The cameras don’t catch who’s walking the halls at night.

(Posted by u/NightShiftWatcher – r/TrueOffMyChest)

I work night security at a mid-range hotel in Colorado. It’s one of those places that’s been remodeled a dozen times but still somehow feels old — too many corners that don’t line up, too many flickering lights that maintenance “can’t find a reason for.”

Most nights are fine. Boring, even. Until about a month ago, when I started noticing people on the security feed who shouldn’t be there.

It started subtle — movement in hallways where every guest was accounted for. I thought it was delayed motion on the cameras, bad Wi-Fi, anything to explain why someone in a gray hoodie would pass by the vending machine twice within seconds.

Then I realized it wasn’t a glitch.

The person would look straight into the camera. Not like someone who accidentally glances up — like they knew exactly where the lens was. And they’d just... stand there. Still. For minutes.

I’d switch between cameras, trying to get another angle. But the second I clicked to another feed, they’d be gone. No sound in the hallway, no motion alerts. Just gone.

I checked the guest registry the next morning — nothing. No one matching that description had checked in. I even replayed the footage for my supervisor, but by the time he watched it, that section was just static.

I brushed it off until last Thursday. Around 2:30 a.m., I saw someone again — only this time, it was a woman. Long hair, pale dress, barefoot. She walked down the east wing, the one we usually keep closed because of renovation. Her steps were slow, dragging, like she was exhausted.

I radioed to check it out in person. When I got to that hallway, it was freezing cold — like, my breath-fogging cold. Every door was locked. Every light dim. No one there.

When I got back to the desk, the monitors were looping something weird: the woman standing at the end of the east hall, closer than before, staring straight into the camera.

Her face was blurred — not by motion, but like the footage didn’t want to render her properly. The pixels swam around where her eyes should’ve been. I took a screenshot, but when I tried to print it, the printer jammed. When I tried to upload it to the system, the file disappeared.

I’ve stopped bringing it up to management. They just say “probably trespassers.” But I’ve worked here long enough to know what real people look like on those screens.

And these?

These aren’t real people.

Last night, one of the monitors flickered on by itself. The east hallway.

No one was walking.

But all the doors?

Every single one of them was standing wide open.

UPDATE (3 Weeks Later): I don’t think the cameras are showing us what’s really there.(Posted by u/NightShiftWatcher – r/TrueOffMyChest)

I didn’t plan on posting again.

After the first thread blew up, my supervisor started getting questions from corporate. He told me to “stop making the hotel look haunted.” So I shut up.

But last week, one of the other guards — Pete — asked me if I’d been “messing with the feeds.”

I hadn’t touched a thing.

He said he saw someone on camera — a man in a dark suit, walking up and down the east hallway at 2:17 a.m. When Pete switched to another angle to follow him, the guy disappeared. Sound familiar?

I asked if the man looked into the camera. Pete just stared at me for a few seconds and said,

“He was already looking at it when I found him.”

Things started changing after that.

The system’s motion alerts have gone haywire. We get notifications from rooms that are completely empty, sometimes sealed off for construction.

When I review the footage, the lights in those rooms flicker just once, like someone walked by holding a candle.

Then there’s the time gaps.

Whole sections of the recording — gone.

It’ll jump from 1:44 to 2:51, and the clocks on the walls will be off by a few minutes when it resumes.

That’s not a camera issue. That’s… something else.

The hotel manager finally looked.

Last Friday, I convinced him to review the feed with me. We fast-forwarded through the night — nothing unusual at first.

Then, right around 3 a.m., someone stepped into frame.

It wasn’t the woman or the man from before. This one looked… wrong.

Tall. Too tall.

Shoulders sharp, head tilted, like their neck couldn’t support it.

The manager froze. I swear to God, he whispered, “That can’t be live.”

Then the person on screen — or whatever it was — turned their head and looked at us.

The manager slammed the monitor off. When he turned it back on, the feed was gone. Just static. The entire night’s recording wiped.

He made me promise not to talk about it, said he’d handle it “internally.” But the next day, he didn’t show up for work.

Now I’m seeing them off-camera.

It started two nights ago.

I was walking past the lobby mirror when I saw movement behind me — someone passing by in the reflection. I turned around, but the hall was empty.

The reflection wasn’t.

There was a figure at the far end, standing under the emergency light. I blinked, and it was gone — but the light kept swinging, like someone had just brushed past it.

Last night, the cameras started flicking between feeds again.

Only this time, when they landed on the east wing, all the doors were open again — just like before.

Except now, one of the doors had a number taped to it in black marker.

112.

Our hotel doesn’t have a Room 112.

When I went to check the hallway in person, the door wasn’t there. But the camera still showed it.

And while I was standing there, staring at the empty wall, the radio on my belt crackled to life.

“Front desk… connect me to 112.”