Something Sacred

A Coast Guardsman scans the dark, starry horizon with a pair of night vision goggles. He’s looking for hazards in the water and other ships. But nothing can prepare him for what he’s about to see. And -- in Hilo, Hawaii, hula sisters are about to take the stage at the 1986 Merrie Monarch Festival. They’ve been practicing for months. But the gods have other plans. This supernatural story comes to us from our evil-twin, Spooked https://spookedpodcast.org/! You can listen to Spooked on any podcast platform, episodes drop weekly. Coast Guard Haunts It’s midnight in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and Jordan is standing watch on board a Coast Guard cutter ship, scanning the dark, starry horizon with a pair of night vision goggles. He’s looking for hazards in the water and other ships. But nothing can prepare him for what he’s about to see. Jordan, thank you, for sharing your story with us! Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Lauryn Newson. Merrie Monarch It’s a spring night in Hilo, Hawaii. Lei-Ann and her hula sisters are about to take the stage at the 1986 Merrie Monarch Festival. They’ve been practicing for months. But the gods have other plans. Thank you, Lei-Ann, for sharing your story. The 2026 Merrie Monarch Festival was in April. Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Clay Xavier, scouted by Ixchel Lopez, artwork by Teo Ducot. Season 17 - Episode 26 Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 0:48Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 2:04Glynn Washington?

  Nine years old, sitting in this church, angry. And my parents anger at these brethren in this place, and now their preacher, all puffed up, red-faced, bug-eyed, steps to the podium, commands us to "Open your battle to Exodus 32, here!"

• 2:26Glynn Washington?

  Brethren, Moses climbs the mountain to see God. Do the people wait patient? They do not. Instead, they work with their forges, their ovens, with wickedness in their hearts, with evil. Then, "Look right here, look here, look here, look here." They pull a golden calf from the flame. What do they do then? The very worst thing you can do. They call this thing, this abomination, a god. Who needs that other god? When this one gleams golden.

• 3:04Glynn Washington?

  Then they bow their heads before it, blasphemy. But know this brethren, there is no surer way to summon the Lord than to mock him.

• 3:14Glynn Washington?

  The God that delivered them from slavery under Pharaoh stretches out his mighty hand and smites with fire and horror and pain for their betrayal, remember that!

• 3:26Glynn Washington?

  If you want to see God face to face, you remember that.

• 3:36Glynn Washington?

  Later, anger has an idea.

• 3:41Glynn Washington?

  I snatch two hangers from the hall closet, bring them back to my bedroom, strip the wires from the hangers, bind them, fashion them. Work it just so.

• 3:53Glynn Washington?

  Then I cover it, not with gold. I don't have any of that, nah. Instead, I wrap sheet after sheet of aluminum foil around it,

• 4:05Glynn Washington?

  pinch and shape it into a face, into horns, the body of a calf.

• 4:14Glynn Washington?

  I admire it for a moment.

• 4:18Glynn Washington?

  Beautiful. My own graven image. Then I went for a lull in the ever-present noise of my household peek outside my bedroom, down the hall, pushed the front door open, quiet, quiet, quiet. Pad down the front steps of our trailer, aluminum calf wrapped tight in my jacket, then I run.

• 4:42Glynn Washington?

  Out to the middle of the woods, my secret, fast, fast, run, run, until I reached the spot reverently.

• 4:52Glynn Washington?

  Set the calf down on a patch of hard earth, but doubt stops me, fear.

• 5:01Glynn Washington?

  Then the anger returns, the fury. I have asked, begged their God to reveal itself as many ways as I know. Still, it judges me unworthy of even a word. Even a whisper, "Answer me."

• 5:21Glynn Washington?

  Now this is all I have left.

• 5:25Glynn Washington?

  So I steel myself.

• 5:28Glynn Washington?

  Look to the sky, one last chance, answer me.

• 5:35Glynn Washington?

  Then I drop to my knees.

• 5:38Glynn Washington?

  Bow my head.

• 5:41Glynn Washington?

  And I pray

• 5:44Glynn Washington?

  to my own

• 5:47Glynn Washington?

  graven image.

• 5:57Glynn Washington?

  Today, on Snap Judgment, we proudly present something sacred. My name is from Washington. All that glitters is not aluminum when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 6:51Glynn Washington?

