October 31, 2024 • 20 mins
Happy Halloween! In this episode, Aquarium staff tell spooky stories of situations that can and can't be explained.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Hi, I'm Aaron Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walden, and
this is Aquarium. Of the Pod Pacific.
A podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific,
Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned, alongsidethe experts in animal care,
conservation, and more. Welcome back do Scarium of the
(00:31):
Pod Cryptic. This is our Halloween episode.
Also, my name is Madeline. I am Madeline Walden is my full
name. That's scary.
I forgot for a second. And I am the aquarium's digital
content and community manager. And also I'm always joined by
the My Ghost host. My Co ghost.
My Co ghost. We got to use that.
(00:53):
I am the Co ghost today, which means that we're both ghosts.
But my name is Aaron Lundy and Iam the manager of conservation
initiatives. All of that is unimportant today
because we are talking about ghost stories here at the
aquarium. And whether you believe them or
not, we have some really cool stories from our staff who
worked at the aquarium after hours, sometimes during the day,
(01:15):
and have just had some very interesting things happen to
them that can't necessarily be explained right away.
I'm excited because I actually have not heard these stories
yet. I was out sick last week.
The scariest thing of all is being out sick from work.
But Madeline was able to gather up some tales from our staff and
(01:35):
hear a little bit about some of the spooky happenings here at
the aquarium. And I got to say, as much as
this is a beautiful family friendly, happy place to be
during the day, it does get a little creepy at night it.
Is a little creepy at night whenyou walk around and all the
lights are off. It just kind of makes the the
hair on the back of your neck stand up sometimes.
So there's some really great stories in here.
(01:57):
I am so thankful to our colleagues who stopped by my
office in the middle of their day sometimes.
I just saw people walked by and I said, hey, do you have a ghost
story? And a lot of them did.
And so you'll notice I recorded this episode in my office.
And so you'll notice that the audio is a little bit different.
You might hear some spooky watercooler talk in the background.
Illustrative things. So scary.
(02:19):
The printer sound. The printer.
Done done, done, but there's some really, really great
stories in here and I I hope you'll appreciate them.
This is very different from our other episodes.
If you are easily spooked, maybethis is something you want to
skip. But if this is something you're
interested in, then stay tuned. It's.
Spooky Halloween. And happy Halloween, everybody,
and we'll actually be back soon,very soon with Season 3.
(02:44):
Our first story is from Luke Richmond.
Luke is our manager and artisticdirector of the Pacific Pals.
This story is the least scary, so if you are not into the
spooky stories, you can listen to this one and then turn the
podcast off. So years ago, like 10 years ago
probably, I was working in overnight, in education and in
(03:05):
overnights. The educators, just like the
kids in the chaperones, stay overnight at the aquarium and we
sleep in a different gallery usually.
So in this particular occasion, the kids were sleeping in
tropical and along with their along with the chaperones and
teachers and I was sleeping in the Northern Pacific Gallery
right in front of the spider crabs actually, which I guess
are sounds spooky. Spooky.
(03:28):
Yeah, they sound spooky in another.
But you know, they're actually kind of goofy looking.
Really. It wasn't.
I guess I've gotten used to them.
But the spot in front of the spider crabs is a good spot
where it's kind of dark. It's easy to, it's dark, there's
not as many disturbances and so on.
So I'd like to sleep there. And I'm getting ready to nod off
(03:49):
and I'm all by myself because mycolleague Stacey Wong was
sleeping in another gallery overin the front end of the tropical
gallery. And suddenly I hear this sound
like children screaming, echoingthrough the through somewhere in
the aquarium. I couldn't, I couldn't figure it
out. And my first thought is like,
(04:11):
OK, some of these kids have gotten up and they're wandering
around the aquarium, which is like, which is the rule of of
all rules at overnights, you're not allowed to do that.
It's a very big deal if you're caught sneaking around the
aquarium. I'm like, it sounds like kids
are like like running and playing chase.
Like it was a screaming like sound.
And that was all I heard. I couldn't hear any of the other
noise. We just sort of these and it
(04:32):
like maybe laughing. I wasn't sure what it was.
And I'm like, OK, geez, I got toget up and I got to go look for
these kids. So I go and I walk around the
gallery. Sound disappears.
Can't seem to track it to anywhere.
