Toyols: Evil Construct Fetuses of Asia

Here's a bit of nightmare fuel for you.

In south Asia, it is said that the there is a creature that may be created by a sorcerer, witch doctor, or shaman out of a dead human fetus or stillborn child. The creatures are said to look like green-skinned, red-eyed goblins, and are controlled by individuals who have created or purchased them. Although their description is often described, they are said to often be invisible without the aid of magic, and some stories seem to suggest that the toyol never leaves it's home, but rather projects itself as a spirit to commit whatever acts may be required of it.

Stories regarding these creatures are spread throughout Asia, and the remains to be used vary - some hold that a stillborn child will do, others than an aborted fetus is best, and others seem to state that any deceased human child will work.The remains are re-animated using magical embalming techniques, and it becomes a servant of the magician that created it, or may be sold to another if the magician decides to do so. Toyols are kept in jars (filled with oil from a human corpse, known appropriately as corpse oil) when not needed, and are brought out when desired by their masters. The toyols are controlled by chants that provide instruction, as well as discipline should the toyol obey. However, the toyol becomes more powerful every year, and can become dangerous to its owner.

The creature is in many ways child-like, needing clothing, food (usually sweet foods, but in some traditions, blood from the mistress of the house though some versions that that they will breastfeed but take blood instead of milk), and toys, and must be cared for. In return, the creature will serve its master, committing acts of theft, sabotage, murder (usually using it's shard claws or reaching through the chest to stop the victim's heart by squeezing it) and other crimes as needed. Male toyols are preferred, as they are more docile and can be easily controlled. Female toyols are more vicious and bloodthirsty. The female toyols tend to be closer to their owners, and often are more possessive of their owners, but (in accordance with the social traditions of the place where these stories originate) will not leave the home and are used more like particularly horrifying guard dogs than the supernatural petty criminals that the male toyols are said to be. Female toyols are also said to be more demanding of their owners, and to make demands that cannot be negotiated with, the way that they can with male toyols.

As noted above, in many versions of the legend, toyols are kept in jars, and in some there is a written contract with the spirit animating the toyol. In these stories, breakign the jar may free the toyol from its obligations, and allow it to attack and possibly kill it's owner. What happens with the contracts is not clear, with some stories sayign that the contracts have end-dates and that after that the toyol may be laid to rest, while others hold that there is no end, with the toyol becoming both a servant and a curse to the owner and to all of their descendants (so, the family curse isn't just for European families in creepy 17th century mansions).

In some versions of the story, a master-less toyol may just wander into the wilds, and go where it can occasionally interact harmlessly with human homes. In these versions to he tales, the toyol can be a heart-breakingly sympathetic character, essentially a lost eternal child that knows it cannot be part of any family, but will seek them out in order to observe longingly, and sometimes sneak into the house to play with toys. However, toyols don't like to be abandoned, and many stories hold that, if they learn that they are to be abandoned or destroyed, they will kill their master and themselves at the same time (worth noting - toyols are intensely jealous, and may take poorly to their master having a child of their own). Toyols who have committed crimes will often fear death, as they will have to go through judgement before being reincarnated, and they will likely be reborn as a lower life form to make up for their sins before being able to work their way back to human.

Though generally used for petty crimes, the toyol could be made more powerful through special rituals and could be used to commit more serious crimes, such as murder, or to bring the owner extraordinarily wealth. In addition to rituals, other ways to increase a toyols power include setting a toyol to suck blood from the toe of a sleeping bride on her wedding night (the bride is usually said to be a relative of the toyol's owner), or having the toyol take control of the owner and eat raw meat.

Luckily for the virtuous among us, defenses against toyols are well known. Placing valuables above needles will keep them from being stolen, and toyols fear being hurt by needles. Placing valuables next to mirrors will also keep them safe, as toyols are afraid of their own reflection. Fianlly, placing sand, strands of garlic, marble, and the like in various parts of the house will distract a toyol, who will spend time playing with them until it forgets its task.

Although generally said to be used for crimes, petty or otherwise, the toyols can also be made to commit other heinous acts, including seeking out spirits of wandering children to be made into other toyols; gathering information (for committing crimes, or for military intelligence); looking into human bodies to identify illness or injury; and foretelling the future.

Commentary: This is more folklore than the typical ghost story that I bring you, but it is so disturbing, weird, and just plain odd that I had to share. Most of what would normally be in the commentary is in the main text above, due to this being a piece of folklore rather than a reported haunting. Nonetheless, there are a few elements of the story that bear further exploration.

First off, though this creature is Asian in origin, and likely not related to European folklore, there are parallels with the homonculus of European folklore and magical traditions - primarily that a sorcerer or alchemist could use magic to create a small humanoid servant for it's own purposes. That said, many aspects of this story  - specifically the use of an aborted or stillborn fetus to create the creature - are specific to Asia, though I do wonder if this story hasn't made the rounds of some of the more rightward churches in the US and Europe, as it seems almost custom-made for linking abortion with black magic/Satanism.

The Atlantic article linked below states that a likely origin for these creature is in pre-Islamic mecca, where infanticide (including burying infants alive) was not uncommon (though, it should be said, this was not uncommon in many parts of the world, including Europe). The story would then, presumably, have spread with the expansion of Islam, likely especially as it was spread through the Moghul Empire. That said, as noted, infanticide is a common practice in cultures throughout the world, and creatures similar in some respect to the toyol are also found in mythologies across the world so while that is a possible origin, it is not the only likely one.

As noted, while the toyol as described above seems to be endemic to Malaysia and Indonesia, variations on the story are common throughout Asia. Versions are reported from China, Singapore, the Koreas, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, and I would be surprised if versions were not also present in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Japan, given the geographic spread of these stories. One version of the story even holds that Buddhist monks may carve stone bodies for the spirits of deceased children who are otherwise stuck on earth, though it sounds from my limited reading as if these creatures are more like normal children and are not thought to be evil, but rather are the result of a kind deed done by the monk. 

Given that variations of the story are found over a wide geographic range, there is no surprise that the stories appear highly variable, and often scaled to the scope of the people in a region. In small villages, the toyol is said to be the tool of the petty local witch or magician, and commits minor nuisance crimes. In more prosperous areas, the power of the toyol is said to be greater, and their capacity to enrich or harm are more extreme. This seems to make sense, as it is likely that common folklore will scale to the surroundings.

Sources: The Atlantic, Wikipedia, Bustle, The Paranormal Guide, 

Robert Johnson at the Crossroads

I don't know how I have managed to keep this blog as long as I have and not brought up one of the great American spooky stories, but I have, so it is long since time that I brought this up.

The story goes that one night, some time between the late 1920s and the mid-1930s, shortly before midnight, at a crossroads near Dockery Plantation in Mississippi, a good harmonica player but lousy guitar player named Robert Johnson begasn a ritual to summon the Devil. Johnson pulled out his guitar and began to play, quite poorly. Shortly after the stroke of midnight, a large man, his skin and clothing as black as coal, approached, took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, played a short tune, and handed it back to Johnson.

Johnson got the guitar into position, played, and was shocked to discover that he was now amazing. He looked up towards the coal-black man, only to find that he had vanished. Johnson walked back through the dead of night, and would soon discover that he was now a brilliant guitarist not just on the instrument that he had brought to the crossroads, but on every guitar that he picked up.

Johnson's newfound skill began to bring him success. He had became a popular guitarist and singer at the juke joints of the American south, and also found himself popular with the ladies.

But he knew that there was a cost, and that the Devil would quite literally collect his due. Johnson knew that in exchange for his talent, he had pledged his soul to the Devil, and that he would burn for eternity after his death.

As he shot to local fame, Robert Johnson wrote and performed songs with the usual blues subject matter of hard women and harder working conditions, difficult lives, and the need for relief. But he also wrote and performed other songs. Songs about bad dealings at crossroads. Songs about being pursued by demonic hounds. And songs about the Devil pursuing him. Some hold that he was writing songs based on the folklore of the region, but others claim that he was trying to tell people about what he had done.