  We begin headed out to sea to meet Jordan. Now, Jordan is fresh out of boot camp and doing his very first unit with the Coast Guard onboard a ship patrolling the waters off the east coast. And I'm gonna let Jordan take it from here.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  It's half past midnight. I'm out here by myself on the catwalk, standing my watch, doing my lookout.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  This is a famous class cutter, about a stern, 270 feet long. White with the famous US Coast Guard orange racing stripe on the front.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  At this point, the ship is off the coast of New England. Even being late spring, it's still pretty cold. The wind is blowing. I'm bundled up in what we call a float coat, essentially a rain jacket with a life jacket built into it.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  It's a pretty dark night. It's very starry out, but the moon had very little illumination in this particular night. So I'm using night vision goggles and I'm looking for hazards, essentially. Things floating in the water, other ships that we might not see on radar.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  At this point, I'm about an hour and a half into my watch. It's been a pretty quiet night.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  I'm doing a scan with my night vision, just looking towards the front of the ship. And I see there's a person standing at the forwardmost point of the bow, about 70 feet away from me, with his arms outstretched.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  It's the middle of the night. There aren't very many people awake at this point. And for someone to be out there in the pitch-black darkness, standing on the front of the ship, that rings alarm bells in my head. I'm concerned about the worst-case scenario that this person is out there with the intent to jump off.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Right away, I have to look again. You know, did I actually just see that?

• 9:33Speaker 02

  I pick up my NVGs again and look out and it's very clearly a person standing there.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Just the silhouette of a person.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  I can tell that it's a man. He's got a military-style haircut. And I can tell that they're wearing the Coast Guard uniform. Not by any color, just by the sort of silhouette of it.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I'm yelling, "Hey, what are you doing out there?" You know, hey, you know, just trying to get their attention.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  The OOD, the officer at the deck, the person in charge of navigation of the ship, she's inside the bridge. This OOD has heard me screaming. She's my boss as a seaman. And she has come out to see what the deal is. She's short, probably 5'2", blonde woman with big, like, porthole glasses. Just these big, round glasses that you practically can't see past when you're talking to her.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  So I hand her my night-vision goggles. I say, "There's someone standing on the bow." And I think the exact words out of her mouth were, "Oh..."

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Because at this point now, she's reached the same initial conclusion that I have of somebody's on the front of the boat and they might be getting ready to jump over the side.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  So immediately, she calls to the bosun's mate of the watch. Their only roving watch stander on the bridge. And tells him to go down there. I can hear him open the door. It's a very distinct like creak and slam sound, a very heavy door. And I can see his flashlight as he comes out. He's got a life jacket on himself. And he's got another life jacket in his hand in case he has to reach out and grab this person and throw him in a life jacket to prevent him from hurting themselves. So the OD, she sends the bosun's mate of the watch down.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And a couple of minutes later, he comes up on the radio and he says, there's no one up here. Right away, my heart sank. My immediate thought was that this person had jumped over the side or fallen over the side. And we didn't see it happen. I expected that we're going to be looking for a man overboard throughout the night. But I immediately pick up the night vision and I see right away that the person is there still. I hand him to her, she can still see him there. So now I'm thinking that the BMO probably had to walk through like a lit up space to get out there.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  And so his natural night vision just isn't adjusted enough to see this person. We're on the radio, I'm yelling, we're trying to guide him to where this person is standing. We can see him shining his flashlight right in the spot where the shadow is. And we see the BMO walk up right where this person is standing. We're telling him the whole time, he's right there, he's right there, he's right in front of you. How do you not see him? And then he walks right through the person.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  And is still saying that there's nothing there.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  My blood runs cold. I'm dumbfounded.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  I don't know how I could be even seeing what I'm seeing. I just watched a man walk through another man.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  The OD and I are trying to figure out what it is we're looking at. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that, but we can both see that it's not. It's not any of those things we try to rationalize.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  The OD goes back into the bridge. She didn't have much to say after that. I think she was pretty well shaken up and in her own head at that point.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I continue standing my watch. Every time I looked down, it was still there.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  And at this point, I've pretty well understood that he's gonna be there.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  I get off my watch and make my way through the ship. And at this point, I'm just so exhausted that I'm ready to go to sleep. And I pass out pretty much as soon as my head hits the pillow.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  So the next day, I'm sitting on the mess deck between meals, kinda just wasting some time.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  But at the same time, I'm thinking about this shadow that I saw last night.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Ghost stories are very common on these boats. I've always been a sort of, what I would call, maybe a loose believer. But I've never seen one, so how can I possibly say one way or the other?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  And then the OOD from that night comes up and sits down. That's abnormal behavior. Officers don't sit on the enlisted mess deck. They have their own sort of eating area cloistered from the rest of the ship. And traditionally, officers aren't supposed to sit there unless they ask you. And so for her to come over here and sit down, she clearly has something on her mind.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Really, before I had a chance to say anything, she said, I saw it again.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  After I got off watch, I went to my room and it was standing in the hallway.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  She just described it as just a black man-shaped figure.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Right away, I just got chills. My hairs on my arms stood up.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  It wasn't just this figure that stood on an unreachable part of the ship, you know, 70 feet away from me.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  It's now something that I could turn the corner and see at any given moment.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Within the next few days, you know, I start hearing stories about, I went out on the fantail to smoke in the night and I saw someone standing there and raised my phone up to their face to see who it was and there just wasn't anybody there. Or about seeing a shadow of a man while they were making their rounds before they went to watch. That they were in the gym and saw just this shadow of a person.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  At this point, I felt pretty afraid that I was going to now run into this thing anywhere that I went. It's capable of moving around the ship. What else is it capable of? What is it going to do the next time I run into it?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  About a week after that initial incident, we're having what we call quarters, where we all get together and the executive officer and the commanding officer, they discuss our upcoming plans, they make announcements. The executive officer stands up and he goes, "Oh, and we've got a burial at sea that we need volunteers for." I'm thinking, "What? What are you talking about? Burial at sea? Like, nobody's dead. Nobody died on this boat." Come to find out, since we left Florida on our way back up to New England,

