Stories to keep you up at night

The Poinciana Woman

"I live in Northern Australia and everyone growing up in my town knows of the legend of the Poinciana woman.

A quick google search will elaborate into the many variations to the story but the one I grew up to know is that of a woman who was raped by Japanese fishermen who hanged herself from a poinciana tree when she had discovered she was pregnant. She is said to appear as a beautiful woman to entice men; with long dark hair dressed in a white gown, and is said to be situated at our army reserve.

When I was around twelve, and my younger brother ten, he had been in his room and I was in the lounge room on the computer. He had come barreling out from his room screaming can you hear that! Can you hear that?! before dragging me over to the window.

There was a faint feminine moan/hum, we could hear it moving from the window we stood at, to the one across the room and back in a clockwise direction. The wind had picked up with the noise despite how still the night had been. The sound became so loud that we were on the floor covering our ears crying, when I've brought it up recently my brother agrees it was almost as if the sound had been in our heads. This went on for about ten minutes before abruptly stopping. No wind, nothing.

We found out the next day that our older siblings had been at the army reserve that night before they got home, had climbed the concrete pillars to the locked gun turret and had been "taunting" the Poinciana woman before they left when they heard footsteps assuming it was security.

What creeps me out most is that not long after this happened, I realized that we had a poinciana tree outside of that window." —