Ghost hunting, or attempting to make contact with the paranormal, may seem like something out of the movies, but before you write off ghost hunting as a childish, silly and fanciful pursuit, give it a try.

In Hawai‘i, a place where the ghost traditions of dozens of cultures come together, this pastime is an old one. With a perfect combination of thrill seeking, local lore, and hilarious, pant-inducing panic attacks, ghost hunting may be the most fun you’ve ever had (and for the least amount of money) after midnight – and here’s how to do it.

THE BASICS

First, let’s go over some of the basic rules for ghost hunting. Ghost hunting may seem like a game (it’s certainly fun enough to be one), but it is important to remember that even the most fun things require some restraint.

The most important rule of ghost hunting is safety first. Never attempt a ghost hunt alone, no matter how sure of yourself you are. This isn’t about being afraid of the netherworld – it’s about real-world dangers. If you fall on a dark trail or are otherwise injured, someone needs to be able to go for help.

For this reason, you should also make sure that someone you trust back home or on campus knows where you are hunting, and that they have instructions to call the police and your family if you are not heard from by the next morning. It is crucial to set the designated time in the morning too – if you’ve got a broken leg, but you have to wait until 5 p.m. for your friend to realize you’re missing, it won’t do you a lot of good. As a caveat, make sure you do call your friend the next morning, or you’ll end up looking like a tool.

The second rule of ghost hunting is to always be respectful. If you are successful, you’ll be dealing with a world that we do not understand in the slightest. It would be wise not to anger anyone or anything unnecessarily. If you do choose to try to make contact with a spirit, be polite. If it becomes clear that your presence is no longer tolerated, leave immediately. Do not try to argue with or challenge anything you encounter, and keep a cool head at all times. Strong emotions, like rage, fear, sorrow, and even joy can have wildly unpredictable effects on different spirits. Though it can sometimes provoke a response where previously there was none, it is unwise to try to goad a spirit into the open. If the spirit doesn’t want to talk to you, it’s probably in your best interest not to force the issue.

Respect is especially crucial if you are investigating a final resting place like a graveyard or mausoleum. You’re walking around and among someone’s ancestors, regardless of whether you believe they care or not. Always stay on marked paths in graveyards and try to never walk on top of a grave. It may be that most spirits don’t care one way or the other, but in local culture, stepping on a grave is also the best way to get a ghost to follow you home – something even the most avid ghost enthusiasts should avoid.

The last rule of ghost hunting pertains to authority and law, and encompasses a gray area that has nothing to do with ectoplasmic mists. Always bring your driver’s license with you. If you are stopped by the police and cannot prove who you are, what could have been a simple “leave the premises” might become an arrest. Additionally, read and adhere to all posted warning signs. If a site has been closed for rock falls or a building has been condemned, risking your safety to catch a glimpse of ghost is never worth it.

Lastly, the trespassing sign, bane of all ghost-hunts, is the one rule that actually needs to be broken – but only with great care and common sense. For example, most cemeteries are closed after 7 p.m. and by entering after hours you will technically be trespassing. But common sense tells us that, provided you are quiet and respectful, you aren’t hurting anyone. And who wants to ghost hunt during sunset? The same thing applies to schools, parks and trails. On the other hand, a private residence or business is a different story; trespassing on either type of property is a serious violation of privacy and will likely lead to an arrest, should the police get involved. If in doubt, play it safe. There are plenty of haunted spots that you can check out without bothering anyone – well, anyone alive anyway.

HAUNTED SPOTS

Cemeteries are usually a good place to start, as they’re easy to find on maps, near civilization, and you won’t be bothering anyone. Also, they are the least terrifying type of haunted spots to visit. Most cemeteries are pretty much the same, though some of my favorites near campus include Makiki Cemetery, Mānoa Chinese Cemetery, O‘ahu Cemetery and Kukui Mortuary.

At the back of Mānoa Valley, a very important, ancient type of path winds its way down from the mountains. It’s not visible, though it does cross over two trails frequented by student hikers. This path is a Night-Marcher trail.

