Marilyn Monroe at the Cal Neva Hotel

Carl Buehler approaches the ceiling light at the end of the hallway with caution. Although the Cal Neva employee has given this underground tunnel tour hundreds of times, he never knows what will happen under that light any given night.

The light is the only light in our casino out of hundreds of lights that goes on and off by itself," Buehler says. "There are no switches to this light. It is a 24 hour light. Engineers have checked this light - there is nothing wrong with this light. The bulbs have been changed. The electric is fine with it, there is nothing wrong. I tell people this and they say, well you have a switch to this. Well, I don't have a switch."

Buehler then explains that this is Marilyn Monroe's light. She is the one who controls when the light goes on and off, he says.

"There is no explanation for this light, except that for whenever she wants to, she'll just turn it on or off," Buehler says as he approaches the outed light. "On the last tour I had, as we were walking out, Marilyn turned the light off. It's crazy. I've never seen nuthin' like it."

As Buehler points to the stairs at the end of the hallway just to the right of the light, he notes that the steps lead to nowhere and that they are blocked off. He says that a psychic who visited the casino said "there was a lot of spiritual energy through here" and saw Marilyn sitting on the second step crying.

"The psychic said Marilyn was crying because she doesn't like the way Americans portray her," Buehler says. "We took pictures right where she was supposed to be and sure enough, there was a big ball of light right where she was supposed to be. It was a spiritual orb. You never know what you are going to get."

And almost on cue, the light goes off. Marilyn has struck.

"If anybody asks me if this place is haunted I say 'Hell yes,'" Buehler says. "It's the craziest light I've seen. It's bizarre."

Cal Neva employees like to exchange ghost stories. In addition to the underground tunnels that Frank Sinatra built and the ghosts that haunt the stage, another part of the casino gives employees chills.

There are people who are afraid to go on the first floor. Someone was killed in room 101.

"The first floor down below is always cold," said Frank Encinas, a Cal Neva security guard. "Even in July it is cold. Someone committed suicide down there. It gives you the creeps."

Security guard Davis Dunihue said it is the last room rented in the entire hotel.

San Jose resident Lisa Eichler, who stayed at the Cal Neva one recent weekend with her boyfriend, claims she has psychic abilities and that she has felt ghosts elsewhere, but feels no such energy on the first floor of the Cal Neva.

"I don't know. Just because there was a suicide doesn't mean there are ghosts. People who kill themselves want to leave and why would they stay," Eichler says. "If I get scared, you should be scared. But I ain't scared."

Source:Farshore