Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

The Sound of Anklet

Age: 64

Context:

This story was told to me by my grandmother, whom I’ll refer to as PS. My grandma is quite a religious woman, and so she believes in restless souls trapped as ghosts, but not in malevolent forces. She is a witness to this story, as she was brought in to confirm the presence of ghosts. The story takes place in 1978 in Kolkata, India, but she told me this story for the first time when I called her last weekend, inquiring about ghost stories for this class.

The Story:

Some years ago, PS’s brothers were looking to buy a house in Kolkata, and they found one quickly, a large, well-located, and strangely, almost suspiciously cheap one. When they pressed the previous owners for an explanation, the answer was given hesitantly: two maids had been murdered in that house. The owners were selling because they were frightened, and they had not been able to stay. PS’s brothers were not believers in ghosts. They were practical men, and a large house at a low price was still just that so they bought it.

They moved in, and for a while, said nothing to anyone. But at night, the house was not quiet. What they heard repeatedly, consistently, always after dark was the jingling of anklets. The sound of a woman’s feet moving through the house, the small bells at her ankles marking every step. The sound would drift through the hallways, unhurried, as though whoever was making it had nowhere in particular to be and all the time in the world to get there. They set up cameras in the hallways to catch the intruder but found nothing, in fact even the sound of anklets weren’t captured. So her brothers were unsettled enough that they decided to call PS, but they told her nothing about the sounds. They invited her to stay, and they waited to see whether she heard those strange noises too. 

The next morning, PS came to them with a question she couldn’t quite frame. She had heard something in the night, a strange sound she couldn’t explain. Moving through the house was the jingling of anklets.

Her brothers looked at each other as that was as all the confirmation they needed. They called in a tantric, a practitioner well versed in the rituals for restless spirits. PS says the tantric came in the way a tradesman comes to fix something that is broken. He performed the necessary rituals to release the spirits of the two murdered maids, to acknowledge what had happened to them, and to give them somewhere else to go.

After that, the house was silent. The sound of anklets was never heard again.

Informant’s Thoughts (PS):

My grandmother says that murdered people, in Bengali tradition, often become spirits not out of evil intent but out of incompletion, that because their deaths were violent, sudden and unacknowledged, they didn’t know how to leave. She said, the tantric didn’t destroy the spirit of the ghosts, merely released them so they could move onto the next life. 

My Thoughts:

What strikes me most about this story is the way my grandma’s brothers didn’t tell her what they heard. They brought her in blind, waited, and let her come to them. I think it was almost evil of her brothers to withhold the fact that there might have been ghosts. But I still can’t reconcile how 3 separate sets of ears heard the same thing while the camera captured nothing. My theory is that someone else was coming into the house at night, and maybe they were going through a part of the house uncovered by the camera. Their noise wasn’t captured as the cameras of that time were probably not that developed. This to me makes more sense, than believing it as a ghost story.

Perry in the Book

Age: 19

Context:

This story was told to me by my friend during a hangout in their dorm a few weeks before finals. They recalled a childhood storybook about Perry and connected it to knocks they heard during their summer family visits to their lake house. The memory remained vivid because of how long the noises continued and how closely they seemed tied to the story.

IL:

“So every summer, my family would go up to our lake house in the mountains for a few weeks. We’d been doing it ever since I was a kid, and I always stayed in the same room upstairs. It was kind of old and creaky, but I loved it.

One summer when I was ten, I got there and noticed there was this new book on the bookshelf in my room. I swear it hadn’t been there before. It was this children’s storybook about a ghost named Perry. The cover was creepy as hell, like this little white ghost smiling in front of a bedroom door.

My mom read me the book before I went to bed, and the story was about Perry going around at night knocking on doors and hiding under beds. And in the book, it said that if you heard three knocks in the middle of the night, you’d know Perry was there.

That absolutely freaked me out, but I kept going anyway. I think because I wanted to know what happened. And then, like two nights later, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three knocks. Slow and spaced out. Right on my bedroom door.

I literally froze. I just stared at the door and pulled the covers over my head. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I was so scared it was actually Perry.

The next morning I asked my parents if they had knocked on my door, and they were like, no? Why would we do that? And I didn’t even tell them why because I felt stupid.

But then it kept happening. Not every night, but for like a week that summer.

Always three knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

And it was always late. Like after everyone was asleep. I remember lying there waiting for it because I was so scared, and every tiny noise in that house started freaking me out.

One night I finally got brave enough to open the door right after I heard it, and there was nobody there. The hallway was empty. My parents’ room was down the hall and their door was shut. My little brother was asleep. There was just… nothing.

After that week, it stopped. Completely. No more knocks for the rest of the summer.