One day, in August 1938, Johnson began behaving strangely, and people reported seeing him walking on all fours and howling like a dog. He had been working as a musician at a dance hall in Greenwood Mississippi at the time, and despite his odd behavior, he showed up for work that night and performed as normal. Later on, he fell ill, and suffered from painful convulsions that lasted for three days. Finally, he died. Some say he was poisoned by a jealous husband (again, he was popular with the ladies, not all of whom were single), some say that he simply dropped dead without cause. Most agree, though, that the Devil had made good on his part of the bargain, and now expected Robert Johnson to pay the bill.

Commentary: As I said above, this is one of the great American spooky tales, and I am surprised that I haven't covered it before. However. I am happy to do so now.

For anyone who tells you that overt connections between music and Satan began with heavy metal, let me introduce you to the mother genre of all rock music - the Blues. Stories such as this one surround Robert Johnson, one of the great early figures of the blues, but some would hold that other musicians (including Tommy Johnson - there were a lot of men with the surname Johnson in early blues, just as there were a lot of men with the surname King in mid-20th century blues) made the same deal. And blues music often contained Satanic imagery and subjects, such as Robert Johnson's own The Devil and Me Blues and Hellhound on My Trail Blues. Overtly Christian imagery and subjects were also, of course, part of early blues, which makes sense as blues is closely connected to Gospel music.

Robert Johnson was born in 1911, and died in 1938 at the age of 27 years. He had wandered the south as a musician and manual laborer during the 1920s and 30s, with accounts holding that he had either run away from home or been kicked out by his father as a teenager. However, as is typical for an African American in the early 20th century, his life was not well documented, and it is difficult to sort out what was true and what was rumor.

One thing that does seem to be certain - he hung out at juke joints as a young man, and played harmonica well. However, he wanted to be a guitar player, and was so bad at it that many musicians, including iconic bluesmen such as Son House, recall him "annoying people to death" with his attempts to coax any sort of decent sound out of a guitar. Then he vanished for somewhere between six months and a year, and when he re-appeared, Son House recalls being amazed at how skilled a guitar player Johnson had become.

I set the story in Dockery, Mississippi, but others would place the story in other locations throughout the south. Robert Johnson was a traveling worker and musician, and there is no shortage of crossroads in the south that claim to have been the location of his Faustian bargain.

Although the story of Robert Johnson is the prototype of the bargain between a musician and Hell, it is not the first such story. As documented in one of my earlier entries, the violinist Paganini is said to have either made such a pact himself, or to have bee the product of a pact between his mother and a demon. And, of course, in more recent years, heavy metal musicians play up this Satanic imagery to create their own mythologies.

Of course, the truth probably has less to do with deals made in Hell than with hard work. As noted, Robert Johnson vanished from the juke joints for somewhere between six months and a year. Though the documentation is sparse, he probably traveled to work, possibly with his family, and while doing so, he appears to have found a guitar teacher. The identity of the guitar teacher is unclear (and, really, it might have been more than one) but most sources point towards Ike Zimmerman (or, in some records, Zinnerman) being the teacher. It is said that the two played guitar at night in cemeteries in order to be in a quite place for practice, which may explain another variation of the story, where Johnson is said to have made his deal with the Devil in a cemetery, while playing his guitar on a tombstone.


Sources: Wikipedia, Open Culture, UDiscover Music, NPR, The Guardian

Night Marchers of Hawaii

Mainlanders such as myself tend to think of the beaches of Hawaii as being places of calm seas, warm sand, and half-dressed attractive people. I should, of course, know better - I am a native Californian and know that many people hold the same false view of my own home state - but nonetheless, this is how I think of Hawaii.

However, legend holds that the beaches of Hawaii are home to a rather fearsome group of spectres - Huaka'ipo, better known to mainlanders like me as the night marchers (though the words actually translate into "Spirit Ranks").

The Huaka'ipo are said to be the spirits of Hawaiian warriors who march in a single line throughout the island, playing drums and chanting. At sunset, or before the sun rises, the spirits march from their burial places to the locations of past battles, homes, or sacred places.

It is said that you her the drums first, followed by the sounds of chanting and conch shells, and then you may see torch light, and possibly smell a foul odor, before finally seeing the Huaka'ipo - and as they are non-corporeal, they may march through fences, walls, even homes. But resist the urge to look - the spirits are touchy, and are said to kill anyone who does not bow their head and look at the ground as a show of respect, some versions of the legend require that any witness lay face down on the ground to show respect, and some even hold that you must go inside or otherwise get away from the marchers to avoid attracting notice. Some legends hold that anyone killed in this manner is doomed to accompany the Huaka'ipo for their eternal march. However, if you are descended from one of the spirits, then you will be safe from their wrath.

There are, of course, other ways to avoid their notice. Specifically, placing leaves of the ti (not a typo) plant around your home will ward off evil spirits, and the Night Marchers (whether the Night Marchers are considered evil is open to debate, I suppose). Also, showing them respect may result in great things coming to you. Some versions of the stories even hold that the night marchers are a harbinger of death, rather than the cause of death, though these stories seem to be in the minority.

Most versions of the legend hold that there are multiple marches, each led by a different chief or commander, and that the characteristics of the march will correspond with the tastes and desires of that leader. And some marches are said to count gods among their members, with even brighter torches burning either out of respect to the god or due to the god's power. The marches containing gods usually contain six - three male and three female.

Typically seen at night, these spirits may be seen during the day of they are transporting a descendant to the afterlife. Whether that descendant is going to a more "normal" afterlife, or doomed to march with the Huaka'ipo is unclear.


Commentary: There is so much going on in this story, and it is fascinating to me both as a ghost story enthusiast and as an anthropologist.

When I first read about the night marchers, my first thought was that it was similar to the watchers in California's coastal mountains. But as I read more about them, it became clear that this was a very different sort of affair.

It seems entirely possible that the legend is based on actual rituals in which dancers or marchers would move about a territory either as a show of force or to collect tribute or both. In fact, such processions are common throughout the world, and the belief that the marchers may have in their ranks (or may become) spirits or gods while engaged in the ritual is also not uncommon throughout the world. It's easy to see how such a practice might, over time, become a ghost story, much as the very real 'Antap group became boogey men in Californian folklore. Some of the sources I read hinted at such an origin for the legend, though none explicitly stated it. I will need to do a bit more research to check into this.

Another similarity I noted was to the Wild Hunt of European folklore. In the wild hunt, spirits (or faeries, or demons, or ghosts, all depending on which version you encounter) head out along the countryside. In some versions of the story, it's demons chasing the souls of sinners, in others seeing the hunt can be a harbinger of death. In all cases, what is said to be seen are spectral humanoid creatures with the accoutrements of hunters chasing across the countryside.

And, of course, the versions of the story that hold that seeing or hearing the marchers is an omen of death are similar to the Banshee stories, as well as other ghost stories from throughout the world.

So, what to make of these similarities?  Well, my take on it is that some elements of the story grew up in Hawaii - probably including all of the standard parts (the form and nature of the march, the presence of gods, etc.), either as an element of folklore, or as a post-contact description of traditional practices. Other elements were likely added over time, as people from different cultures settled in Hawaii during the 19th and 20th centuries. I suspect that some aspects, including the apparent grouping of them all into the "night marchers" rather than individual parties of spirits, comes from the development of both tourist culture and modern media, which tends to result in the homogenization of local variations.

I also wonder, though I have no information to support this, whether the claim of safety if you are a descendant of one of the marchers might be a reaction to non-Hawaiian invasion of the islands. Throughout the world, local folklores change, sometimes radically, when outsiders arrive, especially when they are colonizers. The claim that you are safe if an ancestor is among the marchers seems consistent with these sorts of changes - a way of saying "you may live here, but you don't belong here, like I do!"



