Tag Archives: Haunted House

The Unwanted Cuddle

Age: 19

EC: Pick an age 7  or 10

Interviewer: 7 

EC: So, when I was 7 years old my parents and I took a trip to the Whaley House in San Diego. It’s old, it’s like this old western town?

Interviewer: Were you going to the whaley house looking for ghosts, or just to see what it was?

EC: My family is into weird freaky stuff like that and it’s the most haunted house in America so my parents were into that. We also thought it was a museum more than a haunted house. 

For the most part it seemed sort of like a hoax. My parents thought it was more like a museum than a haunted house but it was like a cute little museum house with a courtroom, a store, and stuff like that so I just thought we were on a boring tour.

So I was looking for stuff to do in this old house, and the tour guide said that it was possible to feel a presence, but it still felt unrealistic and a hoax.  

We walked into their dining room which was a pretty small room and it was a pretty big group, 15-20 people, and I wasn’t paying attention or listening to the tour guide because it was a bunch of history I didn’t know since I was 7.

I am wearing this little pink, magenta little hoodie, and I was just looking around the room and staring at things. I stared at the dining room table and remembered that I thought it looked a lot like my grandma’s house, and I am standing near the table with my hands by my side. I wasn’t the only kid on the tour, and so I am just standing there and I feel this other little kid grab my hand. 

I didn’t think anything of it because there were other little kids and I was a really cuddly child. So I feel this little hand, and I remember its smaller than mine and I have small hands, and literally there was nothing there.

My mom said I shot my hands back into my pocket and I was really spooked about it because it felt like holding my mom’s hand, like it was real. 

And I really wasn’t the sort of kid to make a big deal of things so we finished the tour and my mom just kept asking what happened and eventually I told her that, like, I don’t want to sound crazy, but I really felt a hand holding mine.

My mom tells me that in that room, what the guy was talking about was that the youngest daughter who was part of the whaley family, I don’t remember her name, contracted something, maybe TB? And died when she was still really little.

The thing was that people would say especially little girls or moms would feel a girl grabbing onto them if they were taller or holding their hands. They say it’s because she was really close with her mom. 

But when I told her that and I told her that I wasn’t even listening, she agreed that it was really weird even though she knew it was a hoax. 

Everything I was wearing and stuff was more from her perspective,  but what I remember is looking to my right and expecting to see a person holding my hand, and even after I looked over I could still feel the hand holding mine but there was nothing there. 

Context: This story was told by the informant, who got most of the story and the context of the Whaley family from her mom, and her perspective on the informant’s physical reaction. The actual reaction to the ghosts was all from her perspective. The informant has always believed in ghosts, but the part that made it feel like a gimmick to her was the way that she thought ghosts should have appeared to her, versus how they did (alone like her room, vs. in a museum). She has since been back to the Whaley house twice, and nothing has happened to her since. This story was told to me alone.

Analysis: The informant believes that it was truly a ghost, 100%. She thinks it’s an interesting house, and that when she was little, she didn’t fully see it as a scary place, but as she got older, the energy felt heavier. At first I really believed that the story was a hoax, but as my friend explained more about the story and the way that it genuinely moved her and changed the way she thought about ghosts, and even that visceral story that has stuck with her for so many years, I feel like it has to be a true story, or at least have some sort of truth behind it. 

The Ball that Came Back

“When I was growing up with my sister, we had shared a bedroom, and this was in Thousand Oaks, California.

And her bed was on one side of the room and my bedroom was on.

My bed was on the other side of the room. We were. One night, we were both in our beds, and we were tossing a ball back and forth to each other.

Right. You know, she missed when she went to throw the ball to me, she had, like.

Didn’t throw enough power, so went underneath my bed.

So it took about, like, you know, 10 seconds. I went, oh, faster. God, I gotta go under here. When I tried to reach underneath there, the ball went flying right to her.

Which scared her and I to, you know, to pieces. This is so needless to say. So that evening we went to bed, and in the middle of the night, I was woken up by my mom saying, are you okay?

Are you okay? And I didn’t know what was going on. I somehow had my tongue underneath. My tongue was severed.

Yeah, so I don’t know how. There’s no way you can bite. You can’t, like, you know, bite your tongue. That’s impossible. It was clean. Like, just a clean cut, too. Just, you know, the thing that attaches your tongue to the bottom of your jaw.

