A Ghostly Carriage in Anahola

Informant: Female/50's/European ancestry 
Location: Anahola, Kauai, HI 

It was around 8:00 p.m. one night and I had just gotten home from canoe paddling practice. My two sons weren't home, so I decided to sit down on the porch and relax before going inside. My porch overlooks the street. On the far right end was the one streetlight, and the rest of the street across of me and all the way down was pitch black. 

I was playing around on my phone when suddenly I saw a light flicker out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and looked toward the streetlight and for a split second saw something that looked like a shadow. But it was such a slight flicker I thought my eyes were just adjusting or something. I looked back down at my phone, and a little while later, I heard a crash. 

I couldn't tell you what it sounded like. It sounded like a shelf with lots of things on it crashing to the floor. It sounded like it came from grandma's house next door, and I thought for sure my boys were fighting. I looked up and again saw a flash in the corner of my eye, coming from the direction of the streetlight, and I saw something. 

Horses. Horses' heads, four of them. And a woman, with her hair flowing behind her, coming down the road. In my mind I describe it as a carriage even though I couldn't make out the shape of one. The woman was behind the horses as if she was holding their reigns and in an area that would make sense if she was the driver of a carriage. I couldn't make out any legs of the horses or the woman, I just saw their heads. The rest of them just blended into one white, smoky mass. It looked like white flames, and ended in a tail of smoke. Everything was white. 

I looked at this for what seemed like a forever, but in reality it was probably no more than a split second before it vanished. Not being a very superstitious or scardey cat of a person, I went down my driveway to the road to see if I could see anything. Of course I didn't see anything there. 

The boys came home shortly after that. I never told them what I saw. I've never told anyone what I saw. at that point I lived in Anahola for nearly 20 years and never experienced anything like that before, or since. 

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Voices on the wind on the slopes of Mauna Loa

Informant: Female/35/Caucasian

Location: Ka'u, Big Island (slopes of Mauna Loa, up above Pahala)

I used to work for a wilderness therapy outlet for troubled teenagers in remote Ka'u, up at about 1800 feet elevation above Pahala town. The land was about 10 acres, surrounded by active farm/pasture land (former cane fields) and we had what appeared to be a nearby burial site -- lava rock cairns, three of them, in a beautiful bamboo stand (we would actually send kids there for their final mission, a three day solo camp with fasting -- heavy). On that edge of camp kids reported seeing lights, "aliens", etc. Probably just old ghosts. Many of these kids were in different groups, had never talked to one another, but had similar reports. The kids who occupied the little hale along the edge of the land there didn't like it - chicken skin - they had to face the camp and I think they often felt serious mana behind them on the path that went along the fence behind their hale.

Most of the property was covered with permaculture garden beds with little open-sided hales sprinkled throughout. We were totally off grid. Pitch black at night. We had one main bunkhouse on the Kona side of the land, and a big open-sided elevated hale in the middle. Our typical routine was to sleep two staff up in the big hale (for one kine break, not to be around farting teenagers) and two staff in the bunkhouse.

One night was really stormy, AND we had a kid coming in who was a serious flight/violence risk -- they often came in at night, if they were being escorted here against their will, which was often. The staff decided three staff in the bunkhouse would be safer, and that the remaining single staff person would sleep alone on the elevated platform hale. I drew the short straw on that one. 

I managed to fall asleep buried deep in my sleeping bag despite sideways Kona winds and heavy rain. In the middle of the night, I was awoken to what sounded like someone loudly barking "HEY YOU!" at me, maybe a foot or two away from my ear. I woke up with a crystal clear vision in my head of an angry heavy-set Hawaiian man, long hair tied back, only wearing a loincloth or small skirt of some kind of tapa-like material. I scrambled in the dark for my headlamp but no one was there. My heart was pounding out of my chest. As I sat bolt upright there in the dark, freaking out but justifying in my head that it was a vivid dream, I began to hear voices coming in from the west on the wind. The rain had stopped but the Kona winds were still blowing. It was women's voices speaking Hawaiian. Again, I had a crystal clear vision in my head as I heard this - two or three Hawaiian women sitting on a hala mat, pounding poi or something, chatting. The bunkhouse nearby was locked and silent.

