Haunted Magazine 34: Spooked Scotland

EDITORIAL

HERE’S TO THE HICCUPS OF THE PARANORMAL…

Hi everybody, I am sure most of us have heard of the term “paranormal hangover” at some point in their spooky jaunts and journeys. To me the term hangover was always used for a different kind of spirits and normally reserved for waking up, feeling as rough as a badger’s arse (is a badger’s arse really rough?) after the night before.

But over the years I kind of get what people mean now. I get the ‘after the night before’ connotation –your mind being thrown from pillar to post, battling your thoughts and belief systems, mixed in with the buzz, the vibe, the craic, a paranormal investigation is sometimes like a night out with your friends minus tequila slammers, dodgy dancing, cheesy chat-up lines, more dodgy dancing and the greasy kebab on the way home. If you are like me, you wake up the morning after a ghost hunt still thinking about things, why, how, what the flip was that all about etc, etc. I know that on a few occasions I have tried to argue and discuss with myself what I heard, what I saw, why that happened and so on, and so on.

I recently drove home from a haunted location. It had been a great night, a weird night, a strange night and I decided to pop into the services on the way home for a coffee. I got back in the car and the next thing I remember was waking up and the coffee was untouched, still in its fancy holder etc. The coffee was warm, although it had gone from nuclear hot to piping hot). I checked the time, 35 minutes had lapsed and I am still not sure that if I zoned out, fell asleep or something else. Was it the fact that I was just simply knackered or was it something to do with the strangeness that occurred that evening. It’s never happened before and it’s not happened since.

Over the years my paranormal expectations and thought processes have changed. More and more I find myself just loving being at location, oozing in the environment, soaking up the atmosphere being with good friends and interesting people and less and less I find myself feeling the need to document, experiment or explain what happened. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just think there’s more to the paranormal than he says, she says and we should cherish the experiences we have, listen to the experiences that people have and not always try to come up with something of a counter argument as to what it probably was.

I don’t know if this is the right way forward, but it’s my way forward so please join me in raising a glass to the paranormal, a toast to the supernatural. Long may it baffle us and excite us in equal measures. Here’s to many more hangovers.

Enjoy the magazine. Don’t be normal, be Paranormal.

CONTENTS

04

07

08

INFINITY AND BEYOND: Amy L discusses the backstory buzz of the paranormal.

DEVIL IN THE DETAIL: Is the Grim Reaper misunderstood? Jane Rowley tries to find out

JAILHOUSE SHOCK: Sarah Chumacero and the spooky stories of J-Ward Prison.

HANGING AROUND: Leonard Low with noose about an execution with a twist.

CLOCKING OFF: Nicky Alan and an alien timeslip in the Scottish Highlands.

‘ORRIBLE ‘ISTORIES: Peggy investigates The Stanfield Hall Murders.

COME ON EILEEN: Morgan remembers the supernormal life of Eileen J. Garrett.

THE LURE OF THE LORE: Amy Boucher’s ghostly tale of poor Martha.

THE UNTOUCHABLES: Amanda delves into the everchanging mysteries of haunted history.

THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE: Richard Estep investigates The Sallie House, he’s definitely in Kansas.

THE MARTIAN CODE: Kate Cherrell deciphers the enigma behind an Alien puzzle.

CLOSER ENCOUNTERS: Philip Kinsella ponders if we’re responsible for the creation of an alien nation.

PARTICULAR PERSONAL PARANORMAL PET PEEVES: Alex Matsuo shares hers.

CURSED CITY CONNECTIONS: Sam Baltrusis explores the city of Salem.

ALEXANDRA HOLZER FILES: The story of paranormal pioneer Catherine Crowe.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE…: Kate Ray and the Wollaton Gnome incident.

SCOTLAND: EXCLUSIVE interviews with the stars of the new paranormal TV show.

STRANGE VICTORIANA: Dr. Jan explores what happened at the Haunted Murder House.

PREMONITIONS BUREAU: The circumstances of connections + exclusive book extract.

HAUNTING OF: Lorien Jones explores

Talbot Hotel.

TANFIELD HOUSE HAUNTING:

and

of Patti. A personal

SOUND OF DEATH: Charlie Hall and

Wailing Banshee of Dunluce Castle

ONLY KNOWS: The good vibrations of Hubert Hobux’s spooky summer.

SCEPTIC AND THE SUPERNATURAL: Higgypop dissects his personal ghostly experience.

LURE OF THE LAYER: Eli Lycett asks if digging deeper helps or hinders.

SPOOKY SUPERNORMAL

SUPPLEMENT

- THE BITE SIZE GUIDE: Neil R. Storey traces the origins behind Bram Stoker’s Iconic book.

BUSINESS: Susie Lennox invades the history of the Body snatchers.

CAMERA NEVER LIES: Mike Covell investigates the Newby Hall ghost picture.

BEYOND THE TRAGIC BACKSTORIES 5

Written by Amy L. Bennett Full Dark Paranormal Explorers

In conjuring up an idea of a haunted place, long-abandoned buildings come to mind with peeling layers of paint and wood floors that reverberate creaks and pops under every step. The darkest corners and tallest shadows tend to take shape in our minds and on screen when anything haunting or paranormal is the topic. We find this most overtly in popular culture, but the media’s portrayal of ghosts and hauntings woven with tragic histories and sordid tales, is becoming archaic and too predictable. It’s as though the over-use of one single human emotion is to blame: fear. The feeling of fear, terror, anxiety and the idea of haunting activity are tied absurdly tight together in the paranormal zeitgeist, and where one is mentioned, the other soon follows. While we wait to see tragedy and its alleged formation of ghosts perhaps come un-bound within the mainstream media presentation of the paranormal, there are now hundreds of curious investigators who are perfectly capable of breaking ranks with the old adages and dogmas of paranormal investigation. The trick might simply be in tricking oneself into thinking of the unknown as potentially anything other than frightening.

If we pull the emotion away from the idea of a terrifying or scary haunting, does any of the reported strange activity then seem more benign or capable of being approached from a different angle and reinterpreted? If there is a lack of fear, what might replace that emotional reaction to experiencing the unknown? One might consider simply intrigue. The most profound and stunning paranormal experience in my life left me stunned silent, not terrified. I felt wonder and just an awe that such an abnormal visual experience could even occur, let alone to me, yet I found my reaction so bizarre in comparison to much of what is portrayed in popular culture when it comes to witnessing truly unexplained occurrences. By most accounts seeing a solid, black void of shadow shaped like an oversized human, where no human or any other creature actually was, should have left me screaming incoherently. What I did happen to do, however, was nothing.

I sat completely still as I noticed and then watched the shape for several seconds before it fluidly moved sideways behind a tree and disappeared, my brain nearly overheating with sheer bewilderment. That lack of terror stands out in that vivid 11-year-old memory for me now as the most important aspect of the entire encounter -

it wasn’t what I saw or what that entity’s presence might imply about our massive universe and its inner workings, but how I reacted. In that moment I felt confused more than afraid, and that imparts to me now that

I was likely in no way threatened by whatever it was that I witnessed. If that shadow-form was real or not or a vivid hallucination of my own, I will never have that answer, but I do have my own perception and memory of that incredible moment. From memory, I am reminded of my astonishment and not a single fleeting ounce of fear infiltrates that experience.

numerous experiences on record from centuries long gone recounting incredibly uplifting and joyous encounters with the unknown. Stories abound of spirits who’ve apparently visited the living and left nothing but peace and gratitude in their wake, entities that have led people to something or even someone they’ve needed to find, and more, but with positive outcomes. While there are of course the historic ghostly accounts that left their authors petrified, the balance of encounters being astounding, or terrifying has shifted into a more prevalent darker tone over time.

Approaching a so-called haunted location has the potential to appear exciting and intriguing for the experiences that could leave us yearning to merely have more of them, rather than running away at the first unsettling incident. Maybe our usually adrenalinefueled biochemical response to sensations that are seemingly paranormal is so ingrained with avoiding danger, that we have a physiological and emotional difficulty applying a paranormal encounter in any other way than with fear as a basis. It’s like the lizard brain in us all steps back into fight or flight before we can truly assess what’s really happening until the moment is over. It’s normal to feel afraid of the unknown and calculating one’s own response to it before it occurs is nearly impossible. For myself, having been instructed through so many years of cultural references to the paranormal to approach it with apprehension and to be scared, I found my own stunned reaction as unexpected as the actual shadow-thing I saw. I realized over time through self-awareness and learning to objectify my feelings or asking myself why I may feel scared at a particular moment, that the “scary” ebbs into something more like nervous enjoyment.

The more I read about paranormal encounters written during the 17th to mid-19th Centuries, the more I find that there’s whole facets of unexplainable situations that most people remain unaware of when investigating allegedly haunted locations now, myself included. There are

The current archetype of a haunting seems based in dread and horror stemming from an historic tragedy or untimely death, more than any other type of ghostly interaction. With more media being consumable in so many more ways than merely a decade ago, this tragic haunt trope circulates even more widely, but is our fear concerning the paranormal just a terrible mirror? Terror associated with the unexplained now could just be the shaping and reforming of our own collective fears as a society in the same way horror movies shift in time with types of villains and monsters they portray. As far as myself, having absorbed popular media and been shaped by the culture around me, the general understanding of anything paranormal seems to have moved into such an overwhelming place of fear more than much else. It’s too noticeable to ignore. In a large cultural context, the popular application of spirits or ghosts stemming from a certain tragic event is more like an awful emo phase of the paranormal at large. It’s dark and scary now but there’s no telling what shift in how we approach the strange and unusual may happen in years to come, depending on what we bring to the table as investigators and story tellers.

I like knowing this field is fluid and moveable. In that way, it doesn’t feel like we’re as stuck on what we don’t know about the paranormal as we might feel like we are at times, and that gives me some hope.

So, what happens when we pull fear and misery away from the paranormal? The amount of laughter, humor and joy that reverberated through so many places and in so many millions of people’s former lives might leave just as powerful an impression on the spaces they once occupied as fear, sadness and grief are thought to leave.

So why are we told to be so afraid of the alleged ghosts we may encounter in empty, old spaces, many of which look now just as they were left decades before?

Those joyful emotions might be just as capable of forming the basis or cause for hauntings as anything “dark” could. Something that can be presented with such horror as a disembodied laugh heard in a darkened room, echoing from elsewhere in space, is at its most basic, just a laugh. Maybe that’s all it really is, and since I’ve yet to hear a living human utter an actual “evil laugh” out loud, perhaps truly disembodied laughter is just that, someone’s laugh echoing through somewhere and sometime to be heard by an investigator. That description makes it seem beautiful. In the case of shadows seen moving about where there shouldn’t be; we have shadows, yet we find it fearful or dreadful just to witness them without bodies. Phantom music: if it’s the universal language ringing out from the beyond, how is that in any way something to find immediately terrible or frightening? To me, it sounds astounding, not creepy. I welcome such an experience, hope for it even. It seems there may be many experiences in the paranormal that could be entirely misinterpreted due to fear and our reaction to potential danger.

Of course, there are the occasional times when fear is warranted during an investigation, and it is a natural, biological emotion. The thrill of searching for the paranormal holds the possibility of a fear that for the most part though, is temporary - the location can be locked up and left, the experience can be ended. When fear of the unknown extends to a point of hindering intrigue and curiosity of the unknown though, that’s when a reassessment

might be in order. To be able to approach this fascinating field with more possibilities on the table, our own boundaries of what is comfortable or safe in the paranormal might need to be altered to help dismiss an initial approach based in apprehension and unease. Untying our negative emotions from the interaction and removing the need for grief or horror to uphold an alleged haunting might bring us a clearer picture of how we’re possibly interacting with the Unknown Other.

By looking further than tragic backstories and terrible deaths utilized to scare us over and over and identifying uncomfortable emotions from where they might be needlessly stemming from, we may find more richness, curiosity and excitement for the paranormal with the ghosts we love to look for.

Sources:

1. Auerbach, L., MS. (2016). ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists: A Parapsychologist’s Handbook. (2nd edition). Loyd Auerbach, MS.

2. Belanger, M. (2020). Wide World of Weird: Over 100 Reports of High Strangeness. Inspiration Press.

3. Taylor, G. (2013). Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife. Daily Grail Publishing.

Amy L x

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU ASK FOR!

The following is a write up of a session the HAPRC Team did at the end of last year. It was Neil Packers idea that we do a live feed, with a Talking Board using the intent of only bringing something evil forward. This article is not a transcript containing every word said, it merely captures the main body of what happened during the session. There were conversations and comments being made alongside the Ouija activity.

Ouija Session of the Dark – 28th December 2021

Location: Attic Room at Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre

Present: Neil Packer, Jane Rowley, Amy Slaney and Ant Shearwood, with Ben Packer in the Studio

Equipment Used: Octagonal Talking Board

Details of the Event: Neil, Amy and Ant began on the board whilst Jane concentrated on pulling anything and everything through from the veil and inviting anything to come through the large mirror in the room. (Jane does not participate on the board whilst trying to communicate with Spirit)

The board first spelt out ‘KILL’ – OK, Good start! The Team continues… Neil: We want someone evil!

The Board: YES

Neil: Have we spoken to you before?

The Board: NO Jane advises that there is a male energy present

Neil: Do you have any connections to the building?

The Board: NO

Neil: Have you come through the Mirror?

The Board: YES Jane describes what she can see, as she has connected with the energy – a skeletal figure, dressed in a black robe that is in tatters, he also carries a large wooden stick that is shaped like a spear. The glass moves around the board rapidly and continues to spell

The Board: I AM DEATH - I AM DEATH

Neil: Do you not like us because of what we are doing?

Jane, reading his energy, picks up on his character. He does not like anyone, He is not meant to like anyone or be attached to anyone. He is a solitary figure.

The Board: HATE Team: Who do you hate?

The Board: I HATE ALL Team: Do you have a name?

The Board: DEATH Jane can clearly see him moving around

Neil: Is he going to hurt any of us?

The Board: YES, YOU WILL SEE LATER Neil asks if he will make some noises for us and Amy is shaking.

The Board: NO PARTY GAMES

Jane advises that he is a very stern, serious figure and has a strong vibration buzzing in her ear.

Neil: What can he do for us?

The Board: No response Neil: Is there something he wants from us?

The Board: RELEASE Neil: Are we the only ones who can do that?

The Board: No response Neil: Why did you choose us?

The Board: YOU CALLED ME Jane picking up on some hostility asks if he has a message for the Team

The Board: LIVE IN FEAR OF ME

Neil tells him that that we don’t live in fear of him resulting in the glass moving very erratically around the board.

There are several loud bangs around the room.

Neil: Should everyone fear him?

The Board: YES…. FEAR DEATH

Ant comments that he has the words ‘Don’t fear the Reaper’ in his head.

Jane: Is death not a natural process, when our souls return back to the Spirit World? When our physical bodies expire, that is a natural process?

The Board: YES

Neil: Are you talking about our souls? Do you come for people’s souls?

The atmosphere then changes and ‘softens’. The glass slows down and is much calmer.

Jane: Are you from the Spirit World?

The Board: NO

Jane: What world are you from?

The Board: MIRROR …. YES

Neil: Can you come in and out of the mirror at will?

The Board: YES

Jane: Are you one he Guardians inside the mirror?

The Board: YES Neil: Have you met Jane before?

The Board: YES Neil: Where do our souls go when we die?

The Board: WHEREVER YOU CHOOSE Ant: Can I visit the moon when I die?

The Board: YES

At this point the glass begins to move very slowly and it seems like the energy has changed his demeanour and attitude, like he had dropped his guard and was more willing to communicate.

Ant comments that he does not feel any fear but Jane senses that he has a sense of superiority, an arrogance and a sense of duty that makes him a very hard character to work with. Again, there were lots of loud bangs around the room.

Jane: Have you been around for a long time?

The Board: YES

Jane: Have you been around since the dawn of men?

The Board: YES

Jane: Are you an Ancient Being?

The Board: YES

Neil: If you are DEATH, have you come for a reason?

The Board: NO

Jane: He is here because we invited him

Neil: Does he travel on his own?

The Board: YES

Neil: Are you human?

The Board: NO, I WILL ALWAYS COLLECT PAYMENT

Neil: What is payment?

The glass moves around the board very quickly then stops. Neil starts to hold his face.

Neil: Are you affecting someone’s eyes?

The Board: YES

Neil: Will you leave without payment?

The Board: NO

Neil: What kind of payment?

The Board: WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO PAY Jane: We will pay him with our gratitude Neil: Have you been called before?

The Board: YES

Neil: Do you only takes souls when it is the persons time to go?

The Board: YES

Jane: Is it the first time you have travelled through our Mirror?

The Board: YES

Jane comments ‘He has not been to the centre before but has travelled through many other mirrors and doorways to visit people’

Neil: Who tells you when it is time to go and collect a soul?

The Board: THE UNIVERSE

Jane: Is there a supreme Cosmic energy?

The Board: YES

Ant: Is there a Heaven and Hell?

The Board: YES, BUT ITS YOUR OWN, DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE

Neil: Do you just work on this planet?

The Board: NO

Neil: Do you go to other life forms on other planets?

The Board: YES

Ant: What is the closest planet to Earth that has a life form on it?

The Board: ALPHA CENTURE

Neil: Is there pain in Death?

The Board: NO

Neil: Are there many other species on other planets?

The Board: YES

Neil: Are we all interlinked?

The Board: YES

Neil: Have other Alien species visited this planet?

The Board: YES

Neil: Are they on this planet now?

The Board: YES

Neil: Are they humanoid?

The Board: YES

Neil: Do you have a last message for us?

The Board: DEATH IS A WORLD

Neil: Should we fear death?

The Board: NO

Ant: Why should we fear you?

The Board: THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE TAUGHT

On reflection, the session took some time afterwards, to try and process everything that had been witnessed. Had the Team summoned the figure we all know as the Grim Reaper?

The session generated so many new questions and opened our minds to other avenues of investigation to consider. Has Mr Death been misinterpreted? Is he just doing his job?

As with many other things the Team have encountered and experienced at HAPRC, it is so easy to fall into the trap in ‘assuming’ and ‘believing’ what other people have said whilst doing this type of work in the Paranormal before. Not assuming or pre-empting anything gives us a better understanding of what we are experiencing, rather than assuming and taking the inherited information as true. I believe other people have in the past, seen and felt this energy before. Like other stories from the past, it is very easy for them to be misinterpreted, changed and rewritten to install fear and/or control. It is also easy to ‘fill in the gaps’ to try and comprehend and make sense of what has been experienced, when the information given is new and contradicts what we have been ‘programmed’ with.

Working with the Spirit World and understanding how it works, it is not unreasonable to expect a Higher Spirit to be in the position of overseeing and coordinating the process of Death. The guidance of souls returning to the Spirit World and ensuring the transition is smooth and that loved ones/ companions are available at the point of the soul leaving the body has to be managed at some level. We know that a few slip through the net but that is down to their choice and free will. This was a very good session for the Team at HAPRC and no doubt, we will be doing more sessions like this to learn more about the unknown. Good Luck with any session you try and remember, be careful what you wish for…

JWard Prison for the criminally insane sits in the rural town of Ararat in Victoria, Australia. Built in 1859, it opened in 1861 as a Goldfields prison called the Ararat County Gaol. The prison saw three executions within its walls, with the bodies still buried in the courtyard to this very day. Their graves can be found by an arrow engraved in the bluestone walls. This represents the men being buried standing up with no coffins so that they would never see rest. The 4th official death at the prison was in 1881, when the 4th Governor to run the gaol George Fiddlemont died of a massive heart attack on the steps leading down to the bathroom. Tour guides to this very day purposely skip standing on the step where Governor Fiddlemont died as a mark of respect. Of course, like all old prisons, it is not without its horrid tales. The Governor’s bathroom is said to be haunted with many unable to walk inside as is rumoured that 6 people were murdered in the bathtub by one of the former governors.

One of the J Ward guides was taking a tour during the day and when they were in the Old Underground Kitchen, he and the group were able to hear a person walking up and down the steps….. sounding very much like hobnailed boots. Our guide thought this was strange as no other group or person was in J Ward at that time.

“As a result, he called out a number of times if anyone was there. There was no answer so he went over to open the door and to his and the groups amazement, there was no one there.”

When the goldrush in Victoria ended, the prison was no longer needed so in 1886, the gaol was acquired by the lunacy department and in 1887 opened as a section of the nearby Aradale Lunatic Asylum dubbed as J Ward. It would serve as a prison to the criminally insane housing the most mentally disturbed and dangerous men in Victoria right up until 1991 when it was closed. J Ward was a place for people that couldn’t be put in a regular prison or hospital. It was certainly not safe to return them to the community. For a lot of these people, the ‘system’ is the only thing they knew. It is a sad fact still to this day that many former criminals

reoffend to go back to prison or an institution because it is all they know. Some felt the same way about J Ward. Former Inmates include William Watson Carr, a former coal miner that brutally murdered his fiancé for ending their engagement. Then there was Robert Peter Tait, a man who suffered a severe head injury as a child. His behaviour became increasingly erratic and extreme over time. His wife left him after enduring countless drunken beatings and he eventually beat a frail 82-year-old woman to death.

One of the more famous patients was a man called Garry David, also known as Garry Webb. In 1982, he was sentenced to 14 years for the attempted murder of 3 people, one of which was a police officer. He could have been out within eight and a half years had it not been for the fact he started to write to the media and the politicians about the very disturbing things that he would do when he got out. The politicians became so worried that they passed a special law to keep him locked up for the rest of his life. Webb also became a self-mutilator. There were around seventy recorded instances of him cutting off parts his body when his demands to police and politicians were not met. He cut his penis off three times with the last time being too damaged to reattach. He died by suicide in 1993 after ingesting razor blades.

PHOTOGRAPHY: © SARAH CHUMACERO

J Ward was also home to Charles Foussard, a Frenchman who was admitted for shooting and killing a man. It was his home from the age of 21 until his death at 92 making his incarceration the longest in the world. Then there was Mr. Bill Wallace. A man who spent 64 years at his home – J Ward where he also held the title of the World’s oldest inmate.

In 1926, Bill Wallace who was 44 years old at the time was arrested as a suspect to the of murder of a man outside of a café in Melbourne. The man entered Waterloo Café in King Street where he sat down to light up a cigarette. Smoking was a regular part of life back then and people could freely smoke pretty much anywhere they wanted to. Wallace who hated smoking at the time told him to put it out. After he refused, Wallace waited for him outside in the street and shot him dead. A policeman who was nearby heard the shot and ran to the scene of the crime where he arrested Wallace. He refused to answer any questions or talk about the crime he had just committed. As there were no witnesses and no admission to the crime, Wallace was found unfit to plead and was declared insane by 2 Doctors. He was sentenced to be held at J Ward prison for the criminally insane at the Governor’s pleasure. It means that the Governor could hold Wallace for as long as he wanted and could also release him once he was convinced that he was cured.

Wallace however refused to speak to the Doctors so was never released. He spent the rest of his life institutionalized which equated to 57 Years at J Ward and a further 7 at the adjoining Aradale Asylum until his death just shy of turning 108. It is thought that he had a wife and family at the time of his incarceration, but he was said to have possibly made arrangements with figures in the underworld to care for them. This was never confirmed, and Wallace never spoke of them.

In a somewhat ironic twist, Wallace went on to become one of the heaviest smokers in J Ward. He liked to smoke government-issued Tobacco that came in a fifty-pound block. He was content to lead his daily life in J Ward which he considered to be his home.

He preferred to be addressed as Mr. Wallace and was said to always act like a gentleman. He always wore a suit, and the prison guards would measure him for his annual suit fitting. He bought his suits from a local store in Ararat called ‘Fosters’. Do not let his dapper looks deceive you though as if provoked, Mr. Wallace was said to be ‘fully capable of kicking one’s head off’. Even at the age of 100, he was still quite capable of becoming violent. One night in the dining hall while the inmates were eating dinner, a fellow inmate asked Mr. Wallace if he wanted to eat the last slice of bread on his plate, he reached across the table to grab it where, in response, Wallace picked up a fork and stabbed it into the hand of the inmate. Seems he didn’t want to share his bread!

On his 100th birthday, the staff at J Ward gifted him a chess set as a kind gesture

because he loved to play chess. The Chessboard is still on display today in the J Ward Museum. The general public soon got word that there was a 100-year-old inmate at J Ward and quickly petitioned for his release. As he never went to court, they wanted to prove his innocence and become his saviour. After 3 years the Government agreed to release him but there was one catch. Mr. Wallace didn’t want to leave J Ward. His exact words were quoted to be “Don’t be f***ing silly, I live here!’. Realistically, Mr. Wallace had lived there for almost 60 years at this point. Where would he go? What kind of life could he even have as a 100-year-old man starting out again?

He was eventually moved to the geriatric ward at nearby Aradale Lunatic Asylum where he passed away at the age of 107 just one month short of his 108th birthday.

If walls could talk, I am not sure we would want to know what the walls of J Ward would have to say! It sits today intact as a museum and is considered a highly active location for paranormal investigators with many hoping to interact with Mr Wallace and his fellow inmates.

The historical information presented has been gathered from the book ‘The J Ward Story’ written by Graeme Burgin.

J Ward Photos by Sarah Chumacero

Photos of Bill Wallace from ‘The J Ward Story’ by Graeme Burgin

To find out more about J Ward visit

A HANGING PREMONITION

* BY LEONARD LOW *

Aberdeen 1785. The crowd in Marischal street had been impatiently waiting, suddenly there was movement! The people crushed forward to get the best view, figures could be seen, a Woman with guards either side was brought up the steps of the wooden stage. Pathetic, malnourished and looking anxious and confused to why she was there! All types of the City’s citizens were present, vagrants, working class and here and there soldiers in red uniforms. Today would see the common thief Elspeth Reid make her peace to God and be hanged to death on the Scaffold. She had been caught stealing linen cloths and other women’s clothing from washing drying areas. Elspeth was a habitual thief and alcoholic vagabond. Arresting her and jailing her put nothing but expense on the city. The minute she went over the threshold of a jail cell, she now cost money as all did who met the dark dungeons of the Tollbooth in Aberdeen.

All fines incurred for crimes had to be paid as did the food, security costs and paperwork incurred in a stay in the Tolbooth. There was no one left who would pay Elspeth Reid’s fees and fines anymore. She was now utterly friendless. A habitual thief for years, she had been warned by judges and courts that they wouldn’t tolerate her arrests any longer, and still she had paid no heed! This new theft brought the harshest of charges against her. She was to be made an example off, and to rid the city of nothing but a burden to the public purse! She was sentenced to be hanged by the neck ‘til she was dead!

Little Catherine Davidson was in her early teens and swept along by the excitement of witnessing a public hanging. She had been there early to command a decent view of the proceedings. The crowd grew into thousands, it seemed the citizens of Aberdeen had all turned out to see the sorry sight of Elspeth Reid meeting her end on the noose of the hangman’s rope! The moment came when Elspeth stood, she said a few words in which the crowd couldn’t hear.

The hangman put a hood over Elspeth Reid, pulled a lever fast and a secret trapdoor in the floor opened and she fell straight down breaking her neck! The crowd cheered as the rope was pulled back up and cut down from the gibbet, the noose was removed from the victim’s neck and the hangman taunted the audience with it waving it like a lasso around his head as the crowd cheered. He let the noose fly into the crowd as was tradition and the rope slapped down on Catherine Davidson. She caught it square on her chest. For a moment she couldn’t hear a thing! The crowd cheered loudly but she only saw open mouths, no noise! It was the strangest of things, as she looked back at the scaffold, she was horrified to see herself there, holding the noose. With the hangman…but he was putting the noose around her neck!

Catherine would grow into womanhood settling in her hometown of Aberdeen. She would eventually marry a Tavern owner and become Mrs Humphreys. But over the years the Tavern would take its toll. Socialising the customers was a way of life that brought ruin to many a publican. Alcoholism was rife with wine and beers readily at hand. And so, Mr and Mrs Humphreys descended into a ginsoaked existence. Drunken vicious brawls were a hazard of the back-street Taverns in Aberdeen, but here it was often as naught the very Tavern Owners themselves entertaining the base quality of drinkers, screaming and fighting each other.

Mr Humphreys would joke “that one day his own wife would hang and face Marischal street herself “meaning in jest – “in one of her drunken rages in the near future- there was every chance she would kill him”.

“She screamed! Then the vision was gone. She still held the executioner’s rope in her hands but was led away by her friends. For the next 45 years this nightmare would follow her, until the premonition eventually came true!”

Aberdeen in 1830 with a population of 177,657 had its employment deeply involved in the Textile industry. 4000 people were employed in the business manufacturing thread, Sailcloth’s, brown linens and sacking. Woollen items like stockings and blankets were much desired and exported to Germany and Holland. The city had 2000 weavers adding to this. Granite was in great demand (24,000 tonnes shipped) and mined and transported in huge quantities as was salmon and cattle.

A workhouse had been formed for destitute boys and girls, in 1739. It catered to rid the city of vagabonds and contribute to giving the poor children a way out to apprenticeships in the linen trade. It may have been the embarrassment of Elspeth Reid’s predicament that her charges against her were so severe. The Town chiefs had to continue to pump funds into the Workhouse to keep it from closing, as it wasn’t self sufficient to meet the needs of the vagrants it supported. Elspeth being a benefactor of the workhouse had disgraced the towns charity and turned to theft!

The linen trade requires the product to be washed in bleaching materials to render the threads soft and clean. Pre-1800s human urine was used, sometimes sour milk and then citric acid. It was found a new product called “Vitriol” now replaced the foul-smelling previous agents and was seen as the definitive product to bleach the linen. Sulfuric acid is a mineral acid. It’s made by burning sulphur to create Sulphur Dioxide gas, the Gas produced is dissolved in a hydrogen Peroxide solution which produces the “Vitriol” a very caustic acid!

Aberdeen in 1830 with having such a large linen manufacturing industry “Vitriol” the new Bleaching product was readily available with a “Vitriol” manufacturing plant now based in Prestonpans.

Man has over the centuries never ceased to amaze in the many inventive ways created to kill off his enemies. Killing your husband with “Vitriol” is probably not the quietest, or cleanest way to do it! But one drunken night in the Humphrey household. Catherine waited till her husband was in bed. The titanic row that had fuelled this

moment of madness spurned her on to pour the caustic “Vitriol” into her sleeping husband’s mouth. He erupted in a fountain of blood as the acid burnt into the tissue and muscle of his neck and arteries. He thrashed around in his deathly last moments of despair and pain. Then lay dead upon the floor as the acid continued to corrupt his face!

The noise of his death brought the authorities and the arrest of Catherine. She was taken to the Tolbooth.

In the Magistrates court that followed, Catherine confessed to a question by the Reverent Ian Murray, saying….” I acknowledge the justice of my sentence, but I did not buy the stuff to give him! But misfortune took hold of me, and I gave it to him. I did not think it would kill him, but I did it and will suffer justly for it”

Catherine Humphreys was led to the scaffold to be hanged on the 8th October 1830. She was the first woman in 45 years to be hanged in Aberdeen since Elspeth Reid.

The Caledonian Mercury newspaper published as a broadsheet by John Muir on October the 11th described the hanging of Catherine.

“Since her condemnation she has conducted herself in a exemplary condition” but 45 years previous she had the premonition that this would be her fate after witnessing the hanging of Jean Craig and catching the rope all those years ago.

On the scaffold, she exclaimed “Oh my God” before the trapdoor opened. When researching this story for this book I tried to find where exactly Mrs Humphreys had her Tavern. The Gazetteer of Scotland printed in 1844 gives Aberdeen 193 wine merchants and 41 spirit dealers, but there is nothing I can find to pinpoint the exact location.

Sources:

Aberdeen, Gazetteer of Scotland vol 1, 1844 Mrs Humphreys judgement and hanging, The Scots Black Kalendar, T.M. Todd, p42, 1938 Mrs Humphreys, Caledonian Mercury Broadsheet newspaper Mon 11th 1830 Aberdeen poor house, History of the Workhouse 1739-1852, J.P. Edmond and Spark 1885

Having just read the amazing last issue of Haunted Magazine I was inspired to write this article after reading the feature with Craig Charles and Sarah Cruddas covering their new show that investigates UFO hotspots. I thought as I have the freedom to write anything spooky or paranormal, I would share with you what I think was an alien abduction. I can find no other answer that could justify what happened, see what you think.

I was on a tour of the Scottish Highlands with my ex and his mum and dad. It was February 1999 and we had just left Braemar heading for Aviemore through the Cairngorms National Park. I am not going to lie, I was a bit concerned as the snow on both sides of the road was about seven foot high and we were travelling down what I can only describe as a track rather than a wide, smooth, safe road!

The drive was slow and careful and soon the faded winter sun gave up the ghost (pardon the pun, oh no, this isn’t a ghost story…well you know what I mean!) and dipped behind the majestic mountains leaving a vastness of dark velvet skies with no artificial light. Just the reflective glint of the snowbound banks on the sides of the road kept us headed in the right direction.

As we limped along, I spotted a white van upside down on one of the snowbanks. I could see no disturbance of the snow around the van, so my old police head kicked in.

“Stop!” I yelled.

The brakes were applied accompanied with three faces looking inquisitively into mine. ”Can you not see that van upside down? There could be someone trapped in there!”

Without even thinking I jumped out into the freezing cold night and started to push my way through the treacherously high snow. I stopped and again saw no other snow disturbed around the van so I started shouting out ‘Hello’ convinced that the driver must still be in the van.

I reached the front of the van and raised my arm up to feel that the bonnet was slightly warm which added to my confusion because as I looked into the driver’s window there was no driver. In fact, I circled the whole of the van and there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

“How could a recently crashed van have a warm bonnet with no snow disturbance around it whatsoever? Where was the driver? Where were his tracks?”

By this time, everyone had got out of the car and were searching the roadside for any clues. I would say it was around 9 pm.

I was just about to tell everyone to get back in the car when BANG! There was something I can only describe as a supersonic boom accompanied with the biggest, blueish white light flash that I had ever seen. It was so bright I had to cover my eyes. The light lit up the whole of the valley. Everyone became briefly illuminated like a firework had just gone off right in front of us. The boom literally vibrated through my body. It was like witnessing a nuclear bomb from a distance it… was exceptionally frightening.

The only thing I could offer to the rest of the group in a very shaky voice was,

“What the F**k was that?”

Everyone stood there speechless, just shaking their heads. None of us could even put into words what we had just witnessed. We then fell into a weird mass hysteria where we started to laugh nervously and made a joke of it.

Nearly 50 Scottish UFO reports in 2021 including ‘round object’ followed by three fighter jets

After another quick look around for the missing driver, the cold and the shock of the supersonic boom sent us scurrying back into the car. We continued our drive trying to make sense of what we had just seen and heard but didn’t really come up with anything solid or explainable.

By the time we got to Aviemore we were so tired but relieved with the notion that we would soon be sitting in front of a roaring fire, nursing an alcoholic beverage. As we walked up to the main door of the hotel, we were shocked to find it locked. The lights looked like they were out and we could see no rosy faced patrons sipping on vino and relishing in the glow of the roaring fire!

I felt quite agitated and had no idea why a bar and hotel would be closed at 10 pm!

After a continuous ringing of the bell a night porter came to the door and looked at us as if we were mad!

“Can I help you?” he asked cautiously. “Yes, we are here as we have booked a room.”

“Well, you are a bit late, I don’t know if I can help you.”

“A bit late?” I enquired a wee tad sarcastically, “It is only 10pm and we did say to you we would be coming at a late hour, and you said it would be ok!”

“Well, I think you may find that your watch is wrong as all of our staff have gone home, I am the only one here and it is in fact midnight!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked somewhat confused.

We all looked at our watches and were stunned to see that they all read 10 pm. We had lost two hours. I just couldn’t believe it.

Iactually walked back to the car and looked at the clock in the car as I thought this night porter was on something. Amazingly the clock said 10pm. I just couldn’t conceive what was happening.

How could all of our watches including the car clock be out by two hours? Had us and the car been taken to an unknown location on an alien vessel?

In the end, after much begging and pleading, the night porter took us to our rooms and even let us have a glass of wine. None of us could fathom how we had lost two hours.

