Up and Vanished Weekly | UNRESOLVED: Elisa Lam

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hey up and vanished listeners it's rob we wanted to share with you that over the next month we'll be spotlighting episodes of our new sister series up and vanished weekly hosted by payne lindsay and Maggie Freeling.

Every week, Up and Vanished Weekly dives into a new missing or murdered murdered person's case, bringing you interviews with experts and advocates who take you behind the scenes of the investigation.

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Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of Up and Vanish Weekly.

I'm Maggie Freeling.

I remember the first big trip I took with my friends.

We had just graduated, and the world was our oyster.

We drove from Massachusetts to Texas, and I had never left the Northeast.

It was the trip of a lifetime.

That's how Elisa Lamb felt.

The 21-year-old was planning to leave Canada and travel the west coast of the United States.

She was angsty and restless and wanted to explore.

But what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime ended in disaster when Elisa vanished without explanation.

Weeks later, she was eventually found deceased.

But the circumstances surrounding her death and disappearance have left many wondering, what happened in the moments leading up to Elisa Lamb's death?

It's the morning of February 19th, 2013 in downtown Los Angeles.

Residents and staff of the Cecil Hotel are just beginning their day.

Inside, the front desk is especially busy.

Over the last few days, multiple reports of low water pressure in the units have been coming in.

The hotel dispatches a maintenance worker to check the water tanks, located on the roof of the building.

The hotel has four water tanks, each measuring 10 feet high and holding a thousand gallons of water.

The tanks supply both guest rooms as well as an on-site kitchen and coffee shop.

As the maintenance worker climbs up and begins his inspection, something immediately stands out.

The maintenance hatch on one of the tanks appears to be open.

He makes his way towards the open hatch and looks inside.

What he sees is horrifying.

It's the body of a young woman floating in water only feet below the hatch.

After arriving on scene, it does not take long for authorities to identify the woman as 21-year-old Elisa Lamb.

Elisa had been reported missing from the Cecil Hotel three weeks earlier.

But with one mystery solved, Police must now piece together another.

Did Elisa willingly go into the water tank?

Or did someone, or something,

send her to a watery grave?

From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanish Weekly with Payne Lindsay and Maggie Freeling.

Elisa Lam was first-generation Chinese Canadian, born and raised in Vancouver.

She attended the University of British Columbia and was described by friends and acquaintances as friendly, bubbly, and outgoing.

But Elisa had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression.

She was struggling along with her family to understand what was happening.

Elisa wrote about it on her blog.

I feel I'm wasting my time compared to my fellow peers.

I had a relapse at the start of the term and had to drop two of the three courses I was taking.

Now I'm down to one course and I have missed three weeks of classes.

Elisa had not taken a course since summer of 2012.

She was prescribed multiple medications, but treating serious mental illness is a process.

Elisa still felt restless and aimless.

She wrote on her blog, I must travel for sanity.

I'm freaking 21 now.

My youth is fading and I haven't even lived.

So in 2013, she packed up and left for San Diego to start a solo adventure around California, kind of like a way to rediscover herself and figure out what she wants to do in life.

Elisa checked in with her parents every day.

She also checked in with her blogs.

She announced she had made it to California and was looking for recommendations.

At first, everything seemed to be going in a positive direction.

Elisa was in a good place, but based on what's been reported not long after she arrived in LA,

things went downhill.

Elisa arrived in LA and checked into the Cecil Hotel on January 28th.

Elisa started acting strangely not long after check-in.

Elisa was sharing her room with several other women who would eventually report threatening behavior to hotel management.

According to the women, Elisa had been leaving threatening notes on their beds and at one point locked the women out of the room.

room.

Eventually, Elisa was moved to a private room.

Also during her stay, Elisa attended a taping of a late-night television show, but according to police, was escorted out by security for acting erratically.

On January 31st, the last day Elisa was seen alive, she spent the morning at a local bookstore.

purchasing gifts for her family.

According to the bookstore manager, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

But later that day, something appeared to be significantly wrong with Elisa.

Hotel staff noticed her wandering the hotel, at times screaming out.

At one point, management had to intervene after Elisa entered a restricted area of the hotel.

After being redirected by staff, Elisa made her way towards a bank of elevators.