So that was completely cut. So, like, the. We were. I was raised Mormon growing up. I. I’m no longer Mormon. I actually believe in more spiritual, like, Native American Indian spiritual, that type of belief.

Anyway, she. So. So they. The priest came and took me. They didn’t take me to the hospital. I don’t know why. They. I went to church. The church had stitched it up. They did, like. Like, a cleansing blessing, which I thought was interesting in hindsight. This house. This house had. Was. There’s six siblings in my family. We always consider, like, there was just a weird, creepy thing.

This isn’t like that. This is the. The Terrence. It’s like, always weird creepy things that would happen.

Like my younger brother. We had a babysitter. My mom was actually kind of whatever. She went to babies. And my younger brother was somehow pushed out of the second story window.

And, yeah, he. So somehow he ended up being. He doesn’t remember because he was like, four or five.

He got up to the second story window and was thrown out, and he broke his.

Shattered his pelvis and stuff like that. No, he was younger because he was like three. He couldn’t even crawl yet. So he had to be really young. Anyway, this is the same house where this weird shenanigans would happen.

You know, you’d hear, like, you know, knocking, which we thought it was always the, you’re my brother, or, you know, because there’s six of us. You always thought it was like, oh, is one of the siblings kind of messing with you?

Right, right. Well, you know, after that experience of having that ball and, you know, being thrown, you know, you know, across the way and then having my tongue severed, you know, even more strange things started to happen.

That’s just kind of like where it kind of all started, you know, realizing, well, there’s probably more to this.”

Context

  • The informer has been my next-door neighbor for the last 17 years. She talked to me in a Zoom interview.
  • The story takes place in her childhood home
  • She told me this story because I asked if she had any ghost stories to share with me, now that I study this in college, and collecting field stories is one of our class activities.

Her thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.

Her Thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My Thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.

One Sleepless Night

Age: 19

Context: This story comes from the informant’s mom. This happened when she was around 14 years old, growing up in Mexico. It is a ghost story she often tells, especially when talking about strange or supernatural experiences.

The story:
“One night, my mom was struggling to fall asleep. She kept tossing and turning, so she decided to look out the window. While looking outside, she saw a large group of dogs walking together and barking loudly, which she immediately felt was unusual.

She went back to bed, trying to convince herself it was nothing, but soon after, she began hearing creaking noises coming from the roof. As the night went on, things became even stranger. She started seeing shadows moving in the hallway, even though everyone else in the house, including her sister, was asleep.

Then, objects in the house began to move. Pictures hanging on the wall started falling out of the blue. The moment that stayed with her the most was when she looked into the hallway and saw the shadow of a man slowly walking toward her.

Terrified, she tried to turn on the lights, but they wouldn’t work. At the same time, she heard heavy stomping sounds coming from the roof. Overwhelmed with fear, she hid under her blanket, covering her head until she eventually fell asleep.”

The Informant’s Thoughts:
The informant’s mom still remembers this experience vividly and often shares it as a ghost story. She never fully understood what happened or who or what he figure could have been. It could have been something supernatural, like a spirit, or simply something her imagination created in the dark. Growing up, stories like this, along with folklore like La Llorona, were often used to scare children into behaving. Even though the story may not be entirely realistic, it left a strong impression on both the informant and her mom.

Analysis:
This story really intrigued me because it falls into the common “haunted house” motif, where typical domestic spaces can cause fear. My interest accumulated as more spooky details were revealed in the story. I also find it interesting that the story is rooted in childhood, blurring the line between imagination and reality, making it hard to determine whether the experience was supernatural or psychological.

Unexplained Events in Two Houses

Age: 19

Age: 19

Context:

This story was told to me by my roommate(PR) during a casual conversation in our living room while we were talking about ghost stories and unexplained experiences. The conversation was informal, and the informant shared these stories as personal experiences from their childhood and family life. The conversation began after I mentioned taking this GESM class and how I was interested in Ghost Stories.

The Story:

PR: “Basically, when I was in elementary school, we had just moved into this new house, and there was this period of time where really weird stuff started happening. Like, during the summer, we would walk into a room and see a glass of water flipped completely upside down, but the water would still be inside it. There wouldn’t be any water spilled anywhere, which made no sense.

PR: One time it happened on my brother’s desk. There was a glass flipped onto papers, and the ink from the papers soaked into the desk and ruined it. We had to get rid of it because it was permanently stained.

PR: This went on for a while, and then a few months later, we found out that the previous owner of the house had just died before we moved in. That’s when it started feeling a lot creepier.

