Is it pure urban legend or can someone actually track down a newspaper report to verify this intriguing story? It shouldn’t be too hard if the facts we’ve heard are true. The alleged suicide happened recently, just in the 1990s. The details of the haunting (first reported here: InsidetheIE.com/scariest-place-alta-loma) include phantom whispers, screams, cries, an apparition of the father, and even a shadowy form walking about the back yard.
We’ve also heard that there are other homes in this neighborhood with very active entities residing within them. We would love to investigate! Please drop us a line!
“Murphy’s Ranch” is regaining popularity these days for the time when a radical political group called the Silver Legion set up shop here to prepare to aid in Hitler’s attempt at taking over the world in the ’40s. The more we associate the word “Nazi” with this location, the more sensationalized it seems. Make no mistake about it, this location, deep within Rustic Canyon, north of Malibu and within the Pacific Palisades was developed by Nazi sympathizers who supported the cause Nazi Germany was fighting for. However, how strong the ties between the actual Nazi party was with the Silver Legion are a mystery. In my uneducated opinion, I think they amounted to little more than a fan club. The Nazis had their hands full in Europe, they hadn’t yet realistically set their sights on the “sleeping giant” called America. That said, this location is amazing and the history still completely veiled in mystery. So much so, in fact, that we had to produce two videos here.
Before we jump into the videos, very important question: Do YOU have a ghost story about this place? If so, please leave it in the comments!
In the first video, Connor Bright talks about the history of Murphy’s Ranch. She also uses the ruins as a backdrop to talk about her recent shoot for AwesomenessTV that was filmed at the Cobb Estate.
In this video, Scott Markus takles the hike itself, showing you the beautiful views and creepy ruins.
For those of you who are “subscribed” to this site (first off, thank you), I am merging my other web site, LAHauntings.com, with this one. The LA Hauntings Tour Company is going into a bit of a hiatus and want to make sure all the posts find a safe second home.
Will LA Hauntings continue? In some form, yes. We will continue offering special event tours (we are excited about creating a tour by boat up the coast of southern CA, for example. And we do hope to stay active in appearing at or creating special events.
WhatsYourGhostStory.com is designed to be a clearing house for ghost stories and haunted locations across the globe. For the next couple of days there will be more focus on LA and California than usual. In the next week, we’ll have not one but TWO videos up about the famed former Nazi camp in Rustic Canyon called Murphy’s Ranch. I hope you enjoy the stories and video of haunted and spooky California! ~Scott
In his latest video, Scott Markus takes you inside…
The spooky elevator that inspired the Disney ride The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (while terrifying Connor Bright)!
The soundstage that once contained the Yellow Brick Road and the backlot where Beetlejuice, Batman, and Gone with the Wind were filmed!
And have you ever wondered if your own house is haunted, but been too afraid to find out? Scott Markus isn’t! Watch his latest video to see the results of the investigation he conducted in his own home!!
Also includes bonus footage of a talented ghost hunting cat!
Be sure to check out more LA Hauntings video on YouTube!
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In the last week, Scott Markus and I finally made the trek to Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. This Gorgeous and massive 300 acre cemetery is the final resting place of many of the movers and shakers in Los Angeles history. The hilly grounds offering an incredible views of the city they helped build.
The cemetery was founded in 1906, and operated as a non-profit. The grounds hold three non-denominational chapels. Forrest Lawn was the first “Memorial Park” getting rid of the “unsightly” standing headstones (there are still a few). For a long time they refused black, Chinese, and Jewish internments, now all are welcome. Surprisingly, more than 60,000 people have been married on the cemetery grounds. Forrest Lawn is unique for many reasons, the cemetery holds an art museum, the largest mosaic depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and it the only place in the world with a complete set of reproduction Michelangelo statues, made from the same quarries as the originals.
It is also a place that has an insane amount of respect for the privacy of their departed tenants.
It is this amount of privacy that makes enjoying the grounds, and paying respects, very difficult. Forrest Lawn does not allow pictures of graves, or anywhere in their many mausoleums’ out of “respect of the property owners”. Many of the crypts and graves are roped off and concealed from those who wish to visit them.
