Is Fresno's Meux Home Haunted?

Do the spirits of former residences still wander this Victorian era

house in downtown Fresno?

Located on the corner of Tulare and R Streets in downtown Fresno sits a house that has been in existence since 1890. Built in the Victorian style, the Meux Home was the residence of a Dr. Thomas Meux and his family up until 1970 when his daughter, Anne Prenetta Meux passed away. The house was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It now exists as a museum, educating the public what a typical Victorian home was like. But there are stories that not all of it's residences have left.

When I first started investigating haunted locations in the Fresno area over a decade ago, I was told by several people that the Meux Home might be haunted. Stories of hearing children's laughter upstairs were common and I was even told the story of how the house would be closed up for the night and then when it was reopened the next day there were door knobs missing on several of the doors.

I decided to go to the home itself and see if I could find any truth to these stories. Upon my arrival, I found the head docent (tour guide) and struck up a conversation with her. I talked a bit about the architecture style of the house before broaching the subject of ghosts. To my surprise she didn't flinch when I asked if the house was haunted. But she did tell me she had never heard any stories if there were ghosts there and had never heard that the place was haunted.

I discussed the topic of ghosts and the paranormal with her for a few more minutes, she was quite knowledgeable in it (turns out she listens to Coast to Coast AM every night). I then asked her if it was possible to do an investigation of the home, to determine if there actually was anything there. At that point she got somewhat annoyed, saying they don't allow camera flashes in the home as the light from the flash tends to fade antique objects. I told her we could do only video work, and just use our night vision enabled cameras to accommodate them, but she still declined. Saying that the Board of Trustees wouldn't like the stigma of the Meux Home being haunted. I gave her several examples of homes turned museums that were known to be haunted (Whaley House in San Diego, Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara) that have benefited from this, but she still declined. I gave her my card and said goodbye.

Though I never did hear from the Meux Home, every time I drive by it I still wonder if the stories are true. Why are children's laughter heard and whose voices are they of? And the stories of the door knobs missing intrigues me. Could it be the same children playing pranks on the docents that now work there? Or is it someone else? Unfortunately I may never know and it seems the haunted history of the Meux Home is still a mystery and may always be one.

Cattle mutilations in the Fresno area?

For those who don’t know, cattle mutilations are the apparent killing and then mutilation of cattle under strange or unusual circumstances. Signs of these incidents are the apparent surgical nature of the mutilation, and unexplained phenomena such as the complete draining of animal’s blood, loss of internal organs with the point of entry not apparent. Most bodies are found in an area where there are no marks or tracks leading to or from it. Surgical-type wounds can also be found and they tend to be cauterized by an intense heat and made by a very sharp instrument, with no bleeding evident. Flesh is usually removed to the bone in an exact manner, such as the removal of flesh around the jaw exposing the mandible.

Reports of cattle mutilation go back as far as the early 1960’s when incidents begin occurring in Pennsylvania and Kansas. It remained largely unknown to the general population until an incident in Pueblo, Colorado where the local newspaper did a report on a mutilation and was picked up by the wider press and distributed nationwide. Interestingly enough, this was the first incident to speculation that extraterrestrials and UFO’s were somehow associated with the mutilation. By the late 1970’s there were reports of cattle mutilations all across America and even the FBI was asked to investigate what was going on.

Though the exact nature varies from case to case, mutilations can have any of the following:

• The removal of eyes, udders and sexual organs very cleanly with surgical precision
• The removal of the lips and tongue.
• The removal of only one ear.
• The removal of major organs with no obvious entry/ excision marks.
• The stripping of hide and flesh from the jaw and the area beneath the ear.
• Lack of any signs of predators (i.e. teeth marks, tearing of the skin or flesh) around the carcass.
• No signs of scavenging.
• Many cases the majority of the blood has been drained from the animal. What is left may not coagulate for several days.
• As previously mentioned, the animal appears dumped or dropped in a secluded area, with no tracks leading to or from the site.
• Strange marks or holes in the ground around the carcass.
• Some eyewitnesses report seeing aerial objects in the vicinity of cattle at the time the animal goes missing.