I go look in the behind the scenes areas, no sound.
And I'm that's interesting. I walk back to my well, I guess
(04:56):
I can't do anything about it. So I walked back to where I was
going to sleep, and then I hear it again and it stops for a
while. And so I look around some more,
but no sign of the kids anywhere.
I'm in the Great Hall, nothing. And then I come back to where I
was sleeping and again I hear this noise.
So I'm like, OK, clearly some kids somewhere are running
(05:18):
around in the aquarium because this sounded exactly like this
noise. And I should say I'm a, I'm a,
I'm a very strict scientific rationalist, right?
So I was like, there's a plausible explanation for this.
Yeah, I'm not. Hallucinating.
I'm not hallucinating. I acknowledge that this sounds
very spooky, like ghostly children running around the
(05:39):
aquarium in the middle of the night and I can't figure out
what it is. And I'm like, I got to go wake
up my my Co worker Stacey, because we're going to need to
go find this. So I go and I tap Stacey on the
shoulder and say, hey, I so I just want you to know I'm not
messing with you. OK, But this sounds crazy.
But I'm hearing this, this, thisspooky childlike screaming and I
(06:02):
can't figure out where it's coming from.
And I think something's up, something's up.
And, and say he's like, she genuinely really thought I was
messing with her. And I'm like, OK, listen, but I
just I'll take you to where it is.
I take her back to the spot where I've been sleeping and for
a bit, there's no noise. I'm like, believe me, like this
(06:22):
is happening. It's it's real.
I'm not making this up. I'm not messing around.
And instantly she hears it. We both hear this, this distant
unplaceable sound. And she goes, oh, that is
spooky. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's, it's
spooky all right, but I can't figure out where it's coming
(06:42):
from. We got to like turn the aquarium
upside down because there's kidsrunning around here somewhere.
And so we decided to start searching.
And we searched for just a few minutes and finally make a left
out from by the spider crabs andgo toward toward the middle of
the Northern Pacific Gallery. And I turn my head to my left
and I look and see in the shaft of of in a shaft of light inside
(07:04):
the Otter exhibit. One of the sea otters is just
sitting there just yelling for no reason.
And the exhibit is soundproof oralmost soundproof.
So from the window, from where Iwas in the window, I couldn't
hear it at all, but I could justsee this Otter sitting there
with his mouth agape just like, it's like it's miming this
(07:25):
noise. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
OK, and I go around the side andI guess the soundproofing isn't
as strong over by spider crabs because there I could hear it
and go in the front. Can't hear it.
And like Stacey, we found our ghost children.
It's the otters. The otters.
Oh. My gosh, I'm going to put in a
(07:45):
clip of how they actually sound because it does sound like
screaming children. Yeah, they it sounds almost
exactly like screaming children.Sea otters may look like they
would make a cute little sound, but in fact their vocalizations
are a lot more like a banshee screaming and that is very
normal for them. They will make that sound to
(08:07):
communicate with one another. Sometimes if they see people in
the distance and they think oh that might get me a snack, they
will emit this very high pitchedscream.
So sea otters screaming sounds very normal for sea otters.
And like, in the middle of the night?
In the middle of the night, yeah.
At the aquarium next to the spider crabs, it's already
spooky. So anyway.
So children were safe. Children were safe.
(08:27):
Nobody was breaking the rules. Others were just having a
conversation. And my, my scientific
rationalist, you know, view of the world was, was, was
vindicated. I was glad I didn't have to
acknowledge the existence of ghosts.
Not that night. Not that night.
Yeah, maybe after you listen to this podcast episode.
Perhaps. Maybe.
Next up, we have a story from Rachel Cushman.
Rachel is a dive safety officer at the aquarium, and she was
(08:49):
also on a previous episode of Pod Civic.
Check it out in Season 1. It's all about diving at the
aquarium. So when I first started working
at the aquarium 12 years ago, I did a lot of the administrative
work for the dive office, which means that a lot of the stuff I
needed to do in kind of a quiet space.
So I would come and do my work alot of times after hours when
(09:10):
the volunteers weren't here. In fact, a lot of people would
jokingly call me the Ghost DSO because I was always here after
hours when usually no one else was, and certainly no dive
operations were happening. But I was able to get my work
done a lot better. Well, now the Ghost DSO name
kind of morphed into something else because I think I met a
(09:34):
ghost while coming in after hours on a late shift once.
