UAE | Society
This night could be a thriller…
Our team of ghost-busters – videographers Sunita Menon and Mohammed Al Khan and photographer Oliver Clarke – have rational minds. But as journalists, they leave no stone unturned when even in the slightest doubt. So they have melted into the night in search of elusive spirits. They are lodged in abandoned Al Hamra island in Ras Al Khaimah. Legend has it spirits have sheltered in derelict structures. Will they or won’t they have a close encounter? The team will keep you posted on www.gulfnews.com and will tweet by dead of night when all else is quiet …
- By -Mohammed N. Al Khan, Videographer
- Published: 18:19 October 31, 2010
- Image Credit: Oliver Clarke/Gulf News
- It's getting unbearably stuffy on the Al Hamra island in Ras Al Khaimah. There is no breeze and the fire isn't helping either, no matter how cool it looks.
00:08 It's midnight, the witching hour, and the best time to go out and investigate this ghost town. There is not a soul around, at least not a corporeal soul, it's going to be just us three, a series of abandoned old homes and the unknown. If you don't hear back from us before sunrise... send help.
-- Mohammed N. Al Khan, Videographer
21:57 I've just finished my patrol around the mosque, the shovelling sound is from the diggers in the nearby development which seem to have just begun working. We still don't know what was up with the fire, may have been a bug or something.
Sunita is now acting like she is at a rave, she has her iPod on and is dancing and singing and jumping over the camp fire. Yes we are considering that she may be possessed... By the ghost of a disco queen it seems.
21:37 We are hearing some footsteps around the mosque, and a sound of what we can only describe as shovelling. Our camp fire just acted a little weird, almost like there was a strong wind blowing at it, but the air here is still.
I'm going to go for a walk around the mosque to see what I find, Sunita is trying to calm herself by counting stars, and Oliver is fiddling around with his camera...
20:19 We've just had our first visitor of the night. A small bird was trapped in the corner of the mosque, we thought it might have been a bat at first. But I think we gave it more of a fright than it gave any of us. Three humans with cameras and torches charging at a little bird trapped in the corner, I would've probably had a heart attack if I had been in the little guy's place.
It didn't take long to find its way out and boy was it glad to be out.
We're now listening to Sunita's hunger monologue as she is craving Biryani, chilled watermelon juice an a fresh salad... We hear a sound outside and Oliver quips that it must be the Beryani guy coming to get Sunita's order.
It's getting unbearably stuffy in here as there is no breeze between four walls, and the fire isn't helping either, no matter how cool it looks.
19:25: Ok so we're got our camp fire going and the dry grass nearby caught fire too, ironically we now seem to have a burning cross in the middle of our camp site. I'm not a superstitious person but that's got to be some kind of omen.
19:01: We are surrounded by broken down old houses, this place looks like it hasn't been inhabited for a hundred years. And that's about how long the rumors of this town being haunted has been floating around the UAE.
Just as the sun was setting we decided to camp in an old mosque, building number 13 according to the municipality number on it.
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Oliver has already started with the ghost stories, his grandmother's house is haunted by the ghost of a boxer. Sunita is roaming around in the dark trying to find a spiritual friend, and I've just come back with firewood to a pitch dark mosque.
The night is eerily quite save for a cricket or two. The stars are out and the faint sound of crashing waves can be heard in the distance.
Let's see what happens...
For more spooky updates follow the GN twitter handle @gulf_news
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