Tag Archives: scary story

Lechuzas in Mexico

Background information: IJ is a 20-year-old student at USC, who currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. He often visits family members in Mexico, and learns about different types of folklore and traditions during his visits.

IJ: So it’s said that Lechuzas, which is a type of owl, like a barn owl, are actually witches, and they fly around waiting for someone to invite them in. The story comes from this one time that someone saw a bird – it was a barn owl – and threw a rock at it and hit it. And it fell dead on the floor, and the next morning in the same exact spot…there was a nude lady laying there dead. She was a known witch, so they concluded that those bird are the form that witches take sometimes in that town.

Me: Wow, that’s spooky. When did you learn about this?

IJ: Well when I go to Mexico, all my uncles tell me their stories about when they all lived there together back in the day. And they talk about all the paranormal stuff that goes on.

Many different cultures have versions of shapeshifting witches who watch humans in their animal forms, and I think it’s very interesting that folklore from so many different places share this concept. Because IJ learned this from family members while he was visiting Mexico, what he shared with me is entirely oral and specific to the town his family lived in.

For another version of this legend, see https://www.scarymommy.com/la-lechuza.

Abandoned Buildings at the Alameda Naval Base

Background information: My brother is currently a sophomore in high school in Alameda, CA. Alameda used to be primarily a Navy Base before it was a city, and one side of the island still has many large buildings that had been used when the base section of the island was still in use. These buildings are mostly abandoned and old now.

Brother: One time, my friends and I found a building on the base we could get in to, you had to go through like, a hole in the fence and then crawl through all this dead grass…and then crawl through this little opening door thing to get inside the building. Inside, I saw this super long and dark hallway, and it just kept going and getting darker and darker, even thought it was a bright day in the middle of summer. I thought I could hear voices…or no, like just noises…at the end of the hallway. I got super scared when I saw it. I didn’t wanna keep going down the hallway.

Me: How scary. What did your friends do? Are they the ones who told you about this building?

Brother: Nah, we just found it one day. They were all scared too, like, no one wanted to keep going so we just left. I still go to the base though.

Growing up in Alameda, exploring the abandoned buildings at the base feels like somewhat of a rite of passage. While I don’t think I’ve been to the building my brother spoke about, I know that the buildings are all incredibly creepy and feel weirdly unsettling, whether you’re there in the day or night time. I think that part of this unease comes from the fact that the only people that really explore these buildings are teenagers living in Alameda, so no one really knows or has documented any official “hauntings” or legends about them. However, this practice has become a sort of social event for teenagers as well – it can feel like a way for friends to bond and do something exciting together, as it was for both me and my brother.

The Zorch

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 55
Occupation: Educational Consultant
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece:

What the heck is the Zorch?

“I think it was done on Tisha’b’av, inside the bunk, they [the counselors] would, before bed, they would turn off all the lights and hang dry cleaning plastic, you know what you wrap with, whatever that’s called, hang it from a lamp on a hanger, roll it down to make a column and would light it on fire. And underneath would be a bucket of water, like a white bucket of water, and the bits of melted plastic would fall into the bucket and *floom* [fire noise] light it up! They don’t do it anymore (laughs).”

What was the purpose?

“To scare the crap out of the little kids? (laughs) I have no idea. I think it happened on Tisha’b’av because it was sort of spooky, and um… it was almost like a ghost story kind of thing. Sadly, I don’t remember the story associated with it.”

Context: 

The informant is my mother. She is Jewish and attended and worked at a Jewish summer camp for most of her childhood. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other. Tisha’b’av is a Jewish holiday that recounts the destruction of the Second Temple. The date of Tisha’b’av also happens to overlap with the day the Jews were banished from Spain. It is a day of mourning, so observant Jews fast (don’t eat or drink) and adopt a solemn mindset during this day. 

Analysis:

While I have never experienced the Zorch, I have been at this specific Jewish summer camp during Tisha’b’av, and it seems like there would be no better day suited to telling a scary story with scary visuals to match. Tisha’b’av is very different from a normal day at camp, and anything out of the ordinary has exponentially more impact on campers on this day compared to any other day. All of the activities are somber, and the content of discussion throughout the day is the destruction of our people. If I had experienced the Zorch, I would have been very spooked. The fact that this doesn’t happen anymore reflects the general trend of camp administrations changing rules to value the physical and mental safety of their campers. 

The Golden Arm – Campfire Story

Nationality: American
Age: 73
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Fosters, AL, USA
Performance Date: 04/20/2021
Primary Language: English

Context:

I called informant RM on the phone to ask if they could remember and retell any of the campfire stories they used to tell. RM remembered this one in particular because they could almost guarantee to get a scare out of at least one of their listeners.

For context, this story was usually told to a group of younger (around 7-11 years old) kids at night time either around a campfire or right before bedtime. When RM would tell this story they were sure to speak slowly and softly creating sustained suspense while enticing listeners to lean in closer.

Text:

The story is as follows:

“There was a farmer that lived out in the sticks and his wife lost her arm while working. The family was very poor, but she always wanted a golden arm so one day they got her a golden arm. As time went on, she died and the family buried her. Her two sons were having money problems so they went and dug her up but the golden arm was not there – one of the other ones had stolen it earlier. She was laying there in the coffin and then she set up and said ‘Who’s got my golden arm? Who’s got my golden arm?'”

At this point, the story is over and RM (the storyteller) would abruptly jump up and grab the arm of one of the kids who was leaning in to listen and scream, “YOU GOT IT!” RM reccounts many times where both the grabbed and ungrabbed listeners would jump with fright at this moment.

As RM finished retelling this story to the best of their memory, they laughed as they thought back to all of the times they tricked listeners with the same story.

Analysis:

As a campfire story, the story of The Golden Arm would not appear to carry any kind of meaning or moral. Its primary function is to simply entertain and scare listeners making for a enjoyable and memorable experience. While on its surface, this story might not seem to have any other significance, I am inclined to think that the artful performance of this story actually speaks to the relationship that is shared between the teller and its listeners. Since this story requires patience from both the listener and the teller and (ideally) culminates in a jump scare, I believe that this story would only be shared with listeners who the teller feels comfortable scaring. If there were no relationship between these parties, the teller could end up scaring the listener for good and lose their trust. The Golden Arm only works when trust is shared between its teller and its listeners. If this assumption is true, then perhaps The Golden Arm and other similar campfire stories might actually reveal more about the listener/teller and the relationships between them than initially meets the eye.

Bloody Mary

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arizona
Performance Date: 4 - 13 - 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and the interviewer.

Interviewer: Have you heard about the legend of Bloody Mary?

Informant: Yeah man, that shit used to scare the hell outta me when we were kids. 

Interviewer: what exactly did you have to do to make her appear?

Informant: Well at my elementary school, I know there was only one bathroom that everyone said it would work in, which was the girls bathroom funnily enough. We’d have to get in there, turn off the lights, and stare at the mirror while saying Bloody Mary 3 times, I honestly never did it myself though because I was scared enough of the dark on its own hahaha.

Background:

My informant was born and raised in Southern California. He went through the public education system and has extremely liberal views. He now lives in Arizona for college. 

Context:

I spoke to my informant over a zoom facetime call during the 2020 Coronavirus Epidemic.

Thoughts:

It’s interesting how such a massive legend can have so many little details that change from place to place. Also, I was amused that the kids at my informants elementary school thought it would only work in the girls bathroom… so everyone who knew the legend must have gone to that bathroom to do it? Legends are definitely more believable through a child’s eyes, and that’s probably why some legends have been able to last for so long. A child learns it in their young age, and it sticks with them so much that they end up passing it along to the next generation.