Wednesday Weird: Tsunami Ghost Passengers

It's been 5 years since the earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. Which is really shocking to think it's been that long.

And today's Wednesday Weird (brought to me by my good pal Josh) directly relates to that disaster.

Today, we're talking about taxi ghost passengers.

Ghosts passengers have long been a well-known phenomenon (not well-known in "proven" just well-known in that there are plenty of tales and first person stories of people picking up hitch-hikers, etc, who then turn out to be ghosts)

In the coastal communities of Tohoku, Japan, there have been a spat of taxi drivers reporting ghost passengers.

More than 100 drivers were interviewed by Yuka Kudo for her sociology thesis (which, holy crap, that's got to be THE COOLEST THESIS ever. And, I mean, my own thesis was on monsters, so...)

Seven of the drivers were from the city of Ishinomaki, where close to 6,000 people died as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami.

Usually I just like to summarize, but I'm going to pull some direct quotes from this article just because they're so creepy and cool.

"One of the men told Ms Kudo that a woman climbed into his taxi near Ishinomaki Station just a few months after the disaster. She asked him to go to the Minamihama district, to which the driver said there was nothing left standing there.

The driver recounted that the woman asked, "Have I died?" and, when he turned to look, his taxi was empty."

Which, I mean, holy cow what an awesome story. Other drivers reported picking up passengers, many of them young people, and driving them to their requested destinations only to find their cars were empty. The drivers seemed to truly believe that they had picked up genuine fares because they had started their meters.

Some of the drivers logged their passengers in their reports and others didn't.

And, on top of the ghost taxi passengers, there have been other claims of ghost sightings in Tohoku, including "spectral figures" lining up outside of shops that no longer exist.

None of the taxi drivers said they felt any fear, but instead took their passenger visits as a sort of gift. Which, man, I don't know if I'd be able to do that.

So there you go!

Thoughts? Theories?

Wednesday Weird: Blockbuster Ghost

It's been awhile since we've had a ghost or haunting video for Wednesday Weird and today I have a good/fun one.


This is a video of a clerk stocking a blockbuster. The video gets progressively better, so keep watching until the end.


(also, remember Blockbusters? Man, clearly there's more than one ghost in this video)





Okay, now that that's out of my system, here's the video





Thoughts or theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Anguished Man

Week Three of the Halloween themed Wednesday Weirds.

Today, we have this terrifying picture:

Honestly, the painting is creepy enough that I could probably just stop the post right now. Like, that's it, here's your Halloween scare for the week.

But, nah. Let's keep going.

This painting was kept in Sean Robinson's grandmother's attic for twenty-five years before he inherited it. She had always told Robinson that the painting was evil, explaining how the artist who created it had used his own blood mixed with the paint, and had killed himself shortly after completing it. Like you do.

When the painting was displayed, she'd hear voices and crying, and sometimes see a shadowy figure in her house. So she locked it away in her attic. Why she didn't just get rid of it, I dunno.

As soon as Robinson took the painting into his home, he and his family started experiencing the same kinds of creepy phenomenon. His wife felt something stroking her hair, they saw the shadow man and they heard crying.

Robinson decided to set up a camera overnight to try to capture some of the strange events on tape. Robinson's YouTube videos show slamming doors, rising smoke, and the painting falling from a wall for no reason.

Frightened, Robinson soon put the painting down in his basement, but he is not interested in selling it.

Here's one of his videos. Boring warning: the video isn't all that interesting, barring one little part.





So, there you have it. The Anguished Man painting. Scary enough on it's own, kinda worse when it comes with creepiness.

Wednesday Weird: Screaming Ghost

Here we are, the beginning of Halloween season. Which means for this month, the Wednesday Weirds are going to be as Halloweeny as I can swing. I'm going to try to pick scary or creepy or gross topics. What will they be? No clue. I figure out when I write the posts.

But for today, to launch our Halloween series of Wednesday Weirds, we're looking at a ghost video!

