I know how many of you believe in the phenomenon , but my friend and I are checking into two rooms in About.com's 8th most haunted hotel in the country, Ramada Plaza in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

The owner knows us and is very excited about us coming, but we have to keep it under wraps (Were carrying our equipment in suit cases).

They have a log book locked up in a safe of all the reports reported by staff and guests dating back in the 1970s. The seventh floor is supposed to be the hot spot. In 2001, screams came from room 717. No one was supposed to be occupying the room. Two coworkers went up to the room with a key and heard a man violently screaming from inside the room, and the door was kicking outward violently. They couldn't get in with their keys. When the screaming stopped they could get in the room. No one was in the room. That was the only case of the screaming and door moving, but that room is famous for other things, such as faucets turning on and off, banging on walls, and the feeling that you're not alone. Out of towners who stay in the room have left in the middle of night complaining of odd nosies and have checked into different hotels. And thats my room .

Might be a small chance I'll find anything, because these odd occurences don't come on command, but I'll let ya know how it all goes.

The ghost's name is "Walter" there, right? There was a piece on This American Life about him.

Yeah thats what I hear. I guess he owned a lot of other places in Milwaukee and in Chicago, and those places supposedly have odd things happening too. I think he was known to be a petifile in his later years with teenage girls. Come on can ya blame him?

*pedophile

And I don't consider liking teenage girls to be pedophilic, just illegal.

Don't forget your gear.

I don't have a license for that, but I'm sure the EPA won't mind

Just don't cross the streams. It would be very bad.

Good saftey tip thanks Egon

IHRM in action minding his stream...

i never knew n+d could be the source of so many laughs; i am looking forward to reading a full report on this from you, ihrm.

And here is the report....

Before going into the Ramada Plaza I told the other guys (4 of us all together) not to be discouraged if we didn't experience anything, and they all understood. By the end of the night we didn't experience anything, which was a disappointment, but we still had evidence to go over. There was no uneasy feeling in the hotel room. It felt comfortable and that was another thing that bothered us.

(The Evidence). There were some strange stuff caught on the audio of the camera and visual. NOthing to the point where I'm going to say it was a ghost, but still interesting. We took turns leaving one person in Room 717 for a span of 30 to 45 mins. We had two night vision cameras pointing at specific parts of the room. One was pointing at the bed, and the other was pointed at the bathroom door and the main door. Along were digital recorders, and we asked questions to whatever may be there (Sounds funny, but the digital recorders do pick up voices we can't hear).

We left Jared (A friend) in there first. Me and the other guys went and talked to the hotel employees about what they experienced. When coming back to the room, Jared told us he dozed off for 2 to 3 min and said something made him wake up, but he said not to think anything of it. What was interesting is that the camera facing the two doors picked up two quick knocking sounds about 23 mins in. These knocking sounds didn't sound like they were coming from the direction of the main door. Following the two knocking sounds you could hear bed sheets moving (Jared waking up). We wanted to get the other camera view up of Jared in the bed to see if we could find out what that came from. Oddly the camera stopped 3 mins before that moment when Jared woke up. Pissed us all off, because Woody (Another friend) said he charged the battery and gave it a new tape. It sucks, but were not going to keep bitching about it. One more odd thing was that while Jared was in the room, a loud sound which sounded like a stone hitting a wall was clearly heard, and it was loud. Jared doesn't recall hearing it.

Later I was put in the room. I had a digital recorder on and I started talking to myself (If you like to think so), and asked questions to whatever may be there. Now the ghost that is supposedly haunting the Ramada is "Walter", the former owner, or the woman that threw herself out the bedroom window. Walter never gained a good reputation at the end of his life, but always gave to chariety, and that is something everyone overlooked. Right after I complimented him on his achievements, one of our cameras picked up a bright, red, ball shaped object traveling fast from the corner of the room and disappearing at the other corner of the room. Heres the problem...
Those are what some researchers call "orbs". Those are round balls of light that are said to be ghost phenomenon because they're little balls of energy manifesting themselves out of nowhere. I myself don't put much stock into "orbs", because they could be any energy source. But the interesting thing is this, the curtains blocked any light coming from outside, and the only light in the room was from the cameras. The cameras caught no other signs of dust particles in the room that may give a reason for the red ball. That was the only time we saw the ball of red light. And its odd that it appeared on camera right after I said what I said. Still though, I'm not relying on that.

It was a good first experience, but we all want to go back there. But next time we'll probably only bring 2 of us, because many reports are coming from 1 or 2 people who stay in the room at a time. Case Unclosed

thanks for the report, it sums up why this is such a controversial issue: this "might" be what this happened, i "might" have heard this, etc., etc. nothing hard and reliable, and more importantly: consistent.

ihrm, you aren't convincing me of anything, but i admire your diligence.

I'm alaways much more swayed by someone who goes into one of these things skeptical, not hopeful.

So what if i felt a little bit of both?

Better than going in with a plan to prove the existence of ghosts.

No that MIGHT be a later agenda...i would just like to experience something for myself, but I'm going to be critical of whatever happens just so I don't fool myself

to be perfectly honest, with what you've written here recently (in a few different threads), i don't know how you can claim to be "critical" when it comes to this stuff. you have tried, on numerous occasions, to prove to everybody else that ghosts exist.

Yeah I know I have. I changed my mind though. I'm going to ignore and go about my business. I thought it would be fun though to document and tell you guys what i found

I don't think you have to be purely skeptical when it comes to paranormal investigation. If you didn't at least kinda think something was real, why bother investigating it?

Take the guys from Ghost Hunters...it's no secret they believe in ghosts, having each had separate personal experiences years before they began ghost hunting as well as the ones they've had while investigating. They are skeptics though in that they go into each case trying to disprove phenomena people have experienced in that location. They are also skeptical in the way they examine their data, and only accept something as evidence of paranormal activity after it's been scrutinized, revisited, and no other explanation can explain the activity.

IHRM, how much have you shelled out for the equipment you use? Sounds like you've got some high-tech stuff.