Haunted Moorpark

Moorpark’s got a lot of community spirit, and if the recent ghost hunting event at the library is any indication, it’s got its fair share of community spirits as well.

Presenter Sandy Carlson, a school nurse by day and ghost hunter in her free time, shared information about a couple different city locales that are said to be haunted. Audience members added their own handful of local lore to the list as well.

Carlson spoke about Moorpark’s Gravity Hill, near the north end of Walnut Canyon Road where, supposedly, cars parked in neutral at the bottom of the hill will roll uphill.

Legend has it that many years ago, when a bus full of school children broke down there and the children got off the bus to help push it out of the way of traffic, the bus rolled back down on them, killing them. Now, the story goes, the ghosts of the children push cars stopped there to move them out of the way of traffic.

Carlson said that during her research–and she said research is a very large part of ghost hunting—she was unable to find any evidence or news reports of such an incident.

“It would have definitely made the front page,” she said.

In an interview prior to her talk, Carlson said that it’s an urban legend not unique to Moorpark.

“Antioch in Northern California and San Antonio, TX have identical stories,” she said in an earlier interview.

What she says is true is that when parked in neutral at what appears to be the bottom of the hill, a car will roll in what appears to be an uphill direction.

“It’s an optical illusion. The landscape is such that it only appears you’re rolling uphill,” Carlson said.

She even brought a carpenters’ level and set it on the car to show if the car was leaning up or down.

Another spirit popular in Moorpark lore is the lady ghost who inhabits the High Street Arts Center. The story goes that it’s the ghost of a Hungarian singer named Zala who lived in the city before the theater was ever built.

Carlson said her research was unable to verify any such person existed; however, she said, a number of people have reported hearing a female voice singing in the theater when no females were there. Among those reporting hearing the voice were people who wouldn’t likely know of the story, like workers helping to restore the building when Larry Janss owned it.

As well, Carlson shared photos with orbs, or circles of light, she captured on a ghost hunting trip to the theater last year.

Ghost hunters believe such orbs are ghosts; however, they take great pains to first try to find other explanations for the light circles. Could they be light from flashlights? Or reflective surfaces merely reflecting a light? Once other possibilities have been ruled out, they do it all again and re-examine their evidence. Then they have others look at it to verify or debunk the findings.

After all this, Carlson is fairly convinced she may have captured a ghost on her camera.

But she wasn’t the only believer present at the library event. Patsy Rodriguez, a 59-year Moorpark resident, said she’s heard and believes stories about various ghosts in the city, especially in the Virginia Colony area, including a moaning female ghost near the Arroyo who fits the La Llorona category of stories. The wide-spread Hispanic legend tells of a woman who drowned her children and then killed herself. She now is seen near bodies of water, moaning in her sadness and looking for her children, according to the story.

“The older people who live in the Colony have heard the stories,” Rodriguez said, adding that this particular part of the city has so many ghosts because “it’s an old out-of-the-way place.”

She said she came to the ghost hunting event out of curiosity and for validation.

“I’ve heard of Moorpark being haunted and believe it,” she said. “Now I can tell everyone I’m not crazy.”