POLARIS: After what seems like an eternity, the OCE team returned to San Diego earlier this week, lighter in members and heavier in burden. It has been a... let’s see, what’s the right word... “challenging” summer and fall to say the least. With the flowers still wilting on Anvil’s grave in New Hampshire, we spent a quiet Thanksgiving together at a Marie Callendar’s restaurant, reflecting on the events of the past month and pondering our next tentative steps. I cannot remember a time since the formation of the team that I felt like we were so weakened as a unit.

That’s not to indicate that Meridian, Rune, Ash and I are any less committed to our mission than we ever were, just that the jabs of Fate have left us all feeling a little punch-drunk. Here we were, in this huge and exciting city on a day dedicated to giving thanks, and we were having a very hard time finding anything to be thankful for.

After all, our adventure of discovery back to Kaua’i turned out to be a farce perpetrated by a man – Jeremy Riposte – who all of us thought was untrustworthy from the very beginning. Granted, we weren’t duped in the end by his con, but I think there was a certain amount of shame on our parts that we believed him for as long as we did. [See The Lost Ruins of Kaua’i.] Then came the strange and heart-wrenching discovery of Anvil’s death followed by the surprise departure of Cipher from the team after two years. Change is an inevitable part of life and we all know that. But let’s face it, human beings do not adjust well or rapidly to these types of events and we sadly are no different. In the end we all decided that the best remedy to our malaise was the get back to work. Toward that end, we made our first investigation since returning to San Diego the haunted Star of India sailing ship. Once we were on board the ship, creeping below decks and trying to detect that cold tingle of a lingering spirit, it seemed to revive us. We may only be four where once we were seven. We may have been battered by deceitful people and cruel providence. But we found that we were – and still very much are – a cohesive team. We are Outcast Earth and we’re back!

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ASH: The Star of India was our first investigation aboard a haunted boat since we were on the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach. It’s a very different kind of ship [from the Queen Mary.] It’s a sailing ship with a big black hull made out of iron. It’s used mainly as a museum now, but for many years it was a working ship that had a lot of strange experiences as it traveled all over the world. When we bought our tickets to get onto the ship, I went over and asked one of the guys who worked here if the ship was really haunted. He said, “Some people believe that,” then he turned his back on me and walked away. What a douche bag. I guess another volunteer overheard it because this old man came over and asked if we would like to have a tour of the ship. He was really nice and showed us all over the ship, pointing out how things worked and letting us test some of the devices and things. When we went down the hatch into the hull of the ship, he asked me if I would like to know about the haunting legends. The big doors thatopened up to the deck above were open, so he pointed up at the [mast] and told me that a teenage boy had fallen from the top and through the open doors and landed on the floor of the storage area below. He said it was like falling off a three-story building. The boy didn’t die right away, but lingered on in a coma for three days until he finally died. They threw his body overboard. The nice volunteer also told me about a Chinese crewman who was also killed on board. Apparently he was crushed by moving chains when he was accidentally trapped in the little room where the ship’s anchor is kept. He said that sometimes people feel these ghosts tap them on the shoulder or sometimes as cold spots, which are things we were also told on the Queen Mary of their ghosts.



MERIDIAN: Our “blind” investigation of the Star of India was inadvertently hampered by Ash’s curiosity and a talkative docent. Usually our team tries to avoid getting too much information on a site prior to our visit as that sometimes taints your intuitive impressions and objectivity. Still, we were intrigued enough by the tales of the ship’s docent to have an extensive tour of the vessel and at one point, Rune even arranged everyone into a circle and had us sit quietly in the hold where the boy Ash wrote about is said to have fallen.

What we know about this individual is limited to information gleaned from modern published sources. Finding original source material has been impossible due to the circumstances around the victim and his death. By all accounts, the young man’s name was John Campbell and he was a native of Glasgow, Scotland. In May 1884, the Star of India (which was called the Euterpe at the time), left the British Isles en route for New Zealand. It wasn’t until several days into the voyage that Campbell and several other young stowaways were found hiding beneath decks. This was not an uncommon occurrence during this era, when many desperately poor people would risk stowing away on board a ship in the hopes of finding a better life at the other end of the journey. Campbell was reportedly an orphan, and probably was living as a vagrant on the streets of Glasgow. The idea of life of the high seas, regardless of how dangerous and difficult it was at the time, may have appealed to him greatly. The Euterpe’s captain chose to have Campbell and his other stowaways pay off their passage in the form of labor, and for the next month the teenager worked as a member of the crew. On June 26th, however, he made a rookie-seaman’s mistake and while climbing the main mast, decided to remove his hands from the ropes and wave at a friend below. He lost his balance and, according to the ship’s docent who gave us the tour, fell the equivalent of three stories because the deck covering was open which allowed him to plummet into the bowels of the ship. Campbell’s legs were horribly mangled and there was no way to save him. He died three days later and was buried at sea.

