A once-beautiful example of Art-Deco architecture and interior design, and one of the truly grand movie houses of the 1930s, the El Rey Theatre in Merced California opened it's doors in 1937. It functioned for 38 years, finally closing due to a fire that essentially gutted the interior. Ironically, on the night that it burned, the film that it was showing was The Towering Inferno.
The building stood empty, a burned-out shell, for over two decades until the Kelly Brothers purchased it and turned it into a restaurant and micro-brewery. But, of course, that's not the end of the story.
Since the Kelly Brothers establishment opened in the late 1990s, stories have begun circulating that spirits left from the old theatre days haunt the building. Customers claim to have seen people in clothing from earlier decades walking about, only to inexplicably vanish. Firefighters, in gear and uniforms from the 1970s, are sometimes seen wandering the building. It is said that hot spots appear in different spots around the building, as if in memory of the fire that destroyed the theatre. When a grease fire erupted in the kitchen in 2003, many people developed the belief that this was a result of the ghostly hot spots igniting the grease*.
*And not, oh, say the fact that there was flammable grease being heated ON A STOVE.
Discussion: I grew up about 15 miles south of Manteca. When I was a kid, it was little more than a small town near a sugar refinery that caused the downtown area to smell pretty horrible most of the time (earning it the nick-name "Man-Stinka'"). During the 1980s, and accelerating in the 1990s, a large number of people who worked in the Bay Area decided to purchase house in the Central Valley, and towns such as Manteca, Salida, Modesto, Stockton, and Dublin grew rapidly. While far from a thriving metropolis, Manteca has grown to be a small city with a more diverse population than it once had.
The growth of these Central Valley towns and cities has had numerous effects, both positive and negative. On the one hand, it has resulted in more money being available for local development and has made them nicer places to live, on the whole. At the same time, the fact that so many of the new residents spent much of their day commuting meant that they had less loyalty to local businesses, and often served as absentee-parents, both of which created their own set of problems. However, as the urban centers have grown, more people have found local work, and a greater commitment to the community has formed.
And that's part of what I like about this story. The construction of micro-breweries in the Central Valley is very much a result of the arrival of more affluent people from the Bay Area, the yuppification of the Central Valley, if you get what I mean. It is a very definite break in both character and culture with the Central Valley's past, which has its up side and its down side. This story, though, symbolically connects the old with the new. By having the ghosts of the past literally show up in a new type of business, it provides a folkloric continuity that I think is needed in much of the Valley.
Sources: Weird Fresno, waymarking.com, Strangeusa.com, Shadowlands, Cinema Treasures, Local Newspaper
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
AC/DC and Satanic Reincarnation
This one is not technically a ghost story, but it does involve someone returning from the grave, is interesting and, I think, deserves to be listed here.
As a kid, probably around the age of 12, I remember talking with one of the other kids in the neighborhood as we walked to the store one day. A car drove by, windows rolled down, hard rock blaring from the stereo's speakers. The other kid, has name was Ryan, looked at me gravely and said "that's Satanic music."
Being the sort of kid that I was, I looked at him with a smirk, and made a smart-ass comment. He rolled his eyes, and repeated his claim that the music was Satanic.
So, I asked "Really? You don't listen to it, how do you know it's Satanic?"
We stopped walking, he turned to me, and said "my uncle used to listen to that kind of music. And there's this one band, AC/DC, where their singer died. The band had songs about going to Hell to party, and about how everyone should use drugs and talk to demons, and things like that. My uncle said that he was pretty sad when the singer died, but a year later, the group put out a new record*, and they had this new singer. But the new singer looked and sounded and acted just like the old one, and he was singing this song about how he was back! My uncle said that it was pretty obvious that the song was about how he had died, and then Satan broght him back to continue doing the Devil's work!"
I rolled my eyes, and we continued walking. But the story stuck with me, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember it now, 23 years later. I think that part of what gave it its staying power, as silly as I thought it was, was Ryan's insistence that the story of AC/DCs Satanic reincarnation was true, and the distress that it seemed to cause him.
