Weird Fresno

Weird Fresno teams up with Ghost Tripping for video series.

2012-02-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I had mentioned both on Facebook and my Twitter feed that I was working on a new project but couldn't really go into detail. I'm glad to say that I can now reveal exactly what I was working on.

I was contacted by a local film production company by the name of Ghost Tripping who was interested in documenting on film local haunts around the valley. They wanted me to act as their expert on the story and would film me before venturing to the location itself to film and tell the story as well as recreate what is said to have happened.

For our first endeavor they wanted to tackle the ever familiar Channel Road. Having recently just gone there I had some new stories that I wanted to share. Met up with them for an hour or so and they filmed me talking about Channel Road. They told me they were then going to film the rest later and would let me know when it was ready.

Received an e-mail earlier this week saying that they were done filming and had a trailer to tease what the final project would be.

The finished product should be done sometime in early March and I will post it then. I'm looking forward to my partnership with Ghost Trippers as finally the local legends can be filmed as they should.

Fresno Bee reported on Bigfoot sighting in 1986

2012-01-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

According to an article ran in the Fresno Bee in August of 1986, a five man construction crew was spooked by what they say was Bigfoot while working on a job.

The job entailed building a foot/horse bridge near the Pacific Crest Trail on the south fork of the Kern River in the Inyo National Forrest (roughly about 25 miles south of Mt. Whitney) and given the remote location the men were camping at the site where they worked. One day, as the sun was setting the five men heard a scream so loud and described the intensity of it as something that "sounded like a stadium loudspeaker. The scream came three more times, and one of the workers used a rifle to fire a warning shot in the air.

At that moment, four of the five men saw a humanoid figure several feet away from them. They weren't able to make out any details but say the figure was at least 8 feet tall and as it walked away it look like it was "lumbering and kind of hunched over" but was traveling upright on two legs. Spooked the workers walked two miles to their vehicle and drove to the nearest ranger station to stay the night.

Several rangers think what the men heard was nothing more than a mountain lion and that then spooked a bear to rise up on two feet and that is what the men saw.

The lone member of the crew who did not see the figure, but heard it, disagrees. John Davis, a Mono Indian, said he had worked in the mountains for over four decades at the time of the sighting and claims what he heard sounded nothing like a mountain lion. And even though he never saw the figure, he says that the description sounds nothing like that of a bear.

The story doesn't end here though. It seems the original story got the attention of several bigfoot hunters. An unidentified man accompanied by two Dobermans was seen at the Blackrock ranger station informing the rangers that he was there to search for Bigfoot and wanted to know where the crew was currently at. Apparently this was the only sighting of the man. The only other incident regarding a Bigfoot hunter was when a man by the name of Danny Perez who runs at the time a newsletter called BigfooTimes (did a bit of research and he now has a website here) visited the Fresno Bee office looking for directions to the construction site and then soon left. Whether this is the same person who was seen at the Blackrock station was never stated in the article.

Personally I don't think what the men saw was a bear. Yes bears do stand on their hind legs, but I've never heard of one walking on its hind legs for more than a few feet (if I'm wrong someone please correct me). And as for the scream, I'm not sure on that. I know several Bigfoot hunters claim to have the creature's call recorded on audio. But these calls where more of a hoot, similiar to other primate calls. Whether this is the sound the workers heard is hard to say. But what I really find interesting is that the Fresno Bee ran two articles on Bigfoot, one on the sighting itself and the other on the Bigfoot hunters searching for the site. Whatever these men saw, the local newspaper felt it was a big enough story to report on it.

Below are scans of the newspaper articles I was able to get off Google News. Click on them for a larger view.

Recent UFO sightings in the Central Valley

2012-01-22T01:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted any UFO sightings that had been reported to the National UFO Reporting Center and I decided to head on over to see if there were any new sightings that had occurred since the last time I had posted anything (which had been in August 2011) and it seems the skies over the central valley have been pretty active. Below are listing of sighings going back to late August 2011. As always these are posted as they were reported and no spelling or grammar corrections were done. Link to the original report can be found at the end of each listing.

Occurred : 1/11/2012 18:45

Location: Porterville, CA

Shape: Unknown

Duration: 5 minutes

Bright orange light in the sky and before disappearing it appeared to drop 2 bright lights or fire balls.

We exited a building facing South and up in the distance was a bright orange object slowly hovering North-East. It appeared to stop moving at times, then it would get closer, and it did not move about like a helicopter or airplane. It also had no blinking lights.

We watched this object in the sky for about 5 minutes. About a minute before it disappeared we had seen what looked like a smaller bright red light fall off or out of the UFO. Then, as we were discussing that that light may have been a tail light or a wing light, another red light fell off or out of the larger orange object.

Only this time, there was no mistaking the red light for a fixed light on the larger object. This red light was again smaller than the orange light in the sky and it fell downwards quite some distance before it faded out or disappeared. Within 10 seconds of that 2nd red light, the entire orange light/object flickered and faded out of sight.

We were also too far away to discern any shape the object may have had. To us, it appeared almost like a planet you would see in the night sky. Only this was about double the size and obviously had characteristics not of a planet!

Link.

Occurred : 12/16/2011 21:29

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Triangle

Duration: 3 min

Orange bright lights appeared in the sky

Fresno, California - Dec. 16, 2011 at 9:29 pm. I was driving home when my family and I noticed three bright orange lights shaped in a triangle. And they were moving slowly (north).

As we continued to drive we got closer and we spotted another bright orange light a head of the triangular set of lights. But the strange thing about it they were all moving at the same time and pace. It was clear that it wasn't a plane because it looked so close like as if a house near by had a very large antenna on the top of the roof.

But as we got closer we realized it was above us!! It was above the intersection of all the traffic!! Traffic had pulled over and started taking pictures of the sighting with their cellphones. And then it just vanished. It was pretty cool!!

I'm still stoked about it, my kids have so many questions...

Link.

Occurred : 12/6/2011 20:34

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Unknown

Duration: 15-20 seconds

My first sighting of a UFO

On the night of December 6, 2011, as I am traveling North of Chestnut Ave. coming from Alluvial in Fresno, CA heading to Sonic to buy food for my son, I seen an unidentified aircraft coming at me. It was around 8:30ish. There were hardly any stars in the sky, it was dark. There were no cars in front of me or behind me, but cars coming from my opposite direction. As I was driving up North towards Nees Ave on Chestnut, I saw a light coming somewhat straight at me. At first, the thought came to my mind that it is an airplane crashing down, I felt somewhat scared. I did not want to witness anything extreme at that moment. The flying object as it descended from the sky, started slowing down and got bigger. As it was getting bigger and getting close to me (feelings: very scared), I began praying for it to stop or just be close enough that I could see it, but not close to me as to like being in front of me. I really did not want to get abducted, that was the next thought in my mind. The UFO aircraft stopped and hovered for a few seconds. As I was staring at it, my thoughts were “Am I really seeing this?” the feelings of being shocked was trembling in my body. My eyes were stuck at this unidentified aircraft, trying to figure out what this thing could look like, but all I seen was 3 circular lights, somewhat close together, shaped like a triangle, the lights looked as if it was spinning at a rapid rate, from red and blue, with traces of yellow light as it was glittering and spinning at a rapid rate. The bottom of the craft looked like it had some rigid form structure around the lights. The UFO aircraft did not look large; it seemed somewhat medium/small size. That was all that I seen from that... After a couple of seconds, maybe 15-20 seconds, it gradually started to move, to the right of my view, and curved up towards the sky. It was lighting speed, it made traces of white light (like a tail of a star falling from the ! sky, except it was going up) as it ascended to the heavens. I! never s een anything like it, or have I seen an aircraft as fast as that UFO craft traveled. I’m still in shocked. Today is December 8, 2011, 10:31AM. I’m trying to recall my story of my first encounter of the flying object.

Link.

Occurred : 11/22/2011 17:22

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Sphere

Duration: 3-4 minutes

Strange stationary red light in the northwest sky in Fresno

I was driving west on Shaw Ave on observed a redish light in the northwest sky. It appeared to be stationary and was a constant light. I drove a approximately one mile and turned off on a side street to stop and observe.

Within a few seconds after parking I observed the light move as if it were dropping, blink one or two times, vanish and then two bright much smaller white lights flashed in a line. After this there was nothing in that area of the sky

Link.

Occurred : 11/21/2011 13:00

Location: Visalia, CA

Shape: Fireball

Duration: 4 minutes

A fireball with a tail that seemed to me maybe a comet? But as I kept looking it slowed down, and turned a direction, then disappeared. Four or five jets were seen in the same location moments later.

Link.

Occurred : 11/16/2011 19:30

Location: Madera, CA

Shape: Other

Duration: 30 seconds

large angel hair mass floating above county road.

My wife and I drove directly under a large angel hair mass floating over a country road. We both saw it and we didn't stop. It was very big and just floating above the road. Maybe six feet wide and three feet tall. On Ave 20 1/2 near road 28.

Link.

Note: Angel's Hair is a phenomema linked to UFO sightings where a very fine material described sometimes as being like a cobweb or jelly and is named Angel's Hair given its similarity to fine hair or spiderwebs. Interestingly enough it has also been reported to be at Virgin Mary sightings.

Occurred : 10/31/2011 19:15

Location: Clovis, CA

Shape: Sphere

Duration: 60 seconds

Two glowing spheres observed hovering then moving in the night sky Halloween night.

On October 31st, 2011 at approx. 1915 hrs (7:15pm PST), I was walking my kids around an affluent neighborhood in NW Clovis when an adult in a separate group pointed up toward the southern star filled sky and stated loudly, "Look, there they are again." I looked up and observed two (2) glowing objects. One was blue the other orange. They were at least five (5) times larger than the visible stars.

At first they hovered then slowly separated. The blue one remained stationary while the orange one moved further south. As it slowed, the blue one also began to move south then both changed direction and faded into the night. I wasn’t sure if the disappearance was due to the light source going out or they sped away so fast that they appeared to fade?

I am unaware if there were any documentations of the event. My cell phone camera would not have been able to capture anything due to the lighting conditions and the other group mixed in with the rest of the family groups. I was unable to reestablish contact with this individual.

Link.

Occurred : 10/15/2011 19:30

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Oval

Duration: 3 mins.

Four oval objects 15" x 20" emitting beams with bright orange read glow suspended 100 ft. overhead for 15 secs. took off N-east

my wife and i were liesurely walking in the dark. It was a clear october night- 10/15/11@19:30 hr. We saw four oval bright objects 15"x20" emitting beams with a bright orange read glow passed overhead about 100 ft. high.

My wife shouted at this object- " who are you". It got suspeended for about 15 secs. then they all took off soundlessly together going northeast in the same direction towards the stars. Duration of events 3 minutes.

No fireworks,no celebrations , no aircrafts nearby during the sighting

Link.

Occurred : 10/3/2011 04:35

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Circle

Duration: 4 min

Circle of bright lights hovering slowly and than disappearing.

At aprox 4 am I heard my dogs barking frantically so i rushed to the window facing the south end of my house and immediately saw a round shape with numerous bright lights immersing from the object,

it was hovering slowly east in the empty field and was not stopping or making any noise.

I watched it as it floated 100 more feet or so and than vanished.

It was about 5 feet around.

Link.

Occurred : 9/4/2011 01:00

Location: Visalia, CA

Shape: Disk

Duration: 2.5 hours

One main craft with bright rotating lights and orange light crafts flying in and out of and around the main craft.

There was one main one that was a disk shape that had bright individual lights that would sporadically turn on and sometimes rotate and for various amounts of time. After some time yellowish/orange lights shot in and out of the main craft and would fly/move around in unpredictable movements. Some of theses lights shot towards the ground others around the main craft. As the hours went on the craft moved father away with the lights continuing to shoot in, out, and around it. We believe the lights to be smaller crafts that were able to fly into the main craft. The first person to sight the main craft says she saw the main craft have 5 or 6 windows. This was all seen from a second story house and the craft(s) were low in sky and above fields/ bird land.

Link.

Occurred : 8/27/2011 21:00

Location: Atwater, CA

Shape: Changing

Duration: 10-15 sec

UFO changed colors/shape over Atwater, California

I was sitting in my cousin's back yard talking with a friend when a red light in the sky that I thought must have been a firework caught my eye. I automatically assumed it was a firework due to the richness of the color and it was descending just above the top of a wooden fence that separates his property from the next. I stood up, and informed my friend, who immediately turned around to look. The entire sighting lasting 10 to 15 seconds.

Just as I was asking him what it was it changed course and began to increase altitude and rapidly descended and ascended in successive fashion, too fast for me to count how many times. All the while, the object changed color in a very fluid motion from red at first, to gold, green, amber and possibly blue, but not too sure. While the object was changing colors, it was also changing shapes, going from what I would describe as a teardrop, to a sphere, to almost seeming to flatten out. It then proceeded to head west away from our location towards and probably past CA-99. I caught about 10 seconds or so of this object on my cell phone camera, although by the time I began recording, It was already heading away and had stopped changing colors/shape. I could not identify the object, and it was COMPLETELY inaudible.

Shortly after the event, other witnesses that had gathered, along with myself, saw multiple conventional aircraft with flashing lights following the same general flightpath of the object.

Link.

Occurred : 8/25/2011 20:55

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Triangle

Duration: 2min

Large cheese shape triangle flying over fresno

This object was a very large thick triangle shape it was about 150 -200 ft long and about 75-100 feet thick. On each point it had a white light and each side had 3 to 5 red lights and the back side had 5 to 10 red lights that moved in a clockwise pattern.

The craft seemed to be in a dark gray or black shade of color.

The flight path of travel was very quite and was heading in a direction of south west movement and a speed was fast but not to fast almost the same speed of a airliner crossing the sky at there cursing speed.I believe it was between 1000 −1500 feet in alt.

Link.

What was actually seen on these days is up for speculation. But whatever it was, it left the witness(es) compelled to file a report. I'm hoping by posting these that others who may have seen the same object(s) will see this and share what they have seen as well.

Hopefully one day I will have my own report on NUFORC (that isn't a mistaken case of an airplane, don't ask). But until then I'll settle for reading other's sightings.

More strange creature sightings at Millerton Lake

2012-01-12T00:24:00.000-08:00

Millerton Lake during the spring time. Photo courtesy of David Prasad via Flickr.

The focus on Weird Fresno lately has been heavy on the haunted spots throughout the Central Valley, as they seem to be the most prolific. But I love a good creature sighting and when I received an e-mail the other night (while I was at Channel Road no less) about yet another creature sighting that occurred at Millerton Lake, I knew I had to share.

According to the person who e-mailed me, it was 1975 and he and his wife went on a camping trip up at Millerton Lake one weekday. He describes the lake as being very calm and the water was "smooth as glass". As he and his wife were enjoying the view they noticed a wake forming on the surface of the water. Suddenly a large head surfaces and then dives back down into the water quickly followed by the back of the creature (the witness said he didn't see a tail). As it completed it's dive it left a huge wake behind. He goes on to estimate that it was at least 30 feet in length and that the only way he could describe it was it appeared similar to the descriptions of the Loch Ness monster.

The next day as they were leaving the couple came across a gas station and decided to gas up. There he noticed a bulletin board with news clippings with telling about different sightings of the creature he saw the previous day.

Now I know I've reported on giant catfish sightings in the past, but the description of the wake seems similar to this story I wrote about back in March of 2010 where another witness saw a large mass swimming around leaving a big wake behind it. Could this be the same thing that was seen back in '76? And if so, what the hell is beneath the surface of Millerton Lake?

The Barn Theater in Porterville said to be haunted

2012-01-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

The Barn Theater in Portervile, CA

Image courtesy of the Porterville Ghost Society

About 16 miles east of Tulare is the small town of Porterville. Located on the Tule River at the base of the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada and was founded sometime in the 1820's. The town has a long history with a rich culture and tradition. One of those traditions is The Barn Theater. And if story is to be believed, it's said to be haunted.

The Barn Theater was founded in 1948 by Peter Tewksbury, who would later find work in Hollywood, and was originally in a barn that belonged to a Annie Smith who supported the local arts. Sometime in 1952 a new addition was added onto the barn and it's what currently is there today. The theater has had many an actor come through it's door over the years (including Ann B. Davis who played Alice on the Brady Bunch). But it seems that not all have left as several strange occurrences have been reported throughout the years.

People have reported feeling an audience in the room even though the theater was empty. According to the Porterville Ghost Society, others have reported hearing clapping and laughter as well as seeing shadowy figures.

Like many a haunted theater, it seems that some of its patrons linger on after passing from this life. Could the allure of the stage and still draw them there? Or was this where they were most happy and for whatever reason choose to remain here instead of moving on to the next plane of existence? It's hard to say really, but there is definitely a presence there that has been felt over the years.

Source: Porterville Ghost Society - The Barn Theater Investigation.

Weird Fresno's recap of 2011

2011-12-31T09:59:00.000-08:00

Well folks it's that time of year again where I recap the most interesting and/or weird things to happen to Weird Fresno this year. A myriad of things happened this year and here's what I felt were the top five for this year.

Number 5 - Famous crystal skull to make stop in Fresno

Back in January I received an e-mail informing me that one of the famed crystal skulls would be making a brief stop in Fresno. Now I tend to stay away from the whole metaphysical side of the paranormal, but I knew the story of this particular skull, named Max, and had to see it for myself. Even though the lecture where Max was to be at quickly sold out, I was allowed to attend. It was an interesting lecture and even if you don't believe in the whole story, the message of Max's owner of loving everyone and how she wanted to share his message of peace. Plus I got to touch the crystal skull (nothing happened unfortunately). Looking back on this though I wish I had asked Max his opinion of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Supposedly he may make another stop in Fresno in 2012, so I may have to ask him then.

Number 4 - Large bird like creature seen in Fresno skies

This was an interesting story that I just happened upon by chance. I was at the Fresno Filmmakers Alliance monthly mixer and a friend who shares the same interest in the paranormal as I do asked me if I had heard about any large bird sightings in Fresno. He proceeded to tell me that his wife and son had seen a bird with the wingspan of at least 12 feet fly over their house one day. From what he described it sounded like the Thunderbird of Native American folklore. The Thunderbirds are said to be very large birds, capable of lifting a small child up. What I found interesting about this is that after I posted the story both here and on Fresno Famous, I received several comments from people who had seen the same thing and around the same time. So what exactly was flying over Fresno that day?

Number 3 - Update to the Roosevelt High hauntings

One of my more popular stories is the one on the ghosts at Roosevelt High School. When I first heard about the story of Lester, I didn't really believe it and just assumed it was the overactive imagination of a bunch of high school students that made up the story years ago. Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail one day from a person who said her cousin was Lester, or actually named Leslie, and the story of him dying on stage was true. This was one of the first times I was actually able to collaborate a story with facts. She mentioned how she didn't want him known for haunting the auditorium and hoped that the students there would remember him as the loving person he was. Imagine my surprise when one of the students there responded and said that it was tradition to include Leslie in the cast/crew sign in sheets for any performance that is in the auditorium. It seems that Roosevelt High hasn't forgotten him after all.

Number 2 - Guest blogging in New Orleans

I love New Orleans. There is no other city like it in this country and has such a rich and wonderful history. Plus it's one of the most haunted towns in America. So when I heard my friend Kimburly was going there for a conference I had to get her to write about her experiences (thankfully the payment wasn't that much, though I still owe her a couple of beers if I remember right). I told her about a couple of spots near where she was staying that were haunted and gave her free reign on what to do. Let's just say I was more than pleased with the results as she didn't just focus on the haunted spots, but the city itself and the feel it has. I miss that town and need to go back soon. And not spend the entire weekend on Bourbon Street like I did when I was there last time (oh to be 18 again).