The following day, Elisa was scheduled to leave LA and travel to Santa Cruz, but she never checked out.

Her parents, who were accustomed to speaking with Elisa daily, were now growing worried.

They had not heard from their daughter since January 30th.

Fearing the worst, they called the LA PD and reported Elisa missing.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

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Based on what I saw on her blog, Elisa seemed excited about exploring and getting out on her own, but she was also going through a hard time, struggling with treating bipolar one, a serious mental illness often accompanied by hallucinations, breaks of reality, and paranoia.

She was also suffering from depression.

So sometimes her posts are a bit melancholic, but I would say nothing particularly alarming.

It looks like a typical angsty youth blog to me.

Things are copastetic until Elisa checks into the infamous Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles.

The Hotel Cecil, or the Cecil Hotel, as it's become known, has a long and sordid history, one which Elisa likely did not know because the hotel she checked into wasn't actually called the Cecil.

It was renamed as part of a rebrand to get away from the shadow cast over the Cecil.

The Hotel Cecil opened in 1927 as a 700-room luxury hotel.

The former manager described it as sort of the Titanic of hotels.

If you've seen American Horror Story Hotel, it's loosely based on the Cecil.

But over the years, the Cecil became a shell of its former self, and the reputation it gained as the suicide hotel didn't help.

Starting in 1931, a guest died by suicide in his room after taking poison capsules, triggering a series of suicides through the 40s and 50s.

The Cecil changed from a classy hotel to a budget dive.

Then in 1964, a well-liked long-term resident of the hotel named Pigeon Goldie was found raped and murdered in her room, giving the Cecil the more nefarious reputation it has today.

Into the 80s and 90s, as the war on drugs raged, the 50 city blocks surrounding the Cecil became increasingly dangerous.

The neighborhood known as Skid Row was targeted as a place to condense marginalized populations into.

People released from prison, jail, or psychiatric hospitals were dropped off in this neighborhood, away from the rest of LA.

Today, Skid Row is home to the largest stable unhoused population in the country.

According to 2024 statistics, there are nearly 3,800 people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row, with about half of them unsheltered.

They live in tense cities of tarps, blankets, and boxes.

Others live in shelters, and the few remaining single-room occupancy hotels like the Cecil.

Perhaps not surprisingly, as the neighborhood destabilized, it attracted crime and violence, and the Cecil became the residence of multiple serial killers, including Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker.

Ramirez is said to have committed 14 murders while living at the Cecil.

Austrian serial killer Jack Unterberger also stayed at the Cecil.

While there, he killed at least three women.

Amy Price, the former manager of the hotel, claimed she witnessed 80 deaths in the 10 years she worked there.

But again, Elisa wasn't staying in the Cecil.

She was staying at a chic hostel called the Stay on Main.

It was indeed the Cecil, but it was rebranded in 2011.

While half of the hotel remained the Cecil, a place for long-term, low-income residents and stays with the CD history attached.

The Stay on Main was the other side, a completely separate hotel on separate floors from the Cecil.

But there was one caveat, all of the guests used the same elevator.

And it was inside one of these elevators that investigators would find a truly bizarre and the only piece of evidence.

By the time police arrived to search Elise's hotel room, housekeeping had already been through.

They had bagged up her personal belongings left behind, including her computer, a wallet, and medications.

According to police, the room had been left in disarray, but there was no sign of foul play nor forced entry.

Scent-tracking dogs were brought into the hotel, searching all floors, including the roof.

According to reports, while inside the hotel, the dogs were able to hit on Elisa's scent, tracking it back to her room.

At one point, one of the dogs led police to a large window overlooking the street and leading to a fire escape.

An autopsy revealed no injuries that would point to foul play.

and no illicit substances were found in the toxicology report.

During this time, police were also reviewing security camera footage of the hotel around the time Elisa went missing.

In particular, one haunting video stood out to investigators.

A camera inside one of the hotel's elevators had captured Elisa on January 31st, the night she went missing.

In the video, Elisa seems to be acting erratically, mashing elevator buttons, and even appearing to communicate with someone.

The door remained open throughout Elisa's time appearing in the video.

At one point, she is seen peering out fearfully into the corridor, only to move back into the elevator and hide in the corner.

