Merry Meet and Merry Part, and Merry Meet again

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A True Ghost Story

October, with its Halloween theme, brings to mind spooky stories of hauntings, ghostly encounters, dark and stormy nights, haunted houses and all those things that go bump in the night. Last October, I posted my own true ghost story. Today I am re-posting that story as I have a lot of followers who were not with me last year. I would love to know if you have had encounters with the "unexplained".

Image Credit
Originally posted October 28, 2010

I have hesitated writing about this, but if not now, when? It's Halloween time, and I have read some good ghost stories on the blogs. It just makes me a little anxious to recall a time that was frightening and worrisome.

In 1987 my husband and I were living in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. He was in the Navy and we were very near the end of his tour at Pearl Harbor.  I was working as a word processor for Public Works at Pearl Harbor in Building One. I worked the shift from 4:00pm til 12:30 am with a staff of 6 others. We sat for 8 hours typing, plugged into our walkmans, listening to Sally Jesse Raphael, or music. It was always quiet in the building, daytime staff of over 200 people gone for the day. Most of the two-story building was dark, just our section lighted.


I think most of were experiencing small trivial things at first. Not really paying attention to odd little noises, or the occasional shadow, non-specific little events. It is a very old building, there are bound to be noises, settling, office machines making their little electronic hums and beeps.

I was on a break with one of the girls, Liz, sitting outside having a smoke and a coffee, chatting. There was suddenly behind us a loud sound, as if someone was dragging something heavy, possibly metallic. We looked and saw nothing. The noise stopped. We immediately returned to our office, feeling slightly odd, but not too concerned. We did not mention this to anyone.

The next night, two other of the girls had gone out to the same place for a break. They returned very quickly saying they had heard a very strange sound, and were nervous to stay out there. Liz and I looked at each other and mentioned we had heard something the night before. We then, all shrugged, and decided not to take breaks in that area anymore. Who knows what it was....just keep working and forget about it.

In an office area down the hall, cubicle type office, all the lights are always off. There was a fan mounted on the wall. Occasionally it would be left on by a day worker, and I would just go and turn it off. One night after I had turned it off, I noticed an hour or so later it was back on. Well, maybe the switch didn't fully connect when I turned it off. So, turned it back off, went back to my work. It was back on within 15 minutes. So this time I unplugged it.  It was back on by the time I returned to my work station.  We all started talking and wondering aloud what the heck that was about. And then the others started mentioning other things that had been going on. Bathroom lights going off and on, loud footsteps. Nervewracking when we all began to compare notes.

Things began to escalate in just a few nights. It was late, near the end of our shift, and one of the girls suddenly hollered: "Whoever is throwing paperclips at me, would you stop?" The rest of us looked at her blankly, and she asked again, which one of us was doing it. No one responded. We had all been steadfastly working. Suddenly as we were talking, a pencil fell from the ceiling, into the middle of the floor. Startled, we stared and looked around, finding no one else. Liz called Security. Two burly armed guards showed up a few minutes later, searched the building, said all was secure, no one to be seen, and pretty much acted as if we were a bunch of nervous women, calling the cops about a stupid pencil.

For the next two or three nights, we were plagued by pencils dropping, paper clips falling, erasers showing up on our keyboards, loud noises, and voices at the far end of the hall. We left early on two nights, and on the third night barely made it an hour into the shift. Lots of voices in the office areas down the hall. Lights going off and on. A general feeling of unease, unrest, an abnormal sense of darkness and fear. We all were scared and unwilling to continue to work there.   The next morning Liz called our supervisor, Ed, who works days in downtown Honolulu, and explained the situation. He was dubious, but wanted to give us the benefit of the doubt, and arranged to meet us all that during that night's shift.


Ed arrived around 6:00 pm, with pizza and soda, and a briefcase of work. We ate, gave him all the details of our experiences. He explained to us, that the building we worked in was used as a temporary morgue during the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. There were also rumors, not verified, that there had been a murder-suicide in the building, maybe 20 years before.That certainly unsettled us.

So, here we are,  Ed and the six of us, stuffed with pizza and working away.  Suddenly, there is a loud noise and the metal trashcan by Ed's desk is knocked over, and rolls across the floor. We all jump up, and Ed picks up a large alligator clip that had hit the trashcan. It came from the direction of the hall, not a soul around to throw it. Ed gathers up his papers and brief case, tells all of us to go home, and he went flying out of the building before we could barely turn off our word processors.

