Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Man Without Footprints

Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: North Carolina
Performance Date: 10/31
Primary Language: English

Okay. So this actually happened to my teacher’s sister, and this was a long time ago when she was probably about, um, seventeen. She was babysitting for um, like a neighborhood family. So one night the parents, ah, were about to leave and they were like, “So you’re good? You know everything?”

And she [the babysitter] was like, “Yeah, I’m good, I got the numbers, I got, you know, everything down pat.” She’d been doing this for a while so it was pretty easy. Um, so the parents left for the night and, uh, so the emergency list of phone numbers was on the refrigerator, the kids were perfectly fine. So um, at around nine the kids were put to bed so she just sat in the chair across from the TV to just watch some TV and wait for the parents to be done with their date or whatever.

[Gesturing to explain this scene–] So in the living room you have like this La-Z-Boy chair, and then the TV is like kind of across and over to the side, and like to an angle, kind of, are these glass sliding doors to the back porch. Um, so, this was in winter sometime, so there was a lot of snowfall around. And then when she was just watching TV she just glances over at the glass window and there’s somebody standing there. And she’s like, that’s creepy. So she just kind of freezes up for a second hoping it’ll leave.  And it kind of disappeared. And she’s like, okay, this must’ve been something in my mind, I just imagined it. So she goes back to watching TV.

Well, like five minutes later she glances over again and there that GUY is , just standing there in the snow. So she’s freaking out, she’s like ohhh my god, she like runs out of the living room and like finds her phone and she like can’t even be bothered to call the people on the list, she just calls the police and is like, “Somebody is standing outside the house that I’m babysitting right now, he’s like standing outside the glass doors in the living room, I was just watching TV and he was there.”

So the operator’s like, “Okay. I’m going to send somebody to check around.”

She was like, “All right.”

So ten minutes later the police show up and they were like, “What happened?”

And she was like, “Uh, well, somebody was standing outside of the glass window, I was just watching TV because I am babysitting the kids, and he was just there, and then he just disappeared. It happened twice.”

So they were like, “Okay.” So they check the perimeter of the house, but there are no footprints. So they’re like, “It was probably just your imagination. It’s a dark, you know, wintery night, things like that can happen when you’re alone, so, um, you should be fine. We’ll keep a police car in the vicinity just in case, but otherwise just go on with your night, because we don’t see any traces of anyone being here.”

She goes on with her night, everything’s fine.

Fifteen years later they’re moving out. They move—the family—they move the recliner, and on the back is etched: “I was behind you the whole time.”

 

Listener’s comment: perhaps the man outside was a reflection in the window from the inside!

