Ghostly Happenings at the Military Bases

12/7/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
You hear a moan, and realize that it's not the wind or your imagination. So who or what was it? Throughout the years, ghost stories have persisted on U.S. military bases in the Pacific.

Yongsang Garrison

Yongsan Garrison (Dragon Hill Garrison), South Korea

The garrison served as headquarters for the Imperial Japanese Army in Korea from 1910 to 1945. U.S. military forces were stationed there until 2018.

Prior to this the land was used for military facility under the former Korean kingdoms. It was used in 1882 by the Qing troops; during those times it was mostly undeveloped land on the outskirts of Seoul.

The dark-colored brick buildings are the older ones used by the Japanese, and the U.S.'s Eighth Army was headquartered there. Directly across are buildings that date back to the 1970s.

There is one building that had been dogged by ghostly rumors for years. One of those buildings, near the gas station on the garrison’s South Post, has been surrounded by rumors for years. It's a red-brick building situated in the center of the complex of offices. Many complain of feeling the hair on the back of their neck stand up and getting a weird feeling when they're in the area.

During the occupation it was a prison, and the entire compound was surrounded by a crumbling wall. Some think that it was the prison's administrative office, but others who have worked in the building think that it was the prison's crematory where corpses were disposed of. There's never been confirmation of this, but for those who had night duty around the building, none is needed. The shadows they saw was enough.

In 2017, it was decided that the U.S. Army was leaving Yongsan Garrison for Camp Humphreys, 55 miles south of Seoul.

These are stories of personal experiences that were posted online:

This all happened around 2012. I just got stationed at Yongsan Garrison after completing my initial Army training. Before I left to my first duty station I went on leave and got married. At 20 years old that seemed like a great idea, but I digress.

I had a few friends that I knew from training and even shared a room with one. With our group of 4-5 friends we spent every paycheck going out and drinking until the sun came up. I just got internet in my barracks so I didn’t have a WiFi router and I had a Ethernet wire attached to my laptop temporarily. I would Skype my wife every night and as I’m sitting there bullshitting she asks me “who was that?”

Really confused I just responded with “what,who?”

We had a rough past in our dating and so needless to say she started getting irritated with me and kept asking who was in my room. The way our room was set up was my bed, in the middle were our wall lockers that were about 7 feet high. For those who don’t know what wall lockers are, they're just wardrobes.

So just to prove there was no one in our room I showed the laptop around as much as possible with a 6 foot cord could go. So I sat back on my bed and she told me “I saw a shadow in front of you and a hand on your stomach”.

To this day I can’t explain what it was and I was no saint, but there was no one in that room with me. My roommate walked in around 20 minutes later in between the argument so I filled him in on the situation. He laughed and told her that if anyone was bringing a girl into the room it was him. So that was the first situation and weird.

So time went on, about a month later we got out drinking as per usual. My roommate didn’t go out with us and I came home after the night out. I woke up and directly laying next to me is a folded shirt. Very neatly folded. I look up and my roommate had a suitcase on top of the wall locker, it’s open. I come out of my hangover and I yell to him “hey man is this your fuckin shirt?” To his surprise he gives me the “wtf” look. So that was weird, only him and I talked about it.

There are a few other things that happened like objects falling by themselves. The most solidifying story of it was when we were all hanging out drinking some beer playing call of duty. This was when modern warfare 2 was at its peak. So we’re all playing the game 2 v 2. The game pauses as we’re choosing a new map to play on. All of a sudden I hear some whispering right in my ear. No idea what was said but it was definitely a woman’s voice. I set the Xbox controller down and I said “I think it’s time for a smoke break” everyone agreed.

We went out to the smoke pit, silence. Not a word was said for 5 minutes and me being me, I said “so.... we all know why we came out here...?” A couple yeahs and head nods went around the 5 of us. A few more things happened there. South Korean bases have a lot of history from the Korean War. We all felt it in those barracks.
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I’ll add another little story from what a buddy of mine told me during the time. I was at formation the usual cold 0600 bullshit. In my platoon a buddy was anxious to get my attention. He said “ hey, hey. I’ve got something to tell you.” In my usual hungover confusion before a run and didn’t think much of it. After PT ended he came up to me again and said “some weird shit happened in my room.” He continued “Every single night I lay my electronics on my night stand (phone, iPod, whatever else) well I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t find anything, I searched every draw and in the second drawer (where he stored some clothes I guess) my shorts were pushed back and my electronics were in there. So I was not the only room to be affected by the ghost/spirit.

