Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

The Motel Wife Ghost of Santo Domingo

1. Informant name- M P
2. Date of Performance- April 4,2026
3. Age- 59
4. Ethnicity- Dominican
5. Career/Occupation- Retired
6. Hometown- Santo Domingo
7. Informant’s language- Spanish

Story –

In Santo Domingo on the 27th of February a woman and her boyfriend died after a few days of getting married to each other by a car. After everything that happened in that area in the morning around 4 or 3 in the morning she would come out to people. What the people would do when they saw her was they would get into a big car accident. In addition, a friend of my sister was going to get married. It was a Monday and they were gonna get married on Tuesday. He went on a car drive on the 27th of February and died right there , right where she died. She always came out and a lot of people would die there.

Context- 

This story was told to me by my grandma over a motel corner in the Dominican Republic.

Their thoughts-

My grandma is someone who is really connected with spirits so ah bee lives this story heavily. She told me that she was always warned of this corner and would never drive it. She also said when she ever walked past this corner that she could feel a heavy pretense. Over all she believed that there was actually a spirit there.

My thoughts-

Although I do in some form believe that there are entities beyond us I think that all the car crashes here could have been accidents. The ghost of this woman was said to come out really early in the morning so perhaps the people who encountered her were just really tied. For all the crashes that can possibly be chalked up to it being a dangerous corner because many of the streets in the Dominican Republic are behind on upkeep and overall dangerous. With that being said I’m not the most convinced of this story but I also do not believe the story.

The Winchester Mystery House

Age: 19

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is my friend and freshman year roommate.

Me: “All right. Go ahead, and tell the story, just like, pretend I’m not recording.”

LC: “Okay, do I have to introduce myself?”

Me: “No, just get into it.”

LC: “So this was back when I was 5 years old, so that was 14 years ago. Okay. I feel unc, but it’s whatever. Watch me, like, listen to this, like, in 20 years. I would be like, that’s not even that bad. But I was 5 years old when this happened and my grandparents were in town. They’re originally from Southern California. So they came to visit, and when they come to visit, it’s a pretty big thing. Um, so as a result, my parents were super excited for them to be here and usually when that happens, I don’t really have any choice but to do everything that they have planned. And I had a bad feeling when they told me that we were going to go to the Winchester Mystery House.”

Me: “I’m not too familiar. So it where is this located?”

LC: “This is located on Winchester Street Drive, Avenue, whatever it is.”

Me: “But, but like where in California? It’s in California right?”

Background as described by the informant:

LC: “It’s in Santa Clara. It’s right across from a mall, which is really weird because why would you build like the super big fancy mall right across the street from a haunted house? But the story about the Winchester Mystery House, from what I remember, they made a movie about it too, but the movie was like not at all accurate and low-key, really bad. But the actual story is that this woman was married to a man who produced these guns…the Winchester Gun Company. Um, and the guns were used in war in, like, self-defense, whatever, but they produced them so much and then would give it to, like, I guess, really bad people because they didn’t really care about who they were selling it to. Um, after the man died, I think he died because of the fact that he was shot by his own gun or he died out of sickness. I don’t remember exactly, but he died early on. So the woman was widowed. And at the time, they were using the money from their gun company to build this really big house. And she consulted this, like, palm reader to tell her, like, what she should do to honor her dead husband when building the house. And the palm reader was like, girl, like, you shouldn’t be worried about your husband. You should be worried about the ghosts.”

Me: “Oh [redacted].”

LC: “And she was like, what ghosts? And apparently, all the ghosts of the people that were killed by the guns that the husband produced were coming back to haunt her. Um, and take revenge for what happened as a result of like the guns being produced. And Miss Winchester was like, that’s not my problem. Like, I didn’t produce the guns. And the palm reader was like, no, it’s because the fact that you’re using the money from the guns that were made to build a house. That’s why they’re getting revenge. So they made the house super big and the whole point of the house was that it can never be finished being built. Like they had to continuously build it. And in order to trick the ghost, they had like these trap doors and like these stairs that would lead to nowhere. Like, it’s like this demented fun house that she made.”

Me: ” Hence..Mystery house.”

LC: “Hence…mystery house.”