Honorable mention - Ghost hunting with the Dirty Dowdy Podcast

Though this one wasn't a post I did per say, Chris Dowdy over at the Dirty Dowdy Podcast and I had talked for a while about doing a ghost hunt for his show and bringing along some listeners. Figuring the weekend of Halloween would be best, we decided to drive out to Channel Road in Sanger and see if we could find anything. Was an interesting night to say the least. With Dowdy's car dying near the spot it's said the woman in white drove off the road and died, to people seeing strange shadow figures. My favorite part? We just pulled to the side of the road to get ready when a car full of people pulled up and said they saw the lady in white north of our location. Looks like the Legend of Snake Road is alive and well.

Number 1 - Return to Sierra Sky Ranch

To me this was the best thing to happen this year. I was asked by Central California Paranormal Investigators team leader Jackie Meador to do a live Twitter/Facebook event from their investigation up at the Sky Ranch. It had been a good three years since I had been there and I was more than happy to oblige. Last time I went I was still in the paranormal investigator mindset, but this time I was just there to experience the story and share it with everyone. I had a fantastic time that night, met some new friends who asked me to join their group (I was flattered, but I love doing Weird Fresno so I declined. But I may work as a consultant to them from time to time) and actually pulled an all nighter which I haven't done on an investigation in years. Why is this number one you ask? Because everything I did that night is where I want Weird Fresno to go in the future, to go to a location and just experience the story and be part of it.

So that's my top five. 2011 is going to be over in less than 24 hours. Who knows what 2012 will bring. Did the Mayans actually predict the end of the world as some say? Others claim that they predicted that a new era of enlightenment would occur. Personally I have no idea if anything will happen. All I can say is it's going to be another weird year.

Dinuba High School rumored to be haunted

2011-12-20T23:41:00.000-08:00

In the small town of Dinuba, the local high school is rumored to be host to several hauntings.

Several teachers have reported hearing doors closing on their own late at night, of lights turning on and off by themselves, and a feeling of being watched while walking down the halls. It's said that sometime in the 1970's a janitor was accidentally electrocuted and died from his injuries. Some think that these odd occurrences are the janitor trying to make his presence known.

Another story is that the English Building is haunted by the ghost of a woman who died there years ago. No one knows who she really is, but strange noises in empty classrooms are attested to her. Others have claimed to have heard her either walking down the hall or in one of the restrooms.

And finally there is the legend that surrounds the school's football field. The story goes that years ago a young girl decided to break up with her boyfriend. They met near the bleachers on the football field and in a fit of rage the boyfriend strangled his girlfriend to death. He decided to hide her boy in the back as there was an area that was covered in black plastic that was used to store equipment. Unfortunately the girl's body wasn't found for more than a week as it was hidden with all the equipment. It's said that late at night you can see the girl running across the football field, assuming that she is still trying to escape her boyfriend.

Whether any of these stories are true or not is hard to say. But Dinuba High School, like other high schools in the Central Valley, has its own stories that are passed down from class to class and student to student. These stories add to the history of the school and to the local community.

UFO seen over Fig Garden

2011-12-11T23:14:00.000-08:00

Been wanting to focus more on UFO sightings in the Fresno area lately so when I saw this report on the MUFON site I knew I had to share it. Given the size and location of the object in question, I'm surprised more people haven't reported seeing it. Just to be certain I did cross reference with the National UFO but there was no listing of sightings in Fresno for December yet. I'll continue to check back and if there is anything that resembles this sighting I'll post that as well.

MUFON report: White cigar shape hovering high above NE Fresno.

On Thursday, December 01, 2011 at approximately 1350 hours, I was driving near the intersection of N. Figarden Loop near the European Grove in Northwest Fresno. In my periphery, I noticed a white sliver in the sky. I thought it was an airplane. I looked again but didn't see it. There were trees all around so I assumed it was an airplane flying beyond the trees. I WAS WRONG. I stared into the sky and saw nothing. My lady didn't see anything either. Then, it presented itself in the open sky. I was glad my lady witnessed it too because it's hard to articulate.

It made no sound and seemed to hover above the city at an elevation slightly higher than airplanes. Based on what I saw, I estimate it to be about the size of about two football fields. It first appeared as a white cigar shape then it disappeared. About ten seconds later, it appeared again in the same location, but illuminated. I pulled out my smartphone to film it but before I could, it disappeared and was never seen again. I am also curious if anyone else saw this thing.

Stanislaus County town plagued with occult activity during the mid 1980's

2011-12-05T13:04:00.001-08:00

In the mid 1980's Stanislaus County was witness to several cult related crimes, including Satanic rituals and the desecration of a body at the Denair Cemetery.

In 1985 several Modesto residents received ominous letters signed by a "Natas" (Satan spelled backwards) that said "Watch out for when you hear footsteps at night, and see SHADOWS on the WALL, and then the ghostly sounds of SILENCE as the MIST begins to fall and a scream goes out like THUNDER and SATAN calls this number 666 'AND FOR YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE, FOR HE SAID IT MUST BE DONE." Also scribbled on the type written letters were upside down crosses representing the antichrist and swastikas representing forces turned against nature.

Nearly a year later the small town of Denair was shocked when sheriff's deputies found the town's small cemetery was the site of a satanic ritual that including digging up and desecration of an interned body.

According to deputies the grave robbers left two unmistakable telltale signs that they were practicing some form of devil worship, a fire blackened circle on the ground near where the body was unearthed. The other was that the body was partially dismembered, though details weren't given about the dismemberment besides stating that body parts were missing. Deputies said the markings on the ground were consistent with satanic rituals and that they stand inside the burned circle as part of the ritual to protect them from harm. Evidence at the scene suggested there were at least six people involved.

Local residents were both shocked and outraged at what happened. Though people had their suspicions as to who the culprits were, no one was ever arrested for these crimes. At the time agencies in the area said they were convinced that the incident was part of a growing trend of devil worship.

Despite the fact that the Modesto Bee said this was one of several occurrences of cult activity in the area, I couldn't find anything else mentioned besides some random posts of someone's dad seeing figures in black robes on the side of a road nailing a dead cat to a stop sign, or of a severed goat's head found in Stockton. I do find it funny that the article then goes on to blame heavy metal artists like Ozzy Ozzbourne and Motley Crue (Motley Crue is heavy metal?) for the rise of interest of Satanism in teenagers.

Still it's interesting that there was a rash of cult activity in Stanislaus County. I wonder what happened to the members. Did they just grow out of this phase of their lives? Or did they just disappear into everyday society and took their cult activities underground and are still practicing this day? No one may ever know.

Small cemetery north of Sanger said to be haunted

2011-11-22T23:41:00.000-08:00

The Del Rey Cemetery, just north of Sanger

Photo courtesy of Google Maps/Streetview.

There have been stories for years that the Del Rey Cemetery, a small rural cemetery located just north of Sanger, is haunted.

Witnesses have reported seeing a strange glow emanating from one of the tombstones late at night. Others have reported seeing shadowy figures darting among the trees and others have even said they heard disembodied voices whispering. Others claim they would hear strange moaning sounds with no visible source. Several paranormal investigators have investigated the cemetery and have claimed to measure cold spots and record high EMF readings.

Now normally I'm not one to believe every cemetery has paranormal activity, but I've heard these stories from several different sources and it makes me wonder if there is any truth behind it. True, with the advent of the internet age it's a lot easier for a story to spread and grow. But I heard this story when I first started researching paranormal spots in the valley and the internet wasn't as prolific as it is now. So is there any truth to the stories here or is it just another urban legend? Hard to say really, but it's yet another little piece of the strange in the Central Valley that most people probably aren't aware of.

Porterville Memorial Auditorium rumored to be haunted

2011-11-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

The Porterville Memorial Auditorium is said to be haunted by

the ghost of a little girl.

Photo courtesy of Reverbnation.com.

In the small town of Porterville, on the campus of the local high school, lies the Porterville Memorial Auditorium. Inside the building is the Frank "Buck" Shaffer Theatre, named after the school's long time band director, is said to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl.

No one knows who she is, but it's said that she was playing up on the balcony one day when she tripped and fell over the railing and died. Now it's said that if anyone is near the railing that she will appear and play tricks on them to get them to fall over the edge and die just as she did.

Inside the Frank "Buck" Shaffer Theatre. You can see the balcony

where it's said the little girl fell from to her death.

Photo courtesy of Reverbnation.com.

Another story says that backstage in the left wing near where several portraits are hung up on the wall, that their eyes would follow you as you walked by them. Whether this is some sort of paranormal activity or an optical illusion isn't know but still interesting none-the-less.

Are the stories of the little girl on the balcony true? It seems that almost every theater has its own ghost, like it is a prerequisite or something. It is interesting to note though that if you look at an index of haunted places throughout the county, theaters seem to be at the top of the list (bars and taverns run a close second). Why is this? Some paranormal researchers theorize that ghosts somehow feed off of people's emotions. What better place to experience the gambit of emotions; from happiness, sadness, and anger, than a theater? But perhaps the little girl is a vengeful spirit, upset over her untimely fate and tries to lure others to suffer the same fate as her.

UFO seen over Coalinga wildfire

2011-11-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

Photo of an alleged UFO (seen in upper right) near a wildfire in Coalinga.

Photo courtesy of MUFON.

While searching for recent UFO sightings on the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) website, I came across this 2006 sighting that occured in Coalinga back in 2006 during a wildfire. According to him his girlfriend is a wildfire photographer and while shooting pictures of a fire east of Coalinga caught a strange object in one of her photographs. The object wasn't seen at the time the photo was take, but was seen after when the photo was viewed.

The person goes on to say that there were no support aircraft in the area at the time and also claims that a fire official was so intrigued by the photograph that he asked for a copy of it.

Personally I'm not sure what was photographed. After viewing the photo I'm leaning towards it being a possible bird caught in flight (hence the blue of the object) as you can see another bird on the road. And since the object covers part of the power line it can't be that large in size as the power line is perhaps several hundred feet away. Still, it's inconclusive as to what it really is. Hopefully MUFON did an investigation into this and was able to determine what it really was.

MUFON report: Disc object inadvertently captured while photographing a grass fire.

My girlfriend is a wildfire photographer. After we had been together for several weeks and knew I wouldn't laugh, she showed me her UFO photo taken in 2006.
While photographing a grass fire East of Coalinga CA, she set her camera to auto fire at one frame per second. In ONE frame, a disc shaped object with a dark circular dot on the underside appears. It does not show in timestamped frames one second before or after.
This was not noticed until the pictures were viewed later.
Under magnification, the object appears to eclipse a power line behind it!
A CalFire official was intrigued enough upon hearing about this photo, he asked for a copy.
I should note that no aircraft were dispatched on this fire and no other aircraft were observed in the area,

Is Yosemite's Wawona Hotel haunted?

2011-11-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

The Wawona Hotel in Yosemite Park is said to be haunted by the

ghost of a pilot who died there in the 1920's.

Photo courtesy of Joe Shlabotnik from Flickr.

Legend has it that the Wawona Hotel, built in 1876 and located just four miles from the park's south entrance, is rumored to be haunted.

Sometime during the 1920's there was a small plane crash just outside the hotel grounds and the seriously injured pilot was taken to Moore Cottage, one of the hotel's guest units. A local doctor was called to treat the pilot, but unfortunately by the time he got there the pilot had succumbed to his injuries.

Ever since then both employees and guests have reported seeing the ghostly figure of the pilot; complete with leather flight jacket, head gear with goggles and a white scarf, inside Moore Cottage walking down the stairs.

The ghost of the pilot isn't the only strange thing to happen at the Wawona Hotel. In 1985, while watching television, a group was surprised as a 10 foot section of carpet started to float 3 inches above the ground and move towards them. Even more recent was when a manager was alone in the hotel for the night when the fire alarm suddenly sounded. The manager went to the front office to check which pull station had been activated and to his surprise it was the pull station in the kitchen, located only eight feet from where he was standing when it had sounded.

The question has to be asked: why is the ghost of the pilot still lingering around the hotel? Perhaps he doesn't know he's dead and is walking down the stairs trying to get back to his airplane? But what of the incidents in the main hotel, could they be related to the pilot's ghost? Or could something else be haunting the century old hotel as well?

Recap of my trip to Sierra Sky Ranch

2011-10-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made a trip to Sierra Sky Ranch, and if you were following me on either Twitter or Facebook you were aware of the strange going ons that occurred at night. Everything from strange balls of light being caught on camera, people being touched by an unseen presence, to ghostly voices caught on audio recordings; it was definitely an interesting night. Though I wasn't investigating as I was focusing more on the live updates, I did manage to shoot some video of the place to share with those who haven't had the chance to visit the Ranch. And hopefully after this you will be inspired to do so.

The night started off slow and instead of sticking with one group as I had done in past visits here, I decided to wander around and shoot some video of the different spots and hope I'd catch something in the process. Unfortunately nothing showed up on video, but I may have gotten an EVP (waiting to hear several other opinions, but if it is one I'll post the link of Facebook and Twitter). Instead of writing more about the Ranch, I'll let the videos below go into more detail.

Though the night was quiet, I still had a good time. Hell I hadn't pulled an all nighter investigation in forever and it was fun (I actually didn't get home until 11:30 as I went by a free reike clinic to experience it for the first time). Though I wish the students had witnessed more activity, I know several of the students want to go back and there's a good chance I may be going too. That being said you know if I find anything I'll post it here.

The ghosts and legends of Sierra Sky Ranch

2011-10-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

Sierra Sky Ranch during winter.

Image courtesy of sierraskyranch.com

I've been mentioning both on Facebook and Twitter (which you should be following me and if you aren't for shame!) the past few weeks about my trip up to Sierra Sky Ranch to do a live tweet of the investigation conducted by Central California Paranormal Investigators and the Paranormal 101 class from the Fresno Adult Education Center. I'll be doing some other things during the day (mostly shooting video and doing some investigating of my own) but my hopes is to have you dear readers interact with me on both social networks as I shadow the students and CCPI as they investigate and give you live updates as the group investigates the ranch. That being said, I wanted to give a brief history of the Sierra Sky Ranch. Granted I did a piece when I first started writing for Weird Fresno, but I wanted to update that with what I know now.

The Ranch was founded sometime in the 1870's and was the area's largest cattle ranch. The original ranch house was built sometime in 1900 and over the years piece by piece the land was sold off to pay off debts. Finally the last of the property was sold and that is where we get our first ghost from. There's a story of an old ranch hand that haunts the back portion of the property that went by the name Elmer's. There are two different versions of Elmer's untimely demise. One says that as he was chopping wood one day under the back tree, the ax slipped from his hands and severed the main artery in his leg. He called for help but his cries went unanswered and bled to death. The other story states that distraught over his home being sold off and having nowhere else to go, he hung himself from the back tree. Whatever the case may be, Elmer now haunts the area around the tree where he died. Some have seen Elmer himself, but most have felt a presence watching them.

Sometime in the 1930's the ranch was converted to a tuberculosis hospital (this is the time that the hotel wing was built onto the original ranch house). It's from this time period we get our next group of ghosts. A woman named Sarah, who was a nurse at the hospital, was in charge of two young children (rumored to be siblings) who had contracted the deadly disease. Unfortunately both children died from the disease and soon after Sarah followed (it's not known if she died from the disease, but given how contagious it could be this is highly likely). Guests have reported hearing children running up and down the halls late at night only to find out from the hotel staff that there are no children guests there. Others have witnessed what felt like a child's hand tugging at them, as if wanting to play. The children aren't the only ones seen. Witnesses have reported seeing a woman peering out from both the ground floor and the loft windows, as if she is watching someone. When asked who the woman is, the staff claims no one. Perhaps Sarah is still watching her two chargers she lost almost a century ago.

During World War 2 the property was converted to a rehabilitation hospital for wounded Army soldiers. There have been recent reports of a soldier seen in the hotel's library area, still in uniform. If this person was a patient here it's hard to say and more investigation needs to be done to find out.

After the war in 1946 the ranch was turned into a luxury resort and catered to such Hollywood celebrities such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. There are several other ghosts that are associated with the ranch, and no one knows when they were here just that they decided to stay even in death. The first is the ghost of a young man who, for whatever reason, likes to stay in the honeymoon suite and usually in the bedroom area. Psychics have sensed a very paranoid man crouching in the corner, almost like he is trying to hide something. No one knows who is he or what is his name, but many have felt his presence. It's known for people sleeping in the bed to be woken up by a gentle nudge. Why the ghost is doing this is uncertain, perhaps he wants there attention for some reason.

The final two ghosts reside in the kitchen and make it apparent that they don't like anyone else in their area or each other for that matter. Kitchen utensils are always missing (once an entire cutting board was reported missing and never found again) and kitchen equipment will turn on by itself, even when shut off for the night. One ghost tends to hang out in the main prep area, while the other tends to stay mostly in the pantry. The negative energy from both of them is easily felt as there is always a heavy presence in the kitchen and on several occasions arguments have broken out among the kitchen staff.

So that's just a bit of the legend of Sierra Sky Ranch. I've heard other stories, from a night staff person seeing a couple dancing in the main lobby only to disappear when seen, to a person peeking through a dining room window despite the fact the window is at least 7 feet off the ground, to a pear tree with such a strange energy to it that people's electronic equipment always seen to malfunction around it, the ranch has it all. The Ranch is open to their paranormal history and with it being only an hour drive away, is a great spot to have dinner and maybe even spend the night. For more info you can find their site here.

Check back both on my Facebook and Twitter pages (you can find links to them on the right) on Saturday to find out what's going on.

Weird Fresno asks, what would you like to see on the site?

2011-10-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

I'm always trying to expand the subject material that I write about here on Weird Fresno. But lately I've been thinking about what you dear reader would like to see on here. Now don't think this is due to me running out of ideas, as I haven't. In fact I'm working on two book reviews as well as getting ready for a trip up to Sierra Sky Ranch next weekend so I'm pretty busy.

But I wonder if there is anything specific anyone would like me to write about. Perhaps there's a book you'd like me to review, maybe talk about a famous haunting or UFO sighting. Maybe there is someone in the paranormal field you'd like me to interview, either local or national. Hell maybe there's a local haunting, UFO sighting, or creature sighting that I may not know about. If you want to see something, leave a comment. Just make sure it's possible. Don't ask me to investigate the Stanley Hotel in Colorado (the inspiration for Steven King's The Shining) cause given my current finances, it's not feasible. But if you want me to interview a local paranormal group, that's possible. Don't be afraid to ask, just be reasonable is all.

Also, pay attention to both my Facebook and Twitter feed as I start posting information on my investigation up at Sierra Sky Ranch on October 15. Going to be live tweeting and posting on Facebook when I'm there. And if things work out right I may be able to stream some live video. So keep an eye out for that. And I don't say this much, but thank you for taking the time out of your day/night to read my articles. It always makes me feel good when someone compliments me on my work and I'm glad to know that people out there enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them. Thank you.

Win free passes to the 5th Realm

2011-09-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

As I had mentioned on Monday, I was able to snag some free passes to the 5th Realm haunted attraction in Clovis. Each pass is good for 1 of the 5 attractions there and since I was able to grab 20 I'm going to give away 5 sets of 4 passes for the winner to use however they want.

So here's what you need to do to win. The first 5 people to comment below telling me what your favorite Weird Fresno post over the past 3 years is and why AND leaves their e-mail address will win. Simple as that. The e-mail is important as I need a way to contact you to let you know you won. So that's it. Simple huh?

Weird Fresno checks out the 5th Realm haunted attraction

2011-09-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading this blog for a while now (and who hasn't?) then you know about this time for the past two years I've been harassed by the residents of a local Halloween haunt in Clovis at the Sierra Vista Mall. Knowing that the time was coming for them to open again I thought I'd get the jump on them and show up unannounced.

