Sightings - Kaimuki House Haunting: Hawaii, 2023

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

For some, a new home can be paradise. For others, it’s an absolute nightmare. And for one couple in Hawaii, it’s a terror they can’t escape. Sightings is a REVERB and QCODE Original. Find us on instagram @sightingspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter Fairs include beer, wine and snacks and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. When Ryan was 12 years old, he saw something in the sky that he couldn't explain, and he's been searching for answers ever since.

And now he wants you to join his search on the Somewhere in the Skies podcast. On Somewhere in the Skies, Ryan sits down with leading scientists, academics, philosophers, and people in all walks of life to discuss UFOs, the paranormal, and some of the most profound questions of our lifetime. Like in my favorite episode called,

I worked at Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch, where Ryan interviews a former Air Force serviceman who worked at both the Secretive Air Base and the notorious Paranormal Ranch. Find out what happened to this guy, and maybe some answers to mysteries of your own, on Somewhere in the Skies. New episodes every Monday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more, visit SomewhereInTheSkies.com. Somewhere in the Skies is a production of the Lionsgate Sound Network.

Hey Skeptical Geckos and Believer Beavers, it's Brian. It is Sunday evening right now, and as you've probably seen or heard, Los Angeles is on fire. And though I'm safe here in Colorado, McCloud and his family have evacuated their home as a precaution. Don't worry, he's completely safe, but we wanted to take this time at the top of the show to say that our thoughts are with everyone affected by these fires. And that if you'd like to help,

you can do so by donating to the California Fire Foundation at cafirefoundation.org or the LA Fire Department Foundation at supportlafd.org. As for sightings, the show will go on. We've got lots of great episodes already recorded. And if our production schedule ends up shifting because of the fire, we'll be sure to let everyone know. But in the meantime, stay safe everyone

and enjoy today's episode. today's episode. We all dream of paradise, that perfect slice of heaven with swaying palms and ocean views. But what happens when your dream home becomes a nightmare? When invisible hands reach for your throat in the dark, and ancient spirits follow you across oceans. Sometimes, paradise comes with a price tag that can't be measured in dollars and cents. Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. Each week we bring you a thrilling story that puts you at the center of the action,

followed by a discussion that dives into the accounts that inspired the story and our takes on them. I'm McCloud. And I'm Brian, and I'm excited for this one because we're heading out of the cold and down to nice, warm, and in this case terrifying, Hawaii. So get ready for unexplainable smells, strange sounds in the night, and an entity that literally can't keep its hands off you.

Will you survive a stay in the Kaimuki House in Honolulu? Find out on this episode of Sightings. Music My name is James Reeves. I moved to Hawaii in September 2018 with my girlfriend Lacey, trading this mog of Los Angeles for what we thought would be paradise. We'd both been working in tech when Lacey got offered a position at a Honolulu startup that seemed too good to pass up, so we packed our things, boarded a plane, and arrived on the island hoping for the best. Naive mainlanders that we were, we started our search in Waikiki, thinking we'd land a cozy apartment with an ocean view.

But reality quickly hit hard. Most places were vacation rentals, and the few long-term options made LA prices look reasonable. So we frantically expanded our search to moldy walk-ups in Moliili, converted garages in Palolo with suspect wiring, or a basement studio in Manoa that flooded every time it rained, which in Manoa was basically every day. Anyway, we thought we were running out of options, but after a week of increasingly depressing viewings, our realtor suggested we check out Kaimuki. The neighborhood sits on the slopes above Diamond Head, its winding streets lined with

both historic homes and gleaming new construction. From certain vantage points, you can see straight to the ocean, while others offer views of the lush mountains. The whole place has this nostalgic feel, like stepping into old Hawaii with mom and pop restaurants that have been there for generations. We naturally worried we'd be priced out of the neighborhood just like the others, but there was apparently one house that was in our range. Perched on a corner lot, it was a brand new bungalow that stood out among its weathered neighbors like a fresh pearl. Sharp lines,

a wide lanai, large windows, and best of all, its price seemed too low to pass up. And yeah, if you're screaming at us to run as far away as we can, that it's too good to be true, then you're absolutely right. And we were absolutely stupid. But of course, we didn't know that yet. We were just naive idiots enamored with the shiny new place. Its interior was even more impressive than the exterior suggested, with a cozy floor plan and two bedrooms. There was also hard wood, quartz, stainless steel, and even a covered lanai that wrapped

around two sides of the house, perfect even a covered lanai that wrapped around two sides of the house, perfect for catching the trade winds that swept down from the mountains. We signed the lease that afternoon and... You know what, it was strange, thinking back to what I remember the realtor's hands shaking slightly as she handed us the keys, but I chalked it up to the typical jitters of closing a deal. Huh. The first signs that something was off with the house only really made sense in hindsight. For instance, the moving company we hired cancelled at the last minute.

