I love Halloween. When I lived in the Atomic Abode I put up a big graveyard on the front lawn of the house for the entire month of October. My best Halloween yielded over 150 trick-or-treaters. It didn’t hurt that I handed out airline-sized bottles of booze to the parents!

Now in my wheel estate, I still do a little decorating.

While I love Halloween, I don’t particularly enjoy being scared for kicks. I don’t watch horror movies unless they have been critically acclaimed or touted as a new twist on the genre, and I don’t go to those commercial haunted houses.

In my 50 years I have experienced unexplained phenomena and paranormal-type activity, but on October 26, 2018 in Page, Arizona, I was genuinely freaked out.

Page sits on the edge of the Navajo reservation, by the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. I arrived that day and took a tour of Lower Antelope Canyon, with reservations for Upper Antelope Canyon the following day. I was dry camping at the Page Elks Lodge, by myself in a gravel lot some distance from the Lodge.

I ran the generator from about 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. to keep everything charged up nicely overnight.

I tucked myself in at about 10:00 p.m. and was fast asleep. I was awoken at 2:00 a.m. by a rumbling noise coming from the front of the coach. At first I thought a semi had pulled in for the night like they so often do at truck stops and Walmarts, but then I remembered I was at the Elks; semis don’t park there.

I threw on my robe and went to the front of the coach to investigate, and that’s when I discovered the generator was on.

The generator turned itself on.

The
Generator
Turned
Itself
The
Fuck
On!

Now, before you start pooh-poohing me, telling me that I must have an Automatic Generator Start, I most certainly do not. And even if I did, when I went to bed the batteries were fully charged. The inverter was inverting happily. The air conditioning thermostat was off. The electric hot water switch was off. The furnace and refrigerator were running on propane, and there was plenty of it.

In three-and-a-half years of living in Nellie, this has never happened. I have been boondocking where the batteries have completely run down overnight, and the generator did not self-start.

And here’s the thing about starting the generator: When you depress the button on the dash, it does not start automatically. You must hold the button for a while until ignition.

I briefly considered then dismissed that somehow one of the animals hit the button – ridiculous, especially given its location. For a moment I got really, truly frightened, thinking that someone started the generator from the outside to lure me out to investigate in the middle of the night. Then I thought better of it, because the generator compartment can only be opened by pulling a lever in another locked exterior compartment.

I peered through all the closed shades and saw no one. I turned the generator off, waited a little while, then turned it on again, and it worked perfectly. I sat bolt upright on the sofa for a while, considering and contemplating how this could have occurred.

Then, as with most things RV-related that I encounter for the first time, I consulted my trusty guru, Google.

It turns out that phantom generator starts are a thing! Who knew? Often attributed to condensation or critters, it is really a problem with unattended coaches, like ones in storage. Owners in online forums lament about receiving calls from neighbors that their generators are on, arriving to find running jennies and almost empty fuel tanks.

In the safe light of day I went out to investigate further.

The generator compartment was indeed locked. Recalling that I drove through a rainstorm in New Mexico about six days prior, I found no water or condensation on the switches or wires leading to the jenny. There was no evidence of furry visitors, like poop or nests, and it would be almost impossible for a critter to hit and hold that button long enough to start the generator.

So, there you have it – my own little haunting, near ancient Native land, five days before Halloween. Is this an Unsolved Mystery, or do you have any information or experience that can shed light on the subject?

But y’all, I swear, if the engine starts on its on, I’m changing Nellie’s name to Christine and selling that bitch!