The hotel also has its unseen visitors and occupants. A housewife, who stayed at the hotel for a week with her husband while he was attending a business conference, experienced one typical encounter.
“We were staying in the La Posada Hotel located on Central Street in the downtown area. While my husband was away at various business functions, I went out on my own to shop around the many stores located on Nob Hill. I made sure I was back to the hotel room around 5 or 5:30 p.m. so I could be there when he got home. This one particular day I came back a little early to relax and enjoy a cup of tea in the room before going out to dinner with my husband.
I was reading the paper, and I also had CNN on the TV to catch up on the news. I was happily sipping my tea, when I my eyes caught the movement of a lady in a fancy dress and hat that was reminiscent of something someone would wear in the 1940s, before the start of the war. She walked away from the vanity and into the bathroom. I was quite surprised to see this because I didn’t see anyone in the room when I came in, and I’m sure I would have heard someone knock at the door.
At first, I thought it might have been someone from housekeeping turning down the room for the night. But dressed up in this type of garb? I think not. I wasn’t afraid;
I think I was more curious than frightened at this point. I didn’t see anyone in the bathroom at all. It was just a ghost in a very pretty dress and hat. I didn’t see her after that incident.”
Another guest had a startling experience with the hotel’s ghosts in a room on the seventh floor.
“One night, while I was in the bathroom, I saw and apparition of just a face. There was no physical body, just a face. I saw it in the shower as I went into the bathroom. Scared me to death at the time, and I thought it couldn’t be real, so I simply assured myself that it was my imagination. My second encounter occurred later that evening around 11:00 p.m. I was lying in bed and about to fall asleep when I had an unusual feeling that I was not alone in the room. I lifted my head and glanced over toward the bathroom door. That was when I saw her.
It was the figure of an elderly woman wearing her pink gown. I watched in horror as she glided toward me. I sat up in the bed; at first thinking that someone had mangled into enter our room by mistake. As she neared the bed, her arms came up as if to grab me. Then her mouth dropped open, and the most awful, horrible moan came out of her.
It was so ugly and evil, and it really looked as if someone was holding up a dead body and its jaw dropped open. I screamed and woke my boyfriend, who saw nothing and promptly rolled back over and went to sleep. I went under the covers, and eventually the vision faded, but the moaning continued until it dissolved into this really mirthful, tinkling laughter. I also tried very hard to pretend that the whole incident had been a dream.
Why was I the only one to see it? Well, that’s my real life encounter with a ghost.”
Throughout its history, the hotel has witnessed many murders, the latest occurring in 1995. Perhaps those unfortunate souls are responsible for the haunting today.
Another strange sighting took place in 1980 when a maid saw a beautiful girl walking near the ballroom on a rainy morning. The girl was soaking wet and appeared as if she had been crying so the maid asked if she was okay. The girl paused and looked at her before walking into the ballroom. The maid followed and was shocked when she entered the ballroom to find it empty. She was sure that she could not have crossed the room to another exit so quickly and was even more surprised to see no wet footprints on the dry dance floor.
Another interesting ghost story takes place just outside of the hotel. One evening, a young girl climbed aboard a bus and breezed right past the driver without paying the fare. She walked to the back portion of the vehicle and sat down, oblivious to the world around her. The irritated driver called out to her, but she didn’t answer. Finally, he stood up and walked back toward where she was seating. She would either pay, or he would have to kick her off the bus! Not surprisingly though, before he could reach her, she vanished before his eyes!
Another witness account of the ballroom ghost may shed some light on the identity of the specter.
“In the early eighties I owed a small DJ business in Albuquerque. I had been contracted to do a wedding reception at the La Posada de Albuquerque ballroom.
I arrived about two hours before the reception was to begin to set up my sound system. The place was busy, various people were setting things up and decorating making it a bit more difficult to get all of my stuff in place but with a little effort I managed to get everything ready and perform a sound check.
After I had finished, one of the hotel employees asked if they could unplug my gear because they needed the power outlet for a few minutes. I told them that it was not a problem as long as they didn’t mess with anything. Not that I’m paranoid but my system cost over five thousand dollars and I’m just a little protective of it.
I left the room and went outside to have a cigarette and chat with a buddy of mine, Eddie, which I had hired to help me out for the night. This job was one of the biggest that I had at that time and I wanted everything to go smoothly. We discussed the song list and other details before heading back up to the ballroom. As I waited for the elevator, Eddie bolted off to the restroom, saying that he would be up in a few minutes.
Finally the elevator door opened and I went back upstairs. The second the door opened I heard music coming from the ballroom. I assumed that someone had brought a boom box up there and was listening to music while they worked because the music was country. The song was a female voice singing about sunshine and birds and I didn’t have anything like that in the collection I brought to the hotel. However, when I entered the ballroom, I could not believe my eyes.
There was this redheaded chick playing a guitar on the stage and the music was coming out of my sound system. I immediately became angry. Somehow this woman had managed to tap into my system without my permission. There was no telling what she could have screwed up and more than likely I would have to do another sound check to correct whatever she had done.
I stormed across the ballroom yelling at her to get off the microphone but to no avail. Either she was unable to hear me or she didn’t care. No problem though, I thought, as I walked over to the electrical outlet to unplug the system.
When I reached the power outlet I was shocked. The system wasn’t plugged in. My hands are shaking and suddenly I’m afraid to look back over my shoulder at the woman. I’m pretty freaked out, this is not the kind of thing I usually would believe would happen, and I think to myself that maybe I’m just really tired and all the caffeine is making my head do strange things. Then the music turned to static. I summoned the courage to turn around only to discover that the woman was gone. The noise of the static suddenly ceased, which startled me, a little, as Eddie came walking into the room. I asked him if he had seen a redhead with a guitar in the hallway but he said that he didn’t. He did hear the music and was wondering what kind of gig I had committed to.
He asked why and I told him what happened, and his eyes get bigger and bigger. When I had finished he told me about this old ghost story that’s supposed to be this singer who died. She had played here in this very ballroom before her death.
Then he said that song we heard was written by her, it was her only hit called “Morin kind of feelin.” Now that was pretty spooky and just hearing that, I got the chills again. Well anyway, that was a long time ago but I still think of it sometimes. For a long time I wouldn’t tell anyone, my friends or the people I work with, because they’d laugh in my face and never let me hear the end of it.”