Want to hear a ghost story? Everything in this post is 100% true.

Where did I leave off last time?

Right. Gorgeous Hotel Utica.

Courtesy of Hotel Utica

So.

Husband and I were invited to tour the notoriously haunted Hotel Utica in Utica, NY. We didn't experience anything weird whilst there because as generally sane people, we probably didn't want to. Personally, I have been trained from birth not to poke around unsettled energy on purpose. (IYKTYK)

So there's that. I was at Hotel Utica on a "ghost tour" as a journalist. I was intentional not the engage in any funny business. And no funny business happened. UNTIL...

...husband and I got home.

via GIPHY

As I mentioned last time, we palo santo'd and saged ourselves when we got home. It was late for me because I host a morning show. So I'm settling in to go to bed and...

Before I get to that... remember I told you about Charlie? No? (see Part 1) There's a notorious trickster-esque ghost that supposedly inhabits the lobby of Hotel Utica. It is reported that he does all sorts of weird stuff like move things around. Hide keys. Drop things. Touch people. You know, hair-raising stuff that if you aren't paying attention, you'll start trying to fight the air around you.

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So yeah, Charlie does stuff. A Townsquare co-worker allegedly had a run-in with Charlie at one of her visits to Hotel Utica. She was saying out loud and in essence that ghosts were hocus pocus and that Charlie isn't real or some such. And at the moment of her verbal musings, she felt a finger in her eye. Not a living person finger, mind you. An invisible one. And soon after, her eye began to swell. To the tune that she had to leave and get treatment. The unexplained swelling lasted for several days. I'm actually surprised she went back to that hotel to join the "ghost tour" I mentioned in part 2. That would have been my grand opening/grand closing moment. But alas.