The Story:

LC: “And… Like, the story itself was cool, and a lot of people don’t really buy it. But I was freaked out. I was also five. So anything would scare me. So I went into the house knowing that this was a story, this is what my grandparents told me, and I was like, why did they bring me here? Like, this was a bad idea. And I just remember going through the house and initially thinking it was pretty because the entrance has like this nice stained glass window, this, like, really nice warm lighting, but the further you get into the house, the more you will see like the stairs leading to nowhere, the doors that open to brick walls, like all this weird stuff. And I just remember passing by this one area that they had just closed because it was found to, like, drop down, like to the floor. It was like… there was like a staircase that led to a door and then there was nothing there. And they had just closed it. So I was freaked out because I guess, like, people were touring that and they realized, like, there was no where to go. It was like, it was a straight drop and it was like 3 floors up already. Um, but after we passed that, I saw a shadow of a woman, and I was like, oh, this has to be like a hologram or something. I didn’t think it was real. But I just remember, it was really warm when I was originally passing by that, like, invisible, whatever staircase thing that led to nowhere. Then when I saw the shadow, it got really cold. So I was like, that was weird… that kind of freaked me out. But I ignored it. We went on with the rest of the tour. And we were going down the stairs, and I distinctly remember the tour guide saying, oh yeah, the stairs are really, really small and really, really steep because they were custom made to fit the feet of Miss Winchester. And they said, oh, watch your step, be careful. Um, But he looked at me and said, oh, you should be fine because your feet are little. And the Winchester lady was like really, really short, really, really petite. And he was like, oh, yeah, you’re like a child. She was like a child too. like you’ll be fine. So I was under the impression there was no way for me to trip. I was also the very last one in the line because it…the actual staircase was so tiny and so compressed that you could touch the walls with your elbows….Shoulders…Shoulders and elbows. But it was really, really compressed. And as a result, we all had to go in a single file line. And I just remember going down the staircase, the really cold feeling from before came back again. And I was the last one in the line. Like, there was no one behind me. I remember turning back and I was like, oh, the door, like the door was about to close and there was like this little sliver of light and I was like, oh, so no one could push me. I’m fine. Boy, was I wrong! I turned back around, and I’m going down, grabbing the walls, kind of like shaking a little bit, but I could walk down the stairs fine. I felt the hand of a, like, a wrinkly thin hand that was ice cold. And I was wearing a super thin shirt, where, like, any little breeze or tap, like, I could feel it on my skin. And I felt it right here on this shoulder, and I felt the hand press, and then I felt it push, and I ended up tripping and falling on the stairs, and my grandma caught me. And I turn around and I see a shadow go, whoosh. like out the door and the door opened. And I was like, this [redacted] just pushed me down the stairs. And I asked the tour guide, I was like, did you see that? And the tour guide said a joke, but I didn’t think he was serious…he’s like, oh yeah, it’s rumored that Miss Winchester likes to go down these stairs and scare the tourists. And then he’s like, and sometimes if she takes a liking to you, she’ll even give you a little nudge. And then after I tripped and fell, he turned around and said, oh, looks like she already found someone. And I was like, Oh, that’s so cute. And I had to tell my grandma, I was like, I don’t want to be here anymore. I dont want to be here anymore. So we ended up leaving the tour early after that. And when I left and walked out, there was this bay style window on one of the upper floors, and there was a woman that looked exactly like Miss Winchester waving hi. I have not returned to the Winchester mystery house since. So even if that wasn’t Miss Winchester or if it was a random ghost, I got pushed in the Winchester mystery house when I was 5 years old down the stairs.”

Me: “So what do you think? Like, do you think Miss Winchester, like, do you think it felt like friendly? Like, she liked you or, you think the guide was right and she was like just being cute and like, eh, or, like, do you think there was, like, there was beef.”

LC: “like, I don’t know, because I was just horrified the whole time. So I don’t know if she was actually was being like a little rude and she wanted to push me because she’s like, I’ll show you how to be scared. But honestly, I thought at 1st that it was friendly, but the more that I think about it, I think it was a little bit more malicious. I’m not gonna lie. Um, like, you know, like those really old women that are like really rude to young people?”

Me: “Right. I don’t know about five-year-olds, but yeah.”

LC: “I don’t know. Because what did a five-year-old do? “

Me: “Right.”

LC: “But maybe it was because my grandparents were telling me like, oh, none of it’s real. It’s fine. And I kept repeating to myself, oh, none of it’s real. it’s fine. So maybe she was like, oh, no, it is real. It is real. But, I don’t know, that was my story. I tell it because I…I still to this day, like, don’t think it’s fully real. I think I was just 5 years old and freaked that, like, freaked out out of my mind. But, you know what? Maybe Miss Winchester did push me down the stairs…Maybe.”

