Soundtrack to listen to while reading this spectral tale:
On my way to the San Diego Wild
Animal Park this Sunday, I took a detour to stop and visit some ghosts.
The “San Pasqual Battlefield” is
one of the dozens of spots around San Diego County that are purported to be
haunted. Ghost lore from around the world suggests that places which have seen
suffering, emotional anguish, bloodshed, and pain are especially prone to the
phenomenon we call a “haunting”.
If this is the case, San Pasqual
is a prime candidate.
Located in a wide, arid valley outside
of Escondido, California, San Pasqual was the site of a key battle during the U.S.
invasion of Mexico in 1846. The war itself brought conflict, controversy and
anguish to the entire continent. Groups of volunteers in Nuevo México, Arizona,
Tejas and Alta California organized resistance efforts to fight back against
the arriving Yankees. Within the U.S., notable opponents of the invasion
included such “extremist radicals” as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. The
above-cited hymn was written by James R. Lowell in 1845, during a crisis of
conscience, as a protest song against the war. (See here for the lyrics of the old hymn.)
In addition to the intense,
emotional effects of the invasion, the Battle of San Pascual (the name was
later Anglicized to “Pasqual” after the U.S. took over California) in
particular is said to have been the bloodiest skirmish in California during the
entire war.
Emotional turmoil and physical
violence—prime ingredients for a haunting.
[Reenactment at San Pasqual Battlefield]
In modern times, the site of the
battle has been turned into an official California State Park. I visited the
small museum which is located near the battlefield and spoke with the sole
employee working there. After chatting with him for a few minutes, I dropped a
comment in: “Some folks say this place is haunted.”
“You know,” he responded, “it’s
funny you mention that. About four years ago, a woman who worked here took a
photo of the road down here in the valley. [The visitor’s center is actually
located across the valley from the battlefield.] She just wanted to get a shot
of the scenery. But she showed me the photo after it was developed—you can
definitely make out the shape of a translucent woman. It looks like an old
Native American woman, dressed like the Kumeyaay Natives used to dress back in
the day, standing in the road.”
“Have you ever seen something
yourself?” I asked.
“For most of my life, I used to
be real skeptical about all that stuff. Then something weird happened early one
morning when my wife dropped me off for work.
“We were carpooling at the time—she
would drop me off, then she’d take the car to work and come back in the evening
and pick me up. This particular morning, she dropped me off here earlier than
usual, and then she parked in the parking lot to read her book for a while
before she had to go into the office. We were the only people on the premises.
“Later that evening when she came
to pick me up, she asked me, ‘Hey, after I dropped you off today, did you walk
behind the car at any point?’ I responded that I had been inside the museum the
entire day. I asked what made her say that.
“‘It’s the strangest thing,’ she
said. ‘While I was sitting in the car reading, I saw a man walk behind the car
wearing old-fashioned clothing, like the uniform you wear for work with the
Parks Department. I thought it might be you. He walked behind the car, and then
walked behind a big tree at the other end of the parking lot. I got out of the
car and went over to the tree to see what the heck you were doing back there…but
I couldn’t find a soul anywhere.’”
* * * *
After I thanked the park employee
for his time and left the museum, I took a walk around the surrounding hills.
It was dusk, and the sun cast lazy orange hues across the entire valley. As I
was walking up a rocky hill just behind the museum, I could have sworn I heard
a few children shouting and laughing at the top of the hill.
I walked slowly, not wanting to
startle whatever family might be up there. Once I reached the top of the hill,
however, I looked around on all sides and realized—there was nobody in sight.
I hurried back down the trail and
popped back into the museum. “Quick question,” I said to the employee. “Are
there any animals around here that would make a sound like kids playing around,
yelling, laughing?”
His unremarkable response
slightly disappointed me. “That must be the coyotes,” he said. “They come out
after dusk. Also, remember that the Wild Animal Park is just behind that fence
up here—there’s all sorts of animals back there that could make that sort of
noise.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be
surprised. After all, why would the laughing ghosts of children be hanging
around a battlefield?
Still, you never know…
[See this official California Parks website for information on the "San Pasqual Battlefield"]
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