Episodes

The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 1

Chris Amandier

16 Oct 2020 • 19 min read

The Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is one of the most iconic hotels on the strip—and supposedly one of the most haunted.

Back in the 1990s, there were grand plans to make Vegas a new Disney-type destination, full of ornate themed resorts and fun activities for children. The Luxor Hotel and Casino, an Ancient Egyptian themed hotel that’s shaped like a giant obsidian pyramid with a beam of light coming out of the top, was a strange and fascinating example of Vegas’ ’90s family-friendly ambitions. But all that changed in the early 2000s, when Vegas changed tack.

This week is a look at the history of the hotel, from its construction and grand opening to its current de-themed state, plus some initial thoughts on why people might believe the hotel is cursed.

Highlights include:
• A ill-fated pyramid hotel project that was planned for the site next to the Luxor
• Mysterious dead links
• A light that’s visible from space
• Special elevators that go sideways and up to bring people to their rooms
• Ancient alien 3D movies
• Authentic reproductions of Ancient Egyptian artifacts

Episode Script for The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 1

DISCLAIMER: I’m providing this version of the script for accessibility purposes. It hasn’t been proofread, so please excuse typos. There are also some things that may differ between the final episode and this draft script. Please treat the episode audio as the final product.

We’ve been talking Ancient Egypt for the last few weeks, so I wanted to pivot and talk about a haunted hotel that was inspired by Ancient Egypt, the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
I’m gonna start by talking about the history of the hotel, what made it strange and unique, my experiences from when I stayed there as a kid (which unfortunately didn’t involve anything paranormal, that I noticed), and what it’s like now. But I did want to mention right off the bat that it’s known as a very haunted hotel.
- Also, and I’m not gonna get very much into this since it could be its own episode or series but the Luxor is also the hotel where Tupac Shakur was staying on the night he died. For anyone not familiar with his story, he was one of the most influential rappers of all time, he was killed in Vegas in 1996, though that’s complicated and there are a ton of conspiracy theories that posit that he’s still alive. Google it if you want to know more about that.
- I was trying to think of other reasons why folks may have heard of the Luxor, so here’s another thing: if you’ve seen the music video for Will Smith’s 1997 song Getting Jiggy Wit It, part of that was filmed at the Luxor.
- One thing you’ll notice is that the most famous things that happened at the Luxor were in the mid-to-late 1990s.
- That’s because the Luxor has had a bit of a fall since opening to fanfare and 10,000 guests almost exactly 27 years ago, on October 15, 1993.
I’ve been to Vegas once, when I was about 5 years old, in 1995, and while we were there, we stayed at the newly opened Luxor hotel.
- I really loved it there and still have extremely vivid memories of the trip and the Luxor in particular, because it was so cool.
During the 90s, there was an attempt to make Vegas into a sort of Disneyland, somewhere kid-friendly, with grand hotels that catered toward families and spared no expense.
- Around that time, a number of themed resorts that catered towards kids were created.
- Some of those include hotels like the medieval-themed Excalibur in 1990, and its neighbor, and the Egyptian-themed Luxor and pirate-themed Treasure Island which both opened in 1993.
- The Excalibur was built on a site that back in the 1970s, had been intended to be the site of what was supposed to be the first themed mega-resort in Vegas.
  - In 1976, developers planned to build Xanadu, a hotel that would feature a pyramid design and would have cost $150million to build
  - Rather than looking Egyptian, this pyramid would have been more aztec-style. It was intended to have 2,000 rooms, a 20-story atrium, and some sort of flaming water feature.
  - It sounds like the project ran into financing issues, though I also read that there were issues with sewer line installations that screwed up the project.
