A massive, mirror-like, pitch-black pyramid can be found in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s difficult to see what’s inside because the glass is made of opaque onyx. The pyramid bears no inscriptions. The pyramid’s north point emits an eerie beam of bright, white light at night that travels upward into the sky and can be seen for miles and miles in any direction. A sphinx sits alone in the foreground, gazing ahead with eyes that never seem to contain anything. In its entirety, the region offers an uncanny reinterpretation of Ancient Egyptian culture. It is a piece of a desert from another era that has been placed in the middle of another desert. Just looking at it in a photograph can give you the creeps.
The property’s name is revealed only when one arrives at the very front of the property, which features an obelisk inscribed with the word “LUXOR.” The Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas has a sinister appearance to the outside world for a reason. Since its construction, the Luxor has been a magnet for strange, chaotic energy and tragic events, including brawls, acts of terrorism, disease outbreaks, fatal accidents, and suicides.
The Luxor in History
The Luxor hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip opened in October 1993 after only eighteen months of construction. It has 30 stories and is three-quarters the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, inspired by the Great Pyramid of Giza. The light emitted by the Luxor pyramid is the brightest and most powerful beam of light in the entire world, and it can be seen from several hours away in southern California. The interiors of this building feature Egyptian iconography in the form of murals and statues throughout, in keeping with the heavily themed exterior. Furthermore, the resort is home to the only full-scale replica of King Tut’s tomb outside of Egypt.
Circus Circus Enterprises, which also owns the venue, designed the hotel and casino. The Luxor was one of the first examples of Vegas’s fleeting “family-friendly era,” and it was designed to be a resort that catered to both adults and children. With an Egyptian motif and a modern design, the resort attempted to cater to a clientele that was both more affluent than the Circus Circus crowd and families looking for a theme park experience.
It is, of course, horrifying to consider how the Luxor was intended to be a welcoming environment for families in light of the string of deaths that it is suspected of and that remain unsolved.
The Very First Casualties: the Luxor’s Construction
William Bennett, the CEO of Circus Circus Enterprises at the time, was a successful businessman. It’s simply too efficient. He was successful in keeping Luxor’s opening costs to a bare minimum, ostensibly at any cost. The Luxor’s initial costs were only $375 million, which is dwarfed by the $630 million opening costs of its competitor and contemporary, The Mirage.
Bennett’s ability to save money, however, did not come without a cost, and that cost was human lives
The Luxor was not yet finished when it first opened to the public. As a result, some of the guests were forced to stay in rooms that were not yet completed. The elevators in the hotel, known as “inclinators” because they follow the slanted shape of the building at a 39-degree angle, also did not work properly. Not long after it first opened its doors, the structure began to sink into a soft spot, which was unusual for the normally hard desert floor.
It’s possible that the resort’s construction was a last-minute job with a tight deadline that couldn’t be met. At least two construction workers “reportedly” died during the process; however, it is widely assumed that their deaths were covered up to protect the resort’s reputation. There could have been as many as seven construction workers killed while working on the Luxor. The Luxor’s construction is thought to have been extremely difficult and dangerous, possibly due to the steeply sloping shapes of the main pyramid. The construction of the resort may go down in history as the most dangerous construction project ever undertaken on the Strip.
However, the workers who died in the accident were not completely ignored. The spirits of those who worked on the hotel during its construction can be seen on occasion, especially in the hotel’s more remote areas. There have been reports of guests seeing the ghosts of previous visitors wandering through the tunnels while the Nile Riverboat ride at the Luxor was still in operation. They are far from the only ghostly presence in the building complex.
Suicides and Accidents
Since its disastrous construction, Luxor has been plagued by an extraordinary amount of misfortune. To be more specific, the company’s employees, guests, and visitors have all suffered as a result of the incident.
In September 1996, only a few years after the Luxor Hotel and Casino opened its doors, a woman committed suicide by jumping from the 26th floor. As a result of severe head injuries, the woman died instantly. “It was over very quickly,” said Sgt. Bill Keeton of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Aside from the fact that she lacked identification, her injuries were so severe that it was impossible to determine who she was. The woman’s body was discovered near the entrance of the former buffet, which had been converted into a food court not long after her death and shortly after the woman’s landing spot.
Nobody has ever been able to figure out why the woman jumped. Her untimely and all-too-real death has given rise to macabre legend. Several stories have circulated in the decades since the woman’s death, claiming that she was a sex worker who committed suicide after receiving a recent HIV diagnosis as a result of her grief. It is believed that her ghost, like the construction workers, can be found on the 26th floor. It’s as if her spirit, like theirs, is trapped in the place where she spent her final moments as a living being.
This woman is not the only Luxor resident who has died after falling to her death, either intentionally or unintentionally. There have been several more falls, including one person who died after falling from the tenth floor. In contrast to the woman’s death, it has never been proven that he committed suicide.
The Message
In May of 2007, a coffee cup was discovered on top of the car of a 24-year-old Luxor food court employee. The incident occurred in Luxor’s parking garage. When the employee attempted to remove the cup, it exploded. The cup contained an improvised explosive device made by the owner. The shrapnel contained within the bomb killed the worker.
