A Ghost at SUNY Buffalo

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Tell me your ghost story:

Was in pharmacy school, in the early 90s, 1994ish. I had just rented a very small apt, in an old house. I was in the upstairs apartment. My room was really small, had space to walk in, my bed, inches, and then the window and the wall. There was no room between the bed and the window for people. One night early in my time there I was sleeping but then I woke up in the middle of the night. I look toward the window side of my room and there is somebody standing there, so real to me that I sat up and said “Hey!” The person was a very small in stature woman, dressed in black mid 1800s mourning garb with a veil, lacy, everything. She was standing there, regarding me. The feeling was like she understood I was a new tenant and she was taking my measure. After a little she disappeared, maybe a minute or so.

Were you paralyzed in fear?

To me it felt like a realization it wasn’t an intruder was positive, and then I had a few moments of getting that feeling. She wasn’t threatening, wasn’t there to scare me, it just felt like she was seeing who she was sharing her apartment with.

Part B:

At the time I had two cats, Punky and Sophie. I was sitting in my couch studying one afternoon. I had put a bag on a chair, and it had been there for a while. All of a sudden it starts to crinkle, and it could’ve been plastic fatigue or something but I was looking at it, and I said out loud “Please don’t do that, you’re scaring me.” Immediately after, it stopped.

Was there anything else that happened in the apartment?

It sometimes felt like the cats were watching something that wasn’t there.

Your version of the house in the 80s:

That house had bad spirits in it, evil ones for sure. Always had a not good feeling. There were two incidencies I remember. I used to have a big typewriter and I must’ve been home from college in my freshman year, my mom and dad were divorced. My dad stayed in that house. One night, middle of the night, the typewriter gets pushed over and clunks against the wall. The feeling was, “Something did that.” It was just “Woah,” and I was wide awake and then eventually I went back to sleep.

There was another night when my dad was dating Kathy and my brother Jason wasn’t there, so I was home alone, my dad and Kathy had gone to the movies. I went to bed. Sometime in the night I’m in bed and I hear distinct footsteps coming up the stairs. I thought, “Oh they came here.” I get out of bed, flip on the lights, and there’s nobody and nothing. There was a pit in my stomach. I remember feeling such relief at the thought of them being home, I hated that house alone, and that is how sure I was I heard someone home.

There was no fear with the spirit you saw, but one felt malevolent?

I never thought about that, but really it’s because you get a feeling. It’s like when you meet someone and the sense you get as to whether they’re positive or not, and maybe it’s the same with spirits.

Context

This is my mother’s story about a spirit she saw while in pharmacy school. Interestingly enough, she had a similar ghostly experience, that being a figure in old clothes standing over her while she was sleeping, to the one her mom had ten years earlier. While doing this interview I realized they had never discussed that, so they didn’t realize there was a throughline to both of them. My mother’s interpretation of the events we got into during the questions, but suffice to say the experience wasn’t negative for her with the ghost in pharmacy school. Her story about the malevolent spirit in the 80s absolutely was negative, but I only snuck that in as a matter of recordkeeping.

My interpretation

The similarities between this story and her mother’s story of ghostly encounters (especially when they had never discussed it) is fascinating. The collection of this folklore and the theorizing of its origins makes it important, but more than anything, the multiple perspectives of the same event is important as well. I was careful to not ask leading questions to either of them about the experiences they both shared, which made it all the more interesting when they would bring up similar details in stories they hadn’t discussed with one another. I think my mother truly did see something hovering next to her bed that night, and that it is plausibly unexplainable. I think she did hear footsteps clamping up the stairs while home alone and see nothing once she opened that door. The world of spirits and apparitions is not one usually discussed, which makes the collections of these stories have all the more value.

Ghost Stories in New Orleans

Age: 23
Occupation: Student

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When did you see a ghost?

Most unbelievable story that happened was in 2020, there were a couple other related encounters in the same time frame, 2016, 2018, in that range.

Briefly describe the experience?

