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May 9, 2019 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:01:38
Edition 394 - Allison Jornlin

Allison Jornlin from Hawaii Paracon 2019 and local Paranormal expert Lopaka

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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
Well, I hope all's good with you wherever in this world you happen to be, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, East or West.
I hope that life is treating you reasonably well these days.
Thank you very much if you've been in touch recently.
We have, I think, a couple of good guests on this edition of the show, but more about that in a moment.
I always say, when you get in touch with me, please tell me your location and tell me who you are, your name, and how you use the show.
It's very, very important.
I'm not going to do shout-outs on this edition, but I got a recent communication from Jamie in Toronto, Canada.
We have a lot of listeners in Canada, and thank you to them.
Jamie was saying something that over the years a lot of people have said.
He said, why do you not do more editions of The Unexplained, and why are the ones that you do do not longer?
And there is an explanation for that that I know I've given on shows before, but I'll just say it again briefly, and I promise not too tediously.
The difficulty is, like most things in life, money.
The Unexplained has been for all of these years a free show.
And, you know, some of you have been kind enough to make donations to the show, and I'm very, very grateful and very thankful for those.
And some people get in touch, as people have done recently, and said, for reasons I totally listen, me, of all people, I completely get, I cannot afford to do this at the moment.
So, you know, please understand that I can't donate.
And I always understand when that's the case, because I know what it's like to have a low income.
You know, that is the story of my life, as they say.
But to cut a long story very short, the first thing I would do if I came into any more money or earned any more money is expand this operation.
Of course I would.
Why wouldn't I?
I love what I do.
So, Jamie, that's my promise.
If ever I win the lotto, if ever I earn some more money, then I will do that.
But at the moment, I subsidize my life by doing what are comparatively low-paid radio gigs, radio shifts.
And that's just how it is.
Art Bell, my hero, was one of the first to go on the radio, and he was a man who'd done very well out of radio and explain what it's like to do this thing.
Now, all of us who go on the radio are really lucky.
But we have to accept the fact that there are a hard core of people who make vast fortunes out of radio.
They own radio stations, they manage radio stations, they are consultants to radio stations.
They do well.
But most of us enjoy and love what we do for a living, and many of us like me couldn't do anything else.
It's what I do.
It's what I've done since I was a kid, and it's all I ever wanted to do.
But the fact of the matter is that you have to reconcile yourself that you are going to be living on a low income unless you luck into something fantastic.
And that's just how it is.
So, you know, when that day comes that I have spare money, then, you know, a lot of it's going to be going this way.
And that's a long way of answering Jamie's very short and very pertinent question.
And Jamie, I'm glad you enjoy the show, and I hope you keep listening, my friend.
And believe me, when the money comes in, I'm going to expand this show in the way that exactly you suggest.
Guests on this edition are from Hawaii, a place of great spirituality, a place of great joy.
20 years ago, when I was working on the Capital Breakfast Show in London with Chris Tarrant, who's very well known, he was the biggest morning drive radio show in Europe, the biggest thing outside America.
And I was on it.
I did the news.
I wrote it and read it.
And one of the things I also got to do was to travel the world with the show.
And the very first place that I got invited to go with the show was Maui, Hawaii.
And I think of all of the trips I made and the places that I loved like Perth, which I absolutely adored in Western Australia, and Thailand we went to, and places all over Europe and way up into Lapland in the winter.
But the place that has a romantic place in my heart is Maui.
And I will remember the wonderful people that we met.
I will remember the deep blue of the ocean.
And just the wonderful greenery, the spirituality, and the fact that people were just so laid back.
You know, there were people who worked on the radio there, who'd had high-pressure lives in New York and Los Angeles and given it all up to go and live a better life for reasons that I totally understand.
If I could do that, I'd be there.
And it was a great experience.
On our last night, we had a team meal at a place called Kimo's in Lahaina.
If you've ever been to Maui, Hawaii, then you will know Kimo's wonderful restaurant.
They have an upper deck that is open air and is completely wooden.
And at night time, they burn big flaming torches that light up the sky.
And beyond the light of the flaming torches, all there is is inky blackness and the deep Pacific Ocean.
And I can remember looking out and seeing whales there, just languidly swimming, moving backwards and forwards in that water.
And I vowed to myself on that night.
I think my colleagues were just busy enjoying themselves and enjoying the steak and beer.
But I was looking out to the ocean and thinking, one of these days I'm coming back.
And one of these days, before my toes turn up for good, I want to go back to Maui.
So this time we're going to be talking about some of the paranormality, the myths, the legends, the stories, the things that have happened over the years in Hawaii.
With two people, Alison John Lynn, who's involved with a big event there that will talk about a lot of paranormality, and a local man called Lopaka, who has a lot of stories to tell.
So I'm hoping to do a three-way link up with them.
Keep your fingers crossed for that.
And we're going to talk about stories from Hawaii.
Don't forget, if you want to email me, make a guest suggestion, thoughts about the show, whatever, go to my website, theunexplained.tv, designed and created by Adam from Creative Hotspot in Liverpool.
You can go there right now, send me a message.
If you have a problem that you want to report about the website, you can message Adam through the website as well.
And if you want to make a donation and thank you very much if you have recently, you can do that on the website as well, theunexplained.tv.
To Hawaii now, to Alison John Lynn and Lopaca.
Alison John Lynn In Milwaukee, USA, and then right across the United States and across the Pacific Ocean in Oahu, Hawaii.
Lopaca, hopefully both of you can hear me now.
Oh, yes.
You're coming through loud and clear, Howard.
How are we doing, Lopaca?
Oh, you're excellent.
It's like you're right here.
This is good.
Okay.
Well, you know, we're going to try and technically do this and we'll see how the sound quality holds up through all of this.
Allison, let me start with you in Milwaukee.
