Ghosthunting Southern California. Sally Richards
in this group of buildings let people know about their presence by means of touch, smell, movement of objects, and speaking.
“I had a friend visiting and she was just kind of making fun of Amelia,” said Bihm. “It was the dead of winter and she stepped down off the steps, and I just saw her jump. She’d hit a wall of the scent of sweet-smelling flowers in front of her. She didn’t make fun of Amelia again. I’ve also smelled baking in the Whaley House with docents, when there was no baking going on anywhere else. I guess if you like to bake, it continues no matter where you go.” Bihm smiles, at ease with the idea of living among ghosts.
“We have this kitchen hood fan that sucks up an enormous amount of air. All of a sudden I smelled this cigar smoke, like someone next to me just blew it in my face to get my attention. I also felt this warmth—like a body standing next to me. I felt like I knew how tall this ghost was, so I went over to the Whaley House to ask a docent how tall Mr. Whaley was—they know everything there. I went to the back door and I leaned over the chain to get someone’s attention. All of a sudden the chandelier in the dining room started swinging violently—and just when it slowed down it would speed up again. It was summer and the house was packed—fifty people saw it.”
The Creole Café buildings are known by local paranormal groups as hopping with activity. Several groups, including my own Meetup group, Ghosts Happen, have used the dining space after the restaurant has closed to carry out investigations. One evening my group was having a séance with two Spiritualist mediums, Fran and Pete Monroe, discussing how mediumship works in regard to contacting spirits, and several messages came through. There was activity on all of the meters. We also had Frank’s Box #55 out and were listening for responses to questions at the end of the evening. Many people had already left, and we were getting ready to pack up when someone asked the box, “How many people are still here?” The box answered, “Fifteen.” We did a quick head count to find that there were, in fact, fifteen people remaining.
One evening we were seated for a dinner investigation sponsored by the San Diego Ghost and Paranormal Group. I sat taking pictures with my cell phone when a woman in the group began describing a young woman—more like a child—with long blond hair and a Victorian-era pastel blue dress coming through. As she described this spirit, I began shooting my camera, sans flash, at the mirror in the room—in my mind’s eye, and in the camera’s frame, I saw a huge multicolored light shoot through and then a girl in a dress began appearing from the mirror and came right out of the mirror, her dress spilling out onto the floor. I captured the emerging image in a series of five frames. I said, “I have the pictures of what you’re describing,” and the group examined the pictures. The woman in the SDGAP Group affirmed that the images paralleled what she’d been psychically receiving.
This photo was taken into a mirror that seems to serve as a portal for paranormal activity. I photographed a girl coming in through the mirror until her hooped dress spilled onto the floor. When the woman reflected in the mirror (holding camera) acknowledged the apparition, it disappeared.
I believe the spirits in Old Town have the confidence to walk among the living and be noticed day or night. The paranormal stories surrounding the Whaley House and Creole Café abound—and the time of the incidents is rarely confined to the darkness of night, or to the person involved being alone.
“I’ve been witnessing phenomena—and I have all my life,” says Bihm. “It just seems here it’s more accentuated. We all want to believe in them, and I know without a doubt that if we can figure out how they move chandeliers—goodbye energy crises, hello world prosperity. How do they do that? As far as the spirits here—too many people have come here and had the same things happen for generations—people who don’t even know each other. How else can they come up with the same phenomena? I do believe in them—absolutely. I’m not afraid. I mean, sure, there’s bad stuff out there, but not here.”
CHAPTER 3
El Campo Santo Cemetery
OLD TOWN SAN DIEGO
El Campo Santo Cemetery in Old Town is one of the oldest pioneer cemeteries in the state and an amazing mix of cultures. This is where the Day of the Dead festivities end, when hundreds of people with skeleton makeup fill the cemetery and spill out into the street to write notes and light candles for their loved ones who’ve passed on. It’s an amazing place to capture EVPs.
ONE OF THE SMALLEST EXISTING CEMETERIES in San Diego is the El Campo Santo Cemetery, on San Diego Avenue in Old Town. Unlike other cemeteries within the city limits, El Campo Santo seems to have visitors at all hours of the day and night, every day of the year. The energy fluctuates in an ebb-and-flow manner inside the small plot of land—energy that allows the dead to rise anytime they wish to interact with the living.
The graveyard is especially active with souls and the living on October 30, when Old Town (and most of the missions in California) as well as Old Town San Diego State Historic Park celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). On this day and the day after, All Saints’ Day, all of Old Town is awash in bright orange marigolds, the color of remembrance.
The celebration begins with the community coming into El Campo Santo to clean the graves and decorate them for the celebration, hanging huge, colorful crepe flowers in the trees and ladening the graves with offerings to let the dead know they are not forgotten. In the streets of Old Town, you’ll see face painting on many corners. The adornment of skulls and the making of crepe paper flowers—as well as live music in the Whaley House courtyard—are all part of the nearly round-the-clock activities. All of Old Town’s stores have elaborate altars with photos of family members who have passed and their favorite things to honor them. In the evening, people dressed in skeleton or period costumes walk in a candlelit procession from the Whaley House altar to El Campo Santo Cemetery, where speeches are made in remembrance of the pioneers of Old Town. People walk from grave to grave to leave orange flowers and notes to their relatives.
The cemetery was established in 1849 as a Roman Catholic burial lot. It took thirty-one years to somehow squeeze 477 bodies into an area that became even smaller in 1889, when a streetcar line was built through part of the cemetery. In 1942, the streetcar route was paved over and became San Diego Avenue. What you may not notice is that there are graves under the streets and sidewalks and lots surrounding the cemetery.
The sacred grounds have been under siege by the city government ever since it stopped making money, but thanks to the outcry from the community, it was saved and didn’t go completely under like Calvary and Buena Vista cemeteries. You’ll notice brass medallion markers in the street that read GRAVESITE, marking the location of twenty or so graves that were paved over and discovered again in the 1930s by scientists from the Geophysics Group of Escondido. Nearly all of the original markers in the cemetery have now been removed by vandals, fallen apart, or gone missing at some point. Most of those standing today are modern replacements.
Although the cemetery is hardly in a low-traffic area—business owners and homeowners are within earshot night and day—it seems somehow isolated. Last time I was there, I counted four wireless night cameras trained on the area, so you are never truly alone there, at least not on video playback. But during the night, you see many people carrying digital recorders as they question the dead. Sometimes, on a good night, the living interact with the dead. On a bad night, the living interact with the living—which can be much scarier than any ghosts I’ve ever encountered.
Maritza Skandunas, medium and founder of San Diego Ghost Hunters, was with her team at El Campo Santo one night doing EVP work when an odd incident took place around 2 a.m. They were in the rear of the cemetery when they heard noises out front.
“All of a sudden we turned around and this guy—he had to be on drugs—he’d been walking with his head down and was out in front on the other side of the wall. He hadn’t realized we were there. I don’t think he was really even aware of his surroundings. He was probably nineteen. He reached