  - The site was immediately next to where the Luxor hotel was built, and I wonder if Xanadu had been built, that may have made a pyramid-shaped hotel like the Luxor less novel? Maybe they never would have built the Luxor if the Xanadu had succeeded?
  - As a sidenote, I want to look at Xanadu in a future episode–not just the Xanadu hotel, but the idea of Xanadu, because this hotel isn’t the only failed major project called Xanadu, and I feel like there’s something strange, or cursed, about things called Xanadu. (Remember that the mansion in Citizen Kane was called Xanadu as well.)
  - Remember, of course, that Xanadu was the capital of Kublai Khan’s empire, and it came to represent opulence and destroyed splendor, which feels very a propos when it comes to Vegas and maybe America in general.
The Luxor opened three years after the Excalibur did.
- There’s a great 30-minute promotional “documentary” on youtube that tells the story of the Luxor’s conception and construction, which I’ve watched a few times. It’s about a half hour long and it has that delightfully positive early 90s vibe. It kinda feels like the BTS videos that DVDs used to have
- It talks about the development of the Luxor, and the storytelling behind the hotel, including the guy who designed the shows and theatres inside the hotel. He was the guy who designed rides at Disney, including the Back to the Future one.
  - One thing they talk about is how they made a 3D ride with moving seats, like at Disney, that’s basically an ancient aliens type story, where two people go back in time to ancient egypt and it’s a highly technological civilization with spaceships and lazer guns and stuff.
    - They made up a whole “archiectural” style that they called “crypto-Egypto”
    - They show how they made all the miniatures for the shows, and sets, and it’s really really detailed–like one of the sets has over 1,000 lights, and they talk about how the cameras are “computer controlled” etc.
    - They talk about how each image in the CGI stuff is 90 MB of data, which they call “a computer worth of data” which is hilarious.
    - There’s a whole trilogy of films and live performances–which I don’t remember seeing and may have been too young for.
  - But anyway, about the construction of the hotel itself: They built casino and hotel in 18 months, for $375 million (which were drawn from Circus Circus’ petty cash, rather than from outside investors). There’d been a trailer park there before the Luxor was built.
  - The pyramid was 30 stories high–10 stories more than the failed Xanadu–and it was one of the largest glass-and-metal structures that’d been built. It contains 11 acres of glass.
  - There were 2,500 rooms when it first opened, along with a 100,000 square foot casino.
  - The hotel is shaped like a pyramid, of course, since it was named after the city, Luxor (where the ancient city of Thebes had been located.)
  - The pyramid is topped with the world’s most powerful light, which can be seen from space. It’s 42.3 billion candela. One candela is about the equivalent of one normal wax candle, so it’s like . . . 42.3 billion candles.
    - When the lights are on, the temparature in the lamp room is 300 degrees F.
    - While the light, called the Luxor Sky Beam, has operated every night since the hotel opened, since 2008, they only light half the lamps to save money and electricity.
    - The light is so strong that you can see it from airplanes flying near LA.
    - And the light has its own ecosystem: it attracts months, which attracts bats and birds, which attract owls
  - There’s also a single sphinx in front of the pyramid, which is actually larger than the actual sphinxes in Egypt, since if they did it to scale, it would look too small next to the pyramid hotel.
    - The sphinx is 10 stories tall, and as wide as 9 lanes of traffic.
  - There are over 100 “computerized fountains” in front, with lazer beams that come out of the sphinx’s eyes to project onto a water screen.
  - There was enough carpet put down in the Luxor to cover 34 football fields.
  - The atrium of the Luxor was the largest in the world. (That was true back then, but not anymore.)
    - Apparently, 9 747s could be stacked on top of each other in the atrium
  - And because it was built at a slant, the elevators, or “inclinators” as they called them, had to go up at a 39-degree-angle along the sloped slides of the pyramid–there was one at each corner of the atrium.
