By now, we all know New Mexico has its share of the paranormal. We have boogiemen from at least three different traditions keeping us up at night, hordes of ghosts lingering about, and sacred sites with magical powers. Not to mention, we have our little green (or gray) men. Yet, Deming, with a population of just under 15,000, has more than its fair share of paranormal activity. Check it out.

Deming, the county seat of Luna County, seems like a normal small town.

It was officially founded in 1881 as a railroad town. However, the ancient Mimbres people were the first to live in the area. Today, Deming is an agricultural area and home to the world's largest chile processing plant. It's also a major stop on the western side of Interstate 10 through New Mexico.

Deming is known for Rockhound State Park and the Great American Duck Races.

Despite its everyday appearance, the city has a multitude of out-of-the-ordinary happenings. The unexplained events often get mentioned in private accounts, but some even make it into the media. At any rate, there is enough otherworldly weirdness in Deming for the city to be included in at least two books about haunted New Mexico.

Deming has a long history of tragedy and death.

Camp Cody, built as a WW I training facility, became a tuberculosis sanitorium after the war. Since TB was a death sentence in the 1920s, the sanitarium (by now, administered by Catholic sisters and called Holy Cross) was a waiting room for death. After they died, most patients were buried elsewhere. However, those without family or means were interred in a cemetery near Holy Cross. Some say their spirits linger in the area. Whatever the cause, the place has a definite eerie feel.

Legends say Holy Cross Sanitorium became a center for devil worship.

Holy Cross Sanitorium was closed after a fire in 1939. Local stories say, in the 1970s, a satanic cult used the abandoned buildings and tunnels for animal sacrifices and rituals to call the devil. The creepiest story associated with the site is that of a young couple who scrawled their names on the crumbling walls. On their way home, they died in a car wreck. When authorities traced the couple's step back to the ruins, they found that the couple's names were written in blood. Afterward, local teens would tempt fate by venturing out to the site and adding their names to the walls.

More recently, researchers documented paranormal activity at the Adobe Deli, just outside Deming.

When the investigative team visited this quirky deli in 2011, they recorded disembodied voices. The investigators didn't hear the voices themselves, but an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) session revealed a woman's voice saying, "sit down." The team surmised that the phenomenon could be linked back to when the property had been a schoolhouse.

Ghosts like to hang out at Deming schools.

As well as the schoolhouse turned deli, shadowy figures and strange activity have been reported at three more schools. At Deming Middle School, strange noises are said to emanate from the basement. Upstairs, computers turn on and off by themselves. At Martin Elementary (now Cesar Chavez Charter High School), doors open and close on their own. Toilets also flush of their own accord. Also, teachers, alone after hours, report hearing footstep in the halls, doorknobs turning, and unexplained knocking on the windows.

Strange events have been reported at this Deming school too.

Memorial Elementary serves grades kindergarten through 5th. Here, lights flicker and shadow figures walk the halls. In addition, two ghostly young girls have been seen peeking into the windows. Maybe they are looking for the piano music that plays by itself in the third-grade hallway.

More than 100 UFO sighting have been reported in and around Deming.

One tale, from 1972, comes from a woman and her elderly mother who encountered a beam of shining blue light on Interstate 10. As the woman swerved around the beam, she saw two men "clad in pale, blue, bulky quilted coveralls." They appeared to be working on an object above the beam. After the incident, both the woman and her mother reported burning and aching in their bodies and bones. Also on I-10, in 2015, a San Diego truck driver, spotted a "very shiny" object about ten miles west of Deming. He said it looked like a 747 without wings or a tail section. The trucker was even able to get video footage before the object picked up speed and disappeared.

Have you ever had paranormal encounters in Deming? If so, we want to hear about it! Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

And for more haunted places in New Mexico, check out our previous article, This Haunted Road Trip Will Lead You To The Scariest Places In New Mexico.