‘Ghost Adventures’ Pays Tribute to ‘Terrifying Encounter’ at El Paso’s De Soto Hotel

If you weren’t familiar with the De Soto Hotel’s paranormal reputation before it went up in flames you no doubt are now. Every published report post-fire mentions its haunted notoriety.

It’s reputation of being super-haunted and filled with all manner of sinister spirits and evil entities has grown to such national prominence over the years that when the popular paranormal television reality show Ghost Adventures came to El Paso in 2016 to film their annual Halloween episode, one of the two locations they settled on was the De Soto.

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Ghost hunters Zak Bagans, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley and Jay Wasley were hoping to collect visual or auditory evidence of the ghostly activity it was known for.

The De Soto did not disappoint.

“Most Paranormally Active Room”

By far the spookiest and most active area in the 116-year-old establishment is the dark and foreboding basement which is said to be home to at least three spirits -- one of which claims to be demonic.

It is where the Ghost Adventures cameras caught an unseen force slide a ceiling fan across furniture and throw it violently to the floor. The poltergeist activity scared the crew so much, that when they informed their fans about the devastating fire they also included a clip of the jaw-dropping capture.

The Instagram video starts by noting the blaze and pointing out that "its most paranormally active room survived." After declaring they would never forget "this terrifying encounter in the basement,” the clip cuts to the ceiling fan moment of their investigation.

"Did you do this?" Zak asks. A disembodied voice immediately replies "Yeah," startling Bagans so much that he drops the ceiling fan he was holding and quickly scampers off to join his equally shocked crew.

It's clear why the De Soto Hotel investigation has been included in a couple of the GA crew's top scariest moments lists, and why they consider it such a loss to the paranormal community.