Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Haunted Valley in Los Angeles

AGE: 18
Date_of_performance: November 18,2024
Informant Name: Henry Dearborn
Language: English
Collector’s name: Sunghun Park
Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: USC

Main description:

HD: So my parents like to tell me that our house is haunted. um I grew up in a house built in the 1940s in the foothills of Los Angeles and it’s funny because they’ll bring it up at random times. You know, we’ll just be at dinner and they’ll be like, oh yeah, and the ghost at our house and I’m like, what? But one of the stories they’d told was um about how they would be getting ready for bed and uh they’d go to sleep, you know, on any given weekday, you know, and in the middle of the night, they’d hear a knocking. It’s loud as could be from the front door, and they’d get up, they’d be startled, they get up, they go check the door, they open it. Nothing, no one there. And they said this happens to them like every week. And I’m like, what? Because I didn’t I had never experienced anything like that. I mean, there was always the odd, you know, hairs on the back of my neck when I was alone in the room sort of thing. And my door slammed shut randomly, which is really freaky. But, you know, that that sounded very serious. And so they were like, let’s get a ring doorbell camera. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that’ll that’ll solve it. And we got a ring doorbell camera and we put it because they were they thought it was something somebody real. And the ring doorbell that we set it up and one night, the knocking came and it went, and in the morning they checked the ring door bell, and the tape froze. at like one in the morning, just before the knocking. Like it wouldn’t play anything past that. So that was freaky. um I should ask them if if they still hear the knocking, because that’s really creepy. And yeah, I don’t know. That’s my ghost story.

INFORMANT’S OPINION:

MP: So do you think the knocking sound and the camera stopping are due to something supernatural or just a coincidence?

HD: Honestly, I still have no idea what it was. I mean it still gives me goosebumps, especially when I think about it freezing. It could be a technical glitch or a real ghost. My parents always bring it up at family gatherings. However, given that nothing much has happened since then, I think it is a little far from a supernatural phenomenon. 

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION: 

I think HD’s story is more of a paranormal thing than a coincidence, as physical things like door slams and sudden doorbell camera freeze happening together. A weekly knock suggests a pattern, especially when you might see the doorbell camera frozen because ghosts might’ve been interrupting something. This fits the common ghost theme of the soul interacting with its surroundings. HD seems skeptical, but I think the recurring pattern of events really shows that it may be related to home and other paranormal beings.

Water Ghost

AGE: 56
Date_of_performance: November 27, 2024
Informant Name: Jongsoo Park
Language: Korean
Collector’s name: Sunghun Park
Nationality: South Korean
Occupation: Businessman
Primary Language: Korean
Other language: English
Residence: Busan, South Korea

Main description:

JP: It was 27 years ago when I was serving in the military in Gangwon Province. Then, a serious rainy season came for a while. I thought that this rainy season would reduce work because it was early on my duty at that time. 

However, with a lot of serious rain, I started to have more things to do. There were even floods and casualties. My unit started to help local firefighters and help restore small villages. The first thing I had to do was find the missing person. While traveling with Sergeant Park on a boat, I found what appeared to be a human head among the reeds. But Sergeant Park kept saying no, in an uncharacteristically hard-line manner. 

Later, when I told the other firefighters about this, one of them asked where it was. The next day, the firefighter who asked where he was went missing during a search operation. In the midst of shock, Sergeant Park kept muttering that the body in the water could not stand upright, and that it could be a ‘water ghost’ who wanted to ascend by making another victim when he got close. After a few days, the village recovered normally, but the firefighter was not found. Years later, the area still experiences strange drowning once in a while. Even today, the incident and something in the water keep popping up in my mind every time I visit again. 

INFORMANT’S OPINION:

MP: Do you think the weird thing you witnessed during the finding missing person process was really a water ghost or do you think there’s a more substantial explanation?

JP: I’ve been thinking since it happened that it really was a water ghost. Given what I saw and the firefighter’s disappearance since I brought it up, I don’t think those two things can happen by accident. And even the Sergeant Park’s claim about the water ghost, I think what I saw that day was really a water ghost and why the firefighter who was going to check it went missing. 

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION: 

The story is deeply related to the ‘water ghost’ that has been discussed a lot since ancient times in Korea. These events, such as seeing a head among reeds, the disappearance of a firefighter, and the warning of Sergeant Park, are other supernatural phenomena that JP cannot understand. The core of many ghost stories is the soul trapped in a certain place for a certain reason, and repeated drownings in this area might be the proof of this. The story as a whole really suggests that JP has witnessed supernatural warnings linked to the local faith. 

Viking at the Cabin

Nationality: American

Age: 19

Occupation: Retail

Residence: Belton, MO

Performance Date: November 29, 2024

Primary Language: English

Language: English

MAIN DESCRIPTION

Q: “So, you’ve mentioned before you grew up with spirits. What’s one you remember that stands out from the rest?”