Now, you tell me, because you got in touch with me about all of this, that you are a paranormal investigator who got yourself involved in a paranormal event in Hawaii.
Talk to me about that.
Yeah, I'm pretty lucky, I think.
It's like winning the lottery, meeting Lopaka Kapanui in 2015 and becoming fast friends.
I run the Milwaukee Ghost Tour, and he runs the haunted history tours in Oahu.
And so after we became friends, he was talking to me about his desire to have a paranormal conference in Hawaii.
And I was shocked to learn that they had never had one of those big conferences in Hawaii before because I thought that would just be the natural destination for, because there's so many club stories and you get the beautiful weather too.
There's just so many mysteries.
You know, why haven't they been adequately explored?
I wondered.
And I was just really excited to be involved in Hawaii Paracon.
The first one was last year in July, and we're doing it again this year, July 19th through 21st.
And again, you know, Lopaca is organizing it, and it's incredible because this is one of the only conferences that is actually organized and planned by an Indigenous person.
And in my mind, it just seems like there's so much that Indigenous peoples can add to our understanding of the paranormal.
And yet that's not really what you get when you turn on the TV.
Most of the time, you get a very white male view of paranormal studies.
Which is a shame because, look, you know that I visited Maui for a radio show and I was telling my listener about this just before we started recording.
And I met there, or was lucky enough to meet, a lot of people native to Hawaii who told me some amazing stories.
One night they came over to us and we recorded some interviews and they played us some music and there were astonishing stories to be heard in Hawaii.
Absolutely.
I can't imagine why more people don't want to talk about these Hawaiian stories because, you know, what I've found is there's really some surprising connections between paranormal beliefs and practices on the mainland and paranormal beliefs and practices all the way over in Hawaii.
And I think a lot of it has a kind of Pacific theme to it.
That was the view that I got of it.
An awful lot of it is looking east, not looking back towards the U.S., if you know what I'm saying.
It's looking out towards Japan and Fiji and places like that.
Oh, you know, definitely you get a whole east-west coming together feel when you go to Hawaii.
But, you know, what I find even more compelling is that there are things that crop up in Hawaiian culture that I've seen elsewhere in other cultures.
And to me, that just points to the reality of paranormal phenomena.
That's something that needs to be studied more deeply.
And we got to let these Indigenous voices in.
Otherwise, it's to our detriment.
Okay, Lopaka, thank you very, very much for holding your peace while Allison spoke there.
Technically, there's a reason why we need to do it that way.
Otherwise, we have all sorts of issues.
So, Lopaka, I'm a big fan of Hawaii.
I've only seen Maui, and that experience was a beautiful experience.
But talk to me about the paranormal there and the fact that, as Alison said, a lot of the stories and traditions and maybe folklore that you have there, we don't get to hear about them in our part of the world.
Well, you see, Howard, that's the thing.
Our culture, the word paranormal and supernatural is a fairly new thing.
For us, everything that happens or occurs within our environment is a natural occurrence, you know, and not so much otherworldly.
And it's because we're so closely connected to our environments, our ancestors, to nature, to the elements.
And the only time we found out that what we were doing was demonic or wrong is when the Calvinist missionaries came and didn't understand who we were and demonized everything and, you know, converted us.
So they effectively suppressed your culture.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, that's just history.
You can't bear any grudge against it.
It is what it is.
You know, you have to change.
And, you know, what I mean by that is today we can't live in our past.
We just have to change the thought process and beliefs of other people by doing what we do.
And so fortunately, a lot of Hawaiian families, a lot of clans went underground and kept certain traditions.
So in my family, we were descended from Kahupuna, or different types of Hawaiian priests.
And we've kept certain practices alive throughout the centuries.
And so even today, when we do paranormal investigations, as they're known today, there's a lot of prayer, a lot of askings of permission to make sure that when the investigation is done, nothing really happens to everybody.
Sometimes we go to the ocean and cleanse.
And so it's interesting that Allison talks about a similarity between what we call kupua, or shapeshifters here in Hawaii, you know, people that are half animal, half human.
And it turns out in places where Allison is from, there's a dog creature like we have here.
There's the whole myth of the Domba.
I say myth.
For all we know, it can be truth of the dog man that I keep hearing about.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Here in Oahu, we call him Kaope.
And, you know, it's interesting to first talk to Allison and realize there's similarities like this in places where she's from and other locations throughout the United States.
And, of course, the first time I ever heard about a creature that was half man and half animal was watching those old hammer films, you know, from England, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and the Wolfman.
So the fact that there may have been some reality in all of that is going to be a bit of a shock to some people, I think.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the thing is, that's been our reality for many, many centuries.
And so it's not an unusual thing for us to see a ghost because a lot of times in our culture, it was a member of our own family.
And as I said, you know, we're now coming into this age where people in Hawaii are discovering that, you know, there's not a need for any religious ignorance or misunderstanding towards the supernatural.
There's actually a more common sense explanation.
You know, so people are getting away from this stigma of these things being evil and wanting to possess you.
And I think the people we can fault for that, and this is not disparaging toward anybody who's on TV, is a lot of these paranormal shows that are not done correctly give people the impression that everything's evil and everything's bad and we're going to be possessed and we're going to hell.
And so I believe Hawaii Paracon is one of those things where we approach the subject of the paranormal and the supernatural from an indigenous cultural standpoint.
And that's why it was really important for me to have Allison be a part of this paragon because Allison, you teach Indigenous children, right?
Sort of like that.
I teach at a Native American school, yes.
And, you know, that's one thing, like with your tradition of the Manihuni, Lopac, it just reminded me so much of the Native peoples of the Americas.
And many tribes have a belief in the so-called little people.
And there are very many parallels between the Manihuni and the so-called little people.
So, I mean, that was really an awakening for me to see those commonalities.
