Californian Ghosts? Point Sur Lighthouse

On all my travels up and down my home state of California, I’ve driven by the Point Sur Lighthouse numerous times, but never having the chance to pay it a visit. Tonight as I find time to catch up on old emails, I chance across an old email from my subscription to KQED and a report about the isolated Point Sur Lighthouse.

Check it out below:

A Lighthouse So Beautiful, Ghosts Come Back to Haunt It

This question might seem a month late, but humor us: Do you believe in ghosts? Because they appear to dwell in one of California’s oldest lighthouses, perched atop a volcanic rock just off-shore in Big Sur. The California Report host Sasha Khokha visited the Point Sur Lighthouse to see for herself and came back with enough evidence to make even a skeptic believe.

When the lighthouse was built in 1889, Highway 1 didn’t exist and the keepers and their families were hours away from the nearest city, Monterey. Despite the isolation, they often fell in love with its breathtaking ocean views and were happy to reside in the lighthouse — in life and death.

Lighthouse docent Julie Nunes, who calls herself a ghost hunter, knows the ghosts by name — Pokey, Ruth and Catherine Ingersoll, the latter a Danish immigrant who was married to a lighthouse keeper. You can hear her talk to them as she shows Khokha the head lightkeeper’s stunning house, which has an ocean-view window in every room. First, Nunes knocks and asks permission to come in, “Hello, it’s Julie! Hi Ruth! Can we come in to visit?”


Nunes regularly records the ghosts talking back, which you can hear in the radio version of this story (so spooky!). Nunes also communicates with them through a device called an Ovilus, used by paranormal investigators, which she places on the kitchen table next to a pair of plastic skeleton arms. She asks any ghosts to tap the black box, so it can sense a vibration. As captured by Khokha’s video, one of the skeleton’s hands begins to twitch.

Another docent, who the other volunteers call “the level-headed Canadian,” tells her story of cleaning the head lighthouse keeper’s house and encountering a turn-of-the-century woman standing at the stairway landing.

You can tour the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper’s quarters — if you dare. Nunes’ special Halloween tours are over for the year, but the moonlight tours resume in April and offer a chance to experience the lighthouse after dark.

Read the full story here: https://www.kqed.org/news/11701114/a-lighthouse-so-beautiful-ghosts-come-back-to-haunt-it?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=20181121ICYMI&mc_key=003i000000TvJ3yAAF

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