Author Archives: wierzbic@usc.edu

Poltergeist

Nationality: American
Age: 34
Occupation: Program Coordinator at the School of Interactive Media and Games and the University of southern California, and freelance comic book writer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 6, 2018
Primary Language: English

Collected in the informant’s office on his free time. I asked him to describe a time where he experienced something that he couldn’t explain.

The informant attended the University of Southern California many years ago. The apartment he discusses is not known to be haunted.
Informant: “Um… Well, uhh… When I was in school here at USC, uh, there was a series of very strange events in my building. And, uhh… one night there was a loud, uh, series of noises from my living room of my one-bedroom apartment. I could see that my, uh, cla- my roommate was asleep next to us, and but there was clearly someone in the other room. And when I went in to investigate, things had been knocked off the shelves and walls, but the room was not broken into. Uh, and I am convinced that it was a poltergeist.”

Interviewer: “What would you define a poltergeist as?”

Informant: “Uh, well poltergeists are, uh, unmoored spirits traditionally, uh, kept from the afterlife by their own unfinished business, uhh, frequently revolved, or revolving around, like, rage, hate, or anger – Negative emotions that have kept them tethered to the world. But, uh, poltergeists traditionally, uh, travel. Uh, they’re not tied to one singular location. Um, so I believe at the time, uh, there was a, it was simply a poltergeist was moving through our apartment complex.”

Interviewer: “Interesting… Were there any other details about the incident?”

Informant: “[Sighs and smacks lips, thinking] Um… Only that a apropo of nothing, a similar incident was reported by our downstairs neighbors the night before, and, uh, a very strange occurrence happened a few days later when everyone was watching a movie together, and in the same moment, everyone screamed, uh, because we all saw, in the same moment, a face in the screen. It was like a, just an image of like, the characters were standing in front of a bush, and the green bush, for a moment, shifted, and we all saw it.”

Interviewer: “You saw the face too?”

Informant: “I saw the face, yeah.”

Interviewer: “What did the face look like?”

Informant: “Uh, it was just a brief moment of, like, an, an angry man’s face. Like a screaming face.”

Interviewer: “What do you think that was? Same thing?”

Informant: “[Sighs deeply in thought] … Yes? It couldn’t have been a different poltergeist. Like probably the same spirit infesting the building, uh, for that period of time.”
The informant has an interesting claim of poltergeists being able to move from location to location, not tied to a person or place like other sources claim. He also has a reliable account due to other people also being witnesses to multiple accounts of this “poltergeist.”

Psychic Abilities

Nationality: Peruvian Jewish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at the University of Southern California, majoring in Narrative Studies
Residence: Hollywood, FL
Performance Date: April 21, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Mandarin, and a little Hebrew

Collected privately in an empty hallway while his friends played a horror game in the other room, which he returned to after the interview. I originally asked the informant about his experience with ghosts, or the supernatural, but the conversation quickly shifted when he mentioned that his great grandmother was apparently a psychic.

The informant has deep Jewish roots, with ancestors having fled from Germany during World War II, and has a deep interest in the paranormal, and other odd subjects.
Informant: “I have never seen a ghost. Um… I have heard stories of people who have seen ghosts, and my family maintains that my great grandmother was a psychic.”

Interviewer: “Your great grandmother was a psychic?!”

Informant: “Yes.”

Interviewer: “What can you tell me about that?”

Informant: “Um, so there – we have two stories. Um, so my great grandmother was a holocaust survivor, and the story goes that, um, they – she and my great grandfather, who I’m named after – lived in Berlin for a long time. Um, like, as things were getting worse. Um, but before it was immediately obvious that every Jew in Germany’s life was in imminent danger. But my grandmother had a dream, and she told my great grandfather, ‘We need to get out of Germany now.’ Um, and so they go – like it wasn’t, it still wasn’t easy for Jews to get out of Germany at that time, and there’s a follow up story that is not supernatural about them getting out of Germany, but that’s the first one. And then the second one, um, is someone in my family was going through a particularly painful birth, and, um… and she had – she heard her grandfather’s voice in her head saying, ‘All will be well. Do not worry.’ Um, and the bir- and after that, like almost immediately after she started screaming that she heard her grandfather’s voice, the birth started going better and the next morning, they got a call from the funeral worker, er, from the cemetery worker that her grandfather was buried saying that the tombstone was cracked.”