Commentary: I grew up in a small town to the north of Modesto, California. Like most towns in California, the residents were primarily Christian, and many were from one or another fundamentalist church (that is, of the minority who routinely attended any church), and a few of these churches were known for their "bunker mentality" approach to the world, where anything not from the church itself was considered suspect if not outright evil, and likely to assault the "godly" (which was, of course, members of that church, and pretty much nobody else). As a result, it is no surprise that there were a fair number of people who were convinced that horror movies were evil, D&D was a Satanic primer, Secular Humanists were trying to take over the world and abolish Christianity**, and rock music was, quite literally, music from Hell itself.
In this context, it's not surprising that Brian Johnson, the singer that replaced Bon Scott, was thought by some who are part of this particular Christian sub-culture to be a satanic reincarnation of Scott sent by Satan both to tempt more to Hell and to provide Satan with a prominent mouth-piece on Earth. Of course, when you consider that Johnson was not only alive, but had an active musical career, well before Scott's death, this reincarnation hypothesis falls apart, but paranoid sub-cultures have never been known for their adherence to reality.
I don't know if Ryan really had an uncle who told him this, as I have since heard the story told by different people in different places. It's entirely possible that multiple people developed this particular hair-brained hypothesis, helped along by AC/DC's lyrics and the fact that both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson both sing as if they are in the pained and advanced stages of throat cancer. Regardless, it was one of the claims that tended to serve as "evidence" of a massive Satanic influence on the "secular world."
This is, in no small way, a continuation of the rumors of violin virtuoso Paganini's alleged Satanic connections, which were both part of his commercial success and fed the worries of the delusional paranoiacs of his day.
Ironically, while the rumor of Scott's Satanic reincarnation was developing amongst this sub-culture, AC/DC fans were busy pointing to difference between Scott and Johnson and arguing over who was better. Two divergent sub-cultures...so it goes....
*It was the late 80s. We still referred to music albums as "records" even though they were coming out primarily on CDs.
**I remember often hearing this as a kid. Weirdly, as an adult, I discovered that there really was a group that identified itself as Secular Humanists, was relatively small in numbers, with no actual political power, and possessing an agenda so mellow that it's hard to imagine anyone who actually knew it having much of an objection to it. These people were often confused when they were informed that they were actually in control of the world's governments.
As a kid, probably around the age of 12, I remember talking with one of the other kids in the neighborhood as we walked to the store one day. A car drove by, windows rolled down, hard rock blaring from the stereo's speakers. The other kid, has name was Ryan, looked at me gravely and said "that's Satanic music."
Being the sort of kid that I was, I looked at him with a smirk, and made a smart-ass comment. He rolled his eyes, and repeated his claim that the music was Satanic.
So, I asked "Really? You don't listen to it, how do you know it's Satanic?"
We stopped walking, he turned to me, and said "my uncle used to listen to that kind of music. And there's this one band, AC/DC, where their singer died. The band had songs about going to Hell to party, and about how everyone should use drugs and talk to demons, and things like that. My uncle said that he was pretty sad when the singer died, but a year later, the group put out a new record*, and they had this new singer. But the new singer looked and sounded and acted just like the old one, and he was singing this song about how he was back! My uncle said that it was pretty obvious that the song was about how he had died, and then Satan broght him back to continue doing the Devil's work!"
I rolled my eyes, and we continued walking. But the story stuck with me, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember it now, 23 years later. I think that part of what gave it its staying power, as silly as I thought it was, was Ryan's insistence that the story of AC/DCs Satanic reincarnation was true, and the distress that it seemed to cause him.
Commentary: I grew up in a small town to the north of Modesto, California. Like most towns in California, the residents were primarily Christian, and many were from one or another fundamentalist church (that is, of the minority who routinely attended any church), and a few of these churches were known for their "bunker mentality" approach to the world, where anything not from the church itself was considered suspect if not outright evil, and likely to assault the "godly" (which was, of course, members of that church, and pretty much nobody else). As a result, it is no surprise that there were a fair number of people who were convinced that horror movies were evil, D&D was a Satanic primer, Secular Humanists were trying to take over the world and abolish Christianity**, and rock music was, quite literally, music from Hell itself.
In this context, it's not surprising that Brian Johnson, the singer that replaced Bon Scott, was thought by some who are part of this particular Christian sub-culture to be a satanic reincarnation of Scott sent by Satan both to tempt more to Hell and to provide Satan with a prominent mouth-piece on Earth. Of course, when you consider that Johnson was not only alive, but had an active musical career, well before Scott's death, this reincarnation hypothesis falls apart, but paranoid sub-cultures have never been known for their adherence to reality.
