Haunted Rides & Restless Spirits | The Paranormal Side of Amusement Parks

Over 520 million people visited amusement parks across the world in 2025. Whether it's a family vacation, a thrill seeker looking for the newest, highest and fastest coasters, or nostalgia seekers looking for that new, lasting memory, we all go to these parks looking to have a good time, grab some good food, play a few games, and maybe bring home a souvenir. But sometimes it's not just a person in an oversized character suit that's waiting to greet you. Sometimes the dark corner behind the ride. Cars hide secrets of former employees and guests. Sometimes there are people who love the park so much that they just can't leave it behind. You thought your favorite coaster was the scariest part of your trip, Think again. Those three thrills and chills might really start after you exit the ride.

Welcome to The No Such Things Ghost Podcast. My name is Greg. You just heard Andy in the intro talking about haunted amusement parks, I'm assuming.

Yes, yes. We're going to talk about one specifically here in the United States. I gave some facts about worldwide visitation, but, like, we're going to key in on those. We're going to probably come back to this on other episodes because there's a lot of haunted theme parks, apparently.

Cool. All right. If it's your first time listening, I am a skeptic. I also also don't know a lot about the paranormal. Andy here, how would you best describe yourself? What do you.

Well, I'm, I would like to believe in all this, but I'm kind of just along for the ride.

He's along for the ride, everybody. Also, we're going to do this right at the startup. If listen to the show, you like the show, tell your friends about it, like, and subscribe to it on Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever and give us a rating, please. It helps a lot.

Yep. Five stars, please.

Yep. And that's it. Let's get into it.

All right, so we're going to start with a theme park that I've been to multiple times over the years. It's right near us. I'm pretty sure Greg's been there a lot, too. Is Kings Island.

Yeah.

Just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Little history on the park. First, it opened in on April 29, 1972. It's in Mason, Ohio. The first coaster they had was the Racer. That's a twin track wooden coaster. They also featured their replica eiffel Tower. In 1979, their most famous coaster opened. That was the Beast, by the way, the first coaster that I ever rode as a kid. Really? Yeah. The most monstrous one. Around the one I decided to jump on. At the time it was built, it was the world's tallest, fastest, and longest coaster. And now it still holds the record for the longest wooden coaster in the world. It's 7,361ft. So, yeah.

Should we talk a little bit of my. My feelings about roller coasters? Because I feel like this would be a good place to talk about it, because.

Let's stop right there. We're going to talk about a lot of coaster stuff.

I don't like roller coasters. I. I've been on a bunch of them. Don't get me wrong. I've done it. I have. I do not like heights.

I also cannot stand heights.

And I think my. Once you get on the coaster and you're moving, it's fine. Yeah, I've had good time on coasters.

I like it. The adrenaline rush. I think being up high.

I think the problem is, is the journey up to the roller coaster. I've always had that problem. You know, you're. You're. You're right next to people. It's a big queue going up these steps, and they're usually like graded walkway. You can see straight down.

Oh, yeah. So as you go and you're waiting,.

You're kind of standing there and the little bit of the vertigo kicks in. You know what I mean? It's weird. Humans are strange anyway, that I want to get on this machine that I shouldn't be on and go really fast and upside down and. Or dangle my feet or do all this other stupid stuff and like this.

One on just a bunch of planks of wood.

Because ideally, I guess, humans love being really close to death because that's where the adrenaline rush comes from. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this. Everything in my body is telling me not to do it, but I do it anyway.

Sounds like fun.

Yeah. Great. All right, well, go ahead. What do we got?

So in 1981, they opened the most infamous ride, the Bat. I don't. Do you remember anything about the Bat?

I know it sounds familiar, but I don't.

It's a little. Probably before you were there.

Yeah.

So it was cursed from the beginning, with constant mechanical issues and closures. I heard these rumors a lot. I think everybody I knew and everybody that was going at that time heard rumors of this being the ride that caused many injuries and supposed deaths on the ride. Well, it turns out that wasn't ever true. This ride was actually safe. It just kept shutting down.

Okay.

And I know we had one at Kentucky Kingdom here that was the same ride. It was called the Vampire.

Yes.

And I was actually stuck on that one sideways.

That sounds terrible.

Yeah. And apparently, you know, the same thing happened on this one. Well, eventually in 1984, they had to close it because it just was non stop being repaired, so.

Gotcha. See, that sounds. Being stuck on a ride in any form or fashion, I think that I'm. I would lose my mind. Luckily, I've never been stuck on a roller coaster.

And those two had loops. And I've known people that were stuck upside down in the loop.

Nope, not gonna.

At least I was just sideways, but you know.

Yep. That sounds terrible.

Yeah, I would.

I would. I would freak out. It would be a problem.

Yeah. Staring at the ground from however many feet up.

The idea with the loop is to get it over pretty quick.

Yeah, it's. You're moving at a pretty good speed.

I'm going.

Yep. So then the next year in 1985, they built Whitewater Canyon. That's going to come up here in a little bit. June 9, 1991 was an infamous day in park's history. There were three deaths at the park. Two guests and one security guard.

Oh, wow.

And another guest that was injured. There was an electrocution accident in the Oktoberfest area. They have a big pond, and that's where one guest and the security officer died. And then later that same day, a woman is ejected from flight.

Commander, can you tell me more about the electrocution? How. What. What happened with this pond?

There was some wiring issues. I guess they had lighting and stuff. And one the two guests, I'm assuming, climbed in when they weren't supposed to. This is one of those things that's off limits, but.

Right. You're not supposed to be there to begin with.

