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Beneath the North Exit Bus Terminal at Hiratsuka Station in Kanagawa Prefecture runs an underground tunnel connecting to a nearby shopping district — an entirely ordinary piece of urban infrastructure with a specific, dated origin story explaining its unsettling reputation.
The Legend
According to local accounts, the story traces to the early 1980s, when a group of local teenagers decided to explore the underground tunnel one evening. Partway through, they were struck by an intense chill and a growing sense that they weren't alone. When they tried to turn back, the passage seemed to have become blocked, and they began hearing noises as though something were watching their every move.
The teens ran for the exit — and when they looked back before escaping, they reportedly saw countless pairs of glowing red eyes staring back at them from the darkness. Since then, similar sightings have continued to circulate: strange figures glimpsed walking through the tunnel, and mysterious voices reported by later visitors.
What's Actually Verifiable
We could not verify the specific 1980s teenage encounter against any documented incident. What's notable structurally is how open-ended the legend remains even among its own tellers — local explanations range from a tragic accident, to an ancient burial ground beneath the passage, to simply the collective fears of the community projected onto an ordinary dark tunnel. No single explanation has become dominant, which is less common than it might seem; most legends on this site eventually settle into one accepted backstory.
A Legend Without a Settled Cause
That lack of consensus may be part of why the story has persisted: without one fixed explanation to eventually debunk or disprove, the underpass's reputation has stayed alive on atmosphere and repeated sightings alone, rather than resting on a single claim that skeptics could investigate and dismiss.
A Modern Legend in an Ordinary Setting
Most legends on this site attach to remote mountain roads or abandoned rural infrastructure. This one is unusual for taking root in a busy, everyday urban transit hub — proof that a location doesn't need isolation or age to accumulate a genuine ghost story, just a dark enough passage and a frightening enough first account to set the retelling in motion, repeated by enough commuters over the following decades to harden into a fixture of local memory, one retold matter-of-factly alongside the ordinary business of catching a bus.
Can You Visit?
The North Exit Bus Terminal underpass remains a functioning part of Hiratsuka Station's daily infrastructure, used routinely by commuters and travelers. Local advice, according to the legend, is simple: avoid going through alone at night — practical caution that applies to most unlit underground passages regardless of any ghost story attached to them.
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