POLARIS: We are back in one of the great California deserts again, driving toward the Salton Sea, which is a large inland sea about an hour from the Arizona border. The scenery reminds me of our survey of the Mojave Desert, which I have to admit was my least favorite part of our California expedition so far. But the Colorado Desert, however, may make me rethink that.
I have nothing against deserts, having lived in Tucson for years before moving to Hawai’i. I actually think they are quite interesting and even beautiful in their own way. It’s more the feel of this particular leg of our investigation. Now there we’re away from the urban centers and surrounded by this very stark scenery, it reminds me of just how much has changed since we did the Mojave Desert survey. At that time we had a full compliment of members. Trespass and Cipher were still both with us, and although we felt a lot like we were bumbling around we did see a great many interesting places and things. It was an interesting excursion that ended badly. I still look back at the Mojave Desert investigations as being the beginning of the end of how the Outcast Earth team was up until that time.
If you had been following our journals, you will remember that the woman Rune was involved with – Tate – was killed in a freak automobile accident which also landed my son in the hospital. Those two tragedies seemed to foreshadow a troublesome future. Shortly thereafter, Trespass left the team, we discovered that Anvil was dead and then Cipher left the team too.
I’m going to keep any open mind, but frankly I’m looking forward to heading back toward the coast and then north to Oregon. We’ve been in California for what feels like an eternity and it really feels like it’s time to move on and see the Pacific Northwest. That’s something I’m really looking forward to!
ASH: We spent all day today driving around the edge of the Salton Sea, which is a huge inland lake in the middle of Nowhere, California. I was actually surprised by how many people live here, but apparently it is nothing compared to what it was supposed to be. In the 1950s and 1960s, this was supposed to be one of the biggest and best resort areas in the state. They even built a city called Salton City here with all the roads and street signs and light posts, thinking that people from L.A. and San Diego would come here and build homes. The Salton Sea was a huge recreational area where you [could] fish and water-ski, but it never took off as a resort. As a result, as we drove around we kept coming on these strange little settlements that are half-ghost town and half-slum. The first come we came to was called Bombay Beach. If you walked down close the water you can see all these old trailers that were sunk in the mud during a flood years ago. It reminds me of what archaeologists must have found the first time they were excavating Pompeii and found an entire city covered in volcanic ash. In this case, however, there’s not much to excavate. It’s just kind of a sad reminder of what the area was supposed to be and how it actually turned out.
After leaving Bombay Beach, we drove around the north end of the sea and down the west shoreline to Salton City. When say there’s nothing in Salton City, I really means THERE’S NOTHING IN SALTON CITY!!! It’s a huge area with paved roads and nothing else except a few house of brave people who actually decided to live here. My dad went and spoke to a local real estate agent and we found out that the City has sewers, gas lines, and everything else that a city would need. There’s just nothing above the ground except pavement. She wanted to know if we were interested in buying some land. Dad said no.
We did stop at the most-photographed placed in Salton City which is the old abandoned yacht club. [It] is apparently being rebuilt so it can be reopened but otherwise it’s sat empty for years and years. You can find lots of pictures of it online.
The [Salton] sea is not really much to look at. Depending on where you are there’s often a really bad odor. Sometimes the fish here all die off because all the fertilizers from surrounding farms drain into the sea and kill them. We didn’t actually see any of the big “fish kills” that we had read about, but from the smell I had to believe it was happening. The scenery is also boring. It’s flat desert with no plants really. There are some mud volcanoes nearby but we didn’t get to those.
JANUARY 25, 2009: THE LOST SHIPS OF THE DESERT, ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK, CALIFORNIA
RUNE: If I were an old prospector wandering through the dusty hills of the California desert for years in a futile search for gold, I suppose my mind might wander as well. During those little jaunts out of my body, perhaps my mind would begin to see all sorts of things in the valleys and mountains around me. A cool oasis with tall palm trees waving in the wind, for example? Or maybe a tavern staffed by beautiful dancing girls with feathers in their hair? But a Spanish galleon? Okay, at that point, perhaps my flight of fancy had begun to move more toward heat stroke. But, believe it or not, there are very old and enduring stories of large ocean-going vessels found strangely abandoned in the sands of what is today the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, located about 90 miles to the east of San Diego.
Since we were making the long drive to the Salton Sea anyway, we just could not resist making a few side trips in our attempt to find these elusive vessels. Of course, we did so only to amuse ourselves, as no one on the team believed for a moment that we would actually find anything. Regardless, the stories are entertaining and some excellent examples of revisionist history. Let’s start with the Spanish galleon story...
The “proof” for what has become known as the “Lost Ship of the Desert” began with the tall tales of nineteenth century prospectors. Hardly the most credible of sources, prospectors did have the ability to intrigue and mislead others. Many of the stories they told were simple misinformation meant to discourage others from competing for the riches they were certain lay hidden in the desert hills. Other stories were told to help vindicate them or explain why they kept returning from their treasure seeking empty-handed. The “Lost Ship” was said to have been first discovered by just such a prospector, his name now lost to history. Some sources claim that the prospector stories were supported by tales from local Native Americans, Mexicans and Spaniards. Conveniently, however, no examples or source material are provided by the people making these claims.
Still, the fanciful history for the stranded Spanish galleon begins with an early misinterpretation of the geography of California. When the Spanish were first sailing along the coast of California they endeavored to make detailed navigational maps, but they were only able to map what they could see. When they encountered large unexplored bays like the San Francisco Bay, they assumed that the bay was in fact the northern coast of a large island. In fact, in some early Spanish maps of California, the state is drawn as an island with the Gulf of California separating it completely from the North American mainland. This was a geographical mistake, but the idea of a great “inland waterway” bisecting California appeared to endure even centuries after those first Spanish explorers had turned to dust. This erroneous belief made the possibility of a Spanish galleon finding its way into the heart of the state seem possible, as it was assumed that the Salton Sea was a remnant of the ancient waterway.
According to the “Lost Ship” myth, the galleon somehow became stranded or disabled and the crew perished leaving behind a hull filled with gold and other precious items. The treasure hunter whose name is most closely associated with the myth is Charles Carroll Clusker, a professional prospector who probably first read about the ship in an enigmatic article that appeared in an 1870 edition of the Los Angeles News. That article read, in part:
...one of these saline lakes [Salton Sea] disappeared and a party of Indians reported the discovery of a ‘big ship’ left by the receding waters. A party of Americans at once proceeded to the spot and found embedded in the sands the wreck of a large vessel. Nearly one-third of the forward part of the ship, or barque, is plainly visible. The stump of the bowsprit remains and portions of the timbers of teak are perfect.
The wreck is located 40 miles north of the San Bernardino and Fort Yuma Road and 30 miles west of Dos Palmas, a well-known watering place on the desert. The road across the desert has been traveled for more than 100 years...
Somehow, Clusker managed to convince two other men about the veracity of the “Lost Ship” and together they mounted three separate expeditions to find the hulk and salvage its riches. Of course, they were never successful but they did manage to firmly imbed the myth of the galleon into local lore. Not deterred by Clusker’s failures, other gold seekers followed with similar results. We were able to find examples of additional expeditions for the galleon well into the twentieth century, and probably there are others still out there looking for it despite the geological fact that the inland waterway on which the ship was said to sail never existed in the first place.
I have to admit that none of us expected to see anything although we walked around the same area Charlie Clusker claimed to have visited anyway. It wasn't long until we began to feel silly and the next thing I knew, Ash and I were putting pieces of California citrus up our shirts and striking super model poses. Question: why do I still have smaller boobs than Ash... even when they are fake?
Just as silly as lost Spanish galleons and my all-Clementine boobs was the story of Viking ship that was reportedly discovered sticking out of a hill near Julian, California, a small town about fifty miles to the west of the Salton Sea. Interestingly, the story of the Viking vessel begins with a seemingly reliable source. The persons who reported the ship was the town’s librarian, Myrtle Botts, and her husband Louis. As the story goes, in 1933 the couple were camping in a desert canyon near Julian when they were approached by an old prospector. The man told them that he had made a strange discovery further up the trail – the prow of an ancient ship sticking out of a hillside. The Botts disregarded the story as a tall tale until they reached that spot themselves the following day where they found the curved wooden prow of a ship that appeared to be Viking in design. The couple intended to return the next day, but as coincidence would have it, the devastating earthquake of 1933 struck and the hillside in which the ship was buried collapsed and destroyed all their evidence. If this timeline is correct, that would mean that the Botts discovered the ship on either March 9 or 10, 1933. The 6.25 magnitude quake struck at approximately 6:00 p.m. on the 10th with its epicenter being located off the coast of Long Beach.