Eventually, Elisa exited the elevator and disappeared from view.

Two weeks into the investigation, Authorities make the decision to release a portion of the video taken in the elevator in hopes of securing new leads.

The video quickly goes viral and leads internet sleuths to propose the question,

could supernatural forces possibly be responsible for the disappearance of Elisa Lamb?

The video of Elisa Lamb in the hotel elevator is something you have to see for yourself.

Anyone who watches the video has a different interpretation of what they see, making the possibilities of what happened to Elisa endless.

Some believe they see a shoe in the video, indicating someone is outside of the elevator.

And it's also interesting that the elevator door doesn't shut at all.

It doesn't even attempt.

So some people wonder if a person is outside the elevator holding a button, keeping it open.

And if there was, was this someone Elisa was with?

Did she know them?

Did they do something to her?

Remember, anyone in the Stay on Main or the Cecil could use the same elevator.

Perhaps one of the Cecil guests harmed Elisa.

It wouldn't be the first time in the Cecil Hotel.

Or maybe someone following Elisa's blog.

Investigators explored the idea of someone on the internet stalking Elisa.

She was reaching out asking for recommendations.

People also wonder if the behavior Elisa displayed in the elevator may indicate she was running from someone.

She seems like she's hiding at points and she's definitely in distress.

And Elisa was found naked in the water tower.

Her clothes were at the bottom of the tank, implying that someone else did something to her body.

Yet there is no evidence anyone hurt or killed Elisa, nor any evidence she was put put in the water tank by someone else.

So that leaves us to Elisa.

Elisa seemed excited about life, but she was dealing with a new mental health diagnosis.

And Elisa's family said she had a history of not taking her medication, and she's had hallucinations and paranoia after that.

Elisa's family also said she wound up in the hospital after not taking her medication in the past.

Elisa's death was ruled undetermined and later changed to an accident.

Her cause of death was drowning.

She entered the tank alive.

Toxicology reports didn't find any drugs or alcohol in Elisa's system, and her autopsy revealed only trace amounts of her medication, suggesting she was not taking them consistently despite having recently filled her prescriptions.

So, was Elisa off her medication and seeing things?

It's very possible.

Her diagnosis was new and very serious.

She was still working through everything.

And often when someone takes medication and it helps and they feel better, which it's supposed to, that can also lead people to have a false sense of being better.

And so they can stop taking medication.

That's a very common situation.

And perhaps Elisa was high on life, feeling great about her vacation, and decided to stop taking her medication.

I completely feel that.

The medications Elisa was on also have pretty major side effects, and many people also choose not to take them because of that.

So let's say she was disoriented and walked to the roof.

Officials said the doors were locked and triggered by alarms.

So how could she get to the roof?

Dogs traced her scent to a fire escape on the fifth floor, which led to the roof, indicating that it's possible she went up that way.

And many can't help but think, considering the Cecil is known as one of the most haunted hotels in the world, that perhaps the answer isn't something we can fully comprehend.

Some believe Elisa was playing a paranormal game in the elevator, known as the elevator game.

It's a Korean game that allegedly takes you to an alternate dimension through a specific button sequence on an elevator.

Some think Elisa was playing this game with one of the many spirits that are said to haunt the Cecil Hotel.

Can Elisa see someone in the video that we can't?

I'll admit, I'm much better versed in reporting on serious mental illness than the paranormal, but Payne spoke with paranormal investigator Shane Pittman for an episode of Talking to Death.

Shane has starred in the Holzer files on the Discovery Channel and 21 Days Haunted on Netflix.

Shane has spent countless hours in allegedly haunted buildings, some of the most notorious in the world, like the Hotel Cecil.

And he spoke to Payne about how his search for answers, he says, has led to a better understanding of his own mental health.

When we come back from a quick break, we'll bring you Payne's conversation with Shane.

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And now, here's John with this week's critical missing case.

Today's case comes to us from Namos.

Authorities are seeking help locating a man who went missing from the Quincy, California area a few weeks back.

41-year-old Bradley J.

Presta Giacomo was last seen on Sunday, August 3rd, 2025.

It's believed that he left a friend's residence around 2.30 a.m.

and he was supposed to attend a party, but he never showed up.

and he hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Now, it's reported that on Tuesday, August 5th, Bradley's black and green 1995 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup was found just a few miles south of Quincy.

