We Stayed at the NBA's "Haunted" Hotel — and Discovered Something New

Summary

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Episode Summary: "We Stayed at the NBA's 'Haunted' Hotel — and Discovered Something New"

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out (Le Batard & Friends)
Host: Pablo Torre
Guests/Co-Reporters: Amin Elhassan, Charlotte Wilder
Date: October 31, 2024

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Overview

In this Halloween special, Pablo Torre dispatches correspondents Amin Elhassan and Charlotte Wilder on a "talkumentary" assignment to investigate the legend of the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City—the NBA’s most infamous haunted hotel. The team sets out to uncover whether the paranormal tales that have rattled elite athletes for years are rooted in reality, psychology, or clever small-market myth-making. The episode blends ghost stories, firsthand experiences, discussions with paranormal experts and NBA insiders, and some irreverent statistical analysis, all in the signature witty tone of Pablo Torre and friends.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Setting the Scene: Costumes & Skepticism

[00:33–03:48]

• Halloween Recording Vibes: Pablo, Amin, and Charlotte kick off in costumes, with some banter underscoring how seriously (or not) they'll approach the ghost hunt.
• Pablo's Motivation:

  "I would love to see a ghost so that I could then believe fully with my intellectual capacity in God.” — Pablo ([03:23])

• Skepticism & Hope: All agree they’d like to see a ghost—both for the thrill and for existential proof—but acknowledge their rational minds tend to prevail.

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2. The Legend of the Skirvin Hotel

[05:59–09:12]

• The Setting: The Skirvin is a 113-year-old, art deco hotel, central in NBA lore due to recurring supernatural claims.
• Skirvin’s Dark Tale: The legend centers around Effie—a housekeeper who, after being impregnated by the hotel’s founder and locked away to contain the scandal, allegedly jumped from the 10th floor with her baby, leading to ongoing hauntings.

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3. NBA Ghost Stories: Firsthand and Secondhand

[09:12–10:22]

• Players’ Experiences:
  • Wesley Johnson: Bathtub mysteriously filled with water ([09:38])
  • Paul Pierce: Noises and phantom footsteps on the haunted 10th floor ([09:49])

    "If they're going to come in and get me, come get me." — Paul Pierce (as recounted by hosts, [10:09])

• Pablo’s Mission for Amin & Charlotte: To independently investigate and expense an overnight stay at the Skirvin—the “most irresponsible expense” for content’s sake.

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4. Checking In: First Impressions & the Hotel's Response

[12:41–16:10]

• Hotel Aesthetic: Charlotte describes the Skirvin as “old gothic art deco, southern...majestic...but also creepy” ([13:06–13:09]).
• Subtle Haunting: Unlike other historic hotels, Skirvin avoids marketing its haunted reputation; management actively discourages ghost talk.
• Effie’s Room: The only unexplained object is the key to room 1015 (Effie’s room) framed on the wall, with no caption ([15:44]).

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5. Paranormal Investigation: Consulting a Medium

[17:16–28:27]

• Enter Dave the Medium: Over Zoom, without knowing the specifics, Dave identifies:
  • Amin’s Room (next to Effie’s): "There's a portal area in that room...I do feel like there's somebody that jumped out a window, a long time ago." ([18:26-18:51])
  • Charlotte’s Room: Detects “saloon, cowboy, prostitute type… a murder… smell of tobacco and perfume.” ([20:07–21:49])
    • Both Charlotte and Amin corroborate a unique fragrance in the room.
• Charlotte’s Nerves:

  “I immediately FaceTimed my husband, made him stay on the phone with me while I brushed my teeth.” — Charlotte ([22:26])

• Medium’s Additional Prediction: One ghost is a prankster who turns on faucets ([25:04–26:09]); Amin had previously heard a similar story from an NBA coach.

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6. Their Night at the Skirvin

[22:51–27:37]

• Night Experiences:
  • Amin has an unremarkable night but is intrigued by a mysterious morning noise (attempted to record it, sounded mechanical but unexplained) ([26:09–27:37]).
  • Charlotte is visibly frightened, dreams of being fired, hears dice rolling—later rationalizes it may be mundane noises above.
• Attempt to Contact Spirits: Charlotte tries welcoming the ghosts, and a refrigerator immediately starts buzzing ([28:27]).

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7. A Third Witness: Adrian Chavaria’s Detailed Encounter

[29:16–31:41]

• Houston Rockets Broadcaster's Testimony:
  • Describes seeing a glowing female figure appearing at his bed after a late-night bathroom trip; the ghost floats face-to-face, inspects him, and disappears through the wall ([29:57–31:38]).

    “This ghost was literally on top of me, like, floating face to face. ... I guess I wasn’t her type because... she just moved towards my right and went through the wall.” — Adrian Chavaria ([30:27–31:21])

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8. Investigating the "Haunted Home Advantage"

[32:33–38:13]

• OKC Thunder’s Home Record:
  • Since moving to Oklahoma, Thunder have the NBA’s 7th best home win percentage (64%).
• Historical Anecdotes:
  • Knicks (2010): Several players lost sleep to hauntings, reported appliances randomly on ([34:12–35:55])
    • “That hotel, I’ll never stay there ever again.” — Nate Robinson (via Amin’s texts, [35:42])
  • Lakers: Lou Williams refused to stay at the Skirvin; still led team in scoring next day ([36:28]).
  • Meta World Peace: Claimed ghosts "touched him all over." ([37:24])

    "I'm taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places." — Meta World Peace ([37:23–37:42])

• Pablo’s Skepticism: He notes teams were generally bad, so results may not be attributable to ghosts.

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9. Psychology, Superstition, and “Contagion”

[38:13–41:02]

• Danny Green’s Perspective:

  “When something throws [athletes'] mental and routine off, it definitely has an effect... even if you don’t believe in it.” ([38:49])

  • The consensus: Stories and expectations prime athletes for a bad (or spooky) experience.