PR: Also, my mom would hear footsteps at night, like someone walking up and down the hallway. Sometimes she would hear what sounded like us outside her door, and she’d be like, ‘Guys, just come in, don’t stand there.’ But then she’d open the door, and no one would be there.”

PR: “And then there’s my aunt’s house. That place was just… off. It was always super cold, especially in the basement, and I hated being there. I would just stay in my cousin’s room because the rest of the house felt weird.

PR: One morning before school, my cousin and I were alone in the house. We were in the basement and started hearing this creaking sound, like a door opening and closing. We went upstairs to check, but nothing was happening.

PR: Then we went back downstairs, and it started again. So we went back up and checked every door. When we got to one of the bedrooms, the door was literally creaking open and shut by itself, the same sound we heard.

PR: There was no one else in the house. And the dog started barking up the stairs like something was there. It was actually really scary.”

Informant’s Thoughts

PR: “I still don’t really know how to explain what happened, because none of it made sense at the time. Like, the water glasses thing especially. I wouldn’t say I 100% believe it was a ghost, but finding out that the previous owner had died definitely made it feel a lot creepier.”

PR: The stuff at my aunt’s house felt different though. That place just always had a weird vibe, even before anything actually happened. The door creaking by itself and the dog reacting made it feel way more real in the moment. It wasn’t just one thing, it was like everything together that made it scary. I still think about it sometimes because I can’t really come up with an explanation for it.”

Analysis:

This entry reflects common themes found in ghost stories, including unexplained physical disturbances, auditory phenomena, and an overall sense of unease tied to specific locations. The first part of the story includes a classic haunted house motif, where strange events, such as objects moving in impossible ways and unexplained footsteps, are later connected to the death of a previous occupant. This connection reinforces the idea of spirits lingering in places where they once lived. The second part of the story focuses more on atmosphere and perception. The informant describes a persistent feeling of discomfort in their aunt’s house even before any specific event occurred. This aligns with a common feature in folklore where environments themselves are described as “feeling haunted.” The creaking door and the reaction of the dog add to the tension, as animals are often believed to sense supernatural presences. Overall, the story demonstrates how personal experiences, environmental cues, and cultural beliefs about ghosts combine to create meaningful and memorable narratives. Even without clear evidence, the informant interprets these events through a supernatural lens, which is a key characteristic of folklore storytelling.

Old House Ghost Story

Age: 20

Text:

“My house was built in 1894, and it was built by the widowed wife of General George Custer, who was a American historical figure, wartime hero slash, didn’t do great things for Native Americans. But, um, anywho, his widowed wife built my house. 

Since it’s an old house, it’ll often creak, where there will be weird noises or that type of thing. Whenever that happens, my parents just go, “Oh, Elizabeth,” like, “Stop.” You know, it’s just so (). But she’s a friendly ghost, you know? She’s just puttering around the house as a widowed wife. 

Context:

The informant grew up in a historic home in Bronxville, New York. She explains that the house often makes creaking noises, which are common in older homes. Instead of treating these sounds as purely structural or random, the family attributes them to a ghost named “Elizabeth.” 

Analysis:

This is an example of a legend, because it is set in a real place and is told as something that has been accepted as truth and told as such by my informant and could be plausible but also debatable. The idea of “Elizabeth” as a ghost story provides a way for the family to interpret unexplained sounds in an old house. Rather than treating the noises as random or unsettling, they give them a narrative explanation, turning the ordinary creeks into something familiar and even humorous and her mom would say “Oh, Elizabeth.” This reflects how legends often emerge from real-world uncertainties and provide a way to make sense of it.

The repeated response of “Oh, Elizabeth,” or “Elizabeth stop” shows how a legend is performed everyday. It becomes a ritualized phrase that reinforces the story each time and the belief that the sounds are “no big deal.” Especially since the informant has been told this story since she was young, it gives children a way to quiet their anxieties about unexplained events. The folklore here is performed and repeated.

This example reflects a common pattern with ghost legend, particularly the idea that a spirit is tied to a specific place. By framing the ghost as a friendly presence, the legend reduces fear and instead gives the noises a sense of comfort. This shows how legend can reshape emotional responses to the unknown. Also because it is tied in the history of the house and the town it helps ground the occupants of the house into the greater history of the town and the house as a whole. This strengthens the folk group of not just the family but all the people who have lived in the house and anyone who comes through.