The two trails in Mānoa that cross this well-documented Night-Marcher zone are the Mānoa Falls trail, accessible through Lyon Arboretum, and the Seven Bridges trail located on Wa‘aloa Way (just off of Mānoa Road) near the arboretum.

At the beginning of the Mānoa Falls trail is a banyan tree. According to Joe Espinda, a tour guide for O‘ahu Ghost Tours, this tree is one of the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) places to wait for signs of Night Marchers.

By far the scarier path, and the more fun if you’re ready to get muddy, is Seven Bridges. This trail’s got a double dose of freaky, as two urban legends combine to form a terrifyingly fun experience. Not only does the Seven Bridges trail cross through Night-Marcher territory, it also has its own creepy side-story.

On the way up, count the number of bridges. Once you’ve crossed the seventh, the muddy trail completely disappears into the jungle. On the way back, hikers report that one of the bridges disappears. Before you say that they’ve forgotten to count the seventh twice, know that’s the first thing everyone says, and yet the legend persists – with new accounts of the same strange occurrence appearing every year.

Making it all the way out to Wahiawā might be a challenge, but it boasts one of the most prolific histories of ghost sightings on the island. One particular ghost that frequents the town at night is the Green Lady. Known across the isles, the Green Lady is a reptilian demon that emerges from bodies of water and, depending on the story-teller, will either eat any humans that it finds or will try to seek out a child to replace her own that was lost years ago in the Wahiawā Botanical Garden.

Sightings occur mostly occur along Lake Wilson, the U-shaped lake that surrounds most of Wahiawā, particularly in the gulch behind Wahiawā Middle School and at Wahiawā Elementary school. Sightings have also occurred outside of Wahiawā, under the bridge that spans Kīpapa gulch in Mililani as well as along the north shore of O‘ahu.

One of the most famous and unusual haunts on O‘ahu is Morgan’s Corner. What makes this spot so unusual is that it has transcended all geographic shackles – not vortexes or dimensional shifts, but the power of an urban legend to transplant itself from the real-life events that occurred at Nu’uanu Pali Drive to a completely new location on the windward side of the Pali Highway at Castle junction.

The original Morgan’s Corner is named for a large mansion that overlooks the hairpin turn in Nu’unau Pali Drive, once owned by a Dr. Morgan. The urban legend involves a young couple, a stalled car, a heroic walk for help, and a gruesome murder in which the boyfriend is strung up by his feet above the car – the drip of his blood and the scrape of his fingernails waking the poor girl early the next morning while she waits for him to return. The actual event that led to the haunting was the murder of Therese Wilder in her home by two escaped convicts in 1948. The Wilder home no longer exists, but drive a bit farther up the road and you’ll come across a tree at the entrance to the Judd Memorial Trail. Turning off your engine and walking up to the tree in the dead of night is hard enough, but the truly brave will sit calmly under the tree and look up into its branches. Be warned: what you see may terrify you and leave a lasting mark.

The new Morgan’s Corner, as it is called, is located on the windward side of the Pali Highway. Right before Castle junction, you can make a left turn onto a now-defunct section of Auloa Road. After pulling onto the road, you’ll be forced to park in front of a roadblock and continue on foot. Whether this spot became important because it was mistaken for Morgan’s Corner, or whether this spot is simply the manifestation of one of the most infamous ghost-spots on the island, one thing is certain: new Morgan’s Corner is, if anything, more terrifying than the original. Unlike the Nu’uanu spot, the windward spot is truly isolated. With no houses in sight beyond the barricade, you will be traveling on a long-defunct road in the middle of a dark rainforest – faint streetlights from the highway above provide the only light you’ll have besides your flashlight.