I don't know if Ryan really had an uncle who told him this, as I have since heard the story told by different people in different places. It's entirely possible that multiple people developed this particular hair-brained hypothesis, helped along by AC/DC's lyrics and the fact that both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson both sing as if they are in the pained and advanced stages of throat cancer. Regardless, it was one of the claims that tended to serve as "evidence" of a massive Satanic influence on the "secular world."
This is, in no small way, a continuation of the rumors of violin virtuoso Paganini's alleged Satanic connections, which were both part of his commercial success and fed the worries of the delusional paranoiacs of his day.
Ironically, while the rumor of Scott's Satanic reincarnation was developing amongst this sub-culture, AC/DC fans were busy pointing to difference between Scott and Johnson and arguing over who was better. Two divergent sub-cultures...so it goes....
*It was the late 80s. We still referred to music albums as "records" even though they were coming out primarily on CDs.
**I remember often hearing this as a kid. Weirdly, as an adult, I discovered that there really was a group that identified itself as Secular Humanists, was relatively small in numbers, with no actual political power, and possessing an agenda so mellow that it's hard to imagine anyone who actually knew it having much of an objection to it. These people were often confused when they were informed that they were actually in control of the world's governments.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Army Aviation Support Facilities, Stockton, California
The Army Aviation Support Facilities in Stockton, California, is the home to a fleet of helicopters and the crew who maintain and fly them. I have a family member who works there, and he has told me that there are some peculiar things that occur in the building.
The first I heard of weird happenings at the facility was a few years ago, when I was told of a strange scent that workers were noticing. A woman had previously worked in "the shop" (as the employees refer to the aircraft maintenance building), but had left, and subsequently suffered ill health leading to her death. She was known for wearing a perfume with a particular floral scent. After her death, people working in the building began to report that they would smell her perfume. Initially, it was assumed that one of the other women who worked there had taken to wearing the same type, but this was quickly found to not be true. To this day, the perfume is still smelled every now and again.
My relative also reports hearing phantom voices in the aircraft hanger and attached offices. He says that the voices are clearly human, but always seem to be speaking at normal conversational levels in another room, and specific words can never be quite made out. Although most of the staff are willing to work alone in the building, the voices are spooky enough that they prefer not to have to. Following the voices to their source always reveals the location from which they were emanating to be empty.
Commentary: The Army Aviation Support Facilities is staffed by a mix of Army National guard members who work full time, civilian employees, and part-time National Guard members. Known for it's Chinook Helicopters, the facility has a seasoned staff of military veterans who have seen and done alot. So, naturally, when confronted with the supernatural, these rather tough individuals use the unnatural as a source for playing practical jokes on each other.
My relative tells me of times when various members will start to sniff the air, asking if anyone else smells anything, just to see how people act. Likewise, it's not unknown for someone on late-night duty to make noise and book it out of a room just to see if another person stuck with a similar responsibility will come running or become frightened.
Can I explain the hauntings? Well, the fact that these folks are playing practical jokes on each other probably explains quite a bit of it right there. I could probably come up with perfectly plausible explanations even without the practical jokes, but I have to admit that the fact that people are essentially living the folklore as a way of harassing each other amuses me, and I would be hard-pressed to discourage it.
Sources: Personal Account
The first I heard of weird happenings at the facility was a few years ago, when I was told of a strange scent that workers were noticing. A woman had previously worked in "the shop" (as the employees refer to the aircraft maintenance building), but had left, and subsequently suffered ill health leading to her death. She was known for wearing a perfume with a particular floral scent. After her death, people working in the building began to report that they would smell her perfume. Initially, it was assumed that one of the other women who worked there had taken to wearing the same type, but this was quickly found to not be true. To this day, the perfume is still smelled every now and again.
My relative also reports hearing phantom voices in the aircraft hanger and attached offices. He says that the voices are clearly human, but always seem to be speaking at normal conversational levels in another room, and specific words can never be quite made out. Although most of the staff are willing to work alone in the building, the voices are spooky enough that they prefer not to have to. Following the voices to their source always reveals the location from which they were emanating to be empty.
