Hawaiian Ghosts In Military Housing

My wife and I spent five years in Hawaii while I served in the armed forces. We lived in the officers' quarters and shared a tenement-style four-plex building with three other military families. The apartments had two stories, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and utility room, living room and dining area. We each also had a covered front and back porch.

We had learned that our apartment was sited over an ancient Hawaiian village and that the area had a history of being a site that Hawaiians had used for centuries.

We lived in our unit for about a year before sharing the strange occurrences happening in our house with our neighbors. Apparently, the other families had also been experiencing paranormal phenomena but we did not share our experiences until one night while we were all gathered on the front lawn talking over some beers. It was then that we learned of the strange experiences involving our neighbors.

As for me and Kathleen, we had the mildest occurrences of them all. These included electrical appliances and lights turning on and off mysteriously and drawers sliding open and close at night. I even experienced a light "slap" on my rump one day as I was lying down to take a nap.

Our next-door neighbors were subjected to weekly visits by a strange force that would often come into their bedroom at night while they were both lying there. It would then "sit" on the edge of the bed next to the headboard. The bed mattress would collapse from the weight as if some invisible person had just sat down.

One day, my neighbor's wife had just cleaned her children's upstairs bedroom by putting away their toys and had gone downstairs when she heard her kids playing around upstairs again. When she went up to scold them for leaving out their toys, she noticed that no one was in the room but the toys had been scattered across the floor again and the fans had all been turned back on. She later learned that her kids were at a friend's house across the neighborhood and had been there all day.

Two doors down, those residents would often hear strange voices. These voices were not audible enough to make out words, but there was enough noise to discern two people having a conversation.

One day my wife and the wife next door were drinking coffee on the front porch. Both could clearly hear talking in the kitchen the next unit down but paid it no mind. Several minutes later, the resident's real wife drove up and walked towards her kitchen door house. Both Kathleen and her neighbor told her that they thought that she was already home because they could hear talking in the kitchen. After convincing my wife that no one had been home for the last three days, she relented and confessed that the disembodied voices had been heard in their home ever since they had moved in. She said that they never threatened her or her husband but that they unnerved her enough that she would not stay in the house alone. Whenever her husband left for a few days, she would always stay with a friend.

The most remarkable occurrence at our place happened on the last day that we stayed in the house. It was as if the paranormal forces in the house were bidding us a last good-bye. Kathleen and I had already shipped our furniture to our next duty station and we were living in a hotel waiting for the Army to out-process me from the post. It is required that before the Army let\'s you go to your next duty station, you have to clean your apartment and pass a housing inspection before the next family moves in.

Kathleen and I secured a load of cleaning equipment and a small step-stool and arrived at our house at three o'clock in the morning. Since the inspection was slated for eight o'clock, we figured that five hours of cleaning would be sufficient for passing the inspection. We brought the step-ladder so that we could clean above all the light fixtures and curtains as the inspectors were notorious for inspecting those places for dust build-up.

When we arrived at the house, our other three neighbors had already left for their next duty stations, and as there were currently no occupants living in the tenement, all of the lights had been turned off as well as the nearby street lamp. After fumbling around in the dark, we were finally able to enter the house and begin our cleaning. I began in the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. Kathleen moved into the dining room and living room area.

After thoroughly cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, I called out to Kathleen to inquire if she was finished with the step ladder. I knew she had it, because whenever it was opened or closed, it would make a peculiar "screeching" sound. I could also hear her above me in the bedroom moving the ladder around on the ceiling above as she moved around the room to clean above the fixtures. She called back that she did not have the ladder and that she thought that I had it. I was momentarily perplexed because I heard her calling from the living room. When I went into the living room to investigate, I saw her cleaning the floorboards next to the wall.

"I thought I heard you upstairs cleaning the bedroom," I said.

"No, I haven't been upstairs yet. I'm only just finishing the living room. I was just about to ask you for the step ladder. I thought it was you who was upstairs"

"Who's upstairs, then?" I asked.

She gave me a blank look, so both of us walked upstairs to see who was making the noise. When we got into the bedroom that was just above the downstairs bathroom, we noticed that the light was on and that the step stool was in the middle of the room. Kathleen and I exchanged puzzled stares, shrugged and retrieved the ladder.

We passed the inspection with flying colors. By the way, the upstairs bedroom in which the ladder had been found was the only room that did not have any dust above the fixtures.