And a lot of these things are international, because if you look a couple of hundred miles away from where I'm sitting, you know, the Irish people, and I have Irish blood as one of the, you know, nationalities running around in my veins, they believe in the leprechauns.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and that's actually still a reality for us, the Menuhune, the little people.
And I was sharing with Allison a while ago that there was a census done during the reign of King Kaumo Ali, about the 1700s, and he wanted an accounting of the population of Kauai.
And it turns out when his people came back, they found a population of 75 Menehune in a place called Wainiha on Kauai.
And so there's still some Hawaiians today who believe that they're descended from those Menehune people.
Okay, so they will have the spirituality that they embodied within them.
And it's not just something that they refer to in folklore and stories.
It's part of their DNA.
Absolutely.
And we know a woman who's a very, very wonderful person.
And she's descended from that family.
And when you meet her, her name is Napua, which means the flowers.
Very smart woman, very wise, very intuitive.
But she's got this other thing about her.
And it's just, to me, it's a confirmation that she truly is descended from these people, these magical people.
So the idea of people existing beyond this earthly plane, the idea of magic, the idea of spirit is something that's just part of everyday life here.
It's not something that you would read in a magazine or have a movie made about it.
It's just part of your life.
That's something, you know, Lupaka, that I discovered when I did that radio show from Maui.
We had a local broadcaster.
She did, I think, a morning drive show on a radio station called K-A-O-I, Ka'oi.
I can't remember her name, but she told us a lot of amazing stories from there, played us some music, and then invited over some of her friends to tell us some more stories.
So there is a remarkable fund of stories, of traditions there.
Yeah.
Oh, was that Alakai?
I think it was, yeah.
I mean, I'm talking 20 years ago.
But she was wonderful because she was connected to everybody.
Yeah, that's got to be her because everybody knows her.
She knows everybody.
And I think she played the, it's not a banjo, that, what's that instrument that you play there, the little guitar?
Little Hawaiian guitar?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ukulele, yeah.
She played that, I seem to remember.
Oh, yeah, she's fabulous.
She's still around.
And how very lucky for you that she did that because she really doesn't open up to too many people.
That was an aspect, you know, an aspect of being there that I discovered.
People were very laid back.
Everybody.
I mean, the people who were incomers, they'd given up the rat race in the U.S. and they'd gone to live there.
And the native people, everybody very relaxed about the way things work and about nature and all the rest of it.
That's one thing that I did find.
But equally, I also found that people were very good at doing a thing that we call here in England sussing you out.
In other words, they would speak to you for a little while.
And if they thought that you were an understanding and empathetic person, then you would hear more from them.
That's what I found.
Yeah, and eventually you would be invited over for dinner and parties.
Yeah.
Well, she told me a story about a golf course that they built on Maui.
And the golf course was a very plush-swish golf course.
And when it opened, there was a Japanese tourist there who came to play golf.
And I think he was playing golf in the evening by himself on this course.
And some kind of army, Japanese-style army, rose up from the ground.
And this guy fled, the story goes, in absolute terror because this particular place had been a burial ground.
I don't know if you're aware of that story.
Oh, yeah.
That's the Kapalua golf course.
And what he encountered were night marchers.
Night marches.
Yeah.
Can you tell us more?
Yeah.
Those are the ghosts of Hawaiian warriors who used to protect The chief when they were alive, and they would always walk in a certain type of procession during a certain moon phase.
And the thing is, when this moon phase is prevalent, the night marchers are about day and night.
And so, not only is the golf course an old burial, but it's also a procession where the night marchers would walk through.
And the thing is, the native culture there was very upset about the golf course.
They told the developers what it was, how important it was and sacred it was to the Hawaiian people in Maui, but they didn't care.
They built it anyway.
And so it was built with many, many warnings from a lot of prestigious people in our culture.
And so even from the time you heard that story, Howard, until this moment as we speak right now, there's still a lot of activity happening at that resort, specifically on that golf course.
And how is it going to be possible, because the golf course is built and presumably people are playing their rounds of golf on it.
How will it be possible spiritually or in any other way to reconcile the sacred importance of that place and the fact that somebody's gone and built a golf course on it?
How are those things going to be brought together?
How are the presences that are there going to be appeased, do you think?
Well, that's the thing.
Number one, the procession is the procession, so that's never going to change.
And there's really nothing anything or anyone can do about it.
The only way there's going to be a real reconciliation is when it affects someone politically or someone of importance in the political arena dies as a result of this kind of spiritual activity.
Do you think that's a possibility?
I really, you know, as bad as it is and as much as I disagree with many things that developers do, I really don't want anyone to die.
But sometimes the disrespect is so egregious that people do end up getting hurt.
What sorts of experiences have people had when they've been there?
We heard about the poor Japanese tourist who was playing his nice, quiet round of golf that was interrupted quite spectacularly and caused him to flee.
What else has happened there?
People playing round of golf or driving in the golf carts have been pushed over by something that's not there.
There's been the overwhelming smell of sulfur.
And that musty aroma of something that's dead.
People are sort of overwhelmed with that as well.
And a lot of these accounts are in broad daylight, and other participants in the golf course have heard their names being called.
And not like whispered in the ear.
Here in Hawaii, when your name is called, you hear it in your head.
You feel it in your head.
Yeah, you hear the voice in your head, not whispered in your ear, but it's whispered inside of you.
And are there a lot of presences of that kind?
I mean, you sounded remarkably familiar with that when you said that.
Are there a lot of hauntings, we would call them here, I guess, there?
Oh, a lot.
A lot.
And because there's so much going on here, there is a lot of communication from the other side, you know, trying to let people know what's going on, make them aware of their presence in this place.
And, you know, on the good side, there's a lot of otherworldly things here that help people, you know, save them from getting into an accident, warn them against going out with a certain type of person or group.
You know, so as Allison was saying earlier, this is a daily, everything, everyday thing for us.
Okay.
