Penang War Museum, Malaysia
The Penang War Museum is a unique case on the list because it is a place full of World War II ghost stories but there is very little reason for them. It has been called one of the most haunted places on earth and was even the focus of a television show or two, but by all historical accounts, it is not a place that should be haunted. The Penang War Museum is located at Bukit Batu Maung Hill and is in the remains of a British fort from the days when the British colonized Malaysia.
The fort was built in the 1930s as a way to protect the British shipping routes around Malayan Peninsula. The British were only at the fort for a few years before the Japanese invaded in December of 1941. The fort was built to withstand sea attacks and had little defense against the Japanese air attack. The British fled and left the area to the Japanese. The Japanese used the fort to protect their own shipping routes until the end of the war, at which time it was abandoned.
That ends the official history of the fort. But the Penang War Museum has their own self-researched history that is much more gruesome and offers plenty of reason for ghosts. The museum claims that the Japanese turned the fort into a POW camp where there were frequent tortures and daily beheadings. The cruel executioner, the museum claims, was Tadashi Suzuki. Many visitors to the museum claim to have seen him or other Japanese soldiers walking throughout the area.
The museum plays upon this dark history with pictures of Tadashi Suzuki, plaques with gruesome stories and large effigies of ghosts that were said to have been seen by the construction crew during the renovation of the base. Despite all the reports of ghost sightings and the fear that can be felt at the place, there is no evidence that it was ever a POW camp or that Tadashi Suzuki was ever there. Many attribute the stories of the museum to taking advantage of dark tourism and playing on the atrocities of war that did happen elsewhere in Malaysia.