PAIR WRITES GUIDE BOOKS FOR GHOST SEEKERS.

Byline: Victoria Giraud People and Places

- Boo! It's time for ghosts and goblins.

Rob Wlodarski, an author and archeologist, isn't scared. He and his wife, Anne, have written three books on the ghosts of famous places: ``A Guide to the Haunted Queen Mary,'' ``Haunted Catalina'' and ``The Haunted Alamo.''

``I was aware of the spirit realm as a young child,'' Rob Wlodarski said. ``When I was 8 or 9, I had a weird experience at our house - a presence that emanated from the closet. It walked toward me and vanished. I knew it wasn't my imagination.''

His parents still live in the house, and Rob says the ghost is a benign presence, also still there.

Anne Wlodarski said her grandparents always claimed they had a ghost closet.

Rob and Anne shared a ghostly experience on an archeological dig in Oxnard a few years ago. When a construction worker hit a skull with his backhoe, Rob was called in as an archeological expert to examine the remains. It turned out to be a 500-year-old Indian burial site with 21 bodies. Chumash Indian officials were contacted, and they decided to perform a ritual cleansing ceremony when the bodies were once again buried.

Anne remembers the chills she felt as she and Rob observed the ceremony, and she said the aftermath was spooky.

``Roosters were crowing, dogs from neighboring homes were howling, and a devil-duster wind kicked up out of nowhere.''

The idea for their first book on the Queen Mary stemmed from a ghost tour of the ship. Afterward, Anne went into the gift shop looking for a book about the ship's reported ghosts. The owner told her there was no book, but one was needed.

The Wlodarskis set to work, calling the Queen Mary's archivist to establish a correlation between actual deaths that had occurred on the ship and ghosts said to be haunting it. They found plenty of ghost stories. Several concerned the deaths of John Pedder and William Stark.

Pedder, an 18-year-old crewman, was accidentally crushed to death by watertight door No. 13. Stark, a ship's officer, died in his quarters when he mistook poison for gin. There have been repeated sightings of ghosts believed to be Pedder and Stark, the Wlodarskis said.

Catalina Island was the next locale that intrigued them as authors. Rob had been an archeologist in many digs on the island and had been collecting stories about Catalina since the 1970s. Residents of the island offered up tales of hauntings at old Indian burial grounds at the famed casino and at various homes, businesses and hotels, including the hotel created from author Zane Grey's home. Grey himself is reputed to be haunting his former home.

Something inside the distinctive Holly Hill House, built in 1890, spooked a construction crew working on the old home on Catalina Island. Construction workers would hear footsteps and doors opening and closing. After double-locking a door at night, they would find it open in the morning. Determined to discover the culprit, the workers put fresh varnish on the floor where they'd heard the most activity.

The next morning, they found tiny barefoot prints in the varnish, but the prints started in the middle of the floor and disappeared before reaching the end of the varnished area.

Their next project, a book on the Alamo, revived Anne's interest in her birthplace, San Antonio. It posed a special challenge since the couple had only heard one ghost story concerning the massacre at the old mission. But a trip to San Antonio proved fruitful. They gathered many stories from various hotels that surround the old fort.

There were many inexplicable tales of ``people appearing and disappearing in period clothing,'' Rob said. ``People have also said they've seen re-enactments of the battle of the Alamo while sitting in a hotel opposite the site.''

A retired Alamo park ranger said he had seen an Alamo defender being repeatedly stabbed and shot by Mexican soldiers in the area of Long Barracks.

``They (the park rangers) don't believe in ghosts, but say, `I don't know what else it could have been,' '' Rob said.

Anne thinks ghosts exist because of unfinished business that needs resolution.

``A spirit doesn't die, but leaves behind a psychic imprint from traumatic events that happened there,'' she said. ``Perhaps they didn't make peace and are trapped in a limbo state.''

The imprint of events on an area is not always tragic, Anne added. The Wlodarskis have found happy stories of ghosts that linger around ballrooms and even bars. The couple both have positive feelings about ghosts. ``They're more guardian angels than demons,'' Rob declared.

The Queen Mary gift shop carries the couple's ghost book, and the Catalina book is available in several locations around the island. Already in progress, the couple's next book will be on Alcatraz, the island prison in San Francisco Bay.

MEMO: Victoria Giraud welcomes comments and suggestions for columns. Call her at [phone].

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Photo: In Calabasas, Anne and Rob Wlodarski stand near theLeonis Adobe, which they call haunted. They write books on places they believe are haunted.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News