Mystery Location No. 299: April 10, 2022

Finally, I believe I have this one worked out: the Oklahoma Governor's Mansion, 820 NE 23rd Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Dutch-Colonial mansion, built in 1928, is said to be haunted by Oklahoma's 9th governor, William H. "Alfalfa Bill" Murray, a colorful politician born in Toadsuck, Texas, who got his nickname for encouraging farmers to grow alfalfa. His ghost has been seen and heard by staff, visitors and various governors and their families. The son of Gov. Frank Keating (1995-2003) was watching TV in the mansion's basement with some friends when Murray's apparition brazenly walked through the room. Other phenomena include cabinet doors opening by themselves, knocking noises, phantom footsteps and a strange buzzing sound coming from the sun room. People also have a tendency to trip on the 3rd step of the central staircase.

An Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 movie and one of the characters is Sid Worley, who, with Zack Mayo, was going through flight school, hoping to fly the F-14 Tomcat. He dropped out just before completing the program and hangs himself after the Puget Sound Deb, who falsely claimed she was pregnant, turned down his marriage proposal because she wanted to marry a pilot, not some "Okie from Muscogee." The home of the hanged man was Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City and the city turned the site into an overblown memorial to capitalize on the tragedy. The memorial includes a Survivor Tree, an American elm that survived the destruction.