Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Moorpark’s Gravity Hill

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cardinal Gardens apartments, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: November 3rd, 2011
Primary Language: English

The story teller was a USC student from the city of Moorpark, about an hour north of LA. She grew up in Moorpark, and is from a Japanese American background. This ghost story was collected late at night, walking on a dimly lit street through campus.

 

Me: First of all, where did you hear this ghost story?

K: Uhm I mean, someone told me, it was just a casual thing, someone told me at someone’s house, it wasn’t a dark scary night or anything. But everyone hears this story at one point or another living there.  So, there is this place in Moorpark, called Gravity hill and its back in…people don’t live back there. Its like farm land, getting into the orange trees and everything, I don’t know anyone who lives back there. I’ve only been back there for this place. So basically, there is this place where supposedly there used to be train tracks and a bus full of kids stalled in front of these train tracks, a long time ago, no one ever told me when. And they couldn’t get the bus off the train tracks, and it was full of kids, and a train started coming and hit the bus and everyone in the bus died. All the kids died. So they say this place is haunted by these little kids, and that if you put your car….if you go to this place and you go to this certain spot and put your car in neutral, and let it sit there, the kids will come, and think you’re stuck there, and they will push your car up hill to try and save you, you go up gravity hill. So we tried it this one time, homecoming night, freshman year, went there before the dance. So we went to this place, and it was my friend’s older sister who was driving the car, and so she had to find the right spot. So she put her car in neutral, and we’re sitting there, and then all of the sudden the car started moving forward. And, I mean, its not that big of a slope, its like a little tiny bit of a slope, and your car starts rolling up hill. Its like, the creepiest thing ever. I heard that some people like to put flour on the back of their car and they check it when they get up the hill, and check for handprints later. Which, I mean, there are rumors about people finding handprints in the flour but I don’t really believe them, but people say that they do.

 

Me: At the time did you believe any of it?

 K: Uhhhh, I don’t know. I don’t really believe in ghosts. I honestly don’t, I mean, I would have to actually look up the history to see if there were actually train tracks there to believe it. If I found out that there were actually train tracks and this did actually happen, I might believe it a little.

Me: Do you think there is any other explanation other than some sort of other worldly spirit?

K: (Laughs) Uhh, I mean, maybe putting your car in neutral doesn’t really put your car all the way in neutral and maybe you have a little gas putting you up the hill? I don’t know, the hill is really small.  So it’s not like….maybe people don’t realize at the very end of where you put your car at there is a little down slope first, you know? I don’t know. You do roll a significant amount forward though, I don’t know. It ‘s kind of creepy. I got goose bumps there, and I was freaked out. I locked my doors.

 

After I heard this story, I was quite speculative myself. Being an engineering that trusts in the good laws of science, I knew this was physically impossible, and that a car could not roll uphill. I did some research using the keyword “gravity hill”. I found an interesting article covering an in depth investigation of how this happens, at it is reported as a common phenomena at various places around the world. The conclusion that they came to was that the car does not actually roll uphill, but rather downhill, and the upward slope that people see is actually an optical illusion caused by the surrounding landscape and curvature of the road. What I find fascinating about this ghost story is that it has an interesting legend, complete with spirits of children, and people are able to go and see it for themselves. Due to the variety of places that have reported this occurring, there is great potential for a variety of different ghost stories to explain why this occurs. These ghost stories could vary by location or culture, and have unique stories, different than the children pushing the car.

 

Source:

 

Richards, David. “IIG | Gravity Hill Investigation.” IIG | The Independent Investigations Group. Independent Investigations Group, 07 Jan. 2006. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. <http://www.iigwest.com/investigations/2006/20060107_gravityhill.html>.

Lindsay Strongin-ghost story 2- Boy Scout Camp

Nationality: African American/Jewish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 11/5/11
Primary Language: English

11/5/11

This interview took place as follows:

 

Me: So you said you have camp ghost stories?

 

M.G.:  I have one.  So this campground is in Rancho Los Flores which is a desert.  It was a Boy Scout camp. I heard this story from the Boy Scout patrol leader of troupe 450.  Every time the boy scouts go camping there we always took the younger scouts on a snipe hunt.  A snipe is a bird that can’t fly but doesn’t exist in this part of the country… so it’s a goose hunt.

