Ghosted! by Roz Hernandez

Dear Roz, My name is Emilie. Here is my ghost story. This story mostly concerns my dad coz it happened to him. He recently told me about it but it happened when I was little. My childhood was mostly spent in Asia where the belief in ghosts and spirits and the afterlife is very strong and present. When I was about 9 I grew up in Malaysia on an island called Penang. Malaysia is a melting pot of different cultures and beliefs, despite it being a Muslim country; it still retains some traces of its animistic religion and ancient belief in spirits. My dad worked as production manager in a big electronic company who had a factory on the island. One day during the month of October (spooky right?) my dad witnessed something quite scary. He noticed that a group of 15 local women who worked as assembly line operators were acting weird. He heard the women say that they saw a ghost or something otherworldly in the bathroom and were very spooked by it. Later he witnessed a scene that was almost unbelievable. The women were going into fits, writhing on the floor screaming in guttural deep voices. Some men had to restrain them and more men had to come to help as the women demonstrated abnormal physical strength. They were easily shoving the men aside brutally. The women were sent home early and a local shaman called a bomoh was called to cleanse the place that night. The holy man instructed that the negative energy he sensed came from was indeed coming from the ladies’ bathroom and that a specific cubicle had to be removed. This was done and no further ghostly activity was seen or recorded after that. Did my dad see a case of ghost possession? He is not the type to tell tall tales and he was surprised though not super scared after witnessing this. He chose not to tell me the incident at the time coz I was too young. I believe him and I being a rational person but with an open mind, am convinced he possibly saw a classic case of mass hysteria. Love the podcast, keep it up! Bye