La Purisima Mission — Chumash ghosts of Santa Barbara County, California

La Purisima Mission, located near Lompoc in Santa Barbara County, California, is one of the 21 California missions founded by Spanish Franciscan friars. Established in 1787, the mission was the site of a major Chumash revolt in 1824, when Native Americans who had been forced into the mission system rose up against their Spanish overseers. The revolt was violently suppressed, and many Chumash died in the fighting and its aftermath. The mission was eventually abandoned and fell into ruin before being restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Today a state historic park, La Purisima is reportedly haunted by the ghosts of the Chumash people who lived and died within its walls. Rangers and visitors have reported hearing chanting and singing in the mission church, seeing figures in Chumash clothing moving through the gardens and corridors, and smelling wood smoke and cooking food in the residential areas. EVP recordings taken at the mission have allegedly captured voices speaking in what researchers believe may be the Chumash language. The mission's isolated location in the rolling hills above the Santa Ynez Valley, surrounded by oak woodlands, gives it a peaceful but melancholy atmosphere that seems to hold echoes of its painful history.