As with most strange phenomena, there are several possible explanations to cattle mutilations. Theories range from death by natural causes to purposeful acts by unknown individuals. In 1979 the FBI decided to investigate the occurrences due to increasing public pressure. After a lengthy investigation their report said that the mutilations were predominantly the result of natural predators, but some had anomalies that could not be explained. The FBI was unable to name any individuals that were responsible. Scientist and veterinarians have theories of their own. Most think that the “mutilated” animals died of natural causes and then were degraded by known scavengers. There is also the theory that people are to blame for this. Some thought it could be perhaps the work of a cult doing some sort of ritual, but there has been no concrete proof to explain this. Though there have been reports of seeing figures in black hooded robes near areas were mutilations occurred, there was no way to prove if this was true or not.

The more popular theories include either government or military experimentation or aliens and UFO’s. There have been reports of seeing “black helicopters” in the area of the mutilations. Black helicopters are basically unmarked military helicopters with no identification whatsoever. There was one reported incident that two unmarked aircraft opened fire on a farmer driving his tractor near a mutilation site in Iowa, though the validity of this story is questionable.

And finally various theories suggest cattle mutilations have been committed by aliens for the purpose of gather genetic material for some unknown reason. These theories are based solely on the idea that such clean and precise dissections in such a short amount of time with no evidence could not be performed by earthly means. Some even think that since cows make up a significant part of the human diet, a study is being carried out on this part of the food chain.

Most of these occurrences have occurred in the Midwest, but there have been some reported in California as well. A few years ago there was a rash of cattle mutilations in the Red Bluff area and the cause was never determined. This has me wondering if there have been any occurrences of mutilations in the Central Valley. The foothills are known for their cattle ranches and it wouldn’t surprise me if one or two cattle died of mysterious causes and have yet to be reported.

Did an innocent girl share a dance with the Devil at the Rainbow Ballroom?

The Rainbow Ballroom on Broadway in downtown Fresno. There's a story that several decades ago there was a dance held at the Rainbow Ballroom, in downtown Fresno. The place was filled with many people, and at this dance there was a handsome man that everyone seemed to be noticing and talking about. He was tall, had dark features, and was dressed in an expensive white suit.

As the night wore on, he asked a young woman by the name of Patricia to dance. She was happy that she was chosen out of all the woman there and began dancing with the handsome stranger, who was said to have a very smooth sounding voice.

 As the night continued, they danced and danced. For some reason she looked down and saw the man's feet. To her horror, one of the man's feet resembled a huge chicken foot. Terrified at what she saw she began screaming loudly. Everyone stopped dancing at the sounds of her screaming and looked at her to see what was going on. They saw the man's strange foot and could not believe what they were seeing. At that moment he smiled at everyone and disappeared.

 No one knows who this strange man was. Some say he was a ghost of a man that was killed there years ago, others say he was a demon playing that enjoyed scaring young women. And then some say it was the Devil himself, reminding everyone that they won't know who he is until it's too late.

Underground tunnels found in Fresno's Chinatown

Back in 2007 a team of archaeologists were exploring one of the boarded-up buildings in Fresno's Chinatown, an enclave long abandoned by the people who gave the area its name more than a century ago.

They were searching for any antique left by the former owners of what had been a restaurant and home. The team descended into the basement and did find a few artifacts. Then came something that was not expected. The group spotted a dark crawl space seemingly hidden by boards on the basement's eastern wall. Was this an entrance to the supposed tunnel system that had been rumored about for years?

Tunnels in Chinatown were rumored to have been so vast that patrons could travel from one end of the neighborhood to the other and never see daylight. One tunnel was rumored to have extended under the dividing railway tracks so that men from the White side of town could reach Chinatown speakeasies undetected.

Since the discovery of the tunnel entrance, the City of Fresno has been using ground penetrating radar to map out the extent of the underground network. Some local groups have started to lead tours, guiding visitors to the basement of a barbershop where mysterious doorways are sealed with concrete.

A more extensive article from the LA Times can be found here.