Is Fresno State’s campus haunted?

Cadavers, a bloody chainsaw and a dismembered body are things that you expect from a horror movie, but little do many students know that they are actually part of Fresno State history.

Some of the upstairs practice rooms in the Music building are rumored to be haunted.

Strong winds and unexpected lightning lit the night sky as DJ Clovis, a senior music performance major, said that he heard strange noises in the music building.

“Some people say that they hear voices or whistling in the practice rooms,” Clovis said.

There are other buildings on campus that hold some surprising tools used for studying.

Some classes held in Mclane Hall require students to work with cadavers. Amanda Lopez, a junior physical therapy major, is taking one of these classes. She said the rooms are always cold and have a morgue-like feel.

Being there alone is not something that she likes to do.

“It’s the whole setting,” Lopez said. “It’s cold and you know the bodies are there and they’re dead. You see all of these movies that bring up things in your head that freaks you out. You know that they are not true, but still.”

Another building that has a creepy story is the Mckee Fisk building.

Greg Lewis, a mass communication and journalism professor, said that late one night he was showing a few people the plaque in memory of Roger Tatarian, just outside of Mckee Fisk.

He stood on the plaque and said, “Hello, Roger.” Just then, the automatic doors behind him opened and closed by themselves.

According to an article written by Donald E. Coleman of the Fresno Bee in October of 1997, there is one professor from Fresno State history who has been referred to as “Jekyll and Hyde.”

Almost 20 years ago, Max Bernard Franc, a former political science professor from Fresno State, was arrested in August of 1988 for the murder of Tracy Leroy Nute.

Police discovered Franc after he rented and returned a chainsaw that was stained with blood, still containing bits of flesh.

He was charged for shooting Nute, and then cutting up the body to get it out of his apartment in west Hollywood. Parts of the body were found in Madera County and Los Angeles County.

If you happen to be on campus and feel a cold chill or your hair stand up, remember that it may be more than just your imagination.

The original story can be found here.

Black helicopters seen in Fresno after UFO sighting in May 1997

On Tuesday, May 20, 1997, viewers in Fresno, California were startled when Channel 30, the city's ABC-TV affiliate, aired a 15-minute segment on UFOs.

Highlighting the segment was a brief tape, alleged to have been shot in Fresno, showing "a round glowing object."

Prior to the Channel 30 presentation, city residents had been puzzled by reports of black helicopters on patrol over McKinley, Belmont and Olive Avenues, just north of Chandler Airport.

Eyewitness Jeff Heuer, who lives near McKinley Avenue, said he saw one black helicopter flying over the neighborhood on May 10 at about 9 p.m. The black chopper was flying low, about 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground, at an estimated speed of 160 mph.

One week later, on Saturday, May 17, 1997, at 10 p.m., Heuer spotted two more black helicopters. "There were two of them in close formation," he reported, "No sound, no exhaust, and no flashing lights--just a steady white light. They flew very close to the ground, from the southeast to the northwest. (Kings Canyon Road to Herndon Avenue-J.T.) Definitely looked like helicopters--but very Stealth-like."

Questioned about the helicopters' appearance, Heuer said they had a "wide fuselage, no visible (tail) rotor, could not see underbelly--no visible landing gear. No noise of any type. No exhaust. Both were in tight formation, with one just in front of the other. The one in the rear seemed to be on the right-hand side of the one in the lead."

Orginal story can be found here.

Landowner sells haunted building to get rid of ghost.

In an attempt to decrease the eerie noises emanating from the dilapidated dredge, the private landowner sold part of the California land that the Dredge rested on. The purchaser agreed to move his part of the dredge to Australia immediately. The unsuspecting purchaser was not aware of the ghost sightings and loud banging noises that accompanied the Tuolumne Dredge's history.




The proposed haunted dredge.



The California man later found the ghostly apparitions refused to part ways with his portion of the dredge. Alarmingly, the sounds grew louder, especially the knocking coming from the pipes. The other part of the dredge that was dismantled, transported, and resurrected took longer than expected. When the Australian man finally completed the project, he immediately called the California man with reports of the dredge's spooky haunt and loud banging pipes. The Californian has abandoned the dredge due to fear of what he saw (but won't talk about!) and let the weeds grow around it. Instead of the weeds, the woods have taken it over. The other part of the dredge in Australia has been worked to restore its original condition. Both owners have been unable to solve where the mysterious sights and sounds are originating.