Reports of paranormal phenomenon onboard are recurring but vague. Visitors and volunteers have frequently reported cold spots or the feeling of unseen hands touching them. We did find one account from the 1920s in which a night watchman repeatedly encountered the specter of a teenage boy, presumably John Campbell. Unfortunately, our team had no way of independently confirming these sightings. There are no contemporary reports about John Campbell’s death or his personal history. If he was an orphan, probably no one in Glasgow noticed his absence and no one in New Zealand was awaiting his arrival. The only people he had to mourn him, or even record his passing, was the Euterpe’s captain and crew. According to the docent, the incident is recorded in the ship’s log but, of course, we weren’t given access to this valuable document. We will have to trust that the other published sources we consulted have their facts straight.

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POLARIS: Our team spent the day at the fascinating Cabrillo National Monument, which is located on Point Loma, a peninsula to the west of the San Diego Bay. The area is rocky and precipitous and washed by a continual ocean breeze. If you wander outside the park’s visitor’s center and face west, you will have an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean. If you wander outside the park’s visitor’s center east, you will have a panoramic view of the naval station on Coronado Island set against the forest of skyscrapers of downtown San Diego. As a result, Point Loma gives you the impression of great isolation and loneliness contrasted against one of the largest and busiest cities in California.

We came to Point Loma primarily to see the famous Nineteenth century lighthouse which is the national monument’s most famous feature. We had heard tales that the old adobe structure is haunted. What we found, however, was something quite different.

The rumors behind the building’s ghost has an interesting, albeit dubious genesis. The structure – known as the “old lighthouse” to differentiate it from the newer and still functioning facility one hundred yards to the south – was conceived and built between the years of 1851 and 1855. It service to the people of San Diego was relatively short-lived however due to a major mistake made during the planning phase. The lighthouse sat too far away from the edge of the peninsula and during heavy fog its beam was completely obscured and useless. Despite this obvious problem, the lighthouse functioned for thirty-six years before it was boarded up and abandoned. Rumors of the structure being haunted appear to have begun shortly after the lighthouse was deserted. A local entrepreneur and early tour guide known as “Reubin,” seems to have started the stories probably as a way of building intrigue and gathering patrons for his business. “Reubin” provided an extensive and dubious history for the entire area, often telling visitors that the lighthouse was constructed by the first Spanish explorers to the area under the leadership of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

Most historians agree that Cabrillo probably had little interest in this area, as it was arid, rocky and hostile to any kind of permanent settlement. Certainly Cabrillo and his men had no hand in the old lighthouse’s construction, as they had been dead for over three-hundred years before the ground-breaking even began on the building. But hey, what’s a few lies between friends, right? Especially if there are some bucks to be had? Our team found out recently that the unscrupulous tourist guide is still alive and well... and apparently living on the island of Kaua’i. But I digress... [WEBMASTER’S NOTE: See The Lost Ruins of Kaua’i and Jeremy Riposte for details.]

For years, “Reubin” spread tales that the lighthouse was haunted by Cabrillo’s shade, apparently because the Spaniard’s lust for land and riches never allowed him to leave the area. When that tale no longer held any water, the ghost “changed” to that of the lighthouse’s longtime caretaker, Robert Israel. Israel was an important figure in old San Diego, even before he was appointed as “keeper of the light.” A man with an extensive military history, he also served as a policeman, jailor and saloon owner. He was given the job as the lighthouse attendant due to his well-deserved reputation for being a disciplined man with an excellent sense of duty, both good traits in a person entrusted to keep ships from ramming into the rocky cliffs around San Diego. Israel lived at the old lighthouse with his family until it was closed on March 23, 1891; and then he continued as the attendant at the new lighthouse until January 1892. He died in 1907 but not at the old lighthouse as it had already been abandoned by that point.

While it is possible that the old lighthouse harbors some residual energy and memories of Israel and his family, there appears to be little evidence of actual haunting phenomenon here despite the persistent rumors. Not that you can blame people for thinking that the structure contains a few ghosts. If a lonely old lighthouse doesn’t conjure thoughts of phantoms, I don’t know what would. Still, there is precious little evidence of ghosts and even anecdotal accounts are scarce. Like the Camarillo Hospital’s “scary dairy,” a spooky structure does not necessary equal spooks.

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POLARIS: Believe it or not, the team hotly debated whether to even include the Whaley House, often lauded as the country’s “most haunted” location, in our paranormal survey of San Diego. The site has been so thoroughly investigated and written about that it seemed like we would have nothing new to contribute. But the house’s reputation as “most haunted” is ultimately what changed our minds. How, after all, could we be in San Diego for any amount of time and justify overlooking the Faberge Egg of haunted places? The Whaley house’s strange history is so long and extensive that it is one of the few sites in the state “certified” the the government as being a haunted. We were not clear on how a place obtains this kind of certification, or what criteria is used to determine the legitimacy of a haunting, but suffice to say that the operators of the Whaley House museum do not shy away from this distinction.

Due to the extreme age of the building (it will celebrate its 160th birthday next year), the team was hard-pressed to find any original documents about the events and subsequent psychical phenomenon at the site. The size of the San Diego community when the house was built – no more than 300 people – also contributed to the lack of documentation. Even Thomas Whaley, the man who built the structure, noted in his letters that “the only paper published here is very small, appearing once a week and does not contain one column of news.” Still, the haunting legend is extremely well-known and has been extensively researched by some very reputable people and organizations.

