Season 2. Episode 7. The San Pedro Poltergeist

Transcript

🎙️ The Harbor Area Podcast

Episode: The San Pedro Poltergeist

Hosted by Joel Torrez

📍 [Intro Music Fades In]

Hey folks, welcome to a very special episode of The Harbor Area Podcast.
I’m your host, Joel Torrez, and I’m really excited about this one because last season, I didn’t get the chance to record any Halloween or spooky stories—except for the time I had the pleasure of hosting Brian and Janelle, when we talked about the San Vicente Lighthouse.

This year, I’m finally doing it.
 Sometimes you just run out of time, but not this time.
 So grab your headphones and settle in—because tonight’s story is one that has haunted the Harbor for decades.

It’s called The San Pedro Poltergeist.

📍 [Sound Cue: Low ocean wind and creaking docks]

San Pedro, California—a working-class port town where the ocean meets industry.
 A place known for its fishermen, its lighthouses, and its stubborn sense of history.

But beneath the hum of cargo ships and the salt in the air lies another story—one whispered in the dark corners of old houses and remembered by those brave enough to speak of it.

📍 [Transition Music]

Tonight, we’re diving into one of the strangest—and most chilling—true accounts in California’s paranormal history: The San Pedro Poltergeist.

A haunting so violent, so personal, that even the seasoned investigators who documented it were left questioning everything they believed about life, death, and what lingers in between.

The year was 1989.
A young mother named Jackie Hernandez had just moved into a small house on West 11th Street, right here in San Pedro.

At first glance, it was an unassuming home—small, weathered, with chipped paint, creaky floors, and a view of the harbor just beyond the hills.

But soon after moving in, Jackie sensed something was wrong.

It started with small things:

• Flickering lights.
• Objects disappearing.
• That unmistakable feeling of being watched.

She’d catch movement out of the corner of her eye.
 She’d hear footsteps in the attic.
 And then—she started hearing a voice.

A faint whisper calling her name when she was alone with her children.

Her friends told her it was stress.
 After all, she was a single mom, working long hours, doing her best to make ends meet.
 Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe the house was settling.

But what came next was anything but ordinary.

📍 [Sound Cue: Sudden crash of glass]

One night, Jackie was sitting in her living room when she saw something moving across the wall—not a shadow, but the outline of a man’s face.
Grim, hollow-eyed, fading in and out of her view.

She screamed.
 Her neighbor ran over, but by the time he got there—the face was gone.

Then things escalated.

Glasses shattered on their own.
 A crucifix was ripped from the wall.
 And a thick, dark liquid—something that looked like blood—began dripping from the ceiling.

Jackie called her landlord, thinking it must be a plumbing issue.
 But there were no leaks. No broken pipes. No explanation.

Whatever was in that house—it wanted her attention.

📍 [Sound Cue: Static, faint whispers]

Desperate for help, Jackie reached out to a local paranormal research team led by Dr. Barry Taff, one of the most respected parapsychologists in the country.
Taff was known for investigating The Entity case in Culver City back in the 1970s—a haunting so extreme it inspired a major film.

When he got the call from San Pedro, he thought it would be another routine case.
 He was wrong.

When Taff and his team arrived, they felt it immediately—something heavy in the air, a pressure in their chests.

Their equipment malfunctioned.
 Batteries drained.
 Cameras jammed.

Still, they pressed on—setting up infrared film and shooting in total darkness.

In several frames, strange shapes appeared.
 Some formed what looked like a human face.

And then—they went into the attic.

Jackie always hated that attic.
 She said it felt alive.

That night, one of the investigators climbed the ladder to get readings.
 Moments later, he let out a blood-curdling scream.

The team rushed up and found him hanging from a beam, a rope wrapped tightly around his neck—looped from above, with no one near it.

They pulled him down just in time. He survived.

But that moment convinced everyone that something—or someone—wanted them dead.

Then, from the static of their audio recorder, a faint voice whispered:
 📍 “Leave. Get out.”

Dr. Taff’s team became convinced that the activity wasn’t tied to the house—but to Jackie herself.

When she finally moved out of West 11th Street, she thought the nightmare was over.
 But it followed her.

In a trailer she rented near the San Bernardino Mountains—lights flickered, doors slammed, objects levitated in front of witnesses.

One night, she woke to see a man—pale, drenched, dripping—standing at the foot of her bed.
 The same figure others had described.

His clothes looked like those of an old fisherman.
 His skin gray, like he’d been underwater for days.

Some believed he was the spirit of a drowned sailor—perhaps from the waters below 22nd Street Landing.
 Others thought it was something darker.

Not a ghost at all, but a poltergeist—feeding on her fear, her loneliness, her pain.

In parapsychology, a poltergeist isn’t always a spirit.
 Some researchers believe it’s a psychic projection—energy released by a living person under extreme emotional stress.

Jackie had plenty of that:
 A recent divorce, financial hardship, the weight of single motherhood.

Could it be that she was the source?

Skeptics thought so.
 Some accused her of fabricating the incidents for attention.
 Others suggested the “blood” was animal fluid—or that investigators were simply caught up in hysteria.

But then again… how do you fake an attempted hanging witnessed by multiple people?
 Or photographs showing faces where none existed?

Even today, experts remain divided.

In the years that followed, Jackie moved several more times.
 Eventually, the phenomena faded.
 She went on to live a relatively quiet life—occasionally giving interviews for paranormal shows and documentaries.

In one of them, she said something that stuck with me:

“I don’t care if people believe me.
 I know what I saw, and I know what I felt.
 Nobody should ever have to live like that.”

The San Pedro Poltergeist case remains one of the most thoroughly documented hauntings in California’s history.
It’s been featured on Sightings, Unsolved Mysteries, and countless paranormal podcasts and investigations.

And yet—no one has ever explained what really happened in that little house by the harbor.

Maybe it was a ghost.
 Maybe it was a mind under too much pressure.
 Or maybe—San Pedro itself holds onto its dead.

Fishermen lost at sea.
 Dock workers crushed beneath cargo.
 Sailors whose final breath disappeared into the fog.

This town has seen centuries of death, salt, and sorrow.
 Who’s to say some of it doesn’t come back to visit?

📍 [Sound Cue: Footsteps, distant waves]

If you ever find yourself walking down 11th Street late at night—pause for a moment.
 Look up at the old houses.
 You might feel it… that heavy air, that faint pressure.
 Maybe even a whisper on the wind that sounds a little too much like your name.

Because here, in the Harbor…
 the past doesn’t stay buried.

📍 [Outro Music Begins]

Until next time, I’m Joel Torrez, reminding you to respect the ocean—
and the ghosts that live beside it.

Thank you for listening to The Harbor Area Podcast.
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