While the Tower of London is famous worldwide as a site for a wide array of spectral entities, the United States can boast some rather active sites at military forts across the nation. This series of articles will attempt to examine these sites. Most forts and posts have been the scenes of some truly horrific events just by nature of how they were used. Some were the site of all out slaughters. The Alamo is among the top on that list. The Alamo is technically not a fort in the sense that it was not built for that purpose. The history of the Alamo goes much further back than the date of the battle. It began as the Mission San Antonio de Valero and was literally built atop a graveyard that the Town of San Antonio used for a large span of the 1700's. It has been estimated that nearly one thousand burials were made on the land and ala "Poltergeist" they were still there when the construction began.
After the famous battle apparitions began to be seen almost immediately. Santa Anna had ordered the site to be razed. The story is that a small detachment of Mexican soldiers was sent to burn what was left of the site. When they returned without completing the task their explanation for their failure was the appearance of spirits wielding swords of fire that surrounded them causing them to flee. Some said it was the spirits of the men who had died there while others were inclined to attribute their identities to that of the friars who had built the Mission protecting what they had created. In the second attempt, a single specter is said to have materialized holding a ball of fire in each hand. In any event, the Alamo escaped complete destruction at the hands of the victors of the battle.
In 1871 the Alamo once again avoided demolition when the Army wanted to decommission the site. It was instead converted to a police station and prison. Contemporary reports in the San Antonio Express News regularly documented paranormal activity at the site which was so frequent that guards would not patrol at night out of fear of what might be encountered. Soon it became necessary to move the facility altogether.
Among those spirits sighted are a young boy who is most active during the month of February. It is thought that, while he was evacuated, his parents were not and subsequently died in the fight. In a similar vein, there have been sightings of a tall, thin man and a boy on the roof of the mission. They appear in the early morning with the man picking up the boy and jumping to the plaza below. This event was documented after the battle when Juan Andrade and several other Mexican officers stated that they had witnessed the event.
Two young boys have often been sighted tagging along with tour groups. They appear as part of the group but then vanish as the tour reaches the sacristy of the chapel. There were two such boys who went killed by Mexican forces who mistook them as defenders of the Alamo during the heat of battle. They were sons of Anthony Wolfe who served in the artillery and also died in the fight.
There are often reports of a figure clad in buckskins at various locations within the walls. This figure has been spotted at times by several individual at the same time, report the same vision from completely different locations and angles. Many have taken this figure to be that of Davy Crockett although there were likely a fair number of the company who would have been dressed in buckskin.
The spirits connected with the Alamo aren’t limited to the site itself. There have been many reports of a figure dressed in a style in keeping with the time period of the battle walking on the road toward San Antonio from nearby Nacogdoches. When the figure is questioned about his destination he is reported to reply that he is trying to return to the Alamo where he belongs. Many feel this forlorn traveler is the spirit is that of Louis Rose. He is known in Texas history as the man who chose not to stand with Houston and his friend, Jim Bowie. He escaped the Alamo under cover of darkness and is even now trying to return to stand with the defenders.
In a more general sense many clairaudient events have been reported such as hearing the sounds of battle, men marching, the gasps and groans of the fallen and the hoof beats of unseen horses.
As the Alamo is now essentially a graveyard and shrine to the fallen, a thorough investigation of the site was blocked for many years by the caretakers, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. The site is now under the control of the Texas General Land office.
Learn more about the Alamo: thealamo.org.
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