Actually, it has has happened more than once, if I'm being
honest, which is why I really think there's a ghost.
So at the end of our shift, all of the dive volunteers will fill
all of our scuba tanks, right? We fill them with regular air,
(09:54):
all topped ready to go from the next day, and we close all the
valves really tight so that thathigh pressure doesn't escape
well. It's very interesting and very
spooky when at least three hoursafter everyone has left the dive
locker, all the sudden you starthearing a very faint little in
(10:18):
the dive locker and then it getsa little bit louder and you
don't know what it is. And then you run out and you
see, OK, there's air escaping from one of the scuba cylinders,
one of them that was closed three hours ago.
Why is it air escaping? It's not like anyone came by and
actually turned the handle or anything.
(10:39):
So OK, that's weird. I'll go.
I'll turn it off. Hours later, a different from a
different part of the Walker andacross the locker on the other
side are some other scuba cylinders that were filled days
before and they started leaking little by little.
(11:04):
At that point, you could just imagine I finished my work
really quickly and just. Left the aquarium.
And as I was leaving, I was talking to that, well, I don't
know what the spooky ghost was in the dive locker, but I can
tell you in the 12 years that it's actually same story has now
happened more than once. And I have come to terms with
whoever this creepy ghost is in the dive locker who is just
(11:27):
wanting to give me. A heebie jeebies.
Our next story is from Benjamin Rodriguez.
Ben is a security officer from the aquarium.
When I started here, I was working in the gift store.
This was after we closed. I came to use the bathroom.
So I was walking through admin area and when I got to the area
where the food prep kitchen is, actually when I was coming back,
(11:51):
I was walking through the doubledoors and I just heard like a
loud, like booming laugh that just like it sounded like
somebody heard the funniest jokeof their life.
And this is like, it's like 9:00.
And I kind of tiptoed my way through because when I walked
through, there was nobody here. So I was just like, OK, who's
who's in the area? And it kind of got to where the
(12:12):
green room is and just kind of got the chills.
And because that's where I heardthe laugh.
And you know what? There's nobody here.
I'm going to keep going. So the next morning I come in
and for some reason I just stopped and started reading the
articles in front of John's office.
And there are articles about Warren, the founder of the
aquarium. And one of the first paragraphs
(12:33):
on the article, there's like five articles.
One of the one that I chose to read said Warren was known for
his booming laugh that would echo through the admin area.
And I was that like gave me the chills or it's like, holy cow,
like, is that what I heard? And as I keep reading the second
or third paragraph, there's another sentence in there that
states that Warren was the Marine back in his time.
(12:54):
And being that I was also a Marine, I kind of feel that like
he was kind of like, Hey, I knowwho you are.
Yes, like he was saying hi to me.
And I honestly feel that like hehe is still here.
I I think he is. I I feel his energy sometimes.
That's so cool. It really is.
I think it's very cool, right? It's high, Warren.
(13:14):
Our next story is from Gregory Garcia.
Greg is a member of our IT team and also a former member of our
AV team. There was a time when I was in
AV and I stayed late for a late night all alone in the mezzanine
which is the on the third floor of Pacific Visions when I heard
a laugh from the stairwell from when it sounded like a little
girl. I was so spooked.
(13:36):
Some time went by and I was working on a video where I heard
again this little girl's laugh come from the stairwell.
Seemed very weird as the lighting from the stairwell has
motion detection and turns on when anybody's moving.
There were no lights turning on.Instead of going down the
stairwell, I took the elevator to the second floor of Pacific
Visions to see that PV was oddlyslow.
(14:00):
I walked up the stairwell to seethat there was no one there.
Needless to say, as soon as my time to leave for that day came,
I left right away. Our next story is from Josh
Wagner. Josh is in the queerest and he's
actually also on a previous episode of Pod Suffolk back in
season 1, All about jellies. Check it out after you're done
listening to this episode. So this was kind of weird where
(14:23):
our theater is used to be the backstage jellies area, and
there's always, it was always like kind of weird spooky over
there. But so one day I'm working,
working by myself, and Jelly work is just like pipetting
stuff, like staring into a dish and then to my right, one of my
siphon hoses, which is bent to a90° to clean the Jelly tanks for
(14:46):
no reason. I could see out of the corner of
my eye, kind of lift up and fallto the ground and like, for no
plausible reason. And it was weird enough that I
said to myself by myself in thatarea, you know, what was that?
