TRESPASS: Lego Sets, Actions Figures & 19th Century Spirits?
Second only to the Winchester House on our list of “places in San Jose we must see” was the Toys R Us in Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is one of the many suburbs around San Jose. The Toys R Us is located at 130 E. El Camino Real in a very typical neighborhood. It’s kind of famous in ghost hunter circles because of an old urban legend that goes back to the 1980s with a variety show called That’s Incredible. I was like 1 when this show was on the air, but our more crusty members filled me in that it was like a Ripley’s Believe It or Not with a shitload of knife-juggling thrown in for good measure. Apparently they featured the toy store on that show because visitors and staff members said that they were having strange experiences inside. Some of the unusual things were toys being moved from shelves and piled on the floor, the sensation of being watched, and the water taps in the women’s bathroom being turned on spontaneously.

If you read about the store on the internet, you will find that most of the accounts of the haunting are basically the same. Apparently the store became famous after its appeared on That’s Incredible because they showed a now very famous photo of a seance led by professional psychic Sylvia Browne. In the background, there’s the figure of a tall thin man leaning against a wall behind the seance members. According to all the online accounts, the photo was taken by an infrared camera and the male figure showed up only when the film was developed. The man was not part of the seance party.

Browne claimed that during the seance she contacted the spirit of the thin man. She said he was a farmhand named Johnny Johnson and he was the one haunting the rear aisles of the toy store. Apparently Johnny was really heartbroken because his girlfriend married someone else. He later hurt himself with an axe while working in the orchards that once stood where the store now is and died from the infection.



ASH: “Johnny the Ghost”
Going into the Toys R Us was kind of a let down because it’s such an ordinary place. It’s a big box store and its not scary or mysterious at all. It’s like every other Toys R Us in the universe and it’s really hard to imagine a ghost there during business hours because we went on a Saturday afternoon and it was crazy busy. We also knew a lot about this place because it’s pretty famous, like the [Winchester] mystery house.

There were several places that we all went. Aisle 15 was said to have a lot of strange activity but we couldn't find an aisle 15 so we didn't really know what that meant. Also the women’s bathroom where the ghost is said to stroke your hair. Meridian and Rune snuck me in there for about two minutes, but the only thing I felt was uncomfortable. They hung out in the bathroom for like 45 minutes until they thought that might start looking weird and came back out. They said nothing happened. Since most of these things happen after the store is closed, we were at a disadvantage being there when we were. Rune went and asked the manager on duty if we could come back when the store was closed, but I think she thought we were planning on robbing it or something because she was pretty hostile about saying no. Rune told her what we were looking for, but the lady said that the ghost is just a legend.

Dad and I walked around together for a long time, particularly at the back of the store. I didn’t really get any psychic impressions off the place except that I kept smelling popcorn, but I don’t think that was related to the haunting.



MERIDIAN: Why Do We Believe Sylvia Browne?
I did the same thing Trespass did and roamed through the internet reading all the accounts of the haunting at the Sunnyvale Toys R Us. I would say about 90% of them are nearly verbatim reproductions of each other. The thing that really bugged me is that much of the accounts present Sylvia's psychic impressions as being historical fact. Browne apparently came up with a variety of details about the Toys R Us ghost, including his name, occupation, nationality and aspects about his personal life and unfortunate death. These are very specific things, but as near as I can tell no one has ever tried to confirm them. No body ever checked public records or anything?

Instead, proof was in the photograph that was taken during Browne’s seance. After all, the photograph shows a man who wasn’t standing there in reality, right? But again, there’s no proof to that claim either. One online account claims that the infrared photo was taken at exactly the same time as a high-speed camera photo, and the man wasn’t in the second photo. But we never get to see the second photo for comparison. If the infrared photo did actually reveal a lanky figure who was not there in reality, then that’s a very impressive thing but the proof is in the putting. Of course, one source I found said that Browne herself produced the ghost photo, which may explain why no additional proof or other photographic evidence has ever been forthcoming. She claimed no one from her party was standing there. I guess we have to take her word for it.

But here’s the bigger question... why does anyone believe Sylvia Browne anyway?

