Riverside’s Most Haunted

Paranormal activity within city limits WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT

Ghostly shadows, undead spirits, and otherworldly apparitions have frequented this city’s most famous landmarks since its incorporation way back in 1883.

Over the years, many tall tales have been spun on the lips of local residents that speak of unexplained lights, shadowy forces, disembodied voices, and ghostly dark robed figures—all happening within city limits.

Here for this issue, we’ve painstakingly compiled a short list of some of the most haunted spots in town.

Riverside’s Most Haunted

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Riverside’s Most Haunted

Mission Inn

Easily one of Riverside’s most famous landmarks, the Mission Inn is also known to be one of the most haunted places in town. First owned by C.C. Miller, it was then sold to his son Frank right before his father’s death at the turn of the twentieth century. Construction of the existing structure of the hotel began in 1890 and was completed in 1947. This ‘blocks-long’ Mediterranean-style hotel features numerous staircases, towers, and courtyards. It truly is a sight to behold when you realize the true scope of the place and how large it really is.

Supposedly, Frank Miller and his sister Alice haunt it, as they owned a twelve-room cottage that sat where the Olympic-sized swimming pool is located now. There’ve been numerous claims that these ghostly two wander every hallway in the hotel and haunt many rooms, including Alice’s room on the fourth floor in the southeast corner. This two-level room is very active with her presence, as there’ve been many reports of cold spots, cold touches, apparitions, and some have even heard her beautiful singing. Frank’s room was also located on fourth floor, but in the northeast

corner. Mr. Miller’s spirit can be felt there, as his presence permeates through the room.

Other haunted areas at the Mission Inn include the Bridal Honeymoon Suite (across from Alice Miller’s room). There’ve been multiple reports of guests being pushed (or hurried) down the spiral staircase of the two-level suite. It’s rumored that in 1993, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon night frantically checked out of their room just after midnight after reportedly being pushed on the stairwell. There’ve also been many sightings of blue lights the size of a bowling ball seen floating around Room 215.

In the Mission Dining Room (also known as the Spanish Dining Room), there’ve been a few eyewitnesses who’ve seen a ghostly apparition traveling near the ceiling from the entrance wall, out to near the patio, and back to the far wall in the dining room. In the Rotunda, there’ve been some occasional sightings, and visitors have reported feeling cold spots and touchy-feely feelings in the area. Cell phones cease working in certain areas, and almost all of the hallways are haunted at the Mission Inn, as there’ve been numerous sightings of vanishing guests along hallways throughout the entire hotel.

The much-fabled Mission Inn catacombs that run underneath the hotel have been rumored to go all the way to Mt. Rubidoux or a lost Chinatown—they were originally used during the Prohibition days to run booze. Recent excavations and new construction have proven that the Catacombs do indeed exist, but they have a dark and sinister history all their own.

Mt. Rubidoux

Apparently, Mt. Rubidoux does indeed have a dark side. Locals have told stories of devilish voices heard throughout the hills, and rocks are sometimes tossed down onto unsuspecting hikers. “One night, I was walking with my family and felt a pull and I turned around, and there was nothing. I told my family and they said the mountain is haunted. Then a few days later, my sister and I went for a jog at 12:30am, and something threw a rock at us, and I ran for my life!” said a local resident who wishes to remain anonymous.

There’s also the story of hidden creatures that stack rocks into groups of three perfectly shaped pyramids immediately behind hikers. People have turned around to see these pyramid piles formed behind them suddenly as they mysteriously appeared behind their backs. Others tell of ghostly dark robed figures that have been seen walking creepily near the edge of the mountain. Then there’s the fable about the secret tunnel that was used during the Prohibition days that connects Mt. Rubidoux to the Mission Inn. People have said that it was once used to smuggle and stash alcohol back then. “I worked security at the Mission Inn from 1982 to 1985 when the hotel was closed for restoration. Along the way, I had the opportunity to explore almost all the tunnels from the Mission Inn outward. When we were exploring the tunnel, we only got as far as the cemetery. Two vaults (that you put coffins in) had fallen through the ceiling, and the tunnel was not passable without moving the concrete vaults. We had a tunnel map and were able to explore the tunnel from the mountainside down to the blocked passage way. So I can affirm that the tunnel was there in 1982. If you know what you’re looking at, there’s a screened vent above the tunnel on a street corner near the cemetery,” said a former security guard at the Mission Inn.

Baby Lucille's stained glass portrait in the window of the living room.

Stella Irvine House

This French-style chateau was once the home of Stella B. Irvine (born in 1859 and died 1926). She’s famous for campaigning on the Prohibition ticket for Congressman of California’s 11th District in 1918. Stella was an active Prohibitionist, and she was also heavily involved with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

In 1893, Irvine moved (along with her husband Lew) to Riverside and bought an orange grove the size of three city blocks between First and Fourth Streets, and Locust Street and Brockton Avenue. Together that year, they began construction of their glorious sixteen-room house on the corner of Brockton Avenue and First Street.

