Tag Archives: ghosts

Gravity Hill Near Echo Mountain

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2019
Primary Language: English

1:

A “Gravity Hill” is a popular occurrence across California: a hill with a downward slope that, due to its surroundings, appears to be an upward slope. Because of this, cars are able to slowly roll down the hill and appear as though they are being pulled uphill. It has been said that at one such hill near Echo Mountain, if you cover the back of your car in powder and leave it for some amount of time and come back, you will find small childrens’ handprints left behind in the powder on your car.

2:

The informant began by talking about Echo Mountain and the lore surrounding it, of which much is distressing and and some is true. The Jet Propulsion Lab nearby had, she insisted she had confirmed, employed “some bigwig” who was also the leader of a satanic cult. Anything that follows, she acted as though was pure speculation.

In some of the camping trails in Altadena, the satanic cult which the bigwig led would meet and perform animal sacrifices. Somewhere nearby there was a mansion at the base of one of the Altadena Camping Trails which was supposedly the hose to local KKK meetings. It is near this mansion, “on the same street”, that the gravity hill is.

3:

A gravity hill on its own doesn’t require much explanation, as it is simply an optical illusion. The added element of “invisible children are pushing your car” is what interested me the most about this urban legend. I think the intention is to imply that the children are ghosts, which would line up with the number of uncomfortable stories floating around about the area in which the gravity hill can be found. This would be very easy to disprove, so I think it probably exists more as a joke which stemmed from the reputation of the area.

Chatsworth Trainwreck Haunting

Nationality: Greek/American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Primary Language: English
Language: Greek

The Folklore:

E: Are there any strange ghost related phenomenons in the valley?

C: Yes, there is a popular belief that after the Chatsworth train wreck, the railroad has been haunted by the ghosts of the people killed in the wreck.

E: What event triggered this urban legend?

C: In 2008, a train derailed and crashed in Chatsworth, California which is located in the San Fernando Valley. 25 people lost their lives in the train crash.

E: What supposedly happens at this train crash site?

C: It is told that if you park your car on a certain part of the train tracks, handprints will begin to appear on all of your car windows. After that occurs, a force begins to push your car off the train tracks. It is said that the handprints that appear on the car are the people that died in the train wreck, and since they don’t want you to also die in a train wreck they push your car off the train tracks.

E: Where did you learn about this urban legend?

C: I learned about this legend about a year after the train accident and my friend from home had actually experienced this phenomenon. This conspiracy is actually very popular and have heard discussion about this phenomenon numerous times from many different people.

E: Have you ever experienced this phenomenon?

C: No, I have never personally experienced this phenomenon, but I have had friends that have experienced this phenomenon.

Context:

This conversation was held in a very casual setting. My friend and I conversed about ghost stories in our surrounding neighborhood. He told me this story as well as another. The train track ghost legend stems from a rumor very close to my informant’s home.

Analysis:

The tragic incident created a story that the community would react to. This story makes people visit the site of the tragedy and it also serves as a means to warn people, don’t park on train tracks. Having lived in the same area for several years, there’s many places in the valley that are supposedly haunted. These stories are used to warn people of dangers but also draw attention to areas where unfortunate events have occurred.

Taiwanese Ghost Month

Nationality: Chinese-Taiwanese American
Age: 22
Occupation: Production Assistant
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10th, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)

Informant:

E, a 22-year-old Chinese-Taiwanese female who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is currently a senior at the University of Southern California.

Background info:

E’s first language was English, but because her parents were immigrants, she quickly learned Mandarin as well. Her parents are proud of their culture, and thus they often participated in many Taiwan and Chinese traditions, and believed many of the superstitions, as well. This is one of the superstitions E’s mother believed.

Context:

Late at night, a lot of weird conversations happen. Because E is on a project with me, we were working together at around 2:00am when we started discussing superstitions. When she knocked on wood, it brought this conversation up. The following is a transcript of the conversation I had with E. (I will be represented with a J.)

Main piece:

J: “Are there any other superstitions that you experienced growing up? With your family or friends? School, even?

E: “I’m not sure that this would count as a superstition, it’s more of a tradition centered around various superstitions… In Taiwan, there is this thing called Ghost Month. It’s in August, but basically there are just things you aren’t supposed to do during this month that could cause you to become haunted by a spirit.”

J: “What kind of things?”

