Showing posts with label colton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colton. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2008

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.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Haunted House Round-Up!

The Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery in Colton

Every year around Halloween, the mainstream news dishes out the goods on the local haunts, so here is a briefing on this year's featured California Cold Spots:

The LA Times published a photo slide show on 5 Haunted Spots in California that covers The Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery in Colton, The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, Winchester Mystery House, Queen Mary in Long Beach, and Alcatraz National Park in San Francisco Bay.

The MSNBC report on Haunted Ski Resorts claims Mammoth Mountain is not haunted but nearby Bodie, CA is:
Mammoth Mountain, Calif., hasn't had any ghostly sightings in town or on the mountain, but the nearby ghost town of Bodie, Calif., is a state historical park. This ghost town has been preserved in a state of "arrested decay." I'm sure there are a handful of ghosts wandering these streets by night. Only problem for us mortals is that the park is closed around sundown. I wonder why?

The MSNBC report on Pet Cemeteries (Howling Haunts: Where Ghost Pets Play) highlights the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery and the Whaley House Museum among other national locales:

Masoleum of LA Pet Cemetery
The Los Angeles Pet Cemetery - also known as L.A. Pet Memorial Park - on Old Scandia Lane in Calabasas, Calif., is the final resting place for many of Hollywood's famous animal actors including cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy's horse Topper and Petey the pitbull who starred in the movie Little Rascals. But it's silent movie star Rudolph Valentino's Great Dane named Kabar who is said to still walk through this hillside cemetery and playfully lick people who stop at his grave around Halloween.

The Whaley House Museum on San Diego Avenue in Old Town San Diego, Calif. is listed by the United States Department of Commerce as "an authentic haunted house". In fact, the Travel Channel's America's Most Haunted, claims it to be the number one most haunted house in the country. This classic example of mid-19th century Greek revival architecture was once the home of entrepreneur Thomas Whaley who came to California during the gold rush. Whaley's infant son Thomas Jr. died in an upstairs bedroom and visitors have reported hearing the cries of a baby coming from this room. The ghost of a small dog has also been seen coming and going from this bedroom, as well as outside the house in the yard.

The Dallas Morning News article, You'll Find These Hotels Haunting, covers the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park:

Ahwahnee Hotel
•Guests on Tauck's "California's Gold Coast" tour spend two nights in the rustic yet luxurious Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, but apparently some hotel guests have forgotten to check out – even after checking out. Tauck's Cindy Walker refuses to stay on the sixth floor, which is thought to be haunted by the ghost of Mary Curry Tressider. Tressider was instrumental in the hotel's development, and she lived in a sixth-floor apartment until her death in 1970. When President John F. Kennedy stayed on the third floor during a visit in 1962, a rocking chair was placed in his room so that he could rock and help alleviate his chronic back pain. After Mr. Kennedy's death, housekeepers began reporting seeing a chair rocking slowly in the room where the president had stayed, even though the room hasn't been furnished with a rocking chair since his visit.

Most Famous Haunted Hotels by MSNBC writes on the California's Paso Robles Inn and Sainte Claire Hotel:

In 1940, for example, a guest at California's Paso Robles Inn discovered a fire on the second floor of the hotel. He rushed downstairs, sounded the alarm and then died of a heart attack. But his actions led to all of the hotel's guests being evacuated. Today, the front desk receives mysterious calls from room 1007 and one night there was a call placed to 911 from the unoccupied room.

In the early Thirties, a young woman is to be married in the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose, California. Her fiancé leaves her at the altar, and that night she hangs herself in the hotel's basement. Today guests report hearing high-heeled footsteps against hardwood floors ... even though the hotel is carpeted.

And finally, Florida's Southwest Herald Tribune lists California haunted properties along with a text messaging service that provides their real estate values:
Try HouseFront.com, a real-estate search and valuation firm. Simply text message the home's address to 46873 (which spells "house"), and it will return the number of bedrooms, baths and the home's value -- even the date when it was last sold and/or built, along with the current owner's name. You can get the same information at www.housefront.com, all at no cost.

Manson Murders

The address also has been changed at the Beverly Hills, Calif., location where Charles Manson and "friends" slaughtered Sharon Tate, an actress who was eight-months pregnant, and four others in 1969. It's now 10066 Cielo Drive. But then, it's not the same house.

No one would purchase the Tate house because of the stigma it carried. So it was torn down and replaced with a seven-bedroom, 12-bath manse that sprawls over 16,300 square feet. HouseFront estimates its value at $7.4 million. Still, the chilling impact of the murders remains, as locals and tourists with a penchant for the macabre visit the site frequently (www.housefront.com/1993381).


Winchester House

Sarah Winchester, who inherited more than $20 million and a 49 percent stake in the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. from her husband, William, built this architectural marvel in San Jose, Calif., around-the-clock for nearly 40 years.

A medium told her to build a house for herself and never stop or she would die. Another account says that she believed the only way she could repent for the thousands of people killed by her family's rifles was to keep building. Either way, she built and built and built some more, from 1884, when she purchased a house under construction, until her death 38 years later.

The place started out as a six-bedroom house. But Sarah turned it into a monster mansion with 40 bedrooms, 40 staircases, 47 fireplaces and 1,257 windows (www.housefront.com/1976454).

Madrona Manor

Room 101 in the bed-and-breakfast at 1001 Westside Road in Healdsburg, Calif., is said to be haunted by a women dressed in black. Some guests are certain their possessions have been moved while they slept, and at least one dinner guest swears a ghost sat next to her and spoke.

The manor was built in 1880 by John Paxtron, whose corpse was kept in the house in a glass coffin by his grieving wife, Hannah, until her own death 15 years after his, according to HauntsofAmerica.blogspot.com. Later, one of their two sons committed suicide in the house. While the place was being turned into a bed-and-breakfast in the 1980s, workers complained they were being watched (www.housefront.com/1991256).