Curiosity about what unseen forces may be prowling the house and yard is not new. In 1922, esteemed author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle traveled extensively through the United States and made a point to visit the Whaley House. One of the published sources we consulted referred to Doyle as “an extremely competent investigator of paranormal phenomenon” but I beg to differ. Conan Doyle was a devout spiritualist and I think it’s a fair criticism to write that the objectivity and skepticism he imbued in his most famous character – Sherlock Holmes – did not exist in the author, especially during his latter years. As such, I would not tout Conan Doyle’s visit to the Whaley House as proof of a haunting as the man never met a ghost he didn’t champion. But his visit does underscore that even in the early 20th century the Whaley House’s haunted reputation was already firmly in place.

Tales of ghosts may have begun with the Whaley family itself. Thomas Whaley was an Easterner who came to California during the Gold Rush days. Although he originally settled in San Francisco and opened a successful mercantile there, a fire in 1851 ruined that business venture and he relocated to what he hoped would be greener and happier pastures in San Diego. There he open another store, called Tienda California, and began to sell to the town’s growing populace. The store was considered the best in the area and Whaley eventually bought out his partner and began to amass a small fortune. His wealth enabled him to build the community’s first all-brick structure, something so unique at the time that the locals simply referred to the residence as “the brick house.” The site Whaley chose to build on, according to legend at least, was where the old gallows used to stand. It’s not clear whether these gallows were semi-permanent constructions or just some conveniently-tall trees.

Perhaps the most infamous execution to take place on the Whaley homesite occurred some four years before the house was built. Santiago “Yankee Jim” Robinson, who was a scoundrel by all accounts, had been arrested in August 1852 for stealing San Diego’s only pilot boat. A drunken judge ordered him hung for the crime and he was carted up the hillside to the trees a few days later. Unfortunately for Yankee Jim, the lynch mob did not make the rope short enough to give him a quick death and he convulsed in the noose for nearly fifteen minutes until he died.

Although Whaley was in San Diego during Yankee Jim’s execution and would have surely known of the incident, it didn’t seem to bother him that he was building on the same site. Probably he was more interested in the area’s splendid view of the San Diego harbor. He later wrote to his family, and described the new home in loving terms:

“My wife has every comfort and luxury I can afford to give her, and we enjoy ourselves to the envy of many. My parlor is furnished with Brussels carpet and mahogany and rosewood furniture, a mahogany crib for little Frank. We frequently have musical soirees and our house is the resort of most of the best people in the place. My wife is the best little woman in the world, loved by all, she is proficient in music, plays and sings...”
Sometime after the Whaley’s took up residence, they apparently began to hear disembodied footfalls from the second floor of the house. How many experiences the Whaleys themselves had in the house is unknown, but Lillian Whaley, the youngest daughter who lived on the premises until her death in 1953, gave an interview late in life in which she attributed much of the activity to Yankee Jim.

But it is now believed that Thomas and his wife, Anna, also haunt the structure. Thomas’s connection to the house may be one based on lingering anger and need to protect his home. Shortly after he built the house, he leased part of it to the county to serve as the local courthouse. As the town grew, however, many of the residents demanded that the courthouse be moved to the newer part of the community in the south. Whaley and his neighbors resisted, even going as far as barricading the home with sandbags, posting armed guards and planting a small cannon on the front lawn. When Thomas left on a short business trip, however, the “new towners” raided the property and held the Whaley family at gunpoint while they stripped out every legal record and stick of county furniture. Thomas was incensed and tried unsuccessfully for the next two decades to collect damages from the county government. Ironically, it would be San Diego County that ultimately purchased and restored the property after Lillian Whaley’s death. Perhaps Thomas felt that was like salting an old wound?

Over the years, visitors, staff and that scariest of all persons – the “professional psychic” – have identified several other ghosts on the property, including two of the Whaley children (one of whom committed suicide in the house) and the family dog. Reported phenomenon include floating mist-like specters in the back yard, shadows climbing the stairs to the second floor, apparitions that interact with the living, poltergeist phenomenon, reports of touches delivered by disembodied hands and mysterious cold spots.



RUNE: Our visit to the Whaley House was very enjoyable. The home has been lovingly restored and decorated with contemporary furniture and other antiques and gives you the real feeling of what it was like to live in San Diego in the mid-nineteenth century. One of the rooms downstairs has been converted into a cozy gift shop and book store and there are numerous items for sale that extoll the house’s haunted reputation. The interior of the house is dark and chilly. Many of the doors were left open and a cool breeze circulated through the rooms and narrow hallways. It was a little distracting, as all of us were primed for those infamous cold spots or waiting anxiously to see a phantom scamper from one room to another. The only time I thought I actually “saw” some kind of paranormal phenomenon, however, it turned out to be the breeze moving a curtain. Still, the house itself is imbued with history and just walking through the place makes your skin tingle. The room that intrigued me the most was the “playhouse” upstairs, a small chamber filled with wooden chairs facing a low stage complete with velvet curtains and painted backdrops. Apparently the Whaleys saw their domicile as more than a home, it was a civic center that provided musical soirees and dramatic performances. The playhouse was rented to traveling thespians, with the most famous being the Tanner Troupe Theater which provided continuous entertainment during 1868 and 1869. One could almost hear the music and visualize the performers in their odd costumes at work on stage.