I had never before experienced something like this, and never have since. Though I didn't "see" a ghost, per se, it was the closest thing I have had to a supernatural experience. A co-worker who had been there for years told me to carry some turmeric in my pocket (to ward off spirits?) and told me she had seen plenty of lights and weird things on the property. The land had been used for centuries by kanaka and maybe they just wanted to let us haoles know this was still their space. I have a deep respect and love for Hawaiian culture and the mana on the Big Island is the most powerful thing I have ever felt.

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Unexplained Camera Footage

Informant: Male/undisclosed age/Asian ancestry

Location: Koloa, Kauai

The following message and video was received from an informant:

"Supposedly, the cameras are for a church in Koloa. The church was being vandalized in the past so they decided to watch the video footage. Then they saw this." 

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Dad's Recliner

Informant: Female/16/Ethnicity unknown

Location of Incident: Oahu

I was going out with my friends, without permission from my dad, one Friday night. I was able to sneak out of the house after he went to his room to sleep. After leaving my home as quietly as possible, I met my best friend a few houses down and got into the car.

As we began to drive away I pulled my purse up to my lap, and realized I didn't have my wallet... no money or I.D. means no fun. I convinced my friend to turn around and pull up to my house while I quickly retrieved my wallet. As we came up to my house, my friend had a very bad feeling. She said something didn't feel right. She's kinda special in that she often has feelings before strange or weird things happen.I told her not to be scared and I'd be back super fast.

As I got to my front door, I could see light coming from the living room window. Thinking my dad woke up to watch T.V., I was getting ready for a tongue lashing. I opened the door already formulating an excuse as to where I went when I noticed my dad sitting in the recliner crashed out. I thought that maybe his bedroom was too hot and he decided to come outside to rest. I went quickly to my room to grab my things and past in front of my father's room, whose door was wide open, when I heard a noise coming from within.

I didn't think, but after retrieving my money I realized that I heard snoring coming out of his room. As I walked back over to pass his doorway I peered into his door and the hair on my entire body shot straight up as I witnessed my dad, lying in his bed deep in slumber! My body began to shake uncontrollably and a sense of fear over took me. I struggled to return to the front door, to what felt like freedom.

As I came upon the living room I could see the red glow of the television dancing across the walls of the kitchen. No sound, no noise, just a chill. It got colder and colder as I came around the corner to the living room. 

I looked in and saw my father sitting on the recliner, his deep black eyes now looking in my direction. I suddenly heard a voice. I turned to look towards the sound and could hear my friend calling for me frantically from behind the front door. When I turned to look back at my dad I could see a slight grin breaking through his hard clay face. My heart sank, and I didn't know what to do.

My friend finally came through the front door and yelled to get away from it. At that moment, the television turned off and the room went black. We made it out of the house safely, but not without fear. My friend told me that she heard a voice say to her, "Go and get Lea out!". She said it sounded like my dad.

After everything started to calm down, and my friend and I gained courage to reenter the house. The entire home felt different. Back to normal. I believe that because I had bad intentions to deceive my dad, I was shown what it could be like to be deceived myself. I no longer keep things from my friends or family. I have a strange feeling of gratitude to whatever was there that night. I learned a very valuable lesson.

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She Crawled Across the Floor

Informant: Female/45/Japanese ancestry
Location: Waipouli, Kapa'a

One night a while ago my husband and I were on our way home to Lihue from fishing down Hanalei. I needed to use the restroom, and since my husband's mother's house is on our way home in Kapa'a, we might as well stop by there.

It was around 12:45 a.m. and the light was still on, so we knew that she was still up. I was knocking on the front door and trying to look through the side glass that is next to the door with sheer curtains. While I was knocking and calling "grandma," I noticed this lady sitting on the floor leaning against the coffee table watching TV. I thought it was my husband's mother, so I told him, "You go and knock harder and call you mom!" which he did while I was looking through the glass.

Well when that lady heard him knock and yell harder, she jumped up and started to crawl towards the front door where we were. I couldn't see her face because she was looking down, only her body, salt and pepper hair and kind of faded, old -fashioned style clothes. Weird! I told my husband, "Hey, you scared somebody now she is right here by the door! Try call and knock again..." So he did, and I was straining to look through the window right down by the front door where we were, to see her get up to open the door...

Then grandma came in opening the kitchen door on the other side and walked across the living room and unlocked the front door.

