Pulau Ubin, one of Singapore’s most popular offshore islands, is often described as a rustic escape, a place where time seems to stand still.
However, behind its kampong charm lies a darker, older side of the island with some of Singapore’s scariest ghost stories.
In a tour led by local guide Chua Yong Liang, 59, and dark heritage researcher Eugene Tay, MS News explored some of Ubin’s most haunted sites and the legends behind them.
What we discovered was a mix of chilling encounters, forgotten history, and living folklore that mainlanders rarely hear about.
Here are the scariest spots on Pulau Ubin, if you dare to venture.
The journey began at Wei Tuo Fa Gong Temple, one of Ubin’s oldest surviving buildings.
Although it is primarily a Buddhist temple, it also contains shrines dedicated to various deities, including the earth deity and guardian spirit Datuk Gong, hillside spirits, and Hindu gods.
The temple’s beginnings can be traced back to the 1950s, when Ong Siew Fong’s in-laws started to take in some quarry workers as tenants.
These workers started praying to the gods at the family home’s altar, and over time, the residence became a place of worship.
At first glance, the Wei Tuo Fa Gong Temple looks like a simple, quiet shrine.
However, the walls hold memories of events that defy explanation.
According to Madam Ong, 81, a massive rock once came crashing down during blasting works at the quarry.
Coincidentally, it missed every single deity statue inside the temple and no one was injured.
Since then, the rock has been coloured gold and positioned at its current spot for worship.
Even stranger is an artefact guarded here: an old coin from the British North Borneo Company.
The coin, among others, was allegedly found in the skeletal hands of the ‘German Girl‘ herself — a well known legend on Pulau Ubin.
By sunset, we arrived at Ketam Quarry, now a picturesque lake but once a booming granite mine.
Long before that, however, Ubin’s natives regarded this land as the sacred dwelling of powerful ancient spirits.
Source: roots.gov.sg
The nearby Kekek quarry has also gained a dark reputation over time, with drownings and eerie sightings reported to this day.
Yong Liang recounted a near-death experience that he and his friends faced as children.
One stormy day, they were swimming in the Ketam Quarry when lightning struck a tree whose roots reached into the water.
“We all got electrocuted,” he recalled.
“I sank, paralysed, until the electric current passed. Me and my friends survived the near-drowning, but others at Kekek Quarry weren’t so lucky.”
Yong Liang shared that his uncle, a miner, died in a granite landslide at Kekek Quarry.
Source: ourlifeourtravel.com
As quarry blasting was a dangerous activity back in the day, his uncle was not the only worker who lost his life.
Some believe that the spirits of miners and drowning victims remain bound to the quarry, guarding their watery graves.
The two quarries are also separated by the Kampong Bukit Coffee Chinese Cemetery, making the entire area even more eerie.
According to Eugene, there is an ancient being beneath the hills, an entity said to have slumbered there long before the British began blasting granite with dynamite.
When the explosions ripped through the ground, they stirred and angered it.
It was said that the quarrymen had disturbed something ancient and elemental.
“But progress, as always, leaves no room for reverence. The quarries continued. The machines roared. And in return, the being demanded its tribute: one life every two years,” Eugene explained.
The numbers did not quite add up though, but his informant, a medium, told him privately that not all incidents were reported.
If there is one Pulau Ubin ghost story that most Singaporeans know, it is that of the ‘German Girl’.
However, what we heard on Ubin was far more unsettling than the versions told online.
According to legend, a German family supposedly owned a coffee plantation on the island in the 1910s.
When World War I broke out, they fled, but their daughter allegedly never made it out alive.
Some say she fell from a hill while escaping, while others insist she was buried near the quarry.
Some even claimed that she was not German at all, but a Javanese princess.
Regardless, offerings began piling up at a shrine that had been built for the unidentified girl.
Over the years, her spirit gained a reputation for granting wishes, especially winning lottery numbers.
Supposedly, it all started when a man dreamt of a girl from the island asking for a Barbie doll.
Somehow, he ended up at the shrine and struck the lottery after placing a doll there.
However, it seems that Eugene’s personal experience is the most chilling.
In 2014, during a paranormal investigation at the shrine, he was meditating and felt an unseen presence.
“I heard footsteps shuffling at my ear level. Then I felt an elderly energy cradling my head on their lap,” he recalled.
At the same time, his friends who were outside the shrine claimed they saw white figures darting past them.
The shrine’s caretaker of over 20 years, Ah Cheng, who also works as a taxi driver on Ubin, told MS News he has never experienced anything strange or supernatural.
However, he did win the 4D lottery several times using combinations given by the ‘German Girl’.
Notably, Ah Cheng struck 4D again recently with a combination he obtained during the tour that MS News attended.
The tour ended at a traditional kampong house owned by Yong Liang’s auntie, one of the last residential homes on Pulau Ubin.
Here, heritage and haunting intertwined.
Over refreshments and mooncakes, the tour guides and participants shared their personal ghostly encounters on the island.
Eugene recalled an NPCC campsite legend that he heard before: when lost at night in the forest, cadets would wait patiently for a black dog to appear.
If they followed it, they would always find the right path back to camp.
However, no one knew if the dog was flesh and blood, or an animal spirit.
A tour participant, Wai Kit, 50, also shared his Outward Bound Singapore camp story from the 1990s.
While hanging out at the abseiling site late at night, his friend suddenly urged him to head back, leaving a bewildered Wai Kit behind when he said he wanted to stay longer.
Source: Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) Pulau Ubin for illustration purposes only.
Only later did the friend confess that a white figure had floated up behind Wai Kit’s, prompting him to “abandon” his friends.
Wai Kit also recounted another story about a flying fox accident in which a camper fell to his death, yet was later spotted walking around the campsite, probably unaware of his own demise.
Perhaps the most spine-chilling moment was when Wai Kit told this MS News journalist that the ‘German Girl’ was present when they were at the shrine earlier.
“She was there just now. My wife can see spirits and she saw her standing outside the shrine, looking in at us,” he said in a whisper.
Boarding the boat back to the mainland, Ubin’s quiet seemed heavier, as if the spirits we had disturbed were still watching.
From quarries that swallow the unwary, to shrines that grant wishes at a price, Pulau Ubin holds a secret world of legends and the uncanny.
Those who wish to experience the Ubin Secrets: German Girl Mystery & Kampong Tales Tour for themselves can find out more here.
Book your tickets soon if interested, as the tours run from now till 31 Oct.
Also read: The mystery of the German Girl Shrine on Pulau Ubin: What’s its real story?
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Eldora Chong.