Interviewer: “Wow. And so do you believe that she was psy-”

Informant: “[Said immediately and with a lot of conviction, interrupting me] Yes.”

Interviewer: “Okay, do you have anything else to add about that?”

Informant: “Um, I mean [laughs] the only reason I think she’s psychic is cause I also sometimes have weird dreams that are either deja vu or the future [laughs]. Um, like, I think the best example of that is when I was in fourth grade, the night before we got assigned to our reading groups, I had a dream that accurately called [laughing] which students would get put into which reading groups. And I just maintained, ‘Oh, that’s weird. I don’t know what to do with that [laughs].’”

Interviewer: “Has anything else like that happened?”

Informant: “Um, a couple times, but they’re all harder to remember than that, because that one was just, that was the first time it happened to me, like, every so often, I’ll, like, I’ll run into something and I’ll remember, ‘Oh wow that, I’ve seen that before.’”

Interviewer: “Is it kind of like, ‘Oh I’ve seen that in a dream,’ or…”

Informant: “[Adamant, perhaps defensively] No, it’s like I know I saw that. Like it’s a definitive, ‘I’m, like, remembering a series, like, a really specific series of events that I had already seen hap,’ like, cause I could – When it happens I could almost always pinpoint when I remember seeing it, but, like, I don’t know?”

Interviewer: “But you can’t think of it in advance?”

Informant: “No… I feel like it’s prob – if if if it is anything, and I don’t know if it’s anything, it’s probably a That’s So Raven-type deal [An older Disney Channel show about a girl – Raven – who has visions of the future] where the thinking about it is what causes it to happen?”

Interviewer: “Was the fourth grade thing something that you dreamed about and then remembered later when it happened, or… ?”

Informant: “I remember, so I remember having the dr- so I had the dream, and in the morning I talked to my family about the dream, then went to school and it happened. That one, that’s like, that’s the why that one stuck out to me, cause I remember, like, there distinctly being a dream, a conversation about the dream, and then the events unfolding. Yeah that one, that one’s wild.”
I have met multiple people in the past who claim that they are somewhat psychic, yet their “psychic” moments sound exactly like deja vu, a phenomenon that almost everyone, myself included, experience. The informant seems to be one of these people who thinks these to be physic moments, though he won’t claim anything as truth. However, his case of him having a dream, describing that dream to his family, then it occuring is indeed an odd coincidence, if it is just a coincidence. I cannot say whether he is psychic or not, but including the incidents with his great grandmother, psychic abilities may be hereditary, if they exist.

“Humans Can Lick Too” Story

Nationality: African American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student at the University of Southern California, majoring in Art
Residence: Sherman Oaks, CA
Performance Date: April 21, 2018
Primary Language: English

Collected privately in an empty hallway while his friends played a horror game in the other room, which he returned to after the interview. I asked them if they knew, “the scary story where a girl gets her hand licked,” or, “the hand lick dog story.”

The informant heard this story for the first time at a sleepover many years ago, around the age of 11.
“So there’s this girl, and she has a dog, right? And her dog – She g-, she goes to bed and either wakes up in the morning and her dog’s licking her hand or she goes to bed and the dog’s licking her hand. And so that’s the typical, kinda, way her day goes. And then… for some reason something… [stumbles over his words] There’s some point… in the night where, like, some – where something’s licking her hand, but then it’s not – then she figures out that it’s not the dog anymore cause the dog is, like, dead in the closet or something. And then she goes to turn on the lights and realizes that there’s, like, written in blood it says… it says, I think, ‘People can lick too,’ or something like that, or something implying that it… the point is you figure out that, that the dog is dead and somebody else has been licking her hand. And that’s all I really remember.”
This version specifies the location of the dead dog, but it is the closet instead of the usual bathroom. This version does not specify where the dog is when it licks her hand. It also is worth noting that the words on the wall read, “People can lick too,” not “Humans.” It also does not specify the dripping noise that wakes up the protagonist that appears in many versions.

