visit the haunted museum.
My parents were too scared and didn't want to go. But my sister and I did. I
had already done research on the museum and knew about some of the haunted
objects that are housed here and I knew to have nothing but the utmost respect
for the objects and spirits here. Because you'll never know what could attach
to you.
As soon as we go on to the
property, we could feel it. The heaviness and overwhelming feeling that there
was danger and evil in this house. We were given an extensive waiver for us to
sign before we entered. That was the moment I knew 100% that we could be
putting our lives in danger. There were warnings that even if you are
respectful, spirits still have the potential to connect and latch on to you.
There were warnings to NOT. TOUCH. ANYTHING. And no photography or recording of
any kind was allowed. Those were the top two rules of the museum. We were also
given an option if we weren't comfortable going into any room, we would be
allowed to wait outside the room. I thought it was very kind of the workers to
let guests know this and that their consent is very important during this tour
and that they weren't going to be forced to do anything that they didn't feel
comfortable doing.
My sister and I have both grown
up Catholic, but I didn't remember the last time I truly prayed. I prayed for
protection that day right before we stepped foot inside. And boy am I sure glad
I did.
After waiting for a few minutes
in line and in the waiting room of the museum, it was on to the very first
room. It was a small room of a mix of different kinds of dolls and toys. Little
did I know that this would be the most tame of all the rooms. My sister was the
lucky chosen one to have a special look in the most haunted doll room and was
greeted by a scare actor, which definitely set the tone for the rest of the
tour. I appreciated that although this was a very serious haunted tour with
multiple safety precautions, the owners made it lighthearted at some moments to
ease the tension and fear among guests.
In no particular order from here
on, here's the rooms we went into.
We entered a room that held the
infamous mirror that belonged to actor Bela Lugosi, who also happens to be one
of my favorite horror icons of all time, so I was very excited to see one of
his possessions. It is said that Lugosi used that very mirror for scrying and
performing seances. Our tour guide gave everyone a warning that guests have
been known to pass out after looking into the mirror and gave us all the option
to leave them room when the mirror was unveiled from the blanket that was
covering it. My sister got a little anxious and decided to step out of the
room. I on the other hand, decided to stay. Once it was my turn to stare into
the mirror, I felt like I was in some sort of trance and it took a lot of power
within me to step away. This was one of the very first rooms, so if something
that intense is happening already, I knew I had to be very careful.
There was a room decorated like a
massive jail cell and inside are pictures, artifacts, and belongings to some of
America's most infamous and deadly serial killers. Some of the objects
consisted of John Wayne Gacy's paintings, notes from Richard Ramirez, Ted
Bundy's shirt he wore while he was executed, and even Charles Manson's false
teeth and ashes. Even though it was the most lit up room in the entire museum,
it felt incredibly eerie and unsettling to be in a room of possessions of some
of the most evil people to have ever lived.
Next up there was a more
light-hearted and nostalgic room: a room of outfits and belongings to deceased
celebrities. An outfit of Robin Williams', an outfit of Michael Jackson's, and
even Sharon Tate's wedding dress. This room wasn't as creepy as it was kind of
sad since it had some belongings to one of my favorite actors of all time Robin
Williams, and I actually got a little bit emotional. It was also so surreal to
see something that Sharon Tate wore herself, since I've always been so
fascinated by the Manson murders. (Are we surprised at this point though?)
We then entered a room that was
very dark and very small. Our guide told us if we don't like small spaces then
we should opt out of this room, as the layout of the house had to be tweaked to
fit this next artifact. It was the severed heard of serial killer Henri Landru.
Not only was the room very tight and small, it was also very unnerving to have
a well-preserved severed head only inches away from you and staring right at
you.
Up next was a room dedicated to
the cruise ship Splendour and the infamous death of actress Natalie Wood.
Splendour was the name of the boat that Wood and friends were hanging out on
when she mysteriously drowned off the coast of Santa Catalina Island. In this
room there are tables, chairs, and even the main safety raft of the ship. In
the room next to the Splendour room, was a room that had an old west saloon
theme. There was an old-timey poker table from the late 1800s where allegedly a
player was caught cheating and was shot dead at this table. Between these two
rooms was a funeral parlor themed room that held an actual human skeleton in
the front of the viewing room.
So right about here we were
halfway through the tour and the guides decided to have a little fun with us.
We went into a carnival/freakshow themed room I recognized one of my favorite
magicians, Jon Shaw. (I may or may not have "fangirled" a little
bit.) He gave us a quick little magic show and I got to be his helper. After
his bit was done, we made our way through a mini maze. I got even more excited
because I work in the haunt industry and it was exciting to see something
different like this in a museum. We crawled through tiny tunnels, squeezed our
way through tightening hallways and were met by a handful of scare actors. It
was definitely a different and fun addition to the tour and it definitely was a
more lighthearted kind of scare for the guests in our group which I believe
that everyone in our group enjoyed.