Their crew refused to come to this address, no explanation given. And as we unloaded the U-Haul ourselves, I noticed a few people slowing their cars to stare as they passed by. And as we unloaded the U-Haul ourselves, I noticed a few people slowing their cars to stare as they passed by. Not the usual neighborly curiosity you'd expect, but something that seemed… strangely darker. As the weeks went on, things got a bit more overt. Parents would hurry their children past, their grips white-knuckled on little hands.

The woman next door would rush inside and draw her curtains whenever we tried to wave hello. Even the local mail carrier barely paused long enough to stuff letters in our mailbox before shuffling off as quick as he could. I chalked it up to weariness of new neighbors, especially mainlanders like us, but still, it was undeniably strange. I was retrieving our garbage bins one morning when another neighbor, this tiny old woman named Mrs. Kalani, finally broke the neighborhood's silence. She was tending to her plumaria trees, but stopped dead when she saw me walk out my front door.

But the look she gave me wasn't unkind. If anything, it was filled with concern, and I could tell she wanted to say something, so I smiled and waved, and her words came out in a rush like she'd been holding them back for weeks. My property, it turns out, had something of a dark history. The previous house that stood here, which was torn down in 2016, had been the site of several inexplicable events dating back to the 1940s, and in the last few decades no family had ever stayed here more than a handful of months. This of course set my mind racing, but we hadn't actually seen anything

weird inside the house, so I wondered aloud if this was just a local story that had spiraled out of control. No, Mrs. Kalani insisted. This property housed spirits, she said. Dark ones. I tried to brush Mrs. Galani's words off, but as that week wore on, they started to eat at me. Especially as I kept noticing more people deliberately avoiding our house. One day a teenager on his skateboard opted to ride in the street rather than use the sidewalk in front of our place. A woman power-walking with a friend pointed at our house and made some kind of warding gesture before quickening our pace. Perhaps most disturbing was the local Buddhist priest who walked by, stopped suddenly and spent several long minutes staring at our house with an expression I can only describe as dread. It all got me wondering

if perhaps something was wrong with this house after all. So that night Lacey and I established some ground rules, not because we believed in ghosts, we didn't, or at least we thought we didn't, but because something about the neighbors' behavior had gotten under our skin. So if there was anything to it, we decided we would rather be safe than sorry. So we agreed to never use Ouija boards in the house, no Halloween parties, and if there actually was some kind of spirit on this property, then we would absolutely make no attempts to engage it. I think the rules made us feel better about the whole thing, and frankly I started to

forget about them altogether as the first month wore on and we started to feel more at home. We settled into our routines, decorated everything, and found the house to be perfectly quiet and comfortable. No issues. Then came that first night in October when I woke at exactly 4.33 a.m. The time is seared into my memory, that precise moment when my eyes snapped open and adrenaline flooded my system. The room was freezing, far colder than our AC should have been capable of making it. But Lacey was sound asleep, as though nothing was wrong at all. Then every smoke

alarm in the house erupted simultaneously, not just chirping, full-blown ear-splitting screeching. We both bolted from bed and I ran through the house checking for fire, but found nothing. No smoke, no heat, nothing that could have triggered the alarms. They weren't even connected to each other. All different brands, all battery powered. It made no sense. These 4.33 a.m. wakeups became a terrible routine, happening two or three times a week.

I even started sleeping in the guest room, not wanting to disturb Lacey, but the cold followed me there. I'd wake up to find the room some 20 degrees colder than the rest of the house no matter how I adjusted the AC. But the temperature wasn't the worst part. The feeling that came with waking up. I still struggle to describe it. It's like being stabbed by a white walker, I guess. Like my life force was being sucked away with my blood turning to ice.

