Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

A Ghostly Warning

Nationality: Iranian- American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Language: English

Text: I was sleeping on my mom’s bed with my older brother. I woke up to the sound of a creaking door and looked through the doorframe to see the figure of tall woman. She had the most wrinkly skin I had ever seen, and a distinctively red lipstick. She was looking directly at me, but her hand was pointing elsewhere. I followed it to my brothers sleeping body, and when I looked back to where she was standing she had disappeared.

Context: Informant was in elementary school when this event occurred. Informant’s parents had recently divorced, and this was the reason him and his brother were sleeping in the same bed as their mother. Following this event, the informant was worried for the safety of their brother. They believed the figure was warning him of something bad to come. Informant is now indifferent to the situation, as the brother is well, but still remembers the event vividly. They now believe the experience was likely fueled by emotions relating to their parent’s crumbling relationship.

Analysis: This memorate follows a typical structure in which the informant interprets a ghostly figure as a messenger. What makes this account particularly significant is the way it demonstrates how supernatural experiences are shaped not only by what is perceived, but also by the emotional state of the individual experiencing them. At the time, the informant was dealing with the emotional impact of his parents’ divorce, which may have heightened his sensitivity to perceived threats or signs. It’s possible that the figure pointing at his brother was not just an insignificant gesture, but a projection of the informant’s deeper fear of losing his sibling relationship. Without the emotional strain of that situation, the event may not have been interpreted, or even remembered, in the same way. I find this especially compelling because I have a similar memorate tied to my parents’ divorce, which leads me to believe that memorates can be shaped not only by cultural tradition, but also by shared emotional experiences. In this sense, supernatural encounters can become deeply personal expressions during times of internal trouble.

Haunted Palm Tree

Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Residence: Eastvale, CA
Language: English

Text

“Back in high school my buddies and I would go skateboarding down this one long trail in Eastvale. I believe it was called the Silverlake trail. I never paid attention to the name of this trail. Two of my friends actually found it and thought this would be a fun path for us to skate in.

One summer evening between our junior and senior year, there was a small fire in the brush caused by some other high schoolers who probably were smoking weed. In this small fire, a singular palm tree caught up in flames. It was weird because none of the other trees caught on fire. It was just this one. 

My friends thought it would be interesting to explore the site of where the fire took place. I don’t have reasoning as to why we actually did this but we did. To up the antics, one of them suggested we do a campout near the burnt tree and tell ghost stories.

Personally, I did not think this was a good idea. I’ve never been one for scary movies and anything paranormal. But I wanted to hang out with everyone, so I tried to be a good sport. 

At first it was all fun and games. We wrestled each other. Ate chips and drank soda. Then the night started to get weird. There was a lot of howling from the coyotes in the area. To me, I saw it as a warning that things could get bad but the boys started howling with them.

When we went to bed in our tents, the vibes were tense. Some of them were telling ghost stories and true crime. Not my cup of tea. I don’t remember what time it was but it was late and I had to pee.

I left the tent to pee outside and happened to be sort of near that burnt palm tree. It was just me, the wilderness, and the urge to pee. Then out of nowhere it sounded like a female voice whispered in my ear. 

I turned my head to look who was there but no one was there. I thought it was creepy. I know I shouldn’t have done this next part but curiosity kills the cat. I went up to the burnt tree to examine it up close.

Again, I heard a female whisper behind me and nobody was there when I looked. This spooked me out big time and I rushed back to my tent. After a week or so of this trip, I saw at a Walmart a missing girl poster and the location she was last seen was at the park close to where we did our camp out. 

I’m not saying that the voice I heard could have been this girl but it’s very likely that it could have been. I haven’t been back there since just in case it was actually a ghost. I do not mess around with that stuff”

Context

The informant is directly involved in the experience since he is the narrator and main character of the story. His relationship to the story is personal and emotional since he heard the voice firsthand and felt fear about the possible supernatural encounter. This isn’t a story that he heard from someone else since it originated from his own lived experience. The informant doesn’t definitively claim that what happened was paranormal but his retelling suggests a sense of lingering fear and spiritual possibility. The informant treats the story with a blend of skepticism and belief suggest that he is trying to still make sense of the experience.

My Interpretation

My interpretation of this ghost story was that he had the environment around him emphasize the potential that he might have actually been in the presence of a ghost. The atmosphere of the night was already unsettling with the coyotes howling and his friends telling ghost stories. I can assume that he had a sense of paranoia and apprehension from all of this. The fact that he hasn’t returned since the incident shows he has a respectful fear of the supernatural and a belief that something unexplainable occurred. 

