Angel of the Sea Inn Haunting

Long barren roads, state highways with seemingly no final destination, are the peculiar roads most often affiliated with nighttime breakdowns and subsequent slaughterings by maniacal fools waving chain saws or wearing hockey masks. It's nice to know that these are the mitigating thoughts I have while driving nearly a hundred miles on the southern tip of the Garden State Parkway to Cape May; nothing but trees and grass on either side of the road.

While the distance began taking its toll, I began narrating in my head how normal people wouldn't be driving this far for a so-called preternatural inquest without the guarantee of something popping out and slapping them in the face. Luckily normalcy wasn't a prerequisite on my resume. Besides, let's be honest, who doesn't enjoy the smoggy scenery of New Jersey at the end of Winter.

New Jersey was once baptized by George Carlin as the toll booth state. And if you've ever driven on the Garden State Parkway, you begin to realize why. It's not even the cost that gets to you (35 cents each), it's just the annoyance of having to stop practically every fifteen feet. By the time I arrived there, I needed a break job.

I arrived in Cape May with little daylight to spare, but it didn't take much luminance for me to find a good restaurant. I was starving, and when my mind is on food, you could smack into me with a diesel truck and it wouldn't even faze me.

I realized just how much of a gratifying walk-around town Cape May was in the Summer time. I guess if you have the cash to stay there, you could keep yourself occupied for quite some time, just by strolling around and checking out the stores and the beach.

I found my way to the first restaurant I saw (one of those common pizzeria / sandwich places but with a lot of tables) and I wasted no time making myself acquainted with the various food items available. In all, it made a good meal. I did learn one thing though: never attempt to inhale while a portion of Caesar salad is in your mouth. After the burning stopped, I was ready to take a shot at the mystery behind the Inn. I was ready for a drink too though, so the Inn would have to wait until after the waitress refilled my water.

The Angel of the Sea Inn, which is actually two buildings semi-connected, is a lavish getaway no more than a stones through away from the Cape May beach. I probably should have worn more than a tee shirt and jeans, but I took comfort in knowing that the strange looks I received were more for the reason I was there than from what I was wearing... I think.

The convenient legend besieging this particular Inn deals with an elderly woman who locked herself out of her room; and for some reason, she decided she was Spider-Man and thought she would depart through the second floor balcony door and climb over to her own window. She fell to her death, unsurprisingly, and rumor has it that she has haunted this particular room ever since. Supposedly, at night, banging noises can be heard coming from the window she was trying to get into before she fell.

Many people remain skeptical of this particular tale. Not only because this person's death cannot be verified through public records, but also because one often finds it hard to believe that an old woman would attempt to crawl her way from window to window rather than just go to the front desk and have them unlock her door. Though the first reason is perfectly valid, and managed to keep me in a skeptical mind frame, trust me when I say that the common sense required for the second notion is sometimes lacking in people on occasion. Through experience, I have found that it is highly plausible for one to commit a lethargic act rather than using the mental reasoning that God gave us.

There were two rooms that were of particular interest concerning the local legends: room 21 and room 27. Both of these rooms had what could be considered paranormal qualities. It was quite extraordinary how the atmosphere in those rooms immediately changed once you stepped inside.

Room twenty-seven was perhaps the strangest room of all. You could stand there and watch as one of the mirrors on the far wall moved back and forth. I tried every control I could think of to debunk that mirror. I checked the fans. I checked the walls for vibrations. I even stomped around the room, and up and down the hallway, in order to try and physically move the mirror. All was for naught, except for the fact that other people began staring at me even more than before. Especially after the hallway incident.

After that little escapade, I journeyed around to many of the other rooms looking for one that was able to mimic the effect in room 27. Comparisons were inconclusive, however, as I wasn't able to find any similar occurrences.

Within the same room, other mysterious effects were taking place right before my eyes. I was dead set on video taping the rocking mirror, so I crouched down next to the bed to set up the digital camcorder on top of a bunch of pillows (it would have been easier if I brought a tripod, but who am I to make things easy). As I was in the process of piecemealing a structure together, I saw the strangest thing. It was a blur; almost like those movies where they portray something invisible as some transparent distortion. You could see it to a degree, but you could also see right through it at the same time. It hovered there briefly a few feet from my face, and then speedily floated off. I lost sight of it. I then got up and threw a pillow across the room when I realized that I had yet to turn the camcorder on.

This wasn't the only bizarre thing happening in that room. My friend, Norman, decided to sit down on the bench just underneath the mirror... and that's when he felt it; a gentle push like a persistent calm breeze - the pressure felt through the bench, as if something were trying to move it. The pushing stayed in rhythm with the swaying of the mirror, and became stronger with each passing shove. I examined the bench and felt the wall behind it - nothing out of the ordinary, yet quite a strange event indeed.

Hardly anything existed in that place to be fearful of. And though events that could have been characterized as paranormal did keep one intrigued, I felt that this experience, at most, was a weak one.

The long drive back home left me with plenty of time to think. With large houses of age seems to come creepings of ghosts and other supernatural occurrences. Does the truth behind these hauntings lie in the perception of the individual experiencing them? Are these stories natural occurrences that come with the age of old businesses, museums, and mansions? Or are these stories true? Is there enough evidence to suggest the supernatural? Is the Angel of the Sea Inn really haunted

Though the evidence wasn't piled up high enough for me to give a definite "yes", I would speculate that it probably is haunted to a degree, though I wouldn't put my faith in the "old lady" tale. It was more the feel of the place that would convinced you than anything else. Some places just emit an atmosphere, a chill of supernatural tendencies. This was assuredly one of those places. It was a feeling that something was amiss, but you just couldn't put your finger on it.

I despise ever having to go on gut instinct alone, and not on something a little more concrete. But at the end of the day, I am what I am... and I have learned to trust in myself.