Tag Archives: Supernatural

Haunted Neighborhood

“Ok, so where we lived, I used to live in Chandler, Arizona. And where we lived, it was like a newly renovated area. So the land was usually farmland, often used by the Native Americans, because they used to have a reserve there, and then it was bought by the government and turned into farmland. So we had this house built like in a new community of new houses and model homes. So it was weird because my mom’s best friend Andy moved into her house and then um my mom and y dad moved into our house, and then three of my sister’s friend groups moved into the same street we were still on. But you know when you get the eerie, negative, cold vibe, so I could never sleep in that house at all and I am a deep sleeper so it was weird that I couldn’t sleep in the house.

And one night, my neighbors were like hey Abbey, do you want to watch our house because they were going to a party and they had a cat that I loved. So I was like yeah I’ll watch your house, and so I was watching their house, and there was a blackout at their house, and only their house. So I brought the cat over to my mom’s house and it was all fine. But then random houses started getting blackouts so we thought it was an electricity problem. Well it wasn’t an electricity problem, and then everyone in my family started getting sick, people across the street started getting sick, and it was like a bronchitis, like coughing sickness. I missed two weeks of school because of it. And they found black mold, like the kind that needs to be aged over ten years to be like that, and the house was brand new so that was weird, they thought it was like some chemical so they had to fumigate our house and we had to get vaccines.

And ok, so we have this basement in that house which was weird because Arizona doesn’t get tornadoes. But we had a basement and um we had above the basement was a hallway where me and my sister’s room was. And when I was in junior high and she was in fourth grade, and my parents left, and the dog was downstairs with us. And we heard stomping, and I called my mom and dad and they weren’t there, so I went upstairs and checked it out, and didn’t find anything so I got my sisters and we got some knives and we went into the closet in the basement. And we sat there for hours, and so the closet we went to was the storage room and it was right underneath the stairs that led to underneath the basement. And we heard footsteps coming down the stairs. And we were silent for an hour, and then we heard footsteps coming down the stairs again, but there were no footsteps going back up the stairs. So when my parents got home, they found the front door open, but it was weird because we never heard footsteps going back up the stairs and my dad didn’t find anyone in the house. So after that day, I refused to sleep by myself.

And then a bunch of bad things started happening in our house. My mom and dad started fighting all the time, my mom and dad were fighting one night and the pots started shaking at the bar, like started shaking. And then my mom’s best friend’s son got in a really bad car accident coming out of the neighborhood. Then there was a fire in a neighboring area and it brought in a bunch of scorpions over, and then my parents got divorced. And then in the exact order that everyone moved into the neighborhood, all of the parents got divorced. So like everyone in the neighborhood got divorced. So I was doing research later in life, and nobody from that neighborhood ever talked again and it was weird. And I was doing research about that area and we found out that it used to be a Native American reservation, which we didn’t know before.

And then we found out it used to be a tribal ritual ground, and my mom got so freaked out she called people from the actual community and they apologized for not disclosing the information because it had happened fifteen years before that and they only have to disclose information if it’s only been less than five years. So my best friend had a house there, and her family moved to Arkansas, so my friend came back one break, and we went over to her old house in that community to see if someone was living there, and it was completely deserted and everyone thought it was haunted. So we went in and the front door was wide open, which was weird, and we went into where her closet was and we found a headless baby doll in the closet. So I was like I’m done, I refuse to go back there, like I will drive around that whole property when I am in Arizona to avoid it. I won’t even go near it. And everybody is a different religion like Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhists, and even an atheist and they all agree that it was weirdly haunted.”

 

Informant: The Informant is twenty-one years old, and of Spanish, Italian, and Mexican heritage. She grew up in Arizona, and now works for an event planning company. She is a public relations major with an Italian minor at the University of Southern California.

