Tag Archives: ghost

The Girl in the Attic

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 10/31/13
Primary Language: English

Context: It was Halloween night at USC’s New Residence Hall, the perfect time and place to tell a ghost story. When I first asked my friend [the Informant], if he would be willing to share one of his numerous family ghost stories he was hesitant. After much coaxing, the Informant finally decided to open up and share with me a part of his haunted heritage. I quickly grabbed my camera and sat him down in a chair, as a small group of friends gathered around to listen in on the story. This was Halloween, and of course who could resist hearing a good ghost story? What follows is the story as it was presented to me:

Interview Verbatim:

Informant: “Okay, so this is not my ghost story, this is my family’s ghost story… uh I heard it from my dad, who heard it from his mother… uh, it has been passed down for a couple of generations. So, I guess that makes this my story as well. But my dad’s great Uncle John, okay so he bought this house on the kind of like wrong side of town, well back in that time it was still the good side of town, but you know how cities develop, now it’s in the bad part of town… uh this is Kansas City Missouri by the way. So he bought this house on the wrong side of town but, the nice side of town then…I’m sorry if I’m being confusing.”

Me: “It’s alright, continue. I get you.”

Informant: ”So it’s an old house… and uh, he moves in with his family and all of a sudden he starts complaining about like weird experiences there, but no one believes him because he kind of had a reputation for being crazy… uh, in fact… uh when his mother was dying in the hospital, because of some argument he had had, he refused to see her and she died before he could get there… uh to visit her and I don’t think he had any intention of visiting her… uh so she died and… uh a couple of weeks after she died, Uncle John started claiming that he had been visited by her spirit, and that she was tormenting him for uh… never saying goodbye uh… but he was crazy. The family actually had him committed and no one really thought much of it or of the house that he had purchased. And had complaints about occurrences inside of it…uh a family tradition of mine is that usually the house uh my family has this tradition of moving into other relatives homes once they are gone. So… uh, Uncle John’s son who was also named John, John II. My family also has a habit of passing on names along with houses, but now I’m going off topic, but uh…So John II moves into his dad’s home, after his dad’s been committed, and one day, this is a couple of weeks after they have moved in, uh he’s throwing a birthday party for his little girl…and…all the kids are up in the attic playing, and they all come down for cake and ice cream. And there’s this one kid in the group who’s really freaked out, and no one knows why, and so John (II) asks the kid, ‘Hey what’s up’ and the kids like, ‘Where’s that other kid?’ like there is someone missing from the party. And John II says, ‘No there isn’t’. So they do a head count of all the kids and they aren’t missing anyone, but this kid swears to God that there is another kid who is missing. And they ask this kid, ‘What did this other kid look like?’ and he explains that it was a little girl with ghostly pale skin…and since that…uh, John (II) and his family kept seeing this little girl in their house from time to time amongst other weird ghostly visitations. It was never malevolent in any way. It never did anything bad, it was just kind of there…so…”

Me: “I understand. Okay. Now when did this happen? Were you alive at this point in time?”

Informant: “No, this was far before I was born.”

Me: “So this pre-dates you?”

Informant: “Yeah, this pre-dates my dad. Because my home, the house that I live in which is also a relative’s home…that was built in the 1950s, and that was my dad’s other great uncle’s house…so I assume this happen around the 40s.”

Me: “Alright. Have you ever been to the house personally?”

Informant: “No, I’ve never. It passed out of family hands.”

Me: “Okay, I see. So it’s someone else’s problem now. Any ideas as to what you think it was?”

Informant: “My family is Irish Catholic, so… we were always kind of a superstitious bunch. And I would personally like to believe in the ghost story…uh…my family kind of treats it with this weird pride, so they can say, ‘We once owned a haunted house!’, so yeah…  

Analysis: This story, as it was presented to me, appears to have more validity then a typical FOAF (friend of a friend) story due mainly to the fact that this is a supposedly true story that continues to be passed down from generation to generation. The thing that really convinced me of this story’s potential credibility was, perhaps, not so much the story itself, but the way it was presented to me in context. While the Informant told us his story, he seemed distanced and quiet, very different from his typically energetic attitude. Whether he was simply setting the tone for his story or he was just expressing a deep amount of reverence towards his family’s home remains to be unknown. While I have heard this same type of story before, the playful child ghost appears to be a popular motif present throughout ghost belief, this should not be used to discredit the story in any way. In my opinion, the story is probably just a family tradition that continues to be told from person to person.