Seriously. So it was kind of weird and I
was like, you know, stuff falls or whatever, but but so like I
put it back where it was and like smacked the table around
(15:09):
and like shook the table and like literally it didn't move.
So it was super strange there. Is no way it could have fallen
on its up. I'll tell you right now, there
is absolutely no way it could have done it by itself.
Haunted Jelly lab so. Yeah, definitely haunted down in
the Jelly lab. Our next story is from Megan
(15:30):
Smiley. Megan is our sea Otter program
manager and she's also a previous podsific guest.
She was actually our very first episode all about sea otters.
Of course, if you need some information on the adorable sea
otters after listening to this episode, you can check it out
So. Behind the scenes in our sea
Otter habitat, we have a motion sensor.
That is, all of our lights are on a timer and when motion is
(15:52):
happening, the lights stay on and when motion is not
happening, we turn the lights off to save power.
And this is in the staff workingarea, not on the exhibit.
So I was working behind the scenes away from the sensor,
kind of in AL shape away from the sensor.
So there's walls and concrete walls between myself and this
sensor. And I was up there for about 20
(16:15):
or 25 minutes and the sensor hadshut off because it had not
detected any movement. I finished up my session with
animal. I sat my stuff down and all of a
sudden the lights turn on and I walk over and there's no one
there. And I instantly was like hello.
(16:38):
And I looked down below the stairs, there was no one.
The door did not open or close. It just turned on in detected
motion even though there was no one else there but me.
And no otters running around but.
It was so spooky. So then I cleaned up really
quick and left to eat. Yeah, I don't.
Let me gotta get out of there. Our last guest today is Perla
(17:02):
Barajas. She is our retail supervisor.
She works in our Pacific Collections gift store.
Our gift store seems to be a hotspot so she has a couple of
stories. So one night when I was closing
with Charles Sanoyuki, we were cleaning the sales floor.
It was after a late night when we used to have Shark Lago
nights and I came out of the stockroom and I saw these
(17:26):
individual standing by the jury.We used to have a little island
just staring at the jury and he looked off the.
Eerie part was. That he looked at me and that
was the very first time a ghost stared at right on my eyes.
(17:49):
I froze and didn't move. close my eyes, open them again and it
was gone. But the feeling was definitely
there. It it was very fun.
I guess we have a bookcase wherethe book just plops out of the
(18:09):
shelf but doesn't hit the groundright away.
It kind of like suspense for split second, and then it drops.
That one's also recorded. Nobody knew what to say or do at
that point, but every moment I'mgetting that.
Record the ghost wanted to read a book.
Yeah, like, hey. Technically it was a good
(18:30):
question too. Some contacts for this last
story. Perla is talking about a storage
area behind the scenes of the aquarium.
We used to keep our merchandise in there.
So I went in there to do inventory and I saw this person
walk by and I said hello and looked at me kind of like nodded
(18:52):
and continue walking. I finished my inventory.
This person never came out of the room because I kept checking
I will. I wonder who this person was.
And once I was done, I started to walk away and curiosity kind
of hidden and I was wondering ifthere was a door on the other
(19:13):
side that I did not know about. So I ended up walking that way
to find out that there were no exit.
It was just concrete, concrete wall, very thick concrete wall.
So much fun. Oh my.
Gosh, someone or something wanted the scoop on what's going
to be in the gift stores. They wanted to check out our.
Storage. Thank you.
(19:34):
For joining us for this extra spooky Halloween episode of
Podcific, our next episode will be back to regularly scheduled
programming where you can learn all about the Aquarium of the
Pacific's conservation efforts, animal care, and more.
Aquarium of the Pod Civic is brought to you by Aquarium of
the Pacific A501C3 nonprofit organization.
(19:56):
Keep up with the aquarium on social media at Aquarium Pacific
on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This podcast is produced by Aaron Lundy and Madeline Walden.
Our music is by Andrew Reitsma and our podcast art is by Brandy
Kenny. Special thanks to Cecile Fisher,
Anita Vaez, our audio, visual and education departments, and
our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to
(20:18):
talk about the important work that they do.
