Obake stories anyone?

[RodneyO]

Aloha All,
Anyone here collecting Japanese militaria ( or samurai era ) have any obake
( ghost ) stories to tell? You know, “da chicken skin” stuffs that makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck. Please share some of your scary experience if you have any.......
Mahalo,
Rodney

[MikeB]

Obake stories....

Hello Rodney-
No scary stories here, but does anyone know where I might find a Samurai era eboshi? "I now return you to your regular thread!" MikeB

[Andy Harris]

I live in Sakura City, a historic town in Chiba Prefecture about an hour away from Tokyo. Every Monday, on my way to work, I walk past a small headstone with a small bamboo fence around it. It looks old, and I always wondered about it. It isn't in a cemetary, and it seems kind of eerie. I asked a couple of older Japanese people who live nearby about it, and they didn't want to answer me. Finally, I found out that during the Edo Period, an old woman was caught stealing rice, executed, it is her grave. Apparently, a ghost is often seen in the vacinity.
I don't necessarily believe or disbelieve in ghosts, but the place does creep me out!

[RodneyO]

Aloha Andy and Mike,
That’s one scary place to be walking alone at night. I heard there are many obake stories in Japan, with all that killings during the samurai and thru WW2 period.
This is my obake story. The day after Christmas ( 2005 ) I bought a wakizashi that a friend said, is a good buy. It had two notches under the habaki which according to him, “kill notches” ( ? ). Of coarse I haven't seen or read anything like it on a samurai sword but remember seeing pistols having notches on their grips for number of kills. After celebrating New Years eve, I took a shower late that night ( 12:30 am in the morning ) I felt a stinging pain on my shoulder near my neck. After coming out of the shower, I asking my wife to take a look and see if I’ve scratched myself. She was surprise to see two cut marks in my shoulder. One of them an “X” razor like cut and next to it another razor like cut “\”, I mean a perfect X \ ........ no blood on my white t-shirt that I was wearing, the cuts was deep enough to photograph which I had my wife do. That scared the s**t out of me!!!! That same night she awoke hearing my exercise machine moving up on the 3rd floor. Curse swords?....... do I believe?...... I don’t know... but this one was pretty scary to me.
Aloha,
Rodney

[gunto]

Hi
I have an idear that the blades I own and take care of , will protect me against "bad" poltergeist/ghosts.
The sword smith put his soul into the blades.
Just my obake.So I dont think I ever see a ghost in my flat.

[Aave Johns]

I don't really believe in ghosts as such simply because I have no affiliation with religion, thus no belief in the afterlife, but there was an incident many years ago that I cannot fully explain, and sitting here at my desk in my study recalling it for the first time in many years still makes my skin prickle.
I lived on a farm many years ago on what was a piece of sacred ground for the long exterminated indigenous tribe that had lived there. There had been a massacre by white settlers there because the land in this small valley was fertile, and natural springs in the area meant a year round supply of water. This had occured over a century before we took on the farm. Our house was built near one of the larger springs, the main source of our water when the water-tanks got low in summer.
The house itself wasn't that old, though it was a dark rambling wooden structure that creaked all the time, and was surrounded by large old trees that cast scary shadows at night, it seemed worse when it was windy as it howled through them.
I don't know if it was childish fears or what but I always had a feeling about my room and sometimes even in summer the temperature would drop in there to a point where you could see your breath fog. I was sure the house was haunted even if my parents laughed it off. One time I was playing on the gravel driveway that ran down the eastern side of the house and I noticed what looked like a piece of old ivory coloured plastic that had become exposed by our farm vehicles. It had an almost polished appearance and I brushed the loose soil and gravel away to expose the compacted soil around it. Living on a farm I always carried a pocket knife and was always finding interesting things to dig out of the ground like uniform buttons, coins, bottles and bits and pieces. At first I thought it may have been a porcelin dolls head, I had already found several of these over the years digging in the garden. As I scratched the soil away I realised that it was a large object with cracks across the top. It didn't take long for me to realise that it was the top of a skull of some type, I had seen plenty of them around the farm from dead animals. It took some digging and eventually I managed to loosen it enough to pull it free. I thought that it must be a dog skull as it wasn't the same as any others I had seen. I finally managed to pull it free and it was immediately apparant what it was, a human skull !!
It was missing the lower jaw and I couldn't find any other bone in the hole I had dug. I put it aside and went and got my Dad. He didn't know what to do with it so we reburied it after checking that there was no other remains in the hole by digging it out further. We put it in a nice spot under a tree overlooking the house and I carved a cross into it with RIP uderneath it.
That night some of my Dad's mates came round for a few beers and we thought nothing of the days events. It came to my bedtime and I went to the toilet to take a leak before I retired for the night. As I was washing my hands I heard the front gate open and close and could hear someone whistling as they clumped down the cement path. I glanced out of the little window, but strangely couldn't see anyone even though the path was lit, but thought nothing of it, must have been someone else coming over for a drink. As I stepped out of the toilet into the little foyer that was seperated from the kitchen by a door where everyone was, I heard the whistling and footsteps stop at the back door.
I waited for a moment waiting for a knock, waited a bit longer and then opened the back door. There wasn't anyone there at all !! I had clearly heard them stop at the door. I was suddenly scared and rushed in through the kitchen door to tell my Dad that I had heard something. He was a little drunk but him and his mates humoured me by going outside and checking to see if anyone was outside. Nothing and nobody. To this day I can still hear that whistle and those heavy shod boots coming down the path on the odd occasion that I think about it, and I can't explain what or who it was. The nearest neighbour would have been 6 miles away as the crow flies. Was it the chap whos skull we had reburied that day? Was he on his final walk home before crossing over? I don't know, but I do know what I heard and I don't believe it was the result of an over-active imagination. And no, I wasn't drinking, I was only nine. Just putting it down in writing makes my hair stand on end, so it is a memory that still strikes fear into me even after 31 years, though I am long over any fear of the dark or horror movies. One thing I will add is that after that weekend there were never any rapid temperature changes in my room anymore.