The Golden Child

Nationality: Thai
Age: 26
Occupation: Employee
Residence: Bangkok, Thailand
Performance Date: November 10th, 2013
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Every April, it is common that Thai people go back to their homes for a big family gathering, as it is Thai New Year holiday. The informant detailed on her personal spiritual encounter back then.

“I went to stay with my uncle after a family gathering night at his place during Song Kran (Thai New Year). His house was in the countryside and quite isolated from the city itself. It was perfect sized for our family of 7.

Our whole family stayed together that night. I couldn’t sleep that well as I kept having nightmares. It was weird as I don’t usually dream at all. I thought it was one off. However, my whole family seemed to have the same problem as we discussed in the morning about our restless night. When I learned my family shared the same sort of dreams. That made me doubt if the whole thing was just a dream anymore.

When I was falling asleep, the doorknob was making so much noise as if someone was trying to get in.  I thought it was my maid (as I usually sleep with her). The door creaked open, but just a bit, not fully open. I was in such state that I couldn’t care less, so I just ignored it. As the night went on, I started hearing noises. It was so much like several kids were giggling and playing catch. I woke up to it for a few times but I didn’t see anything so thought it was just a dream. At some point I even felt someone was trying to pull my cover away. It was a bad night sleep for me.

In the morning, my mother and sister made a complaint that there were kids playing outside her room for the whole night so she couldn’t sleep.  That was when my uncle, the owner of the house, brought us to light – he told us he has this girl in his care, and she was not human.”

I have heard of this story many times, people, usually in the countryside of Thailand, would feed this type of child ghost in return of its protection, depending on how they use it. For example, there was this nurse I met at a hospital and she claimed that she owned one of these ‘golden children’. She also claimed the golden child helped her family protecting the shop (small supermarket her family owned) from bad spirits.

“It was no doubt we were kid by the golden child in his care. At first I was terrified by the thought of being haunted some spirit. But then my uncle pointed out how pitiful these kids must be. Usually, the golden children come from dead babies that didn’t make it through – they didn’t even get any childhood. That is why they wanted some attention. They wanted to play. They wanted some love that they never received.”            

Unlike many other ghosts, the golden children often visit harmlessly; just like other human children- they want attention and care. The idea of having some inhumane visitor is scary for me. I, myself, never encountered anything like this before and would never wish to. But in this case, if I ever got a chance to experience something similar to the informant, the least I could do is to give these children some sympathy.

“Few days later I went to my uncle’s house again and put some children toys on the shrine (they usually have some sort of residential shrine). I hope it brought her some entertainment and she wouldn’t feel as lonely anymore.”

Grandma’s Ghost

Nationality: Hispanic-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 12, 2013
Primary Language: English

                Well basically, my grandma used to live in my house and she had a dog that would sit with her on the couch every, single day and followed her around and literally did like everything with her.  It was like he was like her baby.  And then my grandma ended up passing away.  She had a seizure in our house and was rushed to the hospital and ended up dying in the hospital but we still feel like her spirit is still in our house cus’ she lived there so long before she passed away.  Then, um, one day when I was like really sad and thinking about my grandma I was like sitting in my room and I was literally looking at a picture of my .. and my dog came, uh that dog came up stairs who he never like comes up stairs with me.  He always stays downstairs with my like parents and he came up stairs and all of a sudden just started like barking at the corner of my room.  And um I sleep now in, well when I was at my house, I would sleep in the room where my grandma used to sleep and he just started barking at the corner of the room for like ten minutes and wouldn’t stop barking at the corner of the room.  Then started to do his little cry thing and just ended up laying down and staring at the corner of the room and there was nothing there and he stayed there for like thirty minutes and just ended up leaving, but I don’t know.  I felt like she was like in the room and he was like seeing her there and it was really weird, but ya…that’s it.

                This ghost story was told in a ghost story telling session, but the orator was unsure whether or not to call it a ghost story, but she truly believed that the spirit of her grandma was there.  She did not mention the word “ghost” when talking about the occurrence, but instead used “spirit”.  This story lines up perfectly with the fact that most of the ghosts people see are of family members that recently died.  Also the ghost of the grandma was experienced in the bedroom where she used to sleep, a common motif found in ghost stories.  Another interesting motif shown in the ghost story was that the dog was barking and sensing the ghost and possibly saw the ghost, while she was not able to see the ghost.  I do believe that the ghost of the grandma was in the room with her that night.