I can also see how this memorate can reveal how young people navigate fear, peer pressure, and the unexplained within the cultural framework of suburban Southern California. At the core of this narrative, it is about a young person negotiating fear and social acceptance in high school which is a time of formative years for one’s personal identity. The informant admits he is not into scary stories or the paranormal but he joins his friends on this campout to not be left out. This small detail reveals the tension between individual discomfort and social bonding particularly among teenage boys, where rejecting the group’s daredevil antics might be perceived as weakness. This moment then becomes a rite of passage with the burnt tree almost acting like a test of courage. The informant’s choice to investigate the whisper despite being spooked suggests an inner pull between self-preservation and peer-driven bravery which is a subtle commentary on how young men are often taught to suppress fear or curiosity in the name of toughness. His eventual retreat and long-term avoidance of the site show that while he played along, the experience marked him deeply.

The story also embeds itself in a California suburban landscape with Eastvale’s skate trail, coyotes, and brush fires, grounding the paranormal encounter in a place that might otherwise seem mundane. But here, that same landscape becomes charged with mystery. The singular burnt palm tree, eerily untouched by surrounding fire, becomes a physical symbol of anomaly and rupture, suggesting that even in familiar places, there can be danger or forces beyond control. The informant’s encounter with the missing girl poster later links personal fear to a broader cultural narrative about safety, loss, and the forgotten. It raises questions about who goes missing and who is remembered. The ghostly whisper could symbolize a desire for justice or recognition, reinforcing how haunted stories often become folk expressions of unresolved trauma, especially involving young women whose stories are often silenced or overlooked.

Also although the informant doesn’t claim definitively that the voice belonged to the missing girl, the juxtaposition of the whisper and the poster invites that interpretation. This suggests that ghost stories can serve as a form of community remembrance or even unofficial testimony. In folk tradition, ghosts often appear not just to scare, but to speak truth, to bear witness to injustice, or to reclaim space where violence has occurred.

The story, then, functions not just as an eerie tale, but as a meditation on memory, guilt, and silence. The informant never goes back, not only out of fear, but perhaps out of a subconscious respect or acknowledgment that something sacred, tragic, or unexplainable happened there. It suggests a lingering sense of responsibility or unease, even if the informant can’t fully articulate it.

Mermaid Sighting on Navy Boat

Nationality: American
Age: 85
Occupation: retired
Residence: Tustin, CA
Language: English

Text

“Back in the mid-60s I served in the U.S. Navy. At this time, the Vietnam War was going on and I was stationed somewhere in the South of France. I forgot how to pronounce it at this point. Maybe it was Toulon or Cannes. It’s been so long.

Sometimes in the Navy, we would have to be on the boat for weeks at a time. After a while, it felt like we were all going crazy on there. Tight quarters are no joke. 

One evening, I was out on the deck with my buddy Thompson, talking about how we miss our family and home. Then he jumps up and points at something jumping out of the water. “It’s a mermaid.” “A mermaid.” Now let me tell you, seeing this man get excited over some human fish was something else. 

At first, I didn’t believe that it was a mermaid but maybe more a dolphin or flying fish. But I could tell that something about this one felt off. It looked like it had hair. It was jumping around too much to really tell if it was human or just fish. I like to believe that maybe it was a mermaid. It sometimes feels like being out at sea makes life feel like the world is playing tricks on my eyesight, since I have bad eyes. This could be why I couldn’t tell if it was a real mermaid or not. I hope it was.”

Context

This is a firsthand, lived experience of a sailor in the U.S. Navy in the mid-1960s during the Vietnam War. The story takes placed while stationed off the southern coast of Fance which is important because Mediterranean ports usually were used by allied forces. The event is told with a mix of sincerity and playfulness showing that while the informant may not claim absolute belief in seeing the mermaid, the memory is meaningful and endearing. The mention of “bad eyes” adds a layer of ambiguity and humility by acknowledging the unreliability of perception at sea while still leaving space for belief.

His story is also not just shaped by visual experience but also by the social environment of navla life which includes stress, fatigue, nostalgia and boredom. All of these can affect how events are perceived and remembered. 

The informant doesn’t fully commit to the sighting being a mermaid but clearly wants to believe it could have been. This reflects how folk belief becomes a coping mechanism especially in isolated, high-stress environments like life at sea during wartime. This story also is not just about seeing a mermaid; it’s about missing family, home, and human connection. The mermaid becomes a symbol of those desires: beauty, mystery, and something beyond the naval life. 

