Hauntings at Fresno State

Fresno State, located near the center of California in the large agricultural area known as the San Joaquin Valley, is, of course, said to be haunted.

Let's start with the music building....

Music students report hearing strange, unexplained noises at night in the music building's practice rooms. Some reports are more specific and describe voices and whistling when the building is empty save for the person hearing the noises.

A plaque dedicated to the memory of journalism professor Roger Tatarian sits right outside of McKee Fisk Hall.  At least one person reports that automated doors to the building opening and closing when he greeted the plaque by saying "hello Roger."

Anatomy classes held in McLane Hall involve cadavers*.  Although no ghost stories are associated with the room in which they are kept, the cold, morgue-like feeling is commented on in the stories that I found.

Commentary:  As I have noted on other entries, the folks from Hometown Tales used to like to point out that every college is said to be haunted, because it's a way for the boys and the girls to interact.  California State University Fresno (AKA Fresno State) is no different.

I am just disappointed that the ghost stories at Fresno State are so lame.

A few thoughts:

An ex-girlfriend of mine was a student at Oberlin College's conservatory of music, and she told me that stories much like the music building stories at Fresno State were also common at Oberlin.  Similarly, when I was a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, I heard a few of the undergrad music majors telling similar stories there.  I wonder if, rather like theaters, music practice rooms have a reputation for hauntings, or if it is just that people are isolated in these rooms listening intently and hearing normal sounds that they wouldn't normally notice.

The story linked to in the Sources section has a sentence which paraphrases as "some of the rooms have tools not normal for an educational facility: cadavers!" which, really, leads me wonder whether this person has ever considered how anatomy is taught.  Cadavers are fairly common on university campuses.  Also, are people genuinely surprised to discover that a room that houses cadavers would have a "cold, morgue-like" feeling?  What else would it be like?

The sources to which I link bring up the murder of Tracy Leroy Nute by former professor Maz Bernard Franc...even though the murder happened off-campus and no ghost stories are associated with it. I don't get why the murder is brought up.  I mean, it was a disturbing, grisly event that occurred and which had a loose connection to the campus...but there is nothing allegedly supernatural about it, it's just disturbing.  And given that the victim's family still lives in the area, it seems callous to use it for cheap Halloween thrills in the student newspaper when it's not even really connected to the alleged point of the article.

Sources:  College Newspaper, Weird Fresno (mostly a re-print of the newspaper article), Los Angeles Times

Allegedly Haunted House Party, Hull, England

Neighbors of a rented house in Hull, England, have long complained of the noise of partiers and loud music cranked up late into the night.  Worse, the garden of the house has been covered in trash (largely empty alcohol bottles) which had a tendency to end up in other people's yards as well. 

When confronted by neighbors, Leanne Fennell, the 20-year old woman who rented the house and resided there with her young daughter, claimed that the loud noises were the result of a poltergeist.  She claimed that she would be in bed at night, only to hear the stereo turned up loudly, and that her attempts to get the ghost under control resulted only in further mischief.

the young woman was cited, and ordered to pay 875 pounds to the council, which she failed to do.  She has now been taken to court.

While I get the desire for a poltergeist to turn up the stereo - after all, the term poltergeist is a German word meaning "noisy ghost" - it's tendency to empty alcohol bottles and dump them in the yard is rather more confusing.  Perhaps it is unclear on what the term "intoxicating spirit" is supposed to mean.

Commentary:  History is full of examples of people concocting ghost stories to cover up for their own misdeeds.  The Amityville Case is probably the most gruesome and notable, but more minor cases are not uncommon. 

While this particular story seems especially silly (honestly, it wasn't me making the noise...it was..the...um...poltergeist!  Yeah, it's a haunted house party, that's the ticket!), it's no more so than the Amityville case (it just seems sillier because of the relatively trivial nature of the infringement: loud parties vs. multiple murders), nor is it really all that different of the many non-newsworthy cases where people blame missing car keys or other items on impish spirits. 

Although it is likely that this is just an example of Fennell being in a tight spot and coming up with the first excuse that came to mind (a very stupid excuse, really), there is always the possibility that she has managed to convince herself that it is true.  Weird thing about human memory, we can convince ourselves of the truth of all manner of outlandish things, no matter how absurd. 

Incidentally, I once lived next door to two kids attending the local community college who would have all-night, loud parties, and never seemed to grasp that their neighbors might object.  I kind of wish they had claimed that ghosts were responsible - it wouldn't have kept me from calling the police, but it would have at least given me a better story to tell my friends.