 

Analysis:

Usually ghost stories that circulate focus on one odd event or a series of odd circumstances, and this story is one such story. It is not unusual to find stories about the supernatural because so many Americans share this belief in it. Like most of these stories, it brings to light the question of belief, as it is told from the personal experience as a memorate, it is more likely to be believed if one knows the informant. In addition, the last portion of the story mentions how people of all different religions, including an atheist, acknowledge that the events that unfolded within this story could only have unfolded from supernatural occurrences.

This narrative contains many elements traditionally found in stories about the supernatural. For instance, black mold, swarms of scorpions, everyone suddenly becoming ill and getting divorced one by one, are events that can only be explained by external forces. The attribution of the supernatural to these events helps to explain how such things could occur, and why they did. In addition, the portion of the story about the footsteps down the stairs is particularly interesting, because no one could explain why there were never any footsteps going back up the stairs. Therefore, it would make sense to consider this a supernatural event. Furthermore, an explanation as to why pots started shaking while the informant’s parents were fighting is difficult to come by scientifically.

Serving as an explanation for why such a string of unfortunate events could occur, the supernatural is an important element in this narrative. It is also supported by the fact that none of the new residents in the neighborhood knew that they were living on what was once a sacred ritual ground to Native Americans. This is an integral element in the story as it distinguishes why an entire neighborhood could be victim to such events. It is also important because Native American reservations strive to protect their sacred ground, and building on top of this sacred land is a violation of this sacredness. This could serve as a possible explanation as to why such events occurred. Overall, this story includes many elements traditionally found in narratives about the supernatural, as the informant is seeking to determine why such events could occur.

Mothman

Nationality: Italian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: Italian
Language: English

Mothman is a large creature that’s a cross between a man and a giant moth, and he supposedly lives somewhere on the East Coast. He has glowing red eyes and likes to fly at people’s car windshields when they’re driving. People claim that he was the cause of a collapsed bridge. Some news reports attribute Mothman sightings to large flying birds, however.

—

Informant is not American but knows a lot about contemporary American culture. He frequents Reddit, a “social network” very concerned with current events and urban legends. Mothman is an interesting piece of folklore because many have claimed to have seen it, like sightings of UFOs or Nessie, and the legends surrounding this creature are abound.

Succubus and Incubus

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“My uncle, he’s, uh, he’s a truck driver, so he’s constantly on the road and stuff. And, uh, this one time, he is driving with his buddy and they stay at a motel and, you know, it’s probably, like, three o’clock in the morning and he’s just, like, dead asleep. He hears someone, like, shuffling in the room and he’s thinking, like, oh, it’s, like, fucking Greg, like, his guy who’s riding with him. ‘Oh, it’s probably Greg.’ Like, ‘What the fuck is he doing up?’ Like, ‘We need to sleep.’ Um, so he just goes back to sleep and maybe, like, a few minutes later he feels like someone is perching up on his bed, like, someone is knees deep onto his bed. And he starts feeling, like, hands, like, he physically, he physically feels someone, like, about to, like, go on him. And in his mind, like, ‘Greg, like, what the fuck are you doing, dude?’ And he wakes up, or he opens his eyes, and he sees this naked woman on top of him. And at first, like, ‘Dude, oh, this is a fucking a—this is a dream, you know. It’s a fucking dream’ And once he starts to realize, he realizes, like, no I’m awake, lik,e holy shit, no wait– this is actually happening. He sees this woman, like, beautiful, like the way he describes her, he saw, like, her silhouette and he could just feel her hair on his face and it was wet, like, if she just got out of the shower, but one thing that he couldn’t shake off, was the fact that he just smelled, he smelled sulfur. He smelled, like, that… he smelled sulfur. He’s like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ And he’s just, he’s just lying there with this woman on top of him and she’s just, like, there, like, smiling, she’s like, ‘Oh, hi.’ And he’s just trying to register, like, what’s happening, like, ‘What the fuck? Who are…? Like, who the fuck are you?’ And she’s trying to seduce him, like, he felt like she was trying to seduce him, like she wanted to, she wanted to fuck him. You know. And it wasn’t until he kinda started putting two and two together that he was like, ‘Wait, this is not right. Like how the fuck did you get in here? Like you need to get the fu—like get off me! Get the fuck off me!’ But she was like, the way he described her, like, she was so persistent. There was something about her that was just, like, off. Like she was just so hungry for him. You know, to have him. And, like, he just, he got up, he shoved her off and he turned on the light to see, to see who she was, and she just fucking vanished. And he, once he saw that she, like, disappeared he got all his shit and he just ran out. Everything. And then after thinking about it and, like, doing some research, he, for him, he thought it was a, a succubus, you know. He genuinely thought it was a fucking succubus. And, um, it was just like in like in a rural part of America, like, in this motel, like, out in the middle of nowhere, you know. And he was just, he has no idea what the fuck that was. But from the way he described it, it was probably a fucking succubus. This thing that you know, takes men’s souls after having sex with them. You know, uh….

