Kepaloa

Informant: Male/63/mixed ancestry

Location: Hanalei, Kauai

This happened around 1973, 1974. I was working the midnight shift (11:00 p.m. -7:00 a.m.) as the lone patrol officer in Hanalei town. We used to call that Beat 41. Just past Hanalei town I see this guy come out of nowhere and run into the middle of the road waving his arms like a nut. I think he was a Hawaiian male in his late 30s. He looked kinda frantic.

So I stop, get out of my car and ask him, "What's happening?" He says, "Kepaloas! Kepaloas!" And I knew that meant "ghosts." I said "What happened with the kepaloas?" He says, "The kepaloas took my car and threw it in the ocean!" I'm thinking, yeah right. I'm suspecting he got drunk and he ran his car off the road. So I tell him to get in my patrol car and I say, "Where's your car?"

We just pass the bridge, and I get out, and he says, "Down there, down there." So I look, and sure enough, there's his car right on the shoreline, waves breaking on it. But there are no track marks in the sand. Not jut because it was wet, there was dry sand also. I would have seen marks in the dry sand. So I tell him, "We better call the tow truck to get your car out of the sand." I don't know what happened after that, but I would imagine it wasn't easy to get his car out.

It could have been ghosts. I couldn't explain how his car got there. There was no physical evidence to determine how it got there. There were no tire marks in the sand. Besides, it was quite a distance. He would have gotten stuck before he got to the shore line.

" Kepaloas..."