Tag Archives: disappearance

The Piper Piping

Speaking to my mother about ghosts and tales in Ireland led to one significant story that stood out to her as a child when she would visit the nearby school in Co. Donegal to play Irish football, better known as gaelic. The town Ballintra was renowned for the Pullan Caves on the Brown Hall Demesne estate. This story was passed down throughout the years to scare away the kids from intruding on the Brownhall House, my Mom’s older brothers would tell her and her sister these spooky stories to frighten them whenever they would travel down to Ballintra. My mom took this haunted legend seriously as a child and then later grew out of it which later led to less and less visits to the town Ballintra as she got older. 

GP “We would travel down to the Ballintra football pitch to either watch my brothers games or for my sisters and I’s games, the pitch was just on the outer parts of the Brown Hall Demesne forest. This forest had the Brown Hall house that had many caves in it and they were known as the Pullin Caves. The story started with a group of traveling pipers that went around Ireland from pub to pub performing gigs most nights, and one of their stops was in the town pub of Ballintra so they stayed in the Brown Hall house. The next morning after their gig one of the pipers went on a walk and wandered into one of the caves, he had his pipe and started playing it which made a very large echo that the rest of his piping band heard but it suddenly stopped. The piper that walked into the cave walked too far and never came back, he was named dead after being missing for so long. The last memory of him was the sound of his pipe, which lingered ever since he died in the cave. As time went on, the cave would make sounds of the pipe echoing and would happen more frequently on nights of full moons; it was the sound of the ghost of the piper trying to find his way out. The cave was then named the Piper’s Hole and everyone stays well away from the Pullin caves of Brown Hall Demesne but especially the Piper’s hole.”

After hearing this story and being able to connect with it on more of a deeper level, I realized that Ireland has many spooky traits to it due to the history that lies beneath the architecture and nature all around. Having visited Ballintra plenty of times, I noticed that the town is much more grim as some others stemming from the lack of lively-ness and having such a bland main street. Leading this ghost story to fit right into the town’s persona. Highlighting the functionality of music in ghost stories as well caught my attention, the idea of spirits playing an instrument that would represent their presence.

Haunted Clock Scary Folktale

Nationality: American
Primary language: English
Age: 18
Occupation: Canvasser
Residence: Echo Park, CA

Text

A little boy with a sister, two parents, and a dog just won a sports game. His parents take him out to get a gift to celebrate. They’re trying to pick out a toy for him to get at a toy store. The boy sees a doll with a clock in its stomach. It seems to wave, all five of its fingers up. The boy is strangely drawn to it, loving it, and wants it immediately. His parents ask him if he’s sure–it’s kind of creepy–but let the boy get it. The cashier warns them not to buy it because they’ll regret it, and the boy insists and asks why he can’t get it. The cashier says he can’t tell the boy why, but warns him again. The boy gets it anyway. He hangs the clock over his bed.
He goes to sleep each night for five nights, and each morning when he wakes, one member of his family is gone.
The first morning, his dog is missing. When the boy complains of this, his parents are confused: “What do you mean? We never had a dog.” When he looks at the clock, it only has four fingers up.
The second morning, his sister disappears. When the boy complains of this, his parents are confused: “What do you mean? You don’t have a sister.” When he looks at the clock, it only has three fingers up.
The third morning, his dad disappears. When the boy complains of this, his mom is confused: “What do you mean? I’m a single mom.” When he looks at the clock, it only has two fingers up.
The fourth morning, his mom disappears. When he looks at the clock, it only has one finger left.
The next morning, the boy is gone forever, and the clock has no fingers up.

Context

MM first heard this story at a summer camp when he was between 8 and 9 years old. He was a little scared of the story, but mostly enjoyed it, immediately thinking that it was “a really good, fun, spooky story.” He really enjoyed telling this story and did so numerous times at camp. He notes that he heard and shared different versions over the years: the little boy was sometimes a little girl; the order of the disappearance of family members changed sometimes; the boy’s actions each day after finding a member of his family missing were different, including days where he missed school or days where he tried to get rid of the clock and it mysteriously returned; and there was a version where the shopkeeper wanted to get rid of the clock and recommended that the boy take it. MM analyzes this as being a representation of a kid’s worst fear: being alone without their family. “It’s a little uniquely terrifying to be wiped from existence instead of dying.” He notes that “there’s also a perversion of the familiar–a toy (kids love toys) that kills your family.

