Tag Archives: ghost story

The Story of Josh Friar

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Albany, NY
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

This story is told at a summer camp in rural Pennsylvania.

Over by the lake, there used to be a huge house. It belonged to a man named Josh Friar. Josh was a very strange man, and very reclusive. He stayed in his house all year round, only leaving once a month to do his shopping in Towanda (the local town.) The townspeople always waited expectantly for his visit every month, for although he was strange and a recluse, every month he would have a new, beautiful woman with him. Blonde women, brunette woman, tall woman, short women–all different, and all stunning. One month Josh brought a particular beauty into town. She had fiery red hair, and bright green eyes. Everyone agreed she was the most beautiful woman Josh had ever brought. 

The next month, however, Josh didn’t come to town. Nor did he the next month. On the third month that Josh did not come to town, the townspeople decided to form a party and go check on him. They hiked out to the lake in the woods, and knocked on Josh’s door. There was no answer, but the door was unlocked. The men shrugged and opened it. Immediately they were overpowered by a hideous stench. It was so vile that several of the men ran outside and vomited. Despite the smell, several men still went inside. As they entered the dark house, the smell got worse and worse. Some had to leave because they couldn’t take it. Finally, someone found a light switch. When they turned it on, one of the men screamed. Everything in the house–the carpet, the walls, the furniture, everything–was covered in human flesh. It was so awful that some of the grown men cried or ran away. The few that remained decided they had to keep looking for Josh. They saw a staircase, and started to climb. As they climb, the smell got worse and worse. One man passed out. Finally, they reached the top of the stairs, and opened the door. Inside the room, sitting on a rocking chair, was the beautiful redheaded woman. And in her lap was the head of Josh Friar.

And one some dark nights, like this one, they say that he still walks these woods–the decapitated Josh Friar, searching for his head, with nothing but a green lantern, the same green as the bright green eyes of the woman who killed him.
This was a ghost story told at my informant’s childhood summer camp every year, usually at a bonfire on the Fourth of July. The camp policies didn’t allow most traditions, such as camp songs or stories, except for this and a few more told only on this night. Only one of the oldest, most experienced campers  will be allowed to tell the story, and every year, the camper with the honor does his or her best to make it new and exciting, even though everyone knows the story already.

At the last part, a green light will start flashing from the woods behind the speaker, to the screams of campers. This is done by another senior camper, and it is considered an honor.

The Story of Raggedy Ann of Towanda, PA

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Albany, NY
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

There was once a young woman named Ann, who lived in the rural town of Towanda, Pennsylvania, with her parents, who loved her very much. They would always say to her, “Just remember, Ann, if you ever get into any trouble, any trouble at all, just run home. Run straight home, and we’ll be here.” One night Ann was driving out by the woods. A deer sprang out onto the road, and Ann, swerving to miss it, crashed her car. In the crash, the glass from the windshield shattered, and split through either side of her neck. Ann stumbled out of the car and ran home, but as she ran, her mostly-severed neck flopped back and forth–flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop. Her parents found her and rushed her to the hospital, but somehow in the crash Ann lost her mind and went insane. Her parents put her in a mental institute. One night, Ann escaped, so that she could run home to her parents. And on some nights, you just might see her, running through the woods, her head going flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop.

This was a ghost story told at my informant’s childhood summer camp every year, usually at a bonfire on the Fourth of July. The camp policies didn’t allow most traditions, such as camp songs or stories, except for this and a few more told only on this night. Only one of the oldest, most experienced campers  will be allowed to tell the story, and every year, the camper with the honor does his or her best to make it new and exciting, even though everyone knows the story already.

On the last line– “flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop”, Raggedy Ann herself comes running across through the words, her head flopping back and forth, to the screams of the campers. This is always another senior camper, and it’s considered an honor to play the part.

Albino Farm, Missouri

My informant is from Missouri, and he tells me that everyone in his town knows about the “Albino Farm” in Springlawn. There are all sorts of stories about the old abandoned farm. The one my informant heard the most was that there was once a family of angry albinos who had been shut off from the community because they were different. They had set traps and if anyone was ever found on their property, they were never heard from again. Another rumor is that it was an underground hospital where experiments were conducted on albinos, and is haunted by albino ghosts. Although my informant never tried to sneak in, many of his friends growing up did–or at least, they claimed too. No one ever brought back any proof.