The Botts were real people and certainly the quake was real too. The problem was in the details of the story. Some sources we found claim that the Vikings could have made it to southern California by sailing through the Northwest Passage, down the west coast and into the Gulf of California. While it has been established that the Vikings certainly made it to the New World and even successfully traversed the ocean ice packs of the Arctic, the notion that they made it to the California coast is ludicrous. But, let’s assume they made it that far too. How then did they make it into the desert area around the Salton Sea? Well, apparently they used that same fictional inland waterway that later stranded the Spanish galleon laden with gold and pearls.
Sigh. My head hurts.
Really, I have to give the Botts some benefit of the doubt. As a librarian, Myrtle was most likely a well-educated and well-read person. So what exactly did she and her husband see sticking out of the hillside? An old piece of timber or a rock formation that from a distance happened to look like a Viking ship? Who knows. Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that it probably was not the lost vessel of a wayward band of Norwegians.
JANUARY 28, 2009: BLACK GOLD AND BURNING SKELETONS, ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK
POLARIS: The area surrounding the Salton Sea, known as the Colorado Desert, seems to be particularly chock full of outlandish stories. As we have been traveling through the area, a large number of these tales appear to have originated with prospectors and early pioneers (see Rune’s report on the lost ships of the desert for more) and concern vast amounts of hidden treasure just lying around for the taking. It is probably safe to say that most of these fanciful tales are utter hogwash, but there are a few that bare repeating.
The first is the story of Peg Leg Smith’s gold, which is so engrained in local legend that there is a curious metal marker up a lonely dirt road in the middle of the desert commemorating the tale. Nearby is a large pile of rocks, as the marker invites visitors to add ten rocks to the mound if they are seeking Peg Leg’s gold. The tale of this treasure trove becomes very convoluted and there are numerous versions of it, so I will try to simplify it. The story begins with Thomas “Peg Leg” Smith, who was said to be a trapper, a thief, a drunkard and an all-around bad natured person. (His interesting moniker referred to his wooden leg, as he suffered through an amputation some years earlier after being attacked and injured by hostile Native Americans.) Sometime during the late 1820s or early 1830s (the dates on these tales are never firm), Peg Leg and an associate were crossing the Colorado Desert heading toward Los Angeles to sell their stock of beaver pelts. While searching for water, Peg Leg climbed a desert butte and discovered the top of it was scattered with curious black stones. The stones were unusually heavy and unlike anything Peg Leg had ever seen before. He pocketed a few and upon arriving in Los Angeles was informed that they were gold. Despite the find, and what would seem to be an easy fortune with no panning or mining required, Peg Leg did not return to find the butte for over a decade. Instead, he chose the comparatively risky occupations of horse rustling and kidnapping Indian children to sell into slave labor in Mexico. Peg Leg did mount two unsuccessful expeditions – in 1849 and 1853 respectively – to relocate his treasure. And as with the “lost ships” of the desert, his failure did nothing to dissuade imitators who also found their efforts in vain.
One of the first questions that popped into my head upon hearing this legend was whether gold ever appears black in color. I had never heard of “black gold,” except as it referred to oil in the title song for the Beverly Hillbillies. I did find references to black gold as a type of alloy that is frequently used today in jewelry, but this is a human creation and I don’t know if similar processes occur in nature. One source for the Peg Leg legend described the gold as being “stained black,” but then I’ve heard that gold is one element that does not stain or tarnish. Could Peg Leg’s gold have been iron pyrite (Fool’s Gold) which often has a dark tint to it and it commonly found lying on the surface of the ground? Or was the gold embedded in another mineral like quartz which was a darker color? Or am I spending way too much time worrying about a detail in a story that is at most the drunken babbling of a chronic liar? Up until his death in 1866, Peg Leg continued to claim that the gold-strewn butte remained untouched and maintained a profitable cottage industry in selling “treasure maps” to unsuspecting rubes.
In 1935, an interesting guest opinion appeared in the Modesto Bee and News-Herald written by Marlin Edward Smyth of Antioch, California. The article was entitled STORIES ABOUT PEG LEG MINE ARE HELD FALSE:
Editor of the Bee -- Sir: I have come across some articles that were published recently concerning the Peg Leg Mine and Peg Leg himself.
At this time I wish to make clear to the readers of your paper that there never was a Peg Leg Mine and Peg Leg himself was never in Death Valley.
My claim for this knowledge is that I am the great-grandson of Peg Leg and his grandson, my father is still alive, and if anyone knows Peg Leg’s history it should be ourselves.
The only time that Peg Leg discovered gold that led to the legend of the Peg Leg Mine was on a hunting expedition in Colorado on the Little Snake River. He accidentally found some gold ore where they made camp. An Indian raid killed all but eleven of the forty men on the expedition and when Peg Leg returned to the placed he could never locate the spot where he had uncovered the gold.
Peg Leg’s real name was Joshia Smyth and he was born in London, England. He lost his leg in an Indian fight at his trading post 100 miles from Fort Laramie. He was later nicknamed Peg Leg Jack and Peg Leg Smith. He died in a hospital in San Francisco.
As an amusing and appropriate sidebar to this story, every April the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park hosts a storytelling event called the “Peg Leg Smith Liar’s Contest.” Everyone is welcome. Fibbers are preferred.
Another prospector’s tale from the area has a thematic link to the Peg Leg gold. According to several witnesses – men who either are nameless or whose names are dubious at best – a giant human skeleton with a candle burning inside its ribcage like a lantern roams the Colorado Desert and menaces gold-seekers. The original reportee was apparently a man named Charley Arizona. (Remember, I said some of these witness names were dubious!) One source described Charley as a “wise old desert hand” but since we could find no records of anyone by this name who was not connected to this story, we cannot comment on his wisdom or lack thereof or anything else about him. Charley claimed that he was chased out of the Borrego Badlands by the skeletal phantom which towered over eight feet tall. Several other unnamed prospectors and visitors to the region also claimed to have frightening encounters until two men – also both unnamed – decided to hunt the skeleton down. They apparently chased it through the desert at night, firing at it with their rifles several times. After this incident, the skeleton was never seen again. Apparently the beast is frightened of gunfire although carrying open flame around in its chest does not appear to be an issue. While it’s clear that this tale is an offspring for the Peg Leg gold legend, it is also quite clearly a fantasy. Probably it was invented to deter other treasure seekers from entering the area to search for Peg Leg’s fortune.
FEBRUARY 8, 2009: THE WINEVILLE CHICKEN-COOP MURDERS, MIRA LOMA, CALIFORNIA
POLARIS: From time to time, our team has investigated various murders, especially if they were unsolved or had mysterious elements to them in some way. Truthfully, the so-called “Wineville Chicken-coop Murders” do not have these elements as they were neither mysterious or unsolved. There were simply an example of humanity at its very worst. But since we were traveling through the Los Angeles area again en route to the Mission San Fernando, we couldn’t resist making a couple of side trips to examine these killings made popular by the recent movie, CHANGELING.
As the title indicates, the film deals mostly with the cover-up perpetrated by the Los Angeles Police Department following the disappearance of several boys from the area. Our day-long investigation dealt more with the aftermath of those abductions, namely the torture and murder of the boys by a serial killer. The story is as follows:
In 1928, there were a series of kidnappings of young boys from the Los Angeles and Riverside County areas. The perpetrator was a young Canadian man named Gordon Stewart Northcott who lived on a farm in the small community of Wineville (modern day Mira Loma) to the east of Los Angeles. The reason behind the Northcott family’s emigration to the United States is not clear, but it may have been partly prompted by Gordon’s 1925 arrest for the molestation of a 12-year old boy in his native Canada. Newspapers reported that Northcott “was severely reprimanded by the juvenile court and released.” Despite this lax sentence, Northcott took the arrest very hard and fell into a deep depression at being denied access to the traumatized boy. It was soon after that Northcott talked his father into buying the Wineville chicken farm. Northcott had developed the desire for a large, semi-isolated location where he was able to act without the fear of discovery.