So there's this aspect of looking out for you, somebody on the other side looking out for you.
That's unusual.
Talk to me about how that works.
Well, I'll give you two very short examples, you know, because I don't want to waffle on.
Number one is way back in 2005, I'm sorry, 1998, actually, my daughter was a year old and we're in the living room of our apartment.
It was hot, so we're sleeping on this mattress we call the futon.
And it was between the front door and the back door to the balcony of our apartment.
And I all of a sudden feel a foot underneath my back and it sort of nudges me.
And I look up and it's my mother.
And she's wearing her famous blue Bermuda shorts and her bowling shirt.
And she smells like a fixed vapor rub because that's what she always put on.
And I'm very groggy.
I looked up at her in Hawaii and I said, well, what?
And she looks at me in Hawaiian and she says, She says, move the baby.
You're laying in the middle of the path.
And I sort of look around.
I realized we're sleeping between the front and back door, which in Hawaii they say is normally when there's an alignment in your house, the spirits are able to walk through.
So I just moved everybody and, you know, went back to sleep.
And I bolted back up out of my sleep.
And I looked around and I woke up my ex-wife.
I said, my mom was just here.
And so this is obviously your late mom, but she appeared to you by the sounds of that account you've just given, exactly as she was in life.
Exactly.
And, you know, she wasn't very pleasant about it.
She was scolding me like, oh, you're doing it again.
And the second account is in 2005.
We're still living in that place.
And I dropped him off at the apartment.
We parked on a main street called Date Street.
And it was about 11 o'clock.
And I told my ex-wife, you know, I'm going to park the car or I might go down the street to Jack in a Box to get something to eat.
So park the car, get out of my car, look across the hood on the passenger side of my car, and there's an old Hawaiian woman standing there.
I remember she was wearing a black turtleneck sweater.
She had a shoulder-length white hair and wearing this plaid mini skirt and these knee-high go-go boots, these white leather ones.
And I thought, this is really strange.
You know, an old Hawaiian woman dressed like this, she must be nuts.
And she looks at me and she says to me, take me to Zippy's.
And Zippy's a very well-known local eatery here in Hawaii.
And I said, well, I'm actually going to Jack-in-A-Box down the road so I can drop you off at the Zippies.
And she says, no, take me to the Zippies in Wahiawa, which is clear on the other side of the island, another hour to 45-minute drive.
And I guess you wouldn't have been too keen to do that then.
Well, you know, I said, well, you know, Tutu, I'm actually not going that way.
But when I looked down in the backseat of my car, I saw that my daughter left her cheese pizza.
So it only took seconds for me to reach into the backseat, grab the pizza, and show it to her and say, well, you know, I got this pizza.
And she's gone.
She's completely gone.
And the street is so wide open, there's no way she could have gone without me seeing her.
And this is within seconds.
And the second I notice she's gone, this car just whizzes right past me, full speed.
And it clears this intersection, and it gets T-boned by this other car.
And that was actually supposed to be me.
Wow.
So you think that that woman who appeared was there as a diversion to stop you stepping into danger?
Absolutely.
I do absolutely think that.
And I believe that might have been the goddess Pele.
Gee.
And you think the Goddess Pele would actually be asking to go to Zippy's?
Yeah, she really doesn't want to go to the destination.
She's just taking a couple of seconds of your time to prevent you from getting killed.
So she was actually, I mean, if we...
She would be using a technique there.
She had to throw something at you that was so left field.
She had to throw your real curveball to delay you for long enough, and that she did.
Yes.
And it turns out that we are descendants of Pele.
You know, she's our guardian, our Omakua.
And that's not something I openly brag about to people every day.
Every person I see, hey, Pele's my god, Pele's my goddess.
You know, we just live our lives, but when we get to certain points where we're not paying attention or we're absent-minded, things like this happen.
You know.
So I think that's a wonderful aspect of this.
And I know, Alison, you wanted to come in in just a second, but it sounds to me to be a wonderful aspect of this that here we tend through popular culture to think of presences and spirits and that kind of thing as being there to maybe scare you, maybe just to show you that they're around and make it very much about them.
But the idea that they can be out there for your benefit and for your goodwill and to keep you on the straight and narrow is a rather lovely thought, I have to say.
Both of you, really.
Oh, yes.
Go ahead, Dallinson.
I just wanted to say that, you know, Pele is experienced a lot, isn't she, Lil Paca?
And, you know, sometimes it's preventative, like in your case, sometimes it's a test of your mettle.
You know, sometimes it seems like those vanishing hitchhiker stories that are so popular across the mainland.
But yeah, talk to us more about her because she's just such a fascinating figure in Hawaiian culture.
Yeah, you know, her backstory, and again, the short version, is she came here from the South Pacific because she was a little bit rambunctious herself.
And she, being the goddess of fire and very young, was being trained by her uncle.
We call him Lonomakua, to learn how to stoke the volcanic fires.
And she sort of got carried away and accidentally burnt down her sister's side of the island, who is Namako Kaha'i.
She's the goddess of the ocean.
And she was also having an affair with, you know, her sister's husband as well.
So when her sister found out both realities, their mother told him, listen, Pele, get on the canoe, take your people, and get the hell out of here because when your sister gets back, you know, she's not going to be happy.
And so the legend goes that Pele's sister, the goddess of the ocean, chases her from the South Pacific down the island chain.
So every island that Pele stops on to make a volcano for her family, her sister comes and drowns out the fires each time.
And so when they find...
Oh, yeah.
And you know, I imagine that happens for every family who's on a vacation driving across the United States.
I guess not.
That's an astonishing story.
So how does this play into the recent volcanic events that the world followed a few months ago?
And of course, the media news cycle being what it is, the mainstream media in this country, and I'm sure the mainland USA hasn't bothered much with the story now.
But certainly at the back end of last year, you had tremendous and very worrying volcanic events there.