A Ghost Story

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

When my informant was about 10 or 11 years old, she was told a story by one of her mother’s friends because she was bored and there no cable in the house. She remembers the story well to this day because of how good a story-teller her mother’s friend, Dave Morton, was.

 

The following is a paraphrase of my informant’s ghost story:

 

“There is a big Victorian house is in Morgan Hill in Northern California. A young businesswoman moves in and discovers an ugly lime green master bedroom in the house. She starts to paint the room bright white because she hates the color and then goes to bed in another one of the rooms. She walks into this room the next day and one of the walls is a BRIGHT green again. But the others are still white. So she paints the wall again, but still the next day it appears bright green. Finally she gives up and decides to sleep in the master bedroom that night. But in the middle of the night she sits up quickly because she has this weird feeling….and there is a lady at the end of the bed staring at her, a tall, young, pretty, brunette, in Victorian clothing. The businesswoman puts her head under the bed to pretend it’s not real, she peaks under from the covers and there is no one there.

 

So the next day she has her dog sleep with her to make her feel easier. Once again she sits up in the middle of the night and she looks over and the dog is missing and the ghostly woman is there again staring.

 

She gives the bedroom one more night, she falls asleep, but she sleeps ‘on the surface’

It’s not a deep sleep. Then all of a sudden she starts to feel something in the room. She looks at the end of the bed and there’s the girl standing there again. The businesswoman thinks maybe something has to happen. She yells at the girl standing and yells ‘what do you want?’ The ghost lifts her arm and points at her.

 

So the next day she wakes up and the one green wall is a little lighter green. The business woman thinks that the wall is lighter because she talked to the ghost the night before.

 

The next night the ghost appears once again and the woman asks what she can do to help the ghost, but the ghost disappears.

 

When the businesswoman wakes up the next morning, there is a locket sitting on the edge of her bed. She sits there and she looks at the initials engraved on the locket. Then she notices that the green wall is even lighter, and realizes that the ghost wants her to figure out the ghost’s story.

 

She starts asking around if they know anything about the house and this woman. She finally finds a woman who knew stories about what took place in this house: that there is a young girl brutally murdered the night before her wedding in the master bedroom against the green wall. The girl’s fiancée found her the next day, and also discovered that the only thing missing from the room was the girl’s locket. The killer was also never found.

 

No one was in that room long enough to find the locket or for the ghost to give the locket to someone still living. So the ghost had found the locket and gave it to the businesswoman, the current resident, and because of that she was free, and the wall was no longer green and the ghost never came back.”

 

Now my informant said she wasn’t even interested in the killer or the fact that he was never found. What stuck with her was how her mother’s friend described the murder as a “splatter job,” and how there was a second person, who confirmed that the story was true.  My informant feels that there is no moral to this story. It was for pure entertainment purposes, as there is not much reason to stay away from the house because the ghost is now supposedly gone.

The Ghosts of Greyfriar’s Kirkyard in Edinburgh, Scotland

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student-film studies
Residence: South Pasadena
Performance Date: November 4th, 2011
Primary Language: English

The Ghost of Greyfriar’s Kirkyard Cemetery in Edinburgh

Told on November 4th, 2011

My best friend’s boyfriend studied abroad in the U.K. last year and he visited my best friend at her school, University of Edinburgh in Scotland.  I asked him if he could possibly tell me any ghost stories from his time in the U.K. He told me that he had a perfect story about a cemetery that he went into while visiting his girlfriend in Edinburgh. I have been a best friend of the girl since 9th grade and I have known her boyfriend for a few years. Here’s the story:

