Under Scrutiny

Informant: Male/29/European ancestry

Location: Koloa, HI

My sister started seeing a guy around the time my dad was very sick. They had been dating maybe a couple months before my dad passed away, and even though my sister's boyfriend had been coming to the house, he never saw my dad. He never met him and never knew what he looked like.

Not too long after my dad passed away, while staying at the house, my sister's boyfriend had a dream. He dreamed that he was standing with three older men, and they were all discussing whether or not he was good enough for my sister. Two of the men seemed apprehensive, but one man said that he was happy for my sister and he thought that this guy was a good choice for her. The next morning my sister's boyfriend told her about the dream. She asked him what the men looked like, and he described the first two, who did not seem familiar to my sister. But he started to describe the third man as a man with white hair, a mustache, and very, very tan. He described my dad to a T, and he had never seen him before.

There are no pictures of my dad in the back house where my sister lived, and he had never been in the main house at that point. There's no way he would have known what my dad looked like. We think that the two other men were my dad's brothers, or even a brother and his father, but we can't ever be sure.

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Ali'i of Waiahole

Informant: Male/60/Filipino,Hawaiian,Chinese

Location: Windward Oahu

I grew up on the Windward side of Oahu in Waiahole. Our neighborhood was very small with just maybe 10 families. When I was 14 years old I began delivering the newspaper from the Old Poi Factory all the way to Hakipu'u with my dog Oso and got to know most of our neighbors.

We had this one Tutu name Mrs. Davis. She had a Hawaiian maiden name which I can't remember right now. After my paper route was done for the day I would end up at Mama-san's store in Waikane for a soda and often would see Mrs. Davis and Mr. Kamaka sitting on soda crates in full-on conversation speaking in pure Hawaiian. Of course I would sit and listen since it was such a beautiful language. While collecting for the newspaper one day I ended up talking to Mrs. Davis about our neighborhood. I found out she grew up in Waiahole, and she remembered seeing the Alii's with their followers come down from the mountain (where they lived for the cool weather)to the ocean along a path that was next to where my family lived, and on occassion would rest on our property. My dad, our farmhand and my younger brother have found countless Hawaiian artifacts on our property which showed that indeed our land was once used by ancient Hawaiian.

When I was around 11 years old I remember hearing a lady chanting in Hawaiian late at night around 9:00 p.m. accompanied by the pounding of the Ipu drum and the sounds of people marching. I could hear it but I never saw anything. Worst part of it alI was that I was the only one in my family who could hear it. My parents thought I was pupule (crazy) and sent me to bed early that first time. In all, I heard the chanting and Ipu drums and marching at least four times while growing up in Waiahole. In 2004 I lived in Nu'uanu along Nuuanu Stream area on Judd Street. I thought I heard drums late one night. I looked out my balcony to see if anyone was up late playing their stereo, but it was 1:00 a.m. and our condo had rules about loud noise after 10:00 p.m. I didn't hear chanting or the Ipu...the beat was steady and sounded like war drums.

Lastly, my brother Ana and I stayed out late one school night playing ball with the gang. We were afraid to go into the house since we could hear mom yelling at the girls to finish the dishes and start their homework, so we decided to shower outside and sneak in later when dad got home. While all lathered up with soap and butt-naked, I saw what I thought was one of our next door neighbors, Popei, walking toward us along the fence. I thought he probably got locked out too and planned on sleeping over. I jumped out of the shower and onto the fence to greet him with "Eh, Popei!" but the shadow of a full grown man kept walking up toward the mountains along that same trail Mrs. Davis said the Ali'i used. I saw no face or features, just the outline of a person in the dark walking away. I ran screaming "Ghost!" all the way to the main house with my brother in tow...both butt-naked! Mom saw us and couldn't stop laughing and when she did stop she told us "That'll teach you to come home late, now go do your homework!"

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The Night Marachers of Waimanalo Beach

Informant: Male/ 28 /Hispanic

Location of Incident: Waimanalo Beach, Oahu

When I was 16 years old, I was finishing my junior year of high school. There were many summer parties and I tried to go to as many as I could since I was going into my senior year. One night, my friend and I checked out an interesting party in Maunawili but were rejected after 30 minutes since the cops started to arrive and hang around. My friend and I went to go look for the next party in the area and drove to Waimanalo since we heard there was a party there. It was a graduation party that was held for family and was ending when we got there so we pretty much had a beer or two and left. We decided since it was only a  little after midnight to cruise at the beach at Sherwood Forrest. So, my friend, who was driving his 4 Runner, drove into the forest with his vehicle and found a quite spot to hang out, drink, and talk story about past and upcoming events. 