I picked this one because A) it's creepy as all hell. And B) it's different than a lot of the other types of ghost videos.

Whether it's real or not, I have no clue, but it's full of tension and it's an absorbing video (no worries. There's no jump scares or anything. I wouldn't do that to you.)

 

Thoughts?

Wednesday Weird: The Dybbuk Box

A dybbuk box is a wine cabinet that's purportedly haunted by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore, capable of haunting and possessing a person.

A particular dybbuk box became famous (there's a book written about it, and it inspired the 2012 movie The Possession) when it was listed on ebay with a frightening backstory.

In September 2001 an antique buyer hit up a Portland auction, where the belongings of a 103 year old woman were being sold. The woman's granddaughter told the antique dealer that her grandmother had been Jewish and the only member of her family who had survived a concentration camp. When she emigrated to the US she only brought three things with her, one of which was her wine cabinet.

The granddaughter told the dealer that her grandmother always kept the box hidden and said that it should never be opened because it contained a dybbuk. She requested that the box be buried with her, but that went against Jewish tradition, so her family didn't comply.

The antique dealer bought the cabinet. Inside he found some old pennies, a lock of hair, a goblet and a candleholder.

He placed it in his workshop in the basement. Almost immediately strange things started to happen, including lights flickers, light bulbs shattering, strange smells (like cat urine) coming from nowhere, and terrible sounds emerging from the basement.

Because the dealer was either dumb as fuck, or smart(?) he gave the box to his mother, who shortly after had a stroke. At the hospital she spelled out a message: H-A-T-E-G-I-F-T.
He tried to gift it a few more times, but it was always returned to him because the recipients either didn't like it, or felt it was ominous.

The dealer began to sleep poorly and have nightmares. He would also catch glimpses of shadow people darting around. Once, when he was doing research about the box online, he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke, he felt breathing on the back of his neck. He turned and saw a large shadow flying away from him down the hall.

That's when he decided to list the cabinet on ebay.

It migrated to different owners before Jason Haxton, author of the book about the box and curator of a medical museum in Missouri, purchased the box. He resealed the box and stored it at a secret location, which he will not reveal.

So there you go! I haven't seen the movie, but I remember the previews and it looked pretty good. Thoughts? Theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Winchester Mystery House

Today we've got the Winchester Mystery House, mostly because I just read an article talking about how soon people will be able to stay in the Winchester Mystery House, which would be awesome and fun.

The Winchester Mystery House was built by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester, the son of the first president of the Winchester Repeating Arms company. They built guns. A lot of guns. And made a lot of money doing it.

When William died, Sarah inherited a lot of money, amounting to roughly $1000 a day, which is a crap ton today, let alone in the 1800s. After visiting a medium, Sarah believed her family had been killed by the ghosts of people shot with Winchester rifles. She thought she could save her life by building a mansion which would never be finished. So she set about doing just that.

Picture of the 7 story house before it was damaged in a 1906 earthquake and brought down to 4 stories 

Sarah died in 1922 in a house that spans 6 acres with 160 rooms, including stairways that lead nowhere, doors and cabinets that open into walls, skylights placed into floors, and a hidden séance room at the center of the house.

 

 

 

Sarah also designed a number of her home's aspects and rooms to repeat the number 13 — rooms with thirteen windows, thirteen fireplaces in one suite, thirteen gas lights on a chandelier, thirteen holes in her kitchen drain, etc. Except for servants, Sarah Winchester lived alone in her house from 1884 until 1922, talking mostly to dead people and ghosts.

The Winchester Mystery House has long been considered haunted by visitors and employees. Tour guides have heard their names called, people have seen a carpenter pushing a wheelbarrow in the basement, frequently tours will catch the smell of food cooking.  In fact, the Winchester Mystery House keeps a log of sightings or experiences. You can even look at them broken out by different rooms (Sarah Winchester's Bedroom has 100 experiences listed alone).

Have you ever visited the Winchester Mystery House? If so, was it awesome? Or creepy? Would you pay to spend the night?