After the Northcotts had purchased the farm, Gordon returned briefly to Canada to visit his older sister and her family. While there, he became fixated on his 14-year old cousin, Sanford, and talked his sister into letting him take the teenager on a trip to Regina, a town in Saskatchewan. To Sanford’s surprise, however, he found himself crossing the border and wound up at the Wineville chicken farm. Although Northcott’s parents both lived in nearby Los Angeles and visited the ranch frequently, their proximity did not seem to dissuade Gordon’s behavior toward Sanford and the teen quickly became the man’s personal slave, forced to tend to all his personal needs including his cruel sexual appetite. (It would be revealed later that Northcott’s mother, Sarah, was particularly active in facilitating her son’s crimes and she did little to nothing to rescue her own grandson from Gordon’s claws. It is unclear how much knowledge his father, Cyrus, had of the insidious activities or whether he just chose to ignore the warning signs around him.)
It was during these early months that Northcott first tried his hand at killing human beings. Sanford would later tell authorities about Northcott bragging about murdering a local miner for money and in February 1928, the teenager was shown the severed head of a Mexican youth which Northcott was carrying around in an old tar bucket. Northcott would later refer to this victim by the names “Jose Gonzales” or “Alvin Gothea” although his true identity was never established despite the efforts of local police to tie him several missing teenage boys. The nude body of the youth was found alongside a road in La Puente, California, on February 2, 1928. As for the decapitated head, Sanford testified that Northcott unceremoniously threw it into a bonfire on the farm, smashed up the remaining pieces after it was left to cook for several hours and buried the fragments on the farm. The discovery of the headless body received only scant media attention at the time, but would become more relevant in the months ahead:
HEADLESS BODY OF BOY FOUND
Brutal Murder Revealed in Southern California; Bullet Through Lung
Puente, Calif., Feb. 2. – (AP) – The nude, headless body found near here early to-day has been partially identified as that of a Mexican boy about 16 years old, deputy sheriffs said.
The single blow that severed the head, which was still missing, was made with great strength and with a meat cleaver or some sharp, strong blade of that nature, it was indicated. There was a bullet hole through the right lung. (Modesto News-Herald, February 2, 1928)
The circumstances around the death of this anonymous youth were unusual for Northcott and he repeatedly claimed that the killing was an act of self-defense after the Mexican attempted to rob and stab him. If Sanford’s testimony is to be believe – and certainly he was a more credible witness than Northcott – then the murder did not occur on the chicken ranch. The Mexican youth was also a lot older than Northcott’s preferred victims. Some investigators have speculated that Northcott may have been truthful in stating that he killed the boy in self-defense... but the question remains as to what happened that would make Northcott fear the youth enough to shoot him.
Regardless, Northcott’s efforts to cover his tracks were successful and soon more abductions and murders would follow.
The next to disappear was 10-year old Walter Collins, whose case is the basis for the movie CHANGELING. Collin’s abduction was muddied by the introduction of Arthur Hutchins, a 12-year runaway from Iowa who claimed to be Collins, probably in the hopes of finding a new family or a little notoriety. The LAPD, which was under tremendous pressure to resolve the Collin case, embraced the impostor and even went so far as to falsely imprison Christine Collins, Walter’s mother, when she went public that the recovered boy was not her son. While all this intrigue was playing out in the front pages of the local newspapers, Collins had been carted off to Northcott’s “murder farm” where he was raped, murdered and buried in a shallow grave behind the chicken coops. Sanford Clark would later testify that his grandmother, Sarah, had actually killed Walter at the behest of her son. Sanford later helped his uncle exhume Walter’s body when Northcott became concerned that it would be discovered. Northcott would later claim that he dismembered the boy and scattered the pieces in the open desert. This was undoubtedly true, as no physical remains of Walter Collins were ever found on site.
By May 1928, two more boys – Lewis and Nelson Winslow – vanished from their home. At first, however, the disappearance of the Winslow boys was not considered an abduction. Northcott had forced the brothers to write a series of letters to their mother claiming that they had run away. One letter read:
Dear mother and dad:We are going to Mexico to make a lot of money making yachts and airplanes. A woman gave us something to eat. Don’t worry. We will be O.K.
Lewie and Nelse
Another letter arrived to the grieving parents in late May, after the brothers had already been murdered and several unsent letters were later found at the “murder farm” indicating that Northcott intended to keep up the “runaway ruse” for an extended period of time. After raping and torturing the brothers for approximately a week and a half, Northcott forced Sanford help him kill the brothers with an ax when their attempts to asphyxiate them with ether failed. The problem was that neither boy was killed by the blows delivered by Northcott and Sanford. The brothers were buried alive in the same grave.
Northcott’s murderous rampage was finally ended in September 1928 after Sanford’s older sister, Jessie, visited the Wineville chicken farm. Jessie had become increasingly concerned about Sanford’s well-being despite the string of letters he sent home assuring his Canadian kin that all was well. Although she saw no evidence of the murders while on the farm, Northcott’s hostile attitude toward her prompted her to tell local authorities that Sanford was in the country illegally. By doing so, Jessie hoped to have her brother forcefully deported back to Canada and away from Northcott. When police arrived to take Sanford into custody, the gig was officially up. But Gordon and Sarah Northcott had already “flown the coop” (sorry, I couldn’t resist!), and were later arrested by the Canadian Mounted Police on the other side of the border.
The story that Sanford Clark told horrified the entire country. The revelations simultaneously brought down a serial killer, his accomplice mother, a corrupt police force and a child-impostor while vindicating Christine Collins, Walter’s embattled mother. Gordon Stewart Northcott was ultimately convicted of killing the anonymous Mexican boy and the Winslow brothers, although he claimed to have killed others as well. Among his other possible victims was the unnamed miner and a youth named “Richard” and a boy whose name Northcott claimed not to remember. He most certainly had a hand in Walter Collins death too, even if his mother landed the fatal blow. It is not known exactly how many kids Northcott victimized. Sanford told tales of his uncle bringing multiple blindfolded boys to the ranch to “do them,” but most were released after they were molested. Other children vanished during this time period in cases that the police tried unsuccessfully to link to Northcott. Was he responsible for these disappearances too? We shall never know and his propensity for lying may it difficult to ascertain exactly how and where he was at work. He was executed on October 2, 1930.
MERIDIAN: While the movie CHANGELING dealt largely with the abduction and killing of little Walter Collins, Northcott’s favorite victim and unwilling accomplice – Sanford Clark – played a relatively minor role. But Clark’s participation in the events at the “murder farm” were pivotal and at the time of their discovery, there was probably little public sympathy for the fifteen-year old who had been forced into such brutal and degrading behavior by Northcott. It was widely known, of course, that Sanford had actively participated in the killing of the the Winslow brothers and a photo showing Sanford pointing to the chair in which the brothers sat at the time of their murders was widely published. Sanford was also the principle witness against Northcott and had to endure a second round of humiliation by taking the stand in court and being interrogated by his uncle personally. (Northcott acted as his own counsel during most of his murder trial. I sincerely doubt that any child would be forced to endure this kind of treatment today, as our modern criminal justice system goes to great lengths to protect child-victims from ever having to face their abusers again after their rescue. The fact that Sanford did this, day after day, having to describe how Northcott repeatedly assaulted him and then defend his actions to Northcott himself bears witness to a real inner strength.) There is a portion of the trial transcript in which Northcott mocks Sanford’s participation in the murder of the Winslow boys and, as is typical of a murderous pedophile, attempts to blame his victim for his own victimization:
NORTHCOTT: “Now these Winslow boys, did you propose any other scheme besides murdering them?”
SANFORD: “No.”
NORTHCOTT: “Why?”
SANFORD: “It wouldn’t do any good anyway.”
NORTHCOTT: “I see. You are positive of that?”
SANFORD: “Yes.”
NORTHCOTT: “What made you come to that conclusion?”
SANFORD: “Well, you decided to kill them and I couldn’t do anything else.”
NORTHCOTT: “I see; and that’s all there was to it?”
SANFORD: “Yes.”
NORTHCOTT: “When I decided on anything, it was done; is that the idea?”
SANFORD: “Yes.”
NORTHCOTT: “Did you know that you could have released those boys and went over to the nearest neighbors and got police protection?”
SANFORD: “Yes.”
NORTHCOTT: “Why didn’t you do it?”
SANFORD: “Afraid of you.”
NORTHCOTT: “I couldn’t very well hurt you when you had police protection.”
SANFORD: “You had threatened to get me.”
NORTHCOTT: “You must have quite a good opinion of my ability.”
