Monthly Archives: April 2018

Three Knocks

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 45
Occupation: Engineer
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/18/18
Primary Language: Chinese

Interviewer: Do you have any ghost stories from your family or any personal ones?

Informant: I do remember one. This took place during 1973 in China.

Informant: My father was raised by his grandmother for most of his childhood, and so he was very close to her. My mother was also close to her. One night, my father was out of town, and my mother heard a hard knocking of three times on the window late at night and saw a shadow appear. She yelled “Who is it?” No response. She went outside to see who it was, but no one was there.

Interviewer: Did she find out who it was?

Informant: In a way. The next morning, a messenger arrived at the home, and passed on the news that my father’s grandmother had passed away. To this day, my mother still believes that the knocking was the spirit of my father’s grandmother, to say goodbye or send a signal or warning.

 

Analysis 

The informant believes that there’s a possibility that the ghost of the grandmother is involved, but it’s not entirely impossible for all those events to happen by chance. If we pay attention to the details regarding the knock, we can find that the that the knock occurred three times, showing us that the original storyteller (informant’s mother) believed that it was a real knock, not something made up or just a random object that created the noise, compared to a knock that occurred only once or twice Clearly, we do not know for sure where the knock originated from, but this is just the experience of the informant’s mother. In addition, the fact that the grandmother had passed away was unknown to the informant’s mother makes the story seem more real. The “ghost” in this story also is not very corporal and was not seen visibly aside from the shadow; however, the ghost (the grandmother) is of someone that the narrator knows and was close with. Since she was familiar with the ghost, it can be assumed that the ghost is a “good ghost.” Seeing deceased family members is quite common, yet the unique part of this story is how the original narrator was not aware that the grandmother had passed away. This ghost story also shows prevalence of ancestral ghosts and the closeness of family ties. In Asian cultures, ghosts of family members and ancestors are quite common, especially due to beliefs in ancestral worship and influences from Confucianism.

I find this story believable because of the coincidental nature of certain events. For example, it’s such a coincidence that the knock occurred right before she was informed of the death of the grandmother. On top of that, the original narrator had checked to see who was knocking, yet no one was there, despite the appearance of a shadow. The possibility of all of this occurring together, with no other meaning or explanation to it does seem very low.

The Jeepers Creepers House Ghost

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 35
Occupation: Truck Driver
Residence: Los Angeles

The interviewee wishes to remain anonymous, but he is a single father of two daughters, and he currently lives in Southern California. He currently works as a FedEx driver, and he recalls his personal memories of ghosts that he encountered when he was living in Victorville, CA

The interviewer’s initials are denoted through the initials EL, while the interviewee’s responses are noted as LB

EL: I’ve heard from my mom that you have encountered quite a number of ghosts in your lifetime. Can you tell me about them?

LB: This is my story when I bought my new house in Victorville, CA. The address of the haunted house was 11594 Beconia Road, Adelanto, CA 92301. This was the first house that I bought for me and two daughters and when we first moved in, everything was very nice. However, after one year, we started hearing strange noises in the house as if someone was walking on the second floor. One time I was talking to my oldest daughter on the first floor and then suddenly we would hear noises as if someone was walking. I asked her “ Who is here?”

LB’s daughter: “No one, Dad. It’s just you and me! Dad, to be honest, I’ve been hearing these same weird noises everyday for the past year whenever I’m by myself in the house!”

LB: At first, I didn’t pay much attention to this story of her’s because I thought she was making things up and messing with me. Then, when I was living by myself, I started to hear noises as if someone was walking down the stairs. Another time, I came home after a long day at work and I told my two daughters to not walk at night and make noise because I was exhausted. It was around midnight and I thought I heard someone running down the stairs, so I turned on the lights and I walked down the stairs to the first floor of the house to check out the noise. I looked in the kitchen, living room, garage, and there was nothing. At first I thought it was one of my daughters, so I opened the doors and decided to head upstairs to see if it was one of my daughters. At this time, I saw a girl wearing a white gown and she was running fast up the stairs, and then I started chasing her because I was curious as to who this was. I was chasing after this white ghostly girl until she went into my youngest daughter’s room. I went into my youngest daughter’s room and asked her “Hey why are you running around the house? I thought I told you to not make any noise in the house because I’m tired and I want to sleep!”

LB’s daughter #2: “Dad, what the h** are you talking about? I’ve been sleeping this whole time!”