Sources: Funkypickens, Listverse, Hawaii News Now, Wikipedia, Huffington Post,

Witches' Trains AKA Zombie Trains

Witches trains, also known as zombie trains, are an element of the folklore of Southern Africa.  As the story goes, a person wandering alone at night may encounter a train, sometimes on an established track, sometimes simply moving along the landscape as if on a track despite the lack of rails,  that will stop for them.  If the unlucky wanderer boards the train, a conductor will ask whether they are seeking a "single" trip (one way) or a return trip. 

Answering "single" results in the unlucky passenger being killed and resurrected as a zombie, to spend their un-life doing the bidding of a witch or sorcerer.  Those who respond "return" will find themselves beaten, and then thrown from the train several miles away from where they boarded, often stranded with no clear means to return home.  


Commentary:  It needs to be made clear - the Zombie of African and Caribbean folklore is a different creature from the zombie of U.S. and European pop culture. 

In African and Caribbean folklore, the zombie may be someone who has actually died and been re-animated by a sorcerer or priest, or they may be someone who has never actually died but been made to look dead, and then had their soul captured by the sorcerer or priest.  Either way, the body is alive again, but without a mind or will of its own, and can be made to do the bidding of its master.  There are numerous accounts of former zombies being released, or otherwise re-gaining their minds/souls/wills, and leaving their masters.  And there is active debate as to just how much truth there may be to claims of pharmacological zombies - people put into a zombie state through the use of herbs or chemicals and used as slave labor by the people who prepared the concoctions.  A discussion of how much, if any, truth there is to these often sensationalized accounts is beyond the scope of this blog.  I would recommend that anyone interested start by reading materials available through groups such as National Geographic, and beware the frequent news accounts, which tend to dwell on the creepy or gruesome without critically examining the claims made.

The story of the zombie train appears to be tied into the concurrent development of railroads and European colonization.  Local folklore mixed with political realities in which the European colonists were oppressing the locals in a matter somewhat reminiscent of how a sorcerer oppresses his zombie slaves.  In post-colonial times, this story appears to have become attached to the development and enforcement of apartheid laws in South Africa, where a white minority held both de-facto and legal control over the lives and well beings of a large but subjugated black majority.  Moreover, both during the apartheid era, and following it, cheap workers from other locations were often brought in to work sites  by train rather than hiring local workers, leading to further impoverishment of local communities, the exploitation of migrants, and a distrust of outsidersm, making the zombie train a fearful thing both for migrants who fear becoming zombies, and for those who are displaced in the workforce by migrants, who they perceive as zombie-like. 

In a sense, this appears to be a case where political realities came to be reflected in the folklore.  An interesting, if disturbing, development.

Sources: Wikipedia, Blog

The Dark Watchers of the Santa Lucia Mountains

The Santa Lucia Mountains dominate central California's Coast from San Luis Obispo to Monterey. I can say from experience that the mountains are generally pleasant, providing both beautiful scenery and a quiet place to retreat from life's demands. However, legend holds that they are also haunted by strange, pitch-black specters that appear at a distance and seem to watch those who wander into the mountains or sometimes simply stare off into the distance. Their nature and purpose is unknown, but they have long been reported by people venturing into the mountains. The story is the same - someone will be climbing a slope or hiking a trail or beating a path through thick vegetation, and look up only to see a large, human-like figure garbed in a black hat and black robes, with no skin showing, looking down at them or else slowly surveying the area. If the witness moves to approach the figure, or tries to call the attention of others to it, it vanishes.

Image from weirdus.com

These specters, known as the Dark Watchers, are well known in local folklore, and even appear in John Steibeck's short story Flight and Robinson Jeffer's poem "Such Counsel You Gave to Me." It has been claimed that the Chumash who lived in the southern portions of the mountains, down around San Luis Obispo, have stories about these beings that date to before European contact with the area. They certainly were a well-known phenomenon by the 1930s, when Steinbeck and Jeffers were writing.

Commentary: This type of story is the reason why I love ghost stories as much as I do. While there's nothing bad reported to have happened to the people who have witnessed the Dark Watchers, they nonetheless are sinister, creepy, and just generally oogie. Just imagining seeing one of these things as you're going for a walk in the woods is enough to send a chill down your spine.

Oh yeah, this is the good stuff.

As noted above, it is clear that the stories of the Dark Watchers were in circulation by the 1930s, but it is often said that the Chumash who lived San Luis Obispo county had old stories about them. This may be, but the compilations of Chumash stories that I am familiar with (and because of my job and my training, I am familiar with most of what has been written about the Chumash) do not include stories of the Dark Watchers or anything similar. On the one hand, it can not be expected that the ethnographers who were collecting stories managed to get everything, so that there are stories out there that have not been captured by anthropologists is a certainty. However, it is also a common tactic for people trying to make a claim seem legitimate to falsely claim that there were Native American stories concerning it. So, there may have been stories about the Dark Watchers amongst the Chumash (and the Salinan, who occupied much fo the rest of the Santa Lucia Mountains), but I will remain a bit skeptical of this claim until I see it from a reliable source and not simply posted on websites.

I am tempted to call this a variant of the shadow people stories that have become popular in recent decades. Certainly it bears many of the same traits, and is nearly identical in appearance. However, as the Dark Watchers pre-date the popular shadow people stories and have taken on a local cultural significance, so for reasons of talking folklore, I am going to treat them differently, even though they likely have the same explanations.

Special Video:

...and here's a short film about the Dark Watchers:



Sources: Local lore, Weird U.S., Published book, Blog

The Church at Finney and Westwood, Salida, CA

I grew up in the small town of Salida, California. This story is once of the ghost stories that comes from my childhood.

At the corner of Finney and Westwood in Salida, there once stood a church. Now it is a parking lot and a large warehouse building for Salida Union school. But when I was a kid, it was an old church, the once-white paint now peeling and grey. The grass was patchy and sick looking. The interior lights were rarely seen turned on, though, as it was next to our school, we had little reason to see the church on Sundays when one would expect the lights to be turned on.

The church was surrounded by a grove of trees that that shed their leaves in the winter and looked like gnarled claws on trunks for a large portion of the year. Though the trees blossomed and were quite beautiful in the spring, this was not the image that stayed with us kids...no, we always thought of the church as being surrounded by evil leafless clawed trees, more creature than plant and malicious to the root.

We kids knew that the church was haunted. Some thought it was a Satanic church, others that it was an abandoned church on which evil had fallen, others that it was a church that had been abandoned and taken over by evil cultists, and others that it was a Christian church, but one built and pastored by an evil clergyman who was more interested in his own power than in religion (we were too young to understand or articulate it, but even as children we were aware of the corrupting nature of power, and it showed in many of the stories that we told each other). Our parents would assure us, usually while rolling their eyes, that the church was simply a building that had fallen into disrepair. But we knew better, we knew that it was haunted by something evil and corrupting.

The symptoms of the haunting, as far as my sisters and I ever felt them, were a vague sense of unease when walking by the church, and the occasional sense of being watched when near it. When one of us was feeling particularly brave, we might run up and touch the building, ensuring us both bragging rights and the (usually brief-lived) admiration of our siblings. Other kids told of tales they had heard - all of them second-hand of course - of sinister things inside the church. There were supposedly Satanic symbols near the altar, there was a painting of Satan that would kill anyone unwise enough to stare at it for more than 1 minute, and some stories said that the painting would leave the wall and float about the building of its own accord.

Of course, nobody ever entered the building to find out if these tales were true. No doubt we would have said that to do such a thing was foolish - suicidal even. But the truth is that this was part of our shared childhood folklore, and whether or not it we ever confirmed any of it was quite beside the point.

Commentary: As I said at the end of the story, this was part of our childhood folklore. We were frightened by the story, yes, but also thrilled by it. None of us ever looked for any evidence of the story - we never tried to get inside to church, we never inquired with people to find out if the church was still in use, and we never dared challenge someone who had come up with a new detail to the story. Whether or not it was true was beside the point. Walking close enough to touch the church was a test of bravery, and trading stories about the church was a favorite pastime.

