The Children’s Museum of Houston Texas’ publicist, Henry Yau, is getting a taste of internet fame. It has nothing to do with the Children’s Museum, but stems from a photo he recently took inside the Stanley Hotel. In the photo a ghostly figure is captured standing at the top of the hotel’s grand staircase. Yau posted the photo on instagram (ares415) and it quickly went viral. In an interview with Click2Houston.com Yau stated that he did not take the photo in the dark and that he did not realize what was in the photo until the next day.
The Stanley Hotel, made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaption of Stephen King’s The Shining, is located in Estes Park, Colorado. It not only embraces its title as one of the most haunted locations in the U.S., it celebrates it and even holds ghost tours. The Stanley’s official website includes a history section that mentions two particular ghosts that haunt its halls.
Chief among the hotel’s eternal guests are F.O. and Flora Stanley who continue to go about the business of running their beloved establishment as though they were still alive; Flora’s antique Steinway can be heard playing in the dead of night and Mr. Stanley has been captured in photographs surveying the goings-on in the Billiards Room, once his favorite place.
Flora Stanley
Did Yau capture a photo of Flora descending the grand staircase? Was it simply a woman stepping into the shot? Or maybe it is a hoax. It’s validity is something you will have to decide for yourself.