 

Me: Wait I thought it was a Snipe hunt.

 

M.G.:  Ha-ha…very funny.

 

Me: Okay sorry, back to business.  So basically, no one is ever going to actually catch a snipe on the hunt.  Go on.

 

M.G.:  So one night the troupes had taken 3 or 4 cubs out and three of the scouts went with them and they came back with two cub scouts and the other two were missing.  They searched all night to find them and couldn’t.  It was about 3am when one of the cub scouts came running back and had informed the older boys that the other scout was gone.  So they took the one Cub Scout and went out looking in the area where they had lost the Cub Scout.  They searched to find a trail of some kind and one of the boy scouts had found the neckerchief of one of the cub scouts and then they found other pieces of his uniform further down the trail…a hat… a compass…the compass was pointing south which was the opposite direction they’d come from so they had pretty much begun to give up and go back and then they began to hear this whimpering.  They followed the sound and as they got closer the whimpering turned into sobbing.  When they got to the source they looked down and found this little girl who was covering her face.  The boy scouts told the Cub Scout to go back and when they turned around he wasn’t there anymore so they turned back to the little girl asking questions and she just kept crying.  One knelt down to her and the sobbing turned into this creepy hysterical laughter and he said “what’s wrong?” and she said “I killed them” and they said “killed who?” and she responded “your friends.”  So all of a sudden they heard a loud scream from the two boys… and after that they were never heard from again.

 

Me: So what/who was this girl in the woods?

 

M.G.:  Whatever she was…she wasn’t good.  There was enough physical manifestation of her for these boys to think she was human…or alive in some way.  I think the point of the story was that while you’re looking for kids lost…you find another kid that’s lost…but this story is just purely to scare the kids and the snipe hunts are real and when you’re a kid and you hear these older boys talking about this stuff and the whole point is you’re never going to catch a snipe! They don’t exist on this part of the country!  It’s a ritual. They trick you consistently into thinking you’re going to catch one.  It’s a tradition.  The horror story is part of that.  The idea is that weird stuff happens at this specific camp ground. It’s just a scary story for the kids.

 

Me: Right, is this legend or story supposed to be true, or is it supposed to be fun fiction in the woods?

 

M.G:  This is supposedly a true story.  It’s told only to scare the kids but not enough so they never want to come back, it’s for fun.  We had an experience where we went out snipe hunting with the older boys and we all split up and you don’t travel far from the group and we all came back but the boy scout that had told us the story…well they came back him and his cub scout said “oh when we were out there I saw a girl out in the field and she kind of just disappeared”  and we thought oh maybe he had told the kid to say this but we weren’t that far from each other so somebody would have heard him egg the kid on and the reaction the older boy scout had seemed pretty genuine.  He looked pretty shocked.  After that I sort of remember everybody kind of immediately going back to their tents not really wanting to stay outside.

 

Me:  So is this area known for being haunted?

 

M.G.:  I don’t think so…although that weird personal incident makes me think otherwise, but the story is only told by the boy scouts every year as a Boy Scout tradition.  I’m sure they’d tell it no matter where they went camping.  So whether or not the story is true or whether or not the girl is in the woods, the boys are going to tell the story to scare the kids no matter what just to keep the tradition alive, it’s part of the fun of being a boy scout.

 

Me:  Yeah I loved being a boy scout…

 

M.G.: Good one.

 

Me: Thanks.

 

As emphasized in various cultures and texts regarding ghost stories, this one seems to emphasize the importance of ghost stories as a cultural ritual.  There is a sense that we often tell ghost stories for the sole purpose of sustaining traditions in our culture and passing these rituals down through the generations.  I am not sure I necessarily believe the truth behind this story, considering the ambiguity of the ghost girl’s existence, even as a ghost (non-existence?), but I do know that this story holds importance and prominence in a sense that without it, the boy  scouts would be without a whole tradition. The telling of this story, and even the snipe hunt are both a bonding experience—the story probably provides a bonding between the scouts in fearfulness and nervous excitement while out on the camping trip with the other boy scouts which provides for an overall exciting retreat and a feeling of camaraderie as a team.  There is perhaps a sense with this story that they are strengthening the bond between the members, and initiating the young ones into the club allowing them to build their bond with the older members, bringing them all together.  In a way, this story is more about building relationships and life-long companions through upholding traditions, than it is about the ghost itself.

