Chapter 7
Trailer Village is located in the easternmost part of the Grand Canyon Village. Located near the Yavapai Lodge and the General Store, Trailer Village is also adjacent to Mather Campground and is set back in a pine forest. This RV park is located roughly a half mile from the rim. Trailer Village is divided between tourist RV camping and park employee housing. In general, this is a quiet, serene area away from all the hustle and bustle of all the tourists at the rim. Elk and deer seem to own this area and they allow us to occupy their land. I say this because when I lived in Trailer Village, I would be chased back into my trailer room by bully elk that didn’t want people among them at that moment. I was literally trapped in my own room until the elk saw another unsuspecting human to torment. Squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, coyotes, ravens, and other various canyon creatures hang out in Trailer Village. Pine, pinyon, and juniper trees are everywhere. But what most campers in Trailer Village don’t realize is that this supposedly peaceful area is an open portal to the paranormal.
Trailer Village is open to the public and guest are welcome to walk down all streets and trails. Please be respectful to all those that are camping and living here.
Opened Door to Another Dimension
Trailer Village is home to quite a bit of unexplainable occurrences. For some reason, P Street and R Street seem to have the most claims of paranormal sightings. Let’s begin with a very strange story that happened on R Street during the supermoon in June of 2013. P Street used to house a laundry facility for the use of park employees only. Brandon and Ellen were a husband and wife that both worked in the park. They didn’t own a car, so they would walk or take the park’s free shuttle bus to wherever they needed to go. On June 23, 2013, at about 9:30 in the evening, they decided to do some laundry. They preferred to go later in the evening because this little laundromat was normally packed with employees washing their clothes and at that time of night there was more of a chance for an empty washer and dryer. As they left their trailer room, Ellen noticed how bright it was outside, compliments of the supermoon. You could see everything right down to the pebble lying on the ground. Down the side streets in Trailer Village, there are no street lights. The main entrance road does, however, have a few lights to see which street you are approaching. The area around Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon is considered an International Dark Zone, which means that many towns within the upper elevations in Coconino County reduce light contamination so that stargazing can be spectacular. It’s a fantastic idea and I think every state should have a mandatory designated dark zone.
This warm night in June would eventually become Ellen’s very own The Twilight Zone episode. Brandon and Ellen were able to start their laundry right away. Luckily for them, there was only one other person in the laundromat that night. It was a sigh of relief for Ellen because she was extremely tired from her long day at work. Having gone to work at 7 a.m. that morning, all she wanted to do was go to bed and snuggle with her pillow. When it came time to switch the clothes from the washers to the dryers, she asked her husband if he wouldn’t mind if she went ahead, back to their room, so she could get some sleep. Brandon told her to go ahead and that he would finish up with the laundry.
Ellen quickly left the laundry facility, which is located on P Street and cut diagonally across the R Street trailers. As soon as she reached R Street, Ellen turned right and started walking down the dark street towards her home. Ellen’s trailer was almost at the end of R Street, so she had a bit of a way to go. As she started walking, she came to an abrupt halt. Ellen could only see two rows of employee trailers on both sides; after that everything on the road beyond the two set of trailers was nothing but a black void. Ellen could not see any kind of a light source coming from where her trailer was at. All of the employee trailers are equipped with outside porch lights, which meant Ellen should have been able to see at least five more rows of trailers on both sides. She turned around and looked down the other way on R Street, where she was just at, and all the lights were still on. Ellen couldn’t comprehend why she couldn’t see anything going down the street where she lived. Believing there was some kind of a power outage towards the end of R Street, she decided to go back to the laundry room to have her husband escort her home. He had the flashlight and he better not even consider saying he wouldn’t walk her home, if he did it would mean his untimely death—and not because of a ghost or anything paranormal.
When Ellen walked back into the laundry room, she explained to Brandon that there was no lighting down R Street and she needed him to walk her home. Brandon was a little annoyed and told Ellen that she should know that if there was any kind of power interruption within Trailer Village—everyone loses power, not just a select few trailers. Ellen didn’t care. She told him what she saw, or should I say didn’t see, and he was walking her home cause she felt uneasy. As the two reached R Street and turned right, all the employee trailers down to the end of the road had their outside lights on, and the supermoon was high in the sky, drenching the canyon with its magnificent brightness. The moonlight was even illuminating all the pine trees and their needles. That’s when Ellen realized, even if there was a power outage, she should have been able to see all the way to the end of the street because of the supermoon and the immensely bright light it was giving off. Brandon was giving Ellen a hard time and she told him that she will be able to prove that the power had gone out because when would they enter into their room, their alarm clock should be flashing the time at 12:00 like it does during any power interruption. When they entered their room, the clock wasn’t flashing and read 10:15 p.m. Ellen immediately looked over towards the computer and it also had not experienced any power outage. What Ellen experienced and saw has haunted her to this day. She has always wondered: if she had decided to continue to walk into that black veil trying to reach her trailer, could she have been teleported to another dimension or transported to another era in time?