Browne is easily one of the most successful “professional psychics” today, but that makes her a marketing and self-promotional genius, not necessarily a reliable source of paranormal information. Can there be a reliable source of paranormal information, for that matter? Years ago, I had a friend who just thought Browne was the cat’s meow. At the time I was living in Oregon and Browne was coming to Portland to give some kind of large seminar. My friend was frantic to see her. The ticket was over $100 which might seem very appropriate if you are going to see Andre Reiu or the Metropolitan Opera. I have a little bit of a problem with paying that kind of cash just to have someone tell me tall tales. The problem with “professional psychics” is that they need you to believe them in order to get paid. As a result, from the very beginnings of the spiritualism movement, mediums-for-hire have become very adept at telling people what they want to hear. They’re like fortune cookies that way.

For me, any credibility that Browne had fell apart over the Shawn Hornbeck abduction case. You may remember that Shawn was an 11-year old victim of a stranger abduction in Missouri. Hornbeck was missing for four years until he was miraculously recovered by police looking for a separate kidnapped boy. Browne, who was or is a regular guest on the Montel Williams Show, did a “reading” about the Hornbeck case four months after the boy vanished and was wrong on almost every detail. More heartbreaking, Browne stated on the show that Hornbeck was dead. That must’ve been horrifying for his parents to hear. When your child’s missing like that, all you have to cling to is hope. Certainly the Hornbecks must’ve thought about their son’s fate all the time, but for anyone to state it as fact in such a public forum... terrible! But such a pronouncement also fits the medium-for-hire’s modus operandi, which is to state statistical probability as fact knowing that in most cases you will probably guess right. A large percentage of kids who are abducted by strangers end up dead. Ninety-nine percent of kids abducted by strangers are released or recovered within the first twenty-four hours. The fact that Hornbeck was taken by a stranger and had been gone for four months would have made the odds of his being dead quite high, I would think. Maybe Browne thought so as well.

If you look up Browne on wikipedia.org (one of my favorite websites ever!), you will find an entire section on her entitled “criticism and controversy.” There’s a very interesting notation there that reads: “Browne has often spoken of working with the police and FBI as a psychic detective, but according to The Skeptics Dictionary, in 21 of Browne's 35 cases, the details she gave were too vague to be verified, and in the remaining 14 Browne played no useful role.” Wow.

As the Outcast Earth resident skeptic, I assert that anything put forth by a professional psychic should be taken with a grain of salt until it is rigorously investigated... especially if they are asking for anywhere between $100 and $700 for a reading!



CIPHER: It’s Not All About Sylvia
I can totally get behind Meridian’s caution about Sylvia Browne, but I don’t think Browne’s seance invalidates the possible haunting of the Sunnyvale Toys R Us. According to the timelines I saw, the store was built in 1970 and the haunting activity was reported for over ten years before Browne ever stepped foot on the property. There are also plenty of reports that have actual names of employees who worked at the store attached to them. And finally, some of the historical information that Browne referenced (such as the name of the original land owner) can be independently confirmed. (Although that would be a matter of public record and Browne could have certainly looked it up before ever doing her seance in the toy store!)

[Webmaster’s Note: Many professional psychics have been known to do considerable research on their subject prior to performing a reading. This could include collecting information from newspapers, public documents or tidbits overhead from friends and acquaintances. Modern professional psychics have been accused of planting microphones among their audiences or having “spies” who mingle with their clients to gather information early. For a good example of this, see our feature MORE HOLLYWOOD HAUNTINGS about the Harry Houdini “Survival Code.”]

Also, just one other thing about Browne. I don't really buy her schtick either, but to her credit I don't think that the general message she puts out is a bad one. After all, she does expouse tolerance and religious freedom, and in a time when so many people are shitting on each other over religion, I think that's not a bad message.

One other thing I found, although still not confirmed, is that there are other photos of “Johnny Johnson” according to some of the [stuff] I found online. Apparently there is a book called Ghostly Register (published in 1986) that has additional photos from the Toys R Us seance in it showing the ghost. Weird that none of them have ever been scanned and put online... it’s always just the one of “Johnny” leaning against the wall. I’m going to try and find a copy of the book and see for myself.

