The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

By: Esteban

I've had very little personal experiences with ghosts and things of that nature, and I thank God for this because I think I might go crazy if I saw too many strange things.

One time I saw what I think was a ghost while I was working in a museum in New Mexico called The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. The museum was built on or near an Indian burial ground and strange things happened there. Doors opened by themselves, and weird noises could be heard coming from the second floor on the weekends when there was no one in the offices that were located upstairs.

My personal experience was in the basement. I was working as a maintenance worker and was in the basement in a small utility room filling up a carpet washer with water. The exhibitions of the museum are located in the basement and it's designed in the shape of a semi-circle. The museum being located at the beginning and end of the semicircle and the semicircle, itself, being a long hall with offices on each side that are only occupied during the week.

I was down there in the morning before the museum opened. I was filling up the machine with water with my back turned to the door. I noticed someone come in, caught it out of the corner of my eye. You know what I mean. When you know someone is standing behind you and you can almost see them, but not quite. Well, I noticed them come in and thought it was just one of the cleaning ladies who sometimes went to the basement to get supplies. I didn't bother to turn around to see who it was. Then I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and I immediately turned around, but no one was there.

I went outside the room and looked down the hall which is really, really long, but still no one was there. This gave me goosebumps really bad and I kind of panicked. I went upstairs with the half filled machine, and wouldn't go back down to the basement unless someone else was with me.

It was one of those things that you don't know what it was, but it was strange. All I know is that I could have sworn I saw someone come in and then someone tap me on the shoulder.

I've also personally heard noises coming from the second floor when there was no one there.

Another time, we were in the break room which was in the basement as well. There was a small TV set in there and sometimes we would go in there to have lunch. There's also a room that is accessible through a door in the break room.

As we were sitting there, we heard a knock on the wall coming from that room. We couldn't tell for sure if it was a knock or if something fell in the room and hit the wall. We kind of laughed, picturing someone in there dropping something or bumping against the wall. Then, we heard it again. We started to knock on the wall on our side and something knocked back, making us laugh.

We were still laughing when the museum curator came into the break room with a box full of museum stuff. She asked us why we were laughing, so we told her while we watched her unlock the door with a key to open it.

She said, "What are you talking about? There is no one in there. It's a storage room for old museum stuff that we don't have on display."

I was so convinced that someone was in that room that I stood up and looked inside. It was just a small room with a bunch of boxes. This experience was also quite scary, but not as scary as the tap on the shoulder had been because this time I wasn't alone when it happened.

I would sometimes feel uneasy while on the second floor of the building too. I hated to go up there alone and would go out of my way to make sure I never did go alone. However, things don't always go as we wish them to.

One night I had to stay late. I had to punch out using the machine that was on the second floor. I was terrified. Sometimes when I get that scared, I get panic attacks and I was on the verge of having one. I went from the first floor to the second floor, punched my card, and ran back inside the elevator. I quickly pushed the first floor button. The elevator doors closed, then opened again as if someone had pushed the button from right outside to get in before the elevator went down. It was really freaky.

As if that wasn't enough, the doors closed and right before the elevator started down, a sheet of paper slid underneath the door like it had been pushed. I'm not sure if it fell from the bulletin board or what, but what are the odds that a paper would fall, then glide into the elevator like that with the doors closed? I think it's almost impossible. Shortly after that, I left the job.