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10. Closing Reflections: Is the Skirvin Actually Haunted?

[41:02–44:02]

• Charlotte: In the moment, felt terrified and convinced; in retrospect, attributes it to suggestibility and atmosphere:

  “It made me realize... you get into this mindset… It's more fun to believe.” ([41:02–42:07])

• Amin: Emphasizes the lack of other hotel options in OKC forced NBA players into shared stories; now that new hotels are available, “no one is having these issues” anymore ([42:46]).

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11. Haunted Hotels: Beyond Basketball

[43:12–44:27]

• Wider Pro Athlete Lore: MLB players like Mookie Betts refuse to stay at Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel due to hauntings ([43:41]).
• Thunder Security: Recounts mysterious bell ringing at Milwaukee’s Pfister ([44:02]).

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12. The Small-Market Advantage & Witty Conclusion

[44:35–46:04]

• Pablo’s (Half-)Joke: Maybe struggling NBA franchises need their own haunted hotel to boost performance and intimidate opponents ([45:13]).
• Amin: “This is a small-market advantage. You can’t do that in New York... Memphis—you need a haunted hotel.” ([45:28])
• Grateful to Go—But Still Skeptical:

  “What I do genuinely believe is that the athletes who stay at these allegedly haunted hotels… are suffering negative consequences because of these ghosts… The way to save any other struggling franchise is to get your own haunted hotel.” — Pablo ([44:35])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Pablo Torre (on faith and ghosts):

  “I would love to see a ghost so that I could then believe fully with my intellectual capacity in God.” ([03:03])

• Amin Elhassan (on ghost logic):

  “If the theory is unfinished business, wouldn’t we be inundated with the ghosts of people who died in the Middle Passage, in the Holocaust…? And yet, it’s always old man Carruthers who lost his sweetheart.” ([05:18])

• Charlotte Wilder (on suggestibility):

  “It made me realize... you get into this mindset… It's more fun to believe.” ([41:02])

• Meta World Peace (quoted):

  “The ghosts were all over me… I’m taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places.” ([37:24])

• Adrian Chavaria (on his spine-chilling encounter):

  “This ghost was literally on top of me, like, floating face to face… I wasn’t her type.” ([30:27–31:21])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Costumed Cold Open & Skepticism: [00:33–03:48]
• Skirvin Legend Explained: [05:59–09:12]
• NBA Player Testimonies: [09:12–10:22]
• First Impressions/Check-In: [12:41–16:10]
• Medium Zoom & Room Readings: [17:16–28:27]
• Overnight Experiences: [22:51–28:27]
• Adrian Chavaria's Account: [29:16–31:41]
• Statistical Case and NBA ‘Haunted’ History: [32:33–38:13]
• Psychological Explanations: [38:13–41:02]
• Personal Conclusions and Sign-Off: [41:02–46:04]

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Tone & Style

Throughout, the episode delivers irreverent wit (“Father Time” and orca costumes), smart skepticism, and openness to the spooky and absurd—a blend of “hard” and “soft” reportage with the group’s signature humor.

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TL;DR

Is the Skirvin haunted? The team experienced some chills, unexplained smells, and odd sounds, but found nothing conclusive—while realizing that the true haunting might be in the minds (and performance anxieties) of NBA players. Nevertheless, ghost stories persist, reinforcing small-market mystique and inspiring some of sports’ best locker-room tales.

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“Happy Halloween. And if you’re struggling in the standings, maybe try booking a room for your next opponent... in the creepiest hotel in town.”

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[B]

Like all great ghost stories, this one is actually true.

[A]

Right after this ad.

[C]

You'Re listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

[B]

It took me a strong, like, two or three minutes to get the headphones just right.

[A]

Yeah. What. What are you dressed as?

[B]

I mean, I'm Father Time. As you can tell, I have a long beard and I have a clock that I'm wearing around my neck a la Flavor Flav. And also Father Tom apparently is a Yankee fan. Cause he's got a Jeter jersey on.

[A]

I was gonna say it looks like you're Willie Randolph got stranded on Desert island.

[B]

You are an orca.

[A]

You know what it is?

[B]

Yeah, I laughed before we started recording because I remember the last time you wore that. Jesse the Body Ventura started telling you his 911 conspiracy theories. I got in all sorts of trouble when I questioned 9 11. Well, I've been vindicated because in the chapter, the new chapter in the book, the 911 Report, has 28 redacted pages that we're not allowed to see that George Bush redacted them.

[A]

And then I got art, but make it sportsd into a Georgia o' Keefe vagina.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

So pretty proud of it.

[B]

They do a good job over there.

[A]

They do, and it's hard to dispute it.

[B]

And you do look like Georgia o' Keefe's vagina.

[A]

I mean, maybe not hers, but definitely one of hers, so to speak.

[B]

It's art.

[A]

Where is Charlotte?

[B]

Charlotte's on her way. She's still getting dressed into her costume, which is kind of a little bit of a giveaway, I guess, for what we're doing today. Oh, Lord.

[A]

Dear God.

[B]

I did not.

[A]

The.

[C]

Sorry I'm late, guys. There's traffic. My horse got stuck in it.

[A]

I want the audio audience to understand that the sound you're hearing. I actually don't understand the sound that we're hearing. What is that?

[B]

What is that was the sound of a compressor, I guess, inflating the inflatable horse.

[C]

I've never worn one of these inflatable, I mean, ridden a real horse before.

[A]

You've never worn an inflatable horse before, right? I do like the tassels, the leather, the suede. Excuse me.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

It's authentic.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I'll be honest. This isn't like sitting on the compressor is maybe not the most comfortable thing.

[A]

In the world, but it would be bad if we died in a compressor fire.

[C]

The great compressor fire of 2024.

[B]

If we died in a compressor fire dressed as this, that's like.