The back yard of the Whaley House is a large and impressive garden, still containing some California pepper trees originally planted by Anna Whaley. This would have been the approximate site of the tall trees used for lynching local criminals, although all of that vegetation has long since disappeared. The yard is also the site of the most enduring and erroneous ghost legend surrounding the Whaley house. Apparently the tale was begun by a professional psychic named Sybil Leek who visited in the 1960s, although no precise date is given. Leek was dubbed “Britain's most famous witch” and enjoyed a certain celebrity status among the pagan community during the middle part of the twentieth century. Our research established that Leek was indeed in California during 1965 and 1966 and seemed to be exploring a variety of haunted venues during that time with noted parapsychologist Hans Holzer. Much of this work appears to have been part of a publicity stunt in which Leek “auctioned off” her psychic services through a local radio station. There may have been ample reason for Leek to engage in self-promotion. In 1964, she received some unwelcome notoriety in her native England when the village in which she lived banished her for being a witch.

The Eureka Humboldt Standard newspaper quoted her as saying: “It all started with a woman spreading rumors linking me with black magic and sex orgies. Now the whole village is against me. But I’m a white witch. My witchcraft does nothing but good.” [January 2, 1964 edition]

Leek emigrated to the United States soon after and found a more receptive audience for her unique talents, with Hans Holzer acting as her guide. We were not able to find any contemporary sources that put her at the Whaley House, although it certainly must have been on her agenda.

Leek apparently had a vision while visiting the Whaley House of a young girl with long blond hair playing in the kitchen area. Leek identified this child as Carrie (referred to as Annabelle in some sources) Washburn, a neighbor child who died after she ran into a clothesline in the back yard and the impact crushed her throat. This story has been largely discredited now for a variety of reasons, the least of which is the physical improbability that “clothes-lining” yourself would lead to death. Still, a lot of websites we found report this as a legitimate haunting. While we were at the Whaley House, we asked some of the staff about it and they all told us that the incident did not occur and that no one named Carrie (or Annabelle) Washburn even existed. No one seemed sure how the story originated, but it may have been the creation of a former museum employee who wanted to heighten the haunting legends; or it may have been the fishy musings of Sybil Leek. If the latter is true, then it is reminiscent of Sylvia Browne’s “Johnny Johnson” ghost story originating out of a Toys ‘R Us store in San Jose. In both cases, the professional psychic produced a name, a dramatic story and no historical documentation to back it up. Some excepted the story at face value based on the preeminence of the psychic. Others refuted it as a fictional musing.

From our point of view, the Washburn haunting is extraneous at best. Why do you need to make up a ghost story in a place literally filled with them?

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ASH: After visiting the Whaley House, we couldn’t resist taking a short walk down the road to this very old cemetery. It has actually been here even longer than the Whaley House and it looks really weird because now it’s surrounded by modern stores and roads. The cemetery operated from 1849 to 1887. The oldest graves are just piles of rocks with old wooden crosses on them. Some of the graves have stone markers or even little fences around them, but not many. The most famous person buried here is probably the criminal “Yankee Jim” Robinson who was hung by a posse on the grounds of the Whaley House and then buried here. But we found other graves connected to the house as well, including the dude who ran the theater [Thomas W. Tanner.] The graveyard is supposed to be haunted like the Whaley House. Apparently a lot of the haunting activity began when the city began to build new structures around the graveyard. The put the street and sidewalk over some of the graves, so the part that’s walled in really isn’t the whole area of the cemetery. There’s a brick sign that is a memorial to these people. It reads:

“Remembering the more than 20 men, women and children who lie buried beneath San Diego Ave. Only assemblyman Edward L. Greene was exhumed and placed within the new boundary of El Campo Santo cemetery. These graves were discovered with the use of ground penetrating radar in 1993.”

There are little round metal things in the sidewalk that say “GRAVE SITE” over every one of these lost graves. There are rumors that if you park your car in front of the cemetery you will have a hard time starting it again because the ghosts of the people you’re parked on top of will be pissed with you. Other people have reported seeing ghosts wandering along the inside of the cemetery wall, sometimes mistaking them for the living. The businesses nearby have claimed to have had poltergeists activity like lights turning on and off or computers malfunctioning. Rune and Meridian decided to go ask around about this, but most of the people they spoke to said they didn’t know what we were talking about. We didn’t see any ghosts, but of course we were there in the middle of the day. It’s still kind of spooky though, but I really think that all graveyards are spooky.

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MERIDIAN: Over the years, Outcast Earth has explored many mysteries in which an urban legend came to be accepted as a factual incident. Here in San Diego, however, we found a tragic reality which became the source of an amazing urban legend. Sadly, the real part has to do with the abduction and murder of a small child.