• 18:00Speaker 02

  we have been carrying this urn onboard. And it's been tucked away in one of the officer's staterooms for safekeeping. And the urn belonged to a former electrician's mate in the Coast Guard. The electrician's mate had been in the Coast Guard in the 80s onboard this particular ship, responding to search and rescue. What he requested was to be buried at sea in the vicinity of where his first SAR case was. At this point, it starts to make sense. This was probably the man

• 18:44Speaker 02

  that was walking around the boat. Anytime you run into an old veteran, one of the first things they want to do is take a look at the ship that they used to be on, see what's changed, and see who's working and how things are going. I think he was just trying to get his bearings and see what's changed, see what stayed the same, reminiscent, in a way, this guy who was on this ship that stood where I stood, did the mission that I do, and now we're honoring his final request. That felt very moving to me, and I was very quick to volunteer

• 19:28Speaker 02

  to be a part of this ceremony.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  The day of the ceremony comes and I have volunteered to be an urn bearer. We have three riflemen to do the gun salute. We have someone with a trumpet to play taps. A couple of people to hold the American flag as we do the interment. This particular urn is a small, plastic box.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Myself and the chief, we bring it over to the rail and put it over the side and let go.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  When we drop the urn in the water, I sort of say a little bit of a prayer to myself,

• 20:16Speaker 02

  just thinking about the implications of what we've just done and what it means to the man and his family.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  And after that, the sightings stop.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  The shadow just feels like another shipmate now. That being said, a shipmate that I still don't want to run into in the dark in the middle of the night, but it's just someone else who lived part of their life on this boat.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Recently, I was underway on the ship that I'm on now and I knew that the ship that I used to be on was in a port that we were pulling into.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  I went over to the ship. They were right across the pier and salute the watchstander, go on the brow and salute the flag, as is custom in the Coast Guard, and step on and immediately that smell. Every cutter has its own smell. And just the memories of the time I was there just filled, filled my head as, as I took in that smell.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  And I kind of feel like maybe that's what that electrician's mate was doing as well, just taking in the memories.

• 21:48Glynn Washington?

  Jordan, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your story with us. The original score for that piece was by Lauren Newsom. It was produced by Zoe Frigno.

• 22:05Glynn Washington?

  When Snap Judgment returns, we wake up the gods. Stay tuned.

