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Weird3 min(s) read
Published 11:20 20 Mar 2026 GMT
The chilling elevator footage of a woman's last moments before her death is so shocking because there's still no explanation as to what happened next.
21-year old Canadian student Elisa Lam's disappearance at the Cecil Hotel in February 2013 is still unsolved more than 10 years later.
The reason why this footage is so disturbing is that there are no answers - not for what happened to Lam after she exited the elevator, but also for her strange behaviour displayed in the shaky security camera footage.
Lam arrived in the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles on January 28, 2013 during a solo trip through California.
She'd maintained regular contact with her parents through phone calls - but these abruptly stopped on January 31 with no explanation.
Lam was reported missing that same day, and on February 6, LA police released the now-infamous footage of her last movements ever caught on camera.
But just what's so chilling about the four-minute video?
Well, in the footage Lam is acting very erratic.
She presses multiple buttons, as if she's unsure where she's going and keeps looking behind her shoulder, like there's someone there but we can't see them.
At times, Lam can be seen moving her hands around in a fluid motion, which some have attributed to her being under the influence of drugs, although this is unconfirmed.
Throughout the video, the elevator door also never closes, as if someone on the other side is holding it open.
But maintenance later found out that there was a mechanical issue that caused the door to remain open if certain buttons were pressed.
One theory is that Lam, who had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had started taking medication for the condition, could have been experiencing psychotic symptoms that are consistent with a severe bipolar episode.
But what, exactly, happened to Elisa Lam after she was captured in the elevator footage remains a mystery.
19 days after she was reported missing, Elisa Lam's body was found, floating in one of the water tanks in the Cecil Hotel's roof.
It means that guests at the hotel had been bathing in or even drinking contaminated water since Lam had disappeared.
Police investigators concluded that, somehow, Lam had managed to bypass security to gain access to the roof and had entered the water tank either accidentally or intentionally.
Lam's autopsy revealed no physical trauma to her body or even any defensive wounds, and no illegal drugs or alcohol were found in her system.
However, this hasn't stopped conspiracy theorists analysing Lam's strange, final movements and pointing to something more sinister happening at the Cecil Hotel that January night.
The catch is, no-one will ever really know what happened to Elisa Lam.
