Ukiah Courthouse ghost No. 1 paranormal event

The Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah made supermarket tabloids as home of the top paranormal event of 2004, in the Aug. 1 edition of the National Examiner.

In an article titled "The Truth is Out There: The Top 10 Paranormal Events of the Year," the National Examiner decided a "ghostly video" captured by high-tech, motion-detecting cameras was the top paranormal event of 2004.

According to the National Examiner article, "officials scoffed at janitors who reported that a female ghost, wearing a dress and high heels, was haunting the Mendocino County Courthouse "

The article also used a creative spelling of the Northern California town where the paranormal occurrence happened, Ukiak, Calif.

In a Daily Journal article published April 2, 2004, something described as a "mist" appeared on a motion-sensor camera, moving back and fourth across the courthouse's lower hallway.

Advertisement


A janitor, who has viewed the tape, told The Daily Journal the "ghost" can be seen floating in front of a light in the hallway.

"Someone came walking down the hallway and we didn't think much of it," a janitor at the courthouse told The Daily Journal at the time. "The door was open and I caught out of the side of my eye a dress walking by in high heels. After it went past the doorway, it only went about five more steps and then it stopped."

Employees at the courthouse also said the metal-detecting machines at the courthouse entrances go off and that they've witnessed the elevator stopping on every floor during the night without any passengers.

"One time the elevator started up from the ground floor and we could hear it stopping on every floor," the janitor told The Daily Journal last year. "When it got to the top, it turned around and did the some thing back down. And then I had to get into the thing and go up and clean the top floor."

Many people in the courthouse refer to the paranormal occurrences as a spirit named "George," which is a name that has been passed through generations of employees.

Other paranormal events that made the National Examiner Top 10 for 2004 include a Sasquatch sighting in Florida, discovered landmarks from Atlantis, tears falling from a Virgin Mary statue in Ohio, animal beasts shot by ranchers in Texas and a 45-foot-long creature videotaped on Okanagan Lake in British Columbia



Haunted Places

Ghosts at a Courthouse Set Off the Security System</b> – It’s one thing to sense a ghost or even claim to see a vaporous apparition. Those can easily be dismissed as works of the imagination. But high-tech security systems don’t have imaginations – they react to whatever is in front of them. So when motion-detecting cameras at Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah, California clicked on for no earthly reason, they confirmed what the janitorial staff had long known: the place is haunted. The janitors had experience with a ghost they’ve named George, a female ghost in dress and heels, and a spirit that like to take control of an elevator. In late March, 2004, however, the courthouse’s new security system, designed to click on when they sense motion, caught an anomalous mist that moved back and forth across the lower hallway. The unknown entity even partially obscured a light. Pretty convincing evidence. (Full story.)