Yeah.

And somebody made a security.

Security guard went to grab them to pull them out and. And the electrical failure. Yeah. And they did save the one guest.

So that's kind of a situation where, like at the zoo and you're like, don't lean over the railing. But people do anyway because people are inherently stupid.

And I mean, there's accidents. We're going to talk about one later on that. When you see these signs that say, do not cross, do not climb. Do not go over them.

Pay attention.

There's a reason for that.

Yeah, there's. There's a purpose.

You might end up in one of these stories.

Cool. All right.

So, yeah. Then later that day, a woman was thrown from the flight. Commander, it's like A giant swing ride, but little space themed cars.

Gotcha.

And the car detect.

It's one of the ones that swing around and get like. They open. Yeah.

They kind of like it's on a chain basically. And it spreads out.

Okay. Yeah.

And you're. So as you're going in a circle, it just keeps pulling you around.

How did she fall out? Was there a malfunction?

The car. The car fell.

Oh, the car fell off.

Yes. It was a malfunction on the ride. Yes.

Okay.

So that was the worst day. Now we're not going to talk about any of those anymore. Those don't come up in these stories. Like, those aren't related.

Weird. Yeah.

There's one attraction at the park, though, that isn't really advertised. Most people don't even know about it. If you come in from the north side to the main parking area, just outside of the main gates to Kings island, there is the Dog Street Cemetery.

Okay.

Right on premises, right there in the parking lot. It was active from 1803 to 1869.

Okay.

It actually got lost to nature. It was overgrown for decades. And when they started doing construction for the park, somebody came across it and they had to stop and, you know, get people in to preserve it and everything else. And then they built around it.

Okay.

So it is. It is still maintained by the parks.

And so there is a cemetery on the premises.

Yes.

With gravestones and everything else.

Yes. There are still grave markers there and everything. It's. It's blocked off in the parking lot, but you can see it if you're on. I never knew it was there. I. Of course, we come from the south side of the park.

Right. So it's still open for people for visitation purposes in some form or fashion.

Yeah.

But it was a historical grave.

It's a historical. I mean, it's from 1869 and it was lost, so I don't think.

But you can see. But if you drive up.

Yeah. If you go to the edge of.

The park, Start your Kings island trip.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm glad I never came in the north side.

Like, look at all those graves. Oh, no. If you die here, you get buried.

Yeah. You could. You could live here permanently.

Yeah. Hey.

Yeah. So lifetime pass, baby. There. There is one haunting at the park that is related to this cemetery.

Okay.

They used to have a bunch of trams that would bring you from your car to the front gates and stuff. I remember riding these all the time. And apparently a lot of the drivers of these trams, especially late in the day they would see a little girl in a blue dress run either in front of or near the tram. And of course, they'd stop, either thinking they were gonna hit her or thinking the girl was lost. And they try to help her. And when they go to call out to her or walk up to her, she disappears. Well, this is believed to be Missouri Jane Galeaner, who is a young girl that is buried in the Dog Street Cemetery. She's been spotted not only in the parking lot, but also near Whitewater Canyon, the Whitewater Rapids ride that they have there. The rumor was that this little girl drowned in a pond there that still carries water through the Whitewater Canyon.

Okay.

That has been disproven, that part of.

It, because that's not how ponds work.

The pond is not there. There is no lake or pond or anything that was there before the park that is there now. They have their own little reservoir that pumps the water through there. But that was the rumor for a long time. Missouri Jane is the only grave that fits like that age or description. She was born in 1840 and died in 1846. You know, records are lost and scarce for this time.

Yeah.

So there's nothing saying whether she ground or what happened, but she was buried. This is. There's a lot of family plots and different things there, but that's who they believe this little girl is. The girl in the blue dress, Missouri Jane that apparently guests and employees have spotted throughout Kings Island. All right, so if you're ever there, you know, make sure and say hi to her.

Don't.

Don't talk about the pond or anything. No, she won't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, because it wasn't.

Now, the other big attraction, the Eiffel Tower.

Right.

I'm sure you've been to the top of that Y. Take these elevators up. It's. I don't know if the scale is correct, but it's an exact replica of.

The Eiffel Tower on a different.

On a smaller scale. It's a smaller scale, but. Yeah, like. I don't know, the.

Yeah. Ratio.

Ratio or whatever.

Yeah.

But sometimes near park closing, you know, you get. Later in the night, you might see some shadowy figures roaming around the tower or up on top of the tower. Sometimes the elevators have a little malfunction, a little. Little glitch.

Yeah.

And if there's any kind of delays on the mechanisms or anything, that's Tower Johnny Tower Johnny. Yeah. They. They have a name for him. There is a reason they have a name for him. There is a Boy who did unfortunately die on the Eiffel Tower.

Okay.

Because of what I said. Do not cross the lines. If there's a. Do not climb. Do not climb. So May 13, 1983, Johnny Harder, who was 17, was with his graduating class from Delaware, Ohio, and they took their trip to Kings Island. Johnny had a few drinks, as a lot of underage kids like to do.

Never.

And he got a little courageous. They went up the Eiffel Tower and he climbed over a restricted gate and he fell down the elevator shaft and was hit by the counterweights.

Fun.

Yeah. So, you know, everybody at the park who's worked there has known this story, and so they think that's who haunts the Eiffel Tower. So any. Anything, Anything goes wrong with the Eiffel Tower, it's. It's Johnny. Johnny playing around with you. It's never malicious or anything. He's a playful spirit.

Okay.

Yeah. You know, you just see shadowy figures and he's still drunk, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, not happy stories.