Sources:  IO9, This is Hull and Reading

Child Murders and a Haunted House, Dublin, Ireland

The following comes from the 1914 book True Irish Ghost Stories, which is now available online here.

The following strange and pathetic incident occurred in a well-known Square in the north side of the city. In or about a hundred years ago a young officer was ordered to Dublin, and took a house there for himself and his family. He sent on his wife and two children, intending to join them in the course of a few days. When the latter and the nurse arrived, they found only the old charwoman in the house, and she left shortly after their arrival. Finding that something was needed, the nurse went out to purchase it. On her return she asked the mother were the children all right, as she had seen two ghostly forms flit past her on the door-step! The mother answered that she believed they were, but on going up to the nursery they found both the children with their throats cut. The murderer was never brought to justice, and no motive was ever discovered for the crime. The unfortunate mother went mad, and it is said that an eerie feeling still clings to the house, while two little heads are sometimes seen at the window of the room where the deed was committed.

Commentary: Not a whole lot to add to this one. It's a fairly classic ghost story: evil deed done in the house, house now is haunted. I like it because of it's simplicity, and the fact that it contains a double horror (murder followed by haunting) makes it all the more effective.

I suggest checking out the book from which it came (follow the link up above), as it is worth the time. The language is a bit archaic, having been written as it was during the early 20th century, but even that lends a good deal of charm to the stories contained therein. One thing that I have noticed is that identifiable information is frequently left blank - the names of roads are crossed out, or people's names are not mentioned. I wonder whether this is due to the authors or publishers trying to protect the privacy of people mentioned within the book, or if it is due to the authors trying to provide unfalsifiable stories.


Sources: Published book

The Ghost of Mary Nichols

On the night of August 31st, 1888, a woman named Mary Ann Nichols was on her way to a boarding house after having spent the evening at a local pub. She discovered upon arrival that she lacked the money for a bed that night, and so went to work to make the money - Nichols was a prostitute and was aware that she would be able to walk the streets and produce the money in short order.

At 3:40 am, she was found by a local carter, laying on her back on Bucks Row (now Durward Street) with her legs stretched out and her skirt up. The carter didn't look too closely and didn't know if she was alive or dead. When the police finally arrived, it was found that she had been savagely attacked, and her head nearly cut off. Her murderer was never found, but in short order Mary Ann Nichols became known as the first confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper.

Since that time, people walking on the road at night have reported seeing a strange, green glowing figure of a woman huddled in the gutter of the street at the spot where the body was discovered.

Commentary: As I prepare for my trip to London, I decided to look up London ghost stories, and figured that there would be some related to Jack the Ripper - and I was not disappointed. In addition to the story of Mary Ann Nichol's ghost, there are also hauntings attributed to Annie Chapman, the second victim, and Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim. This isn't surprising, as Jack the Ripper has held the public imagination consistently since 1888. Given that the locations of the murders are well known, anything that seemed odd in these locations would be likely to be attributed to the ghosts of his victims, and it would be a shock if ghost stories weren't told about the murder locations.

What is both interesting and disturbing about the fascination that we have with these murders is what it says about our history, as well as our present. The murder victims were of the lower ranks of Victorian society, living in the slums, and working as prostitutes at the time of their deaths. Had the murders not been so grisly, it is possible that they wouldn't have gathered the attention from law enforcement that they did. That being said, some of the accusations thrown at the police force - that it would have captured the murderer had it been more concerned about the victims - are probably unfair to at least some degree. While it is likely that more effort would have been made especially early on if the victims hadn't been prostitutes, it is also true that this case grabbed such media and official attention that the police were being pressured to find the murderer, regardless of whether they were inclined to do so or not. So, while class politics likely played a role in the investigations, there is no reason to expect that the murderer would have been caught if middle-class or upper-class women had been the targets.

It is also worth considering that someone who is unknown, Jack the ripper, is the focus of the public fascination with the case. While the victims' names are known, all that most people know about them otherwise is that they were prostitutes. They are sometimes portrayed as victims made vulnerable by a profession that they were forced into, sometimes as outsiders whose "immoral" profession adds additional spice to an already wild story. The reality is rather different. Look here for a brief biography of Mary Nichols, and even in these few paragraphs, she appears neither as a wanton harlot nor as a faceless victim, but as someone with a rather more complex past who ended up where she was through a variety of circumstances, some forced upon her and others of her own making. This is worth remembering, as all of us (including, obviously, myself, based on the fact that I went looking for, and posted, a ghost story related to this) are prone to probing the sensationalism and forgetting that these were real people with real lives who were killed by Jack the Ripper.