Our house was built in 1865 in New Orleans, so it was very old and some interesting people had lived there. There was an author who wrote the book The Moviegoer, a troubled photographer as well. It had also been an old farm cottage, so we found cow teeth in the backyard.

This time in particular, the one in 2020, my mom and I were sitting in the front room on the couch, no one is sitting at the piano, and the piano plays two keys, boop boop. We looked at each other and made eye contact. I thought, “Maybe a lizard fell into the piano or something? Maybe something is in the box?” Then it happened again, and we could both see the keys be depressed. I looked at my mom after it and audibly gasped.

How did it make you feel?

Made me feel pretty euphoric, and we kept laughing and going what the hell. It was pretty cool. It’s cool to see something you can’t explain. Didn’t feel fearful. Felt like a nice presence. 

Why did it feel nice?

The piano keys that were played were in the higher register. If the piano keys were lower it may feel me worse, but the auditory element of it wasn’t ominous. Also the history of the house with those that lived there we’re proud of, so my mom would say, “Oh its Walker Percy saying hi.”

Do you believe in ghosts after this happened?

Agnostic toward ghosts. Don’t believe at all in the sense of spooky movie ghosts and looking like a white sheet, but maybe something is out there.

Do you think growing up in NOLA made it more likely for you have a supernatural encounter?

You hear a lot about supernatural experiences, like ghost stories are popular. I had friends who worked in old house restorations and they had a ton of stories about weird movement in light or seeing odd things there.

Tell me about the other related incidents you had discussed:

Children’s piano, little stool, put it in the attic and there were times where we’d hear the baby piano playing in the attic. Consecutive notes that sounded melodic together. It was an actual piano, so more odd than a machine of some kind.

Context

This girl is a friend of mine who grew up in New Orleans, and this is her story. I’d been told it once by her mom, but given this happened to both of them, it belongs to them both. She interprets the story well, which my question led her to analyze a little bit. The story took place in 2020, but she said there were multiple occurrences of strange piano stuff happening in her house.

My analysis

MG is not a very spiritual person, nor is she someone who I believe to be susceptible to psychosis, especially with this being something both her mother and her witnessed simultaneously. I think the odds are strong this both happened, and is unexplainable with the evidence we have from the story. There is value here in that it happened in a historical house, to two individuals at a time, and in a place we think of as being more likely to be haunted, that being New Orleans. I think the most interesting part of the interview is her positive experience with the ghost. I think most people experience the paranormal negatively because it’s something out of the realm of their understanding. She didn’t, and the explanation of the notes being more high pitched causing the experience to be less foreboding makes sense.

Grandpa’s chain gang days

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage and Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text: “When I was a kid, I used to love listening to my grandpa tell stories. One of my favorite ones was from when he was younger and lived as a hobo. It must have been in the 1920’s or 30’s, probably somewhere in the Midwest. He would travel around with his friends on trains, and sometimes they would get in trouble. One day, he and all of his friends got busted and put in a chain gang. And they were forced to work. My grandpa could have gotten out because his dad could have paid for it, but he didn’t want to leave his friends. So he worked with them in the chain gang until they could get out, I don’t know how long it was, but it must have been weeks or months.

“I always liked that story because I think it shows how adventurous our family is. They’ve always valued new experiences and adventures, and I always thought the stories that my grandpa had from travelling were really cool.”

Context: Chain gangs were introduced after the Civil War as a means of punishment and cheap labor, forcing groups of convicts to do construction, ditch digging, or farming. Prisoners chained together endured dangerous conditions and physical pain, and the practice was gradually phased out in the 1950’s.

Informant JB was raised in rural Montana in the 1970’s. Her parents were both part of the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a Protestant Christian denomination that emphasizes health and the Sabbath. Her grandfather on her mother’s side was a doctor and extremely well-travelled, partly because of Adventist-run mission trips.