Rodney, I had a chuckle over your comment "da chicken skin", has a totally different meaning here in Australian slang, it is what we refer to the appearance of a scrotum as. Believe me when I say that for the duration of typing this out my "chicken skin" was shrunken away as my fear resurfaced.

Regards;

Johnsy

[Finnishlion178]

Now that is creppy. Make you want to sleep with the light on. Now I had a friend who brought home a nice Pickelhaube. It was from one of the minor german kingdoms. So left it in his display room. Later night his daughter came rushing into his dinningroom. Saying that were was a man standing in the living room. So got up from his dinner and decided to check it out. When he came into the room. There was a shadowy figure wearing a uniform. As far as with me. I have a ww2 italian helmet with a very bad shaprel hole in it. When ever I pick it up. A min or two later, I taste blood in my mouth.

[Aave Johns]

Now that is creppy. Make you want to sleep with the light on. Now I had a friend who brought home a nice Pickelhaube. It was from one of the minor german kingdoms. So left it in his display room. Later night his daughter came rushing into his dinningroom. Saying that were was a man standing in the living room. So got up from his dinner and decided to check it out. When he came into the room. There was a shadowy figure wearing a uniform. As far as with me. I have a ww2 italian helmet with a very bad shaprel hole in it. When ever I pick it up. A min or two later, I taste blood in my mouth.

I nearly did last night Finnishlion, my hair was standing up on the back of my head when I went to bed. It was late at night when I typed it out, and I was alone last night too. It is hard to convey in words how clearly I heard that whistle and those footsteps, I truly believe that someone or something had walked to the backdoor. Sometimes I catch myself whistling that same tune that I heard all those years ago, mainly when I am nervous.
It is a good story to tell to the Japanese, they are very afraid of ghosts (just watch the original Japanese movie The Ring), scares the pants off them...heh heh .

Regards;

Johnsy

[Laurens Q-fin]

You are a bunch of funny guys

@Andy: As for your remark, could it be possible to share a picture from such a place with us? I have no trouble believing such a place can be scary and creepy. But it is something we, at least I, don't see every day and I cannot visualize exactly what you are saying. The setup of the stone and the bamboo, the location and the scenery around it, it sounds interesting and something I would like to see with my own eyes...

