Incident 1:

Informant:“So me and H., a guy I work with, um, alright my work – we were unloading vinyl flooring which is these big 6 foot – and some of them are 8 foot rolls, they’re like really heavy. They’re shipped from Japan to here – ‘cause that’s where our company is, in Japan. So they’re in this huge cargo trailer and um, so they get shipped here, they drop them off at the trailer and we have to, obviously, open them up and unload the rolls onto a forklift and the forklift to takes it to where it needs to go. Um, so me and this guy H. were inside the trailer…”

Collector: “Okay so in which warehouse?”

Informant: “It’s the first warehouse that we’re in.”

Collector: “Okay. Number one.”

Informant: “Number one.”

Collector: “Okay, is there a second one?”

Informant: “Yeah, a second one across the street.”

Collector: “Okay, so tell me about the difference between warehouses?”

Informant: “Uh, it’s – they’re across the street. It’s two separate buildings.”

Collector: “Okay, and you’re normally in the second one?”

Informant: “No, we’re normally in the first one.”

Collector: “Alright, so this all happens where you’re normally at. Ok, cool.”

Informant: “And okay, so it’s a big cargo trailer, which if you’ve ever seen it just heavy, tough trailer. It’s not wood it’s metal. So um, heavy – heavy doors, like the kinda doors where you have to lift up on both levers pull them towards each other and pull them open. Um, crap. But, so we’re in there and we’re unloading the rolls and it’s a beautiful day out, clear and there’s no wind. There’s nothing. Just a beautiful clear, blue sky, crisp day. And um H., he’s just – I don’t know – pissed off at the company or something, just talkin’ like a lot of negative stuff about the company – which, I think that’s what triggered it, because out of no where, ‘cause the cargo doors are all the way open, so like it’s a 90 degree angle on both sides, the cargo doors to the trailer. Just completely open and out of nowhere the cargo door in a very controlled manner, a very controlled fashion just closed, slowly too, just closed all the way till it completely shut. Then it opened at the same controlled pace all the way open the exact spot it was in. And the thing is it didn’t squeak, it made no sound at all. It was just a very controlled, like same speed the whole way. It didn’t go fast or slow down, you know, or like slow down and speed up. It very controlled, same speed, closed all the way then it reopened. That’s the thing- how does it re-open? You could argue that if there was wind, which there wasn’t even wind, but if there was – okay the wind could close it but it couldn’t. It would have to be like hurricane winds. Like this is heavy duty stuff. But say someone’s skeptical, they made that argument – how does it re-open? ‘Cause it’s closed and then it reopened at that same controlled pace right after it closed. All the way to, back to where it was.”

Collector: “Were you inside the trailer at the time?”

Informant: “Yeah. It was weird. Both of us just, after that, just looked at each other – didn’t even say a word – and just like, just like whoa. Like wow. So.”

Collector: “What did you do after that?”

Informant: “We both just like, whoa. Then the forklift came around and we were like, ‘Dude, something just happened.’ And then we start talking about it.”

Incident 2:

Informant: “Okay so, [the linoleum company] has been around for over 30 years. And I mean it started in Japan, moved here. But it’s been here for over 30 years and worked the ground up to where it is now. But for the past, uh I don’t know how long but forever, for the past uh, over 10 years there’s been rumors of a ghost being in the second warehouse. Um, and a guy that’s worked there for like 10 years said a little while ago, um – how do I describe this. Okay the second warehouse has a place where trailers can back in so it has a little overhang. And he [a fellow warehouse worker] used to park there for the shade – ‘cause it gets hot. So he was parking there to get out of the sun. And so the day’s over of work he goes in his car to go home and his car, he starts hearing almost footsteps like almost jumping on the top of his car. Then he, he thought it was some guy he worked with like almost playing jokes with him. He looked up – there was no one there. And then he just left, I don’t know. Creeped out, just left.”

Incident 3:

Informant: “A guy just recently, couple of months ago was in the second warehouse trying to like – I don’t know what he does, but looking at the rolls, I think taking down the measurements or something. Then, uh, he said, and I swear ‘cause the lights we have there, um like when you ha, how do I, what’s the word? They’re like sensitized or whatever. You walk and they turn on. If you’re not there for like a minute they turn off. And they automatically turn on and off with where you are.”

Collector: “Motion detector?”

Informant: “Yeah, like motion detected. And uh, he was doing whatever measurements or something with the rolls and he felt like, he he swears that he felt like this electric shock like in his heart – like this weird electric shock like went through his body. And he looked over and he saw a figure like 25 feet down the aisle like just walk across real quick. And the thing is the lights didn’t turn on. And he went over he was just freaked out and uh, yeah he told us the next morning and he like tries not to go into that warehouse. Like it’s crazy.”

The informant is a 24-year-old warehouse worker and Equiptment Operator in the Navy Reserves. He was born and raised in the outskirts of Boston and moved to Los Angeles about a year and a half ago. He attends an Evangelical Christian church and is painter. He completed high school and is figuring out a college program to attend.

This series of narratives clearly demonstrate a belief within this linoleum company that the warehouses are haunted. The informant said that he has heard yet more examples of strange happenings attributed to a “ghost” but couldn’t remember them at the time of the interview. When asked why the informant attributed these strange experiences to ghost activity he said, quite simply, because other people at his work called it a ghost. At other times when he’s told various ghost stories from work he has said that he wasn’t sure if someone had died in there or what – revealing some level of belief in the notion that there was indeed a ghost. At the time of the interview, however, he was not so sure. He said he honestly didn’t know what it was; all he knew was that something was going on that could only be explained in supernatural terms. When we got in a conversation about what ghosts were, he said he thought they were some sort of demon or angel, and most likely a demon.

His assessment that ghosts are, in fact, demons more closely matches his self-assessment of other unexplainable experiences as encounters with demons. One example of a personal unexplained encounter was when he felt something weird in his bed, heard it call his name, and saw the strange creature he described it as a demon and commanded it away in the name of Jesus as Christians are instructed to do in both the Bible and in church. In the presence of co-workers, he didn’t act in a similar way but rather behaved more along the lines that one would a ghost – he got freaked out and talked to someone about this weird thing that happened. No prayers here. In each example he seems to be behaving as is expected in the context. At work he’s another worker talking rumors about ghosts. In his home life talking to Christians he details an encounter with a demon. These disparate reactions are to phenomena that the informant at different times would admit is strikingly similar.

Also, in terms of the language that the informant employs, he clearly believes that something strange is happening but is attempting to recount those experiences to a skeptic. The detail in his first person narrative about the controlled swing and addressing a skeptic’s rebuttals before they are even voiced. This could say that either the informant has encountered so much backlash to his stories that he has refined them in a way to preempt the backlash or he is, in fact still having an internal debate at some level about the validity of his experience. In either case, the realm of the legend is aptly employed – as the issue of belief is far from resolved.