But I have a question. Well, if we go. If you. If you die while you're drunk, is your ghost drunk? Like, is that something that sticks around?

Well, we'll have to ask one.

Would you. Okay.

Yeah.

Would you constantly be, like, in a weird state of inebriation?

Maybe that's why they have trouble using computers and stuff, because they're just so drunk. Maybe we've answered your question.

Maybe. So that. That came up earlier when I was asking why can't ghosts do simple stuff?

But, yeah. Anyway, Ghost Hunting 101.

I don't know. I don't know if anybody would know that unless you specifically asked him.

That's gonna have to add. Be added to our list of questions, of course. Were you drunk?

Yeah.

Are you still drunk?

Are you still drunk?

Were you on drugs?

Yeah.

We're not cops. Don't worry.

Don't go. We're cool, man.

Don't worry. We just want to know.

We're cool, man.

We want to know what goes on in the afterlife. So we're gonna move on from Kings Island. Those are the two big ghost stories up there. And we're gonna head over to Rock, West Virginia. This former amusement park is known as one of the most haunted locations in our country. Now, it was in operation from 1926 to 1966. It was opened by Conley Snido. They had a pool and a large pond for swimming and paddle boat and kayak rides, the usual small little kiddie rides and stuff like that. And their big famous now, infamous rides were the Ferris wheel and the giant swings, similar to what we talked about at Kings Island. But this is just the seats that swing around. Basically just like a little swing. You get chained into it.

Chained into it. Yeah. And it's on chains and it's just a little, like, plasticy seat thing. I also hate Ferris wheels, by the way. I hate Ferris wheels. I think Ferris wheels are the worst.

Yeah. They're kind of boring. And then you just go up and sit at the top and stare out and.

Yeah, my problem is not the boring. My problem is like, you know, you're.

Always being up at the height. Yeah.

You're always with somebody who's a jack wagon and they want to swing it. They want to swing the thing. I don't want any of that in my life. I want to be secure.

Yeah, yeah. And there's nothing holding you in there.

Not really. There's not a lot going on.

There's a little gate that shuts.

I just don't trust them. Don't trust the Ferris.

And this one is the older style, so it's kind of like that swing seat too. It's just where you're like two people sit in a car and run around.

Terrible.

Yeah. At least put the whole cage around me so I stand.

Like I said, the only Ferris wheel I've been on is the one where it's just a seat.

Oh, yeah.

And you just kind of hang it out and it's terrible.

Yeah. No, no.

All right, so what. What happened here?

So during the time that it was open, there were six confirmed deaths and other rumored ones.

I'm going to assume drownings.

Yes. There were several drownings to do with the pool in the lake. Yes.

I don't.

I don't know what the guidelines were back then, whether the lifeguard training was up to par.

Right.

And whether the amusement park guidelines were up to par. I was a different.

I'm pretty sure that was. Yeah. Pretty common stuff where there was a lot of negligence associated with it, where it's kind of like, oh, yeah, we have. And you gotta think like you're kind of dealing with borderline carnies with some of these places. And it's kind of like, oh, it's just about making money. It's not about upkeep. It's not about. It's not about safety measures. Those things weren't really a thing. It's about making money and. And that's it.

Right, right. And unfortunately, a lot of these were children at this park.

Yep.

Unfortunate. Yeah. The park Said vacant for years after it closed. Finally, the heirs decided to sell it. In the 1980s, the White family purchased it and they still own it to this day. But they intended in the 80s on renovating and reopening the park, you know, and they started digging up the grounds, trying to. The pond had been sealed in, so they had to re. Dig all this stuff out. Well, they started finding Native American artifacts.

On the ground, Man, a lot of.

Native Americans, they had to stop what they were doing. They had to call in the Marshall University and they set up a dig. They found many remains of Native Americans, including a lot of children. This was apparently an area of great tragedy that apparently nobody knew about. I wonder if maybe the first person that opened this park knew about some of these things in 1926.

Yep.

So people believe that this was either a Native American burial ground or it was cursed by Native Americans and left abandoned.

Of course.

Yeah, it set. It sat there in wilderness for hundreds of years after Native Americans abandoned it. And in 1775, Mitchell and Phoebe Clay claimed the land. They named their 800 acre farm Clover Bottom. Well, eight years later, they started having a bunch of land disputes with the Shawnee and back and forth, back and forth. Well, finally the Shawnee came in and they ended up killing two of the children, taking another child, killing that child, and then the family retaliated and killed a lot of Shawnee.

Gotcha.

This became known as the Clover Bottom Massacre. So I feel like that would have been known in the area.

It probably would have been.

I mean, again, it was a while before that.

But you're also dealing with, you know, protected lands or culturally or historically significant areas, like there in 1926 or whatever. That wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah.

And they did in 1937. So short. Least at some point after they opened the park, they found out about that and they erected it. Did a marker for the family. They did for the children. And it sits right outside.

Not so much for the Native Americans.

Of course not.

No. Because that. No, doesn't matter. Because in 1930 you said 37.

Yeah. And.

Yeah, I mean, they're not gonna care.

About that still, to be fair, this. The. The land was where the children were killed. The Shawnee were killed off of the land.

Off the land.

Yeah. It's not like a memorial for the whole.

For. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know, not taken aside, that's should have been a marker somewhere for the entire massacre because there was probably a lot of things that was going on before. That's not really documented in there.

And.

Yeah, land disputes is in quotations there.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. So there are many spirits that are spotted around this park, including Native American figures. People go there all the time doing ghost hunting. The white family, you can't. You can't just go on to the grounds. You have to set up a tour with the white family now. They do tours nightly.