One explanation for the haunt at new Morgan’s Corner is that when Auloa Road was still in use, a military man kidnapped two 13-year-old girls and brought them there. Under the old Pali Highway, the girls made a run for it and one was shot dead. Though the murder case is on file and completely true, the exact spot of the tragedy is unknown. One popular speculation, mostly because it links the old spot with the new, is that the murder occurred at a particularly familiar tree which is also located at a hairpin turn in the road and overlooks the Pali golf course. Try to make it past the tree, all the way to the cliff wall below the Pali Highway. Close your eyes and touch the wall and you can hear the sound of a young girl crying from the direction of the tree behind you.

Equipment:

For many, ghost hunting is simply about having fun, in which case the only things you absolutely should have are a flashlight (hands-free is always better), charged cellphone, rain-gear, covered shoes and your drivers license. However, if you are interested in ghost hunting as a scientific or spiritual journey, here are some things that can help you capture, record and analyze paranormal activity.

A notebook and writing utensils. Sounds basic, but according to the Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society’s website, “this is a must for our investigators. Each investigator carries a notebook and writing instrument to immediately log down any experiences or important notes throughout the investigation to avoid forgetting important details. All notes are compared at the end the investigation and will be used to help [corroborate] any evidence found.”

Other equipment must be purchased, but includes the Sony Handycam with the night-shot feature, described by HIPRS as “one of the best camcorders ever made for paranormal investigations” and digital cameras for still shots. Thermal imagers are used by paranormal investigators to “visually detect temperature differences in the environment. They can be used to capture imprints on walls, furniture, and floors, and the best thing of all, an outline of an entity in the environment.” Digital audio recorders are used to pick up electronic voice phenomenon and, on the HIPRS website, are responsible for some of the more convincing and creepy case evidence.

For a complete list of equipment used by HIPRS, visit their website. Other equipment includes complex and sensitive electromagnetic field meters, radio frequency meters and infrared and UV meters that are too expensive and complicated for the casual ghost hunter.

Guides:

Too scared to run your own ghost hunt, but still want to know what’s out there? These companies offer two different options for those too timid to venture into the unknown without a guide.

O‘ahu Ghost Tours

A five-hour cco-cultural tour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with an emphasis on the ecological importance of each site, as well as its spiritual significance. Pick-ups begin at 10 a.m. at one of eight Waikīkī hotels.

Cost: $56 for adults and $43 for children (ages 7-11).

Be on the look out for deals like the Groupon deal from this past father’s day which dropped the price down to $28.

Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society

While it does not provide tours, the society’s members will answer questions and investigate any legitimate claims of paranormal activity in a professional manner, using various audio, video and infrared/UV recording devices – free of charge. The society’s website outlines the procedures it follows and display the results of some of its cases. A case request form must first be filled out on the website: https://www.hawaiianislandghosthunters.com/

Night Marcher:

Night Marchers are the spirits of Native Hawaiian warriors who descend from the mountains and march all the way to the sea. Some speculate that this pattern has to do with surveying the ahupua‘a, or traditional Hawaiian land divisions. This is supported by the fact that Night-Marcher sightings have been reported all over the islands in many of the different former ahupua’a. The trail of torches winding down the hills to the ocean and the tell-tale drumming have been a staple of Hawai‘i’s urban lore for so long that it’s safe to say Night Marchers have probably been sighted multiple times in every ancient Hawaiian ahupua‘a over the years. Others believe that Night Marchers simply frequent areas that were once large battlefields, like the Pali lookout area.

Most legends insist that Night Marchers are not evil, but that looking one in the eye is fatal – the spirits will rip your soul out of you, and you too will be doomed to roam as a Night Marcher for eternity. But some traditions hold that even if Night Marchers simply come across you, they will kill you for impeding their march.

It is generally accepted that the only way to survive a direct Night Marcher encounter is to remove your clothing and bow with your stomach touching the ground. Lie totally still and do not look up or move until the sound of drums dissipates.

For all the torch-sightings and drum-hearings over the years, by far the most unusual phenomenon reported in association with a Night-Marcher trail is a suffocating feeling that sleeping residents experience in their houses. Though there are several local explanations for this: one is that the suffocation results from the disapproval that these warriors feel for what they consider an intrusion on their ritual.