What does your folklore, your history say about that?
It says that she's probably not happy with the state of affairs, especially on the big island where there's so much disrespect and so much collusion and corruption going on politically.
And people who are transplants here who build communities where the lava field is and then make it a private community.
And it's places where local people and Hawaiian people have gone for years to frolic, to have fun with their families, to picnic.
And all of a sudden, these new transplants build a gated community and no one's allowed.
So the belief is that she's gotten tired of all of that and has decided to take those places back.
So in the case of any other community, there would be a certain amount of resentment, understandable, from local and indigenous people to such things.
But you're saying that it has a kind of cosmic dimension to it, too, there.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And it's like, you know, this is your mom's house, and it's going to get to a certain point where your mom is just not happy about her kids not getting along, and she's going to take the toy away.
You know, but in this case, Pele is taking the land away.
And a lot of Hawaiians and locals who've had their houses taken away by the lava have gone on the news and said, you know, well, it's her land.
You know, we can't do anything about it.
We'll figure it out.
But other people who don't understand are saying, well, you know, the state and the county has to do something about this lava flow and this belief about this woman taking away our land.
You know, well, I hope she's happy because she's destroyed a lot of lives and, you know, cost us a lot of money.
Do you think that there is a bit of a battle going on between the modernity that we have here in the UK and that they certainly have in mainland US and the deep spirituality and the traditions that you have there in Hawaii across the islands?
Yeah, I think the battle is between material culture and spiritual culture, you know, and where the true value of your life is placed.
How's that going to play out, do you think?
I think somehow people like myself, and I don't say this to sound, you know, I'm not extolling my own virtues, please don't misunderstand.
But I think for people like myself and Allison, our mission is to basically spread the word and spread understanding and education about these things so people don't have a misunderstanding or misrepresentation about Hawaiian culture or indigenous culture in general.
And that's not to say that anything that's not indigenous is bad, because there's people from all around the world who are filthy rich, who have come here for the first time, and they have this unique experience.
And this has happened to me.
I've met these people like this, and they say, you know, I've been here for a week, but all of a sudden I've begun to realize my wealth means nothing.
You know, it's not my happiness, but there's something here.
Yeah.
Listen, of all the places that I've ever visited, and I've been lucky enough in my lifetime to visit a few, the one place that I would like to return to, and sadly I could never be privileged enough to live there, but I could happily live there, that one place is Hawaii.
There is something there that connects you with, and this is going to make me sound like such a new agey, and I don't care, but it connects you with everything.
I remember going to visit the staff of a local newspaper in Maui.
It was the big local paper for Maui.
And a lot of those people were from the mainland.
They'd come to live over there, but they had such serenity about themselves.
And also a guy who ran a couple of radio stations there.
You know, he was the program director of a chain of, I think, of several radio stations there.
And he'd been a big character in Los Angeles radio.
And he was as happy as anything in Hawaii because I think he'd found, and those people had found, a kind of connection that is escaping and eluding us here in the, you know, in the fast-paced world of places like London and New York.
That sounds like I'm preaching this thing, but it's something that I just picked up as a vibe.
Yeah, and it's almost like Buddhism.
And the funny thing is, the island of Molokai, and Alison knows this.
Those people on the island of Molokai believe that they were actually the first people here before anybody else.
And one of their things, and we're talking about, you know, pre-contact before the Tahitians, the Samoans, and the Marquesans, these Molokai people, their tradition was to wake up at sunrise and to face the east and to pray.
And they said they were facing the east because there was a being called Eol Onalani who came from the east radiant with light.
Now, if that's not Buddhism, I don't know what is.
Well, actually, it sounds a lot like Hopi tradition.
There's a similar practice among the Hopi.
So, you know, there's just so much here, Howard, that isn't really looked at very closely and warrants further study, warrants our attention.
There's something magical going on in Hawaii.
If you're interested in the paranormal, you should come to Hawaii Ver God.
That's all there is to it because you're going to experience what we're talking about here.
And you're going to learn things, different aspects of what we call paranormal that you never would have imagined.
And you might come away with it, as I did, having learned a little bit about yourself too.
Lo Paka, what about the view of life and death?
You know, here, most people that I know want to live it long, in the words of Rod Stewart, they want to live it long and live it fast because they don't think there's anything else coming up after death.
They think that it's oblivion beyond that.
How do people there, in the indigenous community there in Hawaii, from your traditions and your beliefs, how do they feel about death?
Well, I'll tell you, when I first heard a podcast with a great guy who's also coming to the Hawaii Paracon, Lloyd Auerbach, and he talked about the belief in parapsychology that the conscious survives the physical death of the body, I was completely blown away because that's basically how we look at it here.
Even though the flesh dies, the spirit of the person still remains as part of the family.
So Howard, if you're somebody important in our community and you pass away, we're keeping your bones in the house.
In the house?
In the house or buried somewhere on the property.
And we also have a ceremony here called Unihi Pili, which is to deify the person to become a spiritual guardian, like a shark, an owl, even a wind or a rain.
And so the thing is, the flesh leaves, but the essence of the person never leaves.
They're always around.
But is the belief from you, you talked about the wind and the rain, is the belief that you become, you go back to nature when you leave this plane, you become part of everything again, you become part of the trees and the birds and the grass?
Yeah, except now you are no longer alive, but even we Hawaiian people here now in the flesh are constantly working to be at one with our surroundings, you know, to find out about ourselves, to be ourselves.
But in another capacity, when you pass away, you know, your essence still remains.
And so you're still part of the family.
We're here talking about paranormality.
You've given me a couple of ghost stories.
I suppose you could call them loosely, but much more than that.
Talk to me about other aspects of the paranormal there.
Well, okay.
There are...
Yeah, there's just so many things.
So many things.
You know, in the aspect of ghosts, one of the most famous ghost stories here in Hawaii is really not a Hawaiian ghost story.
