This website (
visit link) provides a history of the Alamo and adds the following about its paranormal activity:
"Ghostly Defenders of the Alamo
It was not long after the battle had ended that the first sightings of specters at the Alamo began to surface.
Mere days had slipped past since the end of the bloodshed when General Santa Ana mandated that the historic church be burned down to the ground. The thought that the Texians might see the mission as a shrine to those who had rebelled against him made Santa Ana furious. So angry, actually, that he ordered his field commander, General Andrade, to bring a group of cavalrymen out to the site and see that the whole place was alit in flames.
Doing as he was told, Andrade agreed and sent his men.
When they arrived at the Alamo, however, they were quick to turn back around and return to the Mexican Army camp.
Andrade demanded to know of why they had not completed the task.
Shaken and white-faced, one of his men stepped back. He regaled Andrade of the six diablos who had stood before the Alamo. Each spirit had held a flaming sword, encircling the group of soldiers as they blocked the entrance to the mission. They’d feared destroying the church and what might happen to them if they did.
Rumors circulated that entities protecting the Alamo were those men who died during the battle, while others claimed that vigilant specters must have been the old Franciscan monks guarding their mission.
But General Andrade only scoffed at the tale of warrior ghosts and the terrified expressions on his men’s faces. He’d go there himself, then. He enlisted a few men and set off toward the Alamo, Santa Anna’s orders to burn the place down ringing loud in his ears.
When he arrived, he directed his troops to the Long House Barracks. Only this time, instead of the sword-wielding ghosts at the front gates, Andrade spotted a tall, male spirit rise up on the roof of the barracks. Clasped in each hand was a ball consumed in fire. The specter held out the flaming weapons and the Mexican soldiers dropped to their knees. The heels of their palms dug into their eyes to block out the sight, but it was no good.
They feared for their lives.
Andrade left the Mission well enough alone, hightailing it out of San Antonio with his troops as fast as they could march.
Neither they nor General Santa Ana ever returned to the Alamo, and the mission would fall into ruin within the next ten years.
Disappearing Spirits
By 1846, Texas had been annexed into the United States and the old Alamo was then converted into a complex for the US Army. But in 1871, the decision came to demolish part of the old church, leaving only the old barracks and the church.
The dismantlement never came.
When the newspapers voiced the deconstruction of the historic Mission San Antonio de Valero, sightings of ghosts wandering the grounds of the church began to be reported—almost all of them coming from the guests staying at the Menger Hotel, just across the plaza. (The Menger Hotel is also rumored to be haunted).
Those staying at the hotel swore that they’d seen the spirits of a long-ago army marching up and down the path in front of the Alamo; some of the apparitions disappeared into the walls of the building, and others stood guard all night as if protecting the site from anything or anyone who might seek to tear it down.
Rather hastily, plans to alter or tear down the Alamo were put to rest, and it became home to a police headquarters and jail instead . . . though the sightings of spirits never ceased.
Between 1894 and 1897, the local newspaper, the San Antonio Express News published a series of articles which highlighted the almost-freakish paranormal phenomenon occurring at the Alamo. The reports described the ghostly guards which marched up along the roof of the police station; the dark figures roaming the corridors at night; and the distinct sounds of moaning that awoke the staff and the prisoners from their slumber.
Soon, the activity was so vibrant, so alive in its frequency, that guards started to refuse being on the patrol shift at night. The policemen were furious. But no one would take those shifts, in fear of running across one of the many ghosts of the Alamo still haunting the grounds, and the prison was forced to move not that long after.
The Dead Who Rise: Other Spirits of the Alamo
Long before the Battle of the Alamo occurred in 1836, the site on which the Alamo and the plaza sit was once a cemetery for the city of San Antonio.
Between the years 1724 and 1793, it is estimated that nearly a thousand people were buried on this land. Then, the battle transpired and the number of dead whose blood ran into this soil increased by the tenfold. It is said that often construction workers doing work in the Alamo Plaza sometimes pull up skulls and bones.
Is it possible that many of these souls still haunt the site that marked their graves?
The Little Boy of the Alamo
One of the most commonly spotted ghosts at the old mission is that of a blond-haired boy. He’s seen most often in the upstairs left window, which now is part of the Alamo’s gift shop. As the story goes, it is believed that the little boy was evacuated during the Siege of the Alamo. Though he survived, it’s thought that perhaps his parents did not and his spirit returns over and over again to the site where he last saw them. During the month of February, his little ghost is seen most frequently.
The Mexican Soldier
Along the outer walls of the Alamo, the ghostly figure of what is believed to be a Mexican soldier has been seen by tourists and locals alike. Meandering the grounds, his hands are always clasped behind his back; his chin tilted down, he shakes his head somberly. Although it can’t be proven one way or another, this ghostly soldier is believed to be General Manuel Fernandez de Castrillon, one of Santa Ana’s commanders, who refused to lay siege to the Alamo. After the last of the firefight on the eve of the battle came to an end, six men were brought to Castrillon to surrender. The general offered the men his protection, but Santa Ana refused this act of truce and ordered the Texians’ executions. Infuriated when Castrillon refused to follow orders, Santa Ana murdered the men himself—hacking them to death with sharp-bladed sabers—and almost killed Castrillon himself.
Father and Son
Various reports have surfaced over the years of seeing the apparitions of a man and child up on the rooftop of the Alamo. The spirits are always seen just after sunrise, but then the image distills, jerks, as the ghostly man wraps his arm around the child and leaps off of the parapet to the ground below. It would seem that these ghostly figures are a case of residual energy, for during the last moments of the Battle of the Alamo, General Andrade and the other Mexican soldiers glanced up and were “horrified” to see “a tall, thin man with a small child in his arms, leap to the ground from the parapet at the rear of the Alamo Church."
Paranormal Phenomenon
Since the close of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, the number of ghosts and paranormal activity at the old mission has not lessened but increased.
A ghostly guard is still spotted on the south side of the roof, especially on nights when it is rainy or cold.
Visitors of the Alamo, which became a museum in 1905, have expressed feeling very melancholy when wandering through the main chapel area of the mission complex. Some have even felt so depressed that tears leap to their eyes and they are powerless to control their erratic emotions.
Others have reported hearing disembodied voices—whispers, as though the spirits are still experiencing the worry of the impending battle—and phantom footsteps.
It seems that even for those who choose to visit the Mission San Antonio de Valero, the ghosts which still haunt the old church grounds have one, singular purpose for remaining: to make sure that all who visit forever remember the Alamo."