Analysis

I classify this as a folktale because, while it’s somewhat grounded in the real world, its truth value doesn’t appear to be up to date. There’s no piece of this in which “the clock is still out there,” or anything to imply that this might be a true story. Instead, it appears to be a scary folktale for children. Beyond its basic entertainment value, this story could mean several things. I’m inclined to agree with MM’s analysis that this folktale represents a child’s fear of being left alone without their family and of death. This view is supported through a psychoanalytical lens, which often views the subtext of a folk belief or narrative as a subconscious desire or fear. This story could be viewed in both lights. The fact that the boy in MM’s version of the tale ignored the warning of the shopkeeper (an adult) and got the toy he wanted anyway, then faced the consequences (his family disappearing), marks this as a potentially cautionary tale. Its moral might be, “children should listen to adults.” Of course, children fear being alone, but they also sometimes desire it. This story, scary as it may be, could also be a representation of the child’s subconscious desire to be rid of their parents. After all, the little boy is subconsciously drawn to the clock immediately. Perhaps he really does want his family gone so that he can have more independence, but the consequence of this is that he disappears, too. Either way, this story’s deeper meanings are fascinating through a psychoanalytical lens.

Be Careful in the PetSmart Elevator

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Marketing
Residence: Walnut Creek, CA
Performance Date: November 3, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: German and Italian

Background: The informant is now doing marketing for a wine company in the bay area. However, at the time of the encounter she was working in Arizona in a corporate office of PetSmart. She has never had an encounter like this before the one she describes and she has not had any other encounters since. 

BW: So it was 2013 and I worked at PetSmart in Phoenix in the corporate office. And It was not an old building, it was just your average boring corporate office that looked like anything else, not like haunted or anything. My friend and I were just chatting. We were on our way to a meeting. Everyone worked on the main floor and there’s like an elevator and we are going up to a conference room up to another level. So, she and I were just we were walking probably carrying notebooks or whatever and just walking through the lobby until like this little elevator Lobby and in the elevator bank there were three elevators and so we’re walking and there’s always people standing there you know waiting for the elevator, it was right by the cafeteria as well and so tons of people around. you know probably like 2000 people worked in the buildings, there were a couple of buildings kind of like a complex. And so just always people around and you don’t really pay much attention and you don’t know everyone. 

Me: Oh so not the normal place people would think of seeing ghosts. So where did you actually feel like the encounter happened? 

BW: Well, we’re just talking, walking to the elevator we see this woman standing there and she’s waiting for the elevator and you know she had something in her arm like she had a binder in her arm and she just looked like anybody else.

Me: Do you remember more about her physical appearance? Like why didn’t she stand out much? 

BW:  She was probably maybe late 20s early 30s so not like way older or anything you know. There was nothing unusual about her whatsoever; she looked like anyone, she wasn’t like see through anything. She just looked like anyone waiting for the elevator in the building that works at PetSmart.

Me: Okay, then why did you think there was something off with her? 

BW: Well, we were just walking and the elevator doors open, she walks in and then the doors shut and like we had hit the button and they just they like popped back open again so like they were closed for like 2 seconds maybe like they were close and then they popped back open and my friend and I we both walked in and at the same time we both said ‘oh sorry’ because it’s rude. We were rude. She was on her way up in the elevator and we kind of delayed her and so we both walked in and both said “oh sorry” and we walked in and there was no one in the elevator, there was no one there.

Me: Do you think there could have been some other explanation? Like a door to get out or some other exit to the elevator? 

BW: There was nowhere for her to go, there wasn’t like a back door or entrance, some elevators have two sides, but this one didn’t. There was only one way in and out of the elevator. 

Me: And you said you were with someone else right? So you must have both seen her? 

BW: Yes, we both obviously saw her because we both said sorry at the exact same time and then B and I looked at each other and we were both just looking around like did you just see what I saw did you see a woman walk in here and it’s like yes, we both saw her. She described her to me and it was the same person I saw and it’s like we thought we saw the same thing and so like we walked up to the meeting and we were like, my God I think you saw a ghost I mean we saw something we don’t know what we saw but we were just really both pretty shaken by it.

Me: Did you or anyone else ever encounter the same woman again? 

BW: I didn’t work there much longer. This was February 2013 and I moved to Northern California in May so I was only there for like a couple more months so I didn’t see her again. But since then B worked there for a long time after I did and she said that people would see this woman like they would see her occasionally. Someone would say hey B, somebody saw your ghost you know someone who saw the woman you saw in the elevator Lobby again.

Me: So do you have a theory or explanation for what it actually was? 

BW: Well, I mean that’s it I just there’s no I don’t know that she was a ghost obviously but all I know is that I can’t explain what it was. 

I discussed this with the informant in person while sitting across from her. 