Multiple search and rescue teams have been sweeping the area for Bradley, but they're looking for tips with any information about where he may have gone.

Bradley's described as a white male, six foot three inches tall, with a weight of 186 pounds and brown eyes.

He has a goatee and brown hair that's short on the sides and pulled back in a ponytail.

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And lastly, if you've seen Bradley or you know any information about where he could be, please contact the Plumas County Sheriff's Office at 530-283-6375.

All right, we're back.

Thanks for coming to me, man.

Hey, thank you for having me, man.

I appreciate it.

I just want to ask you point blank, to be honest.

Are ghosts real?

I would say yes.

You would say yes.

I would say yes, but I would say, as far as like defining what ghosts and spirits are, I've changed my whole opinion on that.

Okay.

I know that we're communicating with someone or something,

but I don't really know what it is.

I just know it's beyond our scope of understanding right now.

So in my opinion,

how I label ghosts right now is something that that I cannot see that I'm communicating with.

Yeah, I would say ghosts are real.

Okay, so what do you think it is?

You know, I don't know.

I have a lot of theories on that.

Like, it could be interdimensional.

It could be

ourselves.

So, there's this interesting story

from a guy.

He tells where

he was a young kid and he walked into his kitchen to get a sandwich.

And he was like five or six years old.

He walks in and he he sees this hooded figure opening up his refrigerator and it freaked him the hell out and he ran out of there scared to death fast forward though he's about in his early 20s he's in the same house he's visiting his parents and he runs down to get a snack which is a peanut butter sandwich

and he runs down and he opens the refrigerator he's got a hoodie on and he sees a small figure in

the doorway.

And at first he's like, this is strange.

It doesn't make any sense.

But it freaked him out again.

But then he remembered when he was six years old, he saw a hooded figure in the same exact spot that he was standing to go get a snack.

And when he opened the refrigerator, and he's thinking that maybe he saw a version of himself in the future.

So maybe we're haunting ourselves.

I know it's kind of a confusing thing.

So he saw a ghost essentially two times and like it potentially actualized that event.

Right.

But what does that mean to you?

Is there some sort of time plane that we don't understand?

Is that an imprint?

I believe it is an imprint.

I do believe that it's a time thing too, because time is a man-made construct.

I believe that we are more powerful than we kind of give ourselves credit for.

I use this analogy all the time that, you you know i can walk into a room after a couple had been done fighting and they're not saying a word i can walk in but you can feel the tension from that argument even though they don't say anything to you at all are you actually feeling something or are you observing them being different

well i think it's a a

it's a mixture of both

Because I've had this happen more than one time where you walk in, they're off doing their own thing, but you can feel that something's not right.

You can feel like an energy or something.

Right.

You can feel like a shift.

But, you know, if you're walking in certain places, you know you're on high alert.

It's something within you that is telling you, hey, be careful.

It's that gut instinct.

And I think that that has something to do with it.

I think that we have more influence over certain hauntings than we, you know, we may realize.

So a lot of people say, oh, this place is haunted or whatever.

And I think a lot of times it has to do with the living more than what we perceive as the dead.

Living is in the observer of it or the observer is sometimes the people that are inhabiting the place that are living there.

Okay.

I think sometimes it has to do with maybe the environment, things that are going on, stress levels.

and whatever that energy is emitting at the time could play a factor in some of these strange and unusual things that's going on in people's lives.

Okay, so instead of it just being the Hollywood version of, you know, it's your dead great-grandpa, it's maybe your own energy in your life interacting with your surroundings in some sort of way.

Absolutely.

It's observable.

Absolutely.

Others even?

Right.

You know, there's been since the dawn of time, probably what, millions, billions of people that have passed from this physical plane.

And we can find them to structures so often.

We'll say this place is haunted.

This place over here is haunted.

But I feel that, you know, if that's true, we pass on and some, a fraction of us stay, then

they're everywhere.

Or a piece of that person that was left behind is everywhere.

So we can encounter them.

you know, daily.

I feel like there's this sort of Hollywood image of, or I I guess Hollywood portrayal of good and evil so frequently when it comes to hauntings and ghosts, it's always usually portrayed as a good or evil presence.