And let me ask a question. It's more about the Native American stuff. Why is the paranormal so. So Native American focused?

Is it because this was their land before it was ours?

Right. But I mean, is it a lot.

More time that they were here than we've been here?

Right. And I get it. And there's also. I mean, I can understand. You know, we've talked about Waverly and we've talked about all these other kind of. You know, there's a lot. When. There's a lot of history of something. Right. There's a lot of stories that come up around it. Right. Especially when it's usually terrible in nature or unfortunate.

Right.

But is it. Is it partly because of that and partly because of this mysticism and stuff? That's.

That.

That is. Well, there's, again, that I think is trumped up by people that are non Native American. Like, is it because of that? Is it because they're like, oh, medicine man and different kind of.

Yeah. I think you're dealing with, you know, a common ground. Like, the people that you're talking about that are bringing this stuff up are already interested in ghosts and, you know, other paranormal legends.

And so you're finding a way to.

And so you're. They're connecting to the Native American because a lot of their legends deal with, you know, spirits moving on and with legendary creatures and, you know, whatever gods and beings that visited them in tradition, and they connect dots with that. And so they see a lot of commonality between it. And so it's easy to.

It's easier for those legends to grow,.

To come back to life, to. To.

Right. Okay.

And, you know, I would like to say that their tradition is being honored most of the time. I don't think so. I. I don't know if I can go that far. Sometimes it's not. It depends on who you're speaking to. And that's with everything. You know, I mean, we try to have fun with these episodes, but, you know, on the parts that are a little more grim, we're not, you know, completely mocking or making fun of things like that. But, I mean, there are some shows out there that all that don't really care about any of that stuff. And we're having a genuine conversation about how the paranormal connects to, like, native american legend and not treading all over it. You're kind of questioning how it comes into play and maybe mocking the people that are bringing it in and stuff like that. But you're not, you know, treading on their legends and, you know, saying that their tradition is not worthy of conversation.

Like, it just. It's. The problem is. The problem is sometimes it feels like the same way as. But, you know, people came to this country and then took over their lands and appropriate their lands. It feels like sometimes you're appropriating their culture in order to make a ghost story out of it. And that not you. But I'm just saying. I'm saying, in general, it feels like another appropriation.

I'm sure a lot of us have watched the ghost hunting shows that do that kind of thing, and we don't like.

Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like it sounds gross. All right.

We're not yelling at demons and making fun of native. Native americans and that would be terrible. It's very distasteful. And I don't know how anybody makes the show on that for that amount of time.

Yeah, no.

Anyway, moving on back to the abandoned theme park here. One of the figures that is spotted is in the cars of the ferris wheel. Now, of course, all this is abandoned and overgrown. I'll show you some photos. We'll post some up and everything. A lot of people still, like I said, take the tours. A lot of professional ghost hunting teams go there and do investigations and stuff. So this figure has been spotted sitting in the cars of the ferris wheel at night. It's rumored that a man fell from the ferris wheel at some point, but that is not confirmed in any records that I can find. And even according to the white family, they don't know either. In the early 50s, there was an accident when a delivery truck backed up into the swing while it was running, and a young girl was killed in that. And her spirit is often seen on the ride, Walking around the ride. Sometimes the swing will move on its own. Not a lot of wind going or anything. So it's become a tradition when people are taking tours, they'll bring little toys and trinkets and leave them on the swing for. And according to the family, sometimes some of them have disappeared.

Huh? Yeah. Okay. Typical, Typical ghost stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's another spirit of a young boy who hangs out near the Front gates where the pool used to be. There was an accident in 1966. He drowned. He was left unattended by his parents. They just dropped him off at the park and when they came to pick him up, nobody could find him. There was a search for him. Eventually somebody looked at the bottom of the pool and he was stuck down there. And that was the last. Of course that was 1966. That's when the park ended up closing. But even right after that they filled in the pool and then it didn't take long for the whole park to shut down.

Yeah.

And he's been spotted all over the front of the park. They leave little toys and stuff at the ticket booth at the front and you'll see them move sometimes on their own and different things like that. More typical ghost stuff.

Ghost behavior. Yeah.

Now also 1966 in the area, just.

Oh.

To keep it relevant, that time period were the first sightings of the Mothman.

Oh, okay.

So.

So we're trying to tie everything.

We're just, you know.

Yeah.

We're just bringing up the coincidence just in the area. It was slightly after that the park closed, but you know.

Right. And we still, we still haven't gone fully into.

No, we haven't really talked about it. Greg is somewhat familiar with Mothman.

Yeah. And we'll, we'll talk about that. Well, that'll have its own probably multi part episode.

So like you know that of course it's abandoned now, so there's more opportunity to see the spirits. I guess if you're taking a tour and nobody's around, they have that. Okay, we'll move on to our last one.

Okay.

And Orlando, Florida is the location.

Oh no.

Disney World.

Okay. Yeah.

And anybody who has heard of the paranormal, follow the paranormal, know of all the legends of Disney. Even if you haven't, you've probably heard of all the conspiracies of Disney.

I know, I know about like nobody dies in the park. They take him outside the park and then pronounce them dead and stuff like that.

Funny you bring that up.

Yeah.

So we'll get to that in a minute.

Okay.

Because I'll, I'll spoil that. None of these stories are confirmed related to the death that they're actually tied to.

Okay.