What strikes me as so tragic about Sanford’s story is how few people, including most of his family members, appeared to be concerned about his welfare. Not only did his uncle brutalize him for two long years, but his own grandparents (Northcott’s mother and father) seemed to ignore the boy’s plight entirely. There is also a question about why Sanford’s own mother, Northcott’s sister, didn’t do more to rescue her own child after he had been clearly abducted and transported to a foreign country. The only family member who did make substantial effort to rescue the teen, probably putting her own life in extreme jeopardy, was his sister Jessie. After his arrest, Sanford was made a ward of the state and placed in a boys’ home in California as there appeared to be no one to take care of him. Once Northcott was executed, the teen was deported back to Canada and he and Jessie remained close for the rest of their lives.
As one happy footnote to an otherwise horrendous tale, Sanford appeared to go on to live a relatively normal, happy life. He was married to the same woman for over fifty years and they adopted two boys. Sanford served honorably in Canadian military during World War II and later worked for the postal service. He had to retire after suffering a massive heart attack at work. He still remained active in many community and altruistic organizations until he finally succumbed to cancer in 1991. According to his family, he rarely ever discussed Northcott or his two years at the “murder farm,” and when he did it was usually with his sister Jessie.
With our modern and more sophisticated understanding of how human beings respond to constant abuse and fear, we can perhaps better understand the things that Sanford was forced to do by Northcott, including the murders of Lewis and Nelson Winslow. We can perhaps also find sympathy for a boy who was betrayed most of all by those who should have been protecting him. I hope he found some happiness and peace in his later life.
Sarah Northcott: Gordon's mother and accomplice, it was she who killed Walter Collins. Click here for larger image.
FEBRUARY 8, 2009: SEARCHING FOR THE "MURDER FARM" HOUSE
ASH: We traveled all up and down Wineville Avenue, which is the road along which we were told the Northcott farm was located. According to an October 30, 2008, article in Press-Enterprise newspaper, the original farmhouse is still standing but we were unable to locate it. We were told different things about where the house is. One clue said that it lies on Wineville Road across the street from a new elementary school... but we couldn’t find the school either so maybe we were completely screwed up or in the wrong place along the road. [WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Mira Loma was originally called Wineville during the time of the Northcott murders. Residents actually changed the name after the scandal. The only indication of the town’s original name is Wineville Road.] Unfortunately, there were no GPS coordinates for the house either. We know it’s still there however, because we saw a news report for it online. The entire area is so different looking from the time of the murders that it was really hard to tell. The area that looked the most like the historical photos we were using was at the south end of Wineville Road where it intersects with Holmes Road and 68th street. The house sat some distance off the road so maybe it was hidden in the neighborhoods on the east side of Wineville? If anyone knows if we were in the right place, please email us! This was a disappointment, however, as all of us were interested in just feeling the vibe of the place as we had done with the Black Dahlia dump site in Los Angeles.
After this, we tried to find the dump site location where the body of the “headless Mexican” was found in La Puente, which was about 30 miles to the west of Mira Loma. Gordon Northcott said that he dumped the body in a ditch by the side of the road. He thought the name of the road was Douglas Road but we couldn’t find a Douglas Road in La Puente so this was also a dead end. None of the newspaper article we found on this crime stated exactly where the body was found. Oh well. It was still kind of an interesting day!
[WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Our team couldn't find the "murder farm" house, but other's have. Click here to see a very interesting local news story on the house which still stands to this day.]
FEBRUARY 15, 2009: MISSION SAN FERNANDO REY DE ESPANA, SAN FERNANDO, CALIFORNIA
POLARIS: Before we departed California entirely, it only seemed right to spend some time examining the legends of the state’s numerous Spanish missions, a good number of which are said to be haunted. The haunting stories of many of them are scant on detail, however, so rather than visit every one, we decided instead to choose one in particular and spend a day at the site. The obvious choice was the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana, which is located along a quaint, tree-lined street surrounded by public parks and residential neighborhoods in San Fernando, just north of Los Angeles.
The mission was hastily established in 1787 by Padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, a Franciscan priest who was instrumental in coordinating the entire mission system in California. The complex was built partially to close a gap in the El Camino Real (Spanish for “The Royal Road”), the trail which would eventually connect the state’s twenty-one different missions plus a handful of pueblos, presidios and other important Spanish settlements. But the mission had its problems right from the beginning. Padre Lasuen’s first obstacle was finding a suitable spot to build when so much of the area had already been claimed by other settlers. The mayor of Los Angeles, Francisco Reyes, obliged by donating part of his land and within two months a simple adobe church had been erected on the site. Padre Lasuen was an innovator when it came to mission industry, so he quickly established a community that was able to produce hides, soap, cloth and raise livestock to help finance the facility’s expansion. As the wealth of the mission grew, so did the number of visitors. Unfortunately, the Spaniards were heavily dependent on the work of neophytes and Native Americans, two populations which were rapidly dwindling. After the earthquake of 1812, there were not enough Indian workers to effect repairs or provide supplies to the large military outpost that was billeted nearby. As a result, the structure was left in disrepair and it continued to crumble as the years went by. By 1845, the land and the buildings were converted to secular uses, including the establishment of a hospice and a pig farm which was located in the mission’s courtyard. Additional indignities followed over the years, including the floors being dug up during the Gold Rush years by prospectors seeking their fortunes.
It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that there was a renewed interest in repairing the mission and renovating its grounds. Between 1940 and the mid-1970s, construction continued on the property to restore it to its original appearance. It is not know exactly when the haunting legends began, but it could be assumed that they loosely coincided with this era when more (living) people were inhabiting the area and would have been witness to strange phenomenon. Curiously, despite the mission’s reputation, our team wasn’t able to find many independent sources that documented the haunting phenomenon, although the mission is mentioned on numerous ghost-hunter [websites] and in guide books. One newspaper article we did find, dating from 2007, noted that “the San Fernando Mission in Mission Hills, neighboring Bishop Alemany High School and Brand Park all seem to be hot spots for paranormal activity.” The high school is to the east of the mission and the park is directly to the south, so the three locations roughly form a triangular location and are all walking distance from each other. Intrigued by the thought that our haunted mission might just be the tip of the paranormal iceberg, we considered investigating all three sites. The article, however, was extremely scant on empirical data and consisted entirely of accounts told by former students of the high school. Suddenly, our enthusiasm began to wane.
I’m not saying that high school students can’t be reliable witnesses, but the narratives in the article were dubious. Witnesses recalled rumors of a mysterious woman in white who drifted through the area looking for her lost baby. Students would dare each other to call her name at midnight, which was supposed to make the specter appear out of thin air. The obvious problem was that this is a retelling of the popular and widely-documented La Llorona urban legend. As we travel about, we are constantly encountering this very old tale, often adapted to give it some local flavor. Other high schoolers whispered that the hauntings were related to an old Native American burial ground and that’s why the school’s mascot was an Indian. An interesting theory, but hardly proof. While the Mission San Fernando does have an expansive cemetery in which there are undoubtedly Native Americans interred, we weren’t able to find any documentation about an all-Native American cemetery which predated the original mission. Other missions along the El Camino Real – most notably the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel located about thirty miles to the south – do have large indian cemeteries nearby so the facts may be confused by “witnesses” and have inspired these rumors.
Regardless of the source or veracity of these stories, the idea that the mission grounds are haunted by a lady in white and various Native American spirits has endured. And while it was possible that there are phantoms wandering the nearby high school and public park, experience told us that we were more likely to find strange phenomenon closer to the original construction. With that in mind, we decided to concentrate our limited time on the mission grounds in search of the original adobe structure.