And I feel like that's not very scientific.

But I mean, that being said, you know, you hear stories about stuff that

feels darker or scarier in that way, but do you perceive those darker instances as an evil presence?

Or is it just how we're perceiving it?

I've just thought before, what if something doesn't know where it is?

Or like if it's, you know, trapped in a place and it's like stuck or maybe it's not even, it's like the remnants of what it once was

and it doesn't even know what it is anymore.

I could imagine that being frustrating.

I'd be banging walls and shit too.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, and, you know, we always fear what we don't understand too.

So a lot of people, whenever they have some sort of unexplained experience, they immediately jump to fear.

It's that fight or flight mechanism.

You're wanting to flee the area because you don't understand what's going on.

That doesn't mean it's evil.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

To your point, I feel like if there is an instance where you do stay here for whatever reason after you die,

then if you are an asshole here on earth, you're going to be an asshole

in the afterlife for eternity.

Think about it.

Like your true essence, who you are.

I mean, if you're a good person in life,

it would make sense that you would be a good person if you stay behind in some sort of, if a piece of you left or stayed behind, then you would be still a good person.

Again, if you were an asshole, you'll be an asshole again.

You'll be an asshole ghost.

Yeah.

I mean, I understand the just human human nature part of the curiosity of paranormal stuff, right?

I think that for ages we've been fascinated by things that we don't understand,

and there's a lot of stuff that we still don't understand,

especially in the paranormal realm of things.

And I don't know what any of it means or if it's

something spiritual or scientific.

I lean more to the scientific side of it.

But how do you get wrapped into it in a way where you can be a professional investigator of it?

What was it that kind of made it more than just curiosity?

My first experience was when I was six years old and very profound.

I went to my mother about it and it was a very impactful thing for me.

And during that time in my life,

without going into much detail, there was a lot of abuse, a lot of really bad stuff in my life.

It was within the moments where I was wanting to give up and,

you know,

call it quits when I would have these weird, strange, unusual moments that would kind of snap me back and say, okay, there's more than the shit life that you're living.

There's more beyond it that you can't understand.

Once I got into my teenage years, I started researching and reading all the books, Harry Price, Hans Holzer, all of the books based on experiences that I was having at the time.

Which were what?

Exactly.

Well, I mean, for instance, when I was 12 years old, I had, I was in my room

and the closet door was kind of

slightly open.

And we had one of those old houses where the carpet was...

was higher so the doors would always scrape the top of the carpet and it would leave like a mark on there and uh it was slightly open And I was going to sleep.

About five minutes goes by and the door slams.

And I have siblings, so I was thinking, okay, somebody's playing a trick on me.

So I go open the closet door.

Nothing was in there.

So I was like, this is weird.

And me being the smart southern man that I am, I leave it open again.

And I go lay back down.

Probably a little time happens and it slams again.

This time I'm freaked out.

I run to my parents room which is across the hall and they're like Shane you're just you're trying to stay up go to bed.

Right.

So they take me back to bed and for whatever reason that closet doors open again

and

it slams for a third time after they leave the room.

This time they run into my room and I grew up in a religious household.

So my mother is pleading the blood of Jesus over me,

doing whatever she can just to like, whatever's going on, it needs to stop now.

And I ended up sleeping in their room that night.

I would have weird visions or dreams, I guess you can call it, where there would be people that would walk up to my bedside and some of them would look like they're terrified.

Some would say, where am I at?

Where am I at?

Where am I at?

I don't know where I am at.

That's the kind of stuff they were saying at the edge of your bed.

Like, they didn't know where they were literally.

Like, where are they?

They weren't like haunting you.

They're like, what is this?

Like, help me.

Where am I at?

What's the point?

What's the like?

So they look like us.

That scares me, kind of.

They look like us.

But they don't know where they are.

Right.

More than them knowing where they are and who you are.

And at that time, it's like, okay, am I, is this just my subconscious?

Is this because I'm going through a lot of crap?

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Am I just stressed and imagining these things?

Right.

But then I would have other experiences like the door slamming and stuff, things that I knew even at a young age, okay, it can't be a draft in my room because the carpet there, like it's hard for me to push the door closed.

There's physical stuff, too.

Right.

