What Spectral Ectoplasm Haunts Camp Pendleton?
They may be the U.S. Marines, but ghostbusters they’re not. Things still go bump in the night at Las Flores Adobe even though it became part of Camp Pendleton in 1942. “One night [in 1999] my son was in his bedroom, which faced the adobe,” says Jerome Herrington, property manager at the site since 1998. “He heard the sound of a horse neighing, but when he went out, there was no horse or tracks.” Paranormal whinnies are a more recent example of the weird goings-on rumored at the 142-year-old adobe on the former Rancho Santa Margarita, which was once part of missions San Juan Capistrano and San Luis Rey. Nearly a quarter million acres, the ranch was a land grant in 1841 to Pio Pico, California’s last Mexican governor. It was later owned by Pico’s brother-in-law, Don Juan Forster; the now-decayed two-story Monterey-style adobe was built for Forster’s son and daughter-in-law. According to local legend, a priest was murdered at the site when an outpost of Mission San Luis Rey stood near the
