While Fairmont may not be putting this in its brochures, it seems those long held theories that the 123-year-old historical building is a hotbed for ghostly activities are true.
Coffey, the bespectacled medium and psychic from A&E shows Paranormal State and Psychic Kids, was in the hotel for only 15 minutes Sunday afternoon when he claims to have sensed no less than three ghosts milling about amid the chattering mob of movers, shakers and wannabes attending the Banff World Television Festival.
One was a woman, perhaps the famous bride who died on her wedding day and is said to haunt one of the hotel's many stairwells. Her name, Coffey has determined, was Christina and she was pregnant when she died.
"Not one life but two were lost at that time," said Coffey, in an interview with the Herald in the lobby of the Fairmont Banff Hotel. "With me being here, she felt very comfortable is saying, 'It's not a stigma anymore, so I will let you know I was pregnant. And the only two people who knew at the time was my mother and my husband-to-be.'
He also saw a man who he believes may have been Sam McAuley, the devoted bellman whose ghostly figure is said to haunt the hotel on a regular basis since his death in the 1970s.
The third was a little boy named Jack. He just wanted to hang.
"He's been around and pretty active and hanging in my room," says Coffey on Monday afternoon. "I do a show called Psychic Kids and I work with a lot of children. Children in particular feel comfortable, in spirit, to be chatting with me. The boy identified himself as Jack -- he's blond, he's about six to nine years old. He showed up in my room first and came through last night on the ghost walk."
Coffey, who was at the Banff World Television Festival for a panel discussion about paranormal TV shows, was enlisted to lead a private ghost walk around the premises alongside some VIPs. That's when he met Christina again, and Sam. The hotel's famous "hidden room" on the eighth floor is apparently haunted by ghosts of sheepish workers, who hang around as a sort of penance for mistakes in construction that required the room to be hidden in the first place. During his short stay in Banff, lights have mysteriously turned on in his hotel room, his computer rebooted by itself and his tour manager claimed some sort of presence was tapping him on the shoulder Sunday night.
"There's history," says Coffey about the hotel. "There's a lot of people here celebrating good times, maybe some bad times. There's people who are here with a lot of emotional events occurring. There were a lot of things that were heightened emotional events. Plus all the people here are very excited to be here. It's very open and your people are networking and having a good time and they're open and expressive emotionally. That really does attract energy, also. Our heightened excitement might heighten their excitement for trying to communicate."
The great-grandson of Native American medicine woman Minnie Sue Morrow Foster, the 55-year-old New York native says he has always been psychic, but admits his peculiar talent for having dead people talk to him was something he discovered by accident 10 years ago when a co-worker's dead brother started chatting him up in Atlanta, Georgia. By 2007, he was called to take part in A">NOTE: For those who are fans of Chip Coffey, I received a tweet from Chip last evening...he is in the Tampa area filming the 1st episode of 'Psychic Kids' third season...Lon
Psychic Discovers Hotel's Spiritual Side
Source: my-spiritual-path.blogspot.com
