Real Ghostly Encounters in NS

Encounter 2: During OCS (Jan 1998) Paula Tekong
I remembered I was in my service term just fresh into OCS. We went to Pulau Tekong for an overnight exercise. It was to train us in topology to prepare us for Jungle Training in 2 months time. The exercise was simple, each section of 7 men was to find their way around the island with a map and a compass. There were several checkpoints and each checkpoint has to be signed before we proceeded on to the next. There was a fixed route to take.

We proceeded on with the day session, everything went well from morning and we were progressing very well as a section. It was around 4pm and we were proceeding on to our last checkpoint for the day. I remembered it was checkpoint Delta (near a Heli Evac point) which was a deep forested area. As I was holding on to the signal set, I was tasked by my Section IC to stay put with another guy at a cross road while the others proceeded on to the checkpoint 1km away. I noticed the air around us was very still, no a single breeze, it was damp and eerie. As the area was forested, the afternoon sun and trees created a shadowy blanket over us. I was barely chatting with the other guy for 10mins when suddenly we heard someone screamed "Nah Beh!!!!!! ARRrrghhhh!!! Kan Ni Nah!!!". Then we saw our Section IC running towards us shouting vulgarities with the other 4 guys running after him. We just stood there as he ran past us...he looked spooked, lost, frightened. We asked one of the guys who stopped while the rest chased after him about what happened, he said the IC tore up our map and ran after seeing the checkpoint (which was an old tree). Shit, we were in deep shit because he had torn a RESTICTED MAP which was supposed to be returned. Losing that map or destroying that resulted in the whole team having to serve extra.

We decided to give chase for less than 300m when we noticed the whole group surround the IC. The section IC had fainted. I radio-ed for help and we waited until the safety officer arrived to bring him back to Tekong Camp Sick Bay. The rest of us were told to continue with a new map and to re-group before 2000hrs at the camp site.

This guy called Kang who was the 2IC led us to find the night checkpoint. It was already in the evening and Tekong was dark. Kang led us to this road with 2 paths, 1 path was open and the other path was blocked by branches and creepers. Any logical guy would have taken the 1st path (anyone using this road to place a checkpoint would have disturbed the branches and creepers, the 2nd path looked undisturbed), Kang took his parang and started bashing. It was getting dark and we lit our salem stick and poured the liquid into straws to place behind our helmets before we proceeded in. By the time we prepared to move into the path, dark fell and we visibility was very bad. We were each guided by the salem straw on the helmet of the person infront of us. We bashed in and grumbled why Kang chose this bloody path.

We have been bashing for 20mins when suddenly Kang started to shout our names loudly in the forest. (It was taboo to call someone's name at night especially in the forest and we made an agreement to call each other by numbers). I remembered I was the 2nd last guy from the back and the guy behind me was holding tightly to my radio set. Kang shouted numbered off (we were supposed to make sure everyone is hear so we called out our numbers starting from the last guy). I felt a tug at my radio as the guy behind me shouted '7', I followed by shouting '6'. Then guy 7 whispered to me that he heard someone behind him whispering '8'. I felt my hair stand....why all this suay things was happening to our section.

I tried to ignore and continued following the others infront. We reached an open area finally and everyone was basically pissed at Kang for leading us into this creepy path. We walked as a section along this open area when I noticed at the corner of my eyes that there were dark shadows or silhouettes of people squatting beside our path. I thought the others noticed so I told myself it might be "commandos" who were conducting training. I told the guy infront of me if he had seen because I was sure there was more than 2 sections of these "commandos" not squatting beside us as we walked past them. He replied..."will you shut up you chee bye, I never see anything so stop telling me". I was freaked out.....if he hasn't seen it, then what the hell did I see then?

By the time we found the checkpoint and reach the camp site, we were the last section to arrive. All of us were shagged out. I asked my instructor if there were any other units training today and he replied.."yes". I was relieved and thought nothing of my encounter.

2 weeks after the training one night during the night snack, my instructor revealed to us that there were no units training there. What we experienced was nothing new as other previous batches of trainees have had their encounter. The reason why he didn't mention to us was that he didn't want us spooked.

For once, I appreciated, We all appreciated, what he did.