The Amber Beacon Tower Haunting

In East Coast Park, Singapore, stands the Amber Beacon Tower. Some call it the Yellow Tower. It is bright yellow and shaped like a lighthouse, built to warn ships that they were near the shore, with a spiral staircase climbing to an upper deck. Kelly Tan Ah Hong, 21, and James Soh Fook Leong, 22, had been schoolmates at Yio Chu Kang Secondary School. They became a couple on 13 May 1990, and two days later they came to the tower.

About 10:30 pm. The couple sat talking at the foot of the spiral staircase. Two men walked past them, up toward the upper level. About 15 minutes later they came back down. They attacked from behind with knives, without a word.

Soh was stabbed in the back, and the wound narrowly missed his spinal cord. Tan ran to the ground floor. The second attacker chased her and stabbed her in the left side of the neck. Soh went through the bushes to the Singa Inn Seafood Restaurant for help, and collapsed there. Tan did not survive.

Then the stories began. Passers-by claimed to see a female apparition near the yellow tower. Joggers described a wailing apparition dressed in white. Some spoke of a floating lady in white, others of apparitions on the upper deck. Her restless spirit, it is said, still lingers on the spiral staircase.

The sounds came at night. Joggers passing at the hour of the attack reportedly heard wailing at the top of the tower. Others heard screams of help, but found nothing when they searched the tower. Visitors reported droplets of fresh bloodstain on the steps and railing.

In 2019, Taiwanese TV host Lee Teng told his own story. As a secondary school student, he camped near the tower with friends. They took photos at night and went for a night swim. The next morning, his Buddha pendant was gone. "When my friend developed the pictures soon after, we realised that there was a shadowy figure hovering near another friend's head."

The CID Special Investigation Section took the murder case. Robbery, drug addicts and revenge were all considered, but no weapon or fingerprints were found. In April 1992 the coroner's inquiry returned a verdict of murder by "a person or persons unknown", after forensic pathologist Prof. Chao Tzee Cheng testified that the neck wound had cut an artery. The Tan family offered a S$30,000 reward, and Crimewatch aired a re-enactment in June 1992. Police received calls, but no arrest followed.

No official body ever examined the haunting. The ghost hunters did. R3LOAD Network posted "Female Ghost caught at East Coast Park Yellow Tower" in 2013. AmysCrypt and DJ KC of Mediacorp Ria 89.7FM explored the tower on camera in 2019.

The legend drifted from the record. Some retellings moved the attack to 1992. Others turned two men into a gang of thugs and added violence the documents do not support. Random Times suggested the unsolved murder itself inspired the ghost story, calling that "maybe a little bit obvious". Believers answer that her spirit cannot rest because the killers were never caught.

In July 2015, Soh, then 47, said he still listens for footsteps behind him. "Until now it's still a big question mark for me: Why did it happen?" Singapore has no statute of limitations for murder. The case is still open.