Via Newspapers.com
Time to saddle up those ghost horses! The “San Francisco Chronicle,” December 30, 1931:
Horses, horses, horses.
Three phantom black horses, galloping soundlessly with the speed of the wind, have set Berkeley agog with a mystery that has even the scientific police department of that community guessing. The horses have been seen in the Berkeley hills north of the University of California. All those who claim to have seen them agree on certain points. They are magnificent animals, and they travel with the speed of a March breeze, and always with flying manes and tails. The first report to the police went into the card index, as it is no crime, even in Berkeley, for three black horses to gallop naked through the night, and little attention was paid to it.
But when another and another resident rang in, the police began to get interested. No horses were reported missing or strayed and to keep the animals from eating choice garden plants officers on beats were ordered to impound them. Then Mrs. Mildred Dimmick, 90 Avenida drive, telephoned in that the horses were in front of her home. This was Monday night. Out went the best horse-catching policeman in the Berkeley department. He came back after a while, looking a bit white.
Questioned, he said that when he got to the place where Mrs. Dimmick had seen the horses standing in the mud, there wasn’t even a hoofprint to be found.
“Horsefeathers!” said the desk sergeant, and filed a report of the happening.
A few minutes later Policeman M. L. Ingram telephoned in from a North Berkeley beat that he had seen "three shadowy forms" lurking in the shadows and when he approached them they vanished. The sergeant, with hair rising on the back of his neck, asked what the forms resembled. "Well," said Policeman Ingram, "they looked like horses--black horses. But there aren't any tracks. I don't know what they were."
The sergeant didn't mutter "horsefeathers" this time. Instead he took the matter up with the Inspectors' Bureau, and now every policeman in the city is trying to solve the mystery.
Have the spirits of early California bandit mounts come back to ride, like the steed of the Headless Horseman, the trails of former days?
Are the phantom animals real, after all, or are they just shadows of the night? Don't ask Berkeley police. Every man in the department is carrying a piece of rope and a handful of oats, and the order is to go neighing through the dark until the horses are found.
How many people have seen them? About half a dozen.
The spooky equines continued to be spotted around the Berkeley area, until a horse-whispering--or oat-eating--policeman managed to solve the mystery. The “Chronicle” reported the denouement on January 21, 1932:
Berkeley’s solved phantom black horse mystery was solved early yesterday morning after a wild chase by an intrepid Berkeley policeman.
Trapped in a barn on University of California property, the three horses, who gave the names of Mike, Ike and Lizzie, were lured into surrender by the officer, disguised as a bag of oats. It was Policeman M. L. Ingram of the police horse-prevention squad who unraveled the city's most intriguing mystery.
Ever since the story of the three galloping steeds was first told to the police three weeks ago Policeman Ingram has been on the lookout for them. But it was not until yesterday morning that he caught his first glimpse of them. A telephone call came from Mrs. Calvin Chapman, 1505 Hawthorne Terrace, at midnight that the three black horses sought by the authorities were in front of her house. Policeman Ingram was dispatched in a fast automobile to the scene. "Don't fail," warned the sergeant. "The reputation of the department is at stake. We are all behind you--some farther than the others. Phone if you need field artillery."
Policeman Ingram hurried. With lights out and his car coasting softly, he bore down on the Chapman home. Suddenly out of the shadows of the house three black figures ran down the street. Policeman Ingram stepped on the gas and opened his siren. At the same time his spotlight bit through the darkness. Horses! Three of them. Coal black and running like leaky faucets. The chase was on. Up one street, down the other, Ingram getting closer all the time. The horses, outguessed by the logic of a scientific policeman, scudded for home, which was a barn used by Francis Leschinsky of 2731 Hilgard avenue. As the fugitives crashed into the barn, Policeman Ingram blocked the entrance to the corral with his the car. He had them trapped!
Then it was that Ingram executed his master piece of police strategy. He hissed slightly and ground his teeth together.
Inside the stable it sounded to the three black horses like another horse outside eating oats. Five minutes, ten minutes... The policeman's jaws began to ache, but he kept at it. Another five minutes and all three came out of the barn to get their share and were taken into custody. Policeman Ingram filed a report which explains everything.
The corral fence was broken and the horses, which were only three of a large number stabled there, have been wandering the hills at night in job lots.
The particular three were pals and stayed together. The reason their hoofs made no noise, as reported by startled residents, was that they were gummed thick with corral mud. And that ends the chase of the three black phantom skates of North Berkeley. Policeman Ingram is now in line for the Croix de Cheval. the Distinguished Capture mention, and the Shakespearean citation which bears the Inscription: "All's Well That Ends Well."
I can only add that, having once lived in Berkeley, I’d love to see it return to The Land Where Cops Chase Down Phantom Horses.