One final note: Look through the sources. You'll notice that the cut-and-paste is once again present in them thar inter-tubes.

Sources: Mysterious Britain, Internet, Paranormal Database, Internet

Himuro Mansion, Tokyo, Japan

Edited 2-2-2012

In a rocky area on the outskirts of Tokyo, there is a large house, a mansion of traditional design that hosts many malevolent spirits due to its dark history. The story is, at this point, best known to video game fans in the U.S. because a video game Fatal Frame was created based on the tale.

Legend holds that the Himuro family had a gruesome responsibility - every 50 years they had to perform an ancient and occult Shinto ritual that involved raising a woman in secret (to prevent her from forming attachments to others) and, late in the year, brought to an elemental seal from which evil forces might enter the world where each limb and her neck were tied to oxen who then pulled the woman apart.

The last woman to be killed, sometime within the last 80 years, somehow came into contact with a young man, with whom she fell in love. Her feelings for the young man essentially negated the sacrifice, and so the members of the Himuro family who were responsible for the ritual became distraught. Taking a traditional sword, the patriarch murdered his entire family, feeling their death by the sword was preferable to the evil that he believed was coming.

Since then, people have reported a wide variety of weird happenings at or near the house. Apparitions of family members have been seen both at night and in broad daylight. Bloody hand prints and sprays of blood, as if from a drenched sword, mysteriously appear on the walls. People who enter the house are occasionally found dead, with rope marks on their arms and legs indicating that they had been bound and pulled.

In addition, there are three smaller houses on the same property that had some connection to the ritual. There are reputed to be tunnels under the houses that connect them to each other and the mansion, but it is not known who built these tunnels.

A few photos have been found on the internet that may be from this house, but nobody knows for certain.


Commentary: A short while back, I began looking into ghost stories in Japan. I kept coming across references to Himuro Mansion, and the impression that I got was that it was essentially the Japanese equivalent of the Borley Rectory, except for one thing: while the location of most allegedly haunted houses is known, nobody knew where Himuro Mansion was. Also, the story of how the mansion came to be haunted seemed so over the top that it struck me as obviously false. Add to that the fact that the story is said to have inspired the video game Fatal Frame, and I was suspicious as to the nature of this story. Still, I know little enough about Japanese culture that I though I should look into it further, and that's how I eventually began stumbling across the last couple of bits of information that made the whole thing clear.

The tale behind this haunted house story is an interesting one. There is no Himuro Mansion. Himuro is, in fact, a fairly normal Japanese name (think "Smith Mansion"), and the story is not one likely to be known by many Japanese people. This is an American urban legend about Japan, not a Japanese one. And what's better, it was a consciously created urban legend!

The game Fatal Frame was originally designed and released in Japan, and following it's Japanese release, it was prepared for a North American release. It is not clear when the story of the haunted mansion began, but by the time of its North American release, the tagline "Based on a true story"* was added to the title, and the claim that the game was based on an actual story concerning a haunted house in Japan was circulated. The presence of the internet, probably the best tool for spreading false information and claiming rumor as true ever, made it easy to spread the story, and many people in both the video gamer and paranormal enthusiast communities shared the tale of the haunted house with others. Whether the alleged photos of the house come from the game company or from outside hoaxsters on the internet is not clear.

So, it appears possible that the story primarily exists in North America, and only exists because it was part of a marketing campaign for a video game. As a result, we now appear to have an urban legend about events that allegedly happened in another country, but the legend is primarily in circulation in the U.S. This has to be one of the most convoluted marketing/hoax-based urban legends ever. And I really dig it.

Edit to add:  As you can see if you look down in the comments section of this site, there are a whole lot of people who really want this story to be true, which makes this entry the most commented-on of all of those that I have posted to this site.   The comments section is something of a microcosm of the sorts of weird-ass arguments that people make regarding claims that are demonstrated false, but that they wish to keep believing: you have the people who are unwilling to do their own background research accusing me of not having done mine, you have the people making frankly racist assertions regarding the "superstitious" and "secretive" people of Asia, you have the pseudo-profound ramblings of people who are trying to claim that the fact that this house has never been found is somehow evidence of it's existence, the people who produce weird-ass stories about alleged visits to the house, and you have the people claiming that there is some sort of vast cover-up that would have to include Google, several governments, and more than a few people and companies involved in software development.  It is deeply, deeply strange.