The newly christened 5th Realm, boasts five attractions this year. You have Delirium 3D, Slaughterhouse, Nocturnal, Insanitarium, and the ever lovely Epidemic.

Emboldened by the fact that I had the element of surprise on my visit, I walked up to the door. I should have known better as they were expecting me, they proceeded to shoving me right in the door and left me on my own. Remember how the two previous visits I had a guide? Yeah not this year. Apparently they were fed up with my guides lack of getting me killed and figured my own luck (or lack thereof) would do it.

I first started off in the Delirium 3D and of course all the clowns remembered me from last year (still have no idea how they know me by name and from this website, I never mentioned who I was) and harassed me throughout the entire venue. Let me just say this. If you have a fear of clowns or just don't like them, don't mention it to them. They feed off that and good luck getting through there without getting the shit scared out of you.

After that little ray of sunshine, I decided that it may be smarter if I was in a group (safety in numbers right?) and decided to tag along with a few people in front of me for the Slaughterhouse attraction. Now this one is entirely new and didn't know what to expect. The thing that honestly creeped me out the most was as we were walking through it, there was no music playing as with the other attractions. I don't know if this was deliberate or not, but it added to the creepy ambiance and this actually made the Slaughterhouse my favorite attraction.

Finally through that fun little nut house my new meat shields err friends and I decided to head to Nocturnal. I was a bit apprehensive about going here as I knew my guides from the previous years resided here and wouldn't be too happy to see me. If you watch the video I took, I run into a familiar looking face. But like most of the women I know she denies knowing me. Her loss. I taste yummy.

And after that jaunty little trip into hell, Team Weird Fresno (which I dubbed us) headed to the Insanitairum. Every year this is the one that creeps me out the most and even though Slaughterhouse was able to top the Insanitarium, they did a good job of throwing everything they could at me and actually had me jump at a certain point and scream.

So apparently Team Weird Fresno didn't last long (I think I was the David Lee Roth of the group and that led to the break up) and was forced to entire Epidemic by myself. Lovely. Usually I do have a penchant for zombies, but not when they are trying to eat me. Thankfully I was too quick for the shambling horde and was able to make it through the attraction relatively unscathed. That is until I ran into a zombie juggalo with a chainsaw at the end.

Thankfully I was able to get some video of the 5th Realm and compiled a bit of what the attractions are like. The video runs a bit over 6 minutes but gives you a good example of what to expect.

5th Realm is currently open on Friday and Saturdays, except the last full week of October when they will open on Sunday and Thursday as well. The next night they will be open is September 30. For ticket prices and other information can be found at their website www.5threalm.com.

Also I was able to snag a few passes to the attraction. Keep your eyes open for a post later this week on how to win them.

A visit to the Paranormal 101 class at the Fresno Adult Ed Center

2011-09-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Last night (Thursday September 22) I attended the Paranormal 101 class that the Fresno Adult Ed School offers every Fall semester. The class is instructed by Central California Paranormal Investigators founder and director Jackie Meador. Meador has been involved investigating the paranormal for over a decade now and has been an instructor through the Adult Ed system for six years now.

The course is six weeks long and starts off with a short history of the paranormal field from it's founding in the Spiritual Movement in the late 19th Century all the way up to modern times and the numerous paranormal reality shows on TV. For the first three weeks students learn what type of equipment is used (camera both film and digital, audio recorders and devices that collect environmental data) and how to properly use it. Meador also goes into detail on how important it is to research the history of a site as any information you can find may help validate any evidence you may gather.

During the third week the class takes a field trip to a haunted location for the students to practice the techniques they learn in class. The location is Sierra Sky Ranch, a location I personally feel to be one of the most active places I've ever investigated. This is the infamous Sierra Sky Ranch that I have mentioned before. The students form groups and a member of CCPI tags along with them to make sure everyone is safe and is there to answer any questions.

The final three weeks involves the students discussing what they saw at the Ranch and going over any evidence they may have gathered. Each group is then asked to give a report on their findings, if the location is haunted or not in their opinions and to show their evidence.

As I write this there is still time to sign up for the class. Meador said that the school will allow students to register up to the second class, which will be on September 29. The class is at the Manchester Center, second floor, Room 6 and is from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm and to register you can call the school at (559) 457-6000. The trip up to the Sierra Sky Ranch will be on October 15, so if you want to take the class be sure you are available that night as it's an overnight investigation.

Also there will be a good chance I will be attending the October 15 investigation and will be tweeting as the investigation occurs (and hopefully be able to stream some video as well). Details will be announced via Twitter and Facebook so if you aren't following either one you can find my Twitter here and my Facebook here.

Review of Jeff Belanger's Picture Yourself Legend Tripping

2011-09-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

In my quest to bring the weird and strange to the masses (ok the five people that read this blog on a regular basis) I decided to start doing some reviews on books that I find interesting and/or helpful for those interested in the paranormal. The first review I am doing is on Jeff Belanger's "Picture Yourself Legend Tripping".

I had first come across this book listening to a podcast where Jeff was speaking about his new book and I was intrigued how it sounded like what I was doing with Weird Fresno, but on a more defined level. Remember that haunted cemetery you and your friends checked out when you were kids? That was legend tripping. That's right, most likely all of us have done it one time or the other. I remember when I was 17 and heard a cemetery in Madera was haunted (the infamous New Hope Cemetery which I've mentioned a few times on here) and my best friend Tom and I went out to investigate armed with nothing more than flashlights and our courage (ok and a few wooden stakes). We weren't there trying to prove ghosts exist; we just heard a story and wanted to check it out. That's legend tripping.

According to Wikipedia, the term "legend tripping" (also known as ostension) is a term created by folklorist to describe the adolescent practice of making a journey (usually at night) to a site that is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific and possibly supernatural event or haunting. Jeff goes into further detail on what legend is and it's about the adventure and experiencing the story. The book breaks down different legends such as ghosts, UFO's, monsters and other urban legends. Sounds a bit like what I do doesn't it and you see where I was intrigued? Here was a book that talked about exploring the story, not trying to prove or disprove it, just to explore the legend and in doing so possibly become part of it.

Jeff further goes into detail on other types of legends from children's legends, ancient mysteries, internet legends, and even how to interview any witness you may encounter (which I find very helpful). In the ghost legend tripping chapter Jeff goes into great detail on how to get information on a legend and gives advice on how to contact people and what to say to them to get the information you are looking for. I found this extremely helpful and even learned a few new techniques and I've been doing this for over a decade now.

I've really enjoyed this book and read it several times in the last couple of months. This may sound odd, but the book reinvigorated my interest in the paranormal. I had become so burned out from investigating where the focus was trying to prove the location was haunted that the reason the place was haunted was almost forgotten. And that was what got me interested in the first place, the story. It also focuses on the history of the location and even the town itself. With so many other books out there claiming to be able to teach you to be a paranormal investigator it's nice to see a book that goes back to basics and keeps things fun. I'd definitely recommend Picture Yourself Legend Tripping to anyone who has even the slightest interest in the paranormal.

More info on the Walnut Girl of Armona

2011-09-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

Seems there's a bit of a theme developing lately here at Weird Fresno. Last week I had written about how I had received some information regarding one of the ghosts of Roosevelt High School. As I was working on that, Ken Summers (who contributes to Who Forted?, one of my favorite paranormal sites) sent me some information which he believes might related to the tale of the Walnut Girl of Armona.

Scan of the June 16, 1942 post from the

San Jose Evening News.

According to the San Jose Evening News while driving along the Last Chance Ditch Canal, which is located about five miles northwest of Hanford, a car blew out a tire and ran off the road into the ditch and overturned. Four out of the seven in the car drowned, including 9 year old Gloria Castillo. Could this somehow be the Walnut Girl?

Ken was kind enough to send me both a copy of the article and a map of the area that shows the location of the canal and it's proximity to Armona. One could theorize that the ghost of the girl, for some reason, moved south until it reached Armona. And given that her and her family were fruit pickers, perhaps that is why she is said to have been seen in orchards and packing houses as she had hoped to find them there somehow.

Map of the Hanford/Armona area. The canal is in blue

and the red X is the presumed location of the accident.

Still this doesn't explain in the legend how it took place in the 19th Century (Armona was founded sometime in the 1880's), the fact that she always appear naked and only to girls around her own age. But the fact that in the news article a little girl drowned in a body of water that was nine years old can't be coincidence. Or can it?

The truth is, no one will ever know. There will be those out there that claim the 1942 crash to be the genesis for the story and someone added changed the date and details to make it more "romantic". Others will claim that it did originally occur sometime in the late 1800's and the setting is accurate. And then there will be those that say it's just complete bullshit. Honestly it doesn't matter. The more and more I research these stories the less I care about proving their factuality. For whatever reason stories compel us, everyone has one and they allow us to relate on a humanistic level. And that's why I share them.

I have to give credit where credit is due. If Ken hadn't sent me an e-mail, this bit of information would still be unknown to me. Like I said, he writes for Who Forted? (check out his latest article here on why ghosts are always seen nude) and you can find his website here and link to his blog here.

Update to the Roosevelt High hauntings

2011-09-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Leslie Chambers, who's death at Roosevelt

High School has spurred a ghost story that's

lasted over 40 years.

I've written over dozens of articles on haunted locations throughout the Fresno area and beyond. But that's what they have always been, stories. You are never really sure of the truth behind the names and events that are said to have occurred that created the haunt.

One of the more popular articles that I've done is the one on the ghosts of Roosevelt High School, especially the story of "Lester". For those who aren't familiar with the story, it's said that in 1977 a student named Lester was performing on the stage in the auditorium and collapsed there and died from either dehydration or possibly a heart attack. Ever since then people have felt his presence in the auditorium in one way or another.

Being the skeptic I am, I wasn't quite sure on the truth to this story. So imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail the other day from someone saying they were Lester's cousin and was then able to verify what happened. Turns out the story is true in most regards as a student did die due to a congenital heart defect while performing on stage. His name was Leslie Chambers and was born on October 16, 1944. On October 10, 1960 (just 6 days before his 16th birthday) while performing a cheer on stage as part of a school assembly, Leslie collapsed mid-performance and died. At that time his mother and grandmother were out shopping for his birthday and were quickly notified by the school. He was well loved by both his family and classmates and after his death the school created a memorial on one of the trees at the school where Leslie and his girlfriend met for lunch each day.

Now I don't know if Leslie haunts the stage where he died, and now that this story has both a name and face to go with it I certainly hope not as the story seems more personal now. But this is one of those times that the legend has some truth in it. Now it's possible that someone just made up the entire story of "Lester" haunting the auditorium and used the known death of a student to give it an apparent kernel of truth, but that's uncertain.

What I do hope is that the students at Roosevelt (current and future) that hear the story of Lester read this and find out the truth about Leslie Chambers and don't remember him for being a ghost that haunts the auditorium, but of a young life cut short.

Was Visalia's Mooney Mansion haunted by the spirit of a little girl?

2011-09-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

Statue of Hugh Mooney and his favorite hunting dog, located in

Mooney Grove Park. - Image courtesy of Visit Visalia.

If you've ever visited Visalia there's a good chance you have been to or at least driven by Mooney Grove Park; so named for Hugh Mooney who donated 100 acres of his ranch to act as a park in 1909. For over a century the park has hosted many gatherings and since 1948 has been home to the Tulare County Museum. But there is another location that was associated with Mr. Mooney. His home. And it was said to be haunted.

The house itself was located on Court Street and changed ownership through the years after Mr. Mooney passed away. Sometime in the 1980's the owner turned the mansion into a boarding house that had nine bedrooms with a common bath and kitchen facilities. One of the upstairs bedrooms was turned into a billiards room complete with an antique table. Also, downstairs in the main foyer there was an antique jukebox that played an old selection of 78 rpm records.

But in the evenings for many years, random thumps would be heard from the upstairs billiard room usually right before or after midnight. The inhabitants of the house would go upstairs to investigate and when the opened the door and entered the room they would find billiard balls and cue sticks on the floor; the balls were usually stored a wall rack with the cues or left in the table pockets. This happened on many occasions and once it was said that when the people entered the room to check on the noise the balls were still moving as if they had just been touched.

Even more interesting is that the antique juke box would randomly play, and usually around the early dawn hours. It got so bad that the owner started to leave it unplugged during the summer months when the occurrences were more likely to happen.

Curious as to what was causing all the strange activity, the owner of the house started to research the history of the home. After talking with several historians at the Tulare County Museum they discovered that sometime in the early 1930's a young girl, about the age of 6, had died in one of the upstairs bedrooms from some type of lung malady. She wasn't a member of the Mooney Family, but it's believed that she might have been the daughter of two San Francisco socialites who had come to Visalia to visit the Mooneys. Her full name is unknown but the owner was able to discern that her first name was April and her last name was Mc-something. It's said that her body was buried somewhere on the property, but there has been no documentation to prove this.

The strange occurrences seemed to stop sometime in 1990's when the property was sold numerous times and the interior of the house was gutted for refurbishment. During demolition an old doll was discovered in one of the walls in what was the billiard room. The doll was given to the Tulare Historical Society and was able to be dated to being made sometime in the 1920's and was made in a factory in San Francisco.

Was the little girl haunting the room where her doll was at because she wanted it back? That could explain the odd sounds and objects being moved. But what of the antique jukebox playing on random (was it playing Queen?) down in the foyer? Perhaps the little girl liked to listen to music. It is interesting to note though that the activity stopped when the doll was found. I wonder since the doll was given to the Tulare County Museum to put on display, is there any activity there now?

Check out some Fresno roller derby this weekend.

2011-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Now normally I talk about ghosts, UFOs, strange creatures and the like here on Weird Fresno but sometimes I like to delve into the historical side of Fresno and not just the normal stuff everyone knows about. Did you know that Fresno has a history of roller derby bouts (not matches) that dates back way before the current groups that are in Fresno today?

The sport of roller derby has been around for 76 years now and in fact the sport just celebrated it's anniversary on August 13. I was talking with NOTown's very own KarmaKaze the other day and she was telling me that she heard that back in the 1950's the Los Angeles Thunderbirds would meet the Bay City Bombers in the middle at the Fresno Fairgrounds and have a bout. Still trying to dig up some more information on this, but I love the fact that two teams meet in the middle to do battle. Must have been epic.

Fast forward to the 2000's and now Fresno has several roller derby teams of its own and probably the best known one is the NOtown Roller Derby team and as luck would have it they are having a bout this Saturday, August 27 against the Mendo Mayhem at the Fresno Fairgrounds. I've been to several bouts before and theses girls seriously kick some major ass. I remember the first bout I went to, one of the jammers (the one who scores the points), Hari Kari, fell and received a concussion. They had to take her to the hospital, but she was back at the after game party. Now that's hard core. These girls take play on concrete and take some spills that would make most men cry and want their mother. But they just get back up like it's nothing. You have to respect that.

Tickets for the bout are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. You can purchase tickets at SBI Boardshop, Twee Boutique, Swiggs, and online at www.NOtownRollerDerby.com. Parking is free at the fairgrounds and doors open at 5:30 and the bout starts at 7:00. I'd recommend getting their early to get a good seat. If you are lucky you can sit on the floor on the edge of the track and get a great view of the girls as they skate by. I definitely recommend going if you haven't been before, it's a blast and it's something cool that this town can get behind. And when tickets are cheaper than going to the movies, you really have no reason not to go.

A brief history of vampire movies

2011-08-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

Bela Lugosi in his iconic role as Dracula.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The guys over at the Dumbdrum recently asked me to attend a sneak preview of the remake of the classic vampire flick, Fright Night, and write a review for them. I thoroughly enjoyed it (you can read my review here) and it was nice to see an actual vampire flick for once given the recent crop of films that have been released lately (I'm looking at you Twilight). So that had me wondering, what happened to the vampire movie? How did it turn from something that terrified people to something that sparkled in the sun?

The first "official" vampire movie was the classic German film Nosferatu which was released in 1922. What some people may not be aware of is that this was an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker's Dracula (instead of Count Dracula, it was Count Orlok for example) and was so similar to the novel that Stoker's estate sued the filmmakers and won with all copies to be destroyed. Luckily in 1994 a team of European scholars were able to restore the film from five prints that had managed to escape destruction. Another interesting note is that instead of a stake through the heart it was sunlight that destroyed the vampire, a plot device which would later be influential on vampire films and was accepted as part of vampire lore.

The next vampire movie that set a milestone was Universal's Dracula in 1931. The iconic film stared Bela Lugosi and his portrayal is considered to be the definitive Dracula by both film lovers and critics alike. Lugosi had a powerful screen presence, even when he had no dialog audiences were still terrified of him. Unfortunately the role of Dracula led to typecasting for Lugosi. Even though he had success with an earlier stage carrier, the role of Count Dracula would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The character Dracula was used in several other movies in the 1930's and 40's. There was a direct sequel to Dracula, Dracula's Daughter (1936), with another sequel in 1943 called Son of Dracula. And even though the Count had met his apparent death in the 1931 film, he returned for three more Universal films: House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula as well as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)which was Bela Lugosi's second and last turn at playing Count Dracula.

Dracula was introduced to a new generation in 1958 when Christopher Lee played the Count for Hammer Films in Dracula. It was in this film with the spectacular death of Dracula vie being exposed to direct sunlight that reinforced this part of vampire lore that was first introduced in Nosferatu. Christopher played the role in all but two of the seven sequels in the Hammer Film series.

Vampire films weren't just about Dracula, or were horror movies in general. A sub-genre of vampire films, distinct in their own right, formed their own niche. Beginning with the afore mentioned Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the vampire became a subject of comedy. Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) was a notable parody of the vampire genre. Others like Vampira (1974). Love at First Bite (1979) and Mel Brook's Dracula: Dead and Loving it (1995) were other examples of vampire movies that had received the comedic touch. But it didn't stop there. Several vampire films shot in the 60's and 70's explored the topic of lesbianism. Blood and Roses (1960) was the first followed by the more explicit Hammer Karnstein's Trilogy which started with The Vampire Lovers in 1970. Lesbianism wasn't the only sexual topic as there were also several blaxploitation films made, most notably Blacula (1972) and Scream Blacula Scream (1973).

Cue the 1980's and vampire films returned to their original horror roots. Movies like Salem's Lot (1979), The Lost Boys (1987) as well as the original Fright Night (1985) were extremely popular and are considered cult classics of the vampire genre. The trend continued with Francis Ford Copolla's modern take on Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), from Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) continued the horror trend.

It was at this time that the vampire movie really started to incorporate romantic elements into it's story line. Copolla's remake had Mina Harker the reincarnation of Dracula's wife. Then there was Interview with the Vampire. Say what you want about it, but both Louis and Lestat were lovers. The film toned down their affair, but in the book it was obvious. Underworld (2003) also had romantic undertones as well. But the original novel by Bram Stoker had these same tones but they were more of commentary on the restrictions of the Victorian era when the novel was written.

Fast forward to the 2000's and there's a sudden shift in the tone of vampire movies. Gone are the elements of horror and terror that had been a staple of the genre for decades. The seductive characteristics were still there, but with the introduction of the Twilight it seems that vampires were no longer creatures or the night that were ruthless killers but troubled souls that sparkled in the sunlight (really?). I know there have been the more traditional vampire movies released this decade (Blade trilogy for example) but for some reason Twilight overshadows them all. Why is that? Is it due to numerous fans out there that scream at the mere mention of Robert Pattinson's name? Or is this the path the vampire genre is heading to? It seems there are clones of Twilight everywhere you look (books, TV series, etc.) and it's possible that there will be another movie out there that tries to mimic it in an attempt to ride it's coattails.