Wednesday Weird: Okiku The Haunted Doll

In 1918, a teenage boy named Eikichi Suzuki bought a doll for his 2 year old sister Okiku. She loved the doll and carried it everywhere.

But, unfortunately, a year later little Okiku died from either a cold or a fever (sources differ on this). After the funeral, the family found Okiku's doll and were saddened that they'd forgotten to put it with her. They placed the doll on the family altar so they could pray to it in her memory.

Most traditional Japanese dolls have cropped hair.

But after her death, Okiku's doll turned a little...different. The Okiku (named after the original owner) doll's hair began to grow. Over time it has grown to almost 10 inches, down to the doll's knees.

The family took this as a sign that the little girl's spirit was residing in the doll.

In 1938, the family moved and donated a doll to a local temple to be cared for. The temple says they periodically cut the hair, but that it continues to grow.

The Okiku doll is a pretty well-known story (and has even inspired a Japanese movie) but a few things we should think about is that the name Okiku is often seen in Japanese ghost tales, many stretching further back than the 1900s. Also some sources say that there have been scientific studies on the doll that show that the hair is indeed, human (some sources also say that additional tests show that the hair is a child's hair. I doubt both of these details, since I don't know that there were any kind of tests back in the early nineteen hundreds that could tell whether hair belonged to a child. Also, many dolls had hair that was human hair, so unless the doll was tested beforehand (and why would it be?) I just don't buy that, either. But again, not all sources of this story include those details)

Thoughts?

Wednesday Weird: The Jakarta Angel

I was going to do a post about radio transmissions from space. Or radio transmission from Russia that hasn't stopped in, like, decades, but those will have to wait for another Wednesday.

 

Since tomorrow is the World Horror Convention in New Orleans I'm going to pick something that's a little zazzier. And has a video!!

Okay, I'm coming right out and saying that this video is much more suspect than the things I usually post, but it's a fun video and I like it so you're getting it anyway.

This is security footage from Cilandak Square, in Jakarta, Indonesia.

 

All right, so you can see how this could easily be CGI. Still, I love watching this video over and over again. The things that I like about it (whether it's fake or not) are the people's reactions. If this were just security footage of the supposed angel, it would be cool but no biggie. But when the people show up like you better believe they just saw something, it makes me sit up and take notice.

I also like how the light from the angel reflects off the structure across the lot from it. If it is CGI (ahem) that's some damn fine attention to detail.

So there you have it. The Jakarta Angel. Thoughts? Do you think the video is as fun to watch as I do?

Wednesday Weird: Gettysburg Ghost Footage

As mentioned before, I love looking at supposed ghost footage clips. If you have a video of a ghost or something that could be a ghost, then I want to watch it.

So today I have a video of ghost footage at Gettysburg. In case you're not in the know, Gettysburg is purported to be really haunted. People claims to see ghosts and weird things there all the time. This video is one of my all time favorite ghost clips.

When watching you'll see what appears to be flashes of musket fire. And then, if you keep watching, you'll see people in the woods. It's important to note that there is no road behind the trees (so the lights can't be from cars, etc). Whether the people in the trees are actual people or not (and the washed out color of the people is a bit suspect) I guess we can't be certain, but the people on the video were confident there were no actual people in the trees where they were filming.

Here you go!

 

 

 

 

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them!!

Wednesday Weird: Disneyland Ghost

Fun Fact about me 1: I love ghosts. Love them. I love reading true ghost stories or watching videos or anything.

Fun Fact about me 2: Ghost scare the shit out of me. So even though I love reading books and stories and watching videos, I also get super creeped out. But then fascinated. The further creeped out. It's a terrible cycle.

I do wonder, however, how scared I would actually be in real life if, say, I heard footsteps in the hall, or someone called my name when I'm home alone. The only times in my life where something strange or weird has happened, I've reacted with curiosity and not fear. But I have a feeling that curiosity would go straight out the window if my bedsheets were pulled off me while I was sleeping.