An analysis of several versions of this story, as well as some folkloric history, can be read here: https://www.thoughtco.com/humans-can-lick-too-3299487. Additionally, a video portrayal of the same story can be seen here at http://urbanlegendsonline.com/humans-can-lick-too/, in which the girl actively sees her hand being licked by an intruder, and does not see her missing (presumably dead) dog.

“Humans Can Lick Too” Story

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at the University of Southern California, majoring in Game Design
Residence: Doylestown, PA
Performance Date: April 21, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Collected privately in an empty hallway while his friends played a horror game in the other room, which he returned to after the interview. I asked them if they knew, “the scary story where a girl gets her hand licked,” or, “the hand lick dog story.”

The informant does not remember when or where she first heard the story, but assumes it was from a long time ago. She is aware of the variations, but her telling is what she considers to be the true one.
“Uh, I know there’s a bunch of variations on it, but the general gist of it that I remember is that there was a girl… who was having a slumber party with a bunch of friends. And they’re like, ‘Ah let’s all go to sleep.’ And they do, and she had a pet dog who slept under her bed. And when she was feeling scared, she’d, like, put her hand down, and the dog would lick her hand, and she’d be like, ‘Cool, my dog.’ And then she’s like – In the middle of the night, she, like, thinks she hears something, or something? So she puts her hand down and the dog licks it and she’s like, ‘Cool! … My DOG.’ And then she wakes up in the morning and all of her friends are dead, and her dog is dead, and the person wrote on the wall, ‘People can lick too,’ or something of equal stupidity. And that’s the version I remember.”
Unlike other tellings of the story, the protagonist is not alone in her home, but at a slumber party, and wakes up to find everyone dead, including her dog. This version does not specify the method in which the intruder killed, or how the bodies were found, but does specify that the dog was “under her bed.” It also is worth noting that the words on the wall read, “People can lick too,” not “Humans.” It also does not specify the dripping noise that wakes up the protagonist that appears in many versions.

An analysis of several versions of this story, as well as some folkloric history, can be read here: https://www.thoughtco.com/humans-can-lick-too-3299487. Additionally, a video portrayal of the same story can be seen here at http://urbanlegendsonline.com/humans-can-lick-too/, in which the girl actively sees her hand being licked by an intruder, and does not see her missing (presumably dead) dog.

“Humans Can Lick Too” Story

Nationality: Peruvian Jewish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at the University of Southern California, majoring in Narrative Studies
Residence: Hollywood, FL
Performance Date: April 21, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Mandarin, and a little Hebrew

Collected privately in an empty hallway while his friends played a horror game in the other room, which he returned to after the interview. I asked them if they knew, “the scary story where a girl gets her hand licked,” or, “the hand lick dog story.”

The informant most likely first heard the story in summer camp at the age of 11.
“So, um… I think a girl was scared of monsters under her bed, so, um, her parents got a dog and the dog lived under her bed, and whenever she’d get scared, she’d put her hand under the bed and the dog would lick her hand and she’d feel safe. And then one day, she got scared and put her hand under the bed and something licked it, and then the dog ran into her room… I mean there’s probably more to it than that, but that’s… as I understand the plot of that story… The dog may also – there, there’s probably a version of it, if not immediately, where the dog is dead.”
This version of the story interestingly does not include the titular message of, “Humans (or People) can lick too.” In fact, it does not involve the dog dying. Insead, it simply presents the dread of the intruder currently licking her hand by having the dog run into the protagonist’s room. It does, however, specify that the dog generally licks her hand from under the bed. This version does not specify the dripping noise that wakes up the protagonist that appears in many versions.

An analysis of several versions of this story, as well as some folkloric history, can be read here: https://www.thoughtco.com/humans-can-lick-too-3299487. Additionally, a video portrayal of the same story can be seen here at http://urbanlegendsonline.com/humans-can-lick-too/, in which the girl actively sees her hand being licked by an intruder, and does not see her missing (presumably dead) dog.