Taken Over By A Ghost? Camping Edition

Nationality: White
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Laguna Niguel, California
Performance Date: Wednesday, November 13th, 2013
Primary Language: English
“I have one that my friends dad told me. He claims its true, we’ve asked him like a billion times, but he refuses to say it’s not true. So my friends dad would always tell us this whenever we went camping. I was a boy scout, and my friend and his dad were boyscouts so we ended up camping together alot. So my friends dad as a kid also would go camping alot and there was one time when they weren’t really camping they were staying at a cabin in northern california that people hadnt used for a while, it wasn’t your typical weird ‘no one’s lived there for a while’ thing, no one had died in it, it was kind of an uncomfortable place pretty much. So he went up with his direct family- him, his parents, his sister, and then his aunt and her family, I don’t know who was in their line of family, but i know some siblings and their aunt was older at the time, like in her 60s. His aunts side was much older than his direct side of his family, so his aunt and her kids were older than his mom, dad and their kids. So they went up there and they were just like, hanging out, would go out and explore during the day. it definitely wasn’t near people, but it was that type of area that was spread out, so there were people around they just werent close and that’s just how all the houses were around there. So the aunt wasn’t mentally stable, it wasn’t like schitzophrenia, it was like the onset-, she doesnt have it but she was starting to get it, and she hadn’t any serious symptoms or anything, but when they were in this house- it’s how ur gonna feel when ur in an empty house, i think anyone gets creeped out in a cabin- so they were basically like uncomfortable to start. But it wasnt anything that was at the forefront of their thoughts, but it was pretty much a back of the head thought. But the aunt, well they knew she was starting to lose it in her age, she started to get really quiet within the first two or three days. She just wouldnt talk alot. So they ignored it. They ignored it but, as each day went on, at first she was really quiet at breakfast but as the days went on she wouldn’t leave her room, she wouldnt get out of bed, they were only there for a week week and a half, so this was probably like day four. And like everyone else kept getting progressively more and more uncomfortable as she got progressively more and more uncomfortable, just kinda unnerved, I mean she wouldn’t leave her room, they would try to talk to her, she would give one word answers, but even that went away, she just kept sitting in the room, she just wouldnt talk to anyone. She would just sit there. Then at night they started hearing like banging noises and stuff, mainly around her room, but they kept going in there and checking on her and nothing was going on- she was just asleep. And again, my friends dad is fairly superstitous so they like checked and looked it up, as much as you could look it up back then, but it seemed pretty normal except for the fact that the aunt was, you know, being weird. But im assuming at this point it was the 5th or 6th night, there weren’t that many noises, at this point it was whatever, they were used to it, so they went to check on the aunt and this time she was sitting up in the side of the room on a chair. She wasn’t looking at aynthing, there was nothing to look at. They tried to talk to her but she just wouldnt respond to them at all. So obviously at this point they were definitely starting to get weirded out, even if she had these symptoms before, its not just something that comes and goes usually, at least her symotonpns werent. it was just a bad weird state. And then every night they’d go in there and she was sitting there, but it was only about the next night because at this point they figured they were planning on leaving and the rest of the family was weirded out by it but they were just gonna take her to a doctor. But my friends dad was superstitious and his cousins were just like, what the hell is going on. And they went in the last night and she was having a hard time breathing, she wasn’t breathing normally, it wasnt supposed to be the last night but they left, my friends dad went to go wake up the parents and tell them she wasn’t breathing right, she definitely wasnt dying but she definitely wasnt all right. I haven’t seen the house so its hard to explain it but I know that to get to his parents bedroom from the aunts bedroom you had to walk through the main entrance past the front door. Also this night the banging had been going on pretty audibly but you couldnt tell where it was coming from, you could just hear it all over. And he was walking through the front door area and the front door literally just slammed open, and it hit the railways really hard and it had been completely locked just because of the area they were in. It slammed open. But basically the door swung open and my friends dad, now says if he thinks about it really hard, he feels like something rushed past him, but he admits that he just saw the door swing open, there’s really nothing else. So he got his parents, because the aunt wasn’t dying but she wasnt doing great, but they just took her and got everything together and left that night. And as for his parents, the door thing they said someone probably forgot to lock it or the wind blew it open, but it was locked and it wasn’t just a windy area and it was like someone threw the door open with all their might. His parents kind of wrote it off. And they took her to the hospital, and 3 days later she was compltely fine. And she said she just felt out of it just tired and didn’t wanna talk to people but she doesnt acknowledge or remember the part when physically something was wrong with her. She doesnt remember that part. She said it felt like she was asleep. And the parts she was sitting up at night she doesnt remember. She thought she was asleep.
What do you think of this?
My friends dad likes to mess with us alot. I’ve heard it so many times, and he’s the kind of guy that will play a joke on us, and keep it up for a few months and then be like I totally got you guys, but he’s been telling us this one forever. And i met the other side of his family and they’re pretty accurate to how he explained it, like he didn’t fabricate his characters.
Were you scared while you were camping?
So yeah it freaked me out a little bit ’cause he’d tell us while we were camping, he never did anything like scare us when he told us this story. It would always end with this story and eveyrone would ask is this real, and he would kinda laugh, but his dad laughs and then his dad LAUGHS, and u can tell when hes joking or when its laugh that he kinda said “yeah” to you. It wasn’t serious but it wasn’t something that he was joking and stuff.
Do you believe in ghosts/spirits?
Yeah, I do, I think. I mean I’ve had very little personal experience, but it’s one of those things that there’s so many people claiming to have experience with it and stuff, and its such a non-natural or supernatural realm kind of thing that it’s hard to put a scientific perspective on it. I mean I’m skeptical, but i think i lean more towards believing in it then not. And that story’s sweet.
I think this story is really interesting because it exemplifies a really weird story used to connect people. The dad acknowledges that he might not have seen anything move past the door, but, it makes sense to add in the hindsight bias in the context of the story. I also question how rational the dad is, and if he is just writing off what he saw, since a doorway is a very common place to see ghosts. Either way, it is a great story that Jamie remembers many years later and has connected the boy scouts every time they are together. I also think the aunt being so confused has to do with it. We don’t know what ghosts can do or what they are, so who says they couldn’t have caused her strange symptoms?

