San Diego, California

Photo: Bruce Roberson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Drivers and pedestrians report figures crossing the stretch of San Diego Avenue that runs over El Campo Santo at night and vanishing, and visitors describe car alarms and electronics behaving strangely along the paved-over section. The cemetery was consecrated in 1849 as a Roman Catholic burial ground and took 477 burials before it closed in 1880. In 1889 a horse-drawn streetcar line was cut straight through part of it, and in 1942 that stretch was paved; the graves were not moved. In 1993 ground-penetrating radar located the bodies still lying beneath the road and pavement — as many as twenty under San Diego Avenue and its sidewalk, and thirteen more under Linwood Street — and their positions were marked with small brass discs reading "Grave Site." You can stand on them. The cemetery itself was restored in 1933 and remains open to walk through.
Most cemeteries are open to the public during daylight hours; check for posted hours or contact the cemetery office to confirm before visiting.
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