Murder on the Rim
Even in a peaceful area like Trailer Village, death has its way of making its presence known. Jane was a member of the Hopi Nation and was residing in an employee trailer on R Street. Jane was a beautiful young girl who loved to be surrounded by her friends. It’s a bragging point for most to be able to say that they have worked and lived at one of the seven natural wonders of the world, but for those who don’t live here, they don’t realize that for the employees who are here twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they need something more to do. The closest major city is Flagstaff, Arizona, which is almost ninety miles away; one way. Even the small town of Williams, Arizona, (known as “the Gateway to the Grand Canyon”) is over sixty miles away.
Boredom can set in very easily especially for the younger generation, so when you hear that someone is throwing a party or having a bonfire, it can be a big sigh of relief that you won’t be spending another night alone in a cramped, compacted room with nothing fun to do. Jane was always looking for things to do and unfortunately she would hang out with some unfavorable people if it meant she didn’t have to be alone. One of Jane’s friends was concerned about her partying lifestyle and tried to warn her about being careful with the parties and who she became friendly with.
In June 2001, Jane had been invited to a party at a friend’s house. Jane’s friend Mary had also heard about the party but had a strong feeling that something bad was going to happen. Mary begged Jane not to attend it, but of course, out of pure boredom, Jane choose to go. Later in the evening, when the party was winding down, Jane decided it was time to go home and invited a fellow co-worker, Mike to accompany her. That would be the last time anyone would ever see her alive again. Jane’s body was discovered hidden under the bed in her trailer room, wrapped up in a bed sheet, stabbed multiple times, which ultimately resulted in her death. The police searched Mike’s possessions and discovered a knife with blood on it. Mike was arrested and pled guilty to the killing of Jane. The murder shocked the small community in the Grand Canyon Village. Jane’s friend Mary wonders to this day if there was more she could have done to prevent this horrible tragedy. Many paranormal researchers believe that when a person dies while suffering from extreme physical and mental trauma, their soul cannot or refuses to rest at peace, which seems to be the case with Jane’s restless spirit.
Adam and Olivia were engaged to be married. Both worked for the park and were able to get a room together on R Street in Trailer Village. The employee trailer housing here is made up of numerous single-wide trailers that have each been broken down into four very small units. Each unit somehow contains a queen-sized bed, a desk, a sink, and a bathroom. Squirrels, rabbits, and occasionally a raccoon burrow under the trailers so residents can feel and hear the critters crawling around directly underneath them. The squirrels scratch at the bottom of the floors, trying to dig holes to get into the rooms.
One day, Olivia had the day off from work and was lounging around in bed, watching DVDs on their computer. As Olivia was resting in bed, she felt something under her bed pushing it up, not the whole bed, just certain areas. After it happened a few more times in a matter of five minutes, she got off the bed and looked under it to see what could be causing the bed to shift and move. Olivia wasn’t able to see anything under the bed and then it crossed her mind that one of those damn squirrels had somehow made it into the room and burrowed inside the box spring of the bed. She looked all over the floor in the room for any hole that a small animal could have made but was unable to find any evidence that her room had an intruder of the four-legged variety. Olivia laid back down and continued watching the movie. Within a couple of minutes, the mattress once again felt as if it was being lifted by something underneath it, however she could also feel it slightly shake as if a small earthquake had just occurred. Jumping off the bed once again, Olivia knew she wasn’t imagining it and that something out of the ordinary was going on inside the bed. Olivia reached for her flashlight and upon turning it on, conducted an extensive search in hopes of finding the exact cause of why her bed was moving. After moving the bed around, she became frustrated from not being able to find any answers.
When Adam finally came home from work a few hours later, he instantly regretted not pulling a double shift. As soon as he walked through the door, Olivia demanded Adam find the wild animal she claimed had taken up residency inside their bed. Adam did the whole eye roll thing, but to shut Olivia up he played along by flipping both the mattress and box spring over to find what could be the problem. Unfortunately, both were completely intact with no vermin in sight. Adam gave his fiancé a hard time about her wild imagination for several days until he personally experienced the bed rising and falling on its own while Olivia was at work.
