Campsite near Pecos named one of the most haunted in the country

Oct. 30—TERRERO — As the sun sinks over the Holy Ghost Campground some 15 miles north of Pecos, it's easy to see how it got its name.

There is a haunted beauty to the campsite, and as dusk nears, it's easy to imagine something supernatural moving through the shadows of the towering pine, fir and spruce trees.

But if you are looking for ghosts, real ghosts, the campsite supposedly has a doozy: the spirit of a 17th-century Catholic priest.

No wonder, then, the campsite was named the fourth-most haunted campground in the country in 2022 by the online RV Trader blog.

As Scooby Doo might say: "Yikes!"

Members of the Diaz family from Albuquerque, who spent two nights camping in a tent in the park last week, seemed unfazed by reports of a phantom priest.

"As long as it's a Catholic priest ghost, I'm sure it's very nice," said Emily Diaz as her husband, Abiel, and their four children huddled around a campfire created to stave off something much more threatening: the night cold.

It got so cold the night before, Emily Diaz said she couldn't sleep and was up all night. In the wee hours, did she hear some chanting or view a hooded haunt around her? "I didn't see a thing," she said.

Abiel Diaz said he and his children hiked the canyon trail to the ridgetops above them earlier in the day. "We didn't see anything — no bears, no ghosts, anything," he said.

Neither did a man who was hiking the area Thursday. Identifying himself only as Eric, he said he is a native of Pecos and grew up hearing tales of a "missionary priest" roaming the woods nearby. But in all his years hiking near Holy Ghost Creek, he's never seen or heard anything he would consider paranormal.

Still, the campsite's reputation for spooky shenanigans lives on, primarily revolving around reports of "the ghost of a Catholic priest who kind of lingers around," said Gillian Luce, director of consumer marketing for RV Trader Interactive, which oversees the travel blog.

Luce said her organization compiles these haunted lists based on research and input from travelers who "often share feedback on social media platforms."

She acknowledged some RV travelers might take to the highways because they are drawn to "destination articles like haunted roads. There is an appetite among consumers who enjoy the ghost tours and the haunted houses and all the spooky components."

Her group also puts out an annual "haunted roads" list, but none in New Mexico made it.

Outside Magazine also listed Holy Ghost as one of the 15 Most Haunted Campgrounds in the country a few years back. And Eric noted it is located not far from Spirit Lake and Spirit Ranch, so who knows? Maybe it is haunted.

Still, it would be nice to hear or see a first-person eyewitness report of a ghost sighting. Most online stories about the park simply repeat the same story about a phantom priest and shadowy figures in the woods.

Assuming we buy into the story — and why not? It is Halloween, after all — there's still the question of how this guy became a ghost. According to some stories, Native residents killed the priest in question during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Others say the priest may have killed some of those residents instead and that his ghost is thus doomed to walk the site.

State historian Rob Martinez said despite New Mexicans' love of ghost stories, it can be hard to "tie a historical event to metaphysical or supernatural events," which may explain why it's sometimes difficult to agree to a communal narrative about specific hauntings.

He said the Pueblo Revolt and its response to Spanish colonialism, which led to the deaths of 21 Catholic priests, is the kind of event that "scars your psyche, so when that happens, it's no wonder there might be real or imagined echoes" in the form of a ghost story.

Martinez, incidentally, heard a different take on this ghosty priest story: The version he was told involved a Catholic priest who visited Pecos Pueblo to minister to Native American children. One of the Native Americans mocked the priest by dressing in bishop's clothes and acting in a "comical, disrespectful way," Martinez said.

As a result, a "bear came out of the forest and killed the Native American — the idea being, don't mock the bishop," Martinez said.

But if this happened around Pecos Pueblo, about 18 miles south of the campsite, how did the priest end up so far north unless the wind picked up his spirit and gave him a free ride?

But wait, there's more — the RV Trader blog also makes note, as do a number of other online sources, of state troopers disappearing in the area. But why did they disappear? Were they hunting down ghosts?

Wilson Silver, a spokesman for New Mexico State Police, wrote in an email he was unable to "find any information on any New Mexico State Police officers going missing in that area."

Still, your imagination could run away, as they like to say, hiking the campsite trail.

In Holy Ghost Creek, a loving homage to the joys of stream fishing, author Frank D. Weissbarth sets an appropriately disquieting tone when he writes of the creek "the shadows of the fish glided like dark ghosts over the light silt bottom. They were brown trout and incredibly spooky."

Maybe so, but the most terrifying part of the camp is the one-lane road up and down the canyon, which is like a vehicular obstacle course, replete with potholes large enough for a baby hippo to bathe in.

Talk about things that go bump in the night.

Scooby Doo, Shaggy needs you.