  - And all around the sides of the slanting walls of the atrium are the rooms, which exit out onto the hallways that look straight down over the atrium so you could see all the cool stuff below.
  - When they opened, there was also a Nile river ride, which I remember making my parents go on a number of times.
    - Apparently, the original idea behind the river ride was to take people from the check in desk to the inclinators so they could go upstairs.
    - The Nile ride was a sort of faux-archaeological tour. There was a guide on the boat who’d give you a tour and talk about some of the reproductions of egyptian sites and artifacts.
    - One highlight I remember from when I was there: at one point there was a bridge with a waterfall that the boat passed under, and it was timed so that the waterfall stopped right before you went under it, and the tour guide would say if a drop of water fell on you there, it was good luck.
    - There was a really impressive attention to detail in terms of the ancient Egyptian stuff there.
      - There as a recreation of a temple of Isis from 50 BC, as well as the statues at Abu Simbel (which, the real temple at Abu Simbel was something that Ramesses the Great, who we talked about last week, built), and a replica of King Tut’s Tomb.
    - I also recall some talking animatronic camels.
  - The video was made before this, but in 1996, there was a $240 million expansion of the Luxor, which added a imax theatre, ice rink, and laser light show. And then in 1998, they added 2,000 rooms in ziggurat-style towers, for $675 million. I have no idea how the first expansion cost 2/3 as much as the initial construction, and then the second addition cost almost double–that seems really weird.
  - The video is so positive; they quote someone saying “this place will never close, it’ll be here forever, it’ll be open 24 hours/day.”
  - Well, that’s sort of a foolish and fate-tempting thing to say about an Ancient Egyptian-themed hotel.
  - As the youtube comments of the video are quick to point out, things have really, really changed.
    - The technology that they used to make the attractions look quaint and are extremely dated by our standards, and those attractions are closed now anyway.
    - Coronavirus shut down Vegas, along with the rest of the country, for a while, making the really grand statements seem especially silly nowadays.
    - Vegas itself has changed. After a the foray into themed resorts and family-friendly splendor, it was decided that gambling and drinking was better business–I imagine the margin on casinos is way, way, better than the margin on free Nile river board rides and overpriced kids menus–and what I thought of as a kid as the “fun” parts of Vegas were phased out.
    - I mentioned Treasure Island, before–if you’ve seen Miss Congeniality 2, you may remember the pirate show that was there back in the 1990s and early 2000s.
      - I remember seeing it and thinking it was cool, definitely Disney worthy.
      - In 2003, Treasure Island took out that show and replaced it with what the president of the casino called a “sexy and beautiful, adult Broadway-caliber show.” I don’t really know why he seems to think that Broadway provides adult entertainment–maybe he’s thinking of the old Times Square before that got Disney-ified, but whatever. It sounds like the hotel’s owners realized that fun disney pirate stuff doesn’t appeal to adults looking to party and loose a bunch of money at casinos.
      - Also, around the time of the revamp, Treasure Island rebranded as “TI,” which seems really weird to me, beause 1) it just makes me think of the rapper, and 2) because it isn’t memorable and doesn’t really say anything, whereas at least Treasure Island fits with the casino theme.
      - In 2013, the Sirens of TI–the adult version of the show–was shut down and replaced by a shopping and entertainment center with a CVS as the anchor tenant. So sounds like Vegas has gone the way that NYC has–take out everything interesting and replace it with a CVS.
    - Likewise, Exaclibur had a cool statue of Merin on a high turret of the castle, which in 2007, they replaced with something advertising Dick’s Last resort.
      - Starting in 2006, they started removing the medieval themes, most of which were gone by 2010.