And the weirdest part is, the next year when we went back, the Perry book was gone. I looked for it because I wanted to prove to myself it was real, and it just wasn’t there anymore.

So yeah, logically it was probably just the house settling or something because it was old, but… hearing three knocks exactly like in the story for a week straight? That still creeps me out.”

Interviewer:

“Do you think reading the book made you notice sounds you normally wouldn’t?”

IL:

“Probably. I mean, I was ten and terrified. My brain was probably connecting everything to Perry. But the fact that it was always three knocks is what gets me. Like if it had just been random noises, whatever. But three? Exactly how the book said? That’s weird.”

Interviewer:

“Would you read the book again if you found it?”

IL:

“Absolutely not. No shot. I am not risking hearing three knocks again.”

The Informant’s Thoughts:

He finds this story unsettling not because he truly believes a ghost was knocking on his door, but because of how perfectly the events lined up with the book. At ten years old, hearing exactly three knocks, the same warning described in the story, felt too specific to dismiss in the moment. Even now, he recognizes there was probably a logical explanation, like the house settling or tree branches hitting the walls, but the timing still lingers in his mind.

What disturbs him most is the strange appearance and disappearance of the Perry book itself. He remembers finding it on the shelf that summer as if it had always been there, only to never see it again the next year. Looking back, he wonders if he simply forgot what the cover looked like or imagined parts of it through fear, but he cannot shake the vividness of the memory.

To him, the experience feels like one of those childhood moments where imagination and reality became tangled together. He does not fully believe it was supernatural, but he also cannot hear three knocks in a row without immediately thinking of Perry.

My Thoughts:

I think the setting contributes significantly to the story’s believability. A mountain lake house in the summer already feels isolated and unfamiliar compared to everyday life. Old houses make noises, hallways seem darker, and the quiet of the mountains amplifies every sound. In that environment, the line between natural and supernatural becomes easier to blur.

The disappearing book adds another layer of mystery. Whether it was misplaced, thrown away, or simply forgotten, its absence transforms the memory into something harder to verify. Without the physical object, the story becomes less about evidence and more about memory, what was real, what was imagined, and what fear may have altered over time.

As a piece of folklore, this story is fascinating because it demonstrates how ghost stories can create their own “evidence.” After IL learned the rule of Perry’s three knocks, every similar sound became part of the legend. In that way, the story itself almost functions like a haunting, shaping the way reality is interpreted long after the book is gone.

The Baby Monitor

Age: 19

Context:

This story was told to me during a car ride at night back from a camping trip with friends. Everyone started going around and telling creepy or weird paranormal experiences they’ve had and when the topic shifted to technology the informant went on and told this story about their experience with their baby sister’s baby monitor as a kid.

CL:

“So this happened when I was around fifteen, and I still don’t really know what to make of it. My baby sister had just been born, so my parents had one of those baby monitors set up in her room, the kind that only does audio.

My room was right next to hers, and since she cried a lot at night, I got used to hearing little noises through the monitor when my parents left it on in their room or in the hallway.

One night, I was home alone babysitting while my parents went out to dinner. My sister was asleep, and I was downstairs watching TV. Everything was normal. Then I heard the monitor crackle. At first I ignored it because it always made static noises.

But then I heard someone whisper. Like… an actual whisper. I couldn’t make out what it said, but it sounded like a woman’s voice. I muted the TV and just sat there listening. Then I heard it again. Really soft, like right into the monitor. It sounded like, ‘It’s okay… go back to sleep.’ I froze. I remember staring at the monitor and thinking maybe my mom had come home without me hearing, but I would’ve heard the front door or footsteps. So I ran upstairs. My sister was asleep in her crib. Nobody else was in the room. I checked the closet, under the crib, the bathroom, everything. Nothing.

I grabbed my sister and brought her downstairs with me because I was so freaked out. I called my mom crying and told her to come home. She thought I was overreacting until they got back. My dad brought my sister upstairs and plugged the monitor back in to prove it was just static or interference or whatever. And then we all heard it. The monitor crackled and this voice came through. ‘Shhhhhh…’ Like right into it. My mom literally unplugged it immediately. The next day my dad bought a new monitor and threw the old one away. And it never happened again.

Later, my dad said it was probably signal interference from another house because the monitor was old and not encrypted or whatever. Like maybe someone else’s monitor or a walkie-talkie got picked up. But… I don’t know. The voice sounded like it was in the room. Not through a machine. It sounded close. Like someone leaning over her crib.”

Interviewer:

“Did the voice sound threatening?”

CL:

“No, honestly that’s what made it weirder. It sounded calm. Like soothing. If it had sounded creepy, I think I would’ve just assumed it was in my head. But it sounded… normal.”

