The Nova Scotia Spirit

Nationality: American 

Age: 60 

Occupation: Writer 

Residence: Sherman Oaks, CA 

Performance Date: November 28, 2024

Primary Language: English

STORY: “I was in Nova Scotia staying at my parents’ house on a cove on the water, and my grandmother was very sick, and she was dying nearby at the hospital. And I’d been like two or three times, and it’s grueling. Everytime you leave it’s like you’re saying goodbye to someone for the last time; it’s hard. And she was very very sick. And so, I believe my mother was at the hospital, and I was standing on the dock, overlooking the cove, watching, like, dolphins and whales swim by, and I saw coming down from the sky, this…entity, like, almost like, with like…gossamer, flowing fabric behind it. Came tight down right in front of me, down into the water, up, around me, and then went away. And I was like ‘what the actual?’ And then my mother called and said that her mother just died. So I’m guessing maybe she was…saying goodbye.”

ANALYSIS: Seeing as this happened before the individual knew of her grandmother’s passing, it is less likely that the entity she witnessed was merely a manifestation of her grief, or a way to cope with her grandmother passing away. While it could’ve been subconscious, it is still unlikely. It is interesting, however, that the spirit described in this story with “gossamer, flowing fabric” that came from the sky, is eerily similar to a lot of modern Western visual interpretations of ghosts. It was not a corporal entity, nor one that resembled an animal, but a very traditional “ghost” of sorts. Nonetheless, it could be plausible that it was the ghost or the spirit or the soul of the individual’s grandmother saying goodbye one last time.

What’s Behind the Curtain?

Nationality: American

Age: 21

Occupation: Vet tech

Residence: San Rafael, CA

Performance Date: December 2nd, 2024

Primary Language: English

Language: English

Main Description:

“So I was staying in Fort Bragg at my dad’s house and I was getting ready to take a shower and I think my dad was in town or something like he was going shopping like grocery shopping. and so the fan in the bathroom doesn’t work. So there’s there’s a door that goes to the outside because there’s an outdoor shower also. So we keep the door cracked when we shower inside just to let the moisture out. So, you know, it makes the shower curtain billow a little bit, so I get in the shower and the shower curtain is billowing because of the air flow. 
And um at one point, I lean against the shower curtain, and it’s as hard as a rock, like I push against it and it does not move. Um and so I take a step back and I look around the shower curtain. There’s nothing there. 
And the shower curtain is still like billowing a little bit. So I was just kind of left like what the hell was that? But I think it was a shower or not a shower. 
It was a bathroom ghost. Fort Bragg bathroom ghost, just I don’t know what he was doing. He was leaning against a shower curtain. 
That’s all.”

Informants Opinion:

JS: What do you think that ghost was doing there?

OG: “I think he’s stuck in the bathroom so he just hangs around and listens to people sing in the shower.”

Personal Opinion:

It’s hard to say what this could mean but to my assumption it would have to do with the previous owner of the house not wanting others using their shower or even living in their house. Or maybe it’s a more kind approach and they’re simply visiting their former home to see who’s living there.

Apartment Ghost

our new apartment is lowkey haunted. i walked into the balcony one time when i was home for a weekend i went out to get some fresh air and i closed the sliding door behind me and it was unlocked still and while i was sitting there i heard the latch close and i went to go back inside and the door was locked. i had called my little brother and i was like yo can you come unlock the door and he was like yea which one and i was the glass sliding one on the balcony and he was like ugh okay and so he comes to open it and i was like what the hell you closed the door on me and he was like dude no one was upstairs and my brother started messing with the lock and we realized how hard it is to move it. someone deliberately locked me out. –

