Texas is full of ghosts. San Antonio, where Chris Duarte grew up, is an incredibly haunted city. Chris’s brother, Bart, told me to ask Chris about a ghostly encounter they had years ago. I also asked John Jordan if he had any ghost stories to share. They both had some interesting things to say! The ghostly encounter Chris had is a well-known story in San Antonio. Back in the 1930s, a schoolbus stalled on the Villa Main railroad tracks. Before all of the kids could be taken off the bus, it was hit by a train and ten were killed. The ghosts of these children haunt the area to this day. Even the streets near the tracks are named after them: Richey Otis Street, Nancy Carole Lane, Laura Lee Way and so on. The story goes that if you go to the intersection at night, point your car toward the railroad tracks (that are slightly uphill), turn off the ignition and put it in neutral, that your car will roll uphill and slowly go over the railroad tracks! The kids' ghosts are pushing you to safety! AND if you sprinkle baby powder on the back of your car, their handprints will appear! If you want to try this yourself, go south of town on Villa Main Street where the railroad tracks cross at the top of a small hill near the Stinson Airport (Villa Main turns into Shane Road on the other side of the tracks). If you go down Shane Road you’ll see the streets named after the kids. Sightings of ghosts and the sound of child voices are also commonly reported in this tragically haunted spot.

Hey there Chris, what happened down at the haunted railroad tracks you and Bart went to years ago in San Antonio?

Oh yeah! That was back in the ‘70s. Everyone knew about it. Any high school kid in San Antonio had heard about it. I don’t remember the name of the actual street itself. It was in the deserted southern section of the city. You drive out there and it’s like a country road, I have no idea what it looks like now, but you drive out there and park in the intersection, towards these railroad tracks that are uphill. You turn your car off and turn your lights off and you sit there. Sure enough, a few moments later the car starts slowly moving towards the tracks and you go over them, you go over the railroad tracks! They supposedly push you over the tracks. I didn’t see anything, but it’s pretty creepy! Also, if you put baby powder on the back of your car, childrens handprints appear. We didn’t do that but we heard that’s happened! It was weird to hear about it and then go do it and have it happen to you. Our friends told us about these devil worshiper guys who lived out there in the woods, but we didn’t see any devil worshiper guys.

What about UFOs? You seen any while out on the road?
No, I don’t think so. Nothing that’s really stuck out in my mind that I couldn’t explain.

How about Elvis?
No, but I’ve seen his car on I-70. It was a white Cadillac outside of St. Louis! (Hey boys and girls, have any of y’all noticed on the “Love Is Greater Than Me” album that Chris is wearing the identical shirt that Elvis wore at his first job at Crown Electric? Hmmm.)

Hey there John, I was talking to Chris about ghosts and figured I’d see if you’ve had any ghostly experiences.

This is just what I needed, a nice analog thing to do! I’ve been fighting with the #@!!#%!! computer all day long and the computer won. And what is more analog than a ghost?! The first thing that jumps in my mind, to me it was a supernatural experience, was when I was 7 years old, in fact it was my 7th birthday. I was living in Venezuela, this is 1964, and we had a birthday party and a bunch of kids came over. I ate a bunch of hot dogs, 7 quarts of ice cream, and then chased that with some red hots. I naturally got monster-puking sick! So, of course, that was the end of the birthday party. My mom put me to bed and then I developed a high fever. So I’ve got this 120-degree temperature and I’m throwing up gallons-per-hour and finally I kind of settle down and go to sleep. I thought I had went to sleep, but what happened was I kind of shifted over to another dimension! I was in the middle of a medieval battle!! It was projected all around me in three dimensions. It’s funny you called, because I just watched “Braveheart” last night! Have you seen it? The one with Mel Gibson in it. Well, this was like 100 times more intense than any of the scenes in that!! It was all around me, smells, sounds, more graphic than anybody could imagine! There was no point of reference for that coming from the mind of a child in the 60s!! I think it was a supernatural event because I did not have any kind of “data” for a scene like that. We barely had color TV then, nobody bled, they just clutched their stomachs and fell over, you know? To this day, years later, I can still hear the leather creaking where the metal parts were attached to the leather. And I didn’t know that horses eyes rolled back in terror. It was all so clear!

Were you just observing the battle, like floating in a bubble, or running for your life!?
It was like I was a participant. My hand was wielding a little broadsword. I was there just hacking away! A lot of people were laying down all around. You were either a hacker or a hackee! Actually, kind of both until you succumbed! It was just a giant swirl of violent images. Back then, in the 60s, movies and TV weren’t as graphic as now. “Spartacus” was not that graphic, the swords didn’t drip blood! Maybe I had some Irish guy many generations back in my family who fought in a battle and the shock of it imprinted or altered his chromosomes which came down to me, I don’t know. Or maybe it was just a Shirley MacLaine moment!

Fastforward to the Crescent Hotel Ballroom in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on March 8, 2003....
John Jordan and drummer Ed Miles both saw a ghost as they were playing live onstage. The Crescent Hotel is known to be haunted and they both said they could see a woman out of the corner of their eye, off to the side of the stage. But each time they would look directly at her she would vanish and then reappear as they would look away.