The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (237 page)


        
Safety first
.  Follow all posted and verbal safety instructions, and use your common sense.  Don’t climb onto railings or lean out of vehicles or engage in other unsafe activities for
any
reason, including nabbing a snapshot of a spirit.  You’re hunting ghosts, but you don’t want to become one!


        
Have fun
.  The core reason for any
Disneyland
trip is to have a great time and enjoy life.  Don’t get so caught up in your ghost hunt that you forget to have fun among the living!

Now that you have your guidelines in place, you need destinations.  Where are
Disneyland
’s ghosts rumored to hang out?  Here is a sampling of the alleged spooky spots.

             
Ghostly “Hot Spots”

             
Disneyland Fire Station
(
Main Street U.S.A.
–
DL Park
) – Who would be more likely to linger at
Disneyland
than the kindly genius who created this magical place?  And, indeed, there are reports of faint footsteps above the
Disneyland Fire Station
, where the
Disney family
apartment is located. 
Walt
had it built as a place to stay while the park was under construction, and he and his family continued to use it long after the park had opened its gates.  Some say that
Walt
uses it still.  A light is always kept burning in the apartment’s east-facing window, a tribute to
Walt
’s enduring spirit.  Are those faint footsteps
Walt
’s?  Does he still look out at the park he loved and watch the many Guests strolling through
Town Square
?  Or is it only wishful thinking on the part of Guests and Cast Members who treasure the park, and treasure
Walt
’s memory?  On an equine note:  One YouTube poster (
Disneyland Secrets – Disneyland Ghosts
) claims the ghosts of park horses might haunt one of the fire station’s horse stalls.

            
 
Elias & Company Department Store
(
Buena Vista Street
–
DCA Park
) – Formerly known as
Greetings From California
in the land formerly known as
Sunshine Plaza
, this elegant Art Deco store near the entrance of
DCA
doesn’t exactly scream “ghostly hot spot”.  Brightly lit, classy, and tastefully stocked with
Disney
merchandise, from hats and pins to clothing and jewelry, this seems like the perfect mecca for
Disneyland
shopaholics–not ghosts!  Nonetheless, a YouTube commenter (
Disneyland Secrets – Disneyland Ghosts
) claims that their father is a Cast Member at
DCA
and saw the ghost of a little girl in the store when it was
Greetings from California
.  The reason I like this story is precisely because there
isn’t
anything obviously ghostly about the store, not when it was
Greetings from California
, and not now that it’s
Elias & Co
.  Someone fabricating a ghost sighting is unlikely to select such a cheerful location.  Similarly, if someone imagined they saw a ghost, why would they imagine it in such a brightly lit, happy place as this store?  So I am quite willing to entertain the possibility that the commenter’s father did indeed see
something
out of the ordinary in the store.  That leads to the next question:  If there
is
something supernatural happening in this location, why would it manifest as a little girl’s ghost?  To understand that, one has to recall that this area–all of
DCA Park
, in fact–used to be the vast
Disneyland Parking Lot
.  And one has to turn to old editions of the “LA Times” where it was reported in September of 1985 that a seven-year old girl was tragically struck by a tour bus in the
Disneyland Parking Lot
, and perished.

             
Haunted Mansion
(
New Orleans Square
–
DL Park
) – If you were going to find a ghost at
Disneyland
, wouldn’t you expect it to be at the park’s home for 999 “happy haunts”?  Of course you would!  And yet … Although the old pile of plaster has accrued its share of ghost stories, there aren’t as many as you’d expect.  Aside from the
AA
figures and “Pepper’s ghost” illusions and all of the other wonderful tricks that the
Imagineers
built into the mansion, there’s never been proof that anything
truly
incorporeal is wandering here.  Be on the alert when you’re in
Elevator #2
–that’s the
Stretching Chamber
straight ahead of you as you enter the
Haunted Mansion
.  Cast Members report that this chamber exhibits strange behavior in terms of the electric lighting, and how fast the elevator car ascends, and there’s said to be the spectral sound of a radio if you listen closely enough; ghostly voices from beyond the grave–or a radio that was sealed up in the walls during construction?  (If it’s the latter, surely the batteries would’ve run down by now!)  Keep your eyes open at the end of your journey too.  When you exit your
Doom Buggy
in the unloading zone, do you see–or hear–a sobbing little ghost boy?  Some Guests say they have, and Cast Members have also claimed to see or hear the little boy, even to feel his cold little hand.  I won’t say it’s impossible–but after well over 100 journeys through the
Mansion
, I’ve never seen or heard a ghost boy when the ride concludes.  In fact, the moving walkway that you step onto zips along so quickly, and there’s so little room in that corridor, that I can’t imagine where Guests would experience this alleged spirit or how they would even have time to notice him.  But let me know if you’re lucky–or unlucky!–enough to encounter him.  There
is
one spot in the
Mansion
where my
Doom Buggy
always seems to halt and idle for a minute or two, like clockwork.  It’s the
Séance Parlor
, and, while it might merely be
Madame Leota
’s spiel, that’s one place in the old pile where I truly do feel a
frisson
of the supernatural.  And in summer of 2013, I saw something … strange in the
Hall of Doors
that I don’t believe was part of the attraction.  It might have been that my eyes were tired.  What do
you
experience at the
Haunted Mansion
?

