Investigation Report

Location: The "Ghost Tracks" of San Antonio, Texas
Date: 29 July 2006
Personnel Participating: TX and NM Charters
Weather Conditions: Clear
Humidity: 35%
Geomagnetic Storm Activity: Inactive
Temperature: 101
Number of Photos taken: 32
Number with possible targets: 0
Average EM Readings: 4 mg from powerlines
Average M fields Readings: 2 nt from tracks
Average E Field Readings: 4 mg
Cold Spots detected: None
Hot Spots Detected: None
Olfactory Phenomena: None
Visual Phenomena: None
Type of Investigation: Ghost Hunt

Location Description and History

Just south of San Antonio, Texas, in an unremarkable neighborhood not far from the San Juan Mission is an intersection of roadway and railroad track that has become somewhat famous in the catalog of American ghost lore. The intersection, so the story goes, was the site of a tragic accident in which several school-aged children were killed - but their ghosts linger at the spot. And the curious from all over the country come to this section of railroad track to witness firsthand the paranormal phenomena they've heard takes place there.

The story is at least 20 years old and and its details vary from person to person.

Back in the 1930s or 1940s, a school bus full of children was making its way down the road and toward the intersection when it stalled on the railroad tracks. A speeding train smashed into the bus, killing 10 of the children and the bus driver.

Since that dreadful accident many years ago, any car stopped near the railroad tracks will be pushed by unseen hands across the tracks to safety. It is the spirits of the children, they say, who push the cars across the tracks to prevent a tragedy and fate like their own.

Reported Phenomena

A car in neutral gear rolls toward the tracks at an uphill angle. Off to one side, a group of local teen-agers was sitting on the tracks, running their hands back and forth down the smooth rail, absorbing the atmosphere, and waiting. They knew all about the ghost children. When asked, the kids supplied additional details, mostly concerning track etiquette. For one thing, you don't just sit on the crossing, that will not work. You have to go about 20 feet beyond the track, put your car in neutral, turn off the lights and wait. This twenty foot distance is to accomidate for the length of where the back of the bus would have been located. According to the locals, you will feel a sudden lurch and the car will glide down the street and across the tracks, pushed occasionally as necessary. Most importantly however, the car must be headed west, the same direction the bus was going when it was hit by the train.

The second half of this legend is that if a light powder, like talcum or baby powder, is sprinkled over the car's trunk and rear bumper, tiny fingerprints and handprints will appear. Suppossedly these are the prints of the ghost children's hands pushing the car. Many who have tried it swear that indeed they can see the evidence of small children's handprints in the powder.

The Investigation

Even in this daytime photograph, the incline of the hill is clearly visible.

Although SGHA explained this phenomena in 1986, we decided that it would be a good location to train the SHIELD unit for our Texas Charter.

San Antonio's "ghost tracks" are nothing more than an optical illusion. The mysterious movement of vehicles at that crossing is the result of a slight incline at the site, which works to roll vehicles that have been slipped into neutral off the tracks. As for the nearby streets supposedly christened in memoriam to the children who died, they were actually named in honor of a developer's grandchildren.

The story behind the tracks does have a odd basis in truth. In December 1938, twenty-six children, aged 12 to 18, lost their lives when the school bus they'd been travelling in stalled on the tracks and was struck by a freight train. No similar accident took place in San Antonio, but in 1938 that city was subjected to about ten days' worth of gruesomely detailed coverage in its local newspaper, memory of which afterwards served to convince later generations the tragedy had taken place locally.

Although the city of San Antonio has long claimed this folk tale as its own, pointing to the railway crossing where Villamain Road becomes Shane Road where cars seem to behave strangely and a set of nearby streets named after children (Bobbie Allen, Cindy Sue, Laura Lee, Nancy Carole, and Richey Otis), the bus accident took place in Salt Lake City, a city more than a thousand miles away.

And what of the fingerprints and handprints? The logical explanation is that a light powder reveals prints that are already there; in fact, that's the basis of fingerprint detection in police work. "Latent fingerprints can be lifted from some objects years after they are made. The oil from fingers and hands slowly absorb the powder, shrinking in size as they do. The result are handprints the size of a small child's.

Approaching the tracks. Note the powerlines

NM and Tx Charters

It should also be noted that there are powerlines along the road which throw off A/C electromagnetic fields up to 200 feet on both sides of the road. The tracks themselves give off a slight D/C eletromagntic field of 2 nt.

Initial Conclusions

Sorry Folks...No ghosts here

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