The Dark Phantom at Paris Les Halles

Witness: [Name Withheld Upon Request]
Location: Paris, France
Date of Encounter: October 2004

I was working at Novotel Les Halles Paris as a carpet cleaner, and regularly used the customer lifts (which was forbidden) when working at the far end of the hotel as the machine that I used was quite heavy to push. One lunch time, having finished a room, I was pushing the machine along the second floor corridor towards the customer lift when I saw a man (left side/back on) walk into the middle lift (there are three). I sped up and pushed the button as soon as the door had closed, but not immediately as I knew that the lift must leave the level I was on.

I would usually do this so my call on the lift would beat everyone else’s and I would not have to wait long. However, as soon as I had pushed the button, the doors opened, and, rather embarrassed, I peered around into the lift to make my apologies. When I looked in the lift, there was nobody there, and there is no way that enough time had passed for someone to have traveled either up or down, alighted, and then the lift return during of the course of time from the doors closing and myself pushing the call button.

The man was tall with a black hat, a long gray coat, and a black brief case in his left hand. He was wearing black trousers, black shoes or boots and was probably 30 something and slim. What I saw was not human but appeared to be a man.