Podcasting partners explore San Jose’s spooky history
Carmen Sánchez and Manuel Ávalos have been close friends since their days at San Jose’s John Muir Middle School and often discussed — jokingly — doing a podcast together. When the pandemic hit, they got more serious about the endeavor — in part because it gave them a way to stay close online.
The result was “San Hauntse: Mysteries of San José,” a podcast that explores Silicon Valley’s haunted spots and spooky tales. It’s available through Spotify, Apple and other platforms. (Find those links at https://sanhauntse. wordpress.com.)
“We’ve both always been into spooky things in general and thought this would be a fun way to learn more about our hometown’s history,” Ávalos says.
Q
What is it about mysterious, haunted subject matter that attracts you?
Sánchez: It’s the intrigue, the mystery, the dark, taboo subject matter that make people want to sit around the campfire or lean a bit closer at the dinner table.
Ávalos: For me, it’s that these kinds of topics have not been scientifically explained, (which) leaves a lot of room for the imagination. I also think that the legends and oral history of a community say a lot about the people, so it provides some insight into local culture.
Q
Can you give me a few examples of subjects you’ve
covered in the podcast?
Ávalos: We mostly cover ghost stories, but we’ve dabbled in a few other topics such as aliens, sea monsters, Bigfoot and vampires. There are definitely some recurring themes — ghostly vehicles, star-crossed lovers meeting an untimely demise and, given the historical context many of these legends are rooted in, a lot of prejudice. The scariest part of the podcast is actually the amount of sexism and racism we encounter when looking into San Jose’s history.
Sánchez: We have covered many of the major San Jose haunts, such as Hellyer House, Winchester Mystery House, Hicks Road, San Felipe Road, Marsh Road and Dottie’s Pond.
Q
How much research goes into each episode?
Ávalos: We spend several hours every week researching topics and preparing the episodes. Even though it’s a podcast for fun, I do like to take an academic approach to our research. We always try to cite our sources or at least trace our steps, so that we always know where our information comes from — which is especially important in topics such as these, where there is so much conflicting or dubious information floating around.
QHas anything you’ve featured on the podcast truly creeped you out or scared you?
Ávalos: A lot of these stories scare me. One in particular is the Skyline-to-the-Sea hiking trail in Los Gatos, which is said to be haunted by the lost souls of children. We always cast reasonable doubt on all of the legends we cover, but some of them just truly don’t have the evidence to support them, and we make sure to point that out. What’s more scary to me is seeing how some of these legends exemplify the ability of misinformation to spread and persist over time.