The original story can be found here.

Interstate 5 Mystery Lights Solved?

About a week ago I received an e-mail from someone in Phoenix regarding the mystery lights that had been appearing on Interstate 5. They had been driving back from San Francisco on I-5 on their way home to Phoenix. According to them, it was around 11:30 pm and they were about 130 miles south of San Francisco when they saw strange lights ahead of them. Luckily they had a video camera with them and were able to record the object as they drove past it on the highway. From all the video’s I have seen taken out on I-5, this is the best one I have seen and may finally determine what some people have been seeing.





In the video you can see three bright lights and as the object turns you can see a fourth, dimmer, one at the end where the tail of an airplane would be. This leads me to believe that this is a crop duster and is probably what most people have seen. I know in a previous post I had discounted the notion of a crop duster but I did some research and found out that most dusting is done at night so that the chemicals sprayed won’t evaporate as much as they would if sprayed during the day. Also, some spraying of mosquitoes for West Nile virus is also done at night for the same reason.

I’m not closing the case on these sightings just yet. There is still the question of what this video shows. Still I’d like to go out there sometime soon and hopefully see a crop duster and get it on film, verifying it for a fact as man made. Knowing my luck, I’ll video something different and will only raise more questions.

2009 Fresno Blogger Olympics

I had the privilege to be part of the Fresno Blogger Olympics this weekend put on by the Fresno Beehive. Myself and nine other bloggers from the Fresno area competed in five grueling events (miniature golf, skee ball, air hockey, arcade basketball, and Wii Bowling). The top three overall winners received trophies and the rest of us received an award of recognition.

The final standings were:

1) Brodiemash of The Dumb Drum
2) Kathy of The Beehive
3) Mike Oz of The Beehive
4) Adam of Gustav's Groupie
5) Michael of Weird Fresno
5t) Mikey of The Fresnan
7) Conlan of Fresno Mag Blog/ This is Conlan
8) James of Taste Fresno/ South of Sunnyside
9) Marisa of It's Worth Recording
10) Roopam of CBS47

I have to give it to Brodiemash, he was dominant in all of the sports, even Wii Bowling which he claimed to being his weakest. I on the other hand, got my ass owned to me, especially in skee ball where I had told Marisa she was going to lose. Yeah the only thing I lost was my dignity. That's ok, I'm going to start a strignent traning regiment to get ready for next year. Of course that training involves getting everyone drunk before the games start so I can win. But hey, what ever works right?

Recent Central Valley UFO Sightings

From as far south as Porterville to north of Madera, strange things are in the skies. All sightings were reported to the National UFO Reporting Center and are linked back to their original entry.


Occurred : 1/21/2009 19:00
Location: Fresno, CA
Shape: Rectangle
Duration:3 minutes

4 unknown flying crafts were following our car and another one hovered over our neighborhood when we got home.

My husband and I for the last 2 1/2 months have been seeing strange hovering objects in the sky beginning Nov. 3rd 2008. The last sighting was last night around 6:45 pm. We were driving west on McKinley ave in Fresno CA on our way to a meeting. We noticed 4 hovering objects at a stand still on each side of our car about 3 miles up in the sky when we were at a red light. Once our car started moving they moved along side us, every time we stopped they stopped. They all looked alike and did not look like helicopters and not planes. Later on in the evening on the way back home we spotted another craft similar to the ones earlier just hovering at a stand still above the houses in our neighborhood. the object even brightened its lights from red to super bright white. it was still for about 3 minutes then slowly started to move to the right, then left then it either vanished or we just did not catch it take off. This is not the first time we have seen these objects in the sky. we seen larger ones the size of two commercial planes before. We just find it strange that the sightings have not stopped. Our children, my parents friends and my mother in law have all witnessed them. For some strange reason these objects have not gone away and seem to be growing by the numbers each day and showing themselves pretty boldly. If anyone has seen them also please post a report, we hope we are not just going crazy over here by ourselves.


Occurred : 1/23/2009 22:35
Location: Fresno, CA
Shape: Triangle
Duration:3 minutes

Red glowing lights form triangle

I work Security at night, and I was just leaving some ones house that was a loud party call. My partner called me, he is about a mile away locking up a pool and dock area, he tells me to look up in the sky, I do, and there is a big triangle,( the point is at the rear, ) with red glowing lights at each point. Now when I say lights, I don't mean like car or plane or copter lights. They looked like a glow from a fire or if a trash can was turned upside down and a huge road flare was put inside of it. I didn't see anything else to describe, no hull, nothing else.