Ghost at the Beach House

Nationality: White
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mahwah, New Jersey
Performance Date: Monday, November 11th, 2013
Primary Language: English

Told by Katherine Wilcox, 18 years old. from New Jersey.
Collected by Jessie Duke

“It’s my uncle’s story, it’s not my own so… I don’t know exactly but… so he lives down the shore in Ocean Grove County with his partner, Jeffrey, and they have these friends, Tracey and Jason, who live in the city but also have a shore house down the street from them. Tracey is some kind of, like, clarevoyant something, she has like a job but she has these psychic somethings or other. She said that she sensed there were spirits in her house, but she was whatever about it because she’s clairvoyant. One night they went over for dinner (Albert and Jeffrey went to Tracey’s) and they were having dinner and my uncle swears that just through the door passage into the kitchen he just saw this woman walk across (Katherine gets up and demonstrates) past the door passage. All dressed in white, all white long hair, like clearly he could tell she was a ghost. She didn’t do anything, she didn’t make any faces or anything, she just walked past. And he didn’t wanna say anything because he didn’t want to freak anyone out. Then a couple days later, this is where it starts to get I’m not exactly sure. Jason mentioned something to my uncle that he saw a ghost in the house. So before he gave any details, my uncle said draw who you think you saw, and he was gonna draw who he saw, and then compare notes about what they saw. Turns out they drew out the same exact lady- same person, same description. So they wanted to do some reserach about it. So they went through city hall records, and it turns out the house used to be some bed and breakfast, and that someone had died there. I wanna say it was from some fire, but im not sure, or she could have just been there and died. So anyways she died there, and that’s who they think it was. She doesnt like haunt them or anything, shes just kinda chilling in the house.”

what do you think of this?
“I think its kinda creepy. Stories like that make it more believable for me, because thats my uncle and he saw it. And i know where it took place and the history of it- so its more believable. And the fact that they drew it and both saw the same thing. It’s not like he was really drunk and saw some bitch walk by!”
Do you belive in ghosts?
“Yeah. Why? ‘Cause ive heard too many stories that are accurate that I just do.”
I believe this story is true because like Katherine, I have heard too many stories that are true. I think it’s great that her uncle told her this story, not to scare her, but because it is something that happened to him and he feels passionate about. Telling ghost stories are a way to connect people. I analyzed some of Katherine’s ways of telling stories, for example, she constantly reassured me that her uncle wouldn’t lie to her, and he wasn’t drunk. She is making him a credible source. When describing Tracey, she constantly reassured me that she was normal, meaning she might have psychic vibes, but she didn’t try to make money off of them, she had a normal job. This story is interesting because it takes place in a liminal place, the passageway of a door, and it is about a ghost that is sticking around.

Campsite Photography

Nationality: White
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California, USA
Performance Date: 11/10/2013
Primary Language: English

This story was told to me in the middle of the day in a large crowded area.  I mention this because, when giving the proceeding interview, my informant was skeptical that what happened was the work of ghosts.  Part of this is probably due to our bright, highly populated environment.

Q: So, who told you this story?

A: A teacher back from my middle school told our class this story.  I don’t really believe that it’s a ghost story, but it is definitely pretty creepy.

Q: Okay, so tell me what happened.

