The Walt Disney Company is a multinational organization worth more than $100 billion. As such, they have an awful lot of closets and it’s therefore inevitable that a company as popular, beloved, and long-lasting as Disney is going to have more than a few skeletons in those closets.
Most of these proverbial skeletons are little more than weird rumors borne of decades of hearsay, but there are a few lingering secrets about the Walt Disney Company, specifically, it’s amusement parks, that persist so much that it might mean they’re actually real…
Fantasyland
Ever since they first opened in 1955, Disney Parks have always had a bit of a mystique about them. At the time it was first erected, the idea of Disneyland had been completely unheard of. Walt Disney wanted to create a fantasy-land, where anyone could escape from the mundane and be transported to someplace they’d never imagined.
Swirling Rumors
An unreal world is likely to stir the imagination of anyone who encounters it. Then, of course, there’s the fact that Walt Disney insisted on keeping the day-to-day running of the park a closely-guarded secret. These two factors contributed to a half-a-century’s worth of swirling rumors about the nature of Disneyland itself.
Hard to Quash
Despite all the talented PR people working to keep the Disney Company in a positive light, the rumors persisted. These rumors have since become the sort of creepy urban legends that prove impossible to quash. Most are the result of people connecting disparate stories into one cohesive, albeit unusual, urban legend.
Creative Legends
Some of these fictions strain credulity at best. Especially those that refer to the many ghost stories that seem to permeate every square inch of the so-called “Happiest Place on Earth.” One of these such ghost stories has recently emerged from Disneyland’s most ghastly haunts: the Haunted Mansion.
Haunted Mansion
Disney’s Haunted Mansion is one of the only scary attractions in the park. Located in both Disneyland and Disneyworld, the haunted house is often seen as more whimsical than frightening. But the rumors surrounding those who built it and who might have been buried in the ride itself, are definitely bone-chilling.
The Legend
The main urban legend concerning the Haunted Mansion involves the bereaved families of deceased Disney fans taking their cremated remains and scattering them inside the attraction. These fans apparently loved Disney so much they never wanted to leave. This allegedly takes place in all of the Haunted Mansion locations.
Ghost of Disney
Disney has recently confirmed that this sort of thing isn’t as unusual as it might sound. There have been more than a few cases of this happening. When it does occur, custodial staff has to go into high gear and get the mess cleaned up as quickly as possible. Of course, you can’t just grab a dustbuster.
Smuggled In
Even with guards posted at the doors, it’s hard to keep someone from smuggling in a ziplock baggie of grandpa’s ashes taped to the back of their leg. When such a disturbing, though clearly emotionally-charged action does occur though, it can wreak havoc on park operations. The ride must first be shut down.
HEPA Vacuum
Custodians and Imagineers, as their called, shut down the ride, evacuate it, and call for a HEPA cleanup to come through the attraction with a special vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, human ashes don’t always stay still, so they often get blown about, prompting a much longer cleanup process. Human remains are certainly not hygienic, after all.
Codenames
The employees who work at Disney often come up with morbidly humorous, albeit, uncouth methods of explaining these unusual occurrences. Recently, an unnamed ex-Disney employee came forward and explained that she’d gotten in trouble for calling the situation a “Code Grandma” with her fellow Imagineers.
How Often?
As crazy as it sounds, these incidents actually happen fairly often. Between all the Disney parks, it happens about once a month. That’s right. Every month, someone gets it in them to smuggle their loved one’s ashes into the Haunted Mansion to dump them as they travel through the spooky house.
Unlawful
As bold and touching as this strange practice may appear on the surface, there are many consequences for those who dare to dump. This type of behavior is strictly prohibited by park rules. It also happens to be completely illegal. If guests are caught attempting to do this sort of thing, they are escorted quietly off the property. But that’s not all.
Misdemeanor
The Anaheim California Police Department considers the act of spreading ashes without permission, especially on private property, a misdemeanor. So anyone caught in the act will also have to deal with the police when all is said and done. Nevertheless, plenty of people are willing to take the risk to honor the last wishes of their loved ones.
Her Happy Place
One person ready to take the risk was Jodie Jackson Wells. In 2009, her mother passed away and she traveled to Disney World in Florida to sprinkle her ashes on the It’s a Small World ride. She also dumped some of them in front of Cinderella’s castle. Disney was her mom’s ‘happy place’ and she was more than happy to do it for her.
Technical Difficulties
Some people have even been known to put ashes on other rides as well, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, Dumbo flyers when they were there, and in either of the grand castles in the parks themselves. Wells got away with the scheme and only spoke about it after the fact. As far as she knew, neither the Small World ride nor the castle had to be closed down due to “Technical Difficulties.”
Recent Cases
As for the “official” word from Disney themselves, the general gist is still that this doesn’t happen. Their spokespeople added that they aren’t aware of any confirmed ash-scattering incidents in the park and that the practice doesn’t happen by accident or with Disney’s permission. As far as they want everyone to know, it’s still a rumor, just one with a few isolated anecdotal examples.
Haunted Hearse
There are others about the mansion, however, that is a bit more anecdotal, though no less morbid. They say that the ghost horse-drawn hearse located outside the Disneyland Haunted Mansion was once used to carry Brigham Young to his place of burial after he died in 1877.
No Truth
Even this is not true, though. Glen M. Leonard, director of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Museum of Church History and Art, spoke out after hearing the rumor. There is no historical evidence about the funeral of the famed religious leader that indicates he was carried in a hearse of any kind; let alone a ghost-horse drawn one.
Rumors Develop
One may wonder how rumors like these got started, but the origin of such tales is fairly simple. As for Young’s alleged hearse, it was bought by a collector named Dale Rickards in 1973 and though he tried to sell it to the Church of Latter Day Saints, ended up selling it to Disney instead. Thus the rumor of the hearse’s somewhat notorious origin began.
Nobody Dies At Disney
Of all the rumors that surround the Disney parks, the most persistent is one that states no one has ever died on the Disney premises. The official story is that any victims or injured persons have been removed from the park before they were declared dead. Perhaps there are no ghosts in Disney after all.