Commentary: The Army Aviation Support Facilities is staffed by a mix of Army National guard members who work full time, civilian employees, and part-time National Guard members. Known for it's Chinook Helicopters, the facility has a seasoned staff of military veterans who have seen and done alot. So, naturally, when confronted with the supernatural, these rather tough individuals use the unnatural as a source for playing practical jokes on each other.
My relative tells me of times when various members will start to sniff the air, asking if anyone else smells anything, just to see how people act. Likewise, it's not unknown for someone on late-night duty to make noise and book it out of a room just to see if another person stuck with a similar responsibility will come running or become frightened.
Can I explain the hauntings? Well, the fact that these folks are playing practical jokes on each other probably explains quite a bit of it right there. I could probably come up with perfectly plausible explanations even without the practical jokes, but I have to admit that the fact that people are essentially living the folklore as a way of harassing each other amuses me, and I would be hard-pressed to discourage it.
Sources: Personal Account
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Meux Home, Fresno, CA
Updated 4-30-2011, photos added
Victorian mansions-turned-museums are common enough in California's Central Valley. My own old stomping grounds in Modesto had the McHenry Mansion, and Fresno has the Meux Home. It is a beautiful Victorian building, open for public tours and surrounded by a scenic garden.
Unlike the McHenry mansion, however, the Meux home is said to be haunted. Symptoms of the haunting include the sounds of children laughing in the upstairs of the home, even when it is known to be empty; strange knocking sounds and general noise are said to have been reported by people in the house after-hours; claims that objects (including fixed objects such as door knobs) have gone missing or been moved after everyone had left for the night abound in local folklore; and there are stories that a fuzzy, but clearly human apparition has been seen looking out the windows at passers-by. Although there are numerous claims about the activities of the ghosts, there is little information regarding their origins.
One local, but completely untrue, story holds that the ghosts are the spirit of slaves kept in the house prior to the civil war. The claim is that their cruel masters treated them horribly, and that their restless spirits continue to haunt the mansion, making mischief and frightening whoever they can.
The museum management does not publicly acknowledge the hauntings, and at least one local enthusiast claims to have been given the brush-off when he asked for a chance to investigate. Though, to be fair, there are enough strange people with an interest in ghosts that anyone running such an establishment has good reason to be wary of people asking to investigate.
Commentary: One of the things that fascinates me about this story is that it illustrates how distanced from reality the local folklore can become when describing the past.
The house was built between 1888 and 1889 by one Dr. Thomas Richard Meux, a physician and former Confederate soldier who came out west int he decades following the American Civil War. Dr. Meux died in 1929 (at the age of 91, quite old now, especially old in the early 20th century), leaving the house to his daughter, who lived there until her death in 1970. The house subsequently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and became a museum dedicated to illustrating 19th century life in California. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. While there was, no doubt, much drama and excitement in the lives of the people who lived in the house, it wasn't the stuff normally associated with ghost stories.
So, of course, people began to make things up. One popular story holds that the house was built in the 1820s and that the homeowners had numerous slaves. They were, of course, very cruel masters, and the ghost stories are attributed to the restless spirits of the slaves. There are a few problems with the story though, notably that Fresno didn't exist until the 1860s, California was never a slave state, and the house wasn't built until 60-70 years after the slavery story claims. The fact that Dr. Meux served in the Confederate army may be the source for this story.
So, I am torn. As a ghost story/folklore enthusiast, I love the fact that the story has changed for the sake of drama and to place it within a broader tradition of folkloric versions of American history. As someone who is trained and works professionally in historic preservation, this sort of fast-and-loose-with-facts history annoys me.
Sources: Local Folklore, Published Book, Weird Fresno, Meux Home Website
Victorian mansions-turned-museums are common enough in California's Central Valley. My own old stomping grounds in Modesto had the McHenry Mansion, and Fresno has the Meux Home. It is a beautiful Victorian building, open for public tours and surrounded by a scenic garden.
Unlike the McHenry mansion, however, the Meux home is said to be haunted. Symptoms of the haunting include the sounds of children laughing in the upstairs of the home, even when it is known to be empty; strange knocking sounds and general noise are said to have been reported by people in the house after-hours; claims that objects (including fixed objects such as door knobs) have gone missing or been moved after everyone had left for the night abound in local folklore; and there are stories that a fuzzy, but clearly human apparition has been seen looking out the windows at passers-by. Although there are numerous claims about the activities of the ghosts, there is little information regarding their origins.
