Ghost Stories of the Yakima Valley Part Two

When you know what you heard but you still find it hard to believe

Before I worked at 107.3 KFFM I had another radio gig in the building that used to be Yakima's Downtown Mall. One Saturday morning I was getting ready for a live broadcast, collecting stuff in the studio when I heard high heels clicking across the tiles in the front entrance. I was in a great mood so I shouted-out a good morning to wherever just came in as I walked to the front to greet them, but there was no one there to greet! I know what I heard but I nervously laughed it off and kept collecting my things. I was in my boss's office when I heard the clicking again. Clear as day, it was high heels, but after a double-check, I confirmed that still there was no one in the building. I checked with my co-workers during that week and some of them had also heard clicking off heels but never shared with anyone because they were in the building alone and how weird. Come to find out the portion of the Mall we were in used to be the Macy's, supposedly there was a storeworker that had passed away back in the day. All the clicking of heels were heard around the time the store would have been opening for the day!

Oh, that's just Shorty

Eric had been working at the Capitol Theatre for less than a year when he was asked to get to the catwalk to focus lights. There is a work light up there but the switches to operate it weren't in the workspace. After a few minutes, he suddenly heard footsteps. Like someone was walking on the random lighting gels that were scattered about. After a couple of times hearing it, he started asking, "who is there?" There was a quick shuffle sound but no verbal response. He yelled down to the stage and asked if anyone else had come up to where he was at. A resounding no came from the stage.  When he told everyone what he was experiencing, everyone just said, "Shorty". He couldn't get out of that space fast enough.

Was it your eyes playing tricks on you or did that just happen?

A couple of years after that, during the annual Warren Miller event at The Capitol Theatre, there was a strange occurrence that can only be explained as supernatural. On the flyrail and backstage, there were these really crappy TVs connected to a video camera at the tech booth. The camera was in a fixed position. Suddenly you would see people go off of short edges in the video and the image on the tv screens would follow. But the whole image would shift in the tv and leave a black void where the image was. Then slowly, the image would slide back into its position. All the while, the 30ft image being projected never changed position.

The Brown Jacket

Tough to explain this one away "rationally". Eric had just wrapped up a show while everyone was getting ready to close up. A few of the crew were on stage and suddenly everyone saw someone stand up, wearing a brown jack and a hat but never saw a face. The person went out one of the side exits located on house right. Eric was asked to go make sure the gate and doors were closed correctly. The weird part that Eric noticed was that he never heard the door close, those doors slam themselves shut pretty hard, he should have heard something. When he got up to the door and looked outside, not only was no one there but there were no footsteps in the freshly fallen snow. One caveat to this particular story, Eric has seen that brown jacket many times, and so have you if you have ever gotten a good look at the painting on the dome. The man that painted it is there, in the same brown jacket he saw!

Don't be afraid of the dark

Isaiah, his four siblings, and his mother were all heading up to the second floor of their apartment one night. They had turned off all of the lights on the ground level making it so dark that you couldn't see past the bottom of the stairs. Isaiah's brother was lollygagging even though their Mom warned him not to. The little guy had wanted to go and turn all the lights on the bottom level back on. In an instant, before he was completely out of sight he was grabbed by the feet and pulled into the darkness. Lucky for him. Mom and the rest of the family were able to catch him and pull him back. All four people can verify this happened including Isaiah's sister who is now a Doctor.

Are we ever really alone?

Gloria used to work for the radio stations, in the building we are currently located in. Back then it was called Clear Channel. She was the overnight jock on the weekends by herself for years. 95% of the time Gloria was alone in the building. Occasionally people would come back record or catch up on other work they had to do but this particular night, that was not the case. She was in the back of the building by the coffee area and while walking past the staircase leading to the bottom level of the building, she tripped somehow. She started to fall sideways in the direction of the staircase and there was nothing to grip on to. She looked down at the staircase and it flashed through her head, she was going to die because those stairs were super steep, and she was alone. Suddenly, a very hard shove hit her back and sent her falling to the ground and the wall just past the stairs. She landed on her knees and sat there breathing heavily from the adrenaline dump and the fear from almost breaking her neck. Then she had to ask herself, did something just pushed me? Something or someone had enough force to physically move her forward and change her momentum. Obviously, Gloria was thankful and said so out loud, but she was also quite startled.

Timmy does what he wants!

One night, Timmy and a friend of his were getting ready to leave for the night. Gloria was in a production room down the hall and they were all yelling goodnight to each other. She remembers having to ask Timmy a question before he left, so she went into the hallway to head to the lobby. She saw his feet, his legs, and the bottom of his long black jacket go into one of the station rooms in front of her. (It was MY 99.3 at the time.) So she walked up to the room and started to walk in while asking her question and as she enters the room, she finds it’s empty. Timmy then yells from the lobby area so Gloria whipped around all confused. She walks up to the lobby and asks, “Were you just in MY 99.3?” He says, “No, I’m leaving.” she said, “I just saw you walk in there! What the hell was that?” Needless to say, she never did find out who it was.

But I didn't leave that there

Bonnie's sure her last house had at least two ghosts, a little girl and an old man. One night when her grandson was a baby she put his bottle on the nightstand so she could feed him when he woke up in the middle of the night. When it was time she went to grab the bottle and it wasn't there. She turned on the light and it was sitting, straight up, in the middle of the room. She believes it was the little girl's ghost and her daughter has had a bunch of experiences with her.

Another time Bonnie was taking a nap because she worked nights, nobody was home at the time but she heard footsteps in her kitchen, and then a few seconds later a man saying, "hello" in her ear. It scared her to the core so bad she couldn't move. When she opened her eyes nobody was there. That was the only time she encountered the man ghost but the girl has been around for years

Do you hear what I hear?

Deejay says they've seen ghosts at Cherry Park. If you go late at night and take pictures, you'll see a lot of orbs flying around. True story, they also have seen people’s faces playing on the toys! Bernice added to that saying, "I have also heard that in the middle of the night you can hear children playing, laughing and the swings they swing by themselves."

The proofs on film but we can't show you that

Sarah wrote in to share about the ghost at the Yakima Training Center.  they call one chief run amuck. Typically he’s harmless... but YTC is on Native land and strange things have been known to happen. She briefly worked for the MWR in the gym and there was a ghost in one of the rooms. The lights were always on motion sensors and there were cameras in every room but there were always orbs in this one room... totally harmless but then there was one squat rack that got moved into storage off the basketball court and the ghost was not pleased... she doesn't know what the deal was with the squat rack but there was one morning at about 8 am after the mopping was done the chain on the punching bag started swinging pretty violently, vibrating and then on the other side of the gym the storage room door slammed open. She avoided the basketball court like the plague after that. Also, she always got cold chills and a really weird feeling in the women’s locker room by the sauna.

*side note Sarah sent me videos that we can't share because they are owned by the Government but I can tell you, they were able to catch it all on film! Holy Crap!

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