“Now it’s recording”
“So last summer, I was in Iowa, in a, in the University of Iowa, for a summer program, and there were a bunch of kids who I was among in this huge dormitory , and we were the only people there. On the third floor. And apparently there had been ghost stories just circulating around that place, there had been some shady characters there in the past, and after a while a few people started complaining about noises and things, just shutting doors and the usual things, but then, well what is interesting is when people went in the shower, this happened to me as well, they start…they heard somebody sing , then when they came out there was no one there, so everyone was just freaked put because of that, because it happened , separately on a few occasions, when there was no one else in the building. And that was basically it. “
“Alright, do you remember what they were singing?”
“It was just a tune, I didn’t recognize it. It was just regular shower noises. I didn’t really pay attention until I realized that there was nobody there. So that was fun.”
“Is there a specific death or story that goes with that?”
“There was, I don’t, I don’t remember it specifically but there was somebody in that dormitory who either got murdered or committed suicide around the place that we were. Ah, and yeah that was there. But that was a hundred years ago, I think 1910 or something. It was an old building too. So yeah, nothing too exciting.”
A simple Google search for “University of Iowa Ghost Stories” brings up 136,000 results. This particular story falls in the pattern of many other college related ghost stories. A dormitory, a suicide or murder victim in the dormitory, and old school, and a student legend base around it. The reoccurrence of the shower incident, and the multiple witnesses, add credibility to the story. The story isn’t very long but it is traditional and seems that it could be true.
Monthly Archives: November 2013
The House on Hodgsen Road
“Alright, It’s recording”
“Ok, so when I was a young man we lived in a house. The address was 5900 Hodgsen Rd. (St. Paul, Minnesota). And we were pretty sure from when we moved in that the house was haunted and probably had some kind of spirit or some kind of soul there was something in the house. And we weren’t sure exactly what it was but there were different things that happened that made us think that something was, probably indicating that there was spirit in the house. So, a couple of things that happened to my family members, not necessarily me, but family members. One thing was my sister Debbie, she was home alone one day and she had gone upstairs to take a shower and when she was in the shower she heard something from the wall like a scratching on the wall and she wasn’t sure what it was and the bathroom was right next door to her bedroom, her bedroom was right at the end of the hall and that’s where the bathroom was. So, she took a shower, and she got out of the shower and when she went into her bedroom, she looked in her closet and all of her hangers which were originally spaced throughout the entire closet were now all pushed to one side of the closet. So, of course at this point, she thought that someone was in the house, but, so she freaked out and didn’t know what was going on in the house and got scared and then realized that there was nobody in the house. She was there by herself, still alone, and nobody was in the house, none of us had come home, we’re all out of town. So that was her experience.
Now the experience of my brother was, he was not necessarily the best kid in the family, and he would sleep in the basement because that gave him the opportunity to sneak out, there was a window he could open and he could sneak out at night. So one day he was at the house, and he snuck out in the middle of the night and then he came home, and he went a laid down on the bed that he was sleeping in that was on floor because it was a mattress on the floor it wasn’t anything specific in the basement it was just a place to sleep. So, he snuck back in, laid down and closed his eyes, and it was dark in the basement and the next thing he knew he heard footsteps coming up to him and of course he’s petrified because he’s sure that it is my dad coming to say something to him about why he snuck out and he thought that he was busted for sure and so his heart’s racing and he’s nervous and thinking that he’s going to get busted for sneaking out of the house. So he’s laying in bed and all of the sudden footsteps are approaching him sneaking up on him step by step, step by step, all the way to the side of his bed, and then they stopped, and he keeps his eyes closed pretending like he’s sleeping pretending like he’s been there the whole time and he waits about 20 seconds and he opens his eyes, there’s nobody there. And at that point he thought my dad was down there, but he wasn’t down there, he was no where to be found, all there was was the footsteps with nothing in front of him. Of course at this point he freaked out, much like my sister did, and ran upstairs. I think that was the last time he slept in the basement.
Personally, my only real feeling that there was something wrong in the house was being a young man that always felt like when I was walking down a hall or being in the basement or going up the stairs from the basement there always felt like there was someone behind me, or something behind me. So I, it was kind of an eerie feeling and I spent most of my childhood running down halls quickly and making sure lights were turned on when I was walking down halls because I always felt like there was somebody, somebody behind me. And there never was, I never had any personal experience, just besides and eerie creepy feeling that I was being followed or watched or there was a presence that was there, but there wasn’t anything so…”
“Do you think there was a ghost in your house?”