The next day, Liz called me at home to explain that Ed had arranged for a Hawaiian menehune, a priest, to come and do a cleansing and blessing of the building. They wanted all the workers to be there, except me, as I was just a couple of months pregnant at the time. The menehune did not want a pregnant woman present when he was trying to rid the place of negative entities for fear of them inhabiting the fetus. Needless to say, I never went back to work there, and we left the Island a couple of months later, relocating to a new assignment in California.

Liz said the blessing seemed to work for a while, but she also left Hawaii a while after that. We never were in contact with anyone else. So who knows if the ghosts of Building One are still walking the halls and teasing the workers.  I cannot express though, how frightening many of those nights were. So eerie, with such a strange atmosphere of tension, fear and darkness. It always disturbs me to talk about it as it calls up memories of an odd and unsettling time in my life.

14 comments:

goddessandmagick said...

good one!!I know those buildings will hold those energy's for ever!!

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Wow, creepy story! The history of that building would give anyone the willies, quite apart from all the noises and unexplained goings-on that also happened. It's the perfect tale to tell at Halloween!

OmaLindasOldeBaggsandStuftShirts said...

great ghost story. I'm posting mine today as well and now the hair on my arms is standing up.....you're a good story teller my dear. Oma Linda, the other booby

Anonymous said...

I like that story :-) I had a gohst in my garden centre. It was a man dressed in black wearing a black hat.

I never felt worried when ever I saw him though, he usually just stood there watching me :-)

Have a great day!
Christer.

Lady Caer Morganna said...

Those kind of things are always unsettling ~ most especially when the spirit or spirits are angry or just want you OUT for some reason. Scarey stuff I tell you! I make it a habbit to cleanse and bless my home (every single room) every fall (i.e. "Fall cleaning", you know?). It really does make a difference.

Thank you for sharing your story!

Blessings,

Kim

Aine O'Brien said...

This is fascinating!! Thank you for sharing it. I'm glad you stayed away. Sometimes these things start out as just ghostly pranks but then they escalate. I think it was very wise that you weren't allowed in the building during the um - blessing.

It's funny, lately more and more people are telling me about encountering spirits in a place - and saying that there was NO DOUBT whatsoever that it was a spirit. Maybe people are more open to it, or it's more acceptable because of the media's focus on the paranormal? Or maybe we are becoming more sensitive, spirits more active??

Vivienne Moss said...

What a spooky ghost story. i'm glad you were not hurt. i have aghost visiting my house now. he comes from time to time to play tricks. i wrote about him on by blog. it's under the title He's Back.

Just know that you are not the only that has had a haunting. They can be very frightening and make us feel as if we were crazy.

brokenteepee said...

If any place deserves to have restless ghosts that is one of them

Rue said...

Oooh. No - I wouldn't go back to work there either.

My friend had a spirit in her house. They thought it was charming how he/she/it always opened doors & cupboards, flushed the toilet and turned the radio on and off. I didn't think it was that cute!

Anonymous said...

Great story, perfect for this time of year!! I haven't a story has chilling as that.

Eco Yogini said...

What a fantastic post! thank you so much for sharing it- you're right, Halloween time is the best to share these events. :)

Magic Love Crow said...

That was a spooky ghost story Robin! I am happy no one was hurt! You told it very well! We had a ghost in our old house, who use to tuck us into bed. She was a nice lady, who didn't hurt us. Also, I once had an out of body experience when I was 13, that was scary! I was looking down at my body in my bedroom. My cat freaked and hissed! Before I knew it, I was back in my body. Maybe I should put that story on my blog? Take Care ;o)

maddyrose said...

Years ago I worked in a factory that had a ghost or two. Most of us workers had an encounter at some point but when someone expressed concern or uneasiness others would say something like, "You're not afraid of ghosts are you?"

Anonymous said...

Oh Robin, how creepy! Yes, I have worked in a haunted building as well but thankfully, in daylight and full of other workers. Ours were not so mischievous as yours though. They tapped on windows, rustled papers and a few times, lifted a few strands of my hair and let it drop. The latter really creeped me out.It too, had been used as a morgue years prior.