In June 1991, a beautiful little girl named Laura Arroyo disappeared without a sound or a trace when she went to answer the doorbell at her apartment. Ten hours later, her mutilated body was found discarded on a sidewalk in an industrial complex. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten, stabbed and strangled to death. According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “an autopsy determined that Laura died from ‘multiple chop wounds of the head, multiple stab wounds of the chest and abdomen and asphyxiation.’ She was stabbed with such force that the pebbled surface of the sidewalk beneath her body was chipped.” [August 15, 2005]

The grief the community felt about Laura’s abduction and murder were certainly exacerbated by the fact that no arrests were made in the case for over ten years. Then in October 2003, forensics experts with the San Diego Sheriff’s Office used new DNA technology and identified some sperm cells taken from Laura’s body as coming from a neighbor named Manuel Bracamontes. Although Bracamontes had been a suspect from the beginning, the lack of physical evidence and what was later determined to be a false alibi provided by his girlfriend kept him from being arrested. On October 24, 2004, he was apprehended by deputies during a dramatic episode in which he attempted to run over one officer with his Ford Bronco and then took police units on a high-speed chase across the city. He was later convicted of Arroyo’s murder and sentenced to death.

Those who followed this case may argue that there were two miracles that contributed to Bracamontes’ capture and conviction. One was the new DNA gathering technology that allowed him to be positively identified as the killer. The other was what many claimed was a true paranormal experience that came to be known as “The Miracle on Broadway:”

Weeks after the slaying, tens of thousands of people were virtually transfixed by... a ghostly image on an empty Chula Vista billboard that appeared among shadows cast by spotlights on the blank canvas, shadows that passersby swore formed the face of the murdered girl, an image that only appeared after dark.

Police officers sent to investigate the commotion confirmed that the image did appear to be that of a young girl. Motorists flocking to the site created nightly mile-long traffic jams. At one point, visitors to the site number an estimated 30,000 a night.

Many in the largely Hispanic and Catholic area of the city believed that the image was the face of little Laura Arroyo. Different explanations for why Laura’s image would materialize on a billboard along a busy street began to pop up. Some said it was proof of life after death. Others stated that the image was a message from God that would somehow led authorities to the unknown killer. Others didn’t see a face at all. Regardless of the true explanation, the sensation and traffic jams caused by the “vision” ultimately prompted the billboard company to put up an actual picture of Laura with information about her death hoping it would lead to an arrest. The photo stayed up for eight months until Laura’s mother asked it to be removed. By then, the faithful crowds had disappeared as had the ghostly image.

Today, the intersection of Main and Broadway in Chula Vista where the billboard stood is quite unremarkable looking. There’s a gas station, a car dealership, and an apartment complex nearby, but nothing to hint at the tens of thousands of people who flocked here nearly twenty years ago hoping to see a miracle. But was it a miracle?

Well, I can’t honestly answer that question. I think these types of experiences are so personal that it would be up to the individual to answer that question and if the image on the billboard brought some of the grief-stricken masses some comfort, well, I’m okay with that. That being said, however, I would be remiss not to point out that there is a psychological tendency among humans to extrapolate recognizable images out of vague patterns. This is called pareidolia and it is particularly common among religious people all over the world. It is what allows us to see the “man in the moon;” or what allowed a New Mexican woman see an image of Jesus Christ in a tortilla in 1978. Certainly the case of Laura Arroyo’s face materializing on a blank white billboard in the interplay of light and shadow would qualify as pareidolia and I doubt that anyone who saw the image would dispute that. The debate comes in as to WHY this particular child’s face was seen?

There are also multiple examples of urban legends about faces, particularly the faces of girls or young women who have met a tragic end, materializing on all sorts of surfaces. In her book Tales, Rumors and Gossip, author Gail De Vos uses the Laura Arroyo billboard as an example of these recurring legends. De Vos writes that “Christian legendary includes many references to mysterious images or a human face or body, the most notable being the Shroud of Turin, but there are also secular manifestations with images on gravestones and walls [page 127].”

In the end, regardless of the explanation you choose, such images do seem to bring comfort to people during times of great stress. And for Laura Arroyo, maybe they led to justice as well?

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MERIDIAN: If San Jose has the Winchester [House] as its local “spook house,” then the Villa Montezuma would seem to fill that role in San Diego. The Villa Montezuma is a bizarre-looking building complete with towers, Russian onion-domes, tall chimneys and dragon-headed waterspouts. The entire structure is painted a gaudy dark red with green and blue highlights. It kind of hurts to look at it, but I guess this was the fashion during the Victorian era. Naturally, the place is said to be haunted, but those rumors appear to be centered mainly around the Villa’s original inhabitant. In this way it is also very similar to the story of the Winchester House.

The Villa Montezuma was actually financed by two rich brothers named William and John High who constructed it for an up-and-coming musician named Jesse Shepard. Shepard was an interesting character and certainly his personality and interests heavily influenced the haunting rumors around the mansion. Born in England in 1848, Shepard immigrated to the United States with his family while still a baby. As a teenager, Shepard was fascinated by important people with large personalities and the idea of spiritual power and arcane knowledge. While living in Illinois, he is said to have seen in person one of the last of the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Afterwards, he was greatly drawn to Lincoln’s commanding presence and interest in the occult, something he would revisit later when he wrote the biography Lincoln: The Practical Mystic under the pen-name Francis Grierson. When he was a young man, Shepard began to actively ingratiate himself to the rich and powerful. He took a job as a page for the famous American explorer and politician John C. Fremont, a relationship that was rumored to have become sexual in nature and further enhanced Shepard’s desire to move among the rich and powerful.

