Location Description and History

Originally constructed in 1899 by the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway as a by-product of the railroad's search for timber and railway ties, the resort of Cloudcroft became an immediately successful mountain retreat...a cool reprieve to thousands of overheated Texans. Owned and operated by the railroad, the resort's initial building was a pavilion (now the Pavilion, a Bed and Breakfast at The Lodge with reception and ballroom.) As the actual log constructed Lodge neared completion in 1899, an article in the Albuquerque Journal Democrat reported, "This beautiful building will be known as Cloudcroft Lodge and its interior will be furnished with a lavish hand, yet in keeping with the character of the place. Fireplaces, with wide, hungry mouths, will sparkle, crackle and dart forth welcome tongues of flame to hundreds of merry guests, who will find a new pleasure in life during the long, sultry summer. "In 1908, the EI Paso and Southwestern Railroad System, the resort's new owner, advertised that the hotel,

On June 13, 1909, a disastrous fire destroyed The Lodge. But by 1911 The Lodge had been rebuilt and reopened on its current, more scenic site. Since then it has undergone numerous renovations, but the initial appearance remains almost unchanged.

Over the history of The Lodge, thousands of Southwestern families have called The Lodge and Cloudcroft their second home. The Lodge has entertained and hosted hundreds of politicians, artists, entertainers and business leaders, including such notables as Poncho Villa, Judy Garland and Clark Gable. Gilbert Roland was known to frequent The Lodge. Both U. S. and Mexican government officials have long visited the historic hotel.

Military leaders, scientists and astronauts from all over the world have made the Lodge a retreat during their visits to White Sands Missile Range, Holloman AFB and Fort Bliss. And, in fact, the most famous hotel in in the world was once associated with The Lodge; Conrad Hilton managed it in the 1930's. In January of 1992 the historic Lodge was repurchased by the Great Inn of the Rockies, Inc., a small privately held corporation that aspires to own and operate small resort hotels and country inns in the Rocky Mountain Region. The Great Inns of the Rockies previously owned The Lodge from 1986 to 1990.   Today The Lodge continues in the tradition of friendliness, hospitality, outstanding food and unique lodging.

Reported Phenomena

The name of the ghost is Rebecca, who appears as a beautiful young woman, with red hair, blue eyes, and wearing a long dress. She was murdered by her "jealous lumberjack boyfriend" when the hotel was a logging lodge in the 1930s. Not as famously known, the lodge has a second ghost, a 20 or 30 year-old chambermaid, who was also murdered by a jealous lover, and then buried in the basement. It is unclear to which ghost the collected story refers, or if both ghosts have the same original story .Rebecca's ghost has been seen by employees and guests, and ostensibly likes to play tricks moving ashtrays, lighting fires in fireplaces, and playing with the phone in Room 101. Several dozen employees and guests at this mountain resort have seen the apparition of a woman wearing a long dress, wandering the lodge halls. Rebecca was a beautiful, young maid with striking blue eyes and red hair. Rebecca is called a flirtatious, mischievous spirit, who likes to use the Governor's Suite. Guests in that room sometimes receive phone calls from nowhere, and operators at the resort say that the line to Room 101 is often lit up, even when no one is in the suite. Rebecca's presence is also felt in the Red Dog Saloon, where ashtrays move by themselves and flames appear in the fireplace with no logs or other source of fuel. The photo on the left is of Rebecca and was composed from details provided by those who have sighted her in the old beautiful building.

According to some, Rebecca's body was found near what is now the Cloudcroft Lodge Golf course. It was determined she was murdered, but the crime was never solved. There are some who believe that Rebecca is in search of a new lover who appreciates her apparently flirtatious and mischievous ways.

Another story tells of a man who came back to his room late one night to discover a beautiful red headed woman soaking in his bath tub. He reported this to the front desk, who sent someone up to the room, but the young lady had mysteriously vanished. Wet foot prints, the size of a petite woman's, were discovered on the carpet, leading out of the room and down the hall. The man, who was present in the room while waiting for the staff, saw no one leave the room.

Guests at the Lodge can ask the desk clerk for a notebook where various sightings of Rebecca have been recorded. Some of the experiences written in it include;

Many employees and guests have reported seeing the apparition of a beautiful, red-haired woman, with brilliant blue eyes, moving around the halls. Late one evening as a guest was dozing off, he heard a scraping sound in the hallway. Cracking his door open, he saw a woman with long red hair, in a 30's style, floor-length nightgown, who was busy rearranging the flowers that were sitting in a vase, on top of an antique chest, that was in the hallway.

Room 104: (Down the hall from The Governor's Suite, 101).Another male guest, while sleeping in bed, was awakened because he was too hot. As he rolled over lay on his left side, he felt a gentle, amiable, but cold hand on his shoulder, and heard a woman's voice singing "Won't You Be My True Love?" in his ear. When he could finally get up the nerve to turn around and see what was there, he felt a cool "whooshing movement," but no one was there.

Three women always had to have the same room at the lodge, because "Becky" would come visit them there, according to a desk clerk, Mr. Adams.

One Halloween evening, a man dressed in a tuxedo went into the Lodge's restaurant, ordered two dinners, and sat by himself at a two-chaired table. Everyone watched him carefully, as he ate just his dinner and talked to someone who wasn't there physically. By the end of his meal, both plates and wine glasses were empty.