One more thing about the famous “Johnny” photo. Maybe it’s just me, but when I blew this image up on the computer and looked at it really closely, Johnny’s dress didn’t look like something you would expect someone to be wearing at the end of the 19th century. Maybe I’m just seeing things, but it looks much more like a dude wearing a Members Only-type jacket with the collar up and bellbottom jeans with sneakers. I don’t have the same artistic skills as Polaris, but I used photoshop to draw in the outlines of the clothing that I think I see. I don’t know. It’s just my guess. Now that I'm looking at it... he kind of looks like The Fonz. Also, If you look at the photo, there's obviously a bright light source behind "Johnny" so he's standing mostly in silhouette. But if you look at the floor near his feet, he's throwing a shadow. Do ghosts throw shadows? I think this is a living person, not a ghost. It’s kind of funny that I’m debating the validity of this ghost photo when OCE produced some of our own just recently. But I also think we do a pretty good job of analyzing ours.

Whoa, I've used the phrase "one more thing" way too much in this entry!! Okay, I may have gotten away from my point. Anyway, I think there’s definitely some validity to the haunting stories, with or without Sylvia Browne’s input. That was my point. I guess I just took a really long route to get to [that conclusion].

[See Cipher's TOYS R US GHOST PHOTOS, PART II]

RUNE: The Rosicrucians are one of the less-scary secret societies out there partly because they are not that terribly secretive and partly because political ambition and power do not appear to be chief among their concerns. In fact, their beliefs appear to be very benign. They are largely interested in acquiring personal spiritual knowledge in the hopes of building a better, more peaceful world. Or at least that’s what they claim. Of course, how would I really know with them being secretive and all?? But I write this partly as a reaction to our day today, which we spent at the world headquarters of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (or AMORC) in San Jose. This was an absolutely amazing place which I think anyone would be excited to visit, regardless of your spiritual beliefs.

The Rosicrucian headquarters house an museum [of ancient art], a planetarium, a research library, a temple and extensive gardens, all situated within a city block in the middle of San Jose. But here’s the really interesting part... everything is designed to resemble ancient Egyptian architecture. Even the gardens are dotted with reflection pools and statuary that looks like it was transported right off the banks of the Nile. The fascination with Egyptian art, culture and iconography underscores what the Rosicrucians are all about. Like the ancient Egyptians, the religious beliefs of the Rosicrucians are tied to mystery traditions, which means they believe a person can unlock hidden spiritual wisdom through mystical self-education and experience. You know, basically what the Outcast Earth team is all about too. Likewise, the Rosicrucians also believe that this wisdom is not tied to only one belief system, but that it is deposited in a variety of beliefs all across the world. As a result, Rosicrucians are big into collecting and sharing mystical knowledge amongst themselves and with others. (Their research library is open to the public, for example.) They also assert that the Rosicrucian belief system is compatible with any other religious doctrine because it does not have rigorous tenets. I suspect, however, that other religions may not agree, especially since the Rosicrucians promote some rather heretical ideas such as reincarnation and alchemy. Just as heretical to some of the world’s religions would be the Rosicrucian commitment to promoting world peace and nonviolence.

Our first stop was the museum which is billed as containing the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the western United States. I think that’s probably true. They do have quite an amazing variety of things as well, from towering statues to the tiniest pieces of gold filigree. There are also a lot of models of old temples and interpretive materials to help you navigate your way through the collection. The museum was very busy when we were there, probably a testament to the extent of the collection and the beauty of the environment.

Afterwards, we went and toured the library although we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. Meridian and I both want to come back and see what they have in their stacks that might be of interest to our mission, but I suspect you could probably spend a lifetime here trying to find enlightenment. That is, after all, what the Rosicrucians themselves say... enlightenment is a lifelong journey.

Then it was onto the planetarium where they were featuring a short show on the Mithraic Mysteries, obviously a topic that Rosicrucians would be interested in. Finally we played on the grounds which are extremely verdant and tranquil. As I mentioned before, much of the landscaping is reminiscent of ancient Egypt, even with the types of plants you can find here. I think we all fell in love with the place!

