“Welcome to the macabre express,” says host Jac Hayden.

Hayden – a comedian and former undertaker – is a guide for one of the most unusual tours in Las Vegas, one that takes a busload of guests around town looking at sites said to be haunted.

Such as where rapper Tupac Shakur was shot to death in 1996; where the late comedian Redd Foxx was living at the time of his death; the Stratosphere (the site of a number of suicides) and the Las Vegas Hilton, where Elvis Spirit is said to be present.

“His ghost has been seen there at least 100 times,” Hayden says.

The tour is one of the top 10 haunted tours in the United States.

It begins are 9:30 p.m. and lasts until almost midnight, ending with a séance at the Liberace Museum, where Liberace is said to have made his presence known in his former dressing room.

Hayden, who has been giving fans the willies since the tours began five years ago, sets up the evening with a video about the macabre side of Vegas and information that should raise a few eyebrows, such as Vegas being the suicide capital of the United States.

The comedian mixes humor and pathos with tales of dead celebrities.

The tour, which includes a late night walk through a park where guests have the chance to take pictures of ghosts, is the brainchild of Robert Allen.

Allen is a semi-retired entertainer – a standup comedian who worked in “Splash” at the Riviera for about 10 years, a singer who had a band for many years touring the country and picking up ghost stories.

“When I was a kid I grew up in an Italian household and there were lots of ghost stories,” Allen says, whose show business career started with a rock bad at the age of 16.

As he toured the country haunted houses became a hobby.

“We’d perform in Nebraska or Oklahoma – wherever we were I would look into haunting,” Allen says. “I had the nickname ‘Spooky.’”

In 1999 Allen stepped back from performing.

“That first year I spent playing golf, but then I got bored,” he says.
His wife suggested a haunted tour just to keep him busy.

“It began as a weekend thing,” Allen says. “It was just me in a van and a few guests for the first 10 months or so, but then it caught on.”

He added a couple of buses to the van and hired some tour guides and now the scare tours are a nightly thing, beginning at the Royal Resort on Convention Center. Tickets are $66.25. For information call 866-218-4935.

Allen also has a mob tour, same principle – 2 ½ hour tour, $66.25, beginning at 6 p.m. Call 866-218-4935.

Allen spent about six months researching ghosts in Las Vegas before he launched the tour.

“We have a lot more sightings than we use in the tour,” Allen says.

He does his best to document the sightings.

“I’ve been chasing ghosts since I was a kid,” Allen says. “I’m not convinced what they are, but I know something exists. I’ve been all over the world, and there are people all over the world that believe in ghosts.

“I have seen stuff I couldn’t figure out or explain to this day. I just know something is there.”