Urban Legends: Kisaragi Station (Part 1)

Ghost trains are a common theme for urban legends across the globe. Stories mostly revolve unexplained or paranormal encounters with late-night trains. The story I am going to mention below is of no exception. It is an incidence of late-night train travelling to a station not listed as existing in Japan. Similar to the train station in the animated film Spirted Away by Hayao Miyazaki, these stations are viewed as portals to the spirit world.  
Back in 2004, a 2ch (a popular social network site in Japan) user named Hatsumi posted a cry for help, saying the late-night train she had caught was not stopping at the stations it was supposed to. After passing through an unfamiliar tunnel, the train stopped around midnight at a station named "Kisaragi Station きさらぎ駅". Other users were quick to reply, saying there was no such station in Japan.


Hatsumi continued communicating with other 2ch users. She says she saw no one when exiting the station and that she has call home for help. She also contacted the the police, but her plea was treated as a prank call. She stated her mobile phone GPS unable to pinpoint her location. Hence, she decided to leave the station to look for a taxi. At around 2am, she began hearing the sound of taiko drums and bells and encountered a one legged man. Other 2ch users noticed something was wrong and advice Hatsumi to walk back along the train tracks toward the tunnel. Hatsumi heed their advice but upon reaching the other end of the tunnel, she came across a man waiting near the entrance. The man offered to give Hatsumi a lift in his car. Although the 2ch users strongly questions his presense and strongly opposed any interactions with the man, Hatsumi accepted the offer and entered the man's car. Hatsumi posted that at first the man was friendly , but had stopped answering questions after a few minutes as he drove the car towards the mountains. At 3:44am, Hatsumi stated her phone battery was almost depleted, the man started speaking gibberish and that she was going to escape at the first chance. This is the last of her messages. 

Like many urban legends, it is impossible to verify its authenticity IMO, the story also have a large plothole. For instance, did anyone filed any missing person report? Hatsumi did call her parents, right? Nevertheless, the story did receive a cult following not only in Japan, but also in the Greater China region (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau). Recently, the story was made into comics, Ruyue Chezhan 如月車站, by Hong Kong comic author and artist, Cheng Kin Wo 鄭健和 (who is the co-author of Feng Sheng Ji 封神記). The story (only 3 issues long) was recently finished. So if you are interested, please check it out! 

On a side note, there were more reports of sightings of the Kisaragi Station, along with some interesting hypothesis and theories. However, I will save them for another time.