[C]

Well, you know, the problem is your beard is the most flammable thing in here.

[A]

I don't think the orca is necessarily, despite its species, as fire resistance retardant, as you might expect either. I gathered you here today for a special mission. An oddball Pavlo Torre finds out collaboration a quest for journalistic truth about ghosts Because I have a ghost take. My ghost take is simple. I would love to see a ghost so that I could then believe fully with my intellectual capacity in God.

[B]

Really? That's. That is.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

This is so much deeper an episode than I thought we were going to do you think the witness of paranormal activity is a gateway to. To God himself shout out to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[A]

A gateway to believing in what should not rationally be believed. So I want that door to be open. Yes. To the divine. To the supernatural. I would like proof that I shouldn't trust my rational brain. The problem is that my rational brain has been winning all of these arguments for 39 years.

[C]

You know, I'm. I relate to that so much, Pablo, because, like, my opinion of ghosts was like, I don't think so, but also like that there's a staircase in my grandmother's house in the back bedroom that led to nowhere. And that thing, like, there was energy there. I believe in the feeling of like, this feels weird, but I have never ever seen anything like, I'm with you. I so badly want to like, see a ghost so I can be like, yep, there they are.

[A]

So you're ghost. Curious.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Amin, I have a very simple theory when it comes to the existence of ghosts, or lack thereof. Ghosts are the spirits of dead people with unfinished business. Maybe they died in kind of untoward ways or whatever, right?

[A]

Yeah. Maybe they hadn't totally finished dressing up in their inflatable horse costume.

[B]

If that's the theory, then wouldn't we be inundated with all the time by the ghosts of people who died in the middle passage, who died in the Holocaust, who died in the Trail of Tears and the Conquistadors. There are billions of people have died in such up circumstances. Oh, no. We're going to get old man Carruthers who, like, he lost his sweetheart, like, those are the ghosts we're going to get. Come on.

[A]

I have never been more afraid to respond to a ghost take.

[C]

I mean, it's a pretty good one.

[A]

He raises some valid points. Yeah.

[B]

Or not.

[C]

Father Time's been around. He's seen a lot.

[B]

I've seen some things.

[C]

He's seen a lot of Pablo, seen some.

[A]

And so I needed to send you guys out to investigate the foremost paranormal story in sports, the legend of the Skirvin Hotel. For people who don't know about the Skirvin, this is an NBA story. This is a real story insofar as there has been lots of coverage about it. How would you. I mean, as a former NBA executive, guy who's on the road all of the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Explain the legend of the Skirv.

[B]

All right, so like all great ghost stories, this one is actually true.

[C]

Ooh.

[B]

Right. So in 2000, the Seattle SuperSonics, who had been sold a year earlier to a group of businessmen from Oklahoma City, moved to Oklahoma City. Right. And as you might imagine, Oklahoma City, not exactly booming metropolis. Right. So in the NBA, in the collective bargain agreement, there is a certain class of hotel you are allowed to put your team in.

[A]

Right. Typically, it's like a Ritz Carlton.

[B]

Yes, those type. Well, the closest thing to a hotel of that stature in Oklahoma at the time, in 2008, and for quite a while thereafter was the Skirvin Hotel. An old hotel is built in the early 1900s.

[C]

Yeah, it's 113 years old. It's art deco. It's a really gorgeous building. And it was founded by this guy, W.B. skirvin. William Skirvin, an Oklahoman. And this was a place where a lot of stuff went on. It was.

[A]

There was apparently.

[C]

Yeah, it was during Prohibition. So there were bootleggers running booze through there. There were ladies of the night, as they might have called them.

[A]

Father Time knows what's up.

[C]

Yeah, Father Time was there.

[B]

I've seen one or two of those.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you walk in and you think about the old grand hotels of the old west, right? And it looks like it. They've got, like that second floor banister where, you know, the madam of the house would lean over and say, come on, cowboys, we got them upstairs right here.

[A]

Father Time is sauc.

[C]

Yeah, Other times got a little bit.

[A]

Of pizzazz, Popped a hip out and so.

[B]

And the elevators, the outside doors are this very old school field. So as soon as you walk in, you feel like you're transported through time. But Pablo the Skirvin has a deep, dark secret.

[C]

You know W.B. skirvin, who I mentioned, Big Bad Bill. Well, no, I don't know if people. People called him that. He was just womanizing his way around Oklahoma City. And. And the legend is that he had an affair with a housekeeper named Effie. Effie got pregnant, and to Prevent a scandal, WB locked her in a room on the 10th floor of the hotel. Effie had the baby, allegedly went mad, jumped out of the window, holding the infant. I mean, like, horrific stuff. And she has apparently been haunting the hotel ever since. Pablo.

[A]

And there is, just for the record here, a lot of documented testimony from NBA players on podcast, various articles throughout the years, including one from Wesley Johnson.

[B]

Yes. Former Syracuse great, top three pick.

[A]

That's a very generous scouting report from.

[B]

Father Timer Great in Syracuse. What do you guys want from me? I'm a big Orange fan. I support all the New York area teams.

[A]

I forgot that regional New York fandom is also part. Part of Father Time's character. Wesley Johnson said he woke up, walked in the bathroom, and found his bathtub suddenly filled with water.

[C]

Yes. We've heard a lot of stories like this. I mean, Paul Pierce told us that he heard noises in the hallway and, like, banging and running and walking sounds in my room.

[B]

I remember that floor. I was on, I think maybe eighth or ninth floor, and I heard noises.

[C]

Which would make sense. The 10th floor is the haunted one.

[B]

I don't know if it was somebody running or somebody walking or banging on the door, but I did hear noises. But I'm just not afraid of that stuff. I mean, I just was like, well, if they gonna come in and get me, come get me.

[C]

I'm really glad that Paul at the end of that says, you know, fight me, basically.