The strange thing was, Lacey seemed completely unaffected. Apart from being startled awake by the sporadic fire alarms, she slept soundly through the nights. She never felt the cold, never experienced that horrible draining sensation. So naturally, I started to question my own sanity. But within a month, a new phenomenon began that Lacey experienced as well. We called it the smell. At first it was subtle, just the faintest whiff of something off, like meat left too

long in the sun. And we searched everywhere, garbage disposal, crawlspace, behind appliances, but could never locate the source, and though it would come and go each time it returned a bit stronger, until it became impossible to ignore. The smell reached its peak one December afternoon. I was alone and lacy at work when the stench hit me, but this time I managed to track it to a source. The bathroom cabinet under the sink. But I was afraid of what I'd find inside, and hesitated as I reached for the door handle. The rational part of my brain said to wait for Lacey to get home, to call someone, to

do anything except open the cabinet. But I was tired of being afraid in my own house. Tired of waking at 4.33am. Tired of this whole inexplicable nightmare. So I opened the door. As soon as I did, an invisible force slammed into me like a freight train. One moment I was standing, the next I was flat on my back with the feeling that invisible hands were crushing my windpipe.

I clawed desperately at my throat, fighting against something I couldn't see. I have no idea how long I lay there fighting for air, but suddenly I heard the front door open. Lacey was home early, and the moment she called out my name, the pressure on my throat vanished. I gulped air as she rushed into the bathroom, finding me sprawled on the tile floor. But I couldn't find words to tell her what happened. How could I convince her I'd been strangled by something invisible? All I knew was something very, very bad was happening in this house. And we needed to get out before it actually

killed us. Plus with super simple live betting, lightning fast bet settlement, and instant withdrawals, FanDuel makes betting on the NFL easier than ever before. So make the most of this football season and download FanDuel today. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling Palm, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Well, you know, since I had no desire to be strangled by an invisible attacker again or scare Lacey out of her wits, I suggested a spontaneous romantic staycation at a hotel in Waikiki. Lacey was happy to enjoy a beach view for the evening, and I finally had a good night's

sleep. But the next day, as soon as she left for work, I headed to the Kaimuki Public Library, hoping to find some answers that might shed light on what was happening here. The library itself was housed in an aging concrete building with hints of art deco design, a relic from the 1950s that had weathered decades of tropical storms. Inside, the air conditioning barely kept the humidity at bay, and the whole place smelled of old paper and quietly rotting cardboard. I spent an hour, hunched over the microfiche reader, scrolling through decades of Honolulu star bulletin and advertiser articles. I searched crime reports, real estate listings, obituaries, but could find nothing about my address. And

as darkness started to grow outside, frustration started creeping in. Finally, I approached the reference desk for help. The librarian was an older Hawaiian woman with silver streaked hair pulled back in a neat bun. I guess you could say the typical librarian look. Her name tag read Mrs. Akamu, and she seemed to be in her 60s, with a very patient demeanor of someone who spent a lifetime helping lost souls like me find what they were looking for. But the moment I mentioned my address, her warm smile vanished. She pulled off her glasses and studied me with an intensity that made me shift uncomfortably in place.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, she gestured for me to follow her downstairs. gestured for me to follow her downstairs. The storage room was a maze of metal shelving packed with bound newspapers and boxes of yellow documents. Fluorescent lights flickered on and off, and the air was thick with dust. But Mrs. Okamu navigated the narrow aisles with practiced ease. She finally stopped before a section of bound newspapers from the 1940s and pulled a volume from the 1940s and pulled a volume from the shelf. But before she'd hand it to me, she said there were things I needed to understand,

stories about my property that went back further than her great-grandmother's time. The first story she told me made my skin crawl. A father who first built a house on the property in the 1930s went on to murder his wife and both their children. The police found the wife and son buried in shallow graves in the backyard, but the daughter's body was never recovered, leaving behind a mystery that haunted the neighborhood for years. But that was the end of the violence. Decades later, another tragedy played out within those walls. A man discovered the woman he admired was already in a relationship

with another woman, and in a rage he murdered them both in the house before turning the gun on himself. Their blood, it seemed, had soaked into the very foundations of the place. Mouth dry, I asked if their ghosts were in my house, but Mrs. Akamu shook her head slowly, her expression grave. She said she thought it was something much worse, then opened the newspaper volume to a carefully marked page revealing a yellowed article from August 13, 1942. The story described a mother and her children being terrorized by an invisible force at my address. It had started with her 10-year-old son detecting a strange

odor, the same rotten smell we'd been experiencing. Then something began throwing the children around the room like ragdolls and strangling them with invisible hands. When the police arrived they witnessed the torment themselves but were powerless to help. The family fled that same night, never to return. I stared at the article, mortified, then asked Mrs. Okamu what could possibly cause something so horrible. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper as she told me about something called a Kasha, a malevolent spirit from Japanese folklore. These entities feed on negative energy and death, she explained.

