Haunted Tales of Terror: Startling Hauntings, Apparitions, and Contact From the Other Side

By Joseph Exton

Where would you go if you wanted to see a ghost? Most people might think about a spooky old abandoned house. Or a graveyard. Or a lonely forest. Those are certainly the kind of places we traditionally associate with ghosts, but in this book you’ll read about real-life hauntings that have happened in some very surprising and very different locations...
You’ll read here about a bustling, modern, international airport where there are so many ghosts that the airport authorities have been forced to take drastic action to try and keep them away from passengers. You’ll also find out about a railway station which is so haunted that staff refuse to work after dark and even busy roads where ghosts have not only been seen, they have even been blamed for causing fatal accidents!
If that isn’t enough, there are also hotels and bars where visitors include both the living and the dead and even the tale of a haunted wartime German U-boat.
Prepare to have your ideas of where to find ghosts challenged as we explore some of the most unlikely and surprising haunted places on the planet...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Exton
• Release date: Jul 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370558131

Book preview

Chapter 1:

Haunted Airports

The Many Ghosts of Suvarnabhumi

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport is one of two International airports serving this popular destination. Suvarnabhumi opened in 2006 and is one of the twenty busiest airports in the world and the sixth busiest airport in Asia. The airport authorities will happily tell you that Suvarnabhumi airport regularly tops the polls as the most popular location worldwide for the taking of instagram photographs.

What the airport authorities are less likely to tell you is that Suvarnabhumi is also the most haunted airport in the world and that ghosts have been blamed for a host of problems including a breakdown of the baggage handling system and even an accident involving a Thai Airways International aircraft.

The problem has become so serious that the airport has built a number of condominiums specifically to provide attractive housing for the ghosts in the hope that this will keep them away from the passenger terminal and aircraft operations.

Inside the main terminal building at Suvarnabhumi airport. Ghosts not shown.

Photo: MOs810

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suvarnabhumi_Airport_Thai.JPG

Though it now looks plush and efficient, Suvarnabhumi’s problems began at a very early stage. The need for a new airport was recognized in the mid-1970s – Don Muang, the other airport in Bangkok, started life as a US Air Base and was struggling to deal with the sheer volume of traffic.

What was needed was a purpose-built airport with good rail and road connections to the centre of the city. A possible area for construction was quickly identified to the east of the city. There were however, a couple of problems.

First, the area was a snake-infested swamp known as Nong Nguhao (Cobra Swamp) which would make construction of the new airport challenging and very dangerous for workers.

Second, the area also included the site of an old graveyard and Thai people are very, very nervous about disturbing the rest of the dead.

Work on building the new airport finally began in 2002 though, as for most major construction projects in Thailand, there were immediate accusations of corruption and the use of inferior building materials and practises in addition to delays and budget over-runs.

Some of the delays were caused by frightened construction workers. Not only were cobras displaced and very aggressive when their swamp was drained, there were frequent reports of ghostly figures moving around on the site. When challenged about how and where they had relocated bodies from the graveyard on which the airport was built, members of the consortium responsible for building work suddenly became very vague and were unable to remember where precisely the bodies had been re-buried.

Most people believed (and continue to believe) that the airport buildings were simply constructed on top of the bodies in the graveyard. It was also decided at around this time that the new airport would be named Suvarnabhumi (Realm of Gold). Probably a good idea because, let’s face it, a destination called Cobra Swamp Airport doesn’t sound especially enticing...

Reports of ghosts became so prevalent and caused so many work stoppages that on 23rd September 2006 (before the airport was opened to the public) the Airports Authority of Thailand organised a phiti tam bun phuea phensirimonkol (a merit-making ceremony for prosperity) at the airport. Ninety-nine respected Buddhist monks from temples and monasteries around Thailand were invited to undertake the ritual chanting required to ensure that the airport would be free from ghostly interference.

In addition to the monks, the ceremony was also attended by around 350 airport staff – one of the main purposes of the ceremony was to reassure staff about what had already become known as a haunted building. This was not a notable success.

During the chanting, Kwanchai Tabto, a young parcel inspector, collapsed and then announced that his body had been possessed by Pho Ming, the guardian spirit of Cobra Swamp. Pho Ming announced that he was displeased because his home had been destroyed by the construction of the airport and demanded that a shrine be built for him on the airport grounds immediately.

Another view of the main terminal at Suvarnabhumi

Photo: Heinz Albers

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suvarnabhumi.jpg

The airport authorities reacted by building not just one but a total of six shrines around the airport in a effort to appease Pho Ming and other entities which seemed to haunt the airport. Despite this, ghosts continued