CECIL HOTEL

One of the most well known mysteries still unsolved is the case of Elisa Lam. Elisa was a 21-year-old Canadian woman who disappeared on January 31, 2013 while staying at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Elisa stayed at the Cecil Hotel in search of new experiences on a road trip of sorts. She had been to the San Diego Zoo before heading to LA on January 26. She started in a shared room, but her roommates complained of her odd behavior, Elisa had been diagnosed with Bi-Polar Depression, and she was moved to a room of her own. On the night of January 31, a security camera in the hotel elevators captured Elisa moving desperately and anxiously around the elevator, pressing all the buttons and checking the hallways as if she were being followed or stalked by someone or something. Elisa then exits the elevator and disappears into the darkness. That was the last time she was seen alive.

Her parents, concerned that they hadn't heard from Elisa who was supposed to be headed to Santa Cruz next on her trip, contacted the Los Angeles Police  Department. They investigated the hotel but couldn't find any clues to Elisa's whereabouts; it was as if Elisa had disappeared into thin air. While questioning the hotel guests, police noted that several complained that the hotel's tap water had a strange taste. This was reported to hotel workers who immediately checked the water tanks on top of the hotel and found Elisa's naked body  floating inside. No signs of struggle, physical abuse, or drugs were found in Elisa's system and the case was ruled an accidental death by drowning.

No one believes that Elisa's death was an accident. Hotel employees say it impossible for Elisa to have gotten on the roof on her own, it was a restricted area. They also noted that when they discovered her body in the tank, it had been sealed from the outside. Paired with the security cam footage of Elisa's curious behavior in the elevator, employees and those studying the case thing something more sinister happened, which is nothing new for the Cecil Hotel. Since the 1920s, the hotel has been the scene of numerous suicides, mysterious deaths, disappearance, and suspicious activity.

THE ISLAND OF THE DOLLS

the Island of Dolls located in the canals of Xochimilco, south of downtown Mexico City. The story is that a man named Don Julian Santana Barrera, who was a caretaker of the island, discovered the body of a girl on the shore of the lake. He tried, but was unable to save her life. Realizing he could do nothing more Don Julian, looked up from the dead girl and saw what must have been her doll floating in the canal. He picked the doll up and hung it in a nearby tree as a way of showing respect to the girl and to support her spirit.

Don Julian was devasted by this experience and was haunted by what he claimed was the girl's lost spirit. In an attempt to please the spirit he began hanging dolls all around the island. OUtsiders report that He was driven by some unseen force that completely changed him. Don Julian began to believe that all the dolls were themselves possessed by the spirits of lost, dead girls. 50 years later, after covering the entire island with what over time appeared to be creepy and deformed dolls, Don Julian himself drowned at the exact spot he had originally found the first girl.

The Isla De Las Muñecas as it is now known has become a popular tourist stop for those into the macabre. It is said that if you visit and attempt to take a doll off the island you will become cursed by bad omens forever.

CONJURING HOUSE

Nobody truly knows if there is something after death; if spirits remain attached to the important objects and possessions a person had while alive. This is the case with the Conjuring house in Harrisville, Rhode Island. The Conjuring house is real and can be booked for overnight stays if you don't mind sharing the space with the 12 or more spirits said to already call it home. 

Made popular recently by The Conjuring movie franchise, the Farm on Round Top Road, as it's now called has a long history of haunts. In the 1970s paranormal investigators and mediums Lorraine and Ed Warren were called to the house to assist the then owners, the Perron family, rid the house of spirits believed to be attached to the property. The family had complained about seeing full body apparitions, smelling rotten odors, and asked the Warrens to assist in a séance. The Warrens discovered what they believed to be a malicious spirit named Bathsheba Sherman among several others including a small child who can be heard in the children's room, an old worker who made jams in the basement of the house, and a cat that can be heard in the library of the house.

Many believe that Bathsheba Sherman to be the real life Bathsheba Thayer who married Judson Sherman in the early 1800s. Bathsheba was reported to be a witch who worshipped Satan and was related to Mary Eastey who was hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. Other reports suggest that she was a serial murderer of children; even her own son who she sacrifice to Satan with a sewing needle before climbing into a tree on the property, curse all who dare live on her land, and hanged herself.