They're drawn to places of violence like moths to flame. And once they find such a place, they rarely leave. Think of it like a spiritual parasite, she said, her eyes never leaving mine. It feeds on suffering, growing stronger with each new tragedy it creates. And once it takes an interest in someone, she let the sentence hang unfinished in the musty air. By the time I left the library, darkness was falling. The thought of going home filled me with such overwhelming dread that I found myself driving aimlessly through Kaimuki's shadowy streets.

The neighborhood felt different now. More sinister. Every darkened window seemed to hide watching eyes. Every shadow held potential horrors. Then my phone rang. It was Lacey, her voice trembling with panic. She'd come home early from work, she said, and immediately sensed something was wrong. The house felt different, charged somehow, like the air before a storm.

Then she saw movement in the corners of her vision and heard unplaceable whispers that she couldn't quite make out. Then she said she felt it, a hand gripping her arm. Not a gentle touch, but something strong enough to leave marks. I could hear the terror in her voice as she described the invisible fingers digging into her flush. So she said she was getting out of the house and going to her friend's place and asked me to meet her there.

I was already turning toward our street when I spotted her car ahead, weaving erratically across the road, brake lights flashing as it swerved from curb to curb. But before I could catch up, she sideswiped a mailbox and slammed to a stop on the sidewalk. I pulled over and sprinted to her car to help, but when I yanked open her door, I was horrified to find her gasping for air, hands clawing at her throat as if being strangled by something invisible. Her face was already turning purple, eyes wide with terror. But as I reached in to free her, an invisible, calloused hand seized my arm

and twisted it violently. The strength was impossible, inhuman even, so much so that it felt like being caught in a steel vice. But I managed to break free and pulled Lacey from the car, fumbling for my phone to call 911 as she gasped for air on the sidewalk. The police officer who responded seemed unusually understanding. Officer Kalama, according to his nameplate, was a veteran of the force who knew the stories

about our house. His father had been on the force too, he said, and had responded to calls there decades ago. So he offered to drive Lacey to the station where she'd undoubtedly be safe. But when Lacey got into his cruiser, the engine died, and no amount of key turning would bring it back to life. So Officer Kalama asked Lacey to step out, and the moment she did the cruiser started perfectly. Unsure of what to make of this, Officer Kalama suggested I drive Lacey instead, with him following close behind. So Lacey and I got in my car and I started to drive. We made it less than a block before all hell broke loose. Lacey began to flail wildly as if something was attacking her.

She screamed for help, kicking and punching at the air and clawing at her neck. And before I could even slow the car to a stop, she jolted so violently that her door flew open and she tumbled out onto the road. Horrified, I slammed on the brakes and ran to help her, but she was still thrashing against invisible hands at her throat. Officer Kalama ran to help too, but no matter what we tried, we couldn't get a grip on anything around her. We might as well have been trying to grab smoke.

Then Kalama had an idea. He sprinted to a nearby cafe and returned with a container of Hawaiian salt and water, which he sprayed over Lucy's writhing form. The effect was instant, like flipping a switch. Whatever had hold of her released its grip, and she collapsed, gasping for air. Kalama said it was something his grandmother once talked about, the salt. It sends the ghosts away. But his words did nothing to quell my fears.

If this thing, this kasha, could follow us away from the house, we weren't just dealing with a haunted property anymore. Could the entity have actually latched onto us? We didn't stick around in Hawaii to find out. We didn't even go back to the house. We went straight to the airport and booked the first flight back to Los Angeles. So here we are, cruising 40,000 feet above the Pacific with no idea what's coming next. I also don't know what we'll do with everything we left behind in Kaimuki, but we'll deal with that later. All I care about right

now is getting as far away from that place, that Kasha, as possible. Lacey's asleep beside me, the bruises on her throat starting to fade to a sickly yellow in the dim cabin light, and while most of the other passengers are dozing too, I'm trying to stay awake, just to make sure nothing can get lacy while I'm not looking. And so far, it's working. Except, there's a strange shadow near the lavatory a few rows up, a shadow where none should be, but I can see it shifting, growing darker, taking on a more solid form. And I suddenly feel cold, freezing cold, and realize that my watch just stopped at 4.33.

I think it followed us. God help us. It followed us. Sightings will be back just after this. Welcome back to Sightings, everybody. I gotta be straight with you right off the bat. This story is maybe the most terrifying one, personally, for me, that we've done yet. It reminds me of films like It Follows and Fallen, that one with Denzel Washington from like the 90s or early aughts, where escape is not a mere technicality, like how do we escape, but it's a conceptual challenge.

