The 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake “Ghosts” Reports

Record summary

After the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes, Japanese media and researchers discussed reports of apparitions, requests for taxis and encounters with apparently deceased people in affected communities. Similar narratives had followed earlier disasters in Japan. The lead matters because it connects haunting testimony with bereavement, displacement, disrupted infrastructure and culturally available forms of post-disaster storytelling. It should be investigated through named interviews and scholarship rather than generalized internet retellings. Reports remain meaningful testimony without establishing an external apparition.