Potsific is impossible without the support of the aquarium's
donors, members, guests and supporters.
Thanks so much for listening.
Hi, I'm Aaron Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walden, and
this is Aquarium. Of the Pod Pacific.
A podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific,
Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned, alongsidethe experts in animal care,
conservation, and more. Welcome back do Scarium of the
(00:31):
Pod Cryptic. This is our Halloween episode.
Also, my name is Madeline. I am Madeline Walden is my full
name. That's scary.
I forgot for a second. And I am the aquarium's digital
content and community manager. And also I'm always joined by
the My Ghost host. My Co ghost.
My Co ghost. We got to use that.
(00:53):
I am the Co ghost today, which means that we're both ghosts.
But my name is Aaron Lundy and Iam the manager of conservation
initiatives. All of that is unimportant today
because we are talking about ghost stories here at the
aquarium. And whether you believe them or
not, we have some really cool stories from our staff who
worked at the aquarium after hours, sometimes during the day,
(01:15):
and have just had some very interesting things happen to
them that can't necessarily be explained right away.
I'm excited because I actually have not heard these stories
yet. I was out sick last week.
The scariest thing of all is being out sick from work.
But Madeline was able to gather up some tales from our staff and
(01:35):
hear a little bit about some of the spooky happenings here at
the aquarium. And I got to say, as much as
this is a beautiful family friendly, happy place to be
during the day, it does get a little creepy at night it.
Is a little creepy at night whenyou walk around and all the
lights are off. It just kind of makes the the
hair on the back of your neck stand up sometimes.
So there's some really great stories in here.
(01:57):
I am so thankful to our colleagues who stopped by my
office in the middle of their day sometimes.
I just saw people walked by and I said, hey, do you have a ghost
story? And a lot of them did.
And so you'll notice I recorded this episode in my office.
And so you'll notice that the audio is a little bit different.
You might hear some spooky watercooler talk in the background.
Illustrative things. So scary.
(02:19):
The printer sound. The printer.
Done done, done, but there's some really, really great
stories in here and I I hope you'll appreciate them.
This is very different from our other episodes.
If you are easily spooked, maybethis is something you want to
skip. But if this is something you're
interested in, then stay tuned. It's.
Spooky Halloween. And happy Halloween, everybody,
and we'll actually be back soon,very soon with Season 3.
(02:44):
Our first story is from Luke Richmond.
Luke is our manager and artisticdirector of the Pacific Pals.
This story is the least scary, so if you are not into the
spooky stories, you can listen to this one and then turn the
podcast off. So years ago, like 10 years ago
probably, I was working in overnight, in education and in
(03:05):
overnights. The educators, just like the
kids in the chaperones, stay overnight at the aquarium and we
sleep in a different gallery usually.
So in this particular occasion, the kids were sleeping in
tropical and along with their along with the chaperones and
teachers and I was sleeping in the Northern Pacific Gallery
right in front of the spider crabs actually, which I guess
are sounds spooky. Spooky.
(03:28):
Yeah, they sound spooky in another.
But you know, they're actually kind of goofy looking.
Really. It wasn't.
I guess I've gotten used to them.
But the spot in front of the spider crabs is a good spot
where it's kind of dark. It's easy to, it's dark, there's
not as many disturbances and so on.
So I'd like to sleep there. And I'm getting ready to nod off
(03:49):
and I'm all by myself because mycolleague Stacey Wong was
sleeping in another gallery overin the front end of the tropical
gallery. And suddenly I hear this sound
like children screaming, echoingthrough the through somewhere in
the aquarium. I couldn't, I couldn't figure it
out. And my first thought is like,
(04:11):
OK, some of these kids have gotten up and they're wandering
around the aquarium, which is like, which is the rule of of
all rules at overnights, you're not allowed to do that.
It's a very big deal if you're caught sneaking around the
aquarium. I'm like, it sounds like kids
are like like running and playing chase.
Like it was a screaming like sound.
And that was all I heard. I couldn't hear any of the other
noise. We just sort of these and it
(04:32):
like maybe laughing. I wasn't sure what it was.
And I'm like, OK, geez, I got toget up and I got to go look for
these kids. So I go and I walk around the
gallery. Sound disappears.
Can't seem to track it to anywhere.
I go look in the behind the scenes areas, no sound.
