Stop the car, she yelled. "It was right there, right by that tree! I am sure. That's where the ghost nuns stood."

I pulled the car onto the dirt siding of the road and braked to a dusty halt. Before I could get out of the car with my tape recorder, she pulled open the door and ran towards the small tree.

Even as I got out of the car I could sense something strange. Maybe it was the colorful sunset that bathed the setting with a purple light.

Maria A________ was standing near the tree with her arms flayed out in a position that would seem almost ridiculous if one did not know what she had experienced only two weeks before.

"The three nuns stood here." she said. "They had black and white habits and white faces that shined like china." I pressed the record button on my tape recorder and asked her to retell her story.

"My sisters and I were driving down Ortega Road in Montecito, east of Santa Barbara about nine at night. We were visiting her boyfriend. She was returning his jacket. We saw them standing right here looking right at us. They had their arms folded. I can remember their eyes: they sparkled like blue stars...We drove right past them. We all turned and looked back and they were gone." I asked if the others saw them as well as she did. Maria nodded. I asked her to tell the legend of the three nuns she had heard from her aunt.

"Long ago in the mission times there were three nuns who would go out to the Indian villages to treat the sick. There had been a terrible revolt and the nuns were told not to leave the safety of Santa Barbara because of the danger from Indian bands. But trusting to God they decided to go anyway...Here they were captured by wild Indians and tortured."

Maria told how each of the three sisters were subjected to unspeakable mutilations and death at the hands of the natives, yet before each of them lost consciousness they forgave their tormentors for their awful crimes.

From that day on, the three nuns or 'Las Tres Hermanas' have been seen along Ortega Road. I walked near the tree and on the road searching for something that might indicate a rational explanation for the tripartite sighting. I found only a few beer cans and a wine bottle. From the look on Maria's face as she gave her account, I was convinced that something had taken place here. As we drove away she stared at the tree until we turned a corner.

Doing research at the UCSB library on the sighting, I discovered that no holy sisters operated in this area during the mission period, and none of the records tell of any Indian massacres in that location, or of three apparitions.

Folklore does relate similar accounts in Latin America and parts of Southern Europe (Italy and Spain). There are many tales of murdered saints returning to the scenes of their deaths. It is an ancient tradition that can be traced to the origins of the Christian church. Perhaps such stories, or oral traditions, were transplanted to this area from Mexico or Spain--or maybe the nuns chose to follow their countrymen to this new land.

I can still recall the intense look on Maria's face. To her the three nuns were a symbol of her Catholic faith and she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt she had indeed encountered 'Las Tres Hermanas.' Who is to say that she didn't?