I immediately came to the conclusion along with the suspicious van, that some sort of abduction had taken place. I don’t know why I thought it, but I certainly wasn’t going to share that with the other sceptical bunch. I didn’t feel any different, I didn’t feel violated in any way, I just couldn’t offer my own rational thinking to any other option.

It wasn’t until I got home that my mouth gaped open, and I am sure us, along with the van driver, had definitely been abducted even though I had no memory of what happened in those two hours.I researched ‘Scotland UFO sightings’ and amazingly many articles came up concerning UFO sightings and reported alien abductions. The area that we had found ourselves in was literally a hot bed of alien encounters.

Strangely enough I was telling someone this story a few years ago and decided to Google Scotland UFO’s again in that area to see how many incidents had taken place.

I found this and it made me go cold…

In 2010, the MoD released a series of files which documented a strange encounter at the Glasgow Prestwick airport in February 1999.The traffic controller there tracked a fast-moving and unexplained UFO on

the airport radar, sparking a flurry of activity. The RAF air defence staff launched an urgent investigation and impounded radar tapes. But the report concluded that ‘no additional evidence’ could be found to corroborate the socalled ‘Prestwick incident’.

No evidence? How about there was evidence and yet again it was put under wraps?

That is exactly the same date that we were in the Highlands.

So, it begs the question is it a coincidence that this incident happened, or did we get abducted by the same vessel that was spotted and investigated just South of where we were? It is certainly one for discussion, but I know where I stand with this one.

I firmly believe that we are not alone in the Universe, there are far too many sightings and reports of alien abduction. We cannot keep ignoring these reports and keep having them kept under wraps by the government.

The thing I always ask myself however is why have an alien species not initiated any contact with the public? If they have landed in the past, have they been scooped up and placed in the likes of hanger 18? Have the witnesses been hushed and whipped away to protect the rest of the public? It is certainly one for a long debate.

However, I challenge any sceptic to provide a normal explanation for the events that happened to us that cold, snowy February night, because no matter how hard I try to find a rational solution, I’m left with nothing.

Nicky x

Psychic Medium, Tutor & Magazine Columnist

Author of M.E Myself & I: Diary of a Psychic Twitter @NickyAlan07 Instagram @nickyalan333

THE STANFIELD HALL MURDERS

By Peggy Griffiths-Morgan

When you are a child (and I am talking around five or six here) you are naturally naïve, you hopefully still think the best of people, adults are there to help and not hurt, you can be deliriously happy playing for hours with a cardboard box and you should not have to worry about anything.

I know that not everyone’s formative years are like that, but luckily mine were, which was why I never understood the sense of fear and foreboding that gripped me when I stepped inside Stanfield Hall near Wymondham, Norfolk on a lovely sunny day back in the 1970’s. I have vivid memories of the beautiful dark wood staircase and panelling, the smile of the then owner Mrs Hudson, but also a very weird sense of “this is not safe, get out”. I know I upset my mother that day by begging to go and sit in the car, and that I could not get out fast enough, unusual for me as normally when it came to places like that I would be chatting to the adults and asking a million and one questions, precocious maybe, inquisitive definitely.

Whilst I never forgot the feeling, I put it down to an overactive imagination, and ignored it, after all, I still believed back then that if my foot was out of my bed at night, Jack Frost would come and steal my toes…

Fast forward a few decades and I am sat in my garden reading a book by my friend and fellow historian, Neil Storey, about Norfolk murders through the ages and blow me down, Stanfield Hall makes an appearance (bit of a plug here for another author, check out Neil’s work, you will not be disappointed)

Back in the 1840’s, the hall – which had existed in some shape or form since at least the 13th Century and has a beautiful moat, through which is the boundary of Wymondham and Ketteringham - was lived in by the Jermy family, although originally Preston, Isaac Jermy had changed the family name to be more in keeping with the heritage of the hall and to abide by the wishes of the late owners last will and testament to adopt the Jermy name and coat of arms.

On the other side of the story, we have James Blomfield (JB) Rush, born illegitimately to Mary, he was adopted by his stepfather John Rush at only a few years old when his mother married, and was destined to become a farmer like the family members had done before him. He married a local girl from Aylsham, Susannah Soames and over the next sixteen years they went on to have nine children who survived infancy – actually, in the 1841 census they had 9 children all between the ages of 10 to 1, either she just had to sneeze

to get pregnant or he did not let her rest – and by early 1844, JB was renting a farm from Isaac Jermy, as was his step-father. This was when the first suspicious death occurred, on 24th October 1844, Rush senior had supposedly been out shooting with his step son, and whilst the two of them were alone in the kitchen, Rush Juniors new shotgun was reported to have gone off accidentally whilst being admired by John, killing him instantly.

Whether JB was expecting a financial windfall at this point cannot be proven, but John left all of his estate to his wife Mary, JB received nothing. Tragically, a month later his wife Susannah died, with an apparently incredibly devoted Rush by her side the whole time, but again, he did not appear to inherit anything, and an annuity was left for the children instead.

So here we have a man who has illusions of grandeur in being a country squire and affluent farmer, but without the ability to put in a hard day’s work or manage money, so far there are two slightly suspicious deaths…but I digress.

Next JB advertises for a Governess to help with his young children and appoints a young gullible girl from London called Emily Sandford, and soon this man, with a seemingly insatiable appetite for the opposite sex, has seduced this poor woman into being more than just home help. An account which shows how manipulative and controlling (and obnoxious) JB Rush was, is evidenced when he visited Emily’s parents in London some time after she had moved to Norfolk, he told them that she had run away with some stranger and that he did not know how to contact her.

left all of it to her grandchildren, perhaps Mary knew the kind of man her son really was. Not that it stopped him, the conniving toerag was happy to steal from anyone and forged a codicil to her legal instructions giving him absolute power over the money.

It is now November, he seems to have blown all the funds that he had come by, and on 30th of the month he was due to pay Jermy for the farm, which there was no chance he would be able to do.

of thousands have travelled to watch the execution of this notorious killer – Norwich’s police force being out in droves due to the appearance of many of London’s pick pockets and thieves, looking to capitalise on this public spectacle.

When he returned to Norfolk, he told Emily however that he had asked their permission for her hand in marriage to which they most obviously agreed without hesitation. By 1848, JB is heavily in debt trying to live a lifestyle of an affluent country squire, and owes money to Isaac Jermy for his residence, Potash farm. In August 1848 his dear mother died, remember Mary had inherited the entire estate from her late husband John, and nothing had been left to her son JB. Perhaps another example of doubt as to the reason for her death is that yet again, Rush was incredibly attentive to his ailing mother, and a servant recalls him feeding her “soaked bread”, shortly after she was discovered deceased.

If his plan had been to take her money – I hope you would agree, there is a trail of coincidences starting to follow here – then yet again, he was scuppered as she had

A plan is hatched, not only does he get Emily to forge some documents, on the evening of 28th November, he dons a form of disguise and walks up to the front steps of Stanfield Hall, greeted by Isaac Jermy he shoots him at point blank range with a shotgun. He then marches into the hall – remember, the one with the dark wood and beautiful panelling? –and shoots Jermy’s son, Jermy Jermy (no, that is not a typing error, he was originally Jermy Preston, but when Dad changed the family surname, he became Jermy Jermy) leaving his lifeless body between the stairs and hallway. Servants hear the report of a gun and come running, poor Eliza Chestney (sometimes spelled Chastney) is shot in the leg and her mistress, the wife of Jermy junior is shot in the arm.

Quite quickly, another servant rides fast to nearby Wymondham to alert the police force of the time, and an awful scene is found with the two dead men at the hall. Bravely, the hall cook, Margaret Reed asserts that even thought he in was in disguise, she would confirm that the killer was Rush from nearby Potash Farm.

Fast forward some months and 21st April 1849, Rush is waiting to be hanged at Norwich Castle by the infamous William Calcraft, an audience of tens

What happened to the other people in this tale? Well Eliza – the servant shot in the leg – was carried to court in a litter, the most suitable way of being transported as she was still seriously injured even months later and bravely gave evidence against the bombastic Rush. The woman who fell for his charms, Emily Sandford, was being held at Wymondham Bridewell and also had a young baby with her, Emily Martha Vavasour Sandford, but she was able to start a new life by marrying a German, Moses Edler and emigrating to Australia (where records show she had at least two more children).

The saddest thing is that in 1851, the census records indicate that Rush’s daughter Mary was looking after the five youngest children in Felmingham, where his late mother’s farm had been, but his daughter Eleanor died at only 17 years old in 1852.

At five years old, I would not have known about this, nor the fear that would have been felt knowing that a rogue gun man was on the loose, but I wonder if somehow, that juvenile mind had picked up on a stray emotion that was still lingering in that beautiful but tragic building.

Penny X

*When we say not so ‘orrible, it might actually be ‘orrible, it’s just a tag line

“Not something you as a parent would want to hear.”

* By Morgan Knudsen *

T

he paranormal is a magical place, and any good author and reader knows that magical places are filled with magical characters. Now I don’t mean magi cal in the ‘princess and the dragon’ sense, but parapsychology has a way of demonstrating to us that magic exists in many forms and presents a task to science which, at times, feels impossible, and yet it always manag es to scamper along and catch up. Perhaps that is one of the best things about parapsychology: it teaches us that magic, monsters, and fantastic characters really do exist in the bril liance of what we call reality.

Often, the simplest of characters are born from humble beginnings sprinkled with a bit of mystery and, as we journey with them, they become the greatest of heroes. The story of one such incredible and influential character (perhaps one of the most important in the book of scientific study and our journey into real magic), is that of Eileen Garrett: A young girl who would grow up to be one of the most revered mediums in the world and embark on a life adventure full of spiritualism, war, romance and ending in founding one of the world’s leading centers in parapsychological study.

This is the remarkable story of Eileen Garrett.

E

ileen wasn’t born into a famous family, nor was she a notable child in any way. In fact, she was so unremarkable there was even debate about her date of birth. Census records seem to show that she was born in County Meath, Ireland, on 14th March 1892, although most pub lished accounts give the date as 7th March 1893. When she was 7 months old, her mother tragically passed away and she was sent to live with her aunt Martha and her uncle William on their family farm, and they decided to call her instead by her middle name, Jeannie.

Eileen spent most of her time alone, playing with the farm animals and connecting with nature. She had very few friends and it wasn’t long before she was considered a loner and the ‘weird kid’, and that she should just be left by herself to play with her “imaginary friends”.

Eileen had three imaginary companions, whom she later identified from photographs as deceased children from the neighbourhood. By the time Eileen began school, she would say she felt no different than anyone else, but her peers felt differently and she became increasingly aware that her perception of the world was vastly different than those of the other children.

Martha had no use for Eileen’s imaginary friends or invisible playmates either. Any experience Eileen had was dismissed as a fantasy and the imagination of a silly little girl. The night that began to change everything for Ei leen didn’t arise until she was a little older. It was the first time she experienced the apparition of Martha’s sister, Leone, and she noted that she was holding some thing. She looked outside and saw the woman struggling with a baby in her arms whom she didn’t recognize. Immediately

Eileen rushed to Leone’s side to help her into the house. ‘I am going away now and must take the baby with me.’ Eileen fetched Martha but when they looked for Leone she had disappeared. Confused, Martha turned on Eileen, accusing her of lying and that she was being a naughty little girl. Eileen pleaded with her aunt that the apparition was indeed real and that she was telling the truth, but Martha would hear none of it. Eileen ran to her room, falling into her bed and bursting into tears. She cried herself to sleep and when she awoke the next morning, she felt sick all over, angry with grief and depression and her body heavy with the weariness of a long night of tears.

She avoided her aunt for the rest of the afternoon but that night at supper, Mar tha had news. She instructed Eileen that she was to leave the home and not return, for which Eileen was grateful. However, she was quickly sent to her room with no dinner at all and later Martha informed her that the decision came on the heels of the news of Leone’s death. She had died in childbirth the night Eileen had seen her and Martha believed Eileen was solely responsible. Eileen was to be sent to a boarding school in Dublin, far from home where she would learn how to act and behave as a ‘normal’ girl.

Once studying in Dublin, Eileen kept to herself and her schoolwork, not divulg ing to anyone what she was experienc ing in the supernatural. The boarding school was harsh and unforgiving, and yet another place she didn’t fit in. However, it didn’t stop the experiences from occurring.

The next spirit to pay her a visit was her uncle William and his appearance was welcome. He had wonderful news to deliver: He told her that he understood her troubled relationship with Martha but nevertheless encouraged her to submit to her wishes whenever possible. William also said that in two years she would be free, as she would be going to London for study. Just as promised, within two years she was in South England, having been sent there due to a previous lung condition.

At age 15, Eileen’s fortunes seemed to begin to take a turn for the better with her first real love, an architect named Clive Barry who initially thought she was much older than she was. He took her on a whirlwind of romance, showing her the city and taking her to places she had never been before. She fell head over heels and slowly but surely, began to trust him with her strange experiences and abilities. Clive welcomed them and, on that note, proposed to her. She accepted and it seemed like her fairy tale was finally beginning to show signs of a happy ending. However, once they were married, something about Clive shifted and changed. He confronted her about her mediumship and told her she was to stop it immediately. He demand ed she father his children, be a ‘proper hostess’ to the friends he wanted to have over, and to keep her mouth shut about any feelings she may have had about it.

However, childbearing would prove almost impossible for her and after the death of three of her babies, it was advised that Eileen find some activities to occupy herself outside of the home so she didn’t fall into depression. She jumped into the role of helping others and creativity, working briefly for social ser vices and then branching out into the world of comedy and theatre. She loved the new energy it was bring ing her, however when Clive noticed her emotional shift from depression to joy, he immediately forbade it and locked her back in the fam ily home. Relegated once again into iso lation, Eileen had no choice but to turn inwards. She became able to perceive the world through her finger tips and ‘knowing’ came to her more easily through the nape of her neck, her feet and her knees rather than through her eyes and ears. Clive began to notice that Eileen would have moments where she seemed to lose awareness and then begin talking about places and people no one else recognized.

Concerned for her mental health, he sent her to a psychiatrist, but the consultation only convinced Eileen that she needed to come to terms with her experiences on her own. Finally, after months of continued effort, Eileen became pregnant and had a healthy baby girl at age 23, only to find out Clive had already gone elsewhere for a new wife. Their marriage collapsed and Eileen fell in love soon after with another man. She predicted his passing due to a landmine explosion during the First World War and was confirmed correct. It wasn’t until she fell into the arms of James Gar rett, an old family friend who had ended up with a leg injury at a local hospital. As they visited, Eileen and James fell in love and in 1918, she married him. For the

next nine years, however, her abilities and the world of the paranormal began to con sume her. Jim had no interest in it whatsoev er and no matter how Eileen tried to ignore her instinct and calling, she simply could not.

Determined to follow her dreams and a greater understanding of what she knew to be true in her heart, Eileen found Edward Carpenter in 1919. In the two years she knew Carpenter, Garrett later wrote, she underwent the ‘most profound spiritual experience’ of her life, ‘a sense of release, of being set free, of being reborn’. Finally, she was on the path her inner guidance was calling her towards, and she knew beyond a shad ow of a doubt, this was where she was meant to be. She wasn’t crazy or having hallucina tions, and she wasn’t strange and outcast, she was a medium and she had found her pur pose. She had no idea this was only the beginning of her true adventure into what Carpenter called “Cosmic consciousness”, but she was ready for whatever was to come.

In 1926, Eileen met a man who claimed he was a clairvoyant and like Carpenter, he would prove to be another vital contact. He told her he believed she had ‘latent powers’ that encompassed a range of unique psychic abilities,including clairvoy ance and clairaudience, distant healing, and psychometry. After accurately holding a watch he passed her and, using the process of psychometry, gaining accurate impres sions from the watch, Eileen was introduced to the College of Psychic Studies where she proved to have an influence on table tipping experiments. She also began to freely enter trances where she channeled a man named Uvani from the Orient. He would relay mes sages from deceased people to the sitting group.

Her love of the world she had glimpsed was so great and so powerful, her marriage ended after nine years, and she kept the last name of Garrett.

A

s she moved about the world of spiritual ism, Eileen wasn’t entirely convinced her answers lay there. She began to branch outside of that circle and lean towards the sci entific studies of Harry Price at the National Laboratory for Psychical Research. Through out the 1930’s, she volunteered her services wherever she could, seeking her own an swers and helping any scientist who hap pened to be studying the psychic realm and survival after death. Eileen threw herself into the world of parapsychology and the further down the rabbit hole she went, the more pas sionate she became. But trouble was brewing.

While in Germany, World War One was coming to an end… but World War Two was fast on its heels. A growing dark ness was descending over Europe in the form of swastikas and the red and black flag of the Nazi party. A sickness was beginning to spread and knowing she was no longer safe to be speak ing about psychic abilities in a grow ing communist regime, Eileen fled to France. Following her calling to help others, she immediately found a soup kitchen at an orphanage and began to point her efforts towards helping the children in trouble, but soon the

darkness spread. Germans flooded into France, the Nazis began to move their stronghold across the continent, destroying and pillaging cities and minds. Fearing for her life, Eileen got a flight to Portugal and barely escaped by the end of 1940.

In America, the war was an ever-popular sub ject, and the press was in full swing gather ing whatever stories they could. Harrowing tales of air raids and hero soldiers flooded the newspapers. So, when Eileen had con tact with the spirit of a downed R-101 airship which had crashed in France, the world’s eyes turned to her. In Lisbon in 1940, Eileen was urged to go to America to continue lec turing and she did so, taking to the lecture cir cuit with the support of the American Society for Psychical Research. However, she wasn’t talking about mediumship or the science of psychometry – she was delivering psychic news reports of the goings on in Europe as the Nazi terror reigned strong. Now residing in New York and with the assistance of her long-time friend Frances Payne Bolton, she established the Creative Age Press, and from there created the pinnacle of her endeavors: The Parapsychology Foundation, to support academic parapsychology. Soon her daugh

ter joined her in New York and took over the Parapsychology Foundation in her mother’s honor.

Eileen never forgot her roots in nature, often returning to the French gardens to read once the war had come to an end. The call and connection that nature offered was forever intertwined with her knowledge of spirit and parapsychology – to her, they were insepara ble. In September of 1970, while at the Euro pean residence of the Parapsychology Foun dation and after holding the 19 th international conference, Eileen was reading quietly in her garden when she suffered a heart attack. She was rushed to the hospital only to pass away in Nice at age 78. On that day, her questions were answered, and she became the very thing she loved so deeply: part of the non physical energy that she so loved and which called her home.

To donate to the Parapsychology Foundation’s Eileen J. Garrett library and preserve this in credible and irreplaceable resource, please visit www.parapsychology.org

Morgan

Poor Martha

THE GHOST OF DAWLEY PARISH CHURCH

By now, you probably are realising that Shropshire is beset with ghosts, every quiet corner of this fair county seems to hum with the spirits of the past. These ghost stories are intrinsic to the landscape of the county; they demonstrate people who want to be remembered. Such cultural phenomena allows us to reach back into the past and remind the world of the person there used to be, the human behind the ghost. After all, ghosts are never just ghosts - it’s not as simple as that. They are historical beings, a legacy of the past and they provide us insight into that which haunts our society, as well as a stark social commentary of the world they inhabited. This sometimes makes for difficult reading. That’s why I think, there seems to be a causal link between tragedy, and the spirits longevity. The story goes ever on as they say and when something terrible happens, it’s never truly forgotten. The following piece of ghostlore is a great example of this, though Martha’s true existence is lost to the annals of time, her story of desperation, betrayal, and suicide matters. She’s another of Shropshire’s unfortunate women, representative of many on the fringes of society. Indeed, her story perfectly demonstrates the pitfalls of Victorian morality, as well as how important it is to show compassion. Let’s head to Dawley now, to explore Martha’s story.

If you walked down Dawley high street today, you probably wouldn’t think much, I suppose it looks quite a bit like any old place, however the parish itself is a very old one, having first been recorded in the Domesday Book. That’s a whole lot of life lived, and some monumental changes witnessed throughout history. Some notable features are that the present-day Holy Trinity Church (the site of our haunting) is built not too far from where the 12th Century church once stood.

There was also an important manor house not too far away and by 1361 this had been fortified and known as Dawley Castle. It was important enough to have been fought over and subsequently demolished at the end of

the civil war, due to its strategic placement in the local landscape. This placement would prove important in later centuries, particularly with the advent of the industrial revolution. Lying at the heart of the East Shropshire Coalfield, it saw rich seams of coal, iron, and clay, and played a pivotal part in the growth of industrialism within Shropshire. The area had associations with ironworking since the medieval period, however, it was during the 18th and 19th Century that the agricultural community expanded vastly in what seemed like overnight into numerous distinct industrial settlements focusing on making use of the bounty of natural deposits. Thus, Dawley can be seen as a microcosm of the country at the advent of the industrial revolution; the agrarian meeting industrial and representing the challenges this union faced. This is the world in which a young woman known only as Martha grew up, though different now, these streets and this history was hers, just as she is now part of theirs.

“Much of what we know about Martha is limited to the folklore, the stories of such women seem too often to end up that way, though I don’t believe this invalidates her story.”

As you shall soon see, her plight is representative of the experiences of many young women. We are given a description of a girl who was pretty, cheerful, intelligent, and honest with a lovely smile. Even this breathes life back into her, and it’s hard not to try and imagine her warm disposition and kindness which unfortunately would be snuffed out by circumstance. The story suggests that Martha had started working for a local Squire when she was relatively young and was a very hardworking and valued member of the household. However, around the age of 19, her world was about to be turned upside down. Martha found out she was pregnant.

The implications of such news are hard to fathom now in a world which is kinder to unmarried women. Martha was terrified and didn’t know what to do, so she turned to a man she trusted… the Squire. It is unclear if he was the father of the child, though entanglements such as these weren’t uncommon, my own grandfather was the product of such, and had to be raised believing his grandparents were his parents to ‘save the family name’. Such relationships, if you can call them that had an intrinsic imbalance of power, with coercion and pressure being the tools of seduction, leaving the women worse off, and in a precarious position. Life unfortunately is unlike the fairy tales, where Cinderella marries the handsome prince, it was a different world for the unmarried mother. Littering the pages of history are examples of naïve young women, who were used, and then cast into a world that didn’t want them.

This unfortunately is Martha’s fate.

She went to speak to the squire and told him her news. I suppose she hoped to gain solace, some kindness or guidance at what to do next. However, this was not to be. The Squire struck her and cast her out from her workplace (which was also her home) refusing to support her or give her charity. She begged him, telling him she could still work, but he wouldn’t listen. Perhaps he didn’t want a reminder of his indiscretions around in the house, we will never know, but Martha was cast out of the life she knew, and the future was uncertain.

Martha couldn’t rely on family for support, they were just as outraged at the condition she found herself in, as her employer was, and disowned her. Attitudes to unmarried pregnant women were appalling during this period and they were often blamed for the situation, even in cases of rape or coercion.

“Having a child out of wedlock was seen as ruining the life of a respectable girl, blighting any chance of a good marriage, and portraying them as fallen women, paragons of sexual sin.”

There was little help or guidance for such women, a lack of any real affective methods of contraception and what choices they did have seemed to project them further into the mire of perceived immorality. Unmarried women found themselves cut off from the life they once knew and ostracised from communities. This was a social, moral, and economic issue to the Victorians, and often, it seemed like there was little hope.

In the years preceding Martha’s story, life for unmarried women grew even more strained, with a number of harsh laws enacted to condemn women morally, spiritually and punish them socially and materially. Sadly, there was an increase in infanticide due to the ‘bastardy clause’ of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. This had made all illegitimate children the sole responsibility of their mothers until they were 16 years old, which would have made it very difficult to provide for the child economically. The putative father therefore became free of any legal responsibility for his illegitimate offspring. I’ve read of a few cases of possible infanticide in Victorian Shropshire, where bodies were found in remote places such as on the Sundorne estate near Shrewsbury in June 1873, where poachers found the partially eaten remains of

a small child. This is obviously a horrific image but it’s a reminder of the sort of world Martha would now have to navigate. And the choices she had to make.

Martha was homeless, pregnant and without the means to really support herself. She would have been well aware of the attitudes of the community, so understandably her mind turned to dark thoughts. The folklore states that she wanted nothing more than to raise her child, but she knew what was against her. Thus, she began to think she should take her own life. By the end of the 19th Century attitudes to suicide were starting to shift. Indeed, people were beginning to understand suicide wasn’t always a result of an illness but was rather a symptom, a response to the challenges of living in this modern world, and I think this is how Martha’s choice should be seen. Martha found herself drawn to her local church craving the sanctuary to contemplate her lot. So, she went to Dawley church and sat in the empty building, mulling over what she planned to do. One cannot imagine the fear of this young woman, the desperation she faced. Like many, she turned to her faith to console her and she began to rationalise that if she had a reason to live God would give her a sign. So, she sat, and she prayed and wept, thinking of all her life had been until the outside world grew as dark as her thoughts.

But she wasn’t alone. The Verger of the church had seen Martha enter and was happy leaving her to her own devices. However, as darkness grew, he needed to lock up the church. Single minded in his task, he approached Martha and asked her to leave, informing her that parishioners were not allowed in the church overnight. He wasn’t a cruel man, just unwavering to the rules.

She explained she had nowhere to go, but he insisted the girl must leave. Martha wasn’t one to argue, the Vergers’ words were enough. Martha believed that God had given her the

sign that she’d prayed for. So, as she wandered through the graveyard, she pulled out a razor that she’d stolen from her old employer and in the last rays of the days dying light, Martha slit her own throat.

The Verger was still stood on the church steps, so saw her act and quickly rushed to her aid, calling her, but Martha had made up her mind. She rushed over to the low-lying perimeter wall, jumped over it, and made for the well. She was a bloodstained tumult, unable to scream due to the self-inflicted wounds, she would have made a terrible sound as she jumped straight into the path of a man walking home from work. He shrieked, believing he had witnessed a demon, or some unholy wretch covered in blood, and ran straight back to his workplace. The Verger was an elderly man, so he knew he couldn’t make the wall, he realised the best he could do was go back to the Vicarage to rouse help for Martha.

When the Verger and the Vicar returned Martha was no-where to be seen. They searched the area, then shone a light into the well, where poor Martha was face down in the waters below. One cannot imagine what she felt in her last moments or the distress the Vicar and Verger felt upon finding her body. They reached out to the community to try and identify her, to no avail. It seemed as if no one was willing to say they knew her, which adds a further tragedy to this tale.

Though there is no specific biblical warrant condemning and prohibiting suicide, depictions in the bible of those who died by suicide are negative, and within most Christian denominations suicide is objectively a sin which violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas influenced the ideas surrounding suicide well into the 19th Century. He postulated several ideas that became part of popular religious lexicon.

“Killing oneself violated divine order ‘God gives life and takes it away’ thus to kill oneself was to take that decision out of God’s hands. Suicide was also deemed a crime against society; every person belongs to a community and killing yourself harms the community.”

Finally, it was postulated that the act of suicide upends the natural law, the natural tendency of living things is to preserve one’s own life, not lose it. This all contributed to religious and social attitudes to suicide, and in the eyes of the law it became ‘felo de se’ –literally crime against oneself.

Traditionally, to die by suicide meant to be denied a Christian burial in consecrated ground. Rather their body would be buried somewhere away from God’s presence, often at a crossroad in hope it may confuse the ghost of the deceased.

However, the two men were sympathetic, and did the best they could for Martha, giving her a Christian funeral. They knew that they couldn’t bury her in consecrated ground, but they chose to bury her as close as possible to the churchyard in the meadow behind the church.

As with many tragedies, Martha’s story doesn’t end with her burial. Her blood covered spirit is said to continue to haunt the area, often enacting Martha’s final journey, or wandering round the churchyard, as well as jumping over the wall, heading to the long gone well. Her sobs are heard frequently, and her ghost seems to have been reported periodically since her purported death. It’s not uncommon for those who die by suicide to enter into ghostlore. Perhaps Shropshire’s most famous ghost ‘The White Lady of Longnor’ died by suicide. Her apparition appears clothed in her long white wedding dress, on the road bridge near the village of Longnor. She is believed to have thrown herself off of the bridge after being deserted at the altar. Nevertheless, Martha’s story seems particularly poignant and definitely more grounded in reality than this wistful bride. Martha’s plight is a familiar one, and she represents the cruelty and disconnect of a world bound by rigid morality. Her ghost story feels like a social commentary, an insight into the realities of life for those who came before us and I think that’s why it doesn’t really matter if Martha’s story is just a story. Though I believe this story to be grounded in truth, it’s important to note that there have been many Martha’s throughout Shropshire’s history; women who were illtreated and used, lost to a world merciless to them. I wonder what my great grandmother would have thought of this story after her own experiences, I think maybe she would

have understood. Martha’s story has prevailed because it reminds us of the power of kindness and how important it is to help those in need. I think that a simple act of kindness can be a beacon in a person’s darkness, and I wish Martha had been given that in life. I feel deeply for Martha, and I hope that if you ever happen to be near Dawley Parish Church, you will take a moment and spare a thought for her and all of those like her, after all- ghosts are never just ghosts, they are people just like you and I.

Amy Boucher

How Ghost Stories Share History’s Forgotten Past

By: Amanda R. Woomer

History has always been written by the conquerors. The stories and lives of the proverbial “losers” have gone relatively unnoticed over the centuries. Prostitutes. Enslaved men, women, and children. Disabled people. Queer individuals. People of color. We rarely get to hear their versions of history, and if we do, it is usually from a white, Christian, male perspective.

Luckily, there has been a shift in recent years, and we are starting to hear more of these undesirables and their lives. Surprisingly, their stories are revealed and shared through paranormal research and ghost stories.

Many of the popular locations among paranormal investigators today were once locations where society’s undesirables gathered— bars, brothels, jails, and asylums. These were locations where we would put people away to forget about them… or perhaps a place where a poor unfortunate soul would seek out to forget themselves for a while. They were unimportant in life—not a king or queen, not a celebrity—yet, in death, they have found fame and notoriety

in our ghost stories that we still tell hundreds of years after their sad lives ended.

A young woman named Lydia worked as a prostitute in the Red Onion Saloon. Opened as a saloon and brothel with ten “cribs” in 1898, the Red Onion served the many men who came to Alaska during the Klondike Goldrush.

According to leg end, Lydia came to Skagway, Alaska, with a man who left her in the town before ven turing into the Yukon Ter ritory. He never returned. Lydia resorted to prostitution and worked at the saloon. Sadly, she contracted syphilis. Ashamed and unable to work, she hanged herself. Today, Lydia is said to haunt the second floor of the Red Onion Saloon, where there is still a brothel museum sharing the history of Skagway. They also share Lydia’s story and talk about her regularly.

They say that a person dies twice when you breathe your last breath and again when someone says your name for the last time. This quote has been uttered for years, some crediting the Ancient Egyptians, others Banksy. If this sentiment is believed, Lydia lives on,

and it seems her afterlife might be even better than her mortal life in Skagway. Where she may have been privy to hunger, poverty, and abuse, now she is immortal and famous, people calling out to her and telling her story at the Red Onion Saloon. These ghost stories not only offer Lydia eternal life but a new life.

Of course, Lydia is not the only person that might have been forgotten by history if they didn’t choose to haunt.

Roy was a patient at Rolling Hills Asylum before his death in 1942 and still makes an appearance in Shadow Hallway (and looks a tad bit unnerving at seven feet tall!). Maureen, a lesbian who opened one of the first gay bars in New Jersey in the 1970s, now haunts the building that was once her pride and joy.

Nina (pronounced nine-ah) was a prostitute that mysteriously fell down an elevator shaft after offering to give information about her captor. She now haunts Old Town Pizza and Brewing in Portland, Oregon.

Chloe was supposedly an enslaved girl working on

the infamous Myrtles Plantation who is said to haunt the grounds after being hanged for poisoning the family that owned her. Though there is no evidence that Chloe existed, somehow, people still tell her story and claim to see her on the plantation.

For many investigators, we feel drawn to these locations of dark history and great sadness. Asylums and sanitoriums where living conditions were horrific, and many were locked away unnecessarily. Plantations where the horrors of slavery can still be felt… for it was not that long ago. Jails where some of the worst criminals were locked away… and some innocent men and women as well.

Of course, for some investigators, it’s the thrill of the hunt. For others, it’s a chance to brush against history. But I think (whether we realize it or not) we investigate to be part of the ghost’s stories—to remember them and help them keep going in the afterlife they’ve chosen.

The Sallie House

For British paranormal enthusiasts of a certain age, the American TV documentary series Sightings conjures up memories of tuning in to watch (or video tape) one of mainstream TV’s first, and inarguably one of the best, paranormal reality shows. For those who might be unfamiliar with it, viewers in the UK could catch Sightings on satellite TV during the 1990s. As a young man with a passion for all things paranormal, I was glued to the telly, devouring the segments on UFOs, cryptids, and most of all…ghosts.

The haunting which captured my imagination most strongly was the so-called “Heartland Ghost.” The Sightings cameras covered the experiences of a young married couple who had moved into their dream home in smalltown Kansas, only to find it already inhabited by the malevolent spirit of a young girl named Sallie. The show was careful not to identify the town, and also gave the family a false name in an attempt to disguise their identity. As the cameras rolled, bleeding scratch marks appeared on the body of the male tenant of the house. Viewers were shown pictures of his body bearing multiple scratches and other wounds, all said to have been inflicted by the vengeful Sallie.

Why would the ghost of a young girl be so angry? The house was once the residence of a local doctor, and a persistent story maintains that one day, a six-year-old girl named Sallie was taken there by her terrified mother. Sallie was clutching her belly in agony, which the doctor believed to be caused by a ruptured appendix. A hemorrhaging appendix is a life threat, the doctor placed her on an operating table and cut open Sallie’s abdomen (some variants of the tale claim that he did not use an anesthetic, which would have been even more agonizing). It was, unfortunately, too late. Poor Sallie died right there, inside the house. Her restless and vindictive ghost remains there to this day, and because of her painful death at the hands of a male doctor, really has it in for certain men – which some claim explains her wrath being focused on the man of the house.

As a spooky story, it’s brilliant. Unfortunately, it does not seem to bear up to close scrutiny.

“During my research, I have been unable to locate any child named “Sallie” living or dying in the vicinity of the house which now bears her name.”

Neither have I been able to discover a headstone bearing that name in any of the local cemeteries (it must be pointed out, however, that “Sallie” could have been a nickname or term of endearment, in much the same way that some girls named Margaret were nicknamed “Peggie.”) If any readers happen to have corroborating documentation, please contact me, and I will be happy to stand corrected.

Please note that I am not stating that these events definitely did not happen; I am pointing out that they are, based on the best efforts of myself and other investigators who have researched the Sallie House, not currently substantiated by any form of documentation. Indeed, it’s difficult to say for sure how this story even got started, though a number of selfprofessed sensitives/psychics have reported picking up on elements of it themselves. Going back to the 1990s, they have sensed the presence of an angry young girl in the house.

Sightings regularly featured the work of medium Peter James, who arrived at the Sallie House to film one day, looked up, and claimed to see the apparition of a little girl staring down at him from one of the upstairs windows.

LIVING ROOM

The Sallie House story enthralled Sightings viewers, so much so, in fact, that the Showtime channel made a 2002 TV movie about the case. Sightings: Heartland Ghost starred Beau Bridges, Nia Long, and Miguel Ferrer. The house went through a number of other owners after the family plagued by Sallie moved out, and currently sits unoccupied. It is privately owned, and self-guided tours can be taken during the daytime. At night, the house is available for overnight rental, and I did that myself on multiple occasions, driving from my adopted home state of Colorado to Atchison, Kansas.

For one thing, the couple who lived in the house tried (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to remain anonymous. What little they may have gained by appearing on a handful of television shows and writing a book about their experiences (The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story, Llewellyn Worldwide, 2010) has been more than balanced out by the amount of upheaval and chaos that resulted from their time living in the most notorious house in Kansas.

I interviewed the couple as part of the research process for my upcoming book about the case, and while my views are purely subjective, they struck me as being trustworthy and honest individuals. Neither of them asked for any money or material gain, and were willing to share notes, documentation, and photographs from their time living in the Sallie House. They are, to my mind, credible witnesses.