Interpretation

At the core of this story, it is about loneliness and the fragile human psyche under stress. The story begins with a quiet, human moment between two sailors reflecting on the things they missed most while being overseas. This setting of emotional vulnerability frames the entire experience. When the narrator’s friend spots what be believes is a mermaid, the narrator reacts with both skepticism and curiosity. While he questions what he say, he still says “I hope it was” revealing a deeper desire to believe in something beautiful and magical amidst the harshness of life at sea. This detail reflects the emotional strain of military service especially during long deployments. The physical confinement of the ship underscores the mental stress that comes from routine, distance from loved ones, and the inability to escape one’s surroundings. The mermaid, real or not, becomes a symbol of hope, wonder, and escape.

This story also taps into a long-standing tradition in seafaring cultures which is the myth of the mermaid. Across history, sailors have told stories of mysterious sea creatures, especially during extended perios at sea when sensory deprivation, homesickness, and boredom blur the line between reality and imagination. The narrator’s openness to the idea of having seen a mermaid despite his doubts, reflects a cultural value placed on keeping wonder alive even in adulthood and even in uniform. These stories serve a psychological purpose of injectubg mystery and storytelling into an otherwise repetitive experience. Folklore in this context becomes a coping tool and a shared language of meaning among naval members. 

Also, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, this story captures the emotional and mental toll of military displacement. Though the narrator was stationed far from the combat zones, the mental and emotional experience of being in the Navy during wartime shaped how he processed the world around him.

When the narrator mentions his poor eyesight and how “the world plays tricks” on him at sea, he gestures toward something profound: the way military life can distort time, space, and perception. Long deployments blur days together, and the vast, empty sea becomes a canvas for imagination and longing.

The memory, recalled decades later, is preserved not for its certainty but for what it represents. It lingers because it carries emotional weight, not because it demands scientific proof. The story becomes a piece of personal folklore, where truth is measured more in feeling than in fact.

Whispers of a ghost

Date_of_performance: 03/29/2025

Informant Name: BT

Language: English 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student 

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles 

Interview:

BT: I don’t necessarily believe, like I have my own spiritual beliefs. So like I don’t necessarily fully believe in ghosts, but like I have had like my own like parental experience.

BT: My mom is a realtor and she like does probably way more than like a realtor should do. Like she does like duties in her work that she’s, I’m like, okay, you should like have the client probably do that. But these clients like moved out of their house. And they left it like a little bit messy. But I think that they were probably like in a hurry to move out and everything.

BT: So she’s like, Hey, can you guys, like to me and my older sister, can you guys go and help me clean this stuff? We’re like, Yeah, of course.

BT: So, we went to the house and it was like, main floor was kind of big, upstairs was like a little lost.area and then downstairs like you walk down the stairs and there’s a room on this side of the room. *she gestures to the left with her hands*

BT: So we, my sister and I went downstairs, my mom stayed upstairs and I go and it’s scary because I don’t know if it’s a paranormal experience or if someone was literally in the house.But I go downstairs and I’m like first, like I’m going down and my sister’s going down behind me. And I look to the right in this room, it’s dark. It’s like after the sun went down, so it’s also dark outside. And I look in that room, don’t see anything.

BT: I look to my left and then there’s like a walkout basement, it’s a walkout basement, so there was a door. The door was open. *pause* The door was wide open, like leading to outside. So I was like, okay. I was like, let me just go shut it, ’cause we were like, maybe it was the wind, like maybe the family didn’t lock in.

ME: Yeah. Yeah

BT: And I had no explanation as to why it was open. So I went from the stairs into the room, the door was here, I closed the door, and I walked in.

ME: Okay.

BT: On my way back, I kind of stop here, so like here’s the stairs. My sister’s at the bottom. And I’m like, to my sister, oh, I don’t know why that was, I don’t know why that was open.

BT: But like, I don’t really survey the rest of the room. ‘Cause I was like, kind of jogging back because I was freaked out by the door being opened. And so as I’m saying that to my sister, and suddenly I hear heavy breathing…

ME: Oh my god! That’s terrifying.

BT: I hear very like heavy breathing from like the corner of the room, but it’s dark, so I can’t really see. It’s like shadowy, so I’m like, and I don’t even take a look. It’s like shadowy, so I’m like, and I don’t even take a look or even want to look back.

