Hysteria At SMK Serian (PT 1)

Here is the news on the hysteria case that happened in 2008 in Serian from The Borneo Post.

SERIAN: It was a quiet and calm day at SMK Serian yesterday, as many students opted to steer clear of their school for fear of becoming victims of hysterical attacks after 12 students reportedly broke into screaming and shaking fits believed to have been induced by a paranormal presence on Thursday.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, to the surprise of locals, who had endured the bizarre activities of the unusual phenomenon for the past three weeks. The presence afflicted an average of two students per day until Thursday when the situation peaked drastically with a significant increase in the number of attacks.

It was believed that the attacks began after a group of students came back from picnic trip in Gunung Gading, Lundu. The trip was an excursion organised by the school. Locals report that the haunting at the school could have been attributed to acts unwittingly committed by the students during the picnic. One of the youths apparently picked flowers from the area and brought it home while another reportedly took a bath in a pond where he also did his ‘dirty business’.

According to a local folklore, Gunung Gading is inhabited by sacred spirits, 99 ‘dayang’ or maiden spirits. The disruptive presence of the students was suspected by many to have angered and offended the ‘guardians’ of the area.

The school’s principal, Ramli Zainuddin confirmed that they were no hysteria attacks yesterday, when met by The Borneo Post. However, the students had the option to not attend classes until further notice. On the majority, students who were attending the morning sessions chose not to return to the school, influenced by the frightening stories their previously-possessed peers relayed to them about the phenomenon. Some afternoon session students, in the meanwhile, were seen wandering about school premises.

Mohd Saupie Balitang, a security guard who has been serving the school for nearly 10 years, said that the incident on Thursday was not the first of its kind. Saupie recalled that back in 2006, when the school decided to cut down a big tree just behind the surau, two twin sisters displayed the same behaviour as the previously afflicted students. The felled tree, according to Saupie, might have been home to supernatural ‘beings’ who became enraged.

When asked if he encountered anything ‘strange’ while he was on night duty, the 38-year old security guard replied ‘no’. “But every time I do checks on Block B, I do smell some kind of scent similar to ‘bau gaharu’ or fragrant smoke (incense) which, according to older folk, is a sign that a supernatural being is nearby. “At times I felt that my hairs stand on end for no apparent reason and it gives me the creeps,” Saupie said.

Saupie added that Block B is not the only haunted building in the school. He claimed that the old building where the school’s principal used to live also exhibited similar characteristics. He said that his friends once used the toilet there and when he was done doing his ‘business’, he found that the door was stuck – as though someone was restraining it from opening. “When he did get it open after a while, he checked and saw that there was no one around,” said Saupie, who later added that he saw a religious leader cleaning up the house while he was on duty yesterday.

Meanwhile, a Form 5student, Mohd Hafiz Majaddin, 17, who happens to be the school’s head prefect, claims that a close friend of his who came down with a case of hysteria on Thursday told him how the ‘being’ looked like before screaming like a mad man.

“My female friend was hanging out with some other friends at an area near some palm trees, on the school premises.“A male friend was pulling her hair out of teasing her but he was puzzled when she did not respond in the least. “Usually girls react if someone pulled her hair but my friend (victim) instead just stared blankly in front of her at one of the palm trees.

“She then started to close her ears with her hands and began crying and screaming which freaked my other friends out. “When she was stable – which was hours later after what happened – I asked her what she saw. Things started to creep me out when she told me that she suddenly saw a beautiful woman wearing a scarf, who started to walk towards her. She appeared from out of nowhere.

“But as she drew closer, her beautiful face turned uglier into something so frightening which freaked my friend out,” said Hafiz, who said he would not joke about anything like that. When The Borneo Post tried to contact the victim, she begged not to be interviewed as she was still in trauma and did not wish to recall what she had experienced on Thursday.

Hafiz then said that he heard from another student who claimed that in a related incident another female student had become possessed, acting strangely throughout her morning class. When a teacher asked her name, she coldly replied: “Yanti”. A Form Four student, identified as Mohd Afizi, surmised that the victims who were ‘struck’ on Thursday might be the work of one of the spirits from Gunung Gading. “My cousin was one of the victims. She is currently at home being treated by a traditional practitioner at my kampong,” Afizi said, adding that she had yet to fully recover from the trauma.

Another student claimed that he noticed something very strange during the incident. He claimed that the victim would stare at the school’s football field before coming down with a case of hysteria. It was unclear when the school will resume classes but its administration is doing everything it can to resolve the matter.

*Serian is a town, and the capital of the Serian District (2,039.9 square kilometers) in Samarahan Division, Sarawak, east Malaysia. It is located about 40 miles (65 km) from Kuching.