Did Zak Bagans Contact The Spirit Of Elisa Lam At The Cecil Hotel In 2021 'Ghost Adventures' Special

January 03, 2021 1:00 AM ‐ Television • Ghost Adventures • Paranormal

This article is more than three years old and was last updated in April 2022.

In a chilling new 'Ghost Adventures' investigation, Zak Bagans claims a "compelling spirit response" could be evidence the team were communicating with Elisa Lam.

Photo: © Discovery+

To promote the launch of Discovery's new streaming service, Zak Bagans took the 'Ghost Adventures' team to one of the show's most infamous locations yet. Rather than premiering on the Travel Channel like previous episodes of the long-running ghost hunting show, 'Ghost Adventures: Cecil Hotel' will premier exclusively on Discovery+.

Discovery+ launches tomorrow in the United States, but launched last month here in the UK. The new streaming service is run by the Travel Channel's parent company, Discovery, which means you'll find 'Ghost Adventures' alongside many of your other favourite paranormal shows from the network. In fact, the service will launch with nearly 3,000 episodes of paranormal programming.

The two-hour episode definitely feels like a special worthy of launching Discovery+. There's no denying that the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is an iconic paranormal hotspot. Zak said, "it doesn't get bigger and more sinister than this."

The episode was shot during the pandemic and the production team's precautions are clear to see throughout the episode. The cast are seen to be wearing masks throughout and interviews Zak conducts with eye witnesses are carried out with a safe separation between them.

Zak and his team, consisting of Aaron Goodwin, Jay Wasley and Billy Tolley, are the first to be allowed into the historic hotel to investigate the hauntings related to its dark and seedy past hosing countless criminals, including serial killers. It has seen multiple suicides, murder, devil worshipping and recently the reports of hauntings have begun to escalate.

The first half of the investigation focusses on the elevator, a room on the 4th floor, the 14th floor and the roof. It was these areas where a tragic event that the hotel is perhaps best known for occurred, what Zak describes as "one of the most mysterious deaths of the 21st century".

Often the GAC deal with hauntings caused by the spirits of the long-dead, but this case is fresh and raw. It was less than a decade ago that one of the hotel's guest was reported missing and eventually found dead. Before their investigation got underway, Zak met with true crime author James Bartlett who gave him the grisly details.

Keeping safe and standing a good distance away from Zak, James told the story of Elisa Lam. He tells Zak she was "a 21-year-old student from Canada, she came down here on a vacation." Elisa was last seen at the hotel in January 2013 in CCTV footage which showed her behaving unusually in the elevator. It looked as if she was hiding from someone or something. Her body was eventually found in one of the water tanks on the roof of the hotel.

Photo: © Discovery+

More From 'Ghost Adventures'

For more from Zak Bagans and the GAC, check out our 'Ghost Adventures' hub, where you will find the latest news on the show, and a complete 'Ghost Adventures' episode guide.

Zak confessed in the episode, "for years this mysterious unsolved case has terrified me." Now with the hotel closed to the public, Zak and the team had the run of the full building as they attempt to uncover whether the entity haunting the Cecil could have influenced Elisa on the day of her death.

At one point Zak calls the case of Elisa Lam "one of the most mysterious murders ever seen." Although there are unanswered questions surrounding the incident, the official verdict on Elisa's death is that it was a tragic accident, most likely the result of a manic episode brought on by her bipolar disorder.

But Zak thinks that the young student could have been killed by something that was conjured up in the hotel by a former resident, perhaps the serial killer Richard Ramirez who stayed at the hotel in 1985 during the period when he killed his 13 victims.

Zak thinks that as Ramirez was a self-confessed devil worshipper, his rituals could have opened the Cecil Hotel up to a demonic infestation that could have affected Elisa and others who enter the hotel to this day.

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Photo: © Discovery+

The team started their investigation of the vast 300-room hotel by checking out the actual elevator that the famous viral CCTV footage of Elisa was captured in. Zak was curious to discover which of the hotel's 19 floors the elevator stopped at while the seemingly panicked Elisa was on board.

Some believe the urban legend that she was playing a Korean game called 'Elevator to Another World'. This involves pressing buttons on the elevator's control panel in a certain order. If you perform the task correctly a portal to another world is said to open.

Even Zak admits it's probably nothing more than a legend, but if you find yourself in the Elisa Lam elevator in the Cecil Hotel, how could you resist trying? Zak couldn't, but he did get a little more than he bargained for and was left wishing he read the game's directions before he stepped into the elevator to play it.

Later in the investigation Zak was joined by Patrick Langdon, a crime scene photographer who once stayed in Elisa's room. Patrick told Zak that during his terrifying night in room 412 he felt something around his neck choking him, as well as feeling the unsettling sensation of being paralysed in bed.

Zak was then joined by Michael and Marty Parry, a husband-and-wife psychic team who will be familiar to viewers of the show. While Marty headed to the room that killer Richard Ramirez stayed in on the 14th floor, Michael went to the roof where he made the show's first revelation about Elisa.

While stood next to the water tanks where Elisa's body was found, Michael said that someone, either dead or alive, lead Elisa to the roof and to her death.

Whether you believe the official finding of accidental death, or that Elisa was murdered or lead to her death by a demonic infestation, there's no denying that Elisa met a sad and untimely end at the Cecil Hotel. Of course this meant that Zak and his team were eager to attempt to make contact with her spirit to try to uncover the truth.

Perhaps the team got their answer in room 412, the room Elisa stayed in, when they captured what Zak described as "probably the most incredible and compelling spirit response we have ever documented."

Early in their investigation of this room Zak was getting responses through a ghost hunting gadget called a Paranormal Puck. When Zak asked the question "who are we talking to?" a male voice seem to reply by saying "Elisa Lam." Moments later a thermal laser grid indicated that a cold mass either entered or left the room leaving the team to wonder if the incident was related to the voice they'd heard.

Later in the same room, Billy was using the Puck. He called out "is Elisa still here?" A chilling response through the ghost hunting device replied "present." Billy then asked "who killed Elisa?" and was shocked by the response of "being." Could this mean that a demonic being really did lead Elisa to her death?

The second half of the investigation focussed on the haunting related to the 18 known deaths recorded at the hotel, with the help of historian Scott Michaels, an expert on the hotel's grim past.

The investigation was one of the team's most active yet with plenty of interesting activity caught on camera, including Aaron being affected by what Zak described as an uncharacteristic bout of rage, as well as a scratch seemingly appearing from nowhere on Zak's neck, and at one point Zak feeling as it something was touching his hair.

Towards the end of the team's time in the hotel things started to become violent. When something seem to attack Zak's eye. Throughout the investigation her reported getting hit a total of three times in three different places.

The special will be available exclusively to Discovery+ subscribers from Monday, January 4 2020. For more information on Discovery+ and to watch, head to discoveryplus.com.

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