By age twenty-one, Shepard became convinced that his musical ability was granted by some higher source and left the U.S. to seek his fortune [in Europe.] Whether his musical skill stemmed from God or not, Shepard was a very confident and charismatic man who from that time forward lived a largely nomadic lifestyle, traveling from one great European city to another and entertaining the cultural elite along the way. He was the guest of everyone from the Czar of Russia to the Prince of Wales to literary icons like Alexander Dumas. While in Russia, Shepard became interested in Spiritualism, which was very fashionable in the royal court. He would later study mysticism with Helena Blavatsky, and mesh it with his interest in music. He later claimed he was a medium and would often conduct seances for rich patrons with the assistance of his voice and piano, imitating everything from disembodied voices to the sounds of nature to the din of the modern battleground. A newspaper article from the Oakland Tribune in 1875 described one of Jesse’s performances:

“There was a crowded company at Tubb’s Hotel last evening to witness, or rather hear, the wonderful performances of Jesse Shepard, the musical prodigy. As Jesse claims to be aided by the angels in his efforts, the spiritual element of the population was largely represented... He is a tall young man of about 28 years of age, and physically is an Adonis... His hair is dark, his face long and comely and his eyes large and lustrous... As a pianist and vocalist there is no doubt Mr. Shepard possesses rare ability. After playing a few selections on the piano with the lights all on, he had the piano removed and the gas turned off, leaving the room in total darkness. He sang “Annie Laurie,” in imitation of Kate Hays; a Russian song and one in which he took bass and contralto parts together, accompanying himself on the piano. The performance concluded with a terrific storm of sounds on the piano, in which the barbaric music of the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians was imitated...”

As Shepard’s reputation and popularity grew, he was invited back to the United States and was presented with the gift of the Villa Montezuma by the High brothers. Shepard took an active role in the mansion’s design, and like Sara Winchester in San Jose, incorporated a vast number of strange features and mystical symbolism into the building, including a massive stained-glass window in the music room which depicted him as a medieval Crusader.

Also like the Winchester House, the Villa Montezuma became a gathering place for rich devotees of spiritualism who sat in silent awe of Shepard’s “musical seances.”

A vagabond at heart, Shepard eventually tired of San Diego, sold off the mansion and moved back to Europe. This is where the rumors of a curse and ghostly visitors begins.

Neighbors began to refer to the Villa as “the spook house” and believed that Shepard’s occult practices may have unleashed some malevolent forces. As proof, they point to the owners of the mansion who followed Shepard. The first, San Diego banker David D. Dare, was accused of embezzlement and was then said to have mysteriously vanished without a trace. It should be noted that this rumor is not accurate. Dare, who was a greedy man with poor business sense, absconded to Europe with $200,000 of his bank’s money. According to contemporary newspaper articles, along the way Dare attempted to murder his wife and eventually ended up living in Alexandria, Egypt, under an assumed identity. Dare died a decade later in Athens, Greece, having successfully eluded American law enforcement the entire time. In light of these facts, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Villa Montezuma ruined Dare. More likely, Dare was a ruined human being long before he moved into the mansion.

The second “victim” lost the house due to foreclosure (sorry, that sadly happens without the help of vengeful spirits) and another suffered a very ordinary bankruptcy. The final victim was silent film actress Amelia Jaeger, who in her declining years suffered from severe mental illness. Again, this appears to have been a pre-existing condition and not one induced by the Villa Montezuma. Outcast Earth was able to confirm that Ms. Jaeger, due to her dementia, attempted to sell the Villa for a mere $12,000. The sale was reversed by a court in 1970 and the buyers were rebuked by the court for taking advantage of a demented old woman.

Eventually, the house wound up as the property of the city and was transformed into a museum and historical landmark. The Villa is open on a limited basis to the public for tours, but ongoing renovation prohibits access to the entire property. A lot of the sources we used for information about the Villa list it as a haunted place, but there appears to be little cause for these rumors. Although we were able to find one story about a workman being killed on the property, we were not able to independently confirm that story. Aside from this one account, there appears to be no history of death or violence or other ghost-inducing behavior at the Villa Montezuma. Instead, its reputation as a haunted house appears to be tied directly with the spiritual beliefs of Jesse Shepard. Some online sources feature “real ghost photos” taken at the Villa. But as with many websites, these “real ghost photos” are misty defects or “orbs” in the photos, all of which seem to be taken outside of the house. The legitimacy of “orbs” is highly-debated, and I personally don’t believe they have anything to do with paranormal activity. Oh well.

With all that being said, and with such limited access to the interior of the house, our team is unable to really give an honest impression about whether or not the Villa Montezuma is haunted. More likely, it simply suffers from an interesting past, some unorthodox former owners and lots of rumors.

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RUNE: This week, we set out for our latest investigation of what appears to be San Diego’s inexhaustible supply of haunted domiciles: the Hotel del Coronado. It is a gorgeous piece of Victorian architecture, sitting like an elaborate white wedding cake on the edge of the beach. Parking was terrible and the foot traffic wasn’t any better. Still, the hotel is an amazing structure and one of the few remaining examples of this type of architecture from this sentimental era. Even if you aren’t interested in ghosts, I would still encourage you to brave the crowds to give it a look-see.