The mission grounds are verdant and beautiful and the architecture is a wonderful example of Spanish Colonialism with its thick adobe walls and red tile roofs. Long peristyles with elegant archways border quaint gardens filled with olive trees and bubbling fountains. But most of these structures were rebuilt starting in 1940 based on the eighteenth century design. Where were the original foundations? In particular, we wanted to see the parts of the mission that still existed prior to the 1940 reconstruction. Author George Wharton James had visited the site in the second decade of the twentieth century and although the grounds were in ruin, there were plenty of ruins to see. In his book, The Old Franciscan Missions of California, James described the Mission San Fernando:
“The church at San Fernando is in a completely ruined condition... The thickness of the walls allows the working out of various styles in these outer and inner arches that is curious and interesting. They reveal the individuality of the builder, and as they are all structural and pleasing, they afford a wonderful example of variety in adapting the arch to its necessary functions... At the monastery the chief entrance is a simple but effective arched doorway, now plastered and whitewashed. The double door frame projects pilaster-like, with a four-membered cornice above, from which rises an elliptical arch, with an elliptical cornice about a foot above. From this monastery one looks out upon a court or plaza which is literally dotted with ruins, though they are mainly of surrounding walls...” [Chapter XXVII]
So where could we find what James described? We were fortunate in that we found some mission staff who, after some convincing, agreed to take us “behind the scenes” and show us some of the older parts of the complex. The public areas, including the church interior and main altar, have been beautifully restored to full Catholic splendor. But there are areas within and behind the public facade where you can feel the old colonial mission. The most relevent of these is the Convento, which is perhaps the most intact and authentic of the original structures due largely to its low, sturdy design which resisted the ravages of time and weather. The Convento is probably the most photographed building of the mission, due mainly to its charming portico made up of twenty individual arches. It is also the most likely building to be haunted due to its size, age and the number of souls that must have wandered in and out of the structure during the mission’s operational years. Most of the interior areas we were shown in the Convento and elsewhere were cold, dimly-lit and smelled of wet earth. Some of the walls were plastered, others had the original adobe brick exposed. It was in these areas that we tried to sense any lingering spirits although no one on the team claimed any success in this endeavor. To be fair, we were only given about forty-five minutes when an overnight investigation would have been ideal. Considering the Catholic views of ghosts, however, I doubt if this would be allowed. Regardless, I think it’s probably safe to say that disembodied spirits may still wander the mission grounds, although I personally doubt the “woman in white” stories. I would not be surprised to encounter an old Spanish padre or a Native American neophyte, however. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see them on this trip.
FEBRUARY 21, 2009: MISSION LA PURISIMA CONCEPCION, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
MERIDIAN: This [was] the second stop on our informal tour of the haunted Spanish missions of California and it was a far cry from what we were expecting after spending a day at the Mission San Fernando. Where the Mission San Fernando was a gorgeous piece of Spanish colonial architecture and the grounds a virtual paradise, the Mission La Purisima Concepcion was peculiar-looking and located in a comparatively arid landscape of rolling hills covered in grass and scrub. The main church building is a long, low structure painted in whitewash. The church’s interior is relatively dim due to only a few, small windows set high into the walls. Even the altar is modest in comparison to the Mission San Fernando, consisting mostly of a draped table framed by niches in the adobe wall which contain the statues of the Virgin Mary and various saints. The wall is beautifully painted in muted pastel colors and depicts various floral and geometric motifs with the occasional cherub thrown in for good measure.
Abutting the church to the southwest is the mission cemetery, which is surrounded by a gaudy pink adobe wall with a free-standing belltower that, frankly, looks like an architectural contrivance. Roughly to the northeast of the church are the expansive workshops and living quarters originally inhabited by the mission’s staff and neophytes. This is also where the infirmary, blacksmith shops, soldier’s quarters, gardens and animal pens are located. All in all, these structures are larger and more complex than the church they were designed to support, underscoring how the Spanish missions were as much economic as religious centers.
It should also be noted that this is actually the second Mission La Purisima Concepcion, with the original structure being located some four miles to the southeast. In December 1812, however, the original mission was heavily damaged by the massive earthquake that rocked California. The site had to be abandoned. (There’s little left of the original church other than some ruined cloister walls which are now hidden among the residential neighborhoods of Lompoc, but if you’re sharp-eyed you will be able to find a simple stone marker noting the location of the vanished structure.) Church officials decided to find a new and better location for the mission and chose the current site. But even the structure we visited is not original. Starting in 1834, the mission changed hands a number of times and the property was neglected, causing the adobe structure to crumble and fall. By 1933, there was little left of the buildings aside from mounds of deteriorating earth and it ultimately took the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corp to rebuild the structure to its original configuration. Today, the mission has been completely restored and furnished to look as it did during the early nineteenth century. However, we walked through the mission knowing it was a reconstruction and this reality did color our take on the haunting legends that surround the place. To my mind, the fact that the building was rebuilt is important due to the common theories on how true hauntings are formed. If you think of haunting phenomenon as a kind of “historical recording” that replays at random intervals, then the physical environment probably plays an important role in that process. The environment becomes the receptacle that traps, stores and transmits the psychic energy that causes the haunting. I have always wondered if haunting phenomenon is “damaged” if the original environment – in this case the walls of the mission – are destroyed or removed. I don’t have an answer for that question, of course, but it crossed my mind repeatedly as I walked the mission grounds.
This being said, the mission is considered haunted by no fewer than nine separate ghosts which include Spanish padres, Indian neophytes and soldiers in full armor. Many of the haunting legends are tied back to a string of tragedies that were said to have taken place on the property, including murders, epidemics, natural disasters and Indian attack. Some of these events we were able to confirm, others we were not. The various earthquakes and floods that hit the area are easy enough to track; and there were at least two notable uprisings by Native Americans in 1781 and 1824. The latter event resulted in the Spanish being ejected from the mission and a large part of the complex being burned down. There were a number of deaths as a result of the initial fighting and even more when the vengeful Spaniards began executing the locals. Dennis William Hauck’s mighty paranormal travel tome, HAUNTED PLACES, states that one of the ghosts on the property is that of a murdered man named Don Vicente. We were not able to find any burial record of such a man. But Don Vicente is a common Spanish name so it’s possible that someone with that name died on the property and we just weren’t able to find him.
Hauck’s book also claims that one of the ghosts is that of Fray Mariano Payeras, the padre who was instrumental in moving the mission to its current site after the disastrous earthquake of 1812. Payeras saw the mission (at both locations) through many trials, including epidemics and Indian revolt. His techniques for handling these situations were typically Spanish for the time – a blend of deep compassion and utter ruthlessness. Still, his contribution to the mission earned him the honor of being buried beneath the main altar, although Hauck’s book claims that only the top half of his body is there. We assume this story is true as his tomb is clearly marked here and we found documentation listing another tomb for him at the Mission San Fernando. This is not as strange as it might first sound, as the practice of interring pieces of a holy person’s body (but not necessarily the entire body) in different places extends back to the earliest days of the Church. Although the practice is now forbidden, there are plenty of early missions that contain relics of the same person’s body, whether it be a hand, a severed head, or in Payeras’s case, everything from the waist down. And Payeras’s remains are not alone. There are nearly fifty other known individuals buried on or around the mission grounds. With that in mind, it’s not unreasonable to think that at least some of their ghosts are still floating through the hallways and gardens.
FEBRUARY 27, 2009: MISSION SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA, NEAR KING CITY, CALIFORNIA
RUNE: This is the last stop on our official tour of the haunted Spanish missions of California. From here, we continue north toward Oregon with one prolonged visit to the cold, snowy country where Bigfoot is said to roam. As the last stop, the Mission San Antonio made us work to uncover its ghostly secrets. [It] is located in the middle of the expansive Fort Hunter Liggett military base and is accessible only by following a maze of winding roads and broaching various checkpoints. When we pulled up at the first of these in “The Camels,” which those of you who visit the site often will remember are modified Japanese military vehicles, we raised eyebrows and inspired many questions. The checkpoint guards were very curious and polite, but they thoroughly checked us over. They were even interested in our work, with one asking us if we were “those ghost guys on the Discovery Channel.”
The mission is located in a beautiful pastoral valley and really gives you a feel for how life at these isolated complexes must have felt during the 18th century. Unlike the other missions we have visited, there is no town connected with Mission San Antonio. The closest municipality of any size is King City about thirty miles away. The layout of the mission is roughly square in shape, with the buildings enclosing a beautiful courtyard with expertly manicured lawns, flower beds and rows of trees. Personally, I thought it felt more like a college campus than a mission... something akin to the former Camarillo State Hospital site. Like the other missions we’ve seen, the Mission San Antonio was also reconstructed after being allowed to fall into ruins in the late nineteenth century. It is one of the more picturesque buildings due to a brick facade on the church which is supposed to be unique among the California missions. Other architectural elements are clearly borrowed from other sites, however, including the long convento with his palisade of many arches.
Aspects of the church’s history are similar to those we’ve previously visited, with the mission becoming a center of commerce, military strength and European culture in what was otherwise an untamed wilderness. At its height, the mission employed over a thousand neophytes and had twice as many head of cattle. There was an understandable amount of resentment from the local Native Americans about the mission’s presence which resulted in one “attack.” The assault resulted in one neophyte being injured and the offenders being flogged and imprisoned. Other than this, the mission’s past appears to be rather unremarkable. Yet we chose to come here based on the uniqueness of its haunting legend. For the Mission San Antonio is said to be prowled not only by the expected cadre of dead friars, brutalized Indians and women in white... but also by a headless horsewoman. Yes, that's right. A horse-WOMAN!
