Giving Up the Ghosts

The bluish-silver mist floated mysteriously from under the stone archway of Mission San Juan Capistrano and began moving. Although he was shaken, altar boy Jerry Nieblas and a friend stood and watched the apparition glide along the cobblestone pathway.

When it reached the stone Fountain of the Four Evangelists, the mist crept up the ledge as though it were trying to rise. Then it vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared.

“We ran back to the church,” recalled Nieblas, now 45 and a mission employee. He doesn’t believe for a second that was the only time spirits flitted and floated through the mission.

“There are times when I’ll be on the grounds before a stormy night, and it’s spooky,” he said. “But it is usually when we least expected it that we have seen things.”

To Nieblas, there is no question he saw a ghost that night long ago. It couldn’t have been fog, he said, because the moon was bright, there were no clouds and it was a crisp evening.

Since the mist traveled along the same pathway used by priests on their way to the Serra Chapel, Nieblas believes it was the spirit of one such priest.

Other longtime San Juan Capistrano residents and mission employees also believe the spirits are real.

Over the centuries, there have been claims of priests in human form that suddenly disappear. Unexplained footsteps. Candles that have mysteriously lit. The headless Spanish soldier. A faceless monk wearing a hooded cloak.

“The months from October to the end of February are called the spirit months, or ghost months--that’s when this place gets real active,” said Nieblas.

Supposedly, ghosts have been sighted near the mission too.

Just on the other side of the railroad tracks from the mission are the adobes of the historic Los Rios area. There, sightings of a floating white lady and a terrifying dog dragging a chain have been reported over the years, according to oral histories recorded in 1975 by Karen Wilson Turnbull for the San Juan Capistrano Community History Project at Cal State Fullerton.

A mission bell ringer for more than 30 years, the late Paul Arbiso, then 80, recounted for Turnbull an encounter with a headless man. He was walking late one night along Ortega Highway near the mission.

“I was just walking like this, and he was standing straight with his arms straight down,” Arbiso said. “He was wearing a white shirt and those coats they used to use a long time ago, and he had no head. No head!”

After passing the figure, Arbiso said, he turned, and it was gone.

Then there is the ghost of a woman dressed in white, who mission officials believe was a young woman named Magdalena. As penance for a forbidden love, she was ordered to carry a white candle down the aisle of the old stone church.

Magdalena was crushed on the first day of her penance when an earthquake shook the huge structure to the ground on Dec. 8, 1812. Her image has since been seen on a wall still standing near a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Her body had been found there, hands still clutching the candle against her breast, said mission administrator Jerry Miller.

“In December, people in the town swear they can see in the ruins a moving light, as though someone was walking in there with a candle,” Miller said. “I was called out once, and I looked up and I could see flickering light. . . . I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think I saw it.”

About 40 people died during the earthquake, and their bodies, including Magdalena’s, were buried in the mission graveyard.

One day, both Nieblas and mission cashier Irma Camerena witnessed the spirit of a little girl when they were working in the office at the mission entrance. The Spanish or Indian child wore a white communion dress. At first they thought she was a tourist looking for the restrooms because she walked into a closet.

“There was nothing spooky about her, no strange wind or coldness, only her dress was out of fashion,” Nieblas said.

Camerena said they were giggling and calling for her to come out of the closet, but when they opened the door, there was no one inside.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, but what are you supposed to do when you see it?” Camerena said.