A male hotel guest awoke in the middle of the night. As he glanced at his watch on his night stand, he watched in amazement as the watch floated straight up in the air, and floated gently to the top of the dresser.

One bartender, ran to use the downstairs bathroom, used by The Red Dog Saloon patrons. The lights wouldn't turn on, and she was alone. After using the toilet, she discovers that there is no toilet paper, and she shouts out an expletive phrase, "Oh shit'.!" Much to her surprise, a white, ghostly hand appeared under the doorway, with a roll of toilet paper, trying to be helpful in a humorous way. Petrified, she ran upstairs.

Rebecca has also made her presence known among the Lodge's employees. Here are a few of the reported experiences.

A new employee, who had been living in an upstairs room for about 2 months, was getting ready to come down to work, when she saw in her vanity mirror the toilet handle move by itself, to flush the toilet. Rebecca was mischievously welcoming her to The Lodge.

While serving a guest and his wife, who had expressed cynicism about the existence of Rebecca, a wine glass suddenly shattered while sitting on their table. When they left, the lights blinked twice.

Golfers who hit their shots into the forest on The Lodge golf course have often seen their golf balls miraculously shoot out of the trees and back into the fairway.It could be the ghost of Rebecca is sympathetic to golfers with bad aim.

The Lodge is a three story, Victorian style, elegant, European mountain inn, that is surrounded by huge pine trees and mountain scenery. This quaint-looking cherry burgundy and gray colored inn has stained glass windows, a lookout tower, a covered entryway and a circular driveway in view of a lovely pond and waterfall. Inside, there is a roomy two floored lobby, with classy leather armchairs and sofas, lovely mahogany end tables, fresh flowers and a copper sheathed fireplace, which is often on. The general period of decorum is "a French-country look." Each room has "antique furniture, matching bed and drapery fabrics, high ceilings, clicking steam radiators, down comforters and French eyelet linens. The Lodge's restaurant, called "Rebecca's Restaurant," overlooks the inn's pond and gardens. This refined dining spot is named after The Lodge's resident ghost, Rebecca, whose pictures can be found hanging on walls throughout the inn. A stained glass window with her likeness on it is also on display in the restaurant. Two artists made a beautiful quilt with her portrait in the center of it. This also is hanging in the hotel lobby. Although this trip was mostly a weekend get away for us, we decided to do a small ghost hunt since it had been several years since we had visited the Lodge.We started our ghost hunt around midnight after the majority of the guests had retired for the evening. We moved into the lobby and searched the area for electromagnetic fields while photographs were taken from various angles.

From here we moved up to the balcony overlooking the lobby. While in this area, Kristin moved around the upper floor of the lobby and the adjoining hallways of the second floor, searching for unusual electromagnetic fields. Cody maneuvered from one end of the lobby balcony to the other taking photographs. After twenty minutes of searching in this area, Kristin suddenly found an unusual EM field that registered 3 nanotesla. As Cody took photographs from the far end of the area, the field increased in strength to 4 nanotesla. After thirty seconds the field dropped down to 2 nanotesla and fluctuated for several seconds before vanishing. this is designated "Event 1" in this report. We continued taking photographs in this area for several more minutes before moving up to the third floor.

We started our search of the third floor by moving towards the north end of the hallway and moving back towards the south. As we approached the center of the hall, Cody paused to take a random photograph. The camera auto focused and then the camera suddenly powered down and shut off. The camera was rebooted and once again an attempt was mage to take a picture. again the camera focused and then powered down. Meanwhile Kristin had moved to the far end of the hallway and was trying to quietly alert Cody that she was getting a strong reading of 4 nanotesla on the natural trifield meter. Noticing this, Cody again powered up the camera and attempted to take a photograph. This time the camera worked and a photograph was taken down the hall that has an unusual image in it. Stranger still was the fact that prior to this event, the camera's battery had 140 minutes of power remaining on it. Afterwards, the battery only had 30 minutes of power left. For the purposes of this report, this is referred to as "Event 2".

After taking the photo, Cody moved to Kristin's position, but the EM field she had discovered had vanished and could not be relocated. Therefore we moved down the rear stairs to the second floor in an attempt to reacquire the EM field.

After several minutes, we located a weaker EM field in the southern section of the second floor hallway. However photographs of this area reveled nothing of interest (Event 3). However, Cody did notice a section of the hallway where the carpet seemed to be depressing, as if an invisible person was walking on it. We later conculed that this was an effect of the building settling. After another thirty minutes of searching the second and third floors with no unusual occurrences, we concluded this ghost hunt.

Photographs

Click the thumbnails to view the larger image

Electronic Voice Phenomena

Question asked	Possible Answer	Unprocessed (raw)	Processed (Cleaned up)
Are you Rebecca?	Sounds like "yes"		N/A
Who killed you?	Maybe "He did, He did...Danny"
Who is Daniel? Many believe that Daniel is the name of Rebecca's boyfriend that murdered her.	Sounds like "boyfriend" in the unprocessed wav and " Who's what?" in the processed.
Do you stay in the Lodge hotel?	Difficult to understand

Photographic Analysis

It is also interesting that all hree photographs were taken during EM events. The electromagnetic fields were averaged at 3 nanotesla with high readings of 4 nanotesla. All measured fields were D/C.

The photographs in this report have been modified. the file size has been reduced and some photographs have been adjusted for brightness and contrast.