I was shocked to see her coming from the kitchen and not notice the lady hiding right by the front door where I just saw her crawl to! When I walked into the house I looked behind, and nothing. Weird!

Later in the weeks to come, we were looking at some old photos and I noticed a picture of that lady because of her hair style and color and her old faded clothes. I told my husband, this is who I seen that night crawling towards the door. They said that it was their grandmother that passed away a long time ago, their dad's mother... Wow! I actually saw her spirit inside their house where she use to live. Maybe that is why his sister's kids don't like to sleep in their own room. I guess she does came back to visit!

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Disembodied Legs in Wainiha

Informant: Female/49/ Japanese ancestry

Location of Incident: Wainiha, Kauai

My husband and his friends all wanted to go fishing so we headed out to Wainiha down the north shore side. While all the lines were in the ocean, some of us were hanging out on top of the reef. Some of them were trying to catch jumping jacks while others like me were picking those large pipipi's off the rocks. I was so into picking the pipipi's with my headlight that I just suddenly noticed legs, tabis and shorts passing right in front of me. I didn't think of anything of it; I just thought it was my friend Don who was going to check what my husband was up to. Don and my husband were to the right of me, and everyone else was near the beach. So I didn't look up, I just said "Hi Don!" and he just grunted back.

When my hands were full of pipipi's, I walked over to my husband who was talking with Don. I asked, "Hey, Don, didn't you just pass me to go by your brother? I said hi to you and you just grunted."

Now, Don is really afraid of ghost, spooks, and spirits. He said "Ohhh no way! No say that, that scares me! As spooky stuff that you seen me walk by you, and I grunted at you!" I said, "Yeah! It was your same shorts, legs, and tabis!"

Well I don't know who passed by me that night but someone or something did!

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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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The Slapping Ghost

Informant: Male/22/Hawaiian - Portuguese ancestry

Location: Lihue Airport, Kauai

I was sitting across the street in the smoking area one night waiting for my ride to pick me up. I was just minding my own business smoking by myself, nobody was around at all (it was pretty late at night). Suddenly I felt something gently touch the back of my neck. I ignored it; I didn't turn around to look if anyone was there.

Maybe I should have, because two seconds later someone slapped me hard on the back of the head. I jumped up and ran across the street. I still didn't look behind me.

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College Experience

Informant: Male/19 years old/Portuguese Ancestry

Location: University of Hawaii at Hilo Dorms, Big Island

During high school, I spent my summers in an academic college prep program at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Part of the programs goals was to simulate life in college, and so this included living in the dorms for about six weeks.

My first summer in the program, I was a little apprehensive about living in the dorms. The day I moved in, I felt uncomfortable in my dorm room. However, I just chalked it up to being away from home and shyness. As soon as I came out of my shell and got to make friends, I didn't feel uncomfortable in my room anymore.

Since my first day in the dorms, there has always been ghost stories surrounding the particular dorm we lived in. Students would often spread rumors of ghostly children playing the halls or that the dorm was in the path of a Night Marchers' trail. I was very skeptical about it.

Then one day, I experienced something that I cannot find an explanation for.

I was lying in my bed, alone in my dorm room, just relaxing from studying. I was just lying down, and listening to some music, nothing else. Then, I began to feel a hand behind my head. I was scared, because the door was closed and I knew that I was alone. Then the hand began to move around, underneath my head, as if it was playing with my hair. I tried my best to remain calm, I didn't want to make any sudden movements. I slowly began to move away from my bed. As soon I moved my head, my pillow which my head had been on, went flying across the room and hit the wall across from my bed with tremendous force. At the moment, I felt like I was threatened, and I just ran like the building was on fire.

I found the program director, and of course I brought it up with her. She just laughed at me and blamed the whole experience on me being scared about living away from home for so long. However, she did let me move into another room, and since then I've never been into that room again.

After that summer, I've spent later summers in that dorm, and have never experienced anything like that in the dorms again.

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Phantom Customer

Informant: Male/26/Japanese ancestry

Location: Halawa, Oahu

So back in 2006, I had an online business with a business partner. We moved the company to his warehouse in Halawa, which had a small office room in the back, positioned far away from the bay doors. The office had a glass paned door so we could look out from the office into the bay to see if anyone came in. My business partner told me that when he was creating some of the rooms in the warehouse, the contractor said he experienced some weird things while putting the walls up. Little things, like he would turn around and his tools would be moved, etc.

