Dark Disney

A collection of ghost stories and urban legends from Disney parks

[darkdisney]

Okay, it’s time for a personal ghost story.

I worked in Outdoor Vending at Disneyland, and at this time I was a closing lead. And part of my job at this time was to walk the park after it closed. Most ODV (short for Outdoor Vending) carts got taken back to our warehouse to be emptied and cleaned. But popcorn carts, while not THAT hard to move, are connected to popcorn oil cans in their support carts so rather than disconnect them, risking oil leaking onto the ground, and then having to reconnect them in the morning, these carts were cleaned on stage, and it was my job to (a) see that they were properly cleaned, and (b) to put a tarp over them so the hose crews, who clean the walkways every night, weren’t spraying grime onto the popcorn carts. I had a pattern that I followed, because the park is cleared in stages after closing time. First they move everyone to the hub (Central Plaza), then they move the crowd up Main Street. So I started in Toontown, riding a bike to get there backstage (and then using the same bike to get from cart to cart). But some days, the park cleared slowly and I had to walk instead of using a bike (and this was one of those nights).

But my pattern was to hit Toontown first, then Fantasyland’s Small World Mall, then Tomorrowland, then back through Fantasyland to Frontierland, then back through Fantasyland to Tomorrowland, and by then the park was usually clear of all guests.and I could hit the Main Street carts. I was off at 3:30am when I got through with this.

But on this particular night, there was no Tomorrowland popcorn cart as it was a slower time of year, so I was heading down Big Thunder Trail from Fantasyland to Frontierland (map attached since most of the facebook group that I invited here is more familiar with Walt Disney World -- the second arrow to the left shows about where I was, but the map is outdated as there is no longer a smoking area there, or anywhere inside Disneyland and it doesn’t include Batuu, but it’s accurate for the night I’m talking about).

When I got here, I hear my name in kind of a whisper. “Ken!” (I went by Ken then instead of Kenny). I looked around and didn’t see anyone. So I kept going. Then I heard it again, a little louder. “Ken!” I figured someone was messing with me, and pulled out my flashlight and looked through the nearby bushes, since nobody else was on the path. Again, I didn’t find anybody. I took a few more steps, and then, RIGHT IN MY EAR, I heard “KEN!”

I turned around and again saw nobody. And I had felt the breath on my ear as it was said. I booked it down the hill to the popcorn cart next to the Mark Twain dock, and again saw nobody behind me, but there were hose crews out cleaning the walkways. But their hoses were hooked up and the ground was very wet, meaning it couldn’t have been any of them.

After I checked the popcorn carts to make sure they were clean, I went back to the office and told a coworker who I worked very well with about what I had just experienced, and his face went pale. He said, “You’ve heard that too? I’ve heard my name up there.” I don’t know if multiple people teamed up to prank me and did a REALLY good job that I wasn’t able to cop on to, or if there was something there. But in the moment, it scared the heck out of me. But I don’t know of any Disney legends that would back this up as to a ghost being there. But I DID definitely experience it.

[darkdisney]

Mr. One Way

There is a legend at Disneyland about “Mr. One Way,” a ghost who likes to ride Space Mountain at Disneyland. It is said (and again, I believe that most of such stories are nothing more than urban legends) he will sit next to a single rider on Space Mountain.

He is seen by the rider who sits next to him, but when the rocket returns from the ride, he is nowhere to be found (hence his nickname).

Mr. One Way is also said to be seen in the lady's locker room that resides inside the Space Mountain building.

[darkdisney]

George, the Ghost of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean

They say a mischievous ghost named George haunts Walt Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, I’ve only been on the classic ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom maybe one or three hundred times…

This is a story better told at this link than I can tell it.

But to be clear, there is NO record of a welder named George dying during the construction of Walt Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean. But you’d better believe, if I was a Pirates of the Caribbean cast member, I’d be saying “good morning” and/or “goodnight” to George.

[darkdisney]

This one is a true story (at least from where I say that everything after this is true).

A co-cast member and I decided to walk through the Haunted Mansion, after I mentioned that I'd been in the backstage areas of the Mansion a couple times (twice to use the creepy restroom, once to inform the cast member watching the monitors about a specific situation with several of the riders, which is a long story so I'll leave those details out).

I had heard that the seance table where Madame Leota's head sat in a crystal ball (before they added the floating effect) was donated by a Satanic cult, had a pentagram carved into it, and was cursed -- anyone who touched it was doomed (this part is likely urban legend -- everything that follows is 100% true).

He laughed at this notion, and then he saw a quarter on the lattice wood that makes up the floor between the Doom Buggies and the table. He climbed over the railing, and the quarter fell through the lattice, which we both chalked up to the vibration of his feet landing. But then he decided to tempt fate and said, "Kenny, I'm going to touch the table." I asked him not to, that we were already breaking the rules by being there (even though back then, our worst punishment would have been to be written up).

But he rubbed his hands on the table. Nothing happened.

But then he came back and climbed back over the railing to where the Doom Buggies were, and they started moving -- and the hem of his pant leg got caught, and it started dragging him along the track.

I've never seen anyone de-trouser themselves as quickly as he did, and as soon as he ripped his pants away from the Omnimover, it stopped moving (and I can tell you from experience that we were DEFINITELY on camera where we were, so no cast member would have started up the attraction if they saw us there).

