During the late 1800s many sailors and ships near Big Sur began a petition to have a lighthouse built along the coastline.
Due to the natural jagged rock of the area, many ships would travel between the large stone outcroppings to avoid rough currents during swells—only to dash against the unseen rocks and sink to the bottom of the ocean.
This tragic event happened many times over the years.
The Historic Lighthouse on the Big Sur Coastline
Updated 9/23/2019 – Finally, enough money was raised to construct a lighthouse, and in 1889 the Point Sur lighthouse was finished and the first keeper arrived on site.
Before the local highway was built, the keepers led very isolated but peaceful lives.
Typically, the lighthouse was manned twenty-four hours a day because each keeper had two or three assistants to help with the task of lighting up the coastline.
This arrangement worked for several decades, until the coast guard began implementing lights that are automatic.
The last keeper officially left Point Sur in 1974.
Nobody is certain whether or not the families that lived there over the years experienced anything supernatural, but today, many people claim that the lighthouse is haunted.
The general assumption is that spirits of ship wrecked sailors who drowned off the coast now call the lighthouse home.
Nancy, a young woman who grew up in Big Sur, grew up hearing stories about the haunted lighthouse.
These tales frightened her as a child, but made her laugh when she grew up.
She didn’t believe anything called the lighthouse home save for a couple of raccoons.
But her opinion about the lighthouse changed drastically one day.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” she murmured, smiling faintly.
A Terrifying Challenge
“I was having lunch with a friend of mine when we somehow got to discussing the lighthouse.
My friend told me that he believed the lighthouse was haunted.
When I told him that that was ridiculous, he challenged me to go visit it at night and see for myself.
We shook hands, and I prepared to visit the lighthouse that very night.
I arrived with nothing but my cellphone, car keys and an EDC flashlight with fresh batteries inside it,” she said.
“The moment I walked in, it felt like there was an electrical charge in the air…it just felt very dense, very heavy in there.
“I started getting a little anxious, but I convinced myself that it was just my imagination, just the power of suggestion because of its reputation.
But the moment I sat down and made myself comfortable on the floor, I began hearing…voices.
Not voices, but breathing, really—sharp steady, gasping breaths, almost like someone had swallowed some water and was choking to breathe again.
“I swung the flashlight all around me, but I never saw anybody,” Nancy said, growing visibly more pale.
‘Hello? Who is in here with me?’
I called out, despite desperately not wanting to.
I listened intently, and that’s when I heard a gruff male voice whisper ‘me.’
“I screamed my head off and booked it for the exit.
As I ran I swear I felt a hand reach out and grab my ankle, making me stumble and fall to the ground.
I was far too terrified to look to see what made me fall, but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anything on the floor that I had tripped over.
“I met my friend in Big Sur for lunch again the following day, and I immediately apologized for ever doubting the haunting,” Nancy admitted.