E: “Well… For one, you aren’t supposed to have like… major life events during this month. Like if a child is born during this month, then it means that the child is cursed in some way. Or you aren’t supposed to get married or else ghosts will haunt you and try to break the marriage apart… Swimming and bathing are discouraged otherwise a ghost will try to drown you? Ghosts just don’t like people doing things during this month…”

J: “Do you know when this started? Or when your family started to avoid these things?”

E: “My brother was born in August, so clearly my parents didn’t care haha… But no, it’s mostly like my grandparents and other family still in Taiwan that observe this. My cousins, for example, have like… ghost-themed things in school to sort of like honor the dead. The only thing my dad warned us not to do was get married during August because he believes that’s why his sister got divorced… Otherwise, I think there are just too many things that are considered ‘unlucky’, or bad, during this time to take the tradition seriously.”

Thoughts:

There is a lot to break down with this tradition. It is filled with a multitude of superstitions, but they all sort of revolve around ghosts haunting you for doing things like whistling, swimming, etc. This is very reminiscent of Halloween in the United States; ghosts just roam around looking to haunt people. From E’s recount, it seemed to me like most of these “offenses” were just actions that some would consider unruly. Whistling can become annoying, swimming in places other than a pool could be frowned upon, flying commercially could be supporting corporations, etc. However, I was interested in the abstaining from major life events – specifically the example of her father believing his sister got divorced because she was married in August. A common thread in the folklore I have seen or experienced is that people use it to explain something bad happening. “Oh, it wasn’t that the two people were not meant to be together, it was just the ghosts messing with their marriage.” Or when bad things happen on Friday the 13th, people do not see them as logical events, they blame it all on bad luck.

The Cow Head Man

Nationality: American
Occupation: Retired
Residence: California
Performance Date: 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

Main Piece:

“When I was a child my mother told me that one late night, she stayed up waiting for my father to return home. It was really late…we lived up in the mountains. So it was always very dark. My mother said that she looked out the sliding back doors and she saw, what looked like a man. She ducked behind the couch quickly as the man walked closer to the sliding doors. When it got up to the doors my mother noticed that the man’s head was that of a cow. It had big black eyes and it just stood there…only moving its eyes from one side to the other. My mother was so scared, she did not know what to do. I think I remember her saying that the cow head man was there for about 10 minutes, looking around. Finally, my father arrived, and his headlights beamed toward the back. That is when my mother looked out again and the cow head man had disappeared.

“This figure, man, or whatever it is has always followed my family and I around.” (when she said this, I asked her what she meant by that, and she continued to tell the story.)

“You see, no matter where we moved to, my mother or me or one of my sisters or brothers said they saw the same man. The last time I saw him it was here (Her current home). I was in the back bedroom, asleep. I was waiting for my husband to arrive. I woke up exactly at 12 midnight. It was weird because my body just woke up on its own, anyway, when I looked over to the window there he was, with his cow head and those huge black eyes. He was just staring at me. I was so afraid. I could not move. There was a point when he looked away from me and that is when I ran right out of there and told my sister. My sister yelled at it and that was not good. You aren’t supposed to test them like that. It’s crazy because it just doesn’t leave us alone.”

 

Context:

The informant is an elderly Caucasian woman born and raised in Tennessee. She first heard about this entity from her mother when she was a child. According to her she has also witnessed the entity with her own eyes. She is not sure why it follows her family around.

 

Analysis: It seems that this story is one shared by many members of this woman’s family. They have all claimed to have encountered this entity in some way or another.

The Lady in White

Nationality: American
Residence: california
Performance Date: 2019
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

“A couple of weeks before my first husband was diagnosed with cancer, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a spirit of a woman floating in the middle of my room. She was staring toward me but was not looking at me. She looked sad. I decided to close my eyes and hide under the covers. After a while I fell asleep. The next night though, she appeared again, but this time she was much closer to my bed. She was at the end of my bed actually. I was so afraid and decided to slowly walk around her and out the door. My husband woke up after I left and he rushed out of the room as well. He was panting and his face was white. He said he had seen a woman in a white dress floating in the middle of the room and that she was staring right at him. I told him I had also seen her. It was so creepy. A few weeks later he was diagnosed with cancer and he died some months later.”

Context:

The informant is an elderly Caucasian woman born and raised in Tennessee. She had this spiritual experience while married to her first husband who died of cancer. She now believes that the spirit was trying to warn her about her husband having developed cancer. A couple of days after seeing this spirit, her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Analysis:

I believe that the informant now believes that the spirit she saw was trying to communicate to her the terrible news to come. Maybe back then she might have just felt fear but today the informant truly believes that that spirit was a good spirit.