Personal Thoughts and Analysis: I didn’t know too much about the Winchester Mystery House going in, so it was very interesting to hear about it from the informant. This story included a lot of traditional ghost story motifs, such as a haunted house, cold spots, a vengeful spirit, a legend quest, etc. I think it’s a very interesting concept that the house was originally built to fight off and confuse vengeful spirits, and in this story at least, Miss Winchester ends up becoming a vengeful spirit herself, trapped in her own labyrinth.

The Nun

Age: 19

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is my friend and freshman year roommate. The informant and I were discussing a completely different story when she brought up that her high school was haunted by a very sad nun…I immediately pressed record.

LC: “There’s a book called California’s Most Haunted Places.”

Me: “Oh, and your high schools in it?”

LC: “And my high school’s in it.”

Me: “Oh, great.”

LC: “So, yeah. Like, sometimes you’ll hear, like, creaking from where, like, she, hung herself.”

Me: “This is so crazy…Ok what high school did you go to?”

LC: “Notre Dame.”

Me: “Notre Dame. In San Jose.”

LC: “Like, dead serious. Someone look it up. There’s a story. This nun like hung herself.”

Me: “So, did you have any, like..this is something that happened to your friend or, like, did you have any personal experiences?”

LC: “Okay, so for me, in that building, there’s a basement that I had to go into, and I hated that basement. It’s a…it’s straight up a vintage old basement. It’s an old cobblestone basement that has one little light that hangs from the top. Like, have you seen, um, A Quiet Place?”

Me: “Yeah.”

LC: “It looks like that. And the stairs are like wooden and creaky. So, I went in there and I had to pull the light, and there was, like, someone that looked like they were wearing a full nun outfit. just in the corner.”

Me: ” And at this point, there’s no more nuns at your school?”

LC: “Most of the women, like the women that worked at my school were nuns, but they didn’t wear the whole thing… they’re like the modern nuns. like they’re hip or whatever.”

Me: *laughs* “Okay.”

LC: “Um, but yeah, it was like a nun wearing like the full outfit and everything. And, um, I don’t remember what her name is. Like, it was like sister…her name began with an M. And I remember like the faculty and staff saying, oh, like, oh, sister, whatever her name is, is visiting again.

Me: “Oh. Was she, like, a nice, or sad spirit, or like?”

LC: “I think she’s just sad. Yeah. Um, because, yeah, like, apparently, like, a priest seduced her and, like, she got pregnant and, yeah, she hung herself because, like, she was sent there. Um, I can’t even remember what for. Like, I think because her family, like, couldn’t afford to send her to, like to school, so she went to the convent. Um, and she knew that she couldn’t go back to her family because it would be dishonorable. So, she thought that the only way to go was to, like, commit suicide. So, yeah, there’s that one, and then, my elementary and high school are connected, because it was, like, this one big giant convent. And like a lot of the stories that happened at the high school happened at the elementary because it was like just one big thing. And what happened to my friend in 5th grade is that she went to the bathroom, and it was a sunny day in February or March, and when she went to the bathroom, she, like, came out, went to go wash her hands. The door slammed shut because the bathroom door was, like, propped open with, like, this little, like, wooden block. The door slammed shut. It wouldn’t open. And because it was, like, someone was pressed against it. So she pushed it open, and when she looked outside, it was pouring rain, and the woman that looked like the nun was like outside, like crying, and her eyes were like jet black and like, and then she freaked out, closed the door, was sobbing, opened the door again, and it was like normal, sunny, like 78 degrees outside. Like, she came to class crying because she’s like, I saw her, I saw her, this creepy lady, and we’re like…”

Me: “So a lot of these stories…so the time that you maybe saw the nun, how old were you?”

LC: “14.”

Me: “Okay, so a little bit older, but mostly your stories, you know, involve a child. So what do you think about that? Do you think children are like more vulnerable to spirits or you think like they can see things that, you know, maybe…”

LC: “Yeah, I think the children, like, that’s like in every single horror story, though. Like, children are the most vulnerable. Because, like, you know how people say, like, when you’re a child, you have your 6th sense and that it’s, like, the most receptive. And, like, you haven’t been corrupted by the world to have it, like, removed or, like, worn down. Um, Like, I guess to an extent, that makes sense, but if we’re following that logic that children are just more receptive to everything around them, and children are known for being, like, brutally honest, then I would say, yes, it’s like, that aspect, that’s consistent with children being, like, the main receivers in all these stories, would support that idea, but also, I feel like, I don’t know, it’s a little strange because people who experience those, like, paranormal activities usually have some sort of belief in the paranormal. Right. But I don’t know if that’s because of the fact that, since they believe it, it’s confirmation bias. Or if it’s just because they’re more open to the idea that that’s a possibility and that they would prefer that outlandish, I guess, experience to be true in comparison to that of a more scientifically backed explanation.”