So there's compounding evidence.

And even to this day, how I kind of do investigations is I don't just jump at everything and say, you know, if I hear footsteps, I don't say, oh my God, that's a ghost.

I look at it as if there's compounding evidence that's leading to something that

I would assume would be more paranormal in nature, then I would take a look at it and try to research further into what or who we're communicating with.

I just have this image in my head now: these people on the edge of your bed wondering where they are.

Let's just pretend for a moment that those were definitely ghosts.

How would you rationalize that?

What are they doing there?

I would say that they're,

if they are

real,

I would say that they are in some transitional period and maybe a part of them has stayed behind and for whatever reason, they're stuck.

And again, like I said, I would think, okay, maybe I'm just dreaming, but this was more than one occurrence and more than one house that I was in.

Sometimes in stressful environments, sometimes when my life was going great.

But it was these moments where it's like, okay, if this is real, and not even saying it is for certain, but if it's real, I want to find out more about it.

So the more that I researched and stuff, the more I saw that there was many other people that were having similar experiences.

And I just wanted to know more.

Fast forward to this time, whenever I'm at events and I'm doing things, I get to

talk to people, not just about the paranormal and the spooky stuff, but about mental health.

And like, I've been there.

I took a leap.

You know, if I didn't, if all of these things didn't play out like they were supposed to, I wouldn't be up here talking to you right now.

I wouldn't be able to do what I love.

So I get to encourage other people that may be in my same shoes at that time and be able to give them some hope.

And that's something that is much more rewarding to me than a TV show or anything else.

Of course.

Yeah, that human connection is priceless, right?

Right.

And believe it or not, man, there's so many people that come to my events that

they come to escape their own personal hell and their life.

Right.

And they come, this is something that they love, but at the same time, they come to kind of escape just the everyday life of what they're going through.

And to sort of live in this world for a moment.

Right.

And it shows them kind of like what I was thinking when I was younger.

It's like there's more beyond this life that I'm living.

There's more beyond that.

And people get to come to these events and share in experiences of others that may be going through similar things that they're going through.

And it's just a time of fellowship and connection.

And I think that's, again, more important than TV, more important than anything else.

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Hey, listeners, if you have a tip or theories about a case you want to share or or a case of interest you'd like to recommend to us, then we want to hear from you.

Email us cases at tenderfoot.tv.

DM us on Instagram at UAV Weekly or give us a call at 770-545-6411.

You can also join the conversation on our Discord at discord.gg slash up and vanished.

Now, back to the show.

Why is it that ghosts are so hard to capture on video and pictures?

I mean, there has to be something that scientifically explains that a little bit later, or they're just really good at ducking it somehow, right?

Again, on Holzer Files, we have captured some stuff.

I think it's hand.

Yeah, hand.

There was a mist, it was Howard's Lodge, I believe it is.

There was a mist going upstairs.

Some really interesting stuff that is kind of hard for me.

Some anomalies that we're not

for me to pinpoint what it is.

And I think that it has something to do with

our perception of what we can see, what our eyes can physically see.

And that's why IR can, you know, it can capture things and

it can see in a different

scope than what our human eye could see.

I think it could be all frequency related.

I think that may have something to do with it, that they may be showing up, but it's on certain frequencies, certain wavelengths.

Right.

Even cameras.

It's less physical than it is.

I don't know.

Well, even our technology that we have maybe is not caught up to maybe the frequency that they're at.

They can't capture that necessarily.

Yeah.

I think even with

EVP, electronic voice phenomenon, you know, whenever you capture something on a recorder, a voice that you know was not yours or anybody else's.

There's this guy, Bill Chappell, that makes all of this tech and stuff.

And he will tell you firsthand that he doesn't believe in ghosts.

He just believes that there's some strange shit going on.

And he's testing theories and testing things.

But he told me something that was really interesting about EVP.

He's like, you know, Shane, right now

that I have this

microphone that can shoot a laser

to a certain part of a room, and I can play music in that frequency, and it can sound like the music is coming from over there, but really it's coming from this device I have in my hand.

But I can make the sound go wherever I want it to go.

What?

It's still like audibly coming from this device in his hand?

So, yeah, so it's electromagnetic.

That's pinging somewhere

out.

