Tag Archives: ghost

Garden Grove Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Garden Grove, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

In March 1933 there was a huge earthquake and Garden Grove High School collapsed. There was a little girl, a Freshman, named Elizabeth and she was the killed when the wall caved in. She was trapped under the rubble in the Hall of Fame in Heritage Hall for hours begging for help, but no one came to save her.

 Nowadays, students say they can still hear her ghost pleading for help.

The Informant was born in the US and grew up in Garden Grove, a city in Orange County. Her parents are both from Vietnam. She is an Economics and Mathematics major at UCLA. The Informant, my girlfriend, told me this story as I distracted her from her own schoolwork on 4/22 at around 2am.

It seems like whenever there is a disaster or tragic event, up pops a ghost story. Ghost stories also appear to be a youthful storytelling technique. So, it’s not surprising that a ghost story exists about the tragic death of one of the areas high schoolers.

The informant grew up in the area, with many friends and family attending the school in question. Unsurprisingly, this ghost story spread via word of mouth from classmates. The story spread from across schools and across classes. The informant says she would never step foot into Heritage Hall because, even though she’s skeptical about the existence of ghosts, in the off chance that they do exist, she doesn’t imagine them as being friendly. Whereas the typical viewpoint sees ghosts as the wandering spirits doing the scaring, she views ghosts as the scared ones. They’re stuck, scared, and angry.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but my belief system on souls is more complex. I don’t question the tragedy that occurred, but if I take a step back and think about it, I question the idea of the “haunting.” For the sake of argument, if I were to accept there are ghosts, why would they haunt their place of deaths? If I were a spirit in the afterlife, I would want to stray far from my tragic place of death and be in the surroundings of my happiest moments.

Magnolia Elementary School – Haunted House

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Upland
Performance Date: 4/13/2018
Primary Language: English

The following informant is a 20 year old college student from Upland. Here she is describing a haunted house that is behind her elementary school, Magnolia Elementary School. This is a transcription of our conversation, she is identified as GA and I am identified as K:

GA: There is this haunted house at my school, um… by the playground, and some kids would be like talking about how there was someone who like died, who lived there, and like when it was like night at the school, it would be like haunted and stuff like that. You could hear weird noises and things would fall or move, things like that.

K: Did you ever go and explore the house?

GA: No I was too scared, but some of my friends went, we were in like 5th grade, and they heard and saw things. It was mostly kids in my grade wanting to explore and they told me about it because it was located right behind us/

K: Did anything happen to them?

GA: No, nothing bad, they just got really freaked out, maybe they did encounter the spirit of the guy that lived there

K: Did you believe what they told you about the house?

GA: Yes and no, I am always a little skeptical when it comes to ghost stories, but it did frighten me enough not to go to the house.

Context: She told me this while we were sitting at her dining room table one evening.

Thoughts:

I too am similar to GA, in the sense that I can be a little skeptical of ghost stories and haunted houses, however I think it is important to point out that regardless of the fact that she did not fully believe the house was haunted she still avoided it, almost like better safe than sorry. She did not have to accept the supernatural to understand that something weird was going on.

The Mean Ghost

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 55
Occupation: Stay At Home Mother
Residence: Upland
Performance Date: 4/13/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The following informant is a stay at home mom from Upland. Here she is describing interactions her good friend had with a mean ghost in their home. This is a transcription of our conversation, she is identified as KA and I am identified as K:

KA: Okay so my girlfriend is telling me about this ghost story that she lived in this house in Fontana and there was this ghost and he was like a mean ghost because he would like… it would be scary, you know, things would break and weird noises and stuff. and i think it was an old man that had died there, so she said that they got used to him, but it was not a nice ghost. and i think it was either in the garage or house, but he was there, and so they just lived with it

K: did they ever try to move or do anything about it?

KA: no they never tried nothing

K: do they think it was the previous owner?

KA: I think so, I think it was someone that probably lived there and died and he did not want to pass on to the other life so he stayed there . And she told me that and I was like what, no, but she said no we have a ghost. and I’m like okay

K: so did you believe her story?

KA: oh yeah, I believed her, I believe in ghosts, yeah most definitely they are out there. there are good ghosts and there are the ones that don’t want you in their… they feel like it’s their house, their ownership and you’re in their house so yeah

Context: The informant told me this story while we were sitting on her couch having a conversation at night, and as she was telling me the lights in her house actually started to flicker and make that buzzing noise.

Thoughts:

I’ll be honest, I did not have much to say about this piece, frankly because I was little scared. She was telling this story at night and like her, I don’t necessarily believe wholeheartedly in ghosts, but as she tells me, the lights flickered and made noise, and I genuinely thought she brought that ghost into her house. It was a very strange experience, but it reminded me of the idea that you don’t have to fully believe in something to know something is not right. Like not believing a house is haunted but still not wanting to walk through it.