    - Sadly, the same thing happened with the Luxor.
      - The Luxor had been built by the Circus Circus Enterprises, but was purchased by MGM Resorts International in 2005.
      - In July 2007, they spent $300 million–almost as much as they spent to build the hotel in the first place–to renovate 80% of the Luxor’s public areas. They stripped out the Egyptian stuff and replaced it with generic-feeling, kinda seedy looking restaurants, bars, and lounges.
      - There are two shows at the Luxor these days: a topless show called “Fantasy” and a Carrot Top comedy show.
      - There’s also a club on the casino floor called “Cathouse.”
      - And I believe that the Nile River ride that I loved so much as a kid was only open for three years, I guess from 1993-1996. And then, after that, they drained the river ride and filled it in to have more public walking space.
Nowadays, the cheapest room, the pyramid two queen room, which sleeps four guests and has two queen sized beds, and is about the same size as my apartment, costs $37/night. The most expensive room I could find was the Tower Two-Bedroom Penthouse Suite, which is 3,600 square feet, which is $733/night.
You can stay in the pyramid, which is where I stayed in the 1990s–one really distinctive thing about the pyramid rooms is that the windows and outer walls are at a slant, since they’re the outside of the pyramid.
They later built a tower with additional rooms, which have normal walls and which look like they might be a bit nicer and more modern. (Those rooms start at $45.)
So the Luxor is really, really cheap. I’m sure COVID doesn’t help, but just for contrast, in NYC, there were headlines this week about how hotel room prices were way, way down during COVID, so now the average daily room rate is $135, whereas usually in October they’re $336.
- And a lot of hotels here are closed.
- But for example, the Pierre Hotel, a luxury hotel on Central Park, has priced its cheapest room, a 350 square foot room that sleeps 2 people, at $745/night right now, whereas their most expensive suite, which is 2,088 square foot and sleeps 5 people, starts at $22,000/night.
- So when you see that you can get a suite at the Luxor for $733/night, we’re talking bargain basement. And of course there’s a difference between staying in NYC and Vegas, and I guess at Vegas they expect to make more money from the casinos than from the rooms, but still.
But honestly, as I was doing this research on the Luxor and saw how cheap the rooms were, it made me kind of sad–it just seems not worth it to keep the hotel open.
In fact, this summer, rumors have started flying that the Luxor is being considered for demolition.
- Interestingly, I was reading some articles about this a month or so ago and several of the articles I read are now dead links, but I still found a few sites from July 2020 that address the rumor that the Luxor, and possibly the Exaclibur, may be torn down.
- I know the games industry is extremely powerful, so I don’t know if financial pressure, or something else brought down the original articles I read, but just to be clear: this is a rumor, and the fact that the original articles have been taken down make me think it may have been a false rumor, or at least a killed one. I feel a little skeptical of it, since it doesn’t really seem like a great time to tear down a couple hotels and then spend probably a billion dollars building news ones, though what do I know?
  - To read a bit from the now-removed article on VitalVegas.com, which I found on archive.org:
    - “De-theming casinos in Las Vegas has happened fairly frequently in recent years, as the perception of themes has evolved from cool to kitschy (or downright tacky) over time.
    - Many changes have already been made at Luxor to move away from its original theme, but it’s virtually impossible to re-imagine a massive pyramid.
    - The same dilemma is faced by Excalibur. Good luck tweaking a castle.
    - Our sources say company officials have discussed demolition of both Luxor and Excalibur for at least five years, but have been unable to proceed due to union contracts. It’s possible the COVID-19 shutdown has paved the way for what’s to come for Luxor.”
I don’t know. There are tons of stories of old classic Vegas hotels like the Sands, Riveiera, and Stardust, but there’ve also been false rumors of demolitions of other hotels, like the Rio, recently.