A week later, Adam and Olivia were invited to dinner at their friends Nate and Heidi’s house. Nate and Heidi had both been employed at the park for several years and knew a lot about the history of the Grand Canyon and the village. After dinner, the two couples sat around and talked about work and the subject of ghosts and hauntings came up. Olivia felt comfortable enough to confide in her host and hostess about their bed seemingly taking on a life of its own. Olivia had explained how they thought it might have been a squirrel or mouse but have been unable to find any proof. Heidi looked at Nate and said, “You need to tell them.” Nate was hesitant at first but eventually told Adam and Olivia that the trailer they were residing in was where a gruesome murder had taken place twelve years earlier. Nate told them the story about Jane’s death, plus how and where her body was discovered. Nate believed that the pushing up of the mattress is possibly Jane’s restless spirit still trying to escape her fate, or maybe just her trying to scare people out of her room. Hopefully one day Jane will find eternal peace. Until then, she will probably continue to haunt the trailer where her life was stolen from her in such a cruel way.
Just Passing Through
In-between the trailers of P and R Streets, employees have witnessed bluish-white apparitions floating down the streets at night and have even seen them drift into nearby trees and then disappear without a trace. In the immediate forest that encompasses Trailer Village, disembodied voices at times are heard screaming and chanting indecipherable words. So far, nobody has been able to make out what is being spoke. One employee that lived on P Street claims that one evening as she was looking out her trailer window, she observed two very large black shadows floating down the street. The apparitions gave the illusion that they were walking, but in actuality they were gliding through the air just inches above the ground. This terrified resident claims she has witnessed these two phantoms a total of five times during her stay in Trailer Village. She is always fearful when she sees them and believes they are malevolent creatures.
Another bizarre sighting with multiple witnesses involves bright white balls of light floating all around the vicinity of Trailer Village. These orbs seem to have some kind of intelligence about them. Several people living in and around Trailer Village have watched as these orbs hover near windows as if they are peeping toms. These bright orbs have also been witnessed around the area where overnight guests park their RVs. The Grand Canyon does have fireflies, however there are many different species of these insects and the genus of the ones west of the Rocky Mountains do not glow, which eliminates them as a possibility and these balls of light can even be seen in the winter when insects are not around.
Unprovoked Attack
Another employee unit on R Street appears to have something sinister living in it. Brian and Christie had been living in their room for around two months. As soon as they moved in, strange things started to happen to them. They brought their pain-in-the-butt but beloved family cat to live with them at the canyon. Almost immediately upon moving in, their cat started acting strangely. The cats eyes would seem to follow something that Brian and Christie couldn’t see. The cat would hiss and hunch its back up at something they could not see and almost daily upon returning home from work, Brian and Christie would find their trembling cat hiding in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. If they succeeded in removing him from the bathtub, wherever they sat him down, he would immediately run back to the tub.
Christie had worked earlier in the day and had been resting in bed, anxiously waiting for Brian to get home from work. It had been a very warm day, and with no air conditioning provided inside the trailers, the room might as well have been located in the depths of hell. (It’s possible that purgatory was cooler than these trailers.) Brian finally walked through the front door and Christie jumped out of bed to greet him. Brian surprised Christie when he told her to get dressed and that he was going to take her to the Arizona Room for dinner. As Christie was getting ready, Brian cried out, “What the hell happened to your back?.”
Christie replied, “What do you mean? There is nothing wrong with my back.”
Brian exclaimed, “Well then explain to me. How did you get those huge scratches that are going down your back and why are they bleeding?”
Christie looked in the mirror and was horrified. Down her back were three large scratch marks around eight inches in length. Each individual scratch had broken the skin and they were oozing blood. Brian thought they looked like giant claw marks, but they were too large for their cat to have done this. Christie didn’t feel anything and would never have known about the scratches if Brian hadn’t seen them. Brian, concerned about these abrasions, put antiseptic cream on the scratches to prevent infection. About an hour later, the scratches on Christie’s back began to severely burn as if it had been set on fire. It took several days before the scratches began to heal. Christie now sports three scars from where she had been attacked. After this initial incident, Brian began to notice scratches appearing on his body. The bathroom sink faucet started turning on by itself and the bathroom door would open and close on its own. Brian and Christie eventually left the park and moved to a different state. They have never been able to logically explain all the creepy experiences while in their Trailer Village room.
Trailer Village is set in a beautiful forested area. Don’t let any of these haunted spots ruin your visit if you’re planning a trip with an RV and want to stay at Trailer Village. If you decide to walk around this area, especially P and R Streets after dark, keep a watchful eye out. You just may become one of the lucky few who might catch a glimpse of the eternal wanderers.