Anyhoo, today I'm going to share an awesome ghost video. Regardless of whether you're a believer or a skeptic, this video is pretty damn awesome.

Brief video explanation: This is a video shot by a security guard at Disneyland. He's (or she) is filming the security camera monitors that are set up to film the park near to the Haunted Mansion attraction.
 

Suspicious things about this video: It takes place outside the Haunted House at Disneyland. Coincidence?

Super interesting things about this video:

The ghost tracks across all four video monitors before it walks out onto the river and disappears.
Some peope think that maybe it's a reflection on the video monitors, which could be a logical explanation if the room was large enough for a person to stand far enough away to make the reflection the size that would fit on those roads (so like, what, a 60ft room?) Also, the screens are stacked, so the room would also have to have two stories. Or at least a platform for the person causing the reflection to stand on to reflect first on the top monitors, then the bottom. Also, at one point, the anomaly appears on two monitors at the same time.

So I think we can probably rule out reflection.

There's a possibility that it's CGI on the tapes, but then we have to ask ourselves, why? Who would go to all that trouble of getting the park security videos, putting some CGI on them, just to film them on some monitors for a ghost video to post on youtube? Seems like an awful lot of trouble.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  What are your thoughts?

 

In Which I Talk Scary Books

Since we're coming up on Halloween super quick now, I figured today was a good day to list, in no particular order, my top 5 favorite scary books.


House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

A young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane discovers something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams

 

 

Thoughts:

 

House of Leaves is one of those books where the back cover (the synopsis above) isn't accurate. Though it is a story about a house that is bigger on the inside than the outside, at no point do the children wander off or go missing.

 

BUT! That said, this books is terrifying. It's a story within a story, following a tattoo artist who discovers a video where a family does an experiment to show that their house is bigger on the inside than the out. The tattoo artist's tale is told via footnotes (pages and pages of them) as he becomes obsessed with this video (and the obsession builds to a point where you can't tell if he's gone crazy, or if the mystery of the house actually has some effect on him). And as you follow his story of obsession, the reader learns everything he learns about the house and the family that lived there.

 

Seriously scary, both in a psychological way and also in a "WTF is in the HOUSE??" way. But, it's not an easy book to read. At all. At points, the footnotes will last for whole chapters, and they'll be written upside down, and in spirals and in any other weird way you can imagine.

 

 

The Amityville Horror - Jay Anson

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

The Lutzes moved into their dream home on December 18th, 1975. Four weeks later, they fled in terror. The home was the scene of a mass murder a year before, and the Lutzes claimed paranormal phenomena caused them to fear for their lives and forced them to abandon the home

 

Thoughts:

 

The Amityville Horror is touted as a true story, but it's not. Though, to be fair, the murders did happen, but the Lutzes made up the stuff that happened to them.

 

BUT!! That does not change that fact that this book is terrifying. This is the kind of book that you can read in broad daylight, in a crowded public place, and still need to set it aside at points because you're just so scared.

 

The first time I read this (back in high school) I had to share a bed with Twin because I was just that scared. I mean, come on! Ghosts are scary. Very few things scare me more than ghosts.

 

The book is hard to find, though. It went out of print for a while (I used to snatch up any used copies I could find) though I did see a new paperback at a borders closing last year (snatched that one up too).

 

 

The Season Of Passage - Christopher Pike

 

 



Synopsis:

Dr. Lauren Wagner was a celebrity. She was involved with the most exciting adventure mankind had ever undertaken: a manned expedition to Mars. The whole world admired and respected her.

But Lauren knew fear. Inside—voices entreating her to love them. Outside—the mystery of the missing group that had gone before her. The dead group.

But were they simply dead? Or something else?
Thoughts:

This book isn't overtly terrifying. There aren't ghosts, or monsters etc. But there are moments of extreme tension and fear, and most of them take place when the characters are on Mars. And let's get real here, space horror is terrifying because you can't escape it. There's nowhere to go.

