A Japanese user shared a terrifying tale of a ghostly gentleman who appeared to accost him – and according to the Internet, he’s a repeat offender.

It was an ordinary night, or so Twitter user @eastbighelp thought. Just an average night, one of many in his average life as a relatively popular adult manga artist on Twitter.

But it turned out to be far from it. As the artist continued his bike ride home, his bike lamp hit a strange shape in the foliage by the roadside. The scream of surprise escaped his lips before he had the chance to suppress it: who would be standing out in the road this late at night? Why would they be wearing a full suit, and a white suit at that?

Worst of all, if you look closely at this gentleman’s weathered, pallid form, you can see that a little yellow sign is pasted to his front, reading 子供に注意！！which means “Watch out for children!” Surely the children need to watch out for this unsettling fellow instead. We don’t think those arms are outstretched to hand over a Family Feast bucket!

Comments poured in from similarly terrified users, and one user provided snapshots of their own close encounter of the concrete kind in the thread.

▼ “There’s this thing in Amagasaki…”

A commenter replied with “Is that Riki Takeuchi?” before being rebuffed with “Elvis Presley, but it sure does look like Riki Takeuchi, huh…”

▼ You might know Mr. Takeuchi as the teacher from the Battle Royale sequel.

Eventually someone popped up to say “Here’s a picture of the same statue from three years ago.”

The linked tweet, which was posted on November 26 2014, shows close-up photographs of a rain-weathered statue with the following caption:

“Here’s a Colonel Sanders statue, found in Kakamigahara in Gifu prefecture, that stayed out in the rain too long. Even his face is painted white, but the neck-tie is still black for some reason? The paint is peeling and even his glasses look trashed. The “Watch out for kids!” sign just makes it more terrifying! I have serious chills…
I think maybe the Colonel Sanders statue from Dotonbori found a new job?”

This is a reference to one of the most famous sports urban legends in Japan, “The Curse of Colonel Sanders“. Partying Hanshin Tigers fans celebrated the team’s 1985 triumph at the national Championship Series by uprooting the local KFC’s statue of the good Colonel and tossing him into the Dotonbori river, which resulted in an infamous losing streak for the team that lasted nearly two decades.

If scaring passers-by is what he’s doing with his free time since being recovered from the depths of Dotonbori, no wonder so many users were commenting to the tune of “throw him back in the river”.

▼ Don’t worry: he doesn’t have the “Watch out for kids!” sign, so it’s a totally different creepy statue.

All that terror really got my stomach growling. Anyone for chicken?

Featured image: Twitter/@eastbighelp
Insert image: Wikimedia Commons/Ogiyoshisan
Source: Twitter/@eastbighelp via Togech