The haunting legend behind the Hotel del Coronado appears to be tied to a single, tragic event. On Thanksgiving Day 1892, a twenty-four year old woman calling herself Lottie Anderson Bernard checked into the hotel. On November 29th, her body was found by a hotel electrician strewn across the steps leading down to the beach. She had a single gunshot wound to the temple. Who the woman was, and what motivated her to commit suicide, was a matter of hot debate both in 1892 and today. After visiting the hotel with only meager information on the haunting, the [Outcast Earth] team began to research Miss Bernard and the circumstances surrounding her death. What we found was a mish-mash of information, false reports and bizarre theories which have become so entangled over the years that even the simplest of facts – like which room the woman occupied – have [become] confused. Depending on which account you read, Lottie Anderson Bernard (whose real name was Kate Morgan) was either a naive soul betrayed by a disreputable man or a scheming swindler whose lifestyle finally caught up to her. As much speculation as fact seems to surround this woman, beginning with very early reports from the yellow press of the day. Consider this newspaper report on her death that appeared the day after her body was found:

DEATH BROUGHT RELIEF
A Beautiful Young Woman Takes Her Life
Betrayed by Her Seducer
Alone and Deserted Lottie Bernard Cannot Face the Frowns of a Cold World.

San Diego, November 30. – It is now thought that the woman registering at the Hotel del Coronado as Lottie Anderson Bernard, who suicided yesterday morning, was not suffering from cancer in her stomach, but had been ruined and realizing that she had been deserted as well decided to end her troubles.

She as a beautiful woman and when arriving here on Thanksgiving Day did not appear ill or unhappy, though representing her brother, Dr. Anderson of Minneapolis, as having parted from her at Orange, with this understanding that he would join her in a few days at the Coronado; she is said to have inquired at the Hotel Brewster in this city whether Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were staying there.

Her evident anxiety to trace the whereabouts of Anderson and her distress on receiving no advices from him after going to the Hotel del Coronado, is now believed to prove that the man was not her brother, but one who was responsible for her condition.

The coroner has a dispatch from Mount Vernon, N.Y., regarding the description of the woman and signed M. Bernard.

An inquest was held today at which evidence was elicited tending to support the theory of despair because of her desertion by her betrayer.

Her evident illness is attributed to medicines taken with the purpose of effecting a miscarriage, though this has not been fully demonstrated, no post mortem examination having been authorized.

–Fresno Morning Republic, December 1, 1892.

Although the newspaper article would seem to indicate that Kate was an innocent woman who was “ruined” by a married man who then abandoned her, additional information showed that Kate was in fact married to a man named Tom Morgan. Tom was allegedly a professional gambler and con-man. The “Dr. Anderson of Minneapolis” referred to in the Morning Republic story was apparently a pseudonym for Tom, possibly one of many. Kate apparently had her own share of alternate names aside from Lottie Anderson Bernard and it would appear that misrepresentation and fraud were common occupations for the Morgans. More sensational accounts of Kate’s life describe a curious arrangement between the couple in which Kate would seduce young men to take their money, or failing that, would introduce them to her brother (played by Tom) who would then bankrupt them at the poker table. Whatever their domestic arrangement, it seems clear that the couple parted company in the days prior to Kate checking into the Hotel del Coronado. She arrived in the lobby of the hotel with no luggage but claiming that her brother would be joining her in a day or so. As the days went by with no sign of Tom, Kate became more agitated and sickly-looking. At one point, she told a hotel employee that she was suffering from stomach cancer, although there was speculation later that she was actually drinking large doses of quinine in the hopes of producing a miscarriage of Tom’s unwanted child. The truth will never be known as no autopsy was ever performed on Kate’s body.

Despite her frail condition, Kate managed to take the Coronado ferry to San Diego on November 28th and purchase a handgun and some ammunition. And then, seriously ill and obviously heartbroken, the young woman shot herself in the temple during a rain storm that same night.

A tremendous amount of research has been done about Kate Morgan’s case. Some websites and books have obsessively tracked every moment of her last days, detailing everything from off-hand comments she made to hotel staff to the precise distance she would have walked to get from one place to another. Honestly, I haven’t seen such devotion to an individual since our team was studying the Black Dahlia murder case in Los Angeles. Kate’s case echos some of the same themes as those of the Dahlia – whispers of a hopelessly beautiful woman forced into degrading acts by a married man who contributed to her death as soon as an untimely pregnancy was discovered. There are even persistent murder rumors surrounding Kate’s case, with her husband identified as the gunman [see Polaris’s article below.] What cannot be ascertained however, is why Kate did what she did. She left no note which probably helped stoke the rumors of the “ruined woman” who now haunts the hotel. People in the Victorian era loved this type of scandal... and even rumors of ghosts were relished during a time when Spiritualism was at its height.

The Hotel del Coronado, like many other of the haunted venues in the area, does not shy away from the legend. In fact, you can find books and information on Kate Morgan in the hotel gift shops and on their website. Still, the haunting legend itself is as discombobulated as Kate’s personal history. Confusion over which room Kate actually stayed in has resulted in two separate rooms being identified as having strong poltergeist activities attributed to the woman’s restless spirit. Lights flicker, items move, and a malevolent presence has been reported. Tales persist of guests fleeing in the night and that the hotel management won’t rent out the rooms except as a last resort... something that the reservation desk clerks denied when we asked them. Some websites feature photos of Kate’s “ghost,” which to my eye look more like poor photography or reflections in windows. Others cling tenaciously to the belief that Kate was murdered and her spirit won’t rest until her case is solved. Poor Kate.

