Thursday, November 17, 2005

Galvez



If you've never experienced a true "haunting" then you absolutely must go to the Galvez in Galveston. Room 505 is supposed to be the most haunted room at this 5 star hotel. However it was my experience that it wasn't only room 505 that was haunted but the entire 5th floor.

The 5th floor of the Galvez was under construction the night we chose to visit. So all of the doors up and down the hallway were standing wide open, beds were unmade, furniture was moved out of the room, and the only room that we could see was accessible to guest was room 507 (our room right next door to room 505).

The activity started around 10pm and lasted through the night. The most noticable thing that seemed to take place was the slamming of doors. All night long doors would open and slam shut. At first we didn't think much of the phenomena, that was until we noticed upon going out to take some photographs on the 5th floor that we were the only guest on the floor.

So we stood in the hall and waited, looking for any sign that someone was messing with us, slamming doors on purpose, and so forth. We walked down the main hallway away from our room, knowing full well that NO one was in the wing we just left. We checked each room before leaving the "haunted" wing, no one was in any of the rooms, and no one could have hidden and not been discovered. So we left that wing and we waited down the hall, knowing that the only way to get to that wing of the hotel was to walk right past us, down the main hallway. It didn't take too long, we heard a door slam, immediately we all grinned brightly and went to go back down to the "haunted" wing. As we were walking back we heard another door SLAM shut. It was very loud, and it made us all go from a walk, to a dead run to hurry back down the hall to the haunted wing.

Immediately the slamming of the doors stopped once we were back in the haunted hallway. However our investigator Lee, did capture an apparition of the ghost we believe to be responsible for the slamming doors. You can see the picture at the beginning of this post. I think it's important to make it perfectly clear that absolutely no one was standing at the end of this hallway when Lee took this picture. We were the ONLY guest on this floor when all of our pictures were taken!!


Upon further investigation outside of our night at the Galvez, the Haunted Galveston investigation team discovered a few interesting facts. First, it was the unanimous belief of the team that the apparition at the end of this hallway, picture above; was in fact that of a nun. So when our research assistant, Ann; did further investigation on nuns in particular it was discovered that at least 12 nuns died in the storm of 1900. Many of them died while trying to protect the children of St. Marys Orphanage. St. Marys was once located at Sea Wall and 69th, less then a mile away from where the Galvez stands today.