Bettye Adams long suspected her hotel was haunted, but now she has no doubts.
Adams said she always felt the Alaskan Hotel & Bar, which she’s co-owned since 1977, might have some ghostly guests, but an episode of the Travel Channel series “Portals to Hell” filmed at the hotel has made her a believer.
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“I’ve had some stuff happen, but I barely paid attention to it,” Adams said. “I was not exactly a nonbeliever … but I just didn’t have time to mess with it or delve into it. When I saw the video, it just shocked me.”
“I don’t say this hotel is supposed to be haunted, I say this hotel is haunted,” she added.
“Portals to Hell” is a new show featuring Jack Osbourne and paranormal investigator Katrina Weidman. Osbourne, is a television personality and the son of rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. Weidman has been on paranormal TV shows “Paranormal Lockdown” and “Paranormal State.”
Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman prepare to investigate the basement of the Alaskan Hotel, which will be shown in an episode of the TV show “Portals to Hell.” (Courtesy Photo | Travel Channel)
“They said it was haunted,” Adams said. “They said they found paranormal activity.”
Adams said the footage depicts floating orbs of light in the hotel’s basement, which Adams said has been the site of at least one death over the years.
The footage reminded Adams that she had seen similar orbs of light floating in frames near the stage by the bar portion of the business, she said.
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Plus, Adams said over the past 42 years, she and her employees have had mild paranormal run-ins. She said she has seen figures moving out of the corner of her eyes, dogs have raised their hackles and barked at thin air and the feeling that something else is in the room is a familiar one.
She said in a couple of instances, workers have resigned after spooky sightings, but whatever might be present doesn’t seem particularly malicious.
“Besides getting my employees to quit, which is as nefarious as it gets, I think,” Adams said.
The Alaskan Hotel & Bar is featured in the first episode of the new Travel Channel TV show “Portals to Hell.” (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
The hotel is featured in the first episode of the first season of the new series, which was scheduled to be shown at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Alaska Time Friday on the Travel Channel, according to the station’s website. It was also shown again Saturday at noon, per the online schedule.
“As an old gold mining hotel, the Alaskan Hotel was built for luxury but it also has a notorious past of crime and prostitution … and a reputation for demonic activity. As the team begins its investigation, things take an unexpected turn to the dark side,” states the episode’s online synopsis.
Adams said the bar will have the TV tuned to the episode Friday night.
Filming for the show took place during October and took about a week, Adams said.
“They stayed in different rooms that were haunted in the hotel, and they also took over the hotel and rented it for the night, and I didn’t really realize they were going to take over the hotel entirely,” Adams said.
Still, she said she is glad it happened.
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However, she said odd and possibly paranormal things happened at the hotel about the time filming started.
“Things just started happening. It was really strange,” Adams said. “When they came in, I had a shelf fall off the wall. It was nailed to the wall, and it just fell off. I had a mirror on the wall in one of my bathrooms fall off the wall with someone barely touching it. I don’t have stuff like that happen.”
While Adams saw some of the footage shot at the Alaskan Hotel, she hasn’t yet seen the full episode.
“I’m excited and a little scared to see what they found,” Adams said. “I was looking at little clips, and it looks scary.”
• Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.