Can we escape? Is it even possible to? Which is the worst for me, incredibly anxiety inducing. And so it's like the car scene in this story, which is where it drags her out of the car. I think that's the first time we really get, oh, they're not safe. They can't just leave. So I'm looking forward to this discussion so I can learn how to get myself out of this circumstance

if I ever find myself in it. I think don't rent a house in Kaimuki is the starting point for this. But yeah, I think that's what really resonated with me when I heard about this story too. Well, first of all, I love Hawaii and to do a story there I thought was really a lot of fun. But I also just loved how physical this story was. This is not a haunted house story. It's not just like, ooh.

Exactly. It's not strange noises in the night and, you know, aoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo the slow ones. Yeah, this is the fast zombie of haunted houses. Exactly. Um, so these, these poor people, please tell me they're not real. They aren't real. Okay. I had to do a little bit of condensing because this house has a lot of lore that goes back decades. So the house is real. The house is real, yes.

With some caveats in the sense that we don't actually know where the house is. But there is a house in Kamuki that is haunted. Gotcha, so this story that we just experienced is sort of like a compression of all the various stories over the many generations of this house. Absolutely, but like I said, all of the actual supernatural events themselves, like the strangulation, the smell, the idea of a kasha, the driving down the street

and getting thrown out of a car by a spirit. All of that happened to people in Honolulu. And it's pretty wild because newspapers reported on this stuff and there's other police reports and things like that about these events happening. So I had a lot to draw from. And I guess the only thing that I really took creative liberty with

was the very end in the airplane, where it kind of follows him across the ocean. CRAIG I'm so glad to hear that you made that up. Because that's maybe, that's like, that's the worst. That's what underlies the whole deepness of my terror about this. GIGI It felt right for this particular story, though. Oh, absolutely.

It was a brilliant ending. It's a story about something grabbing onto you and not letting go. Absolutely. That's why I found this such a sticky story, so thrilling, and kind of I can see why this is a famous haunted house. But, you know, I could go through this story and pick apart little questions. What about this one, Brian? What about this one, Brian? But I could go through this story and pick apart little questions.

What about this one, Brian? What about this one, Brian? But I think a lot of my questions will be answered by just understanding what is a kasha. The kasha seems to be based on old Japanese tradition or folklore. And it technically translates to burning a cart or fiery chariot. That's what kasha means. Wow. Which is interesting.

So in its very definition is the notion of travel or something that is moving. That's actually really cool. I hadn't thought of that. So yeah, so originally this kasha was depicted as a being that would arrive on this cart engulfed in flames and it would basically take damned people back to hell. After they're dead. Yeah, it feeds on the dead, it feeds on that kind of pain and stuff like that.

In modern times though, the Kasha seems to have shifted in its depiction to more of a demon-like creature that can kind of shape-shift a little bit, and it generally takes the shape of a cat. HH. Which I guess is interesting for this story because absolutely nowhere in any of the resources that I was able to find on this house and this topic were the mention of a cat. Ha, okay. The point is, whether it's a, you know, a demon that looks like a cat, or it's a demon, you know, a creature or an entity who swoops in and raids funerals

or whatever. The point is that these things enjoy eating like humans and souls and pain and things like that. And in this case, I wonder if they're lingering at this house because of its past history. Matthew Feeney Because it might be like a burial ground or something? Anthony Comegna Not necessarily a burial ground. Let's talk about Kaimuki real quick before we talk about the house. So Kaimuki is a before we talk about the house. Please, yeah. So Kaimuki is a suburb of Honolulu. It is just north of Waikiki.

But before it became bungalows and all that stuff, it was a farm for the king. He apparently had ostriches that roamed the mountainside, which is kind of cool. Oh man, I just had an image of flaming ostriches, right? With like bright red eyes and razor sharp teeth. That's enough to terrify anybody. But after that, it became a farm.

Apparently though that farm was primarily used to grow funeral flowers. Wow. In the current day, it's just a mixture of residences, small businesses, things like that. Right. We still don't know exactly where this house is? No, it appears not, which is really frustrating to me.

Yeah. The other thought that came to mind was, it could be interesting given the potential traveling nature of this type of spirit, is if there is in fact no one house, because it moves and it is, if for all intents and purposes, like a scavenger of the damned. That's a really cool thought.