• 22:17Speaker 01

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• 23:20Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Something Sacred episode, featuring amazing stories from Snap's evil twin podcast, Spooked. Our question: How do you wake a god? Our next story begins on a spring night in 1986. Thousands of people have gathered in Hilo, Hawaii, not just from around the islands, from the four corners of the earth, to witness the largest, the most prestigious hula competition in the world. As the sun sets over Hilo, rollers pack even the Kanaka Ole stadium, the rafters. Air tastes rich with the smell of Kalua pork and the sound of ancient drums. And in the distance, dark clouds roll in. Snap Judgment.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Good evening and welcome to the 23rd Annual Merrie-Monarch Festival Hula Competition. We are here, live in Hilo.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  Tonight, the Kahiko Competition, where 30 halaus will be sharing the ancient dances of Hawaii.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  Leanne Durant is backstage with the other dancers in her halau, or hula school. After nine months of practice and preparation, they're about to take the stage and perform their rendition of the Three Wind Storms of Hina.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  The women's chant, Kimo, speaks of the goddess Hina from Molokai and her three devastating winds that were able to bruise skins and devastate lands.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  And so we should get from these dancers, male and female, very strong, emotional, Kahiko ancient dances. Should be very interesting this evening.

• 25:24Speaker 06

  And we were all ready to go, and we're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  It's pitch black. The storm is going crazy.

• 25:40Speaker 06

  That's when the dread really comes, like...

• 25:44Speaker 06

  I had bad feelings from the very beginning of learning the dance.

• 25:50Speaker 06

  I was like, "Okay, what do we do to stop this?"

• 26:00Speaker 05

  Leanne has been dancing hula for almost as long as she can remember. As a girl growing up in Honolulu, she learned to dance a version of hula called Hula Awana. It's an instrumental style of hula that became popular after the Hawaiian language was banned in the islands.

• 26:17Speaker 06

  I grew up in the generation where Hawaiian language, hula, was not accepted. During the overthrow of our monarchy, we were illegally taken by the United States. And once that happened, as a people, we weren't allowed to speak our language. Ancient hula was underground because we were not allowed to dance it.

• 26:44Speaker 06

  And then when I came home from college in 1977, there were things happening here in Hawaii, which they called the first renaissance of Things Hawaiian. And it all started with the hula.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  All over the islands, young Hawaiians were reviving hula kaheko and bringing back those traditional dances and chants.

• 27:10Speaker 06

  It looked exciting. So I asked my neighbor if she was dancing hula anywhere. And she said she was. So I went down with her to a hula class with Kumuhula Mapuana de Silva. She was teaching kaheko, which is the ancient hula.

• 27:35Speaker 06

  Those chants go back, way back. It tells those stories of our ancestors. What kind of beauty did they see in a flower? What kind of beauty did they see in a rock? What did they do if things weren't right? What kind of battles did they have?

• 27:54Speaker 06

  And I just fell in love with it.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  One day, not long after she started studying hula kaheko, Leanne remembers overhearing her kumu, or teacher, Mapuana de Silva, talking about entering the Mary Monarch Festival.

• 28:17Speaker 06

  I was like, what is that? That's how out of touch I was. I didn't even know about the festival.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  They started it as a little competition with a few halau. And over the years, it just, by word of mouth, by, you know, more, the renaissance was bringing more and more halau into being. And it just became one of the biggest things ever. And that's kind of like our big gold star, you know, in the spring is going to Mary Monarch.

• 28:57Speaker 05

  The first time Leian went to Mary Monarch, it was 1981. She was in her 20s and having the time of her life, preparing for the festival with her hula sisters. Her halau didn't win that year.

• 29:09Speaker 06

  But it was just really a fun time. It was a really bonding time. Each halau would have their own fundraiser with their own little signature to it. And because even though we were in competition, we would support each other. We would go to each other's fundraisers. We would help them, they would help us. It was like a huge, huge family. But it was a lot of work. We'd make our own costumes, we'd make our own lei. We have to raise money to get there and be able to pay for our hotels, our vans.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  Not to mention the hours each week spent practicing the dances they were going to perform.

