Small cemetery north of Sanger said to be haunted

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

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

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?

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?