I served my NS and ORD around 2002. My BMT at Tekong was normal but after that got posted to be Ammo as store man at Kranji Ammo dump which is at the inner outskirts of Kranji Camp. The ammo dump was 50 hectares big( surrounded by forest and the sea facing Johor straits) which according to my OC at that time was same size as Jurong Bird Park.

The ammo dump was huge but manned by a company of less than 100. Hence it was normal to have 8 or more guard duties per month. It was during 1 of these guard duties that I would encountered something spooky.

Being a huge area, the place was split into left and right side. The left would be patrolled by 2 prowlers and the right would be by a prowler from the K9 unit with his dog. One night II and my buddy were midway into prowling into the left side when suddenly we heard a female voice humming a melodious tune. No lyrics, just humming. My buddy and I were literally stunned. I readied my truncheon and shield (I wasn’t carrying rifle cos had excuse) and my buddy cocked his live rounds in his rifle. In my mind i was like “should he shoot, can the bullet kill or simply pass thru the ghost?) Bear in mind, this was in the middle of a forested area in the innards of Kranji camp. Where got female human so on go around humming a tune? The volume was quite loud some more. Definitely in the vicinity of 10 to 20 meters.

We decided to radio the guard room.

Me : Prowler to guard room, we heard someone humming a tune, sounds like female.
Guard Commander: GC to prowlers, don’t play punk, this is not a funny joke.
Suddenly the dog prowler chimed in on the radio too.
Dog Prowler: Dog Prowler to guard room, I HEARD IT TOO.

There was silence for at least 10 secs. The realisation that the humming can be heard within the 50 hectare big ammo dump just took sometime to process.

Guard Commander: Ok, we’ll send the car (GP car) in.

Mind you, during this whole time, the humming was still going on! My buddy and I remained alert. Once we could see the headlights of the GP car, the humming stopped! Of course when the GC reached us and disembarked, he couldn’t hear anything. He also didn’t tekan us because he saw our terrified faces. Plus the fact the dog prowler also verified. (Dog prowler from external unit, hence not much chance of us being good friends and play punk on GC also)

But end up lanlan, still have to continue prowling, lucky nothing happened after that. After that I bought a rather powerful bicycle torch and would mount it on my shoulder every time I prowl with 2 sets of rechargeable batteries. I would always religiously charge my batteries before and after my prowling details.

Funny thing is after that, DOS and DO no need to spot check me whenever I was prowling because they only need to look in from far and can see my torch light indicating my location.