University ghost stories in Singapore

Sharing ghost stories with our classmates is basically a part and parcel of life growing up – in fact, almost every school seems to have a bunch of “urban legends” up its sleeve. And thanks to orientation camps and student halls, our very own universities have a wide collection of supernatural occurrences too.

Whether you’re a current uni student who stays on campus or is enjoying the perks of HBL, these stories are bound to send some shivers down your spine. So strap in and have some holy water handy…just in case.

Check out more scary Singapore ghost stories here:

• Real-life ghost stories in Singapore
• Chalet ghost stories
• Ghost hunting in Pasir Ris park
• Singaporean “horror” stories

1. The mysterious red shoes

If you’re one to scoff at seventh month superstitions, this story might change your mind.

It started when Kai, a first-year student staying in NTU Hall 8, noticed a pair of red shoes sitting outside his dorm. Not belonging to him or his roommate Joshua, the latter headed to Hall 8’s group chat to ask if it was anyone’s, to which everyone responded no.

Image credit: Kai

Knowing that it was the seventh month, Kai didn’t know if anything could be attached to the shoes and wanted to leave them alone. His roommate, however, gave them to someone else in the same hall to hopefully locate its owner and to mess with his neighbours.

After a while of the shoes being passed around, Kai had a dream where he was woken up by a knock on his door. When he opened it, he saw a little girl who asked him where her shoes were. This was when he woke up for real after he heard the sound of glass breaking in his room.

He then found a wine glass that had seemingly broken in two, the top half of the glass lying on the floor and the bottom sitting on his desk. It doesn’t take a forensic scientist to know that something was off.

Feeling creeped out, Kai then told his roommate about his dream. This was when they decided to retrieve the shoes and place them right back where they found them. The next morning, both of them woke up to find that the shoes were gone.

I guess the moral of the story is this: don’t mess with mysterious belongings during the Hungry Ghost Festival season.

2. Student gets possessed during Halloween scare room

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Halloween is a fun time for university halls, often resulting in parties, pranks, and scare rooms – these are like haunted houses, but split into individual rooms. For NTU Hall 10, scare rooms were where most of the fun took place, with the hall committee organising an annual scare room that was guaranteed to make participants “sh*t their pants”.

But ever since an unfortunate incident a few years ago, preceding committees have had the tradition to pray before each scare room.

According to a hall alumnus, there was a rumour going around that a member of the committee had gotten possessed in the reading room, where the scare rooms are usually held.

The present hall committee no longer continued organising terrifying scare rooms, and I’m sure they’re better off without it.

3. A freaky response from Siri during the seventh month 

Image credit: NTU
Photo for illustration purposes only

During the Hungry Ghost season, it’s common to have a list of dos and don’ts to follow to stay safe during the seventh month. Students of NTU Hall 10 take one in particular very seriously: do not sing in groups.

According to Rachel, a third-year student, a group of seniors were singing together in a meeting room a few years ago when one of the guys said he’d felt a hand on his shoulder. But when he turned to look, there wasn’t anyone there. After his friends confirmed that they hadn’t seen anything either, they brushed it off and continued singing.

It wasn’t until a significant amount of time passed when someone’s Siri turned on unprompted and said, “I’m here.”

4. An extra “painting” in the art room

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Several semesters ago, NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences used to run an Art Club and had a studio for it on the fourth floor. While it’s no longer there today, this incident still haunts its club members.

Brendan, a year three Economics major, shared that towards the beginning of the summer break, club members would pack everything into the studio’s storeroom since no one would be using it. One evening at around 8PM, one of the Art Club members decided to stay back to work on his final art project before heading to the storeroom to pack his stuff.

For some context, the storeroom is a rectangular room with only one window, so everything can be seen from the doorway.

Since it was the end of the semester, the storeroom was a little bit more cluttered than usual, forcing Brendan to shift around a few things to make space for his project. One of the things he moved was a huge canvas propped up against one of the walls. 

But when he moved it out of the way, he noticed a painting of a pale white woman against a dark background underneath it. Not only had he never seen the painting before, but he also felt like it was staring directly at him. Feeling spooked, he quickly placed his project down and left the room.

Feeling a little more ballsy the next day in broad daylight, he decided to take a second peek at the painting. This time, Brendan brought his seniors along as no one else knew the portrait existed either. But when they entered the room, the painting was nowhere to be found.

What they found, however, was that the room had two windows and not one.

5. An uninvited guest at orientation camp

Image credit: NUS
Photo for illustration purposes only

Back when physical camps were a thing, NUS had new students sleep in the dorms during the orientation period.

Among the camp members were then-freshies Giselle and Vivian, who stayed in a double room along with two other girls. The sleeping arrangement had two of them sleeping on the bed, while the other two slept on the study tables. On the second last day of camp, Giselle headed home early, leaving the other three alone in the room.

Vivian recounts that on the last night of orientation, she had woken up in the middle of the night and noticed another girl sleeping with her friend on the same bed. As the girl was dressed in camp attire, Vivian assumed that Giselle had returned and promptly brushed it off. 

When the next morning came, Vivian was in for a shock when she asked her friend where Giselle was and realised that Giselle actually hadn’t returned to camp. What was even more chilling was that no one had seen the extra “camper” that Vivian thought she saw.

6. Speaker plays by itself during horror night

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Located smack in the middle of town, SMU might not seem all that haunted as compared to its ulu counterparts. But third-year Jinquan has his fair share of spooky stories to dispel the myth.

The school’s orientation camps are known to have a “horror night”, where facilitators scare the campers as a rite of passage. This includes speakers for background music, scary props, and seniors to scare the freshies. But when the facilitators were about done packing up the scare room for the night, a speaker suddenly went off, playing creepy music all by itself.

The facilitators scrambled to find out who or what the speaker was connected to, but they couldn’t figure it out. After some time, someone finally realised that the speaker was connected to the main computer that they were using to play the creepy soundtracks. End of the story, right?

Not quite. See, the weird thing was that no one had touched the computer while they were packing up and to this day, and how the speaker had connected to the computer remains a mystery.

7. Spirited away during a student chalet

Image credit: Josiah Neo
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Unluckily for Jinquan, this wasn’t his only spooky school encounter. This one happened during a chalet held by and for SMU students. 

After the usual chalet festivities, seniors realised that they couldn’t find one of the freshies that was part of the group, and he ended up going “missing” for a good three hours. Thankfully, he did return – drunk, but safe. 

According to him, he had stumbled across another chalet with people partying and drinking and spent a while with them before heading back to his group. However, when he led his seniors back to the location of said party, they found it completely empty.

While it might have been a result of his drunkenness, it’s still pretty weird that he hallucinated a whole other party. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if it was just the drinks or duppies.

Creepy university stories in Singapore

Whether you’re a sceptic or a believer, you can’t deny that some of these stories do send shivers down your spine. With spooky tales even happening in the dead centre of the bustle of town, it goes to show that no school is safe from its fair share of urban legends and supernatural occurrences.

With all that said, let’s just be grateful that most of our uni life is now being spent safely at home where the scariest thing that could happen is an unmuted mic during zoom lectures.

Cover image adapted from: NUS