And I think that kind of goes with what I'm gonna tell you about now, because like I said, there was no burial grounds or anything like that, but there is lore surrounding at least a house in Kaimuki. And this lore appeared in the story as well. If you remember when he went to the library, they told him the legend of a man who killed his wife and his two children.

He buried them in the backyard a few decades later in the same property, allegedly. A man was in love with a woman and discovered that she was in love with another woman. So he murdered both of them and then committed suicide on the property. Right. The first mention of a ghost was in 1942. There was a newspaper article called, Police Called to Shoe Ghost from Kaimuki. No mention of the actual house address, but it tells a whole story about people being terrorized by ghosts in Kaimuki.

So that's kind of what we're dealing with a little bit here. Wow. I'm trying to keep myself from just jumping at kind of theories and analyzing the facts because I feel like there's still more... There's a few more, but we're almost there, I think. I think just some really neat little tidbits. In 1967, there was a rental listing in the Honolulu Advertiser, which was the main newspaper. And all it said was, Kaimuki, two bedrooms, haunted.

$155. That's hilarious. Are you kidding me? I mean... So that's two newspaper articles about this. Then in 1972, there was another newspaper article about how cops were called to a disturbance where three girls in Kaimuki claim that something was lurking in their house and they were feeling something grabbing their arms. And this is kind of what informed the

story where they go driving and the thing follows them. Because with these three girls in 1972, the police are like, okay, you know, let's just get you out of the house if you don't feel safe. Let's escort you to your friend's house. So they start driving and one of the girls starts getting attacked in the car and getting strangled and falls out of the car and the police officer either throws the salt on her just like in the story. Right. So those are the kind of the historic ones. But then there was one more account and this one's a little more nebulous because it's

written by a guy named Keith who kind of wrote a blog about his experience living in a house in Kaimuki. Right. Some of the elements in the story, for instance, he and his roommates made that pact. No Ouija boards, no Halloween parties, no challenging the ghosts. The whole idea of waking up at 4.33 in the morning,

feeling really cold, having all the smoke alarms go off, all that stuff. That stuff happened to him. But he didn't actually experience any strangulation or anything like that. And that's kind of why I made that composite decision, you know, to kind of give the main character all of those events. And I'm fascinated by this idea of place, of like there being a place where these similar hauntings or events occur. And obviously, without a doubt, the answer could just be like, well, because they happened,

because those girls were strangled by a ghost, and that's just the story. If you're trying to rationalize it, the idea of place, I think it's interesting and not hard to wrap your brain around that there would be similarities within a small place as these occurrences kind of worm their way into the cultural awareness. It becomes part of the lexicon almost. Right. And I can see how in an environment like Kaimuki,

which like most of Honolulu has a very large Japanese population. It can kind of, like the kasha feeds in a way, the story kind of just feeds on itself and grows and grows as people kind of talk about rumors and rumors turn into other rumors. Yeah, I love this aspect of the story. I mean, it's one I find compelling

because it's almost like one house is just like not enough food. You know, you need to widen your, this creature or this entity needs to widen its radius. And that is absolutely terrifying to me. Yes. So thank you for leaving on the most horrifying note that's going to make me think twice about going back to Honolulu. Anytime soon. Oh man. But uh, listeners, hit us up on socials, at SightingsPod, and please tell me what you

think about all this. I much more enjoy hearing your thoughts on this than my own. And we are still looking for incredible stories of your own encounters with the supernatural. We're gonna keep doing listener stories every month. So find us on Instagram with those or email us at stories at sightingspodcast.com. So, loathe as I am to set sail from the sunny breezy shores of Hawaii. Hopefully with no demon attached to you.

Obviously, mine is the demon. It's that time where I gotta know where we're heading next week. We're heading back to the mainland and we are going to West Virginia for one of the most famous supernatural stories of them all, I think. This is one of the granddaddies of supernatural lore. Oh my gosh, I'm, you can't see me right now people, but my eyes, my eyelids are blasted open.

I can't wait. So get ready, we got some UFOs, We've got some creatures. We've got just about everything mixed into this story. But you got to wait till next week to find out what it is. Same time, same place here on Sightings. Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer, and McLeod AndrewAnders. Written by Brian Sigley. Story music by Madison James Smith. Series music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering by Pat Kickleiter of Sundial Media. Artwork by Nuno Cernados. For a list of this episode's sources, check out our website at sightingspodcast.com. Sightings

is presented by Reverb and Q-Code. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, so you're first to hear new episodes every week. And if you know other Supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate it.