[Click here for additional information on the Toys R Us Haunting in Sunnyvale, California.]

CIPHER: Today, with the help of our webmasters, Amazon.com and Fed Ex, I was able to receive my slightly dog-eared copy of The Ghostly Register by Arthur Myers. Since this is the book that seems to have considerably contributed to the Sunnyvale Toys R Us haunting legend, it was kind of like receiving the Holy Grail in the mail. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed.

First, there was little information in the chapter dedicated to the haunting that hadn’t already been posted online. It did have some personal accounts from employees that I hadn’t read before, including this one from Steve Speelman, who is identified as the co-manager of the store (at least in 1986 when the book was published):

“One evening,” Speelman says, “we rolled down a metal door at the back of the building, and someone started banging on it, yelling, ‘Let me out, let me out!’ When we rolled the door back up, there was nobody there. One night I sent two big, husky guys to the rear of the store, and they came back and told me there was someone clumping around wearing heavy shoes. You could hear the thump, thump, thump. It was late at night, and there was only staff in the store, and none of us were wearing hard shoes...” [page 53]

What I really wanted to see were the photographs I read were from [Sylvia Browne’s] seance that have never shown up on the internet, at least not anywhere our team could find them. The Ghostly Register does have the famous “Johnny Johnson” ghost photo, along with a blow up of the same; and it shows the photo supposedly taken at the same time using regular film. I am not sure the second, “normal” photo really proves or disproves anything, unfortunately. The camera used to take this photo is at a slightly different angle, more to the right and focussed along the side of the aisle where “Johnny” appears in the infrared shot. Although it’s an incredibly dark image with little detail, several of the people in this photo appear to be the same as in the infrared photo. You can make out the bent knees of two of the women sitting against the shelves to the left side (double green arrows), and the back of the head of a woman in the foreground is also consistent (single green arrow). The problem is, that the area where “Johnny” is standing in the infrared shot is almost completely shrouded in darkness in the second photo (red arrow). Honestly, I can’t tell if someone’s standing there or not. My impression is that no one is there, but then again how would I know? The reflection on the lower shelf seems to stop about half way to the women with the bent knees (orange arrow), which could indicate that a person is standing there blocking it. It’s too dark to tell and I don’t [think] it’s fair to say that the man isn’t there simply because you can’t see him in the darkness. There's a lady in the first photo who is clearly visible in the foreground looking to her right (yellow arrow). But in the second photo she's vanished altogether into the darkness and she's closer to the camera than the "Johnny" figure is. It seems to me if she can "vanish" on normal film, "Johnny" can too. Are we to assume that she's a ghost too?

There’s one other problem with the second photo. We are told in the book that both of the photos were taken “at essentially the same moment,” [page 54] but what does that mean? There’s no time stamp on them obviously, so does “essentially” mean that several seconds could have passed between the two shots? Or several minutes? If the “Johnny” figure is a real person, could he have stepped out of the camera’s view in that time? Or could he still be there, only hidden in the dark shadows? I just don’t know.

Finally, having looked at the much clearer image of “Johnny” in the book, I still think it’s weird that he’s throwing a shadow on the floor. Ash pointed out that there’s a shadow where his shoulder touches the shelves as well. Both would indicate that this man is a solid object. If you compare the “Johnny” photo to other historical ghost photos, those generally considered to be legitimate, it differs from most of them in this way. Most legit ghost photos do not show the whole body. Parts of the body are missing, intangible or transparent. The ghost often appears vaporous or out of focus, even when the area around it is in focus. And cast shadows, which would mean that the ghost is solid, seem to be very rare.

I really want to see the That’s Incredible episode that featured this investigation, but apparently the show has yet to make it to home video so I’m screwed there. I also don’t want to doubt the testimony of people directly involved in this investigation, which took place almost ten years before I was even born. But, that being said, I still not convinced that “Johnny Johnson” just wasn’t one of the seance members who was up stretching his legs.

