During the night trip to the Whaley House we sat down in the theatre room upstairs, talking to the docent about the house and history. At one point I noticed 2 very, very small brilliant yellow lights, each one on the inside of the back rest of two chairs, in a row, across the aisle from us. They were there for only a split second. I commented about them and shortly afterwards the docent said there are 2 male ghosts that haunt that particular room, and never leave it. Some light traffic was going past these upstairs windows and I was wondering if what I saw was reflected headlights or something else (!). So I watched and I did see reflected head ligts touch the back curved area of the chairs. However, they were white, not yellow, much bigger than what I'd seen, and were hitting the chairs at least 8 inches away from the ones I'd seen. These headlight reflections were repetitive and didn't change. So maybe I actually saw something paranormal, and again, maybe I didn't. We left the Whaley House that night and walked back to our hotel a few blocks away. Previously on our trips to Whaley House we'd been out and about and had parked in a nearby parking lot. But this time we had walked over and back. Just a very short distance from Whaley House is the El Campo Santo Cemetery dating back to 1850. It is very, very tiny sandwhiched between buildings and the street. It is extremely creepy looking and feeling. It is known to be very haunted and there have been reports of apparitions seen wandering between graves, and also of ghosts having followed people home from there. This probably has to do with the fact that when the road was built through the area they didn't get all the bodies removed beforehand. In 1992 with radar equipment they found that 20 bodies, of men, women and children, still lie under the sidewalk and street directly in front of this cemetery. The city has installed very small metal caps, buried in the asphalt and cement, over each burial, simply stating "grave site" and with these being so small unless you knew the history of this spot you would park your car over them and walk down the sidewalk right over them and not notice. I find this very, very sad, and think, no wonder they haunt this place. Anyway, knowing we would be walking over this sidewalk in front of the cemetery I told my husband we needed to encircle ourselves with holy white light to protect ourselves from any spirit hanging around there. I felt very uneasy walking there, but stopped and took a few pictures over the low wall separating the other graves from the sidewalk (which I haven't gotten developed yet). Anyway we returned to the hotel and went to bed. Just after midnight I was awakened by loud knocking sounds on the end table next to my side of the bed. I knew instantly that it had to be paranormal because there was nothing on the table that could make that sound on its own. As I cautiously reached over the table to quickly flip on the lamp, it stopped. The next morning I was telling my husband (who sleeps through positively anything!) about it, I was trying to demonstrate not only the sound, but the loudness of it and found that if I took a thick, heavy plastic souvenier I had setting on that table and banged it up and down, hard, it produced the "exact" sound. I've decided that the spirit meant me no harm but just wanted me to be aware of its existence. Whether this spirit followed us from the cemetery, or Whaley House, or is a resident of this old hotel, I will never know.
Last Edited by angel on Oct 30, 2006 5:30 PM
I was talking to my hair dresser this afternoon about Whaley House. She has toured the house also and said she thought the whole house was creepy, but especially so the bedroom just to the right, at the top of the stairs (the same one with the curtained closet). She couldn't put her finger on just why this room especially freaked her out, but it did for some reason. On my very first trip to Whaley House 3 yrs ago I felt this bedroom was rather creepy, also, (and I couldn't put my finger on why it effected me this way, either), but the room that really creeped me out big time was the one at the end of the upstairs hallway, at the back of the house. I had the distinct feeling that "something" like to sit in the rocking chair in that room, a lot! I found out this time, from a docent, that that room was the bedroom of the daughter who had committed suicide. Maybe she hasn't really left the place...and still enjoys using her rocking chair.