But I honestly doubt that. I don't thing there will be a bunch of Twilight clones out there. It's a fad. And as soon as the last one is released, people will forget about it. There actually have been some fantastic vampire movies recently. 2010's Let Me In was one of the best I had seen in years and I had recommended it to many friends who had been disenchanted with the whole vampire genre. And yes it's a remake, which I usually disdain; I really enjoyed Fright Night (mostly cause of David Tennant). Hopefully more films of this quality will continue to be released and continue the tradition of horror that was started nearly 100 years ago with Nosferatu.

A brief history of vampire movies

2011-08-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Bela Lugosi in his iconic role as Dracula.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Recent Central California UFO sightings

2011-08-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Every so often I like to check out the National UFO Reporting Center and check to see if there have been any recent UFO sightings in the valley. As luck would have it there were several over the past two months and I thought I would share them. Please note that these were posted as they were on NUFORC and I haven't edited either spelling or grammer. Link to the original report can be found at the end of each one.

Occurred : 7/30/2011 22:00

Reported: 7/31/2011 12:22:48 PM

Location: Squaw Valley, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:10 seconds

Slow moving ball of light.

I've lived here for about 6 years now and I'm a sky gazer. For the past 4 weeks or so, I have been seeing strange lights in the northern sky. I've only seen one at a time. They look like bright stars, but they are moving slowly in the sky. I only see them for a few seconds before they completely just disappear.

Last nights sighting was a little different. This time it was closer and it flared and then disappeared. In the 6 years I've lived here, I have never seen these before. They are not airplanes. I see airplanes all the time in the night sky and I know the flight patterns. These are just balls of light that appear and disappear. They don't blink, or pulse, other than the one that flared brighter before it disappeared.

Link

Occurred : 7/18/2011 21:30

Reported: 7/18/2011 11:06:24 PM

Location: Turlock, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:3 min.

Four lights moving in the Ca Valley Sky

Just before 9:30pm my wife and I took our puppy out to the back yard for his night time bathroom break. We live in the country so sky watching is just something we like to do.

While waiting I noticed a silvery light moving fast across the east horizon line. The speed of it caught my attention. I pointed it out to my wife and then we notice 3 more as we began to look around. They were almost directly above us. The 3 were moving towards each other when we noticed them. One was moving some what straight from a Southernly direction to a Northern direction. One that looked like it was coming from the northern direction was moving erratically (like jumping from spot to spot. It was also more bright than the others) but mostly head Southernly towards the one coming from the South.

The third just kind of appeared out out no where and seemed to be coming from the West. All 3 looked like they were going to collide.

My wife got excited because she thought they were g! oing to crash! But it looked more like they passed right through each other.

After crossing paths or whatever they did, the one headed more Northernly seem to pick up speed very fast and quickly disappeared into the North direction. The brighter one from the North was still headed southernly but slowed and stopped for about 1 min.

The one that came in from the West instantly turned 90 degrees Northernly (but was more N/W in direction) at the point of meeting for the three. It kept the same speed the entire time. It wasn't fast, but it wasn't slow! We watched it till it faded off into the sky.

The brighter one that stopped, just disappeared where it was. It looked bigger too compared to the other ones and most of the stars that are in the sky.

The other two seemed to be about the same size and brightness. I would size them comparable with the majority of the small stars in the sky. Big enough to see, but too small to see any detail. Not like you would see if it were an airpl! ane, you can see its flashing lights.

Can only say they looked like w hite lights just like most stars look like, other than they were moving.

Link

Occurred : 7/18/2011 11:45 (Entered as : 7/18/2011 11:45)

Reported: 7/19/2011 2:07:16 PM 14:07

Posted: 8/7/2011

Location: Los Banos (approx 10 miles east of), CA

Shape: Triangle

Duration:3-5 minutes

3 Bright lights along highway 152 east of Los Banos, very close to the ground

I was driving along highway 152 traveling west, when approximately 10-15 miles outside of the town of Los Banos, I saw a green bright light fly across the highway a mile in front of me. As it passed and it turned and looked as if two white lights had been shot off out of it almost.

It proceeded to to turn make a tight turn to pass over the highway once again. It passed over the highway and then proceeded to drop very low to the ground, still continuing forward. Low enough that I could remember seeing the ground lit up from its light. The reflection of the light allowed me to see what I believe was that the lights where actually connected to one another (i.e., that the craft was a bigger object with these three lights at the points).

After flying low to the ground for a short distance it gently curved back up and achieved more alluded ((sic. Altitude?)) and turned left.

I was driving along 152 heading west, and all this occurred in the span of about 3-5 minutes. I could still see the craft in my side view/rear view mirrors, as I continued down 152. The object looked to be staying in the same area.

I was in the car by myself at the time, but there were other drivers both east and west bound along 152.

Link

Occurred : 7/13/2011 13:00

Reported: 7/16/2011 11:35:33 PM

Location: Coarsegold, CA

Shape: Disk

Duration:2 minutes

UFO Sighting on the way up to the mountains on a road trip with family

This photo is not a fake or altered....I took this photo on a road trip to the mountains...with ((husband's name deleted)) & the kids....we were with 3 kids in the back seat...as I was taking photos...I saw one silver grey disk hoovering in the clouds......so I took a photo of it with my cell phone.

At that moment...I turned around to check on the kids, who were fussing...and when I turned around to take another photo of the disk...IT WAS GONE!...just that fast.

I don't know how to do any altering of photos.

Link

Occurred : 7/5/2011 00:38

Reported: 7/15/2011 1:55:16 PM

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Triangle

Duration:20 minutes

Strange lights/UFO's over Fresno,Ca near the airport.

On July 5th, 2011, at 12.:38 am my son and I were in our backyard talking. we live about 4 miles from the Fresno airport and were watching airplanes and police helicopters in the shy that night. People have been lighting off illegal firworks and we were watching the show.

As we were looking up, I saw a large triangle craft moving slowly to the south-west towords the airport. I was standing facing the same direction, when my son spoted another set of lights that looked like bright orbs. There was 3 of them and moving south-east of our home.

The large triangeled changed colors form white to red to blue then back to white, then started to fly way faster than anything else that was in the shy that night and was out of sight in about 4 seconds. The orbs also changed color. Red,white and then back to red.

We could see other airplanes flying into the Fresno airport and taking off, but nothing could fly without making a sound.

We waited to see if the Air National Guard would send jets to the area of these objects, but nothing. We have seen other unexplained lights over the greater Fresno/Clovis area for the last couple of months, but nothing like this. The orbs stayed on the same course, but came together as one light and disapeared straight up.

There were at least 3 helicopters and multiple airplanes that night, but nothing moved or looked like those lights we saw that night.

Link

Occurred : 7/3/2011 21:00

Reported: 7/2/2011 10:20:37 PM

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:3-4 min

My boyfriend and I see these same ones a lot. He came in, telling me to come and look.

It was a bright light to the east, a little southeast.

We watch it for longer than they usually stick around. It moved slightly up and down as it was moving across the sky at the speed slower than an airplane. Then it dimmed.

It was about dusk. A lot of fireworks going off so I'm hoping someone else may report it, as well. My first report although I've seen many. I think we have something that makes us more aware. Not sure how no one else sees these.

My little boy Has witness them with us as well although I'm not sure he understands why he saw.

Link

Occurred : 6/29/2011 22:55

Reported: 6/29/2011 11:25:19 PM

Location: Visalia, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:5 min

Bright light that disapeared

Light came from northwest going southeast. It looked like a plane at first. The light was getting brighter with no flashing lights.

It passed over head at about 1000 feet or the height of a low flighing plane with absolutly no sound at all. It just disappered after it passed over us.

This was at 10:05 pm. It was definatly not a plane.

Link

Occurred : 6/29/2011 04:00

Reported: 6/29/2011 4:52:12 AM

Location: Porterville, CA

Shape: Disk

Duration:45 minutes

disk shaped object getting brighter and dissapearing also moved a little.

There was one disk shaped object we observed for about 45 minutes that would disappear and get brighter. It seemed to move a little it also looked like the lights consisted of many white lights and a couple red lights.

Link

The ghosts and legends of Hornitos, CA

2011-08-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

The old Gagliardo & Co. Store in Hornitos, CA now acts as a gift shop.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

About 13 miles west of Mariposa, CA on CR-J16 lies the small community of Hornitos. The community was founded by Mexican miners in 1848 and was soon populated by settlers evicted from the nearby mining town Quartzburg. Most of the evictees were of the "less desirable" type and almost overnight they changed the character of Hornitos and it quickly became known as a rough community. Soon the streets were lined with fandango halls, bars, gambling dens, and house of ill repute and it was rumored that many of the businesses were interconnected with underground tunnels. By the mid-late 1850's Hornitos had grown to small city with a population of some 6000 people. A thriving Chinese section formed to the east of town and housed some 2000 folk. Business was thriving as $40,000 in gold was shipped out on a daily basis.

Old adobe ruins with only the entry way and it's iron doors remaining.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

But the town has a dark history to it as well. The town was so notorious for its daily gunfights that the dead outlaws were simply dumped into a deep gully called Dead Man's Gulch. Famed Mexican bandit, Joaquin Murieta, was said to frequent the fandango halls and was rumored to have been almost captured in the town in the 1850's.

Pacific Saloon (built 1851), one of the many bars that was in

Hornitos during its heyday.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Masonic Lodge built sometime in the 1850's.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Eventually the gold ran out and the miners who populated the town moved onto other places in search of riches. From a population of around 15,000 in 1879 it quickly dwindled down and around 1932 there were roughly 60 people living in Hornitos. Today the population is 75 people and Hornitos is considered one of the best preserved ghost towns in the Mother Lode country with ruins of an old Wells Fargo office, a Masonic Hall, an old jailhouse and even the store where D. Ghiradelli (famous maker of chocolate) got his start before moving to San Francisco.

The ruins of D. Ghiradelli's general store (circa 1856)

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Not all of the original settlers of Hornitos have left and it's said that many still haunt the town, still searching for riches perhaps or not wanting to move on for some other reason.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Near the town square the ghosts of two prostitutes, who using knives and fought to the death over a miner, can still be felt to this day. The fight was over whose client he was and before the fight was over the miner had snuck off When the proverbial dust had settled, one of the women lay dead on the street and the was other badly injured. It's said if you stand still in the town square and listen you can still hear the screams of the women as they fought and the cheers of the miners who stood around and watched.

The Hornitos jail house, rumored to be haunted by a former

inmate who died there.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

The old jail house is also supposed to be haunted by a miner who was rumored to have died there. The brick jail is still standing today and is about 12 feet by 12 feet and has two 1 foot square windows. Accused of stealing a horse, he was placed in the town jail to await trial. Several drunk cowboys who just left one of the local saloons saw the miner in the jail and decided for some reason they were going to rescue him. They somehow convinced the miner if he tied a rope around his waist that they would pull him through the window and to freedom. The miner did so and the cowboys pulled and pulled but couldn't get him through the small opening. They pulled so hard that they eventually broke his back. The miner later succumbed to his injuries and died. His spirit has never been able to rest and can be felt walking around the jail today.

The local cemetery where a young girl's ghost is said to wander.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Another spirit, this one of a young Mexican girl, haunts the local cemetery. She died of a young age of an unnamed epidemic and for some reason wasn't given a proper burial but instead was buried on top of the ground and then bricks and stones were placed over her body. Through the years tourists have taken theses stones and bricks from her grave. From time to time she is seen searching the cemetery, looking for the stones and bricks that covered her grave.

St. Catherine's Catholic Church, built sometime in the 1860's.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

These aren't the only ghosts that roam the streets of Hornitos, but they do have their own stories. Other ghosts have been seen but their story hasn't been told yet.

Near Givins Gulch a woman has been seen roaming the area just before sunrise with a spear sticking out of her head.

Another female ghost has been seen with a plastic bag tied around her head in Hornitos Park just before dawn.

Late at night a figure can sometimes be seen on the top of Bullion Hill gazing out over the landscape.

The ghost of a young confederate officer can frequently be seen next to the Cotton Arm creek and it appears as if he is struggling with something.

Also the spirit of a male figure can be seen dragging something from Corbet Creek sometime after midnight.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Shorb, Ghost Town Explorers

Whether these ghost stories are true or not, one thing is for certain. Hornitos is rich in history. Both from the gold rush era and also rich in ghost stories. Hornitos makes a great day trip for those who have never been to a ghost town before and its a chance to check out some of our local area history that many don't know about.

I want to thank Lewis Shorb over at Ghost Town Explorers for allowing me to share the photos he took of Hornitos for this article. You can check out his article on Hornitos here.

Revisiting California's first mass UFO sighting

2011-08-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

Artist depiction of the mystery airship as it was seen over Sacramento.

Every now and then I like to revist an old story that I had written about when I first started Weird Fresno and it's usually to share it with new readers who may have not read the story, or as is the case with this one new information has been found.

Seven years before the Wright Brothers would become famous with the first successful flight at Kitty Hawk, something strange was seen in the California skies. On the night of November 22, 1896 a large airship was seen over much of northern and central California including San Francisco, San Jose and Fresno.

Hundreds of eye witnesses reported seeing a massive airship slowly floating in the sky, roughly 1,000 feet over the city. What drew most of their attention was the ship's light as they weren't accustomed to seeing bright lights in the sky. Several witnesses even claimed to have even seen figures through the craft's windows, but their descriptions are vauge at best only describing them as humanoid shaped.

Things do get weirder though. The next night a Colonel H.G. Shaw was driving his buggy in Stockton when he happened to come across a large airship that had landed in a field. He described it as being cylindrical shaped and about 150 long and 25 feet in diameter and completely made of metal. As he approached the ship three very tall, slender men exited the ship. He then claims they examined his buggy and conversed with him briefly before boarding their ship again and taking to to the skies. Also a man in Indio claimed to have gone onboard the craft for a flight, but no further details were given.

Following the sightings a San Francisco lawyer named George D. Collins announced that he had been hired to represent the airship's inventor, but after a few days Collins retracted his statement claiming that he had been misunderstood. Shortly after this, the former Attorney General of California, William H. H. Hart, claimed he was in communication with the airship's mysterios inventor and said that the airship would shortly be used to bomb the Spanish garrison of Havana and liberate Cuba. But when pressed for more details and evidence to back up his claim, Hart backed off.

For the next few weeks numerous airships were spooted all along the west coast of the United States and Canada. There were even reports as far east as Nebraska. By December the sightings had stopped and the news stopped reporting on the sightings and people forgot about the airship. But what was it that people actually saw?

Airships did exist at the time. The dirigible "La France" had flown a controlled course in 1885 outside Paris, and in Germnay Count Zeppelin was buiding his first airship. Efforts to build an airship in America date as far back as 1865. But none of these could fly the distances that the mystery airship was making. But there might be a possible explanation. According to the book "Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery", the government had in fact nine airships and were testing them. The best piece of evidence to back this up was an account from R. L. Lowery, a former street railway employee from Sacramento. One of the nights the airship was seen in Sacramento he heard a voice from above call, "Throw her up higher; she'll hit the steeple." Looking up he saw that there were two men seated on a bicyle-like frame and were peddling. Above them was a cigar-shaped body of some length, as he described. Lowery also described that the craft had wheels on the side akin to ones on the side of a steam boat.

So it seems that the U.S. government was testing an experimental aircraft over California skies. Only difference is that it was 1896 and not the present day. But it seems some things never change. One has to wonder what the goverment is testing over California skies today.

Strange lights still being reported along Interstate 5

2011-07-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

There are few reoccurring stories that are on Weird Fresno. But it seems that the stories of strange lights seen on the Interstate 5 corridor between Coalinga and Kettleman City. I had reported in May of 2009 of having received an e-mail from someone stating they saw a UFO here and were able to film it. Upon reviewing it I came to the conclusion it was a crop duster. Well it seems that others are still mistaking crop dusters for UFOs as another similiar report was filed with the National UFO Reporting Center on July 17, 2011. Here is the account as it was reported:

Occurred : 7/17/2011 02:35
Location: Fresno (near; on Interstate 5), CA
Shape: Formation
Duration:1-2 Minutes

A linear object with 3 bright lights, flew about 10 feet over our truck while traveling N on I 5.

While traveling north bound on Interstate 5, approximately 30 miles SE of Fresno, a linear object with three bright lights (Two on the end and one in the middle) approached our truck, containing six passengers. When we first saw it, the linear object was around 500 yards away.

Five of the passengers, including me, saw the formation of lights continuing to fly towards our truck. During this time, the object rotated similar to a plane that has stalled. We were confused and somewhat scared as to what this object is.

It headed straight towards our truck where it flew about 10-20 feet above us. It was close enough to where the driver, and the two front passengers, one of which was me, ducked and screamed.

While continuing to drive, we watched behind us as the three bright lights lifted up and dove into the ground and then back up again. The bright lights spun and rotated until it finally disappeared.

The object was about 30 feet long.

Keep in mind that it wasnt until afterwards we realized that it made absulutely no sound when it passed over our truck.

And the compass on our truck didnt work after the sighting.

Given the description above it sounds similiar to the May 2009 incident. And as I had stated before, I used to live on a farm and we had crop dusted in the past as well as our neighbors. They dust at night as the wind is less prevelant (usually) and whatever is being applied to the crops won't scatter as easily.

But then there's the issue of reporting the craft made no sound. This is just conjecture on my part, but the witness stated they continued to drive and watched the object only noting later that it made no sound. I have to question this as since they were driving in a truck, there would have been enough noise from the tires on the road plus any other traffic to drown out the noise of a single prop engine (which are usually 600 hp or so). I think given the noise pollution and the excitement factor, this is what caused them to miss the engine noise. Now I could be wrong, but given the witness statement and what I know from personal experience (I saw a crop duster, read my post here) I believe that it was just a crop duster and not some sort of alien spacecraft or military aircraft.

One of these nights I want to take a group out to the area armed with some night vision enabled video cameras and attempt to solve this mystery once and for all.

Are the grounds of the old Kerman High School haunted?

2011-07-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

The grounds of the old Kerman High School. You can see rubble

in the background of what used to be the main building.

Image courtesy of Google Maps.

The site of the old Kerman High School, located on Clinton and Madera Ave, has been rumored to have been haunted for years. Strange lights have been seen floating between rooms even though the property has been fenced off for several decades.

The original Kerman High School was built in 1912 and served the Kerman area until a larger high school was needed and the current campus was built in 1967.

The property fell into disuse and was fenced off to keep trespassers out. Unfortunately this wasn't enough as on December 30, 1998 an arsonist set fire to the main building and it burned to the ground.

No one knows what these strange lights are, if there are spirit lights or something else. One has to wonder what would cause someone or something to haunt a school. Perhaps whatever it is feeds off the emotions from the students that walked the halls over the years. And it's possible that it still roams the debris of what used to be the old Kerman High School.

Interesting side note here. In 1995 several friends, having heard of the stories and wanting to check them out , went to the old school at night. As soon as they parked their car and got out several sheriff's cars pulled out and the officers drew guns on them thinking they were going to trespass. One has to wonder how many other people went to the school looking for ghosts.

Let me also preface this. Please don't try to go here at night and search for ghosts. There's a fence around the property for a reason. Don't be that ghost hunting group who likes to hop fences late at night just to get a thrill. If you really want to investigate this location, find out who owns it and try to get permission. Don't ruin it for those out there who are actually serious about this.

Lodge in downtown Lemoore said to be haunted

2011-07-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

Oddfellows Lodge in downtown Lemoore which is rumored to be

haunted. Photo courtesy of Waymarking.com

In downtown Lemoore there is an historic two story building that is said to be haunted. On the bottom floor there is a barber shop, a pharmacy as well as several real estate offices. But on the second floor, where the local Oddfellows Lodge is located (a fraternal society with its roots in England) is where most of the paranormal activity has occurred.