Lindsay Strongin-ghost story 1- New Hampshire

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 11/4/11
Primary Language: English

11/5/11

Interview takes place as follows:

 

Me: Tell me your ghost story

 

L.M.:  Okay. So this takes place in New Hampshire in an area where this place was converted from a Catholic school into apartments and the building used to be a dormitory in the catholic school.  So the rumor goes that during the last five years of the catholic girls’ school, before it got turned into an apartment, there were about 15-20 murders that took place.  Behind the dormitory they were getting buried behind the school area. But after these were turned into apartments there was a rumor about the dance hall that they had kept the same.  The rumor was that after a certain hour, you could hear the tapping across the dance floor as if people were dancing and you could hear a live orchestra as if there was a ball going on.  Apparently this would happen late at night or early in the morning between 12am and 2am. I don’t really know what would trigger it other than the idea that it always occurred late at night…it was almost the idea that if you were in there past a certain hour, you were disturbing them…

 

Me: them being?

 

L.M.: the spirits…

 

ME:  spirits?

 

L.M.: Yes because we couldn’t really see anything. I think the difference between a spirit and a ghost is that with a spirit you can’t see anything but with a ghost there would be some type of physical manifestation.

 

ME: Who did you hear this story from?

 

L.M.: I heard this from my friend whose dad lives in the apartment building.

 

ME: Do they still live there?

 

L.M. My friend doesn’t but his dad still does.

 

Me:  So is that the extent of the tale or is there more?

 

L.M.:  No, there’s never been anything truly scary happen.  It’s just spooky and the rumor is basically that if you stay past a certain hour, you’ll definitely hear them.

 

ME: I see.  So you said you had a personal experience in there?

 

L.M.: Yes.  So I was 17 years old going out to New Hampshire.  We were staying with my friend and they had converted the room next to the dance hall to a game room.  My friend had told me the ghost story the night before and we didn’t really think anything of it, but the next night we were in the game room.  The only division between the game room and the dance hall are two glass double doors so you can see right through them.  It was 12:30am and we were playing pool and we stopped because we heard this tapping and my friend went to the door to see if anybody was at the entrance and nobody was there.  Then 15 minutes later we heard the tapping again and this time it was a little louder, a little stronger…maybe more forceful, and we stopped to listen and it stopped again.  Then about ten minutes later we were listening to hip hop music, all of a sudden it sounded like there was a classical orchestra/ballroom orchestra playing music but nobody was there.  So we turned off the radio and the ballroom music continued.  Then we went into the dance hall and the music got louder as if we were in a ball.  We basically ran out of there.

 

ME: So you think the ballroom music and tapping were “spirits”?

 

L.M.: Yes and the reason why  was because when the tapping started we thought maybe it was somebody upstairs and we asked but there’s no room between the roof of the game room and the dance room, so basically it was in its own designated area and there was nothing above us.  Then when we went out onto the dance floor, you could still hear everything as if it was there, but it didn’t feel like there was a presence there…it was as if it was separated from this dimension, yet we could hear it.   This building is people’s homes, so it’s probably not that accessible in terms of visiting for ghost sightings but it is definitely a building that one would be able to find.

 

Me: What city in New Hampshire?

 

L.M.: Near Lake Winnepasaki

 

Me: Do you know how old the story goes back?

 

L.M.: It was a pretty well-known catholic girls’ finishing school before it was an apartment building.  The apartment building was the dormitory the girls used before it was refinished and fixed up a bit.   It was probably a finishing school around the late 80s.

 

ME: Alright.  Any other thoughts you’d like to add?  Interpretations?

 

L.M.:  No, I mean it was a spooky experience that I don’t really understand.  The legend proved itself to me that night though, what was supposed to happen pretty much happened and we weren’t going to stick around to see what might happen next.