There's a scene in this book where the MC is floating on a boat in a cave on Mars and the scene is so wrought with tension and fear, it actually gave me nightmares when I first read it in high school.


Grave's End: A True Ghost Story - Elaine Mercado

Synopsis:

When Elaine Mercado and her first husband bought their home in Brooklyn, New York, in 1982, they had no idea that they and their young daughters were embarking on a thirteen year nightmare.

Within a few days of moving in, Elaine and her older daughter began to experience the sensation of being watched. Then came scratching noises and weird smells, followed by voices whispering, maniacal laughter, shadowy figures scurrying along baseboards, and small balls of light bouncing along the ceilings. From the beginning of the haunting, "suffocating dreams" were experienced by everyone except the younger daughter These eventually accelerated to physical aggression directed at Elaine and both the girls.

This book is the true story of how one family tried to cope with living in a haunted house. It also describes how, with the help of a parapsychologist Dr. Hans Holtzer and the medium Marisa Anderson, the family discovered the tragic and heartbreaking secrets buried in the house at Grave's End.

Thoughts:

I LOVE this book. I read it at least once a year (it's short and fast. I can read it in one sitting). Like I said, ghosts freak me the eff out, but also, I LOVE reading real ghosts stories.

The author isn't the best writer, but the experiences she and her family had are terrifying and every time I read it, a different experience strikes me as the most terrifying (the last time I read it (a few weeks ago) it was a scene where the youngest daughter went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and when she came back into her room, she saw an old woman sitting on her sister's chest, and she was too scared to say anything so she CLIMBED BACK INTO BED WITH HER SISTER and closed her eyes. OMG I can't even...)

If you like true ghost stories, definitely check this one out. It's also great because they do get some answers to their haunting at the end. Not everything, but quite a bit.


N. - Stephen King

Synopsis:

There is something unearthly and mysterious deep in Acherman's Field in rural Maine. There is a Stonehenge-like arrangement of seven stones with a horrifying EYE in the center. And whatever dwells there in that strange, windswept setting may have brought about the suicide of one man...and harbor death for the OCD afflicted "N.," whose visits to the field have passed beyond compulsion into the realm of obsession.

Thoughts:

Okay, this is actually a short story/novella in King's Just After Sunset collection. BUT it's also been made into a comic.

This short story is just terrifying. To me it has the number one aspect needed for a great horror story: something that cannot be stopped. It's so creepy, you can't help but wonder if just by reading it, maybe the standing stones will affect you too, which is when you know it's a good story, when you start to wonder if maybe it's not fiction.



So there you have it! My top 5 scary stories.
Let me know some of your fav stories - I'd love to read them!
 

In Which We Have A Ghost...?

So typically myself, Twin and I (and our Mom if we're around her) like to partake in April Fool's Day festivities. Many a shirt has been soaked by the sink's spray nozzle being rubber banded and no one will forget the "short sheeting incident of 2009" in which a new prank combined with Brother's exhaustion resulted in hilarity.

But this year we all forgot about pranks. Brother had just gotten back from visiting Youngest Sister in Oprahland and Twin was in San Diego for work. I was busy with work tasks and just didn't have the energy to come up with any pranks.

On my lunch break I was feeling stressed and wanted to read something, but not Manuscript Makeover. I decided I would take a break on that and read one of my YA or MG book sitting on my TBR pile.

In fact, I wanted to read Incarceron, which has been sitting on the top of my pile since it arrived in the mail.

So I walked to my room to get the book. Except it wasn't there.
I checked every single book in that pile (even though I had seen it on the top of that pile the night before) and none of them were Incarceron.

So first I was confused. Perhaps I had already had the plan to read Incarceron and had carried it somewhere? (this was highly unlikely as my memory skills are pretty great. My memory for events is almost a lame super power) So I checked the kitchen, the dining room (where things accrue) the living room, even the bathroom, in case I had had it in my head to take a bath and read it.

Nothing.

