Rodney Kageyama share spooky tales of the supernatural.
Telling spooky stories around Halloween is starting to become a JANM tradition. Following the successful debut last year of the Members Only event JANM Ghost Stories, actor Rodney Kageyama hosted another evening of frightening tales this past weekend, told in the darkness of the Tateuchi Democracy Forum. His guests this time were ABC7 News anchor David Ono and producer Jeff MacIntyre, who shared three riveting stories that they had produced over the years as human interest segments for ABC7 News. All three segments were screened for the audience, preceded and followed by extensive commentary from Ono and MacIntyre.
The first was a debunking of the popular myth that vampires originated in Romania. In fact, the first documented vampire, Petar Blagojević, is known to be buried in a remote mountain village in Serbia. Ono and MacIntyre traveled to Serbia for this segment, uncovering the village and speaking with its residents with the help of James Lyon, historian, native Serbian speaker, and author of the Balkan vampire novel Kiss of the Butterfly. Through beautifully shot footage, we see them exploring the ancient, overgrown cemetery where the vampire is thought to be buried and examining an abandoned water mill thought to be the home of another legendary vampire, Sava Savanović.
Photo by Guilhem Vellut via Flickr Creative Commons.
The second video looked at Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, also known as the infamous Suicide Forest, nestled at the base of Mount Fuji. In old Japan, suicide was considered an honorable way to die and avoid bringing shame or being a burden to one’s family; thus, the forest has served as the final refuge for people in dire situations, or old people whose families could no longer care for them. Even today, when suicide is no longer condoned in Japan, the forest continues to attract a substantial number of despondent souls every year. Ono described it as an eerily quiet and tranquil place, with absolutely no wildlife. Tree roots jut out of the ground and curl, unable to penetrate the forest bottom, which is made of volcanic rock.
The last video was the favorite of the two producers: it investigated a house in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles where spirits communicate through Polaroid photos. After experiencing an unusual level of paranormal activity (doors opening and closing by themselves, cold spots, etc.), the home’s two owners began taking Polaroids, which seemed to reveal ghostly presences. They began asking questions such as “Are you here?” before taking the Polaroids, which subsequently seemed to bear answers written in ghostly script: “Yes.”
Thousands of these pictures, with increasingly clear words visible in them, were produced over a period of more than 20 years, many times with friends present to witness the event. Professionals from Kodak and Polaroid even came with their own equipment to try to debunk the phenomenon, only to find the same writing appearing on their prints.
The spookiest story of all, however, was a personal one told by Ono. It happened to him following another paranormal investigation at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The medium he was working with warned him to tell the spirits not to follow him home from the cemetery. He completely forgot to do so, and… to hear this story, you’ll have to visit JANM’s YouTube channel… if you dare.