Decades Later, Leona Gibson Tells Haunting Secret of Mount Nebo Stairs

Having lived in the same house on Mount Nebo until she was 17, Leona Gibson is very familiar with the public stairway system there. And while the now-historic “Secret Stairs” may not be so secret, only a few people know about the ghostly experience she had on them.

“There was some kind of weird energy,” said Gibson, who was 8 at the time and walking with a friend. “The first time, we just felt it and kept walking. The second time, my friend asked me, ‘Did you feel that?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

Gibson, a Serra Mesa resident now in her 60s, says she felt it on the pathway that intersects Sheldon Drive, where a man who used to grow sunflowers lived.

But she had another experience that year, too. During a trip to the bathroom one night, she says she saw the ghost of her grandmother.

“It was a little transparent, and hovering about a foot off the ground,” Gibson said. “Her feet were moving, but she wasn’t.”

The odd thing about that vision? Her grandmother was still alive at the time—something Gibson’s mother pointed out when she first heard the story years later.

“I told her Grandma was trying to make a good escape!” Gibson said.