The Sallie House brings many visitors to Atchison each year, many drawn by the desire to experience the infamous location for themselves. For paranormal investigators and enthusiasts, it is a bucket list place. But the question that was foremost in my mind was: does it live up to all the hype?

It cannot be denied that the Sallie House has a fearsome reputation. This began with Sightings, and has continued to grow, thanks to appearances on TV shows such as Ghost Adventures. I personally know more than one investigator who flatly refuse to ever set foot in the house again. One suffered spontaneous burns on his legs while taking holy water down to the basement.

From the outside, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the property. It looks like an ordinary home in an ordinary residential neighborhood. The street outside is fairly busy, with both vehicular and foot traffic, which makes audio contamination a real problem for the visiting investigator to contend with. The house’s notoriety also presents other challenges. I was sitting quietly in the living room during one visit, all alone in the house (my colleagues were out fetching food). There were a couple of unexplained noises upstairs, which sounded like footsteps, but may simply have been the structure settling as the temperature cooled. Something made me look up. I froze. There, staring at me through the open blinds of the front window, was a young boy’s face.

For a moment, my heart quite literally skipped a beat. I looked at him. He looked at me. Then he kept on looking around the living room. I got up and went to the window.

“There are those who claim that the entire story is a fraud, nothing more than a manufactured haunting that was created to make money or fame for the residents. I find the idea preposterous.”

“Something made me look up. I froze. There, staring at me through the open blinds of the front window, was a young boy’s face.”

A family of nine or ten was standing outside the house, chattering excitedly while they took pictures. This was to be a source of constant interruption during our investigation. One evening, as I was sitting at the front of the house and interviewing a witness, a chap rode by on a motor scooter and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Y’all gonna DIE!” (Spoiler: we did not, in fact, die. Otherwise, Paul and Andy would have one heck of a story on their hands…)

Later that same evening, a loud knock at the front door startled us all. We ran for the door, only to find nobody there. Then we went out into the street, circled the house, searched the back yard, and checked behind the parked cars. No culprit was ever found. If we were pranked, then whoever did it was a hide and seek champion…either that, or they were very fleet of foot.

“One highlight of the investigation was a remote viewing session conducted across the Atlantic with UK-based MJ Dickson.”

I made a point not to tell her which location I was at, or to post about it on social media. In addition to getting a number of solid hits on the nature of the house, she told me that for some strange reason, she was getting clear images of the cartoon character Tweety Bird. This knocked me for six, because upstairs in the closet of the nursery (long considered to have been ground zero for the original haunting) sat a plush, bright yellow Tweety Bird children’s toy. The sheer specificity and accuracy of this hit is something that I still cannot explain to this day.

My fellow investigator, Rob, was quite shaken after feeling what he insists was a small hand touching him in the small of his back, beneath his T-shirt. Estes Method sessions would yield crude, sexually explicit responses from whatever was trying to communicate via the sweeping spirit box, much of it unprintable in the pages of a magazine as it was borderline pornographic. This type of language proved that we were not simply picking up on a commercial radio station, as using that type of profanity over the airwaves would cause the Federal Communications Commission to pull the station’s license.

There were also threats and the standard pleas for help that seem to come through on the majority of spirit box sessions. Yet for all this, we slept undisturbed, each taking a bedroom to ourselves. There were no nightmares or strange nocturnal incidences

once everybody bedded down, with one exception – the sound of footsteps walking around on the upper floor when none of us were awake.

One of my fellow investigators, a police officer by profession, had made it clear upon entering the house that he wasn’t particularly impressed by it. He and his wife were the last two people to leave at the end of one night’s investigating. Realizing he had left something in the fridge, he went back into the darkened house and was surprised to hear a door slamming somewhere inside the house. Even more surprising was what happened next: the kitchen light switched itself on, as did the master bedroom light upstairs. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he beat feet for his car and hit the road.

I’ve talked to several paranormal investigators who claim that the Sallie House is somehow cursed…or, if not that, then the resident entity (or entities) like to cause mayhem in the lives of visitors. One visitor was left shaken when she hit a dear just a few miles away from the house, totaling her car and killing the animal in the process (fortunately, she herself did not sustain serious injury). I tend to be skeptical about such claims, but I do try to keep an open mind.

Driving home from the Sallie House after several hours of investigation, I was listening to the host of a podcast mock alien abduction stories, demanding to know why the only people ever abducted by UFOs were “driving through rural Kansas at four o’clock in the morning.” The irony was not lost on me that I was, in fact, driving through rural Kansas…at four o’clock in the morning. I was about forty minutes outside of Atchison, cruising west toward the Colorado border, when there suddenly came a loud bang.

MJ DICKSON

My pickup truck began to skid. I fought for control, turning into the skid as best I could, and the truck came to a halt at the side of the highway.

Getting out to survey the damage, I discovered that the rear driver’s side tire was not just damaged, but absolutely shredded. Practically nothing was left. It was a new set of tires, with less than 5,000 miles on them. The mechanics who looked at the remnants later said that the catastrophic rupture may have been caused by a very rare manufacturing defect. He may well have been right, but part of me wondered, particularly after not just one but two psychic mediums that I know, had reached out to warn me that some kind of negative, hostile entity appeared to have glommed onto me because of my association with the Sallie House. Once again, I had taken their warnings with a grain of salt, but now I was seriously beginning to wonder.

One glaring question which begs to be answered is: if Sallie never truly existed as a flesh and blood little girl, what really lies behind the haunting in the house which still bears her name? To me, it seems logical that we are dealing with a thought form of some kind. The story of the little girl dying on the operating table has been told countless times, over and over again. That same story can be found not only on the house’s website, but also on laminated

cards affixed to the walls inside the home, as part of the self-guided tour. There is also a distinctly chilling painting of a ghostly little girl on display in the kitchen, along with a mocked-up surgeon’s table and medical implements. This all supports what has become the stand Sallie narrative.

The story has been repeated so many times, over and over again, that it is entirely possible for the tale to have taken on a life of its own. The concept of thought forms, also known as a tulpa, is far from new. I believe that it explains certain well-known hauntings, such as that of Inez at Iowa’s Malvern Manor, and the infamous Philip Experiment. As a tale grows and becomes entrenched in popular culture, as it is heard by hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of people, it somehow manages to crystallize, assuming a living form that is capable of interaction with not just the physical environment, but also those people who inhabit it.

On the other hand, perhaps an opportunistic entity has assumed Sallie’s mantle, and simply pretends to be her, role-playing as the dead child for its own opaque reasons.

So many people visit the Sallie House each year, it is inconceivable that at least some of them would not take along some kind of “paranormal hitch-hiker,” one of which might have detached itself from its host and chosen to stay at the property. Perhaps scaring visitors is how it gets its kicks.

It no longer matters whether the backstory is real or not. Sallie herself – or, perhaps more accurately, itself – is real, as numerous visitors and investigators can attest. Something strange and mysterious is going inside the house at 508 N. 2nd Street in Atchison, and whatever it is, has shown a distinct flair for being by turns playful and malicious. Again, this is just my theory, but I believe it bears further investigation. Reports of strange incidents at the Sallie House continue to cross my desk. Some visit the house and experience nothing at all, confidently declaring that it’s all overblown hype. Others, however, have life-changing encounters inside the mundane-looking residence. Without visiting in person to see for yourself, it’s impossible to say which will be the case for you.

Should you decide to roll the dice and spend the night there in person, I would welcome hearing from you (richard@ richardestep.net). I strongly recommend treating the house, and whatever lies within its walls, with the greatest of respect.

Readers can currently read about my time at the Sallie House in The Great American Ghost Trip, and the forthcoming book Sallie’s Home.

THE SHREDDED TYRE

THE PICKUP AFTER THE LOUD BANG

From the dawn of Modern Spiritualism, individuals have claimed to have succeeded in separating their consciousness from their corporeal form and heading skywards. Whether this contact was made at séance tables in Victorian dining rooms, wartime spiritualist circles or during the age of LSD and remote viewing experiments, Martians in particular seemed very keen to talk.

THE MEDIUM AND THE MARTIANS

By Kate Cherrell

During the spiritualism boom of the 19 th Century, mediums and mystics claimed to have conversed with the spirits of loved ones, of historical figures and even religious figures and prophets. However, it should be said that the profundity of such biblically fed messages suggests that mediums were catching Jesus and his brethren on a decidedly ‘off day’. Yet for every experience with human spirits, there were many other mediums who set their sights a little higher than heaven.

Looking back to the 19th Century when Spiritualism as a movement and modern religion was in its infancy, it was no great stretch of the imagination that contact with life beyond our planet should be possible. Following decades of scientific discoveries, industrial developments and schools of new religious thought, the conflation of science fiction, astrological observation and changing spiritual beliefs became a curious subsection in the world of mediumship.

In David P. Abbott’s 1907 work ‘Behind the Scenes with the Mediums’, the magician-turned-debunker collated stories of fraudulent and ‘questionable’ mediumship from across America. He

shared the methods and wider impact of these acts, but also committed to print some of the stranger claims made by travelling mediums and conjurers across the States. Indeed, a number of mediums appeared to be matchmaking their clients with aliens for some time, as he commented ‘doubtless some of my readers have heard of some such persons…whose “soul-mates” reside on Mars, Jupiter, or some other planet. Sometimes these persons have considerable means and pay the medium a godly sum to materialize a particular “soul-mate” for them.’ (Behind the Scenes with the Mediums - David P Abbot 1907 ) Martians were not only exciting and futuristic, but lucrative.

Before Victorian and 20 th Century mediums ventured into inter-planetary realms, Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic and scientist, reported an out of body experience where his soul journeyed to Mars, finding a peaceful, ungoverned civilisation on its surface. Similarly, in the late 19 th Century, medium Lizzie S. Green claimed to channel news of Mars via the convoluted means of channelling fellow medium Madam Fredrika Ehrenborg who had predeceased her by several years. Ehrenburg’s spirit was said to have drifted to Mars following the medium’s earthly death in 1873 and transferred

messages of the red planet via psychic sate writing several years later. These messages, although predominantly inane in content, were collated by Mrs Green and published to great success. Once more, the spirit-focused public were keen to explore other alien worlds, as much as the human spirit realm that surrounded them.

Yet for all of these space-bound mediums, one in particular blazed a light across the Martian sky in the 19th Century, leaving a legacy of alien observations, landscapes and languages in her wake; the Swiss medium, Hélène Smith.

‘Hélène Smith’ was born Catherine-Elise Müller in Martigny, Switzerland in 1861 into a Protestant family. However, she was subsequently baptised into the Catholic Church and her family, her mother in particular, remained devout practising Christians. Curiously, her mother claimed to have experienced religious visions for many years, which undoubtedly introduced the idea of spirit contact and mediumship to the young Hélène. She was a solitary, introverted child, prone to daydreams, where she also reported visions, mainly consisting of colourful, hypnotic landscapes that she later attributed to Martian visitation.

From the age of 13, Hélène worked in a silk shop until she discovered spiritualism in 1892 (an American admirer would later pay her a salary to work as a full time medium). She quickly joined a “development” circle, whereby attendees attempt to develop their psychic and spiritual powers through group tutoring and activities. According to others in her circle, she quickly began to show mediumistic talents, predominantly ‘moral admonitions, treatment prescriptions for the consultants, messages from deceased relatives and friends, and revelations of past lives of the participants of the séance.’[1]

As her development as a medium progressed, she supposedly began communication with Italian adventurer and magician Alessandro Cagliostro and French novelist Victor Hugo. When you begin your career with the great and good, it’s understandable that the only way to go is up. Literally.

As Hélène’s séances began to bring her fame, she was soon introduced to Théodore Flournoy, a professor of psychology and author on Spiritism and parapsychology. It was Flournoy who proposed that she use the pseudonym ‘Hélène Smith’ after his young daughter. After meeting the child, the 30-year-old medium was satisfied with her new name and took it forwards into her career, and her studies with Flournoy.

Flournoy, a contemporary of Freud, conducted long-term investigations into Hélène’s abilities which he published under the title ‘From India To The Planet Mars ’ (1899). He entered the study with a wealth of compliments for the medium, emphasising her physical appeal and mental stability as a means to credit the legitimacy of his academic interest in her claims. Had Ms Smith been rather more eccentric, the justification of his multi-year study may have been rather more difficult. Of the medium, Flournoy said ‘I found the medium…to be a beautiful woman about thirty years of age, tall, vigorous, of a fresh, healthy complexion…of an open and intelligent countenance, which at once

invoked sympathy. [She] wore an air of health, of physical and mental vigour, very, very pleasant to behold, and which., by-theway, is not often encountered in those who are good mediums.’ (Flournoy, Theodore. From India to the Planet Mars)

Throughout this study, Smith entered a trance state and channelled a number of past lives. Flournoy would later attribute these experiences to ‘cryptamnesia’, a type of subconscious plagiarism and memory bias. Flournoy later suggested that Smith should be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, and that such mediumistic trances and false memories were the result of the subconscious mind. Not spirits.

Upon entering a trance, her ‘guide’ of sorts (Leopold, a reincarnation of Cagliostro), would explain Helen’s acts to Flournoy and talk to the investigator, seemingly independent of Hélène. She would often claim to awake from these deep trances with no recollection of the events.

Hélène’s vast array of narratives was termed by Flournoy as ‘Subliminal Romances ’, which he used to denote everything from trances involving past lives, through to spirit painting and glossolalia. Cryptamnesia aside, Hélène’s past lives are staggeringly wild. Flournoy classed these lives into three cycles: the Hindu cycle, the Royal cycle and the Martian cycle. These past lives, conducted through trance and séance, began with such historical icons as Marie Antoinette. Hélène’s depictions of life at court were detailed, elaborate and mimicked Marie Antoinette’s refined behaviours with a high degree of accuracy.

Another regular in the Hindu cycle was Princess Simandini, a fifteenth-century Arab princess, married to Sivrouka, a Hindu potentate. In many of her trance sessions, she channelled the Princess’ memories, including her horrific death at her husband’s funeral pyre (committing ‘sati/suttee’). She recounted landscapes, architecture and historical customs of the time. She would also sing ‘exotic melodies, played with an imaginary monkey.’

As her trances progressed, she named Flournoy as the reincarnation of her husband and together, they strangely recreated scenes from their life together. In these scenes, Smith supposedly spoke Sanskrit and wrote in rudimentary Arabic script. While these narratives were often described as ‘fragmented’ compared to her Martian efforts, her ability to describe romantic scenes and landscapes was astounding.

But most impressively, Hélène claimed to make regular journeys to Mars. She painted elaborate Martian landscapes and claimed to speak and write the language perfectly. Hélène’s Martian cycle included verbal descriptions, writing and paintings, describing landscapes, inhabitants and experiences. She would describe her ‘flight into space’, arriving at a landscape of disembodied, long-dead inhabitants, ‘carriages gliding by, with no horses or wheels but emitting sparks’; ‘of houses with fountains on the roof’; and men and women dressed almost similarly.’[2]To accompany one Martian inhabitant was a dog-like creature with the ‘head of a cabbage’ that combined the ‘intelligence of the dog with the stupidity of the parrot’ which retrieved objects, but was also able to write, ’[3] albeit in a mechanical manner. Sadly, no handwriting example of this leafy pooch was taken. This Martian hound was described as having ‘a big green eye in the middle (like the eye of a peacock feather), and five or six pairs of paws, or ears all about’ which rather complicates the detailed requirements of Hélène’s Martian paintings. The landscapes described and painted by the medium varied enormously, but were bright and colourful places, with a ‘sky of yellow, green lake and grey shores’, but with much vegetation similar to Earth’s own.

However, Hélène’s Martian writing is some of the most interesting evidence provided in the entire Flournoy study. This strange language would come to Hélène in a variety of hallucinations, both auditory and visual, and through these visions, she would be shown how to write the alien symbols.

Her Martian language has long been studied in the field of linguistics as a form of a ‘hereditary tendency to glossolalia.’ While Helen’s native language was French, she was well versed in Hungarian, Spanish, Italian and German, with a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, English and Greek. Her Martian language, while looking truly extra-terrestrial, was dissected by Flournoy and Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and was described as being a language derived from French idiom. In short, Hélène’s Martian was like a French code, with each symbol relating to a French letter, with similar French grammatical rules.

After these French roots were discovered, Hélène then created a second, more complex Martian language, which Flournoy called part of the ‘UltraMartian Cycle’, relating to a language from a planet further away than mars. The Society for Psychical Research explains ‘The Ultra-Martian language was more complex; ultra-Martian inhabitants were more grotesque than those of Mars, which Flournoy interpreted as an unconscious response on the part of Hélène to his scepticism towards her naïve descriptions of the beauty of life on Mars.’

In Flournoy’s final work, he attributes Smith’s past lives and supernatural narratives to being ‘products of a subliminal imagination, their content based on her previous memories and experiences, incubated and creatively combined in the subliminal regions of her mind.’ Smith’s lives were very real and legitimate to her, but little more than

her mind’s own creation. Nonetheless, her Martian narratives play a fascinating and important role in the wild history of 19 th century mediumship and spirit contact.

But Hélène and Flournoy’s relationship did not end with the publication of his study. Rather, it negatively escalated. Upon publication, Hélène was incensed by the depictions of her mediumship and the suggestion of their illegitimacy. This led to a strained battle over royalties, which resulted in Flournoy conceding 50% to Hélène. While she stated that the study caused her great embarrassment and had lasting negative effects, she continued her mediumship and alien tales long afterwards, expanding her extra-terrestrial ‘romances’ to Uranus and the Moon.

As Hélène’s career progressed, she left her alien narratives behind, seeking refuge in her paintings and Christian visions. While she renounced her beliefs in her Martian and Hindu cycles, Marie Antoinette remained. Following the death of her mother, her devotion increased tenfold, and she spent much of her time painting Christ and the Virgin Mary. While these were never cited to be past lives, they appeared to provide some therapeutic effort in processing her loss.

Over time, Hélène gave fewer séances and continued her religious devotion. Through the financial support of her American financial sponsor, she could pursue her spiritual, religious painting and garner a reputation for her skills, particularly within the surrealist movement. Shortly after her death in 1929, a large retrospective of her work was exhibited at the Geneva Art museum, where her strange art was celebrated by art lovers and spiritualists alike. And, despite estrangement from Flournoy, she continued to use the pseudonym he gave her until she died.

REFERENCES:

Kate x

[1]https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/Hélènesmith#Psi_Phenomena

[2]https://scroll.in/magazine/873582/remembering-theswiss-woman-who-went-from-india-to-the-planet-mars-inthe-19th-century

[3]http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/1/i_martian.php Flournoy, Théodore. From India to the Planet Mars. 1899.

BIOGRAPHY:

Kate Cherrell is a writer, public speaker and creator of BurialsAndBeyond.com, a website exploring the stranger side of life and death. She is a specialist in 19 th century Spiritualism and has recently completed a PhD in female mediumship and the gothic. Her Patreon features new light-hearted videos, podcasts and articles every week, all relating to the paranormal, dodgy mediums, death and the occasional spectral mongoose.

ALIENS, THE DEAD AND THE ETERNAL MIND OF CREATION

Within the annuals of Ufology, we appear no nearer in truly establishing what we are up against when addressing UFOs and their seemingly illusive occupants. Therefore, those claiming such observations or varied contact with extra-terrestrials have had such a hard time within the media circuit because no proof can be brought to the table regarding their corporeality. Of course, we have the visual sightings of unknown crafts recorded within radar reports, but when it comes to the aliens themselves, we appear to draw a blank where research is concerned. However, that said, there is room for conjecture at least.

In the days of old, many folks believed that UFOs were physical crafts, along with aliens coming from another planet. Many who claimed bizarre abductions back in the day had been told by their assailants that they’d either come from Venus, or some remote star system too far away for us humans to get to. We further realise that such ridiculous assertions may have been deliberate by said aliens to conceal their real identity. Of course, UFOs must be actual, structured craft; take the Roswell UFO crash back in 1947 as an example. We are certain

that something non-terrestrial had crashed within this region of the desert but had been nothing less than a top-secret Mogul weather balloon – so secret, in fact, that the army weren’t even out looking for the supposed debris! That was all sorted by a local sheep farmer by the name of Mack Brazel. For the sake of this article, we shall leave out the particulars of this so-called crash but can nevertheless agree that an object not from this world or, indeed, dimension had somehow crashed on Earth.

which caused them to lose control of their vehicle. There may be a more sinister reason, and something we shall explore. My identical twin brother, Ronald, supports the hypothesis in his book published in early 2021 by British Ufologist, Philip Mantle through his ‘Flying Disk Press’ ‘The Digital Demon’ that something had planted these seeds in a clever attempt to accelerate our species in a monumental leap within technological advances. In his book, ‘The Day After Roswell,’ Colonel Philip J. Corso claims his involvement regarding the crash retrieval of the Roswell craft and how its material had been utilised for its unique properties. Many other great minds within Ufology have considered the same thing, but it’s important to see how this phenomenon has morphed throughout the decades, carefully concealing itself within the shadows so that it will never be discovered.

We could also take our hypothesis one step closer in presuming that the army’s radar equipment had deliberately downed the said UFO through electrical interference, or that the beings onboard known as the Greys had been joyriding while knocking back a few Zeta Reticuli Budweiser’s

We know, however, that UFOs, now labelled UAPs exist, (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) – period! The change within its acronym has merely tried to make this singularity more scientific within its approach, steering away from the classic ‘Flying Saucer’ hypothesis to sway more in lines of some natural phenomenon, but many are not fooled.

“Seems odd, don’t you think, that an object which should have defied all forms of hazardous space travel, (let alone interdimensional voyage) had been grounded by, of all things, lightening, as it is supposed.”

The facts of the matter are clearcut.

We still do not know what these objects are or where they come from. What’s worse is the fact that interaction with so-called aliens appears to happen on an altogether different level of reality. Many who witness the appearance of a UFO occasionally find themselves at the mercy of abhorred beings commonly referred to as Greys. These small, diminutive, bulbous headed, large black-eyed critters most famous within Ufology are top of the list where such intrusive kidnappings are concerned. Are such beings real? Or are they merely the product of an overstretched imagination, contaminated no less by the media machine? My understanding is that such beings are real, yet they are not the authentic McCoy, so-to-speak.

This question has forced many researchers to think outside the box – completely. Gone now are the days where many believed in the tales from so-called ‘Contactees’ or ‘Abductees’ that their alien friends had come from Venus which, they had been convinced, harboured lush vegetation, along with clear, blue skies. We know that within our physical reality this is impossible and raises the argument not so much against the person reporting what had been imparted to them, but by the apparent deceitful nature the Greys administer regarding such information.

Where are the aliens? Why haven’t they made their appearance to the world? And forget those claims that we’re dealing with some type of ‘Galactic Federation’ somewhere within the far reaches of space, forbidding any form of contact with us humans. If this is the case, the Greys have broken that code already, (or at least a faction of them, anyway!) and clearly show no signs of revealing themselves any time soon. The phenomenon gets even muddier when we discover that certain individuals are being abducted every night of the week or travelling through the astral planes with the Greys and administering love-and-light across the world. To my mind, such Greys appear to be deceitful in nature and have not helped our species in the least. If they had such concerns for us on Earth, where is the evidence that they’ve helped us solve all our problems?

OK, so I get that many will have their own opinions – something you’re not allowed to have these days, but we’ve got to face

“So, what’s going on? And why is it that those who experience such frightening beings can bring no proof to the table where evidence is concerned?”

“Where are the aliens? Why haven’t they made their appearance to the world?”

the facts and turn the subject around and into uncomfortable territory indeed. What if we are all being deceived or, at the very least, misinformed by such intelligence which by design appears to have its own agenda? Seriously, can you say that any form of contact has been beneficial in the long run?

All manner of explanations has been considered in trying to ascertain what the phenomenon ultimately characterises, and continues to do so, yet we are duped every time as researchers delve deeper down the rabbit hole. There are many within the UFO fraternity who refuse to sway from their beliefs, (and of which they are entitled) but what if we have been ultimately wrong about the phenomenon all along? The human psyche has shaped this marvel into a very physical and, ultimately, stereotypical franchise which has stuck within the imagination of all those who behold this singularity, yet the phenomenon appears to lie outside our very own time/space parameters.

In many cases, the appearance of a UFO at close range heralds a slight shift within its environmental radius. People report sounds being muffled, time being displaced and, in rare instances if there are multiple witnesses, differences of opinion as to what is being observed.

nothing less than a mere misunderstanding and cultural mishap on our behalf. Perhaps certain, secret organisations within the military elite know some truths surrounding this most perplexing paradox and are unwilling to address the more chilling aspects in the event of public panic. This certainly appears to be the case, seeing as numerous investigations by the Army and Air Force have somehow appeased the excitement through ‘denial’ in their reports within varied UFO studies in the past.

The media will quite happily promote any ridiculous assertions made by varied ‘Contactees/Experiencers/Abductees’ who’ve been on some wild journey with grey aliens around the cosmos to, perhaps, conceal a more startling truth. Within this multi-faceted enigma, one wonders how on earth any serious investigator can make sense of what is really going on. And, perhaps, it is precisely for this reason that such alternate forces secrete themselves within the shadows, where no physical proof of their existence can be ascertained. Most photographic/film footage of purported said ‘aliens’ are suspect in the extreme, and seriously damages credibility within the subject.

UFOs rarely stay for long durations of time within Earth’s airspace, and this is curious indeed. Things get even more bizarre when an ‘alien abduction’ occurs, and this heralds the onslaught of what I believe to be full-on integration between the aliens and the Abductee/Experiencer on a deep level of psychic integration. Certainly, the appearance of a UFO can alter variations within its environment, but an abduction sees to a complete countermand of human conscious perception. This heralds the manifestation of the ‘Visitors’ who, themselves, appear to defy the natural laws of Earth’s physics. Within many accounts, the most famous of these spectres are known as ‘Greys’ which have the ability in transporting themselves through physical matter and bring their subject into a timeless state whereby communication via telepathy is encountered. As argued within my previous works, (and as far back as 1996 in an article for ‘Alien Encounters’ magazine, issue 3, September, entitled: ‘Spirits in a Material World’) I am certain the way we’ve been sold the story within Hollywood and other media outlets is

One of the key components which occurs within any UFO researcher’s work is the way their opinions changes over time, much like the phenomenon itself. An acceleration within our thinking appears to give rise to a morphing of this singularity, and one cannot help but wonder whether this ‘force’ attaches itself to those who have been touched by its shadow. Indeed, there are indications that this is very much the case. Take ‘Skinwalker Ranch’ in Utah, USA as an example, and one of the most famous UFO hotspots in the world. The flurry of UFO/ paranormal activity appears to have hitchhiked with key members of the scientific team sent there to try and solve the puzzle of strange occurrences.

illionaire, Robert Bigelow previously owned the ranch and had created NIDS, (National Institute for Discovery Science) to determine why ‘Skinwalker’ was a hotspot for UFO/paranormal activity. Disturbingly, Bigelow abandoned the project and has only recently begun to talk about the ‘Hitchhiker’ connections which he and his team underwent. The phenomenon appeared to be following them when going their separate ways, and even when hundreds of miles of part from each other and away from the ranch itself! The complex is now owned by real-estate genius, Brandon Fugal who is working with his team of experts in at least trying to fathom out where this intrepid force is emanating from within the area, and something which, surprisingly, appears to be ancient, along with trying to harness this seemingly alien technology.

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“My understanding is that when a UFO enters our reality, the craft itself is enmeshing us within its realm.”

Picture: Philip kinsella

We must also consider individuals who experience an NDE, (Near Death Experience) who speak of entering a world more real than the one they left behind. In nearly all cases, time ceases and the NDEer is met by loved-ones whom they had known in their physical life and themselves have crossed-over, or light-beings which converse through the mind. It appears that the alien ‘abduction’ phenomenon works very much in tandem along this premise, yet the NDE is a natural separation of soul/consciousness, whereby the abduction appears to be ‘forced’ by the Greys themselves. Invariably, the NDEer will view life with more empathy and harbour new gifts which had once lay dormant, such as clairvoyance, healing, or a creative development within the arts along with a greater understanding of humility.

It is fair to say that an abduction, (however terrifying) usually promotes much the same experience as someone undergoing an NDE, (although in many cases, these occur on a more benevolent level of interaction) since an awakening of the mind appears to have been activated through these traumatic/ life-changing events, along with human consciousness being affected by the temporary extraction through or within these alternate spheres of reality, wherever they may be. Once someone has had a profound encounter with the supernatural, it appears that person is hooked, like some junkie, digging deeper into the phenomenon.

multiple levels. Interestingly, mediums also see different coloured lights around clients they are reading for, but much smaller in scale than those of UFOs. Although there can be no proof to the claims that such orbs seen by clairvoyance are the actual energy from the souls of the dead coming through to them from their dimension, it seems puzzling that such luminosity mirrors the UFO activity, and vice versa, along with a plethora of poltergeist activity and other strange commotion which is thought to be residue left by such forces when entering our realm.

So, are we dealing with one phenomenon which operates on multiple levels of reality, or separate categories of paranormal activity altogether?

vital if we are to summarise these declarations. This seriously begs the question as to why we have very little in the way of proof and left scratching our heads surrounding these truly perplexing and multi-faceted experiences continuously being reported the world over. Although it’s enough to give any researcher a headache, the reality is that we are dealing with forces beyond this physical matrix.

Taking another example, UFOs are usually luminous in nature, and come in a variety of colours. These illuminations are frequently large in nature and appear to overpower and mesmerise their intended human target. Interestingly, at Skinwalker ranch the blue and red orbs under observation give off a feeling of trepidation. They emerge from nowhere and disappear in much the same way. Such light-activity is also thought to be responsible for the many cattle mutilations reported by ranchers world-wide, along with the emergence of interdimensional beings materialising amid portals which have been witnessed on

This cannot be ascertained now, but like bestselling horror writer, Stephen King’s fiction book ‘IT,’ perhaps there are some forces which mimic quite natural occurrences, and things we would consider supernatural. Is this the method alien’s employee to hide behind the curtain of reality, one wonders? Each topic within the realms of the ‘supernatural’ has been divided as separate entities altogether, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why we have made little in the way of progress in ascertaining the facts as they stand. We must also consider those within the religious sects who are adamant that we are dealing with demons from hell, and that no further examination on their part is needed to prove this analogy. Yet, study is

Perhaps such phenomenon’s emergence into our world requires a complete shift in vibration their end so that interaction is then possible. In this way, they are matched by density, and perhaps for only short bursts at a time. This may also explain why an alien abduction reenacts like a dream, because the abductee is brought completely into their side of reality, rather like an NDE. The soul of the individual, (the pure and real essence of what we are as humans represent) may be temporarily extracted from its physical housing before its return.

This may also be an indication as to why ‘abductees’ find it difficult to recall their

As British UFO/ Paranormal researcher, Paul Sinclair states: ‘Once you become aware of IT, IT becomes aware of you!’

“Anything which is performed to the astral body will invariably still affect its physical counterpart, because both are still attached within this space and time on Earth.”

PICTURE CREDIT: TUMISU, PIXABAY

“We must also consider those within the religious sects who are adamant that we are dealing with demons from hell, and that no further examination on their part is needed to prove this analogy.”

experience; namely because

cognizance has been temporarily removed from its normal flow of time.

My understanding of incarnation and reincarnation makes complete sense, because a soul will decide to experience a multitude of proficiencies throughout its apparent immortal existence. Does this, then, tell us something about the Greys and what they really represent?

Using your mobile phone as an example, the hardware serves only as a point in time to decipher signals operating on higher frequencies of awareness. Your senses cannot detect them. If we were functioning on an advanced intensity of sensory input, we would be able to see more than the narrow band of light afforded us within the infrared spectrum. If it was possible for us to detect these higher states, it is conceivable that we would see UFOs, aliens, and Cryptids all around us, although still appearing as ghost-forms because of our differences in energetic composition. Such intelligences far beyond our scope of understanding ‘knows’ how to bridge this gap which we, ourselves, have yet to discover. And,

on top of this, I also consider that we are each connected on a spiritual level to the Godhead of infinite knowledge, like conduits coupled to a central hub. We consider ourselves as ‘human,’ but in essence we are much more than mere flesh and blood creatures with a sell-by date. Our understanding of consciousness in the future may afford us a larger picture of what we may be experiencing, along with our purpose. The human brain operates merely as an infusion of data from the central pool of all that is, and all that has been experienced from past, present and future, in much the same way as your mobile phone along with its operating network system, but which functions within an infusion of biological and conscious awareness.

It is clear to see that we are the composite of these two elements, and while linked within this physical dimension, we are at the mercy of those forces that obviously work on entirely different parameters.

The brain as the receiver opens and closes doors to the infinite mind which we are all connected to. As individuals, we are moulded by our beliefs, and this in turn can shape who we are, along with our journey. When elements of the paranormal connect with someone, their perspective on life, the universe and everything else is suddenly challenged. There is an urgency and need to explore those realms we are told by a system which governs us simply do not exist. Is this something that is executed deliberately? Is there a part of our higher selves reminding us that Earth, along with all life, is not the end, as once alleged?

Considering the hypothesis of superstring theory in quantum physics, perhaps certain intelligences behind the phenomenon is ‘in-forming’ us after it has been ‘formed’ from its primordial state of ‘becoming’ that we are part of a much greater plan, and that the simple

and programmed model of belief fed into each of us by the elite is nothing less than a mere fallacy. It is generally known within certain scientific circles that creation is hidden deep within the labyrinth of quantum physics, and that everything we know to be real is sending data into this physical dimension we exist in, where life is evolving as order, and not chaos. Quantum entanglement also teaches us that when two particles, such as a pair of photons or electrons become entangled, they remain connected, even at vast distances. And under observation, the dual-wave particles seem to contradict the very foundation of reality, since the elements appear to be affected under observation.

ur consciousness, it would suggest, can alter events beyond our current time/space existence. It is believed that within its primordial state, such atoms are forever in a condition of ‘potential.’ This is called ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ by scientist, Albert Einstein. More research into the sub-structure of time, space, matter, and quantum theory will, undoubtedly, reveal a greater truth, and one we are only just getting our head’s around.

Our ‘enslaved’ consciousness which has been continually programmed within a limited version of what we humans and all life represents throughout the epochs is rebelling. Perhaps such phenomenon is helping us in this respect, taking us away from the cycles of chaos and bringing us in line with a new reality previously denied us. We may not be able to touch this singularity, but its profound emergence suggests that changes are on the way, and something those who have governed with such mental subjugation are helpless to stop.

This is your journey, your reality. Embrace those changes within yourself. This singularity which operates on multiple levels of truth may be translating itself through the consciousness of the individual to transmute the very fabric of their immortal soul.

It may surprise us to know that, perhaps, we are the phenomenon!

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“Are we, then, creating the phenomenon? Or is the phenomenon shaping us?”

THE METAPHYSICAL MUSINGS OF ALEX MATSUO

The paranormal community and investigation field is all over the place. While it’s a place where people are seeking answers to mysterious reports and a place where people find a sense of belonging, it’s far from perfect. There is a lot going on in the paranormal, yet there are certain points that seem to remain consistent. For example, caring about certain things that really don’t make any positive contribution to the community and field. Here are eighteen things that paranormal investigators should stop making a big deal about.

Egos

This seems to be an ongoing problem in the field that continues to get worse. You would think there would be more openness on the Island of Misfit Toys. What’s more, the things that drive people’s egos are ridiculous things like, “We’re on YouTube.” Yes, so are millions of other people. Or “I’ve been on TV.” Great, so have a bunch of other people. It’s one thing to have confidence in yourself and the work that you do. But when people start ostracizing, excluding, and being hurtful to others because they’re “too good” for us regular folk…because they’re on YouTube, they’re “young”, or they’re “going places”, then that becomes problematic.

Before I first drafted this piece, I was sent this video of a gentleman named Bud Steed who was basically told he couldn’t investigate with two teams because he was too old, and no one ever heard of him even though he had been in the field for so many years. I’m sorry, what? That’s ridiculous. YouTube doesn’t make you an instant celebrity, nor does age have ANYTHING to do with skills in the paranormal. Not everyone is trying to gain notoriety or celebrity status in this field. If I meet someone with decades more experience than me, heck yeah, come sit at the table and let me pick your brain while I buy you a cup of coffee!

