Haunted High School And Mountain View Road

I definitely got my fill of the paranormal over the weekend. First, there was the incident in my family involving my Aunt Alicia (see "Aunt Alicia's Couch Buddy"). This set the stage for other members of the family to divulge their own personal paranormal encounters to me as they had come to visit for the weekend, having traveled from the same area in which my Aunt Alicia resides (about an hour and a half from me). The second and third incidents I'm submitting together here are the first-hand encounters of my cousin Elvis and his brother-in-law, Diego.

My cousin Elvis is currently a night-shift janitor in a local high school (near Bakersfield, CA) in which he also attended as student several years ago. This high school reportedly was built over an old cemetery. His paranormal encounters involved disembodied voices, auditorium seats flapping up and down on their own and hearing movement in the empty hallways.

After finishing his work in the school gymnasium one night, he opened the door to walk through, set the security alarm, and leave. Just as he opened the door, he heard someone shout "Hey!" He replied "Yeah, I'm in the gym..." He thought it was his night-shift partner, but when he went through the door and looked down the hallway, it was empty. He never got a response.

He set the security alarm and left in a hurry to search for his partner. He found him on the other end of the school and swore he hadn't been playing tricks on him. It couldn't have been anyone else as there were security alarms throughout the school.

When in the auditorium, it was common for him to hear the seats (like movie theatre seats) moving up and down on their own. It is also very common for him to hear the sounds of students laughing and shuffling down the hallways.

His night-shift partner was terrified to find himself alone in the cafeteria when the microwave turned itself on. More frightening, was that it had a knob to turn to set the time for heating, not a button that could have turned itself on in an electrical glitch.

The janitors agree that the times when most of the paranormal occurrences occur are between 2:00 a.m. And 3:00 a.m. My cousin is grateful his shift ends at 2:00 a.m.

One last tidbit on this story before I begin my second one. The street just across the high school is said to be haunted by a hitch hiking female ghost. Local legend says that if you see this woman walking and don't stop and offer her a ride, she curses you and chances are you will get into a car accident soon. This road has been the scene of many fatal accidents, including one in which killed my childhood best friend's mother.

Diego's incident happened on Mountain View Road, near Lamont, CA. Miles of citrus groves and grape vines border this road. I've driven on it myself once or twice and it's definitely creepy at night. The road itself has its own local history of paranormal encounters and is also the scene of many fatal accidents (Diego himself survived his terrible accident on this road a couple of years ago when he was T-boned twice in the same accident).

Several years before, he was the passenger in a car being driven by his friend. On their way home from Bakersfield late one night about 3:00 a.m., they found themselves traveling along Mountain View Road. Up ahead, they saw a white light hovering above the road. They weren't sure if it was stationary and if it was them who were approaching it or if the light and the car were approaching each other.

They had slowed down before intercepting the light. Once they were about 100 feet from it, the light extinguished itself and all that remained was a "White Lady" enveloped in a cloud of light standing in the car's path. Completely terrified, his friend instantly sped up. Diego buried his head in his arms before the expected impact. After a few moments and realizing they hadn't felt an impact, he looked up and over his shoulder to see out the rearview window.

The "White Lady" had not been run over; the "White Lady" was, in fact, sitting in the back seat staring out into oblivion. Diego yelled at his friend and his friend looked over his shoulder and saw her as well. Screaming, they both turned towards each other and then look over their shoulders again and in an instant, she was no where to be found.

I waited patiently for Diego to finish his story about the "White Lady". I didn't want to be rude and say "You've got to be kidding Diego, the "White Lady"? She is so cliché!" He was done with his story and I waited for him to say "Just Kidding!" But, he never did. It was then that I realized he wasn't kidding. He firmly believes in what he and his friend saw.

I asked him what she looked like (I like details, lots of them). He said she was an old woman with long white hair, a very pale face and a long white dress. I asked him if he had been drinking and he swore he hadn't had anything to drink that night.