Every Halloween the local drama club sets up a haunted house attraction in the Lodge. Apparently some of the former residents aren't pleased with this as they have made themselves known in several different way. Shadowy figures have been reported seen throughout the second floor and others have reported seeing figures wearing old fashioned clothing (possibly from the late Victorian era) wandering around at night. There are also temperature changes that manifesting as both cold and hot spots. Other witnesses have also reported being filled with a dreadful sensation after being in the building for some time and have the urge to leave as quickly as possible. Once someone heard a deep male voice telling them to "leave us to rest" and others have reported to see strange green and red lights on the roof late at night.

So what are the cause of all these strange occurrences? The building was constructed in 1904 and surely has seen its fair share of inhabitants. Could former members of the lodge still be lingering around where they once met, upset that someone else is in their space now that is doing something that isn't lodge related? Or any of the previous inhabitants, upset that the Halloween attraction is being put on? Or is it just part of the Halloween attraction itself? Stories made up of supposedly real ghosts to add a bit of flavor to the attraction to get more people to come? It's really hard to say. Though a visit may be in order come Halloween to see if the attraction is still open and the stories of the hauntings are indeed true.

Railroad crossing near Visalia rumored to be haunted

2011-07-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

Haunted railroad crossing at Santa Fe Ave. & Ave. 271 in Visalia

Image courtesy of Google Street View

There are stories of a haunted railroad crossing in Tulare County, south of the city of Visalia. The railroad crossing is located where Avenue 271 turns into Santa Fe Avenue via two 90 degree turns. The tracks here don't receive much traffic anymore as the line seems to be abandoned now. Yet for whatever reason there seems to be several hauntings at this crossing.

It's said if you park your car on the tracks you can hear the sounds of a train passing by as well as the ghostly images of people walking towards your car. And when you try to start your car back up it seems to take longer for the engine to turn over, almost as if the battery is being drained by something else.

One some nights around 3:00 am a phantom train can be seen. The origin of this haunt is unclear but one can imagine that given the time of the sighting, a train may have derailed sometime early in the morning. It's also said a white figure can be seen walking the along the road next to the crossing late at night. Whether this figure is related to the ghost train is unknown.

It's unknown if any of these haunts are actually true. I did come across several witness accounts regarding the above stories, but whether they are fabricated or not is hard to say. But I wouldn't be surprised if there haven't been a few accidents at this crossing. The fact that there are two 90 degree turns within 250 feet of each other could lend credence to this. But it's hard to say. Haunted railroad crossings are some of my favorite stories and that there is yet another one in the Central Valley area I felt I had to share it.

Gilroy's haunted Mount Madonna County Park

2011-06-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Mount Madonna State Park where the ghost of the daughter of

one of Gilroy's founders is said to haunt.

About 12 miles west of the town of Gilroy is the Mount Madonna County Park. It's said that the ghost of Sarah Miller, the daughter of one of Gilroy's founders Henry Miller, haunts the land that used to be owned by her family.

On June 14, 1879 Sarah Miller was riding her horse on her family's ranch when it stepped in a squirrel hole and lost its footing. Sarah then fell off the horse and broke her neck and was instantly killed.

Stories have persisted for years of seeing a woman riding on horseback late at night by park rangers. Other reports from rangers include hearing a woman screaming, but when they went to investigate no one was found. Lights being seen in buildings even after they were turned off have also been reported. Another witness even reported seeing a woman dressed all in white walking down Pole Line road late one night.

If this is indeed the ghost of Sarah Miller, why does she haunt the land that was formerly her family's ranch? Perhaps she doesn't know she is dead and wanders around aimlessly not knowing of the sad truth. Or perhaps this is where she was happiest in life and continues to stay there even in death. Whatever the case may be, given the numerous sightings at Mount Madonna, something definitely is roaming the grounds late at night.

Large bird like creature seen in Fresno skies

2011-06-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Kwakwaka'wakw totem pole depicting

a Thunderbird perched on the top.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Last week while attending the monthly Fresno Filmmakers Alliance mixer, a friend of mine approached me and asked me if I knew of any thunderbird sightings in the Fresno area as his wife and young son had recently spotted a large bird like creature with a wing span estimated to be over 12 feet in width.

For those who don't know what a thunderbird is term used in the cryptozoological world to describe large bird like creatures that are associated with the Thunderbird of Native American mythology. Most thunderbirds sightings are of the feathered type, although some sightings have reported the creatures to have lizard like features similar to a pterosaur.

Modern thunderbird sightings go back over 100 years with one of the first stories reportedly occurring in April 1890 in Arizona where two cowboys killed a giant birdlike creature with a huge wingspan. It was described as having smooth skin, featherless wings similar to that of a bat and a face that looked like an alligator. They are said to have taken the carcass back to town where they pinned it on the outside of barn with it's wings outstretched the entire length.

Sightings continued into the 20th Century when in the 1940's several sightings occurred in Illinois where witnesses at first thought they were seeing a plane flying overhead until they saw the "plane" flapping it's wings. A few weeks later in another part of the state a man and his son saw a large bird creature flying at a height estimated to be around 500 feet and the shadow it cast was the size of a small passenger airplane.

One of the more stranger occurrences, and one I wanted to share, happened on July 25, 1977 in Lawndale, Illinois. A group of boys were playing in their back yard when two large birds approached and chased the boys. Two escaped unharmed, but the third boy, 10 year old Marlon Lowe, did not. One of the birds clamped it's talons around his shoulders and lifted the now terrified boy about two feet off the ground and carried him some distance before Low was able to fight off the bird, getting it to release him.

Most viewed this as some sort of tall tale made up by the boys, but given the description of the birds one has to wonder. The description matched that of an Andean condor; a large back bird with a white ringed neck and a wingspan of 10 feet. There's a problem though, the condor's talons are said to not be strong enough to lift that of a heavy object (i.e. a 10 year old boy). So what then did the boys see?

So this leads me back to the Fresno sighting. What exactly did the two see? Was it just a normal bird (say a hawk or crane) mistaken for something else? Someone mentioned a Californian Condor, but that is highly unlikely as the habitat for this species is in Southern California. Could a large bird like creature, one that was the inspiration for the Native American Thunderbird myth, be in the Fresno area skies? If there have been more sightings, hopefully those witnesses will hear of this article and share their stories.

Paying your respects from a drive-thru funeral home

2011-06-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

I came across a video yesterday while at lunch of something that's a bit different than what I normally see and post here on Weird Fresno. It was an interview of a woman who owned a funeral home in Compton and it had a unique feature of a drive-thru viewing window. One would be able to drive up to the spot where the body was being viewed and you could either stay in your car or step out and view the body and sign the register.

This isn't the only drive-thru funeral home in the country. There is one in Chicago and another in Louisiana. But the owner of Robert L. Adams Mortuary, Peggy Scott Adams, believes her's to be the only one in Southern California.

At first I thought this was a bit weird. But as I watched the video I began to warm up to the idea. There are some people who can't attend the funeral of the person and this gives them a chance to pay their last respects. Another interesting thing I found was that people who were walking by would sometimes go up to the viewing window and pay their respects, even if they didn't know the person.

Now I doubt this concept will catch on everywhere, but it is something unique and not morbid in the least. In a culture that seems to fear death, it's comforting to know that not everyone out there is afraid of it and wants to pay their respects to the dearly departed.

The LA Times did an article on the funeral home and it can be found here.

More strange lights filmed over Oakland.

2011-06-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Looks like there are strange lights flying over Oakland again. Almost a year ago I had reported of a strange object (or objects) being filmed over Oakland, CA with a night vision enabled camera. Well it seems the strange craft (or something similiar) is once again flying over Oakland and YouTube user KevinMC360 was able to get some video of it.

Looking at the video I can't really say what the three objects are. But I feel I can say what I believe them NOT to be. No way they are birds, as some have claimed them to be. Birds do not move that fast nor do they stay in that tight of formation. I read on another site of how someone claimed that you can see the birds flapping their wings on the enlarged portion of the video, well that isn't what you are seeing. Since the video was zoomed in digitally, you get some pixelation and that is what you are seeing here.

Also I doubt they are some form of civilian aircraft. That formation is once again a rather tight one, and three individual ones wouldn't move that fluidly throughtout the sky. Now could it be some sort of military craft? Perhaps. Remember for years the Air Force kept secret the F-117 and B-2 programs. Granted they weren't testing them over heavily populated areas but I digress. As for the possibily of it being extraterresterial, who the hell knows. I'm seeing three objects moving in the sky. They are flying and unidentified. That is the definition of a UFO, which is what we have here.

Manteca's haunted El Rey Theater

2011-05-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

What was formerly the El Rey Theater is today the

Kelley Brothers Brewery.

Photo courtesy of Waymarking.com

Now I know Manteca is a bit outside of what one would call the "Fresno area", but I found this story interesting as I love the idea of a haunted theater so I thought I would write a bit about this one. In the center of town on Yosemite Ave just a bit east of Main Street was the El Rey Theatre. Built in the 1930's in the classic Art Deco style, the El Rey Theater was a famous landmark for the small town of Manteca. Everything from movies to local plays were done here and during the Christmas season the owners would open the theater to children for free and show a variety of cartoons and Three Stooges films.

All that came to an end in 1977. Ironically the last movie to be shown there was the Steve McQueen classic, The Towering Inferno. Here is where the story differs. Some claim that the fire happened as the movie was playing. Most of the audience was able to exit to safety, but it's said that a few died along with several firemen that were trying to save the building. The other story is that the fire occured when the theater was closed for the evening and there were no deaths due to the fire. From the research I did this seems to be the more popular belief, but I wanted to include both as they are part of the legend of the theater.

The El Rey Theatre layed abanondened for over twenty years before the Kelley brothers bought the building and remodeled it into a brewery and brickyard oven restraunt in 1997. It's not sure when it was determined the building was haunted but it's said that hot spots from the fire can be felt at times in the brewery and it's even rumored that sometimes the ghosts of the fire fighters and movie patrons have been seen wandering about lost, almost like they were trying to find a way out.

Given the conflicting stories of the night in question, if anyone actually died in the fire is hard to say. If no one did actually die in the fire, where do the accounts of wandering spirits and hot spots come from? The hot spots can be a type of haunting where a traumatic event left an impression on the place where it occured and is replayed from time to time. So this could perhaps be what is occuring when people report feeling hot spots.

But what of the rumor of ghosts being seen? A story spun into a tall tale and turned into an urban legend thanks to the internet? Or pershaps there is some truth to the ghosts that are said to be seen wandering through the brewery and they were drawn to the place for some other reason. Or maybe it's just an overactive imigination of someone who had one too many beers. There may never really be a way to determine what is fact and what is mere legend.

The Kelley Brothers Brewery has their own site which lists the brewery's menu as well as location and events occuring throughout the year.

Will the Rapture occur tomorrow?

2011-05-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

The gold seal makes it official.

If you've been following the news lately, or seen one of the numerous billboards, you would know a small Christian group is claiming that the Rapture will occur on May 21, 2011. Which happens to be tomorrow.

The group is based out of Oakland, CA (where I saw several billboards last week) and is an independent church founded by a Harold Camping. According to Camping he was able to figure out the a "code" in the bible and claims it's basically a cosmic calendar of sorts and was able to pinpoint the Rapture based upon the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

Camping has a radio network and has been able to spread his message through that as well as utilizing bus bench ad space and the previously mentioned billboards. I think the billboards have to be my favorite part as they have a gold seal on them stating "The Bible guarantees it". As if having a cheesy gold seal on here makes it official.

Let me also say that I believe in God, that I'm a Catholic. But I think what this guy is claiming is ridiculous. This isn't the first time he's claimed to "know" when the Rapture is going to occur or knowing when world is going to end. This isn't the first time he's done this. Camping also claimed that Christ would return on September 6, 1994. Obviously that day came and passed with no incident. Just as May 21, 2011 will.

As I had stated in a post I did back in February, I have several friends who's birthday is on May 21. Local derby grrl Karma Kaze, wife of blogfather Mike Osegueda, Tanya, and President/Ceo of Storyland & Playland Barry Falke all celebrate their birthday tomorrow. So if the Rapture does indeed come I will be out there looting to get them each a present. But most likely I will be at home playing Call of Duty or something. I really need to get a girlfriend.

Visiting the ghosts of Alcatraz Island

2011-05-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

So I've been busy with Weird Fresno lately. First last week I traveled down south to ride the coasters at Magic Mountain and to explore some of the legends associated with the place. And then later that week I ventured to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. A place where some say it's one of the most haunted places in the United States.

One of the many views of San Francisco from the island.

The only way to get to The Rock is by ferry (though I imagine back in the day robbing a bank would get you there). After a twenty minute or so ride we docked at the island and after were briefed on safety rules by a park ranger. After that we were allowed to freely roam the park for as long as we liked.

The entrance to Alcatraz. The writing that says

"INDIANS WELCOME" was from when a group of

Native Americans occupied the island from 1969 - 1971.

After briefly touring the grounds I decided to head to the building that housed the cell block (the area where the prisoners were held) and where most of the activity takes place. I have to admit I had some preconceived notions about the place given what I had read and seen on TV. I had assumed the cell block would be a large, dark and depressing place. But when I first walked in, it really wasn't that. Sure I had goosebumps that I was at Alcatraz, but as I started to look around I noticed how much light was in the building. Obviously it still had an air of sadness to it being one of the toughest prisons ever in America, but I guess I had just hyped it up in my head to be this desolate place that time had forgot.

The shower area where it's said that you can hear the ghost of

Al Capone playing the banjo.

The laundry area which is next to the showers.

That being said I headed into the cell block and entered the shower room where you can pick up the audio tour devices. This location is one of the known hot spots of activity. It's said that when notorious mobster Al Capone did time in Alcatraz he received permission to practice his banjo in the shower area as he was afraid he would be attacked if he practiced in the prison rec yard. Now it's said that you can sometimes hear banjo music coming from the shower area, even though it's not part of the audio tour. Interesting side note to this. Several years ago my mother and sister went to Alcatraz on a field trip for school. They didn't ask me about any of the ghosts at that time and I didn't really think of telling them the stories I knew. As both my mother and sister were in the shower area they both heard banjo music and thought it was part of the audio tour but still heard it when the removed their headphones. It was only when they told me what happened later on that I told them about how Al Capone was said to haunt the area.

The start of the audio tour near cell block A

After exiting the shower area I entered the main cell block. From 1934 to 1963 there were 1545 inmates here (some were repeat offenders) and some of the more famous inmates were Al Capone, Robert Stroud the "Birdman of Alcatraz" and George "Machine Gun" Kelly among others. The cell block had 4 sections, blocks A, B, C and D. Blocks A, B and C were general population where Block D was used for isolation. Visitors to cell blocks A & B have claimed to hear moaning and crying coming from the area even though it wasn't part of the audio tour nor were there any visible signs of where the sounds could be coming from. At cell block C it's said that a visiting psychic came across a spirit that went by the name of "Butcher". According to prison records a Abie Maldowitz was murdered in C block and he was a mob hit man who was known as Butcher.

Aisleway in between cell blocks B & C

This isn't the only spirit that resides in cell block C. In 1946 three inmates, Bernard Coy, Marvin Hubbard and Joe Cretzer, were killed in the utility corridor in cell block C during a failed prison escape. When the island became a park night security guards have sometimes heard unexplained clanging sounds coming inside from the utility corridor. The guards would open the door to the corridor to see what was making the noise but find nothing. Upon closing the door the noises would start back up again.

The access door to the utility corridor on cell block C. This is where

three inmates died after a failed prison escape attempt.

The final area to have paranormal activity is cell block D, the isolation ward. Alcatraz was already known for housing the most difficult prisoners, ones who were trouble at other prisons. But the ones who were difficult at Alcatraz were placed in isolation. Upon entering this cell visitors have reported feeling what they could only describe as a "raw coldness" and some sort of intensity that filled the cell. Visitors weren't the only ones to feel something strange in 14D, some of the park rangers have reported about the strangeness that seems to encompass the cell. One stated that the cell always felt cold, even colder than the other three isolation cells. They went on to say that even when the cell block was warmed by the sun and temperatures would reach around 70 degrees, 14D would still be so cold that you would need a jacket in there to be warm.

The door on the right is the entrance to the infamous 14D

There's a story that sometime in the 1940's a prisoner was locked up in 14D and was heard constantly screaming throughout the entire night that there was a creature with glowing eyes in there with him and that it was trying to kill him. The next morning when the guards went to release the prisoner they found him strangled to death in the cell. But it gets even stranger. When the headcount was done the next day, the guards counted one too many prisoners. Some of the guards claimed to have seen the dead convict in the line, but would disappear after only a few seconds.

Photo taken from the interior of 14D looking towards the outside.

As I wandered Alcatraz I snapped many photos, hoping something would appear on camera. Unfortunately there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, not even the obligatory dust orbs. As for trying to do any voice recordings, I gave up on this as soon as I saw the large group I was with. That and all the reflective surfaces made any possible EVP virtually impossible. Going here I knew that an actual ghost investigation wouldn't be realistic (is looking for ghosts ever realistic?), but I had hoped for a bit more than just some picture taking. I know Alcatraz does offer a night tour, but I don't know how much less crowded that would be, if at all. Plus there's nothing to say whatever ghosts are there will come out at night as opposed to the day. But I definitely know the creep factor would be way amped up. That alone might be worth the admission.

In the library looking out towards cell block D,

It's hard for me to say if Alcatraz is truly haunted. I didn't go there looking for ghosts specifically, more of to experience the place and legends. Definitely was an experience though. Looking at all the cells, and realizing that men spent years in something smaller than my apartment bathroom was an eye opener. Plus I was AT Alcatraz, everyone knows about it and at least some of it's history. For all of the places I have explored in the past year, Alcatraz has to be the coolest. But if the stories are true about Alcatraz, it seems that even though it's no longer a working prison some of the prisoners still are imprisoned there.

The ghosts of Magic Mountain

2011-05-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

Driving to and from Southern California most of us have taken the mountain pass commonly referred to as the Grapevine. As we drive on Interstate 5 we pass through the small town of Valencia and the theme park Six Flags Magic Mountain. If you have ever had the chance to visit the park you'd know that it contains some of the most thrilling rides on the West Coast. But did you know it has it's share of paranormal activity? Three rides in general seem to be haunted and coincidentally enough all three rides have had deaths reported on them.

The first ride is the giant wooden roller coaster Colossus. In 1978, a 20-year-old woman was ejected from the Colossus ride, and fell to her death. Interestingly enough it's not the woman's ghost who is seen, but that of a young child wearing a striped shirt. He is usually seen at night running underneath the support structure underneath Colossus's tracks. Also sometimes at night the lift chain that pulls the coaster up the track can be hears running even though the ride has been shut down for the night.

The next ride that has a death associated with it is the roller coaster Revolution. In 1996, a part-time employee was killed while crossing the tracks of the ride. She was struck by a train full of park visitors as it returned to the station; both passengers and those waiting in line for the ride saw the victim fly into an area beneath the coaster and she was pronounced dead at the scene from major injuries. It's rumored that on a certain part of the ride (assuming the part where the worker is killed) you can sometimes hear the woman screaming, as if her death is being replayed over and over.

The final ride to have a death associated with it is the mega coaster Goliath. In June of 2001 a 28 year old woman died of a brain aneurysm while on the ride. At night, after the park closes is when the activity is supposed to occur. The security office will get a call from the the ride. When answered there is nothing but static on the other end. A group of guards investigated once but when they got to the ride there was no one around. They did report of an uneasy feeling and quickly left.

Ghostly encounters aren't the only strange thing that is going on at Magic Magic. A UFO was seen over Santa Clarita and was reportedly seen from one of the tower rides at the park. The type of sighting is unknown as I was unable to find the actual report, just mention of the sighting.