And you know what’s funny, uh, the same kind of story happened to, uh, my friend Valentina. Uh, this was when she was back in high school, she was living at her dad’s house and, um, she was home alone and she felt, you know, pressure being laid on her and she opens her eyes and she sees this guy. And at first she thought it was her boyfriend, Peter. And she looked at him like, ‘Wait, what are you doing here?’ lLke, ‘Peter, what the fuck are you doing here?’ And he’s like, ‘Hey.’ Like, ‘No.’ Like, ‘Don’t worry, like, just go with it, just go with it,’ you know? And she’s like, ‘Wait—like holy shit, you’re not Peter.’ And at first she thought it was just a fucking rapist, like, ‘Oh my God!’ She starts, she’s screaming, like, she pushes him off. And the way she described the way he moved, like, once she pushed him off, like, he jumped, like, into the air, like, this fucking thing, you know? Like ‘hisssssss’ you know? It jumped off and he went under her sister’s bed. Because there’s two beds, so he jumped off and crawled like… crawled under her sister’s bed. And she turned on the light and under her sister’s bed, there’s boxes. You can’t physically go under the bed. And she hasn’t, she doesn’t, she has no idea what the fuck that was.”

 

These are stories that my informant heard from his uncle and from a friend. My informant is very open to the idea of supernatural occurrences and, although he is aware that the storytellers were likely exaggerating, he believes there is probably some truth to the tales they shared with him.

The incubus and succubus are popular characters in folklore and can be traced back several hundred years. Possibly originating as an excuse for adultery, succubi and incubi appear primarily at night and often tempt men & women to betray their spouse. They are possibly related to the vampire.

 

For more about the succubus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/succubus