It's creating this perception that it's not coming from right here.

In a frequency that the human ear can hear.

So like if there's a group of people, right, sitting in an audience, he can point this microphone to

the right half of the audience, and only the right half can hear what's coming through.

And the other half would be like, I'm not hearing anything.

So if there's things like that, I believe that there's so much more in regards to frequency, in regards to maybe our visual spectrums of what we can see that that is unexplained, that maybe there's more that if our eyes could see in that scope, we'd be seeing a hell of a lot more.

So I think that the reason why sometimes we don't capture it is maybe

we haven't caught up to the technology to be able to capture something like that.

And maybe we're on a certain wavelength.

in certain times that we're able to see anomalies and we're able to see things

hypnosis and things like that.

I think think maybe if we're in certain states we're able to see and uh

understand more

it's the same stuff with uh people who go through ptsd

they'll claim all the time they they see all kinds of things and we say yeah well it could just be because they're it's a stress disorder it's all this stuff and we'll label it as a medical disorder but who's to say that they're not really seeing the things that they're seeing sometimes well either way it's still a reality to them.

Exactly.

So there's a fine line.

You're right.

Yeah.

There's a fine line.

You got to think for the longest time, people thought the earth was flat.

People entertained ideas that, hey, the earth isn't flat.

Yeah.

Everybody who thought the earth was flat at the time was like, you're nuts.

But if they didn't listen

to that reason, we wouldn't have the advancements we have now.

At one point in time, people thought something was a certain way.

But if they didn't listen to

other theories and things like that, then we would still be stuck in that

frame.

We didn't challenge that, right?

Right.

It's so easy to be in the moment and think that we've learned everything.

Right.

I think that's very naive and closed-minded to think that way, but I totally get how even society makes it easier to think that, but we are literally learning shit every single day.

And we'll never stop.

We'll never stop.

I don't think we'll ever stop.

You don't stop.

Period.

And this is why I love what I do so much.

A lot of people look at it and be like, oh, you believe in ghosts, you believe in all this stuff.

But I think the search

for something is far more

rewarding to me than actually finding the answer to all of this stuff.

I think the search and building the connections along the way is far more valuable to me.

Many are quick to jump to conclusions involving the supernatural as a way to explain Elisa Lamb's tragic death.

They see her movements, her behavior as bizarre, and of course, the Cecil's haunted history.

And while Elisa's loved ones are still looking for answers, they do seem to accept that it was more than likely a tragic result of Elisa's serious struggles with mental health.

Elisa's sister says the movements in the elevator match previous episodes when Elisa had been off her medication.

The high number of pills in her room suggests she had not been taking it regularly.

In the end, law enforcement says Elisa voluntarily entered the water tank with her bipolar as a contributing factor.

And once she was inside, there was almost no chance for her to pull herself out.

Her clothing being off could be due to hypothermia, people often feeling hot when actually freezing, or removing clothing to become lighter in an attempt to swim.

I also think this is the most likely scenario of what happened to Elisa.

I've lived with a loved one with serious mental illness and I have seen them in similar states to Elisa in the elevator as well.

Elisa's family sued the Cecil Hotel for wrongful death, alleging negligence on the hotel's part for not locking the water tanks.

While I believe the story of Elisa Lamb is a tragic accident, many find it hard to ignore that on this trip, all seemed okay until she entered the Hotel Cecil, a place with a violent history and haunted reputation.

If you or someone you love is facing a mental health emergency, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org to chat with a trained crisis counselor.

Y'all, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Up and Vanish Weekly.

Be sure to tune in next week as we dig into another new case.

Until next time.

Up and Vanish Weekly is a production of Tinderfoot TV in association with Odyssey.

Your hosts are Maggie Freeling and myself, Payne Lindsey.

The show is written by Maggie Freeling, myself, and John Street.

Executive producers are Donald Albright and myself.

Lead producer is John Street.

Additional production by Meredith Stedman and Mike Rooney.

Research for the series by Jamie Albright, Celicia Stanton, and Carolyn Tallmadge.

Edit and mix by Dylan Harrington and Sean Nerny.

Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan.

Artwork by Byron McCoy.

Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.

Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group.

For more podcasts like Up and Vanish Weekly, search Tinderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us at Tinderfoot.tv.

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