Social Media Following

Influencers will tell you that social media following doesn’t mean ANYTHING anymore. It doesn’t mean you’re popular. Likes and follows can be bought these days, and you can tell when a page or profile does this. If you’re going to pay to grow your social media following, put money into Facebook and Instagram ads. The likes and follows you get from that will be genuine followers who will respond to your content. If a page has 300K likes and followers, but they only have an engagement of a few dozen; they bought their likes.

with modules? Also, a place for that learning model to live can cost hundreds of dollars per year. It takes time. If you don’t want to take the class, then don’t. But don’t demand that the instructor offers their expertise for free for the sake of “anyone can learn.” Go find someone offering their expertise for free. They’re out there. Yes, anyone can learn for free. If someone wants to pay for a class, it’s fine. Keep scrolling and move on.

Getting on a TV Show

ONLINE CLASSES

Man, when someone is offering an online paranormal class for a price, people lose their minds. Words like “scammer”, “someone trying to make easy money”, and “fraud” start coming out. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with online classes. They can be useful. Now, if they’re offering a certification, then I raise an eyebrow. If it’s a more reputable group like the Rhine offering a certification, I pay attention. As someone who develops courses and eLearning as their day job, do y’all know how long it takes to make a course? Let alone a full out class

This sort of hits on my first point. This drives me nuts. Why? Getting on a TV show isn’t the end-all, be-all in this field. I see folks get almost rabid if a new face gets on a TV show. Their experience is questioned, people wonder if they’re professional. Then there’s all this complaining about how there are people who have been in the field for decades who deserve their own show. Okay, here’s the deal; paranormal reality TV isn’t marketed to seasoned paranormal investigators. It’s marketed towards regular people who have no idea what the ghost hunting world is about. Personally, a lot of the shows I prefer to watch are on YouTube and Amazon Prime, and other more independent platforms. But do you know what this means?

You can create your own paranormal show! Don’t wait for the mainstream networks to make you an offer.

PARA UNITY

Don’t get me wrong, we should all treat each other with decency and respect. But I’ve noticed that the people who yell, “Para unity!” the loudest are often the ones who treat others poorly.

CCTV VIDEO

I’ve been seeing CCTV as the “end all be all” factor for paranormal evidence, and honestly, it’s not. It’s faulty. It lags, it freezes, and it makes things like raccoons look like demonic gnomes. Plus, CCTV footage can easily be manipulated. Unless I have a personal tie with that CCTV security system (it’s mine), and I can track what was captured and it’s hard to take anything on the internet at face value. I’m seeing more and more paranormal compilation videos on YouTube that are obviously fabricated, and it’s disappointing.

They steal material, gossip, put people on blast for no reason, and constantly air their drama. I’ve been asked to do some pretty awful things for the sake of “para unity.” Truth be told, I don’t believe we should be rewarding good behavior that we should already be doing as decent human beings. Don’t be a jerk. That means you shouldn’t steal other people’s images or videos. It’s not fair to keep building your platform on the hard work of others and give credit where credit is due.

DIFFERING OPINIONS

I know some will fight me tooth and nail on this, so I’m probably preaching to the choir since my regular readers align with the same thoughts as me. This is my opinion, and if you disagree, I promise I don’t hate you. Confession: I was a photographer before I considered myself a paranormal investigator. I knew what orbs were before I realized people called them ghosts and spirits in the paranormal community. Orbs are actually covered in a lot of manuals for cameras.

Okay, I will out myself and admit that this is something I’m still working on. If someone disagrees with you, or doesn’t think that your evidence is showing a ghost, it doesn’t mean they’re attacking you. They won’t think any less of you unless you start personally attacking them. I’ve seen people put others on full blast and start doxing their personal lives because they disagreed about an orb in a video. There is a lot of ego in this field to the point where folks are causing harm and heartache to others. It needs to stop.

ACRONYMS

Acronyms were cool back in the early 2000s, maybe in the 2010s. But acronyms are kind of old now. Plus, I’ve seen some really weird team names for the sake of spelling out G.H.O.S.T. or P.A.R.A.N.O.R.M.A.L or S.P.I.R.I.T. It gets confusing too, and it can be hard to brand that. Do you know how many GHOST teams there are with that acronym? A lot. Too many to count.

"If someone disagrees with you, or doesn’t think that your evidence is showing a ghost, it doesn't mean they’re attacking you."

ALEX MATSUO

It’s dust, moisture, bugs, dander, basically explainable. Yes, dust can look like it’s going through walls if it’s going in and out of focus. Bugs can look like angels or fairies on camera. Yes, you can see faces in orbs thanks to the pareidolia effect. Does this mean I don’t believe in orbs? No. Another confession: I’ve seen orbs I couldn’t explain. But I saw them with my naked eye. They emitted their own light. And they didn’t float the same way as dust. Orbs in photos and videos don’t emit their own light, they’re reflecting light. That’s a big difference.

APPS

Not all ghost hunting apps are created equal. I suggest that you research apps before downloading them. Anything that’s sold as a “ghost radar” or “ghost detector”, you should look for something else. Some of the better ghost apps include EchoVox, which is an ITC tool. Personally, for me, I’m hesitant to use any apps since our phones aren’t equipped to detect and gauge the environment. Also, any app that lets you insert a photo of a ghost is a big NO.

DEMONS

Not everything is a demon. Sometimes it’s a really negative human spirit. Other times, it’s elemental. Sometimes it’s nothing at all. It’s interesting how those who don’t believe in demons don’t seem to have an issue with them. It’s all about mindset and what energy you’re putting out there.

them too. If they want to join the paranormal bandwagon, let them! The more the merrier. There is a lot of gatekeeping in the field, questioning experience and professionalism. It needs to stop. Especially when someone who isn’t famous shares similar life experiences as a celebrity, and they see their lifestyle and choices under attack as a reason to not be in the community.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

SKEPTICS

For some members of the paranormal community, skeptics are probably more terrifying than demons. The paranormal community needs to stop the mindset that skeptics are bad. They aren’t. They’re fantastic. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some skeptics out there who are total jerks. But that doesn’t mean that all skeptics are that way. There are many fantastic ones out there who are just as curious about the paranormal as the rest of us, and often, they are looking to have that experience. The difference is that skeptics are hardcore critical thinkers and need something more solid. They hold the paranormal community accountable, and they are a valued asset to the community.

RELIGION

There is more than one religion in the paranormal field, and they all bring something of value to the table. To me, all religions are valid because it goes back to intention and mindset. I’ve seen cleansings and blessings tied with other religions that were just as effective as Christian methods. As I mentioned in the point about demons, it goes back to your intentions and your convictions. If you’re certain that a Christian method will work, it will.

OUIJA BOARDS

I don’t understand the hate against Ouija boards. Yes, I know people associate them with demons. Yes, people have had negative experiences with it, but people have had negative experiences in other areas of their life that they keep going back to. Furthermore, I don’t understand the venom that comes from people who speak out against the Ouija board. We’re talking personal insults, and even lowkey paranormal drama. Do these folks not understand that their hatred of the board and attacking others is just as negative and evil as the Ouija board (or so they think)?

CELEBRITIES JOINING THE FIELD

This is something I’ve always been fascinated with, especially after it was revealed that Stormy Daniels was working on her own ghost hunting show. So many people have had paranormal experiences, and it should be no surprise that celebrities have had

I love Facebook groups. They are such a wonderful way to connect with other likeminded people. I can share my content and have amazing conversations with folks and get awesome perspectives. But each Facebook group is like its own little universe, and some people think they’re gods in little ponds. There are millions of paranormal Facebook groups out there, and there should be a shift in focus to cultivating the community instead of trying to constantly grow numbers, competing for admin/mod status, and booting people over disagreements. It’s just Facebook, y’all.

IDOL WORSHIP OF PARANORMAL REALITY SHOW CELEBRITIES

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen me go toe-to-toe with a few public figures who are on popular paranormal reality shows. From these interactions, and my previous experience from working for a major paranormal celeb for a few years, they are truly in their own bubble. They are incredibly unaware of what’s actually happening not only in the paranormal community, but also in the field of paranormal research. They’re working from a script and a storyboard. These celebrities aren’t looking into the trends of paranormal research, let alone networking.

They aren’t following the more scientific organizations like the Rhine Research Center, or the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). They have truly created their own “paranormal lore” within their TV programming, and heaven forbid you ask questions or have a concern about what they did on TV. Maybe it’s time to treat them like how the medical field treats “TV show doctors” and stop putting them on a pedestal as self-proclaimed experts?

AWARDS

There are awards organizations for almost every facet in our world. Knitting, acting, singing, cat grooming, writing, etc. Awards are a thing. They start from people wanting to recognize their peers for the work they’ve done. Yet, when “paranormal awards” are mentioned, so many in the community lose their minds. I can agree that the oversaturation of paranormal awards is slightly grating, if someone wants to do something for their friends, who cares? Acknowledging someone else’s work doesn’t diminish your value. I’ve never understood what was so upsetting about getting recognized by your peers.

People who complain about paranormal awards are just as, if not more, annoying as the awards themselves. Plus, it’s hurtful. Especially when someone who is relatively unknown gets nominated, and they’re ecstatic. Then they see their peers diminishing the value of their award nomination, it stings. This doesn’t create community.

While we can’t prove ghosts exist, there is a level of skill involved in the areas surrounding it. Whether it be blogging, podcasting, video, writing books, documenting, methodologies that resonate with others, educating, etc. That is something measurable. For content creators, it’s an audience. You don’t build an audience without putting in the work and creating meaningful content that resonates with people.

I’ve noticed that the people who complain usually haven’t done much in the field besides socializing on social media and are unaware of just how much work the field can require if you’re looking to make an impact, let alone make some sort of difference in how we approach investigating and spirit communication.

Could awards get some fine tuning on how they name their categories? Absolutely. Using the word “Best” is pretty controversial. Can we scrap that word?

I think we do need a way to officially acknowledge people who are making strides in the field. It will bring awareness to their work and inspire others to do the same. I’ve found new people to follow because of awards. We have to start pushing the envelope in this field.

This whole “everyone’s the same” is nonsense rhetoric perpetuated by people who are only doing this to expand their social life and make as many friends as they can instead of actually putting in any impactful work. That’s not a bad reason to be in this field, but don’t drag down the people who are putting their boots to the ground.

EXPERTS IN THE PARANORMAL

There are few people in this community that I would consider an expert of the paranormal. Loyd Auerbach is one of them. But other than that, I believe there are no experts of

the paranormal. But there are experts in the paranormal. Allow me to explain.

There are experts in photography, audio, videography, cultural folklore, psychology, etc. These people are part of the paranormal field and are offering their expertise. Yet, they are often (and quickly) dismissed because “no one is an expert” in the paranormal. People who use this excuse have no desire to move the field forward and are just happy with their dust orbs in their photos and videos. But there are so many of this type of person in the community that paranormal research is becoming stagnant. Television shows aren’t utilizing these experts because they couldn’t use dust as demonic plot devices anymore.

So yes, there are experts in a variety of areas in the paranormal. We need to start listening to them.

Alex

Alex Matsuo is a paranormal researcher and investigator based in the Washington DC area. She is the founder of the Association of Paranormal Study and runs the blog and YouTube channel, “ The Spooky Stuff.” Alex has been featured in the TV shows “ Haunted Hospitals ” and “ Most Terrifying Places in America.” In addition, she has written several books about the paranormal. You can follow Alex on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @thespookystuff.

IN SALEM

By Sam Baltrusis

It’s October 2019 in Salem, Massachusetts and as I manoeuvred through the crowds of weekend witches and Haunted Happenings shenanigans, I had one lingering question that has haunted me over the past decade giving historicalbased walking tours in the Witch City.

Is Salem cursed?

If it’s true that “what goes around comes around,” the North Shore seaport has endured more than three hundred years of torturous penance. There seems to be a lingering negativity associated with the city’s Puritan forefathers that continues to stain the city. “If you look at Salem’s history, it has an amazing tradition of bad karma,” historian Tim Maguire told me when I first started giving tours years ago. “The wealthy of Salem made their blood money as privateers during the Revolution. Our history is tarnished with bad events and bad karma. I feel like the energy here is more negative than it is in other places. The witches in Salem call it the spirit of place.” When it comes to curses, a bulk of Salem’s bad mojo can be traced back to 1692. There are two famous legends linked to the witch trials era that continue to haunt the city. First, there are the words supposedly uttered by Giles Corey before he was

crushed to death. Before taking his last breath, he told the sadistic sheriff George Corwin, “I curse you and Salem.”

According to lore, Corey’s spirit appears when tragedy is about to strike. In fact, several people claimed that the “old wizard,” words used by author Nathaniel Hawthorne, appeared to several locals right before the great Salem fire of 1914.

Then there is the famous hex unleashed by Sarah Good, a pipe-smoking vagabond who was executed as a witch on July 19, 1692. The object of her scorn? Reverend Nicholas Noyes. He was the assistant minister at First Church and lived on Washington Street just opposite Bridget Bishop’s house. Noyes was actively involved in the prosecution of many of the alleged witches and is known for calling the eight innocent victims dangling at Proctor’s Ledge as the “eight firebrands of hell.”

According to accounts, Reverend Noyes demanded a confession from Good and she reportedly called him a liar. “I am no more a witch than you are a wizard,” she said. “And if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.” Good had no way of knowing at the time that her words would come true, but ironically, Noyes did suffer from an aneurysm that caused blood to pour into his throat and out of his mouth. He literally choked to death on his own blood twenty-five years after Good was executed.

“The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

“If you look at Salem's history, it has an amazing tradition of bad karma”

OLD TOWN HALL

PROCTOR’S LEDGE OF SARAH GOODBRIDGET BISHOP MEMORIAL

JOSHUA WARD HOUSE - THE MERCHANT

Salem-bred Hawthorne alluded to Good’s curse in his classic The House of the Seven Gables. In the book, witch trials character Matthew Maule curses his accuser, Colonel Pyncheon. Although historical record suggested that Good spewed her last words at Noyes, Hawthorne believed the venom was directed at his great-greatgrandfather Magistrate John Hathorne.

As far as cursed locales, one Salem haunt had a ringside seat to the horrors of the witch dungeon, and many people suspect the structure contains residual energy, or a psychic imprint, from the era. Built in 1684, the John Ward House was moved to its present site behind the Gardner-Pingree House in 1910 and was later restored by the Essex Institute. Considered a highly active paranormal site by local investigators, the Colonial-style dwelling originally faced Prison Lane, currently called St. Peter Street, and was a stone’s throw from the Giles Corey execution site. It stood literally across the street from the Witch Gaol.

Some believe those accused of witchcraft were taken to the wood-frame-andclapboard structure to be stripped and searched for “witchery marks” or skin anomalies like warts or moles before being tortured emotionally and physically with needles and a bevy of seventeenth-century torture devices. For the record, family members of those accused were tortured as well. John Proctor, while waiting to be executed, talked about the interrogation of Martha Carrier’s sons, who “would not confess anything till they tied them neck and heels and the blood was ready to come out of their noses,” Proctor wrote.

While local taverns were mainly used for interrogations, some historians believe the Ward house served as a holding cell of sorts because of its proximity to the witch dungeon. As far as paranormal activity, employees of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) who use the historic house for storage claim to hear disembodied screams from the past, perhaps from the victims allegedly tortured there. Investigators and visitors have snapped photos through the windows of full-bodied apparitions of what appear to be frightened spirits begging for help.

Can someone actually curse the entire city of Salem?

For Peter Muise, author of Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts and founder of the blog New England Folklore, it’s not an open-and-shut case.

“There’s something weirdly ambiguous about a witch’s curse,” he told me. “Most often the curses are called down on the people who have harmed the witch and are a form of posthumous justice. The alleged witch is usually innocent of the crimes they are accused of, which is why the curse is effective after their death. But if the witch is really innocent of witchcraft, how are they capable of casting a curse? It’s unclear.”

As New England’s folklore expert, Muise believes that stories involving witchcraft mysteriously tap into our subconscious fears.

“It could be that you›re afraid of the evil witch who is in league with Satan,” he said, “or you›re afraid of the self-righteous witch hunters or you›re afraid of the witch›s curse. Witchcraft stories are just uncanny.”

While the curses associated with the Salem witch hysteria have passed down through generations as cautionary tales, Muise isn’t convinced that the Witch City is actually hexed.

PHOTO OF SAM BALTRUSIS BY FRANK C. GRACETRIG PHOTOGRAPHY

PROCTOR’S LEDGE

“Those are very specific curses, and personally, I don›t think the entire city of Salem is cursed,” he said. “Salem has done a good job acknowledging what happened in 1692. The city celebrates witches in a variety of ways, whether it’s memorializing the innocents who were executed or welcoming modern Wiccans.”

Muise strongly believes that Salem has a history of remembering the mistakes from its witch-hunting past. “In 1811, a young woman from Boston moved to Salem and began to have fits,” he explained. “She claimed the fits were being caused by a witch, but Salem’s leaders weren›t buying her story. They told her she could either leave town or go to the workhouse. She fled to Maine. And in 1878, a woman accused a local Christian Science practitioner of bewitching her. The trial was heard in Salem courthouse, and the presiding judge dismissed it. He didn›t want another witch trial in Salem.”

When it comes to the history of cursed cities in the region, Muise said the Witch City isn’t alone. The author rattled off a list of tall-tale curses unleashed by so-called witches throughout New England. “A village in North Pepperell, Massachusetts was supposedly cursed by a Quaker woman who the villagers accused of witchcraft. The village›s river dried up, its children sickened and died, and eventually the entire settlement was abandoned,” he said. “In Bucksport, Maine, a boot mark on the grave of Colonel Jonathan Buck is explained as being caused by a dying witch’s curse, while folklore from Plymouth mentions a witch named Aunt Rachel, who cursed the men who killed her family with her dying breath.”

If there isn’t an indelible hex on Salem, then why have I had so many bizarre personal experiences in the Witch City? As I was navigating through the crowds of costumed party goers on Essex Street, I had an epiphany: Am I cursed?

Over the years, the tenor of my walking tours in Salem have turned progressively dark. I’ve been pushed, scratched and stalked by the ghosts of the Witch City. Back in 2016, I managed to pick up a murderous entity attachment and the incident was featured on the Travel Channel’s A Haunting

I started to notice a recurring theme with the spirits that I’ve encountered along the way. A few of the innocent victims from Salem’s dark past were reaching out to me.

And they’ve been dead for more than three centuries.

My first encounter with a negative entity in Salem was outside of the once vacant Joshua Ward House. I felt a warm sensation on my chest one night in September 2012 while I was giving a ghost tour. It felt like a spider bite. However, I wasn’t prepared for the bitter truth. After the tour, I lifted up my shirt and noticed three cat-like scratch marks on my chest. In the paranormal world, this is called the “mark of untrinity” and it’s said to signify the touch of a negative entity. I was terrified.

After the incident, I refused to get too close to the haunted and potentially dangerous structure. The Joshua Ward House at 148 Washington Street was purchased in 2015 by Lark Hotels and was transformed into a boutique hotel. Renamed “The Merchant,” the posh overnight haunt celebrates Salem’s rich maritime past.

For several years, the Witch City’s ghosts took a break. No contact. But the hiatus didn’t last for long.

In 2018 when I was doing some lastminute research for my second book on Salem, I felt compelled to visit the recently discovered hanging site of the nineteen innocent men and women executed during the witch hysteria. It was two days after the anniversary of Rebecca Nurse’s hanging which was July 21, 1692.

While I was taking photos of the memorial at Proctor’s Ledge, a woman holding a bag came up to me and asked: “So, what is this all about? What happened here?“

Her complexion was ruddy, almost as if she was weathered by the sun and the harsh elements of New England. If I had to guess, she was either homeless or a transient carrying all of her belongings in the bag hanging over her shoulder. The woman was young, in her late thirties, but appeared much older.

She reminded me of a modern-day version of Sarah Good. The town beggar woman was thirty-eight when she was hanged at Proctor’s Ledge. She was also the first to be interrogated for witchcraft during the trials and, on the day of my visit in July 2018, it was Good’s birthday.

I told the mystery woman that it›s Proctor›s Ledge, the location where nineteen innocent men and women were hanged for witchcraft more than three hundred years ago. She looked at me, sort of shocked. “I never heard of such a thing,“ she responded, adding that she’s from up North and doesn’t know much about the area.

I was taken aback, surprised that she has never heard of the Salem Witch Trials. Then I asked for her name. “Sarah,“ she said as I was pointing to the rocky crevices showing her where the victims were likely dumped into a shallow grave. Beneath my feet was a message carved in stone, “we remember.”

I looked behind me to respond to the woman and she was gone. Vanished. Into thin air.

THE JOHN WARD HOUSE

n April 2019, I returned to Witch City to work for Salem Historical Tours. I met with the tour owner, Giovanni Alabiso, and he said that a shadow figure was spotted in the office. In fact, he said a voice asked, “when is he coming back?” and he automatically assumed that it somehow was related to me because of my reputation as the Witch City’s ghost guy.

As the weeks progressed, I was under attack. A paper weight hurled off the shelf toward me one afternoon. My co-workers were shocked. Multiple tour guides reported seeing a black mist followed by a shadow figure wearing a hat in the office. “I heard something tonight and it sounded like it was behind me but that would be the wall,” Alabiso told me. “It sounded like a scraping noise. It wasn’t me. I like the idea that the place has history and spirits, but it seems like this is becoming problematic.”

The last straw for me was when I heard footsteps walk up the stairs leading to the office on Central Street. When I looked down near the front-entrance door, I saw that same shadow figure with the hat leering beneath the stairs. The activity was intensifying, and I couldn’t make it stop.

At this point, I felt like I was being stalked. The following week I decided to take a break. The short-term goal was to stop giving ghost tours until I figured out why I was being pushed out of Salem by this inhuman entity.

Then I received a phone call that literally turned my world upside down.

While I was publicly writing about the ghosts associated with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, my mother in Florida was secretly navigating the complexities of the genealogy of my family’s maternal side using Ancestry.com. It was the day after I launched my second book on the Witch City called Wicked Salem when my mother dropped the bombshell.

“It looks like our ancestors had something to do with burning those witches,“ she told me with her thick Southern accent. I kindly corrected her. “Mom, they were hanged, not burned. But what did you find?“

My heart dropped when she started to rattle off names over the phone that I knew all too well. I’m a descendant of the Newport, Rhode Island branch of the Gould family who migrated to the New World in the 1600s. At first, I thought we were in the clear. However, there was one Gould who played a pivotal role in the horrors that unfolded in Salem Village in 1692. My Puritan yeoman grandfather ten-times removed had a sister, Priscilla Gould, who married John Putnam in 1611. If you know anything about the witch trials hysteria, you know the name: Putnam. My Salem secret is that I’m related to both the Putnam and Gould families who owned land in two cities, Danvers and Topsfield, located in what was then called Salem Village in Massachusetts.

Who were the primary suspects responsible for the deadliest witch hunt in American history? People who go on my walking tours or hear me lecture know my opinion. Yep, my Putnam cousins were responsible. They did it. And their land is stained with the blood of twenty innocent people. Salty tears started to flow down my cheeks. My paranormal journey over the past decade—the scratches, the strange visitations, and ultimately the face-to-face encounter with an entity wearing a hat—all made sense.

My family hunted witches.

Sam

Sam Baltrusis, author of “Ghosts of Salem” and featured in “ The Curse of Lizzie Borden” shock doc, has penned more than a dozen paranormal-themed books including “ Wicked Salem ” and “Ghosts of the American Revolution .”

Visit SamBaltrusis.com for more information.

Are you related to anyone famous (or infamous) in the paranormal past? Were your ancestors ghost hunters, mediums, witches etc. If so we’d love to hear your story, how you found out and how you feel about it? Please email family@hauntedmagazine.co.uk and your story COULD feature in Haunted Magazine.

Today, Tondu is an obscure Welsh village, situated on the Bridgend to Maesteg rail way line, three miles north of Bridgend. It enjoyed a considerable industrial boom in Victorian times, with large ironworks and collieries, as well as becoming a railway junction for coal trains. Its fortune and prosperity seem to have been waning already in 1904, when Tondu acquired one of its most sinister inhabitants ever. For some time, there had been talk of the disused colliery at Ynisawdre being haunted. On an early September morning in 1904, some workmen saw a tall spectre, shrouded in white, in the neighbourhood of Felinfach. When the ghost glided towards them with a drawn-out ‘Booh!’, its great black sockets that took the place of eyes fixed straight ahead, all twelve sturdy Welsh miners took to their heels. When they finally dared to look back, the ghost had disappeared.

Not long after, another Welshman was taking a midnight walk down the lonely, narrow road adjoining the deserted buildings and coke ovens of the abandoned Ynisawdre colliery. At the far end of a tunnel, he was astonished to see a tall, cadaverous figure waiting for him, all shrouded in while. The head resembled a skull covered with wrinkled parchment; the eyes were hollow sockets, with a cavernous glow. Suddenly, the ghost ran up to the terrified Welshman, its long arms outstretched. It grasped him with a hearty goodwill, with such a vice-like grip that he could hardly breathe. When he tried to grapple with this singular ghost, his hands met just thin air. Having toppled its opponent over, the Fighting Ghost of Tondu glided off with a hollow laugh.

‘A Ghostly Reign of Terror in Glamorgan shire’ exclaimed the headline of the South Wales Echo. Village ghosts were not unknown in this part of Wales, but they used to be timid and unadventurous, behaving with becoming decorum and keeping a

safe distance to human beings. Although this novel spectre was draped in white, the proper attire for any self-respecting ghost, and made use of the equally orthodox outcry ‘Booh!’, it seemed much more combative, putting twelve strong men to flight, and then successfully wrestling another. A servant girl had recently seen the Fighting Ghost stalking the ruins of the abandoned colliery at Ynisawdre, uttering dismal groans and waving its arms about. The women and children of Tondu were kept indoors after nightfall, and bands of stalwart men, armed with bludgeons and pitchforks, patrolled the country roads to lay the Fighting Ghost.

It would appear as if the short career of the Fighting Ghost of Tondu ended in late September 1904, after it had been immortal ized in the Illustrated Police News and other publications. Its likely origin is likely to have been the same as those of other ‘suburban’

By Jan Bondeson

or ‘village’ ghosts: ignoring the sad fate of the Hammersmith Ghost of 1814, who was shot dead by an armed ghost-hunter, some prankster amused himself through dressing up as a ghost and frightening timid and superstitious people in the neighbourhood. Although the annals of the Illustrated Police News provide several instances of ‘suburban ghosts’ being caught, beaten up, or mauled by fierce dogs, the Fighting Ghost of Tondu seems to have been spared such indignities; there is no mention of its activities after September 1904.

‘Booh!’ The Fighting Ghost of Tondu on the charge, from the Illustrated Police News, September 17, 1904 This is an extract from Jan Bondeson’s book Strange Victoriana (Amberley Publishing 2016)

125 years and Still Chilling A BITE size guide Introduction

On 26 May 1897 the advance copies of the first impression of the first edition of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula reached the offices of his publishers Archibald Constable at 2 Whitehall Gardens, Westminster, London. The first review copies were despatched to the newspapers and magazine critics of the day and Bram signed and sent the first of his complimentary copies to his most esteemed friends.

This year, 2022 marks the 125th Anniversary of the publication of Dracula and over that century and a quarter, the book has never been out of print. We all know vampires as characters in books, on tv and in films, most will know the name Dracula. Sadly, because Dracula the novel is not amongst the literary canon regularly taught in schools or many colleges, the name of the man who wrote Dracula, his own story and how he created the lead character in the book that was described in one of its first reviews (published in Punch Magazine, 26 June 1897) as ‘the very weirdest of weird tales,’ remains far less known to the wider public.

Abraham Stoker was born at 15 The Crescent (now known as Marino Crescent), in the Dublin suburb of Clontarf on 8 November 1847. He was third of seven children who would be born to Abraham and Charlotte Matilda Blake Stoker (nee Thornley). Named after his father, rather than being Abraham junior or any other nom de plume the boy was known as Bram from a young age.

Bram’s father, Abraham, was born in Ireland in 1799. The earliest Stoker ancestors of their direct family line can be traced back to Northumberland in the North of England, one of whom came over to Ireland around 100 years earlier as a soldier in the army of King William, bringing his wife and children over with him and settled there.

In June 1815, Abraham obtained a position in the Chief Secretary of Ireland’s Office at Dublin Castle as an Assistant Clerk. He proved to be a diligent, honest, sober and utterly reliable worker with strong Christian values. However, he clearly had no aspiration for promotion and remained in the same grade for almost forty years of his fifty-year career in the Civil Service.

Bram’s mother, Charlotte, was a handsome woman with distinguished Irish ancestry dating back centuries. Among them were the famous duellist Richard ‘Pistol’ Blake and ‘General’ George Blake, who had led the Irish rebels at the Battle of Ballinamuck in County Longford in September 1798.

Origins

Charlotte inherited that same valiant spirit, she was also forthright, intelligent and had a strong social conscience. Abraham and Charlotte married at the parish church of Coleraine, County Londonderry in 1844. Aged 25 she was not a young, blushing bride but she was nineteen years younger than her husband. When she married Abraham, it would have been for the qualities she saw and respected in him, especially his upstanding character and his good honest work ethos. And those same values would be instilled through word and example to all of their children.

Bram was baptized at the Church of Ireland Church dedicated to St John the Baptist at Clontarf on 30 December 1847, indeed, all of Abraham Stoker’s children would be baptised there but sadly only the ruined shell of that church remains today after a new church capable of holding a larger congregation was built for the parish in the mid-1860s.

When Charlotte fell pregnant yet again it was clear to Abraham that their family home at The Crescent could no longer comfortably accommodate his ever-growing family. The Stokers moved a short distance away to a larger villa residence known as Artane Lodge in Fairview and it was here that young Bram would spend the early years of his life. Unlike his siblings who could run and play in the garden and countryside around where they lived, Bram suffered from what still remains a mystery illness, in the unpublished section of his manuscript of Personal Reminiscences Bram recalled:

When the nursery bell rang at night my mother would run to the room expecting to find me dying. Certainly till I was about seven years old I never knew what it was to stand upright. All my early recollection is of being carried in people’s arms and of being laid down somewhere or other. On a bed or a sofa if within the house, on a rug or amid cushions or on the grass if the weather were fine. To this day if I lie on the

grass those days come back to me with never-ending freshness. I look among the stalks or blades of the grass and wonder where the sound come from – that gentle hum of nature which never ceases for ears that can hear... Naturally I was thoughtful and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years.

And who knows what wonderful tales of folklore, legend and dark times were told to and inspired the mind of young Bram over those years by his family and their loyal and well-loved nurse Ellen Crone.

Bram and his siblings would recall the tales their mother Charlotte told of her personal experiences during the Sligo cholera epidemic of 1832. She witnessed a society gripped by mortal fear and the ensuing desperate and inhuman acts committed by neighbours and fellow townsfolk. She would also speak of the dead becoming undead at that time, when those believed to have succumbed to the cholera and were being prepared for burial or piled up among the bodies, were discovered to be alive and would live on for years afterwards. Bram would draw upon theme from these tales for several of his stories, notably in his early tale The Spectre of Doom, later reprinted in Stoker’s strange collection of children’s fairy tales Under the Sunset (1881) and manifest yet again in Dracula

Not every story needed to be handed down from the oral tradition either, a superb collection of tales in Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by Thomas Crofton Croker published in 1834, could be found in many homes at the time and would provide a ready supply of stories for children as and when required.

Blood is a recurrent feature in Celtic folk tales and manifests in many forms, be it ‘bad blood’ of animosity, blood spilt in atonement or sworn pact, indelible blood stains or a blood red mark left on a body after an encounter with a paranormal entity. Blood in folklore is often treated as a life force that can be drained from unfortunate victims by diabolical creatures such as the blood-sucking demon the dearg-dul and witches to replenish or enhance their own dark powers.

There are several stories that are variations on a theme where witches use their magic to obtain entry to family homes or lonely taverns. Once inside they use their magic again to stupefy the family or weary travellers within and drain blood from their bodies. Once they had obtained their bowl of blood, the witches would proceed to mix it up with simple ingredients and cook them into cakes which they intended to gorge upon.

The hero of the story is often a servant girl, who has not succumbed to the witch’s spells. Guided by a good spirit or her own knowledge of folklore she saves the day by using water from a well that has been blessed to hold off the hags and send them on their way, then revives the family or travellers by feeding them small portions of the cake that had been made with their blood.

In 1858 the Stoker family moved again, this time to 17 Upper Buckingham Street in the Mountjoy district of Dublin City and at the age of eleven Bram commenced his first formal education as a day boy at Bective House College private Anglican school in Rutland Square East, (now the eastern side of Parnell Square).

When Bram attended the school, it offered an excellent curriculum befitting a young gentleman including classics, mathematics, English grammar, writing and composition, history, geography, scripture, French, drawing and natural philosophy. Still quite a shy and introspective lad, Bram made his greatest impression while at the school as a promising rugby forward.

Many of the boys from Bective House progressed to become students at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD). Bram would be one of them, matriculating a few weeks short of his seventeenth birthday in 1864. Bram never made excessive claims about his academic prowess, a subject had to grip his attention for him to excel in it however, he came out of his shell as he achieved prowess in a variety of sporting activities and within the university societies.

Bram also found time to perform with the University Boat Club Dramatic Society, but his most significant achievement was to become both Auditor for the Trinity Historical Society (known as the Hist) and President of the Philosophical Society (known as the Phil). This was no mean feat for both these offices are the highest that can be achieved in both these esteemed university debating and literary societies, and it is a clear mark of the active and popular figure Bram was during his time at Trinity.

When seeking employment Bram initially followed in his father’s footsteps and entered the Civil Service as a Clerk, Second Class in the Fines and Penalties Department in 1867. Both Bram and his father had a great love of the theatre but neither could attend as frequently nor in the style they wished because their pay was not that great. But still they saw some of the greats of their day on stage. It was during these nights at the theatre that Bram was struck by the outstanding performances of an up-and-coming actor named Henry Irving.

When local newspapers failed to mention his standard of acting or even the names of the players in the performance.

Trinity College Dublin in the early 1880s

He approached Henry Maunsell of the Dublin Evening Mail to ask if he would allow him to perform the function of theatre critic for the paper, even if it meant he performed that role free. He was given the job.

The position of theatre critic provided Bram with the magical entree that transported him from theatregoer to a person and personality in the theatrical world. Soon becoming a familiar face to theatre staff, his preferred seat would be saved for him. Bram was welcomed backstage to mix with actors and actresses, often their meeting would move beyond a hale fellow well met meeting, Bram knew the meaning of true friendship, indeed, a friendship with Bram could be a friendship for life

Above all, it was the relationship he had with Henry Irving that would prove to be life changing for Bram. Each time Irving came to Dublin the pair would meet and talk and in the autumn on 1877 Irving was close to achieving his goal of taking over a theatre of his own and broached the idea that Bram might consider giving up his job in the civil service and share in the fortunes of Irving as his acting manager. With his dream of a theatre life in the bright lights of London in sight it was too good an opportunity for Bram to miss.

Buoyed up with the chance to realise his dreams Bram began a relationship with Florence Balcombe in 1878.

Florence was nineteen, bright, witty and above all beautiful. She was regarded as one of, if not the most beautiful woman in all Dublin. Forsaking her fiancée Oscar Wilde (yes, the Oscar Wilde) the pair soon became swept up in a whirlwind romance and were making plans for their marriage. Irving took on his theatre and Bram tendered his resignation to the Civil Service. Bram and Florence married at fashionable St Ann’s Anglican Church, on Dawson Street, Dublin on 4 December 1878. There was no time for a honeymoon so bringing Florence along with him, just five days later Bram joined Irving in England as the new acting manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End.

Irving knew his audiences wanted to see performances in a comfortable and attractive theatre, where the sense of spectacle and occasion began on the street outside and swept on majestically through the entrance to the surroundings. Irving set out with the intention that his theatre, The Royal Lyceum, as he liked to call it, would be a place where his clientele could see and be seen among the better classes of society. This, he rapidly achieved and in doing so elevated the status of the acting profession to one of respectability and Irving would, in time, become the first actor ever to receive a knighthood.