When I was around 11 or 12, the church was renovated. The trees and lawn were tamed by gardeners, the white paint replaced with a fresh layer, and the doors were oftne left open on warm days, allowing members of the community to see inside the church. I don't know whether the church had ever been abandoned, but it had certainly not had the life that it would obtain during my teenage years. I never knew the pastor well, the church re-opened after my church-going years had ended, but I did know him at least in passing, and he always seemed to be a decent fellow and someone who was as concerned about his community as about his own church.

I don't know when the church was finally abandoned for good and torn down. It occured some time after I left Salida to go to college. By that time, it was no longer a terrifying edifece that harbored menacing spirits. It had become a part of the community. I wonder what the children in the area tell ghost stories about now.

The Hookerman Lights, Morris County, N.J.

According to legend...

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, railroads employed "hookermen" who used hooks to grab lanterns, mail, and other such items from poles along the side of the railroad tracks*. One night, somewhere along the rails in Morris County, New Jersey, the hookerman was thrown off balance and fell off of the train. He was knocked unconscious, and his arm was severed when the train ran over it. Some say that he died then and there of blood loss, others that he survived but had a hook put in place of his missing limb. Either way, the accident and the loss of his arm linked him permanently to that stretch of track.

Since then, people walking the railroad tracks at night have reported strange balls of light that appear above the track, and move along the track, changing color as they go. These lights are said to the the ghostly lantern of the unfortunate hookerman, looking for his lost arm.

Sometimes witnesses claim to approach the light only to see it move away from them, as if controlled by an intelligence. Even the removal of the tracks in the late 70's didn't result in the end of the lights. To this day, if one wanders the old route of the railroad through Morris County, there is a chance that you'll see the hookerman's spectral lantern.


* I have no idea if this is true. I have tried doing internet searches to find out, but my web-fu is weak...no doubt there's a sixteen year-old reading this who got an answer in a matter of minutes.

Commentary: This is a classic urban legend, variations of which can be found all over North America, but one of the best known versions is from Morris County, New Jersey. There are a few variations on the story even within Morris County, with some claiming that the hookerman was on the train, others that he was a railroad employee walking the line who was struck by the train. Some versions have him living through the incident, but having an arm replaced with a hook, while others hold that he had used a hook on a pole as part of his job and was killed by the train.

So, there's a few different things to talk about here. First off there's the fantastic urban legend nature of the story itself. Unlike most non-urban legend accounts of hauntings, the hookerman is given a goal: to find his arm. This is classic Urban Legend stuff, the ghost has a goal and is restless because that goal can never be reached. Then there is the fact that the legend has some very wide and strange variations - did the hookerman live or die? Is the hookerman called that because he worked with a hook or because his arm was replaced with one? - that is also class ic urban legends stuff. And, of course, there is a place given where one can go and see the ghost, which leads invairably to legend-tripping. This is a great story for these reasons alone.

But then you get the fact that, ghost story aside, there is a class of reported phenomonon known as "ghost lights", "spirit lights", "will-o-the wisps", or "spooklights" into which this can plainly be put. These spirit lights are widespread and include the Marfa Lights in Texas, and the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina, and the Min Min Lights of Australia. The causes of the lights are variable. The classic Will-o-the wisp appears in swamplands or marshes, and is likely due to nothing more than combustible gasses in the swamps. The other lights may be similar natural features, or may also be lights from mundane sources (automobiles, campfires, etc.) that are rendered unidentifiable due to atmospheric oddities (such as the movement of differentially heated air as the ground cools at night) or have simply been mis-identified by witnesses due to unfamiliarity with the landscape. Many people claim that these lights are caused by the Piezoelectric effect - wherein minerals such as quartz release electricity when struck.

I think that invoking the piezoelectric effect is overkill, as there are many other potential light sources available where most of the spooklights are reported, and they tend to be dismissed with little scrutiny by most paranormal researchers. However, it is interesting that even within the paranormal believer community, one is far more likely to hear a naturalistic explanation - even if it is a far-fetched naturalistic explanation - for these types of lights than to hear a supernatural one. What that means, if anything, I haven't a clue. But I find it interesting.

One other thing worth mentioning: most famous hauntings have completely subjective experiences - someone sees an apparition or hears a sound when nobody else is around, someone gets a "feeling of being watched", or someone notices that they are getting cold for no reason. These things are damn near impossible ot verify or test. What's cool about the spooklight phenomenon is that they are a visible, observable, testable phenomenon (which is perhaps why even many paranormal enthusiasts prefer naturalistic explanations), which means that A( if they are real, they can be shown to be real (at least hypothetically), and B) if they are found to be real, they can be studied.

And that is really damn cool.


Special Stuff: I loves me some Hometown Tales videos:



...and because you can never have enough videos:



Sources: Urban Legend, Local Folklore, Hometown Tales Podcast, Weird N. J., Horrorfind Weekend, Associated Content, Internet, Internet Forum, Another Internet Forum

The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach

On the roads outside of Cannon Beach, Oregon, and especially an old, now bypassed, section of Highway 101, a strange and disturbing creature stalks the night. Drivers have long reported seeing a man, clad from head-to-toe in bandages stained with blood and other less identifiable fluids. Those who have come close enough report that the ersatz mummy smells horribly, as if he is rotting. And those who slow down, or who are unlucky enough to be walking when the creature comes out towards the road, have been savagely attacked. Sometimes it is claimed that the bandage man can simply appear in passing vehicles, without any obvious entry. Oddly, the bandage man is also said to eat dogs. Sometimes the bandage man leaves behind bits of putrescent bandages that fell off during attacks.

Stories of the origins of this being are variable, some holding that this is the ghost or re-animated corpse of a logger who had been severely injured in a sawmill, and died while in bandages. Others hold that this is a vengeful spirit of no earthly origin. Whatever the story, the bandage man is said to be violent, malevolent, and to be avoided.


Commentary: Now that I am back home after seven months on a time-consuming project for work, Halloween seems like a great day to begin posting stories on this blog.

This is a beautiful urban legend, complete with claims of physical evidence left behind (the bandages are often said to mark the scenes of his attacks, much like the hook left behind by a serial killer in one popular urban legend. The story is pretty damn creepy (although the part about eating dogs, while probably intended to be horrifying, simply sounds rather silly), and as someone who has driven on California's forested coastal highways late at night, I can attest that it is easy to let one's imagination run away and start seeing all manner of evil creature out of the corner of your eyes. In addition, the presence of a specific location allows legend tripping for the youth of the Cannon Beach area. It is also delightful to note that one of the sources listed below even contains a "friend-of-a-friend" story that fits the urban legend perfectly.

What is somewhat unique is that, as far as I have been able to determine, the bandage man is a one-of-a-kind, location-specific urban legend. Although elements of the story are common in many wide-spread urban legends, I have not been able to find anything quite like the bandage man anywhere outside of Cannon Beach, Oregon. And that makes this a story worth remembering.



Sources: Published Book, Internet, Internet, Internet

The Ghost of the Central Park Canal, Bakersfield, California

If you go to the canal in Bakersfield's Central Park at dawn, you are likely to run into something that perhaps you'd prefer not to see. A ghostly woman, wearing a white robe-like garment, has been reported to haunt this area, and might be seen by early risers. Some reports say that she weeps as she wanders the canal's banks, while others don't report any sounds at all.

Local legend holds that this ghost is the spirit of a murdered woman whose remains were found under the floor of an old foundry when work was performed there (other versions of the story claim that her remains were found on the other side of the park). Who she was, why she was murdered, or even when she was murdered have never been determined.

Nonetheless, her ghost wanders the canal.


Commentary: This appears to be another urban legend/legend tripping case. We have the location where the ghost can be seen, a time to go and see her, a description of the ghost that is vague enough to allow the imagination to run wild, and an origin story of the ghost that nicely avoids particulars.

One particularly interesting point is that at least one group of people have argued that this is a variation on the La Llarona story. There are certainly similarities - a mysterious woman who is seen close to water, sometimes heard weeping. However, there are also differences, this woman was supposedly a murder victim, and not a mother who had killed her children or allowed them to be killed. Also, some of the traits that she shares with many stories of La Llarona - the wandering, weeping, and the robe-like clothing - are also shared with many other legends of ghosts.