Once our fun house time was over,
it was time to get back to the serious scares. Next up was a room that looked
like the inside of an old barn, and here in this room lied Ed Gein's cauldron.
This was the actual cauldron that serial killer and cannibal Ed Gein used to
cook the body parts of his victims and it is said to be haunted and cursed by
them. This cauldron was donated to Bagans by one of the crime scene cleaners
who worked on cleaning the house of Gein after the investigation.
Next we were taken into a room
with nothing but a van in it -- and I knew about this van all too well. It was
Jack Kevorkian's Death Van. (Trust me, it's not as scary as it sounds.) I wrote
a paper and did a persuasive speech on physician assisted suicide. Dr.
Kevorkian was an infamous pioneer in the medical industry by helping people
commit suicide with a physician's assistance. He believed that if a patient was
gravely ill and felt like they didn't want to live anymore, that they should be
able to "die with dignity." This practice was not technically legal
in the 1990s, but Dr. Kevorkian assisted with 130 deaths of terminally-ill
patients, and all of them took place right in that van.
The next room I was not going to
lie a little nervous and I ALMOST didn't go in. But I'm stubborn and don't give
up easily so I didn't chicken out. This room held the infamous Dybbuk Box. For
those who don't know what this is, this is a box from the Jewish religion used to
trap spirits and it is NEVER supposed to be opened. Unfortunately over the
years, it has. People who have owned this artifact have had terrible accidents
and bad luck: whether it's divorce, a family member having a stroke, or even
people they know dying because of the curse that is attached to this box. And
this was the artifact that allegedly caused the fire and flood in the basement
of the museum, delaying it's opening. I did not have a good feeling in this
room at all. There were only a handful of us in the group that were brave
enough to step inside the room. As we stood in a circle looking at the box and
the tour guide was telling us about it, I noticed something unnerving. I asked
the tour guide why the door to the box was slightly ajar. The room went silent.
She said that that was funny that I noticed that because not many people do.
She said the box had been sealed in this plexiglass covering ever since it was
brought to the museum, and no one has opened it since. But workers have noticed
that ever so slowly, the door has been opening more and more over the years.
This is extremely unsettling because that is proof that whatever was being held
in this box, now roams free among the museum.
Next up was the only room where
we had an authentic paranormal experience that wasn't just an eerie or
unsettling feeling. This was Peggy the Doll's room. We were nearing the end of
the tour and out of the 15 people in our group, only 5 of us remained in
actually stepping foot into the rooms instead of just listening to the guides
from the safety of the hallways. It was me, my sister, a couple, and one other
guy. Peggy's room gave me an experience I will never forget. The guide gave us
a warning that she is extremely haunted and you absolutely HAVE TO say
"Hello Peggy" when you enter and "Goodbye Peggy" when you
exit the room, or else she will get very mad and there have been stories of
guests not saying hello or goodbye and being scratched by who they believe is
the spirit haunting Peggy. The tour guide said that there was a spirit box
running inside the room that we could use to ask Peggy questions an communicate
with her. Our tour guide said she was a little quiet today and nobody was
really getting any responses from her all day. We all said hello to Peggy as we
walked into the room and we were separated by a small fence and Peggy was
mounted up against the wall in a protective glass box. We spent about 3 minutes
in the room and took us all about a minute and a half to buck up the courage to
ask a question to her. We didn't get a single response. So we all decided it
was time to leave Peggy alone. The couple left in front of us, my sister in
front of me, and then the last gentleman behind me. Right after I told Peggy
goodbye and I was in the doorway of the room, the guy behind me said goodbye to
her as well, we got the one and only response from the spirit box. It was one
word. And it either said "Bye." or "Die." I stopped dead in
my tracks in shock and looked over my shoulder at the guy behind me. He was as
white as a ghost. We just looked at each other like "You heard that,
right?" And we weren't the only ones who heard it. Our entire group and
the tour guide at the door heard it as well.
The further and further into the
tour we got, the more uneasy I felt and I could feel all the haunted energies
build up and start to take affect on me. I didn't give into the fear because I
knew that that's what the spirits wanted from us. But I nearly had a panic
attack in the very last room. The last room held a staircase to the infamous
Demon House that was investigated on "Ghost Adventures". I had
recognized this staircase all too well from watching the episodes about it. A
psychic medium and a priest visited the house when it was still standing and
said that there were over 200 demons haunting the house and that the basement
was where the portal was for them. And Zak had a staircase to the basement from
the house in this room of the museum. I felt a massive blanket of dark energy
cover me and the room and I felt like I could barely breathe. There were still
only five of us left on the tour, but it felt like there was 50 people in the
room with me. As the tour guide was talking to us, even she said she was afraid
of this room and refused to look towards the steps. After a couple minutes, we
all felt the heavy darkness and decided that we overstayed our welcome in this
room and the demons and spirits wanted us out.
Visiting Zak Bagans' Haunted
Museum was one of the scariest but most amazing macabre experiences I've ever
had and I absolutely cannot wait to visit again.
No comments:
Post a Comment