Two men were later found guilty of making and planting the bomb, but neither had any prior connection to the victim. Furthermore, it is unclear why they built the bomb in the first place or why they abandoned it.
Heavy Fighting
In June of 2010, an altercation occurred in a suite at the Luxor between DeMario Reynolds, a former football player at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Jason Sindelar, a mixed martial arts fighter. According to the police report, the two men used to be friends, but their relationship ended due to Sindelar’s constant bickering with his girlfriend.
Sindelar and his girlfriend had a heated argument in the Luxor suite while attending a party. Reynolds stepped in. He asked that the mixed martial artist leave the party. Witnesses testified that Sindelar was extremely intoxicated and belligerent. Following that, the boxer made an unsuccessful attempt to grab his girlfriend’s throat and punch her.
Reynolds, according to one eyewitness, continued to intervene and attempted to subdue the combatant by putting him in a “bear hug on the bathroom floor.” Reynolds relinquished control and went into the main bedroom after a brief period. Sindelar then arrived. There was some punching going on. The police quickly broke up the first brawl. The combatant eventually left the room. Reynolds was unfortunate in that the debate continued after that point.
Sindelar returned to the suite not long after. He charged at Reynolds and struck him several times, first in the head, then in the chest. The combatant knocked his opponent to the ground and continued to punch him hard while he was down.
The fight was stopped once more by the referee. The security guards were contacted by partygoers. Reynolds was already in too much pain to be treated for his injuries when he was finally taken to Desert Springs Hospital. He died in the hospital as a result of his injuries.
When alcohol and volatile emotions are present, it is natural for fights of this type to occur frequently. In contrast to the typical drunken brawl, this one resulted in premature death.
An Inclinator Accident
If you recall, we mentioned the “inclinators” at the Luxor, which are the strange elevators that run at an angle throughout the resort. This is significant because it appears that even this part of Luxor has been cursed.
In the year 2012, an airman stationed at Nellis Air Force Base got into a fight with another service member in the lobby of the Luxor hotel’s west tower. The coworker pushed the airman against an elevator door, which then opened on its own for no apparent reason, despite the absence of an elevator compartment. After falling 25 feet down the empty shaft, the airman was brought to the basement level. When he arrived at the hospital, he was in critical condition.
There appear to have been no clear updates on the man’s condition in the six years since the incident, except for some sources claiming that he eventually died as a result of his injuries.
A Disease Emergency
As if Luxor didn’t already have a bad reputation, the resort experienced bacterial contamination in 2012, which caused three hotel guests to become ill. In other words, as if Luxor didn’t already have a bad reputation.
Water samples taken at the Luxor were found to contain the Legionella bacteria, which is the causative agent of Legionnaires’ disease, after being tested. Even though Luxor took the necessary precautions, such as superheating and chlorinating the water system, to eliminate the bacteria that lived in the water, one of the hotel’s guests died as a result of the infection.
Worse, after the first two cases of Legionnaires’ disease were discovered, tests on the water at the Luxor were performed, but the results were negative for bacteria. This perplexing inconsistency most likely allowed the bacteria to go undetected for long enough to contaminate and eventually kill the third affected guest.
The Blessing
There are numerous hypotheses floating around as to why Luxor has been the site of so much conflict. It’s possible that the horrifying events at Luxor were connected in some way to the resort’s Egyptian theme.
The Luxor purchased authentic copies of ancient Egyptian artifacts from Egypt for its King Tut replica display. The methods and materials used to create the replicas were identical to those used in ancient Egypt, demonstrating true traditional craftsmanship. As a result, the replicas retained their authenticity. Unfortunately, this careful attention to detail and cultural significance was not extended to the rest of the estate’s property.
According to one widely held belief, Luxor was doomed from the start due to its disregard for ancient Egyptian religious practices. Luxor’s Sphinx only exists in one form. According to popular belief, the presence of not one, but two sphinxes is required for the protection of the pyramid. This is thought to have been the case with the first Great Pyramid of Giza; however, one of the nearby sphinxes was eventually destroyed.
Most importantly, it is thought that the shape of the pyramid itself has mystical properties and may even be capable of attracting dark energy. The Luxor pyramid is said to be cursed until an eye or the shape of an eye is placed at the peak of the structure at some point in the future.
Furthermore, visitors from superstitious cultures have been hesitant to enter Luxor because the structure was designed to resemble a tomb, which is thought to bring bad luck (which is not ideal when looking for a place to gamble) and morbidity.
The most widely accepted explanation for why the Luxor may be haunted has less to do with supernatural phenomena and more to do with American history. The location that is now occupied by the Luxor hotel was historically used as a burial ground for victims of organized crime due to its remote location at the time. It is a well-known fact that real estate built on top of a cemetery will never be profitable.
Whatever the reasons, it is impossible to deny that The Luxor has been at the center of several terrible events.
A Visit to the Luxor
Despite its recent misfortunes, Luxor remains open for business and prosperous in other ways. If you want to see the Great Pyramid of Vegas in all of its glory in person, you can go to the Luxor on the Strip. If you want to learn more about Las Vegas’ eerie and haunted history, consider signing up for our Vegas Ghosts tour experience while you’re on the Strip.