People are freaking out about this 'ghost' at The Shining hotel

We imagine that these fellows are fond of room number 237.

A photo taken at the hotel that inspired Stephen King's legendary 1977 horror novel The Shining appears to show two ghostly apparitions standing at the top of a staircase: a woman in period outfit with a child next to her.

Take a look below if you don't believe us - a photo taken at a different time gives us a comparison of a 'normal' shot.

Tourist Henry Yau captured the image at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park Colorado, with the caption "By golly. I think I may have captured a ghost." 

King was inspired to write The Shining after he and his wife spent the night at the Stanley Hotel in September 1974, writing, "We were the only guests as it turned out; the following day they were going to close the place down for the winter. Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect - maybe the archetypical - setting for a ghost story." In the book, the hotel was renamed The Overlook.

The book was, of course, adapted by Stanley Kubrick into the 1980 film of the same name, although King himself has never been much of a fan.

Yau told KPRC2 that he was visiting the area and, naturally, wanted to have a look around the famous hotel and waited for the staircase to be empty in order to get a good shot.

"When I took it, I didn't notice anything," said Yau.

The Stanley Hotel has capitalised on its celebrity status in recent years, despite the fact that the film used external shots of the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, while the interior filming was done in England.

It held a 'design a maze' competition last year, which was unveiled in September.

It has long been believed that the hotel is haunted, with the website stating: "More recently, the Stanley's paranormal past has been fully embraced. After a century of collecting spirits, the hotel has become renowned by specialists and experts in the field of paranormal investigation as one of the nation's most active sites."