The Palace Museum is lit up on Monday evening for a rehearsal of rare nighttime public tours on Tuesday and Wednesday for visitors who were able to snag the free tickets. (Photo by Song Hongliang/People's Daily Online)

When night falls, do things at Beijing's Palace Museum come alive like in the museum depicted in Hollywood's Night at the Museummovies?

That may be the hope of lucky guests who snagged tickets for rare nighttime visits by the public to parts of the former Forbidden City for this week's Lantern Festival.

It has long been a legend that the imperial complex, China's center of power from 1420 to 1911, is haunted by supernatural spirits at night.

Whether true or not, public enthusiasm was intense on Sunday afternoon when the museum unexpectedly announced an extremely rare two nights of visits－from 6:30 to 8:00 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday－to parts of the outer walls at no cost to ticket holders.

With one exception for a special exhibit in 2015, the Forbidden City had never opened its gates to the public at night since becoming a museum in 1925.

When Tuesday's reservations were opened on the museum's official website around 3:30 pm on Sunday, all tickets were booked within 10 minutes.

When booking for Wednesday opened at midnight, the system crashed for more than an hour due to overwhelming demand. The free tickets were quickly snapped up when it reopened.