“Well, from all the indications that we experienced and everyone’s experiences with it, I’d say yes, there was. And I think my parents, spoke with the people that live in the house now at some point and they said that there was some strange occurrences, that they experienced too so…It was an older house, it was built in 1910, it was an old farmhouse, so I’m not sure exactly what the spirit was, but we were pretty sure that there was some kind of a spirit there.”
That was the account of my father, Major Kevin Grant Heinonen. I’d heard this story once or twice before growing up. The setting in which we recorded it in was appropriately strange. A diner in Santa Monica, terribly filthy, rundown, with some of the oldest wait staff I’ve ever encountered, also, apparently the site where one of the scenes in the movie Zodiac was filmed. The atmosphere of the diner was unsettling and it provided a good backdrop.
My father isn’t given over to flights of fancy. As an officer in the Army he really can’t be. The details of the story, the age of the house, the problems the new residents had, and the details about the experiences that my father’s siblings had sell the story for me. I can agree that there is strong evidence of my father’s childhood home being haunted.
The Haunted Tunnel
My friend and I were on a regular night walk the other day after dinner. It was only around 7 p.m., but due to daylight saving the campus was already dark and each passerby’s face hardly visible. As we were passing by the Viterbi area, one of my favorite places on campus and one covered with many trees, I brought up the question on whether she knew any ghost stories.
At first she said she didn’t, that she never had a ghostly encounter in her life. When I assured her that it didn’t have to be a personal experience and asked her again, she said, “Hold on,” thought about it for a moment, and began to recount.
“So I heard this story from one of my Korean friends. This is how the story goes. There was this tunnel in Japan—Shit, I forget the name, but anyway, it was a haunted tunnel. Apparently this tunnel is one of the three—oh fuck, I can’t remember—but it’s one of the most haunted places in Japan. So one day, this man was driving his car through this tunnel. And he heard a screeching sound [while driving] halfway through. Freaking out, he speeded up and tried to exit the tunnel as fast as he could. But then he started hearing this bustling sound outside of the tunnel, although he was pretty damn sure that he was the only one inside the tunnel. But no matter how fast he drove—he drove at like 100 km/hour—the tunnel was, like, never-ending. I mean, he could see this beam of light at the end of the tunnel but no matter how much he drove, he just couldn’t get past the damn tunnel.”
“Then suddenly, he saw this man pass by his car in a glimpse of a second. He doesn’t remember what the man exactly looked like, but the guy was wearing some kind of traditional clothes—it wasn’t—shit, what was the traditional Japanese clothes called again?” “Kimono.” “Right! It wasn’t kimono, but more like the Korean traditional clothes—what are they called?” “Hanbok.” “Yeah, that. So after seeing this creepy ghost, the man freaked out and stepped on the accelerator pedal as hard as he could. But you got to realize that this was a tunnel, built a long time ago and very dim aside from the flashing light at the end. The more he accelerated, the faster the ghost chased after his car, until bam!” She paused, holding her hands out, “The ghost caught up with the car, appeared in front of the mirror and completely covered the front view. The man then turned his handle to the left to get rid of the ghost, but he crashed into the cement wall and died instantly.”
“So it turns out that this tunnel was built a long time ago by Korean laborers who were forced by the Japanese to do labor during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Many, many Koreans died while doing the labor, and so the ghosts spotted in this tunnel are wearing hanbok to show their Korean heritage, I guess. Because there were so many cases of ghost appearances, the Japanese government then decided to shut down the tunnel.”
After my friend finished storytelling, I asked her what she thought about the ghost story. She said that the idea of haunted tunnel was not too original and that she had heard stories of other haunted tunnels and places before. Nonetheless, she was amazed by the past injustices revealed by the ghost story. Thus to my friend, the ghost story had more than just high entertainment value; it was an alternative perspective to and retelling of history, which ever so often glorifies accomplishments of the victorious and covers up the past injustices and wrongs committed to achieve that level of success.