This entrance leads to a three-room bunker constructed during WWII to provide a shelter for Emperor Hirohito. It has long had a reputation of being haunted.

Camp Zama (Japan)

This U.S. Army post is 25 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The chapel at Camp Zama is reputed to be haunted. Doors open and then slam shut by themselves, lights are switched off by unseen hands and weird presences are felt in the rooms. Those who have worked in the chapel speak of footsteps heard through the halls late at night. Others describe hearing disembodied voices speaking in Japanese as if they were giving orders. Personnel try not to be the last one there for the night.

The Japanese Army Academy was originally on this site. Camp Zama also housed an emergency shelter for the Emperor, and to this day, it has been maintained by the U.S. Army Garrison Japan. There are stories of the Emperor's ghost being seen.

The Camp Zama theater workshop is one of the few remaining buildings from the preoccupation era. It is a large hall that was used for ceremonies by the Imperial Japanese Army.

There are sightings of several different apparition, including a slim boy who is said to steal items. Some believe there are apparitions that date back to when Spain established missions and a trade route with Japan in the 16th century.

I read the experience sent in by the assistant chaplain who was stationed at Camp Zama Japan during the 1980's, and felt the need to share some experiences while I lived there from 1987 to 1994.

I lived at Sagamihara housing base and worked at 69th Finance at Camp Zama. Before I tell you the "scarey stuff", I will start with the slightly weird.

Several times while at work by myself, I would get the feeling I was not alone, but not being able to see anyone or thing I would just think to myself, that I was just imagining things and would finish my work and get out of the building as soon as possible.

On several occasions, I did see someone walk by the open door and thinking that it was my assistant who came in early like me, I would wonder why he didn't come in. Each time I got up to investigate, there would be no one in the building. There was no way anyone could get out of the building unseen, because they would have to walk back past my door.

This never really scared me at the time, but I always wondered how they did it, and who it was. It wasn't until about 1992 that I had heard about the history of others seeing apparitions of sorts, so I'm sure it wasn't just my over active imagination. The only time I was ever really scared was when I was at home. I had to quit sleeping in my bedroom,
because of all the terrifying activity going on day and night. I was seriously thinking about getting psychiatric help, but I kept telling myself it wasn't real and since I knew it wasn't real, I probably wasn't too far gone.

I don't know how many times I was awakened from a sound sleep, because I could feel something sit down on my bed. I had a water bed and I could actually see the imprint of something sitting there, and the mattress would move and the water would slosh, and I would be up and out of there. It didn't happen every night and even though I knew what I saw, I didn't let it get to me until I started waking up to some type of entity physically on top of me. It was so horrible I can't even say what it was doing to me. I wouldn't be able to move or speak until it was done with me. I kept telling myself it had to be a dream, even though I know I was awake.

I read everything I could find on this subject and most people say that all it could be is a dream. I read a book entitled "The Entity", and this was the exact phenomena that I
experienced. I suffered in silence for a long time, because I just couldn't believe it was real. Until now I have only told two people, my best friend and her son who is a minister. He told me that the next time it happened, that I should pray to God for help and to tell the spirit "In the name of God, leave and never return". I did just that, and after doing this several times, it finally stopped. Even though I couldn't speak, I just thought these words as hard as I could.

I have experienced quite a few strange occurrences in my life, but nothing so physical and invading as what I experienced while I was in Japan. Since then I have read quite a bit on the subject of ghosts and I have come to the conclusion that I had inadvertently invited my unfriendly visitor by playing with Ouija boards when I was a teenager. I still sometimes wonder if I'm crazy, but I swear what I experienced seemed too real for
it all to be a dream.

Japanese ghost

Okinawa Island (Japan)

There is not one but several ghosts seen throughout Okinawa. Gate 3 at Camp Hansen was eventually closed after Marines refused to stand guard due to the ghost of a WWII soldier dressed in blood splattered fatigues, asking sentries to light his cigarette.

Across the road from Gate 3 there was a fierce Samurai battle. Some say that at night, you can still hear the moans from the wounded samurai warriors, as they lay there dying.

At Camp Foster, a ghostly samurai warrior reenacts a route from Stillwell Drive towards Futenma Housing.

At Kadena Air Base there was a small house number 2283, that sat behind the Kadena USO. The single-unit family home was built in 1952, and sat in a residential area reserved for mid-grade officers and civilians of comparable rank. The story told is that in the early 1970s there was a murder-suicide where the husband who was an officer who bludgeoned his wife to death, and then killed himself. It was said that the circumstances of the tragedy were hidden and that a new family was quickly moved in. The next military family ended in tragedy as well when the father stabbed his step-daughter. After the murder, it was boarded up before being used as storage.

