Chinese native Chunzhenwang reports from Shanghai

I don’t like horror movies or ghost stories. My imagination pictures those things, especially at night, which freak me out. But the curiosity never stops me from listening to them. I want to figure out the reason behind each story. I feel like if I can find the rational side of these stories, I wouldn’t be scared anymore. Against my better judgement, I find myself seeking out ghost stories but very rarely finding the rationale behind them. So every night, I still fight with my imagination.

When you live in Shanghai, the subway will be your first choice for transportation. It’s not expensive and very convenient. But on Line One, there is a Caobao road station, or by its more popular name, “ghost station.”

According to popular legend, the train will suddenly break down at that station, without driver error. When a maintenance trailer pulls the train out of the station, it works again. Other riders have reported the door not opening when in the haunted stop.

But most alarming is the nine deaths at Caobao, all involving unexplainable circumstances.

A few couple years ago, when the subway in Shanghai did not have shielded gates, a passenger waited for the train. All of a sudden, he plunged down into the tracks after inexplicably losing his balance. Unfortunately for him, his train was on time, ending his life. Witnesses say he didn’t fall off the platform, they saw something dragging him.

Just imagine the poor souls that have to work there.

One day, as usual, the staff needed to clean the trash in the track. One worker while cleaning, heard a woman laugh from the deep and dark side of the track. Since the station was closed, no one was supposed to be there.

Other staff report sometimes seeing a girl in red sitting in one of the chairs. Many believe she is the spirit of a young woman who committed suicide a couple of days before in the Caobao station. In the next few days following her death, many staff saw her sitting there every night.

I haven’t been to the Caobao station myself, mostly because I don’t live near that area. But where do these stories come from?

I think the main reason is the location of Caobao. It’s near a local mortuary, and the station’s ladies restroom is specifically close to the mortuary.

I don’t know these stories of the Caobao station is true or not. But I believe at least the inspiration for them couldn’t be totally invented.

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

An 80-year-old South African man was reported dead by his family and taken to the morgue where the undertaker checked his vitals and verified the death. The body was then locked up in a morgue fridge for 21 hours when he suddenly woke up and started banging on the fridge door screaming to be let out. The morgue owner and employees first thoughts were “ghost” – even though everybody knows ghosts can just ooze right through walls. So they called the cops and once the cops came with guns, they bravely entered the morgue and luckily did not kill the man again.

The real kicker is how the morgue owner, Ayanda Maqolo, reacted to the poor old man screaming to freed. Especially after his employees seemed so sure it was a ghost:

“I couldn’t believe it!” Maqolo said. “I was also scared. But they are my employees and I had to show them I wasn’t scared, so I called the police.”

After police arrived, the group entered the morgue together.

“I was glad they had their firearms, in case something wanted to fight with us,” Maqolo said.

[Gizmodo]

We aren’t out and out saying this is definitive video proof that a ghost came down from heaven and blocked this goal from going in so the LA Kings could secure a better seeding in the NHL playoffs, but consider the similarities between this and the 1994 family comedy Angels In The Outfield.

First, both took place in the greater Los Angeles area.

Okay, that’s pretty much it. Unless Christopher Lloyd is dead and turned into a ghost so he could replay his role as Al the mischievous head angel in reality. But Christopher Lloyd isn’t dead.

Is he?

[YouTube]

“Parvika Khan, the teacher who was conducting an Urdu class for Class 5 last Monday, asked a boy to read the text on the blackboard. But the boy said the blackboard was blank, and ran away screaming that he saw an “egg-shaped ghost” coming out of the blackboard.”

[Indian Express]

This news report on a Jamaican Ghost was sent to us today. Our question to you the reader, was this set up from the start or did the news crew genuinely stumble upon an afflicted family? Thanks to Nathan for sending this in.

Vote in the comments!

Weird Things Live: Hunting the Night Creeper from Andrew Mayne on Vimeo.

Last Monday night in front of a live internet audience we set out to solve the mystery of the Night Creeper. Ghost? Frogman? Or something else? Although we’re pretty sure we figured it out, we haven’t definitively proved our theory. The mystery continues…

Running time 55 minutes.

Check out our photos of the scene on Flickr.

Arguably the most famous haunted house in America. This Long Island Dutch Colonial was ground zero for a horrific haunting in the late 70s when George and Kathy Lutz moved in with their three children.

HAUNTING PHENOMENA

- Ghost ripping doors from hinges
- Ghost slamming doors

- Noxious slime oozing from ceilings

- Demonic faces
- Swarms of insects threatening your family

ADDED BONUS

Lutz family made tens of thousands of dollars in book and film rights. Which in today’s economy, adjusting for inflation, could be tens of hundreds of dollars.

NEIGHBORHOOD

Not too thrilled with the whole ghost tourist industry, so much so that the house number has been changed. Consider your new paranormal experience totally secluded!

ASKING PRICE

$1.15 million OBO

FINAL NOTES

House is not actually haunted. Lutz’ and lawyer admitted to making up the whole story.

[Live Science]

Each week, Weird Things’ own Matt Finley breaks down one of the oddest elements of our culture in a feature we call Monster Of The Week. Matt broke down the basics of the legend Monday and see how the legend was used to thwart Hitler on Wednesday…

That the classic tale of the vanishing hitchhiker took a bizarrely (pseudo)prophetic turn is, if not shocking, wholly unexpected; that this turn quickly veered religious seems inevitable. Really. How long could these regional tales of localized disaster survive as viable urban folklore? As the predictions often dealt with the short-term timelines of specific upcoming events (1933 World’s Fair, WWII, etc.), most of the prophecies, true or not, were rendered moot within a five-year time period. Also, doomy as they were, the random prognostications were missing what, to me, are the whole point of confabulating horrific future visions in the first place – specific lifestyle directives. (Perhaps the World’s Fair catastrophe rumors were meant to keep people away from the exhibition, but the prophecies themselves don’t indicate as much. I’m talking about something a bit more obvious.) Right? If you start a rumor that a town is going to succumb to a week-long hornet frenzy, you should build in a self-serving “unless…” Unless the townspeople buy x brand of pants (where x = company you own). Unless the residents build a windmill (where you stand to win $200 in bar bet that said town will construct a windmill). Unless people adhere to the tenets of x church.

Where x = the Church of Latter Day Saints.

The 1950s through the 1960s saw a preponderance of hitchhiking Nephites. For those of you who are a little bit rusty on your Book of Mormon, the Nephites (meaning followers of the prophet Nephi) are essentially Jesus’ personal assistants, and have been left to hang out on Earth until JC returns. Traditionally, the Nephites help out the Mormons during times of stress or upheaval. Accordingly, the stories of Nephite hitchhikers indicate struggles… struggles of a most interesting variety.

Read about how the wayward auto-prone ghost legend became an ominous portent for the end of the world AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)