Sleep thight all ,
Laurens

[RodneyO]

Mahalo Johnsy and Finnishlion,
That’s Chicken Skin kine stories!!! Johnsy, had to laugh at your slang for “chicken skin”!, funny how some slangs have different meaning in other parts of the world. I think “skin prickle” is the same as “chicken skin”. Unreal you can still whistle its tune..... now that’s scary!! Finnishlion, do you believe what you taste ( blood ) is what must have happened to the Italian soldier? Does your friend still have that Pickelhaube, must have been the owner?
Of my collection of WW2 items only the wakizashi gave me “chicken skin”, can’t believe none of the other pieces in my collection had that kind of haunting feelings. I can imagine how horrible war can be, and how horrible death and suffering they must have had. There must be more obake/ghost stories out there to be told.
Laurens, do a search on Google on Hawaiian lava rocks and black sand, and what happens to tourist that take them home. I, myself would never take lava rocks or black sand from the Big Island or any islands in the chain.
Aloha,
Rodney

[Dave Alexander]

Aloha , Rodney. I won't talk about Pele or the night walkers, they give me chicken skin for sure!
When I served in the Army in Germany I woke up one night about 1am. There was just enough moonlight coming through the windows so that you could see to walk around without bumping into things. I looked over at my buddy Pete's bed about 3 - 4 ft away and saw a figure sitting at the end of it. Didn't think any thing of it as guys came and went at different times so I went back to sleep. About an hour later I woke again and Pete was sitting up in bed, smoking nervously and all the lights were on. I asked what was wrong and he said that he had woke up earlier and saw a figure on the end of his bed. Thinking it was somebody that had a few too many beers and had picked the wrong bed he said "What's up, Buddy?" when he got no reply he sat up and reached forward to touch him and his hand WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH the figure. He jumped out of bed and made for the light switch but the figure had moved ahead of him toward the door and quickly faded and disappeared. He switched the lights on and was too scared to switch them off. I had a sudden thought and asked him if the figure had looked familiar to him. He said yes, the way it moved with sloped shoulders reminded him of his grandfather. Two days later he received a message from his mother saying that his grandfather had died that night.
Aloha
Kawika Alexander

[Aave Johns]

Mahalo Johnsy and Finnishlion,
That’s Chicken Skin kine stories!!! Johnsy, had to laugh at your slang for “chicken skin”!, funny how some slangs have different meaning in other parts of the world. I think “skin prickle” is the same as “chicken skin”. Unreal you can still whistle its tune..... now that’s scary!! Finnishlion, do you believe what you taste ( blood ) is what must have happened to the Italian soldier? Does your friend still have that Pickelhaube, must have been the owner?
Of my collection of WW2 items only the wakizashi gave me “chicken skin”, can’t believe none of the other pieces in my collection had that kind of haunting feelings. I can imagine how horrible war can be, and how horrible death and suffering they must have had. There must be more obake/ghost stories out there to be told.
Laurens, do a search on Google on Hawaiian lava rocks and black sand, and what happens to tourist that take them home. I, myself would never take lava rocks or black sand from the Big Island or any islands in the chain.
Aloha,
Rodney

G'da Rodney, glad you got a laugh about the slang difference, I put it at the end of my story to lighten the mood. At my age I'm not prone to hysterics, but I was surprised at how much recalling that story effected me.
Interesting story about the lava rocks, I looked it up. We have a similar thing here in Australia. Up in far north Queensland is a beach with stones that bounce off each other like rubber balls. It is sacred to the Kuku Yalanji tribe, and if stones are removed beach then that person is cursed. Curiously, they are only found on one beach in one place.
Have a good day in Hawaii, been a while since I was there on a RIMPAC, but I always have a good time when I'm visit.

Regards;

Johnsy

[Andy Harris]

Laurens Q-Fin:
I sent a PM to you. If you can provide me with an e-mail address, I'll be happy to send you a photo.

[paddywhack]

its mad but i recently got a relic para lid and since then i havent quite been able to sleep properly and then about a week ago i was sleeping away when i woke suddenly and i SWEAR there was guy standing there reaching out his hand to me and i flipped!!!! iv never jumped out bed as fast!!!! it realy freaked the crap outa me!!!i turned the lights on and there was nobody in my room!!! man it was freaky!!!

[RodneyO]

Hi All,
Now that I can post pictures (best $25.00 spent!!) here's the markings on my back...
Oh, and last year I heard my name being called from down stairs, and this was during the day when I was home alone . I also saw a (dark) figure in the door way of our master bedrooms bathroom door. At first I thought it was my wife gone to use the bathroom but I reached to my side and she was lying down next to me !!..
Ghost or my imagination.....
now for the photo of my back (shoulder) near my neck...
IMGP0831_1.jpg