Fly Like an Eagle

Informant: Male/25/Hawaiian-Mixed Ancestry

Location: Kapaa, Kauai

In the late 1990's I read in the newspaper that a boy that lived down the road from us had accidentally hanged himself while he was playing in his yard. I later found out that he was one of my brother's basketball rivals; they had recently competed against each other in a three-point shootout tournament which my brother won. I asked my brother about him and he didn't have much to say other than he knew the boy's favorite song was "Fly Like An Eagle" because it was recently featured in Space Jam and Michael Jordan was his favorite basketball player.

A few nights later, our neighbors came over to play video games and spend the night. The Christmas before, I received an Electronic Hot Shot Basketball game and we were playing with that, seeing who could get the highest score. We got bored, put the game away and moved on to the new Playstation my brothers and I also got for Christmas. 

We were playing video games and listening to music when the song "Fly Like An Eagle" started playing on the stereo. A minute or so into the song, all the electricity goes out including the Playstation, TV, and lights, so we're in complete darkness. Everything went off except for the stereo; the song was still playing. We were already terrified from the dark and everything turning off except for the stereo when we heard another noise. 

The Hot Shot Basketball game had turned on on its own and basketballs were being shot, but all of us were hiding on the other side of the room. We all ran upstairs to find that the electricity was working fine upstairs.

After taking a few minutes to calm down, we all went downstairs together to find that the lights were back on, but the stereo was off and the Hot Shot Basketball had been moved and was used. Till this day, we all swear that we didn't turn the game on and have yet to figure out exactly what happened. Maybe it was my brother's friend paying us a visit to show that the basketball rivalry is still on.

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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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He Came Out of The Water

Informant: Female/20's/Mixed ancestry

Location: Fuji Beach, Kauai

My friend sent me these pictures. Her son was in the back of the truck playing with the phone as they were driving past Fuji Beach in Kapaa, also known as Baby Beach. As they're driving by he sees what looks like a white man coming out of the water, so he snapped a picture. As they passed by him, he snapped another picture. This is what he captured.

Here I've cropped, zoomed and adjusted the color and light balance to get a better view.

This is the same beach where the fireball was spotted. Perhaps the two are related?

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The Haunted Arcade

Informant: Male/40’s/European Ancestry

Location: Kapa’a, Kauai

A friend of mine worked at Fun Factory in Waipouli for a few years. In the time that she worked there, she had experienced some pretty strange things.

A new game had come in one day, but it was too big to get through the doors without having to unhinge them. They couldn’t leave the game sitting outside, so a small group of them camped out in the store to make sure the game wasn’t stolen.

My friend had set up a tent inside the store, and within view she could see her other friend asleep. In the middle of the night, she heard what sounded like someone hitting the game machines. She said it sounded like someone walking passed all the games with their hand out. She sat up and looked through the mesh to see if it was her friend, but he was sleeping in the same spot. There’s no way anyone else was in the store.

Another strange occurrence happened in the storage room. My friend saw that it was closed, but heard all kinds of noises coming from inside. Underneath the door she could see that someone was moving around in there. Thinking it was her coworker, who often used the store room to change his clothes, she didn’t think much of it. She walked over and knocked on the door, but nobody answered. She tried to open the door, but the door wouldn’t open. She thought a pole had fallen and was blocking the door, or that her coworker was messing with her. But just then he walked in the front door, wondering what she was doing.

My friend explained that the door wouldn’t open but there was someone in there. When her coworker tried, the door opened easily for him. Nobody was in there.

Now, a family friend has a daughter who works at Fun Factory. Recently the nighttime janitor told them all something strange: “I don’t wanna freak anyone out,” he said, “but I see strange things here at night. I saw a man hanging in the back.”

According to legend, there was a true report of a man having committed suicide in that area before Fun Factory existed. Maybe it was him causing all the mischief?

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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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