[B]

I like the idea of Paul not being afraid of ghosts, but still believing in them enough to challenge them to a duel.

[C]

That. Yeah, exactly. That's it.

[A]

Paul Pierce, notably someone who had allegedly himself once.

[B]

That's a different PTFO episode, A very different one.

[C]

But we should do that, though, of.

[A]

Course, the problem with all of that testimony is that it's not from you guys, because the whole point of this is to make the, I think, most irresponsible expense report in the history of this company. And so you guys were put on assignment.

[C]

We stayed at the Skirvin for a night to check all of these alleged hauntings out for ourselves to find out.

[B]

Firsthand, are ghosts real? And if so, will they fight? Paul Pierce.

[A]

Insert dramatic music. All right, so I just need you to fully understand before we proceed any further here, why Amin and Charlotte are the perfect pair of correspondence for this particular Halloween mission. Because beyond co hosting Oddball Meadowlark Media's basketball culture show, airing Mondays Through Thursdays on YouTube and the DraftKings Network, nobody I know, knows more about NBA hotels than Amin Alhassan. He worked at basketball ops for the Suns, worked for the Knicks before that. He basically still lives on the road. And Charlotte Wilder, of course, is not only extremely thoughtful, she has been roving the country as a reporter for years, covering and also being weird. So earlier this month, PTFO assigned both of them to Oklahoma City, where the Thunder, who were playing the Rockets, are now projected to be the best team in the Western Conference by far. And we had them check in to the Skirvin. The Skirvin, whose website skirvanhilton.com wants you to know that it is, according to the landing page, an enormous type. Oklahoma City's most charming hotel.

[B]

It is pretty charming, yeah.

[C]

I mean, they're not lying.

[A]

So what's check in?

[C]

Like check in. So first of all, I'm in the Uber, driving up to the hotel and we turn a corner and all of a sudden I can see it. And I've been staring at pictures of this thing for weeks at this point. And around the corner and I see it and it's this old gothic art deco, southern, you know, rising from the plains of Oklahoma. And we turn the corner and I immediately just like my shoulders tensed up.

[B]

It looks creepy.

[C]

It's also majestic.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

Like it's gorgeous.

[B]

Sure. And in the inside it is very like, you could tell this is the craftsmanship of a century. And things are all handmade and with care and delicacy, not like all the mass produced stuff that we see right now. But Pablo, to go back to what you call it, the most charming Oklahoma City hotel or whatever the little slogan is.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

I think one of the funniest things about the Skirvin that I noticed is that they don't advertise in any way that this hotel is haunted, which is not like other experiences I've had. So, quick aside, when I worked for the Phoenix Suns, we had training camp in San Diego. The hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island. This is the hotel that they famously, the exterior is what they shot. Some Like It Hot, the movie with Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe back in the day. Right.

[C]

My favorite movie as a child, which might tell you something about me, explains a lot.

[A]

You having the same cinematic taste as Father Time does track.

[B]

I do love that movie. So anyway, so when you go to the Hotel Del Coronado, which we stayed at, and we had players complain of supernatural activity, one of the things is in the gift shop they're telling you all about hey, by the way, this room is haunted. And da, da, da. And you can buy memorabilia. And I Survived the Night with whatever her name is and all that stuff. They lean into it 100%. It is a central part of their marketing, along with Some Like It Hot. And also, you're in San Diego in this wonderful hotel on the beach, right? I walk into the Skirvin and I believe I was the first one there.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I walk in and I'm expecting on the walls we're gonna have all sorts of. Effie was here. And this is the story of Effy, right? Nothing. Not only that, our producers instructed us explicitly, do not bring up anything about ghosts when you're on the property. They don't like it.

[A]

So I just do need to jump in here to say that, yes, of course, we here at Pablo Torre finds out, did reach out to officials from Hilton hotels asking simply, is the Skirvin Hotel haunted? And as of Halloween Eve, we had not heard back. But I will say that the silence. This whole corporate renovation of a legend does remain haunting.

[C]

The only thing that is any evidence that anything happened there is the key to the room is framed on the.

[B]

Wall with absolutely no caption, no exploit. They have all these old pictures of. This is the time when the Miss America pageant was here in 1918. The only picture, the only thing hanging up on the wall that has no reference or explanation is the key to 1015, which is the room where allegedly, Effie took her effing life.

[A]

And so where did you guys stay?

[C]

So Amin checks in, I check in, and she gives me a room on the seventh floor, the woman behind the desk. I say, great. I go up to my room and I walk in. I was like, this isn't haunted. I was like, it feels. This feels lovely. The sun was shining through the curtains. I was like, great. And I was like, feeling good. I said, maybe I'm not gonna be that scared after all. And Amin texts me, he says, what room are you in? And I said, you know, 706 or whatever. And he was like, you're not on the 10th floor. And I was like, oh, right. So I call downstairs and I say, hey, do you have anything on the 10th floor? And she was like, yeah, I have one room. And I was like, thank God. And also, oh, no. And I go downstairs and she gives me a room, 1,600. I go upstairs, walk into this room, and immediately I was like, oh, this feels very different. I could feel an energy.

[A]

So what is the plan here? We send you guys on an assignment to break through the blockade of the wall of silence around the Skirvin's whole mythology. And Amin. What do you do to get to the bottom of what's really lurking inside these rooms?

[B]

Well, the first thing we did after we all got settled in our rooms is we got on a zoom call with a medium.

[C]

The medium's name was Dave Campbell. He was a lovely guy who offered to help us out and get on a Zoom. He does. Apparently he does readings through zoom of people's hotel rooms.

[A]

We're not the first people to hire this man.

[C]

No, no, no.

[A]

Like, he does this.

[C]

This is his career. His career is talking to people about. He said he can speak. He helps people connect with people who've passed on.

