Ghosts of Griffith Park Los Angeles

Detail from the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round

In November 2016 I took a trip to Southern California with my Sisters and niece. While there I was fortunate to visit a few places that are either reported to be haunted, and have a history or legend that is paranormal in nature. Of all the places my Sisters and I went we only encountered one definite cold spot that was very weird. I should note we were not ghost hunting, but just worked in the paranormal, magical, unique and interesting when possible.

On Sunday November 13th we visited Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and it was near the old, long abandoned LA Zoo that we had the odd happening. The old Zoo is located on a hiking trail off Fire Road, Los Angeles, 90027

Here is a brief history:

"The Griffith Park Zoo was originally opened in 1912, amusingly built on the former location of Griffith J. Griffith's old ostrich farm. It was opened with 15 animals, and due to lack of funding, it opened without any cages, simply stockades to keep the animals in, which was inadequate for several of the species kept on site.

Stories claim that the history of the zoo was rocky, and it was always struggling. For example, in 1916, the zoo was apparently leaking sewage into the L.A. River, and later during World War I, a meat shortage made it hard to properly care for the animals, forcing the zoo to substitute horse meat for beef, leading to the deaths of many of the meat eating animals, particularly the big cats. Luckily the zoo was free which kept visitors coming.

In the mid 1920s, with the failure of the Selig Zoo, William Nicholas Selig donated several of his animals to the Griffith Park Zoo. Selig had owned Selig Polyscope, which post closure of the film studio, led the movie producer to take all the animals he had gathered for his films and try his hand at opening up a zoo in East Los Angeles. A zoo he had plans to mix with a large amusement park. Selig had grandiose plans involving a large zoo, rides, restaurants, a hotel, and even a giant swimming pool complete with a beach and wave making machine. None of his plans ever saw fruition however, and although the Selig Zoo was occasionally rented out to film a few movies, such as the 1918 Tarzan, the zoo ultimately failed, leading Selig to donate the animals to the Griffith Park Zoo.

By May 1958, people had had enough of the Griffith Park Zoo and its condition, leading voters to vote for the establishment of a brand new zoo. An $8 million dollar bond was approved for construction, and by November 1966 the new Los Angeles Zoo opened a few miles north of the Griffith Park Zoo. All the animals were relocated there, thus ending the career of the Griffith Park Zoo."

History Source Weird California

We arrived at the head of the trail after several hours of exploring the Griffith Observatory and taking in a show at their Planetarium, which I highly recommend! There were quite a few people including families near the parking area who were picnicking, it was getting close to dusk, but still fairly early in the day and quite warm. As we hiked up to the abandoned zoo enclosures there were fewer and fewer people and no one on the trail giving us a chance to thoroughly check it out.

There is an eerie atmosphere there that can definitely be related to the history of how people used to believe it was OK to treat animals, and in some cases still do. A definite sadness in the air, and the scenery lends itself to a horror movie vibe.

After climbing into some of the enclosures and snapping a few photos we started back up the path away from the parking towards the trails. I was looking for some rocks to bring home from the location when my Sister called out to me to come over to where she was standing. Right in that spot there was a definite "cold spot" with absolutely no identifiable source. The temperature if I had to guess was at least 15 degrees colder and felt like standing beside air conditioner's vent. 

Here is a photo of the location of the cold spot.

This is another angle from near where the cold spot was encountered. 

Cold spots are considered to be part of a PSI or paranormal experience. Maurice Townsend of ASSAP describes them thusly:

"People often report 'cold spots' in haunted locations. These are small areas (usually a lot smaller than a room) that feel significantly colder than the surrounding area. They are considered by some to be a sign of a ghost in the area. Some cold spots are always felt in the same place while others seem to appear and disappear at different locations." 

Full article on cold spots here

I have encountered cold spots before while visiting reportedly haunted sites, but usually not so drastic a change, and never one outdoors before. An unusual and unexpected highlight of our visit to Griffith Park. 

For more on the Griffith Park hauntings please have a look Weird California's Curse of Griffith Park page which includes the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round which we visited after the the hike up to the Zoo. 

This Merry Go Round was the inspiration in part for Walt Disney to build his theme park. There is information and a history on the site. It is definitely beautiful with its own creepy long ago fairground vibe and vintage calliope music.

Creepy clown and devils lead the way!

Naturally we just had to take a ride! 

Merry Go Round Selfie!  

According to Weird California "a ghost lurks near the Merry Go Round, having been seen descending steps nearby and disappearing as he reaches the last step." I can believe it! And while we did not encounter that ghost I would love to hear from anyone who has had a first hand encounter or an interesting story from Griffith Park. Will definitely go back when in L.A.