So could be a cover up, could be nothing. Who knows? We'll get to. Let's, let's talk about a little bit of history of the park again. On October 1, 1971, they opened up. They host 50 million guests per year just at Disney World. It's the Most visited vacation resort in the world. Eleven years later, they opened the Epcot Center. The first major, major closure of the park was on August 31st of 1985, and that was due to Hurricane Elena.

Okay. Yeah.

So that's the first time they ever really had to set the whole park down or anything. There have been 72 deaths confirmed at the park since its opening through the end of 2025. Only nine of those, both combined, Disneyland and Disney World, have been a ride related accident. Okay, so 72 deaths at this park. Nine combined. So that's just a confirmed number.

That's a lot of people that's still that are coming in there. So the statistics.

Yeah, I mean that's 72 deaths over that many years.

Pretty good track.

You've got all kinds of people coming in. It's hot weather.

Yeah.

There's all kinds of different things that cause these. So that's a good thing. Most of them are not related to the rides and it's very few. Anyway, let's go over a few little strange facts. There's secret tunnels under the park.

Okay.

Not for aliens or nuclear attacks. No, no, no, no. These are so that the characters can travel incognito through the park and also to do maintenance and all that stuff.

Makes sense.

Custodial, just, you know, keep the park running. For the low price of $169, you can actually tour this.

Oh, really?

And other behind the scenes aspects. Interesting one 69 on top of whatever the other cost is.

The already absorbent fee. That it?

Yes. And I'm sure that goes up every year. Oh, you know, it does. Plus. Oh, you get a lunch with that.

Oh, great.

169 Bucks gets you the tour. And lunch.

And lunch. Great.

So, yeah, there's the Magic Kingdom's main street. It features a row of American flags, but they're all either missing a star or a stripe so that they don't have to be raised or lowered like traditional animals.

Interesting. Okay.

That's a weird thing. I didn't know Now.

Now we're just getting to Disney trivia.

Yeah. I thought some of these things were cool. I'm not even listing, you know.

No, that's interesting.

Oh, and those double as lightning rods. Oh, do they pull the flags? So that keeps you safe.

Yeah. I don't mean to interject. Are we getting somewhere?

Yeah, we're going to the ghosts in a minute.

Okay. Because right now it just feels like Disney facts. And I get it, but I don't feel. I feel like this is off topic. No, we're not a Disney podcast.

Well, no, but now we're going to get to some of the spooky stuff.

Okay.

Happens at Disney.

All right, great.

Also still park related.

Okay. Okay.

Because from what I can tell, at least once or twice a month, someone will try to spread someone else's ashes at Disneyland.

Yeah, okay, I can see that. So some Disney file. It's like I'll go to the park every. Every three weeks and I go to the park.

Yeah, I need you to need it. Well, don't do this. No, because it's technically a misdemeanor because it's private property and you don't have permission.

Correct.

And Disney will not ever give anyone permission. It's been asked thousands of times. And they will not give you permission. They. They catch. If they catch you, you get escorted out. They usually don't press charges. But you're banned.

You're banned from the park.

Probably from every park, probably for life.

Yeah.

You're not ever coming back. People sneak stuff in all the time and pill boxes in little bags, whatever,.

And sprinkle it through.

Sometimes people do get away with it. The most common places that people try to do this are like the flower beds and, you know, different little areas like that. They'll try it at the front gates and occasionally on the deceased favorite ride.

Oh, just like getting the ride and.

Just throw it in the air, which is most commonly that. It's Space Mountain, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and of course, the Haunted Mansion.

Yes, I do remember the. Oh, going back. I do remember the Haunted Mansion because it was actually pretty cool. I did. I did enjoy what I've seen of that.

That is.

Yeah, it was pretty neat.

Yeah.

Because there were some interesting, like, tricks they do. You know, you're in the car, you know what I mean? You're in the thing, and then you kind of go past it and you see a spooky guy sitting next to you. Then you have the ballroom dancing thing. It was all pretty neat.

And Haunted Mansion will come back up here soon.

Okay.

Maybe it has to do with people's ashes being in there. Maybe it's something else. We'll figure that out. So one last thing about the.

Oh, boy.

The spreading of the ashes.

Sure.

Internally. Not officially, but internally. This is called a code grandma. So they'll. They radio that out and Code Grandma. Code Grandma.

We got a code grandma.

Yeah. So they'll shut the ride down, but they'll tell guests that it was technical difficulties.

Right.

So it's real vague and Then they come in with the heavy duty vacuums because it's a biohazard.

Yeah.

So like, don't. Don't try it. Don't try it. Mickey's always watching cameras everywhere.

Big Mickey.

Yeah, A big furry Mickey is gonna get you. And then. Oh, when they vacuum it up, you're not getting it back. It goes straight in the trash.

Yeah.

So instead of your grandma residing on It's a Small World, it's at the Orlando city dump.

Yeah.

Not in the park at all.

Not in.

Yeah, so just think twice about that. Now we'll get to what we're here for.

Right? Right. The haunted. All of our Disney facts.

Yes. So one of the places that people were most commonly creeped out by is It's a Small World. Well, yeah. Have you seen this ride?

I've been on that ride.

Like I said, I've not been there.

It's weird.

I watched a video of it specifically to see this again and creepy dolls.

It's a bunch of creepy dolls. It's a Small World after. It's. It's creepy all the way through.

And they're singing the whole time.

I'm starting to remember more about Disney as we're talking.

I'm glad I can bring back all these great memories for you.

No.

Of creepy dolls.

And it was just mostly I was confused by the time I got out of there.

Sometimes the ride will shut down, lights will turn out, people get a creepy feeling, and then the dolls are just staring right at them. Well, okay, could be coincidence.

