DATE: Thursday, 18 May 95 14:51:39 CST
TO: GHOST-STORIES@netcom.com
FROM: Richard L Foster (llrlf@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu)
Subject: COVER NOTE - Is this Toys 'R' Us a haunt
I found this on UT-Austin's library database. Enjoy.
Richard Foster
Is this Toys 'R' Us a haunted house? A 'ghost' tramps the aisles see
king his lost love? (ghost reported terrorizing Sunnyvale, CA branch
store) (American Pulse).
Koeppel, Dan
Adweek's Marketing Week.
June 10 1991, v32, n24, p17(1)
in Academic Index (database on UTCAT PLUS system)
COPYRIGHT BPI Communications Inc. 1991
A `ghost' tramps the aisles seeking his lost love
The children have left, and the din has subsided. Another hard day's shopping is history at the Sunnyvale, Calif. branch of Toys `R' Us. Yet there might be activity inside the vast, silent emporium this midnight, none of which has to do with the straightforward business of retailing.
Inside, it is said, toys topple from the their shelves. A skateboard rolls down an aisle, clanking aimlessly into a wall. But nobody is in this Toys `R' Us this midnight. Or anyway, nobody alive.
In the tony heart of high-tech Silicon Valley, could there really be such a thing as a haunted retail outlet?
"I'm a skeptical person," says Toys `R' Us assistant store director Jeff Linden. "But something's definitely happening here."
In the past few years, store management has tried to get to the bottom of several curious developments. Linden recounts stories of objects flying 20 feet through the air and hitting employees. Shelves left neat in a locked store have been found in disarray the next morning. And then there was the talking doll that cried "mama" over and over-but would only do so when put in a locked box.
If nothing else, it's attracting curiosity-seekers. "My daughter insisted we visit when she came here from Hawaii," said a woman (who declined to identify herself) at the local Chamber of Commerce.
But that doesn't mean that store workers laugh off the matter. "Some of our employees are spooked," Linden says. "They won't go into certain parts of the store alone." He hastens to add that the "ghost" hasn't affected day-to-day store operations in any tangible way. Yet the incidents were taken seriously enough that management let a local psychic visit the store.
"I thought they were seeing things," says `private psychic counselor' Sylvia Brown. I usually find ghosts in old houses. Not in a modern-day retail store." But Brown changed her mind when she walked into the store. "I felt something," she says. "Especially in the last aisle on the left."
It was in that supernatural aisle that Brown got permission to conduct a seance, a summoning of spirits.
Brown says the whole problem comes down to one scenario, namely that "Johnny is waiting for Beth." The ghost, she says, is one John Johnson, a circuit preacher who set up his tent in verdant Sunnyvale at the turn of the century. In those days, apples grew on the current site of the store. "Beth" is Elizabeth Yuba Murphy Tafee, daughter of a prominent rancher. But his love went unrequited. So poor Johnson-or "Yonny," as the employees have dubbed him-is doomed to tramp the aisles of the orchard qua toy store. He is reduced to bewailing his plight, searching for his lost love and occasionally beaning employees with a package of rubber ducks.
Of course, many observers consider the ghost about as real as a Ninja Turtle.
"My response is `Skeptics `R' Me,'" says James Randi, a prominent debunker of psychic phenomena. "There are lots of silly people who make all kinds of declarations."
But Brown can produce a photograph (see above) from the seance that she claims includes old Johnson. He is looming in the misty background, leaning against a store shelf. Brown says there was nobody in her group standing anywhere near that location during the seance.
Such "proof" doesn't cut much ice with Randi. And some of Brown's claims don't stand up too well when checked.
Brown says police are "constantly" responding to alarms at the store. Lieutenant Andy Pate, of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, says the store has "no more alarms than any other large retailer." But the stories persist. Local papers and TV have looked into the lovelorn spook.
"That's part of the hype," Randi says. "Why don't they install a video camera? Why don't they put the place under surveillance? Call me, and I'll get rid of the ghost in three days," says Randi. "Of course, I don't think they'd like that."
That may be the point. "Sales go up after reports of the ghost," says Linden. "A lot of people think this is a great thing."
So maybe nobody's in any great hurry to smoke out Old Yonny Johnson.
A reader of the web page sent me this note:
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 11:01:59 -0800
From: "C. Coffman" (turnkey@themall.net)
To: obiwan@netcom.com
Subject: "Haunted" Sunnyvale Toys'R'Us
Hi there,
Just read about the Sunnyvale "haunting" on your Paranormal page...I have some stuff to add to that, for your consideration. Remember that old show w/Jack Pallance, Ripley's Believe it or Not? They had an episode about that Toys'R'Us. In it, their "psychic" said the ghost (whom she also named "Johnny") was a local farmboy who died while chopping wood on the farm which used to stand in that locality. Her version goes that he cut his leg with the axe, bound it in a handkerchief, and attempted to continue chopping the rest of the wood. He died from loss of blood. The reason she gives for him still hanging around is: since he didn't realize the wound was fatal (by just ignoring it and continuing his chore), he doesn't realize he is dead. She thought he was trying to communicate with people.
Anyway, I seem to recall ol' Jack Pallance setting up a infra-red camera in the store after-hours, which picked up something weird just as an inflated rubber ball fell off a store shelf.
Believe it or not. (As they say...;)
turnkey@themall.net
Another reader sent this in:
From: "Tom & Ellen" (scooter@sgi.net)
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: Toys R Us Ghosts
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 02:34:41 -0400
Ghosts at Toys "R" Us is nothing new to the employees at the Greensburg, PA store Either. After reading the current story of the California store it struck me as very, very familiar. I have worked the over-night stock shift at the Greensburg store for almost a year now and have seen many similar occurences. Boxes in our back stock room have mysteriously fallen off of shelves, perfectly neat and straight isles of merchandise are messed by the time morning crews arrive. Some employees, I among them , have seen an apportion moving about the store. Usually its just a black form that you catch out the corner of your eye as it goes past an isle your working in. "Homer" as we have lovingly named him , (We all feel this is a male entity) is usually just mischiefious , not harmful. Of course, at about 4 AM you can get kind of tired playing with Homer, but we find if we just ignore his antics he moves to a different part of the store. Many employees refuse to work night shift because of Homer. One stock person worked one night building extra bikes for the summer rush. He obviously peaked Homers interest because none of us had problems that night except him. He kept complaining that he would lay a tool down one place and find it in another, or that he felt like he was constantly being watched. He claimed to have felt a very cold place by his construction area but no where else in the stock room. This stock person will not work overnight anymore.
Homer, rumor has it, is a victim of a car crash behind the store before the building was built. There is a cliff that has a hotel on it directly behind the store and somehow, we assume suicide, the man drove off the cliff to his demise.
As for me I just deal with Homer when I have to and leave him be. He hasn't hurt anyone, just frightened a few people. If I feel particularly disturbed in one area of the store I do something else and go back later.
scooter@sgi.net
If you have an account of a famous haunting you'd like to share, or more information to add to a haunting already listed, please feel free to email me.
Haunted Toys R Us Information Page
This page (http://www.ghosts.org/toysrus.html) last updated April 17, 2005.