Haunted security gate

Passersby claimed hearing the sounds of children crying, strange laughter, and seeing the ghost of a lady washing her hair at the sink of the abandoned house. There was a daycare next door, and teachers would find that children in the playground would throw toys over the fence because the children on the other side were asking for them. Curtains would be seen moving even though the house was empty After nightfall it was occasionally seen with a sickly, greenish glow about it.

On October 31, 1994, Jayne Hitchcock, a paranormal investigator staged a séance inside the building. They were hoping to contact Houdini, which didn't show, but instead captured a photograph with the outline of two children in it. Hoping to play on its morbid reputation the USO staff decided to conduct a re-enactment of the murders on Halloween. Eventually all who had participated described having a series of unfortunate accidents. One had a car accident, another got an electric shock, and another even suffered from a broken neck. These events did not help the house's reputation, and staff members would only visit the house/storage during daylight hours and never by themselves.

Finally base officials decided to just tear it down, but just like those who had participated in the reenactment, every time a worker would step into the building to begin the demolition, something would go wrong or someone would get hurt.

The infamous 2283 housing in Kadena Air Base before its demolition

In 2010, the building was eventually demolished. The only thing left now is part of a the wall fence that surrounded the house. The grassy lot is vacant. No evidence has been found about the deaths that allegedly took place at number 2283, but still it's hard to explain why the structure was demolished.

Right across from where the house stood there is a tomb that belonged to an Okinawan that lived long before the Americans established the base after WWII. Human bones were still inside it along with copper coins. This could definitely be the source of the ghostly sighting of a Samurai seen riding down the street where 2283 was situated.

This sub-tropical island has a very dark and tormented past. There is an area known as the Suicide Cliffs. At the end of WWII, the Japanese military told the Okinawans that the American Marines would rape, torture and kill them if they were captured. Many of them decided to throw themselves off the cliffs surrounding the island in order to escape this fate. Those who refused to commit suicide were killed by the Japanese military after being accused of being spies.

Bolo Point, also known as Cape Zampa is one such spot where many jumped to their final fate. Their faces are said to be seen in the waves below the cliff, beckoning the living to join them. In a cave called Chibichiri Gama, 140 Okinawans hid out, 85 of them died. Those who were lucky had poison they could ingest. If this was not available, then a family member would be tasked with killing their loved ones and then dispatching themselves. They had no choice as they were told that they could be not be taken prisoners by the Americans.

What is it about this base that draws these forces to it? Is it the violent past of the area or something else? Whether these stories are urban legend or are in part truth, base personnel don't like to discuss it. What is undeniable is that this base remains one of the most haunted locations in Okinawa.

Hi. I'm a military wife living on a Marine base in Okinawa, Japan. We have lived in our present apartment for 2 1/2 years and have experienced a few "weird" things.

It began with the all so common doors slamming and opening. And moved to something more real. My husband is a skeptic...a "have to see it to believe it" kind of person. Well, we heard something together one night that we can't explain. I had put our three small children to bed and shut all of the bedroom doors, and the door to the living area. Our living area couch faces away from that door. My husband and I were sitting there watching a movie, when about 15 minutes later we heard the door knob rattle and the door open. Then we heard our 3 1/2 year old daughter timidly call out, "Mommy?" Well, I tossed my hands up in the air and preceded to scold her for getting out of bed. I turned to find the doorway empty. So I got up expecting to find her behind the door or scurrying down the hallway, but instead found an empty hallway and all of the doors shut. So I checked her room to find her snoozing heavily tucked into her bed, as were the other two children.

Seriously confused I walked into the living area to ask my husband if he just heard something. He asked, "What? You mean Lisa calling your name?" Neither one of us knew what to make of that.

After that on occasion I would see the reflection of something moving behind me in the
steel cabinet in my kitchen. I would turn around expecting to find my husband or one of the kids, but instead found nothing. I would hear my daughter calling "Mommy" from a few a feet away, when she wasn't even in the room or in the apartment. The strangest experience was when my husband and I were up watching Letterman and from across the room (20 feet) I could see what appeared to be a shadow standing in THE MIDDLE of
the floor. It was a little girl swinging her arms back and forth. It lasted about 4-5 seconds. I was so shocked I couldn't move or say anything to bring my husband's attention to it. Then he noticed my fright and started asking me what it was. Right as he started to look in the direction of the girl the "shadow" seemed to just jump up into a
cloud mass and back down into the lamp. I have seen a very brief glimpse of a child in a wall mirror that is positioned at eye level for me (5'3").