Yeah. I mean, it's not.

I don't. A lot of the workers that you know, run this ride, they'll say that the dolls have moved and that kind of stuff. This one's a little one. This one's not a big deal one.

Okay.

Could be just the creepy factor of the dolls.

So I'm waiting for you to hit me with something big.

Do better next time, Walt. Just saying.

Just saying. Yeah. Where's the crazy thing?

So let's go to the Haunted Mansion.

Okay.

A little bit better here for you. You would assume, you know, just seeing regular ghosts. Animatronic ghosts. Regular animatronic ghosts. Not real ghosts, but I don't think.

They're animatronic, are they?

No. This is the.

It's projected.

Yeah, this is the projections.

Okay.

Sorry. Like I said, I haven't been there. Yeah. You ride around on Dune buggies through the track with the ghosts projected on pictures. And you said the dancing ballroom. You have the ghost host narrator. He tells you there's 99 happy haunts in the mansion and Room for a Thousand inviting you to join. Oh, and there might have been two that did join. Oh. Because there's two main ghosts that are spotted. There's an older man with a cane, and he'll be seen towards the end of the night, right before closing. He'll go to enter the dune buggies, and the people that are supposed to be loading them, they'll come up and try to stop him or ask him if he needs help getting on or whatever. He's old man with a cane, and poof, gone.

All right, what happened with this old man with the cane?

Well, we don't really know. There's no death that's confirmed on the Haunted Mansion. Once again, confirmed.

So now we're getting into conspiracy of I.

There's. There's no story that people connect to this.

Okay, so I thought you were trying to tie it into, like, technically, no one does.

We'll get to some that have a backstory to them. But technically, I mean, like I said, this is the most popular ride to spread ashes. It could just be because someone spread Grandpa's ashes here. A little bit of ashes were left, and he really loved the dune buggies and gets in there and. But yeah, then he disappears. He'll. Sometimes he'll walk just down the hallway. There's like an entrance tunnel that you go through, and people will see him there. There is a slight connection. I don't know how they made this connection. I couldn't find anything that said. But apparently there's a pilot that crashed in Bay Lake, which is right outside the park in the 40s.

But you couldn't find.

I couldn't find any confirmed pilot that crashed in the 40s in that lake. I don't know why the park is.

Yeah. Why would he crash in the lake nearby and then end up in Disney?

Maybe he was trying to fly into Disney and.

Well, that's not the way you do it. Yeah.

There's not a landing strip there or anything. So I don't know. But that's the only connection that they really have to that one. But there's no real story with the ride. Now, the other one has been seen by a lot of guests and workers, and it's a young boy. And you'll be. Right. You could be in the middle of the ride and look to an empty dune buggy in front of you or whatever, and a small boy might be peeking out, and it was empty when you got on it.

Okay.

And he's seen you know, in the loading area and, you know, just basically peeking around corners. And, you know, he's always seems to be happy. So apparently he really likes the Haunted Mansion. Right.

Well, you think it would get old after a while. If you're stuck there for. For years and years and years, you're like, I've seen this before, but around this whole time.

Especially the little kid I could see, you know, he's okay. Yeah, but I mean, keep doing it over and over.

Little kids could still, like, learn. Like, if you were a little kid for 40 years, mentally, you wouldn't be a little kid.

True, true.

But unless he's experiencing the same day.

Over and over, maybe. Maybe it's, you know, he's spotted in different spots, but maybe it's kind of.

He just resets. Yeah, that's why it doesn't make any sense to me. Because, I mean, also, I guess maybe ghosts. Ghosts, since they don't have a physical body, they can't make new memories because they can't get new wrinkles on their brains.

Yeah.

So they just have to start all over everything. Which makes ghosts even more boring because they can't figure out new ways.

But he's having a good time. That's all that matters, I guess.

Okay.

And no. No story that. That anybody can find that's related to.

This boy either way. Yeah.

No, that's a good thing. I guess.

That's. Yeah, yeah. That actually sounds like a positive, like.

But once again, is it this dang mouse covering stuff up?

Gosh darn mouse out here?

Yeah, it's. It's the Mickey Mouse conglomerate doesn't want you to know that his rides are unsafe and that people are stuck there for.

Yeah, yeah.

Ever. Another spirit that seen is Roy O. Disney, the brother of Walt Disney.

Okay. What's he doing there?

Well, right now he just walks down Main street and he likes to come out when there's big events going on and fireworks shows at night and people spot him walking down the street. He was the older brother of Walt and he actually postponed his retirement so that he could finance and oversee the construction of Disney World. Because Walt passed right before they opened.

Okay.

So he had to finish it and he did it.

So he's just touring the park that he worked so hard on.

Yes, he's. He's stuck there. Walt is not seen here. He's seen it. Disneyland. That'll be a story for.

I guess that would kind of make sense, right?

That's. He has an apartment there. So.

Well, and that's where, you know, Disney Studios and everything else.

He spent most of his hard work and time there. And.

Right.

Like, we'll get to a little bit of Walt later. I do have. Okay, one more conspiracy that you'll, you'll love.

Where's his head at?

That's it. The next ride we're gonna talk about is the Twilight Zone. Tower of Terror. Ah, okay, so it's based on the Twilight Zone TV show. It's a dark, theater based ride. It's got sudden drops in the darkness, bunch of. Like there's a movie going on. So you're getting through this world of the Twilight Zone in this old Hollywood hotel. And there's a rumor that they have bellhops that load you in. Like the workers all dress as bellhops to keep the theme going. And there's a rumor that one of them died years ago while working the ride. And his spirit is seen by workers and riders. Some riders report feeling like someone's sitting behind them. When the seats are empty, they'll see someone standing over in the corner. Now, of course, once again, no record.