Snack tip: Popcorn is free at the Merry Go Round at the end of day 😀

Visitations

Sauble Beach, Ontario, Canada - My photo

It has been 11 years since my Mother passed away after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She is forever in my heart, and my mind, and I still miss her very much.

I have been going through some of my older posts from other blogs and websites that I have contributed to, and came across this one earlier today. It reminds me of how fleeting and precious our lives are, and I wanted to reshare it in honour of my Mom.

My Mother held no specific religious beliefs beyond that she would tell us that she believed in the stars, and the Sun, and our Earth. She was very much a Pagan in spirit if not in a self identifying label. She was a very spiritual woman in part due to a near death experience she had after falling into a river when she was 9 years old. And she was very interested in my research into exceptional human experiences.

A couple of weeks after her diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer with a very grim prognosis we had a long talk about death. She assured me that she had no fear of death itself, but was scared of the process of dying. Her illness came as a shock to all of us, including herself. A few weeks before she collapsed at home, and had to be rushed to the hospital we had taken a long walk on shores of Lake Ontario for her birthday. She loved the beach and she lived close to the lake. We had ice cream cones, and joked about stuff, and nothing seemed unusual or wrong on that warm Summer day. It was three weeks before we knew she was seriously ill.

When my Mom got her diagnosis she was in shock, and grief, and she told me she had no idea how she would be able to fall asleep for all of the anxiety.

Weeks later she told me that when she did go to her bedroom that first night, and climbed into bed with her book, something odd happened. She felt as if someone unseen to the eye had sat down on the bed right beside her. She could feel their weight, and mass as if someone was right there! She said it was like a larger person was sitting there, but she could not see them despite the lights being on.

A ghost?

She was not frightened, in fact she said she felt a great calm come over her, and she felt protected. She knew everything would be ok no matter what happened. And soon afterwards she was able to fall asleep.

Surely, she said to me, "this must have been my guardian angel come to comfort me." Everybody has a guardian angel isn't that right, Susan?" She told me about this strange experience a couple of weeks after it had happened, and as she, and we as a family began processing the knowledge that her life was coming to a close.

The day after the horrific diagnosis my Mom asked me to break the news to my younger sister. She couldn't bear to do it herself knowing it would break my sister's heart. I waited until my sister got off of work, and I told her our Mother was dying, and had very little time left. This was one of the hardest moment's of my life.

Before the end of the evening and as the news began sinking in for both of us, my sister said she had to tell me something, and it couldn't wait. She said she did not want to forget to tell me, knowing that I'm "into weird stuff" and that I'd find it interesting, and needed something else to occupy my thoughts even if only briefly.

Three days prior to the diagnosis of our Mom with terminal cancer my sister, and her partner were in the small town of Sauble, Ontario, Canada, that coincidentally was the same place our parents had first met during the 1950s. My Sis and her partner had stayed in the Sauble Beach area later than they had planned, and so they decided to rent a motel room for the night, and drive back to Toronto in the morning.

After watching a movie, my sister and her partner fell asleep. At some point during the night she was woken up by what she initially thought was her partner sitting down on the bed beside her. She felt it was a bigger person, and she turned around only to realize her partner was snoring, fast asleep on the other side of the bed!

She said she was a little startled by this because she could feel the indentation where this "bigger body" felt as if sitting right beside her, however she told me she was not scared.

The light was very dim, and she could not see this "person" only felt the sensation of someone being right beside you.

She then said it felt like a hand began stroking her head, and she felt comforted, as if the intention of this "unseen hand" was to soothe her, and she turned over and went to sleep.

She said she had no idea what the experience had been all about. In fact she said she probably just dreamed it all, but since she knew I collected "weird stories" she wanted to tell me, and give me the name of the motel so I could post an anonymous report about it to my ParaResearchers of Ontario website. Just in case someone else experienced something similar there or if there was a history of the place being haunted.

Bear in mind that at this point I did not know about my Mom's strange experience, and I had not been able to connect the two encounters yet.

So a couple of weeks later when my Mom began telling me of her "guardian angel" I was bursting, and almost leaping off my chair. And I believe the first thing I said to her was did you talk to Diana?!!!!

My mother and sister had not shared these experiences with each other yet. And both were amazed by this synchronicity. The descriptions of their separate encounters were nearly identical!

I did not have a similar encounter, and I'm not certain how I would have felt about it if I had. I did have several synchronicities leading up to my Mom's diagnosis, but I was only able to decipher them much later on.

There have been thousands of similar experiences reported over the centuries, and probably occurring since the beginning of human history. We are certainly not alone. I hope that somehow in the telling of our family's encounter this will help someone in some way.