My Thoughts: This is one of my favorite “ghost” stories because it is so void of any explanation. It is purely just a story of what she and her friend saw. I definitely believe that it happened; that they did see this woman go into the elevator and then somehow miraculously disappeared. Yet, like her, I have no explanation. 

The Black Stallion and Creature With Three Red Eyes: Don’t Walk Alone at Midnight in Guatemala

Nationality: Guatamalan-American (American citizenship)
Age: 20
Occupation: Student studying medicine at USC, Hospital Tech
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 2/12/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

I heard this legend while many of my housemates were gathered around a table and drinking. The first time the speaker shared this story, he mentioned that his grandfather never drank after he saw a red-eyed figure in Guatemala. When I asked him to retell his story for collection, he gave much more detail about the two creatures his grandfather feared.

*

The speaker’s grandfather used to tell this story when he would get drunk: he saw two creatures. One was a being with red eyes, the other was a black horse. In 1960 in San Rafael, Guatemala at exactly 12 am, neighbors in a village of only 15 or 20 houses could hear a black stallion. And if stragglers outside a home were caught alone, they would hear a horse running after them. They wouldn’t see the horse. If they managed to slip inside their house and close the door, they would hear the horse pounding at the threshold until 12:01. Then they would not hear it anymore.

If the horse caught stragglers, they would die of an underlying disease like cardiac arrest or drug overdose, something “easy to explain.” In those days, a lot of children went missing in the wilderness because the area was “unexplored.”

One night, the speaker’s grandfather and his friend left a larger group of friends playing soccer to walk home around midnight. They were both drunk. Suddenly, the speaker’s grandfather felt dread. Every step they took felt “like mud” and the speaker’s grandfather felt like he was being watched. Both friends turned around to see a seven-foot-tall humanoid figure with three red eyes watching “like a little kid goes onto a tree and just sticks his head sideways and stays staring at you.”

The speaker did not know how his grandfather got home that night, but the friend went missing for over a week. “They did find the guy, his friend, my grandpa’s friend. And so he just told me that this dude was torn. Like torn apart. “

When asked what this creature was, the speaker said that “It’s from the time before even that place was colonized by Spain… around the Mayan time… the Mayans just disappeared one day. They were so advanced for their time.” He went on to say that his grandfather believed that the Mayans, who the speaker mentioned were polytheistic built massive pyramids, disappeared because they were killed by these strange creatures. “These things that they [victims] see now are from times that we can’t even comprehend because he’s like, yeah, they’re from the future. And I was like, What the hell do you mean the future?” The speaker trailed off.

“I’m not sure if it’s real or not, I’m going to believe because the way he will talk to me, he would stare me down in the eyes,” the speaker continued. “And my grandma would also support that, because even she would hear the black horse because that another story my grandma told me when my grandpa was asleep, was, he couldn’t sleep at night, most of the time in Guatemala, because he said that that’s the human figure would haunt him because of his friend.”

The speaker noted that black stallions were also a status symbol in Guatemala reserved for members of the military.

When asked why he first told the story, the speaker noted that ” Usually when I’m under the influence, then the story comes out But usually, when you’re impaired or under the influence, you see, I wouldn’t say another dimension, but you see something else? Like you see? We see different.”

The speaker’s grandfather worried that these two creatures would come for him after he moved to the U.S. He later died of a heart attack.

*

This speaker is a good friend but he embellishes stories a lot. He later told me that he believed that he’d seen the red-eyed creature in the U.S. even though he called both of these creatures “just legends” in the recording. I also happen to know that in telling these stories, he was trying to get me to trust him again after a breakup. After, he often offered to tell similar stories. But I think he was being genuine when he told me what he knew and what he had seen.

This speaker also struggles with drinking alcoholic beverages. Telling this story may be a way for him to express the fear he feels drinking to suppress emotions or escape responsibility.

He later asked me not to tease him about ghosts because to him, these stories are very real. I might not believe these stories in the daylight, but I will never walk alone at midnight in Guatemala.

El Curro

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 54
Residence: California
Performance Date: 2019
Primary Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“He was a man…not sure if it was meant to scare us as children, but legend tells that at dusk everyone had to rush into their homes and close their doors and windows. Because once it was dark, you could hear the galloping of a horse all around the town. And it was said that it was a charro dressed in black…who all and any person he came across, he would take them and they would disappear forever. That is why once darkness fell, not a single person would step outside or look out their windows. Any people disappeared because of El Curro”

Context:

The informant is my 54-year-old man from Guadalajara, Mexico. He heard this story from his mother. He believes that the town used the legend of El Curro to explain any and all disappearance.

Analysis:

This story seems to help explain why people from the town were never seen again and also helped the town keep their children from playing outside at night.