So one day I brought my friend to the office to work on a design project with me. I didn't tell him anything about what my business partner told me because I never experienced anything. We had installed a door chime on the front door of the warehouse so if we were working, we could hear if someone walked in.

After we were there for about an hour, I saw that my friend was staring out the door into the warehouse bay. So I asked him, "Eh, are you zoning or what?" and he says, "I thought I saw a guy walk through the front door, but the door chime didn't go..."

So I went out into the bay, but nobody was there. I asked him where he saw the guy walk to, and he said he walked toward the stairs. There was a set of stairs that went up to a recording studio. I went outside to look if there were any cars parked; maybe someone wanted to use the studio. But there wasn't anyone there. Then I told him about what my business partner told me, and he promptly freaked out.

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girl in the red dress

Informant: Male/55/Chinese ancestry
Location: Downtown, Oahu

My dad works at a downtown hotel that has a long history. In the late 1800's, the daughter of the owner tragically died. They say her spirit hangs around the building.

He told me one night that he saw a little blond girl walking around during his work shift. He thought, oh well, probably one of the guests' kids or something. He asked her what her name was, but she just smiled and ran off.

Thing is...there's nobody on the premises after 8. Nobody's allowed there except personnel.

He said the little girl wore a red dress, in an old fashioned style, like Victorian style. She looked completely solid, and would laugh. She looked completely human. In fact, he caught her jumping on top of the tables.

My dad's boss is well aware of this phenomenon going on. He tells him employee's not to freak out about it, but that's easier said than done. A secretary was working one night, and someone started taking papers off of a stack on her desk one by one. She turned around to see the little girl in the red dress, stacking the papers nicely on top. She smiled and ran away. The secretary quit the very next day.

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Learning How to Throw

Informant: Male/39/Portuguese ancestry

Location: Hilo, Big Island

As a child, I used to constantly play outside with a ball. One particular day, I'm playing outside when these two men came up to me.

The two men were old and dressed in stiff, black suits. Something about them seemed like they had come out of the past, like they had come straight out of the 50's.

Oddly enough, they knew my name. They called my name and started to motion for me. I went up to them. They started to talk to me about how to throw the ball. They pretty much taught me how to throw a ball that day.

Sometime later, I was sitting with my mom going through an old family photo album. To my surprise, I found a picture of the two men that taught me how to throw a ball. I was telling my mom about how the two men, when she interrupted me.

"That's impossible. That's my brother and his friend. They died years before you were even born."

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The Imaginary Friend

Informant: Male/19/Portuguese Ancestry

Location: Hilo, Big Island

The beginning of this story takes place about six months before I was even born. My parents lived in a small house in a small neighborhood next to a small cemetery. Someone wanted to turn the small neighborhood into a big neighborhood, and so they decided to bulldoze over the cemetery to make way for more houses. The man responsible for the bulldozing, dies of no apparent reason.

And now flash forward about five years.

Most children grew up with a beloved imaginary friend. Someone special, that only they could see. I was no different, or so my parents thought.

First it began with talking to people who weren't there. My parents would hear me having conversations with people in my room. They would take a peek into my room only to discover that I was alone. At first it was cute, their baby boy had an imaginary friend.

Then it escalated to feeding people who weren't there. This quickly turned from cute to annoying as the wasted food began to pile up. My parents would ask me why I was taking extra plates of food to my room. "To feed my friends," I would reply. When my parents would prevent me from taking extra plates of food, I would share my food and hold my spoon up to feed my friends.

Then it went even further with sleepwalking. And it wasn't just any kind of sleepwalking, I'd be sleepwalking and holding hands with people that no one else could see. Every night I would get up and start walking with my hand raised up as if someone taller than me was holding it. I would walk from my bed all the way to the front door until I would bump into it and then wake up. This quickly went from minor annoyance to scaring my parents.

Then everything just stopped. I no longer talked to people. I stopped feeding my food to people who weren't there. And my sleepwalking had ceased. Around the time that all of this stopped, the discovery was made that the bodies in the cemetery that had been bulldozed, were not removed, they were still under the house that had been built over it.