             
Innoventions
(
Tomorrowland
–
DL Park
) – This location was the sight of some of the park’s saddest and most grisly tragedies, which certainly make it a candidate for being haunted.  And, what do you know, there
are
ghost stories here, mainly centered around an 18-year old Cast Member who was crushed in 1974, back when
Innoventions
was
America Sings
.  And in 1980, a young man leaping between
People Mover
cars was mangled in the now-defunct
People Mover
’s
Super Speed Tunnel
that once passed through this area–but reports of his ghost are scarce.  For the most part, Cast Members and Guests think they are sensing the cheerful, sweet young woman who perished so tragically, with her whole life ahead of her, in ’74.  According to one anonymous insider, the spirit likes to make herself known to new Cast Members, makes sounds, sets off alarms, and, back when there were audience seats in the building, folded one of the seats down with an invisible hand.  The same insider says that a secret group of ghost-hunting Cast Members spent one night locked-down in
Innoventions
with audio recording equipment and infrared cameras, trying to make contact with the young woman’s spirit.  The results?  Photos showing strange orbs of light, and an audio clip, a voice saying the ghost doesn’t mean any harm, “just moving on”.  The insider sent me one of the photos.  I’m familiar with the room in which it was taken, so, while my first impression was that the “orb” was merely a camera flash reflecting off of a window, I soon realized that this was unlikely, given how deeply the window is recessed.  Of course, I’m certainly no optical expert, and professional ghost hunters like Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson pretty much toss out
any
orb photos anywhere, citing the high probability that somehow, even if it doesn’t seem like it, orbs always turn out to be reflections off of glass or shiny surfaces, or moths, or dust particles.  But it’s an intriguing photo, nonetheless.  There seem to be certain “hot spots” at
Innoventions
in the areas that the spirit is supposed to frequent.  One is a place of great sadness, of profound tragedy and melancholy; not surprisingly, this location is near the site where the young woman passed, an event that was not only fatal for her, but also traumatized her coworkers.  If tragedy can mark a place, this was a location that would likely be scarred.  Another “hot spot” is a place that radiates happiness and contentment.  Interestingly enough, the kindly young woman who died had four younger brothers in her close-knit, religious family, and the “happy” location might remind the ghost—if there is a ghost—of the beloved siblings she left behind forever on that tragic July day in 1974.  What do you sense–if anything–at
Innoventions
?  And where do you sense it?  One YouTube commenter (
Disneyland Secrets – Disneyland Ghosts
) claims to always feel “chills in the same place,” the area between
Innoventions
and
Tomorrowland Terrace
.  Another YouTube commenter advises Guests to leave the
Innoventions
spirit alone, not to bother her—if, indeed, there is a spirit there.  Of course, even if you leave a ghost alone, there’s no guarantee it won’t reach out to
you
.  The
Innoventions
claims, after all, have been of a spirit who
wants
to communicate.

              “it’s a small world”
(
Fantasyland
–
DL Park
) – It’s billed as “the happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world”.  It was created for Pepsi-Cola for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair, a wholesome tribute to UNICEF and the children of the world.  It boasts giddy, childlike,
Mary Blair
-inspired architecture, cheerful colors, hundreds of dolls, and one of the
Sherman Brothers
’ most relentlessly upbeat songs (come on; you know it by heart–a little jingle called “
It’s A Small World”
).  With all of the good cheer and singing and candy colors, how, how,
how
could this attraction
possibly
be haunted?  Yet there are rumors.  Stories that the dolls move at night, when the attraction is shut down.  But would that really be so strange, from a technical standpoint, to see dolls move at night?  Attractions are cleaned and shined and polished and tested after the Guests leave, when the park is closed; so is the power ever really
completely
off?  Couldn’t the dolls’ random movements be perfectly explainable “hiccups” of electricity cycling through the attraction during off-hours?  That’s my best guess.  Contrary to a popular
Disneyland
urban legend, the sound tracks and
Audio-Animatronics
at most attractions do
not
run all night.  And regarding
“small world”
specifically, according to a Cast Member who has worked closing there, after the last Guest is gone, the music is turned off, the work lights are turned on, and mechanics/technicians inspect all the dolls.  Once the
Audio Animatronics
pass muster, their movements are turned off too.  However, there is still power in the building, in the same way that there’s still power in your TV set when it’s plugged in, even when the set is turned off.  Guests also report strange sounds and bumps and shadows in the
“small world”
attraction
during
their cruises.  Are the noises and shadows caused by Cast Members moving around in the attraction’s hidden
backstage
rooms and corridors?  Or by something more spectral?  I remember being startled during one cruise when my niece was still quite young; a Cast Member popped out of a hidden door without warning about halfway through our journey.  Yikes!  The CM didn’t mean to scare us; she had just emerged to check on some element of the show.  But it gave us quite a fright. 
“small world”
is honeycombed with
backstage
areas, so what’s
really
ghostly at
“small world,”
and what can be explained away?  Guests and Cast Members need to decide that for themselves.  One must wonder
why
there would be a haunting at
small world
.  While people have slipped and fallen getting in and out of the boats, and at least one child lost a finger when trailing a hand in the water, no one has passed away at the attraction.  Some people steer clear of
“small world”
not because they fear ghosts, but because they have a more mundane terror–pediophobia, or, as it’s more commonly known,
a fear of dolls
.