Case file · Haunting
Suicide and Banzai cliffs, Saipan
In July 1944, as US forces took Saipan, hundreds of Japanese civilians and soldiers threw themselves from the island's northern cliffs; visitors and locals tell of apparitions and cries there.
1944 CE · 15.28, 145.82 · status: legend
The account
Memorials from Japan, Korea and the US now line the cliffs, and Japanese visitors hold prayers for the dead. Ghost stories form part of how the island remembers the battle.
The sceptical view
The mass deaths are documented; reports of ghosts are anecdotes shaped by grief and the site's history.