LB: At this time, I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a white gown. She was wearing some shorts and a little shirt. I realized it wasn’t her, so I went to my other’s daughter’s room and asked her if she was the one going down the stairs, and she also told me no. I went into my room, but I left the door open and grabbed a shoe because I thought my daughters were messing with me. I was looking out the door just in case, and then I saw that same girl running down the stairs fast, and as soon as I saw her, I jumped out of my bed and I started chasing her again. I once again went downstairs and tried looking for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. This was the first incident. Another time, I came home really late from work. I would say it was 11:30 p.m.. Then, I heard a strong wind noise inside the house. Like “wishhhhh, wishhh, wooosh, wiiishhh”. As if all the windows were open and the wind was coming into the house. I looked, but all the curtains were closed. This was crazy!! I was looking for the open window, but none of the windows were open. I thought to myself, “What the h** is happenning?”, but I was too tired and I didn’t pay too much attention to this and to my room. However, when I was walking up to my bedroom, I noticed that half the house had this crazy wind noise, and the other half was completely calm and quiet. This was the second incident. The third incident happened when I was eating with my girlfriend. I heard a weird noise again as if someone was walking on the second floor and I asked my girlfriend if there was someone else in the house. She told me no one other you and me are in this house. I thought to myself: “How strange!!”. I asked my girlfriend to go check to see if what was making this strange noise, but she was too scared to check. We both contemplated checking the noise, but were both too scared to go check. Then, at night, we finally decided to go up and check out this strange noise, but nobody was there. We checked out the second floor and found that this small door in the laundry that led to the attic was open. “It was scary!” A couple days later, I noticed that my daughter was looking weird. She confessed that she had been hearing weird noises all over the house: her room, my room, and her sister’s room. She claimed that the noises once again sounded like someone was walking or watching her. One time, she was combing her hair and she saw a shadow come out of my room. She thought that if she could ignore the shadows, they wouldn’t bother her. However, one time, she turned around and the shadow was right behind her, but it turned into a figure of a man with wings and horns on his head and then he started to crawl down the stairs. She said it resembled the creature from Jeepers Creepers. This ghost started to bother my daughter and probably possessed her because sometimes she would suddenly start talking like a man. I tried to find a priest, pastor, or anyone who would come to the house to bless it to help my daughter, but no one wanted to come because no one knew us at the time. One day, I decided to go to church and I met a friend at church, and I told this friend about the ghost possessions. Then, one day, this friend brought 13-14 other people and a pastor to my house to help me and pray. When all these people started to pray, the house started to let out weird creaking noises from the wall, and it seemed like the house was going to fall apart because the wood was creaking and weird ghostly noises were coming out of the wall. Then, my daughter suddenly started pointing and hitting these girls who came to pray and claimed that they were bad and that she knew what bad things they were doing, and that karma would come hurt them if they didn’t stop. I knew this was legit because my daughter’s eyes were closed and she somehow knew which girls she was talking about. She also possessed characteristics of someone who was possessed. After praying for awhile, the noise died down, and everything became normal. The pastor then told me to not let the devil into the house anymore and to do more good deeds. I have since moved out of that house, but I have talked to the current house owners and they told me that ever since I have moved out, 4 families have already moved in and out within 3 months because they can’t stand it. These families also had weird things happen to them where windows and doors would randomly open. This is what happened to me and this was very scary!

Conclusion:

This story was extremely scary and as I was listening to him tell this story, I could feel the creeps going up my body. Also, this guy claims that he has the ability to see ghosts and attract ghosts because he also told me another story about a more recent ghost encounter. In the more recent ghost encounter, it was also similar to this story where he moved to a new house and there were weird noises and occurrences that happened to him and his family.  Also, since he is religious and believes in God and prays, I personally feel like he wouldn’t lie about this story. Most importantly, the ideas of being good and not doing bad deeds such as cursing, lying, etc, seem to play an important role in this story that stand as the key for warding off all bad entities such as ghosts.

“Yeehaw” the Mirror Ghost

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 24
Occupation: Bakery Manager
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 23 2017

The interviewee wishes to remain anonymous, but she is female and currently works at Paris Baguette in Arcadia, CA. This is a story about the time that she saw a ghost in her house.

The interviewer’s initials are denoted through the initials EL, while the interviewee’s responses are noted as AG.

EL: I remember when you told me about the ghost encounter you had with your brother in your grandmother’s house. Could you tell me about it again?

AG: This ghost story was witness by both me and my brother. This happened about a year ago when we were at my grandmother’s house. My grandmother has always told us that her house is haunted and that she has seen ghost encounter many times, but we never believed her until this encounter. My grandma claims that she encounters flickering lights, random shadows, and even weird wind noises that rush through the house. She has also claimed to have seen a cowboy ghost ever so often in the reflection of the mirrors in the house. However, me and my brother always felt like she was just making things up since she was getting old and her eyesight has been worsening over the years. On this particular day, me and brother were playing around the house and my brother being my brother decided to play a joke on me. I was taking a selfie and trying to comb my hair in the restroom when he suddenly came up behind me and screamed “BOO” into my ear to scare me. I obviously screamed because he scared the living sh*t out of me. A couple mins later, I was still standing in the same position and I thought I could hear him creeping up. I pretended like I didn’t know that he was coming, but strangely enough instead of him scaring me, I could feel a slight cold breeze on the nape of my neck. I turned around to see who it was, but there was no one there behind me. At first, I didn’t think too much of this, and walked out of the bathroom. At this moment as I was walking out of the bathroom door, I looked over my shoulders to check my reflection in the hallway mirror and suddenly in the mirror I saw a reflection of a ghost who looked like a cowboy following me. I immediately turned around in horror, but once again I saw no one behind me. Initially, I thought it was my brother playing a prank on me again and I called for him, but he came running from the living room. It definitely was not him! I was scared but it seemed like the ghost disappeared for the moment, so I temporarily forgot about it. Then, later at night, when me and my brother were just chilling in the living room, the lights started flickering and then suddenly a large gust of wind came rushing into the room. This wouldn’t have been so abnormal if it weren’t for the fact that all the windows and doors were closed. This kept going on until me and my brother decided that we had enough and ran out of the house. Ever since this incident, me and my brother have avoided going to my grandmother’s house!

