Gov. Kenny Guinn and first lady Dema Guinn are not the only inhabitants of the Governor’s Mansion in Carson City.

The large white house, decked out for tonight’s Halloween festivities, also is the home to a ghost who lives in a broken-down grandfather clock, said Helen Wiemer, the mansion’s coordinator.

Wiemer is not just spinning a Halloween’s tale, said Bob Nylen, the curator of the Nevada State Museum.

“Helen is not the only one. Others have reported it, too,’’ Nylen said. “People have reported the door in front of the clock opening, then feeling a cold wind. They’ll close the door and it will open again.’’

The ghost has certainly made a believer out of Wiemer.

“When I first came here, I didn’t believe in ghosts,’’ Wiemer said. “I’ve been here for almost nine years and now I do.”

Wiemer remembers a time right after she was hired and had moved into the mansion with her husband. That was the first time the ghost in the clock came calling.

“I was alone upstairs, reading, about 11 o’clock,” she said. “I came downstairs to get a Coke. As I walked down the stairs, I felt a cold breeze blowing. I thought it was strange. I thought I had left a window open, but I didn’t. As I proceded down the stairs, to my horror, the door on the clock opened. I almost died.”

There is something else strange about the clock: “It no longer works,” Wiemer said. “But once in a great while we’ll look at it and the hands will have moved.”

If there is a ghost in the clock, it’s not one to spook or scare the governor, Wiemer said.

“I’ve never felt afraid,” she said. “I think this ghost is a friendly ghost.”

It’s probably not a Nevada ghost, though. The clock is originally from London but used to stand in the state capitol building. Nylen said it was brought to the Governor’s Mansion during a renovation project in 1968 during the administration of Gov. Paul Laxalt. Because the clock is not the responsibility of the state museum, no records on it were kept, Nylen said.

“Maybe it was donated to the capitol years ago, I don’t know,” Nylen said. “We’d need a Ghostbuster to tell us what kind of ghost is in there.”

Nylen tells of another ghost or two who supposedly haunt the mansion. Wiemer says she often hears strange noises to back up his story.

“Some people said they have seen figures of a woman and young girl, cloudy figures, as to appear on the staircase,” Nylen said.

Added Wiemer: “I’ve heard the story but I’ve never experienced seeing that. All I’ve heard is a funny noise like someone is walking up there. When Mrs. Guinn first moved in, she heard a noise upstairs.

“She asked me, ‘Helen, do you ever hear noises?’ I said, ‘Yes I do. It’s like someone is walking on the landing up there.’”