OUT OF STATE | The White Lady of Aokigahara: Japan’s Most Haunted Forest

In this inaugural episode of Out of State — a companion to State of the Unknown — join host Robert Barber as we step beyond America’s borders to one of the most haunted places in the world.

At the base of Mount Fuji lies Aokigahara, Japan’s infamous “Suicide Forest.” But beyond its tragic reputation, locals tell of something else: the ghost of a woman in white, seen drifting silently among the trees.

This episode explores the paranormal history of Aokigahara, chilling first-hand accounts, and the ghostly legend of the White Lady — a yūrei spirit born of sorrow. Known for following the living, she’s one of Japan’s most enduring ghost stories.

If you love paranormal stories, true ghost legends, and haunted history, this eerie journey into Japan’s most mysterious forest is for you.

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This episode contains discussion of suicide and grief.
If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available.
In the United States, you can dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
For listeners elsewhere, please check your local crisis hotlines and resources.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains discussion of suicide and grief
.
If you or someone you know isstruggling, help is available.
In the United States you candial 988 for the Suicide and
Crisis Lifeline.
For listeners elsewhere, pleasecheck your local crisis
hotlines and resources.
You are not alone.

(00:21):
You are not alone.
At the base of Mount Fuji lies aforest so dense, so still.
It swallows sound, aokigahara,the sea of trees and called by
many something darker.

(00:43):
The forest has a reputation.
People vanish inside, some bychoice, some by something else.
Locals speak of spirits, lostsouls, and one in particular, a

(01:03):
woman in white Dressed in death,eyes like still water.
If she chooses you, she doesn'tscream, she follows.

(01:31):
I'm Robert Barber, and this isOut of State, a companion series
to State of the Unknown.
Short journeys into legendsbeyond America's borders,
stories of folklore, hauntingsand shadows from the other side
of the map.
Let's step into the dark.

(01:59):
Aokigahara stretches across oldlava fields.
At the foot of Mount Fuji, theremnants of an eruption that
hardened into black honeycomb.
Tree roots clutch rock.
Their trunks twist at oddangles.
The ground is pocked with cavesthat breathe cold air, even in
the summer.
There are few clearings, nodistant horizon.

(02:22):
The canopy stitches itself shutabove you Sound doesn't behave
the way that it should.
The porous lava drinks it inClap once and the echo dies in
your hands.
Even direction feels unreliable.
The forest folds space intoitself, compasses, wander Phones

(02:47):
just give up.
Hikers tie ribbons to treeslike a lifeline and still step
back into the same clearing,convinced they've moved for an
hour.
In Japanese belief, deathsmarked by sorrow don't end
cleanly.
They can leave a spirit behinda yu-rei, pale hair, unbound,

(03:11):
white burial dress, feet thatbarely meet the ground, bound to
the place where grief began InAokigahara.
The trees remember Aokigahara.
The trees remember.
They call her the White Lady ofAokigahara.
She's seen at the mouths ofcaves or standing just inside

(03:34):
the first line of trees, closeenough to notice, far enough to
doubt.
A white kimono, the kind wornfor burial hair like a curtain,
hands loose at her sides, as ifthe body forgot what to do with
them.
Some say she was a bride whoseceremony never started, others a

(03:59):
mother whose arms were suddenlyempty.
Some say she was first the echothat taught the forest how to
grieve.
She isn't rage, she is sorrowgiven shape.
The white lady doesn't scream,she doesn't chase, she follows.

(04:19):
One hiker heard weeping thatseemed to hang in the air rather
than come from any direction.
She turned back and saw a palesleeve ease behind a trunk, not
hurried, just hiding.
A camper woke to handprints onthe inside of his tent, small,
facing inward.

(04:39):
No one else had camped with him.
Night patrols speak carefullyabout what they've seen An
abandoned car at dusk, still inthe morning Dew, filmed across
the windshield from the inside,a pale figure in the tree line,
too, still to be a hiker Gonewhen the flashlight found it.

(05:01):
A film crew spent three nightsin the forest Batteries, drained
, without warning, footagescrambled.
One crew member dreamt of awoman whispering in a language
he didn't know.
Nothing missing.
He refused to stay the fourthnight.

(05:23):
Aokigahara is already a placethat unsettles the senses.
The White Lady is either itsoldest illusion or its most
persistent truth.
Yurei are an old shape of fearIn Edo period theater.
They drift across the stage inwhite hair, unbound, the
language of unfinished business.

(05:45):
Okiku, a servant girl whosebroken promise rattles dishes in
a well.
Oiwa, betrayed, poisoned.
Her spirit following the guiltyinto madness, each held to
earth by one overwhelmingemotion.
The White Lady follows thislineage, not a specter of

(06:07):
vengeance but a gravity of grief.
Shinto and Buddhist traditionsspeak of the dead needing
guidance.
During Oban families lightlanterns to bring ancestors home
.
Shinto and Buddhist traditionsspeak of the dead needing
guidance.
During Oban families lightlanterns to bring ancestors home
.
In Aokigahara, some say lightsappear deeper in the trees, as

(06:28):
if the forest is full oflanterns with no one left to
carry them out.
Aokigahara's reputation as thesuicide forest is not ancient,
it's modern and it grew quickly.
In the 1960s, a popular novel,seicho Matsumoto's Tower of
Waves, ends with lovers dying bytheir own choice in Aokigahara.

