Tag Archives: ghost

Punahou Grey Lady Sightings

Nationality: Self-identified as multiracial/multicultural Hawaiian
Age: 60
Occupation: K-12 Science teacher, working on special science projects
Residence: Honolulu, Hawaii
Performance Date: April 2nd, 2013
Primary Language: English

He (my colleague) was… walking home one day, from his office down in Bishop Hall… when he noticed this lady coming down the chapel steps. And… he goes in front of her and he can see that she has no face. It’s just… black (encircles face with hands), all black inside this cowl. And at that point he realizes that she’s not walking… she’s floating a few inches off the ground, and her left shoulder was up a little higher and she was just floating, floating until she floated right through that grating at Bishop.

***

I used to teach high school… and one of the kids in my AP (homeroom), he worked running the lights in Dillingham auditorium. And he’s looking over at the right side and he sees a shadow, but then he’s looking around for… well you know, he works with lights, so he knows where all the sources of light would be; how could a shadow be over there on that wall, when there’s no light source? And then he takes his light, and with his hands steers it over to shine it on the shadow, because it should just disappear, but what the shadow does, it kind of turns, like it’s facing him, stands up, and then walks down into a crack…

 

How did you come across this folklore: “This is a story that was told to me by a friend, another Punahou faculty member, and another story of a similar interaction from a former student that told me what happened to him.”

Punahou is a very old school, with some buildings well over a century old… and lots of eerie things are known to happen from time to time. In other more detailed versions of the story, the Grey Lady is supposed to be a spirit of a former Punahou faculty member who inhabits the school chapel and reveals herself to people on campus, usually at night and when they are alone. She usually just scares people, and doesn’t cause harm. One of the purposes of this legend is to make the Punahou community more exclusive–it’s a campus wide legend, she stays on campus, and typically is only seen by students, faculty, or staff of the school.

 

Quazi Minono

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 11 2013
Primary Language: English

Behind a kickball field in Pasadena, there is a house that belongs to an old lady that all the kids call Quazi Minono. She lives in the house directly behind the tall fence at the back of the kickball field. Whenever Garret and his friends play kickball, they never go to retrieve their ball if someone kicks it over the fence. It is said that a boy climbed over the fence one time to get the ball and the old lady Quazi Minono killed him. Apparently, no one has ever seen what Quazi Minono looks like or exactly how old she is. However, she has a husband, or what the kids believe may not be her husband, who everyone can see because he sits in his wheel chair on the third floor of the house constantly peering out the circle window that faces the kickball field. He sits facing out the circle window for most of the hours of the day without ever moving. It is rumored that the old man sitting in the wheel chair is actually the kid who Quazi Minono killed. Instead of killing him, she kept him prisoner in his house. He can never leave because he has a full body paralysis. So, he sits almost all day staring out the window wishing he could leave and play kickball again. Garret and his friends never ever go over the fence to get the kickball.
Most likely, a killer old lady does not live in the house, and the man in the window is her husband enjoys looking outside instead of sitting facing a wall all day. It is sad to think that kids can think up such a scary story for the situation the old man is in.

The Witch on Louisiana Avenue

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pacific Palisades
Performance Date: March 21 2013
Primary Language: English

In West Los Angeles on Louisiana Avenue, there was a certain house where an old lady lived by herself. She would yell at the children walking by if they came too close to her house. It was rumored that she was a witch who would take the lives of children walking by in order to keep her alive. It was said that if you walked past her house and stepped too close to her lawn, you would get stuck on her grass because the grass would grow around your ankles. Then she would come out of the house screaming and take you inside of her house. Once taken, you were never seen again. However, it was said that she planted another rose in her front garden for each child that she took.
Danny and his friends would always cross to the other side of the street when they got near the old lady’s house in order to avoid walking to close to her lawn. Sometimes, Danny and his friends would pressure someone who thought they were brave to walk on the old lady’s lawn. They would play a game to see who could get closest to the house or who could stand on the lawn the longest. Most likely the witch on Louisiana Avenue was just an old lady who yelled at all the kids who would constantly ware out her lawn.

The Ghost of Alta Dena

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena
Performance Date: April 10 2013
Primary Language: English

There is a specific street in Alta Dena that is completely flat and rarely driven on. The street is out of the way from almost any house, so people infrequently drive along it. In the past, a terrible accident occurred in the middle of the road, and a man was killed. Since it took so long for the ambulance to get to the man and because the body was so mangled, the ghost of the man is known to haunt the street. It is said that if you drive to the middle of the street and put your car into park, then switch it to neutral, your car will begin to slowly move forward. The car starts to drive itself because the ghost of the man who was killed pushes the car. It only works if you are facing the street to the north because that is the direction the man was travelling at the time of the accident. It is said that he is still trying to get to his destination that is why he pushes the car.
In reality, the street is most likely not perfectly flat. Probably, the street has a slight decline to it that makes the car roll forward. However, the street does appear flat, and people continue to spread the story of the ghost who pushes the car forward.

Fiji Hold Down

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Laguna Beach
Performance Date: March 25 2013
Primary Language: English

Robbie’s family and his family friends used to go to Tavarua every year during Thanksgiving for a week. This island of Tavarua is a small island in Fiji that only takes about 10 minutes to walk all the way around. It is known for being very haunted. The main haunting is known as a “Hold Down.”
Robbie said that he and a big group of family and friends, about 40 people, were all out one night having dinner. The weather was super windy. By the time it was 10:30-11:00, everyone went back to their burrow to sleep. Robbie falls asleep not too long after. At exactly 2 am, Robbie randomly wakes up, without knowing what exactly woke him up. He said he can’t explain what did it, but it felt like he took shots of caffeine. He had a bunch of adrenaline: he was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding. He tried to calm himself down by walking around, and eventually lies in bed, attempting to close his eyes and fall back to sleep. At 2:10, he hears his sister scream at top of her lungs. Everyone in the family wakes up to see what has happened. Robbie’s sister is crying and sobbing, in a state of complete panic. She was saying that she was held down and paralyzed, stuck in a sleep position, all she could see were white images flashing through her eyes of her past memories. The family did not know what to make of this besides being a night terror of some sort. Eventually, they all go back to sleep.
When they woke up, they started asking around Tavarua island about the experience Roxy had at 2:10. People on the island said that it happens all the time, they even have a name for it: “hold down.” Robbie’s dad asks a maid about it. The maid said a Hold Down happened to her daughter at 1:50 in the morning that same night, so only twenty minutes a part.
The story behind the Hold Down, is that the island used to be a carnivorous island. Every animal and person who lived on the island would eat meat, and sometimes would cannibalize. It is said that many spirits of people who were cannibalized or improperly buried haunt the island. One woman in particular is associated with the Hold Down. She has been doing it to guests and people living on the island for years.