A: “Well, um, I grew up on an old abandoned farm that was built over. And it was a log cabin. And there was lots of spirits there, but I remember once in particular I was getting ready for bed and my mom wasn’t home yet. So, I was by myself in my room. It was dark and I heard a creak in the hallway because our floors are really creaky, and I thought that, y’know, maybe she was getting home or something. And the door opened and I saw her shadow. And I was like okay, I don’t know why you’re not turning on the light, so, you’re gonna trip and fall. But, she didn’t. Um, she, what I thought was her, um, she came over to me, and like her form, the outline of her body, turned from what she looked like into like this Viking, big scary dude with like a huge axe. And he like, swang it at me, and I remember hiding under my covers, and I remember hearing all the noises like it was real.  And then, I got up out of my bed and asked my brother to wake up because I was scared, and there was nobody there. So, there’s that.”

INFORMANT’S OPINION

Q: “Do you think it was a ghost or something else?”

A: “There were a ton of spirits in that house. I encountered them, um, pretty regularly. They weren’t always so scary. I guess I could’ve been dreaming.”

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION

It was hard to analyze the informant for any cultural significance relating to Vikings. She was not of a descent remotely similar to the origins of Nordic heritage. What stands out to me is the idea that the Viking was, at first, her mother. The fact that her mother seemed gentle at first and then became violent struck a chord with me. Perhaps there is a personal projection of abuse or neglect. A spirit could symbolize this, or even be a warning of some sort. Going further than this would be irresponsible and hypothetical, but I do believe that the detail of the mother is where the heart of this story, in some form or another, lies. I believe there is substance here for this occurrence being only a dream, but it interests me in the sense that it’s quite hard to tell from her description. Why could she hear sounds so vividly? Why can she not tell whether or not this was a dream? I believe this liminal area between being asleep and awake screams of a memorate. She mentioned other spirits as well. I could see the possibility that this was just a wandering spirit as well.

The Ghost of a Suffragette

Age: 55

Date of Interview: 12/03/24

Date of Story: 07/2000

Informant Name: DP

Language: English

Collector’s name: LP

Nationality: USA

Occupation: IT enginneer

Primary Language: English

Residence at the time: Washington DC

Current Residence: Pennsylvania

It was dark night in July 2000 after the museum closed.   The museum was silent and dark.   We could only hear the wind outside the windows.  The stairs creaked as we walked up the stairs.  We went from room to room, checking the exhibits.  The moonlight shown through the windows as we walked.  I heard a noise on the far side of the building, in the room opposite of the room I was in.  It sounded like a clatter.  Someone had tripped.  I went towards the noise, and found nothing was there except an overturned chair.   I picked up the chair, and started to walk away and cross the hall, when in my peripheral vision I saw light.  I turned around and saw it.  A woman in what seemed to be late 19th century bed clothes, glowing and walking across the room towards me.  I stood and stared and was about to call out, and the woman ran past me and into the and wall and disappeared.

Ghost story in the woods- JH

Age: 18

Date of interview: 12/01/24

Informant Name: JH

Language: English

Collector’s name: LP

Nationality: USA

Occupation: College Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: Appalachia in Pennsylvania

The cold October rain trickled down my neck, causing me to shiver. But I don’t feel cold, not really. I’m angry. I’m angry and sitting down to talk about it makes it worse. I’m angry and I need this time alone. The cold 40-degree downpour was necessary to clear my mind. The edge of the woods seems the best place to get this alone time. I had to have been not in my right mind. I never would have been here if I was. I heard the screams and felt the terror those brought me. I felt the fear choke me up when the screams would move down the valley far, far too fast to be anything real. I saw the way those screams caused my father to halt in his tracks while we were out late. I heard his voice tremble with fear as he refused to recount his encounter with the Screaming Thing to me.
But that wasn’t on my mind right now, it was only the annoyance of the argument I had just had that pulled me down that hill to stand at the edge of the trees. The raindrops hit and ricochetted off of the water of the pond in front of me. They cracked down on my scalp. They slammed into the blades of grass and leaves surrounding me, making it hard to hear anything.
But still, I heard it. Faint, down the valley, barely a threat. I wasn’t scared, I was still angry. And I had no reason to be afraid, clearly. The screams remained at the end of the valley as I stood my silent ground against the world. A minute passed, then two, then three. Nothing was happening, and nothing would happen, I knew.
Until I took a step. A light shuffle. My legs were growing numb from the rain and standing locked in the same position. Nothing. The screaming stopped for a second, then sounded again—much, much closer. My skin began to crawl, those minute of ignoring the rain trailing down my spine catching up to me. I shiver violently. I feel my breathing go faster, and my heart is speeding up too. I take another step, and another, and another. It’s a walk for the first 4 steps, but the thing is halving the distance every step I take. I trip, stumbling up the hill I walked down to get here. It’s so close. I stand up and sprint. It’s on me now, and the darkness it brings presses on the edges of my vision, becoming more centered until I can’t see. I keep running, but It’s there. Infinitely loud, my heart is beating out of my chest. I keep running, hoping I don’t run into anything. It’s so loud, so loud…
Then nothing. The screaming stops, and the darkness lifts off my vision. I hit the ground for the second time. I’ve fallen just inside of the floodlight spilling from the garage. It’s stopped and I’m safe. Shaking and scared out of my mind, but safe.