[B]

And most importantly, he loves going to haunted hotels. He investigates haunted hotels. He travels the country. He told us, though, he had never heard of the Skirvin, nor had he done any research whatsoever before he did the reading of our room.

[C]

He said he actually didn't know the name of the hotel we were in. He knew we were in Oklahoma City, but he didn't know where we were staying. So we get on this zoom and. And crazy. It was crazy. The first thing he says, we do a means room first.

[D]

This is a portal area right there in that room.

[B]

Okay?

[D]

They'll should be like. That's where they go in and out. So that's where you might experience them tonight, coming in and out. That's their entrance into that room. And also, I do feel like there's somebody that jumped out a window. Somebody jumped out a window a long time ago.

[B]

Okay, so this is pretty interesting, right? Effie was in room 1015. She jumped out the window, took her life and her baby's life. I was not in room 1015, ladies and gentlemen. Where's my camera? I was in room 1017, directly next door.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

So this is the part that's really important to point out, because any skeptic, myself included, could say, well, clearly he knew he was gonna do this hit with us, right? He Googled.

[A]

He did some Googles.

[B]

Haunted hotel Oklahoma. How many could there be? Oh, someone's scurvin. Okay. Someone jumped out the window. Cool. He didn't know I was on the 10th floor, and he didn't know I was in the room next door to the room in question. That is an important piece of information that, by the way, we did not confirm or deny with them. We just kind of was a. Huh, okay. And went on.

[A]

Dave, Charlotte had. What to say about you.

[C]

I'm like, getting scared Thinking about this. So it's like, okay, time to do my room. And I'm like giggling. I'm so nervous. You know what I mean? Where you're. I'm like laughing because I'm so nervous about what's gonna happen. So I turn my camera around. Dave looks at my room and this is what he said.

[D]

There's history on the property because I also see cowboy type and saloon. More like that saloon period dress and prostitute type. I don't know if that's what they call them then.

[A]

So, Pablo, I think I'm connecting some.

[C]

Dots now why I'm dressed like a cowboy.

[A]

That would be the first dot.

[C]

He also said the first thing he said when he saw my room was, oh, a lot of activity in here.

[D]

I also feel like there was a murder in this room. Or do you know of the murder?

[C]

I don't. I don't know. Do you guys know of a murder?

[B]

I. I don't. I have not heard anything about a murder.

[D]

I've been getting. It's. It's gunshot too.

[C]

In this room in ten. In this room.

[D]

I think it's that room.

[C]

Cool, cool, cool.

[D]

Usually, like, if there's a murder or something, that that energy goes into the walls, the floors, the ceiling. It's like a record player.

[C]

And so his saying all of this. And I walked into the room and it had smelled like tobacco and a perfume. I am not kidding you. Because the room 700, whatever that I was in before didn't smell like that. And I walked in, I was like, that's kind of a weird smell.

[D]

I do feel like you probably. You might smell that fragrance as well, like perfume.

[C]

I definitely smell something in my room.

[D]

Like a perfumish.

[C]

Yeah, Like I walked in. I walked in and I was like, was someone in here?

[B]

Yeah, and I can corroborate. I was just going to say, because I went to Charlotte's room and I.

[C]

Well, I was immediately like, guys, please come in here. I'm freaking the out.

[B]

I could definitely smell like there was a fragrance in there that's not. That was not present in my room.

[A]

So I should establish that you guys called zoomed with Dave the medium during the daytime.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So the fact that you're already kind of freaking out while there's light streaming through the curtains, the sheer curtains of the skirvin leads me to wonder what nightfall was like.

[C]

I was so scared. I immediately FaceTimed my husband, made him stay on the phone with me while I brushed my teeth. I was so terrified. Pablo.

[A]

I just Want to say I'm just a journalist in an orca costume in a safe studio. You guys sound ridiculous.

[C]

You weren't there, dude. Look, I'm admittedly an imaginative scaredy cat.

[A]

But, like, I felt something amin. What did you feel?

[B]

Sleepy. We had a big steak dinner. It was awesome, too. Look, Oklahoma was super cheap.

[A]

The Spencer Ford thing was a bad idea.

[C]

No, no, no. It's like the cheapest dinner anyone's ever spent.

[B]

A 16 ounce ribeye for like 30 bucks and then Maker's Mark Old Fashioned for $9. And that wasn't a special of the happy hour. That's just the prices out there. I mean, it was amazing. So when I got home, I turned on the tv.

[A]

Father Times Yelp review is out of control.

[B]

Five stars for those that go. The cattle end. That's the name of the place. Yeah, five stars. If you're in Oklahoma, you got to go check that place out.

[C]

It said the options for saves did t bone. It said President Bush's favorite cut when he would come to Oklahoma. So obviously I was like, well, that's the funniest thing. I have to get that. And it was a really good steak.

[B]

Anyways, I. I get back to my room. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's catch some ghosts tonight. All right, let's see what's on tv. And I just. And I just kn. I fell asleep, and next thing I knew, it was morning time. I was like, well, I guess that that was that for the scary haunted room.

[A]

Good journalism.

[C]

I mean, I. Yeah, I slept pretty soundly. Although I did dream that night that Dan LeBatard fired me. So I wonder if there's, like, talking in my sleep. And then I heard. I. There was a vague sound of, like, dice rolling.

[B]

It was a hot dice game in Charlotte's room.

[C]

Apparently I just heard it above my head. I don't know if it was someone dropping something on the floor of the room above me. I heard something.

[A]

The ghost of Michael Jordan and that security guard. I mean, Charlotte was hearing a lot.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Did you hear anything?

[B]

So, as I said, I went to sleep. I was out like a light. It was the greatest, one of the best nights of sleep I've had in my life. I woke up in the morning, however, to a very strange sound. Now let me go back to what the medium told us. He told us you might smell some things. He also told us one other bit that I think is. This is one of the things that made me a little less skeptical. He says one of the things that ghosts the ghosts are. They're not bad ghosts. They're just like mischief. They're tricksters. They're like messing around with you.