Scott and I both felt this was a little over-dramatic.
The Great mausoleum had more security cameras than an airport, and out of all of the “greatness” only about 10% is open to the public.
Even crypts that were open-air were locked off. Walt Disney, a resting place I was sincerely looking forward to a moment of silence with, was gated off, his name completely obscured by small trees.
The cemetery does provide maps of the grounds, which are sprawling and confusing. We definitely recommend picking one up in the front building. That being said, out of respect of privacy, none of the graves are marked on the map. So you have to do your research ahead of time on who you want to visit, because unless you are very lucky, no one will tell you.
On the lawns, knowing which section a person is buried in is not sufficient. As I said, the grounds are massive; some individual areas are as big as football fields. If you have a crypt number things get a bit easier, but the numbering can be confusing. Scott spent 20 minutes looking for Tom Mix’s grave, with the proper number. Tom Mix is a silent era western star with a connection to one of Scott’s favorite Chicagoland haunts, the Great Escape.
The confusing layouts and steep hills made me give up on seeing my hero. After seeing Scott’s luck with Mix, I gave up on hoping to find Oscar winning costume designer, Edith Head’s plot. As some of you know I also work as a costume designer and Edith is the designer I would like to aspire to be like. Unfortunately I will have to wait to see where she rests, since this time we only knew a lawn name but not a crypt number, we felt we had little chance of locating her.
Directional clues are a must for finding an interment location! Finding, It’s a Wonderful Life star, Jimmy Stuart’s grave was easier once we found the clue that the “statue of the man with the arrow” located him with ease!
Our experience in the Great mausoleum was a little better. Elizabeth Taylor does have a very impressive, very public, and very easy to find monument, a beautiful, tall, Etruscan style angel, right at the end of the hallway at the entrance to the great mausoleum.
The Different sections in the mausoleum are well labeled. However they are also roped off, so the closest you can get to the tragic couple of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard is peering down the hallway and knowing that they are somewhere in the wall just out of your sight. Many others share the same fate.
After only a few hours of this frustration, Scott and I left. As seasoned cemetery goers, we were both surprised by the off limit-ness and difficulty to navigate Forrest Lawn offered. We also found it hard to believe that people like Michael Jackson and Jean Harlow would want to be buried in a place that discouraged their admirers from seeing them. It felt to us that the original intention of a cemetery- to celebrate the lives of those interred there- was lost within the gates. Perhaps Forrest Lawn felt that in, death, they could provide the isolation and security, its patrons never had in life.
We do still recommend a visit to this cemetery. Not for the graves, but for the beautiful views of the city and amazing art collection. Some pieces which belonged to William Randolph Hearst. The collection includes an actual Easter Island head, over 1,000 pieces of stained glass, and many American historical artifacts. As well as quite a few replicas of things found in museums all around the world. Check the schedule to see what the traveling exhibit is!
On the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, near Littlerock, California lies an area called the Devil’s Punchbowl. This area is roughly half way between downtown Los Angeles and Victorville. It is the site of countless beautiful rock formations and also the site of a terrifying screaming spectre.
I have been in physical therapy recently recovering from a broken hand. As tends to happen when people find out I am a “ghost guy,” the room quickly filled with first hand accounts. Of the several amazing stories I heard, I felt I needed to post this one to you guys to see if any of you have had similar encounters in the same place.
A girl named Shannon talked about visiting a campsite as a high school upperclassman in the the summer in the mid 2000s. While she was trying to tend to a group of kids one evening a mist appeared on the trail ahead of her. The mist hovered in the air, slowing coming towards her and the kids, who were all terrified. She could see that the mist seemed to be swirling. The mist also gave off a faint luminescent glow.
As the mist slowly grew nearer, the shapeless mass, which, at a distance was silent, seemed to scream as it past her and her fellow campers.
It is safe to say that Shannon and her young campers slept with one eye open this night.
