OUT OF STATE | The White Lady of Aokigahara: Paranormal Stories of Japan’s Most Haunted Forest

In this inaugural episode of Out of State — a companion to State of the Unknown — join host Robert Barber as we step beyond America’s borders to one of the most haunted places in the world. We explore haunted history and paranormal stories surrounding Aokigahara, Japan's infamous Suicide Forest.

At the base of Mount Fuji lies Aokigahara, Japan’s infamous “Suicide Forest.” But beyond its tragic reputation, locals tell of something else: the ghost of a woman in white, seen drifting silently among the trees.

This episode explores the paranormal history of Aokigahara, chilling first-hand accounts, and the ghostly legend of the White Lady — a yūrei spirit born of sorrow. Known for following the living, she’s one of Japan’s most enduring ghost stories.

If you love paranormal stories, true ghost legends, and haunted history, this eerie journey into Japan’s most mysterious forest is for you.

🎙️ Content Warning

This episode contains discussion of suicide and grief.
If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available.
In the United States, you can dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
For listeners elsewhere, please check your local crisis hotlines and resources.

Chapters

• 0:00 Content Warning: Suicide and Grief
• 0:49 Introduction to Aokigahara Forest
• 1:51 The White Lady of Aokigahara
• 5:42 Yurei: Japan's Lingering Spirits
• 6:55 The Forest's Modern Reputation
• 9:15 Responding to Grief: Volunteers' Perspective
• 11:34 Reality or Perception: The White Lady's Truth
• 13:55 Closing Thoughts on Witnessing Grief

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode contains discussion of suicide and grief. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. In the United States you can dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For listeners elsewhere, please check your local crisis hotlines and resources. You are not alone. You are not alone.

Speaker 1: 0:29

At the base of Mount Fuji lies a forest so dense, so still. It swallows sound, aokigahara, the sea of trees and called by many something darker. The forest has a reputation. People vanish inside, some by choice, some by something else. Locals speak of spirits, lost souls, and one in particular, a woman in white Dressed in death, eyes like still water. If she chooses you, she doesn't scream, she follows.

Speaker 1: 1:31

I'm Robert Barber, and this is Out of State, a companion series to State of the Unknown. Short journeys into legends beyond America's borders, stories of folklore, hauntings and shadows from the other side of the map. Let's step into the dark. Aokigahara stretches across old lava fields. At the foot of Mount Fuji, the remnants of an eruption that hardened into black honeycomb. Tree roots clutch rock. Their trunks twist at odd angles. The ground is pocked with caves that breathe cold air, even in the summer. There are few clearings, no distant horizon. The canopy stitches itself shut above you Sound doesn't behave the way that it should. The porous lava drinks it in Clap once and the echo dies in your hands. Even direction feels unreliable. The forest folds space into itself, compasses, wander Phones just give up. Hikers tie ribbons to trees like a lifeline and still step back into the same clearing, convinced they've moved for an hour.

Speaker 1: 2:59

In Japanese belief, deaths marked by sorrow don't end cleanly. They can leave a spirit behind a yu-rei, pale hair, unbound, white burial dress, feet that barely meet the ground, bound to the place where grief began In Aokigahara. The trees remember Aokigahara. The trees remember. They call her the White Lady of Aokigahara. She's seen at the mouths of caves or standing just inside the first line of trees, close enough to notice, far enough to doubt. A white kimono, the kind worn for burial hair like a curtain, hands loose at her sides, as if the body forgot what to do with them. Some say she was a bride whose ceremony never started, others a mother whose arms were suddenly empty. Some say she was first the echo that taught the forest how to grieve. She isn't rage, she is sorrow given shape. The white lady doesn't scream, she doesn't chase, she follows.

Speaker 1: 4:19

One hiker heard weeping that seemed to hang in the air rather than come from any direction. She turned back and saw a pale sleeve ease behind a trunk, not hurried, just hiding. A camper woke to handprints on the inside of his tent, small, facing inward. No one else had camped with him. Night patrols speak carefully about what they've seen An abandoned car at dusk, still in the morning Dew, filmed across the windshield from the inside, a pale figure in the tree line, too, still to be a hiker Gone when the flashlight found it. A film crew spent three nights in the forest Batteries, drained, without warning, footage scrambled. One crew member dreamt of a woman whispering in a language he didn't know. Nothing missing. He refused to stay the fourth night.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Aokigahara is already a place that unsettles the senses. The White Lady is either its oldest illusion or its most persistent truth. Yurei are an old shape of fear In Edo period theater. They drift across the stage in white hair, unbound, the language of unfinished business. Okiku, a servant girl whose broken promise rattles dishes in a well. Oiwa, betrayed, poisoned. Her spirit following the guilty into madness, each held to earth by one overwhelming emotion. The White Lady follows this lineage, not a specter of vengeance but a gravity of grief.