POLARIS: Having exhausted most of the haunted sites worth visiting in San Jose, the team has now expanded outward and is traveling around the adjoining areas. One of my favorites parts of California is the Monterey area, which I have visited twice before. The first time was on a summer road trip with my father in 1981 when I was fourteen years old. The second was while attending a business conference in 1997. Neither trip really allowed me the opportunity to explore as we now have. We started our journey through the Monterey area with a list of places we wanted to see. One of them was a house that my favorite author, Robert Louis Stevenson, once occupied and is now said to be haunted by his former landlady. As is typical of our journeys, however, we quickly found ourselves going off on tangents that appear to be leading us all over the coast!

I have to admit that I know very little about Stevenson other than he was a Scotsman who loved to travel and had an abiding interest in adventure. These two things are evident if you read any of his short stories or novels. The house we visited today is one of several “Robert Louis Stevenson houses.” There is also his childhood home in Edinburgh, Scotland; and further up the coast, north of San Francisco, there is apparently the site of an old cabin he once lived in as well. The cabin is now gone, however. The Edinburgh and Monterey homes are both said to be haunted. The first by Stevenson himself and the second by his former landlady and friend.

Interestingly, the entire coastal area from Big Sur to north of Santa Rosa are dotted with areas and attractions named after Stevenson. In this respect, Stevenson competes with both Jack London and John Steinbeck as the region’s most renowned author.

It appears that obsessive love brought the Scotsman to California in 1879. Several years earlier he had fallen for a married American woman named Fanny Osbourne who lived in the San Francisco area. Osbourne’s husband was inattentive and philandering and Stevenson appears to have decided to go to California to await the end of their marriage. The writer, however, had little money and poor health and the journey nearly cost him both.

Fanny’s husband agreed to the divorce she wanted, on the condition that Stevenson remained out of sight and Fanny did not remarry too soon in order to preserve a sense of decency. During the months when Stevenson had to wait out the divorce, he rented a room in the Houston Street apartment house. One of his biographers, Frank McLynn, wrote this about Stevenson’s time in the Houston Street house:

“He was taken in by a French-Swiss hotelier who kept an old adobe inn on the hillside. In this long and low “hotel” with shutters and climbing roses at the five windows of a huge airy room, Louis remained cooped up for three months. Every day he took coffee in the morning with his landlord Dr. Heintz and his wife, then walked to the Post Office in Alvarado Street to collect his mail, bemused by the wooden boardwalks so different from European pavements. At midday he took a main meal in a little French restaurant in Monterey and sponged off friends and acquaintances, such as Bronson the local editor and Sanchez, the young saloon-keeper engaged to Fanny’s sister Nellie, for the other two repasts...

“When not working or socialising, Stevenson liked to roam through the woods around Monterey, always surprising himself by new vistas of the Pacific, or trying out is fledgling Spanish on the mainly Mexican inhabitants of the town. In 1879, Monterey still overwhelmingly retained the flavour of Spanish California, with high adobe walls topped with tiles, behind which were secluded gardens alive with the heavy scent of floribunda and other subtropical flowers...” [Robert Louis Stevenson, page 160]

The adobe house has a white stucco exterior lined with narrow windows and doorways typical of Spanish architecture. There is a beautiful garden filled with rose bushes and thickets of trees and surrounded by a picket fence. It’s quite charming and gives you the sense of how Monterey must have looked toward the end of the nineteenth century. Stevenson’s stay at the house was brief, only four months while he awaited Fanny’s divorce. But the California State Parks Department have turned the building into a Stevenson museum replete with all kinds of memorabilia and artifacts. It reminds me of places whose only claim to fame is that “George Washington once slept here” but they work that fact with great dedication.

According to popular sources, Stevenson’s landlord, his wife and their grandchildren all died during a typhoid epidemic in 1879. The ghost of the landlady can be seen dressed in black and hovering around the nursery in the home. Visitors have claimed to see children’s toys in that room move mysteriously from one place to another or smell the noxious odor of disinfectant. Meridian and Cipher, who now appear to be working in concert as our fact checkers, were quick to point out an obvious discrepancy. The popular sources list the ghost as being that of Manuela Girardin who, presumably, was of Hispanic decent although her last name is French. Stevenson’s biographer lists the landlord’s name as being Heinz, however. On closer examination, we found that Manuela Girardin was actually the mother-in-law of Dr. J.P.E. Heinz who is referenced in the book by McLynn, so there is an established family connection there. Girardin apparently ran the boarding house although it was owned by Heinz, or so we assume. The establishment is sometimes referred to as “Girardin’s French House.” We were also able to independently confirm that there was a typhoid epidemic in the Monterey area in 1879, although we cannot confirm that it killed Manuela, Dr. Heinz or anyone else in Stevenson’s circle of friends.

