Just in time for Halloween, another ghost stakeout in Lamorinda yielded interesting results. This time the location was Moraga’s Rancho Laguna Park.
    Recalling a stakeout that this reporter experienced in 2023, for an Oct. 25 article, “MPD officers experience odd noises at the station in ‘the dead of night,’” I was left with the feeling that there was more to the park at night than just nocturnal critters. 

    Part of the research for the MPD article involved a ride-along with a member of Moraga Police Department’s finest.  One of the officer’s duties was to lock up the park’s bathrooms for the evening.  As I sat in the squad car waiting for him to return, I decided to take a picture from my passenger side through the car and into the expanse of the park (with the windows rolled down).  When I checked the camera’s screen for the results, a massive orb (white ball of light) the size of a head appeared in the driver’s seat.  Additionally, I smelled cigarette smoke to which the officer assured me no one was allowed to smoke in the vehicle.
 
    That experience has, pardon the pun, haunted me for the past three years, and while I swore I would never return to the park at night, a brave friend of mine, “Anne,” offered to accompany me to see if the 2023 adventure wasn’t a fluke. 

    We drove to Rancho Laguna early enough to park and observe an abundance of owners and their off-leash dogs utilizing the grounds as the sun began to set and the “witching hour” drew near.  We chose this dormant opportunity to form our game plan while agreeing that all of our picture-taking would take place from the parking lot side of the fence to avoid stepping into possible gopher holes. 

    According to a blog by Lellalee, author of “The Ghosts of Pendle Hill:  A Paranormal Investigation,” orbs quite often are perceived as balls of light. “Dust and moisture particles usually appear in multiples, whereas orbs tend to be alone in the shot,” Lellalee said in a recent post, “and orbs can sometimes be seen with the naked eye, they might pulsate or you may see them traveling.”

    According to Lellalee, an orb is a ball of energy. “People are made up of energy.  Energy itself cannot be destroyed.  Energy is in essence our life force.  Since little is known (scientifically) regarding what happens to us after death, I (and many others) suggest that perhaps released from our human bodies, spirits can take a variety of forms,” Lellalee explained. “Most commonly, orbs are circular in shape. A circle is the simplest of shapes; it is also symbolic representing the ‘circle of life.’  Travel and time likely differ in the spirit world, nevertheless a circle is likely the simplest way for a spirit to contain its energy and to travel from place to place.”

    During the hour that we stood in the darkness, Anne used her iPhone’s camera to take photos while I used my Canon Digital Camera. As much as we expected her phone to achieve better results, my camera was the consistent one in capturing orb photos. In order to debunk anything that was captured on our screens, we took another photo immediately after, and in all cases, either the orb was gone or it had moved, possibly disturbed by our camera flashes. While nothing showed up as big as my 2023 experience, we were pleased with our results nonetheless.

    The land that Rancho Laguna Park sits on has seen many family-owned ranches through the years.  Nearly 200 years ago, it was part of the Mexican land grant given to Joaquin Moraga.  Before that, the Saklan Native American tribe inhabited the area. Could any of them be out for an evening stroll?

    Anne admitted that she was a little nervous heading into the park after dark, and she’d never done anything like that before. “There’s something genuinely eerie about standing in total darkness waiting to see what shows up,” she said. “When the orbs started appearing in the photos, one after another, it definitely sent a chill down my spine. Skeptic or not, it was an experience I won’t forget.”