No.

Of any of these bellhops dying. But we don't know who's gonna tell us the truth here. They might be.

Why does that everything has to boil down to conspiracy?

Well, that's what Disney World is built on, is conspiracy.

I don't think it's that malicious. I don't think that it is. And I think that it seems like they're hiding something because of that whole rumor about, like no one does at Disney World. It's not for that. Let me look this up. All right, so, okay, so there's no one dies at Disney thing as it's, it's not exactly that easy, right? Because say someone goes into cardiac arrest in the park, right? So EMTs are stationed.

They have them all over the park.

I'm sure technically they don't. They might have passed there, right? Like they could die from cardiac arrest.

Right?

But guess what? An EMT can't do pronounce someone pronounce death.

Yeah.

Right. So the doctor pronounces death, right? And it's not like these things aren't attributed to happening at the park. It's just that you don't declare someone dead where they're at until a doctor does it. Well, also, apparently the same thing happens on other kind of resort scenarios, okay? Just because patients are transported away and usually there's work done by the EMTs, it's, it's, it's not as nefarious as it sounds. Now, I'm sure Disney or any other resort doesn't want to be like, oh, yeah, you don't want this guy died.

Everybody knowing every.

But it's not so much of like,.

All right, let's go.

Let's go hide the body.

Yeah.

Like, they drag them out and go, okay, now they're outside of Disney. Now they can die.

I can't confirm whether or not Donald Duck is pushing them on a gurney through the tunnels to get him out. I can't confirm or deny that that's.

What it turns into, because it feels. Number one, it's a big place where a lot of people go.

Yeah.

And again, a lot of people are there. A lot of stuff happens. A lot of. A whole lot of people are saying stuff and. Or. And. Or making up stories like. Because there is a lot of. There is a lot of history to Disney World, and you know what I mean? A lot of people come through it every day. People have died there. It's easy to label them as an evil corporate entity.

And I would say that most of the parks don't. I mean, they're definitely not going to advertise all the deaths on their sites and stuff.

Yeah. They post it.

Right? Advertise is not the word. But, like, Kings island has zero days without death. Yeah. Has had things about the cemetery and different little things. Like, some of them will toy with the idea of hauntings and stuff. Disney does none of that.

Disney not gonna mess with that.

None of this is listed officially on any of those.

Here's the biggest reason. Because it's for little kids. It's not.

Yeah.

It's not for them.

Even though it's probably mostly adults that go to Disney.

Yeah. It's not for Disney adults, which just sounds gross to me. It's for tiny kids. It's for little kids to have fun in a magical world. Also for their parents to spend a whole lot of money and for them to make a lot of money.

Yes.

I don't. I don't. I personally don't like the idea of Disney adults because it's like, get a hobby. You're spend. How much money do you have? How much money do you make to go to the park every.

I can't believe this is the point where we got to really go in on something. Yeah.

No, because the rest of the stuff just felt like the standard. It felt like normal stuff. Yeah. Go there. There's a ghost there. Why? I don't know. But yeah. No, if anything, that I'm disgusted by anything here. It's Disney adults.

All right, well, speaking of Disney adults. No, we go to the last haunted ride. We're going to talk about the Pirates of the Caribbean. Probably the most famous ghost resides here. There's two ladies they just refer to as the ladies that supposedly died in a freak accident. As the ride came to the bottom of the track, there's this small, like 14 foot drop. It's a slow boat ride, but, you know, it's not anything major. But it does go downhill. And the rumor is that the boat came down, hit the bottom of the track and flipped. And these two women were sitting in the front seat. And now you can spot them walking in that area of the ride, along the sides there. Amongst the pirates, I assume. Oh, okay, great. Once again, no confirmed accident has ever happened like that. Yeah, not even.

But again, we have to play the conspiracy theory.

Not even a boat having an accident.

Right.

Let alone someone dying on it. Now, the most famous ghost of Disney, I would say, is George. Okay, so he is spotted all over the Pirates of the Caribbean. It's all these animatronic pirates. And you take the boat around, and there's one section that has a tower, and that's called George's tower. If you're going by the rumors,.

He.

If there's a light burning in the tower, it's a. It's in the. It's in a city scene that's on fire. So the whole city's on fire. But this one tower doesn't usually have a light on. If that light is on, expect problems.

Oh, what kind of problems?

Mechanical problems.

Oh.

So expect the ride to shut down for a little bit. Now there's also another section where it's a bunch of pirates being thrown in jail. There's a little dog holding keys, and right behind him is a little door. That door is supposed to stay shut.

Oh.

But if you come along and that.

Door is open, that means George is loose.

George is.

And he's gonna be out there messing with the.

Causing some problems.

Messing with the equipment.

Yep. Yep.

So why does George care about the equipment?

Well, we are gonna get to his backstory. George was a worker, a welder, specifically, that was there during the construction of Pirates of the Caribbean. And supposedly while working on it, he either fell to his death or had a beam or some sort of equipment fall on him. And he died in the ride.

And so now he hates the ride.

And. No, now he wants to take care of the ride because when guests have reported to see him, if they're being unruly in the line or you know, just being bad Disney adults. Then George will shut the ride down.

He's like, no, we're not doing it that.