Once again, the proof of the headless horsewoman legend was sparse to nonexistent. The unusual phantom is catalogued in Dennis William Hauck’s HAUNTED PLACES where he claims that the phantom has been sighted over twenty times, but we could not find any additional information on the legend. That’s not to say that there aren’t other legends from the Spanish era about ghosts on horseback, even if they are not particularly headless. Consider this ghostly tale as printed in the Pasadena Star-News in 1971:
“Don Jose Antonio Morillo, owner of the Rancho Las Bolsas, part of the great Nieto holdings, had a young vaquero who early every morning would ride out from the ranch house to lead cattle.
One morning the family was surprised to see him dash into the yard, clinging to the pommel of his saddle in a dazed condition. They pulled him off his horse and carried him into his bunk where he sank into a stupor. When able to speak Don Jose asked what had scared him so. But the young fellow refused to explain the cause of his fear.
Next morning and for several consecutive mornings – the very same thing happened, each time the faithful horse bringing home the stupefied rider, who, on recovering, still refused an explanation. Finally under threat of punishment the young vaquero told this strange tale: No sooner had he ridden a short distance from the house than a man would suddenly appear at his side, and struggle to get into the saddle with him. At this point the fellow would always black out!
Don Jose advised the youth to ride out as usual in the morning, and when the mysterious figure appeared, turn his head away and say: “In the name of God, I ask you, are you of this world or the next, and who are you?”
Early the next morning the reassured vaquero rode off in high spirits, but back he came in the same dazed condition. When he regained consciousness, he said the same man appeared and he put the fateful questions to him. The apparition answered in a voice that sounded as if it came from a big hollow gourd, “I am Jose Antonio Nieto, and I owe a horse to the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel!”
Don Jose Morillo then went out and, selecting one of his finest horses, set out for the Mission. Then he turned the animal over to the astonished Padre Sanchez with what seemed on the face of it, a very strange explanation. He also promised the padre 20 calves at rodeo time, for masses to be said for the troubled soul of his late, lamented father-in-law Don Jose Antonio Nieto.
The vaquero – he kept right on working at Las Bolsas – in fact he became majordomo in God’s good time – for the apparition never bothered him again.” [pages 17, 22]
It was difficult to date this story, as no indication is given by the Star-News as to when this legend began. What we can extrapolate comes from some of the historical references in the story. For example, the Mission San Gabriel was established in 1771 and the Rancho Las Bolsas was granted to a man named Manuel Nieto by the Spanish governor of California in 1784. We were not able to find historical references for a Don Jose Morillo or Jose Antonio Nieto, but there was a Father Sanchez who was posted at the Mission San Gabriel in 1775 and died there in 1803. Since this man is referenced in the legend, we can assume that the tale dates to the late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth century.
Additionally, the Mission San Antonio is a contemporary of the Mission San Gabriel – both having been established in the same year – so it is reasonable to assume that tales of ghostly horsemen with connections to the local missions were already in place. Such tales must have been common in an age when horses were the primary source of transportation – in the same way we have a number of popular legends today about phantom automobiles or ghostly hitchhikers. So does this mean that a headless horsewoman actually roams the pastures around the Mission San Antonio? Actually, I suspect it actually means the opposite.
If we assume that phantom horsemen tales were popular stories among the early Spaniards, then the “headless rider” detail may be a more recent invention. Washington Irving’s famous tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was published in 1820 and was an immediate success. Since then, headless horsemen have become a staple of American folklore and have “appeared” in plenty of areas outside of upstate New York where Irving based his story. The tale of the headless horsewoman of the Mission San Antonio has no traceable details or history attached to it, so it is most likely a variant of an old legend. Too bad. I would really like to see a headless horseman. Or woman. Whatever.
ASH: As we draw ever closer to the Oregon border, we can’t resist stopping off to camp in the forest where Bigfoot is said to live. This should be a very interesting experience as the weather is very bad in northern California right now and we just got some severe weather warning about rain and snow in the mountains. These storms are expected to start late this weekend and continue all through next week. We are hoping to get into the area and set up our camp before the bad weather hits. I’m kind of excited about the snow, as we don’t get very much of it in Hawai’i unless you go to the really high mountains on the Big Island.
Our destination is the Bluff Creek campground located in the middle of the forest to the east of the Redwood National Park. Bluff Creek is famous because that’s where the man named Roger Patterson filmed a female Bigfoot in 1967. There have been lots of reported sightings of Bigfoot in this area ever since and people have made casts of footprints and heard strange noises from unidentified animals. The camp ground is to the south of the place where Mr. Patterson actually saw the monster, but there are no roads into the area he went so you either have to hike or take a horse. We don’t have any horses. If Bigfoot [is] out there, hopefully all the new snow will make it easier for us to see his tracks. Or we’ll just be very, very cold.
MARCH 8, 2009: SNOW, SNOW, SNOW... AND A FEW REVELATIONS!
RUNE: We arrived in the coastal range mountains and settled into our campsite just in time for the snow to hit. It snowed the first night and has continued to snow every night since, and although the weather has not turned dangerous, it has effectively kept us confined to our tents and vehicles. Shivering. May I say this however: I now truly appreciate The Camels. Our very expensive all-terrain vehicles have had little opportunity before now to prove themselves, but the snow and tenuous road conditions have reversed all that. Provided the snows don’t get so deep as to completely strand us here, I feel that we could drive out safely in The Camels at any time. And if the forecasts, which we were watching hourly, had turned worse we would have probably done so and retreated to the lower elevations of Redding, Chico or even back to Sacramento. The forced respite has allowed us the opportunity to talk and reflect however. January marked the two year anniversary of our California adventure. If you extrapolate that out and figure that we will take nearly as long on every American state, well, we can expect to end our tour of the paranormal sites of the USA in a century. That did not seem to be a wise use of our time, and so the team has decided to look for opportunities to travel to other places that may not be on the official itinerary. We did this with our recent visits back to Kaua’i and onto Colorado and those trips worked out well. So, I guess I would tell those of you reading this to expect us to spend shorter times in different places but also to expect more places on the intinerary. Now we just need to bag us a Sasquatch!
MARCH 11, 2009: THE OCE TEAM'S SOMEWHAT INEXACT SCIENCE OF TRACKING BIGFOOT
POLARIS: We have taken advantage of the heavy snowfall to read up on our quarry and have come to a few conclusions about the status of Bigfoot in the United States.
First, we are in a good area for having an encounter with the hairy beast. Humboldt County (where we are currently located) and nearby Trinity County, California, have some of the highest reports of Bigfoot sightings in the state. Northern California in general is a Bigfoot hotspot, ranked second only to Washington state for the number of sightings. (Oregon, where we are headed next, is third on that list.)
Second, there are probably as many amateur Bigfoot hunters out there as there are amateur ghost hunters. This is both a positive and negative thing. More eyes and ears on the ground mean a greater possibility of someone actually gathering definitive evidence on the animal’s existence. But, there’s also a phenomenon that occurs among amateurs which we affectionately refer to as the “Fox Mulder I Want To Believe Effect.” Put simply, the desire to witness something amazing becomes so strong for some amateurs that everything they see, hear and experience automatically becomes amazing. Open-minded skepticism quickly falls to the wayside.
Third, as a team we are woefully ill-equipped to track Bigfoot. There’s not one among our small crew that has any kind of experience or background in tracking or primate studies. That being said, we’re still here and will hope to do the best we can. Many Bigfoot encounters are actually experienced by untrained amateurs who just happened to be at the right place at the right time. We hope to be one of them. Due to the recent snows, there are many other people in the area and we’ve already had the good fortune of seeing deer, raccoon and rabbits. The fresh cover of white powder also gives us an unblemished account of what’s been wandering around our camp during the night. No fourteen-inch apelike footprints at this point, but we never know what the days ahead will bring!
RUNE: Just a quick note about our unfortunate lack of progress. Our campsite is being regularly visited by raccoons, but nothing more unusual than that. Now that the snow has melted down a little, we are going to start venturing out from camp and exploring the surrounding area. We found online a report from 2007 from this same location about an unknown animal waking campers with various hoots and howls. This apparently happened to the reportees on several successive mornings, but they were never able to identify the animal. We haven’t heard anything unusual yet, but we are keeping the recording equipment at the ready should it occur.