Inside the residence, a gigantic living room fills the entire downstairs of the house, and its original decor was Art Nouveau hand painted designs—very popular for that time period. Located over one window is a painting of the couple’s daughter, Lucille, who died of unknown causes when she was just a baby. In 1938, the house was sold and soon became haunted. Lucille is said to still haunt the house, and a baby can occasionally be heard crying to this very day. “When the second owner’s family first bought the house from the Irvine’s in 1938, two of their uncles went up into the attic and wanted to sleep there that night. They soon heard a crying baby, so they went downstairs because they were too scared. Then the boys went into the main room, tried to sleep there, and heard a baby crying all night long. That’s what originally spooked the daylights out of them,” said the current owner of the Stella Irvine house who wishes to remain nameless. “Since I moved in here this past February, I haven’t heard a single sound.”

“When the second owner’s family first bought the house from the Irvine’s in 1938, two of their uncles went up into the attic and wanted to sleep there that night. They soon heard a crying baby, so they ran downstairs because they were too scared"

FLIR Heat signature of a seat on the C-141 where no one had been sitting.

March Field Air Museum

One of the most consistently haunted places in all of Riverside, the March Field Air Museum is a hot bed of paranormal activity. Daily occurrences happen far too often to count at the museum, as there’ve been multiple accounts over the years from employees to guests that have witnessed the unexplainable.

Such activity has attracted the attention of local paranormal research teams, and also national attention with the Ghost Adventures team investigating the museum in an episode on their TV show that aired on the Travel Channel in 2018. The evidence they found was pretty chilling, so make sure to check it out (Season 20, Episode 16) for yourself when you get a moment.

With 30,000-plus artifacts and 84 airplanes, there’s a ton of history at the March Field Air Museum—and it seems that spirits have attached themselves to a lot of the objects on display. Some of the most notable hauntings at the museum are located at the Restoration hangar, as it sits exactly on the land that originally had a sharecropper’s homestead on it in the early twentieth century. “We know that it was rented out to different farmers during the early 1900s. What our local psychic has told us about the area matches up with what we’ve seen—we’ve picked up children’s voices, we’ve got an image of what looks like a woman dressed in early twentieth century clothing standing in the corner of the mezzanine, and we’ve had an incident with card stacking. Our psychic told us that it’s a young woman and her husband is away. She had two children, a four-year old girl and a two-year old boy. The flu came through and killed the four-year old girl. Shortly after, the mother died, and then the two-year old son died about two weeks after her. And they’re all still there waiting for her husband to come back,” explained Jeff Houlihan, March Field Air Museum’s director of collections, curation, and restorations.

The first paranormal investigation at the museum took place back in 2012, where the Synergy Paranormal team put cameras in the Restoration hangar—a really bizarre event happened on their first night of filming. “We had all kinds of different experiences before, so we brought in these guys

Riverside’s Most Haunted

in attempt to see if something real was going on. It was so carefully controlled and I was so careful that no one could get in there and mess with anything. About an hour and a half later, we went back to the Restoration hangar and went to the mezzanine deck. I unlocked it and walked in,” said Jeff.

“As we got to the metal staircase, I noticed that the camera was gone. I went up and checked the whole perimeter of the mezzanine, and then saw that the camera was jammed upside down in an area between the stencil desk and the mezzanine.

Inside the haunted C-141. There weren’t any tracks in the dust up there or anything. The tripod legs were still extended, so they hadn’t collapsed in any way. The camera was totally upside down and still running when we found it. So we checked out the footage and what you see is that it’s just sitting there, and then all of a sudden it’s just as if someone came by and smacked it,” said Houlihan intensely. “We have to maintain a high level of credibility in what we do here—it’s a museum and it’s history, so it’s important.”

Another hot spot of intense activity has got to be the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter strategic airlifter cargo plane. It’s a gigantic Vietnam War-era transport plane that was primarily used for medevac and transporting troops to-and-from wartime Southeast Asia in the late 1960s. “For the 141, we have at least two soldiers still on board, a nurse, and some patients because it was a Medevac during Vietnam. Actually, the 141 did all sorts of missions like medevac, repatriation, and troop hauler,” said Sherry Zigler, who works in the museum’s main office, and is also the founder of Dead Horse Creek Paranormal—a local ghost hunting team. “Some of that could be residual energy, because every once in a while, you’ll hear the sound of boots walking in the main cargo hold. From what we can gather, most of them think they’re still flying on the 141 back in the 1960s.”

“We also get lots of orb activity on the 141. I don’t know if it’s the most haunted place on museum property because this entire place is active! The FB-111 fighter-bomber is also very active. We were out on a recent public investigation this past August and we couldn’t believe the residual energy coming from this huge air raid siren. We get a lot of residual energy from objects, and also active energy where the spirits are responding,” she explained. “The gallery here is also very active—we’ve had poltergeist activity in there with some stuff being thrown around,” said Sherry. “Near as I can determine, there’s some spirits here that are very much in the present. Then there’s the spirits that are in the past—and they never come out of the past.”

There’s literally so much paranormal activity to report about at the March Field Air Museum that we could write an entire book about it—it was hard enough trying to squeeze all the juicy tidbits into one measly little article. Upon further research of the museum’s ghostly findings, we’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that it’s all true—this place is definitely haunted, as recent evidence has proven. But it’s up to you how you use your own imagination to truly believe that it’s all for real.