Next week, we’ll get into the haunting of the Luxor, but there’s one more bit of the hotel itself that I want to talk about: Now, despite my fond memories of the Luxor, it seems like there’s some bad vibes at there, that much is clear.

But also, I doubt it helps that the Luxor is also host to two exhibits:

○ One of them is the “Bodies” exhibit that was so popular a decade or so ago. To be clear, the Vegas exhibit isn’t the only one. I remember back in, say 2005-2008, there were tons and tons of “Bodies” exhibits all over the world. The Luxor got a permanent version of the “Bodies” exhibit in 2009.

○ In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s an exhibit shows real human bodies that have had the skin stripped off, perserved using a method called plastination, and then dissected and displayed in different stages. Like for example, posted like they’re running, or playing tennis, etc.

○ There are some major issues with the “Bodies” exhibit, aside from it being awfully creepy and gruesome. Human rights advocates have raised concerns that the bodies are gathered from executed Chinese political prisoners, without the consent of the prisoners and their families

To read from the wikipedia page about the exhibit:
“the front page of the exhibition website displays a disclaimer about the presumed origin of the bodies and fetuses, saying that it “relies solely on the representations of its Chinese partners” and “cannot independently verify” that the bodies do not belong to executed prisoners”
Also , to read a bit from a 2006 NPR report:
- “One delicate ethical concern stands out above all the others: whether the bodies were legitimately obtained. Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of plastination and the impresario behind the Body Worlds exhibitions, says that every whole body exhibited in North America comes from fully informed European and American donors, who gave permission, in writing, for their bodies to be displayed. The science museums that have hosted Body Worlds also make this assurance.
- “What I certainly never use for public exhibitions are unclaimed bodies, prisoners, bodies from mental institutions and executed prisoners,” von Hagens says.
- Chinese medical schools supply von Hagens with unclaimed bodies, which he plastinates and sells to universities. Von Hagens used to take cadavers from the former Soviet Union, but he stopped after body-trafficking scandals in Russia and the Kyrgyz Republic.
- Five years ago, customs officers intercepted 56 bodies and hundreds of brain samples sent from the Novosibirsk Medical Academy to von Hagens’ lab in Heidelberg, Germany. The cadavers were traced to a Russian medical examiner who was convicted last year of illegally selling the bodies of homeless people, prisoners and indigent hospital patients.
- Von Hagens was not charged with any wrongdoing, and says his cadavers are obtained only through proper legal and ethical channels.
- Still, NPR has learned there’s no clear paper trail from willing donors to exhibited bodies.”
A number of religious groups, as well as bioethicits, have objected to the concept in general. There’s something really sick about paying money to look at exhibits of human bodies, put out on display, especially when the company that put on the exhibit hasn’t been able to come up with consent documentation for the people who are on display.
The Bodies exhibit just reopened last week, after the COVID shutdown, and has been updated with displays showing the effects of COVID on the human body
And if the creepy bodies obtained by a creepy German doctor aren’t enough for you, there’s also a Titanic exhibit that includes artifacts from the wreck, including, to quote the exhibit’s website “luggage, the ship’s whistles, floor tiles from the first-class smoking room, a window frame from the Verandah Cafe and an unopened bottle of champagne with a 1900 vintage”

I feel really nostalgic about the Luxor and if I ever go to Vegas again, I’d love to stay there for old time’s sake. But also for ghost hunting.

Sources consulted RE: The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

Articles RE: The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

Wright, Gordon. “Pyramidal shape pushes the envelope.” Building Design & Construction, vol. 35, no. 8, Aug. 1994, p. 36+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A15687724/AONE?u=nypl&sid=AONE&xid=710afd9f. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.
Hartinger, Brent. “Is it real or is it just really cool.” Omni, vol. 17, no. 3, Dec. 1994, p. 35. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A15986878/AONE?u=nypl&sid=AONE&xid=5abe0e0d. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.