It's actually a Japanese ghost story.
And it occurred in a newspaper article in 1959 at an old outdoor drive-in theater.
We call the old By Light Drive-In, and two really terrible double-feature movies, Love Slaves of the Amazon, Monolith Monsters.
And the newspaper article says a woman goes to use the bathroom.
And when she comes out of the toilet, there's a woman in a Japanese-style kimono standing there brushing her long black hair.
And the lady says she's washing her hands.
She looks in the mirror and sees the woman pull the hair away from her face.
And the woman has no face.
It's just an orb of flesh.
And that's what they call in the Japanese culture, no petabo.
And so it comes from the Niigata Prefecture in Japan.
And so what makes that story unique is that during the immigration process, when everybody came here to work on the plantation, they also brought all of their ghosts with them.
So we have Japanese ghosts, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Korean.
And so not only are we, I don't want to say festered, not only do we have a population of our own unique indigenous ghosts, but now we've got ghosts from everywhere else, you know, which makes the paranormal community so rich because there's so much material, so much research.
And what about investigating them?
How do you do it there?
Does it differ from the way that people do it here?
You know, a lot of people that I speak with, both sides of the Atlantic, you know, some of them believe that they've been, you know, they're stars in Scooby-Doo.
They have their EVP monitors, you know, their recorders and their various electromagnetic devices and stuff like that.
How do you go about it?
I have a group called the Grant Society, and it's a group of people who've had psychic abilities who've had trouble with it because their families don't understand.
And so I've just basically helped them understand what they have.
And when we do investigations, I have them employ their abilities first before we engage with the tech.
And it's basically wanting a true communication.
It's not provoking for the sake of sensationalism.
We're trying to find a conclusion as to why the place is haunted, why the person is still here.
So it's not quite an exorcism then?
It hasn't gotten to that point yet, fortunately.
But it's basically saying, hey, we realize that you've passed away and you're upset that your sister's sitting in your bedroom and using your old clothes, but it is what it is.
How can we find that peace and pass to the other side or go wherever it is you need to go?
So rather than shooing this presence away, it's more about reasoning with it.
You know, basically, because as I'm afraid, and Alison is afraid too, the more provoking these people do on these reality shows, something really bad is going to happen.
And for us, in our culture, provoking is very disrespectful, and you are actually inviting disaster at some point, if not sooner than later.
All right, can you think of a case or maybe a couple of cases where you've actually gone to a person at a location, they've had a problem and they've wanted help with that problem?
Yes, there's a house where a military family still live today.
They've actually, I've actually, my wife and I have actually ended up becoming godparents to their daughter.
There was clothes being thrown around the house.
There was furniture moving.
And, you know, here for Christmas, the Christmas tree is, you know, ensconced in this little stand.
And so the Christmas tree was just spinning around by itself in the stand.
That sounds like the exorcist.
Well, it's probably, I concluded that it was poltergeist because they had a teenage son who had problems.
Right, but the energy, and that is often the case wherever in the world you are, that an adolescent will bring disturbed energy with them.
But in that case, the energy was powerful enough to spin the Christmas tree round.
Well, the location of this neighborhood is also built over an old human temple of human sacrifice.
And there's also a night marcher procession in that area.
So all of that sort of doubled the activity.
And so it comes to be that the father finds out, because I took him aside and I said, I think, you know, a lot of this is because of your son.
And I said, we'll figure out what to do.
And when I got home, he called me and says, you won't believe it.
I went up into his room and I found a satanic Bible on a Ouija board and they were trying to summon something.
So he said he took it and burned it and threw it away.
So you think that somehow, and he thought that somehow the son was trying to connect with, what do you call them, low-grade entities?
Absolutely, because he hated his father.
Okay.
So there was a human, as well as a spiritual dynamic playing out, there was a human one.
Absolutely.
And he was doing everything possible to get back at his father because his father had married another woman, you know, who is not his mom.
How did that drama play itself out?
In many cases here, it plays itself out when the adolescent grows up and leaves.
Well, he left after a lot of efforts to get him some counseling and some paternal love, I guess, which didn't work out.
So finally, he moved back to the continent to be with his mom, and then all the activity stopped.
Well, I suppose they should all be grateful that it was only manifesting itself in the way that you've just told me.
I'm sure far worse things could have happened.
Well, you know, the thing is, I did an individual interview with every member of the family, you know, one by one.
And again, Allison knows about this.
I employed this thing that Lloyd Auerbach uses called the energy wheel.
It's a piece of paper balancing on a needle covered by this glass dome and just left it there.
And every time I talked to a member of the family, you know, nothing happened.
But finally, when the kid shows up, the thing starts to move.
So that sort of pinpointed for me, you know, where the, I don't want to say problem, but where the activity was stemming from.
And this, of course, is the very frontier where science and paranormality meet, it seems to me.
What about time, Lepaka?
Are there different views of time there?
I've covered on my show a few stories from the UK about apparent and perceived time slips.
There's one in Liverpool that happened where a guy standing on a street corner finds himself catapulted for a few seconds back to the 1950s, and he can describe specific details that people remember from the 1950s.
Do you have that kind of thing there in relation to time?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
In fact, after we get off, I'll find a picture and show you a time slip at a Temple of Human Sacrifice that someone caught.
That Somebody caught.
Yeah.
The funny thing is, I looked to a certain area at this old temple of human sacrifice and I saw everything go blurry and then everything jumped.
Like when you're watching TV and the screen, there sort of skips.
So I saw that and I said, oh, over there.
And somebody took this picture and then this thing came out.
So I'll send it to you.
But we've had incidents at places.
We have a ranch here called Kualoa Ranch where people have been walking through the ranch and are all of a sudden transported back to ancient Hawaii.
And like you said, with that person, they described what the people looked like, what they were wearing, sights, sounds, smells, feelings.