Whatever the case, investigation into the alleged haunting activity is difficult in this venue. You would really need to stay in the room(s) Kate occupied for an extended period of time to see for yourself; and with rates beginning at $250 per night you probably better have some source of income outside of parapsychology if you hope to attempt it.

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MERIDIAN: During antiquity, it was not uncommon for “personality cults” to spring up around prominent politicians, warriors, religious figures etc. This was particularly common during the Roman era, when emperors would deify their wives, lovers, political allies or even themselves. Perhaps one of the best examples is that of Antinous, the young Bithynian favorite of the Emperor Hadrian. When the boy drowned while swimming in the River Nile, Hadrian in his grief fashioned an entire religion dedicated to him and even built a sacred city on the shore where Antinous’s body had been recovered. The religion persisted for the next three hundred years. In our modern times, we still see this behavior. Take for example the great reverence Argentineans hold for Evita Peron nearly sixty years after her death; or how Lenin’s tomb in Moscow still draws tremendous crowds although Soviet communism has been gone for nearly two decades now.

So why am I bringing this up as it relates to Kate Morgan? Because Rune was completely right when she wrote that we “ haven’t seen such devotion to an individual since our team was studying the Black Dahlia murder case.” There is a great propensity for some researchers to obsess about young, beautiful women who meet tragic ends. These cases still tug at our repressed Victorian need to explain and resolve these mysteries; and hopefully in doing so to salvage the reputation of the victims. As we researched more and more about Kate Morgan, we were struck by how much subtext has been found – or created – in her case. Most of the sources we consulted pointed to one book – The Legend of Kate Morgan: The Search for the Ghost of the Hotel del Coronado by Alan M. May – as being the definitive piece of research on the case. What’s more, May’s book (which now appears to be out of print and difficult to find) refuted the conclusion that Morgan’s death was a suicide. Instead, May asserted that Kate was killed by her estranged husband. His chief piece of evidence would appear to be a single statement from an investigator in the case that the bullet pulled out of her skull did not match the .44 American Bulldog gun found on the steps of the Hotel del Coronado near her body. “Forensic experts” have also sounded off on this issue, declaring that such a powerful handgun would have blown the side of Kate’s head clean off, not produced a single bullet hole as contemporary reports claim. As far as we know, however, there are no crime scene photos of Kate on the Coronado steps and no autopsy was performed, so how much damage was done to her head and what that meant from a forensic point-of-view is very much a matter of speculation. Is it possible that the Victorian sensibilities of the days would have compelled the newspapers to paint Kate as an angelic figure beautifully arranged in a white dress on the steps of an exclusive hotel rather than the bloody, wet mess she undoubtedly was? We know that those same papers were quick to depict her as a fallen woman betrayed by a married man, when in reality she appeared to jilted wife of a professional con-man. In Kate’s case, reality and romanticism mix freely.

We were at a disadvantage to assess Alan May’s book due to its rarity, but reviews of it online had our eyebrows raising. May, who is now deceased, certainly seemed to be an adherent to the personality cult of Kate Morgan. According to some sources, May spent several nights in the room once occupied by Morgan and was able to communicate directly with her spirit. It was during these communication experiences that he derived a lot of his information about her murder and ultimately came to believe that he was related to Morgan through her son. This is also a bizarre claim. Reliable sources do show that the Morgans had a son named Thomas Jr. who died two days after his birth in 1886. How May could have claimed a relationship to a woman with no surviving offspring is puzzling to say the least, but these kinds of illogical claims are not uncommon among those obsessed with a personality. To be fair, however, May did probably complete more study on the case than anyone before or since, and he certainly doesn’t have any unique claim to making sensational and unfounded statements about the case. We found one local organization who just recently issued a press release claiming that they had obtained new information about Morgan’s case using a “process called ‘Interdimensional Communication.’” (We assume that means they channeled Kate’s spirit.) According to this press release, Kate Morgan and Lottie Anderson Bernard were entirely different people and it was the latter who was found dead on the steps of the Hotel del Coronado. The release stated that the new information was provided by the spirit of Lottie Bernard herself and that she will continue to haunt the hotel until this misidentification is corrected.

The Outcast Earth team is not opposed to “interdimensional communication,” although we prefer to call it intuitive impressions. We’ve used such psychic impressions many times ourselves, but intuition is meaningless unless it can lead you to something tangible. Sadly, one of the biggest problems with Kate Morgan’s death is that there wasn’t much investigation at the time. Even if Kate was communicating with a hundred psychics, what difference would it make if we cannot independently and credibly verify her information? Since being in California, we’ve investigated many hauntings where the only “proof” was offered up by a medium. Remember that haunting at the Toys 'R Us in Sunnyvale? Psychic phenomena is not proof – that’s why it’s called phenomena. We can only lend to the study of this phenomena if we question it and demand proof when we encounter it.

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