• 29:53Speaker 06

  They would have a dance of your choice. And then whoever the committee was would choose a dance where every halau danced the same. But each kubo brought their own spirit to it.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  They'd start rehearsing their dances in September and work on them all the way through to the competition in the spring. But for Leian and the other dancers in halau, mohala, ilima, the point of all this hard work wasn't just to win. Although, in her first five years with the group, they did win, three times.

• 30:25Speaker 06

  What we would strive for was to share our hula and our interpretation with everyone.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  And then came 1986 and the three windstorms of Hina.

• 30:41Speaker 06

  It was about the goddess Hina. She's one of the oldest goddesses in Hawaii. And she was the female that could generate force in Hawaiian cosmology. And she was kind of a protector of the land, too.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  She had this gourd. And if the people wouldn't take care of the land, she would open her gourd just a little bit.

• 31:13Speaker 06

  When she opened that gourd just a little bit, the rain got stronger, the winds started to pick up.

• 31:21Speaker 06

  And it was kind of like a warning to the people that you better take care of business. And so as the chant goes on, the people still don't heed her call or, you know, pay attention. So she opens her gourd a little more. That's when you start getting lightning, thunder. The rain gets harder, the winds start whipping up.

• 31:46Speaker 06

  And on the third time, when she opens the gourd, it's the destruction of man.

• 31:59Speaker 05

  Leian was a really experienced dancer at this point. And she was a mentor to some of the newer hula sisters. But when she got into the studio to start practicing this one...

• 32:09Speaker 06

  Something was just weird.

• 32:12Speaker 06

  I remember going to hula. And we learned the second verse.

• 32:19Speaker 06

  I, all of a sudden, just felt, I don't know how to explain it, I was a little frightened. I couldn't really explain why, but it was just a feeling I had in my na'au, in my gut.

• 32:33Speaker 06

  And that feeling carried through the whole, what I call the meribonic season, starting in September.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Leian hoped that with time, she'd get more comfortable with the routine and the feeling would fade. But it didn't.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  When the spring rolled around, that uneasy feeling in her gut was still there whenever she practiced. She didn't mention it to her kumu or anyone else in her halau. She just kept pushing, trying to get it right.

• 33:07Speaker 06

  But I just couldn't get it. I couldn't get the dance, I couldn't get the chant. I made mistakes all the time. It just didn't feel comfortable to me.

• 33:20Speaker 06

  I never had struggles like that, learning a hula.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Finally, the week of Mary Monarch arrived. LeAnn and her Hula sisters flew to Hilo and checked into the Nani Loa Hotel. That night, they sat in the audience in Edith Kanakaoli Stadium and watched the Miss Aloha competition. The next day, it was their turn to compete, Kahiko Night. LeAnn remembers waking up that morning to perfect Hilo weather, blue skies with a cool mist coming off the ocean. The dancers spent the day rehearsing on the hotel lawn before heading over to the stadium. When they got there, they had some time to kill before they had to get ready, and most of the dancers wanted to watch the first groups perform.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  But LeAnn decided that she needed some time alone and fresh air to clear her head, so she made her way back outside.

• 34:17Speaker 06

  I was super nervous because I had a hard time with the chant. I needed to calm my nerves. So I remember going down. I sat on the sidewalk, kind of along the fence. I would just keep, kind of just, taking a deep breath. I would always just tell myself, just let it go. Just let it go. Once you get on that stage, you're gonna forget all your worldly worries.

• 34:48Glynn Washington?

  The Snap Judgment: Something Sacred episode continues right after the break. Stay tuned.

• 35:02Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Something Sacred episode, featuring amazing stories from Snap's evil twin podcast, Spooked. Snap Judgment.

• 35:29Speaker 05

  As she sat there, breathing in and out, LeAnn could hear the first women's group take the stage inside the stadium and start to perform Hina's chant.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  We welcome you, the people, throughout the state of Hawaii, from all of the Hawaiian islands. And now, from Las Vegas, Nevada, under the direction of Kuhuhula, Wayne Panoke.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Hula halau o kahone.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  This is our first opportunity to see the Wahine competition chant, which will always be performed first.

• 36:29Speaker 06

  And then, as I could hear the chanting on the stage, it started to rain.

• 36:38Speaker 06

  It came so fast, pretty soon it was pouring rain.

