When there's something strange ...

In an interview Thursday, Greg Walther talks about the strange happenings at 420 N. Sacramento St. in Lodi, where his computer repair business is located. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

When there's something strange ...

Lodi group to investigate reports of ghosts in office building

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Saturday, October 31, 2009 8:28 AM PDT

Comments (30 comment(s))

An office building on North Sacramento Street may be haunted.

Reports have it that strange noises emanate from a men's room in the back recesses of the building, believed to have been built in the 1920s. But no one's in the men's room.

"If I'm here late at night — between 9 and 10 — we hear stuff," said Adelina Hernandez, who owns Azteca Payroll and Bookkeeping. She does payroll and income tax returns for farm labor contractors.

Hernandez's daughter, Patricia Hernandez, 23, says she'll hear noises from the men's room while she's across the hall in the ladies' room, and she knows that no one is in the building except her and her mother.

Reports by the Hernandezes and another tenant, Gregory Walther, have enticed the Lodi Paranormal and Historic Anomaly Society to lead an investigation to see if anything strange is going on.

And what better time than the night before Halloween?

Legend has it that the first attempted alien abduction actually happened in Lodi, way back in 1896, according to Presler's friend, Casey Voorheis, who has an article from an old Stockton publication on his restaurant wall describing the incident.

Adelina and Patricia Hernandez aren't the only ones who have heard unusual noises in the building, which has a narrow hallway with an estimated 70-feet long wall that adds to the spooky ambiance filled with framed photographs of Lodi from the late 19th and early 20th century.

Greg Walther has a computer company down the hall from Hernandez. He also works late at night at times, because that's sometimes when he gets inspired to design graphics and Web sites.

Some of the office tenants at 420 N. Sacramento St. say thay have heard footsteps and other strange noises coming from the men's room — and this is when the men's room is unoccupied. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

When Walther is alone in the building — generally between 10 p.m. and midnight — he'll also hear funny noises from the men's room. Another spooky happening: His doorbell will buzz at various intervals. It's only supposed to sound when someone is moving nearby. The catch is that nobody's there.

"Some nights it will happen once every 10 minutes," Walther said. "I know there's no one else there. I never get a false alarm during the day."

And a few months ago, something really spooky happened ...

"I was here late at night, and I dozed off a little bit," Walther said. "I woke up to a face that yelled, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

The Hernandezes work well into the evening during tax season and to do payroll work during the different harvest seasons in the Lodi area.

"We'd hear creaking noises, or sometimes it would be, like, footsteps at the end of the hall," Patricia Hernandez said.

"We wouldn't even go to the bathroom at night," she said.

Neither would her two sons, Miguel, 21, and Antonio, 18. They were 17 and 14, respectively, at the time.

"The last four years, the boys wouldn't come in here at night," Adelina Hernandez said.

Could be even spookier on Halloween.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

What will they find tonight?

Tom Presler, who founded the Lodi Paranormal and Historic Anomaly Society in June, will lead an investigation of an old office building, once known as Super Mold Co., beginning at about 10 p.m. today at 420 N. Sacramento St.

Although Presler will lead the investigation, he said he will leave the details to a more experienced crew of five or six from Stockton.

The crew will film the building's interior with still and video cameras, digital sound recorders and EMF meters to detect fluctuations in electro-magnetic energy, Presler said.

They'll even try to elicit a response by asking questions. Usually, any responses will be in the form of whispers, Presler said, but sometimes you'll hear specific answers.

"This isn't an exact science," he said. "Do you want to call it a ghost, an anomaly or something you can't explain?"

The public is invited as long as they don't interfere with the investigation.

Findings won't be determined tonight. Investigators will study the evidence they collect and reveal their findings at a future paranormal society meeting.

Meetings are held at 7 p.m. each Wednesday at Pizza World, 651 N. Cherokee Lane, Lodi.

News-Sentinel staff

Old photos of Lodi hang on the walls at 420 N. Sacramento St., an office complex where some of the tenants often report strange noises and happenings. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Reader Feedback

TLPresler wrote on Nov 5, 2009 1:27 PM:

" FreeThinker,

You're obviously very impassioned about this subject and I completely welcome your skepticism. It's a vital part of any investigation, as the purpose really is to rule things out. I would love to have you attend a meeting and meet you in person. Anyone who is as interested in this field as you seem to be is someone I'd definitely like to meet! "

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