chimpcheng Thread

I've always been a 'fan' of creepy/spooky/ghosty stories, but, being a man of science, I never put too much stock in it, despite experiencing some strange occurrences.

For example, I used to work in a hospital, and would often go down to the basement to the freezer room, which was were my specimens were kept. Anyway, whilst picking my tubes one day, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a kid looking at me. Now, a kid had no business being there, especially as the department required keypad access and the freezer room was off-limit to most staff. I put it down to 'trick of the light' or 'imagination', but it was some time later that I learnt that the freezer room used to be where they carried out autopsies...

Like I said, I put some logic to it, but, from that day, I would always wedge the door to the freezer room open, to hasten my escape if needed. However, I never saw anything in that room again...

It wasn't until a trip to Hong Kong that more or less convinced me that ghosts might exist, having said that, a big part of me is still very sceptical.

Back in 2007, we went on a trip to Hong Kong and China, and one of my hotels was The Shamrock Hotel on Nathan Road in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

After a session out on the town, we all went back, played rock, paper, scissors as to who was going to get the beds and sleep on the floor and soon passed out. Part way during the night, in that half awake/half asleep phase I could swear that was someone standing by the window. Despite slowly getting round to being hungover, I reasoned that I was still drunk and that the figure by the window was merely the curtains all bunched up.

Later in the night, I was having a conversation with my friend, who, sadly, for him, lost out and had to sleep on the floor. During our conversation, my friend in the other bed turned over and asked "who are you speaking to?". It turned out that our friend on the floor had left the room sometime ago, yet, somehow I'd been having a full conversation with him or, as it turned out, "something"...

The next morning, I was on the hotel phone to friends in a different room asking what the plan for the day was, meanwhile my friends who I was sharing the room with were chatting. Overhearing snippets, my blood ran cold. I hung up, and we began to dissect the night.

It turned out, that we had all "seen" the figure by the window and the reason that my friend had left the room was because he "felt" something climb over him, hold him down and stare at him. Once he was "free" he had left the room to sit in the lobby the rest of the night. So the person I was speaking to in the night wasn't him...

We told the leader of my group, who had a word with reception, who rang us to confirm that we wanted to change rooms. I tried to explain why we wanted to switch, but the receptionist said "don't worry, I understand why" and that they will get a different room ready as soon as we packed up.

Cue the fastest clearing out of a room known to man. One of the guys left toiletries behind, but we refused to go back to the room to help him retrieve them.

According to local tradition, hotels which experience "problems", sometimes get a priest to bless the room and in order to rid spirits, ghosts, or whatever, they "chase" them into the end rooms with a view to expelling them out of the building. We happened to be staying in an end room...