• 36:45Speaker 06

  At first, I didn't think anything because Hilo is unpredictable. It always does things like that, you know? So, I went in and I started dressing. And then my whule sisters came. We dressed under the bleachers so we could hear what was going on on the stage.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Making their first appearance at the Mary Monarch Festival, another opportunity to see Hina and her devastating wings.

• 37:32Speaker 06

  As I was dressing my hula sisters, I kept watching the rain. And I was noticing like the gutters of the tennis stadium was... The water was just gushing out and it was coming really quickly.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  All of a sudden, I just felt like this is the story.

• 37:56Speaker 06

  The rain kept coming and the rain kept coming. It seemed like every time I heard the chant, the rain got worse and worse and worse. I was just like observing and thinking, wow, this is like the first storm.

• 38:16Speaker 06

  Clouds were really dark and heavy and I could hear the chanting and I would see lightning or I'd hear the thunder.

• 38:26Speaker 06

  And then I went to, this is like the second storm.

• 38:31Speaker 06

  We're dancing about the story and the story is coming true.

• 38:38Speaker 06

  Everybody's on stage, like they're chanting and their energy is there and they're bringing this to life. So I felt very uncomfortable and I did not want to go on that stage.

• 38:55Speaker 06

  What if we were the ones that she decided then and there, let's open the gourd the third time? And it would be destruction of man.

• 39:13Speaker 06

  And stadium was full of man.

• 39:19Speaker 06

  So I really felt dreadful.

• 39:24Speaker 06

  But I was not going to disappoint my kumu or my hula sisters. Like, I didn't want to be the one that was like, "I don't want to do this," you know? Because not performing on Kahiko night automatically disqualified us from the competition. And we've worked so hard, you've sacrificed. You know, we've had girls sacrifice being in sports, going to proms, you know, doing all the things that you do as young people because we loved it so much. And what if I was wrong? So I talked myself back into it. It's just like, "Okay, you're here. This is a commitment. You can do it."

• 40:15Speaker 06

  Intermission was ending. People were going back to their seats.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Welcome back to Hilo Halei and the beautiful Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium.

• 40:25Speaker 06

  We're about to go on. My stomach is in knots. We were all ready to go, and we're standing in a circle. And then, all of a sudden, the lights went out.

• 40:40Speaker 06

  You hear the audience say, "Whoa." And then there was silence.

• 40:49Speaker 06

  It's pitch black, and the storm is going crazy.

• 40:56Speaker 06

  I start to kind of panic because I felt like the lights were the warning. And I just kept thinking in my mind, "We need to break the cycle." We have to do something to stop, to stop the momentum of this storm. And the only way I knew how to break the cycle would be to not dance.

• 41:24Speaker 06

  And then, one of my Hula sisters that was standing next to me, she told me that she was afraid and she didn't want to go out and dance. And several other people came up and told me that.

• 41:40Speaker 06

  I went into care, nurturing mode. So I said, "Okay, I'll go talk to Kumu and see what happens."

• 41:51Speaker 06

  So I left the circle and I went up to her and I said, "Mapu, I have to tell you something. We don't feel good about dancing."

• 42:05Speaker 06

  There was no anger. She just said... Okay, so she came to the group and she talked to us and said, "Do you not want to dance?"

• 42:17Speaker 06

  You know, of course, everybody's kind of like, "Oh, what should I say?"

• 42:23Speaker 06

  And then I just said, "Well, I don't want to." And then the majority of the girls were like, "Yeah, we don't want to. We don't want to."

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Meanwhile, out in the audience, somebody had started to sing.

• 42:38Speaker 06

  I don't remember what song, but just to take the tension off, I think. Someone started to sing and then everyone was singing.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  So despite the festive mood, it was haunting, if not coincidental, to think that the night's intense lightning and thunderstorm literally shook Edith Kanakaole Indoor Tennis Stadium. The storm caused a 40-minute blackout.

• 43:03Speaker 06

  Eventually, the lights went on.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  With the storm raging against the black sky, the announcer got on the mic.

• 43:12Speaker 06

  He says, "I'd like to announce our next halau, halau mo, halaiima, under the direction of Mapuana de Silva."

• 43:24Speaker 06

  She comes up, goes up the round by herself, goes to a mic in the middle of the stage. And nobody knew what she was going to say.