Is there a link between La Llarona and Bakersfield's ghost? Perhaps. But the interesting question to me is, if there is a connection, is the Bakersfield ghost a variation on the La Llarona story, or did elements of the La Llarona story get added to an existing story in Bakersfield?


Sources: Internet, Internet, Internet

Modesto High School

Updated on May 12, 2010

Anyone who has spent much time as or around students at Modesto High School is likely to have heard the story of the ghost in the auditorium. The most common version of the tale holds that a young man, a student at the school, fell from the auditorium's balcony and died when his head struck the floor below. Since his death, he is often seen walking back and forth on the balcony.

There are, of course, variations on this story. In some of the variations that I have heard, the young man was despondent and commited suicide. In others, he was killed in an accident involving a sand bag or weight used to move scenery on pulleys.

While the auditorium ghost is the only version of the story that I have heard from other people who have lived in or around Modesto, entering "Modesto High School Ghost" into Google also produces a few references to strange knocking noises heard in one of the school's hallways, next to a room that used to be (and for all I know still is) used for home economics classes. On a few of the sites that mention this, the knocking sound is said to come from the floor, and references are made to tunnels that used to run under the school.


Commentary: I probably heard the auditorium story for the first time from my older sister, who graduated from Modesto High in 1992. Since then, I have heard it numerous times, from students and alumni of the school as well as from other folks around town.

Gene and Bryan of Hometown Tales, in an episode on haunted colleges made a comment to the effect of "the reason why there are ghost stories in colleges is because boys and girls go to college together." The same probably applies to high schools, as the use of scary stories is pretty common in adolescent courtship. But there is a bit more to it than that. Scary stories are a part of teenage social bonding in general, not just between the sexes, and putting the story in a shared context, such as a high school, makes it even more effective.

Add to that the fact that, as I am assured by everyone I know who has ever been involved in theatre, "every theatre has a ghost*", and it seems certain that the auditiorium of a high school would have its own ghost story.

In of June 22, 2009, the Wikipedia entry for Modesto High School had a history section that was two paragraphs long. The first, longer paragraph described the school's history. The second, short paragraph listed, with no transition, a few ghosts said to haunt the school. The jarring and non-sequitor nature of the entry was hilarious. However, it has now been changed and lacks the comedy elements that it had back then.




*Interestingly, I have only ever met one person involved in theatre who scoffed at the ghost stories. While doom is said to fall on those who dismiss the spirits, she was actually one of the most succesful theatre professionals that I have ever met. So, go figure.




Sources: Local Folklore, Published Book, The Illustrious Internet

Ghost Ship of the Southwestern Deserts

Some time in the 17th century, three Spanish ships set out from port in western Mexico, sailing northwards towards Baja California under orders to obtain pearls from the natives. At this they were successful and their holds were filled with pearls, but they met with disaster nonetheless. The first ship became grounded on a sand bar, and could not be removed. The second ship was attacked by unfriendly natives and sank. The third ship, now carrying the surviving crew of the first two ships, carried on, sailing up the Gulf of California to the mouth of the Colorado River. Believing that they had found the fabled Straits of Anian (a supposed, but ultimately nonexistent, North American water route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans), the ship sailed up the Colorado River, eventually finding a large lake in the middle of an otherwise arid desert.

The ship sailed around the lake for a time, looking to continue the journey to the Atlantic Ocean. However it soon became clear that the water was receding and the lake shrinking. Desperate, the captain ordered the ship to sail back the way it came - but as the lake's water level dropped, the ship became mired in the mud of the lake's bottom.

The crew abandoned the ship and headed for the coast on foot, carrying all of the supplies and pearls that they could. In the end, only handful of sailors made it out alive, being rescued by Spanish ships on the coast.

Since then, people in the desert sometimes see a ship sailing above the desert floor, as if on long-vanished water, glowing with an eerie light. The ship may simply be replaying its last voyage, or it may be providing a clue as to where the remains of the corporeal ship are, so that they may be found and the ghost ship and its crew find rest.


Commentary: The story of the "lost ship of the desert" has been circulating in California, Nevada, Arizona, and northern Mexico for nearly 200 years. The apparition of a ghostly ship seems to be a new addition to the story, and the only source that I can find for it is S. E. Schlosser's book Spooky California. I have not been able to figure out whether this represents the, frankly obvious, addition of a "ghost ship" to the story by Schlosser, or if this particular element of the legend has been in circulation for a while.

Most versions of the story forgo the apparition of the ship, and focus instead on the supposed whereabouts of the ship and/or the various treasure hunters who have searched for the ship (many of them dying in the process). The story has also bubbled up into the general (non-regional) public consciousness from time to time, and been featured in many a pulp and comic adventure story.

Although Schlosser sets the story in the Mojave, the ship is more often said to have become stranded in the Salton Basin in California's Imperial County, where the large oscillating lake known as the Salton Sea exists (and was once drained). Some tellers also place the ship in the Colorado desert (more logical considering that it sailed up the Colorado River), as well as various different parts of northern Mexico and the southern U.S.

Also, the nature of the ship is different from telling-to-telling. While the ship is typically said to be Spanish, sometimes a specific captain and crew are even assigned, it has also been claimed to be English, Russian, and even a Viking ship exploring the Americas.

Ghost story or no, is it likely that the lost ship really exists? Okay, I will admit that I am a bit out of my depth on this one, but based on the knowledge I do have of the hydrological history of the American southwest, I have to say that the odds of there being any truth to this story are very, very low (edit, 8/30/2011: see * below). First off, the body of water most likely to support a sailing ship, other than the Colorado River itself, is the Salton Sea, which, from what I have been able to work out, has not been accessible from the Colorado River in many mellenia (though if any geologists/geographers out there know differently, drop me a line). Secondly, even if such a body of water were reached, it seems unlikely that a large lake would drain that quickly unless a drainage channel had just eroded through. That being said, I believe that there are cases of ships becoming stranded in areas where waters do end up receding rapidly, so remember that this is simply unlikely, not impossible. In addition, many printed versions of the story have that give-away of psuedoscholarship: "most experts say that area XX was not accessible to a ship, but those of us who believe in the lost ship know better!"

But, you know, even though I know that the likelihood of this ship being real is extremely low, and even though I doubt that it would have a hold full of pearls even if it were real...well, I have to admit that I am still very strongly tempted to go looking for it myself. I even find myself thinking about ways to build probability models for where a ship might have ended up.

The truth is, I actually don't care about whether the ship is real or not. I am tempted by the adventure of looking for it, and it's an exciting feeling. Typically, when there is a legend such as this with a ghost story attached, I feel drawn to the ghost story more than anything else...but not in this case. And I don't know why.



* I have spoken both in-person and online with geologists and hydrologists who inform me that the possibility of a lost ship is somewhat higher than I would have estimated. So, keep in mind that I am not an expert on the subject, and that there are those far more knowledgeable than I am who do not find the idea of a ship being stranded in that location to be far-fetched.

Sources: Published Book, A Whole Mess o' Magazine Articles, Internet, Personal Accounts

Andersonville Prison, Georgia

Andersonville Prison (A.K.A. Camp Sumter), near Americus Georgia, is often brought up as an example of the brutal conditions of Civil-War era military prisons. The prison was really little more than wood and cloth temporary structures surrounded by a stockade wall, patrolled by armed guards who were generally willing to kill anyone who passed the "deadline" - a line that created a buffer between the prisoner's area and the prison's walls.

Like most prisons of its day, the camp was plagued by poor sanitation, crowding, and violence both among the prisoners and between the prisoners and guards. One notable group was "Mosby's Raiders", a group of prisoners led by Mosby Collins who would terrorize and take advantage of the other prisoners. Eventually, the warden allowed the prisoners to put several of the "raiders" on trial and execute them.