Me: “Right, makes sense. And both can be true.”

LC: “Both can be true.”

Me: “Good stuff.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This story was super interesting, and I think it goes into religious guilt and trauma, which intrigued me, so I decided to look more into it. I was able to corroborate that there is a legend of a pregnant nun who hung herself at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, but I couldn’t find any confirmed reports of the occurrence. I think because it’s been local lore for so long that it’s likely a lot of the accounts are just scared kids whose eyes were playing tricks on them, but it is very interesting nonetheless. I also thought the weather aspect of the spirit, somehow being able to change the weather, was very unique and not a typical element in ghost stories, which almost made me believe the informant a bit more.

THE HAUNTED TAHOE CASINO

Age: 50

In this story, I interviewed my mother’s friend about an experience she had at this haunted hotel/casino in Tahoe. The following is her story told in first-person.

Interviewee: “Several years ago, 2018, I saw something on Facebook that they were going to have a paranormal investigation at the Biltmore Hotel in Lake Tahoe. [My husband] and I have gone on lots of haunted tours and stuff while we’re on vacation, (the Jack the Ripper tour, London, things like that.) So I’m like, that might be kind of fun for his birthday because it’s right around the fall time and it might be an interesting adventure. So we’ve never done anything like that before. I had no idea what to expect.

If you would have asked me, if I thought ghosts were real, I’d tell you no. I’d never experienced anything unusual; nothing major. So, we secured our spots and got a room there. It’s one of the older hotels, the interesting feature of this hotel is that it’s right across the street from another old casino, (Hotel Calnivas) which has since been demolished. There’s a tunnel underneath that connected the two casinos because they’re across the street from each other and the tunnel wasn’t for public use – It was for the mob, and for the people running the casinos and for the criminal elements to go back and forth between the two. 

We headed up [to the hotel] and they were like, okay, everything fires off at 8:00 PM. So we got there and checked in and they were kind of having like a vendor fair and some seminars. Our group/investigation started at 8 p.m, and there’s about 120 people because we had 12 people in our group and there were 10 different groups because they didn’t want everybody walking around in a big blob. There were different parts of the hotel that were said to be haunted, so because there had been a lot of bad activity there (murders and things of that,) they made sure you stick with the mob. 

We started off the evening, and to me it was very amusing. We had a psychic medium in our group, and we had a professional Paranormal investigator in the group, and he had all the equipment (like light boxes that react to the energy, the little metal rods that moved when you asked the ghost questions,) he had all that stuff. So this all was really entertaining to me, and I’m a very social person. So I was asking him a million questions and I became his little sidekick. So really fast, it became that I was running the equipment. I’m walking around with the light box, and they’re like, okay this ghost haunts these stairways, this is what happened to her, there’s a child ghost that walks around the hallways, etc. So we’re going from station to station and the little light boxes are responding. 

When we got to the hallway, I was given the metal rods and the child ghost kind of started being playful with me and the rod started moving. I’m like, how are these things moving, because my hands aren’t moving? We go to the downstairs part of the hotel and there is the casino, the lobby, a restaurant, and then a wedding chapel and the service area which is where the tunnel goes underneath the street. We go into the chapel and we’re told about the ghost that lives there, and she was a lady who had died on her wedding day, and so she haunted the chapel.

We were in there and my eyes just kept going to one corner of a room where there was a closet with supplies. The door was shut. There wasn’t anything like moving over there, but I just kept looking at it. It just was a little odd, but still nothing major. Our guide was like, okay we’re going to go into the service area. We went down into the service area and this is where the evening got crazy. We’re walking into the tunnel that goes underneath the street and the man leading the paranormal investigation is talking about how that was where they took people to murder them, so it was very haunted. If you cross the mob, that’s where you took your final walk.

We’re walking down the corridor and.. I am not an emotional person, but my throat closes up and I cannot breathe. Tears start pouring down my face, and I’m like, oh my God. It was such a weird physical reaction as he’s telling the story of our group, and it happened to myself and one other woman in the group out of 12. I pat [my husband] on the arm and say I got to go back up. The other woman and I backed up out of the corridor and back into the service area where the hotel staff would be making food and things like that. I instantly feel better. My throat opens up and I can breathe all the way and I’m not crying anymore. 

