Ana Barraza
GhostsAna Barraza1-1-1-1
Ghosts on a Mission Unexplained ApparitionsUnfinished Business
With Halloween festivities in full swing, sightings of costumed ghouls and goblins are not unusual, and although the occasional Britney Spears getup can be quite scary, nothing is as frightening or disturbing as an actual spine-tingling encounter with the spirit world. In Mission Hills, the San Fernando Mission, along with neighboring Bishop Alemany High School and Brand Park, all seem to be hot-spots for paranormal activity. Maybe it’s the fact that the San Fernando Mission Cemetery is right next door.
Danielle Messiha, a former Alemany student who graduated in 1999, recalled a myth about the ghost of a woman who appears in Brand Park. One night, going back to campus with her basketball team after an away game, one of her coaches dared some team members to run through the park looking for the woman.
“The legend says that the ghost of a lady in a white dress appears when you call her name at midnight. Supposedly she is looking for her son, or her baby who died in an accident, and she asks you where he is,” said Messiha.
The team did pull the over, and two brave souls agreed to the dare, but no one saw anything. “I stayed inside the van with all the doors locked,” she said.
In a Google search of haunted spots in the area, supposed sightings in the mission’s chapel of a lady in a white dress frequently came up.
Could it be the same ghost or just the same taste in style?
Another Alemany alumna, Jacqueline Messiha knows of a different legend, this one being about an American Indian who patrols the campus grounds at night.
“I heard that supposedly the whole area is built on ancient American Indian burial grounds, and that that’s one of the reasons Alemany’s mascot was the Indians,” she said.
That American Indian’s ghost isn’t the only one roaming the school.
Gabriel Barrera, a former seminarian at Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary, (Bishop Alemany took over the seminary campus after the 1994 earthquake destroyed most of the high school’s original campus on Rinaldi Street.) remembered how everyone knew there was a ghost there, even going as far back as when Cardinal Roger Mahoney attended, he said.
“It was in the c-dorms, the ghost would hang out in the top floor. He would walk in the middle of the night and hum,” said Barrera.
“Some say it was the ghost of Richie Valens.”