If you’re looking for a real ghost this Halloween, you may have to look no further than the Val Verde Steakhouse in Socorro. Cody Polston of Southwest Ghost Hunter’s Association has probably done the most research on local ghosts at places like Kelly, Fort Craig and the Val Verde.

SOCORRO - If you’re looking for a real ghost this Halloween, you may have to look no further than the Val Verde Steakhouse in Socorro.

Cody Polston, whose Southwest Ghost Hunter’s Association has probably done the most research on ghosts locally, said Kelly, Fort Craig and the Val Verde Battlefield are significantly more haunted, but employees and others at the Val Verde Steakhouse have plenty of ghostly stories to tell.

Polston, a Socorro resident, has been ghost hunting for 20 years. He said one of the Ghost Hunter Association’s members once rented a room at the Val Verde, and when he returned home from work, all his drawers would be open.

A Val Verde bartender would always see a lady in a white dress on the stairs to the second floor, Polston said.

Apparently, the ghosts liked folk music.

He said they would only appear when a live band would play folk music in the Val Verde’s bar.

When one of the band members allegedly committed suicide upstairs, the ghost sightings stopped, Polston said.

Ghosts in the Val Verde, he said, often take the form of “globules” that move up and down in different directions.

“It’s what’s left of human consciousness after death,” he said. In other words, it could be the electromagnetic residue of life lingering long after death.

On his website, Polston says there’s a lot of ghostly activity on the stairs, where people often see randomly flashing lights and numerous globules.

A mist-like phenomenon has also been seen on the stairs through an infrared camera.

For him, ghost hunting is a high-tech endeavor.

To detect these “globules,” Polston uses infrared cameras - a common digital camera is also good, he said - an electromagnetic field detector and thermal detectors to locate cold spots in a room.

If you’re still skeptical, just ask the waitresses and other employees at the Val Verde what kind of ghosts they’ve seen.

Cindé Trott, a 10-year Val Verde waitress, said one day another waitress who no longer works there heard a sinister voice say, “How are you my darling?”

“She started crying,” Trott said.

Another time, Trott said, she was in the waitress station and a pitcher sitting securely on top of the ice freezer flew off the top and broke a glass above the sink several feet away.

Trott isn’t the only employee who’s had a haunting experience working a the Val Verde.

“A few times I’ve been down in the basement I’ve had the impression somebody’s behind me,” said waiter Chris Parra.

Val Verde employee Fran Calderon said a woman in a blue dress and a man wearing a white shirt will make an appearance in the bar.

Calderon said a Val Verde manager once saw a “weird light” in one of the rooms at the steakhouse and felt a bizarre static electricity.

“It made the hair on the back of their neck stand up and it made their skin kind of red,” she said. “It’s a weird feeling you get. It’s not scary, but you can actually feel their (the ghosts’) presence. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

For all those who experience ghosts at the Val Verde, there are just as many skeptics.

One woman, who requested not to be identified, said she lived in the Val Verde in the 1940’s and had no ghostly experiences there. She called those years “happy times.”

Val Verde Steakhouse owner Mary Gillard calls herself a “confirmed skeptic” and said she’s never seen or heard any ghosts in the more than 14 years she’s owned it.

On Polston’s website, there are photos of alleged “globules” near the east gate of the Val Verde outside the Olde Dana Bookstore.

But bookstore owner Mary Fiske-Reilly said she hasn’t seen any such paranormal phenomena since she took over the store in the spring.

“I don’t do ghosts, or they don’t do me,” Fiske-Reilly said.

Polston has conducted several tests for ghosts at the Val Verde and displays the photos with the globules on his website.

See for yourself online at:Southwest Ghost Hunter's Association