And this one person said when all of a sudden these ancient Hawaiian people recognized him, they started to walk toward him.
So it was a two-way traffic.
They were seeing him.
He was seeing them.
Yeah.
I mean, he said for a second it was all residual, then all of a sudden everything was right there.
It was all solid.
It was reality.
They saw him then.
They walked toward him.
They were confused and, you know, wide-eyed.
And so he said before any physical contact was made, he came right back to 2013.
And is there anything in your belief systems there that prepare you for that?
I mean, there's nothing in our belief systems here that would prepare us for that.
But is there anything in your belief system?
You know, I can't really say that I know because if we're talking about time slips, we've had prophets who were 100% correct about seeing the future and future events.
And I'm thinking that maybe these prophets, these kaula, as we call them, had access to time slips, maybe.
So in other words, that's how they've derived their information.
Absolutely.
Especially when a particular prophet named Keulumoku told our great father conqueror Kamehameha that, you know, the new age is coming.
Men are coming on big islands with white sails, and they're like fish that will inundate our people, and we will become the small fish.
You know, so if you think about it, that prophet is talking about large ships with white sails.
And what about people who come to live there, the incomers, the people who've come from the high-pressure lives in Los Angeles or New York or, you know, some of the lucky people who've gone there, they've made the money in London and they've gone to live there.
How do they assimilate?
You know, how do they change?
How do you see them change?
Ashley, in a package, I'll tell you, when you come here, Hawaii either accepts you or spits you out.
And that's the absolute truth.
People come, they acclimate, they have a great time.
And some people feel like after 20 years, okay, I love this place, but it's time to move on somewhere else.
People make this their home.
And other times, people are here for like two, three months, and they can't stand it.
They can't handle it.
And they move.
And that's pretty much been how it's been.
Well, you know, some people from the music industry, I interviewed a few years ago, Mick Fleetwood.
He lives there and still lives there.
And George Harrison, of course, the late George Harrison, who to my mind was the greatest of the Beatles.
He found great peace there, I think.
Also, Chris Christopheson.
So, you know, it's not just the ocean and the lovely green grass, and there is a shade of green in the grass there that you just don't see anywhere.
It's not just that they're going for.
I think there is an ethos and a feeling.
And also, there's a thing about local crafts that people are very much into.
I remember somebody came to me when I was doing that radio show, and they wanted to talk about hemp.
And of course, because of hemp's connection with drugs and British broadcasting is very regulated, I was very, very concerned.
And she was just saying, look, no, we make garments and we weave and we do all sorts of things with hemp.
It's a great tradition here.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, the hemp thing is a pretty big thing here.
But, you know, you're talking about all these musicians who live here.
And, you know, these are creative people.
And especially for creative people who move to the islands, there's this very raw creative energy that they latch onto and feed off of.
And we call it ho'ulu.
You know, the process of ho'ulu is being divined by otherworldly means.
And so I truly believe that's why these people love to come here, because it's total pure, 100% direct inspiration for their craft.
And in terms of cultures, because we've talked a lot about the clash of cultures here, which culture do you think is winning out?
the incoming culture or the very, as I found it, the very strong, very powerful, very compelling culture that was already there?
What?
It's not about winning, really.
It's about changing, you know, opening the eyes, as they say in certain Buddhist texts.
So I believe the host culture is the one that won't win out, but will reveal the truth, if that makes sense.
It makes absolute perfect sense.
It's a beautiful way of putting it.
UFOs, aliens, do they impact upon you there?
Well, you know, the largest UFO sightings here in Hawaii are on the island of Kauai at the missile base.
There's a lot of military activity going on out there, a lot of military experiments.
And I think that's why it's got the largest sightings of UFOs in this archipelago.
The second place is here in Oahu, a place called the Makapu Lookout.
And there have been a lot of UFO sightings there up in the mountains, out by the ocean.
And so a lot of people who live here have said the time to really see them is between midnight and two in the morning.
That's when they tend to make their appearance.
Some say it's the Hawaiian Akualele, you know, the flying spirits who are gathered in orbs of fire.
But the descriptions of what people have seen in that area sound more like UFOs, you know, than anything spiritual.
And what do you think?
Do you think that they are our technology or exotic technology?
It's 100% exotic.
Absolutely.
Over here, there are a very few people I have known and spoken with who believe that they can summon them.
I would imagine, probably, if anywhere on this planet has such people who believe that they can summon them, you do there.
You know, and the trick is to find out who those people are and get a hold of them and put them on a podcast.
You get no argument from me on that.
Why Parrican, right?
Get the warm press and a white parricane.
Well, listen, we've all, the three of us, we've coped very well on what is not a great party connection here.
But I think we've managed with the sound quality, and I hope my listener hasn't found it too difficult.
I found the stories very compelling.
Is there anything I haven't asked you about, Le Paca?
Oh, no, I think you pretty much covered it.
All right, Allison, in Milwaukee, what made Milwaukee famous is not the beer now we understand, it's the paranormality.
So Rod Stewart was wrong when he's saying that.
Talk to me about this conference then, how it's going to work, what the lineup is, and the kind of things you're going to be talking about on it.
So I'm so proud that we're going to have Professor Lloyd Auerbach with us.
You know, he's a university-trained parapsychologist.
And so I'm going to be speaking on the same stage as Lloyd Auerbach.
I'm really thrilled.
I'm going to talk again about all these cross-cultural connections that seem unlikely, but if they are evident, if I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing, it seems to point to the reality of paranormal phenomena.
So, you know, we're seeing phenomena experienced through different cultures, and we can really talk a lot about that at Hawaii Paracon and get different cultural input.
And Lil Paka, talk about some of the native practitioners that are going to be there.
One of the native practitioners is my cousin, Keriga Makua, and he is the first titled kahuna of traditional Hawaiian tattooing in 200 years.