In those glorious days Bram had found his metier, Horace Wyndham would recall:

To see Stoker in his element was to see him standing at the top of the theatre’s stairs, surveying a ‘first-night’ crowd trooping up them. There was no mistake about it – a Lyceum premiere did draw an audience that really was representative of the best of that period in the realms of art, literature and society. Admittance was a very jealously guarded privilege. Stoker, indeed, looked upon the stalls, dress circle and boxes as if they were annexes to the Royal enclosure at Ascot, and one almost had to be proposed and seconded before the coveted ticket would be issued. The rag-tag-and-bobtail of the musical comedy, theatrical, stock exchange and journalistic worlds who foregather at a present-day premiere would certainly have been sent away with a flea in their ear.

The Lyceum Theatre as Bram Stoker would have

Under

Lyceum Theatre

Bram was far more than a front of house manager; as Acting Manager his duties, as defined by theatrical convention, meant he had control of everything on the auditorium side of the curtain but the services he performed went far above and beyond the conventional duties of the job. Bram also organised publicity, tours, including America, Irving’s speaking engagements, he ensured the 48 retained staff were paid, he oversaw the box-office, looked after the comfort and welfare of the company of actors employed in the theatre and even found time to oversee the printing of the programmes for the performances. All this for £22 per week; not a bad wage, it was almost three times his income when the left the Civil Service. But make no mistake, Irving was omnipotent, his word was law in the theatre and no-one was left under any illusion that he was

anything other than the name he was known by all employed by him –‘The Chief.’ Bram served his master loyally, even to the detriment of his own health and family life but he would counter no criticism of Irving and was at his beck and call, day and night.

It also fell to Bram to organise complimentary tickets for critics and influential guests. He would also arrange the invitations to dine as the guest of Irving in the exclusive Beef Steak Room at the Theatre after the show. It was through this role Bram would meet a cornucopia of royals, nobility, notable authors, explorers and characters of the aesthetic world but it was one man from these who would become Bram’s closest friend – Thomas Henry Hall Caine.

United by a mutual admiration for Irving, when they met, Caine was a theatre critic

and a promising author and he would soon become one of the most popular writers of his day, in fact he was the first man to sell a million books in the English language. Bram and Hall Caine regularly corresponded and would try to catch up with each other when either was on tour. When they were together, they would sometimes write together but above all they would avidly discuss stories, plots, tales of folklore, legend and fate through the night until the first rays of sunlight were creeping under the blinds. Bram addressed his letters to his dear friend by the affectionate nick-name Caine’s Manx grandmother gave him – ‘Hommy Beg,’ Manx for Little Tommy. Bram also dedicated Dracula to his friend using that name which proved so enigmatic to most readers. Both men had a deep desire to create a book or play worthy of Irving to play its central character.

The Genesis of Dracula

By the time Bram wrote his first dated notes for the book that would become Dracula on 8 March 1890 his ideas and concept for the novel were already developed to the degree he was able to draft out four distinct ‘books’ entitled: Book I Styria to London; Book II Tragedy; Book III Discovery and Book IV Punishment; each with seven chapters and chapter headings by 14 March.

(Eighteen-Bisang, Robert and Miller, Elizabeth (transcribed and annotated by) Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition (McFarland and Company, North Carolina and London 2008) p. 16 and p.28)

The conception of the book had clearly been mulled around in Bram’s mind for some considerable time before, probably years. Bram had always loved the strange and the macabre since boyhood and he was drawing on his own interests, experiences and knowledge for the original draft of the tale but be under no illusions, Bram Stoker never set foot in Transylvania, and there is no specific mention of Vlad Tepes anywhere in his notes. Instead, he assembled his knowledge of the place by talking to those who had been there and by studying articles, travel guides, books and maps. The inspirations for his characters were also drawn from people he had met over the years.

As Bram was beginning to draw his notes together, he was fortunate to meet Arminius Vambery the Professor of Oriental languages at the University of Budapest in Austria-Hungary when he came to see The Dead Heart at the Lyceum on 30 April 1890. Vambery had travelled widely across Persia in the 1860s, on journeys that had never before been undertaken by any Western European.

where mystery and superstition still reigned. Places like Transylvania’ but there is no written evidence he actually spoke to the gathering or directly to Bram about Transylvania, nor as others would suggest, that he was the first to mention the name Dracula. But it was Vambery’s stories that inspired Bram enough to write about him in Personal Reminiscences and accord him the honour of a mention in his novel Dracula in the character of a reliable factotum of knowledge of strange lands, customs and history called upon by Van Helsing to provide him with further information about the history of the Count.

Bram was always interested in the use of language to evoke a sense of place and authenticity in his stories and as Vambery’s phonetic pronunciation of ‘Wampyr’ would have been ‘Vampire’ this may have been why Bram adopted it as his first attempt as a name for his central character - ‘Count Wampyr.’

Vambery was described by Harry Ludlam in his 1962 biography of Bram Stoker as ‘ full of experiences, fascinating to hear, and spoke of places

This would fit well for the original location of Styria in the south-east of Austria, a place believed by Stoker to be ‘where belief in vampires survived longest and with most intensity.’

(Bram Stoker interview with ‘Lorna’ (Jane Stoddard) British Weekly, 1 July 1897, p. 185). It was also the location of Sheridan LeFanu’s story of Carmilla, a story that Bram knew and drew upon, particularly in his story Dracula’s Guest.

Bram borrowed many of his distinguishing features of Dracula such as canine teeth, pointed nails, hair on the palm of the hand and the ability to shape shift from the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of WereWolves and for more about vampires and their folklore Bram found an article on Transylvanian Superstitions by fellow Nineteenth Century contributor Emily Gerard particularly fruitful, notably her passage:

More decidedly evil, however, is the vampire, or nosferatu, in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell. There are two sorts of vampires — living and dead. The living vampire is in general the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons, but even a flawless pedigree will not ensure anyone against the intrusion of a vampire into his family vault, since every person killed by a nosferatu becomes likewise a vampire after death, and will continue to suck the blood of other innocent people till the spirit has been exorcised, either by opening the grave of the person suspected and driving a stake through the corpse, or firing a pistol shot into the coffin. In very obstinate cases it is further recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave. That such remedies are often resorted to, even in our enlightened days, is a well-attested fact, and there are probably few Roumenian villages where such has not taken place within the memory of the inhabitants.

A point well made by Elizabeth Miller is the error Emily Gerard made when she ascribed the word ‘nosferatu’ as a synonym for ‘vampire’ rather than being a more generic name for any creature of the night be it a werewolf, ghost, walking dead or blood sucker. Bram copied it directly into his notes from there he perpetuated the error in Dracula

The initial inspiration for the creation of the evil vampire character who would be named Dracula, was Henry Irving, the man Bram hoped would play him on stage. Some of the appearance, characteristics and features of the Count would undoubtedly have been inspired by a some of Irving’s most impressive theatrical characterisations over the years. Notably his portrayal of Vanderdecken the Captain of the infamous ghost ship The Flying Dutchman in which Bram would recall with some awe how Irving achieved an: ‘impression of a dead man fictitiously alive. It was marvellous that any living man should show such eyes. They really seemed to shine like cinders of glowing red from out the marble face’

There was also Irving’s masterful performances as the demon Mephistopheles in the stage spectacle that was Faust, and as the gaunt Macbeth with his supernatural powers. In the creation of such a loathsome character as Dracula, Bram may also have intended a side swipe at ‘the Chief’ for sucking the life blood of his best years; drawing the skills of Bram to make himself look good and for not always appreciating him.

The character, however, is not drawn from Irving alone. For the appearance, features and characteristics of Dracula himself Bram would draw on a

number of remarkable individuals he had encountered over the years. Bram reveals three highly likely candidates in his Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving

There was the explorer Henry Morton Stanley who Bram first met upon his return from his expedition to Africa in October 1882 at a small dinner party Irving had arranged for him at The Garrick Club. Everyone present was anxious to hear of Stanley’s adventures and he held the guests entranced until the chimes of four in the morning. Bram recorded his observations of Stanley that night:

He was slow and deliberate of speech; the habit of watchful self-control seemed even then to have eaten into the very marrow of his bones. His dark face, through which the eyes seemed by contrast to shine like jewels, emphasised his slow speech and measured accents. His eyes were comprehensive, and, in a quiet way, without appearing to rove, took in everything. He seemed to have that faculty of sight which my father had described to me of Robert Houdin, the great conjurer. At a single glance Stanley took in everything, received facts and assimilated them, gauged character in its height, and breadth, and depth, and specific gravity; formed opinion so quickly and so unerringly to the full extent of his capacity that intention based on what he saw seemed not to follow receptivity but to go hand in hand with it.

Title page and map of Bram Stoker’s own copy of the Baedeker Handbook for Southern Germany and Austria including Hungary and Transylvania (1887)

But when Stanley laughed it appeared:

‘a strange thing to see in that dark, still face, where toil and danger and horror had set their seals. But it seemed to light up the man from within and show a new and quite different side to his character... Henry Stanley had a look of the forest gloom as marked as Dante’s contemporaries described of him: that of one who had traversed Heaven and Hell.’ There was also Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate, now best remembered for his poem The Charge of the Light Brigade. Bram got to know Tennyson personally and they visited each other’s homes on a number of occasions. Bram would however observe how when Tennyson was somewhat displeased, he ‘had at times that lifting of the upper lip which shows the canine tooth, and which is so marked an indication of militant instinct.’ and would observe the same expression but even more pronounced in the tough, leather-faced, steely eyed explorer and orientalist Sir Richard Burton best remembered for his translation of A Thousand Nights and a Night often referred to as The Arabian Nights.

Veazey’s house at 6 Royal Crescent on Whitby’s West Cliff with the second floor as their sitting room and their bedroom on the third, both of which commanded magnificent sea views. Beneath them on the first floor, were three ladies from Hertford; Isabel and Marjorie Smith and their older friend Miss Stokes, suggested by Cordelia Stamp in Dracula Discovered to be ‘the prototypes of Lucy and her friend Mina, whilst the older Miss Stokes became Mrs. Westernra.’ (Stamp, Cordelia Dracula Discovered (Caedmon, Whitby 2001) p.14)

survey of the inscriptions he found to mariners and those drowned at sea on the headstones in St Mary’s Churchyard on the East Cliff and would use a number of these names in the book. Bram talked to local fishermen and the local Coast Guard William Petherick and it could well be in Petherick’s neat hand that the notes are written about the wrecks of the British ship Mary and Agnes and the Russian schooner Dmitry that occurred on 24 October 1885.

Burton’s translations include the story of Vikram and the Vampire, an ancient Hindu tale of a huge bat, vampire or evil spirit which entered and animated the bodies of the dead

The next step in Stoker’s research took place during a three-week family holiday for Bram, Florence and Noel in the north east Yorkshire fishing port and resort of Whitby. During this holiday Bram would make one of the most significant discoveries of his entire literary career. Arriving during the second week in August 1890, the Stokers were staying at Mrs.

Why the Stokers chose Whitby is not recorded but their friend the novelist and illustrator George du Maurier was staying around the corner at the same time as the Stokers and it may have been he who recommended the resort as a place for them to stay. Bram’s notebooks reveal he collected all manner of history, dialect, folklore, legends, geographical and location details for the book. In fact, he has more material from Whitby than any other topic in his notes. (Eighteen-Bisang and Miller, Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula p. 384) He even typed up ten pages of details from his

The Dmitry had been caught in terrible seas, had only just managed to enter Whitby harbour and ran ashore in Collier’s Hope. However, the storm beat over the vessel and brought down her masts and the crew were forced to abandon ship. Fortunately, no lives were lost.

Bram dramatically recreates the story in Dracula, retaining many of the facts about the wrecking of the Dmitry but changes her name to the Demeter and her sailing port from Narva to Varna. The fate of the crew and their cargo in Dracula, however, was a very different matter. The crew of the Demeter disappeared one by one. This was probably based on a tale Bram recorded in his notes dated 30 July 1890. It was related to him by some old fishermen he encountered on the cliff who told him of a whaler named The Esk and its Captain who would not slacken his sail, cursing that he would be in ‘Hell or Whitby tonight!’ He knocked down the crew one by one as they implored him to change his mind. The Esk was wrecked and all bar three of the crew were lost.

Whitby viewed from the West Cliff in the late 19th century

In another memo dated 15 October 1890, after his return to London, Bram adds a few extra notes from Whitby including

‘When ship ran in to Collier’s Hope, big dog jumped off bow & ran into churchyard’ (Eighteen-Bisang and Miller, Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula

p. 168) an imaginative leap from the mind of Bram and the shape shifting Count arrives in England.

Perhaps it was the discovery of the story of the Dmitry that inspired Bram to seek out more information about the Black Sea and Danubian ports the schooner could have come from for the story, or a casual browse at the Whitby Library that led Bram’s hand to alight upon: An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Various Political Observations Relating to Them written by retired diplomat William Wilkinson, published in 1820. Within the 320 pages of the volume Bram came across a name that would change the entire tenor of his book. The first appearance of Dracula is on page seventeen where Wilkinson describes how the Voïvode did battle with the Turks and were defeated after a bloody battle. As a consequence, they were compelled to become a tributary of the Turk and ordered to pay an annual tribute of three thousand paisters:

‘Wallachia continued to pay it until the year 1444; when Ladislas King of Hungary, preparing to make war against the Turk engaged the Voïvode Dracula to form an alliance with him. The Hungarian troops marched through the principality and were joined by four thousand Wallachians under the command of Dracula’s son.’ (Wilkinson, William An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, London 1820) p.17)

The name crops up again two pages on in the account of when the Wallachians attempted to shake off the yoke of Sultan Mahomet II in 1460:

‘

Their Voïvode, also named Dracula, did not remain satisfied with a mere prudent measure of defence; with an army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few Turkish troops that were stationed in his neighbourhood’ (Wilkinson, Wallachia p.19) Wilkinson explains in a footnote on the same page: Dracula in Wallachian language means Devil. Wallachians were at that time, as they are at present, used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning. The name certainly impressed itself upon Stoker. No longer would Count Wampyr feature in the notes, his name was resolutely discarded – enter Count Dracula!

Where Whitby undoubtedly played its part inspiring and providing a superb setting for highly dramatic and significant moments in the story the text would be written, and additional inspiration would be found elsewhere. Bram had enjoyed regular trips to Port Errol (Cruden Bay), Aberdeenshire on the west coast of Scotland, throughout the 1890s and for the rest of his life. The backdrop of the distant Braemar mountains and the baronial Slains Castle, then the home of the Earls of Errol, high upon its jagged stone cliffs was almost certainly another inspiration for Castle Dracula and Port Errol itself was the inspiration for Bram’s spirited tale The Watter’s Mou’ (1895) and would be revisited in The Mystery of the Sea (1902). Bram first stayed there at the Kilmarnock Arms in 1894. During his return visit there in 1895 he walked along the beach, clambered over the rocks and took in the bracing air for his constitutional exercise and wrote the early chapters of Dracula

Was

‘Whitechapel Vampire’

inspirations

Bram

Slain’s Castle, Cruden Bay, Port Errol

The Kilmarnock Arms, Port Errol

Casket

the ashes

Bram Stoker and his son Noel

Columbarium at Golder’s Green

Beyond the Grave

When the first print run of 3,000 copies of Dracula hit the shelves in 1897 the British public had been aware of vampire stories in newspaper reports claiming to be fact and in fiction books and part works since the late eighteenth century and the crimes if Jack the Ripper in 1888 had been ascribed to the ‘Whitechapel Vampire.’ The difference was that Bram set the story in the present day, weaving in modern travel to one of the far flung and mysterious corners of continental Europe. He included modern inventions such as typewriters and phonographs as recording devices, a direct blood transfusion kit and even modern characterisations recognising ‘The New Woman.’ All of which combined in a heady brew to set the scene for a disturbing tale of an immortal undead count who appeared, at least initially, to be a force untamed and able to overwhelm people in the sophisticated modern world with powers they had dismissed as nonsense in the wake of progress.

It may be hard to believe now, with the hindsight we have of Hammer Horror Dracula films starring Christopher Lee in the 1960s and 70s and Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of the Count for Universal Pictures back in the 1930s, that Dracula was not a smash hit in its day.

The first edition of Dracula went on sale at six shillings each. Bram’s contract stated he would receive no royalties for the first 1,000 but thereafter would receive one shilling and sixpence for every one sold. It certainly did not make Bram’s fortune, he would go on to write more books including The Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903) one of the first books in British fiction to include a reanimated mummy and his last, truly strange tale, the Lair of the White Worm which drew the inspiration for its monster from old English folk tales of fierce dragon like worms that laid waste to countryside until slain by a brave knight.

When Bram Stoker died in 1912 his obituaries spoke of his greatest literary legacy being his two volume Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, but time has told a different story. Many of the books of the great literati of Bram’s day are now out of print and long forgotten whereas Dracula has never been out of print for 125 years. Long may it continue to thrill and chill many generations to come. I just wish Bram could have seen its enduring success.

Further Reading: The Dracula Secrets (History Press 2012) Neil Storey’s original ground-breaking work on the connections between Bram Stoker, Dracula and Jack the Ripper.

Neil’s new biography of Bram Stoker is due for publication by Pen & Swords Books later this year.

IMAGES: All are from originals either taken by Neil Storey or from originals in the Neil Storey Archive with the exception of the original yellow cover Dracula that would be much appreciated.

The Story of Storey

Neil R. Storey is an award-winning historian investigating ghosts and phenomena for thirty years. He has a life-long interest in Dracula, is recognised internationally as a leading expert on Bram Stoker and has assembled one of the finest collections of Bram Stoker material in private hands. Known for his ground-breaking research, Neil has been in continuous publication since 1989. He is the author of countless articles, over fifty The Dracula Secrets, The , and is the creator of series that chart the dark histories of the counties of Great Britain. A graduate of the University of East Anglia, he guest lectures for both academic and social audiences across Britain and around the world. He frequently appears as guest expert on television and radio

The Magic and Mystery Show, Who Do You Think You Are? and . Blessed with a warm wit and humour, he spends the precious little time he has at leisure enjoying good food and wine with good company.

Burke and Hare, famous the world over for being the ‘body snatchers’ who’ve never dug up a dead body in their life and Bishop, Williams and May (aka Head), the three ‘London Burkers’ whose story is quickly catching up to Burke and Hare’s celebrity status.

But here is not the place to try to change the minds of those who think that two, now famous navvies from Ireland were body snatchers. No, that is reserved for a discourse on social media, a blog post or YouTube video that falls silent ‘til someone raises the topic again.

This is the place for the real body snatchers. The ones who have slipped under the radar and whose stories remain

Move Over Burke and Hare

written by Susie Lennox

untold. The ones whose passion for their craft caused a sensation in their day, but few, if any, can now recount their tale.

Between 1711 and the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, those loved ones left behind to mourn would scurry into parish graveyards to check that it wasn’t their recently departed that they were reading about in the papers. That it wasn’t their burial shrouds or blood that had been discovered strewn across the graveyard floor, or that it wasn’t the cadaver of their mother or brother, back cracked and body corded tight into a box and subsequently found in a coach office halfway to Edinburgh.

Fear of the body snatcher ran rife, and none were as fearful as those living in Glasgow in the first decades of the 19th Century.

The Ramshorn Kirkyard Scandal

Early 19th Century Glasgow was a place where anatomy students could pay for their studies in cadavers if they were unable to meet the three Guinea course fee. No questions asked. In fact, lecturers positively

December 1813. Less than 24 hours earlier, Mrs Janet McAllaster, wife of a Glasgow wool merchant, had died at her home in Great Hamilton Street.

Those at her funeral the previous morning diligently watched as she was lowered into the ground and soil was heaped up over her coffin. When Henry Braid, the gravedigger went to check on any settling the following morning, he perhaps could not fail to notice that the grave looked ‘as if a set of pigs had been rooting in it’

The coffin maker and the church warden were then called in to help with investigations. Suspicions soon led to Pattison’s rooms at 10 College Street and by way of warning an apprentice was sent to forewarn the anatomist to expect the authorities. If Pattison really did have the body, it could be put back, quietly and unseen. No questions asked.

But there were two body snatching raids in the city that night and the apprentice relayed the wrong information to Pattison. Why should he worry, he exclaimed, the body he had was from Ramshorn Kirkyard, the one they were looking for was from the Cathedral. Or so he believed.

The anatomy school in College Street was no differentand Granville Sharp Pattison’s ‘private party’regularly raided graveyards to get cadavers for thenumber of students on his books which was steadilyincreasing with each dissecting season.

encouraged it, and groups of up to eight young medical students were known affectionately by their teachers as a ‘private party’. One such raid took place in the early hours of Tuesday 14th

It took half an hour of furious hammering before the authorities were eventually permitted into Pattison’s anatomy rooms. Sentries stationed at the back of the building confirmed that nothing had been disposed of through the open windows.

Therefore, the body they were looking for should still be inside.

The Human Jigsaw

When access to the dissecting rooms was eventually made, six bodies were found at different stages of dissection. Among them were tubs filled with brine which, when examined, contained the severed heads of some of those snatched.

Despite its obvious mutilation, identification of one of the heads was made by McAllaster’s dentist, James Alexander, who identified the woman from her recently fitted upper false teeth.

Alexander‘s meticulous record keeping of the work he’d carried out on McAllaster would play a key part in the trial, and he would later show that a mandible found in one the pockets of Pattison’s students, would be a perfect fit for the false teeth he’d recently made for Janet.

Janet McAllaster’s case is often referred to as being the first recorded case where dental records were used as identification of the victim.

From this discovery, other ‘bits’ of what the authorities believed to be Mrs McAllaster were gathered together after a thorough search of the anatomy rooms. Partially anatomised hands were taken to relatives to confirm her identity, shoes were fitted onto the feet attached to the legs lying on the dissecting table and a lock of hair, taken from the partially dissected head was found to be a likeness to some which was taken prior to burial.

Reconstructed like a human jigsaw, Janet McAllaster was put back together with no consideration as to whether or not the parts matched. On Saturday 18th December, Janet was reburied in the same grave she came out of, her 48-hour adventure well and truly over with.

Of Pattison and the students involved, things went surprisingly well, in the end. After initially being bailed the trial moved to Edinburgh such was the fury of the Glasgow citizens, plus it would be easier to find an impartial jury.

In summing up, the Lord Justice-Clerk delivered his sentence. Pattison and the three students involved were all acquitted, but they were left in no doubt that should they try something similar again, they would not be as fortunate.

The mis-matched body parts were to be Pattison’s saviour. Despite the positive identification of Janet’s head by her dentist, James Alexander, during the trial it was discovered that the pelvis that had so quickly been attributed to Janet McAllaster, a woman of 40 years of age who had borne eight children, was in fact that of a seventeen-year-old virgin.

The Numerous Cases of Henry Gillies

To say that Henry GIllies was tenacious is perhaps stretching things a little far, but he was certainly keen on the money body snatching offered him and so this particular body snatcher, although not very good, pops up on a number of occasions as he’s chased through the history books.

His first big case, let’s say, or at least the one that brought him to my attention, involved the transportation of a number of boxes from the parish of Tynemouth, Northumberland to Edinburgh in the final months of 1819.

Just like the eight boxes that had gone before her, the elderly corpse of a Mrs Buck was found naked, trussed up with cord and stuffed into a box a yard long and half a yard wide, about the same size as her torso.

She had been discovered after Gillies had bribed a cabman on the night of 29th December at the docks in Shields, hoping to be swiftly taken to Newcastle. Once the party had arrived at the Bird in Bush Inn, however, things fell apart when the agent for the Edinburgh coach refused to accept the box.

Found guilty and ordered to pay a £20 fine, Gillies would also serve a twelve month stretch in Morpeth Gaol learning little, in anything, from his time inside.

From Wellcome Collection. Etching with engraving by W. Austin, 1773. Austin, William, 1720-1820.

Was this body snatcher cutting his teeth in Tynemouth? I think not. Gillies was a former gravedigger at Calton Burial Ground in Glasgow, his employment coming to an abrupt end after he was caught reselling coffin furniture back to the local undertakers. He knew quite well what he was doing and the demand for the commodity he was providing.

By 1828, Gillies rough handling of cadavers was in the limelight once again when he left the graveyard at Anderston covered in evidence of his visit.

At 3.30am, on the morning of St Patrick’s Day 1828, Henry Gillies, along with three others was spotted nonchalantly walking along North Street in Anderston, not too far from Glasgow. Over the shoulders of two of them were sacks, each containing a dead body recently lifted from the New Burial Ground.

Sensing that they’d been spotted, both sacks were immediately thrown over the nearest hedge and the four body snatchers tried to make their escape.

The sacks contained the bodies of two females. One, an elderly woman unidentified due to ‘the body being in such a state of putrefaction and decay that no person could recognise or identify it’. The other contained the small body of Robina McNeill, still showing signs of the leeches that had been applied to her breast by the doctors just before she passed away.

At the trial, the outcome of which remains unknown, police officer Donald McLean described Gillies as a ‘corpse lifter’ and quickly proceeded to reduce his character further. ‘He has been taken up ten or twelve times in the last year’ McLean said, on similar charges, and his house repeatedly searched.

Inside his house, along with his wife and mistress, a small hollow pool was discovered, filled with a collection of blood and water giving the house an oppressive smell. In fact, when Gillies himself was arrested in the first few hours of St Patrick’s Day, the stench from him was described as ‘intolerable’, the stench from him being just as offensive as that from the corpse.

For three year there is no sign of the corpse lifter Henry Gillies until a small report is printed in The Standard in April 1831.

Little Ireland, Manchester

The atrocities of Burke and Hare were still on the minds of many when the paper ran a short account of a discovery of a ‘gang of monsters’ - who were supposed to rival the duo in Scotland - had been made in an area known as Little Ireland, Manchester.

Late one evening, as a ten-year-old girl was making her way home through the labyrinths of Little Ireland, she became distracted after glancing through a kitchen window.

The girl stood for a while as she watched an old woman, described by the papers as ‘being a miserable specimen of age and decrepitude… and would in a former age have been accounted sufficient to support a charge of demonology or witchcraft’ hunched over the kitchen table, quickly striping flesh from the body of a dead Greyhound.

The girl, clearly shocked, continued home, telling everyone she passed on her way exactly what she’d just seen.

It wasn’t long before the rumour mills started, and a mob had formed outside the little door in Oxford Road demanding answers as to what was happening inside.

When they eventually gainedaccess, they were confronted witha number of bones and skeletons of small children and in a corner of the room, barely alive on a bedof straw was a small infant. In a cupboard, in the corner of the kitchen, was a jug. Inside wasthe dissected body of an infant,submerged in bloody water.

The mob began to tear the property apart and if the landlord hadn’t called for the police, Ameila no doubt would have been lynched. Taken into custody for her own protection, the police must have been highly surprised when a few hours later, in walked an intoxicated Henry Gillies claiming that they’d just arrested his mother.

Gillies lost no time in informing them that he was a body snatcher and also in the employ of some of Manchester’s surgeons as an articulator. He too was swiftly taken into custody.

After the ‘Manchester surgeon’ had paid the £20 bail, the case was dropped by the papers but not before they summed up their finding for their avid readers.

From Wikicomons attributed to Chris J Farrell

Gillies was employed by the surgeons in the area, this much was true. But whether he sold them cadavers is debatable.

He was instead responsible for articulating the skeletons of previously dissected cadavers, making them into teaching aids within the school. For this he received £1 per week.

Ignoring the advice of his superiors, Gillies had taken his work home with him. The infant found in the cupboard was a stillborn child that had been dissected earlier that week and Gillies was tasked to clean the skeleton and articulate it.

Also found during the raid on the property was a brass syringe which the newspapers labelled as a ‘blood sucker’. In fact, this was a syringe used in blood preparations ‘A mix of wax and other compounds … injected into the veins of a subject so as to represent blood’. I cannot imagine that Gillies would have been involved in the more intricate details of specimen preparation such as this and had more than likely taken a fancy to the syringe rather than taken it for his work.

The ‘penny press’ delighted in this case as you can no doubt imagine. Just like journalists would do after the hanging of William Burke in 1829, they attempted to send the public’s imagination into overdrive with this one. Little stories started to appear around the sale of pies, the meat inside being from children, their flesh having been turned into meat.

It was difficult to choose just two cases in which to share other body snatching cases that are now overshadowed by events in 1829. Gillies’ case has been recounted, in part, from my book ‘Bodysnatchers: Digging Up The Untold Stories Of Britain’s Resurrection Men’. I could have shared more, but you have to stop somewhere. My research into Britain’s forgotten body snatchers has by no means finished and it wouldn’t surprise me to find more cases that could rival those of Burke and Hare but have yet to catch the imagination of the public like those two have.

Suzie X

Suzie has been studying body snatching for over 17 years ever since her lecturer at university persuaded her to look at the legal implications surrounding the supply and demand of cadavers for her undergrad dissertation, moving her away from her original topic of baby farming. ‘I initially wanted to write about something that would hold people’s attention, and well, body snatching worked and now I’m hooked’.

Suzie writes regularly for her website diggingup1800.com and she can be found on social media as @DiggingUp1800. Her book ‘Bodysnatchers: Digging Up The Untold Story of Britain’s Resurrection Men’ was published by Pen & Sword in 2016.

The Fascinating TRUE story behind The INFAMOUS Newby Church Ghost Photograph

A MIKE COVELL

The ghost of Newby Church, known in some literature as “The Spectre of Newby Church,” or the “Newby Monk” was a phantom figure captured on camera at the Church of Christ the Consoler, which stands on the grounds of Newby Hall in North Yorkshire.

As a young boy seeing the image in all the ghost books on my late father’s shelf, I became fascinated by the spooky and spectacular im age of this alleged apparition looking back at me. I became mesmerised by it, but as I grew older my hunger and interest grew, and I de cided to investigate the picture, and the story behind it.

Then, during lockdown, with a lot of spare time on my hands, I decided to look into the story, and began researching using the archives which were offering free access to card hold ers. What I found was staggering and might well go somewhere in explaining the story be hind the photograph and the alleged apparition of the infamous “Spectre of Newby Church.”

THE STORY

There are two versions of events of when the image was snapped, according to the report published in The People, dated Sunday August 13th, 1967, the photograph was taken seven years previously, but most books and website state that the photograph was cap tured in 1963.

If we are to believe the story from 1963 the im age was captured in 1963 by the Reverend Ken neth F. Lord, and appears to look like a human, with some claiming that the image shows a ghostly 16th Century monk, with a white shroud over the face which represents a disfigurement such as leprosy. Others, however, claim that the mask hides an accomplice and that the photo is a hoax. It was stated, in the report in The People, that the reverend was a keen photogra

pher, and decided to take some shots inside and outside the church, with the idea of selling them as postcards to visitors. At the time he noticed nothing unusual, and all went well until he later developed them.

When he began to make prints of them, he was astonished to see on one picture what appeared to be the figure of a cowled monk on the steps of the alter. He was quoted in The People as saying “I still don’t know what to make of it all. I did not want to seek publicity, nor do I want people to think it is some sort of ghost. I am not interested in spiritualism of ghost hunting and am quite frankly sceptical of the picture. All I can truthfully say is that, to my knowledge, I did nothing to interfere with the film. I did not su perimpose the figure by accident or design. My first instinct was to throw the negative on the fire and forget about it. Perhaps I should have done so. I certainly hope people won’t come flocking to my church in the hope of seeing a ghost.” Mr. Lord went on to state “No one had reported seeing anything strange in the church before. It may well be a trick of the light.”

THE EXPERTS

At the time The People had their chief pho tographer, Stan Jannus, analyse the image. He took the negative to the makers of the film – an internationally famous firm. After a se ries of tests their laboratories reported the neg ative had not been interfered with in any way. There was no fault in the emulsion layer or with the processing. A double exposure would have been impossible because of a preventative de vice on Mr. Lord’s camera.

Another technical expert, who at the time was employed by the “Amateur Photographer” mag azine, confessed; “I spent some years in the lab oratory of a photographic manufacturer’s sorting out faults such as this, but I can give no logical or convincing explanation of it. The nebulous dark grey outline with what appears to be a white cowl I cannot explain. I must confess, I am puzzled.”

The experts at the time did inform The People that there was a way in which such a photo could be hoaxed.

It was claimed that the meth od was to shut down the cam era, to a very small aperture. Place a cloaked figure in po sition and expose him to film for five seconds, then cover the lens, remove the figure, and carry on the exposure for another 15 seconds. The re

Some claim that the figure is 9 ft tall, while others claim that it could be a hoaxer with a long cloak stood on boxes, thus giving the impression that it is much taller. Image analysis suggests that the picture is not a double exposure. The Newby Church Ghost is one of the most celebrated ghost stories in the history of Yorkshire ghost stories, up there with the Roman Soldiers at Treasure House. It was, therefore, featured in numerous books in cluding mentions in Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, John Fairly and Simon Welfare, G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1984, Where the Ghosts are, Hans Holzer, Parker Publishing, 1984, The Ghost in the Picture, Meg Schneider, Scholas tic, 1988, Haunted Houses, Janet Riehecky, Children’s Press, 1989, Haunted Houses: The Unsolved Mystery, Lisa Wade McCormick, Cap stone Press, 2010, and many more.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

The church where the photograph was taken is named The Church of Christ the Consoler, and is situated in the grounds of Newby Hall, at Skelton-on-Ure, in North York shire. The church is a Victorian Gothic Revival church, built in early English style by William Burges. On March 6th, 1967, the church was made a Grade I listed building.

The church was founded in 1870, and itself has a dark history behind its founding and funding which to date has never been thoroughly inves tigated in relation to the photograph, until now!

KIDNAPPED AND KILLED

According to the story Frederick Vyner was taken prisoner by Greek brigands in Ath ens on April 11th, 1870. On Tuesday April 19th, 1870, British newspapers began running stories about his capture, including The Man chester Evening News, The Glasgow Evening Citizen, The Bradford Daily Telegraph and many more. Throughout this period British newspa pers up and down the country were reporting on the case, stating that Vyner was with others who had been kidnapped, but were being held in a house overlooking the coast.

By April 21st, 1870, they had murdered him, and a large ransom had been demanded, but only partially collected. Coincidentally, the newspa pers in Great Britain were still reporting he was alive until the morning of Monday April 25th , 1870, when The Globe, reported that it had been announced that Frederick Vyner was dead, and that the kidnappers had murdered him.

Vyner was aged just 23 years old at the time of his death. The story caused a sensation in Great Britain. On Friday April 21st, 1871, a special memorial was placed in York Minster in memory of Frederick Vyner.

Frederick’s mother, Lady Mary Vyner decided to use the remaining funds to create a church as a memorial, and the church as thereafter erected with news that the foundation stone had been laid on Wednesday May 17th, 1871, when the Leeds Mercury, dated Thursday May 18th, 1871, reported on the construction. It stated that the church would be erected as a memorial, and that the body of Frederick Vyner had been re turned to England exactly 12 months to the day earlier. It was said that the church would cost £10,000 and would seat 230 persons. On Mon day October 2nd, 1876, the church was con secrated by the Bishop of Ripon with news of the ceremony published in The Bristol Mercury, dated Saturday October 7th 1876. It stated that the church was one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings erected in the country.

Everyone who has seen the image states that the ghostly apparition is that of a monk, however, it also looks as if it is a person that has had a shroud put over them as if being hid, like a kid napper would do with their prey when placing a sack over their head.

The church stands approximately 1.29 km / 4,234.39 ft to the north-east of Newby Hall which also boasts a dark history and sightings of apparitions.

N

EWBY HALL

Newby Hall is an 18th century property that stands beside the River Ure in Skelton-on-Ure. It stands ap proximately 3.75 km / 2.33 miles from the A1 motorway. The hall was built on lands once owned by the Crossland family, who sold the land to Sir Edward Blackett in the 1690’s, building the hall on the site of an older manor house.