Interviewer:

“Do you think it was paranormal?”

CL:

“I don’t know. Probably not. The interference thing makes sense. But hearing it with my whole family there made it harder to brush off.”

The Informant’s Thoughts:

She does not fully believe the event was paranormal, but she remains disturbed by how clearly she remembers the voice. The fact that it happened twice, once when she was alone and again in front of her parents, validated her fear in the moment.

She says what scared her most was not the possibility of a ghost, but the idea that a real stranger’s voice could somehow reach into her house and speak to her baby sister. In some ways, that felt scarier than anything supernatural.

My Thoughts:

I think what makes this story so creepy is how realistic it feels. Unlike a lot of ghost stories where someone sees a full figure or something impossible happens, this one has an explanation that actually makes sense. The signal interference idea is believable, which somehow makes it even scarier because it could happen in real life.

I also think the fact that the voice sounded calm instead of threatening makes the story way more unsettling. If it had been some distorted or obviously creepy voice, it would almost feel fake. But the fact that it sounded normal and soothing makes it feel more personal and invasive.

I find it interesting how technology changes the way ghost stories are told. Instead of hearing strange voices in a hallway or through the walls, now people hear them through baby monitors, phones, or speakers. It’s like modern devices create new ways for people to interpret weird experiences as paranormal.

I think the scariest part of this story isn’t even the idea of a ghost. To me, the thought that it could have been an actual stranger’s voice somehow reaching into the house is worse. That makes the story feel less like a supernatural haunting and more like a real invasion of privacy.

GRANDPA’S FIRST EXORCISM

Age: 19

For this story, I spoke to my friend. He told me this story that he got from his grandfather. The following is told from his first person perspective about his grandfather.

INTERVIEWEE: “When my grandpa was 25 years old he was a deacon at a church in Riverside, California. During his time, he had some house calls regularly. He was a deacon until he was around 40 so he saw a lot of different stuff at peoples’ houses. They would typically send him to houses to pray over new houses, old people, deceased, etc. However, one time he was asked to come to a home to perform a literal exorcism which was very out of the ordinary for him.

He thought this was unusual because he had never done anything like this before. One day, the church sent him to this house to perform the exorcism on this teenage girl who was spasming out, blaspheming, and acting really funky in general. The parents had no idea what to do so they called up my grandpa who and some other people with then church. My grandpa showed up with a few other priests. The other priests must have brought a bible, a cross, and some holy water.

They went into the house and the parents directed them into the room where the teenage girl was. She couldn’t sit still. They did something and they got the demon out of her; repeating a prayer or splashing holy water on her. She tried to jump away from it, but eventually she hit the ground and started shaking and screaming for a couple minutes. During this, the priests recited the prayer again and again. Then she passes out.

The girl didn’t wake up until the following morning super exhausted. She ended up being totally fine afterwards, with no signs of possession or evil spirits holding inside her anymore yet having no idea what had happened. This actually was the last and only exorcism my grandpa had to perform during his time being a deacon; this being a very different experience for him.”

My thoughts: I find it super interesting that his grandfather never did another exorcism after this, nor having done one prior. Around this time, which was maybe the 1970’s, the first Exorcist film came out, which made exorcisms more believed in during this time perchance, which may be why he got this house call in particular. With this, the details such as the girl forgetting everything that had happened, as well as the possession itself, it makes this story very unique; especially in the perspective of someone who has never experienced something like this.

The Albino Donkey in Grand Canyon Sweat Lodge

“So our tribe is Umatilla. That’s the name. That’s the name of our tribe. It’s in northern eastern Oregon. Okay. And. And, you know, while I was out there, one of the things I do is a sweat lodge.

It’s like a ceremony where you go into, like, this mud igloo, and they get these, like, blackstone rocks, and they get really, really hot all day long.

And. And then you. You go in there. The rocks in there. And then you go in there and you sit in, like, a little crisscross applesauce, you know, position.

And they bring water in there. And then they. They close up the. The. The. The hut, and they’ve got herbs on top of there, too, like, you know, sage and other stuff.

So they get that water on that hot rock, and it just like.

It’s like a. You just hear, like, sizzling on rocks, and then that steam gets released within the hut.

Well, when you’re doing this, it. It literally feels like. It feels like your skin is melting. It’s so darn hot. You feel like. You feel like surely my. I’m gonna see, like, my skin melting off my arms because it’s so hot.

And you’re like, oh, let me blow. Let me cool myself down a little bit. So you. So you gotta blow. And it feels like you’re breathing fire on top of your skin.

Likeinstinct that’s a bad idea. Let’s not do that. So you. You have to contain your breathing in a nice, slow, slow breath so you’re not breathing too hard.