I noticed after using the phone that the lights on the beach were still moving around. I figured again, somebody's probably down there chilling. I had a thought of going out there to check what was going on, maybe it was someone fishing or something. But as I was about to step out I noticed the lights again at the beach. This time I looked more into the light to see what was out there. I realized that I was not looking at flash lights moving around, and there was nobody out there playing around. I noticed the light looked sort of like multiple lamps or a torch lamps that was rocking back and forth. As my sight was beginning to focus more at what I was looking at, I realized I was seeing shadows walking along the beach. 

I noticed when we parked near a small sand hill going down into the beach there were lights moving up and down. I figured it was kids or somebody at the beach with flash lights walking around, so it never occurred to me as anything important. It was dark in the forest, but the night in general was extremely dark. I was a little out of it since the night before; we had been at a block party on my friends lane. I noticed my friend stopped talking after a while and looked as if he was zoning out from a long day. So I called up a friend to ask if we could crash over since we were unfit to go home.

The shadows were walking in formation and it seemed as if there was hundreds  of shadows walking past these lamps. I realized that the lamps were not rocking back and forth but were continuously moving forward. I froze in place, and couldn't move. I was so frightened when I began to realize what I was looking at. I turned to my friend who was still zoning out, but with extreme alert coming from his eyes. I knew I wasn't the only one seeing what was out on the beach and ocean. My body was trembling and my teeth were grinding together. I slowly asked my friend what he thought he was looking at, and his response was as I expected. 

Night Marchers. 

I felt as if I was glued in my seat and felt as if my energy was draining from my body. I felt extremely tired, but at the same time awake as hell to witness this event. All of a sudden my friend snapped out of his zoned state and started coughing and appeared to be gasping for air as if he wasn't breathing. He then started the vehicle, threw the gear in reverse,  and floored it out of the forest. I remember it was so quick that when we got into the parking lot his vehicle bumper smashed into the ground as we went from the grass terrain to the asphalt. He drove out as if he was panicing. 

As we were driving back to Kailua, my friend told me he felt like someone was choking him from his driver window. We went back to Kailua to visit my friend who was expecting us to come over. When we got there, we told the story what happened at the beach to our friends. It was then that I realized that on that night it was a new moon. Also, I realized that my friend is Hawaiian, and his family comes from an old Hawaiian bloodline. Most likely, whatever was choking my friend at the time was a friend of the family or a relative trying to get his attention to get out of there. Today, we still talk about the event that occurred and how we were extremely lucky to come out of it alive and safe.

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The Floating Feet in the Bathroom Stall

Informant: Female/20/Hawaiian, Caucasian

Location: Zippys,Kapolei

I was never a huge fan of public bathrooms, specifically because of the stories I’ve heard about people experiencing the paranormal there. Though I heard things it never scared me off...until now.

My boyfriend, our daughter and myself were eating at this restaurant. I had to use the bathroom and I had a weird feeling before even entering, but what are you gonna do? So I walk into the women’s bathroom and there are only two stalls. Naturally I look to see which is occupied and which isn’t. In the handicapped stall there are these black work shoes floating two to three inches off the ground. I go and sit in the open one and think to myself it’s weird that 2 big feet can’t reach the ground. So I bend over to look and they’re still there, floating. I’m creeped out, so I hurry and go back to my table, telling my boyfriend about what happened and thinking it was weird.

My eyes stay on the bathroom door. We were seated one table away and I’m waiting to see a really short granny come out or something. About 10 minutes later my daughter has to pee and I get up to take her. At the same time two other woman are entering the bathroom and I hold the door for them. Thinking to myself “It’s gonna be a long line because there’s only one stall open.” When we entered I saw one of the women that I held the door for enter into the stall that had those damn floating shoes! I swear I was watching the door the whole time and NO ONE came out.

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The White Figure on Old Kam Highway

Informant: Male/40/Yonsei Japanese

Location: Old Kamehameha Highway, Kahalu`u

One night, back in about 2000, I was shooting laser (for my job) on Kahekili Highway near the Hygenic Store in Kahalu`u at about 1:30am. There weren't very many cars on the highway, being a weeknight, so I told my partner "Let's go back into Kaneohe town." He agreed and I decided to take the scenic route back to town on the Old Kameheha Highway, instead of Kahekili Highway.

I was the lead vehicle driving a Cushman and my partner was behind me in a car. While driving on Old Kam, I all of a sudden noticed a white figure run across the highway from makai to mauka. The white figure disappeared into the bushes. I accelerated my Cushman and transmitted on the radio to my partner, "You seen dat?!" He responded, "Nooo..." in a perplexed manner. As I approached the area where I saw the white figure disappear into the bushes, I switched on my side alley lights and stopped. My partner asked over the radio, "What had?" I responded, "I dunno. I seen one guy run across and go into da bushes."

While looking at the brush, I noticed that there were no bushes pushed to the side and the brush was still, no one trudging through it. At the time I thought nothing of it and dismissed it as a kid fooling around, or a possible figment of my imagination.