And so he's going to be talking about the spiritual aspect of tattooing, not just the physical part.
And along with him also is a friend of ours, Lane Vulcan, who's revived or helped revive the traditional Filipino art of tattooing.
And there's a large spirituality to that too.
Right.
You know that over here in London, a lot of people have themselves tattooed, but they do it for aesthetic reasons, or they have ACDC or I Love Mum or a Rose tattooed on themselves.
And that's as far as it goes.
What's the spiritual aspect of tattooing?
The spiritual aspect is you are physically wearing your ancestors.
Really?
And you're making a physical and spiritual DNA connection to your past, to your ancestry.
And these are represented by certain types of geometric designs.
And a lot of it has to do with where it's placed on your body.
So for men, a lot of tattoos are placed on the left side to balance out the female energy.
And for women, some traditional tattoos are placed on the inside of the thigh.
And there's actually tattoos for procreation.
Oh, really?
Being British, I'm so polite.
I wasn't going to go there, but you just have.
Thank you.
If we dare, what exactly would you have tattooed on yourself to aid procreation?
That would be up to the kahuna who's doing the design.
Could it be a stallion or something like that?
It could be a triangle facing down and geometric designs within it to encourage procreation.
Right.
Well, I've never heard that about tattooing.
I know there are some people over here who think that they're made more appealing by their tattoos, but I've never heard that before.
That's astonishing.
What about numbers?
Do you have any beliefs about numbers?
You know, the Chinese are great believers in the power of numbers and, for example, the number eight being there for prosperity.
For us, one of the numbers, the important numbers, is the number four because it's a secret Kahuna code.
And we also believe that the uneven numbers are the good luck numbers.
So if we catch 10 fish, we'll throw back one.
All right.
And what about 13?
People here are very uptight about 13th, especially if there's a Friday the 13th.
Right.
13 would be a good luck number, actually.
Yeah.
And there was that thing in America.
I think I've got this right.
I had an American girlfriend once who told me a black cat walked across my path, and I was very pleased about it because here in London, that's good luck.
And apparently in the United States, that's not good luck.
I don't know how that plays out where you are, Gopaka.
Oh, we didn't have cats in our culture until much later on.
Nothing to say about those then.
Okay.
Hey, well, listen, the three of us have coped with very difficult connection conditions here, and I think every word has been just about audible.
Allison, I wish you well with this conference.
Sounds like you've got a lot of stuff to do there, but sounds like you're going to entertain the folks.
Where are people coming from?
I'm not talking about delegates, but people coming to visit and be part of it, as far as you know now.
Are they coming from just the U.S. or elsewhere?
Well, we have people interested from all over the world.
And if anyone out there would like to join us, you can just visit us at HawaiiParacon.com.
And, you know, there's something for everyone.
Lopaca has a lot of traditional ceremonies planned as well.
So you're going to get the paranormal, but you're also going to get the authentic Hawaiian paranormal perspective that you can't get anywhere else.
I would love to go.
And I love that connecting flight from Los Angeles that you take on Hawaiian Airlines.
When I made that flight, there were two flights.
There was one from Los Angeles to Hawaii, Big Island, and then there was one across to Maui.
So there were two flights by Hawaiian Airlines.
And I wasn't ready For an airline where there's a video, you get shown a video of the boss of Hawaiian Airlines before you take off, and the guy's wearing a tropical shirt, a Hawaiian shirt, and they give you a fruit cocktail before you do anything.
And I just, I sat back after the long flight from London to Los Angeles, having boarded this Hawaiian Airlines plane, and I just thought, this is the way to run an airline.
Yeah, they guided you in an appropriate mood, right, Howard?
Yeah, you know, we were lucky enough because we were sort of flying as media people there.
So it was all expenses paid, and we were up the front.
And they garlanded us as well, which was rather lovely.
What a great experience.
What does the garland mean, by the way?
Because not only were we garlanded on the plane, but we were garlanded when we got there.
What does that mean?
Oh, it's got so many different meanings.
And, you know, basically for greeting and a welcome, graduations, parties, and different types of flowers are used, and they all have different sorts of meanings.
You know, so there's a regular, you know, give it to the person who's visiting, and then there's the deeper meaning of making a love.
Okay.
And the reason I'm saying making love is because sometimes lathes are made specifically for that.
You know, so it's made with love.
It's made with certain types of intention and meaning.
You know, so there's the tourist aspect of being garland, and then there's the deeper aspect of receiving one.
Wow.
Well, you know, until very recently, I still have the Hawaiian shirt that I bought there.
And I think I probably took it to a charity shop recently.
So I've got to come back and get another.
Both of you, thank you very much.
Allison, tell me the specifics about the conference.
You know, number one, just so that people catch it.
What's it called?
When is it?
And how do they find out more about it?
Yeah, so it's Hawaii Paracon, and it's going on this July, 2019.
So July 19th through 21st, 2019.
And you can find out more about it at HawaiiParacon.com.
Right.
We've been gurgling the earth in this conversation.
London linking to Milwaukee, linking to Hawaii, Oahu.
Alison John Lynn and Lopaka.
Thank you both very much indeed.
Thank you.
It was an honor.
And should I say aloha?
Absolutely.
Aloha.
Aloha and mahalo.
Aloha and mahalo from London.
Thank you.
Take care.
Thank you.
Wonderful tales from Hawaii.
And one of these days there will be more.
And one of these days, I hope to be able to get to go there again and visit Kimos in Lahaina.
Hopefully more than once.
And do that wonderful thing that I did that night 20 years ago.
Just over 20 years ago when I was working with Chris Tarant in London a long, long time ago.
Part of my life and history.
More great guests in the pipeline here on The Unexplained.
So until next we meet here online, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained.
I am in London and please, whatever you do, please stay safe.
Please stay calm.
And above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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