Conclusion:

This story was told to me very casually during one of my work shifts at Paris Baguette. The informant was my shift leader during this shift and this shift was going slow and there weren’t many customers so then she decided to tell us some of her ghost encounters to past time. I personally believe this story because I was listening to the story and I watched her facial expressions the entire time and it didn’t seem like she was making up the story.  She genuinely seemed scared by this “ghost encounter”. This also wasn’t one of the first ghost stories she has told us, so it seems like she was not making this story up. Although I’m not sure why this ghost appeared next to her, she told me that her family naturally attracts a lot of supernatural entities and they often have ghost encounters and there is often unexplained activities in the house. I also personally believe this story because as she told this story, all the hairs on my arm stood up and a cold gust of wind passed by us. Although I believe the majority of this story, the one part that still makes me question this story is the reasoning behind the cowboy ghost. I just don’t get why the ghost was in the figure of the cowboy and I would like to know why it was a cowboy of all things. In the end, the only possible assumption I can make is that maybe this ghost could be an ancestor that used to live in this house or his remains might be buried under this house.

The Headless Desert Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kentucky
Performance Date: April 3, 2018
Primary Language: English

Note: This story was first brought up to me while camping in Death Valley, around the campfire.

SD: So this is about the ghost of Joe Simpson, ok? So in 1908 there was this saloon manager named Joe Simpson and he murdered the town’s banker. And because of that, the town lynched him, they tied him up, and then a LA Times reporter came down, they put him back up (after they had already taken him down from being dead), and what happened is that they decided to test if he had any diseases. So they cut off his head, and they lost the body of him. And so now, if you go around different parts of Death Valley, you can see this old west guy who is headless just walking around, trying to find his head, and trying to get revenge on the people who killed him.

 

This is a local story to Death Valley. It seems to be a good example of a local legend. A town had a traumatic event in their past, and this continues to haunt them today. This contains the motif of mutilated corpses coming back as ghosts. Many societies believe that the mistreatment of corpses leads to becoming a ghost. Not only was Joe Simpson’s corpse re-hung and beheaded, but he was lynched, tied up, and his body was lost. This could easily lead to the fear that his spirit could come back to exact revenge on the living. SD had visited Death Valley before, but hadn’t seen the ghost. He didn’t seem to believe the ghost was real, but said its was a common story.

The Murder House Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington
Performance Date: March 11, 2018
Primary Language: English

This story was told at night around a campfire in Death Valley, California.

E: Ok so this is my Grandma’s story, which is 100% true, and not exaggerated at all, probably. So my grandma was 19, I think, she’s like our age, when this stuff happened. She was working as a waitress in Detroit but she didn’t get paid anything so she rented a room from this lady’s house. She obviously didn’t have an apartment or anything. She didn’t have any roommates except for this really old lady who was kind of grouchy and didn’t really talk to her except to get money for paying for the room. But it’s kind of creepy because the house that she lived in was like the classic fucking murder suicide house, where some guy had killed his wife and daughter then killed himself in the house. So she, I don’t remember how many rooms there were, but she stayed in the bedroom where he slept, I think, because it actually wasn’t that big. And so it was kind of like, it wasn’t super bad, but she’s say things like she’d walk through a doorway and it would be super cold and freezing and then she’d get into a room and it would be somewhat fine, and weird stuff like that. But one night, she was laying down, and she, like, feels something on her chest. She can’t see anything; it’s not a night terror because she didn’t see anything, something’s sitting there or whatever. She just feels something really sitting on her chest. It’s really strange. She doesn’t think too much of it, but at the same time she was really freaked out. And this happens again later, but this time it feels like something is literally choking her so she gets up, she walks down, and she sees her landlady, standing in the doorway, but she’s turned around, so she can’t see her face, and she’s hearing some weird stuff. And she tries to go past her, and the landlady is changing some freaky shit and she just runs out of the house and gets out. That’s my grandma’s ghost story.

Analysis:

This ghost story contains a lot of common ghost story motifs. It takes place in a creepy old home, which is often the setting of a ghost story. E’s grandmother is in a liminal period of her life, when she is living on her own and first experiencing adulthood. People are most receptive to ghost stories when they are at transitional points in their life such as this. The landlady is a quiet, mysterious old woman, leading to a lot of questions of who she is and what is happening. The main motif present is the history of murder. Violent deaths, especially murder suicides, is a common way to become a ghost. Most people who move into a house with a history like that know, whether they believe it or not, that the house is likely to be haunted. E seemed to believe this story, and while she doesn’t openly believe in ghosts, she believes that what her grandmother told her is true.