A few years later, I overheard a conversation between a longtime resident of Kahalu`u (a boss of mine) and a coworker. My boss was saying that a wahine died on Old Kam before in an auto accident and her white ghost is seen walking the highway.

Man, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up! I butted into the conversation and told them, "I seen the ghost!" Thinking back now, I recalled that the white figure didn't have any shins or feet and no details to its torso. It was just white!

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In the Flashlight's Beam

Female/20/Mixed Ancestry 

Location: Nanakuli,Hawaii

I was around 14 or 15 years old and we had recently moved into my grandma's house who had passed away many years before. My uncle, who was previously living in the house, had gone to jail, and because many things he did back then were illegal (like stealing electric) we didn't have any electricity at the time. 

One night my dad's friend, my brother, myself and a couple other people were hanging out in the living room. It was around 9:00 pm or so and I was playing with the flashlight. It was on and I happened to face it towards the screen door at some point. Right when I did, my brother and my dads friend started yelling at me to turn the flashlight to the door so they could see. They both ran outside and were yelling, "who's there?!" They checked the entire property then came back inside. 

Both of them said that when I faced the light towards the door, they saw a man peeking in at us. When they ran outside, one of them saw a shadow in the front yard and the other saw a shadow going through the neighbor's yard. The neighbor's yard is totally open, so if their were a real man there they would have seen him...but they didn't.

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Paperweight

Male / 47 /Filipino-Japanese

Location: Big Island/ Oahu, Hawaii

Over 20 years ago, four of us went to the Big Island for a two week melee of fishing, camping and just having a good old time before going back to school.

We landed in Hilo in the early morning hours, had breakfast at Mcdonald's and picked up our Beach Boy Camper which was a Toyota truck with a over-sized camper mounted to the back. Our trip consisted of stopping and camping at as much sites as we could, playing tourist in a foreign land that we'd never been before. We headed to Kalapana Black Sand Beach where we camped out for some days and then we headed for Kilauea via the Chain of Crater Road. We stopped up at Volcano House to admire the sights and then proceeded to the many lava tubes and craters that make up Kilauea.

Well we stopped at this one spot along the crater and had lunch and beer. We were, I guess, fortunate to have along with us a University of Hawaii Hawaiiana major with us (I won't mention his name). My friend Paul and I decided to get a closer look at the inside of the crater and noticed the a'a lava and the pahoehoe lava littered around the crater. I noticed this one pahoehoe lava rock that would look cool on my desk at home as a paperweight. My friend Paul had the same idea. Before this trip my dad, who was a wise old man, told me not to bring back any rock from the volcano or anywhere; in fact he threatened me not to take any thing at all. So Paul and I talked amongst ourselves and decided to ask our UH major about his opinion on taking the volcano souvenirs. Our Hawaiiana major tells us that if we were sincere about it we should ask Madame Pele if we could have the rocks. So like naive fools, we stood there at the edge of the the crater and yelled out if we could have the rocks. There was no answer from Madame Pele. we took that as a "yes." We packed up our precious cargo and left for the great frontier. Through the remainder of our trip, it was nothing but choke fish to eat, starry nights and sunny skies and there basically couldn't have been a more awesome vacation.

We got home to Honolulu, everyone went on their merry way. High school started up for fall season and life went on. About six months since our trip to the Big Island, Paul's and my household experienced an all too weird change.

I got a call one day from Paul. He told me that while he was working at the Gibson Dept. Store in Mapunapuna one night, he finished his grocery job and went to his car. When he got to where his car is usually parked he noticed it was missing, stolen as what HPD later explains. Paul never found his car but later it was found in Waianae. Right after his car got stolen, my house got burglarized and our second car got stolen too because they got a hold of our extra keys. We never linked what happened to Paul and my dad's car and our house. Maybe it was all coincidental.

Another time, I was cruising at home one afternoon when my parents burst through the door arguing about missing money. I asked my mom what happened. She explained that they withdrew $600 dollars from the bank and placed the envelope of money in my moms bag. She went on to say that while they were driving home, she opened the handbag to check on the money and found it missing. They scoured the parking lot right after and even checked with the teller if she had seen the envelope of money. No money was ever found.

One day my mom was cleaning the house and she came across the rock in my room. She called for my dad and my dad hit the roof. He blamed all the misfortune on the rock in my room and he mentioned the same for Paul's car getting stolen. All my dad wanted to do was to get rid of the rock even though it meant me swimming back to the Big Island. Things got weirder. One day I noticed that there was like some kind of object in me eyes. It first felt like there was dust or dirt in my eye but as weeks went by, it felt like there was a piece of rock inside. I would go through bottles of eye wash but to my dismay it still felt the same. I finally went to an eye doctor and after the test he said my vision was 20/20. I still complained about the sensation in my eye, so the doctor gave me some extra strength eye wash and sent me home. My vision got worse over time. I just lived with the discomfort. As for Paul, I hadn't heard anything about any more problems. By this time my mom and dad made plans to fly us all up the Big Island for some vacation and to return the rock. My dad booked our flight for one weekend, and he told me to call Paul and bring his rock because my dad wanted all rocks off this island and the bachi to end.