A group who were visiting Newby Hall wit nessed a group of people on the opposite side of the River Ure, who appeared to be ghosts. According to the story they took a trip down to the river at a former ferry crossing point, and on the river opposite they saw two men giving a third man resuscitation. They called across to see if they needed help, but as they did the phantom men looked over at them, and then vanished. It was claimed that this could be on account of the Newby Hall Fer ry Disaster which took place on February 4th, 1869, when Sir Charles Slingsby of Scriven Park was taking part in the Stirrup Cup. It was said that Charles was in pursuit of a fox, that had previously evaded him, and the fox crossed the river, so Charles and his hunts men friends decided to cross the river on a ferry. Back then such transportation would have consisted of nothing more than a few planks or logs held together with rope, and when the laden craft got halfway across the horses reared and the ferry tipped.

MikeNews of the tragedy broke on the morning of Friday February 5th, 1869, and was report ed in The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, which stated that the York and Ainsley foxhound hunt met in Ripon and as the fox crossed the River Ure near Newby Hall, the property of Lady Mary Vyner, a party of 13 gentleman, with their horses, entered the ferry boat to cross, but halfway across it tipped and all were thrown into the water.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Six of the men drowned, including Sir Charles Slingsby. Captain Vyner managed to save two people. The deceased were named as Sir Charles Slingsby, Messrs Lloyd and Robinson of York, Mr. Orvis, and two boatmen named Warrener. Mr. Robinson and Sir Charles Slingsby’s bodies were re covered, and seven dead horses had also been found but two other dead horses were missing. Later telegrams through the day revealed news of other bodies being found and pulled from the water.

Hints of ghostly activity at the hall began as early as Tuesday July 18th, 1911, when the Penrith Observer featured a report stating that the hall was haunted. It reported that phantom moans, groans and singing have been heard, and it was reported that it was the ghost of Stanwix Newinson’s wife, who was banished to a particular room in the hall. The Penrith Observer, dated Tuesday August 8th, 1911, featured a follow up report, stating that an eyewitness had been discovered who stated that they had seen the ghostly appa rition of Lady Newinson. It was said that in his early married days he and his wife lived in part of the old hall, and one dark night he was awakened by a buzzing noise and looking around the room he was startled to see a figure in the corner. He said that she was a woman, and she was sitting, but spin

ning around. He thought he was dreaming and pulled his bedclothes over his head, but building up the courage, he removed them and saw that she was still there spinning

and screams of men, and apparitions of horses running around the gardens into the trees. One such horse has been described as a black stallion with a white plaited mane.

around. He covered his eyes but plucked up the courage to look again and noticed that this time she had vanished. He did not dare wake his wife and tell her and he be lieved that she might be terrified and wish to leave the room. It has been reported that the area around the ferry site has been filled with reports of various paranormal activity including strange lights, disembodied cries

Two newspaper articles regarding Newby Hall, the top article refers to the ferry tragedy as featured in the Friday February 5th 1869 edition of The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, with the second article about the ghost of Newby Hall which was published in The Penrith Observer, dated Tuesday August 8th 1911.

Catherine Crowe (1790-1872) investigated and wrote about hauntings in a manner we would still recognize today. Beyond ghostly encounters, her 1848 book, ‘The Night-Side of Nature’ also brought to light — a variety of unexplained phenomena.

This includes what we now call OBEs, NDEs, time slips, and ESP. The words “poltergeist” and “doppelgänger” exist because she introduced the terms and concepts to the English language. Catherine Ann Crowe, née Stevens was an English novelist, a writer of social and supernatural stories, and a playwright. She also wrote for children.

I find myself having much in common with her. There is lost history buried like the dead in a deep forgotten grave.

For decades now, I have toted how important and useful ESP training is. If one can control their mind, create a safe space to focus you will be that receptor, honing in on electrical signals from the environment. In turn, you’re charging yourself up like a battery utilizing natures DC currents to pull in what the eye cannot always see.

This is why I’ve always preached that we, ourselves in this vast field all have the capacity and ability to be a tool, a device if you will in conducting experiments.

A mix of Catherine’s teachings, a dose of nature, your own compass and intellect will far better yield data as to what we transfer into after we’ve shed our physical vessels from the earthly plane.

The below quotes by Catherine resonate truth in today’s climate:

“The ignorant frighten children with ghosts, and the better educated

CATHERINE CROWE PARANORMAL PIONEER

assure them there is no such thing. Our understanding may believe the latter, but our instincts believe the former; so that, out of this education, we retain the terror, and just believe enough to make it very troublesome whenever we are placed in circumstances that awaken it”.

be a comfortability which is where I see the problem arising.

Some topics aren’t able to be dealt with like the conversation about death — and so it gets passed off and on to another subject. Its human nature.

However, it is also human nature to be curious whether one wants to know or not. It’s still engrained in us. The harder one is in life —the less likely they are to reasoning on such matters.

We must not bury our past supernatural scholars, pioneers and scientists. In fact, graveyards are for the living. They are a waste of real estate and much better suited for farming food, trees, useful herbs and homes.

There it is. The keyword I’m drawn to is “terror”. This is also fear. What exactly are we fearing? Are we not in control of ourselves enough to distinguish the difference between being rational rather than hysterical? Of course, there are encounters that are better off not having when dealing with the otherworldly. Yet, the same philosophy still applies. Control your thoughts and the rest of you will follow. If not, then you can increase the chance of becoming a possible energy target for those negative beings that are around us.

“A great many things have been pronounced untrue and absurd, and even impossible, by the highest authorities in the age in which they lived, which have afterwards, and, indeed, within a very short period, been found to be both possible and true”.

In our current age, I find many still struggle with the idea that we don’t go anywhere after we die. To understand this thought process — one needs to comprehend what death actual is. In order to have that conversation, there needs to

If we can grasp the concept that we’re never truly “gone”, we will be better off in society. It’s become the norm to separate out how we view death. Many cultures have their own practices. But they believe there is an afterlife.

If we only consider our bodies to be it after we pass — then we’re missing the entire concept of the truth about life after death. What makes us … us — is our personas which in term is our soul.

You will not convince all of this truth — and so for those personas they are on their own life journey which inevitably will lead to some answers once they’ve passed. They’ll get it then. They can reach back from the other side and say, “hey, this is wild over here! Want to chat”?

KATE RAY EXPLORES

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE WOLLATON GNOMES

‘Both adults and children have seen fairies for centuries. How this can be is still a neurologi cal mystery, the understand ing of our brain science still being in its infancy. Given that there were synchronising fac tors in play that night - Equinox energies and the crossing of ley lines in a state of flux that could have provided a dis turbed energy - it’s just pos sible, for me, that the stage for a brief and unexpected al ternative consciousness may have been created. Added to, Wollaton has a history of fairy sightings, tips the scale that the likelihood is that the chil dren did have some sort of bizarre encounter - a meeting of little-known function of neu rology and the possibility of an as yet undiscovered dimen sion and its residents. One day, (if we ever get there) and un derstand all there is to know, we will look back at times like this and wonder what all the fuss was about.’

Imagine that you are in prima ry school, around the age of 8 years old, those heady long days of the summer holidays have just past, and the new term has begun. With the warmth of the summer wanning and the lighter nights drawing to a close you, cling onto the last of the time to play out in the wider world. You and your friends have places you go, place that hold mini ad ventures, woods, meadows, gar dens and lake areas being your playground. On one such trip in on an early autumn day you head to such a place, and you spot a gnome, then another, then an other and another. This sounds beyond comprehension, but this is the story that was retold by a group of children in the 1970s.

There has been a recent revival in the extraordinary case of the Wol

laton gnomes and I have been caught up in the re-examining of it and have become a gnome ambassador, of sorts. I was ap proached by a strange and lovely man, Dan Green, about the sub ject and it was his enthusiasm that sparked an interest in the case, where previously I had been so sceptical of it, I had avoided it completely. I subsequently in terviewed him on my YouTube

channel as he had been emersed in research on the case and had asked, in vain, for the children in volved to come forward to retell the tale. After this interview the case has been snowballing and has been picked up yet again by the faery community, and partic ularly highlighted the work that Dr Simon Young has been doing around this.

“The idea of a city park playing host to real, live fairies remains inconceivable to most people”

Jo Hickey-Hall

I asked Simon for his views on the case, he said:

“

.. so, for me doing work on the WG was a bit of a revelation. I would say that I came out more sceptical about what happened but more interested overall.

My suspicion is that this experience (supernatural or not) got blown out of proportion by chatter and newspapers. But that there was clearly a gnome mythology that the kids plugged into”

Dr Simon Young is the founder of the modern version of the Faery investigation society, a society that has been around since the 1920s and is a collective of people interested in faeries, folklore, myth and legends. Many of its members are amateur researchers who provide valuable time and effort in both academic re search and field work. This then contributes to discussion and wider podcast, newsletter, and videos: it is a cauldron of a wealth of knowl edge. From the Fairy Investigation society, and because of my interest and YouTube chat with Dan, Simon pulled a handful of writers togeth er, including anthropologists, folklorists, four teen experts to put together a series of essays that would for a book on the WG case. Each writer for the book came at the case from dif ferent angles, some like Neil Rushton had spe cialist interests, his is the psychological state of the experience.

In the book The Wollaton Gnomes : A Nottingham Fairy Mystery, Neil highlights some of the psychological factors that could hinder an investigation into a case.

“Many experience reports…” (of faery encounters) “are from childhood, usually …recalled in adulthood. When this is the case, we need to take into account the vagaries of memory and how the incident is recalled” Neil Ruston

One aspect, that we will look at later, is that the WG children did recount this story only a matter of days after the incident, and this in it self makes the tale stand out from other faery accounts, that often are told in adulthood and the memory can be nebulous.

Some of this collective of writers are planning to have a more hands on, field investigation into the case later in the year, and I will bring to you any updates.

Gnomes are classed as earth elemen tals in as much as they are attached to the earth itself. Unlike sylphs that trav el through air and find their energy there, or the salamanders who live in fire, or un dines who inhabited water, the gnome must and does stay connected to the soil and depths of the land. Gnomes are generally drawn to gardens, wild plac es such as meadows and are residents of the surface to upper subterranean regions. Although not always dwelling in the deeper levels of the earth, like the hobs and tommy knockers, I am sure that there are bands of gnomes who do dwell and work the inner chasms and chambers.

When we think of gnomes we think of the quintessential brightly coloured

concrete garden statues, this image is one key aspect to the WG case. They are usually depict ed as old man with weathered features, sport ing tunics, leggings, and a distinctly large cap. This seems to be an image that has its origins in Germanic and Scandinavian folklore and has infiltrated wider global depictions in pop ular culture.

Around 1580, Francis Willoughby had Wol laton Hall built, this Nottinghamshire manor was a fine piece of stunning Elizabethan ar chitecture set in lavish grounds and at the time was removed from the city itself. In mod ern terms the hall lays on the edge of the ev er-growing metropolis. For the most part the gardens whereas formally designed as the building itself, sporting rolling vistas, lawned conventional gardens, huge greenhouses, and cottage gardens, as well as more wild ar eas. It may be this intensely considered hor ticultural place that had drawn the gnomes into the area.

“Many experience reports” (of faery encounters) “are from childhood, usually recalled in adulthood. When this is the case, we need to take into account the vagaries of memory and how the incident is recalled” Neil Ruston

Many people believe that gnomes are the gardener’s friend, aiding in the germi nation of plants and guarding them against disease and pests, so they may have been nat urally enticed to the area.

“Garden gnomes were seen as a symbol of elite social status, but as time progressed the gnomes moved out of the rockeries and gardens of nineteenth century country estates and into the rapidly expanding number of suburban gardens…”

Dr Jack Hunter

With the prospect of lavish and fertile grounds giving the gnomes an ideal place to live, was it then, in addition to this, that the energy of the children that drew them out of their limin al state into the material world? It is believed

that the innocent and uncluttered energy of children is most appealing to the fae, and they will ap proach and interact with them in a way that they seem not to with adults. And what makes the Wollaton gnomes’ case especially captivating is the incident was not only witnessed by several chil

dren over a relatively long period of time (relative to other faery encounters), a full 15 mins of the gnomes chasing and laughing ensued. On top of this, their stories where they overall corroborated with each other’s under interview circumstances.

“Talking to their school Head teacher, 6 (maybe 7 or 8) children aged between 8 years old and 10 years old spoke of brightly coloured, bearded diminutive men that chased them, chuckling and chattering, around a small, wooded area in the Wollaton grounds. As with lots of faery encounters this took place in a liminal time, or as Dan Green discovered, just the other side of a liminal time, around 8pm on the 23rd September. The children didn’t arrive home until around 10pm and were unsure about the exact time that this happened. A liminal time could have been the initial catalyst to bringing the gnomes into the material world.”

Twilight, or in this case just after, is known as a liminal time, a time between light and dark and historically seen as a time when the veil between the energetic world of the faeries and the material world that we live in merge. A time when the beings of other realms can easily pass into our reality and manifest themselves in seemingly solid form.

At the time of the gnome encounter most of the children involved felt no fear of the gnomes, although one boy cried, and so most had a positive experience.

When asked how the children could see the gnomes, they where in a wooded area that they describe as dark, Andrew said in answer ing the head teacher in interview,

“We seen a light in the tree hanging and we could see their faces”

When asked what kind of light, as there are no known lights in the wood in Wollaton, he replied

“Just a ordinary light, cus when we looked up there was light” This is a curious thing, did the gnomes manifest a light so that they could be better seen by the children?

So, what was the series of events that took place for around 15mins in Wollaton?

“…in 1979 a group of children were in the park, possibly trespassing where they shouldn’t have been. They suddenly saw a number of small cars, noddy like cars, ride out from the bushes and all of the children who were asked afterwards said that each car had two gnomes in them”, Dr Simon Young.

The children were Rosie Pearce, Patrick Olive, Glen Elliot, Andrew Pearce, and Angela Elliot plus another known as Julie were interviewed extensively. There were only minor discrepancies in their testimonies which could have plausible explanations, other than these minor notes

the children’s story paired entirely. The slight differences came in their descriptions of the gnomes clothing colour, with only a mix up of the primary colours, but all agreed that this was the colour pallet presented.

It is though that when a group of people experience something, that is later recounted, individuals recall of the event is coloured by several factors. These factors differ from person to person from their own experiences such as cultural, religious ideas, age, sex and education, all can heavily influence how they “see” and retain information. On recalling memories these elements could be an explanation as to why some of the Wollaton children saw different colours of clothing on the gnomes. Or it could be something more supernatural. One hypothesis is that liminal beings, like gnomes, can and do, present themselves in a way that the viewer would understand their nature. Could it be that the gnomes at Wollaton were showing themselves as the children wished to see them? All the children involved would have been exposed to similar cultural ideas of gnomes through tv and stories, so overall they shared largely the same vision.

And what about the noddy cars the gnomes drove, this is another fantastical aspect of the case. In the past, faery transportation encounters have largely been lesser modern methods such as horses and carts. These gnome mobiles were very different, not only that they were a modern concept but took on a science fiction feature. When asked about the cars and how they moved, all the children agreed that they “hovered”, with no visible wheels or sound.

I have many questions around the gnome cars, and one that keeps popping up is the alien aspect to the vehicles. A hovering car seems more akin to an alien craft than to an earth dwelling being; yes I know that this is farfetched but isn’t the idea of a hovering noddy car housing two gnomes?

One last big question, and one in which I address in the book Wollaton Gnome: A Nottingham Fairy Mystery, is around the geography of Nottinghamshire and its history. Prior to the Saxon invasions of the area, and for some time after, there were people in the county who worked and lived in subterranean caves. These caves where carved out of the sandstone and those that remain show a homely quality to them, sporting frontages that look like a normal house, one still exists in Mansfield. With the energy created by people working and dwelling in the earth was this something that the Gnomes approved of? Did the gnomes come to the land because of this, or were they already there and permeated the idea of this way of life to the humans? Again, these are fanciful questions, but maybe a line of enquiry.

The case of the Wollaton gnomes, as outlandish as it first seems is worthy of further investigation, with for me many more questions than answers, and hopefully in the following months and years some of these will be answered…

SPOOKED SCOTLAND

In SPOOKED SCOTLAND, renowned American medium Chris Fleming and his partner in crime Scotland’s Gail Porter lead an expert paranormal team to investigate the chilling crimes, supernatural sightings and terrifying stories across one of the most haunted countries on earth: Scotland. By day and by night, they must explore some of this ancient Nation’s spookiest locations. With exclusive access to places that have never let a film crew in before they will try and make contact with the spirits to explain the paranormal mysteries that have haunted Scotland’s most iconic landmarks for centuries. Equipped with the latest specialist paranormal technology they’ll come face to face with long dead tortured souls who are still plaguing the living and find out why?

Avariety of ghosts are to be found in the houses, castle, inns, moors, lochs and ruins of Haunted Scotland. Scotland has always been a divided nation and its history is spattered with the blood of countless conflicts, many of them fought between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders. Only very occasionally did the two sink their differences to unite against a common enemy, as successive English Kings strove to invade and conquer. Vestiges of Scotland’s stormy past are to be found all over

the country and nowhere is it more apparent than in the haunted, ruined castles of Scotland.

These ruined fortresses - silent reminders of old and bitter conflicts - stud the Scottish landscape.

From the gentle farmlands of the Central Lowlands to wild Empty lands of Europe’s last great wilderness in the country’s Northwest, Scotland’s abandoned castles stand as sullen witnesses to centuries of conflict and bloodshed, and the ghosts that wander their timeworn corridors and historic rooms

are perpetual reminders of a violent and stormy past. Behind the sombre walls of these impressive bastions, Kings and Queens, Lairds and Ladies, Highlanders and Lowlanders, the famous and the long forgotten, continue to inhabit an ethereal domain where old feuds and differences have never died, and where dastardly deeds and ancient discords occasionally cross the centuries to baffle and astonish those who happen to stumble upon their ghostly re-enactments.

Hi Chris! It’s absolutely fantastic to have you back on our screens in such a fascinating new show. What was it about Spooked Scotland that made you want to be a part of it?

Thank you I appreciate that. The decision was simple actually; it was a chance to work with Gail Porter again. I always knew and told her over the years that I saw us working together again in the future. Back in March/April of 2021 I called Gail on WhatsApp and told her about an idea I was working on with our previous producer from Dead Famous investigating the most haunted castle in Scotland as a one off special or mini-series. I thought we should have Gail join us, be a part of the team and show us around Scotland. It just made sense to bring Gail into it. Gail loved the idea. We hadn’t pitched it yet, but as fate would have it, Spooked Scotland became a reality through some other means, and I was called in last minute to be a part of it. The universe did its magic, and the idea became a reality anyways.

In this Spooked series, we obviously go to some amazing, haunted locations in Scotland. That is what drives me, going to places that I have never been to before. I know viewers will love it, especially if they loved Dead Famous. The history of these places is remarkable. My goal, as always, is to make contact and find out who is there. We ran into some surprises, some good and some bad during this series. I love when they respond, which you will get to see a lot of on Spooked Scotland. Pay special attention to the EVPs and responses we get during our Instrumental trans communication sessions with our devices, you will hear many other responses then jus the main one we mention. Some of you out there with good ears, will catch the spirits talking more than just the EVPs that are titled.

One of the most striking aspects of the show is that you take on some of the more “taboo” areas of paranormal investigation – quite openly discussing elementals, the Fae, imps and pixies. Was this a conscious decision from the start or just a natural progression for the show?

Elementals was something I brought up to two of our producers and directors, Benji and Chris. I shared with them what I had discovered when I was in Devon and Calverton back in 2019 during HMHIH in regards to Pixies and gnomes and that sometimes hauntings can be caused by these elementals, as well as by Imps. I was hoping we would come in contact with pixies or some form of elemental being in Scotland, which is known for rich stories and sightings. I find these unique entities fascinating.

We came in contact with imps at a few locations and a nasty elemental type at a castle. It was a form of an IMP called a Red Cap. More powerful than some of the other Imp like creatures I have run into before. They affected Gail on and off camera and Ryan. I had an unfortunate experience with them as well near the stairs. You will have to see the episode to see for yourself.

So, when it comes to Fae and elementals, paranormal investigators have to remember there is our world, our dimension, the spirit realm and also the elemental realm. They live somewhere in between. The aether is real, and they tend to retreat deep into the aether, just outside our electromagnetic field and visual spectrum of view. Whether they go into another dimension or just

“It’s not about being on TV. It’s about doing what you can for the greater good… Some spirits wanted help while others told some of us to fuck off!”

exist outside our measurement of perception, I can’t say at this time. What I do know, is they exist. I have seen them visually, I have felt them, I have spoken to them, and we have documented their existence; using ITC audio equipment capturing responses and conversations, on cameras and using EMF interactive measurements.

Listen to my Spirit Talk podcast #128 on Gnomes as I discuss more of my interactions with elementals and how I came to this conclusion. I play some of the direct audio communication I had with them. It will blow your mind!

children type sounding voice, as do the fae but still because these entities are smaller and in a different vibration then ghosts, I have to focus harder and quite my mind to perceive them. I have noticed that these imps, these little devils will pretend to be the fae as well, so I have to be careful. The imps are from the darkness, the underground, descendants from the fallen. The elementals are from nature, some underground, some in the trees, and some in the aether outside our sight but reside deep in the vibrations of the forest or gardens. They too are somehow related to the fallen. I just don’t know exactly how yet.

It’s an area that often provokes ridicule amongst so-called serious investigators. Why do you think this is?

during the series that you were not expecting? Anything that’s left you feeling terrified or unnerved?

There was something that happened in the forest outside Brodick Castle that I did get one hell of a scare, I have to say, I was not expecting it. Both Gail and I screamed. The amazing thing are the EVPs I caught before and after. The spirits were trying to get us to flee. It’s funny, after we screamed, but didn’t leave they said, “Well, that didn’t work!” When I was analysing the audio, I laughed so hard when I heard it.

How do you communicate with these types of spirits? As a spiritual medium, what is it that you actually pick up from these encounters?

In regard to elementals, I feel them similar to spirits and imps, but slightly different, it’s hard to explain. With human spirits I get genders, personalities whether male, female, child or adult. Angry, sad, lost, etc with imps, demons, evil spirits, I can feel their heaviness, their anger, their evil, their fear. I can get glimpses of their dark forms moving quickly and start to see some of their features. While they have manifested completely in my past, it is still rare to see their full manifestation. With elementals I don’t sense their genders, their age. I just feel something similar to the imps, but it takes me longer to interpret, because I can’t just place it yet. I need more encounters to be certain, as there are many variations of them.

The pixies I can sense, having encountered them several times, they are similar to the imps but happier, they have an insect chiming little

Not sure, I don’t think of it that way. It’s the paranormal, it’s the unknown, we are investigators, and our job is to investigate and report our findings, our data (evidence). So, if we sense and come in contact with a pixie, an imp or other form of elemental, sure I understand some might think we are crazy or full of it, I get that, but our job is to share with our peers and those in the field what we are encountering. The crew is documenting our experiences, our findings. When we support it with EVPs, and direct radio voice phenomena we are capturing

There isn’t much that scares me in regard to the paranormal, but I admit I screamed and jumped. There is one other thing that really unnerved me, I am not sure whether we are going to leave it in the episode or not from what happened in Sterling. We had a discussion about it, whether to air it or not. It was very embarrassing in some ways, but in others, as a paranormal investigator, we have to share our findings and experiences and what happened to me was, well, not pleasant. We will have to wait and see if it makes it in the episode. I was not expecting that to happen, and it was unnerving to say the least.

Spooked Scotland sees you joining forces with the lovely Gail Porter who you worked with on Dead Famous all the way back in 2004 (how can that be?!). Have you kept in touch during this time and how was it working with her after so much time apart?

Yes, always. We are friends for life. We talked about working together again over many years.

“…..not all hauntings are caused by ghosts, negative entities, environmental factors, Psychokinesis, or easily explainable factors. Sometimes it’s because of elementals.”

Plus, she became a believer due to the Dead Famous series. She had numerous experiences and some things followed her afterwards. She used to call me telling me her place was haunted, so we would discuss it. We have had some wonderful chats over the years, when our parents passed, when going through hard times, etc. The conversations always led back to the Hotel Coronado in San Diego, California where she had her most profound “walk-in” experience with the ghost of Kate Morgan. There were some others, as in supernatural experiences that happened on and off camera to her, but never made it in the show. Gail is quite sensitive, especially to children’s spirits.

In your opinion, how much has paranormal investigating changed in the last 18 years and how much do you think audience sophistication and hobbyist ghost hunting has impacted upon this?

Not sure. I stick to what I do and don’t really pay much attention to what others are doing unless I find use of the latest technology to support, validate and sometimes guide the conversations I have with spirits. When it comes to evolving, I pretty much can see where it is evolving to next, before it hits. Like I told Zak Bagans in 2015 that Paranormal’s next wave is going to be actually helping people. Not just saying you are doing it but showing it in the episode. We then saw all these shows come up with people focusing on that. I know where it is headed next, as well as it should.

So, we have this weird, wonderful Spooked Scotland to look forward to. Do you have any other projects in the pipeline and are there hopes of a second season to look forward to?

Personally, I hope the viewers and fans love the series Spooked Scotland as much as we did investigating the locations and speaking with the spirits. As for a Season 2, it is up in the air until we hear from the network. I really don’t know. I chatted with one of the producers back and forth about this during our last block with what we could do. Which it would be great, there is so much more to explore and share with viewers. Tern TV is a great production company, and I am excited to see what the future brings with them.

In regard to future projects, I am focusing on some paranormal documentaries on topics I find interesting and some scripted programming in the comedy, syfy and paranormal thriller series/movie genres I plan to produce. At this point in my career, I really want to produce my own content or partner with someone. That is all I can say for now. We will just have to see what happens.

It is so good to see you back on our screens in a paranormal setting! How does it feel returning to paranormal investigating after such a long time?

It’s an absolute honour to be involved with something that focuses on Scotland because it’s my home turf, we have so much history and to be involved in a programme that lets me go home, lets me find out more about our history, but then also find out about the ghosts and what actually happens when we all go to bed at night. It’s just been an amazing experience and I’m honoured.

that every single minute of every single day something weird and wonderful is going to happen. So, you just have to have an open head and an open heart and take it all in and learn.

You do look incredibly nervous at times. How afraid are you of what may happen and is that fear element stronger now or back in 2004?

I think I’ve always been a little bit scared, I’ve always been a little bit of a nervous person, but the fear is with me all the time, but that fear has almost become less, if that makes any sense. So, I’m more open and understanding as opposed to being fearful.

What’s been your most scary investigation of the series? Could you tell us a little about it?

What was it like working with Chris again? Has he changed much since the last time you investigated together?

Chris hasn’t changed in the slightest! We’re still like brother and sister, we love each other, and we could also knock each other out (laughs), because we disagree on some things but that’s why we have such a great relationship. We can’t all love each other 24/7. I think a brother and sister relationship is really good fun to watch because he’ll go, ‘This has just happened’, and I’ll go, ‘No, this has just happened’. Me and Chris are a Ghost-proper family!

There’s a lot of weird, wacky and absolutely wonderful elements of investigating in the show. How comfortable are you with investigating such areas as elementals, fairies and pixies? Were you expecting this before the investigations started?

When you sign on to do a paranormal show, you don’t expect anything, so you know

I think the first time I was completely terrified was when I was in Brodick Castle, because our tech expert Ryan had all this amazing equipment, things that he was placing all around the castle that didn’t respond to anyone, at all. Then anytime I was near them, they would go off. Everyone was saying, “Someone wants to talk to Gail”, and I was really uncomfortable because I don’t know who they are and obviously I can’t see them! I kept walking away saying why is it me, why do they want me? So, I think that was probably the first time I freaked out and thought, why is everything reacting to me and nobody else.

Why do you think Scotland has such a reputation for being so haunted?

I think Scotland has got such an amazing rich history, and obviously it’s the most beautiful place in the world ever. We are very proud of our history, and we hang on to it. Although I live in London, I can tell my daughter about Scotland, as she’s never lived there, she’s never felt the love, the passion that people have in Scotland. I think that’s the reason there’s a lot of things resonating in Scotland. When I die, God bless you all, ‘cause I’m going to come back to Scotland and I’m going to haunt you, but in a good way, a very good way (laughs).

What (if any) is something that you would refuse to do for investigation?

Nothing. I think I’ve done it all. I’ve lived a very colourful up and down life and no, I would not refuse to do anything. I’ve slept in Alcatraz twice!

What personal paranormal experiences have you had and what was the catalyst for your interest in the field?

Personally, I was never sure what was happening after my mum and dad passed away but things would move in the house, and I thought maybe a window was open, and I once had a vase in my hallway, it fell down, I heard a noise when I was sleeping. When I woke up in the morning, the flowers were on the floor and the vase was upright. That freaked me out. I used to have friends come to stay and some said, ‘I’m not staying here, there’s something in this house and we don’t like it’.

Is there a season two in the works and would you be up for investigating again?

If there was a season two, I’d be absolutely blinking delighted. I loved working on it, even though I got grumpy at times. It’s a long day of filming, it’s cold and you’re working with spirits and not fully understanding what’s happening… but if there’s a series two, I’ll take it!

“Chris hasn’t changed in the slightest! We’re still like brother and sister, we love each other, and we could also knock each other out (laughs), because we disagree on some things but that’s why we have such a great relationship.”

“I think I’ve always been a little bit scared, I’ve always been a little bit of a nervous person”

EVELYN HOLLOW

First and foremost, it’s great to finally see you in action on our screens after being a part of the brilliant ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’ and ‘Uncanny’ podcasts! How did Spooked Scotland come about?

After the success of The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny a lot of TV production companies got in touch with me to pitch show ideas, out of all of them I liked the premise of Spooked Scotland the most and wanted to work with both TERN and Discovery.

You obviously have strong connections to the areas investigated. Were there any bucket list locations that you were able to investigate as part of the show?

Bannockburn House was the stuff of dreams, very Spencer’s Mansion from Resident Evil. Brodick Castle on Arran was also incredible. I’ve never been in such a grand and impeccably preserved castle; it makes the set of Downton Abbey look naff. Grandeur and splendour beyond the imagination.

Spooked Scotland really is a wild ride in comparison to similar shows of its type in particular with its open discussions of contact with elementals, the Fae etc. How comfortable are you with these areas and why do you think it seems to be much more of a taboo for mainstream investigators?

I think people believe ghosts are an acceptable belief, but cryptozoology isn’t. It’s really to do with priming and societal in group/out group behaviour. There’s no

difference between belief in werewolves and belief in the Christian God, but one is widely accepted, and one is viewed as a fringe belief. I’m very familiar with the mythology and I’ve certainly lectured on mythological creatures, but I’ve never had to actively investigate them, so that was new to me.

How was it working with Chris and Gail? Had you seen Dead Famous before filming?

I’d never heard of either of them before we got onto set but I had a great time. Two very different personalities. Chris has been doing this work for ages so he’s always great to talk to and Gail and I became friends that hung out outside of the show. We had a lot of fun on set.

Were there many occurrences that you couldn’t explain away? Did you have any truly terrifying moments during filming?

There were lots of strange phenomena that we struggled to rule out, and that often linked to other phenomena in a fairly striking way. The one that messed me up was the bathroom incident in Dundee Verdant Works.

We weren’t filming at the time since we were in between takes when it started but I think Chris McMillan filmed me freaking out in a Vox Pop and then we started investigating it afterwards and it got pretty wild pretty quickly.

What equipment do you use when investigating and what do you find gives you the best results?

Ryan is the tech guy, I’m the psychologist so I leave the kit up to him. I think the piece we used the most though was the Franks Box, which is a rare and unique bit of kit that Ryan thankfully brought with him.

Why do you think Scotland has such a reputation for ghosts and the supernatural?

Because it’s one of the oldest nations and she’s endured hundreds of years of genocide and oppression and war and horror. How could she not be haunted?

What future projects do you have coming up?

I’ve just recently been to the Hay Festival where I took part in a special version of Uncanny with my good friends Danny Robins and Ciaran O’Keeffe and I’m due to start working on new radio shows and podcasts for the BBC this summer, none of which I can formally announce yet. I’m also hoping to finish one of my several book manuscripts this summer.

RYAN O’NEILL

Hi Ryan, you’re very much the tech guy on the show! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to join the team with Spooked Scotland?

Firstly, thank you so much for the questions, and just to say, I am a massive fan of Haunted Magazine, well over a decade of fantastic work for all us paranormal enthusiasts out there. So, my name Is Ryan O’Neill, and I am the founder of Scottish Paranormal, which was created in 2004. It’s an organisation I en visioned would assist in continuing my jour ney into ‘mostly’ the afterlife and hauntings side of the paranormal. If you ask most Paranormal Researchers & Investi gators, there is usually a catalyst for their interest and 9/10 times; it will be personal experiences that could not be explained through out life; I am no different.

My approach has always been to collect the data to see if something is going on that could be of interest or easily explained. So I certainly love equipment, and I use it in an open-minded, balanced way to hopefully gain some clarity. I’ve been involved in this area for two decades now, mainly looking at Scottish locations and cases, but I have ventured into Ireland, England and even Jamaica.

I was approached and asked about my thoughts on joining an amazing professional team of people who would dig deep to find the answers required. Searching, investigat ing and then uncovering answers to myster ies at the most spooky and vastly intriguing hauntings around Scotland, some that have never been looked at before now!! The bal ance of the team was highly appealing to me, covering all areas.

What gadgets and gizmos can we expect to see during the show?

We covered all bases and used specific equipment depending on the reported ac tivity. So, you will see a lot of environmental devices such as Rempods, EDI+ (Environ mental Detection Instruments), Vibration Detectors, Tri-Fields and specially set up infrared cameras that constantly monitor the hot spots of each location from our war room. In addition to monitoring the en vironment for changes in areas such as electromagnetic fluctuations, tempera ture, humidity and even movement, we dive deep into ITC - Instrumental Trans Communication - to see if we can com municate with any potential unseen energies that witnesses report. We have the legendary Franks Box, only 180 ever made by Frank Sumption before his passing, and we are lucky enough to have one of these originals to see if it can tap into potential spirit voices. We also deployed the DR60 Panasonic au dio device, something many paranormal researchers with love for EVPs will be very much aware of through their research. We

used many tools, and some will make specific appearances in certain shows as we looked to cover all angles and potentials in our search.

If you had to pick one gadget out of the vast range of gadgets that are now available, which one would you choose, and why?

It’s an ever evolving and changing field of research, and the technology as we progress keeps getting better in many areas. I am in awe at some of the ideas and improvements made by my colleagues within the paranor mal field; they know how to push forward in their quest. Kudos to them all! I cannot think of something I love better than the EDI+ due to the ability to monitor so many different environmental factors from within a set area. Then to see it produced on a graph so I can pinpoint events that have taken place during a session. Place a few of these around your location and hit record and you have a lovely data gathering instrument that will vastly help. Do not rule out audio, though; I still firmly believe that we will see much more in the ITC area in the future, love it or hate it!

What evidence was captured during the show?

I shall not say exactly what was captured as I seriously feel the whole circumstances as we investigated will make it so much more powerful for the viewer as they walk the process with us, but I had some eye-opening moments.

I will say though; that some absolutely astonishing audio captures will blow people’s minds, devices will go off that fit the witness reports, and physical activity DID happen. I never ever thought I would be spooked too, oh my gosh!

Fairies, pixies, elementals… They aren›t necessarily conventional areas of the paranormal to investigate. How does your role on the show impact on this? Are you a sceptic or a believer?

I have come across various reports with regards to elementals in the past and Scotland is rife with myths, legends and even reports that touch on the area. You are correct, it’s not an area we see a lot during paranormal investigations and research, but I deal with it the same way I deal with cases of hauntings and the afterlife. I’ve always come from the position of being impartial and open-minded until we gather the data, and information, then build the bigger picture. So if I go into a case ready to attempt debunking, or on the flip side believe everything as fact, I am already compromised in how I will approach it. So with this topic, I had to put any beliefs of what may or may not be fact or fiction and approach how I would any other case, show me the data and let’s see if we can solve this. In such cases, we can still look at the environment and record any anomalous readings. Looking for anything beyond the normal baselines and then exploring it deeper. My role

stays the same in that I am here to use whatever tools possible to gather any evidence while listening to my team’s input and specialities. I always see myself as an open-minded researcher & investigator, very much I do need to experience and be in the thick of the action, as no matter what way I go with a belief system with this, I can be wrong.

Why do you think Scotland is so paranormally active?

