The following account describes a paranormal event in Taiwan:
Hi, Lon. I've been visiting your website for awhile now, and thought I'd share an experience I had in 1988 while I was living in Taiwan. I lived there most of the time from the beginning of 1985 to the end of 1992.
It was June 1988, and my then-girlfriend and I had decided to travel the Central Cross-Island Highway, from east to west. We took a train from Taipei to Hualian, on the island's east coast, and next day boarded a bus that would take us through the central mountains and through the Taroko Gorge. The landscape was beautiful, but the journey wasn't too comfortable, and the ride was sometimes hair-raising; the drivers on that road seemed a bit reckless.
The first part of the journey was uneventful. One night spent in Tianxiang, and another in a small place called Dayuling. When we got towards Hehuanshan (Mount Hehuan), we decided to hike the road up the mountain ourselves. At the top, there is (was?) a small ski resort that offers lodging in a dorm. It being June, there was no snow, though it was much cooler and dryer than the summer humidity down below. There were only a few other guests in the dorm; three young Taiwanese college-age couples, and one single guy who was staying the summer there.
The dorm room had bunk beds. My girlfriend and I took a bottom bunk near the doorway to the hallway. The couples were on the top bunks on the other side; we could only see the bottoms of their feet if we looked. The single guy was on a bottom bunk way over near an end window.
When we had arrived in the afternoon, my girlfriend (I'll refer to her as "Lisa") was saying "There are ghosts here." I asked "Where?", and she pointed to a corner of the dorm and said, "There."
Now, I've had occasional paranormal experiences myself off and on since I was a child, but at that time, I thought she was saying that just for attention. That night as we went to sleep, we both lay down on our left sides, me facing her back. My last thought was, "Ghosts. Hah," then fell asleep.
During the night, I suddenly snapped completely awake, knowing something was extremely wrong. I was completely immobilized, and it was as if my ears were plugged, but I heard a voice in my right ear. It started off as a very low, warbling moan and as it progressed, the voice became higher and higher, until it was a high-pitched scream. Also, the "warbling" vibration in the voice had accelerated as the pitch got higher. I don't know how long it went on, but it was definitely longer than any person could scream without stopping to catch a breath. All the time I was silently struggling to move. I could see the back of Lisa's head, and it almost looked like from a distance. Finally, I broke the spell and pushed myself up on the bed. Lisa pushed herself up AT THE SAME TIME!
The room was dead silent, but my ears were ringing. I was shaking a bit, and so was Lisa. She turned around and said in English, "I heard a voice. There was pressure in the air!" I felt a single drop of sweat on my face, and the drop felt cold. I don't remember exactly what time it was, but it was sometime in the early a.m. hours, possibly sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Lisa and I got no more sleep that night. We sat up in bed, and she pulled out a small crucifix and held it. We spoke very quietly, but did not really talk much about "it". To make the atmosphere even spookier, up on the mountains the wind was making ghostly howling sounds.
Next day, as we were hiking away from the resort to continue our journey, the group of three couples were also leaving and picked us up in their van. They dropped us off at the bus station for the rest of our trip on the Cross-Island Highway, which would end in Taichung to the west. The rest of the trip was uneventful, and oddly enough, we never spoke about that incident the rest of the time I knew her.
I have never been able to find any information on haunting there. Some people I've told this to have suggested it was sleep paralysis, or imagination. I know it wasn't sleep paralysis, because I'd experienced that once or twice years prior to that incident, and once or twice after. They're very different. I can get out of sleep paralysis fairly easily, and there is no feeling of a presence, let alone a voice. And if it were sleep paralysis or imagination, how did Lisa experience the same thing, simultaneously?
I can't say it was a ghost, per se. It's possible it could have been some other type of entity, but I do know in my heart it had an intelligence to it, and that it targeted us. Maybe her for talking about ghosts, and me for having dismissed her fears. I still experience paranormal things on occasion, but nowadays they tend to be spiritually positive and uplifting.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my story. Jim
NOTE: the 'force' exerted on Jim and Lisa was no-doubt created by an entity. I believe that they were fortunate that more severe activity didn't take place, since it's obvious the energy of the entity was quite strong. Lon
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