[D]

I don't know what room this is. I might figure it out later. But there's a younger male who's probably between 18 and 23, who was like a stowaway. He was a runaway stowaway joker. He plays tricks on people, he moves things, he hides things, and he's. He's not harmful. He's harmless, but he's just very practical joker type.

[B]

So one of the ghosts likes to turn on faucets in the sinks. Now, I was told before we went to Oklahoma by one of my buddies who's an assistant coach in the NBA, that his experience was went to the room faucet was on, turned it off, sat down, faucet turns on again, goes in there, turns it off, leaves the room, comes back, goes to sleep. Three in the morning, wakes up, the faucet is on again. That story is not published anywhere. I don't even know if I told my co host that story. So when this guy tells me about faucets turning on, I'm like, how did you know about that?

[C]

Right?

[B]

All right, fast forward. It's Thursday morning, and I'm like, what is that noise? It kind of sounds like. Like construction, but it's not construction. I know, because there's no construction happening. It's also not coming from next door or it's just above. So I'm like, maybe I'm just sleepy. And I look at the thing and it's not picking up levels. I'm like, whatever. Then I get up, I go to the bathroom, and then I hear it again. And I'm like, what? So then, all right, this is the part where I get a little graphic. I do my business in the bathroom.

[A]

It's not a buh, buh, buh, buh.

[B]

Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. It happened inside me too. So as I'm sitting there, other time I'm hearing it, and now it's loud, and it goes for about 10 to 12 seconds, and then it stopped. So, you know, I'm like, okay, let me record it next time. And every time I try to record it, it would stop right as I stopped recording. And I started getting annoyed. Like, all right, either do the noise or don't do the noise. And finally I caught it, and I think we have a clip of it.

[A]

That is the most menacing video of someone taking a. That I have ever seen.

[B]

Now this.

[A]

That is okay.

[C]

That's.

[A]

That's. I'll grant you that. That was spooky.

[C]

One other thing, which Amin was there for after he got off the zoom with Dave. They're all in my room because I'm freaking out because I'm like, cool. I'm in the murder room. Awesome. And Amin comes in, and Dave had said to us, like, if you want to. If you want to, just let them know you're there, say, hey, you know, I'm here. We'd love to see you. We come. We're. We're friendly. He was like, don't antagonize them. Don't say, like, hey, ghosts. You know, screw you, whatever. And so I was like, you know what, guys? I'm going to try it. So we're standing there, and I said, hey, we're here. I would love to know if you're out there. We're just saying hi. Like, we don't want to bother you. Thanks for letting us be in your space. I said, send us a sign if you're out there. And immediately the refrigerator goes on and starts buzzing, like, right? Amin was there.

[B]

I was there. The refrigerator did. Come on.

[C]

We haven't told you the craziest story we heard, though, Pablo, while we were.

[A]

In Oklahoma City so far, Right. What I'm getting is a lot of mechanical errors.

[B]

Well, I don't know if you want.

[C]

To put it that way.

[A]

Not a great Yelp review from the perspective of this place has plumbing and electrical issues.

[B]

I don't know that. I don't know if the sound that I heard was mechanical in nature, because nobody else heard. Wasn't the AC kicking on. It wasn't a fridge. It was just there. I mean, what you heard there is kind of what it was. It was just everywhere. And it wasn't scary. It was just kind of like, what the hell is that? And nobody had an answer.

[A]

And so this is the point where we knew we needed to turn to a different source. Another reporter, in fact, who happened to be in town for this Rockets Thunder game and who has also been on the road all around the league for decades now.

[E]

My name is Adrian Chavaria. I am with the Houston Rockets. I've been their Spanish radio broadcaster For. For 29 years.

[A]

And Adrian, crucially, had nothing to do with Amin and Charlotte's overnight investigation or our entire mission here. But what he told us about his own stay at the Skirvin turned out to be incredibly detailed.

[C]

He went to bed at 10 o'.

[A]

Clock.

[C]

He was staying at the Skirvin at 2:17am he woke up to pee. He turned the light on. He went to the bathroom, turned the light off, went back to bed, closed his eyes, felt the lights on, opened his eyes, and there was a mysterious, glowing female figure at the end of his bed. He looked at the clock. It was like 2:18 or 2:19. The toilet was still filling back up with water. But he wanted proof from inside the hotel.

[E]

At some point, I said, well, maybe I can grab my phone real quick and see if it's. If I can take a picture so people, you know, I can believe it and people can believe it as well. So by the time I turned to the nightstand to grab the phone and I looked back, this person, this ghost was literally on top of me, like, floating face to face. And I still get goosebumps telling the story. I still get my hair that sticks up the back of my neck. And I didn't know what to do.

[A]

And.

[E]

And again, people have asked me, how's the face? Or can we. You describe it? And I can't. It was just a. You knew it was a woman. It was kind of glowing. And I guess I wasn't her type because she got real close to my face, looked down, up and down, like, checking me out. And then all of a sudden, she just moved towards my right and went through the wall. And that was it.

[A]

Number one, that guy was not joking. I grant him that. This was not a performance. You didn't hire an actor. Number two, I like how his friends were like, was she a butterface, though?

[B]

No.

[A]

And Adrian was like, no, actually, she turned me down.

[B]

She thought I was the butterface.

[C]

Yeah, she checked him out and was like, I'm gonna go through the walls.

[A]

I. I just want to ask you guys this question bluntly. Then. Having gone through all of this, having stayed at this hotel overnight, having been. It sounds like Charlotte, in your case, been traumatized on some level by this hotel. Do you believe the Skirvin Hotel is actually. This is my intellectual brain demanding accountability. Do you believe it's actually haunted?

[C]

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Pablo, we have another theory. This isn't. This isn't Scooby Doo. We're gonna go.