After the Sunnyvale Toys R Us visit, I think all of us are looking more at the need for these alleged hauntings to be confirmed by the historical record. Although I don’t think any ghost-hunting group has actually done an intensive study of the Stevenson house, the details behind the legend do check out so that does lend the story more authenticity. It would be interesting to do an investigation here, if only the California state parks would allow it.

POLARIS: After leaving the Stevenson House, we all wanted to head to the coast to enjoy the scenery. There is a story that touring the beaches in the area inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write his first truly successful and probably most famous book, Treasure Island. Treasure Island is still one of my favorite books of all time, although I don’t consider it Stevenson’s best work. I think I originally read it in college and it may, in some small sense, have inspired my wanderlust and thirst for new experiences. It has frequently been referred to as the quintessential “boy’s novel,” full of pirates, action, danger and yes, treasure. The book also gave us iconic images that can still be seen to this day, such as peg-legged or one-eyed pirates with squawking parrots on their shoulders; treasure maps where “X marks the spot;” secret pirate codes and much more.

It’s said that Stevenson conceived that novel in 1881 while watching his stepson, Lloyd, paint watercolors of pirates. Lloyd wrote later:

“Had it not been for me and my childish box of paints, there would’ve been no such book as Treasure Island.”

Although his biographers frequently disagree on these points, Stevenson may have drawn his inspiration for Treasure Island’s scenery from what he had experienced three years earlier when he and Lloyd had wandered the beaches and coastal cliffs of California. Lloyd is the primary source of information for this legend, which some historians refute as the stepson’s vainglorious attempt to cash in on Stevenson’s fame. (Regardless of the debate, it was to Lloyd who Stevenson dedicated Treasure Island, in memory of their many “delightful hours” together.)

Although there are many different areas of the coast Stevenson is said to have frequented, Point Lobos is most frequently referenced as the inspiration for the fictional island. It’s easy to see why. The entire coastline is a postcard waiting to happen with towering cliffs, trees bent into unusual shapes by the constant ocean wind, raging surf breaking across jagged rock, and lush forests often enveloped by swirling fog. Stevenson’s description of Treasure Island does sound eeriely similar:

“...Grey-coloured wood covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others - some singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spyglass, whihc was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost every side, and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on...” [Chapter XIII.]

Although there are no paranormal mysteries at Point Lobos (or at least none I’m aware of), it was a great experience walking the beaches and looking at the scenery that inspired Stevenson to write one of the best loved novels of all time. Here at Outcast Earth, every once in a while, we try to amaze AND inspire! :-)

RUNE: To add yet another mystery to the long line of mysteries we deal with, Trespass received a phone call from the FBI yesterday telling him that they have found his stepfather, Patrick, living in Daytona, Florida. Although details are still a little fuzzy for all of us, apparently Patrick was picked up by local authorities for writing bad checks and when they ran his fingerprints, they came back as a positive match for a man who was presumed dead from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The feds were called in and have taken over the investigation. They called Trespass because he was the one who originally contacted the federal government to have Patrick and his mother, Corey, declared missing after the hurricane made landfall in their home state of Louisiana. Corey was not found with Patrick and there’s still a big question as to what happened to her.

In any case, we’re cutting our tour of the Silicon Valley a little short and driving to San Francisco so Trespass can catch a plane cross-country. I wish we had more to report at this time, but we’ll keep everyone up-to-date once Trespass gets to Florida and can meet with the FBI directly.

If you’re not up-to-speed on this little soap opera, visit the website page on Trespass’s Return to the Bayou for details. You can see additional updates on this developing story by clicking here.

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