RUNE: No vocalizations yet but we did hear a strange knocking noise last night just around nightfall. It sounded at first like someone breaking tree branches, but after listening more closely we realized it was someone knocking wood on wood. This is apparently a phenomenon that is closely associated with Bigfeet and other primates. In a forested environment, wood-knocking allows animals to communicate their positions or dangers to others of their kind. Meridian also read that wood-knocking can be used as a way of warning interlopers out of a certain territory. Since we would be the interlopers in this instance, that piece of knowledge was somewhat chilling. The knocking went on for about five minutes. Then Ash decided to answer it by hitting a nearby tree with a heavy fallen branch. We didn’t get any reply and there were no additional incidents of the knocks, so we can only assume that Ash said something unwelcome.
MERIDIAN: Two more incidents of wood-knocking were heard today. The first in early morning and the second after dark. We were able to record the second incident. As before, Ash answered the knocks with some of his own, and then the sound abruptly stopped.
ASH: All of us were woken up really early this morning when a really loud clunk was heard in the camp. There was just one but it was very loud. It definitely sounded like something hitting one of the cars. Everyone got up with flashlights and we looked around but didn’t find anything unusual. The forest was actually very quiet. It wasn’t until the sun came up a couple of hours later that we found that a large rock had hit one of the Camels on the hood and that’s what made the very loud noise. The rock was about the size of a potato. It scratched the paint on the Camel but because the hulls are very tough there wasn’t a dent. Someone obviously threw the rock which is a little scary.
MERIDIAN: After the initial incident with the stone hitting the hood of the Camel the day before yesterday, the team felt it prudent to sleep in shifts and do so from inside the Camels. There was no proof, of course, that the rock hurled into our camp was done so by an eight-foot antediluvian primate. All we know is that the rock would have really hurt had it hit one of us, so into the Camels we went! Rune and I set up in one vehicle and Ash and Polaris in the other. We left the camp alone so it looked like we were still using the tents. I think it was actually colder inside the vehicles than it was the tents, but we felt a little more secure and had a good view of the area using our night-vision equipment. We kept in contact with each other via walkie-talkies.
Around 1:30 a.m., we briefly heard something that sounded like more wood-knocking. Polaris and Ash heard it too, but neither team could ascertain what direction it was coming from. After that, it was quiet for about 45 minutes until something began to clatter through the tree branches above the camp. Our first thought was either raccoons or squirrels running across the branches, but it sounded too large and heavy for those animals. Several more clatters followed, and this time it definitely sounded like something falling through the branches and breaking off dead wood as it fell. Then something large and dark dropped very close to the embers of our campsite fire, or about six feet from the Camel occupied by me and Rune. We almost jumped out of our skin because we heard and saw it fall but where not able to identify what it was. It was too small to be an eight-foot antediluvian primate, however. Feeling brave, Polaris and I decided to leave the vehicles and investigate. What we found was another rock, but this one was much larger than the one the hit the Camel on the 18th. It was roughly the size of a small cantaloupe and at this point it was clear to everyone that we were under some kind of attack. Within a few moments of being outside, we heard more rocks crashing through the tree branches above us so we quickly hurried back to the vehicles and locked ourselves in. The assault continued for about three minutes, with at least two stones striking the vehicles and one striking the boys’ tent.
Although we were all outfitted with the night-vision gear and had similarly equipped cameras, we had no luck spotting our assailant. Afterwards, no one could sleep so we all stay vigilant until dawn broke. There were no further incidents, however.
POLARIS: After realizing that someone – or something – had lobed some rather hefty rock[s] into our midst during the night of March 20, we went sleuthing to find the spot from where the rocks originated. The best and most obvious [area] for observing our camp or flinging anything down upon us is from the [hillside] to the southeast which is about fifty yards [approximately 46 meters] from our vehicles. We waited until the sun was up and then we climbed the hill and did an intensive search of the area. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, we called it a day and settled in for another night of possible wood-knocking and stone-throwing. But nothing happened other than Ash heard a strange series of whooping noises about 3 a.m. We were not able to identify the animal who made these noises, but it is interesting that campers in this area in 2007 noted hearing similar sounds.
After breakfast this morning, we set out again to survey the area. There are relatively few other campers in the area so we had no outside witnesses to our strange experiences. By this time it had been over a day since the most recent snowfall and the snow was beginning to crust over or even melt in some places. As we wandered around, however, Rune stumbled onto some large tracks to the north of our campground. With none of us being experienced trackers, we debated whether the tracks were those of a bear or a dog. We finally decided that they must be bear and moved on. Along the way, we found lots of deer tracks and small animals such as squirrels and possibly rabbits.
As we wandered north into the gentle forested hills and crevasses now trickling with melting snow, we came upon some very unusual prints. These were much more reminiscent of human footprints as they ran one in front of the other with a long stride. Although the melting conditions had obscured details, some of the clearer prints seemed to show toes. Whatever made these prints was obviously bipedal... or was at least able to walk on two legs for an extended period of time. The stride appeared to be too wide for a bear or a person, so we chose to follow it into the woods.
The trail took us through a moderately wooded area where most of the snowfall was still pristine. The tracks led us down the south face of a shallow ravine where the animal appeared to step across a narrow stream and then climb the opposite face which was quite steep and covered in deep snow. Nearby we found a line of deer tracks running perpendicular to these footprints. The comparison between the two was telling, The deer tracks were tiny and left a rather shallow impression. The tracks we were following were clearly from a much heavier animal as their depth measured up to three inches into the snow and mud. Some of the cleaner tracks clearly showed “toes” just as the cleft in the deer’s hoof was also visible. Many of the tracks had begun melt around the edges which didn’t give a reliable outline or size to them. We photographed and filmed them as much as we could. On average, the length of the footprints appeared to be approximately 14 inches. [Click here to see the video on this discovery.]
So were these Bigfoot tracks? The simple answer is – I don’t know. However, I don’t feel that what we found were bear or human tracks for several reasons:
There were few other humans around with the next closest campers being about a quarter of a mile to the southwest. The tracks were found to the north of our camp. Also, the tracks seemed to show toe and heel prints in some places, as opposed to a track or tread pattern left by boots or shoes.
The gait of the animal was very wide, approximately 5 feet at its widest instance. The only way we could get close to imitating this gait was to take flying-leaps between steps. With this in mind, it seems unlikely that the prints were produced by a human being walking in a normal fashion.
The tracks were clearly left by a bipedal animal. This would seem to rule out a bear, since those mammals walk upright only for short distances and usually just to check out the surrounding area.
The animal’s ability to jump the icy stream and scale the steep incline beyond would seem to indicate a creature better equipped to deal with the environment. In other words, something that actually lives here. The deer tracks we found also scaled this incline, but even they took a more gentle route along the face of the hill rather than straight up. We were not able to follow the footprints from this point on due to the treacherous nature of the terrain.
Finally, if you consider the [other] experiences we’ve had here that are indicative of Bigfoot – the wood-knocking and stone-throwing – it seems possible that some unidentified animal was investigating our campsite. Although we originally thought the stones were coming from the southeast, they could have been as easily thrown from the treeline to the north, although the assailant would not have had as good a view of his targets and would have needed a very powerful throwing arm.
After being thwarted by the steep snow-covered incline over which the large footprints vanished, we spent the rest of the day trying to pick up the trail by hiking around the offending hill. This did us no good as the forest became very thick and the terrain even more steep and slippery. Whatever had left the prints made good its escape once it got to the top of that hill. Hell, for all we know he was up there laughing at us the entire time!
FROM THE OUTCAST EARTH YOUTUBE PAGE:
The Outcast Earth team presents its fourth video. This one, entitled "Bigfoot Hunt In Northern California," was filmed by the team in the Bluff Creek area of Humboldt County. The 5-minute video is narrated by Polaris and documents a trail of large, unidentified footprints the team found in the snow after several nights of hearing strange noises and having their campsite pelted with stones. This is the same general area where the very famous "Patterson Bigfoot Film" was shot in 1967 and where there have been multiple sightings of the large creature over the past sixty year.
MARCH 23, 2009: OUR BIGFOOT HUNT COMES TO A CLOSE!
MERIDIAN: Having endured the cold, the snow, bad food and barrages of rocks thrown at us from parties unknown, I have to say that our Bigfoot Hunt was definitely worth it! Did we find definitive proof that a large unknown primate wanders the forests of the great Northwest? Not even close, but it was still a pretty exciting odyssey despite the long intervals of down time. It’s now been three days since we came upon the large footprints in the snow, and we have had no further contacts of any kind. The wood-knocking appears to have stopped and thankfully no one’s throwing rocks at us anymore either. It’s time to move on. Oregon beckons. Fare thee well, oh mighty Sasquatch! We wish you well!
