We Malaysians can be a superstitious lot. Whether you’re Chinese, Indian, or Malay, most of us believe in ghosts, spirits, and other abnormal beings (and would never risk offending them!).
IRL asked 5 Malaysians for their spookiest paranormal encounters.
Zoe – Spooky Airbnb in Bangkok
This just happened recently.
I went to Bangkok with my friends in September. It was our first trip together overseas so we were all very excited. We stayed in an Airbnb in Lad Phrao. The Airbnb we booked was above a café, but I think the café was not operating anymore since we never saw it open for business. There were two more storeys above the café which was where we stayed.
Us girls stayed at the first floor while the boys stayed on the second floor because the stairs to the second floor were steep and to be frank, quite dangerous. Me and three other girls were sharing the room on the first floor with two king sized beds.
There was a creepy vibe to this place but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Everything looked twice as creepy in Bangkok after dark. Perhaps I watched too much Thai horror movies.
Everything was fine until the third day.
It was in the morning and we were getting ready to go out. Three of us were doing our make-up while another girl was in the toilet. Suddenly we heard a camera taking pictures. We all looked at each other and noticed none of us were on our phones.
My friend said it sounded like it was coming from her phone which was charging on the nightstand. So, she went and checked and saw that it was indeed in camera mode.
We were all spooked out by that. So, I said maybe it was Siri that turned that on or maybe she accidentally turned it on without noticing? But she told me that her Siri is disabled and her phone has a passcode so it’s highly unlikely. She never touched her phone after she woke up, so she had no idea how it happened.
At that point, we were all creeped out and decided to tell the boys. One of them said it could be the faulty USB cable that caused this since there is a possibility that it will trigger some apps to make it do things on its own. After hearing that we just decided that it could be the case and shrugged it off to continue our trip.
And then on the last day, I was still awake while the other three were sleeping. I was lying on the bed and suddenly I felt someone or something getting on the bed. I looked over to see the friend that I was sharing the bed with sleeping soundly, and the other two in their beds sleeping as well.
I was terrified and not dare to move. I just closed my eyes tightly and eventually went back to sleep.
I did not tell my friends that until we came back to Malaysia because I did not want to freak them out. They all said that they also felt that something was not right about the place but did not dare to say in case the ‘ghost’ heard us and decided to play more tricks on us.
I am not sure if it’s just my imagination or if it really happened, but I think this definitely counts as a paranormal encounter.
May – Disappearing daughter
We are not very religious people so initially, we thought we didn’t need an altar, but after this incident, we decided that we need one in case of anything like this ever happening again.
This happened before I gave birth to my second child. I was with my husband in our bedroom when our daughter came in. We had a mattress next to our bed for when she wants to come in to hang out or sleep with us. So, she came in and immediately laid down onto the mattress without a word.
As a mother, you need know what your children are up to always, so I asked her what’s up and she didn’t reply me.
Usually she’s very talkative so she not answering me was kind of weird. So, I look down to the mattress and saw that she’s not there.
I thought she rolled under the bed to play hide and seek but when I looked under the bed, she’s not there as well.
Goose bumps appeared on my arms as I told my husband about this. We then went out from our room to look for our daughter and we saw her in the living room colouring in her picture book.
So very calmly, I looked at my husband and told him that we need an altar. We Chinese believe that by having an altar at home, it will protect us from all the evil spirits and at the same time bring us good luck.
After we got one, nothing like that happened again and I like to think that the altar is working.
Anonymous – Things moving on its own
I am the supplier to this company in KL so basically what I do is that I supply them with my products. Since I am not from KL, I have to travel to KL every month to take orders and see if everything is in order.
When I first started, the company was nice enough to provide me with accommodation every time I go to KL. It was a house which belonged to the manager’s uncle. After the uncle passed away, the house was left empty, thus the manager decided to use the house to host suppliers and salespeople when they come over.
When I was staying there, the lights would go on or off on its own. Since it was a pretty old house, I guess the wires were just faulty or something. But the scary thing was that, whenever I put something down and came back to it, it would be moved to another place. For example, I left my laptop on the nightstand before I went to bed, and the next morning it would be on the dining table mysteriously.
