Tag Archives: ghost sighting

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ Joaquin Murrieta Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “My parents said they were just finishing up a picnic at Alumn Rock park on the East side of San Jose and were getting ready to head home when a man who looked like he had been dug up (his clothes was old and tattered and resembled clothes from the cowboy days. He came up to their car window and just stood there not saying a word but staring in a daze. They believe it was the ghost of Juan Murrieta who lived during the late 1900’s. He was famous for robbing people in that area of the park. My dad started the car and got the hell out of there! My parents were very scared and they were familiar with the legend of Juan Murrieta and never stopped talking about the incident!”

“Ps: The cowboy did have an old style revolver as well!”

Interpretation:

I’d like to note that people often confuse Juan and Joaquin Murrieta, and that my grandpa was almost certainly referring to the latter. I did some research after being told this story, as I hadn’t heard of either figure until now. Juan was a pioneer, whereas Joaquin is a Mexican figure commonly known as the Robin Hood of the West. More specifically, stories about Murrieta rose in California during the Gold Rush. I find it interesting that my great-grandparents claim to have seen Joaquin Murrieta, because they associated something strange with something they already knew about (ghosts), and their knowledge of it is heavily influenced by culture. Even though my family was Mexican-Texan, they had heard enough about this specifically Mexican-Californian legend in the little time that they lived there that they assumed the figure was him. What’s more, this story hints at a combination of folkloric beliefs, as my great-grandparents claim to have seen a kind of undead version of Joaquin Murrieta, who is more of a legend than a popular ghost. There are debates over whether he existed, but stories of seeing him are rarer. But my great-grandparents seem to have believed in ghosts in general, so this memorate only furthered their personal view of the world.

Hotel Del Coronado ghost sighting

Text:

Informant: So, there’s a hotel down in San Diego, it’s a very famous hotel, called the Hotel Del Coronado. It’s an older hotel, and so, a while ago, the company I was with was doing some work there. I went there early and the workers were going to do work at night. So it was evening time and I was walking around, going downstairs and going around the shops and everything, going up into the lobby- if you’ve ever been to the Hotel Del Coronado, it’s just this beautiful place, very old, lots of history. Of course, the rumor is that it’s a haunted hotel. But you never expect to see anything, but you still have it in the back of your mind that something could happen there. So, I was going through the lobby and I was going to go downstairs to where there were some shops, and I was walking downstairs, and there were people walking up the stairs. And as I’m walking down the stairs, this transparent wisp of something just passes right in front of me. And I look at the guy in the stairway who’s walking up, and his eyes are huge. And he looks at me, and I look at him, and I said “did you see that?” And he goes “Oh yeah, I saw that.” And then we just kept walking.

Interviewer: How much of the hotel’s history were you aware of before this?

Informant: Well, not deep into the history, but just the notion that there’s probably a lot of ghost stories. But nothing in particular that I knew of. But yeah, like I said, when you walk into something with that kind of history, you kind of know something going on. But the fact that it wasn’t just me, but myself and a total stranger, that we both saw it, is just… scary for me.

Context:

As mentioned in the account, the informant was working at the hotel as part of their job. They were born and grew up in the United States.

Analysis:

Ghost stories have a habit of taking places in older locations and those with a lot of history. As Ulo Valk puts it, they are figures from the past who uncannily appear in the “wrong” setting. That being said, there isn’t a lot to go off of in terms of the story itself.

As the hotel is rather old, there is quite a bit of history behind it, and its own history of haunting. Kate Morgan, who took her own life in the hotel in 1892, is the main subject of ghost stories, with her death being where the ghost sightings began. Some guests noting flickering electricity, changes in room temperature, unexplained sounds, and breezes from nowhere. Very few guests, however, seem to note an actual present sighting of the figure, which makes this account far more unique. If I had to guess on an “explanation” for the event, it could very well be a result of the informant being tired, as indicated by this taking place during a work trip, and the general “aura” of the hotel itself potentially affecting the teller and other person’s perception. After all, if you expect to see ghosts in a hotel, you are more likely to see ghosts.

