Manoa Chinese Cemetery

Manoa Chinese Cemetery occupies a prominent place in Honolulu's oral paranormal tradition. Three phenomena recur in collected accounts. The first is the sound of children laughing — described as faint, distant, and impossible to localize — heard on the lower terraces in late afternoon and evening. The second is the appearance of slow-moving orange points of light, sometimes described as orbs, observed drifting across the upper grave terraces after dusk.

The third and most-cited account is of a woman in traditional Chinese mourning attire seen kneeling at the foot of a grave. Witnesses describe her as semi-transparent and recede as they approach. Local folklore identifies her variously as a mother grieving a lost child or a wife tending her husband's grave.

A widely shared 2008 incident involves an anonymous Honolulu Police Department officer responding to a noise complaint at the cemetery. The officer reported finding the grounds empty, then observing two child-sized figures behind a headstone that disappeared on approach. The officer further reported children's voices singing in the silence and his patrol car radio turning on by itself after he had switched it off. The account has circulated on Honolulu paranormal sites since its initial publication and is the cemetery's most-told modern story.

The cemetery is an active sacred site for the Chinese-Hawaiian community. Visitors are asked to maintain quiet, refrain from touching offerings or grave goods, and avoid stepping on grave markers. Paranormal investigation is not appropriate to the site's cultural use, and the Lin Yee Chung Association does not endorse or host paranormal tours.