Written by Andrew K. Arnett
So here is a strange story and you can “believe it or not,” as you like. It occurred over the summer at the Denver Airport while I was waiting to catch a flight back to New York. I had just returned from an overnight stay at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado and working on an article about the occult significance of the movie The Shining. As I mulled over the reasons why Kubrick chose to use number “237” for the haunted room instead of Stephen King’s original “217,” I happened to glance down at my phone and noticed it was 2:37 p.m. I kid you not. I was baffled to see this and it took me a few seconds to have the wherewithal to take a screen shot on my computer to save for posterity.
Here is what I found while researching the topic at the time. Room 237 is considered to be the “moon room” because the moon is 237k miles (fluctuating from 235k-239k) from the earth. I searched the internet for the distance of the moon at that exact time and Google answered 238,900k miles. This number matched the time stamp on my screenshot: 2:38 p.m. Things would only get weirder as they are want to do when you’re hanging around the Denver Airport waiting for a flight.
Neil Armstrong was born on 5 August 1930. That is the 217th day of the year. Armstrong died on 25 August 2012. That is the 237th day of the year. Again with the 217 and 237. Armstrong is of course the first man to walk on the moon. Now this one’s for bonus points: can you guess what number Apollo mission was the first to land on the moon? That’s right—11. The number of The Shining movie (see related story here). One more thing I noticed, perhaps a deliberate nod by the director or not—in Room 237, we are “mooned” by the woman who “launches” out of the bathtub from a kneeling position.
It was an unusual series of coincidences, no doubt about that. Certainly, it wasn’t anything I anticipated when I checked into the Stanley Hotel the previous day. I was well aware of the notoriety of Room 217 and tried to book the room. The hotel staff informed me it was not available, and was often booked out for months if not years. Everyone wanted to sleep in the room where Stephen King dreamt about a firehose chasing his son screaming down hotel corridors. King woke up from that nightmare dripping sweat. He walked over to the balcony and nervously lit a cigarette. He sucked hard on the cancer stick and before the thing burned to the filter, King had the bones for a story that would become the bestselling novel The Shining. The book was turned into the classic horror film by Stanley Kubrick.
I didn’t stay in room 217 but they did give me room 413—the Haberdasher–which was located two floors directly above room 217. Even better, that evening, when I attended the ghost tour offered by the hotel, I ran into a dude that was actually staying in room 217. And he turned out to be a paranormal investigator himself. After chatting, he invited me up to his room for a paranormal investigation. He had wired the room up with sensors and EVPs.
Still at the Denver Airport (the flight was delayed), something struck me regarding the date. The day was 26 August 2025. That made yesterday, August 25, the date of Neil Armstrong’s death. The 237th day of the year. Let me re-iterate: I was in the Stanley Hotel on the 237th day in room 217 when the clock struck midnight. Somehow, I had a strange feeling I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
Andrew K. Arnett is a writer for New Dawn Magazine and author of the book The Crowley Conspiracy available on Amazon.
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