Ghost tours are a draw for tourists and locals alike – even if they don’t believe in the supernatural.

On a clear and chilly night, a nearly full moon rises above the Monterey Bay.

Along Cannery Row, a man is lost in the beat of his drums as he performs an impromptu solo act from the bed of a pickup truck. Music from Paper Wing Theatre’s Rocky Horror Show spills out through the windows of the Monterey Canning Company building and onto adjacent Prescott Avenue. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, meanwhile, is closed for the night, and workers roll tables and chairs used for an event earlier in the day back into storage.

It’s a Friday night in October, and the bulk of the tourist season has long passed. While there are clutches of people here and there, Cannery Row is relatively sleepy, except for the cawing seagulls that are probably up past their bedtime.

All things considered, it’s quiet and dark for Cannery Row – and that makes it perfect to hunt ghosts.

Adam Kinkade leads a group of about a dozen people around the neighborhood. He notes some historic spots – the Chinese fishing village, destroyed by a suspicious fire; the Bear Flag building, with its pagoda-like roof, among many others.

As the group rounds Hoffman Avenue, Kinkade leads them to the Rec Trail, eventually stopping in front of a large, rusted hulk of a tank mostly obscured by vegetation, one of the few remnants of Cannery Row’s oil storage facilities.

In 1922, lightning struck the top of one of the oil tanks, igniting it immediately. Fueled by the oil, the flames destroyed a wharf and several canneries, even threatening Fisherman’s Wharf as the bay was ablaze, with volunteers from throughout the state attempting to get a lid on it.

Three days later, the tank exploded, and two soldiers helping with battling the blaze from the Presidio of Monterey, Eustace Watkins and John Bolio, happened to be right next to it, killing them instantly.

It’s a historical fact Kinkade uses to describe something next that can’t be verified, yet has had many people reporting it over the years. Some say, when the lights go out on the Rec Trail around 3am, two figures wearing military uniforms can be seen in a panic around the tank, carrying something, perhaps a hose. When a bystander approaches these figures, they disappear in a “blinding flash of light,” Kinkade said – almost as if they are being consumed by a fire from more than a century ago.

“It sure sounds like Bolio and Watkins are still here fighting that fire long ago,” he said.

The stories of the unknown, the unverifiable, but nevertheless fascinating – there’s no denying they have a hold on believers and skeptics alike.

Will Roberts considers himself an amateur ghost hunter.

One of his most prized captures is that of an orb-like object recorded by a security camera. Some may dismiss it as a dust particle, but Roberts says the orb appears to be moving with a purpose, traveling from the corner of the screen to a chair on the other side of the room. Ghost hunters say such orbs, a three-dimensional ball of light, are a sign that a spirit is present and about to manifest.

The actor/magician/owner of Zucchini’s Tricks and Things on Cannery Row has always had an interest in the arcane arts. It’s what led Roberts from being an employee at Zucchini’s in the 1970s to eventually purchasing the shop in 2023.

Roberts teamed up with fellow magician Chris Herren to present Seance Cannery Row in the shop, a show that touches on the historical people of Cannery Row, a throwback to the seances – an attempt to contact the dead – that have been said to happen historically in the area.

Roberts created the ghost tours on Cannery Row, a chance for the public to learn about its history, and some of its dark past shrouded in mystery and untimely deaths.

Roberts says portraying the historical aspects is an important part of the tour, with a little bit of show business thrown in.

“It doesn’t hurt when there’s fog and weird noises on Cannery Row,” he says. “It does become a ghost town.”

Zucchini’s has since moved to inside Oscar’s Playground (on the third floor of 685 Cannery Row), and the ghost tours have also expanded to Old Monterey.

Roberts acknowledges that the very nature of a ghost tour has plenty of skeptics. Many say those strange noises can be attributed to a building creaking or from an animal. EMF readers, a popular tool used by ghost hunters, are bogus instruments that light up on a set timer, some claim.

But Roberts says the skeptics and the believers share more in common than they may think – they all want proof that ghosts either exist or not.

