How exactly did 21-year-old university student Elisa Lam go missing for nineteen days despite such an intensive search? More importantly, how did she end up decaying in a water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel? Elisa Lam’s case is immensely mysterious to some for a large variety of reasons. There is no official explanation for how the events unfolded and why, but there are a couple of comprehensible theories to explain this phenomenon.
Elisa Lam was an average 21-year-old University student, on a solo trip. She visited the Cecil Hotel; a hotel in downtown Los Angeles known for its dark history of disturbing events. Elisa’s family was apprehensive about her traveling alone, but she insisted, making sure to check in with her parents every day to ensure her safety. On January 31st, 2013, Elisa Lam was expected to check out of the hotel. However, that was the last day Elisa Lam would be seen alive. Elisa’s family was hoping to hear from her since she’d been checking in every day before her disappearance. After a long day of waiting for Elisa Lam to contact them without avail, the Lams became distressed and concerned for their daughter’s safety, causing them to contact the Los Angeles Police Department.
A search for Elisa Lam took place. After searching the premises of the hotel; no signs of Elisa were found. Perplexed, police in search of Elisa examined surveillance footage from the day she went missing; what they found was somewhat disturbing. Surveillance footage shows Elisa pressing multiple buttons as she continuously anxiously peers around the elevator’s corner as if she were looking for someone, before hiding frantically against the elevator walls. In the last moments of the footage, Elisa was seen on the left side of the outside of the elevator talking to something sightless moving her hands in random gestures. It appears that Elisa was pleading for something due to her hands being clasped together and moving up and down; the footage is so vague that it’s truly difficult to tell.
A couple of weeks later, on February 19th, Elisa’s body was located. Elisa was found by a maintenance worker, Santiago Lopez after many of the Cecil Hotel’s guests complained about the water pressure, coloring, and taste. Santiago was going to check the hotel’s water tank to address the complaints, and that’s when Elisa was discovered floating naked in the hotel’s water tank. The clothes that Elisa had been wearing in the last footage of her were floating in the tank with her. How could such a situation like this occur, given the lack of evidence we’ve been provided?
One theory is that Elisa Lam was in a manic episode due to her bipolar disorder. Elisa’s autopsy revealed that Elisa had very small traces of her prescribed medication in her system, suggesting that she had stopped taking them; potentially triggering an episode. Elisa Lam could have been having the delusion that someone or something had been following her, causing her to hide in the water tank. It was said that Elisa was moved from a shared room to a private room due to “disruptive” and “disturbing” behavior. The hotel’s manager, Amy Price, claims that Elisa had an outburst in the lobby a few days before her disappearance. These statements along with the autopsy, suggest that it was improbable for Elisa to have been mentally stable at that time. This theory would explain her bizarre behavior, and what or who she was talking to in the surveillance footage; a hallucination.
Another theory is more spiritual and supernatural but may be a possible explanation for Elisa’s disappearance. Rumors claim that the water tank lid could’ve been too heavy for Elisa to lift, proposing the possibility that what occurred was due to supernatural reasons. The last footage of Elisa Lam seen, caused some to question whether or not she was playing something known as “The Elevator Game”. The Elevator Game is a paranormal urban legend originating in Korea, the purpose of this game was to take the player to another world by pressing a combination of buttons on an elevator with a couple of strict rules; one of them being to “not interact with the woman on the fifth floor.” Elisa was seen talking to something invisible in the footage as I mentioned, indicating the possibility of her breaking the rules of not talking to the woman on the fifth floor, resulting in her strange way of death. This theory may be less believable to most people due to the lack of belief in the supernatural, along with having no evidence that this game is more than an urban legend.
In conclusion, Elisa Lam’s death remains a mystery unless a theory is decided upon. This case’s lack of information makes it very difficult to figure out, given what we have; at least one of these theories may be accurate. It’s upsetting that investigators didn’t try longer to solve this case. The first theory about her episode is what I believe to be what truly happened, but nobody will ever really know the full truth. Do you think Elisa Lam died from mental health-related issues, or something more paranormal?