[A]

Was that Scooby Doo?

[B]

Was that your. Your accent?

[C]

Scooby Doo? This isn't Scooby Doo, Pablo. We have analytics.

[A]

So you're refusing to tell me what your actual feelings are about this? In truth, because you have a statistical case to make.

[C]

Yeah. Since Pablo the Thunder moved to Oklahoma City, they have the seventh best home record in the NBA. They win 64% of their games at home. We have the research right here. In a league where home court advantage doesn't really matter that much anymore, isn't as pronounced as maybe it once was.

[B]

You know, and you got to think about it, the sonics with Oklahoma City 2008 08.09. They were awful. That's how they got to draft James Harden third overall. Right? And then they have your Harden, Westbrook, Durant era that goes however many years. And then it's Durant and Westbrook, and then it's just Westbrook after that. And now you got a couple years there where they're not so great. Then Chris Paul gets traded. They're all right that year, he gets traded the year after that. Now they're bad.

[C]

Total rebuild.

[B]

And through it all, they still maintain the seventh best win percentage in the NBA at home.

[A]

I give credence to that. Not simply because Amin looks kind of like James Harden right now.

[B]

In a few years.

[A]

In a few years. But also because you're right, home court advantage is not really so much a thing anymore. It's like an old school sort of phenomenon. But again, like, there are lots of other reasons why that could be the case. You know, home cooking, the fans.

[B]

I don't need to tell you myself or my theories. I can let the New York Knicks tell you. See, you're a Knick fan, Pablo Torre.

[A]

Or you are the spookiest story of all.

[B]

The Sixers might have something to say about that. What's happening with them?

[A]

Great, but we need to go there.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

January 2010, the Knicks are staying in Oklahoma City for two nights. They're there to play the Thunder. And multiple Knicks report that the Skirvin is haunted. The night before the game, Eddy Curry says he slept for only two hours. Eddie Curry, if you don't know. Seven foot tall, bear of a man, right? Let's take a look at what Eddy Curry had to tell us.

[F]

I went to use the bathroom, I came back out, my TV was on already. And I'm just like, nah, that's kind of weird. I know for a fact I did not turn my TV on. And it was on some like, crazy channel, like some spooky devil type. I'm like, nah, bro. Exorcist type movie. I'm like, nah, this is.

[C]

Nah.

[F]

So at that point, I hit Nate. I'm like, nate, what you doing? And it's late at night. It's already like 10, 11, 12 at night. I stayed in Nate's room until he kicked me out. He literally Was like, eddie, I cannot stay up any longer. I go back to my room. It was definitely the worst night's sleep I ever got. I definitely found myself reading the Bible that night.

[B]

And so I was like, oh, I gotta talk to Nate Robinson. I've gotta find out from him if this is true and what his experiences were. So I got on the phone, I texted Nate Robinson, I said, hey, we're doing a story about this hotel. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to read to you verbatim, please, what Nate Robinson's response was to me. I'll give you one quote. That hotel, I'll never stay there ever again.

[A]

It sounds like the Knicks didn't do great if that's his reaction to their experience staying over.

[B]

Well, Pablo, that's very prescient of you, because the Knicks got blown out 106 to 88 the next day.

[A]

Again, the point here being that the Knicks were terrible generally. Right? I think that year. Let me look this up real quick. It's hard to type in these.

[C]

The Orca Finn on the computer.

[A]

Okay, 29 and 53 is what the Knicks were. This was the David Lee Knicks. I remember getting a cardboard poster outside of msg, and David Lee was like the centerpiece of that. That is not a joke. That is a real fact.

[C]

Okay, Pablo, you're skeptical, but we have more analytics here. You're a numbers guy. You believe in science.

[A]

I want to be. I want to be all of these.

[C]

Okay, so Lou Williams, who was on the Lakers at the time. This is wild. He chose to pay out of pocket to stay at a different hotel, would not stay at the Skirvin, reportedly because he didn't want to, and I quote, mess with Effie. Okay, the next day, the lakers lost by 40. The rest of the team stayed there. Lakers lost by 40, but their leading scorer was Lou Williams.

[B]

Bingo bango.

[A]

Again, though, the Lakers with Lou Williams as their best player. Pretty bad.

[C]

Okay, sure. But here we have another horrifying story that has to do with the Lakers. October 2016, the week of Halloween, the Lakers stay at the Skirvin. Everybody but Larry Nance and Lou Williams, who again, paid out of pocket to stay somewhere else. But Meta, world peace. Run our test.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Told the Orange County Register that he was watching the movie Money Monster. Meta recalls and I quote, the ghosts were all over me. They touched me all over the place. I'm taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places the next day.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait. So they swiped right on Meta. Oh, they sure did left on Adrian.

[C]

The next day, though, after Meta says he was assaulted by this ghost. He scored zero points and the Lakers lost by 17.

[A]

Meta only played 3 minutes and 43 seconds, guys.

[C]

Well, maybe because he was so tired from not sleeping, he was like, I don't have it in me today.

[A]

I just don't think journalistically that the terrible Knicks and the terrible Lakers are enough here to be dispositive of this case.

[B]

Well, consider the case of three time world champion Danny Green, who's played in Oklahoma City 25 times, right? He averaged more minutes per game in games at Oklahoma City than what his career average was everywhere else, and yet his points per game were down 20%.

[A]

But still, this is. We are simply connecting like disparate dots here.

[B]

I don't need to tell you, I'm gonna let Danny Green tell you himself.

[G]

Well, the times that I remember playing there, they were really good. They had a good team. So they had us, KD and James. But I think, you know, when it comes to athletes and we're based off mental and routine, when something throws that off, it definitely has an effect. And it could be anything that you may or may not believe in. But either way, hearing those rumors, those things start. Certain things stemming from the, you know, when there's smoke, there's fire. The smoke that you hear about, like the smoke that you see about these things could affect you even if you don't believe in it.