So next time you take a trip to Magic Mountain, don't go for just the rides. Check out some of the legends this place has. After all the park has been around for over 40 years and is bound to have some secrets.

California werewolf documentary claims to have werewolf footage shot near Fresno

2011-05-02T15:51:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend I received an e-mail from a group who had recently filmed a documentary on werewolves in California. They thought I might be interested as there is some footage shot near Fresno of an alleged werewolf sighting. In 2004 Michael Lakoma was camping and was shooting some video on his cellphone when he saw a black creature in the distance bounding toward him. In the video he says it looks like a wolf jumping but on two feet. I have to be honest, it's hard to determine what the object was given the distance and quality of the video.

Later on in the documentary shows video shot in Tehachapi, Bakersfield. What I find interesting is that all three occurrences took place in 2004. And as an associate of mine put it, why wait seven years to bring this to the masses? Why not alert the media that you found something?

I'm going to leave my opinion out of this for right now. But I have asked the creator of this documentary to put me in contact with the experts they had in it as I have a few questions of my own that I would like to ask. Though I'm curious as to what others think of this video and would encourage to leave your thoughts below as well as on their YouTube page.

Recent UFO reports for the Fresno area

2011-04-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've reported any recent UFO sightings in the area, so when I came across these I felt it was a good time to share some again. All reports are taken from the National UFO Reporting Center and are posted as they were submitted to the site.

Occurred : 11/20/2010 23:00

Reported: 11/20/2010 11:17:54 PM 23:17

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:20 minutes

No objects seen only 5 or more lights moving in a rapid circles. Heavy clouds but lights visible. Unusual and scary.

Fresno California zip 93710 November 20, 2010 11:00 PM Weather is heavy clouds Outside my home is very light similar to what it would look like at the beginning of dusk. On my patio, I first noticed how light is it outside and quite abnormal for this time of night. I glanced up and noticed many lights above the clouds moving fast in wide circles. At first I thought it might be a spotlight on the ground but soon realized there were too many of the lights to be one spotlight circling. They move fast and in a very wide circle but not a perfect circle and the heavy clouds would prevent me seeing any beams of light but only the lights themselves. No objects outside the beams of light were present.

((name and telephone number deleted))

Original report can be found here.

Occurred : 12/26/2010 17:02

Reported: 12/27/2010 2:15:04 AM 02:15

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Sphere

Duration:15 seconds

Myself and three others viewed a blue orb like sphere stream across the sky.

UFO Sighting I believe at 5:02 PM Pacific Time Monday; December 27, 2010 in Northeast Fresno, California three individuals and myself viewed what appeared to be an UFO. I have no paranoia towards UFO or extraterrestrial life forms. Although I believe their existence highly possible, I believe that this fact has no effect on what I saw. All three individuals including myself acknowledged the scene that occurred. All four of us pointed and followed the bright blue object that can only be described as an orb, as it streaked across the sky at a much lower altitude of any airplane. The orb went south to northeast and was only visible for more than 15 seconds before it vanished very abruptly. As I alerted the other individuals that it could be a possible UFO, they all dismissed the orb and didn’t mention it all day. We viewed this in the northern sky in our car near the San Joaquin River. The orb seemed to be above the water and going in the direction of the river to the north. I believe I saw something that was not an airplane, and much faster than any remote light or flare. This is not a fake account.

Original report can be found here.

Occurred : 2/10/2011 16:40 (Entered as : 02/10/2011 16:40)

Reported: 2/10/2011 5:17:09 PM 17:17

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Light

Duration:25 seconds

10-12 lights - Swarm/Formation

I saw 10-12 lights in the sky. They seemed to by very far away and flying in a swarm around a central point. Then the lights simultaneously spread out into a specific formation. Two rows, offset by one.

At this point, I ran to grab my camera, but there were no lights when I returned.

Original report can be found here.

Occurred : 2/28/2011 09:35 (Entered as : 02-28- 11 9:35)

Reported: 2/28/2011 10:16:56 PM 22:16

Location: Fresno, CA

Shape: Oval

Duration:10 min

We were looking SouthEast when in the sky we saw around oval shape object that was changing color

I was in my bedroom when my brother called out to me to come over into the living room and into the backyard to check out this oval round object in the night sky Southeast of us changing colors,but standing very still for about 10 minutes. Then it started moving and i saw luminous colors coming from the craft ranging from yellow,red,green,white,and blue. It went towards the sierra mountains and left.

Original report can be found here.

Occurred : 3/22/2011 15:00 (Entered as : 3/22/11 15:00)

Reported: 4/3/2011 12:04:54 AM 00:04

Posted: 4/3/2011

Location: Shaver Lake, CA

Shape: Triangle

Duration:2 minutes

triangle black military craft.

Perhaps I shouldn't report this, but somehow it might help. We heard a thunderous noise and went outside to see 3 black triangle shaped aircraft. Following these were 3 more. All made very loud noise. These had to be military in origin. It was facinating as each of the 3 were in triangle formation one out front followed by 2.

We live in the forest and this was very unusual. So no UFO to report. Perhaps you might know what these craft were? They were headed from NE to SW, and there is the Lemore Naval Station 60 miles to the SW. We're about 4,500'. So these were perhaps 6-7k feet. Real close.

Original report can be found here.

As I've stated, these reports came from the National UFO Reporting Center. If you've seen anything I would suggest reporting it here, even if you aren't sure exactly what you saw. The Center compiles a database of objects that are seen in the night sky and perhaps what you saw has been seen by others and by reporting it you can verify what was seen.

Strange creatures caught on video in Yosemite

2011-04-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

If you've read this site for a while now, you probably know one of my favorite stories is the one of the strange creatures that were captured on CCTV in Fresno. Over the two plus years that I've being doing this, it has to be the strangest video I have seen and the one that I just cannot explain. I was a bit disappointed in thinking that it was just a one time occurrence. It looks like I might have been wrong.

Over the weekend I came across a video reported to have been shot someone up in the Yosemite area. Now the video quality is bad (seriously how hard is it to get a camera with decent resolution?) but you see two figures moving from left to right across the screen and their movement is similar to the creatures from the original CCTV video.

According to the person who posted the video, "sierraparahunter", a couple that were friends of his captured this video from a security camera aimed at the driveway. Not knowing what it was, they sent it to him knowing he had an interest in the paranormal. He noticed the similarities to the stick figure video and decided to post it to YouTube.

Personally I'm not sure what to say about this. The video quality already has me thinking this isn't real, plus the movements just look so unnatural that I wonder if they are puppets. But I found a second video where "sierraparahunter" went up to where the video was taken, took some reference photos for heights, and superimposed the video over them to get a scale for the figures. If the video is accurate, then the larger figure is about 36" to 40" and the smaller figure is maybe a bit over 24".

I've contact "sierraparahunter" but have not heard back from them yet. Until then I'm going to be cautious and not say this video is legitimate. There are too things that have me questioning this.

Furniture store in Turlock rumored to be haunted.

2011-04-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Minerva's Furniture in downtown Turlock

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview.

Usually the stories I write about on here are local legends I either find somewhere on the internet, in a book or from someone's first hand account. Rarely do I find any news articles on anything paranormal related, and when I do it's rarely taken seriously. So while researching a legend in the town of Turlock, I came across this article of a haunted furniture store that was ran in the Turlock Journal back in October 2010.

The article talks about how when Carlos Sandoval, the owner of Minerva's Furniture moved his store into it's current location back in 2008. As he was moving he would notice apparitions moving in the back hallway and what sounded like metal pieces being banged together in the back warehouse. Apparently the back warehouse used to be a blacksmith's shop and some of the original equipment is still there.

Eventually Sandoval decided he wanted to know what was going on and invited a local paranormal group in to investigate. The investigation occurred on Aug. 14, 2010 and a photo of a black shadow was taken in the main building as well as several EVP recordings were done. Then in a January investigation another EVP was recorded in the basement, this time of a growling like noise.

Though these things were unable to be debunked, the investigation group was still not ready to determine Minerva's haunted. But Sandoval isn't so quick to agree. He says there are still mysteries in his store and there is something not normal there.

Full source: Turlock Journal

Author: Maegan Martens

Strange lights seen in Fresno skies over the weekend

2011-04-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

It seems that there were some strange lights seen in Fresno this past weekend. It was a little before 10:00 pm on Saturday night when my phone rang and the caller ID said it was my mother calling. I didn't answer, mostly cause I was in a bar drinking and singing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in a duet and I want my mother to think that I wasn't out causing trouble. So I let it go to voice mail and checked it a few mintues later. She said she had seen some strange lights in the northern part of Fresno County, in a triangle formation. She said they didn't didn't look normal and wondered if I had seen anything. When I had checked my voicemail I had stepped outside as the previously menitoned bar was packed. I happened to look up into the night sky (which was rather cloudy) and noticed there were several spot lights moving across the clouds. I tried calling my mother back, but didn't get ahold of her. Figuring this is what she saw, I decided to drop the matter and go back inside and finish my drink.

The next morning, as I was heading on out to help a friend, my phone rang again. Checking the caller ID, I see it's the my Google Voice number which is the number I have listed for Weird Fresno. In a hurry, I let it go to voicemail (I swear I answer my phone honestly). When I listened to it later, someone had said they had recieved several calls at 5:40 am saying there were strange lights over the east side of Fresno that were moving rather erraticly.

Now did these Sunday morning lights have anything to do with what my mother saw? I still haven't heard back from her, so it's hard to say. I really doubt they were the spotlights I saw on Saturday night as this sighting took place early Sunday morning. One thing is certain though, strange things are definitely in the Fresno night skies again.

Haunted Pacheco Pass

2011-03-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

Photo by Al Pavangkanan courtesy of Flickr.

If you ever took a trip to Monterery, Santa Cruz, or the Bay Area there's a good chance you've taken Highway 152 through Pacheco Pass. The part of the trip from Los Banos to Gilroy is rather mundane for those who have driven it before. Or is it? Did you know it has a rather dark history? There are stories of supposed Indian massacres by the Spanish settlers in the 1700's. And from 1860 to 1880 the pass was known as Robber's Pass due to two highwaymen that robbed, raped and murdered travlers along the route. And now in modern times it's known as Blood Alley due to the numerous traffic accidents that occur along it's route. Not all these accidents are fatal, but some are. And apparently some of the victims haven't moved on.

Blood Alley seems to have several spirits on it's stretch of road. On the old Bolsa Road there's a story of a headless figure wandering aimless off the side of the road. It's said the ghost is that of a man who was in a car accident and was decapitated and now he is searching for his missing head. Another story is as you are driving towards San Juan Baustista, right after you pass the mission you drive through a small grove of trees and on your left you will see an outcropping of rocks. Sometimes late at night it's said the ghostly spectre of a woman can be seen there. Apparently her fiance was killed in an accident on this stretch of road, and despondent, she put on her wedding dress and went to the scene of the accident and climbed the rocks and jumped to her death. Unfortunately for whatever reason she did not join her beloved in the afterlife and she wanders the road looking for him to this day.

Other miscelaneous sightings include a woman searching for her child, but when you approach her for help she disappears. Witnesses have also claimed to hear the sound of a stage coach and the sound of horses but never see the source of the sounds.

There have also been reports by numerous witnesses of seeing a man in a black robe standing on the side of the highway usually between Casa De Fruta and Bell's Station. Written reports of seeing the figure go back at least several decades and the figure was always seen late at night or early in the morning before sunrise. It's theorized that the figure could be that of a Fransican Monk given the type of garb the witnesses describe seeing him in.

Another story I came across is that of young Indian girl that fell in love with one of the local monks who helped find the San Juan Baustista mission. They had a secret meeting place on a hill besides Fremonts Peak. But once the local townspeople found out about this illicit affair, the preist was excommunicated from the church and the girl was banished from her tribe. The priest went to their spot to find his beloved so they could finally be together. But when he arrived there he found her dead. Distraut, he killed himself. It's said you can see them both on the hill to this day. Whether this monk is the same spirit that was mentioned previously is unknown.

And what haunted highway would be complete without a phantom hitchhiker? Claims of a young girl wearing jeans and a plaid shirt asking for a ride from truck drivers have been reported. The girl would approach a truck with a driver in it and ask for a ride. When the driver said yes, she would walk towards the front of the truck as she was heading towards the passenger side. The driver would wait for the passenger door to open, but it never would. When they would get out of the truck to look for her, she was no where to be found. It's said that this woman is the ghost of a hitchhiker that was accidently killed by a semi-truck years ago.

And because ghosts aren't enough apparently for Blood Alley, there have been sightings of a half human half birdlike creature standing in the middle of the road. Strange lights have also been reported along the pass that have no known explanation.

So next time you are taking a trip to the bay area (or maybe Gilroy for the garlic festival) and see a person on the side of the road, double check that they are actually there. Because there's a good chance you just saw one of the many ghosts of Blood Alley.

Guest blogging in New Orleans.

2011-03-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

A New Orleans street at night. Photo courtesy of Kimburly.

I've been doing Weird Fresno for a little over two years now and I've written more stories than I can count. But an idea I had toyed with off and on was to have other people write the occasional article, to get a different view point on any paranormal subject they wished to discuss. People had expressed interest in writing something, but didn't really have any subject they particularly wanted to write on so I let the idea fall to the back burner.

So when I ran across fellow blogger, roller derby chick, and all around kick ass person Kimbuly at a local watering hole (the Brig, where else?) and she told me she was going to New Orleans for a work related conference I knew I had to get her as my first guest blogger. You see I believe New Orleans (or NOLA as some refer to it as) is one of the most haunted cities in America. Founded in 1718 by the French, it's a city unlike no other and has more ghost stories than any other city. I had the opportunity to visit The Big Easy back when I was 18, but I was more concerned with the alcohol related spirits (and other sights) on Bourbon Street than actual ghosts. I somewhat lament that I let my teenage hormones get the best of me in one of the most richly diverse cities in the country and have wanted to go back for years. As that's not going to happen anytime soon I couldn't pass up on Kim doing a bit of guest blogging for me.

After some persuading (i.e. getting on my hands and knees and begging) she agreed to it. Now I could have just copied what she wrote, but I decided not to. Her approach was unique as she'd never been there before and didn't just blog about anything paranormal related, but the vibe of the city itself. It's an old city, but in a good way. The people there embrace their history and it's a part of them. Fresno could learn a thing or two and embrace who it is and not trying to copy other cities.

You can find Kim's blog post on New Orleans here. She's also the creator of 31 Days of Fresno where for an entire month she blogged about fun things to do in Fresno. The blog is still active with an occasional post. But her Lava blog is where she is most active.

I'm hoping this isn't the only guest blogger I have on here. If anyone is interested in doing an article (especially if you are traveling somewhere) shoot me an e-mail and we can work something out.

Leprechaun reportedly seen in suburban neighborhood

2011-03-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

March 17th is upon us again and that only means one thing (no not getting your stomach pumped at the hospital because you drank too much Jameson, that would be March 18th), St. Patrick's Day is here. As I am half Irish (which half I will not reveal) I've celebrated it for many years and am quite familiar with Irish lore. One of my favorites has always been the Leprechaun and it's pot of gold. You would think being now in the 21st Century, this legend would die but apparently not as one was reportedly seen in a tree. The following video is a newscast on the supposed sighting.

Ok so I know this video is old and most likely a joke, but I love it. And yes I posted it last St. Patrick's Day and will post it again next year so just deal with it. There are so many things that I love about this video, but if I had to choose one it would have to be the artist's rendering. That alone is worth a pot of gold.

As luck would have it (yes I went there) I was able to find a follow up story to this where the residents still claim to see the Leprechaun. I'll keep my opinion to myself, but I really want to know what the hell these people saw.

So from us at Weird Fresno, happy St. Patrick's Day. Éirinn go brách!!!

California's own Loch Ness Monster

2011-03-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

Lake Tahoe, home of Tahoe Tessie

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Situated on the California/Nevada border lies Lake Tahoe. At an elevation of 6,225 ft and over 1600 feet deep, it is a major tourist attraction throughout the entire year. What most visitors to the lake don't know is that there are stories of a large serpentine creature estimated to be at least 60 feet in length and "as wide as a barrel". Residents of the area have named the creature Tahoe Tessie (a play off of Nessie from the Loch Ness in Scotland).

Stories of the creature date back to the mid-19th century where members of the Washoe and Paiute tribes claimed that a large creature resided in an underwater tunnel beneath Cave Rock and sightings have continued to this day. Most are from somewhat of a distance where people see a large serpentine body moving in the water. One interesting sighting occured in the winter of 1979 where four witnesses saw a large snake like creature feeding off a school of trout. They estimated it to be between 30 and 60 feet in length and as thick as a telephone pole. It didn't swim like a snake would (side to side), but was diving up and splashing down with it's head into the school of fish. Speechless, they watched the creature for several minutes before it finally disappeared.

Another interesting story is that sometime in the 1970's, famed French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau explored the depths of Lake Tahoe. Whatever he encounted down there must have spooked him as he claimed the world was not ready for what was at the bottom of the lake. Subsequently he refused to release any of his underwater footage or any data he collected. I feel it's worth saying that Lake Tahoe was known to be a dumping ground for bodies by the mob during the 1950's. Given the depth of the lake and the near constant temperature of 39 degrees, it's most likely Cousteau found a large watery graveyard were the bodies were preserved by the near freezing water.

So what lurks just underneath the waters of Laka Tahoe? Theories include a Plesiosaur, Icthyosaur or a Mosasaur, due to fossils of the creatures being found in the surrounding area. But Tessie experts quickly dismissed this as the lake was formed in the last Ice Age, long after the creatures went extinct. Other theories claim that it could be anything from a population of sturgeon to some sort of undiscovered fresh water eel. Whatever it may be, there's something there as witnesses have seen it for over a century now.

British Ministry of Defense releases classified UFO reports

2011-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

A photograph of an "unusual atmospheric occurrence," taken by a retired Royal Air Force officer in Sri Lanka in 2004

This was an article I had written for Fresno Famous. Usually I do a cross post for both Weird Fresno and FF, but I wrote this on a Saturday and am now posting this here today.

This past Thursday British officials released over 8,500 documents that pertained to UFO sightings dating all the way back to the 1950's and include reports from both civilian and military witnesses.

Examples of some of the sightings include a Royal Air Force officer and several members of the public "chewy mint shaped solid craft" (to be honest I have no idea what that means, just quoting the description) and other aerial objects that looked like a ring, a jellyfish, and a spinning silver top.

here is even one account of a London man claiming he was abducted by aliens in October of 1998 after seeing an unidentified craft hover over his home and then later finding that he could no account for an hour of missing time.

Another files released, and a rather scary incident, reveals how the RAF was inundated with calls one morning in 1967 after residents in southern England awoke to find six small beeping UFOs lying in a perfect line from the Isle of Sheppy to the Bristol Channel.

Residents were so terrified that a bomb disposal unit blew up one of the UFOs and another was airlifted to the village of Aldermaston and both the army and the defense ministry's intelligence unit were sent in in what was considered a real alien invasion.

Turns out it that engineering students at the Farnborough Technical College had constructed and positioned the UFOs in a bid to raise money for charity.

The files are free to download one month from the National Archives website for those who are interested. I wonder if the US will ever release their files. And I don't mean Project Bluebook (which in my opinion I think is a farse trying to cover up what really happened. Though given the 60 plus years of covering UFO sightings up (starting with the Roswell incident in 1947) I highly doubt the US will disclose anything anytime soon. I believe it's up to other governments like the British to reveal what's going on. Only then will the US release what they know.

The phantom hitchhiker of Browning Road

2011-03-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

Is Browning Road in Delano, CA. home to a phantom hitchhiker?

