“It has happened too many times to be some kind of trick or a hoax. This man, a ghost, is literally curing patients that medical science cannot help,” said Dr. Luke Martin, chief surgeon at Sacred Heart. “We’ve had at least 40 witnesses who have seen the spirit and they all agree: He is not of this Earth. He is from a world beyond.”

The mind-boggling drama reportedly began when the white-haired bearded spirit appeared at the bedside of a seven-year-old girl with an inoperable brain tumor in July of 1990. Hospital staffers who saw the spirit thought they were seeing an ordinary physician until the apparition stepped away from the child’s bed – and vanished into thin air.

“The little girl said the man told her he loved her and puts his hand on her head,” said Dr. Martin. “She said he told her to get out of bed and go home to her mother because she was well and would never be sick again.”

“I remember thinking how cruel it was for someone to tell such a lie to a dying child. But we ran a few tests and found that her tumor was gone. I can’t explain it, but she was cured.”

Since that time the ghost doctor has appeared to 24 other children in the hospital’s pediatric unit and cured them of cancers, birth defects, and other life-threatening afflictions with a few kind word and the mere touch of his miraculous healing hands.

Nobody has been able to identify the spirit with any degree of certainty. But paranormal researcher Simon de Armas believes that it was the ghost of Dr. Carlos Martinez, who practiced medicine in the 19th century and died in 1879.

“Record show that he devoted his life and career to helping children,” said the expert. “He apparently had a marvelous success rate in curing his patients and was known for making his rounds at all hours, just like the spirit does today. It is my guess that Dr. Martinez is continuing to work his miracles from beyond the grave.”

Dr. Martin said “My staff knows that anytime they see the apparition with a child, the child’s condition will improve. At the risk of sounding unprofessional, I believe that we should stand aside and let the spirit do its work. After all, these dying kids have nothing to lose.”