I don't believe in ghosts. Mainly because they don't exist, but also because I know enough scary living people to bother filling the world with scary dead ones too. But that wasn't going to stop me agreeing to go on a San Francisco Ghost Hunt with Sarah and Drew.
We met our guide Jim at the Queen Anne Hotel. He was quite easy to spot as he was dressed like a Victorian and carrying a lamp. We started there, learning about Miss Mary Lane, the ghost of a schoolteacher (the hotel used to be a girl's school) who visits room 410 and...tucks people into bed. Several visitors have reported finding an extra blanket on top of them in the morning.
From there it was outside, where we wandered down a part of California Avenue that has been visited in the past by the ghost of Flora Sommerton, fleeing an unhappy engagement. Nothing tonight. We then stopped outside a house haunted by one Claudia Chambers and were presented with a supernatural key. Sometimes it turns by itself in your hand!
The Atherton Mansion, our next destination, is haunted by four different ghosts; three women and one man. If I was him I'd have passed on to the other side just to get some peace. We finished at the house of Mary Ellen Pleasant. She was far more interesting in life than in death, being a highly successful (and slightly dodgy) local businesswoman, and organiser of the Underground Railroad. As a ghost her main malevolence seems to be throwing nuts from six trees she planted.
All in all it was a little less than the eerie experience I was expecting, and there were no encounters with the spirit world. At least, none that I could see.
As the sun goes down, the ghosts come out. In theory.
Hannah waits in the Queen Anne lobby for the tour to begin.
Hannah, Drew and Sarah show off our guide's unexplained energy meter thing.
The unexplained energy meter thing.
Checking out the stairs.
Room 410 used to be Miss Mary's office. Drew searches for cold spots (a certain sign of spiritual manifestation).
The decor is really nice.
Sarah picks up the phone, and there's no one on the other end!
Our guide, the scariest thing on display.
Out and about in the Pacific Heights neighbourhood.
It looks like a normal key, but...
...it's actually haunted!
Outside a house that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a well-known spiritualist, stayed at.
The four-ghost mansion.
Drew found a ghost finding app for his iPhone! Nothing here either.
Final scary photo.