 

Similarly to the way others avoid admittance of belief in ghosts, L.M. did not want to fully conceptualize the existence of ghosts in her story.  She had not seen anything, and as you can see, she attributed that to the idea that ghosts can be seen as opposed to spirits which can simply be heard according to her personal theory.  Therefore she did not fully want to admit to having had an encounter with “ghosts” per say, but she did respond with this tale when I had initially asked about “ghost stories.”  Personally, I’ve never been one to distinguish specific differences between ghosts, spirits, phantoms, or whatever else people might refer to these “things” as.  In my opinion, if you have an encounter with the paranormal, it’s the paranormal—there’s not much of a difference.  I tend to think of all of these manifestations as ghosts and/or spirits, with plenty of overlap and equality between the two terms.  It sounds as though the occurrence of the ballroom music and the tap dancing are unexplainable, and I believe in these experiences; I believe in ghosts.  It theoretically could be explained by means of psychological illusions, other sounds that were mistaken for tapping or music, or tapping and music coming from somewhere else, but considering the ghost story that accompanies the dance hall, and the fact that her personal story matched it, I feel that there is definitely the possibility that this story is one of ghosts haunting the remains of an old catholic school and that’s all there is to it.

Collection 1: Ghost at Toys ‘R’ Us

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 18
Occupation: Student/ Cashier
Residence: Sunnyvale, CA
Performance Date: November 6, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Ever since our professor, Dr. Tok Thompson, vaguely told us about a recent ghost story reported in the Toys ‘R’ Us in my hometown, Sunnyvale, California. I’ve decided to investigate more about the ghost by getting in touch with my one closest my friends who works at this store. For the purpose of this assignment, I will conceal the name of the interviewee and replace it with Haley.

Me: So I heard the Toy ‘R’ Us in our town is haunted?

Haley: Yes it is! At least once of week I will see some crazy shit happen while working.

Me: Do you know the history of the store?

Haley: Yeah… Well according my store manager, the Toy ‘R’ Us (this store is now spilt in half… half is Toy ‘R’ Us and the other half Baby ‘R’ Us, but customers have access to both stores once inside) was built on top of some old dude’s house. Rumors have it, the guy’s name is Tom and he died in his house, but no one knows how. After his death, Toys ‘R’ Us was built and some pieces of the house still remain here. In the store, we have a dividing wall that splits both Toy ‘R’ Us and Baby ‘R’ Us apart, and at the corner of wall there is a doorbell that rings back office’s bell, people say this doorbell belongs to old house which was once here.

Me: That’s crazy. So do you think Tom’s spirit never left his house, and now lives inside the store?

Haley: Hell yes it does! It was around 1 am, last Christmas that I had to work the late night shift after our annual sale. While I was restocking toys in the back, all of a sudden, a whole rack of toys fell from the shelf. I was frightened. I thought another employee might of have tipped the toys off the shelf, but no one was there. I was scared. I told my manager, and he joked that Tom made an appearance. Ever since then, I truly believe the store is haunted.

Me: Oh god. I learned in my ghost story class that crazy shit happens around midnight (liminal time) and probably Tom has some unfinished business that he needs to take care of… Or possibly he never had a proper burial, and/or his spirits did not like the fact a store was built directly on his property. I have to say, this is fairly spooky. Do you any more stories where “Tom” made an appearance?

Haley: Well… I have seen three surveillance videos where the front doors of the store all of a sudden open and then shut close without tripping the alarm…. also there was another time when a Filipino lady came out screaming from the women’s restroom because she felt something/someone touch her while she was using the restroom. I am used it to now. I just make sure not work the late shifts nor use the restrooms while working. I am not planning to stay here that long, so that’s why I’m not trippin’ about this place.

Me: Well thank you Haley, you told a great story! Can’t wait to see you again.

My reaction: I truly believe this story was a ghost story because she experienced an instance where things fell without anyone being present in the room during liminal time. I also feel that Tom lingers around Toy ‘R’ Us for many reasons, improper burial, the remains of his house belong to him, and/or possibly he has some unfinished business he needs to take care of.