And I'm that's interesting. I walk back to my well, I guess
(04:56):
I can't do anything about it. So I walked back to where I was
going to sleep, and then I hear it again and it stops for a
while. And so I look around some more,
but no sign of the kids anywhere.
I'm in the Great Hall, nothing. And then I come back to where I
was sleeping and again I hear this noise.
So I'm like, OK, clearly some kids somewhere are running
(05:18):
around in the aquarium because this sounded exactly like this
noise. And I should say I'm a, I'm a,
I'm a very strict scientific rationalist, right?
So I was like, there's a plausible explanation for this.
Yeah, I'm not. Hallucinating.
I'm not hallucinating. I acknowledge that this sounds
very spooky, like ghostly children running around the
(05:39):
aquarium in the middle of the night and I can't figure out
what it is. And I'm like, I got to go wake
up my my Co worker Stacey, because we're going to need to
go find this. So I go and I tap Stacey on the
shoulder and say, hey, I so I just want you to know I'm not
messing with you. OK, But this sounds crazy.
But I'm hearing this, this, thisspooky childlike screaming and I
(06:02):
can't figure out where it's coming from.
And I think something's up, something's up.
And, and say he's like, she genuinely really thought I was
messing with her. And I'm like, OK, listen, but I
just I'll take you to where it is.
I take her back to the spot where I've been sleeping and for
a bit, there's no noise. I'm like, believe me, like this
(06:22):
is happening. It's it's real.
I'm not making this up. I'm not messing around.
And instantly she hears it. We both hear this, this distant
unplaceable sound. And she goes, oh, that is
spooky. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's, it's
spooky all right, but I can't figure out where it's coming
(06:42):
from. We got to like turn the aquarium
upside down because there's kidsrunning around here somewhere.
And so we decided to start searching.
And we searched for just a few minutes and finally make a left
out from by the spider crabs andgo toward toward the middle of
the Northern Pacific Gallery. And I turn my head to my left
and I look and see in the shaft of of in a shaft of light inside
(07:04):
the Otter exhibit. One of the sea otters is just
sitting there just yelling for no reason.
And the exhibit is soundproof oralmost soundproof.
So from the window, from where Iwas in the window, I couldn't
hear it at all, but I could justsee this Otter sitting there
with his mouth agape just like, it's like it's miming this
(07:25):
noise. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
OK, and I go around the side andI guess the soundproofing isn't
as strong over by spider crabs because there I could hear it
and go in the front. Can't hear it.
And like Stacey, we found our ghost children.
It's the otters. The otters.
Oh. My gosh, I'm going to put in a
(07:45):
clip of how they actually sound because it does sound like
screaming children. Yeah, they it sounds almost
exactly like screaming children.Sea otters may look like they
would make a cute little sound, but in fact their vocalizations
are a lot more like a banshee screaming and that is very
normal for them. They will make that sound to
(08:07):
communicate with one another. Sometimes if they see people in
the distance and they think oh that might get me a snack, they
will emit this very high pitchedscream.
So sea otters screaming sounds very normal for sea otters.
And like, in the middle of the night?
In the middle of the night, yeah.
At the aquarium next to the spider crabs, it's already
spooky. So anyway.
So children were safe. Children were safe.
(08:27):
Nobody was breaking the rules. Others were just having a
conversation. And my, my scientific
rationalist, you know, view of the world was, was, was
vindicated. I was glad I didn't have to
acknowledge the existence of ghosts.
Not that night. Not that night.
Yeah, maybe after you listen to this podcast episode.
Perhaps. Maybe.
Next up, we have a story from Rachel Cushman.
Rachel is a dive safety officer at the aquarium, and she was
(08:49):
also on a previous episode of Pod Civic.
Check it out in Season 1. It's all about diving at the
aquarium. So when I first started working
at the aquarium 12 years ago, I did a lot of the administrative
work for the dive office, which means that a lot of the stuff I
needed to do in kind of a quiet space.
So I would come and do my work alot of times after hours when
(09:10):
the volunteers weren't here. In fact, a lot of people would
jokingly call me the Ghost DSO because I was always here after
hours when usually no one else was, and certainly no dive
operations were happening. But I was able to get my work
done a lot better. Well, now the Ghost DSO name
kind of morphed into something else because I think I met a
(09:34):
ghost while coming in after hours on a late shift once.