Ghost Dog

my dog passed away cause he had cancer so we had to put him down which was really horrible because i had him since i was like seven. what had happened was he we had to put him down and it was the worst fuckin day ever. then i went to rehearsal and did all my regular stuff and then that night, he usually slept on my bed, so i decided to sleep on the couch cause i couldn’t handle sleeping on my bed without him. so i slept in the couch and i got woken up at i think like 3 or 4 in the morning because i heard his collar single behind me and i felt him sniff me. and i turned around and i was gonna pet him, then i remember he was dead and i sat straight up and immediately started crying for my mom, which was funny cause it was only 3/4 years ago. and she was comforting me and my sister heard the ruckus and she came out to the living room and she was like what happened and i was like i heard chaskas collar behind me and i heard him sniff me but he’s dead and she was like you know what i thought i felt something too but i didn’t wanna freak about it, cause she’s more level headed than i am. but around the same time, around 3 or 4, she told me (cause she usually sleeps with her door closed because she knew that he’d be fine sleeping in my room) but in the morning if me and him got up in the morning before she did he’d go say hi to my mom then he’d try to stick his nose under tayas door. he was a boxer so when he’d sniff he’d snort. so every morning he snorted under her door then he’d go about his merry way. she said that at the same time i began to freak out she also heard his color outside of her door then heard him sniff under her door. –

An Ancestral Possession

Collector’s Name: Aarushi Kumar

Gender: Male

Occupation: Employed, Computer Engineer

Performance Date: November 30, 2024

Relationship: Father

Age: 54

Nationality: South Asian/Indian

Primary Language: Hindi

Context:

I asked the subject if he’s had any encounters with spirits and if he would like to share. He said of course and gave me the synopsis of 3 options to choose from. I asked him to recite the story you read above because he experienced it first-hand and it was a story that held many morals that hold true with other ancestral ghost stories as well as the culture my interviewee grew up in.

R is the interviewee, A.K is the interviewer.

Transcription:

[R] This is the time when my grandpa was on death bed and uh and everyone was there, all the family was there, and as soon as my grandpa passed away, then, uh,  my, uh, papa’s younger brother- he started acting a little bit differently and he started speaking in my grandpa’s tone- when she had passed away before my grandfather. My grandma, basically, she was inside my dad’s brother and he started speaking in my grandma’s tone and saying that, oh, uh, I wanted to see how my grandpa was leaving this world And so that’s why she came- she wanted to experience that. My dad’s younger brother– he was crying and talking in her tone and crying. So for 5/10 minutes, he was like my grandma- behaving like how my grandma would behave if she was in the world. After 10 minutes or so, she basically left his body and he was normal. This was more than 30 years back. 

[A.K] But you were there?

[R] I was there, yes.

[A.K] How old were you?

[R] I was in, uh, 8th grade. Yeah

[A.K] And you saw it happen?

[R] I saw it happen, yeah.

[A.K] Did you realize what was happening [in the moment]?

[R] I realized something was not normal, but at that time, everyone was going with the flow. I was told later that my grandmother was there in his body. There was many people- everyone was there at that time.

Their thoughts on the story:

[A.K] So why do you think it happened?

[R] So, in Hindu mythology, uh, religion, we believe that- that- soul, we call it as “athma”, it never dies. But then, if the soul never gets peace, then they are basically traveling in the world only. They haven’t gotten peace, so they will find a way to travel and come back to the family and then say what they need. THey may help also- they will come back and forth and back and forth. Also in our Hindu mythology, we say that when your parents die, like both your mother and father, you should do “Pind Daan”. There is a place in India to liberate the soul and they never come back. My dad and the younger brother- my dad’s younger brother- after a few years, they did Pind Daan and my grandma never came back. I think she’s in peace and she never came back. 

[A.K] Do you know why she wasn’t at peace?

[R] She might have had some unfinished business to take care of. That’s what we believe.

My own thoughts:

First and foremost, I think it is very interesting that the interviewee brought up “unfinished business” as a reason for why his grandmother was not able to rest in peace because it is a motif that comes up constantly in studying ghost stories in class and across cultures. 

I chose this subject to tell their story because I knew it would relate directly to their culture. Despite, in class, us briefly discussing how in faiths like Hinduism have no space to logically believe in ghosts because of their beliefs in reincarnation, this subject tells me that many, if not the majority of, Hindus believe in ghosts and have had encounters with spirits before. Despite logic, the majority of individuals believe or have seen ghosts– a common dichotomy seen in many other cultures as well. 

The “Pind Daan” ritual in Hinduism reminds me of another classic motif when analyzing ghost stories- improper burial and rituals. Although the ghost was given a proper burial, in order to fully exercise it, the subject’s family had to perform a ritual to properly send the spirit off. In Hinduism, Pind Daan is a part of a proper send-off, and, therefore, is a part of what makes a proper burial, so it is understandable why the spirit stayed in the real world prior to the ritual– it hadn’t received a full send-off ritual.