Wild Bear Spotted in 'The Shining's Stanley Hotel

After staying at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, Stephen King was inspired to write The [...]

After staying at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining as a result of the supernatural presences he felt during his stay. As proven by the video below, guests are less likely to encounter otherworldly entities as they are an actual bear.

The hotel shared the video of the visitor, who appears to merely be curious. "Late-night visitor from the wild side visits our hotel lobby," the Facebook post read. "We'll make an exception to the rule about jumping on the furniture."

General manager Reed Rowley claimed the visitor was inside "very briefly" and that there were no guests around at the time of the visit.

"It's part of being in the Rocky Mountains, we do have a hotel next to a National Park… wildlife is part of the gig," Rowley noted to CBS4."The bears up here are super clever and once in a while they do figure out a way to poke their heads in."

King gained a following for his horror stories that took place in small towns in Maine, with the author wanting to get out of New England for a bit, ending up in Colorado. The author and his wife checked in at the Stanley Hotel and, much like the story's main characters, were almost completely alone, as it was the end of the season.

The couple stayed in room 217, which was supposedly haunted. Their eerie experience at the hotel helped motivate his plot, even by including a traumatic event taking place in room 217.

In 1980, Stanley Kubrick adapted the story into a film, though the hotel itself asked for a specific change to the narrative. Rather than the events unfolding in room 217, they asked that the room be changed to room 237, which doesn't actually exist in the hotel and wouldn't deter people from visiting.

Kubrick's depiction of the narrative wasn't to King's liking, nor to many critics', with the filmmaker applying his ambitious and particular filmmaking methods to the film that felt unconventional at the time. In the years since its release, it has gained a passionate following, despite King himself still not being a fan.

In the mid-'90s, King collaborated with director Mick Garris to create a mini-series adaptation of the narrative that offered audiences a more conventional interpretation of the source material.

King went on to craft a sequel to the novel, Doctor Sleep, which is being adapted into a film starring Ewan McGregor.

[H/T CBS4]

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