Up to 13,000 prisoners died during the prison's operation. The prison population could equal 20,000 prisoners at any one time. In 1864, with Union soldiers pushing their way into Georgia, most of the prisoners were vacated from Andersonville and moved to other locations. A group of approximately 1,500 prisoners was left behind, guarded by a skeleton crew of Confederate soldiers. The prison was closed down in 1865 due to the end of the war.

In the century and a half since the closing of the prison, numerous frightening stories have been told about the place. Phantom soldiers have been said to appear and vanish. Overnight campers, taking part in civil war reenactments, have reported developing a strange sickness during the course of the night and feeling an overwhelming malevolence that compelled them to leave. Other visitors have reported being physically pushed by unseen forces; hearing the sounds of screams, marching, and gunshots; seeing figures faintly during fog, accompanied by sounds of screaming and moaning; Hearing voices calling for specific individuals known to have been at the prison; and being overwhelmed by a strong charnel-house smell.

One noteworthy apparition is that of Captain Wirz - the designer and warden of the prison, who was put on trial for war crimes after the end of the war. He was summarily executed.

One popular story holds that a soldier in era-uniform has been seen walking down the road near the prison, visible by the light of the lantern he carries. When the Hometown Tales guys began to speak with people about this story, they quickly found the likely origin of this particular story. One of their contacts, a Civil War re-enacter, was walking along the road during an event-related camping trip. When a truck passed by, the driver appears to have caught a glimpse of the uniformed man and nearly crashed, but took off again without finding out what was really going on.


Commentary: The Civil War occupies a unique place in the American mind. Although inter-state antagonism is not unusual, most people within the nation will identify themselves primarily as citizens of the United States, and secondarily as Georgians, Floridans, Californians, Hoosiers (residents of Indiana), etc. Although this story was different during the late 18th and early 19th century, this hierarchy of identities has long been typical of the people of the U.S.A.

As such, the Civil War represents a breakdown of the perceived natural order. And it is a festering psychic scar on the American consciousness, one that has come to represent different things to different people. To most of us, it represents the final death knell of slavery within the U.S. To a small, but vocal, group, it represents the tyranny of industrial progressives over God-fearing rural people. Of course, neither mythologized view is quite correct, but that doesn't stop them from maintaining popularity.

The Civil war is also significant in the American mind in that it is one of only two wars in which a significant number of people died on U.S. soil, the other being the Revolutionary war (smaller conflicts resulted in deaths on a smaller scale, or a large number of deaths but over a larger period of time - such as wars against Native American groups), and of these two, the Civil war was by far the bloodier. As a result, sites associated with the Civil War take on great significance even amongst those who do not subscribe to supernatural beliefs.

To those who do subscribe to such beliefs these locations are hallowed and haunted ground. Stories of civil war ghosts run the gamut from rather prosaic stories about seeing a single individual in uniform appearing and vanishing to stories about battles being re-enacted by spectral armies. Although Gettysburg is the best known example, others are in ready supply throughout the south, mid-west, and on the east coast.

That Andersonville should have weird events attributed to it is not surprising. Aside from being significant in terms of its ties to the Civil War, it is also a place that witnessed considerable misery and cruelty. Even those who do not believe in ghosts may feel themselves creeped out by such places.


...and another video treat from you, from the rather groovy fella's at

Hometown Tales:



...and another one from another source...



Sources: Hometown Tales, Internet, Internet, National Park Service

The Little Red Man, Salem-Winston, North Carolina

The location now known as Old Salem Village and Gardens was once the location of a Morovian colony. It is also the former home of a strange creature known as the "Little Red Man."

As the legend goes, there was a cobbler named Andreas Kresmer living in the colony during the late 18th century. He was killed in a construction accident while preparing the foundation for the colony's house for unmarried men. After his death, people claim to have heard the sound of a cobbler at work when in the vicinity of this building. Eventually, people began to report seeing a small man, wearing a red cap (as Kresmer himself did) in the vicinity of the building.

Over time, the building came to be used as the home for widows. On one occasion, the granddaughter of one widow, a girl named Betsy, ran in to her grandmother's room, telling a story about a small man in a red cap who wanted Betsy to come and play.

Eventually, the ghost was exorcised by a minister following a run-in with one of the community leaders. Since then, the ghost has passed into obscurity.

Commentary: What a great story! What appears to be going on here is a mixing of two types of folklore. The first concerns the classic ghost story - a man dies during an accident and thereafter elements of his life continue to echo in the setting in which he died - specifically the sound of a cobbler's tools at work. Classic stuff.

The other type of folklore concerns the spirit people* of northern European folklore. The little red man resembles the trolls, elves, and faeries of Northern Europe, and his association with a a domestic task (in this case, shoemaking) is reminiscent of mythological creatures such as brownies. The melding of the two is not entirely odd, as some European folklore from the Renaissance onward (possibly continuing an earlier tradition) conflated the spirit people of folklore with dead humans.

The stories of European spirit people would have come with the Morovians when the arrived in the Americas. That such a story would get attached to their new colony is unsurprising. That it would be attached to a particular person as it was is rather more interesting (and given Morovian record-keeping habits, it appears likely that Kresmer was, in fact, a real person). One is left wondering why this occurred.




*Most cultures have folklore concerning spirit people, be they "the ancestors", angels, trolls, kobolds, faeries, devils, or any number of other names. These are usually conceived of as the intelligent forces, benign or malevolent, behind nature, and descendants of them are seen in even the "big three" monotheistic religions of the world.


Internet

The White Lady of Graham Hill Road

A German immigrant living in the hills near Santa Cruz sent away for a mail-order bride from Massachusettes. The man was a violent alcoholic, however, and beat his wife on a regular basis, often forcing her to wear her wedding gown while he beat her.

After a time, the woman decided to leave her abusive husband, and began making arangements for escape. Upon learning of this, the drunkard's cruelty came to its climax, and he drugged her (though some versions of the story say that he killed her and then decapitated her post-mortem) and left her in the house, which he set on fire (some versions of the story claim that she was killed on her wedding night, before she even thought of leaving the man).

After her death, people began to report seeing a luminous woman dressed in white in the woods near the site of the house (just off of modern-day Graham Hill Road near the Ocean Street extension). Sometimes she is simply seen and/or heard as she walks through the woods. At other times she may take violent action against anyone that is unfortunate enough to encounter her (it seems likely that a white ghost said to haunt the Graham Hill Road Cemetery is the same as the White Lady).


Commentary: This is a variation on the White Lady ghost story, found throughout the world (one particularly famous example comes from the region of Bavaria, which mixes elements of the classic "White Lady" legend with elements of La Llarona). Santa Cruz's equivalent is made a bit more interesting by the fact that the area in which it occurs also has many other ghost stories associated with it (such as the stories associated with the cemetery on Graham Hill Road). The origins of the story are unclear, and even the story itself is highly variable - the version given above is the most common on heard, but another origin story for the ghost is similar to that for Christie Ranch on Santa Cruz Island, and features a young woman waiting for her husband, who has died in a shipwreck, eventually wasting away and dying of loneliness.

The location in which the story takes place, a forested area until a few decades ago when a new housing development and a condominium complex were constructed, is a slope at the foot of a hill. On this slope (at least as of a few years ago) is a decaying concrete foundation for a structure that might have been a house. The place has become a favorite location for local ghost hunters, legend trippers, and teens looking for a quiet make-out spot. It is across the street from the cemetery, and right next to one busy road and one eerily quiet road.


Sources: Local Legend, Newspaper, Santa Cruz Wiki, Wikipedia, Internet, Personal Account

The Ghost in Old Town Pizza, Portland, Oregon

Nina was a low-class prostitute who worked in the always-wet basement of a high-priced Merchant Hotel on Davis Street in Portland. The circumstances of her death are not clear - some say that she was killed by a jealous lover, some that she was killed by a pimp when he discovered that she wished to leave prostitution, some that she had struck a deal with missionaries who offered to help her escape in exchange for information useful in shutting the brothel down, and still others claim that she simply heard something that she should not have heard.