It was very cloudy that night due to an earlier rain, the clouds were low, and it moved right in them. It also moved very slow. As it moved further away from me, the back light trailed back and the front left light trailed to the left. And that is the last I seen of it. It was also big, hard to tell exactly, best guess, about 60 to 75 feet.

It was some what close, about 100 to 150 yards in front of me, and about 3 light poles up, I am not great at guessing feet when it comes to altitude. There was no sound that I could hear.

Juan, my partner said he seen some of the hull, and saw the lights crossing. I will try to get him to fill a report out.


Occurred : 2/2/2009 20:45
Location: Dinuba, CA
Shape: Triangle
Duration:2 to 3 minutes

Four red light in shape of a triangle gliding over the city of Dinuba CA.

February 02, 2009

Between 8 and 9 o’clock, I stepped outside, like I normally do around this time to smoke a cigarette before heading to sleep. I like gazing up at the stars while I’m smoking and that night I heard like a humming sound, I looked around and then proceeded to look up at the sky. From the corner of my eye (towards my right) I noticed something coming in fast.

As I turned to see what I had seen, the object slowed down and glided across Dinuba, CA. I would guess about 1 ½ from where I was standing and about ½ mile up in the sky. I know that this was not a plane because I have seen planes go across the sky and this did not move like an aircraft. It had four red lights and it was in shape of a triangle. Three lights coming down one side and one on the other side.

I ran inside the house and got my mom to go outside. My mom also seen what I had seen and she was just saying, "What the heck is that?" It glided for about five minutes and then it just speeded off. Before speeding off, the lights turned from red to a yellowish orange color and then it speeded off.


Occurred : 2/3/2009 04:30
Location: Madera, CA
Shape: Sphere

I saw 2 unknown objects with bright lights

I was driving on the freeway when my uncle saw something in the sky and kept pointing to it and couldn't see it at first till i got closer then i saw 2 bright lights in broad daylight just slowly moving kind circular motion then as i got closer one disappeared and I passed underneath it and i saw a black object that appeared to be an unknown object just sitting their floating it wasn't round it wasn't a helicopter or a plane it something different more like a triangle. I reported that sighting to the police department.


Occurred : 2/13/2009 18:30
Location: Fresno, CA
Shape: Circle
Duration:2-3 seconds

Glowing bluish- green ball of light flying west to east at rapid rate of speed

I was driving due east on a dark street when a bluish-green ball of light flew directly over my car from behind me (west) at a very high rate of speed. It was a little smaller than the diameter of a traffic light across 4 lanes of road and had no tail or other lights, just a glowing ball of unearthly light. The sky above me was clear but it's direction was toward the Sierra Nevada mountains which were shrouded in clouds. I couldn't tell if it simply disappeared or was obscured by the distant clouds. Nor could a tell if it was small and close or large and at high enough an altitude to fly into the clouds. No sound was heard.


Occurred : 2/16/2009 19:30
Location: Visalia, CA
Shape: Light
Duration:30-45 minutes

It was about 7:30pm we looked into the sky (Southeast) and there was a very large bright off white light with a green tint around it. It stayed in the same spot just moving back and forth for about 30-45 minutes, then just disappeared. Kind of hovering back and forth. We kept looking at it and took some pictures, but the movie pictures just looks like a white speck moving back and forth. The movies look nothing like just looking at it with the naked eye. We thought it was a bright star, but it had green around it and it hovered back and forth. We also thought at first it was a helicopter, but it never moved. We never took our eyes off of the object, then it just disappeared. No movement at all.


Occurred : 2/24/2009 16:10
Location: Dinuba, CA
Shape: Sphere
Duration:10 minutes

Sphere-like aircraft flying in circle eight pattern at a flying height of a commercial airline.

