Haunted Hong Kong: Murray House and its ghostly goings-on in the 1960s
From shadows cast by invisible subjects to strange noises, the occupants of Murray House and HMS Tamar reported unexplained occurrences in 1963, which stopped after a Buddhist exorcism was performed to appease the spirits
“The former Officers’ Mess at the junction of Garden Road and Queen’s Road East is haunted. So is the former HMS Tamar building a short distance to the east,” read the opening lines of a report in the South China Morning Post on May 5, 1963.
So convinced were some government employees that ghosts prowled the premises that they sought permission to exorcise the spirits through Taoist rituals.
Members of the Rating and Valuation Department, which had recently moved into Murray House – the renamed former Murray Barracks Officers’ Mess building – told the Post: “On a number of occasions recently, drawings and blueprints laid out to dry were later found to have been smeared or modified by additional marks and signs […]
“Also, equipment in rooms in the western part of the building broke down or refused to function without any visible reason […] At times some of the staff heard unaccountable noises from the section of the building and also soft weird sounds which could not be explained. They also noticed shadows cast by invisible subjects.
The building had been occupied by the Japanese during the second world war and the western part used as a detention centre, the Post reported. Several people had been tortured and died there, others had committed suicide.