I thought that maybe I did place it on the dining table and forgotten about it, but over the next few days, the same thing happened again. My notebook on the dining table would end up on the sofa, my keys would be in the kitchen, my pen would be in the living room floor and so on.
That was when I realized something was wrong. I thought that the house was being burgled and the burglar would just throw my stuff randomly to search for valuables but none of my valuables were missing and there were no signs of a break in.
So, I told the manager about it and then he told me that maybe it was the spirit of his uncle messing around with me since it’s his house after all, maybe he didn’t like strangers in his house.
Then he told me his uncle died in that house like it’s nothing major.
I immediately moved out of that house and stayed in a hotel. I still visit them every month to update them and everything, but I make sure to stay in a different place now.
Steve – Alien abduction?
When I was in middle school, I liked to stay up and play games till about 3 or 4am and then sleep for an hour before going to school. My computer was in the living room next to the balcony back then.
I was playing Maple at 3am and suddenly there was this super bright light flashing outside. I thought it was lightning at first, but it wasn’t. It was the kind of light that you saw when you’re on the highway and someone flashed their high light at you from behind.
It was only for a split second, but it hurt my eyes so bad. I was super scared so I turned off the computer and went to sleep right after.
The next day I woke up and walked to school like normal, still racking my brain wondering what that thing last night was. Suddenly I felt a claw grabbing my head. It felt like a claw in a claw crane machine which grabbed something but missed.
I looked up and saw there was nothing there. I could still feel the pain on my scalp, I was 100% sure that it was not something that I imagined.
When I arrived at school, I told my friends about this and they told me that maybe aliens were watching me and trying to abduct me. The flash was them taking pictures of me for them to examine, and the claw was trying to pull me into their spacecraft but I was too heavy for them to pull.
I know it sounded ridiculous, but I think maybe this could be the case since there is still no proof that aliens don’t exist. If not, I don’t know how to explain this weird incident.
Dev – Crying baby in a bottle
My old middle school has two stillborn babies (about 5 months developed) and another one that is about 7 months (I think) in bottles submerged in chemicals to prevent them from rotting or something in our chemistry lab.
I have no idea why they have this in a middle school. I guess it’s to teach the students about the formation of babies or something. I remember during one of my science classes, the teacher would just casually take them out and show the entire class.
Of course, we were all creeped out and at the same time fascinated. We were all 15 at that time and had never seen stillborn babies in chemicals floating around in bottles.
But I am sure you have all heard the stories of how stillborn babies’ spirits are the most garang ones and all. There were stories of how some students would hear babies crying at night in the school.
This is not my story, but of some other student in the school.
Some of our extra-curriculums require us to stay overnight in school for camps and such. The guy was one of the committee members which organized that event.
It was after everyone else had fallen asleep, he and some of his friends were still up talking and suddenly they heard very faint sound of a baby crying.
They thought it was a cat at that time because some cats do sound like babies crying, so they just tried their best to ignore the sound. However, the sound got louder and louder so they decided to chase the ‘cat’ away since it was annoying.
When they went past the chemistry lab to try to find the ‘cat’, they heard the sound coming from inside the lab. So, they peeked inside and saw there was no cat, and the lab was completely empty. Then they realized maybe it was not a cat after all, maybe it was the baby in the closet submerged in the chemicals.
I don’t remember what happened after that but after that night, the entire school blew up with what they heard that night and everyone was talking about it.
I think maybe it could really be a cat, but who’s to say right?
At the end of the day, whether there really are ghosts or not, I believe that if you’re not guilty of doing anything bad, then you shouldn’t be afraid of the supernatural or paranormal. Like the Chinese idiom says, “If you don’t do anything bad, then you won’t be afraid of the knocking on your door at midnight”. (A quiet conscience sleeps in the midst of thunder).
For more articles about Life, read Malaysians Tell Us the Stupidest Things They’ve Done in High School, and These Malaysians May Not Want Children – Here Are Their Reasons Why.
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