• 43:37Speaker 06

  But then she said, "We have decided that our girls will not be performing this evening." My concern and care is first for my ladies.

• 43:52Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 43:58Speaker 06

  Then everybody was clapping.

• 44:03Speaker 06

  I think they were clapping because she made her students number one. It mattered. What we felt mattered to her and that we were willing to be disqualified.

• 44:19Speaker 06

  So this mopona came back from being onstage and making that announcement. The rain just stopped.

• 44:29Speaker 06

  As we were undressing and putting our costumes away and taking care of everything, it went back to being a light mist with a little breeze. And it was no rain for the rest of the competition.

• 44:49Speaker 06

  I don't know what would have happened if we went up.

• 44:55Speaker 06

  There were a whole bunch of halau after us. They danced, no problem.

• 45:04Speaker 06

  But I felt it's not meant to be danced by us.

• 45:09Speaker 06

  It didn't matter that we missed this competition, that we got disqualified. None of that mattered. Because I feel that we broke the cycle.

• 45:33Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, thank you, LeAnn, for sharing your story. LeAnn told us, even though her group was disqualified from the 1986 competition the next night, they did have another chance to dance. And after all the ups and downs of the festival, they rocked the stage with one of the best performances ever.

• 45:53Glynn Washington?

  And Spook, as you should know, the next Merrie Monarch Festival is just days away. There'll be a link in our show notes where you can learn more.

• 46:01Glynn Washington?

  This piece was scouted by Isel Lopez. The original score was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Zoe Fregno.

• 46:14Glynn Washington?

  If you dug this journey through the Shadowlands, know that Spook Stories drop each and every week. Amazing stories from people who can scarcely believe it happened themselves. The Spook Podcast never miss a moment. And, and, Snap Plus is now available. Finally, you can subscribe for bonus Snap episodes heard nowhere else, and special Snap meetups, Snap stuff, Snap community, and more. Snap Plus, snapjudgment.org.

• 46:52Glynn Washington?

  Now, for just a moment, let's talk about babies.

• 47:00Glynn Washington?

  Tiny little bundles of joy, fat cheeks, that smell, that baby smell, the other baby smell. Makes your heart grow three sizes too big, but longtime listeners to this show know that it often starts at the beginning.

• 47:16Glynn Washington?

  And if you know an infant

• 47:20Glynn Washington?

  or a small child that demonstrates knowledge, powers, understandings, or memories

• 47:26Glynn Washington?

  that they didn't learn in nursery school, tell me about it. Spooked at snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a Spook story from a Spooked listener.

• 47:38Glynn Washington?

  Spook Studios stands center between this world and the next, cloaked by KQED in San Francisco. Don't seek to find it. Let's it seek to find you.

• 47:55Glynn Washington?

  No Snap Studio content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team Spooked, the union-represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51. And Spooked is brought to you by the team that loves to hula dance, except for Mark Ristich. No, Mark refers to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

• 48:30Glynn Washington?

  There's David Kim, Zoe Fergino, Eric Yanez, Marissa Dodge, Gina Berriaco, Miles Lassie, Taylor Decott, Suichu, Evan Stern, Eve Jeffcoat, Yeshal Lopez, Jack Darrow, Doug Stewart, Nicholas March. The spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is from Washington.

• 48:54Glynn Washington?

  And you know, I'm going to my auntie's house. My auntie's place, I'm contemplating my little quest for the divine. A search I know she would think was silly. My auntie, uh, she always wanted kids of her own. I think she did, I think, think that she did. But it never happened that way for her. So I believe this was my personal stroke of good fortune because when I was in the crazy at my house, she could sometimes be the escape, the respite, the hug, the hot meal, the field trip fee,

• 49:38Glynn Washington?

  the couch to sleep on, the kind word, the new kicks, the gas money, the good book, the screaming from the stands at the graduation they addressed her right down when I didn't have an address. The emergency contact. Well, I didn't have an emergency contact. All these little things, I think about this, walking to her tiny apartment, busy searching for the divine, but here the divine is shining bright in front of me and now the divine is cussing me out, putting all that cold air inside, leaving her door wide open.

• 50:19Glynn Washington?

  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never.

• 50:31Glynn Washington?

  The light.