Raysan Ace: A man tormented by the living & the dead
On 27 Aug 2021, 45-year-old Raysan Ace perished after he tried to swim across the Singapore River in the dark of night.
Earlier that year, he had become a known figure in Singapore’s paranormal community — particularly for relaying the story of his haunted house in Spooner Road.
Though the story went viral, he also attracted a share of doubters.
To silence them, he issued an open challenge where he’ll do a dare to prove his bravery.
Despite his claims of completing the swim many times during his youth, his attempt in 2021 proved to be his last.
Who is Raysan Ace?
Raysan Ace entered the public eye when the story of his haunted house was featured on Supernatural Confessions — a YouTube channel featuring paranormal content with 76,000 subscribers.
His video alone however, attracted more than 350,000 views since premiering in April 2021.
Following his feature on the Supernatural Confessions YouTube channel, Raysan posted a two-part series of his experience on his personal channel.
The two videos, titled ‘The Hauntings in Spooner Road’, were published in June 2021.
According to Facebook posts, Raysan spent the late 90s as a DJ. He also revealed himself to be a spiritual man, spending time as a monk in Thailand and Cambodia around 2015.
Source: Raysan Ace on Facebook
Despite his travels and his stint as a religious practitioner, nothing would quite prepare Raysan for what he experienced in his Spooner Road flat.
Spooner Road’s reputation for hauntings
Spooner Road, tucked away in a corner of Kampong Bahru in Singapore, is infamous for its numerous ghost sightings and incidents.
The estate houses some of the oldest HDB blocks in Singapore — dating back to the 1970s — that had remained vacant for years after the nearby Tanjong Pagar Railway Station halted operations.
Source: Uchify
Soon, it resembled a ghost town until it was used for rental housing.
To many, however, the moniker isn’t just a figure of speech, but a real description of the estate.
The long period of vacancy was believed to have attracted spirits to roam the halls. Residents say that they see ghostly figures and hear mysterious sounds throughout the night.
This reputation has thus attracted many thrill-seeking urban explorers to the estate.
However, the estate’s affordable housing has also provided shelter and refuge to those down on their luck.
Moving into the haunted house
Raysan Ace was one of these people. According to his Facebook posts, he spent some time living inside a cemetery when he was homeless, a fact that his friends can attest to.
His paranormal experience started as soon as he moved into his Spooner Road flat in March 2019.
Source: Raysan Ace on Youtube
Just a few weeks before moving in, a teenager leaped to his death right outside the doors to his flat, he said.
This made moving in feel a bit morbid to Raysan. The uncomfortable feeling never really left even as he grew accustomed to his new surroundings.
Doing what he could to avoid spending nights at home
Nights at his flat became unbearable. Raysan said he would hear voices from the corridors and catch glimpses of shadows darting around just out of sight. The hauntings would deprive him of sleep.
Source: Raysan Ace on Youtube
He eventually swapped to a night job, just to avoid spending the night at his flat. But it didn’t end there.
Bad luck would follow him everywhere, Raysan said. Things around his house would randomly break down and nothing was going his way at work either.
To make things worse, he said he would also randomly fall ill.
He described his condition as akin to a corpse.
Calling in exorcists
Firmly believing that he was being haunted, Raysan requested a medium to cleanse his flat.
Source: Raysan Ace on Youtube
The medium told him that his flat was indeed haunted, but it was way worse than expected.
The spirit that Raysan shared his flat with was a strong entity with control over all the spirits in the surrounding two blocks, the medium told Raysan.
“I was quite flattered,” joked Raysan in the YouTube video. “I got the star staying with me.”
But despite the medium’s confidence in the ritualistic cleansing, the hauntings only got worse from then on.
Taking matters into his own hands
Things escalated after the medium’s intervention, according to Raysan. Eventually, he said the spirit manifested in front of him.
Source: Raysan Ace on Youtube
She appeared to him naked in the toilet, he recounted. He could only freeze and closed his eyes.
She had disappeared, but left a strong pungent odour behind that lingered.
That’s when he felt like he had to do something.