So you have to control that whole panic inset, which, you know, a lot of people can’t handle it because you kind of start to panic.

And. And then you get into this, like, you know, once you get that slow breathing, you can get this, like, really nice and meditative state.

And of course, there’s drumming going on outside where, you know, so that, that also, the, the, the drumming of the, of the drums puts you also in a, in a nice sort of trance.

And then, once you sit in for 20 minutes, there’s a river right next door.

Oh, the other thing is rivers. Like, if I’m next to a river, that flowing water is like my charger battery.

Like, I can pick up on almost anything that, like, I’m like, supercharged.

So running water is like. It’s like if I wanted my abilities to be like, on high, you know, premium, you know, optimum position of everything.

Running water. It’s just like, it’s amazing electrical or circuit for charging.

That ability, for some reason I find, at least for me.

And then you jump the water and you, you, you, you know, you pull yourself off.

Well, one of the things that they do prior to that is calledtype of cactuseremony, ya ou.

They, they prepare peyote tea. I don’t know if you. If you’re familiar with that.

Speaker 2 (shaking head), I’m not.

Speaker 1 You don’t know what that is? Okay, so peyote is a cactus type of plant or type of plant that you use part of it, and they take about like 48 hours to prepare this tea.

But it’s a, It’s a hallucinogenic type of tea, apparently.

But so you drink it, and literally, you have like half a teaspoon.

I mean, it’s very little that you drink. And then you, you know, we went on a. A hike throughout the Grand Canyon. And while we were out hiking, which is funny because I didn’t realize that no one else saw this but myself, I was watching and like, oh, my gosh, look at this white albino donkey that’s behind me, following me.

I’m like. And it had a palm leaf in. In its mouth. I’m like, wow, that’s really amazing. Like, this pure white albino donkey is following me.

He’s got this palm leaf. Like, that’s. Wow. I couldn’t even believe it, you know. Right. And. Well, yeah, I was the only one that saw that. So, you know, who knows where my mind was at? But it was, it was quite a. I don’t know, it was a very spiritual moment.

I felt very. It actually felt. I felt like it was showing me the way to go down this, this treacherous, you know, mountain in the, you know, Grand Canyons, you know, and, and the Havasupai or the Havasupai Indians, That’s who was leading this ceremony. Anyway. That was a really interesting and very spiritual. Very beautiful, enlightening experience as. As far as, like, at that point when you’re under that influence, You know, you feel so connected to Mother Earth and Your ancestors and stuff like that. You feel like they’re guiding you in, you know, teaching you the ways of What, like, you know, what life, what truly living is, you know, like, you know, being, you know, take. Like when. If you go hunting, you don’t. You don’t. You don’t kill the first animal that you see of that species. You wait till you see more than one, because if you only see one, that means that the population is not enough to support your hunting. Right, right. It’s just being mindful. Right? Mindful of, you know, the nature and, you know, what, what you, you know, how much you take is what you’re going to receive.And so, you know, don’t always use all of the animal, always using all the plant or, you know, you know, just being mindful of all that stuff.” 

Her thoughts : 

She sees this as a deeply spiritual and meaningful experience. She describes feeling connected to Mother Earth and to her ancestors, and believes they were guiding her and teaching her ways of living. In particular, she emphasizes ideas of being mindful in nature, such as how and when to use resources, including animals and plants, and living in balance rather than excess.

My thoughts: 

This was, by far, the story that felt the most cultural and spiritual to me compared to the other ghost stories she shared in that session. It also generated the most questions for me. I really enjoyed learning about the Umatilla tribe, and it made me curious to hear more about their habits and ceremonies. Before this, I didn’t know anything about the tribe, the sweat lodge ceremony, or the Havasupai who led it.

I found myself wondering about the structure and purpose of the ceremony – why they hold it, how often it takes place, and what it is based on. Is it connected to a specific time of year, a need within the tribe, or some kind of celebration? I was also curious about the physical experience itself: how many people are inside the hut, whether there are multiple huts, and if everyone participates in the hike together afterward. Even small details stood out to me, like the peyote tea – why it takes 48 hours to prepare and how it is actually made.

I was especially interested in the moment where she saw the white albino donkey. Within her belief system, that kind of animal can be understood as sacred or spiritual, which made the moment feel significant. The fact that it was carrying a palm leaf in its mouth made me think it could be interpreted as a kind of message, especially since that is not something I would expect to see in that environment. I even tried to look into what a white donkey might symbolize, and found that in different belief systems it can represent ideas like peace, wisdom, or guidance.

Overall, this story felt like a combination of a ghost encounter (the donkey) along with a spiritual experience shaped by cultural beliefs and ritual.