“A spooky story, we were away, Sue and I and another couple, and we were in this old really rundown motel, kinda– bed and breakfast.  We were skiing and uh, so we go check in in the lobby waiting room thing, ya know, where you go to get your room keys, and the lady behind the desk was kinda weird, little odd.  There was this big old picture behind the counter, it was portrait of this old guy.  Long skinny face.  White hair pokin’ out at the ears and he had this hat on.  It was like a hat you’d see guys wear back in the 1920s, 30s, great depression era kinda thing, not one you’d see out today.  Anyway, the picture caught my eye, cause they guy looked spooky, just very gaunt.  In writing at the bottom it said “Founder” and then the guy’s name that I don’t remember.  And then the dates of his life.  He had died like 15 years ago or something.  Anyway we get the keys, and go to the room and I found my way makin’ it down this creepy hallway and there was this door at the end that didn’t really seem to go anywhere, so I opened the door… and I was reaching for the light switch and I stepped into the room and fell like two feet into the room, so the door was like two feet higher than the floor of the room.  So now I’m gettin’ just a little bit of light from the hallway comin’ into the room and somebody reaches in and finds the lightswitch and there’s just a hat….  on the floor, and that was the only thing in the room, it was barren, just the hat.  Looked just like the one the guy was wearing in the picture.  So now I’m pretty spooked.  And I picked up the hat and looked at it and it said:  “I am the hat, touch me not.”  And we just looked at each other, dropped it, and ran out of the room.  It was the creepiest night I’ve ever had.  We thought the guy was comin’ back to haunt us or something. We were scared to death.  Ran down the hall like little kids.”

Conclusion:

This story was told to me by my Uncle Steve.  He said this happened when he and my Aunt Susan were in their late twenties, early thirties.  I find any ghost stories that spook legitimate adults to be pretty funny.  When he tells the story now, Uncle Steve seems to think it was just a crazy coincidence that the hat he stumbled upon looked exactly like the hat worn by the creepy looking founder of the hotel in the portrait.  Either way however, I think a small part of my Uncle could still believe in the supernatural based off of this one experience.