One local, but completely untrue, story holds that the ghosts are the spirit of slaves kept in the house prior to the civil war. The claim is that their cruel masters treated them horribly, and that their restless spirits continue to haunt the mansion, making mischief and frightening whoever they can.
The museum management does not publicly acknowledge the hauntings, and at least one local enthusiast claims to have been given the brush-off when he asked for a chance to investigate. Though, to be fair, there are enough strange people with an interest in ghosts that anyone running such an establishment has good reason to be wary of people asking to investigate.
Commentary: One of the things that fascinates me about this story is that it illustrates how distanced from reality the local folklore can become when describing the past.
The house was built between 1888 and 1889 by one Dr. Thomas Richard Meux, a physician and former Confederate soldier who came out west int he decades following the American Civil War. Dr. Meux died in 1929 (at the age of 91, quite old now, especially old in the early 20th century), leaving the house to his daughter, who lived there until her death in 1970. The house subsequently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and became a museum dedicated to illustrating 19th century life in California. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. While there was, no doubt, much drama and excitement in the lives of the people who lived in the house, it wasn't the stuff normally associated with ghost stories.
So, of course, people began to make things up. One popular story holds that the house was built in the 1820s and that the homeowners had numerous slaves. They were, of course, very cruel masters, and the ghost stories are attributed to the restless spirits of the slaves. There are a few problems with the story though, notably that Fresno didn't exist until the 1860s, California was never a slave state, and the house wasn't built until 60-70 years after the slavery story claims. The fact that Dr. Meux served in the Confederate army may be the source for this story.
So, I am torn. As a ghost story/folklore enthusiast, I love the fact that the story has changed for the sake of drama and to place it within a broader tradition of folkloric versions of American history. As someone who is trained and works professionally in historic preservation, this sort of fast-and-loose-with-facts history annoys me.
Sources: Local Folklore, Published Book, Weird Fresno, Meux Home Website
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Walnut Girl Ghost and Train Depot, Armonas, CA
There is an odd ghost that is said to haunt the walnut orchards of California's San Joaquin Valley, and she seems to have a connection with an equally odd haunted building.
First, the ghost. As the story goes, at some point during the 19th century, a group of young girls were swimming in a waterhole outside of town. A group of young boys showed up, and teased the girls, threatening to enter the water (remember, this was the 19th century, meaning both that people were likely to be swimming nude). All but one of the girls took off running, and hid in the nearby walnut orchard until the boys went away. The last girl decided to hide underwater. However, something went wrong, and she ended up drowning.
Since then, strange events said to be assoiccated with the girl have been reported. The drowned girl is said to appear to other girls of about the same age, always reported to be naked, and always near either the walnut orchards or places that store walnuts (thus the name Walnut Girl), as if she's trying to make up for her mistake of not running to the orchards. Boys of that age are said to never report seeing her, but will attribute instances of bad luck to her, as if she is trying to get even with the boys who precipitated her death.
This brings us to the haunted building, an old Railroad Depot near Armona, where walnuts from the harvest would be loaded onto trains and taken to markets throughout California and the United States. The depot, now abandoned, is said to be the home of many strange phenomenae: lights would appear at night, compasses will not read accurately (and may simply spin), and photographs routinely show strange bright spots on the building that were not visible when the picture was taken.
And, naturally, sightings of the walnut girl are said to be especially common near this building. One person, placing her story on numerous internet sites, claims to have seen the walnut girl at the depot, and on telling her mother of this, was told that her mother had also seen the walnut girl at the depot.
Commentary: There are two points about this story that I find interesting. The first is the way inw hich something generated at one point in history can take on a very different meaning at another point in history. In the story of the young girls skinny dipping, and being menaced by a group of young boys, it's hard not to read much of our early 21st century sexual politics into the situation, including the very real problems of both sexual assault and the sexualization of children. However, if this story dates to the late 19th or early 20th centuries, which is possible (I haven't been able to find out with any certainty), then it is likely that the story of the boys teasing and threatening the girls would have come off as more of an "innocent prank." Whether this reflects the unwillingness of earlier people to face very real problems or reflects modern paranoia, or a combination of the two, I leave to you, the readers, to argue.