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

In the small town of Delano, about 30 miles north of Bakersfield there is said to be a spirit of a woman who haunts Browning Road. No one who the girl really is, but there are stories that she was a young woman who was crossing the street early one morning when she was struck by a car and killed instantly. It's said that if you drive down the road that sometimes you can see her standing on the side, as if she's waiting to cross. There have even been reports of her actually appearing in the backseat of several vehicles, undoubtedly terrifying the driver.

Most of the sightings seem to have occurred on a stretch of road south of town between Garves Highway (Hwy 155) and Woollomes Road. One witness reported seeing a shadowy figure leap in front of a car they were following and watched the figure disappear as the car swerved to avoid hitting it. Another reported that they heard the story, but not believing anything took a drive there one night. They said they were messing around and flashing their headlights trying to attract the ghost of the girl. There was one passenger in the car and they looked outside and saw the ghost standing next to the car. Terrified they sped off as they were severely shaken up.

Phantom hitchhiker stories have been around for centuries. And for some reason it was always some desolate road that the ghost chose to haunt. In the case of the Browning Road ghost, the woman seems to haunt the road she was killed on? All I know is that the legend is active as I found a Facebook page dedicated just to the legend itself. You can find it here.

Another interesting note. I was exploring the Google Streetview of the stretch of road that is said to be haunted. I noticed a roadside memorial. Hard to say if this is for the ghost of a woman or for someone else, but usually these are only at places where someone has died and I found that interesting.

Christian group claims The Rapture will occur on May 21, 2011

2011-02-23T12:24:00.002-08:00

Artists impression of what The Rapture will look like

Image courtesy of Logos Christian Center

Ask any conspiracy theorist when the world is going to end and more likely than not they will respond that it will be on Dec. 21, 2012 (based on the fact the Mayan calendar ends on that day). But not everyone is in agreement. Some say the rapture will actually happen this year, and the date is May 21, 2011.

There is a small Christian movement based out of Oakland, California that is independent of churches whose founder, Harold Camping, is convinced from reading the bible and making several calculations that the end of the world is less than three months away.

Camping believes the bible functions essentially as a cosmic calendar of sorts and all his calculations come from reading the bible but that the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 is what confirms the date.

From his radio network, Family Radio Worldwide, Harold has been able to get his message out there to those who would believe. His followers are using everything billboards and bus stop benches to a traveling caravan of RVs and volunteers handing out pamphlets to spread his message that the rapture is coming. Some are even planning on going overseas to Africa and the Middle East (not the best time to do that in my opinion) to spread their message even further.

This isn’t the first time (nor the last) that a religious group has predicted end times. One of the most famous was by the Baptist leader William Miller who predicted the end would fall on Oct. 22, 1844 and came to be known as the Great Disappointment among his followers and some of those founded the Seventh Day Adventist church.

So is the world going to end soon? It’s hard to say. I remember when I was in Catholic school (explains a lot doesn’t it) reading in the bible (specifically in the books of Mark & Matthew) that no one can know the date or even the hour it will occur. But this doesn’t stop these groups from trying to convince their followers for whatever reason that they know when the rapture will occur. Most are harmless and when the date passes. Then there are groups like Heaven’s Gate that perform a mass suicide thinking that is the only way to safe themselves. Let’s hope when May 21 does come nothing like that will happen.

Personally I plan on spending that day differently. Several friends’ birthdays are on that day (local derby grrl Karma Kaze, wife of blogfather Mike Osegueda, Tanya, and President/Ceo of Storyland & Playland Barry Falke) so I know something will be going on. Besides knowing my luck the world will end on my birthday, August 23.

Source: The Star

The legend of Chowchilla's Minturn Cemetery

2011-02-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Chowchilla River, which along it's banks lies the Minturn Cemetery

Photo courtesy of the Yosemite/Madera County Film Commission

On the banks of the Chowchilla River in northern Madera County lies a small cemetery dating back to the late 1800's. Both the cemetery and the area itself were named after wheat farmers by the name of Minturn who had a railroad siding built in the area in 1872. Buried at the cemetery are Rowland (1845-1894), Jonas (1819-1884) and Jonas's wife Abby West (1820-1899). It should be noted that Jonas and Abby had several children, but none are buried there.

Rumors of paranormal activity have gone back for many years. High school students would go out there in the hopes of witnessing something strange. There have been reports of hearing a woman screaming and children either crying or laughing. Others have claimed to have seen the ghost of a man picking up trash around the graves. There's even a report of a group of teens going out there one night and their car died when the drove up to the cemetery. One group even claims to actually hear a disembodied voice asking why they came back and they they were going to die.

One has to ask the question is this cemetery actually haunted and if so why? Could the ghost of the man that has been seen be either Rowland or Jonas, making sure the grounds on which they are buried are kept clean and tidy? And what of the reports of the woman screaming? Could this be Abby? Perhaps the sound of ghostly children can be linked to this. It's known that Abby and Jonas had several children, but the cemetery only has the three I mentioned buried there. There's no mention of any children at all. Maybe Abby is screaming because her children aren't buried in the same location she is and the children are crying for the same reason. All I do know is that the legends of the Minturn Cemetery have persisted for a long time and will continue to do so.

Please note that I did not say where this cemetery is located. I was told it is on private property and that the owner's permission is required first. Even with that information I don't know the exact location, just the intersection of two roads and then you travel down a dirt path for about a mile. With that being said if anyone does decide to find this cemetery, please, please get the owners permission first. If not you will be trepessaing and will deserve any punishment you will get. Don't fuck this up for paranormal researchers just because you want to get a cheap thrill.

Recap of crystal skull visit to Fresno

2011-02-09T00:57:00.000-08:00

As I had mentioned last week, I was asked to attend the lecture on one of the famed crystal skulls named Max. The lecture was given by its owner, JoAnn Parks, at Fresno’s Tai Chi Center thanks to a last minute cancellation in Los Angeles. JoAnn has lectured all over the world and on radio shows like Coast to Coast Am, so it was a treat to have her in Fresno.

A crowd gathers around Max before start of the lecture

(Photo courtesy of Michael Banti)

I arrived a few minutes early as I wanted to get a glimpse of Max before the lecture started. As I walked in I saw JoAnn setting Max down on a table and I was able to walk up and observe it. Max was about the size of a human school and I was told he weighs in excess of 16lbs and carved from pure quartz and is estimated to be several thousand years old.

I sat down as the lecture began. First I have to say thanks to JoAnn. Her flight from Texas was delayed due to all the crazy weather and she had only about three hours of sleep. But she still showed up and spoke for the allotted two hours. So I have to give credit where credit is due.

As the lecture started I was under the assumption it would be a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo (you know me always the skeptic), but I was surprised in how down to earth JoAnn was and how simple her message was. She didn’t try to force her beliefs on anyone in the room and wanted everyone to come to their own conclusion based off what they took from what she had to say. She talked about how she came across Max, that she received him from a Tibetan llama (monk) that she knew for several years. She then went into a bit of detail regarding the crystal skulls, how there are some known to be faked, and then ones like hers are a mystery (the British museum tested Max, but wouldn’t comment on what they found). She continued to talk about Max’s message (she claims he speaks to her telepathically) about peace and how he is to be used as a tool for knowledge.

After the lecture was over the group was allowed to approach Max one at a time and touch him (there have been reports of people sensing some sort of energy when they touched Max and others have claimed he spoke to them). I decided to use this opportunity to get some photos. As I walked up to him I snapped some photos, hoping something strange would show up similar to the photos displayed around Max, but alas nothing was out of the ordinary. When it was my turn to touch Max, I was a bit apprehensive (mostly cause I’m a bit of a germophobe, but Max was wiped down with a wet wipe after each person touched him), but I decided to as I wanted to say I touched one of the crystal skulls. Unfortunately no great revelation was shown to me, but I marveled at how smooth he was and how difficult it was to carve him with just hand tools.

A closeup of Max with a photo of with JoAnn with Max

and other skulls in the background.

(Photo courtesy of Michael Banti)

I did ask JoAnn if she ever planned on writing a book of her experiences and she said she had written a manuscript but had never gotten any further. She said she might make that available in the future, but wasn’t sure yet. She also mentioned that she would be back in Fresno sometime next year.

This event took place thanks to the Fresno Lightworkers, a group of like minded individuals that are dedicated to promoting and sharing a positive influence on the Fresno area (sometimes I think we really need it too). I’ve mentioned before they have a monthly psychic circle, but they also have monthly meetings where they discuss anything paranormal or metaphysical related. They have a Meetup page and you can go here for more information on their next meeting.

The Walnut Girl of Armona

2011-02-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

The ghost of a young girl is said to wander through walnut orchards in Armona,

similar to these. Photo courtesy of boboroshi from Flickr

Note: I had originally written about the Walnut Girl when I first started Weird Fresno. I decided to revisit the story as I had found a new part of it and wanted to share it and the original with those who may not have read it the first time.

In the small California town of Armona, there is a legend of a nine year old girl that met a tragic end and her restless ghost haunts the area to this day. Sometime in the nineteenth century the girl and a few of her friends were skinny dipping at a local waterhole outside of town. A group of boys showed up and threatened to come into the water after them. Most of the girls ran into a nearby walnut orchard before the boys could get them. One little girl was to scared to follow the other girls and instead she dove underwater to try and trick the boys into thinking she too had followed the other girls. Unfortunately the poor girl drowned.

Legend says the restless spirit has roamed the area for years. The townsfolk named her the Walnut Girl because she was always seen in locations that contained walnuts (orchards and packing plants mostly). No male has ever seen the ghost, but stories say that girls around the same age as she were most likely to see her.

While researching this legend I came across a first hand account from a woman who saw the ghost of the girl in the old Armona Southern Pacific Depot. The Depot itself was built in 1931 and was used for several decades before it was abandoned and today stands derelict. According to the witness strange events would happen there such as strange lights at night, compass spinning around and not pointing towards north and whenever a photo was taken there would be bright spots on the pictures.

The witness continues to state that when she was about nine years of age she snuck out and went to the depot late one night. She was shining her flashlight around when the light fell on a girl similar in age to her with a Victorian hairstyle and completely nude. Startled she dropped the flashlight. When she picked it up again the girl was gone.

She later told her mother about the encounter. Her mother said she had seen the same little girl in an orchard when she was a child herself and others had seen the ghosts, always nude and usually near a large concentration of walnuts. The story the mother had been told was the same story that I initially found, but added this interesting tidbit. Apparently the ghost of the little girl has a vendetta against boys as the witness said several boys in her neighborhood suffered “ill fortune” that was attributed to her. Whether this is true or not is hard to say, but the fact that two women both saw the same ghost leads me to think that this legend may have some truth to it.

But why does her restless spirit only haunt walnut orchards? Perhaps she thinks if she can get to an orchard she will be safe from the boys she still thinks are chasing her. This is obvious as she will only appear to girls near her age. It appears even in the afterlife she is still looking for safety.

Famous crystal skull to make stop in Fresno

2011-01-27T23:36:00.000-08:00

One of the crystal skulls (no, not the one from the Indian Jones movie) will be making a stop in Fresno in a few weeks on Saturday, Feb. 5 courtesy of the Fresno Lightworkers Foundation.

From Max's page:

There are 13 crystal skulls known in the world at this time. Max is the largest, weighing 18 pounds. Many, including the British Museum, consider him to be one of the rarest artifacts ever found on the planet. Estimated to be at least 10,000 years old, Max was found in a tomb in St. Augustine, Guatemala, between 1924 and 1926 and was used by the Mayan priests for healing and prayer.

After studying in India, Norbu Chen, a powerful healer of the Tibetan sect of Red Hat Lamas, traveled to Guatemala where he studied with the Mayan priests. It was here he came into the presence of MAX. Chen was given this precious artifact when he left the Mayans so he could use it in his journey as a healer.

JoAnn Parks met the Lama through their family medical doctor when her twelve-year-old daughter was dying of bone cancer. JoAnn ended up working for the Lama for many years. Before Norbu died, he gave the cherished crystal skull to her with no explanation but that someday they would know what the crystal skull was all about. After many years, communication from the skull told JoAnn of his name and his desire to assist humanity by direct experience. Now JoAnn travels with MAX across the country providing this experience to all who are called.

Unfortunately I just found out that the lecture is now completely booked. I will be attending, so I will post an article with my thoughts on seeing Max.

UFO seen over Clovis in April of 2009

2011-01-19T00:36:00.000-08:00

Clovis Rec Center, the site of a 2009 UFO sighting

Image Courtesy of Google Street View

I was recently talking to a friend (whose name I won't reveal to keep their privacy) recently and the subject of UFOs came up. Turns out they had a sighting in Clovis on April 1st of 2009. I asked them to write something in their own words and this is what they sent to me.

I can understand why some may not believe my story when they see the date of this post, but I promise you, this entry is completely real.

The story begins with me and my boyfriend (at the time) spending our last day together. He picked me up around 19:35 so that we could drive around town and enjoy each others' presence. While we were driving North on Clovis Ave, between Dakota and Ashlan Ave, we spotted these strange flying objects (at 19:37) moving east. It took about 2 minutes for them to be right in front of our view from when we first spotted them. Eight to ten bright, and silent objects flying surprisingly fast, and rapidly flashing white lights (that changed colors to red, purple, blue, yellow, and green). They were in a 4-2-4 formation; 4 on top, 2 in the middle and 4 on the bottom. We immediately pulled over in the parking lot of the Clovis Recreation Center. We sat there for 7 minutes, staring in awe. We failed to have any type of media equipment suitable for capturing the moments that were happening. The objects then, 2 at a time, began to separate and flew faster than the rest (going towards the east hills/mountains). At that same time, we noticed an airplane flying in the sky. We could quickly tell, due to the red and green slow flashing lights and the noise it made. After, we drove towards the hills/mountains to try to catch up to them. We were not fast enough, but we did see them disappear.

I have no reason to doubt this person's account, I know them and trust their word completely. So the question has to be asked, what did they see? The multi-changing lights couldn't be a normal aircraft. Plus they noticed a conventional aircraft in the sky and had something to compare it to. It was definitely something that wasn't ordinary, but if it was of this planet or from another that isn't for me to say. Hopefully by posting this others that have seen the object will read this and they can add to the story.

Could a masked crime fighter be walking the streets of Fresno at night?

2011-01-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

A recent news report on ABC 30 (which you can find here) about a masked crime fighter in Seattle being held at gunpoint after trying to stop a fight left me wondering if someone similar is doing the same thing in the Fresno area (the masked crime fighter part, lots of people get held up at gunpoint here I imagine). Fresno has it's fair share of crime, so what if we had our very own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night, keeping crime at bay?

At first I thought this was just some geek who took comic books way too seriously. But it turns out that there is a lose knit group of masked crime fighters throughout the country. If you go to the site superheroesanonymous.com you can how serious this actually is. And there are different types of "masks" (to borrow the term from Watchmen) out there. Some just do charitable work at places such as food banks, homeless shelters, etc. Then there are the those that actually do patrols (sometimes in groups, but the norm seems to be solo) and try to deter crime from happening. Usually this involves patrolling neighborhoods with a high rate of crime but I've seen accounts of superheroes trying to protect public property during the Oakland riots that happened last year.

But the main goal of SA is to not give one the idea that they can be Batman or Iron Man, but to inspire regular people to do community service in their areas. This can be anything from donating time at a homeless shelter or hospital to joining the local police volunteer department (which I am thinking of doing). So to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article, does Fresno have it's own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me. But I think this city would be better off if we all volunteered a bit of our time. Though the geek/nerd in me wants to form my own version of The Avengers. If so, I call dibs on Iron Man.

Is the end of the world near?

2011-01-06T20:43:00.002-08:00

Birds, similar to this one were found dead by the thousands

in Little Rock, AR as a wave of strange animal deaths spread

across the world.

With the rash of mass animal deaths in the news recently I felt compelled to write something up on it and share my opinions on what’s going on.

It all started last week when over 100,000 dead fish had been found washed up on a 20 mile stretch of the Arkansas river. The dead fish in question were all of a single species called the drum fish and most weighed about one or two pounds. Experts said that disease was most likely the cause but officials were sent in to investigate anyways. But if it was a toxin in the water the entire ecosystem of the river would have been affected, not just one species of fish.

But it gets weirder. The following day (Dec. 31) thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky over Little Rock, only 125 miles away. Straight out of a scene from a horror movie, thousands of birds littered the Little Rock area and state wildlife employees in hazmat suits were sent in to clean up and access the situation. And Little Rock wasn’t the only southern town to be hit bit this strange phenomena. Nearly 500 blackbirds were found dead near the Louisiana community of Labarre that same week.

High winds and tornadoes did hit Arkansas on New Years eve and state officials believe this is the cause of the strange incidents. Unfortunately that’s not the end of the occurences and other spots all over the world started witnessing the same thing. In Chili over 1,500 endangered birds, Sooty Shearwater, were found dead off the coast. It appeared they had fell out of the sky in a similar way that the Little Rock blackbirds did. Granted there was a large earthquake off the coast of Chile recently, but the shear coincidences just seem to strange to ignore.

And just when you thought the bibilical plagues ended, Sweden had to get in the mix. A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping earlier this week. Necropsies were done on several birds and it was said they died due to “sudden, hard external blows”.

Not wanting to be outdone by the inventors of Ikea, over two million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, mostly a species called the spot fish and these were all juvenile about 3-6 inches in length. Officials say this isn’t the first time there’s been a killing. Both in 1976 and 1980 large winter kills of spot fish have occurred.

So what the hell is going on? With the Mayan Calendar ending on Dec. 21, 2012 which, as some conspiracy theorists want you to believe, could these be signs that Armageddon is approaching? Or are these just a bunch of coincidences, fueled by the paranoia of conspiracy theorists? I wish I knew. Part of me wants to chalk it up to just nature taking it’s course, but then at the same time it seems so unnatural that there are these large amounts of animals dying. Sure one seems a little strange, but when you have six in the United States alone it just seems pretty damn weird.

Personally I like a friend of mine, Travis Sheridan, opinion on what happened. The dead birds were nothing more than God playing Angry Birds against the Wal-Mart HQ in Arkansas due to the public relations fiasco that resulted in the Wal-Mart’s Fighting Hunger campaign here in Fresno.

Sorces: CNN & Daily Mail

Is the end of the world near?

2011-01-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

Birds, similar to this one were found dead by the thousands

in Little Rock, AR as a wave of strange animal deaths spread

across the world.

With the rash of mass animal deaths in the news recently I felt compelled to write something up on it and share my opinions on what’s going on.

Sorces: CNN & Daily Mail

Top 10 strangest things to happen in Fresno for 2010

2010-12-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost over. This year saw some good things for Weird Fresno. I’m now a featured writer over at Fresno Famous and I've also started a forum for people to share their stories with others. Going back through all the posts I did over the year, I was able to trim down the 165 posts (this one will make it 166) to what I felt was the top ten posts of the year.

Number 10 - Another strange creature sighted at Millerton Lake

I've done a few posts now on Millerton Lake and the strange things that people have seen in the water. This one story was interesting to me due to the fact I got a phone call from someone who had searched strange creature sightings in Millerton Lake on Google and my site was the first thing that came up. Out of all the e-mails I get, weird things seen at Millerton Lake are the most common. One has to wonder what's lurking under the water's surface.

Original post can be found here.

Number 9 - Strange triangular shaped craft seen over Fresno

Usually I ignore most UFO videos on YouTube, but this one grabbed my attention. To this day I still don't know what it is. But there's been some strange things in the skies above Fresno over the past year.

Original post can be found here.

Number 8 - Was the Chupacabra seen in a Bakersfield park?

It wouldn’t be a Top Ten post without at least one post of the unofficial mascot for Weird Fresno. This time the sighting was in a Bakersfield park and was complete with the grainy cell phone camera image. Most likely this was yet another animal with mange, but for whatever reason they keep being misidentified as chupacabra. One has to wonder how many sightings will occur in 2011?