Whatever the motive, she was found dead at the bottom of the hotel's elevator shaft, apparently having been killed by the fall. Although it is thought that she was murdered, her murderer was never caught or convicted - not surprising, considering that Portland was about as lawless a town as one could find in the west during the late 19th century.

Since the time of her death, Nina has been seen wandering the building, always wearing a black dress. The building is no longer a hotel, but is currently home to Old Town Pizza. Patrons and staff alike have reported smelling her sweet perfume, hearing voices, especially in the basement, and having objects move on them. The staff of the Portland Walking Tours, who run a ghost tour in downtown Portland, have placed a bowl full of scrabble pieces, and it is said that Nina will sometimes arrange the letters to spell out messages.

Commentary: Portland, rather like my own home of Santa Cruz, is a delightfully strange town. The flavor of the town is odd, embracing everyone from the straight-laced businessman to the itenerant artist struggling to make a name for herself. Portlands better known institutions and businesses cater to the intellectual (such as Powell's City of Books) to the just plain wacky (such as Voodoo Doughnuts, which not only offers voodoo-doll doughnuts, but will also perform wedding ceremonies). This story has become part of Portland's folklore and represents both the way that Portlanders view their town's past (both celebrating it's seediness and strangeness, and being happy to be distant from those days) and the nature of the tourist traffic that comes through Portland.

In a city like Portland, it's not surprising to see a business such as Old Town Pizza embrace it's local ghost story as a way of drumming up business. And teaming up with a walking tour company provides even more opportunity. To be fair, though, this place doesn't depend on it's curiosity value to attract business, it also makes damn good pizza.

Regardless of what experiences that people have had in and around the building, it goes without saying that the desire to use this as a business tool, both on the part of the tour company and the pizza parlor, has likely resulted in the stories being exaggerated, not to mention probably led to more than a few encounters due to little more than the power of suggestion. Of course, the admittedly creepy

Personal Experience: My girlfriend and I visited Portland last year, and knowing my enjoyment of ghost stories, she booked us two spots on the ghost tour.

The tour was run as an "investigation" - meaning that we were handed electromagnetic field meters (EMF meters, for short) and told to use them while we were in supposedly haunted places. Our guide, a rather adorable small woman whose name I can not for the life of me recall, spoke excitedly about the ghosts of Portland and her own personal experiences (I'll have more entries based on experiences from this tour in the future). The EMF meters tended to spike sporadically, as one would expect in a major city with numerous electrical devices scattered throughout the landscape. However, every time one spiked, our tour guide would talk about the usefulness of these devices in locating ghosts*.

By the time we arrived in the basement in which Nina is said to spend most of her time, Kay and I discovered how to manipulate the readings on the EMF meters by flicking our wrists in particular ways and standing under particular pieces of electrical equipment. The fact that we were clearly intentionall manipulating readings didn't sem to dampen our guides enthusiasm. Of course, she probably gets smart-asses like this on the tour all of the time, and the fact that she managed to maintain enthusiasm despite this really speaks well of her work ethic.



*I've never understood this, as I can see no reason to assume that ghosts would cause changes to electromagnetic fields, and even if they did, I have yet to hear of a ghost hunter actually using this equipment in such a way that stray signals from various different devices can actually be ruled out.

Photos: I took some photos during the tour, in the haunted basement, and here they are:


The bowl of scrabble pieces set out by the tour employees:



A photo from the haunted basement:



Another Photo from the haunted basement:




...and, apropo of nothing, looking up in the courtyard of the haunted building. This photo contributes nothing to the story, I'm just showing off:



Sources: Portland Walking Tours, Newspaper, Business Website

The Big Yellow House, Summerland, CA

The Big Yellow is a Santa Barbara County landmark. Visible from Highway 101 as it passes through the small town of Summerland, the house is visible to anyone passing between Santa Barbara and Ventura (of course, this visibility is helped slightly by the enormous sign calling attention to the house, but whatcha' gonna' do?). The Big Yellow House gained prominence as an up-scale local restaurant, but is currently closed (though it is slated to be re-opened as the less-descriptively named "Yellow Rose of Summerland").

The house, originally a private residence turned eatery, is reportedly home to numerous spirits, and is often described as one of the "most haunted places in California" (ever notice that almost everywhere with a ghost story seems to get the label "most haunted"?). One ghost, a spirit named Hector who dwells in the basement and in the upstairs library, was described by the author Rod Latham in his book The Spirit of the Big Yellow House. Another commonly reported ghost is that of a woman dressed in 19th century garb who can be found in the first floor women's restroom. Other than that, mysterious voices, creepy feelings, and other symptoms of haunted houses are routinely reported.

The ghosts, however, don't appear to have hurt business - bad service was more often the cause of business problems. Indeed, in the face of often bad service and a difficult location, ghosts often seemed to have been one of the main draws for this place.


Commentary: The town of Summerland sits on a beautiful stretch of coast in southern Santa Barbara County. The community was founded as a colony for members of the Spiritualist religion, who believed that spirits of the dead could communicate with the living, providing information, guidance, and wisdom. It is therefore not surprising that the area quickly became a hotbed for ghost sightings.

The decline of the town as a spiritualist center came as a result of many factors, among them the fading of spiritualism as a religious movement (though it still survives today, it's hey day was the mid-late 19th century) and the discovery of oil natural gas in the area, leading to conflict between the spiritualists and oilmen.

The Big Yellow House began as the residence of Henry Lafayette Williams, and served as the headquarters for the colony. I have not been able to find any information regarding the ghosts said to inhabit the house, outside of rough description (though, I must admit, I have not yet read Latham's book, as I have not been able to lay hands on a copy), and therefore I have little to discuss about them.

What was interesting to me when I lived in Santa Barbara, however, was the ambivalent way in which the management of the house treated the ghost stories. They never discouraged them, which was probably wise as the stories were a draw for people who otherwise might not be interested in dining there (I even once brought a date there myself, as we were both curious about the stories). However, the management also never seemed to go out of their way to encourage the stories - which was probably unnecessary as they had become prominent in the local folklore.


Sources: Internet, Internet, Newspaper, Richard Senate

The Curse of SLC-6

Vandenberg Air Force Base is located just north of the California Bight - the point where the California coast turns from a north-south course to an east-west course. The Chumash, the native people of the region, considered Point Conception and the surrounding area to be the gateway to the afterlife*. When Camp Cook was established in the first half of the 20th century, and later expanded as Vandenberg air Force Base, this upset members of the Chumash community still present in Santa Barbara County. To make matters worse, when the Air Force built Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, AKA "slick" 6) during the 1960s, it is said that the construction disturbed an archaeological site containing human remains. Whether due to the disturbance of the human remains, or the actions of a shaman, the site became cursed (or did it...be sure to read the commentary below).

The project became embroiled in political problems and government blunders. The SLC was originally developed for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, but this project was shut down after construction. The SLC was then to be the site of space shuttle launches, but these were cancelled after the Challenger exploded in 1986 (an event that some people lay at the feet of the curse). Several rocket launches were attempted, and all failed.

The construction of the complex was also not without problems - bad welds, exhaust ducts trapping gases, extremely bad winds (which, in truth, is normal for this area), and cost over-runs all plagued the project.

Finally, the contractor running the facility on behalf of the air force contacted a shaman, who performed a ceremony to lift the curse. Ever since then, the facility has run smoothly.


Commentary: Okay, alot going on here. Let's start with the "dry facts" and then get into the interesting stuff. First off, this is a classic "built on an Indian burial ground" story. In this case, as in most other such stories, there was in fact no archaeological site at the location of SLC-6, and therefore no burials.

Also, the initiation and cancellation of programs related to SLC-6 makes perfect sense in the context of the nature of and changes to military spending throughout the 1960s and 1970s, so you don't really need a curse to explain that. Likewise, the construction problems are rather typical of the sub-rate contractors who sometimes manage to wrangle their way onto military bases, as well as unique elements of the weather and environment on the base that make construction difficult to begin with.