The other point that I find interesting here is that there seems to be one "definitive" acount of the Walnut Girl ghost and the haunted depot, and it is, word-for-word identical on every web site that I have found, indicating that the author posted it everywhere that she could find. Those few web pages where it's not quoted at least refer to it. This raises the question: how much of the story is actual local folklore, and how much of it is the result of someone posting the story to every paranormal-themed web page she could find? I hope to head down there in the near future to see if I can find any evidence of this story being part of the local folklore, but in the meantime, it's an interesting question.
Sources: Weird Fresno, OBI-WAN's UFO-Free Paranormal Page, and the exact same story appears verbatim at numerous other places on the web, including Strange, Spooky, and Weird
First, the ghost. As the story goes, at some point during the 19th century, a group of young girls were swimming in a waterhole outside of town. A group of young boys showed up, and teased the girls, threatening to enter the water (remember, this was the 19th century, meaning both that people were likely to be swimming nude). All but one of the girls took off running, and hid in the nearby walnut orchard until the boys went away. The last girl decided to hide underwater. However, something went wrong, and she ended up drowning.
Since then, strange events said to be assoiccated with the girl have been reported. The drowned girl is said to appear to other girls of about the same age, always reported to be naked, and always near either the walnut orchards or places that store walnuts (thus the name Walnut Girl), as if she's trying to make up for her mistake of not running to the orchards. Boys of that age are said to never report seeing her, but will attribute instances of bad luck to her, as if she is trying to get even with the boys who precipitated her death.
This brings us to the haunted building, an old Railroad Depot near Armona, where walnuts from the harvest would be loaded onto trains and taken to markets throughout California and the United States. The depot, now abandoned, is said to be the home of many strange phenomenae: lights would appear at night, compasses will not read accurately (and may simply spin), and photographs routinely show strange bright spots on the building that were not visible when the picture was taken.
And, naturally, sightings of the walnut girl are said to be especially common near this building. One person, placing her story on numerous internet sites, claims to have seen the walnut girl at the depot, and on telling her mother of this, was told that her mother had also seen the walnut girl at the depot.
Commentary: There are two points about this story that I find interesting. The first is the way inw hich something generated at one point in history can take on a very different meaning at another point in history. In the story of the young girls skinny dipping, and being menaced by a group of young boys, it's hard not to read much of our early 21st century sexual politics into the situation, including the very real problems of both sexual assault and the sexualization of children. However, if this story dates to the late 19th or early 20th centuries, which is possible (I haven't been able to find out with any certainty), then it is likely that the story of the boys teasing and threatening the girls would have come off as more of an "innocent prank." Whether this reflects the unwillingness of earlier people to face very real problems or reflects modern paranoia, or a combination of the two, I leave to you, the readers, to argue.
The other point that I find interesting here is that there seems to be one "definitive" acount of the Walnut Girl ghost and the haunted depot, and it is, word-for-word identical on every web site that I have found, indicating that the author posted it everywhere that she could find. Those few web pages where it's not quoted at least refer to it. This raises the question: how much of the story is actual local folklore, and how much of it is the result of someone posting the story to every paranormal-themed web page she could find? I hope to head down there in the near future to see if I can find any evidence of this story being part of the local folklore, but in the meantime, it's an interesting question.
Sources: Weird Fresno, OBI-WAN's UFO-Free Paranormal Page, and the exact same story appears verbatim at numerous other places on the web, including Strange, Spooky, and Weird
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Phantom Hitchhiker, Delano, CA
Delano is one of those small, Central Valley cities that is typical of California. Delano is an agricultural center, located in one of the most fertile areas of the world (while people outside of California tend to think of the state as being one big beach, the majority of it is actually excellent agricultural land), it is home to numerous farms, related businesses, a politically and socially conservative population (something else common in California, despite the stereotype), and, apparently, a butt-load of ghosts. One of these ghosts is a phantom hitchhiker that haunts Browning Road in southern Delano.
There is no consensus on the origin of the ghost, though the most common story seems to be that she was a young woman who was crossing the street early one morning when she was struck by a speeding vehicle. Regardless, she is said to appear on the side of the road, sometimes looking as if she's about to cross, other times looking as if she's trying to flag a ride. Some stories tell that she actually appears in the backseat of cars driving down Browning Road (shades of Highway 152?), while others hold that the ghost has moved into the path of oncoming traffic only to vanish as the cars swerve to avoid her.