For most of the people posting here who are claiming that the story is true, it seems to be partially a devotion to the game (which I am told is a fantastic game, though I have personally not played it) and partially a desire for a supernatural story to be true.  Regardless, this particular entry seems to get the passions up like nothing else on here...likely this is at least partially because the fact that this is tied in to a video game gives the players of the game a feeling that they have somehow experienced the events, and therefore a deeper investments than they otherwise might have.  I suspect also that the culturally pornographic view that many have regarding the "exotic" nature of Japan makes them invest this story with more meaning than a ghost story set in, for example, New Jersey.  Regardless, it is interesting to me that this one entry gets so much attention when, frankly, it's not even one of the better entries on this site.


*What is it with people routinely falling for this line? I have seen otherwise sane, rational people fall for really tall tales because they were supposedly "based on a true story". My favorite example, though, is that a cousin of mine was convinced that the events depicted in Return of the Living Dead really happened because the opening screen of the film had these words emblazoned across it.


Sources:  Fatal Frame Wiki,   Wikipedia, Internet, Internet, The Illustrious Internet

Amy of Lick Road, Hamilton, Ohio

Edit 12-7-12:  A commentor suggested that this story is in Hamilton, Ohio, and not Cincinatti, as originally stated.  I have looked it up, and believe that she is correct, and have edited the entry accordingly.

Amy was murdered by her boyfriend. Some say that she was murdered on Kemp Road, others that she was murdered in a nearby park, and some say that she was murdered in a nearby cul-de-sac, but what everyone agrees on is that here body was found on Lick Road, just outside of Hamilton, Ohio.

Since her death, a number of weird things have been said to occur on Lick Road. If you drive your car to the end of the road, the windows will fog up and the word "HELP" will be written in the fog (some versions of the story say that you have to flash your lights three times before this happens). If you flash your lights at the stop sign as you turn onto Lick Road, the word "STOP" will be replaced by the word "AMY." People have reported seeing a woman dressed in white wandering the countryside near Lick Road. And it is said that if you follow a trail leading down to a wooden bridge, you will hear a mysterious "clunk" sound, perhaps the sound of a body hitting the planks of the bridge?


Commentary: This is classic urban legend stuff. We have a creepy story based on tragedy, many variations of that story, and specific instructions to follow in order to experience ghostly happenings. This is typical of legend tripping, and is a delightful example of it.

Many people who visit the location claim to have experienced odd events, even if not those mentioned in the stories. Do strange things happen here? Maybe, but remember that people who go to Lick Road looking for ghosts may interpret anything that happens as evidence of a ghost without looking further into it.

Nonetheless, it's a great story, and I highly recommend that anyone who lives in Butler County take the opportunity to check the place out - after all, it's not often that you can experience a ghost story in a public (and hence not-likely-to-get-you-arrested-for-trespassing) place.


Sources: Newspaper, Internet, Ohio Exploration Society

The Screaming Woman of Highway 152

Highway 152 runs from Watsonville in south Santa Cruz County to Highway 99 about 30 miles north of Fresno. This stretch of highway is an important route for truckers who transport materials between the San Joaquin Valley and the Monterey Bay.

As the story goes, several years back, a young woman was hitch-hiking along this road, and was picked up by the trucker. The trucker killed her - the details of how, and even whether it was a murder or an accident, change from telling to telling. Sometimes she dies when the truck crashes or drives off of the road, in others the trucker murders here.

However, the stories hold that the ghost of this young woman appears in two ways - a phantom truck will be sighted driving down the road, and she is seen sitting in the passenger seat screaming. Also, it is said that lone motorists driving on the road at night have reported seeing her appear in their car's passenger seat, scream, and then vanish.

Commentary: The version of this story in which the woman appears in the vehicle of the driver seems to be a variation of the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend, but without the voluntary cooperation of the driver and without the coda of meeting a family member of the deceased individual. The story is also curious in that it seems to alwasy creep people out but good when I tell it, but the ghost doesn't appear to do anything malicious, it just appears, makes noise and vanishes. The fact that the ghost seems to simply be in torment and that it appears when we should be safe but are in fact vulnerable (controlling a 1000-pound or more piece of metal hurtling down a road) seems to add to the creep factor.

The version of the story in which the woman is seen screaming inside of a phantom truck seems to be a variation on a common "ghost car" or "ghost wagon" theme present in many stories found throughout the U.S. This version also seems ot be less frightening, due no doubt to the fact that it involves the witness seeing something, rather than having an unexplainable force appear in their safety zone.

SOURCES: Local Legend, Newspaper, Internet

Another View of Highway 152