I'm not quite sure what happened to the bodies, I would like to think that they were removed and put into some place they could rest peacefully. However, I do know that creepy things are still lurking in the neighborhood. Old neighbors speak of loud noises coming from an old empty house that was next door to mines. A house that is constantly off and on the market. As soon as it's sold, it seems that it's being sold within a matter of months. That same house will open its windows while you walk past, even though no one is living in it.There's even rumors of a telephone pole that bleeds (not sure how serious one should take that, I'm sure it's just tar or some other dark substance that oozes, yet some people actually feel that it is an ominous sign that warns them that something bad is going to happen).

Now, I live in much quieter neighborhood that has no history of cemeteries, ghosts, or bleeding telephone poles.

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Skateboarder Spirit on Campus

Informant: Male/20/Mexican-European ancestry

Location: Chaminade University, Oahu

There is a legend at my school about a student who was killed and now haunts the campus. He was a skater who was hit by a car and killed.

One night around 2:00 a.m. my friend was walking back to her dorm from mine when she noticed a guy with longish hair holding a skateboard was staring at her. She started to walk a little faster and turned around to look at him, and he was still staring at her intently. So she started to walk really fast, and she turned around one more time...but he was gone. Nowhere to be seen.

She looked up some old newspaper articles and discovered who he was and the day he died. The day she saw him was the anniversary of his death.

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The Tale of Whistling Shirley

Informant: Female/61/Portuguese-mixed ancestry

Location: Kapaa, Kauai

This story comes from my mother. I've heard it enough to tell it to you properly, I feel.

When my mother was a little girl, there was a terrible accident in her community. A little boy had drowned in a nearby reservoir. Shortly after his death, they started to hear rumors that his younger sister was able to communicate with him in the afterlife through whistling. She would speak, and he would whistle back.

It wasn't just a whistle the sister could hear, everyone nearby could also hear the whistling. People started to go to the house to see this "miracle" as they called it. My grandma forbade my grandpa from going to see it because she did not believe it was a miracle like everyone else believed (she was a very staunch Catholic). But my grandpa went anyway with my mom in tow.

When they got there, he told my mom and her cousin (who was also with them) to stay in the car while he went to the house. Not only did my grandpa hear the whistling in the house, my mother also heard it in the car.

My grandpa realized that something was not right and quickly returned to the car. They started to drive away and could still hear the whistling. They drove a few houses away and could still hear the whistling. They could hear the whistling all the way back home, as if it was in the car with them.

Needless to say my grandma was furious, and I think it's safe to say that my grandpa learned his lesson.

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Hitodama

Informant: Female/23/Korean-Portuguese ancestry
Location: Fuji Beach, Kaua'i

Hinotama, also known as hitodama, is the Japanese name for what we would call fireballs, or what the Hawaiian's call "akualele." These fireballs are the spirits of dead people who often lead the living to their remains in this form. I recall one of my favorite ghost stories from Glen Grant's Obake Files called "The Hinotama of a Murdered Man." Every night a family would see a fireball shoot over to the mountains. They finally followed it one day and found the head of a murdered man. The head was returned to the body and the fireball was never seen again.

I never thought that I would have ever seen something like this in my life. I am certainly a believer in ghosts and spirits (Lord knows I've experienced enough in my lifetime), but this seemed like such a novelty to me...until I saw it with my own eyes.

The entire east side of Kaua'i (where I am from) is ancient battle ground. This particular spot that my friends and I like to hang out at is right on the beach, and we like to park and jump in the back of my truck and play music. This night was just like any other: late night jam sessions at the beach. While we were sitting in the back of my truck, I noticed my friend who was playing guitar was starting out over the ocean. When I looked up to see what he was looking at, I was stunned to see a fireball floating across the sky. It was clearly fire; you could see the flames swirling. There was no fiery tail, but instead a tail of smoke.

I asked my friend, "What is that??" and he said, "I don't know, I've been staring at it for the past few minutes." By the time my other friend turned around to look at it, it had fizzled out into a puff of smoke.

What struck me about this fireball was that it was floating. It was floating very slowly and silently across the sky. It was not falling in any way. My dad said it was methane gas released by a decomposing body, but I don't buy that because I'm pretty confident that it would not be floating across the sky like that. I really am glad that I was not the only one to see it or else I would have doubted myself. It was not scary in any way, just shocking and perplexing. But I wouldn't mind if I never saw something like that again.

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