R.Y.: “When I was studying abroad in London, I visited my girlfriend who goes to University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I visited The Greyfriar’s Kirkyard Cemetery really late at night with my girlfriend one night. It was like midnight, it was dark and there was no one there. It was supposed to be locked, but the gate was open. We walked around and we were just talking and stuff.  We were in there for like 30 minutes. My girlfriend had taken a tour of the cemetery prior to this visit and she decided to tell me the story of the ghost/ghosts that haunt the cemetery. So, apparently there was a homeless person who was trying to find a place to stay because it was raining, as it always does in the UK. So he went into the cemetery and he decided that he would get into a crypt to get out of the rain. He was on top of a crypt with a dead person in it and then someone came into the cemetery walking his dog in the rain with an umbrella. The dog walker scared the homeless person and the homeless person fell into the crypt and got lost in the bones and it closed on him. It was said that he awakened and disturbed the dead. But what just dead did he awake?

Well some time ago, in like the 1600s, there was a judge, nicknamed ‘Bloody Mackenzie,’ who persecuted the covenanters—Scottish Presbyterians—and he mass burned and crucified them. Then they were buried in masses in this cemetery. He kept them in a field next to the cemetery and murdered some and let others starve to death then they were all thrown into the burial pit. They were all buried together in giant crypts and they were buried without their names on their graves or anything. He was truly an evil person and he would take money from children and kick dogs and what not. Then when the judge died he was buried in the same cemetery with those bodies.

The incident with the homeless person is what disturbed or awakened the burial pit. Apparently, they have to lock up the cemetery at night supposedly because someone was actually injured there one night at the “Black Crypt.”  The “Black Crypt” it the one where the judge was just thrown in with the other people he killed. It is in the corner of the cemetery and it has no ones names or years on it. It was an unidentified crypt.  Sometimes, when tours are held at the cemetery, people will encounter cold spots and when people take photos they see a lot of mystical orbs come out on the printed film. People say that they go into the cemetery and all the sudden there is one spot that is way colder than others. Usually the spots near the “Black Crypt” are way colder than others. Some people also claim that while walking through the cemetery, they feel that they are physically pushed to the side, like someone is angrily passing them. The really creepy part is that when people are on tours, they leave and later they discover that they are covered in scratches and bites.  They don’t feel the scratches happening to them while they are there, but when they get home they will discover small scratches on their arms and body. Apparently, this one time, this one guy was really badly injured, and had cuts scratched all over him. Who caused these scratches and bites? It varies on whom you ask. Some say that it is the judge, known as the ‘Mackenzie Poltergeist’ cutting up people from the grave. And others say that it is all the disturbed and improperly buried dead, having their revenge on the living. Anyways, that’s the story I heard. The versions may vary on who you ask, but almost everyone who visits the cemetery feels some kind of strange omen or deep anguish that occurred there.”

RY’s Interpretation:

“I think there are a lot of ways to interpret the story. I think that the scratches could be from the homeless person that fell into the pit, in that he is trying to claw his way out of the crypt to escape the dead bodies. He is literally clawing his way out and scratching anyone who comes too close to the crypt. Or, it could be that the judge could still be hurting people from his grave because he was so evil. One of the main ideas in the story is that this judge just ruthlessly killed people on no basis other than religious prejudice. So one theory of the poltergeist type ghost or ghosts is that there are many ghosts—the unnamed dead who were wrongfully persecuted and improperly buried. In my opinion there is an obvious moral to the story: wrath and immoral persecution of human beings is wrong and can cause disturbing consequences both here on this Earth and in the afterlife. This legend serves as a way for distancing and understanding a tragic event that has happened and it allows people to remember and reflect on the wrongs of the past.”

My Interpretation of his story:

This story falls into the legends category because while there is documented evidence of Judge Mackenzie’s persecution of the Protestants, he may or may not still haunt the graveyard today. I think that the scratches are coming from ghosts of the improperly buried dead. As we learned in class, when people did not have proper burials, they came back to haunt the living, sometimes until they were given the burial that they wanted. In addition, disturbing the rested dead is often advised against because it is wrong to disturb those who have been put to rest for eternity. I do believe that when the homeless man fell in the crypt he probably angered a lot of spirits. The story is one of warning to those who hear it—it is not a good idea to wake the dead and anger their spirits.