I’ve always said where you find deep history, you are sure to find a plethora of mysteries, and Scotland has both in abundance. We have not even started to scratch the surface in terms of Scotland and what secrets she holds. As many know, the historical battles, the age of the land itself and the deep sorrow and emotions etched into Scotland’s very fabric can all have a part to play. Whether this is your classical non-sentient ghostly replay of a bygone event or something a little more intelligent and interactive said to walk the areas being accessed, we certainly see it all reported up and down this country. Could the very earth Scotland sits upon be abundant in energy ley lines as mapped by our ancestors, could this fuel energetic paranormal activity and sightings? So much we can speculate about but make no mistake, it’s a very paranormally active country and we are about to see just how active it can be!

EPISODE GUIDE

Episode One: BRODICK CASTLE – ISLE OF ARRAN

With a blood-soaked history of murder, betrayal, beheading, invasion and disease, the Isle of Arran is awash with tormented spirits and ghostly apparitions. It is also home to the infamously haunted Brodick Castle, but that’s not all that lies within these walls. In this episode our team not only encounters very vocal spirits, but they also face the wrath of the fairies. They will need to come up with unique ways to communicate with these mythical and mischievous creatures.

Episode Two: BANNOCKBURN HOUSE

Sending shivers through your body at first sight, the 17th Century mansion, Bannockburn House, is the epitome of a haunted house. In this episode our team will be battling souls lost throughout Scotland’s bloody history. Using one-of-a-kind equipment they’ll be interacting with what could be Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ghost. Not only that, our team will come face to face with what we believe is a demonic entity. Is this the evil force that has trapped so many souls within this tormented house?

Episode Three: STIRLING OLD TOWN JAIL

With a blood-soaked history of brutal warfare, public torture and grisly executions, Stirling Old Town is said to be the most haunted square mile in Scotland. Slap bang in the middle of this hotbed of paranormal activity is the Old Town Jail. In this episode, the team are here to uncover if all the aggressive paranormal activity plaguing the jail is down to Stirling’s very own Poltergeist. Chris will face one of his toughest challenges yet when the spirits get a little too physical. Clearly, they’ll do whatever they can to push our team out.

Episode Four: TRON THEATRE

The Tron Theatre sits on sacred ground, the stage stands in the shell of an ancient church burnt to the ground during an ancient ritual performed by Glasgow’s satanic “Hellfire Club”. In this investigation, the team uncover poltergeist activity, shocking electronic voice phenomena and try to capture spirit interaction on camera. Did the evil arson by the Hellfire Club open a gateway and release a dark entity? We’ll need our wits and rosary beads to battle this mystery.

Episode Five: CULROSS PALACE & TOWN

The town of Culross has a dark and shameful history, for it was the epicentre of one of the worst witch hunts in European history. In this episode, the team contact the tortured souls of those wrongfully accused of making a pact with the devil. Trapped by the past, Chris wants to bring them peace and hold those responsible for such unspeakable cruelty to account.

Episode Six: EDINBURGH’S VAULTS

The city of Edinburgh is widely considered to be the most haunted in Europe. Buried beneath the cobbled streets of its Old Town lies the mysterious forgotten vaults. This is known as Edinburgh’s “City of the Dead”. Our team struggles to handle so many spirits at once and Gail will have to deal with more child apparitions.

Episode Seven: GLENCOE MASSACRE

In one of the most dramatic landscapes in Scotland lies the legendary Glencoe. The site of a notorious massacre, where Clan Campbell murdered over thirty MacDonalds in cold blood as they slept. Nearby stands Barcaldine Castle, said to be plagued by the ‘Campbell Curse’. In this investigation, the team spend the night in the Castle and uncover a male spirit who torments Gail and leaves her terrified.

Episode Eight: COMLONGON CASTLE

Just off the most haunted roads in Scotland lies Comlongon Castle and Hotel. Both have been abandoned, but in this episode the Spooked Scotland team have been given unique access by new owners. The castle is known for its infamous white and grey lady ghosts. Gail and Chris attempt to communicate with these tortured women. The team also have terrifying encounters with male spirits that lurk within the dungeons. It’s a long night that nobody will ever forget.

Episode Nine: CASTLE MENZIES

Castle Menzies is a spectacular sixteenth century Scottish castle. By day it’s a scene of romantic beauty, yet by night dark forces try to push any unwitting visitors out. In this episode, the team encounters the true wrath of murdered British soldiers and Gail will be faced with her toughest decision yet. Will this castle be too aggressive for our team to crack? Have they finally met their match?

Episode Ten: DUNDEE’S VERDANT WORKS

Nearly 200 years ago, the Verdant Works was one of Dundee’s deadliest factories. The owners were amongst the wealthiest in Europe, but their fortune was built on the exploitation of women and children as young as six. For the first time ever, the Mill has opened its doors to a paranormal investigation and the team are given the run around by spectral children who lead them to an unexpected and terrifying part of this Victorian factory.

The series recently premiered on Really and streaming service Discovery+. Really is available on Sky 142, Virgin 128, BT 17, Freeview 17 Freesat 160 and is available to stream live or catch up on demand on Discovery+

In 1879, one of the veteran inhabitants of the tiny village of Knowle St Giles, situated between Chard and Ilminster in Somerset, was the eighty-three-yearold farm labourer Samuel Churchill. In spite of his age, he was still working on various farms, cutting hedges and tending pigs and poultry. Samuel Churchill had been married once before, but his wife had died twenty-five years earlier; they had a daughter named June who had married the labourer, George England. After Samuel’s first wife had died, he had employed a much younger woman named Katherine Walden as a housekeeper, and they had an illegitimate son named Samuel, before Katherine finally managed to persuade the stubborn old man to make an honest woman of her in 1871. They lived together in a small cottage, along with the adult son Samuel. Katherine’s mother, a cantankerous old woman who was nearly deaf and blind, also lived with them.

Samuel and Katherine Churchill never got on particularly well, however. They quarrelled at regular intervals, and these altercations sometimes ended in blows. Old Samuel was still hale and hearty, but Katherine was a strong, forceful woman with a furious temper. Since she worked as a laundrywoman, and in the fields, she was sturdy and muscular. It was well known in the neighbourhood that Samuel and his wife fought frequently and angrily. Samuel’s daughter June England disliked her overbearing stepmother, and often said that one day, this wicked woman would bully her dotard husband into making a will leaving all his money to the bastard son Samuel. Herself, Katherine was equally fearful that June would persuade old Samuel to cut her illegitimate son out of the will. In 1877, Katherine and young Samuel had set upon the old man when he was returning from Ilminster Fair: they had beaten him up and torn the shirt off his back. Old Samuel had sought refuge with the English’s, complaining of the harsh treatment to which he had been subjected, but the wily Katherine had later persuaded him to return home.

On March 4, 1879, George English was called to Samuel Churchill’s cottage, after word had spread that there had been an accident. He found old Samuel dead in the fireplace, his body much burnt and charred. Sharing his wife’s low opinion of Katherine, George English immediately suspected that she had murdered the old man. He saw her lurking in the bedroom, and remarked that this was a bad business, and the sinister woman agreed. She said that old Samuel had been suffering from fainting-fits, and that he must have fallen into the fire when she was out. When she came back home, she had tried to pour water on him, but he was already dead. A police constable and a doctor came to the cottage, and although old Samuel’s body was very badly burnt, they found marks of blows to the face, head and hands. A blood-stained billhook matching these injuries was found hidden on the premises. When Katherine was taken away by the police, she turned to her son Samuel and said, “See to the will, and mind they don’t cheat you out of the money!”

When Katherine Churchill was on trial for murder at the Taunton Assizes, before Baron Huddleston, the doctor and the two English’s gave damning evidence against her. George English added that a few weeks before the murder, he had heard old Samuel threaten to cut his illegitimate son out of the will. As for young Samuel himself, he was fortunate to possess a cast-iron alibi: at the time of the murder, he had been at work at a farm nearby, with a number of other labouring men. A young servant girl, Eliza Barrow, had an important story to tell. She had been walking past Samuel Churchill’s cottage when she heard an outcry of ‘Murder!’ and saw a woman attack an old man. She ran to her master’s house, suggesting that perhaps he ought to go to the Churchill cottage to make sure that all was well, but he just laughed, saying that the two Churchills were notorious for their fighting and quarrelling. In the end, Katherine Churchill was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The usual squeamishness with regard to hanging women did not apply to such a hardened wretch, who had beaten her elderly husband to death for reasons of greed of gain, and she was executed within the precincts of Taunton Gaol on May 26.

In December 1879, the following short but sinister account was published in the Illustrated Police News, quoted from a Plymouth newspaper:

In March last an old man named Churchill was murdered in a cottage near Chard. For some time after the execution the building remained uninhabited, but at length it was let to a labourer and his family, but the incomers soon found they could obtain no rest. They state that the murderess, ‘Kitty’, has been frequently seen to glide about the premises in ghostly attire, and that old Churchill has been distinctly observed to look in at the window, with hideous countenance. This added to the appearance of blood on the floor of the room in which the tragedy was enacted, supernatural movements amongst the furniture and other articles, and unearthly noises in the immediate vicinity of the cottage, so unsettled the occupants that they at last abandoned the dwelling, which is now regarded as ‘haunted’.

It is a pity that nothing is known about the later fate of this extraordinary, haunted murder cottage near Chard: does it still exist today, and are these formidable ghosts, worthy of the Amityville House of Horrors, still active on the premises?

Top Left to Top Right

1. Fore Street, Chard, from an old postcard. The inquest on Samuel Churchill was held at the George Hotel [which still stands] a few houses down the left side of the street.

2. The murder near Chard, from the Illustrated Police News, March 29, 1879.

3. The ghosts frighten the inhabitants of the murder cottage, from the Illustrated Police News, December 20, 1879.

This an extract from the book Strange Victoriana, a compendium of tales of the curious, the weird and uncanny from our Victorian ancestors, written by Dr Jan Bondeson.

CASUAL CONCURRENCES AND CONNECTIONS OF CIRCUMSTANCES

Bil Bungay, despite owning 30 East Drive, will not stay over in it. Danny Robins is passionate about sharing other people’s ghost stories. Barri Ghai has his gadgets. Higgypop doesn’t believe in ghosts, yet he thinks he saw one and Neil Packer lets people investi gate his Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre. They’re all good and great people, connected via their pas sion about the paranormal all be it with slightly different beliefs, thought sys tems and modus operandi on all things supernatural. Is that a coincidence?

There’s an unorthodox eccentricity to the paranormal at times. Not knowing what will happen on an investigation versus a sometimes somewhat expec tance of what might happen. It’s a kind of Déjà vu flip reverse in motion. Two worlds colliding, the living and the dead, life and the afterlife and (often) common sense prevails that their paths should never cross, but in the paranor mal bubble that a lot of us find ourselves consumed with. Our senses are thrown out of the window left, right and centre. A few years back I couldn’t shake the thought of the Haunted Antiques Para normal Research Centre out of my mind. A place I had been to many times but never thought about as soon as I woke up (it’s normally Weetabix, to be fair). I rang Neil, the owner, up asking if the place was available that night, I spoke to the rest of the HauntedLIVE guys and asked if they fancied an unplanned, un announced road trip. Fast forward 12 hours later and we were there doing a social media live stream from the place. I felt compelled to go, felt the need to go, felt like I had to be there and that some thing was making sure I went there. To cut a long story short, things did happen there, it was a weird night for sure. Was I meant to go; did I know something would happen, was it a flip reverse Déjà vu, was it foresight, was it a premonition?

Imentioned eccentricity be fore and Sam Knight’s first book, “The Premonitions Bureau,” is about two eccen tric Englishmen, a psychiatrist (John Barker) and a journalist (Peter Fairley). In 1967 they tried to tap into the many forms of foresight. Placing an ad in The Evening Standard, setting up an office and urging people to call in with their premoni tions.

Remember this was 1967, the start of flower power, the swing ing 60s, a new generation of young adults not scarred by the harshness of war and what their parents and grandparents had gone through. Barker and Fair ley wondered if it was possible to somehow look into the future and (maybe) stop bad things from happening.

The book kicks off with the sad, sombre story of the 1966 Aberfan mining disaster where more than a hundred children died when an avalanche of coal waste slid down a rain-soaked

mountainside and into the town.

John Barker became convinced there had been otherworldly warning signs and Peter Fairley and himself set up the premoni tion’s bureau with the hope that any foreknowledge of events like this could somehow help in some way shape or form.

YES, this is not a work of fiction, The Premonitions Bureau was a thing, it existed and it goes to show that the whole culture surrounding the paranormal and the supernatural is as weird to some as it is commonplace to others and is absurd to others as it realistic to some.

The more I entwine myself with the paranormal, the more I contemplate the su pernatural, the less weird and less absurd it becomes.

No spoilers as to what hap pened to the bureau, but I hope {somehow, somewhere} it is op erating in a secret underground bunker right now.

WITH PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BARKER FAMILY

PHOTO COURTESY CHRISTINE WILLIAMS

*** EXTRACT FROM ‘THE PREMONITIONS BUREAU’ ***

Barker and Fairley prepared to start logging premonitions in the first week of 1967. As Christmas approached, the Evening Standard, like most of the country’s major newspapers, had a reporter standing by to cover Donald Campbell’s attempt to break the water speed record on Lake Coniston, in the Lake District. Campbell was an idol of Britain’s post-war jet age. He chased speed records on land and on water in a series of vehicles all named Bluebird, after the Maeterlinck play. He compared the urge to achieve greater velocities to exploring. ‘The faster man travels the more difficulties he encounters, the more he is determined to overcome and understand them; and as he proceeds, stage by stage, he penetrates farther into the unknown,’ Campbell wrote in 1955. ‘It becomes something of a disease in the blood, which feeds on inclination and atmosphere.’

By the late sixties, Campbell was an antique sort of hero. He used powerful, experimental technology; he was also strongly superstitious. An enamel medallion of St Christopher, the protector of travellers, was screwed into his instrument panel. He carried Mr Whoppit, a lucky teddy bear, every time he climbed into a cockpit. He loathed the colour green. On Lake Coniston in the winter of 1966, Campbell named his fears aloud and confronted them anyway. On 13 December, a bright, frosty day when no one expected him to take the boat out, Campbell piloted Bluebird K7, his jet-engined hydroplane, up to 267 mph and hit a seagull, which he considered a bad omen. The collision made a dent on the boat, which he refused to fix. He told a television crew about the time when he had driven his gas turbine-powered car over 400 mph on damp, treacherous sand on Lake Eyre in Australia in 1964. Campbell had been afraid to turn the car round and complete his record attempt. While he sat still in the desert, an image of his father, who had also been a speed record breaker and who had died in 1946, appeared as a reflection in his windscreen. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right, boy,’ his father said, and Campbell drove back even faster than before. ‘Explain it as you will – I cannot. But it happened,’ he told rapt reporters on the lake shore.

On Christmas Day, with no engineers or safety team, Campbell persuaded a friend in the village to help him take Bluebird out on the water and he roared up and down alone. At a New Year’s Eve party at the Sun pub, he toasted the press at midnight.

I know that you are all waiting for me to break my neck,’ he said. Campbell played cards to pass the time, waiting for the lake to still. A few evenings later, after a day of sleet and frost, Campbell was playing Russian patience while he waited for a card game to assemble at his bungalow. He dealt himself the ace of spades, followed by the queen. He told David Benson, a friend who wrote for the Daily Express, that Mary Queen of Scots had drawn the same cards before her beheading in 1587. He stayed up late. ‘I have the most awful premonition I’m going to get the chop this time,’ Benson remembered Campbell saying. ‘I’ve had the feeling for days.’

The next morning was 4 January, a Wednesday. Campbell had a breakfast of cornflakes and a coffee, laced with brandy. There was a slight swell on Lake Coniston but it was calm enough to launch Bluebird at 8.40 a.m. In order to break his own water speed record, Campbell had to complete two one-kilometre runs – up and down the lake – at an average speed of more than 276.33 mph.

At 8.50 a.m., the first edition of the Evening Standard went to the presses, announcing the launch of the Premonitions Bureau. ‘If you dream of disaster .’ ran the article’s headline. At the same minute, Campbell entered the second one-kilometre run of his water speed attempt on Lake Coniston at 328 mph. He was beyond the world record, well into the unknown. He had not left enough time for the wake of the hydroplane to settle on the lake and as Campbell sped back, Bluebird began to bounce hard on the water. She rose high into the air, somersaulted and killed him. Photographs of the flying boat and the story of Campbell’s ominous cards filled the front page of the newspaper by the late afternoon. A radio recording preserves Campbell’s last words as he streaked along. ‘Hello, the bow’s up . I’m going,’ he says. And then there is the sound of a small sigh. This is an extract from The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight (Out now, published by Faber | £14.99 hardback)

BY LORIEN JONES

As you enter Oundle, you will be excused for gaping in awe. Beyond the physicality of walking into a new town, you have entered an old time. The warm glow of medieval stone surrounds you, the mismatched rooflines of ancient tiles top buildings big and small. Every façade has a story waiting to be heard, every door like the cover of an old book. Narrow, winding alley ways lead off to places untold and although the roads are now designed for the cars passing through, you can hear the rumbling cartwheels and horses’ hooves with little imagination. Small cottages are almost squeezed in between grand buildings of vast chimney stacks and gabled windows, adorned with intricate stonework decoration, further implicating their grandeur and status.

Cars squeeze down the narrow West Street and people bustle around you, shopping or walking dogs. Coffee shops are frequented by friends catching up in the sunshine on patio furniture, sipping their lattes and herbal teas. Delivery trucks make their rounds and as you look about you now, you see everything you would expect from a small town. But all of this feels out of place, you can see beyond these modern times. The tarmac roads become cobblestone, strewn with straw and horse manure, the soft-soled shoes of passers-by become hard and click along the pavement. You decide to take refreshment in the Ship Inn, a pub dating to the 1600s.

Leaving the sunny street and into the pub almost feels like you are stepping below deck of a real ship. It is suddenly darker, cooler yet still comfortable. A ship wheel hangs on the wall and the passage is lit with decorative lanterns. Choosing to turn left at the end of the walkway, you step down into the main bar and are further welcomed by naval décor. A beautiful darkwooden bar offers ample choices and atmospheric lanterns continue to flicker, adding suitable ambience to the ancient pub. Dark wooden beams stretch low overhead, likely originating from old ships themselves, contrasting the white walls, adorned with brooding paintings of ships at sea. You take a seat near the grand inglenook fireplace and allow the hours to while away.

There has been no sign of the spectral landlord said to haunt the old Ship, and the sun is lowering in the sky. You see the street quietening down through the timeworn bay window and decide to head back out. After all, there is more you have come to see than this gem of a pub.

Returning to the street, you are met with that heady feeling that comes with leaving a dark place and stepping back into sunlight. The streets are indeed quieter now and you relish in this, taking your time to amble to your next destination. You take time to appreciate the buildings you pass by, resisting the temptation to run your hands across the doors and peek in at the leaded windows.

Turning onto New Street, you arrive at your destination for the evening. The street was once known as Bury Street and had a name change during renovation in the early 17th century when many of the buildings were updated. William Whitwell moved to Oundle from Richmond in Surrey with his wife in the 1680s. They lived in a house called Berrystead and did much for the community including donating silverware to the church, and Whitwell is credited for the rebuild of Bury Street, and the Talbot Hotel. Towering above you, you take in all that the hotel has to offer. You can see how it was once described as the most impressive building in Oundle. The stone mullioned windows would have been witness to much in the past, but they were not part of the original building which dates back further still.

A building is said to have existed here in the 7th Century, a monk’s hospice which was a place to stay for pilgrims. Travel was not then what it is now, and those who took to the road were mainly those destined for a church or abbey.

A pilgrimage was an important journey for a religious person, and a place to stay, to rest and recuperate was most welcomed.

“A building is said to have existed here in the 7th Century, a monk’s hospice which was a place to stay for pilgrims.”

The religious connections with the building remained for hundreds of years, and the property belonged to the Guild of Our Lady of Oundle in the 1500s.

During this Tudor period, the inn existed and was known as the Tabard, written in a document in Latin as ‘Tabret’, which was a small tambourine type instrument, but it is more likely that The Tabard was the name, as this was a common pub name of the time. This religious ownership ended with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the late 1530s.

As was the case with many inns, having derived from monastic hospices, they were seized and sold on, or changed their names in an attempt to disguise any religious connections. The Talbot was taken in 1648 after King Henry VIII’s death by the council of King Edward VI as his father’s work to remove traces of a monastic establishment continued.

As you pass the Jacobean front of the hotel, through the carriage entrance in the centre of the building, you find yourself in the courtyard looking at the timber framed Tudor pub, now functioning as the hotel’s reception and administrative area. Surrounded with such history, you give yourself a minute to take it all in. The area surrounding the hotel is built up these days, but an article advertising the sale of the Talbot in 1790 described the property as having 14 acres of land and stabling enough for a hundred horses. Coaching links from Oundle to London operated from the Talbot in the Georgian period and so this stabling was essential. An important visitor to stay and change horses at the inn in 1829 was the then Prime Minister and hero of the Battle of Waterloo, The Duke of Wellington who was passing through on his way south to Woburn Abbey.

You check in to reception to find your room for the night, and discover you are to stay in the Mary Queen of Scots Room, overlooking New Street and the spot you admired the hotel from, just moments ago. As you are shown to your room, you are told that you are walking up the famous oak staircase said to have originated from the nearby Fotheringhay Castle. You have heard much about this staircase and are a little overwhelmed to be climbing it now as it creeks and groans under your feet from years of wear. The stories state that Mary, Queen of Scots was led down this very staircase to her execution. You learn that the window to your right is also thought to have come from the castle.

Situated just 4 miles away used to stand the royal palace Fotheringhay Castle. Now little more than a mound and quite fittingly, plenty of thistles, the castle was the final place of incarceration for Mary Stuart, who had been held under house arrest by her cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of King Henry VII, whilst Mary was his great-granddaughter. When Mary fled the Scottish throne in 1568, she sought refuge from the English queen, but many Catholics believed Mary to be entitled to the English throne, and whilst Elizabeth wanted to help her cousin, she ultimately saw her as a threat and hence ensued Mary’s nineteen years of imprisonment. She was held at Fotheringhay from 25th Sept 1586 until the time of her execution on 8th Feb 1587. After her execution in the great hall, the castle fell into disrepair. By 1603, Mary’s son James VI of Scotland had become James I of England under the Union of the Crowns. James sold Fotheringhay which was subsequently dismantled entirely, and materials sold off for use in other buildings, which was commonplace at the time.

After you set down your bags, you return downstairs to dine after a busy day of contemplation and sightseeing. Suitably stuffed with delicious food, you retire to your room to rest. Gazing out of the leaded windows, you again let your mind wander. You imagine the lamplighters illuminating the street with gas lamps, the last swoosh of bustling skirts retiring through doorways for the evening. An intoxicated man staggers past, young children scurry home as dusk sets in. You look across the skyline, now hazy with smoke from the many puffing chimneys staggering across the horizon. Dressing for bed, you imagine the people who have slept in this room before you and contemplate the ghost stories that surround the hotel. Crying is said to be heard coming from this room, and the only one next to you in this part of the building, when both rooms are known to be empty. The ghost of a female looking like a maid in a long dress, cap and pinafore is seen around the building and you wonder if the crying comes from her, pondering what may have been her fate. After a long day, you drift off into a comfortable sleep.

At some time during the night, you are awoken by a commotion outside your room. You’re surprised, as this part of the building is far removed from the rest of the rooms, bar one. You lay there for a while, annoyed at being disturbed at such an hour, waiting for the noise to subside. When those outside the room fail to desist, you haul yourself out of bed with a sigh. Peeking through the peephole in the door, you see nothing. The noise, sounding as though it’s right outside your door, continues and so you open the door a crack, not wanting to be seen in your nightwear and a little hesitant at what you will find.

Moonlight streams through the huge, old window, and for the rest, the building is in darkness. You see a group of men, illuminated in the natural light, descending the stairs, now in silence. You instantly realise these are not men from this time. They wear ballooning jackets, neck ruffs and carry swords. As the procession turns the bend in the stairs, you see it’s being led by a woman dressed in black, wearing a head dress, veil and rosary beads. She is assisted by the arm of a gentleman in body armour and followed by two sorrowful looking women. As you take in all you are seeing, the stories you heard earlier this evening run through your mind. The last of the men vanish from sight as the stairs pass underneath where you now stand. You lean forward, trying to catch a last glimpse, steadying yourself on the banister. Under your

hand is the crown imprint, reportedly made by a ring worn by Mary, possibly a Luckenbooth ring. She is said to have gripped the wood so tightly before her final descent that her ring forever imprinted in the wood. All remains silent and you wonder if you really witnessed all that you just saw.

An account of the execution of Mary was written by Robert Wynkfielde This is a shortened version of that script:

Her prayers being ended, the executioners, kneeling, desired her Grace to forgive them her death: who answered, ‘I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.’ Then they, with her two women, helping her up, began to disrobe her of her apparel: then she, laying her crucifix upon the stool, one of the executioners took from her neck the Agnus Dei, which she, laying hands off it, gave to one of her women, and told the executioner he should be answered money for it. Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying and crossing themselves prayed in Latin. She, turning herself to them, embracing them, said these words in French, ‘Ne crie vous, j’ay prome pour vous’, and so crossing and kissing them, bade them pray for her and rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their mistress’s troubles.

Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants, as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves, prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing them to pray for her even until the last hour. Then the two women departed from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, In Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam, etc. Then, groping for the block, she laid down her head.’

You stand there in the moonlight in the continued silence for a short time, waiting and wondering. Suddenly the air feels charged with a static, you hear words being spoken… “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum”. They seem to echo from all around you in a gentle, yet painful way. They are the last words known to be spoken by Mary Stuart and translate as ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit’. All is quiet again until the mournful sobbing begins.

Uncanny

For thirty-five years I told no-one about the phenomena I experienced in Tanfield House. Even for an artist, poltergeists are a big no-no, there being a not so fine line between ‘Visionary’ and ‘Crank’. But in January 2021 I came across Danny Robins’s gripping podcast, ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’. The woman at the centre of the haunting, Shirley Hitchings, braved scepticism in the retelling of her childhood story. It made me reflect on the shame I felt at my own poltergeist experience. I decided to put my head over the parapet in support, and in January my story was told as ‘The Haunting of Tanfield House’, in Danny’s follow up series, “Uncanny”.

Haunted Magazine have invited me to share some of the pictures and writing I produced during the two years I spent at Tanfield House, as I tried to process the phenomena and hold onto my soul.

Gaffa is that sticky tape that you can tear easily with one hand and mend almost anything. I once surprised a building inspector who found me fifty foot up the side of an old chapel, wobbling about on my home-made scaffolding - two ladders, a chair and a bucket - gaffered to a porch roof, as I tried to nail on a barge board.

Twenty years earlier my art tutor was peering up at me in much the same way, balancing precariously beneath the art school ceiling, gaffering giant cardboard constructions of white nonsensical planes. They grew to fill my studio space, and then my room in the flat. I refused to paint over

them, and I wouldn’t explain to anyone what these things were.

I was trying to portray a hidden universe, somehow folded up into our outward reality, but fractured, so that things - living dreams - could emerge: to make sense of the impossible in the way that I knew best, through my

artwork. Occasionally I would draw myself peeping through holes in the sculptures. What I was doing was imitating my poltergeist.

“I lie in a middle land, where half of me lives in a material world, and half somewhere else.”

Diary

Excerpts from the diaries of Patti Keane

“....am I suspended in Gaffa?” Kate Bush

Tanfield House

I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, just another second-generation immigrant kid, embracing the amazing music and social scene of my industrial home town, Wolverhampton. I had a talent for portraiture and in 1984 I set off for Farnham, Surrey, to study painting.

Not the simple market town I had imagined, Farnham was immensely posh. Rents were astronomical and finding accommodation was tricky. When in my second year I was offered a flat by two departing students, I felt I had won the lottery. I moved in with my friends and fellow painters, Nic and Jenny. An older photographer, Phil, used a fourth room as a base.

Tanfield House sat in a parking lot next to a set of traffic lights, a grimy, rendered block. Once an old coaching inn, the Albion, it now housed an unmanned car showroom, with a tiny sandwich bar tucked in the crumbling extension to the side. The flat ran above both - four dilapidated rooms, a bathroom and kitchen. There was no heating, phone or washing machine and a landlord who left us alone. It was art student heaven. We could paint and hammer and saw up the furniture to our hearts content. I loved it from the moment I walked through the door.

After only a few weeks Jenny asked if I would swap my tiny box room for her large studio one, telling me she felt depressed in it. I shuffled my bags across the landing and took possession of the Buttercup Room, so called because of a bright yellow chair that came with it.

“Tanfield House is an old coach inn, on the more down town end of the main street…..My room looked out over the road and every morning I was woken by the first sunbeams…. Unfortunately Jenny could not settle in her room and so we swapped as it really didn’t worry me as to which room I was living in.”

Diary entry (21st December 1985)

My new room had a dense, heavy atmosphere. I would wake to see grey shadows grouped round my bed, a mattress on the floor: was this just a trick of the light?

“At night something rustled near my bed. In the morning the light sat in grey guilty blocks around me. I always woke surprised and stared at it, And I would get up and not be sure…...”

Diary entry (1985)

Sunset in the Buttercup Room (September 1985).

Tanfield House residents and friends (l-r), outside the back door, 1986: Patti Keane; Allison Galbraith, author; Steve Marchant, artist and teacher at London Cartoon Museum; Nic Carter, artist and author.

Sunset in the

Itwas the pause that bothered me. I timed the pause until the loud ticking started, positioning the clock around the room to test the sound levels, in daylight and in darkness, and roping Nic and Jen in to listen. I muffled it in a sock or jumper, hid it in the wardrobe or on the window ledge, even replacing the clock, but the pattern remained the same. Get into bed, silence for five minutes and then, BAM! the horrible loud ticking would start again. If it had just stopped there, I would have put it all down to some very weird acoustics. Other mundane sounds started to encroach, rustlings, scratching in the wall. Little tapping noises would start up somewhere in my room as I sat drawing. If I got up to investigate, they would stop, then start up elsewhere. The sounds would leap walls and travel over surfaces. There was no evidence of mice or rats and believe me, I looked. I grew up sharing my bedroom with wild mice, and my pet mice, gerbils and hamster. Frequent escapees, I was used to their ‘scamper and stop’, the burrowing and gnawing sounds they made in the furniture at night.

Over in Nic’s and Jen’s rooms, all was quiet. Not wanting to worry them, I stopped mentioning the oddness in mine. We were settling into our new home and that meant parties, love affairs, late nights debates and desperate attempts to keep warm. I spent weekends with my boyfriend, Hog, who lived in a student cottage out of town. Life was fun and there wasn’t much time to worry about alarm clocks.

One night I was woken by a loud clanging, which came from the wall next to my bed. Thinking ‘Bloody pub sign!”, I looked out of the window to see nothing but bare wall. I checked the flat for a loose window, nothing out of place. The sounds abated until I got back into bed. This was the first appearance

Before long I began to notice peculiar noises. The firstconcerned my cheap Woolworth’s alarm clock. The tickingwas only audible at close range, but a few minutes afterI got into bed it would tick incredibly loudly. I knew thateveryday sounds are amplified at night, and, from mycamping trips was aware of how heightened awarenesscan distort perception. But there was a pattern to theticking which was just odd.

It went like this: Get into bed, read, reach for the lightswitch. Silence for five or so minutes then:

“TICK TICK TICK”

of the bashing sounds that grew to be so terrifying later in the year.

There was a theatricality about the way the noises manifested. They were not affected by what I was doing – I could be sitting still or wrestling with the hoover – but by the dynamics of the flat.

During the spring term Hog finished his finals and left. With Nic and Jen often away at weekends I spent more time alone in the flat. The sounds became the back-drop to my life and every evening I battled to conquer my rising fear, often fleeing to sit on the park swings at the top of our road. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

If the others were out, I would hear a bashing noise from another room. I would have to check it out. The sound would stop and start up behind me or lead me along the corridor in a sinister game of hide and seek. These were really loud sounds, with a choreographed, rhythmical pattern. Why couldn’t anyone else hear them? Like me, Jen and Nic often sat working in their rooms. My feelings turned from idle curiosity to a growing unease. The sounds were real enough but the room had a sickly, cloying feel to it. There was a darkness that seemed to seep in as the sounds played with my mind. Was this something I could sense, or my imagination playing tricks with me?

I was not a ‘fresher’ in her first student digs, this was my fourth home since leaving my family. Aged 18 I had lived by myself in an attic above an old town centre shop, amongst a pile of abandoned packing cases, not bothered by the three darkened floors below or the empty buildings next door. I was just not afraid of the dark. In fact, I liked it, often camping alone in Farnham woods to watch the badgers and deer.

As a teenager I was once subjected to an exorcism by a Catholic priest (a leading figure in the Charismatic Movement1). As Youth Protection Officer for an inner-city parish, I pictured a ‘right-on’ priest with advice about hostels and counselling. I had approached him for help for a psychotic friend, but alone in the presbytery he turned his attentions to me. After an uncomfortably probing interview, and without any warning, he laid hands on me and started a fullblown exorcism.

A pioneering girl altar server before my rebel teenage years, I could sing the Latin mass. I was familiar with the long litany of saints he called on for protection at the start of the rite. What I had never heard before was a priest speaking directly to the devil. He called on Satan, Beelzebub and other demons, demanding they leave me. The Latin turned into ‘tongues’. A paralysing stream of energy seemed to rip through me as the exorcism progressed. I don’t know how long this went on, however, an unexpected flicker of outrage flared up in me. The lightning stream went out, as if a switch had been flicked, leaving the priest bulging-eyed and sweating, ranting on, unaware it was all over.

He invited me to accompany him to America to address a youth rally, “to tell them what Jesus had done for you.” I didn’t sleep for two weeks.

“A knocking could begin in a wall or in the furniture. If anyone came in for a chat, it stopped, only to start up when I was alone again.”

Now, three years later, a sickly thought occurred to me, that whilst Jenny had felt something ‘off’ in the room, I had become the focus for some dark thing, vulnerable, maybe, because I had resisted that exorcism. The darkness in the room was reaching out to the darkness in me.

I started to police myself for moral failings. An extra piece of cake, an unkind thought; my diaries reflected a constant struggle. I started a series of self-portraits that explored my connection with this dark entity.

Investigation and Research

Ibegan

what became a two-year investigation to find a rational explanation for the sounds. The building had no cavity walls. When I pressed my ear to them, the sounds seemed to come from within the bricks. Not relayed sounds, nor the familiar contractions of an old house at night. There was no central heating and the pipes to the kitchen and bathroom were wall mounted. Water pipes can mimic drumming, but ours never did this.

I traced pipes, wires, vents, every nook and cranny, inside and out. I examined walls, windows, gutters, for anything loose, even listening at the drains. I visited the sandwich bar and showroom below the flat, hoping to find a noisy extractor fan or boiler, often pressing my ear against their windows at night, always nothing.

Alongside ferreting about in the drains, I began studying the science of perception, human psychology and even architecture, spending days in the library taking notes. What I didn’t do is research the paranormal. I knew nothing about poltergeists and didn’t recognize the strange phenomena as such.

Research for a rational explanation

Portrait with claws (1986).

Tanfield House cartoon, with something horrible lurking in the drains (1986)

Small objects I started to find in my bed and other odd happenings just bewildered me.

A flower is springing from the oily rag that I always held when painting, this symbolises a spark of light that I am clutching, as a defence against the darkness that has me in its grasp.

“Late at night. Now tell me, what is a bottle of shampoo* doing in my bed?”

*This was a special bottle of organic chamomile I had brought with me from Wolverhampton. Proud of my glossy locks, this was not a hint to wash my hair from my friends!

Diary entry (1986)

“Oh it is dangerous to wash your hands. For a moment as the water splashed through my fingers I’m sure I felt your hands...”

Diary entry (1986)

Poltergeist throwing a cake at me (Spring 1986)

I tried to keep a lid on things by not talking about it, even to Hog. Even in my diaries I couldn’t spell it out. If I admitted it, it would become true, and the whole world would collapse around me. Maybe I would have to face another exorcism. If I left Tanfield House, for all I knew, the thing would follow me. I decided to try to battle it out.