(06:53):
Around the same time, essaysand articles began to single the
forest out as a quiet place todisappear.
Older folklore whispered aboutUbasute, the tale of abandoning
the elderly in remote mountains.
A story scholars debate, butone that added a chill to the

(07:15):
place.
Scholars debate, but one thatadded a chill to the place.
Whether literature reflectedreality or helped shape it, the
association deepened by the late20th century.
Authorities were recoveringbodies every year.
Media attention rose.
So did copycat attempts.
In response, the governmentstopped publishing official

(07:36):
numbers.
They wanted to deny the forestits morbid scoreboard, but
patrols never stopped.
Trailheads carry signs now.
Pleas more than warnings.
Your life is a precious gift.
Think of your family, pleaseseek help.
Think of your family.
Please seek help.
Volunteers and police walk thepaths with tape to mark their

(07:59):
route.
They find string tied from treeto tree leading off trail like
breadcrumbs.
They find tents folded in onthemselves, notebooks tucked
under stones, shoes placedneatly side by side.
Sometimes they find the living.
They call softly not to startle, bringing tea, a blanket and a

(08:24):
reason to talk.
Within that atmosphere, thewhite lady took on a second life
, not just a ghost story, but aface given to grief, a way to
speak about sorrow withoutspeaking the names of the dead.
Stories travel fast when a placeis already famous.

(08:45):
Movies set their fear here,most notably a 2010's Hollywood
film that borrowed the forest'ssilence and turned it into a
plot.
Documentaries came too, somecareful, some not.
Then came the creators chasingshock.
Local officials condemned thesensationalism, residents asked

(09:10):
visitors to treat the forestlike a graveyard, not a backdrop
.
Guides stopped sharing certainpaths, rescue teams grew weary
of being filmed like attractions.
And still people arrive, curious, respectful, careless, all
mixed together.
They leave paper cranes, coinspressed into bark, incense

(09:36):
tucked into roots, offerings forstrangers, prayers for mercy
the forest absorbs it all.
There's a small building nearone of the trailheads where
volunteers gather Part equipmentcloset, part sanctuary, part
place to exhale.

(09:57):
They speak softly.
They carry radios, extrabatteries, water, a length of
tape.
One tells the story offollowing a ribbon that looped
back to itself three times, asif the person tying it had been
walking circles.
Another remembers a bright bluetent, empty but warm inside.

(10:19):
Someone had just stepped out.
They've seen charms left in thecrook of roots, tiny bags of
salt, folded paper, a phototurned face down.
They don't touch those.
They also talk about the living.
How a conversation, a warmdrink, a hand held without

(10:42):
judgment can change the nexthour.
How important it is to listenbefore speaking.
How often the forest feels fulleven when the trail is empty.
Ask about the white lady andthey smile in a way that isn't
quite dismissal.
They don't argue over what isreal, they just say this place

(11:07):
carries things.
So what?
Who is the White Lady?
To believers she is a trueyu-rei, bound by grief,
appearing to those who needwarning or witness.
To skeptics she's the mindtrying to make sense of overload
.
Aokigahara offers all theingredients for misseeing.

(11:31):
Aokigahara offers all theingredients for misseeing.
Extreme quiet, visual monotony,isolation, the suggestion of a
ghost story already in your head.
Add the mind's gift for findingfaces and patterns, pareidolia,
and you can manufacture a womanin white from the line of a

(11:53):
birch trunk and a strip ofsunlit fog.
Psychologists talk about griefcontagion, how sorrow can ripple
through communities.
They talk about the Zygarnikeffect too.
The brains itch for unfinishedstories, a legend without
closure, no proof, no debunksticks, and maybe that's what
the white lady is.
The forest's unfinishedbusiness made visible the shape

(12:18):
our minds give to the weight inthe air.
But visit at dusk, when themoss glows and the light thins
and certainty feels likearrogance.
There are moments in Aokigaharawhen you don't believe in
ghosts, you just behave as ifyou do.

(12:39):
Japan lives in an uneasy trucewith this forest.
Some treat it as sacred, someavoid it completely.
Some enter with reverence,leaving cranes, bowing at the
trailhead and speaking in lowvoices as if the trees could
overhear.
Visitors describe the samesensations in different words

(13:03):
being watched, being followed,being asked to speak more softly
.
A note once left near the edge,said softly.
A note once left near the edgesaid if you see her, don't speak
, don't run, just let her pass.
It reads like advice.
It also reads like an ethicMove gently through other

(13:25):
people's grief.
Don't chase it, don't name itfor them.
Let it pass, if it can.
Whether the white lady is aspirit or story, she stands for
something real the human need tobe seen in sorrow and the duty
of those who witness to be kind.

(13:48):
This has been Out of State.
A companion series from Stateof the Unknown.
Short journeys into legendsbeyond America's borders.
If you've been enjoying theshow, follow, rate and share it
with someone who can't resist astory that lingers Until next

(14:11):
time.
Keep listening for what movesin the dark.