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?

Strange creatures caught on video in Yosemite

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.

The ghosts of Yosemite National Park

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.