The Kalaupapa Ghost
This area is a secluded and picturesque peninsula surrounded by towering sea cliffs. It serves as a reminder of the challenges faced by those afflicted with leprosy in the past and yet it offers stunning natural beauty... and it’s own ghost stories.
A German doctor was once the physician for the Kalaupapa settlement. One evening, he was to attend an evening concert at Kalaupapa village. He was riding his well-trained mule across the flat peninsula from his office in Kalawao after finishing up some business in the small village, so it was dark by the time he left. It was late and his mule was walking a fast pace when it suddenly stopped at the edge of a grove.
He tried to urge the mule on but it refused to budge, so the doctor turned the mule around, rode back a few yards, and had another go down the road but still, the mule refused to go beyond the edge of the grove.
Trying one last time, he took the mule back to the top of a hill and ran the mule full speed down the trail! The mule stopped at the edge of the grove... but the doctor didn’t. And there he laid...
Everyone (except the doctor) knew the grove was haunted. Someone planted a ylang-ylang tree on the side of the road between Kalawao and Kalaupapa, in that thick, gloomy grove to mark the “haunted” spot. It didn’t take much bravery to drive a car or truck past this spot in daylight, but at night... especially when the moon was large and bright, the ghost of a long-dead leprosy patient is said to be seen around the ylang-ylang tree.
This spot is the reason that most residents shun nighttime trips to and from Kalawao after dark, but if there was an absolute need, a bypass road was built in order to avoid the evil spot.
Now, back to our doctor...
Some residents of Kalawao, on their way home from the concert in Kalaupapa heard the doctor’s moaning and stopped at the beginning of the bypass road. Three residents were brave enough to investigate and found the doctor on the ground with head injuries, and the mule still standing at the edge of the grove, still refusing to go any further.
After finally getting the doctor back to his mule, they got the man home by way of the bypass road.
Some years later, a new resident to Kalaupapa recalled his encounter with the haunted spot. No one bothered to tell him the spot was haunted, nor did they advise him to take the bypass road. He set out one night with his three hunting dogs in the back seat of his car. The wooded section was in the deep shadow of a full moon. As the drove through the grove, his dogs whined and jumped into the front seat with him. They growled at the darkness beyond the windows and snapped at the air. The man chased the dogs back into the rear seat but they would not stay. Finally, he stopped his car near the ylang-ylang tree, attempting to calm them.
The ghost he saw on the road ahead was the size of an adult, floating about a foot above the ruts. While most of the specter was gray and see-through, he said from the shoulders up, the ghost was solid and visible. He backed down the road to a turnaround and returned to his home in Kalaupapa. He’d never seen the ghost since and made it a point to use only the bypass road after dark.
The ghost? Legend says that back in the 1870s, when the forced settlement was still new, friends of one of the leprosy patients built her a house in the woods along the trail to Kalaupapa. It was a fine house, one of the best at the time. A jealous patient killed her to get the house but... within a few weeks after moving in, the renegade had been driven mad by her ghost and killed himself.
No one is sure which of them does the haunting. Perhaps it’s both.
Hauntings You Won’t Soon Forget
Looking for more than beaches and sunsets? Mysteries of Hawaii—USA Today’s top ghost tour of 2023 & 2024—reveals the darker side of the islands. Join us as we share the chilling tales of Hawaii’s haunted past. The spirits are waiting…
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