[B]

So to be clear, Danny said, I never experienced anything and I don't believe in that stuff because I'm in control. But he said, look, you're talking around the league about a bunch of guys, many of whom are in their early 20s. They're not that far removed from childhood. It is totally believable that they could believe in these things and that could disrupt their rhythm and their routine and affect them the next day. I even talked to an assistant coach who was on that staff on that Nick team that had those issues.

[C]

The Nate Robinson.

[B]

Yes. And I said, well, coach, did you. He said, I didn't see anything. And I said, well, what do you think it is? He says, these guys, from the plane to the bus ride to the hotel, all they're doing is telling ghost stories to each other. One time this happened, one time that happened. So what do you think happens when after at least an hour, if not more of this, we all go to our rooms, the lights are off and it's all quiet. And now you're all by yourself. Of course they're scared. They're kids.

[A]

So what you're saying is that the issue with the NBA is that a large number of these players are basically. Charlotte Wilder. It occurs to me that you've been evading this question that I've been trying to get the answer to. To find out about this entire time which remains. Do you believe that the Skirvin Hotel, personally, do you believe this is actually haunted? And instead, you presented me with all sorts of statistics and anecdotes and, yes. Videos and interviews. But how do you guys actually feel about this? This?

[C]

Okay, so obviously, everybody's heard how spooked I was and terrified the entire time. But since coming back to New York, I've been like. All of that was explainable. All, like, the. I heard dice rolling. Someone just dropped something on the ceiling above me there. The fridge went on. Okay, the fridge went on. Fridges do that. Like, all of these things can be explained. And I have felt like it made me realize the. The power of what Danny Green was talking about, what. What the assistant coach on the Knicks was talking about, where, like, we went there to find ghosts. We were in it. I was scared. We talked to this medium who told me stuff, and I just, like, you get into this mindset, and it also sort of is like the closest to childhood I've had as an adult in a long time. Because it's like, well, when I was a kid, I believed all this stuff. I thought there was a monster in my closet and I would have to befriend it so that it didn't, you know, eat me or whatever. And so it's this feeling of, like, it's more fun to believe. But, Pablo, I think coming back, I'm like, I don't think so. But also, it's not about us. This is about these NBA players who believe that this is haunted.

[B]

Yeah. And that's one of the things that Danny Green talked about. He told a story of a teammate who, by the way, we did digging it was Tim Duncan. He didn't tell us, but. Sorry, Danny, we're doing our job over here. Tim Duncan was accosted by spirits at a hotel. They say that in the Bay Area when they were over there to play the warriors, and they never stayed in that hotel again. But the only reason they stayed there was because every other hotel was booked up. And that is the crux of it, is that there were options available in the Bay Area that made it so they didn't have to stay at that hotel anymore. In Oklahoma, there were no other options. For years and years and years, you had to stay at the Skirvin.

[A]

Wait, so there's this other new hotel now in which no one is having these issues.

[B]

No one's having these issues. And now it just so happens the Thunder are really good right now. So that home record is safe for now.

[A]

But what you're. What you just hinted at, though, is this larger phenomenon of there being other hotels that NBA players authentically, sincerely believe is with their performance in games.

[B]

Well, I'm glad that you said that so I can make this correction right. You said NBA players in Oklahoma. There's one pro sports team in town. It's the Oklahoma City Thunder. So it's only NBA players who are telling these stories. In Milwaukee, however, there's the Pfister Hotel, and NBA teams have stayed there. But you know what else stays there? MLB teams. Mookie Betts, the Dodger went on Jimmy Kimmel the other day, and he explained why he wouldn't stay at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

[D]

I'm pretty sure everybody in here is.

[B]

Familiar with ghosts, and I'm pretty sure any. Most people in here would be scared.

[D]

If ghosts were in your rooms.

[B]

I would.

[D]

And so. And I don't know if I'd be scared or not.

[B]

I'm gonna assume I would. Mm. But I just would prefer not to find out.

[C]

Not only that, the head of security for the Thunder when we were in Oklahoma City, told me that he'd had an experience where he heard a bell ringing outside his door at the Pfister in Milwaukee. On opened the door, there was nobody there, and it was a long hallway. Someone could not have disappeared that quickly.

[A]

Okay, this now feels like you guys are angling for another expense report in Milwaukee.

[B]

I would rather go to the Del Coronado. I mean, it's in San Diego. The Padres play there.

[A]

So in so many words, what I found out today is that I personally still cannot intellectually bring myself to believe that ghosts are real.

[C]

You weren't there.

[A]

Having. You weren't there, man, justify this entire reporting trip. But what I do genuinely believe is that the athletes who stay at these allegedly haunted hotels, in the way that the brain can interfere with your actual performance as an athlete, are suffering negative consequences because of these, quote, unquote, ghosts. Which leads me to, I think, a larger conclusion, which is that the way to save any other struggling franchise is to. Is to get your own haunted hotel.

[B]

No.

[A]

Why? Why. Why are we not doing that? Why. Why is every city not already in possession of a deeply haunted hotel with some housekeeper or cowboy or whatever the.

[B]

Well, Pablo this is clear. This is a small market advantage. You can't do that in New York. Too many hotels. You can do it in Milwaukee and Oklahoma and other. These other small. Memphis. Memphis. You're on the list. You need a haunted hotel.

[C]

Memphis is haunted. They have a haunted hotel, for sure. We just gotta find it.

[A]

Amin and Charlotte, thank you for your reporting. And happy Halloween.

[C]

Thanks for sending us to Oklahoma. Pablo, thanks for giving me nightmares for the rest of my life.

[B]

Thank you for the ribeye steak, the best ribeye ever had. And those makers mark old fashions. Nine bucks. Who would have known?

[A]

To quote the guy who loved that steak. Mission accomplished. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out. A Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

[B]

Sam.