And the incubus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus

Haunted House in Hesperia

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Japanese

“This one story that happened to my, uh, my two cousins, on my dad’s side of the family, Alicia and Carina. They are very, very, uh, I guess you could say—very easily susceptible to spirit—spiritual, supernatural occurrences. Like, they’re just a magnet to that shit. It’s just, since they were young, that’s how it’s been, you know. It’s kind of, uh, within my own family it’s kind of, we just kind of accept it for what it is. Like, shit, it happens. Um, so they live in Hesperia now. But when they were little girls, they moved into the house they are in now. And they got it for super cheap because they realized, like, after, uh, a little boy passed away, um, in the tub. His mom left to go grocery shopping, like, really quick just to get something and he was, uh, I think he had Down Syndrome, and he passed away. You know this actually happened, like, this is actually, like, a true story: he passed away. Um. So when they got the house there was some furniture some stuff left behind. Uh, and in my cousin’s room there was this doll. This doll, it was just there, you know. And my uncle says like, ‘Oh, I’ll keep this for Carina.’ So once they start moving in, this one night, my uncle and aunt told me that Carina just, they just hear Carina scream. At the top of her lungs, just scream. And they open the door and she’s just, she’s just crying. And they’re like, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ ‘The doll was staring at me, was like, looking right at me’ And they’re like, ‘What?’ (scoffs) Like, ‘Oh my God, what are you talking about?’ Like, ‘Just stop. Go to sleep,’ you know? And this, this occurred like throughout a few weeks and almost every night, like, Carina would just, she had, like, no sleep because she would always claim that the doll would, at night, like, stand up and look at her and laugh. And she, her parents didn’t believe her. So this one time, my uncle was just so fed up with it, like, ‘Look, this is not real. You need to stop.’ Like, ‘You’re imagining things,’ you know? They got her a night-light, all this shit. So my aunt put the doll with all the other dolls in this little chest and put—just there, like, he’s not gonna get out, like, relax he’s in there you’re fine. That night, my aunt told me, when she went into the room all the fucking dolls, like, the thing was open and everything was scattered. And the doll was just, like, there. Like just, uuuhhh, just kind of there. Like, looking, like, at the doorway. And my aunt looked at my cousin. And she’s like, ‘Wait, why’d you make this mess?’ She’s like, ‘I didn’t do it. This wasn’t me I didn’t do it.’ And she asked my cousin, like Alicia, my little cousin Alicia,  ‘Alicia’s not—like, she wasn’t even here she was with my grandma.’ So like what the fuck? And my aunt was just, like, you’re being stupid, like, you did this shit. And, uh, this one time my aunt was vacuuming the living room and, uh, they’re have a, like, I guess you could say, like, somewhat of a poltergeist, like, they’ve experience the shit where you see the chairs, like, stacked up Like that’s happened to them. Like, they’ve seen it. And, so from that, they had a priest come to the house and like legitly bless it. You know. Um, so maybe for awhile, things started, like, things were completely fine. And it was’t until there was a barbeque at, they had a barbeque at their house. And my uncle decided, ‘you know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna—we’re gonna take this doll, and I’m just gonna throw it away, like, it’s done.’ You know, uh, so when people were coming, my grandpa at the time, he saw, he saw, like, this doll, perfectly fine on the trash can and he’s, like, why are they gonna throw this away? So he brought it back into the house. And you know from the perspective of everyone who’s outside, you just see a bunch of kids running out of the—outside in the back yard just running, just screaming, like ‘OH MY GOD!’ and my aunt was like what’s wrong, like, what happened? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ They said that—these are like little kids, a like my cousins, who said that, they claim that they saw the doll run across the room like the hallway.  And they all just ran out, screaming. It’s just… what the fuck? So from that they just, they just burned the doll, they got rid of it. They legitly just got rid of it. Um but I could like vouch for that. My brother, like, my oldest brother who’s 25, 26 now, he was a kid when that happened, like he was one of the kids that was there. You know. Like for him, it’s just, like, “Dude, I have no idea what the fuck happened. It was just there.” You know, but, yeah… just shit like that… like, supernatural shit.

“But the way that my family sees it, well my dad, my dad’s like her (the secondary informant) dad, like, “That’s bullshit. Like you don’t pay attention to it. You know, you don give it energy, like it feeds off energy, like it needs to be noticed, you know so if you make that conscious decision, like okay I see it,  I’m gonna acknowledge it, it’s just (snaps), it’s gonna keep coming back, it’s gonna keep coming to you, you know. But for some—like my grandmother, and just this—but it’s mostly with older generations—”

Secondary informant: “They just love it! They just dig it.”

Primary informant: “It’s like older generations, you know, it’s an older generations thing.”

My informant is of Mexican ancestry and his family is very open to the idea of the supernatural. He says that his family frequently shares stories about ghosts, hauntings, and unexplainable occurrences. Although he is more skeptical than his older relatives, the older women are especially into it, he still enjoys sharing the stories he’s heard. He can’t help but believe that there’s at least some truth to what his family members are telling him.

Stories about dolls who are haunted or possessed are very popular within the fantastic genre of literature, art, and film.  My informant’s tale is a unique one and tells of something supernatural experienced by his relatives.