Though well known for our surfing culture and rich beach town history, historical accounts of Huntington Beach (HB) include more than surfboards and sandy Southern California beaches.

 

A shipwreck on the Huntington Beach coast. A murder at the famous Golden Bear. Surfers who died at the HB Pier. Native American burial grounds.

 

Some say infamous events such as these live only in memory and museums. World-renowned parapsychologist investigator Michael J. Kouri says they live on in spirit … literally.

 

The new tour of Huntington Beach’s most haunted places conducted by Michael J. Kouri is not your standard haunted house tour. Michael leads you into an HB only a few can sense, see or feel — an HB very much alive with the energies beyond the veil of the past — to some of the real haunted places of Southern California. ________________________________________________________________ 

 

He doesn’t carry a crystal ball. He doesn’t read palms, keep up with the Zodiac calendar or even own a set of Tarot cards.

Michael J. Kouri’s capacity to see ghosts is an unexplainable natural ability.

“I am a magnet for spiritual activity,” Michael asserts. “Spirits love me. They just want to be with me, and I am sometimes the only connection these spirits have to the living world.”

While riding his brother’s bicycle when he was 8 years old, Michael was struck by a neighbor’s car. With the bicycle completely destroyed and his shirt soaked in blood, Michael “came to” after the accident with the ability to see spirits for the first time. 

“I remember seeing colors around all of the on looking neighbors, and colors of red and orange from the mouths of barking dogs. At the hospital, I saw glowing, transparent people everywhere. They seemed to know I could see them, and as I passed them, many bowed, tipped their hats or welcomed me to the hospital.”

According to Michael, some of the apparitions visible to him are souls stuck between this life and the afterlife. Others are the spirit guides of living individuals, spirits Michael feels every person on earth possesses.

“Everybody has a spirit guide or ‘guardian angel’ that comes to earth to help us. As a psychic-medium, I am able to see these sprits from the past, present and future.”

However, even Michael admits he does not understand everything about ghosts, such as why some people remain on the earth plain and haunt, and others do not. 

“I don’t always know why they haunt. Some simply don’t know that they are dead, and others just don’t want to leave because they have unfinished business.”

As Michael grew older, his ability to see spirits, as well as his natural psychic capabilities, developed even further.

Spirits began appearing to him more and more in dreams and in person, giving him information about others, such as car accidents the time he correctly predicted a 52-year-old woman who could not conceive was pregnant with twins.

Over the last 30-plus years, Michael has been involved in everything from parapsychological studies with renowned parapsychologist Dr. Thelma Moss, PhD to tours and readings for celebrities and royalty such as Princess Diana.

He has also been featured on dozens of television shows around the world, as well as hundreds of national and international radio shows, describing haunted hotspots throughout the U.S., including Huntington Beach.

In other words, Michael has more than his fair share of credibility. Therefore, statements made by Michael such as “Huntington Beach is the single most haunted pier I’ve ever been on in my entire life,” carry an assured gravitas.

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In the 1880’s, a ship by the name of the Nick Bidder crashed onto the shore of Huntington Beach. Dozens of passengers, along with the ship’s cargo — lumber — plunged into the ocean and onto the coastline. Most of the passengers were killed.

Before Michael had ever heard of the Nick Bidder, he was on the beach performing an investigation with a psychic friend when he had a vision of a young girl and her pregnant mother lying in some sort of wreckage. The young girl was combing her mother’s hair and singing.

“I could see that her eyes were clouded over — she was blind,” Michael states. “The people were in Victorian-style clothing, and some were covered in blood.”

In discussing their encounter, psychics suggested Michael conduct historical research to discover if the event had happened. During his research, a woman whose former sea captain grandfather had kept a diary including all the circumstances surrounding the entire shipwreck contacted Michael.

Her grandfather’s diary contained details of the horrific accident. In the diary, the sea captain described the discovery of a young blind girl and her dead mother among the wreckage.

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On the maiden voyage of Michael’s Haunted Houses of Huntington Beach Historical Ghost Tour, six of the twenty guests present claimed to have seen and sensed some sort of spirit.

Michael’s tours are very unusual because he actually “sees” ethereal surfers who continue to ride the waves, bikers who ride along the Pacific Coast Highway on their motorcycles and ghostly lifeguards who roam the pier and beaches.

Michael seems to be a magnet for ghosts. Unlike other ghost tours throughout the country, it is not uncommon for tour-takers to catch their own glimpses of ghosts on Michael’s tours.

Michael does not believe the spirits who haunt are always the evil demons of the dark world.

“I actually try to get to know them and bond with their energy and let them reveal what they want to show me. I handle the spirits gingerly, and my goal is to help them make peace with the memories of their past as they can move forward on their spiritual paths.”

Most people who hang out in Huntington Beach rarely see the spirits without Michael’s accompaniment. “While I conduct these tours, I always invite the spirits to show themselves if they would like to, without force, because I respect the spirit as I respect human beings.”

Michael’s tours are not scary. Instead, they are an opportunity to learn about local history and a true opportunity to learn about what some people believe ghost sightings to be, what ghosts really are and why they are here.

If you would like to know more about the history of Haunted Huntington Beach, don’t miss Michael J. Kouri’s Haunted Houses of Huntington Beach Historical Ghost Tour.

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Michael J. Kouri’s Haunted Houses of Huntington Beach Historical Ghost Tour offers three different types of tours: