Ghost stories: whether you believe them or not, there are some things that are just hard to explain. And some things which are relatively easy to figure out with open minds. When a paranormal investigation group came down from Phoenix to document ghostly noises at the Forest Service Kentucky Camp rental cabin at in the Santa Rita Mountains I had to give them the bad news. Having stayed in the cabin many times over several years, I know what they recorded was a skunk that moves into a winter den under the propane heater and goes bump in the night. And mice.
Still, there are happenings that are not so easy to explain away. In 2005 I was taking photographs at Tucson’s Day of the Dead procession. I was using a trustworthy 35 mm camera. When the film was developed at a local store, the first and last three photos on the 24-exposure roll were normal.
All of the other photographs that night had weird chains of white and colored lights in them. One appeared as a triple exposure, with a man clad in white climbing gear rising above the parade. No such person was there when I took the photograph, and I never took a photo of anyone like that anywhere, ever.
A papier-mâché horse head had light streaming out of its eyes. The camera had never done anything like that before. The other two rolls in the three-pack were normal. The camera had no light leaks before or after.
So I’m open to the possibility that there are things that are not explained by what we think we know. There are a fair number of those in Southern Arizona, and here are some more local examples:
The city of Tucson has numerous ghosts. The hauntedplaces.org website lists many, including:
St. Mary’s Hospital, where people are observed entering elevators and disappearing. There is also a ghostly nun pointing out patients in trouble to the staff.- Evergreen Cemetery. Well…duh!
- Hotel Congress had suicides in rooms 214 and 242 and those spirits still linger, along with a long-time resident who also died there.
- Fox Theater has objects moving mysteriously around, and a ghostly panhandler out front.
- Tucson Medical Center has a ghostly child who pulls hair and moves chairs; an older woman and a spirit cat have also been seen.
- Acosta Job Corps Center on South Campbell has strange lights along with mysterious toilet flushings and water faucets turned on without human help.
- Centennial Hall has a male and a female ghost; the latter, in a long white dress, is believed to sometimes push people down the stairs.
theshadowlands.net haunted places website lists a number of schools with mysterious happenings, including Catalina High School where bathrooms flood and doors lock on their own. The Ott YMCA has an older man in a grey suit sitting in an office at night while bumps and bangs afflict the building. Staff at Hooters sometimes feel cold chills. Right. Sabino Canyon reportedly has a ghost mountain lion that stalks hikers.
The ghostsofamerica.com website has an anonymous posting claiming that at Kenny’s Market on Marana Road, “a ghost is spotted late at night in front of the glass doors with no face and a crippled body, if you drive up close enough he will run up towards the door to try and stop you. This ghost is seen every night at the same spot late at night.”