When they all come out, the investigator that’s leading our group walks by me and my throat closes up again. I can’t breathe and tears start running down my face again. I looked at him and yelled you need to get away from me right now. We’ve been buddies all night – laughing together, having a great time. There was nothing about him that upset me and I’m like, get away from me. You need to go, get away from me right now. He’s just looking at me and [my husband is] like, what are you doing? 

So we go out. Everybody’s a little rattled. We walk down the hall, and go back into the chapel. Everybody’s kind of calming down because the energy was a lot. The other woman that was with me also had a very adverse reaction to him. We’re in the chapel and I keep looking at that corner in the room, and Mike [my husband] is sitting next to me. 

We’re sitting on these chairs that outline the chapel and [my husband] says this isn’t right. I’m like, what do you mean? He says we need to get out of here. The person leading the investigation is like where are you going? We don’t want you walking around by yourself. [My husband’s] like, no there’s something bad in here. He’s like, what are you talking about? I said I feel it too. Something’s not right, there’s something over in that corner and whatever is in that corner, I feel scared. We didn’t feel that way here before. 

The guy leading our group leaves for a second and he goes and he gets the person who’s in charge of the whole event. She comes in and she’s like what’s going on in here? She goes, this feels bad in here and again I yell, he needs to get away from me right now. I don’t want him anywhere near me. She’s like, You all need to come with me. So, we had to go have a spiritual cleansing, because whatever evil entity that was down in the service area corridor, latched onto him and came out with him.

So after answering some questions and having a conversation, we had to go outside. We had to be grounded. There was sage going on. After all of that, I was fine with him. He didn’t bother me at all. As a matter of fact, I apologized, but when we were going into areas, they weren’t really telling us the story of the ghosts and they were waiting to see what we felt and what we experienced. 

The ghost in the chapel who was a woman and had died on her wedding day was a very well known and friendly spirit. What followed her, and what followed us out of the service area was one of the hitmen for the mob who took his last walk down there too. He was the guy who murdered most of the prostitutes and the gamblers who got in trouble and then they had him murdered. What followed us pitched onto the investigator in our group, who was the furthest down the corridor and talking about things. I guess they labeled me an empath that spirits seek me out for comfort, and so the reason why my throat closed up was because most of the prostitutes were strangled when they took them down there. 

It was all a very unnerving experience. I walked away from there fully believing. We spent the night in the cabin, which I then dubbed the murder cabins because we did not get any sleep. We were awake all night. Our investigation wrapped up around midnight and then [my husband] and I literally laid awake in bed until the sun came up at 6 and we left exactly at 6 to get out of there. I have never been so uncomfortable in my life. It was wild. 

[My husband], because the first part of the evening was a lot of fun and the light boxes and I was so involved in it, took a ton of videos, lots and lots of videos on his cell phone. None of them turned out. Every single one of them was scrambled, And no other videos on his phone were scrambled before or after. There was never any glitch in his cell phone being able to record before, and he had that cell phone for several years after and video worked fine, but none of the videos of that night worked.

I found out later that apparently there’s a spirit that kind of roams the grounds out there that’s like screaming in the middle of the night that people will hear screams. We didn’t hear screaming, but I read up on it afterwards and I was like, oh my God. We would have driven away at 2 AM if I had heard screaming. We would have left right then. Goodbye! I’m going right back [home], I don’t care that we paid for this room, we are not sleeping. That didn’t happen, thankfully. I don’t think I could have handled it. 

Then, a couple years later they were going to demolish it and they were kind of wondering what was going to happen to the energy there, you know, the spirits, because they got to go somewhere, right? They’re just there. So a few years ago we were at [my friend’s] cabin on a girls’ trip and I had told them all that story. They wanted to go to the Biltmore because it was still open.  

They weren’t having people stay there at the hotel, but the casino was still going and there were like a little bit of things in the gift shop, but not a lot of stuff and they had areas of the hotel roped off, like you couldn’t go upstairs. So [my friends] were like, hey, can we go to some of the spots that you saw on the ghost tour? And I’m like, well we’ll see what we can get into. There are places I will not go. We were able to sneak back behind the tape that they had DO NOT ENTER written on, and of course we went around it, and we entered anyway. 

We went to the chapel and I was talking about the ghost in that chapel, and my eye was not drawn to the service closet at that time. It wasn’t bothering me in there, but I was talking to [my friend T] and [P] about that. We were the only people there, and there’s no other entrances or exits out of the chapel because it’s really small – like the size of a master bedroom. It’s not a big area. 

