Tag Archives: virginia

Bunnyman

Content: 

K: So I grew up in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County, right? Um, I have, um, so the story is about, um, it’s based off of a series of murders that happened, uh, sometime in the mid to late 1900s. And the suspect apparently, uh, was seen to be wearing a bunnyman costume when they happened. And it’s like, one of the places that it went down was happened to be down the street from one of my childhood friends. Like in the, he lives in this wooded neighborhood, in the outskirts of Fairfax. And so, you know, the like thing to do as a kid is like, it’s, there’s a tunnel that goes from like the end of the street goes to this, like one lane tunnel. And then, um, on the other side is like a park maybe, but so the dare is to like, get your, you and your friends to get in the car, drive down the road, into the tunnel and then like, turn the car off and then wait for like a couple minutes and then see if he appears. And then, you know, so we did it one time. I’m still alive. <laugh> but yeah, that’s that’s the bunnyman is like the, um, like they never caught him. So he like still roams. 

Me: Right. Did you see, did anything happen or were you all just sitting in a car? 

K: No, I scared them though. <laugh> 

Me: Nice.

Background: K is a 22 year old from Fairfax County, Virginia. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. 

Context: This story was told to me at a hangout among friends. 

Analysis: Although I didn’t find it as much in the stories I collected for this project, I’ve noticed a trend of dares being associated with ghost stories. The fear of the legend motivates people to go out with their friends in search of a terrifying or potentially dangerous experience. Although these experiences seem to be few and far between, that doesn’t stop the tradition from continuing with each new generation. It seems like most of the lore comes from the performance of seeking out the paranormal rather than the spirit himself. 

Richmond ghost story

Content:

D: So growing up, you know, I moved into that house when I was five years old. And so it was just became knowledge that there was something else in the house with us, but we were never taught to be afraid of it. And we were never, it never really scared us. It never really gave us, you know, an evil feel to it.

Me: Where was this house?

D: Richmond, Virginia. 

Me: Okay. What did you know about the ghost?

D: Well, I never saw a visual of him, but my mom saw him twice. And he was a dark headed man in a uniform, a soldier type uniform. And our house was built over an old battlefield, old battleground for the revolutionary war. And so we always felt like he was a soldier that died young and he seemed to be most active when the three of us kids were living in the house. And once we grew up and moved out the activity decreased. So Mom always felt like he either connected with people closer to his age or, um, felt like he died too soon and you know, was looking for something. She just felt like he was kind of watching over us to some, some degree.

Me: So when you say that you had experiences with him, what were those like?

D: Um, a lot of things. The, the one thing that most people experienced in and outside of our family, um, is that we would be sitting in the living room watching TV or talking or whatever, and we would hear the front door open and close and back then, you know, people didn’t knock to come in if they were family or neighbors or whatever, they would just kind of open the door and just kind of holler, “Hey, it’s me,” you know, as they were coming into the house and we would all hear the door open and close and the dog would bark and run to the French doors and look out onto the sun porch, which was what our front door came into, and the dog would stand there and wait. And we’d all look towards the French doors to see who was, you know, coming over to visit and nobody would come through and we’d get up and look, and the front door would be locked and there would be nobody there. And that happened multiple times and people that were not in our immediate family heard and experienced that. But then I also experienced cold spots most often. And the house didn’t, the house didn’t have central air. It only had heat. And we had one window unit in the living room and one small window unit in my parents’ bedroom and we didn’t turn it on during the day when we weren’t there. We wouldn’t even turn it on until after four o’clock in the afternoons when we would get home from school and work and stuff. So the house was always really hot, especially, you know, in the, you know, late afternoon, early evenings until the, the air could cool it down. And even with the house being that hot, there would be a significant temperature change and it would be something that you could stick your hand in and pull back out and feel the temperature change. That happened to me a lot. So, I mean, that was, it, it almost became, you know, like a family thing to exchange, you know, your experiences and stuff like that.

Background: D was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1963. This story revolves around the house she grew up in with her parents and brothers. 

Context: This story was told to me over a phone call. Analysis: D’s story connected her family’s ghost to the haunted battlegrounds of Revolutionary War and Civil War era Virginia. The experiences that she had with the ghost are common in ghost stories as well, such as the feeling of cold spots when in the presence of a spirit. Many ghost stories also rely on the reactions of pets to support a supernatural claim, like D does when mentioning how her dog reacted to hearing the door open while no one was there.

Plant ghost

Content:

D: Um, I mean, neighbors used to just gather in the front yard and you know, if they were both working in the yard, they, you know, people would gather in the street and just kind of, you know, chat and catch up. So I think my mom saw the neighbor one day, P, and she was like, what in the world happened to your plant? And that’s when she said, oh, every so often I’ll get up and it’ll look like somebody has walked through the middle of my plant and it was a big, huge plant. And when she did some research, she found out that the original front door to her house was where that plant was and they had taken the front door out and moved it to the side and put in a bay window.