People posting to internet forums* report that, in addition to trying to cross the street, dodge traffic, and catch a ride, the young woman also will run after cars driving on Browning Road, and has been heard latching on to the car's undercarriage and messing about with the machinery. Two posters report making an effort to attract the ghost's attention - one reports that he and his passenger saw the ghost appear next to the car, and they quickly high-tailed it out of there; the other reports that they drove up and down the road looking for the ghost, and finally stopped and exited the car, mocking it. Upon returning to their vehicle, they saw the spirit in the back seat, though it promptly vanished, leaving a cold spot in the back of the car.
There is at least one variation on the story that holds that the ghost is not a phantom hitchhiker, but rather the spirits of two men who appear as shaodws and leap at cars. And one variation on the "ghost appears in the backseat" element says that the ghost is not seen in the backseat, but can be felt nudging the driver from the back seat.
*Ahhh, publication on the Illustrious Internet! Well-vetted and accurate. You can believe everything that you read there, especially if it's posted by someone with the monniker of Sluggo!
Commentary: I have complained before about how the ease of copying and pasting on the internet can lead to folklore stagnating. In this case, though, the use of the internet appears to have led to the stories flourishing and mutating in interesting ways. While most of the posts on the internet message board threads about this story bare all of the marks of being someone wanting to tell tall tales, they are, nonetheless, great variations on, and continuations of, the original story. When one searches, there is, of course, a fair amount of cutting-and-pasting between different sites. But there is also a good deal of originality, and that's part of what makes ghost stories so wonderful.
One thing that this story brings to mind, at least for me, is that the generall classification of a ghost story often doesn't quite describe it. This one is often described as a vanishing hitchhiker, and there are elements of that tale here, but the ghost just as often simply appears near the car, chases the car, or appears within the car, all without anyone trying to give her a ride. This is, in some ways, similar to Ressurection Mary, where the ghost does sometimes go for a ride, but just as often is said to do something else altogether.
I also like the variation that describes her latching on to the underside of a car and mucking about with it, making her similar to a gremlin. I wonder if this is an example of two stories coming together, or of one story simply gaining attributes similar to another, but independently.
Sources: Weird Fresno, Strange USA Forums, Unsolvedmsyeries.com (AKA, the web page that time forgot), Oddly, a Facebook page, Shadowlands.net
There is no consensus on the origin of the ghost, though the most common story seems to be that she was a young woman who was crossing the street early one morning when she was struck by a speeding vehicle. Regardless, she is said to appear on the side of the road, sometimes looking as if she's about to cross, other times looking as if she's trying to flag a ride. Some stories tell that she actually appears in the backseat of cars driving down Browning Road (shades of Highway 152?), while others hold that the ghost has moved into the path of oncoming traffic only to vanish as the cars swerve to avoid her.
People posting to internet forums* report that, in addition to trying to cross the street, dodge traffic, and catch a ride, the young woman also will run after cars driving on Browning Road, and has been heard latching on to the car's undercarriage and messing about with the machinery. Two posters report making an effort to attract the ghost's attention - one reports that he and his passenger saw the ghost appear next to the car, and they quickly high-tailed it out of there; the other reports that they drove up and down the road looking for the ghost, and finally stopped and exited the car, mocking it. Upon returning to their vehicle, they saw the spirit in the back seat, though it promptly vanished, leaving a cold spot in the back of the car.
There is at least one variation on the story that holds that the ghost is not a phantom hitchhiker, but rather the spirits of two men who appear as shaodws and leap at cars. And one variation on the "ghost appears in the backseat" element says that the ghost is not seen in the backseat, but can be felt nudging the driver from the back seat.
*Ahhh, publication on the Illustrious Internet! Well-vetted and accurate. You can believe everything that you read there, especially if it's posted by someone with the monniker of Sluggo!
Commentary: I have complained before about how the ease of copying and pasting on the internet can lead to folklore stagnating. In this case, though, the use of the internet appears to have led to the stories flourishing and mutating in interesting ways. While most of the posts on the internet message board threads about this story bare all of the marks of being someone wanting to tell tall tales, they are, nonetheless, great variations on, and continuations of, the original story. When one searches, there is, of course, a fair amount of cutting-and-pasting between different sites. But there is also a good deal of originality, and that's part of what makes ghost stories so wonderful.