POLARIS: We are back in one of the great California deserts again, driving toward the Salton Sea, which is a large inland sea about an hour from the Arizona border. The scenery reminds me of our 
ASH: We spent all day today driving around the edge of the Salton Sea, which is a huge inland lake in the middle of Nowhere, California. I was actually surprised by how many people live here, but apparently it is nothing compared to what it was supposed to be. In the 1950s and 1960s, this was supposed to be one of the biggest and best resort areas in the state. They even built a city called Salton City here with all the roads and street signs and light posts, thinking that people from 
RUNE: If I were an old prospector wandering through the dusty hills of the California desert for years in a futile search for gold, I suppose my mind might wander as well. During those little jaunts out of my body, perhaps my mind would begin to see all sorts of things in the valleys and mountains around me. A cool oasis with tall palm trees waving in the wind, for example? Or maybe a tavern staffed by beautiful dancing girls with feathers in their hair? But a Spanish galleon? Okay, at that point, perhaps my flight of fancy had begun to move more toward heat stroke. But, believe it or not, there are very old and enduring stories of large ocean-going vessels found strangely abandoned in the sands of what is today the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, located about 90 miles to the east of 
According to the “Lost Ship” myth, the galleon somehow became stranded or disabled and the crew perished leaving behind a hull filled with gold and other precious items. The treasure hunter whose name is most closely associated with the myth is Charles Carroll Clusker, a professional prospector who probably first read about the ship in an enigmatic article that appeared in an 1870 edition of the Los Angeles News. That article read, in part:
One of the first questions that popped into my head upon hearing this legend was whether gold ever appears black in color. I had never heard of “black gold,” except as it referred to oil in the title song for the Beverly Hillbillies. I did find references to black gold as a type of alloy that is frequently used today in jewelry, but this is a human creation and I don’t know if similar processes occur in nature. One source for the Peg Leg legend described the gold as being “stained black,” but then I’ve heard that gold is one element that does not stain or tarnish. Could Peg Leg’s gold have been iron pyrite (Fool’s Gold) which often has a dark tint to it and it commonly found lying on the surface of the ground? Or was the gold embedded in another mineral like quartz which was a darker color? Or am I spending way too much time worrying about a detail in a story that is at most the drunken babbling of a chronic liar? Up until his death in 1866, Peg Leg continued to claim that the gold-strewn butte remained untouched and maintained a profitable cottage industry in selling “treasure maps” to unsuspecting rubes. 
It was during these early months that Northcott first tried his hand at killing human beings. Sanford would later tell authorities about Northcott bragging about murdering a local miner for money and in February 1928, the teenager was shown the severed head of a Mexican youth which Northcott was carrying around in an old tar bucket. Northcott would later refer to this victim by the names “Jose Gonzales” or “Alvin Gothea” although his true identity was never established despite the efforts of local police to tie him several missing teenage boys. The nude body of the youth was found alongside a road in La Puente, California, on February 2, 1928. As for the decapitated head, Sanford testified that Northcott unceremoniously threw it into a bonfire on the farm, smashed up the remaining pieces after it was left to cook for several hours and buried the fragments on the farm. The discovery of the headless body received only scant media attention at the time, but would become more relevant in the months ahead:
Dear mother and dad: We are going to Mexico to make a lot of money making yachts and airplanes. A woman gave us something to eat. Don’t worry. We will be O.K.
Lewie and Nelse
MERIDIAN: While the movie CHANGELING dealt largely with the abduction and killing of little Walter Collins, Northcott’s favorite victim and unwilling accomplice – Sanford Clark – played a relatively minor role. But Clark’s participation in the events at the “murder farm” were pivotal and at the time of their discovery, there was probably little public sympathy for the fifteen-year old who had been forced into such brutal and degrading behavior by Northcott. It was widely known, of course, that Sanford had actively participated in the killing of the the Winslow brothers and a photo showing Sanford pointing to the chair 
in which the brothers sat at the time of their murders was widely published. Sanford was also the principle witness against Northcott and had to endure a second round of humiliation by taking the stand in court and being interrogated by his uncle personally. (Northcott acted as his own counsel during most of his murder trial. I sincerely doubt that any child would be forced to endure this kind of treatment today, as our modern criminal justice system goes to great lengths to protect child-victims from ever having to face their abusers again after their rescue. The fact that Sanford did this, day after day, having to describe how Northcott repeatedly assaulted him and then defend his actions to Northcott himself bears witness to a real inner strength.) There is a portion of the trial transcript in which Northcott mocks Sanford’s participation in the murder of the Winslow boys and, as is typical of a murderous pedophile, attempts to blame his victim for his own victimization:
NORTHCOTT: “You must have quite a good opinion of my ability.”
It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that there was a renewed interest in repairing the mission and renovating its grounds. Between 1940 and the mid-1970s, construction continued on the property to restore it to its original appearance. It is not know exactly when the haunting legends began, but it could be assumed that they loosely coincided with this era when more (living) people were inhabiting the area and would have been witness to strange phenomenon. Curiously, despite the mission’s reputation, our team wasn’t able to find many independent sources that documented the haunting phenomenon, although the mission is mentioned on numerous ghost-hunter [websites] and in guide books. One newspaper article we did find, dating from 2007, noted that “the San Fernando Mission in Mission Hills, neighboring Bishop Alemany High School and Brand Park all seem to be hot spots for paranormal activity.” The high school is to the east of the mission and the park is directly to the south, so the three locations roughly form a triangular location and are all walking distance from each other. Intrigued by the thought that our haunted mission might just be the tip of the paranormal iceberg, we considered investigating all three sites. The article, however, was extremely scant on empirical data and consisted entirely of accounts told by former students of the high school. Suddenly, our enthusiasm began to wane.
The mission grounds are verdant and beautiful and the architecture is a wonderful example of Spanish Colonialism with its thick adobe walls and red tile roofs. Long peristyles with elegant archways border quaint gardens filled with olive trees and bubbling fountains. But most of these structures were rebuilt starting in 1940 based on the eighteenth century design. Where were the original foundations? In particular, we wanted to see the parts of the mission that still existed prior to the 1940 reconstruction. Author George Wharton James had visited the site in the second decade of the twentieth century and although the grounds were in ruin, there were plenty of ruins to see. In his book, The Old Franciscan Missions of California, James described the Mission San Fernando:
1834, the mission changed hands a number of times and the property was neglected, causing the adobe structure to crumble and fall. By 1933, there was little left of the buildings aside from mounds of deteriorating earth and it ultimately took the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corp to rebuild the structure to its original configuration. Today, the mission has been completely restored and furnished to look as it did during the early nineteenth century. However, we walked through the mission knowing it was a reconstruction and this reality did color our take on the haunting legends that surround the place. To my mind, the fact that the building was rebuilt is important due to the common theories on how true hauntings are formed. If you think of haunting phenomenon as a kind of “historical recording” that replays at random intervals, then the physical environment probably plays an important role in that process. The environment becomes the receptacle that traps, stores and transmits the psychic energy that causes the haunting. I have always wondered if haunting phenomenon is “damaged” if the original environment – in this case the walls of the mission – are destroyed or removed. I don’t have an answer for that question, of course, but it crossed my mind repeatedly as I walked the mission grounds.
One morning the family was surprised to see him dash into the yard, clinging to the pommel of his saddle in a dazed condition. They pulled him off his horse and carried him into his bunk where he sank into a stupor. When able to speak Don Jose asked what had scared him so. But the young fellow refused to explain the cause of his fear.
POLARIS: We have taken advantage of the heavy snowfall to read up on our quarry and have come to a few conclusions about the status of Bigfoot in the United States. 
POLARIS: After realizing that someone – or something – had lobed some rather hefty rock[s] into our midst during the night of 
The trail took us through a moderately wooded area where most of the snowfall was still pristine. The tracks led us down the south face of a shallow ravine where the animal appeared to step across a narrow stream and then climb the opposite face which was quite steep and covered in deep snow. Nearby we found a line of deer tracks running perpendicular to these footprints. The comparison between the two was telling, The deer tracks were tiny and left a rather shallow impression. The tracks we were following were clearly from a much heavier animal as their depth measured up to three inches into the snow and mud. Some of the cleaner tracks clearly showed “toes” just as the cleft in the deer’s hoof was also visible. Many of the tracks had begun melt around the edges which didn’t give a reliable outline or size to them. We photographed and filmed them as much as we could. On average, the length of the footprints appeared to be approximately 14 inches. [Click here to see the video on this discovery.]