This day I noticed, what I thought was a flock of birds circling, a group of sphere-like flying objects several feet in the air. Approximate height in the atmosphere is around the level a long distance commercial flight would fly. I thought at the beginning it was a flock of birds, but they were hard to make out and appeared to be 1/3 of the size of a commercial plane flying by seconds after they disappeared. 10-12 spheres flew in a circle 8 pattern in two separate locations in the air and flew at a rather high speed considering the height in the air. They flew in two separate locations for approx. 10 minutes. They disappeared as soon as two commercial airlines flew into view from the south and east. It truly an amazing sight to see with our two 2 year olds and 5 year old as we viewed the sky from the front yard of our house.


Occurred : 3/7/2009 22:15
Location: Porterville, CA
Shape: Fireball
Duration:3 hours

Huge craft moving at incredible speed after hovering for about 3 hours

At around 7:30 PM on March 7, 2009, my boyfriend and I observed what we thought was a very bright star in the western sky. It was much closer then any other stars and it was relatively large but it was not moving, just hovering there, so we ruled out and airplane or helicopter. At around 10:15 PM I had to drive my brother and sister to their grandmother’s house for the night. The kids went outside first while I grabbed my things. One of them screamed so I ran out to see what was wrong. They immediately pointed to the object which we earlier thought was a very bright star or planet, but this time it was bright red, still sitting in the very same spot it was just 3 hours before. By this time my boyfriend and my other brother had also emerged from the house. After observing it for about five minutes the big bright red ball shot across the sky at an amazing speed and covered a distance in one second that would take any airplane a good 5-10 seconds to cover. Then it slowly faded out and was gone.


Occurred : 3/13/2009 19:35
Location: Murrieta, CA
Shape: Circle
Duration:1 min.

A small, flaming- looking object that moved strangely.

Circular flaming object. Seemed like 60 ft. in the air, moving slowly then it took off quickly. We continued to see it for about a 1/2 mile and the flame would get bright and then alternate to a dim flame. Another bystander was watching it while standing outside of a storefront.

Witnesses report unusual sighting in San Francisco's North Beach district on April 12, 2009.

A circular object was hovering in the evening sky. The weather at the time was clear, with some high altitude clouds. The object's angular size was approximately 1/4 full Moon. It had a roughly circular shape, the color was a muted white, and it was clearly illuminated by the setting sun. The object was completely silent and did not resemble any type of aircraft. The object hovered in one position for a minute or so, before slowly moving in a southerly direction - perpendicular to the direction of the brisk prevailing winds.

As the object began to move, it also began to change shape. It formed a triangle, then became more of a rectangle. The other witnesses were commenting on the changing shape, as the object continued gaining altitude while slowly moving to the south, before disappearing from view. As the witnesses talked among themselves, one witness suddenly exclaimed that there was a second object.

The second object was smaller, approximately 1/10 full Moon, and appeared in almost the identical position as the first object. The second object was traveling considerably higher, then hovered for about one minute before slowly moving to the south, and out of view. A third object was observed, and was identical in size to the second object. The object was only visible for around 30 seconds before rapidly gaining altitude and disappearing from view.

The entire event spanned approximately 25 minutes. One of the witnesses claimed to have been a combat photographer in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He indicated that he had extensive experience in identifying both private, commercial, and military aircraft, and that the objects were like nothing he had ever experienced, or had any familiarity with.

I know this is outside of the normal area that I try to report on, but given the fact it was a recent sighting and had several witnesses I wanted to post it. The original story can be found here.

The Adorable Poodle Salon

In the early 1970s there was a dog grooming salon on Blackstone Avenue in Fresno called the Adorable Poodle Salon. From what I can gather it was in the same area as the Wendy's that's near Blackstone and Ashlan.

As soon as the owner moved in, they knew they were not alone. When the would arrive in the morning to open the shop they would find large heavy plants, ones that required two people to move them, were be relocated to the middle of the room. Also, the workers would find that their grooming tools were moved elsewhere.

Apparently whatever was haunting the shop took a liking to one of the girls working there. One day the owner was on a break when she noticed the employee brushing her hand away from her neck, as if something was bothering her. The girl kept exclaiming "Would you please knock it off?!" Finally the owner asked her what was going on. "Your damn ghost won't stop kissing me on the neck!" replied the girl. Apparently after that the ghost stopped kissing her.

The owner would also sense cold spots, lights that would turn on and off, and doors opening and closing by themselves. A general feeling of being watched while alone in the building was also reported. According to this, the owner of the story eventually had the ghost removed or "busted" as the poster reported (who also claims to be one of the owner's children) and all activity stopped.