We’re sitting in the same chair [my husband] and I sat in, and we’re talking a little bit about the experience, and [my friend] was like, I want to see if I can sneak down into that service area. I’m like, no, and she goes, well, it’s just right around the corner and [she wanted] to just poke [her] head in. I’m like, you do you, but I’m not walking in there. Whatever is down there knows me, I’ve had a bad experience there and you cannot give me enough money to walk into that service area again. We don’t have anybody to help us too, so I’m not going. 

We were kind of going back and forth about that. [My other friend] was like, well let’s just go back and find the other girls in the casino, and I’m like, great. We get up and [my friend] still kind of talking about going to peek her head in. [My other friend] and I are walking side by side, and [the first friend] elsewhere in the room not near us, and your mom gets shoved on the shoulder on the side I’m not on as we’re walking out. She jumps. 

She’s like, what? What was that? I’m like, what do you mean? She goes, something just shoved my shoulder. I’m like, no way. That’s a warning. We are not to go down that service corridor. I’m like, you’re not going down there. And so we didn’t.”

My thoughts: This story was extremely interesting for me as a listener, because of all of the factors that make up this story. This experience has motifs such as an unwanted spirit that has potential unfinished business with whom had killed them in the mafia tunnels. Additionally, there’s a spirit possession that happens to our narrator, and physical elements like her friend being pushed by a spirit allegedly. I think its funny that she willingly went back to the place that traumatized her after only a few years and even brought her friends, but it’s good that they all god warnings and left before they experienced anything worse possibly.

The Ball that Came Back

“When I was growing up with my sister, we had shared a bedroom, and this was in Thousand Oaks, California.

And her bed was on one side of the room and my bedroom was on.

My bed was on the other side of the room. We were. One night, we were both in our beds, and we were tossing a ball back and forth to each other.

Right. You know, she missed when she went to throw the ball to me, she had, like.

Didn’t throw enough power, so went underneath my bed.

So it took about, like, you know, 10 seconds. I went, oh, faster. God, I gotta go under here. When I tried to reach underneath there, the ball went flying right to her.

Which scared her and I to, you know, to pieces. This is so needless to say. So that evening we went to bed, and in the middle of the night, I was woken up by my mom saying, are you okay?

Are you okay? And I didn’t know what was going on. I somehow had my tongue underneath. My tongue was severed.

Yeah, so I don’t know how. There’s no way you can bite. You can’t, like, you know, bite your tongue. That’s impossible. It was clean. Like, just a clean cut, too. Just, you know, the thing that attaches your tongue to the bottom of your jaw.

So that was completely cut. So, like, the. We were. I was raised Mormon growing up. I. I’m no longer Mormon. I actually believe in more spiritual, like, Native American Indian spiritual, that type of belief.

Anyway, she. So. So they. The priest came and took me. They didn’t take me to the hospital. I don’t know why. They. I went to church. The church had stitched it up. They did, like. Like, a cleansing blessing, which I thought was interesting in hindsight. This house. This house had. Was. There’s six siblings in my family. We always consider, like, there was just a weird, creepy thing.

This isn’t like that. This is the. The Terrence. It’s like, always weird creepy things that would happen.

Like my younger brother. We had a babysitter. My mom was actually kind of whatever. She went to babies. And my younger brother was somehow pushed out of the second story window.

And, yeah, he. So somehow he ended up being. He doesn’t remember because he was like, four or five.

He got up to the second story window and was thrown out, and he broke his.

Shattered his pelvis and stuff like that. No, he was younger because he was like three. He couldn’t even crawl yet. So he had to be really young. Anyway, this is the same house where this weird shenanigans would happen.

You know, you’d hear, like, you know, knocking, which we thought it was always the, you’re my brother, or, you know, because there’s six of us. You always thought it was like, oh, is one of the siblings kind of messing with you?

Right, right. Well, you know, after that experience of having that ball and, you know, being thrown, you know, you know, across the way and then having my tongue severed, you know, even more strange things started to happen.

That’s just kind of like where it kind of all started, you know, realizing, well, there’s probably more to this.”

Context

  • The informer has been my next-door neighbor for the last 17 years. She talked to me in a Zoom interview.
  • The story takes place in her childhood home
  • She told me this story because I asked if she had any ghost stories to share with me, now that I study this in college, and collecting field stories is one of our class activities.

Her thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.

Her Thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My Thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.