Dad’s Haunted House

My dad, Andrew Nunes, was able to share with me his experience inside his childhood home.

Andrew: “Well, um, I was home at my house in Ferndale. And…uh nobody else was there. It was a big old Victorian house and it was always making weird noises and you can hear wind blow through it and all kinds of crazy stuff. But one night, I’m lying there on the couch, and I know nobody’s home. And uh you know I’m from big family. And so I hear the front door, plain as day, open up. Someone comes in, slams the door and I hear someone run up the stairs. And it was so clear that I just figured it had to be, you know, one of our brothers and sisters that had run up the stairs. But I’m waiting for them to come back down, usually they’d run upstairs and then come back down, so I’m sitting there and had been a while like… So then I started yelling, ‘Whose here?!’, you know, cause I know somebody’s been in. And so I’m like, ‘Ah dang it’. So I go up the stairs, and I go through every room and nobody (strong emphasis on “nobody”) is up there. Nobody had come in. And then I’m like…I could feel the hairs on my arm stand up and on the back of my neck. And I’m like, “it’s that ghost in the house again”. And I’m like freaking out man.  So I’m like, I go back down and turn the TV. up really loud and I sit on the couch like, ‘What are they going to do to me next time?’ (chuckles during this sentence).  And, you know, everybody has a ghost story about that house about something happening. Um, you know, somebody creaking the floor, somebody slamming a door. It happened so often, and there was so many people living in the house, that you would think it was somebody else and then you’d figure out, ‘Hey that happened to me too’. But nobody was there. So I’d heard about the guy who used to lived there and that he had, uh, went for a walk on the beach, and no one ever saw him again. So we always figured it must be him haunting the house. But he never really did anything mean or anything so (starts laughing) so we went on with our little ghost and you know, ‘Hey it’s the ghost again’. And uh nobody worried too much about it.”

 

What was striking to me was the way in which my dad told the story. He seemed to be telling as though it was a joke or an anecdote rather than something that caused him fear. It was also amusing to hear that everyone in his household new about the ghost but just accepted its presence as almost a mundane occurrence. He even began to chuckle and laugh during his explanation of the story, almost as though if it were only a silly memory rather than a traumatizing event. His family even had their own legend of why the house was haunted with the story of the previous owner going to the beach only to never return.

In his story, I picked up on some motifs that occur in many ghost stories. For example, the story takes place in his Victorian house, which immediately brings to mind a house that is gothic in architecture and is something that has been around for many generations. There was also the fact that the previous owner mysteriously vanished. With this fact in mind, my dad’s family believed that old owner was the cause of the paranormal activity occurring throughout the house. This seems to be motif that occurs in most ghost stories, the man who does not die a, so called, “good” death and, as a result, wanders the earth in the form of an apparition. The motif of the ghosts making noises was also present, as he heard the door open and the floor creaking, almost as if there was someone actually present, even though the house was empty.

The Ghost on the Stairs

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 12, 2013
Primary Language: English

                In the house where I lived there used to be a family that lived there and they moved to the city while we were still there because their oldest daughter was still in high school and there were two brothers.  One was a senior in high school and the other was a sophomore in college and they were at a party one night and they were drunk and they had an argument because one of the brothers was going to join the army and the other one was like, “That’s really stupid, don’t do that.”, and so it got so heated that the younger one was like, “Fine.  I’ll just walk home. Don’t give me a ride.”  So, he decided he was going to walk across the freeway and he didn’t make it home and he got hit by a car.  So like in my house.. so his bedroom was right next to my bedroom and we’ve had people come over to our house who don’t like believe in ghosts and spirits and they’ve sworn that when they are coming up the stairs that they’ll like see something at the top of it or they feel a presence there and we assume that it’s the ghost of the boy.

                This story was the first story told in a ghost story telling session.  She was perfectly calm and was eager to tell the story and while she told the story a friend made sounds effects such as screaming during the car crash and a ghostly moan with the mention of seeing the ghost at the top of the stairs.  She truly believes that her house is haunted by the boy who wanted to join the army, but they find that he isn’t a bad ghost, but rather just haunts the house.  The boy’s death was a bad death, because he died young and after a heated argument, which is probably the reason why he became a ghost and haunts this house.  The popular stair motif is exhibited in this story, since at the the top of the stairs is usually the location in which people see the ghost of the boy.  I believe her when she says that her house is haunted by the ghost of the son of the family that previously lived there.