The Blue Light

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Nationality: American
Age: 80
Occupation: Retired, Former Museum Curator
Residence: Kelseyville, California
Performance Date: April 26, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background:

My informant for this piece grew up in rural, northern Wisconsin. I know from personal experience that living in an isolated area such as this one can cause serious boredom, especially during adolescence. Because of this, people who grow up away from the city often make their own fun, creating games and exploring the landscape. Occasionally, in the dark of night, strange things tend to occur.

Context:

As a teenager, looking for “the Blue Light” was both an exciting pastime and rite of passage in my informant’s hometown; everyone knew about it. On late nights, those individuals who thought themselves daring enough would go out in an attempt to experience the lore themselves. Luckily–although I may never get to experience it myself–I was able to live this tradition vicariously while he told me about it during an over-the-phone interview for the USC folklore archives.

Main Piece:

“When we were in high school… It was called the blue light. And there was a bridge on a country road, and you would go park on the bridge at night and people would go there all the time. And if you look out off the bridge sometimes people would see a blue light moving through the woods, and I saw it once, and my friends did too. The rumor was that there was an old farmer who hung himself off the bridge and his ghost haunted those woods.”

Analysis:

A few years ago, I remember hearing about some kind of phenomenon similar to the Blue Light that was supposedly proven false. Instead, these strange colors that people were seeing in the woods at night were reasoned to be the release of natural gas from a swamp, which would have a luminescent glow for a few seconds before dissipating. While this seems a more likely explanation, it hasn’t stopped the legend hunters who, apparently, continue to go out in search of the Blue Light even to this day. Though I would like to believe in the story and to pursue the Blue Light for myself, this continued interest in the phenomenon as the embodiment of a ghost is probably due to the human tendency of belief perseverance. In other words, teens in that region may have been given the information to know that the Blue light is probably just swamp gas, but they continue to believe in the story because it’s what they’ve always known.

For a Similar Narrative, See:

Carlisle, John. “Mysterious Light Draws Thrill Seekers to a U.P. Forest.” Detroit Free Press, 9 July 2018, eu.freep.com/story/news/columnists/john-carlisle/2016/09/04/mysterious-paulding-light-upper-peninsula-michigan/89275134.

Blue Ghosts in Okinawa, Japan

Nationality: American
Age: college age freshman
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

AM: So, it was- like the first month or two when i moved to Japan and I was hanging outside at like…2am like at night in a park. Um, the military base we was staying on was built like near like Japanese Shrines and whatnot and they said that you know the shrines are haunted and there’s a lotta “superstitions” with those. So while we’re out hanging, there was like oh look- you can see a bluf- blue figure on a hill like on top of the shrine and when I looked over you- I saw like a bluish like glow from the hills where the shrine was and they said that this island is one of the most haunted places and that there’s a lot of spirits around.

VG: Woah. What island was it?

AM: Okinawa.

VG: Woah-

AM: And that is- it is very common to see those there… so we was like “yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

Background:

Location of Story – Okinawa, Japan

Location of Performance – Dormitory room, Los Angeles, CA, night

 

Context: This performance took place in a group setting – about 2-3 people – in a college dormitory room. This performance was prompted by the call for stories about beliefs, ghosts, or superstitions as examples of folklore. This story came after a few others. The one prior was specifically about a high school grade being cursed.

 

Analysis: One point of interest in this performance is the effectiveness of the subtlety of the description of the “spirits.” The only physical description the audience receives about these supernatural beings is that they humanoid in figure and blue. The color is particularly notable because, at least in my experience, I have always viewed the ghosts in ghost stories as being neutral toned or white. Therefore, this description was able to create a whole new image for me and draw me deeper into this performance. It also reinforces the foreignness AM might feel since he had just moved to Japan: not only is the location different but also all of the local lore. One might even go so far as to say that this story was presented with a negative conation despite having no description of graphic hauntings or threats.