Is DIA Haunted? Details of Ghostly Claims, Conspiracy Theories

Our 2013 list of the top ten haunted Denver places to visit on Halloween according to Shadowlands.net, a website that purports to haunted locales across the country, includes plenty of venerable edifices, including the Lumber Baron Inn, the Molly Brown House and the Denver Children's Home. But also making an appearance...

By Michael Roberts

October 23, 2015

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Our 2013 list of the top ten haunted Denver places to visit on Halloween according to Shadowlands.net, a website that purports to haunted locales across the country, includes plenty of venerable edifices, including the Lumber Baron Inn, the Molly Brown House and the Denver Children's Home.

But also making an appearance is Denver International Airport. Shadowlands maintains that "several problems were encountered while building the airport. This is reportedly due to the fact that the airport was built on top of sacred Native American ground. Some employees and visitors have reported hearing or seeing strange things."

These claims are hardly the only weird ones surrounding DIA, which has become a magnet for wild conspiracy theories, many of them centered on murals by artist Leo Tanguma and detailed in one of our most popular features ever, "DIA Conspiracies Take Off," written by Jared Jacang Maher.

A slide show created in conjunction with the article spotlights photos of the murals, with text by Maher explaining, in sardonic terms, what conspiracy theorists think Tanguma's various images mean. These pics are supplemented with maps and blueprints that supposedly reveal a secret Nazi subtext to DIA's layout.

The truth is out there — and it's also on view below.

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Michael Roberts began his career with Westword in 1990 as music editor. In 1999, he took on a new role, full-time media reporter, as author of a column called The Message. In 2008, he became the lead writer for Westword's news blog, The Latest Word, a position he held until January 2023. Michael continues to freelance for Westword, covering everything from business to sports and the media; he also contributes to Jazziz, a national music magazine. He holds a bachelor's degree from what is now Colorado Mesa University and master's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Northwestern University.

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