Speaker 1: 6:12

Shinto and Buddhist traditions speak of the dead needing guidance. During Oban families light lanterns to bring ancestors home. Shinto and Buddhist traditions speak of the dead needing guidance. During Oban families light lanterns to bring ancestors home. In Aokigahara, some say lights appear deeper in the trees, as if the forest is full of lanterns with no one left to carry them out.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Aokigahara's reputation as the suicide forest is not ancient, it's modern and it grew quickly. In the 1960s, a popular novel, seicho Matsumoto's Tower of Waves, ends with lovers dying by their own choice in Aokigahara. Around the same time, essays and articles began to single the forest out as a quiet place to disappear. Older folklore whispered about Ubasute, the tale of abandoning the elderly in remote mountains. A story scholars debate, but one that added a chill to the place. Scholars debate, but one that added a chill to the place. Whether literature reflected reality or helped shape it, the association deepened by the late 20th century.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Authorities were recovering bodies every year. Media attention rose. So did copycat attempts. In response, the government stopped publishing official numbers. They wanted to deny the forest its morbid scoreboard, but patrols never stopped. Trailheads carry signs now. Pleas more than warnings. Your life is a precious gift. Think of your family, please seek help. Think of your family. Please seek help.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Volunteers and police walk the paths with tape to mark their route. They find string tied from tree to tree leading off trail like breadcrumbs. They find tents folded in on themselves, notebooks tucked under stones, shoes placed neatly side by side. Sometimes they find the living. They call softly not to startle, bringing tea, a blanket and a reason to talk. Within that atmosphere, the white lady took on a second life, not just a ghost story, but a face given to grief, a way to speak about sorrow without speaking the names of the dead.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Stories travel fast when a place is already famous. Movies set their fear here, most notably a 2010's Hollywood film that borrowed the forest's silence and turned it into a plot. Documentaries came too, some careful, some not. Then came the creators chasing shock. Local officials condemned the sensationalism, residents asked visitors to treat the forest like a graveyard, not a backdrop. Guides stopped sharing certain paths, rescue teams grew weary of being filmed like attractions.

Speaker 1: 9:23

And still people arrive, curious, respectful, careless, all mixed together. They leave paper cranes, coins pressed into bark, incense tucked into roots, offerings for strangers, prayers for mercy the forest absorbs it all. There's a small building near one of the trailheads where volunteers gather Part equipment closet, part sanctuary, part place to exhale. They speak softly. They carry radios, extra batteries, water, a length of tape. One tells the story of following a ribbon that looped back to itself three times, as if the person tying it had been walking circles. Another remembers a bright blue tent, empty but warm inside. Someone had just stepped out. They've seen charms left in the crook of roots, tiny bags of salt, folded paper, a photo turned face down. They don't touch those. They also talk about the living. How a conversation, a warm drink, a hand held without judgment can change the next hour. How important it is to listen before speaking. How often the forest feels full even when the trail is empty.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Ask about the white lady and they smile in a way that isn't quite dismissal. They don't argue over what is real, they just say this place carries things. So what? Who is the White Lady? To believers she is a true yu-rei, bound by grief, appearing to those who need warning or witness. To skeptics she's the mind trying to make sense of overload. Aokigahara offers all the ingredients for misseeing.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Aokigahara offers all the ingredients for misseeing. Extreme quiet, visual monotony, isolation, the suggestion of a ghost story already in your head. Add the mind's gift for finding faces and patterns, pareidolia, and you can manufacture a woman in white from the line of a birch trunk and a strip of sunlit fog. Psychologists talk about grief contagion, how sorrow can ripple through communities. They talk about the Zygarnik effect too. The brains itch for unfinished stories, a legend without closure, no proof, no debunk sticks, and maybe that's what the white lady is. The forest's unfinished business made visible the shape our minds give to the weight in the air. But visit at dusk, when the moss glows and the light thins and certainty feels like arrogance. There are moments in Aokigahara when you don't believe in ghosts, you just behave as if you do.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Japan lives in an uneasy truce with this forest. Some treat it as sacred, some avoid it completely. Some enter with reverence, leaving cranes, bowing at the trailhead and speaking in low voices as if the trees could overhear. Visitors describe the same sensations in different words being watched, being followed, being asked to speak more softly. A note once left near the edge, said softly. A note once left near the edge said if you see her, don't speak, don't run, just let her pass.

Speaker 1: 13:21

It reads like advice. It also reads like an ethic Move gently through other people's grief. Don't chase it, don't name it for them. Let it pass, if it can. Whether the white lady is a spirit or story, she stands for something real the human need to be seen in sorrow and the duty of those who witness to be kind. This has been Out of State. A companion series from State of the Unknown. Short journeys into legends beyond America's borders. If you've been enjoying the show, follow, rate and share it with someone who can't resist a story that lingers Until next time. Keep listening for what moves in the dark.