In other words, you don't need a curse to explain what happened.

Which leads to an interesting question - why did the story of the curse arise to begin with, and why does it persist?

In order to understand that, you have to understand when the story originated. And that would be the 1970's.

As Dwayne Day points out, the story began in the 1970's, during a time of social change and ethnic empowerment movements. The Native American movement resulted in the organization of tribes into politically vocal (and eventually effective) groups that began to protest the treatment of Native American archaeological sites as well as the mis-treatment of Native American individuals and groups. In the midst of this, the development of Point Conception became a hotspot for protests, and, to a lesser degree, so did the development of southern Vandenberg.

Day argues that the curse story began as a way to place blame for the problems at the expensive complex. There may be some validity to this argument, but I think that the explanation may be simpler. The stories probably began as jokes, engineers talking about how the place was "cursed". But regardless of how they started, the stories probably spread for two reasons: A) everyone loves a good spook story, and will tend to share it whenever possible, and B) alot of people hold to the, frankly racist, belief that Native American sites are filled with, for lack of a better term "bad mojo" - which is why the old "built on an Indian burial ground" trope gets tossed around whenever weird things happen at a particular location.

Regardless, the story annoys and offends many of the local Chumash (although I have met a few who think that its funny). This is understandable - how would the average baptist feel if they heard that a place was haunted because their church's pastor had cursed it? Also, beliefs such as this reinforce the "mystical red man" stereotype that has, unfortunately, helped to keep many racist beliefs about the native peoples of the Americas alive.

For this reason, when the contractor hired a shaman to "lift" the curse, this upset the locals, and resulted in the Air Force brass having to do some fast work to try to mend the damage to an improving relationship with the Chumash community.


Wackiness: When I was an intern in the environmental conservation office at Vandenberg, we had, in our library, a paper that had been written by a student at the local community college about the curse. The paper, filled with all manner of hokey pseudo-intellectual silliness, demonstrated that the author was overly-reliant on spell check - the paper constantly made reference to "viscous underworld beings."

So, if the site is cursed, it's okay, the underworld beings who haunt it move reeeeeaaaaalllllll slow, so you can make your getaway without breaking a sweat.


Sources: Personal Accounts, Local Folklore, Internet, Internet, Internet


*Or so it is typically believed, the truth is a little messier, and there are alot of different stories concerning the afterlife and how to get there. The Chumash were not a single monolithic group, but were comprised of numerous different autonomous villages who all shared a language family and material culture. There were probably alot of different beliefs concerning the afterlife, and the confusion regarding whether or not Point Conception was important to it probably comes from the conflation of alot of different stories from alot of different groups.

La Llorona

There was a beautiful widow who had two children. Although her children meant the world to her, she knew that she could not support them on her own and so she began to search for a new husband. She spent most of her evenings in saloons, cafes, anywhere where the men of her town would gather, searching for a husband who could help support her family. One night while she was out, bandits attacked her home and killed her children. When she returned home, she saw what had happened, and the knowledge that she might have been able to stop the murders had she been home rather than at the saloon drove her insane. She began to wander, crying "where are my children?" To this day, her ghost is still seen wandering the countryside, calling out for her lost children.

If that sounds a bit off, try this version:

A widow with two children fell in love with a man who had no interest in children. After trying for a long time to get his attention, she finally decided that her children were the impediment, and so she drowned them in the river. When the man discovered what she had done, he was horrified and refused to have anything to do with her. She was hung, but her ghost can still be seen wandering the riverbanks, crying for her lost children.

Still not quite right? How about this version:

A woman married and had two children with a horrible man, a ne'er do-well and a philanderer. One evening, he came home with another woman on his arm. He told his wife that he wished to see his children, but that she meant nothing to him any longer, he had replaced her with someone younger an prettier. The only way to get revenge against this man was to kill the children, which she did. After she had drowned them in the river, she realized what she had done, and gave herself up to the authorities. To this day, her ghost can still be seen wandering the banks of the river, crying and searching for her lost children."

...and there are many other versions. In some, the mother murders her children, in others they die due to her neglect, and in others she is arguably blameless in their deaths, and yet blames herself anyway. In some versions, she kills herself, in others she is executed, and in others she dies a natural death but is condemned to Earth by God for her failings as a mother.


Commentary: La Llorona (pronounced La Ya-Rona) or "the crying woman" is one of the classic ghost stories. Although this story is a common urban legend, it has been attached to many specific locations throughout the Americas, primarily Latin America and locations with large Hispanic populations within the U.S. and Canada. In addition to tellings of the story, reported sightings of La Llorona are common in these areas as well.

The origins and meaning of the story are very much open to intepretation.

One origin claimed for the story is that the Aztec the goddess Cihuacoatl or Coatlicue appeared before the Spanish arrived, crying for the death of her children, thus prophesying the destruction of the Aztec empire at the hands of the conquistadors. Over time, this story may have evolved into the La Llorona story. However, I am very skeptical of this, as the story of the prophecy sounds like a story developed after the destruction of the empire in an attempt to mythologize and make sense of the empire's destruction, and therefore it seems just as likely that later La Llorona tales influenced this story as that a pre-Colonial story morphed into La Llorona.

Another source that is often broguht up is the Banshee of Irish folkore. While there are some similarities, and a few specific La Llorona stories clearly claim that the crying woman is a harbinger of death, there are also a number of differences (La Llorona is a ghost, while the Banshee is a fey spirit, just for starters). Also, La Llorona appears in places with large Spanish-speaking populations, begging the question of why these people would be continuing an Irish story. It is nonetheless very likely that Banshee stories did influence the development of various La Llorona stories.

Most likely in my own personal estimation, the story began as a folktale in Latin America and moved along with immigrant populations throughout the Americas. Local conditions, different storytellers, and local traditions influenced the further development of the story, and as such, you have a number of different variations now.

The purpose of the story is also variable. First and foremost, it seems to be a campfire story - the sort of story that friends tell each other for entertainment, without taking the story too seriously. A second function appears to be as a safety tool for parents - water figures prominently in many (if not most) versions of the story and the ghost is usually reported at the riverbanks, suggesting that the story may be used to scare kids away from drowning hazards, and in the arid southwest of the United States (one of the places where this story is especially popular) flash floods in the arroyos are a deadly hazard.

Also, La Llorona appears to have become something of a boogey man, with parents telling their children "if you're not good, La Llorona will get you!"


The ghost story is a popular one, and has served as the basis for a film. What seperates it from most urban legends is that, as mobile and clearly "urban-legendish" as it is, there are still sightings of La Llorona, elevating it to an allegedly true ghost story.

Special Treat: The guys from Hometown Tales put together a video segment on the La Llarona legend as it is known in New Mexico. Check it out:



SOURCES: Internet, Internet

The Devils of Mt. Mulligan, Australia

Mount Mulligan is known to the Djungan people of northeast Australia as Ngarrabullgan, and it is said that it is home to Eekoo – mountain devils or spirit-people who dwell in the mountains and cause danger and sickness to fall upon those who travel to the mountain. This is especially problematic, as there are numerous water sources on the mountain, while the surrounding area is extremely arid. Only powerful shamans should venture to the mountain, as they alone have the strength to ward or fight off the Eekoo.

Commentary: This story is representative of two aspects of Australian Aboriginal culture. The first is the “habitation” of the landscape with beings who hold great significance in the cosmology and mythos. The other is the use of mythology to warn against entering a dangerous place.

The question in this case is: why is Ngarrabullgan a dangerous place?

The answer is not known. What is known is that it was not always seen as a dangerous place. Archaeological sites dating from before 600 years ago are relatively common on the mountain. And then, suddenly, the number of sites drops off. Something occurred around 600 years ago that made this location less hospitable – whether it was a ecological change and the mythology changed to prevent people from wasting their time looking for resources, or a social change in which only shamans were to have direct access to the mountain’s resources is unknown. Regardless, it appears likely that tales of supernatural menace on the mountain began around 600 years ago.

SOURCES: Academic Publication