So then I started to wonder if perhaps Brother had not forgotten about April Fool's Day like the rest of us.
I texted our mom and asked her if Brother had mentioned playing any pranks on us to her. She texted back that she hadn't heard anything and that she, too, had forgotten all about it.

I texted Twin in San Diego, wondering if perhaps she had borrowed it, even though I knew she was reading Under the Dome because it took up so much space in her carryon.

Nope.

So then I went downstairs and poked around Brother's room, looking for anywhere he might have stashed it.

Nothing.

I finally broke down and sent him a text. I thought about asking him if he had it, but I knew that if he had, indeed, hidden it, he could deny actually "having" it if it wasn't in his possession.

Instead, I asked if he had hidden it.

I didn't expect a response since he was at work, but I had done everything I could. I went back to work, a bit miffed and frustrated.

That night, Twin came home and Brother denied that he had hidden the book.

I argued with him, there was no other explanation. I certainly didn't hide my own book and Twin was hours away.

He pointed out that he revelled in his pranks and certainly would have taken credit for any prank he pulled. Instead, he began to think that I was pulling a prank on him, by hiding my own book and blaming him.

I don't like to play mind games like that.

So I was left with a mystery - I didn't want to believe brother, but he seemed sincere and he would certainly want to claim his prank victory if he had hidden the book.

That night when I was fixing the sheets on my bed, I found the book stuffed underneath Yvie's dog bed. Underneath my own pillow I found my pedegg - it had apparently been missing as well, though I had seen it the night before right next to Incarceron on my nightstand.

I was completely flummoxed.

I mean maybe, MAYBE, I had grabbed Incarceron that morning, planning to read it, and suddenly decided to fluff Yvie's dog bed and set the book on the bed and accidentally put Yvie's dog bed on top of the book, and then forgot all about it. But all those events seem a bit ludicrous.
Also, I certainly wouldn't have stashed a pedegg under my pillow.

So what happened? I have no idea.

If I truly believed we had a ghost in the house, I'd be a bit freaked to sleep at night. And really nothing else has happened in the almost 3 years we've lived here (not counting a time I saw a ghost Yvie...). But I have no explanation as to how the book and the pedegg were "stashed away" amongst my pillows and bed.

hello brown lady of raynham hall

So - anyone have any unexplainable things happen to them? Even though I'm terrified of ghosts, I'm also extremely fascinated by them. So spill!

In Which I Receive (More) Awards

I seem to get blog awards in groups, which of course makes it easier to write blog posts.

Thank you to Nicole at One Significant Moment at a Time for the Honest Scrap Award.

Check out her blog because it's great and I'm sure you'll like it.

For this award I'm supposed to tell you 10 honest facts about myself. I think what this really means is "embarrassing" facts about yourself. I'll try to do my best, but I don't have too many moments that I find embarrassing.

1. I once fell down the stairs at my parent's house, to my family's endless amusement

2. Myself, Twin, Brother and a friend placed 4th in a local radio's Rock Band competition.

We are Mange Bear. Twin's character, Rojo, My character, Falen (der), Brother's character, Mal Strum

3. I'm afraid, yet fascinated, by ghosts

4. I'm an amateur cryptozoologist

5. In highschool, I broke my foot in a lazy river

6. On that note, when I was 6 I was sent to my room when Twin broke my collarbone (to be fair, my parents didn't know it was broken...)

7. I own a Hanson CD. And yes, I kind of like it

8. I have two tattoos. One which I showed here. And here's the other one:

9. I don't like to hear about Pukwudgies (also the final story here and here)

10. I cheat frequently at Croquet, but only because I don't want to lose as badly as I would without the cheating (I still lose when I cheat, just not as badly. And I never cheat if I'm doing OK)

This award I will pass on to:

Your Friendly Neighborhood Palindrome
Anissa
Elana Johnson

The other award I received from Alex over at Alex J Cavanaugh is the Over the Top award.

I've received this award before, so I won't bore you with my single word answers (because try as I might, I won't be able to come up with different ones than I did before).

Check out Alex's blog for some fun!