Chupacabra forces prom in Mendota to be canceled

Did this friendly lil guy cause the prom in Mendota to be canceled?

Photo courtesy of sapherequeen from fanpop.com

First off let me apologize for the lack of recent context. I've been in the process of moving and didn't have time for much else. Now that I'm settled in I can focus again on providing content for Weird Fresno. Today I thought I would do that by revisiting an early story that I had done.

According to a website called the Chupacabra Tracker, on May 10 (the year is never told) in the small farming town of Mendota a rooster is said to have died of "mysterious" circumstances. Soon after that the Fresno County Department of Agriculture started to receive reports of Chupacabra sightings in the area. This apparently alarmed the local parents so much that they had the prom canceled out of fear their children might become victims to the legendary goat sucker.

How legitimate this story is, I have no idea. When I first came across it I contacted both Mendota High School and the Fresno County Ag Commissioner (there is no county Dept. of Ag, only state) but never received a reply from either party. Still I love this story. Something had to have happened to freak out the local parents to have them go as far to cancel the local prom. I just really hope it wasn't a dog with a case of mange.

Bakersfield park said to be haunted by ghost of murder victim

Covered bridge over the canal where a ghost is said to haunt

Bakersfield's Central Park.

Photo courtesy of Hauntings Paranormal Social Network.

Today I decided to share a story from the southern part of the Central Valley, from the city of Bakersfield. And if my research on this tells me anything, it's one of the more prevalent ghost stories there.

There have been tales of a lady in white wandering the grounds of Bakersfield's Central Park for as long as the park has been around. Created in 1937, Central Park is located between 21st Street and 19th Street, just east of R Street. According to local legend a woman was shot and killed in the park and her bones were found buried at an old foundry and supposedly they were riddled with bullet holes.

Witnesses have reported seeing the ghost of a woman, usually wearing a white flowing robe or gown; wander along the park's canal right before sunrise. Some think she is looking for help, hoping someone will find her murderer. Others think she is just lost and wanders the place where she was killed.

What's interesting about this story that it seems to be a mixture of the Lady in White and La Llorona stories. Now I'm not saying it's just another local urban legend (though all evidence seems to point to that being a yes), but there are questions I have about this story. For one, who was this woman and why was she murdered at this park? A jealous lover, victim of a mugging, or something else? Every telling of this story didn't have this information. As for the bones that were said to be found, I don't know how true this is. And what's to link them with the woman who is said to have been murdered in the park?

So the question is this: another local urban legend that has been passed down through the years from word of mouth (and not made popular by the internet)? Or is there some truth to this story and an innocent woman was killed at this park and wanders it to this day, either looking for help or doomed to walk it for eternity?

Is a local Selma museum haunted?

It's said that if you visit the Selma Pioneer Village, located in the small town of Selma, that you can hear ghostly noises and sometimes see shadowy figures in the trees at night.

The Selma Pioneer Village started in 1980 when local resident Art Gonzales began collecting historic Selma area buildings. These included a Queen Anne style home, St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church, a railroad depot, the Unger Opera House, a doctor's office and the very first school house in Selma. There's also a large collection of ag equipment and tools as well other antique furnishings including toys and medical equipment.

The paranormal stories stem from an over night stay at the park. One witness claimed to have heard strange noises that sounded like spurs jangling while they were there late one night, but upon investigating they couldn't find where the noises were coming from or who was making them. Later that night they begin to hear what sounded like children laughing and when they went outside to see who was there, shadowy figures were seen darting from tree to tree. Another witness claimed to have heard noises coming from the area where the dutch ovens (very large, heavy oven) were at. But when a flashlight was shined on the area, there was no one there.

So that leads to the question, who or what is causing these strange incidents? Given the fact that most, if not all the buildings are over 100 years old there is a good chance that a spirit may have formed an attachment to one of them. And as far as I know, not all the buildings were originally at the same location, but were relocated there. It's a theory among paranormal investigators that when a rumored haunted spot has any work done to it, or even moved as in this case, that spirit activity increases due to the disturbances going on. Could the fact that some of the buildings aren't in the original location have awakened any spirit that was attached to them and now they make their presence known to anyone who visits the village?

Another theory is that it's a residual haunting, that the sounds of spurs and children laughing (remember there's an old school house there) are just a replay of events that happened over a century ago. For whatever these sounds get played over and over and as the years progress get fainter and fainter as the energy dissipates.

As for what really is at the Selma Pioneer Village, it's hard to say. But the rumors of it being haunted have persisted for years as a friend of mine, who has lived in Selma all her life, told me she heard it was haunted since she was a kid. So it definitely wasn't some random incident and there is definitely something there if it's known to be haunted.

Weird Fresno teams up with Ghost Tripping for video series.

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

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

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

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

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.