The name for the area is obviously the first attention-grabber. There are so many haunted sites that use the word “Devil” in its name. When it comes to Devil’s Ditch (site of the crash of 191 in Des Planes, IL) and Devil’s Creek (site of the Grimes sisters death in Willow Springs, IL) the terrible incidents and hauntings occurred long after the naming of the area. However, when it comes to Devil’s Gate near Pasadena, CA, the location was long considered cursed by the native populations before this area was settled. One can only wonder how long this area carried with it the name “Devil.”
In this moment, I have not visited this site, investigated it or researched it. I do, however, want to know if YOU have ever had a strange paranormal encounter in or around this location. Or do you have any historical information that may help explain the terrifying experience that Shannon had here. Please leave comments!
Note: If you are doing research, please be mindful that there is a possibly haunted site in Ontario Canada that is also called Devil’s Punchbowl.
Join us one last time for our final installment of this series, we will visit more LA locations that were important in the life (and death) of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and the ghost stories associated with these locations.
After a quick lunch break, the LA Hauntings crew jumped back in the truck and headed the short distance to Benjamin Siegel’s home. The Beverly Hills home was built as a swanky stronghold for the mobster to run his operation and host parties. Totally obscured by bushes, it is impossible to see much of the mansion from the street, just the way Siegel would have wanted it. The home is rumored to have a hidden armory, large liquor storage, and an escape tunnel from the master bedroom to the basement. When the police came to Siegel’s hideout to arrest him for the murder of Harry Greenberg, it was said that they found the mobster cowering in the attic. After Ben set his sights on Las Vegas and the Flamingo, he sold his fortress to help with the financing of the hotel casino, and moved in with his girlfriend, Virginia Hill.
I’ll admit disappointment at not being able to get a view of Siegel’s home, but that disappointment dissipated upon seeing Virginia Hill’s beautiful Tuscan-esque castle of a home! It was at this location on June 20,1947 that Benjamin Siegel met his end. The bulletproof doors that he had installed at the house did not protect him from the shots fired through the window while he sat talking to his associate Allen Smiley. Although, officially, the murder of Siegel remains unsolved, it’s commonly agreed that Lucky Luciano ordered the hit out of anger with Ben over his handling of the construction on the Flamingo (he refused again and again to hand over expense reports detailing the work). Luciano’s orders were likely carried out by one of Jack Dragna’s men from the driveway next door.
The three bullets fired into the house and into the mobster left a lasting impression on the house. The blood cleaned up, the house sold and resold, but later owners still report feeling panicked in the living room. They occasionally see an apparition of a man attempting to run for cover, perhaps Benjamin Siegel remembering how he met his end and trying to avoid it.
Our final stop on our “half-tank tour,” with our gas light blinking, was the same final stop that Siegel had – Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel lies in the far back corner on the right hand side of the Beth Olman mausoleum. The epitaph on his grave simply reads, “From the Family.” Siegel is said to have told one of the contractors building the Flamingo, who was worried about working with the mob, “Don’t worry. We only kill our own.”
Standing by his crypt I wondered if Ben ever had any idea that his own (Mafia) family would kill him. (As one last parting fact the contractor that Siegel was talking to was Del, the head contractor of the now famous Del Webb developer).
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel lived and died larger than life. In truth, he was a perfect match with Virginia Hill, who was certainly no babe in the woods. Hill entered the mob life during 1933’s Chicago World’s Fair. The Alabama native quickly became a friendly acquaintance of many higher up members of the (then) Costello crime family, even being romantically linked to boss Joe Adonis. After Siegel’s death, Hill did comply and testify at the famous Kefauver hearings. In 1954 she would flee to Europe to escape income tax evasion charges, only to eventually take her own life with an overdose of sleeping pills in 1966 at the age of 49. The small town girl, initially emerging from Alabama, certainly lived a life few could imagine and even in death, she is shrouded in mystery. Did she really extort millions from the NY Mafia? Most think so, but we are far from certain. And why did she take her own life? Many speculate that she continued to scam American and even Mexican crime rings from a distance. We, personally, would love to track down the site of Virginia’s demise (in Austria) and perhaps this will become another instance where a paranormal investigation and EVP session just may help solve an American mystery.