Websites RE: The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

The Making of Luxor Las Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwB14kIEI2A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Las_Vegas_casinos_that_never_opened#Xanadu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Las_Vegas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_Hotel_and_Casino
https://excalibur.mgmresorts.com/en.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7203118/anniversary-tupac-shakur-murder-shot-dead-las-vegas/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur#Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettin’_Jiggy_wit_It
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_Hotel_and_Casin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_Meadowlands
https://gaming.unlv.edu/Xanadu/then.html
http://digital.library.unlv.edu/skyline/hotel/xanadu
https://viewfinder.expedia.com/most-amazing-hotels-never-built/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel_temples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela
https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/luxor-implosion/
https://web.archive.org/web/20200831185429/https://vitalvegas.com/rumor-mill-demolition-could-be-in-the-cards-for-luxor/
https://web.archive.org/web/20161226060524/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/luxors-floor-under-review
https://web.archive.org/web/20200912074529/
https://www.casino.org/news/luxor-las-vegas-demolition-rumors-spread-insiders-say-days-numbered/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_Hotel_and_Casino
http://onlinenevada.org/articles/luxor-hotel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Bennett_(gaming_executive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190803113506/https://www.casino.org/blog/deaths-in-luxor/
https://www.reference.com/history/many-people-died-building-empire-state-building-48bddec3439ab036
https://www.forconstructionpros.com/blogs/construction-toolbox/blog/12096401/looking-back-on-the-worlds-deadliest-construction-projects
https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/vegas-attraction-bodies-adds-covid-exhibit-titanic-back-online-2140592/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodies:_The_Exhibition
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5637687
https://www.ktnv.com/positivelylv/now-open-titanic-the-artifact-exhibition-and-bodies-the-exhibition-at-luxor-hotel-and-casino
https://luxor.mgmresorts.com/en/entertainment/titanic.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/861169/las-vegas-shooting-mandalay-bay-resort-luxor-hotel-bomb-threat
https://www.inquisitr.com/4531623/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-surface-illuminati-area-51-luxor/
https://illuminatiwatcher.com/las-vegas-shooting-stephen-paddock-illuminati-conspiracy-theories/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/famous-waypoints-aviation-luxor-sky-beam/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g45963-d111709-Reviews-Luxor_Hotel_Casino-Las_Vegas_Nevada.html
http://www.becksghosthunters.com/2019/01/the-luxor-in-las-vegas-is-haunted-what.html
https://vegasghosts.com/luxor-dark-pyramid-vegas/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence
https://www.vegasbright.com/2016/03/29/luxors-questionable-origins-the-crookedness-of-an-era-gone-by/
https://www.bestofvegas.com/articles/haunted-hotels-in-las-vegas/
https://www.travelchannel.com/destinations/us/nv/las-vegas/articles/luxor-las-vegas
https://lasvegassun.com/news/1996/sep/26/woman-commits-suicide-inside-luxor/
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/08/high-rollers-and-high-strangeness-the-haunted-casinos-of-las-vegas/
http://hauntedhoneymoon.com/hauntedplaces/luxor.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3sZKKrfkEo
https://www.hauntedrooms.com/nevada/las-vegas/haunted-places/haunted-hotels
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/nevada/articles/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-las-vegas-luxor-hotel/
http://www.hauntedpoker.com/true-hauntings/luxor-las-vegas-haunted.html
https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/las-vegas/haunted-houses-in-las-vegas-nevada-halloween
https://vitalvegas.com/rumor-mill-demolition-could-be-in-the-cards-for-luxor/
https://vitalvegas.com/insider-secrets-really-really-dont-want-know-las-vegas/
http://www.weirdca.com/location.php?location=128
https://amyscrypt.com/haunted-places-las-vegas-nevada/
https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/luxor-boat-ride/
http://www.vegastripping.com/news/blog/4282/luxor-sinks/
https://ballenvegas.com/haunted-vegas/
https://www.bestuscasinos.org/news/las-vegas-luxor-may-soon-demolished/
http://www.city-data.com/forum/las-vegas/1668131-luxor-haunted-2.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7203118/anniversary-tupac-shakur-murder-shot-dead-las-vegas/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/with-prices-down-24200-per-room-nyc-hotels-set-for-more-pain/ar-BB19RI8Z
https://www.thepierreny.com/
https://luxor.mgmresorts.com/en.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3sZKKrfkEo
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/lightning-bolt-strikes-las-vegas-2071605
https://www.lasvegasinsideout.com/luxor-hotel-after-opening-in-1993/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-17-tr-46901-story.html
http://www.lvstriphistory.com/ie/luxor.htm
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-13-fi-12815-story.html