Sunday, March 13, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Be Very Afraid...Or Not

Haunted Vegas Tour takes guests on a ghost hunt

Devin Campbell plays "Lasher," a lead role in the half-hour stage show that begins the Haunted Vegas Tour. After the show, participants board buses for a two-hour tour of Las Vegas' allegedly haunted sites. Photos by Ronda Churchill. Some say that the spirit of a small boy still haunts Henderson's Fox Ridge Park. Robert Allen, who directs the Haunted Vegas Tour, says participants occasionally have seen the swing on the right move, apparently on its own. Robert Allen speaks to audience members during the stage show that kicks off each night's edition of the Haunted Vegas Tour. According to Robert Allen, this red fox was painted on the sign of a local business that occupies Redd Foxx's former home as a means of appeasing the spirit of the deceased entertainer.

We take you to a haunted place, a place so macabre and frightening that few can speak of it rationally, where a devilish vortex sucks the souls of otherwise ordinary people into an eternal hell.

A place called ... Las Vegas.

But you already knew that.

What you might not know is that -- snide commentary aside -- Las Vegas can be a creepy place.

And it's that other, weirder side of Las Vegas that Robert Allen offers four times a week to visitors and locals alike via the Haunted Vegas Tour.

Think of it as a sort of Grey Line tour of the Dark Side, where visitors board buses to visit the sites of alleged hauntings, murders, macabre occurrences and miscellaneous weirdnesses.

Allen says the tours, which began in August, grew out of "Shock," a show he co-produced that he calls a "modern-day sideshow. Very over-the-top-stuff."

Maybe a bit too over-the-top, concedes Allen, a comedian and magician for more than 30 years who has appeared in 21 shows, including, for 10 years, "Splash."

It turned out that Las Vegas audiences "were not ready for people skewering themselves," Allen explains.

Then Allen happened to catch a TV documentary about haunted places in Nevada, based on a book by Reno author Janice Oberding. Allen learned from Oberding that Las Vegas allegedly is home to at least 21 ghosts.

"I said, `Wow,' " he recalls. "I've lived here since 1974, and I didn't know any of this."

With the help of Timothy Cridland, a paranormal researcher and "Shock" alum -- in both that show and this one, he also is Zamora and does some weird things with light bulbs -- Allen created a tour around Las Vegas' supposedly haunted places.

The tours begin Friday through Monday at 9 p.m. with a half-hour show -- a sort of truncated version of "Shock" -- in the Celebrity Room of the Greek Isles, 305 Convention Center Drive. (General admission is $46.25, while a VIP ticket -- which includes preferred seating and a gift package -- is $57.25.)

The show serves as a lighthearted warm-up to the more serious bus tour that follows, Allen says. "The show is just a teaser to get you in the mood."

But, he adds, "it's not a Halloween show. It's not a ride. It's not supposed to be a Haunted Mansion (ride). It's a legitimate parapsychology tour with a haunted show upfront."

After boarding buses, riders spend about two hours cruising the streets of Las Vegas, stopping at places of interest while Allen and Cridland tell about the events that took place -- and, some say, still take place -- there.

While the tour is built upon the strange and spooky, Cridland and Allen also discuss various facets of Las Vegas history.

Riders learn of the ghostly apparitions some have reported seeing at Bally's. However, Cridland and Allen also discuss the 1980 fire at what was then the MGM Grand in which 84 people died and 679 were injured, and how the tragedy changed the hotel industry worldwide.

While riders pass over nearly the exact spot where the life of rapper Tupac Shakur abruptly ended in 1996, they'll also hear what has happened in the case since then.

Gazing upon the home, now business, that some say actor Redd Foxx still haunts, riders hear a few personal reminiscences from Allen.

They'll also hear a few stories about Liberace who, some say, still appears every so often at a restaurant in the shopping plaza that bears his name.

The commentary also covers tourists who've killed themselves at the Stratosphere and Luxor hotels and now, some say, still hang around.

And how some -- including, Allen says, entertainer Wayne Newton -- aren't sure that the late Elvis Presley has really left what is now the Las Vegas Hilton.

And how some say murdered gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel still keeps his hand in goings-on at the Flamingo, the showplace he opened on the Strip.

A highlight of the tour comes at the halfway point, when visitors leave the bus to take a nighttime walk in Henderson's Fox Ridge Park where, some say, a deceased boy still visits. According to Allen, a swing in the park occasionally can be seen moving, even when there's no breeze.

"Many nights, we'll be sitting dead-still and all of a sudden the swing goes crazy," he says.

Some riders who've taken photos of the swing capture orbs, or strange dances of light, emanating from the swing, Allen says. He asks them to e-mail photos to him so they can be posted on the tour's Web site (http://www. hauntedvegastours.com).

Participants in the tour include everyone from true believers to true skeptics to everything in-between, says Allen, noting that the primary purpose of the tour is "entertainment."

Serious parapsychologists have taken the tour, he adds, but so have people who don't believe at all and sign on "just for a good time."

"I'm not trying to change the world, nor am I sure I believe 100 percent," Allen says.

But, having said that, Allen adds, "there's some very strange stuff going on."

Patty Farmer of Crystal Lake, Ill., has taken similar tours around the world, including one in Ireland, and took the Haunted Vegas Tour recently.

"I thought it was excellent," she says. "I like how (Allen) presented it."

Alix Pierre of Brooklyn, N.Y., says he's not particularly interested in the supernatural, but called the tour "quite an experience."

His favorite parts: The stories of Shakur and Foxx.

"I thought it was great," says James McCabe of Aiea, Hawaii. "It was very informational and very entertaining."

Scott Oquist of Seattle and his family took in the tour on the last day of a Las Vegas vacation. Oquist found the half-hour teaser show particularly fun.

"I've always had a love of the absurd and strange, and the geek show at the beginning was definitely absurd and strange," he says with a laugh.

Son Tyler, 17, enjoyed the tour.

"I really learned a lot," he explains. "I'm really into that kind of stuff."

"He's a teenager," mom Patti says with a near-sigh.

"I'd say 99 percent love it and have a good time," Allen says of those who take the tour. "But you've also got those who say, `I didn't see a ghost.' I say, `What? You think I've got this on a string?' "

"Sometimes we see startling things, but, primarily, we tell you ghost stories. But there are people who think, `I paid and I want to see a ghost,' and get irate about it."

Allen laughs.

"We don't guarantee Liberace is going to come out and play the piano for you," he says.