One thing that this story brings to mind, at least for me, is that the generall classification of a ghost story often doesn't quite describe it. This one is often described as a vanishing hitchhiker, and there are elements of that tale here, but the ghost just as often simply appears near the car, chases the car, or appears within the car, all without anyone trying to give her a ride. This is, in some ways, similar to Ressurection Mary, where the ghost does sometimes go for a ride, but just as often is said to do something else altogether.
I also like the variation that describes her latching on to the underside of a car and mucking about with it, making her similar to a gremlin. I wonder if this is an example of two stories coming together, or of one story simply gaining attributes similar to another, but independently.
Sources: Weird Fresno, Strange USA Forums, Unsolvedmsyeries.com (AKA, the web page that time forgot), Oddly, a Facebook page, Shadowlands.net
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Una Lake, Palmdale, California
Lake Una, located south of the City of Palmdale and immediately east of the reservoir Lake Palmdale, is a small lake or pond. Although the presence of such a body of water is remarkable within the arid desert environment, it appears otherwise uninteresting on first seeing it's placid water and rather typical local vegetation.
But, of course, it has it's stories. It is said that people approaching the lake at night have encountered a dark figure in clothing that appeared to be a fisherman's, telling them in slurred speech to leave the area. People have also reported seeing dark figures climbing into the trees and vanishing at night.
In addition to these ghostly phenomenon, some locals tell of a strange creature - never described - that sometimes emerges from the lake to devour whatever animals it can lay hand (um...teeth?) on. The lake is reputed to be bottomless, and it has been claimed that at least one diver has vanished while looking for the bottom, and that bodies of murder victims have been dumped in the lake never to be seen again. One story even holds that a school buss once ran off of the Sierra Highway (immediately adjacent to the lake) and neither it nor the driver or children in it were ever found.
Should you wish to enter the property, it is fenced off and private security has been known to patrol the area. So, this is one that is best viewed from afar.
Commentary: This is one of those entries that illustrates both why Shadowlands is simultaneously a wonderful and a terrible website for ghost story enthusiasts. This website contains the simple description: "Ghost of a fisherman has been reported to lash out, slurring viciously, ordering them to leave, also tales of black figures climbing into the trees and vanishing" complete with the weird phrasing and grammar. As I understand it, the webmaster of Shadowlands doesn't create these descriptions, but rather posts what is sent in. On the one hand, this allows us to quickly find ghost stories for most towns in the United States (as well as a few other countries), on the other hand the stories are often so brief, garbled, and confused that it can be difficult to do anything with them. So it goes.
Because Shadowlands is so useful for locating ghost stories, entries on the site are often simply copied and pasted into other websites, so if you go looking for Una Lake ghost stories online, you'll usually find a direct copy of the above-quoted sentence. Again I have to wonder if our reliance on the internet isn't a double-edged sword, allowing more access to stories, but also freezing them in (often lame and inane) forms rather than allowing them to grow and warp as folklore should.
Okay, so a bit o' science: Una Lake is what is called a rift lake or a sag pond (yes, there are technical differences between them, but I have been unable to find out which one best describes Una Lake). It sits on the San Andreas Fault, in a depression caused by the movement of the fault. Nearby Lake Palmdale (nearby as in "across the street") is in a similar basin, where a small natural lake has been turned into a larger reservoir (edited to add: the 1915 USGS topographic map for the location shows Lake Palmdale labeled as Una Lake, with the part now known as Una Lake being the eastern extent, cut off from the rest by the railroad, which appears to have been built on fill soils - so much for the bottomless lake, and thanks to one of the commenters below for pointing me to this map). A bit to the west, Lake Elizabeth is in a similar geologic formation. There has been a small lake within what is now Lake Palmdale for centuries, and it appears that Una Lake was part of this larger body. Regardless, the alleged depth of the lake may be due to it being on the fault and potentially between two cliffs....or it may be complete nonsense, I have been unable to find a reliable source of the lake's actual depth.
Neat!
Incidentally, my favorite entry from the comments on one of the "illustrious internet" entries in the sources below comes after a description of a cross erected near the lake that supposedly commemorates a murder victim. The commenter simply states "i broke that guys cross off nd threw it in the lake" (sic). Nobody feeds the troll, which is a shame, as it would likely have been hilarious.
Sources: Local Folklore, All Voices, The Illustrious Internet, My AV Online, More from the Illustrious Internet, Shadowlands
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