Just last weekend at a USO on a different base as I filled soda cups for all of us a little girl appeared to run very quickly behind me. I assumed it was my daughter "Lisa". So I looked around the corner to find her sitting with the family. I went back to the soda
machine and it happened twice more. I don't know what to make of it. Is it a ghost? Is it a projection of my daughter's "spirit"? She has a very strong personality. I just don't know. I don't get any "evil" feelings from whatever it is. But it's strange nonetheless.

Shrine where many Okinawan teenage girls that were training to be nurses were killed or forced to commit suicide by the Japanese Army. Suicide Cliffs in the background. c.1959

Banyan Tree Golf Course Cave
Kadena's golf course was the site of a Japanese field hospital during WWII.

During the final months of the war Okinawan schoolgirls named the "Lily Girls" were conscripted as nurses in makeshift hospitals. The average age of the girls was 14 to 18, and with minimal training they were sent to care for wounded Japanese soldiers, with little medical supplies, poor sanitation and too many soldiers to care for.

In April, 1945 the Japanese army order to the young nurses to prepare for a mass suicide as the Allied forces were approaching Okinawa. Survivors said they were told that if they were captured by American they would be tortured and raped, and then killed or imprisoned.

Ruri Miyara, a surviving Lily Girl described were she and her classmates were given hand grenades and instructed to kill themselves.

Miyara described the scene:

We were told not to cough, not to make any noise, because the enemy would hear it. So whenever one of us was about to cough, we would signal each other and huddle together around her to let her cough. Then came the warning from the mouth of the cave, and the explosion.

Haunted caves where Lily Girls were ordered to kill themselves

Many of the girls did take their lives, sometimes accompanied by their families. The estimate is that hundreds of men, women and children who were caught between the dishonor of surrendering to the the enemy or committing suicide, chose death.

These days, Okinawans won’t go near the cave because the women are said to still haunt the cave and the nearby land.

Prior to this there was another area in Japan that developed a reputation for high strangeness.

In 1933, Mount Mihara in Japan became infamous as a suicide site

Mount Mihara
It all started on January 7, 1933 when two Tokyo school girls, Mieko Ueki and Kiyoko Matsumoto leapt into the crater at Mount Mihara on Oshima Island, 50 miles southwest of Tokyo. The crater's sheer sides dropped down a thousand feet, and the bottom was hidden in flames and vapor.

The girls attended Jissen Girls Higher School. It was one of the most prestigious school in Tokyo. First Mieko wrote a farewell poem to Masako, confessing to having planned the immolation since the year before. Masako tried to convince her to change her mind. Mieko remained steadfast in her mission to kill herself, made her friend promise to keep her death a secret for five years. However Masako did not keep the vow, and by breaking it, some believed a jinx was cast.

Masako returned to the school, but eventually told another school girl named Kiyoko Matsumoto. Kiyoko had no sooner heard the story then she insisted that she wanted to follow in the other girl's footsteps. She threatened Masako that if she did not guide her to Mount Mihara she would tell everyone of the secret of Mieko's death. On February 11, Kiyoko jumped in.

On her trip back down, police stopped Masako because some remembered seeing two girls go up the volcano, but only one returned. Masako told the story to the authorities, which was picked up by the newspapers. Masako was hounded by newspapermen until she became ill and died in May, after going hopelessly insane.

During the next three months 55 girls and young men, all under the age of 28, most of them teenagers, came to the volcano crater to end their life. On May 8, a total of six persons made the fatal plunge on that one day. One young man even jumped in after someone threw out a dare.

The police had prevented 150 other persons from reaching the rim of the volcano.

By the end of the year, the authorities suspected the number had risen to 300, believing that many had snuck by the police.

Prior to this Kegon waterfalls used to be the favorite spot for suicides in Japan.

Maeda Point

Maeda Point

The sighting of an old man walking around a tomb close to the water is not a good thing. The rumor is that when's making his ghostly stroll, a body will soon be washing ashore on a nearby beach. This has earned him the moniker of The Prophet of Doom.

There are reports of the specters of Okinawan women who try to throw visitors off the cliff.

The point is infamous for being a place where many suicide jumpers flung themselves off a cliff. This location also was the site of an Imperial Japanese Army field hospital.

Present day the waters are visited by scuba divers, who have even come across the ghosts of those who have plunged into the sea, as if they are on a treadmill of their last act of self destruction.