Creepy Closet

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Electric Utility Manager
Residence: Irvine
Performance Date: 4/14/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Armenian

The following informant is a manager at a large electric utility company in Southern California. Here he is describing a legend about ghost that inhabited a closet in a bedroom he shared as a child with his brother. This is a transcription of our conversation, she is identified as T and I am identified as K:

T: When I was a child, maybe 8 or 9 years-old, my sister who was a little older told me and my brother about someone who had died in the house and that he lived in the attic above our bedroom. Because there was an opening in our closet to the attic, we always thought this ghost was trying to get in or out of the closet.

K: Did you believe your sister when she told you this story?

T: Heck yea, and from then on, we could never sleep with the closet door open.

K: Did you think closing the door would protect you?

T: Probably not, but it was better than leaving it open and waking up in the middle of the night to see a ghost in the closet.

K: What was the opening in your closet to the attic?

T: There was an opening in the ceiling of the attic that was closed with a lid. You could open the lid and gain access to the attic. One day, my brother and I gathered enough courage to climb up there and open the lid. Because I was older, I ended up opening the lid and looking but I didn’t see anything.

K: Did you ever actually see a ghost?

T: Never, but it didn’t matter. The thought of seeing a ghost was enough to instill fear for a long time. We did once have someone attempt to break into our house through our bedroom window at night and at first, I thought it was the ghost making noise. The robber got spooked and ran away. After that, I really couldn’t sleep thinking about a ghost in the closet and a robber at the window. I had some rough nights sleeping as a child.

K: Do you believe there is a ghost up there?

T: Definitely not, and I even recently went up there to take a look with a powerful flashlight. There was nothing up there except an attic. I did have my doubts as a child, but I always convinced myself that it wasn’t real. Regardless, I would always close the closet door.

Context: The informant told me this tale while we were sitting on his couch talking about scary stories as a child. He recalled this story and indicated he had forgotten all about the closet ghost until telling it now.

Thoughts:

Similar to the informant, I don’t believe in ghosts, but it is important to note that he changed his behavior as a result of the folklore. Although he was adamant he did not believe in ghosts, he still closed the closet door. This precautionary action likely made him feel better and probably allowed him to sleep easier. It was interesting how a robber was initially mistaken for the ghost, and he used the term “spooked” to describe why the robber ran away. It felt like in an unusual way, this fictitious ghost may have provided protection in his mind and possibly create a benevolent aspect to the ghost.

Apple Pie Hill

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Biophysics Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California (originally New Jersey)
Performance Date: 3/29/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Item (direct transcription):

There’s a hiking trail [in New Jersey] that I went on a couple times with a group of friends. It was about eight of us. And there’s a place called Apple Pie Hill. And it’s along the Appalachian Mountains. Like, the very beginning of it. And the trail that’s like the biggest trail that’s most popular and closest to where we live… when you go up it—it’s a couple of miles—um, when you go up on it, at the very, very top—at the top of Apple Pie Hill—there’s like a tower. And, uh, it’s abandoned. But there’s like a bunch of writing on it. People visit it all the time. They would leave like locks on it, or whatever, like “I love you” locks and stuff. People write on it a lot. I wrote down “USC Fight on! Class of 2019” on it.

There’s a story, though, behind that tower. That tower, you can go up on it—you can spiral up. Um, it’s like, it’s like a metal tower, but then there’s like a little box—like a room—on the very top. And the only way that you can get in is up a ladder there’s a little latch. Kinda like how you would get into an attic. But it’s locked. And there’s a story on why. And it’s because that tower, that place, that certain area is haunted. Because that tower is a… back in the old days—you know, when they didn’t have satellites and just didn’t have the technology that we have today—the way, uh, they would, uh, look out for wildfires was there was literally a guy watching from a tower like that. It’s a really old tower. Like, it looked really unsteady.

But, um, there’s a legend saying that the place is haunted by this one guy, ’cause he was a park ranger and there was a forest fire going on. But he was sleeping on that tower. So by the time he saw the fire and he wanted to, like, alert people, uh, the fire was, like, engulfing the mountain around him. He died there. He was burnt to death in those mountains. So they think his ghost still wanders around those mountains to this day.

Background Information:

The informant was told the story by his friend’s mother. He suspects that she was embellishing the story.

He’s not sure whether it’s true that a park ranger died on Apple Pie Hill, but he thinks it’s possible. He says he would be scared to visit the tower at night.

Contextual Information:

The informant treats this story as a cherished memory. Evidently, his visit to the tower and the story associated with it had a significant impact on him, as he was eager to share photos of him and his friends at the tower.

Analysis:

This legend seems to match common American stories about haunted locations. It has the usual motif of someone dying in an unusual way, then becoming a ghost and haunting the site of their death.