We're not doing it that. And he also wants a nice little greeting in the morning and at night. So the first workers that come in to start Operation on Pirates, they gotta say, good morning, George. And when you sit down, you say, good night, George. And if you don't do that, the ride's gonna have issues the entire day.

That sounds like a worker thing. That sounds like, God, I hope we don't have any problems today. So we build a little thing that's become a tradition.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's a little superstition thing that they had.

We didn't greet George properly to this point.

And then, you know, if you see, oh, the light's on. The light's not supposed to be on up there.

Yeah.

That means we better start looking for some issues because we're already having issues. That's a minor issue, but it could lead to be.

It seems like a more of a tradition. And I guess a lot of these things are kind of tradition you've been around for a long time. Been operating for a long time.

It's.

You kind of build this. This stuff up, and it gets passed on from.

Yeah, it gets passed on when workers move on.

Yeah. And it kind of becomes age out.

Of it or whatever. Then the new workers come in. They tell them the story.

Yeah. Okay, great. Was that it?

That's the last haunting at Disney now.

Oh, God. We're still going.

Well, you wanted to talk about Walt's head.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

And luckily for you, I have information on Walt's head.

Okay.

There's a rumor.

Yes.

That Walt had his head frozen.

Correct.

Because this is the time when all the cryonic studies, cryogenic, all that was coming into play in the 60s. So the first actual person to be frozen was James Bedford. That was on January 12, 1967. He was frozen two hours after he died.

Okay.

This was several weeks after Walt died. So time. And he's right. That's the first official person. So the procedure was first offered in 1965 by the Life Extension Society, founded by Evan Cooper. They just put the offer out there. We'll do it for you for free. Nobody apparently took them up on it. So it was two years later, and James Bedford actually paid for his. Oh, so the.

I would have got it on the ground floor.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, let me get a freezing.

He wasn't dead in 1965.

I couldn't claim it to begin with. I'd be like, yes, hold the spot for me.

I don't know exactly how the.

The offer sounds like, okay, you have to kill yourself, and then we're gonna freeze you.

Yeah.

Maybe it needs to be right now.

Yeah. To bring you back anyway, so.

Right. Yeah.

So do it in a way that we might be able to cure, not just, you know, freeze me while I'm still alive. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the most famous person to be cryogenically frozen, do you know who that is?

No.

Ted Williams.

Oh, Ted Williams. Yeah.

That was in 2002. They did remove his head, but both his head and body are preserved. Yeah, that's in Arizona by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Right.

Now, Walt died in December of 66. He would have known about this stuff. He was famous for having a fascination with future technologies and just the future in general.

Yeah.

So you know, that contributed to this rumor, you know. Right. He's had that out there. He's always been on the cutting edge of technology. Now, shortly after he died, there were several articles printed in tabloid newspapers.

Yes.

Supposedly confirming that Walt was frozen, or at least his head was frozen. Then Bob Nelson, he was the president of the Chronic Society in California, claimed two years later that Disney had expressed interest in the procedure before he died. So you bundle all that stuff up together. Yeah, stuff keeps coming out. And now all of a sudden, Disney's Frozen head is.

Well, I mean, like you said, underneath.

The park at Disney.

Walt Disney was always, you know, kind of ahead on technology.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah. You know,.

Wow, you got the good pun in. I was gonna let it go, but. So his family did confirm that he was cremated two days after dying. And his resting place is Forest Lawn Memorial park in Burbank, California.

Yep. Beautiful. Burbank, California.

Burbank. Now, the rumor has still persisted, though, even though they came out and said this.

Yeah, but you know how people are. They're headstrong as man.

You're just gonna keep going with this. So as the Internet became popular, of course, this started spreading again.

Yeah.

And one too long after the Internet started getting big, the Disney Corporation put out an animated movie called Frozen.

Come on.

And the Internet theory is. Come on. The entire movie concept was created so that when you type in anywhere related to Disney Frozen, you get only results of the movie. And all the results relating to Walt, all those get buried.

Jesus. People need to find something else to do.

I've got my pun in. And you just walked right there.

I didn't hear it.

All the results For Walt get buried.

Oh, okay, great.

Oh, because you did two bad headwinds.

No, I loved it. It's great.

But yeah, okay. The conspiracy rides on.

Yep. Conspiracies, hauntings, and whatnot in amusement parks.

Yeah, it was fine.

It was fine.

Just know to look over your shoulder the next time. Yeah, I mean, you're not a big amusement park gas, so you probably don't.

Have to worry about to worry about it.

But we could always hit up the abandoned one. That might be fun.

That might be interesting. Yeah, maybe we do do that. Yeah, but that's it, right, buddy?

Yeah, that's all I got.

That's it for this episode of no Such Thing as Ghosts. Andy, where can they get a hold of us?

Well, you can go to the website no such thing as Ghosts show. You can click on the microphone there, leave us a little message, tell us how we're doing, Tell us your ghost stories. Have you ever been haunted at Disney by the dolls or ghosts? Yeah.

And we'll talk about it on the show.

Then we'll talk about it. You can go to the shop tab there and buy you a shirt or a hoodie.

Yep.

You can find us on all the social medias. So, TikTok, no such thing as ghost pod. Instagram, no such thing as ghost podcast and Facebook. No such thing as ghosts. You can send us an email at no such thing as ghost podmail.com same thing. Tell us what you like, what you don't like. Tell us your stories. Greg will bash them and I will encourage you.

Yep. And that's just the name of the game here.

That's how we do it here.

And like we said at the beginning, don't forget to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, listen to show, tell your friends about it. Leave us a rating. It helps us get seen, and then. Yeah, that's it. See you next time,.

Sam.