Haunted Eureka, CA

Haunted Eureka, Ca
Paul Dale Roberts, HPI’s Esoteric Detective
Halo Paranormal Investigations
www.cryptic916.com/
Sacramento Paranormal Help
www.facebook.com/HaloParanormalInvestigations/
Email: [email protected]
HPI Schedule: jazmaonline.boards.net/thread/1748/hpi-schedule-2021
Sacramento Paranormal Haunted Hotline: 916 203 7503

Special Note: At my home, I have a collection of notes of haunted locations that I have visited. This article is from the case files of HPI.

In 1989, I went with my dad, my step-mother Cindy and my girlfriend at the time, named Dee Dee to Eureka, CA. It was a long drive and parts of the road is very winding. If you easily get car sick, I suggest that you don’t drive to Eureka. When arriving in Eureka, you see many wooden Bigfoot statues. I am a very social person and the people of Eureka do not hesitate to tell you stories about this small little town. It seems that many people I talked to, have seen Bigfoot once in their lifetime. One story I got, a woman in her 70s told me that when she was 8 years old she saw a Bigfoot peeking at her from behind a tree, while she played on a swing set. That was her only encounter. Another thing I discovered is that Eureka is very, very haunted.

I met a gentleman named Mark Dagan and he told me that St. Mary’s cemetery is very haunted. Mark told me that his brother Wayne went there with a few friends, because they heard about a little girl ghost named Sarah. Mark’s brother Wayne and his friends saw an eerie blue light in the distance. Wayne and his friends walked towards the blue light to see what it was and as they got closer, they came upon a little girl shimmering in light that was surrounding her body. One of Wayne’s friends said “hello” and the little girl turned around and Wayne and his friends saw that she did not have any eyes, all she had were black eye sockets where the eyes used to be at. Wayne and his friends beat feet and got the heck out of that cemetery. To this day Wayne will not venture into this cemetery. 32 minutes down the road is the town of Scotia and at the Scotia Inn, tourists say they can hear a young boy playing ball. Mark Dagan says he stayed at this Inn and about 2 a.m. he heard someone bouncing a ball against the wall. This bouncing noise kept Mark awake and he yelled from his bed….”will you please stop bouncing the damn ball!!” 5 minutes later, he felt his whole bed shake. Mark thought it was an earthquake. Everything was quiet in his room and Mark was able to eventually fall to sleep. In the morning Mark discovered he had 3 long scratch marks down his chest area. Mark later learned that this Inn, had a little boy ghost that likes to play with his ball. Mark feels that he got scratched by the ghostly little boy with the ball.

It is said that the reason why Eureka is so haunted, is because it once had a wild and bawdy past. There are many historic buildings in Eureka. Back in the 1800s, it was a port town that bustled with sailors, lumberjacks and gold miners. There was lots of drinking, lots of fights, lots of stabbings, gambling, prostitution and murder. There was an 1860 massacre of the Wiyot Native American Indians and many people make claim that they will see Indian spirits roaming the back roads. Sometimes they hear mysterious drumming in the deep woods. Just a mere 7 minutes away is the town of Samoa and the people of Samoa say the whole town is haunted, especially on Cadman Court Street. Darian McBride says that while he was walking down Cadman Court Street he came upon a woman in 1800s dress and she was bent over crying. Darian thought she was a street actress and asked what is wrong and if he could help her. The woman turned to look at Darian and there was a large knife cut down her left cheek and blood splattered around her face and neck. Darian looked at the woman and said…”who did this??” The woman then put her head down and slowly vanished in front of Darian’s eyes.

One of the places that I enjoyed visiting was the Fort Humboldt State Historic Park. This historic military fort was established in 1853. It was the home of the Humboldt Military District. For a very short time, it was the home of Captain Ulysses S. Grant. Grant did not like the isolation of this fort and requested to be transferred. The fort was finally abandoned in 1870. In the surrounding landscape the Wiyot, Hoopa, Yurok and Hupa tribes had settlements in the area. There were many skirmishes with these tribes by other settlers. Some Indians were killed where they stood and there dead body was left to decay where they were killed. Larry Hornbrough makes claim that he saw ghostly soldiers in blue uniforms on an early foggy morning, walking along the field. As Larry watched them, they faded away into nothingness. From our tour guide I learned that many soldiers that stayed in this fort, were veterans of the Mexican/American War. I have an actual connection to this fort. My ex-mother-in-law Shirley (Silva) Buchanan was once married to a Buchanan and this ex-husband displayed lineage to General Robert C. Buchanan. When Robert C. Buchanan stayed at this fort, he was a lieutenant colonel for the U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment and later became a General during the Civil War. At this fort, there were at one time 14 buildings and a few locals I talked to say that all 14 buildings will appear early in the morning, around 4am, for a few seconds and then things will go back to normal and only the hospital building will be seen.

When visiting Eureka, I stopped off at Carson Mansion and Old Town Eureka. Both places are very, very haunted. Hector Grimsley told me and my dad that not only is Carson Mansion and Old Town Eureka is haunted, but so is the Clarke Historical Museum, the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka Books, and the Eureka Theater. Hector says all of these places have ghosts and many locals have seen ghosts in all of these places. One long-time Eureka resident, whose home had once been used as an orphanage, reported hearing sounds of children playing and a deep male voice that seemed to be protecting them. The only paranormal experience I had in Eureka is when Dee Dee was taking pictures of the Carson Mansion, she captured a strange mist by the doorway of the mansion. Her 2nd picture, the mist was gone. A local named Jesse Caudill says that at the Clark Mansion he saw a snarling cowboy with a rifle. The snarling cowboy pointed the rifle at Jesse and then pointed the rifle to the ground, turned around and walked away. As Jesse watched the gun man, he simply faded away into nothingness. Jesse then realized he had just seen a ghost. If you ever have a chance to visit Eureka, you will enjoy the atmosphere of this small town. There is so much beauty and history in this town and plenty of ghosts and cryptid creatures known as Bigfoot lurking about. Also on a special note, there are many UFOs seen along the beach line. Below is an example of just one UFO case in Eureka. This case was reported to MUFON.

THE EUREKA UFO REPORT:
I was driving down California St in Eureka California, towards the south. 9:00pm last night 3-6-10; I saw a very very bright light in the sky, dime size, it was to large to be a star, and much to close, the size of a dime in the sky…

All of a sudden 2 sets of lights came out of it traveling down and east. The bright object started dumping flaming objects like coals on a barbecue, they were falling to earth but would extinguish before impact.

Some were very large, fire also appeared to fall. When this fire stopped 2 more objects with lights came out again, this time flying upwards.

The larger object emitted more flame and cinders, I thought something may have been wrong and it was possibly going to fall to earth, instead it flew straight up until it became very small and stopped. The fire stopped. It suspended itself at that elevation until the fog covered it and I could no longer see.

I know several others stopped their cars to watch as did I.