Jeff, my friend from Singapore, shared one of his personal experience with me, which took place in an abandoned hospital near his house. The hospital had been abandoned for 3 years, but it still hadn’t been removed. The facilities in the hospital hadn’t been totally moved out, which made it look no different from other hospitals. However, the building was out of electricity, so it seemed quite creepy at night. There were many rumors about why this hospital wasn’t removed, and the most popular one was that there were ghosts of patients who died in the hospital haunting there. Thus, the hospital became one of the most famous local “haunted house,” and many people went there for ghost hunting. Jeff’s story is actually about one of his ghost hunting experience.

Here goes Jeff’s story: My friend and I decided to go on an adventure to the hospital at night. We wanted to check if there really exised ghosts. But actually I didn’t want to do that because I wasn’t brave enough. I was actually afraid of ghost, but my friend just said “you are a coward if you don’t come with me”, so I was forced to go with him. After we entered the building, we checked the first floor and the second floor, but we saw nothing strange except medical facilities left all over the place. I actually heard something from the basement, a slight voice sounded like people chatting. I was really nervous. I wanted to go back. But my friend insisted to check the basement; he seemed to have heard nothing. After we entered the basement, I saw several spirit tablets on the table, then I immediately realized that it was the morgue. I didn’t feel very well while still hearing the little noise. I wanted to go back. However, my friend wanted to check if there were corps left there, but we found nothing. My friend saw the spirit tablet too, and he took one out to played with it. I said, “NO! you shouldn’t do that, it’s not respectful to the dead!” But he just said, “Oh you are afraid of this? Shame on you!” I was pissed off, went outside the hospital and returned to my friend’s car. I played with my phone for a while to divert the attention, and suddenly I heard some noises behind the car, I looked back and saw a man with a horrifying face! I was freaked out! But it only turned out to be my friend using the flashlight to light his face to scare me! He laughed at my reaction, “Oh you are such a pussy! I even heard you scream while you left the hospital! Too afraid to walk alone?” I was confused, “What? I didn’t scream!” Then my friend stopped laughing, and there was a weird silence between us. If it wasn’t me, who else could make that scream?

Jeff believed that the scream was made by a ghost in the hospital, who was disturbed by their “adventure.” He said that after this experience, he started to believe in the existence of ghost, and he had never tried ghost hunting ever again to disturb the dead. It seems that Jeff is really affected by this experience. In my opinion, this is not a true “ghost” story, because it doesn’t directly show the existence of ghost. However, the story has many elements, such as derelict hospitals and ghost hunting quest, which are similar to other supernatural events. Derelict hospitals are always related with ghosts because there were many people died in hospitals, and their spirits haunt the place where they died. According to local tradition, the spirit tablet is placed in hospitals to appease the dead. But in the story Jeff’s friend misplaced it and definitely disturbed the dead, which can explain why they encountered strange things. Also, during the “ghost hunting” quest, the participants are usually nervous and flustered, so they may sometimes mistreat some natural phenomena as supernatural events. In the story, the scream that Jeff’s friend heard might be only the sound of the wind, but they were so nervous that they mistook the sound of wind for the scream of ghost.