Original post can be found here.

Number 7 - KMPH 26 reports UFOs seen in Fresno over the Fourth of July weekend

Like I mentioned earlier, some strange things have been seen in the Fresno skies over the past year and there was some crazy UFO stuff going on over the 4th of July weekend in the Fresno area. Several sightings occured, including a large cigar shaped craft flying over a house in Clovis. KMPH 26 even did a small news piece on the sightings.

Original post can be found here.

Number 6 - ABC 30 reports Bigfoot sightings on the rise in Fresno County

Like UFOs, Bigfoot sightings were also on the rise in the Fresno County area this year. What surprised me about this was that the reporter actually took the subject matter seriously. Usually with anything paranormal they always try to make jokes about it, add the X Files theme (happened to me once) or just make the people in the article look like kooks. ABC 30 was different. Granted they didn’t show any conclusive evidence, but still this was better than what other news stations have done. I hope they take note for the next time they do something.

Original post can be found here.

Number 5 - Did a UFO crash near Fresno over the weekend?

This has to be one of the strangest stories of the entire year. A UFO was reported to have crashed east of Fresno in the foothills and was military in origin. Jeffery Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Society claims to have video taped the craft, but it’s hard to really make anything out. Still this story was of interest as it made news on several national paranormal sites. Unfortunately nothing else was ever reported on this story.

Original post can be found here.

Number 4 - Return to Snake Road

This one was interesting just because of what I was unable to do. Bored one night, I decided to head out towards Sanger with a fully charged video camera in tow. I’m on the fence about the story, but wanted to shoot some video to show what the area was like. After a 30 minute drive, I arrived and parked my car on the side of the road, grabbed my camera and started to walk. But when I turned on my camera I was surprised to find out that I only had about five minutes left on the battery (normally it can shoot for 90 minutes or so). So I hastily shot some video on the side of the road (which didn’t come out right as it was too dark) and then jumped back in the car and shot some video driving down the road.

Original post can be found here.

Number 3 -The return to the Fright Night Scream Park

Granted this one isn’t paranormal in nature, but it shows that even I can still get scared. Last year I had done some great promo work with the Scream Park and was asked to do it again this year. The idea I had was to have someone there call the Weird Fresno hotline and goad me into coming back. Problem was they were so busy setting up that when I arrived to shoot the video for the blog post, no one had called. But I had worked out something where I would get a few phone calls and then I would post the video a bit later then I planned.

A few days passed when I received a phone call. I let it go to voice mail (as I always do) and then listened to the message. It sounded nothing like the person who was supposed to call me and didn’t mention anything about the park and figured it was someone else. But before I could get a chance to call them back, they started calling my phone constantly. At work, at home, late at night. And the messages were just weird. The person kept saying they had something to show me, that they wanted to be my best friend and they loved me. Having my fair share of psychos calling me, I got a bit nervous and if you follow either @weirdfresno or my personal twitter feed you would know this. My tweets got the attention of the person who ran their twitter feed and they contacted me and said it wasn’t them, which terrified me even more. The calls continued and finally I started to freak out even more. Finally I received a message via twitter from the park saying it was them all along. I’m to assume it was someone else, as I didn’t recognize the voice. Luckily I was able to work in into the post even though I was expecting something entirely different. But needless to say I fell victim to my own promotion.

Original post can be found here.

Number 2 - Strange things going on at Lost Lake

This was one of my favorites of the year because we have two different types of sightings here. One was the ghost of a small child and the other was of a strange creature. Even more interesting is both accounts are from the same witness, but at different locations in the park. Both were definitely weird and plans to visit the park are in the works for 2011.

Original post can be found here.

Number 1 - Update on video of strange creatures captured on Fresno CCTV

and

SyFy channel show airs strange video shot in Fresno

These two go together in that they are related in the fact the first post then warranted the second one. One of my first posts was done about this strange video of these “creatures” that someone had captured on a CCTV video. About a year later I was able to find more video, this time showing the person’s house and yard and putting the size of the creatures into perspective. If you watch the video you and compare the size of the tree to the creatures you will see they can’t be more than 18 to 24 inches tall.

What’s even better is the second post put me in touch with a show on the SyFy network. The show was called Fact or Fiction and they try to either prove or debunk supposed paranormal related videos on the internet and had come across the one above. Through Google they had found my site and called me with a few questions. Unfortunately they didn’t offer me a job, but after watching them splicing some footage shot at Woodward Park and saying it was near the person’s house (which it’s not), I wasn’t too upset over this.

Original posts can be found here and here.

So there you have it, the top ten strangest things to happen in around the Fresno area for 2010. With the new year approaching us, that means that 2012 is that much closer (and the end of the world as some people want you to think). Who knows what crazy shit will happen in 2011. All I know is that whatever it is, you'll read about it here.

Santa Claus is real. And I have proof.

2010-12-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

I’m sure most of us at one time or another believed in Santa Claus. It was part of growing up, writing that letter to Santa and “trying” to be good. Then on Christmas Eve we put a plate of cookies and milk out for dear old St. Nick as a way of thanking him for visiting and (hopefully) leaving us all the toys we asked for. Cue the next morning and we would run to the living room and see a pile of presents under the tree. Being good had paid off this year for little Billy.

But as we grew older we found out the truth. That Santa wasn’t real, that there was no workshop at the North Pole staffed by elves (and Will Ferrell). Turns out it was all our parents doing, they were the one who bought all the gifts and ate the cookies. Santa Claus was nothing more than a make believe story. Or is he? I say he is real. And I have proof.

Photo courtesy of Vanessa Pike-Russel from Flickr.

See this photo? Of course you know who it is. But show this photo to any random person on the street and ask them who it is and 9 times out of 10 they will say it is Santa Claus. If he isn’t real, than why do people recognize him?

The truth is Santa is real, in a way. No he doesn’t fly around the world on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. But the legend does have it’s roots in reality. Santa Claus is based off Saint Nicholas who was a Bishop in what is now modern day Turkey. He was known for secret gift giving, leaving coins in the shoes of the poor. There are also several similarities between the Norse god Odin and Santa Claus. Odin was associated with the Germanic holiday known as Yule. Odin would ride an eight legged horse named Sleipnir that was able to leap great distances. Modern day folklorists compare this to Santa’s reindeer. As Odin was riding his great horse, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw, or sugar, near the chimney for Sleipnir to eat. For those children that did this, Odin would reward them by placing gifts and candy into their boots. This tradition is still practiced today as seen in the hanging of stockings by the chimney in homes. In modern times, Saint Nicholas was merged with Father Christmas to create the character known as Santa Claus. Only in the 20th Century is where his now familiar appearance came into being.

So how does this make Santa Claus real? It’s just the history of him, nothing else right? Not necessarily. Let’s go back to again when you were a kid. Who bought all the toys, wrapped them, and hid them under the tree? Most likely your parents. And when they were kids their parents did the same thing. And some of you who are reading this now have children of your own and are doing the same thing. So in a sense we are Santa Claus in that we continue the traditions from one generation to the next.

So there you have it. Santa Claus is most definitely real.

We here at Weird Fresno want to wish everyone happy holidays. It’s hard to believe 2010 is almost over. Let’s hope 2011 is a good year for everyone.

Madera's New Hope Cemetery

2010-12-14T21:34:00.000-08:00

New Hope Cemetery - Madera County

Photo by Michael Banti

I first heard the stories of New Hope Cemetery, located in southern Madera County, while I was still in high school. I was with my best friend Tom when a friend of his, who knew of our love of all things paranormal, told us about this cemetery that was located out in the country. At one time it had a church on the grounds, but it had burned down to the ground (all that was left was the steps sometime in the mid 1980's. Rumor had it that a group of Satanist were responsible for the fire as well as performing dark rituals in the cemetery grounds itself. Ever since then the cemetery was reported to be haunted.

Needless to say we were interested. The three of us jumped in Tom's car and headed towards the cemetery. Unfortunately as we got there, we were to chicken to get out of the car (oh to be 17 again) and just drove away. But that wasn't the end of it. A week or so later, Tom and I headed to the cemetery this time armed with baseball bats, knives, sharpened screwdrivers, wooden stakes, and at least a gallon of holy water. We didn't know what to expect, but we were ready (or so we thought). We got there and as we parked next to the cemetery's fence we saw a red glow coming from the cemetery. Freaked out someone had left a candle burning as part of some dark ritual or something, Tom put the car into reverse and started to leave. As he did this I noticed the red glow disappear. I told him to stop and the glow came back. Turns out it was the reflection of his tail lights on a polished gravestone. That's how freaked out we were.

That night, nothing of much interest happened. But a few years later we drove there one night bored as we had nothing going on. We were walking around like we always do when we started to hear what sounded like drums in the distance. Listening to them, they reminded me of the Native American drums I heard when I attended a pow wow a few years previous. I knew the area very well as my family has vineyards a few miles away and couldn't think of where they were coming from. But what I heard next still is fresh in my mind well over a decade later. I heard what sounded like two little girls laughing, almost laughing like they knew something we didn't. I looked at Tom and could tell he heard the same thing. Needless to say we got the hell out of there.

We visited the cemetery over the years, something always strange happening. One night I was driving by it on my way home when I saw a pair of headlights driving literally in the almond orchard next to the cemetery. As I got closer it started to flash it's lights at me. First were high beams, then regular, then completely off, only to repeat the pattern again. As curious as I was, I didn't find out what the hell was going on and got out of there quickly.

Near the steps of the church. You can see the cemetery in the

background. Photo by Michael Banti

I hadn't been by the cemetery in several years when a friend of mine needed a creepy place to shoot some video in Madera. I suggested the cemetery and we headed out there. When we got there I saw the strangest thing. Some guy in a trailer had set up camp on the remains of the church's foundation. Obviously we didn't stop, but I did shoot some video. You can find it and more info on that day here.

I wish I knew if the stories on the cemetery were true or just more urban legends told by teenagers that are bored one night. The only thing I know for certain is the church did burn down as there are records of it. But I haven't been able to find out anything on to what or who caused it. As for the little girls, I went back at a later date and checked to see if there were any young girls buried there (the graves were as recent as the 1990's and went back nearly a century), but couldn't find anything. But I know what I heard and so did Tom. So that begs the question. What did we hear that night?

How Weird Fresno came into existence

2010-12-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that I've been doing this blog for over two years now and have over 250 posts (this one will make it 264). I've written everything from mangy coyotes being mistaken for Chupacabras (apparently enough to get an honorable mention at the Frebby's) to haunted locales through out the Central Valley and crazy UFO sightings. But I realized that I never really talked about myself, what got me into the paranormal and how I went from an investigator to a blogger. So here's my story.

I've been interested in the strange for as long as I can remember. Around 10 years old I met my best friend Tom, who was also interested in the paranormal and from that friendship grew my interest. My first experience was in my mother's old house when I saw a white figure moving in the hallway. I thought it was my sister, but turns out she was fast asleep. Asking my mom about it, I found that the previous owner's wife had died in the house and she had been seen occasionally.

Fast forward to my early twenties in the summer of 2000, where Tom and I formed our first ghost hunting group with two other friends. We knew nothing at that time and there were no classes or shows on TV so we read everything we could. That group lasted about a year until differences and just regular life events forced us to stop doing that.

Then in July of 2005 I met Jackie Meador of Central California Paranormal Investigators. For the next four years I was part of CCPI, helping Jackie on investigations, teaching her classes at the adult ed. center, and other things.

Then in 2009 I started to grow tired of investigating supposed haunted locations. CCPI was growing in members and I was starting to lose interest as I prefer to work in small groups. With that and some personal issues I decided to leave the group. It was nothing against Jackie or CCPI, in fact I'm still in regular contact with them and pass them any leads I may get. But it was around that time that I made friends with several bloggers in the Fresno area. Encouraged by what they did, I decided to start a blog documenting the paranormal in the Fresno area. And with that Weird Fresno was born.

Over the past two years it has changed. At first I still considered myself a paranormal investigator, just by myself. But as I started to research these legends and tales, I began to remember what got me into the paranormal to begin with. The stories. So I've started to become a bit of a folklorist, studying the stories that I find and sharing them and letting people make up their own mind on if they are real or not.

I still believe in ghosts, UFO's, and strange creatures. But I don't try to prove their existence now. I just tell the stories how I hear them and let others decide.

That being said, I've been wanting to get the readers more involved with Weird Fresno, to not just make it a site where someone can read about the weird tales of the area, but a place where they can share their own story. So I've created a forum for Weird Fresno and invite anyone to sign up for it and to share their stories and just talk in general about the paranormal. I also hope it can be a place for local groups to talk and share stories/ideas as there really isn't one. All I ask is that you be civil and respect each other's beliefs. Mind you it's still new so there aren't many posts yet, just a few I put on there to start things off. I really want the readers to make it their own.

To get to the forum, click the Weird Fresno logo at the top right of the page and it will take you straight to the forum where you can sign up and start posting.

I really want to thank everyone who's read the blog and commented over the past 2 years. You guys make this blog what it is. Thanks.

High Times goes searching for Bigfoot

2010-11-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

Reports of sightings of Bigfoot in pot country are on the rise.

I have to be honest. When I first came across this article I thought it was a joke. Combining the topics of marijuana and Bigfoot just reeks of satire. But to my surprise, the article was quite serious. The author of the article goes into detail about the history of the creature and also the history of his two guides and what got them into searching for the legendary creature.

Its way too long of an article to post here, but giving a brief synopsis the group is up in the Cascade Mountains in an area known for pot growing, looking for Bigfoot. While camping the only incident that was noteworthy was of a foul stench that was detected near their camp. After investigating the surrounding area and finding several half eaten fish quite a distance from the river, the group gives up. They speculate that the stench was a Bigfoot and that the fish were carried to higher ground by the creature as well.

Like I said, I had my doubts when reading this (long) article. I figured it would have just been a bunch of pot heads hot boxing a tent and then go search for Bigfoot. Seems that I was wrong (for once). Though I wonder if the stench they detected was Bigfoot getting into the author’s stash?

Full source: High Times

Author: Chris Simunek

Coalinga's Whiskey Row

2010-11-28T18:08:00.001-08:00

Whiskey Row circa 1910. Photo courtesy of Online Archives of California

Not many people may know this, but Fresno County had its own Wild West town back in the late 1800’s. The town of Coalinga was started when a railroad line was built out to the western part of the county to connect to Coaling Station A, which was then shortened to Coaling A, when then became Coalinga.

The town didn’t really develop much until about 1886 when oil was discovered. Soon the town began to grow as business came to town to cater to the workers on the oil fields. Front Street or known better as Whiskey Row, had at least thirteen saloons running up and down the street. There were also gambling dens and possibly houses of ill repute, all locations for fights and the occasional gun fight.

So what does this have to do with Weird Fresno? A Wild West town in Fresno isn’t very weird (though I think it’s pretty damn cool and makes me want to visit). Searching for ghost stories I came across one on GhostVillage.com (one of my favorite sites regarding all things paranormal). Here’s what they wrote:

Behind my street is a street called Whisky Row. It has been known to be haunted because in the 1930's old saloons and prostitutes were there. Many people on my street have told me stories of things that happened in their houses because our street is so close to Whisky Row.

My aunt, who lives right across the street from us, told me a story of a time when she was the only one home and she went to her bedroom for just a second -- when she came out all of the drawers and cabinets were open. We all laughed because none of us believed her. Later on that night I had been a little shaken up from the story we had heard earlier so I slept with my mom. In the middle of the night I woke up to a sound -- I looked to the side of me and I saw a woman who looked very young (about 18) and she was wearing a very short dress. As I looked closer I saw that she was looking through my mother's drawer. It looked as if she was looking for something because she was moving the clothes around. She turned around at gave me a cold look. All of a sudden I got an ice-cold chill in my spine. I looked into her face and I could see that her makeup was running and black mascara was all around her eyes. She had a handprint that was very clear on her right cheek. As she whipped around quickly I could hear her long fingernails scraping the bottom of the drawer as she still searched for something that was missing. I fell asleep that night listening to that horrible sound.

Me and my mother got up early the next morning and I told her what had happened during the night when I heard something like the sound of many people whispering all at once, but before I could think anything of it my four-year-old brother starts crying and calling my mother yelling, "Mom they are talking to me." Over and over again. When we finally got into the room his whole bed was shaking

That was six days ago and numerous things similar to that have been happening since.

Link to the original article on GhostVillage can be found here.

The person did not leave a name, but interestingly enough left an e-mail. I plan on contacting them, even though the post was written over 8 years ago, and see if I can find anything else out.

I’m not saying the entire area of what used to be Whiskey Row is haunted, but I love the idea that Fresno County had its own Wild West town and it’s maybe a 90 minute drive away. Even if the town isn’t haunted, it’s still an interesting part of Fresno’s folklore and history that many not know about. Hopefully after reading this post that will change.

Does the ghost of a woman haunt the Merced Theatre?

2010-11-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

The Merced Theatre, where the ghost of a woman who

jumped to her death, is said to haunt.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

In the town of Merced, there are some rumors of the Merced Theatre being haunted. The legend goes that the a young woman decided to commit suicide by jumping off the peak of the tower after finding out her fiancé had been killed during the war. It's said her host has been witnessed by many people, where she asks if anyone has seen “Johnny.”

The theater opened on October 31, 1931 by the famous Reid Brothers who were prestigious architects based out of San Francisco. The theater cost around $380,000 and took nine months to build. Up until 2002 it served the Merced community before falling into a state of disrepair. Now it is currently being restored as it originally appeared. One has to wonder if the ghost of the young woman has been seen by any of the workers or is disturbed by the construction going on.

The Merced Theatre is scheduled to reopen sometime in the Fall of 2011.

The ghosts of Yosemite National Park

2010-11-16T21:27:00.001-08:00

Yosemite National Park is known for many things. Half Dome, El Capitan, and Bridalveil Falls to name a few. Millions of people have visited the park since it was first established in 1890. And it's not surprising then that some have decided to stay there, even after death.

Is a tent, similar to these in Curry Village, haunted by the ghost of a man who hung himself?

Photo courtesy of Trip Advisor.

One story involves Camp Number 6. Story has it that one lonely night, a camper hung himself (for reasons unknown) from the wooden frame of his tent. Sometimes late at night you can see his corpse swinging from the tent frame. As I was researching this one particular story, I came across an account of someone saying that the area is used as day parking now and the best time to see the ghost is between the hours of 11:00 pm and 3:00 am. How credible this particular story is I'm not certain, but wanted to share it none the less.

Rumor has it that a couple that drowned here at Stoneman Bridge haunt it.

Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Poggi from Flickr.

Another tale involves Stoneman Bridge that crosses the Merced River. Reportedly back in 2005 a young couple drowned and have been spotted sporadically ever since. I searched a bit for any records of someone drowning, yet I was unable to find anything. Still people report seeing this couple on or near the bridge, so I'm curious as to what really happened.

Another rather obscure story involves a location called California Pines. Not much is said about the exact location and the closest I could find to anything was a Yosemite Pines RV resort. Still I wanted to share the story in the hopes of maybe someone that reads this might know about it and be able to add to the story. All that is said about this spot is that people have seen apparitions here of Native Americans from the 1800's and some have even interacted with them.

Do ghosts from WW2 haunt the Ahwahnee hotel?

Photo courtesy of Bryce Edwards from Flickr.

And finally we have the Ahwahnee Hotel. Built in the 1920's, this hotel has seen numerous guests and was used by the Navy in 1943 as a convalescent hospital for veterans. Spirits have been seen in various locations throughout the hotel, but most sightings seem to happen on the mezzanine level and third floor. No one is really sure who is haunting the place, but some speculate that it may be some of the guests from when it was a convalescent hospital.