Spooky San Francisco

As Halloween is lurking around the corner, I thought this would be a good opportunity to share some of San Francisco's haunted past, and some real events to chill the bones.  These are tales, not for the faint-of-heart, so beware.  You have been forewarned.

Since 1897 the San Francisco Columbarium has been the final resting place for both prominent and regular citizens of the city.  This Neo-Classical structure was built at a time when much of the neighborhood were cemeteries but is today surrounded by the city’s residential Richmond District.  Many notable San Franciscans from slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk, to music promoter Chet Helms, to my friend and colleague Marianne rest there.  

On a quiet tree-lined street rests the San Francisco Columbarium

But on more than one occasion stories of spectral images have been reported, and other spooky encounters have been claimed.  With thousands of souls resting under its 45-foot dome, there are bound to be some creepy happenings.  One story was of a woman visiting the Columbarium and claimed she felt a cold hand touch her back, when she turned around there was no one there.  That’s not the weird part, apparently a white handprint was left on the place where she felt the ghostly contact. 

One of the widely reported ghost stories from many of the staff said they saw the disembodied image of a little girl dressed in clothes from the Victorian era.  Some claim they heard the giggling of a little girl only to find no one there.

I can’t guarantee you will see ghosts at the San Francisco Columbarium, but plenty have been reported.

One of the unnerving hauntings from San Francisco's past is the story of the Squando, a Norwegian ship which docked in San Francisco in 1890.  Legend has it that the captain learned of a "liaison" between his wife and his first mate.  The chain of events differs, but the consensus is that the captain cut off his first mate's head in a fit of jealousy.  Some say he kept the severed head, still others say he threw it overboard, but it was not long before the headless body of the first mate was found floating in the San Francisco Bay. 

The San Francisco waterfront, where specters of ghostly ships may be seen on a foggy night

Some of the crew claimed to have seen a headless apparition appear and disappear.  Some say it was cursed before it crossed the Golden Gate.  Apparently, there were several mysterious deaths in the construction of the ship and the wife of one of those who died is said to have cursed the ill-fated vessel. 

However, by 1893 the crew deserted the ship while it was docked in Canada. And the weirdness didn’t stop there.  Several security guards hired to watch the derelict vessel quit in quick succession, claiming to have encountered a decapitated vaporous apparition floating in front of the captain’s quarters.  It is said, if you look out over the San Francisco waterfront on a moonlit foggy night, the spectral outline of the Squando may be seen out of the corner of your eye.

One of the creepier characters from San Francisco’s past was a real person.  Howard Stanton Levey was a musician and naturally born showman, but is better known as Anton LaVey.   He gained notoriety as a paranormal researcher, gave regular lectures on the occult, and formed an organization of his followers called the Order of the Trapezoid.  Some of his members suggested that the group was really a religion.  On April 30th, 1966 he shaved his head and the Church of Satan was born.  For some it was part religion, part philosophy, and part performative circus.

In 1972 he bought a house on a quiet tree-lined street in San Francisco’s Richmond District painted it black, as in jet black, and it became the center of COS activity.  I used to live in that neighborhood and often jogged passed the black house behind barbed wire on California Street.  It was supposed to be his clandestine lair, but it was one of the worse kept secrets because every shopkeeper and café worker in the area knew of it.

According to a former disciple I knew, over the years the Church of Satan became less and less a dark spiritual movement.  This former follower said it was more about selling candles, pentagrams, and accoutrements to frighten your parents,. But the Church’s reach went beyond the borders of our 49 square miles. 

As a hotel concierge I was always surprised when the occasional guest would come to my desk and ask about the "Church," with the desire to make a pilgrimage to the "Black House."  Even though he died in the 1990s, and the black house was demolished decades ago, Anton LaVey's spirit and legacy still looms large decades after his passing.

San Francisco in the 1970s was a time of great societal and cultural change.  The Summer of Love dream, morphed into the nightmare exploitation of lost hippie kids by Machiavellian manipulators.  Many people who lived through that era, often have a nostalgic, halcyon-hued memory of the decade. 

But it was a chaotic time.  It was an era of serial killers (Both the Zodiac and Zebra), political assignations (Milk, Moscone, and an attempt was even made on former president Gerald Ford), kidnappings (the SLA and Patty Hearst), and cult leaders.  It was common to encounter Moonies (followers of Korean-born cult leader Sun Myung Moon), pinning flowers on travelers at the San Francisco Airport, and asking for “donations” for their dear leader.  Before Charles Manson moved to Los Angeles and was inspired by the Beatles' Helter Skelter, he and his “family” lived in the Height-Ashbury District of San Francisco. 

But the scariest of all these so called prophets was Jim Jones, minster of the Peoples Temple.  The church began as a liberal Christian denomination, focusing on helping the poor, and establishing itself as a political force.  If you were an up-and-coming politician and needed 500 people to chant your name at a rally, Jim Jones would provide them.  He became such a dominant figure, integrating himself into local politics, he was even appointed chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. 

By then rumors about abuse of his followers began to grow from whispers to serious scrutiny.  By the mid-1970s, his brand of Christianity morphed into an anti-capitalist derivation he called Apostolic Socialism, and believed the government was out to persecute him for political reasons.  In an attempt to evade facing the allocations of abuse, the Peoples Temple bought land in what was then British Guyana (now just Guyana) and established his mission there.  But the rumors of torture and abuse kept trickling north to San Francisco. 

The concerns of family members escalated to the point that a local congressman named Leo Ryan, and an entourage traveled to this tiny South American nation to investigate.  Believing this was the first wave of the government out to murder him (and thus his followers as well), in a paranoid fever dream he determined to make sure they were not going to be taken alive. 

The horrors that followed are now part of history.  Leo Ryan and most of his group were shot to death.  Knowing that others would follow, Jim Jones and over 900 of his followers drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aide and died.  That is where we get the phrase, “Drinking the Kool-Aide,” to explain why a person would harm themselves through unquestioning obedience to an authority figure.

Ironically, the government that Jim Jones resisted ultimately prevailed because the site of the Peoples Temple is today a post office.

As I forewarned, tales from spooky San Francisco are not for the faint-of-heart.

Happy Halloween