Fearsome ghost or black magic clear-out?

CHACHOENGSAO: Residents of Nong Patong village are puzzling over the source of strange red lights that have been seen floating near the village pond almost every night for the past month.

Some say the lights are a phi kraseu – a fearsome ghost that appears as the head of a beautiful woman with her internal organs hanging from her neck. Others say the lights started after the a local black magician disappeared.

Naret Sutcheun, 48, a member of the local Tambon Administration Organization (OrBorTor), lives near where the strange sightings have been made.

Mr Naret said several friends, out working in the fields or trapping field mice at night, told him the lights always appeared after midnight.

The recurring apparition is about two meters tall, with twinkling balls of light about the size of fists. Some of Mr Naret’s friends believe the lights are phi kraseu, with heads and intestines trailing beneath them.

Many villagers have tried to approach the lights, but they disappear before they can get close.

Mr Naret, for his part, said he didn’t believe the lights were ghosts. There was, however, another explanation for the lights doing the rounds in the village, he added.

Several years ago, a man aged about 35 mysteriously left the village. When he returned two years later, he told his friends and parents that he had been in Nakhon Ratchasima studying black magic with a teacher.

He said he was going to use his knowledge to make money and to make his mum and dad rich. He persuaded his mother to build him a special hermitage – costing about 100,000 baht – for him to use to work as a medium.

Villagers heard about his work and started coming to have their fortunes read or bad luck exorcised. This continued until about a year ago, when the man had an argument with his mum – and promptly disappeared.

The man left all his amulets, charms and magical equipment in his mother’s house, without explaining their importance or how to look after them. Not so long ago, she threw out all the trinkets, dumping them by the side of the house.

Soon after, some villagers say, that the lights started to appear – in the same place where the magic items were dumped.

Prasit O-satanon, 57, said he and five friends saw the apparition themselves on the night of January 8.

About half past midnight, they were standing in Mr Prasit’s vegetable patch when they saw the red lights. The apparition appeared to be a floating head with intestines hanging from it. It looked just like phi kraseu from an old Thai movie, he said.

When the group moved closer, it moved away. They fired four or five warning shots into the air, and it vanished.

Despite what he had seen, however, Mr Prasit said he could not believe the thing was a phi kraseu.