BT: I literally, I swear like adrenaline, I think. I literally carried my sister like up the stairs, ’cause I was pushing her, like she didn’t hear it.

ME: Oh my god.

BT: that I literally carried my sister like up the stairs, ’cause I was pushing her, like she didn’t hear it. She was like at the bottom of the stairs. And I was like, go, like go, go, go, go, pushing her up the stairs trying to get out. So we literally ran up the stairs and like fell, like I literally fell up the stairs. Once I got to the top, I fell on the ground. Once I got to the top, I fell on the ground. My mom was standing at the top of the stairs because she heard us running up in a hurry and she was like “What the heck just happened?” And I was like, I think that there’s someone downstairs.

ME: Oh my god.

BT: And I told her I heard someone breathing right in my ear. And I was like, someone literally opened the door and the door is open, so I think a person was downstairs. And so my mom was like, “Okay, let me go check.” She goes down and there’s no one.

ME: That’s crazy!

BT: So I’m like, either it was a real person, which is even scary to me. It’s like they waited  before my mom got down there, and they’re gone. So that was my only like– Oh my god. Yeah, and it just felt eerie and weird and scary to me.

ME: No, that would freak me out.

BT: Yeah, it was freaky. It was probably like 8 o’clock we had gotten there. So it was like sun was going down and then by the time we went downstairs, it was dark.

ME: That would be the last time im every entering that house again.

BT: Exactly! It’s like I’m not messing with it. I’m not messing with any ghosts in there. But that’s my personal paranormal experience. I hope that is helpful!

ME: That’s perfect! That’s amazing!

My interpretation

I want to believe that this was a ghost that my friend heard down in the basement. If it was a person, I feel like she would’ve heard footsteps if they walked back inside or coming up behind her. And since her mom is a realtor, she definitely would’ve down a check down there after the clients left or heard the door open. Her sister also didn’t hear the whisper herself, so it likely is a ghost. And if it was someone trying to scare her, they would’ve done more than just breathe, they could’ve talked or grabbed her arm to really freak her out. She mentioned how she has her own spiritual beliefs and that could fall under believing in ghosts. This also could be a psychological feeling, she got freaked out by the door being opened and thought she heard something, since her mom didn’t see anything, so I am leaning towards it being a ghost or her imagination.















































Flickering Lights

Date_of_performance: 04/03/2025

Informant Name: VL

Language: English/Spanish 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student 

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles

Interview:

VL: Hmm my next door neighbor had a chandelier that started flickering and then it lifted/turned upside down/swinging and the painting that it was in front of fell off the wall.man it was so long ago I don’t remember a lot of the details.I think it maybe was over a course of a few days and it was progressively getting worse until the painting fell.

VL: Oh yeah the painting was of the Virgin Mary, forgot to mention that first.

ME: Do you know if they ended up moving or getting rid of it?

VL: nope they stayed for a while after that and I’m pretty sure they kept the painting. They kept the chandelier too.

ME: Hm okay! Do you know if they talked about anything weird going on in the house or did you mainly see the light flickering?

VL: Apparently the whole house was haunted, at least that is what my friends would say to me. But the chandelier lights flickering and the painting falling was just a big moment I remember the most.

ME: Wow! That’s helpful to know about the house.

VL: But there was always noises or things falling by itself in the house when they were there.

ME: How long have they lived there for? And were the lights always flickering or something that happened suddenly.

VL: Damn they lived there forever probably more than 2 decades, *pauses* if im remembering correctly. And I think the flickering happened suddenly.

ME: Wow! That’s perfect! I think that is all I need. Thank you for your help.

Interpretation

What stood out to me the most was that the painting was of Virgin Mary, which is known for being a symbol of purity, divine grace and motherhood. So that painting falling down instead of any other work of art they may have, could be read as a sign that there is a force in their house haunting it and trying get rid of anything that could be seen as a protection or pure. When lights flicker in horror or thriller movies, it is a scene that there is an evil sprit in the room that is either trying to gain control and take over or kill someone. Or simply sending them a spiritual message to back off and move out. I want to think it is more than just a faulty electrical wire or connection, if the painting of Virgin Mary didn’t start falling down with it, I would believe they just need to fix what wire is connected to the chandelier. They also have lived in the house for so long, there is a possibility that while they have lived there, a ghost or paranormal spiritual could’ve came in and started to slowly haunting them until it become obvious. VL said the family still leaves there, so the spirit hasn’t done anything harmful so maybe it left after scaring them for a bit or showing that they were there and could come back.