Catching Monsters with Pokemon Go but Ended Up Seeing Something Else

Illustration credit: Creepy Poekmon by David Szilagyi

Confession by Andie Looi

This happened way back in 2016, where Pokemon Go was the crazed back then. So many people was so into it that you will see places crowded with people playing, basically this game required you to go to different location in around Singapore to catch different types of Pokemon and doing battles at gym.

That's where i had my few encounters playing this game. My very first encounter happened at East Coast Park along the stretch of road near National Sailing Centre, i was playing together with my wife, aunt and uncle. It was around 11pm to 12 midnight after we finished having our supper at East Coast Lagoon Food Village, and we saw on the map near National Sailing Centre there was a Charizard around that vicinity which is pretty rare and hard to catch. After catching Charizard we split up into two groups, me and my wife and my aunt with my uncle just catching some other Pokemon so after some time of catching we decided to look for my aunt and uncle.

We saw they were about 400 m in front of us and waving at us standing beside a tree so we walk towards them, while along the way still catching some Pokemon in between we would still look up and make sure that they were in front but discovered they were not. In our mind was like maybe they had walk even further ahead, but after like a few minutes we heard them calling us from behind us. We find it weird as they were so far ahead of us and for that few minutes we definitely could not have walk that fast to catch up with them. So we asked them did they waved at us earlier they said no and were always behind us and didn't waved at us or overtook us.

Photo credit: https://www.meremang.my/pontianak-ikut-pulang-rumah/

While we were discussing this i saw up on the tree a very BIG BLACK thing fly across and vanished, and after which i smell a very strong nice fragrance in the atmosphere, i totally don't feel comfortable so i suggested we stop playing and headed home. We were still discussing about it while in the car when suddenly i saw Omastar on the map at Bishan Park, so i suggested that we go there and catch it. It was quite a distance between the carpark and the exact location, so i suggested that i go alone myself to help catch it for all of us.

Once we reached the carpark, i ran full speed ahead as i did not want to miss catching it, when i reached the location there was only me and one other guy around. After catching Omastar i began walking back to the carpark and along the way there was no other people was around except me, so i slowly strolled back and it was pretty dim and dark and suddenly i smelled the same sweet fragrance smell again. I decided not to looked up for fear of seeing the apparition face to face, i ran as quickly as my legs could carry me towards the carpark. After reaching there my uncle was out looking for me for fear that something might have happened to me.

We managed to find each other and headed home together, what are the chances of it happening twice in one night. At the end of the day i am just glad that everyone is safe and nothing unusual happened and i would never want to know what was that. Some would say it's a Pontianak  but for me i wouldn't want to know what was it and definitely wouldn't want to come face to face with it.

I had a same encounter at Yishun park too when i was playing alone and went back home around 4am. It was quite a walking distance between my house to Yishun park so while walking up the hill i smelled the same sweet smell and a big black thing flying across the trees so as usual i ran with all my might back home and i am glad nothing happened to me. After all these encounter i stopped playing the game, for fear of really seeing any apparition.

Since then I've stopped going to any parks late at night as you will never know what you might see, hear or smell... or worse still, one day my luck will run out and I come face to face with a real Pontianak.