Tag Archives: night

Don’t Whistle At Night!

“I’ve always been told not to whistle at night, like ever. My grandma was super serious about it, too. She would hear even the tiniest whistle and immediately tell me to stop. The way she explained it was that whistling at night calls things to you…like spirits or bad energy, basically things you don’t want around. She said nighttime is when everything is quieter, so if you whistle, it travels farther, and whatever’s out there can hear you. I remember asking her what would actually happen, and she didn’t give a super clear answer, just that it could bring bad luck or something following you home. It honestly freaked me out as a kid, so I just never questioned it. I will stop anyone I hear whistling at night because I’m not trying to summon any demons.”

Context: AK is very superstitious; all people from Albania are, from what they told me. Whistling in the dark can summon bad energy or attract evil because sound travels farther when you can’t see as well, according to the belief. Since moving to America, AK has brought this Albanian superstition with them and stops anyone who whistles at night.

Analysis: This story shows how a simple belief can turn into a real habit just from growing up with it. Even now, AK reacts to it automatically, which shows how these kinds of superstitions can stay with you without needing proof. Bringing it from Albania to the U.S. also shows how cultural traditions can travel and continue in new places. This is a great example to show how superstitions spread throughout the world. AK heard it in Albania, and then spread it to their friends in the U.S. until they believed it too, and those friends could spread it on, etc.

Late Night Newspaper Room Ghost

Age: 58

Location: Boston, MA (Tufts University)

Text:
“when I was in college, I worked for the student newspaper, and I pulled a ton of all-nighters. I was always in that newspaper office at like 2 or 3 a.m., laying out pages, fixing articles, doing all the last-minute formatting before everything went to print. At that hour the building was basically dead. There were never really any students, no professors. Most of the time it was just me and maybe a few others from the school paper.

One night I was alone in the office working, and I heard this knocking on the door. I got up and opened the door but nobody was there. The whole hallway was silent. I didn’t really think much of it though I thought it was a bit creepy. I figured maybe someone was messing around or walking by, so I went back to work. But about twenty minutes later, the same knocking happened again. Again, I opened the door and there was nothing there.

At this point I was still trying to stay focused, but I was definitely getting freaked out. Then, sometime around four in the morning, it happened a third time. Same knocks. Same pace. Like someone was trying to get my attention on purpose. Now i was scared.

This time I didn’t open the door. I figured that if whatever it was was trying to play tricks on me, then then now would be the time that there was finally something there. So I didn’t answer it. But then it knocked again. So I got up and opened the door. There was still nothing there!

After the fourth time it never happened again. Ever. No explanation, no ending, no clue what was going on. Just knocks in the middle of the night that stopped as suddenly as they started. It was weird. Part of me thinks it was just someone messing with me. But that room could’ve been haunted”

Context:

This memorate was told to the informant by their father, who experienced repeated unexplained knocking while working alone in his college newspaper office late at night during production deadlines.

Analysis:

This memorate fits perfectly into campus ghost lore, where late-night workspaces become settings for strange and unexplained events. The repeated knocking creates a sense of intentional but invisible presence. What gives the story its power is the lack of resolution: no culprit, no explanation, just unexplained knocks that never returned. The mystery itself becomes the haunting, turning an ordinary college office into a space marked by unease and unanswered questions.

The Bride of the Ball Field

Age: 35

Location: Kailua Kona, Hawai’i

Text:

“So we’re getting back super late from an away game, like close to midnight. The field’s totally dark, no lights on anywhere, just the bus headlights. We all start unloading our gear, and I noticed the lady. At first I just stared out because I couldn’t tell what it was.

I tell everyone, ‘Do you guys see that?’ And we all look, and there’s this lady in a long white dress just walking the warning track. Slow, like she’s searching for something. At first we thought she was just some random person who wandered in, but the longer we watched her, the weirder it felt. She never looked at us, never changed her pace, never reacted at all.

Her dress was dragging behind her like it was floating, even though there was no wind. And she just kept making this slow loop around the field, head kind of tilted like she was looking for someone.

We all started unpacking the bus way faster. Like throwing bags out, not even caring where they landed because everyone just wanted to get to their cars and get out of there. By the time we left, she was still out there walking the field, not noticing us at all.

I thought about it for a while that night and recalled the dress looking like a wedding dress. Although I wasn’t sure, I thought that maybe she was searching for her husband.”

Context:

This ghost story was told to the informant by their baseball coach. The coach claimed to have encountered the apparition more than once over the years. He described the woman as a deserted bride who wanders the baseball field at night searching for the man who abandoned her on their wedding day

Analysis:

This legend blends personal testimony with the classic “white lady” ghost motif. The baseball field, normally filled with noise, players, and daylight becomes creepy when empty and dark. This creates the perfect setting for a spectral figure whose emotional trauma keeps her stuck to the space.

The lady’s slow pacing reveals her restlessness, mirroring her search for her husband who left her. The idea that she is only present at night reinforces her connection to liminality: she inhabits the darkness, the in-between spaces, and vanishes as the sun comes up.