 

The Ghost of Lawrence Hall at Asheville School

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student-Writing for Screen and Television Major-USC
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 5th, 2011
Primary Language: English

 

The Ghost of Lawrence Hall

My boyfriend went to boarding school at The Asheville School in Asheville, North Carolina. He was born in Boone, North Carolina and grew up there. He knows a few ghost stories that have been passed down over time at his school. The school has been around for over 100 years and has a romantic, isolated setting. He told me this story a few weeks ago:

JH: “When I was in high school, one of the older kids told me this story about the hallway that I lived in my senior year. So, back in the 20s, my high school, The Asheville School in North Carolina was an all boys school. One of the dormitories called Lawrence Hall had three floors of all boys with 24 rooms in each hallway. Now, at the end of each hallway was a faculty apartment where young faculty members and their families would live. Legend has it, that on the third floor, which was the top floor, there was a faculty apartment and in it lived a young biology teacher and her husband, who was a soccer coach. There was also an African American janitor that would clean all three halls day and night. He would get paid to clean the hallways and clean the bathrooms. The dormitory bathrooms are next to the faculty apartments. So, most of the time he would just clean during the day when he was supposed to. However, he started coming around at odd hours, especially when the biology teacher’s husband was away. The kids on the third floor started believing that the janitor was having an affair with the biology teacher, which was a big taboo back then and would have been preposterous.

So there was this attic in the roof that has been a part of the building forever and practically no one ever goes there. The attic stairs are right next to the faculty apartment. The janitor had been working on the third floor a lot and cleaning up the attic and what not. And one night, it was about 2 am, when some students swore that they heard crashing, sounds of a fight and then screaming. No one thought too much of it though and it blew over the next morning. Once it came to be the afternoon, people figured out that they had no idea where the janitor was. He just never showed up to work that day. Eventually, a person went up to the attic to see if he was in there. And he was. He was dead in the attic.  It looked like he was trying to stack something up on a shelf in the attic, and it had fallen down, smashed his head and broken his neck. But of course, the question always remains, is that actually what happened? Or did the biology teacher’s husband kill him and put him up there and set up the scene? It was never fully looked into and it was reported as an accident.

            So now it is believed that the ghost of the janitor haunts the place, especially the attic and the third floor. There were a lot of odd squeaking sounds, people complained that doors were closing and that there were sounds of the bathroom being cleaned very late at night. When they turned the third floor of Lawrence Hall into a girl’s hallway, it got a lot freakier. Especially, when girls are out between 2 and 4:30 in the morning, they just get really freaked out. They say that there is a lot of activity going on in the bathroom and that they are too scared to use the bathroom late at night. They say that if you are up around 4 am, you can sometimes hear the sound of someone knocking on the walls and on the doors of every room. Ten years before I got to Asheville School, this one girl was convinced that this older man who was a security guard, opened her door at 3:30 in the morning and watched her while she was sleeping. She was absolutely convinced that he was staring at her. Either she was dreaming or it was someone actually there. To this day no one knows. And that’s most of the story that I’ve heard.”

JH’s Interpertation:

“If the janitor really is haunting the building, I think it is because he was actually murdered and that it was not an accident.  Everyone just assumed that it was an accident and took the couple’s word for it rather than investigating and finding out what truly happened. Pertaining to the fact that it became a girl’s hallway, I think there is a lot of unrequited love on the janitor’s end and a feeling of not fitting in. If he did have this affair, he would be looking for a lover again. And, since he couldn’t find his original lady, he would go for the next best thing—one of the young girls who lives in the third floor of Lawrence Hall. So, in essence, he is still haunting the building to find either the same or a new true love again.”

My Interpretation of his story:

 This story falls into the legend category, because the events may or may not be true. I think there are a few reasons why the janitor ghost still haunts Lawrence Hall. First, I think that the ghost wants to avenge the man who killed him. But since the man is no longer living at Asheville School, he has decided to just act as a “poltergeist” to those who live happily on the third floor. He wants to show the living that he is still angry and upset about what unjustly happened to him. We have talked a lot about ghosts who come back to avenge the living or who have “unfinished business” on Earth and I think that this is one such example of a ghost coming back to Earth to finish business that he couldn’t complete before his death.