Me: Oh, okay. So something was trying to walk through the old door?

D: Yeah. So she felt like it was, you know, they must have been trying to get through where the door used to be. Um, and so she would, you know, pull the plant, you know, nurse it back and get it all where it’s looking good. And she said, and then, you know, a few weeks later the same thing would happen. And so she ended up having to move her plant somewhere else because it would get trampled during the night and you could see footprints and stuff like that through it. 

Background: D grew up in the southeast United States in the 1960s and 70s. Her mother and neighbor had both lived in the area for years. 

Context: This story was told to me over a phone call. 

Analysis: This reminded me of the trope we often see in supernatural stories, where spirits seem to be trapped in the version of a space that existed when they were alive. This is where we get the idea of ghosts walking through walls, or spending time around the place where they died. What was particularly interesting about this story, however, was the effect that the ghost had on the physical realm. I didn’t see that happening in the other supernatural stories I collected. 

Ghosts of Interstate 295

Content: 

D:  I didn’t really hear about it growing up because 295 wasn’t built until I was in high school. 

And the sightings of the ghosts and stuff really started happening after, you know, I moved away, but then, you know, I started hearing about ’em when I was going home and you know, then they started showing up in newspaper articles and stuff like that. But you can, you can research that, you know, online. 

Me: Where did you hear about the ghosts?

D: I think family. Yeah. I mean, people that lived in the area. This would be more like they might know somebody that saw a sighting or, you know, or saw it in the paper or, um, you know, saw the police down there and stuff like that. I think my dad, you know, knew about sometimes when the police were called to the area and stuff. Um, because they would see these Indians on horseback and, you know, people would, would call and report just like, “Hey, some kids are out here, you know, playing around on horses, you know, by this highway and they don’t need to be down here, you know?” And then, um, but other sightings of ’em, they were clearly Indians, but 295 was built over an Indian burial ground and they discovered it when they were building the highway and they managed to get the approval to just keep going anyway and finished it out. And so it disturbed a lot of graves and a lot of activity was kicked after that, but they claim that people can hear the chanting and stuff like that too. 

Me: Chanting in the same area?

D: Oh yeah. I mean the same, the same apparitions. They hear the chanting and they follow the chanting and then they see apparitions of these, you know, Indians on horseback and stuff. 

And there’s, and there’s multiple sightings. It’s not just one or two people that have seen it or one incident that happened. I mean, it’s happened over and over and over. 

Background: D was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1963. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1981. Virginia’s Interstate 295 was completed in 1987. 

Context: This story was told to me over a phone call. 

Analysis: In my conversations, I found that stories of ghosts traveling along highways and interstates is relatively common in the United States, particularly in the southern states. However, most of that lore revolves around one major story that someone experienced, and the following stories of others. This one, however, doesn’t seem to have a central or first experience. Like D said, everyone knew someone that had seen the ghosts of Interstate 295, but no one knew who saw them first. 

See also: D directed me to the following link, which she felt accurately illustrated her memory of the lore: Posted by blogger in RVA Ghosts. (2021, November 8). The Haunting of the Pocahontas Parkway. The Haunting of the Pocahontas Parkway – RVA Ghosts. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://rvaghosts.com/the-haunting-of-the-pocahontas-parkway/

The Haunted Virginia Apartment Unit Pt. 2

Informant: I used to live in an apartment when I first moved to Virginia around 2007. I was around 8 years old. I was playing with my friend and my mom had previously gotten me a baby doll (I had about three of them). It was the ones you would get in Easter baskets. My friend did not like the way they looked, so she shoved the dolls into a drawer and closed it. She had to go, so we all went downstairs. It was just my parents and me (only child). When I came back into my room, the drawer was open, everything was trashed, my tea table was turned upside down. There were three dolls on my bed looking at the bedroom door. Slightly irrelevant, but a few years later, my apartment burned down (only my unit of the apartment) and the only thing that survived was our Bible. It was absolutely pristine and unscathed.

Background/Informant Thoughts: The informant lived in an apartment in Virginia when they were around 8 years old in 2007. There were repeated accounts of haunting going on in there. The informant felt unsafe and like something was out to get her. She felt as if it only wanted her out of the apartment. She remembers this because it was so traumatic to her. Seeing dolls staring at the door with her room torn apart shook her to her core. She was even more concerned after seeing the Bible was the only thing left unscathed after her unit in the apartment burned down.

My Thoughts: As with the first story, I am extremely freaked out by the amount of paranormal activity that has occurred just with this apartment alone. I believe whatever was residing in that apartment truly did not want her in there. If I came back to my room being seemingly ransacked, I would be freaked out and move out as soon as possible! Especially as a child, I would be terrified to sleep in that room.