“The demographic of the skeptic and the people that believe are relatively the same people,” he says. “They want to know the answer to the same questions.

“People are totally enamored by the possibility even though they may not believe it.”

Roberts’ career as an actor – most prominently portraying General George C. Marshall in Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film Oppenheimer – has taken him throughout the world. Many places he’s been have had some sort of haunted attraction.

“Everyone has a ghost tour,” he says. “People love the history, plus they like a little bit of the unknown.”

The haunted tourism industry is a big business.

According to America Haunts, an industry trade group, the industry generates about $300 million in sales throughout the country annually, such as through tours of supposedly haunted historic buildings and ghost walks, with a handful happening in Monterey. Add in the annual Halloween-time scare-fests at theme parks across the states, and you’re looking at another $150 million, according to the group.

A 2016 study found that 38 percent of vacationers took part in paranormal activities for their trips.

Historians point to the Victorian era as where the haunted tourism industry began. Theaters held public seances with the idea that people could, maybe, reach out to those they had lost, perhaps providing some comfort. It was a time marked by death, with disease and war, making such activities popular.

In the trauma following 9/11, a similar movement happened in the U.S., writes Jessica O’Hara in The Philosophy of Horror. But it became decidedly more fitting of the 21st century – paranormal television shows skyrocketed, filmed in a documentary style where ghost hunters use various pieces of equipment in an attempt to prove the existence of wandering spirits. The part-history, part-fantastical nature of the shows have remained just as popular today.

Monterey County is a hotspot for these shows. Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, for example, has filmed at the Point Sur Lighthouse, Los Coches Adobe in Soledad, Tor House in Carmel and the Carmel Doll Shop in Pacific Grove.

In recent weeks, a crew from Discovery Channel has been filming in Monterey for an upcoming episode of an unknown ghost hunting show, even flying a drone over one of Kinkade’s tours.

Emily Evans, public relations director for See Monterey, says while the Halloween season hasn’t historically been a peak hotel occupancy time in the county, there’s been a growing interest in local Halloween-related activities.

See Monterey’s haunted places blog, featuring locations such as Stokes Adobe in Monterey and the Carmel Mission, consistently ranks among the top of its website’s most visited pages, she says, suggesting “there is curiosity and engagement around Halloween content for visitors and locals alike.”

“Monterey County has a lot for locals to enjoy, such as the haunted history of the region. Combined with the natural eerie beauty of certain spots like the Point Sur Lighthouse or Old Fisherman’s Wharf, it certainly appeals to a niche audience of ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts,” Evans says.

Halloween falls on what is known as the “shoulder season” – the time when the summer tourists are back home, but before the holidays. An attraction that made its two-weekend debut on Cannery Row hoped to give people more reasons to visit the area during this time.

For Haunted Harbor, four attractions inside 700 Cannery Row received a Halloween makeover. Treasure Hunt: The Ride, where up to four riders traverse in a vehicle shooting targets, transformed into Treasure Haunt, featured scare actors in the queue and inside the ride itself.

Escape Room 831’s Pier of Fear attraction turned into a walk-through maze for Haunted Harbor with costumed monsters providing plenty of jump-scares and eerie moments. The two shooting galleries inside the building were also decked out with Halloween flair.

Ron Daniels, president of Daniels Wood Land, which built Treasure Hunt, says adding a Halloween overlay to Treasure Hunt was an obvious choice, given the popularity of such attractions elsewhere in the state.

Daniels Wood Land teamed up with Escape Room 831 to add more attractions to the Haunted Harbor concept. This year is seen as a test run for the event, with the hopes of building on the synergy in the area and getting more nearby businesses involved in the coming years, he says, and perhaps even introduce a “Cannery Row at Night” concept year-round.

As one man walked out of Pier of Fear looking slightly dazed, he was asked his thoughts on the maze.

“It’s terrifyingly awesome,” he said.

BOOK A GHOST TOUR OF CANNERY ROW at ghosttoursmonterey.com