Actually, it has has happened more than once, if I'm being
honest, which is why I really think there's a ghost.
So at the end of our shift, all of the dive volunteers will fill
all of our scuba tanks, right? We fill them with regular air,
(09:54):
all topped ready to go from the next day, and we close all the
valves really tight so that thathigh pressure doesn't escape
well. It's very interesting and very
spooky when at least three hoursafter everyone has left the dive
locker, all the sudden you starthearing a very faint little in
(10:18):
the dive locker and then it getsa little bit louder and you
don't know what it is. And then you run out and you
see, OK, there's air escaping from one of the scuba cylinders,
one of them that was closed three hours ago.
Why is it air escaping? It's not like anyone came by and
actually turned the handle or anything.
(10:39):
So OK, that's weird. I'll go.
I'll turn it off. Hours later, a different from a
different part of the Walker andacross the locker on the other
side are some other scuba cylinders that were filled days
before and they started leaking little by little.
(11:04):
At that point, you could just imagine I finished my work
really quickly and just. Left the aquarium.
And as I was leaving, I was talking to that, well, I don't
know what the spooky ghost was in the dive locker, but I can
tell you in the 12 years that it's actually same story has now
happened more than once. And I have come to terms with
whoever this creepy ghost is in the dive locker who is just
(11:27):
wanting to give me. A heebie jeebies.
Our next story is from Benjamin Rodriguez.
Ben is a security officer from the aquarium.
When I started here, I was working in the gift store.
This was after we closed. I came to use the bathroom.
So I was walking through admin area and when I got to the area
where the food prep kitchen is, actually when I was coming back,
(11:51):
I was walking through the doubledoors and I just heard like a
loud, like booming laugh that just like it sounded like
somebody heard the funniest jokeof their life.
And this is like, it's like 9:00.
And I kind of tiptoed my way through because when I walked
through, there was nobody here. So I was just like, OK, who's
who's in the area? And it kind of got to where the
(12:12):
green room is and just kind of got the chills.
And because that's where I heardthe laugh.
And you know what? There's nobody here.
I'm going to keep going. So the next morning I come in
and for some reason I just stopped and started reading the
articles in front of John's office.
And there are articles about Warren, the founder of the
aquarium. And one of the first paragraphs
(12:33):
on the article, there's like five articles.
One of the one that I chose to read said Warren was known for
his booming laugh that would echo through the admin area.
And I was that like gave me the chills or it's like, holy cow,
like, is that what I heard? And as I keep reading the second
or third paragraph, there's another sentence in there that
states that Warren was the Marine back in his time.
(12:54):
And being that I was also a Marine, I kind of feel that like
he was kind of like, Hey, I knowwho you are.
Yes, like he was saying hi to me.
And I honestly feel that like hehe is still here.
I I think he is. I I feel his energy sometimes.
That's so cool. It really is.
I think it's very cool, right? It's high, Warren.
(13:14):
Our next story is from Gregory Garcia.
Greg is a member of our IT team and also a former member of our
AV team. There was a time when I was in
AV and I stayed late for a late night all alone in the mezzanine
which is the on the third floor of Pacific Visions when I heard
a laugh from the stairwell from when it sounded like a little
girl. I was so spooked.
(13:36):
Some time went by and I was working on a video where I heard
again this little girl's laugh come from the stairwell.
Seemed very weird as the lighting from the stairwell has
motion detection and turns on when anybody's moving.
There were no lights turning on.Instead of going down the
stairwell, I took the elevator to the second floor of Pacific
Visions to see that PV was oddlyslow.
(14:00):
I walked up the stairwell to seethat there was no one there.
Needless to say, as soon as my time to leave for that day came,
I left right away. Our next story is from Josh
Wagner. Josh is in the queerest and he's
actually also on a previous episode of Pod Suffolk back in
season 1, All about jellies. Check it out after you're done
listening to this episode. So this was kind of weird where
(14:23):
our theater is used to be the backstage jellies area, and
there's always, it was always like kind of weird spooky over
there. But so one day I'm working,
working by myself, and Jelly work is just like pipetting
stuff, like staring into a dish and then to my right, one of my
siphon hoses, which is bent to a90° to clean the Jelly tanks for
(14:46):
no reason. I could see out of the corner of
my eye, kind of lift up and fallto the ground and like, for no
plausible reason. And it was weird enough that I
said to myself by myself in thatarea, you know, what was that?