It was now the Thursday before our trip. Paul brought his rock and I placed both rocks in a shoebox and waited for our big trip. We flew out on Aloha Airlines and made it safely on the Big Island. We grabbed our bag and my dad and I went to grab our rental car. As we were leaving, my mom who was watching the bags called out hysterically for us to come. She had this mouth open, bug-eyed look on her face. My dad asked her what the yelling was all about. So she stuck her hand in the bag and showed us the $600.00 that was missing. It was still in the envelope that the teller gave them. My dad had his doubts. He told her she didn't look good in her bag before she left the bank the first time and that it was probably in one of the pockets. But my mom told him that the bag she had was totally different from the one she had that day at the bank. Coincidental?

We packed up our rental car and arrived at the Hukilau Hotel in Hilo. I was too tired to go anywhere so I sat on the lanai while my parents got a bite to eat. It was a nice cool night, and the stars and the full moon were out. Our room overlooked a canal right across the street, and I stared at the waters and noticed the reflection of the stars and the full moon. Then I realized that my vision was cleared up and I could see clearly. I told my mom that I could see better again. She never said anything back.

Early the next day we headed up to Kilauea Crater and my dad asked me where we got the rocks. I couldn't remember anything, so we decided to find a nice spot to put the rocks and leave an offering of laulau and a bottle of beer. Maybe Pele would like a quick lunch and a beer. I don't know why it was a laulau and beer combo. I then stood by the rim of the crater and apologized for taking the rocks, sincerely. As we were standing around and admiring the scenery, a park ranger showed up to check on us. My dad told him what I did and what had happened. The pleasant Japanese ranger chuckled and then told us that we weren't the only ones that had problems. He went to tell us that his department has to go down to the post office at the airport once a month to empty out one of the many carts designated for the park service and bring the load of rocks and other items up the volcano to deposit them back inside the park area. Each package has it's own reason and story, but everyone just wants to return the rocks to there rightful home. The stories are the same: bad luck had come to them.

Since we returned the rocks to their rightful home there have been  no other strange things.Well, we hope.

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Evil Eyes

Female/27/Ethnicity undisclosed

Location: Wahiawa, Oahu

I lived in an apartment building and became really close with two of my neighbors. We would often have get togethers in each others houses and drink. Well one night we were in one of my neighbor's apartment when we got into the paranormal and things of that nature. My neighbor told me he found a bible hidden in his apartment with a picture of a woman underneath it. Till this day I can still remember her picture and the chicken skin it gave me.

After seeing that picture all I could think about was those eyes she had and how it looked like if I stared at them any longer she would snatch me up right into the picture. It was just something about her eyes that just gave you an instant feeling that something was very dark and sinister about this lady. Needless to say I was freaked out. Who was this lady, and why was her picture underneath that bible? I mean, to go and hide a bible and put someone's picture underneath it seems an extreme precaution to go through.

I finally got sleepy enough to fall asleep. I was dreaming a good dream it seemed, at first. I was with my mother in my apartment (my mother had passed away), but it was my mother so in my dream it was very pleasant. The dream seemed so real it was as if I was really going through the motions. My mother was as sweet as she always was, but for some reason she kept on saying not to go to work and to stay with her. I politely explained, "I can't miss work, you raised me better than that," and I would continue what I was doing. Then she'd say again, "Don't go to work, don't leave, stay with me," with a little more forceful voice. And I would reply the same and continue what I was doing, until it came time for me to leave and go to work. I reached for the door, and what seemed to be my mother at first grabbed my wrist and pulled with great power and said "Stay with me." I turned to look back, but it wasn't my mother. It was the lady in the picture I had just seen with those eyes staring back at me.

I immediately woke up in horror, extremely creeped out. I didn't even try to go back to sleep that night. Ever since then in that apartment I felt as if that woman's entity wanted to do harm to me. I could feel her eyes on me in every room of my house.

As soon as I got the courage to speak about it, I talked to the neighbor who had found the picture. I told him about my dream and he laughed at me. In my embarrassment I went home, trying to convince myself that it was just a dream. Then I about a week later that neighbor came to talk to me. He said he talked to the landlord and showed him the picture of the woman. The landlord told him she was a former tenant that killed herself by setting her apartment building on fire. The landlord also informed him that the picture might have been put there by the lady's brother who claimed that she was possessed days before she killed herself.

Needless to say I moved out as soon as I could, but I will never forget what happened to me and how I felt.

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