Inland Empire Paranormal Investigators tackle Colton's Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery

Excerpts from Inland ghost hunters find the paranormal -- or the simply normal
by Gregor McGavin of The Press-Enterprise:

The grave was marked only by a splintered wooden cross jutting from the weedy grass of Colton's Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery.

No name, no headstone. Just two lengths of weathered wood bound by a bolt.

"No one knows your name," K.D. Foreman said from the graveside on a recent morning. "Is there anything you'd like to say?"

There was no reply from that resting place, nor from a dozen others throughout the cemetery. But that's sometimes the case for Foreman and the other members of the Inland Empire Paranormal Investigators.

Much of their work comes later, when the amateur ghost hunters painstakingly analyze the audio, visual and electromagnetic recordings they gather on their outings.

The Inland group is one of dozens throughout Southern California and hundreds -- if not more -- nationwide, enthusiasts estimate. The 70 or so members met online beginning a year ago and have visited private homes, historic landmarks and graveyards throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties. They arrive armed with digital cameras and television remote-size devices they say capture electromagnetic fields and sounds undetectable by the naked ear. Investigations take place weekly, said Foreman, the 43-year-old substitute teacher who organized the group and serves as its leader.

"It's a hobby and a calling," said Foreman, who says she started having visions of future events at age 10. Similarly prophetic dreams started two years later, Foreman claims, when she foresaw her brother in a car accident on his way to a concert.

Foreman says that the spirit of an old man she believes is the former occupant haunts her Yucaipa home. He turns the television on full blast in the night and makes her golden retriever growl.

Peaches Veatch, 34, a mortgage loan consultant from Riverside, says her introduction to the supernatural came at age 10. Her godfather, who had died several years earlier, appeared in her bedroom late one night. She says he was sitting in a chair in the corner -- a chair that did not exist. His image disappeared seconds later.

"Why he appeared to me, I don't know," Veatch said.

The Inland group gathered on a recent weekend for a midday visit to Agua Mansa. The site sits on a few acres of sloping hillside a stone's throw from the Santa Ana River, in an industrial stretch of Colton.

The cemetery, established in the 1850s, has been home to many supposed ghost sightings. Motorists on the winding, two-lane road out front have claimed to see an old man walking his dog. In some accounts, both disappear moments later; in others, they seem to walk straight through the gates.

Inside, pepper trees shaded crumbling headstones and broken crosses. Some graves were half-hidden by weeds and grass; others were not marked at all.

"Peaches, come over here and tell me if you sense anything," Foreman called out at one point.

"I sense they just cut the grass," Veatch said.

At another grave, Veatch said her head began to buzz, as though she was standing beneath power lines.

"We sense a spirit here -- could you light up this meter?" Foreman asked.

"Nothing," Foreman declared a minute later.

The investigation was over after an hour.

A few days later, the group sent some audio recordings to an observer of the investigation. Some were indecipherable; others sounded like the wind. On one of the more promising files, a brief whisper could be heard after an investigator asked for a response from one of the graves.

It turned out to be the observer muttering under his breath after accidentally rustling his notebook.