Analysis:

On a narrow scale, this family legend recounts an ancestor’s escapades and virtues to the younger generations as a source of wisdom and inspiration. JB is known by her family to be adventurous (within reason), preferring to go on largely unplanned vacations so that exciting and unplanned experiences can happen organically. It makes sense that she would be inspired by her grandfather and take pride in her family’s adventurous nature, which is juxtaposed with the conservative and somewhat Puritan culture of the Seventh-day Adventist church. JB’s grandfather also demonstrates impressive loyalty by sticking with his friends in the chain gang, which was a notoriously grueling practice.

More broadly, prison labor has been a controversial issue in the U.S. since the 1950’s due to concerns over abuse. In fact, it became a hot issue in California when voters rejected a measure to ban forced labor in the state’s recent election, although many criticize the practice as ‘modern-day slavery.’

Kwaku Anansi, the Ghanian trickster god

Nationality: Ghanian-Nigerian
Age: 20
Occupation: Freelance color designer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: “Um, so like Kwaku Anansi is like this Ghanian trickster god. I think he’s like, in the form of a spider? There’s like books in my… what was it? My primary school? That were like simple little drawings of him vibing with the world. Nobody liked this guy. Absolutely nobody. Because he would steal, and pillage… is that a word? And he would steal… I wanna say gold. Because it was like the gold coast or whatever, in parenthesis ‘Ghana’, and so at the time, there might have been… I guess… I want to say like a gold rush of sorts? And he would just break into these peoples’ like… [pauses to laugh] properties and steal their gold or food or whatever? But yeah. What is a specific story…? Because I remember reading one about a field, and him being like, chased down by two guys… But I’m not super like… It’s very fuzzy, it was a long time ago.”

Context: Informant OB had a transnational childhood. Their father is Ghanian and their mother is Nigerian. OB was born in Pennsylvania, but they spent several years of their childhood living in Ghana when their father wanted to move there. Their family moved back to Pennsylvania when OB reached middle school. OB is also currently pursuing a career in animation and they were very skeptical of Kwaku Anansi’s recent adaptation as a Marvel character.

Analysis: It is not surprising that stories about Kwaku Anansi were taught to primary schoolchildren, as many trickster stories around the world are used to impart moral beliefs to children and demonstrate ‘what not to do.’ OB’s recounting of the source of their knowledge of Kwaku Anansi also indicates that the mythology was institutionally adopted for the purpose of pedagogy. As for the theft of gold, Ghana has been a major supplier of gold, ever since commercial mining began in the 19th century when Europeans set up mines. In recent years, Ghana has faced environmental disaster due to illegal gold mining.

Ellen White holds up a Bible

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage and Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text: “Okay, so I think I was told this story by my parents when I was a kid, maybe they told it in Sabbath school. There was this story of Ellen White when she was a teenager, and she held up her family Bible for 30 minutes while she was having a vision — I originally thought it was one or two hours, but it was just thirty minutes, I guess. And Bibles were much more substantial back then, you know. And she also quoted verses from it without looking. So it was held up to be some kind of supernatural act. I don’t know if I believe it or not, I don’t think it really matters — I think a lot of figures get sensationalized in religious traditions after they die.”

Context: Informant JB was raised in Montana in a Seventh-day Adventist household, a religious identity which she still identifies with today. Ellen White was an American author and co-founder of Seventh-day Adventism, and she lived from 1826 to 1915. Ellen White is known in the Adventist church as a “modern-day prophet,” and much of Adventist tradition and theology is based on the visions and messages that she allegedly received from God and published as books. She is also known for her health challenges, including chronic pain, weakness, and mental health struggles.

Analysis: In the Adventist church legends such as the one described above are popularly circulated throughout Adventist church communities, despite doubts as to their validity. Other written accounts specify that White picked up the eighteen-pound Bible while “in vision” and held it open with her left hand, arm raised at a right angle from her body. These stories serve to reinforce the authority of White’s writings in the church community by presenting her as a historical figure with supernatural powers. This story in particular also reflects the strong Protestant belief in having a personal relationship with God and reading the Bible for oneself — ‘if this young and frail teenage girl can literally uplift the Bible and receive a message from God, so should we!’ More broadly, the story also points to a cultural emphasis on print as a ‘sacred’ and essential medium of communication in the U.S.