His pants were pretty torn (fortunately they were his Disney pants, so it was on Costuming to either repair them or toss them).

I moved to Illinois, and then back to California, where I re-hired as a cast member, and told this story to my new fellow cast members. And they decided (even though this was post-9/11 and they could have gotten in a lot of trouble for this) to test the theory of the table being haunted. So they all went after work one night and all rubbed their hands and arms all over the table, saing "Ooh, Kenny's boogeyman is going to get us" in a playful tone (I wasn't there for this one, but this is what they told me when they got back to our warehouse). And the next day, when they came to work, they ALL had rashes on their hands and arms where they had rubbed them on the table.

Haunted? Maybe or maybe not. Probably not. I figure it's likely that the cast member who started the attraction hadn't checked the cameras first (it can be started at the podium at the loading area, which is some distance away from the monitors), and the table could have just had germs or something on it to cause the rashes (I got to OFFICIALLY walk through the Mansion once on a tour for our department as a reward after we broke a sales record one day, and we were told not to touch ANYTHING because "any bodily fluid you can think of is on just about every inch of these sets").

[darkdisney]

Here's another story, this time with Custodial.

At the Fire House on Main Street at Disneyland, Walt used to have an apartment upstairs where he could relax, and look out the window at all the happy people coming into the park (this was before the apartment he and his brother Roy had planned to share above the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean, which wasn't finished until after Walt's death -- it eventually became an art gallery, and is now the "Disney Dream Suite" that very few people get to see, but I visited it many times when it was an art gallery).

There is a lamp in the window that is (almost) ALWAYS on as one small way to preserve the memory of Walt, and the apartment is still furnished as Walt left it. Very few people get to see it. I had a friend who got to visit it once, and no photography was allowed. But since then, there have been tours that included it, and you can see a video of it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHuLNHoQxn4.

And when I say that the light is (almost) always on, it is usually turned off, as I understand it (I have no confirmation of this) when members of Walt's family visit the parks, to show respect for their loss after Walt's death.

One night, a Custodial cast member was cleaning the apartment, and didn't know about the history of the lamp. She turned it off, and immediately heard a voice that sounded like Walt's. It said "I'm still here," and the lamp turned back on.

She didn't believe in ghosts, so she turned it back off, and again heard the voice. "I'm still here."

She looked around and saw that nobody else was in the small apartment, so she turned the lamp off again, and left the apartment, went down the backstage stairs, and back out on to Main Street.

She turned and looked up, and watched the lamp turn back on, again with nobody touching it.

The story goes that she ran backstage to the locker room, changed into her street clothes, and never came back to work.

Again, urban legend, because if she ran away and never returned, how would the story have been told?

I mean, I DO believe in ghosts, but most (if not all) of the Disney ghost stories are untrue.But if you want a fun take on a Disney ghost story, this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M-yetCGm-A) is probably one of the best enactments of it that I have seen -- it's called "Missing in the Mansion: Disneyland Proposal Goes Horribly Wrong in the Haunted Mansion." No Disneyland cast members were involved in the filming (the reaction from the Ghostess at the entrance was genuine), and the filmmakers built their own sets for the scenes they didn't film inside the mansion.

Speaking of the Mansion, there's a cast member restroom inside of it, which I was fortunate enough to use one time (it was pre-9/11, when "exploring" places I didn't usually work as a cast member was much less frowned upon), and it's VERY near the howling ghost-wolf in the graveyard. And I gotta tell you, it's CREEPY to hear that when you're answering nature's call.

[darkdisney]

Pink Dress and Blue Jeans

Welcome to Dark Disney. This blog is about ghost stories and urban legends that surround Disney parks.

The story is that a couple was visiting Disneyland with their 7 year-old daughter, who was wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans.

She wanted to go to Tom Sawyer's Island, but the parents did not. They were tired. So they let her get on the raft that takes people across the Rivers of America to Tom Sawyer's Island, saying they'd meet her when she was done and came back on the raft

Several hours passed.

They asked a cast member working the rafts whether a young girl in a pink shirt and blue jeans had come back, and maybe the parents had missed her, and the cast member said he remembered the girl, and hadn't seen her come back yet. But he agrees to keep an eye out for her.A couple more hours pass.

It's approaching dusk, when the Island closes for the day. Security on the island is called and asked to do a sweep. They look everywhere, including areas that are off limits to the public, and find nothing. The parents are put up in the Disneyland Hotel for the night as the search continues.

The next day, the parents are told that the girl was not found. They leave for home, heartbroken.

About a week later, a security guard is doing his rounds at about 2am, while the park is closed, and he sees a young girl in a pink shirt and blue jeans standing at the dock on the island, like she's waiting for a raft.

The security guard hops onto the raft and pilots it over to the other side,  but as he's navigating the raft, the girl disappears.

And the story goes that, once in a while, a cast member working the graveyard shift will see this girl, get on the raft to go get her, but she always disappears while they are en route to Tom Sawyer's Island.Now, this is DEFINITELY an urban legend, but I knew security guards when I was a cast member who refused to work in the west side of the park at night because they were scared that they would see her (I often worked past park closing, and never saw her).