This happened a few years ago when I was working as an airline pilot. The incident that I’m going to tell you about happened in Bangkok, Thailand. Back then, we had frequent layovers there. For those who don’t know, a layover is when the fight crew spend a night at a hotel at their destination city before their flight back to the departure city, in order to complete the legally required rest period. Bangkok has always been one of my favourite cities. It exudes a contagious energy that can be seen in its night life, food and culture. But there is also a darkness lurking underneath.

It was a regular flight to Bangkok. The mood was light as we cleared immigration and checks. Next, it was a short ride to the hotel. The check in process was smooth and the breakfast was great. Once done, we all went up to our rooms and decided to reconvene in the evening for a trip to the city. I entered my room to find that they had cleaned it out in a hurry. The air reeked of cheap air freshener and the room was unbearably cold. The room felt more like a morgue. I checked the thermostat but the buttons were unresponsive. I opened the main door to air it out while I called the helpline to request a change of room. They apologised profusely for being completely booked out, promising to get back to me once they had a room for me. Resigned, I decided to settle in for now.

Come evening, we visited the city and it was everything we had wanted it to be. We visited the night markets and the clubs and tried out new foods and experiences. We returned to the hotel at around midnight and retired to our respective rooms, promising to meet over breakfast in the morning. My room was still freezing when I returned to it but I was too tired to care. I changed, called for extra comforters and buried myself underneath them, preparing for a night of sound sleep. I had no idea that it would be the scariest, most bizarre night of my life.

At around 3 am, I woke up with a queasy feeling, like I wasn’t alone in the room. I had slept on my side, using my arm as a pillow, and that was exactly how I had woken up. I was instantly wide awake and it felt like my senses were on high alert. It was deathly silent. And that was when I heard it - a whisper, soft and drawn out, clear as day. Somebody had called out my name right behind me. Instinctively, I tried to turn, but couldn’t. I tried again and found that I couldn’t move at all, not even an inch. Panic started clawing at me and I tried calling out ‘who’s there?’, but couldn’t do that either. Whatever I tried to say came out as a useless moan. Dread gripped me as I realised that I was trapped in my own body. I had never experienced anything like this upto this point in my life.

My mind was working furiously when the whisper came again. This time it was closer and clearer. The voice sounded like it belonged to a woman. The hair on the back of my neck stood as I heard an unmistakable malice in that voice. I was in full blown panic by now. Then something far worse happened. I felt something on my back - a tingle at first, then a touch, slow and sinister. Within moments, I could clearly make out the impression of a hand between my shoulder blades. Whoever had whispered my name was now touching me. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would burst out of my chest. I have never known myself to possess the kind of physical strength that I used that day to break out of my paralysis. With wide, panic-stricken eyes, I moaned and grunted and tried to get away from the presence behind me - and two things happened.

First, another whisper came right next to my ear and second, I broke out of my paralysis, falling off the bed and onto the carpet. I sat up immediately and crawled frantically away from the bed, craning to see who was on it. For some bizarre reason, I half-expected to see a girl with long black hair and pale skin, but there was no-one. I looked around frantically but it was just me in the room. The only sound in the room was the sound of my panting. Everything seemed so normal that, for a moment, I doubted the credibility of my own memory.

Nevertheless, I called the first person I could think of - my dad. He always knew what to do, no matter what the situation. He answered on the fifth ring and I rattled out everything that had happened. He asked me to calm down and told me that I may have experienced a phenomenon called ‘sleep paralysis' and that it was all a hallucination. He assured me there was no one else in the room. We spoke till I felt reassured, the panic subsiding and my heart rate returning to normal. We spoke for a while longer till I felt I could sleep again. This time, I got cozy on the couch and in time I drifted off to sleep.

When my eyes opened again, sunlight was streaming through the window. The room was flooded with brightness and it felt like last night’s events hadn’t happened at all. I freshened up and made coffee. I picked up my phone to read up on sleep paralysis and found that it was a pretty common phenomenon which usually happened when you were exhausted. From what I could understand, the sync between the body and the mind breaks and like I had experienced, the mind wakes up separately before the body does. That was why I could see and think but not move and speak. The occurrence was accompanied by a hallucination, usually a scary one, although the cause or source of such a hallucination remains unexplained. There were some websites delving deep into the subject but it was time to join my colleagues for breakfast. I finished breakfast and caught up on more sleep. Then, it was time to leave.

Before leaving the hotel, I left a written complaint with them about the broken thermostat and the cheap air fresher that smelled like dead roses. The return flight was as routine as it could have been, up until we opened the aircraft doors for disembarkation. Three men stood on the other side of the door, asking for me. They identified themselves as members of the local police, airport security and the customs department respectively. They didn’t seem like the patient type so I finished my post-fight procedures quickly and left with them, promising my team to meet them later.

They took me to a part of the airport I had never seen and made me sit inside a small white room with the paint peeling. The room had only two chairs and a table between them, like an interrogation room. They were kind enough to offer me a beverage and I asked for a green tea. I waited for the better part of an hour before one of the three men I had seen, walked in; a portly, moustachioed man. He had an authoritative air around him and got directly to the point. I was asked to recount my last 24 hours, sparing no details.

Eager to get out of whatever this was, I told him everything that had happened with me, right from the time I had left my house yesterday. Instinctively, I decided to keep the sleep paralysis incident to myself. He stopped me a few times during my narration, seeking clarity or details, and made notes in a small notepad. When we were done, he stood and prepared to leave. My patience was fraying by now and I asked him for some information on what was going on.

He couldn’t be bothered. He just asked me not to leave the city and told me that his team will verify my story and get back to me. I was escorted out with no further explanation and I had more questions than I had answers to. I spent the next two days overthinking and overanalysing every encounter and every conversation, but could come up with no viable explanation for what had happened. I was also put on paid leave by my airline at the behest of the local law enforcement agency.

Three days later, I was summoned again, this time to the local police station. The same portly officer met me there and explained to me that CCTV footages and eye-witness accounts had verified my story. Moreover, they had also caught the real culprits, thus concluding the investigation. The paperwork and formalities were completed and as I was being escorted out, I asked the officer what this had been all about.

He was turning to go back inside, but stopped midway. He looked at me a long moment, then asked me if there was anything else I wanted to tell him. Hesitant at first, I finally decided to share the sleep paralysis incident with him. He asked me for details and I gave them to him, everything from how I had felt to what I had imagined. I told him how the whispers had sounded and what I thought the woman had looked like. He looked at me strangely, like he didn’t know what to make of all this. After a long pause, he just said, “I don’t think you realised it, but there was a dead body under your bed all the time. And she had long black hair.”