Upon research, I found that the tunnel is called the Inunaki Tunnel and is situated in Fukuoka, Japan. According to Korean sources, this tunnel is one of the three most widely known haunted sites in Japan (Hwan). During the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Japanese forced Korean laborers to build the 433m-long tunnel, and during the construction many Korean laborers died while mining (Hwan). Rumors say that instead of giving the laborers proper burial, the Japanese simply interred the bodies in the cement walls of the tunnel (Hwan). Since its completion in 1926, the tunnel has been notorious for ghostly appearances of Korean laborers, screeching and wailing as if to express the ineffable grief of forced labor and separation from the family. Due to the many ghostly appearances, the Japanese shut down the tunnel in 1994 and trespassing is strictly prohibited today; yet written on the tunnel walls are messages such as “I want to go home [Korea]” and “I miss my wife and children” in Korean (Hwan).
East Asian ghost stories in particular seem to put much emphasis on the motif of grudge. South Korea has a poignant history of being conquered and brutally persecuted by its neighboring countries including Japan, and therefore it is no wonder that considering the improper burial and forced separation from family, they bore grudge upon death that could not be alleviated and made them return to the living world to haunt the living. Thus regardless of its truth value, this story reveals the history unique to South Korea.
Other motifs seem to be shared across cultural borders. The motif of an unappeased soul due to improper burial or infringement of the burial ground, for example, shows up in just about every culture. American college ghost stories on Native Americans, for example, are intended to reveal the disruption of sacred burial grounds for Native Americans and the callousness of Americans who excavated or built college campuses on the graveyards. In addition, “The Haunted Tunnel” resembles the famous Hispanic ghost story, “La Llorona,” in which the protagonist mother wails and mourns her children’s death. Both stories use crying and wailing as a symbol of the ineffable pain of both individual and social tragedies.
Hwan, Patrick. “Inunaki Tunnel: One of Three Most Haunted Spots in Japan.” Chung Myung
Hwan’s Note. N.p., 9 May 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://patrick8321.blog.me/50171063177>.
The Haunted Hallways of Kentucky
“One summer my aunt went on a trip with some family friends to their home in Kentucky and the house was around 6500 square ft. On the second floor there are two bedrooms facing each other and each bedroom has two doors leading to the hallways in front of them. Two unwalled hallways/bridges parallel to each other connected the doors at either ends of the bedrooms leading across and they were above the living room. My aunt was in my friend Taylor’s bedroom looking for some of her clothes she had left in there. She then went back to her room across one of the hallways. When she opened the door she heard the other door to the bedroom at the other end open. She heard creaking and footsteps walking down the other hallway. She turned and yelled for her husband, but there was no reply. She then walked down the hallway she had come from and looked to the other hallway across from her. There was a man standing in the hallway with his back to her. She said that she had never felt a more malevolent angry spirit. She never saw his face, but she has seen spirits before and can usually adjust quickly and try to ask what is wrong; however, this time she felt the darkness so much and couldn’t move or talk. She could hear him breathing and his fingers twitching at his side. She really did not know what to do and couldn’t move. Eventually she started yelling, “leave, leave, leave.” She goes into her room and locked both her doors. She then heard his footsteps running down the other hallway into Taylor’s room and the door slamming. Luckily, Taylor wasn’t in the room. She felt that presence for the rest of the trip, but she could not bring herself to say anything to them because she was so afraid of scaring them.”
Window Watching
“My Uncle is a very religious man and has a hard time believing in spirits or anything like that, but through some instances of hauntings he has become more accepting. My Uncle went to NAU, Northern Arizona University, and lived in the bottom floor of a dorm. He would always go out at night through the window in his room. He had requested to live in a single so he wouldn’t have to have a roommate. He would normally come back around or later than midnight. For some reason, he always felt as though he was being followed, but he never saw anybody. One time he came home and while climbing into his window he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and right behind him stood a middle aged man in a full suit pulling him back. He couldn’t fully get into the window back to his room. It freaked him out and he yelled at the man, “what are you doing?” He didn’t immediately assume this person is a spirit, and the man just didn’t answer him back. The man then backed up and my Uncle went through the window, shut it, and locked it. As he was locking the window he looked back up and the man was gone; there was no one on the street. He knew that it was a spirit and that was the first time that he actually saw a spirit. Since he was little he felt presences, but he never saw anything, and that was just the first occurrence.”