A ghost known as "The Lady in Black" haunts a chapel built by nuns in the Old Town District of Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to eyewitness accounts.
In a chilling C2C interview, Charlie Frates, a ghost tour guide, shared the tale of a chapel believed to be haunted by a woman clad in Victorian garb from the days of the Old West.
Inside the eerie, pitch-black chapel where no candles or any other form of lighting was allowed, the haunted chapel was a popular paranormal hot spot for Frates' Old Town ghost tours, he said.
But, after a series of disturbing encounters that sent terrified witnesses to the hospital, it's now off limits to visitors.
Frates explained, "It's an old chapel in the rear of an old hidden patio and it was run by Sister Giotto back in the '60s and '70s. She always wanted to have a meditation chapel….so she built this in the back. Now, as she and her fellow sisters built this small building, there had been sightings of a woman who was walking the grounds out there."
"It appeared to be an older woman – rather small – wearing a Victorian funeral gown with a veil. Her face was completely covered. Her black dress extended all the way to the tips of her little boots and she would be walking the grounds."
When the nuns completed the patio, the mysterious woman began to be seen inside the chapel itself.
"She's known as "the Lady in Black". She's been known to begin to sob and then wail very, very loudly. And eyewitness - pretty reputable ones- have seen this spirit rise from the little pew," Frates told C2C.
"She will rise and she will go to the center of the chapel and then she's been known to disappear. She would drop – feet first right down though the center of the floor – much like the Wicked Witch of the West," he said.
As the apparition dissipated, it "caused people who have seen this to faint…And some have been taken to the hospital," Frates elaborated.
"As they were exiting the chapel, one eyewitness started to thrash and scream in her ambulance gurney, stating 'I cannot leave this chapel! Everywhere in the world is evil – this is the only safe place!' and they had to sedate her and take her to a local hospital to calm her down," Frates said. "People would run out screaming!"
Among other occurrences his tour group witnessed, Frates said, were the appearance of a suddenly lit religious candle in a place where no lighting was permitted and a spinning crucifix on a small statue of the Virgin Mary.
"I got really creeped out," he admitted.
Frates said that the haunted chapel is now closed to the public as visits are no longer permitted by the owners. To hear more of the compelling interview with Charlie Frates, click here.
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