EERIE REALITY SPIRIT LIVES ON IN HAUNTED HOUSE.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Sheriff's deputies this Halloween will put on a haunted house at a place that's really supposed to be haunted.

Mira Loma Jail, where high school drama students next weekend will dress up as ghosts and monsters and ghouls, is said to be haunted by the ghost of an airman decapitated by a propeller when Mira Loma was a military training base during World War II.

Deputies over the years have reported strange noises, gates that won't stay locked, and even the apparition of a young man in flight gear. They've named the ghost Gunther, but the dead airman's name was Mayer Ber Himelstaub, a Royal Air Force cadet.

``We've had a few people ask to be transferred,'' said sheriff's Lt. Buddy Goldman. ``Some just said they don't feel comfortable being here and couldn't really say why. Most people don't even know the this place.''

Himelstaub's stomping grounds are said to include a condemned hangar, the old theater, recreation and briefing room for pilots, and most notably the War Eagle Field control tower which still overlooks the facility.

Sightings describe Himelstaub as a fair-skinned, blond young man, dressed in full flight gear including a leather flight jacket, and head gear.

One report came from a deputy patrolling the discipline cell barracks. Spotting a man he didn't recognize, the deputy called out but got no reaction. The deputy called again, but the man continued walking - right through a barracks wall.

The deputy reported the incident to his superiors, but a search of the area turned up nothing.

Another account in a 1989 Sheriff's Department newsletter said a sergeant was patrolling the old theater when he heard ``heavy footsteps and banging'' coming from the upstairs projector room. When he climbed into the darkened room, he found ``a wall of spiderwebs'' and nothing else.

Deputies say prisoners placed in the 10-by-6-foot cinder block discipline cells reported seeing Himelstaub and begged to be transferred or sent back to their regular cells.

``We have gates that have been found open, and the people that check most of those gates don't even have keys to them,'' said Lt. Judy Sharp. ``The keys are kept in the control room. We know it's not done as a joke because that's not something we'd joke about. You'd loose your job. Those aren't left open accidentally or as a joke.''

The spirit picked up his name only two years ago. Two Immigration and Naturalization Service employees who came to the jail after it was turned into an INS holding facility said they communicated with him through a Ouija board.

But a 57-year-old newspaper on file at the Palmdale Library said the man decapitated and dismembered on Feb. 13, 1943, was a Royal Air Force student pilot named Mayer Ber Himelstaub, who walked into the propeller of a taxiing training plane.

After completing a training flight, Himelstaub was walking back to the hangar and stepped out from a line of parked planes, the newspaper article said. He was keeping his head down because of blowing dust, and the pilot of a taxiing plane couldn't see him over its nose.

Just before he was hit, Himelstaub ducked and threw up his arm to protect his face, a student pilot in another plane said. His hand and arm were thrown 200 feet from where his body fell. His head was thrown more than two dozen feet from his body.

Suggestions as to why Gunther haunts the jail are varied, but his horrible and untimely death is reported to be the reason he stays.

``In some cases the spirit doesn't know it's dead,'' said Raven Estefan, store manager for the Witch's Brew, which sells candles, incense and books on pre-Christian European religions, ``or if the person died tragically it just kind of hangs around.''

TOUR WITH THE SPIRITS

LANCASTER - Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and drama students from Lancaster and Quartz Hill high schools will host ``haunted jail'' tours from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Guides will take visitors through Mira Loma Jail's oldest section, which is not in use by inmates. Drama students will decorate the ``discipline cells'' and other buildings and with sheriff's personnel will dress as ghosts, monsters and ghouls.

The free event is open to the public. All children 14 and under will get candy at the end of the tour.

Mira Loma is located on the corner of 60th Street East and Avenue I. Visitors should enter under the water tower and follow the signs in. For more information on the event, call Deputy Paul Ullman at [phone].

See Page 3.

-Daily News

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) A sheriff's deputy peers out the window of Mira Loma Jail's tower, which is said to be haunted by the ghost of an airman dec propeller during World War II.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

Box: Tour with the spirits (see text)