His time as a monk came to him and Raysan sat in meditation. When he opened his eyes from his peaceful trance, Raysan said he heard a clear voice in his head demanding him to “go get the ring”.
Source: Raysan Ace on Youtube
The ring was discovered in an adjacent room during the cleansing ritual, but had been left untouched. It is unclear who the ring belongs to.
Beckoned by the voice in his head, Raysan buried the ring under a banana tree nearby. And since then, he said things have been peaceful.
But the hauntings continued
In an ending that is all too familiar to horror movie enthusiasts, Raysan said the hauntings began again.
He uploaded a Youtube video in June 2021 documenting some of the incidents he managed to capture.
Source: Supernatural Confessions
In an incident near the beginning of June, Raysan photographed a shadowy figure right outside his window. The sighting nearly stopped his heart from beating, he said.
“Leaving this house ALIVE is the only option now.”
Dares issued after sceptics doubt his story
Just a couple of months after his story went viral, Raysan made a public Facebook post addressing his doubters.
On 28 July 2021, Raysan said that many people had called him a liar and told him that his story was fabricated. They also said that Raysan wouldn’t have the guts to stay at a legitimately haunted place.
In response, Raysan told his doubters to name the most haunted place in Singapore, and he’ll livestream his night there.
A few weeks later, Raysan posted an update on his challenge.
The spot he picked out was a wooded area past the last lamppost at the edge of the Bukit Timah Turf Club.
Source: Raysan Ace on Facebook
According to Raysan, the area used to house an old village that was evicted due to a Pontianak appearance.
Then as he promised, on the night of 19 Aug 2021, he live-streamed his experience throughout the night there.
One final challenge for the remaining doubters
However, his first livestream only continued to attract doubters.
In a Facebook post on 22 August 2021, Raysan singled out a specific message.
The expletive-filled message attacked his integrity and bravery by saying he faked everything — even alleging that Raysan had used black magic protection and trickery to accomplish his feats.
Referring to an old photo of Raysan handling a crocodile, the person said:
You [are] not a real man you play with crocodile also use black magic.
Source: Raysan Ace on Facebook
The message also called Raysan out for the haunted house story. But perhaps the most consequential attack was on the claim Raysan had made in his initial dare post in July.
In the post, Raysan claimed he had swam in Boat Quay many times in the 1990s at 3am.
They dared Raysan to prove the fact and to show himself stripped of any supernatural protections before jumping into the water.
They also told him to withhold the date of his swim, so there would be no police to stop him — referencing a police encounter from the previous live stream at Bukit Timah Turf Club.
Finally, they said the challenge had to be completed before the end of the “seventh month”, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Raysan’s final update
On 27 August 2021 in a now-deleted live stream on Facebook, Raysan took on the challenge despite protests from his close friends.
“Thanks but I can’t,” Raysan said in response to a comment telling him to simply ignore the hater. His pride and conviction in his words wouldn’t allow him to back down.
In the livestream, Raysan can be seen taking off his shirt and then introducing himself.
He explained that he was doing this as part of a dare. He added a warning to his viewers, which will turn into his final words.
Please do not try this if you are not an expert swimmer, I am not.
Source: Sgfollowsall on Youtube
Raysan’s acceptance of the dare unfortunately led to his demise.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force responded to a call for water rescue assistance at the Singapore River near 20A Circular Road at about 11.45pm on 27 Aug 2021.
Divers performed an underwater search and retrieved a body approximately 60 metres from shore at a depth of about three metres. Raysan was pronounced dead at the scene.
His troubles came from both the living and the dead
Raysan was mourned by his friends from the paranormal community, who urged others to come forward with information on the person who challenged Raysan to swim in the river.
They also implied that the deceased had a mental health condition.
Source: Paranormal Encounter SG on Facebook, retrieved from AsiaOne
Raysan’s tale serves as a stark reminder of the frailty of life.
In spite of all of his close calls with the dead, what brought his end was a dare put forth by haters online.
Though it was reported that police did not suspect foul play based on preliminary investigations, his story will be remembered as a cautionary tale by those who know it.
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Featured image adapted from Supernatural Confessions and Supernatural Confessions.