A: So, one summer day my teacher went camping.  She was with her friend.  They basically went because they wanted to go hiking.  It was just the two of them, and throughout the day, they were taking pictures of the scenery and each other, and each other in the scenery.  That night, they pitched their tents, and they went to sleep.  They slept fine, and then in the morning, they continued on their trip.  When the trip was all over, they went to Walgreens to develop their film.  Upon receiving their developed pictures, they found pictures of themselves sleeping in their tent.  What they figured was that this was the act of ghosts.

Q: Where was the camp site?

A: I mean it was camping.  Like it was away from everyone.  I really don’t see how anyone could have gotten to them.  I mean, best case scenario, some really creepy guy just wanted to fuck with them, so he somehow found their site, which was out in the middle of nowhere, and took a picture of them, and then rearranged everything perfectly so it looked like nobody had been there.  But like, that is the BEST case scenario.  The only other option was that there were some creepy forces at work.

Q: Was the camera out of place in the morning?

A: The thing was, it was like a perfect trip.  Like, they had a fantastic time.  (Laughs) And I know that really doesn’t make for good narrative structure, but like, everything seemed perfectly normal.  It was only after they had the pictures developed that they were like “What the fuck!?”

Q: How soon after the event did they get the pictures developed?

A: They really almost forgot about the camera.  It was like two months later, they found the camera and were like “We never got this developed.  We should do that.”  And then they found the pictures.

Analysis:

            The story itself is a memorate, in the sense that the explanation surrounding this strange occurrence is dictated by societal beliefs.  Specifically, it is societies acceptance of ghosts that dictated the teacher’s belief that it was ghosts that took the pictures.  If the teacher’s peers and social groups believed in Leprechauns, it is very possible that she would explain the strangeness of this event with that explanation.

The story is actually very intriguing, as there doesn’t seem to be any greater message or purpose, other than to scare the listener.  The haunting does not seem to result from any fault of the main characters, or strange events surrounding their campsite, it is simply a single strange occurrence.  The fact that it lacks any supernatural events (such as odd noises or ethereal beings) surrounding the creepy photographs does seem to add to the creepiness of the story.  Overall, this memorate is actually quite terrifying, and will make me think twice before bringing a camera on my next camping trip.

A Visitation

Nationality: Malaysian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Performance Date: November 12, 2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

(He told this story in English, although his primary language is Chinese)

You know that Chinese have a belief that the deceased relative’s spirit comes back to house on the 7th day of his or her passing?

So this happened to me when it was my grandma’s 7th day after passing.

We all head to bed early waiting for her to come back because she was cremated.

I woke up in the middle of the night with my room very very hot even with the air condition on.

Besides that I also smelled the smell of incense that Chinese people always use for offerings.

But it was impossible to smell that in my room.

Then outside my room I could hear people walking through the staircase when there’s no one outside.

The light switches on the wall can be heard going on and off again and again.

My maid suddenly felt somebody’s pinching her out of a sudden.

We also saw, through a slight opening of the door that connects to the toilet in my room, something moving.

In the end, nothing happened but that was what I experienced.

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

I: Did you really experience this? And are you sure that no one was awake?

Him: Yup, it was my own experience, and I am absolutely sure that nobody was awake.

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

Containing lots of East Asian cultural beliefs, this story departs from traditional visitations of the ancestors story. However, this story stands out in that it shows a few discrepancies with conventional stories.

It is interesting to see that he felt heat with the presence of ghosts. Usually people feel coldness when the ghosts are around us, but he especially recounts the hot atmosphere when he sensed his ancestors’ spirits. I think it seems to relate with the fact that his grandmother was cremated, not buried. Maybe the connection with the fire has contributed for him to remember the sultry surroundings when he met the visitation.

In addition, in traditional Chinese beliefs, people don’t hear or feel the spirits of their ancestors. They just believe them to coexist. However, he actually sensed the presence of somebody when he woke up. As he claims that he was sure nobody was awake, I believe that he wants to attribute some irregular occurrences to the visitation to his ancestor. It shows that the notion of ancestral respect is deeply innate in East Asian people.