When the resident house ghost wants pop soda too.

Category: Legend/Tale (Depends on if the person believes in ghosts or sees them as fanciful creatures)

Text: “[D]uring the middle of the night my family members would often go to the fridge, get a glass of pop, go back to bed. So when that would happen, whatever family member would do that, you know go down the stairs, open the fridge, get the pop, go up the stairs, go back to bed, every single time, afterwards there would be the sounds of that same thing happening but no one was doing it. Like it was-it was, there was a ghost that haunted the house and the ghost did other things but this goes whenever someone would do that afterwards. They would walk down the stairs, open the fridge, pour the pop, and then walk back up the stairs, but there was no one no one doing it. But it made the same exact noise and people could hear it from their beds. … And the ghost did other things, but yeah. They eventually moved out of the house cause it was creepy”

Context: 

V is a college student who’s been told this story by family members who live in Hazelwood, PA. She interprets this story as an unresolved, creepy mystery of the house saying it could possibly be haunted by a ghost. She is not sure the identity of the ghost.

Interpretation: Ghost stories often deal with ownership according to Valk. This story is the perfect example of that since the ghost “haunts” the house V’s family lives in. However, V’s family is unsure who the ghost is, so the ghost is not of a known person or ancestor of V. This latter sentence crosses out a different common aspect to ghost stories. Though it may be a ghost of the prior house owner sine Valk also mentions ghosts possibly appearing due to changes in property owners. Telling this story shows some belief in the supernatural.

Script:

(V told this story to an audience of 3, one of which was me)

V: This is a story from my family in Hazelwood, PA. I think I’ve told you this before [P], but I don’t think I’ve told you… but anyways so it’s like this-this old house had been in the family for a while my family’s been in Pennsylvania like since, it was like-it’s in Pittsburgh, PA in the borough called Hazelwood but they’ve been there since like-like pioneer times. Like we traced it back like ancestry and my family’s lived there forever. Anyways so it’s really common to drink like pop soda instead of water, it’s like gross, but so during the middle of the night my family members would often go to the fridge, get a glass of pop, go back to bed. So when that would happen, whatever family member would do that, you know go down the stairs, open the fridge, get the pop, go up the stairs, go back to bed, every single time, afterwards there would be the sounds of that same thing happening but no one was doing it. Like it was-it was, there was a ghost that haunted the house and the ghost did other things but this goes whenever someone would do that afterwards. They would walk down the stairs, open the fridge, pour the pop, and then walk back up the stairs, but there was no one no one doing it. But it made the same exact noise and people could hear it from their beds.

Me: Mystery unresolved? 

V: Yeah that-that’s it. And the ghost did other things, but yeah. They eventually moved out of the house cause it was creepy, so yeah. That’s my story. That’s what I got.

Con Mèo in Vietnamese Superstitions

Main Text:

Me: Tell me about the superstition your family has around cats.

AL: Specifically, uhm my mom or other women— Vietnamese women that I’ve encountered… have this superstition of that there is this cat, Con Mèo, which translates to “Cat” in English… Essentially, this cat would kidnap children, so… it means for the children to stay close to their mothers…

Me: …Every single time Con Mèo was kind of brought up, would it be… kinda referred to as like a monster or some type of entity that would kidnap you, specifically?… Did you have a particular image associated with it? Or did you just see a cat?

AL: I just associated the entity as a cat… But somehow evil… And it’s usually referenced by my parents— by mom at like night. Mainly because it’s dark, and to like stay close… I would see this saying more in Vietnam due to how poorly lit the city is, and the suburbs or the countryside, compared to here which is much more safer and has a lot of lights…

Me: …What age do you think this kinda like started, and what age do you think this kinda stopped? Where your mother was like “You’re getting too old for this!” Or is it kinda like a little joke that you bring up every now and then? You know, how does that relate to your personal experience with cats now?

AL: This started when I was young, probably in Kindergarten… Six? Five?

Me: Yeah.

AL: …It’s not that she stopped saying that superstition at a specific age. It’s just— it occurs less. Like she sometimes says it… Like once in like a while, she’ll say it. Just kinda like, just as a fun joke. But I would never say it back because *shrugs* Eh. But my relationship with cats now… I like cats, so it didn’t really affect how I viewed them as monsters.

Context:

This was taken from a conversation with my roommate, in our bedroom at the Cale & Irani Apartments in USC Village.

Analysis:

This belief could reign from one of the oldest superstitions that black cats are considered bad luck. This is especially prevalent amongst Asian cultures, and I even saw this fear manifested as a general disliking towards cats by my Vietnamese mother. Cats in this context were used by the informant’s mother with him and his younger brother, to instill fear in them and keep them out of danger, especially at night. It is beliefs like these that lead to almost all children, having a universal fear of the dark—a fear that my roommate already had. However, his positive relationships with cats won out over his fear of the dark. Therefore, Con Mèo didn’t affect him that much.