Seriously. So it was kind of weird and I
was like, you know, stuff falls or whatever, but but so like I
put it back where it was and like smacked the table around
(15:09):
and like shook the table and like literally it didn't move.
So it was super strange there. Is no way it could have fallen
on its up. I'll tell you right now, there
is absolutely no way it could have done it by itself.
Haunted Jelly lab so. Yeah, definitely haunted down in
the Jelly lab. Our next story is from Megan
(15:30):
Smiley. Megan is our sea Otter program
manager and she's also a previous podsific guest.
She was actually our very first episode all about sea otters.
Of course, if you need some information on the adorable sea
otters after listening to this episode, you can check it out
So. Behind the scenes in our sea
Otter habitat, we have a motion sensor.
That is, all of our lights are on a timer and when motion is
(15:52):
happening, the lights stay on and when motion is not
happening, we turn the lights off to save power.
And this is in the staff workingarea, not on the exhibit.
So I was working behind the scenes away from the sensor,
kind of in AL shape away from the sensor.
So there's walls and concrete walls between myself and this
sensor. And I was up there for about 20
(16:15):
or 25 minutes and the sensor hadshut off because it had not
detected any movement. I finished up my session with
animal. I sat my stuff down and all of a
sudden the lights turn on and I walk over and there's no one
there. And I instantly was like hello.
(16:38):
And I looked down below the stairs, there was no one.
The door did not open or close. It just turned on in detected
motion even though there was no one else there but me.
And no otters running around but.
It was so spooky. So then I cleaned up really
quick and left to eat. Yeah, I don't.
Let me gotta get out of there. Our last guest today is Perla
(17:02):
Barajas. She is our retail supervisor.
She works in our Pacific Collections gift store.
Our gift store seems to be a hotspot so she has a couple of
stories. So one night when I was closing
with Charles Sanoyuki, we were cleaning the sales floor.
It was after a late night when we used to have Shark Lago
nights and I came out of the stockroom and I saw these
(17:26):
individual standing by the jury.We used to have a little island
just staring at the jury and he looked off the.
Eerie part was. That he looked at me and that
was the very first time a ghost stared at right on my eyes.
(17:49):
I froze and didn't move. close my eyes, open them again and it
was gone. But the feeling was definitely
there. It it was very fun.
I guess we have a bookcase wherethe book just plops out of the
(18:09):
shelf but doesn't hit the groundright away.
It kind of like suspense for split second, and then it drops.
That one's also recorded. Nobody knew what to say or do at
that point, but every moment I'mgetting that.
Record the ghost wanted to read a book.
Yeah, like, hey. Technically it was a good
(18:30):
question too. Some contacts for this last
story. Perla is talking about a storage
area behind the scenes of the aquarium.
We used to keep our merchandise in there.
So I went in there to do inventory and I saw this person
walk by and I said hello and looked at me kind of like nodded
(18:52):
and continue walking. I finished my inventory.
This person never came out of the room because I kept checking
I will. I wonder who this person was.
And once I was done, I started to walk away and curiosity kind
of hidden and I was wondering ifthere was a door on the other
(19:13):
side that I did not know about. So I ended up walking that way
to find out that there were no exit.
It was just concrete, concrete wall, very thick concrete wall.
So much fun. Oh my.
Gosh, someone or something wanted the scoop on what's going
to be in the gift stores. They wanted to check out our.
Storage. Thank you.
(19:34):
For joining us for this extra spooky Halloween episode of
Podcific, our next episode will be back to regularly scheduled
programming where you can learn all about the Aquarium of the
Pacific's conservation efforts, animal care, and more.
Aquarium of the Pod Civic is brought to you by Aquarium of
the Pacific A501C3 nonprofit organization.
(19:56):
Keep up with the aquarium on social media at Aquarium Pacific
on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This podcast is produced by Aaron Lundy and Madeline Walden.
Our music is by Andrew Reitsma and our podcast art is by Brandy
Kenny. Special thanks to Cecile Fisher,
Anita Vaez, our audio, visual and education departments, and
our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to
(20:18):
talk about the important work that they do.
Potsific is impossible without the support of the aquarium's
donors, members, guests and supporters.
Thanks so much for listening.
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