“So now I am sitting perched on the end of my mattress, being scared.”

Diary entry (2nd June 1986)

I painted ‘A portrait with a poltergeist’ around this time. It shows a shadowy horned figure with bowed head standing behind me, one clawed hand on my shoulder.

After this I stopped painting altogether. Instead, I collected bits of old cardboard which I built into abstract collages. The structures grew in size, suspended to fill my studio space. My painting tutors were not impressed.

Diary entry (Spring 1986)

I never stopped drawing, however, and a new motif appeared in my sketchbooks. A tiny blind, deaf and mute child, always in a corner of a room, or alone in the street. She became very important to me, innocent, ageless, caught between this world and eternity.

The Little Girl (Spring 1986)

I staggered to the end of term and spent the holidays working as a painter and decorator with Hog, a welcome distraction from my worries.

My

return to Farnham heralded the start of my final year. I continued to work on my giant sculptures, avoiding the tutors at all costs. Back at the flat the noises started up from the first night. This time the poltergeist was going for it, as if outraged at having been abandoned during the holidays. At last Nic and Jen heard it too.

“Hello, oh dear – I’ve chickened out and I’m sleeping in Nic’s room after Jenny, Nic and me scared each other silly hearing funny noises around the household. It was really funny, but I then I showed myself up by not returning to my room. In a way it’s silly because I know I can be brave enough, but it seems to take a lot of energy being brave and I am tired.”

Diary entry Wednesday 24th Sept

One day a number of mattresses appeared in my room from nowhere and Jenny insisted that I had left a quilt in her room, which I hadn’t. When odd things happened, it was usually connected with the bed.

Phil moved out and the large White Room, a studio space with two big windows, became available. I felt an inexplicable reluctance to leave the cloying presence in my shadowy room, guilty even thinking about it.

One weekend Jen and I were alone in the flat. Jen went to a party and got incredibly drunk. I helped her to bed and had just returned to my room when the lights went out. The door and walls of my room began to be battered by an incredible force; the bashing sounds ear-splittingly loud. I ran to Jenny’s room, but she was impossible to wake. The bangs and crashes came from every direction, wall, floors, ceilings. It sounded like someone running up and down the corridor hitting the walls with a hammer, then rampaging around the other rooms. If I had been alone, I would have jumped out of the window, but I couldn’t leave Jenny. I contemplated tying some sheets together and lowering her out of the window, but it was a 12-foot drop; just too dangerous. I sat for an hour, rigid with fear hoping it would just stop.

Eventually I just couldn’t stand it anymore, and walked out into the corridor into a wall of sound. Except for the light from my candle, the flat was in utter darkness. I tried to follow the bangs. I checked all the rooms and either side of the walls, terrified I would see a face and die of fright. Nothing. I made my way back to Jenny where I spent the rest of the night cowering on a sleeping bag, scribbling a commentary in my art history notebook,

complete gibberish really - silly anecdotes, cooking disasters - anything to distract myself from the madness in the flat. The sounds persisted until dawn finally came.

I told him about the phenomena and that I was having difficulty leaving ‘it’. He advised me to move to the room with the most light. The fact that he believed me meant everything.

“Friday I finally managed to blurt out my ‘room’ troubles to John Lavery. Nothing seemed to be decided but it was really good just to admit to someone I was having problems with something that strange and not feel crazy. I really wish I could talk to Jenny and Nic about those things – but I can’t – I keep trying but I am so inhibited - and so aware of my inadequacy to communicate.”

Diary entry (5th October 1986)

“Oh dear, most terribly frightening experience. Incredible thumps and bumps in the night but there’s no one here but Jenny and me and she’s quite asleep and drunk. I am hiding in her room in a sleeping bag – I can’t even go to the loo…...

Perhaps I had better go to sleep immediately. Why am I the scardiest person in the world? What day is it? Thursday, tomorrow Hog’s coming – he can look after me for then. Guess what, I am not in the least bit sleepy – it is too dark to read. Perhaps it is all my fault because I eat too much.

I am very vulnerable down here in this sleeping bag. In fact – I’m not even in it, I’m on top of it – even more exposed. At least I have got my duvet – that’s friendly and cream and pink like a big cloud, reminds me of Sweden which is a sensible place I imagine….”

Diary entry (October 1986)

I moved rooms the next day. If a poltergeist can defy the laws of physics, then changing room won’t help, but to me it symbolised an attempt to break away from the possessive relationship that I was in. The first night in the new room it made its presence felt, as if in retaliation. I wrote it a note, trying to use humour to combat my fear:

“Ah ha, so there’s one here too!

I’ll get ya

I’ll think of my friend Hog and that will frighten you away!

Hah Harha ar ha”

The new room had a brown rug on the wooden boards, on which I put my mattress, close to the fire. I stacked up some branches into a woodpile, which, in lighter moments, I thought of as a hutch for my poltergeist. The rest of the room was my studio, half-finished sculptures filling the big white space. I scrawled the note below as the poltergeist bashed against my wall one evening, not a full-on attack this time, again trying to use humour, as a defence:

Jenny and I parachuting out of the window with a Sainsbury’s bag

A few days later my tutor, John Lavery, found this account and questioned me about it. This was the first time I had ever talked to anyone about what was going on in the flat.

“Knobbles of wood stacked in the corner…….. I know what is in there, behind you, in that camp, yep and what you are hiding, that’s where the Ghost lives, in the sawn faces and the thatch of kindlings and the something that moves around the carpet and the heavy wooden floor that I thought were my friends, oh I can see you. Very well, my yellow bow saw defend me - chop the shadow behind the paper box and I’ll aim at it.

I know, I’ve heard (you) at nights, it’s not the rain in the chimney or the cold stinging….and there’s no mice, I can tell you that for a start.

No, not even a small one and why not? Old houses always have mice – I’d like to have a mouse. No there are no mice because they’re TOO SCARED, yes, I know, I haven’t spent all that time under the bedclothes picking my nose you know – no, I have been listening to you, yes…….. and trembling.

It’s not my fault you know, though I know I am a coward alright –there you go again – what do you mean by it? You’re useless. You’re a real pain, I am not going to think about you”

As much as I tried to persuade myself that it was not my fault, deep inside I believed it was.

“The room requires. And with an eyelid batted too soon, or an eager over-eaten anxious hour papers and pillows are scattered wildly from the wood pile sawdust streams.”

Diary entry (November 1986)

The main focus of the poltergeist seemed now to be on my bed. When I climbed in, always with the light on, I would hear it start to creep across the carpet towards me, bit by bit, like a crawling dog. At times I was so terrified I would rush down to Nic’s room, but there are only so many times you can do this before it becomes awkward.

“When I put down books and pen and try to turn off the light Cloudy fingers part the papers and the leaves The carpet hums and midnight time I am turning like a lover confused or a fevered child waking hot like a baby in wraps Ears are singing

It wasn’t anyone but...”

Diary entry (November 1986)

We Are Legion

I felt that the attention-seeking antics of the poltergeist expressed an emptiness and loneliness. There was a sense of rage and grief. It never felt like the poltergeist was just one thing. At times I thought of it as an old man, broken, alcoholic, once giving it words:

“OOOOOOOH ooooh this beer that runs black from ma glass and the broken spit that mixes with the foam oooh my crinkle hands back to days picking stones and blue caraway flowers and sucking cabbage stalks and potatoes”. December 1986

Sometimes I pictured it as an worn-out barmaid, still cleaning the old rooms. It was her that I felt came to the bed. Maybe it mistook me for a child. I would wake up in the night feeling the mattress rocking like a cot, with the sensation that I was being lifted up and the blankets rising with me. It wasn’t sexual, but it was skin crawlingly intimate. This was something that persisted until I left Tanfield House for ever.

“About someone entering a deep space. Someone entered my deep space ruthlessly They were looking for something.

I was lying there, the woman’s face was old and ironed.”

“Beyond the grey is a sunset over the clouds. Later, the heavy spring stars will pull the buds out of the leaf-scars and the daffodil blossom,

Marking the time that I’ll float in this room, with a clock that ticks only in the dark

When evening sends the spirits in to rock the bed clothes gently and then I say me prayers to weigh them down again.”

Diary entries (Spring 1987)

None of this was good, but at the heart of it all was something unspeakable that I find very hard to write about. I sensed that the poltergeist contained a remnant of humanity, however, behind this was a cold, mocking, emotionless presence. This darkness was feeding off us all, the poltergeist - old man, old woman, whatever it was - and me. I could feel this evil thing looking always over my shoulder and laughing at the paranormal comedy that played out night after night.

Cartoon with shadow in the woodpile, the demon alarm clock next to me (October 1986)

April 1987

Diary entry (December 1986)

The dark tower symbolised the evil I could feel, at the centre of the chaos in the flat.

“Here I am believing all manner of things, raindrops fall down my chimney onto the scrunched up paper, Hog coming for just a day soon, till then I don’t want to sleep here alone and I guess after will be worse.”

Diary entry October 1986

One evening I had a visit from Hog. In the morning I went off to college, leaving him alone in the flat. He

only recently told me about his experience that morning, when I asked him about his memories of Tanfield House. His account is as follows:

“After Nic, Jen and Patti had gone off to college I stayed in bed, having had an arduous journey the day before. I was enjoying a snooze when I suddenly heard a huge commotion in the corridor. Opening the door to peek out, the sounds immediately stopped. I checked the front door and, being in holiday mode, went back to bed. Again there was a terrific commotion in the corridor, sounding like a group of people jumping up and down, fighting, incredibly loudly. I got up a second time but yet again the commotion stopped the instant I opened the door. I checked the front door, went into all the rooms: nothing. Wondering what on earth was going on I returned to Patti’s room and started to get dressed. The wild noises started for a third time, but this time they came barrelling along the corridor, sounding like a charge of people. As they passed each bedroom the doors were being hit, first one door than the next door then the next. The door to Patti’s room was pummelled as if by fists. The sounds went round the L-shaped corridor into the kitchen, then disappeared. I dressed in record time and ran into the corridor, chest puffed up, ready for a fight. Utter stillness. Suddenly I felt completely surrounded. I picked up my bag and walked out as slowly as possible, fearing if I ran I would be vulnerable.”

Not wanting to frighten me, he kept quiet about it, but encouraged me never to stay in the flat alone.

“...phoned Hog. I was planning to stay in Farnham for a few more nights but when all were gone Tanfield House seemed so lonely. He said pack your washing and come over as soon as you can….”

Diary entry (April 1987)

My

friend Mowgli moved into the Buttercup Room and made it cosy. The Christmas holidays had arrived and Nic and Jenny went home. Jen and I let our rooms out to students looking for a short Christmas let. I had a cleaning job, so stayed on for an extra week, camping out in Nic’s room.

Nic’s room was in the extension, on a lower level to the rest of the flat. I considered it a safe space. But I was woken by the sound as of fists, repeatedly hammering the walls next to me and the bedstead. I was actually embarrassed; what must the other students think I was doing?

Now I was alone at the end of the long corridor, without Nic to turn to, I started to feel really afraid. I stayed in the kitchen as late as I could each night and counted down the days till Friday. Each night the noises became louder and more frantic. On the fifth day, Mowgli’s new girlfriend, Schiona, moved in. I loved her immediately. She was sweet and friendly, exquisitely pretty with huge green eyes. I felt cheered up by her presence in the flat.

“I fell asleep quite easily that night. But in the early hours I was once again woken up by incredible bashing sounds, this time in the corridor. I am slow to anger, however now I woke up in what I can only describe as a complete and utter rage. I jumped out of bed and flung open the bedroom door, shaking an imaginary fist at the poltergeist and thinking, “I AM GOING TO HAVE YOU!!!!” I don’t know what I thought I was going to do.”

The hall light was on and to my complete amazement, standing before me was a man with a baseball bat. Another stranger was charging up the stairs. They shouted something like, “Where’s Schiona?” There was no time for talking. I launched at the first man, and we wrestled in the corridor whilst the second man charged past and began searching the rooms. My attacker and I held onto each other as I struggled up the corridor, kicking bedroom doors as we fought.

The second man smashed the door to the Buttercup Room off its hinges. He picked up a huge ceramic dish, the weight of a large brick and then a heavy metal fire, smashing them down on Schiona’s head as she lay sleeping. Mowgli woke and managed to fight him off. The other residents were awakening, but the damage was done, and the attackers fled the scene. Schiona was semi-conscious. I went with her in an ambulance to hospital where she was admitted with serious head injuries. The attacker was Schiona’s abusive ex: she had escaped him only that day.

There was an utter stillness about the place when I returned to the flat in the morning. I sat on the edge of Nic’s bed thinking about the lead up to the attack, the urgent, relentless hammerings. It seemed to me that the poltergeist had been trying to warn me. If it had tried to save Schiona, maybe it was not demonic? More than that, I had fed off its energy that night. During the fight, it had been there with me. I addressed it directly and thanked it. I felt that the poltergeist was pleased with itself. I decided from then on, if possible, I would try not to be frightened of it.

After that night I never heard the angry banging sounds again, though the tappings and creeping about persisted. I thought of it as an ‘elderly retainer’, and I felt a sort of fondness and responsibility for it, though, I could never really bring myself to fully trust it.

“I think I know what can be good. And darkness frightens me when I am tired and sometimes I am overtaken by it.”

Dark Tower (Etching, 1986)

There was another change too: the dark terrifying presence had gone. It was as if the poltergeist had seen that off as well. I started painting again.

“Three years gone.

And in East Street ending in a very old whitewashed knobbled bones, try, try – take and exorcise the room I exorcised my words and they’re similar, perhaps not hard enough. Words hide under mean and thunder, invisible.”

Diary entry (Spring 1987)

One presence that also stayed with me was that of the little girl.

This is an unfinished poem I wrote about her shortly after the attack:

The Little Girl

Limbs tremble like a shivering grass. Mind like a drop of light from a crystal glass. Gloves on strings, your hair brushed neat. Two small shoes on your little feet.

How come you are so old, you are very very young. You don’t say a word. How come you know everything?

Your eyes don’t see, you never said a word, ………… When you look at me.

You cannot do what you are told, You sometimes smile. ………….

You stay with me a while.

You know everything, you stand there all the time. You shine in the street,I wish that you were mine.

Aftermath

Sadly Schiona and Mowgli left the flat immediately and went into hiding for five years, constantly stalked by the ex-boyfriend, eventually leading them to emigrate.

Nic, Jen and I finished our studies and moved up to London. It was very difficult to leave the flat. I felt as if I were leaving the poltergeist to languish in a cage. I did not know how to say goodbye. I have worried about the poltergeist over the years - what would happen if the flat was knocked down?

Telling my story to Danny Robins enabled me to reclaim the part of my life I had tried to shut away, and in doing so to understand the profound effect it had on me and my art. I am proud to be part of the funny, kind Uncanny Community that has sprung up around the podcast series.

I would also like to thank the Ciaran Farrell at the Society of Psychical Research for the support he has shown me during the past two years, and the owner of Tanfield House, Peter Pollard, for encouraging me to tell my story. Above all, I would like to dedicate this

story to Shirley Hitchings, and everyone who has suffered from the doubt, fear and dissonance that a paranormal encounter can bring.

One last detail. On researching the history of Tanfield House last year, I discovered that a little girl was murdered in the street on which the Albion stood, after she refused to fetch a jug of ale for her alcoholic father. He carried her body the few short yards up St John’s Avenue and laid her body in the park near the swings, where I spent so much time sitting during the two years I lived in Tanfield House. She has stayed with me over the years, often appearing in dreams and popping up in pictures and stories.

“It seems dark from here Inside an umbered shadow house Block of gold haunt an intense face with tinged eyelashes cluster of curls round a child

Farnham has a dark image, with golden colours playing around it, but generally dim evenings and windows and shadows.”

Notes

1 The priest was a leader in the British Charismatic Movement. Their motto was “See, Judge, Act”, which he believed gave him the authority to perform an on the spot exorcism. There are strict rules in the Catholic Church governing the Rite of Exorcism, including a psychological assessment of the supposedly possessed person and an investigation by an appointed exorcist.

I contacted the original students who lived in Tanfield House prior to me. They too had encountered poltergeist activity in Tanfield House, but that is not my tale to tell.

Letter from Nic.

“The building was very old and the rooms were on different levels. It had writing on the walls warning that the wiring was not safe, eg. not to touch the switches in the kitchen with wet hands. In one room,when you opened a cupboard you could see the sky through a hole in the wall. I was extremely happy there and felt it to be a very benign and charming place but I didn’t feel comfortable in the large room on the higher level and would

never have wanted to sleep in it or be alone in there. It felt extremely cold in there. My friend Patti would often ask if she could come and sleep on the floor in my room, in the slightly more modern part of the building, as she felt happier and safer there. Patti is a very perceptive and sensitive person. She has an ability to find things that are lost and was very good at finding four leaf clovers. She once saved my life when an electric fire set my bedclothes alight when I was asleep. She came into my room and woke me just in time. In a purely practical sense there were many health and safety issues with the property of which we were either blithely ignorant of, or blasé about at the time. So ultimately I think Tanfield House protected us from potential disaster!”

Nic Carter, Tanfield Resident 1985-1987, writing 2021.

https://www.instagram.com/ pattikeane.illustration/

DUNLUCE CASTLE & THE WAILING BANSHEE

written By Charlie Hall The Musical Medium

A long the picturesque Antrim coastline stands Northern Ireland’s iconic Dunluce Castle, which boasts a dramatic history of tragedy, romance, banshees and spirits. The impressive medieval ruin is only connected to the mainland by a wooden bridge and is perched precariously on the edge of a high craggy cliff, with a sheer drop, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Made of strong local basalt rock, the haunted castle sits upon a huge 25 metre cavern underneath, known as Mermaids Cave.

The Fortress is most recognised as the exterior, cgi’d shots of Pyke castle of house Greyjoy in the popular TV series Game of Thrones and appears in the inner sleeve artwork of Led Zeppelins 1973 Houses of the Holy LP. It is also believed that Dunluce was the inspiration for the castle at Cair Paravel in author CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.

Built in the 13th Century by powerful Irish noble, Richard ‘The Red Earl’ Og De Burgh, whose daughter Elizabeth was the second wife of Robert the Bruce, the keep was used as a fort since the Vikings sailed to the North coast. The exact translation of Dunluce is uncertain, but the closest suggestions are either Hill or Fairy Fort, or Fort of the Fort.

The mighty McQuillans, who I previously wrote about at Bonamargy in Haunted Magazine issue 32, arrived from Scotland as gallowglass warriors and extended the castle in the 15th Century, until rival clan the MacDonnells, took possession of it in 1565 in the Battle of Orla. Chieftain Sorley Boy MacDonnell, (buried in the vaults of Bonamargy Friary), ordered his men to cover the bog with rushes and reeds then stand on firm ground to fool the McQuillans, resulting in them being defeated, after charging into the bog and having to surrender the castle.

Over the next hundred years Dunluce was besieged numerous times by the English, who eventually seized it from the MacDonnells, but they were not going to let them have it for long and attacked the castle repeatedly. Sorley Boy ascended the cliff to take back what was his and in an act of defiance hung the constable Peter Carey, in the Southeast tower. They say he now haunts it, seemingly wandering the ramparts at night in his purple robe. Feelings of being pushed in this tower when no one is there, have been described by visitors.

A young McQuillan claimed to have seen a female dressed in white standing at the cliff edge, looking out to sea and fading away but no one believed him until bizarrely years later, several people caught sight of an apparition of the same description walking along the shore. Some folk tried to speak to her whilst others stated hearing her wail and there have been lots of reports of ghosts and unsettling screams coming from the Northeast tower. In Irish folklore there is a feared, supernatural being called a Banshee, (woman of the fairies), a troubled female spirit who mournfully shrieks to foretell the death of someone close. Dubbed as the Omen of Death, she appears and lets out

an infamous sound known as keening before disappearing into the skies.

Dunluce castle is known for the legend of its resident wailing Banshee, who came into existence after a heart wrenching tale of tragic events in the 1500’s. Lord McQuillans beautiful, strong willed only daughter Maeve Roe, infuriated him when she caused humiliation by falling in love with the son of his foe, a prisoner named Reginald O’Cahan. Maeve was devastated when he therefore chose another for her to wed and she was begrudgingly betrothed, to Rory Oge. She refused to abide by her father’s wishes, so he locked her in the Northeast tower to separate the lovers and give her time to reflect on their actions. Heartbroken Maeve could not bear to be apart from Reginald and could be heard woefully crying from dusk till dawn in her cell.

One stormy night Maeves true love had a cunning

plan and came to rescue her, he climbed the walls and excitedly lead her beneath the castle into the Mermaids cave. They descended the steep 115 steps into the magical 60-foot-high vault to find his hidden rowing boat. With the roaring sound of the deadly sea, they made their escape into the night heading for Portrush to start a free new life together. The raging tempest was too much for the tiny boat, the couple fought at odds with the waves but were thrown against the harsh rocks whilst her father watched helplessly from the castle. Sadly, Reginald’s body washed up the next day and Maeve’s body was never recovered, denying her a Christian burial. Her anguished lost soul still roams Dunluce, being seen and heard by various people throughout time. Her prison tower is now known at the Turret of Mava, servants supposedly refused to go in

there after she passed away as they said it somehow remained spotless and swept as though she had still been residing in there cleaning, causing fear and superstition.

THE FIREPLACE

As a child I knew Dunluce castle, like I had been there before, my mum and aunts have told me how I was always interested and strangely drawn to the place as though it was home from home. I had a few dreams of looking down on someone falling backwards in slow motion from the castle into the sea below and another one of a dark-haired woman in a dress and shawl, walking around in there feeling alone and gazing out across the ocean, then it was as though I was flying around outside above the castle staring down at it, was very surreal.

There is an awful, disputed tale that on a turbulent evening in the 16th Century, some of the cliff gave way, causing an

entire section of the castle to crumble and fall into the sea taking seven unbeknownst people with it. Most sources say a servant boy survived and it was the kitchen that collapsed, sending the cooks and staff, who were preparing for a banquet, plummeting to their demise in the fierce sea beneath. People claim to hear the painful cries and squeals of the ill-fated staff by the remains of the kitchen where part of the ovens and fireplace still stand now.

On the grounds there are remnants of an outer and inner ward, a gatehouse, manor house, servants’ quarters, workshops, stables, brewery, gun and cannon ports and a privy. The castle also had its own gallows, dungeon and a medieval hall. Sorley Boy’s son Randall managed the establishment of the castles once thriving local town. Over time it sadly dilapidated and became the Lost town of Dunluce. For years it remained hidden under fields until archaeological excavations unearthed the old town, revealing cobbled streets that stretched to the castle, an early iron age souterrain underground passage, a Scottish stone merchants house, a courthouse

and a blacksmiths forge with horseshoes, anvil and chisels.

Other artefacts collected such as coins, thimbles, clothing fasteners, game components, bone combs and a wine glass, showed evidence of abundance. It is possible that musicians visited to entertain residents as a bronze harp tuning pin was also found.

the shipwreck which he used to renovate the castle and some cannons which were put in the gatehouse. Victims of the Girona disaster are buried in the graveyard of St Cuthberts church near Bushmills, the church was originally thatched, with the signs of the zodiac painted on the ceiling and is thought to be linked to a Northumbrian cult. The cannons, cannon balls, silver and gold coins and treasures from the Girona are now in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Throughout history there have been many stories of ghosts and mythical creatures at Dunluce which is what has made it the renowned and loved place that it is today. One of the most photographed castles in Ireland that is such an inspirational place for TV, literature and music, even the famous actor and martial artist Jackie Chan, visited in 2003 during the filming of one of his movies.

Some unforeseen riches came to Sorley Boy in 1588 when the Spanish Armada’s Grand ship, The Girona, was sailing around the Antrim coast and a treacherous storm drove it into the rocks, sinking her and taking about 1300 souls with it. He retrieved valuables from

Dunluce is an important part of Irish history and culture protected by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. Castle and gift shop staff regularly experience poltergeist activity, reporting that the radio gets turned on and things move around on shelves in the night, so Dunluce is a must to visit for

any paranormal enthusiast. It is like stepping into a time capsule that holds all that ever was and has been in there, with every emotion trapped eternally. You can feel the energy of the happenings and if you listen hard enough you can hear the whispers of every story it holds in the walls. Dunluce has always fascinated me, I love it there, my soul is somehow connected, and I will return many more times in the future.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Do Earth feelings run deep?

By Hubert Hobux

There are Ley Lines running across the rolling landscape of haunted Bradgate Park. You can dowse their indiscernible course with rods and there are incredibly old outcrops of energised stone to enjoy if you are fossil hunting fiends like my paranormal friends Sarah and Andy.

Ancient beds known as the Sliding Stone Slump ‘Breccia’ rocks are up to 560 million years old and form a line of crags below Old John Hill, the lofty site of Leicestershire’s famous folly raised on a strata of Mercia mudstone, we are talking geological happenstance here by sea, desert, ice and volcano that makes the Bradgate Formation one of the oldest in Europe!

Rockhounds Sarah and Andy were desperate to visit this mystical park; childhood home of the ‘Nine Day Queen’ de-facto Lady Jane Grey; herself said to be bound to that land in ghostly form, by forces gravitational? For if environmental energies engender hauntings anywhere it will surely be here.

The fanciful lore around Lady Jane’s unfortunate destiny imagines that a phantom coach, drawn by four headless horses has had her whisked away from Bradgate Hall every Christmas Eve since her execution. Her destination, the church at nearby Newton Linford, where she vanishes into the porch and the ether only to reappear nine Days later when she exits the church to ride her coach back to the residence that she had to endure in the 1540s. Her grimly decapitated head now resting bloodily in her lap for the return trip. Some kind of limbo hell if she indeed haunts residually, as her parents were said to be cruel and abusive whilst bringing her up at that abode. (Jane was probably happier at Sudeley Castle where she went briefly to be lady in

Jane’s ambitiously conniving father Henry Grey, who suffered the same lopped off fate as his daughter now headlessly haunts the castle of his own kinfolk, Astley, Warwickshire, so he’s well out of this picture but there are many other ghostly shadows connected to the Bradgate estate! The once grand Hall of the Suffolk’s, stood ruinous since 1739, has many shades of old retainers still in place, seemingly going about their household business amidst the low stone walled foundations and grounds. The inner sanctum of the restored Chapel in the property does for instance, draw the lividly latent spirit energy of feisty Duchess of Suffolk, (Frances Brandon); mother of Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary. Still splenetic at suggestion of her maltreatment of Jane perhaps? Frances can certainly get the emf meters flashing in that stone flagged crypt anyhow! They are mostly set out in a circle of seance and she tends to ‘stomp’ around the participants gathered ‘stroppily! Bringing a spectral air of discontent to the confines!

waiting to Henry VIII’s widow, Katherine Parr ).

“There are those who claim they have heard Janes ghostly coach creakily trot past them without seeing anything, others have felt a whoosh of metaphysical ions sweep along the driveway but hear nothing.”

I

had visited the area several times already enjoying the Haunted Heritage organised ghost walk that encourages you to dowse the Leys and grants you access into the normally locked Chapel, so was well aware of the eeriness of the park.

We, energy chasing three, set off with pendulums and picnic packed to enjoy our own day of dabbling with divining, having been introduced to the Bovis Scale recently, we had started to recognise those invisible waves of earth energy that emanate from below and experience the adverse sensations these forces may abstrusely inflict upon you can be a revelation!

Having found mostly good energies all the way up to the tankard shaped Tower on Old John, our paranormal problems arose when we rushed down to explore Bradgate ruins for the last hour before the volunteers locked the gates..

Sensitive Sarah picked up on something lurking by the old kitchens which latched onto our combined energies (we thought) as we tuned into the slightly off vibe of the foundation, and as we proceeded through the roughly waist high level chambered wall profiles, (redressed in preservation in the 1970s) there was a sense of being accompanied. The sunken undercroft (cellar) areas were offering us some enticement, so we poised on the edges and peered down into the weed smothered hollow depths. I stood alongside Sarah and raised my phone to take some photos when she shrieked sharply!

“Instantaneously my phone died! I know the battery level was 62% but the phone just conked out as Sarah screeched”

“Did you hear that?! Did you hear that?!”

I’d heard nothing she was stood open mouthed, eyes wide in shock “Something’s just buzzed straight through my head” she declared in partial disbelief (and much to Andy’s amusement)! “I felt and heard something go through my head” she insisted! Andy confessed he had seen a “peculiar light anomaly” belt from out of her, straight into your phone!”

My phone was drained flat that was a fact. Sarah’s complexion was looking decidedly peaky now!

Being right next to the tower that looked like it had once housed a spiralling staircase she staggered towards and into that, as if compelled by some invisible force. “ Oh my god just go in there “ she urged. The energy was heavy enough for even me to feel swirling, not good but I think Sarah had already soaked up the majority of it like an old sponge. That was the moment the Bradgate volunteer came to tell us they were locking up and we needed to proceed to the exit. Frustratedly, we had to abandon any contact!

Parked at Hallgate, it was a long trek back to the car. Sarah insisted we retrieve the picnic she had prepared for us to consume in the park before we moved off. Sat on the lushly grassed hillside in the evening sun, Andy looked concerned as we munched pizza and cake and Sarah complained she felt cold. It was still sweltering actually, I joked she’d got someone with her, unfortunately it turned out she had!

We were attending the Paranormal Research Centre at Hinckley that night (again) and we inadvertently imported another (temporary) ghost into Haunted Antiques, either by my spirit pranged phone (which no matter how much I tried to recharge I couldn’t) or most likely via Sarah’s phantom hitch hiker. Sarah had been knocked for six leaving her nauseous, weak and noticeably disjointed, much to our alarm (her being our chauffeuse)! It took Andy’s best banishing techniques to rid it off her (he’s a practised exorcist) and even after he thought he had scared the thing away; she was affected badly for several days following. She was left “ feeling ‘swimmy’ and suffering the effects mentally and physically “ for weeks after! Oddly as soon as we limped into Sarah’s car to return home, my phone rapidly recharged on a portable booster and worked as normal since!

Discussing the events later, we came to the intuitive conclusion that Sarah may have suffered the effect of a ghostly crossbow bolt swooshing through her skull, aroused by the inaudible infra sound emanating from the known Ley line less than twenty yards away in the park perchance?

We are told the magnetic field of our planet is currently in flux. Being quarter of a million years overdue in flipping polarity apparently, so who knows what afflicting force is vibing up from below our feet at the moment and how this might affect us all whether empathic or not?

An interestingly eerie aside on the ruins of Bradgate Hall, they have just had an archaeological dig done this last year. Several interesting things were unearthed, and the dig was wound down in the conclusion of its tightly allotted time schedule, the trowels were packed away and the very next day the excavations would be filled in. One of the archaeologists couldn’t get the site out of his mind though, all the way home he had the nagging feeling there was something else to be found, to such an extent that he had to get out of bed in the middle of the night, drive all the way back to a deserted Bradgate and by the light of a torch extracted a unique medieval pot jug from an area of ground where no one had previously thought to dig. He described the find as the highlight of his archaeological career!

A few weeks after our Bradgate escapade we packed pendulums and picnics again to surf the energies of our local haunted lead mine, Magpie said to be cursed by the Red Soil mine widows.

As soon as we entered the site of old ruinous workshops, still and quiet with grated air shafts and colourfully contaminated flora dotted all around, we were feeling an envelopment of veiled sadness and mildly draining energy. We usually head off in different directions to try and locate those pockets of “spirity” energy and Sarah had picked something ghastly ethereal up in the iron-built head cage lift that was positioned near the Cornish engine tower. A sensation of swirling unsteadiness was experienced once we stood within the cage, almost as if the device was in

operation still, clanking down into the dark depths leaving the miners trepidation embedded into it.

There is an earth mine exit over by the now roofless round “Coe”. As we approached that old (now mostly filled) horizontal shaft, we were getting a sense of unexplainable dread that wasn’t pleasant. As is our way, we were dowsing the environmental energies again using pendulum and Bovis Scale and a very low negative reading was found around that entrance.

We didn’t realise until we left the site again how drained we had been by the long-laid memories of toil and slog seeping up from the darkly repressive depths of the toxic tunnels below. Earth energies are highly affecting, are we all on rocky haunted ground now?

Hubert

To find out more about Haunted Heritage scan here https://hauntedheritage.co.uk/

To find out more about Magpie Mine scan here https://pdmhs.co.uk/

To find out more about Haunted Research Centre scan here: https://hauntedresearchcentre.com/

Hubert Hobux was exploring Earth with his good WANDERING SPIRITS PARANORMAL friends Sarah and Andy...

Acouple of years ago I wrote an article for my website, Higgypop.com, entitled, ‘Do People Still Actually See Ghosts?’ In it I questioned why more people aren’t reporting seeing apparitions of the long dead, despite the fact ghost hunting events are growing in popularity, exposing more and more people to haunted locations and the possibility of encountering something that goes bump in the night.

Since writing about this seeming disconnect between the number of reports of apparitions and the increasing number of ghost hunts, I’ve been forced to re-evaluate after seeing something weird for myself while on a ghost hunt with the team from Haunted Happenings at Woodchester Mansion.

The mansion sits within a secluded valley deep in the Gloucestershire countryside. This grand Victorian mansion complete with menacing gargoyles and Gothic architecture, has the look of a classic haunted house about it. My belief-shaking moment happened while I was being shown around the unfinished house by local paranormal expert, Paul Hobday, who will be familiar to viewers of the Really’s show, ‘Ghost Chasers’. Paul works closely with the Woodchester Mansion Trust and knows all about the property’s history and ghostly goings-on.

THE SCEPTIC & THE GHOST

We’ve all heard the stories of phantom monks, grey ladies and full-bodied apparitions, but sightings of these elusive visions are rare. This led me to question whether people still see ghosts... until I saw one myself.

Paul told us that the mansion had been the dream of Liverpudlian, William Leigh and that it was constructed on the site of a much earlier Georgian country house called Spring Park. Work on the mansion started in the 1850s, but progress was slow, and the project was eventually abandoned.

At one point on the tour, I was stood with the rest of the guests in a corridor at the back of the house as Paul told us a little about this part of the building. The lights had been turned off in the corridor, but Paul was holding a torch, which let out a decent amount of light, so it was easy enough to see our surroundings.

“From where I was stood, I could see along an adjoining corridor that lead to the chapel. This was before the ghost hunt had actually begun, so I wasn’t expecting to witness anything, but I did. Suddenly a human-sized, grey mass appeared about 1.5 meters into the opening of the corridor opposite me.”

The object had appeared right in front of me, directly in my field of view, it lasted for a second or two and then it vanished. With such a fleeting glimpse it’s hard to recall and describe exactly what I saw, but it was stationary, and it appeared to be floating off of the ground.

The shape was tall, grey in colour and appeared to be draped in fabric. I’m reluctant to call it a figure, because it lacked the characteristics of a human body, such as shoulders, limbs, head and facial features, but it appeared to be about the same height and width as a human. The best way I can describe it would be as someone holding up a bed sheet. In fact, it wasn’t too far removed from that classic comic book image of a ghost wearing a sheet.

“As a sceptic, I was a little taken aback by this. I didn’t think it was possible to experience something like this in the way I did. I don’t believe in ghosts and normally when people report a sighting like this it’s something they’ve seen in the shadows or out of the corner of their eye - this wasn’t.”

After writing down my description and sketching my sighting, Paul told me that other people had seen things in that exact part of the building. It’s been described as a dark or grey figure; some even describe it as a hooded monk.

I want to be clear. I 100% did not ever use the word “monk” to describe what I saw, but in hindsight I can certainly understand why someone might describe exactly what I saw as a monk, especially someone with a better imagination than me.

It would be easy to leap to the conclusion that it was a human figure wearing a hooded robe, especially if they only saw it for a couple of seconds too.

This experience has helped me to tackle my question of whether people still actually see ghosts from another perspective. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that what I saw was the spirit of a dead person, but I saw something and what I saw seem to match similar experiences reported by others.

From this new standpoint it’s quite easy to see how a report like mine might perpetuate a myth of a full apparition, and it all comes down to the human tendency to misremember, embellish and exaggerate stories.

Most ghost stories are passed on by word of mouth or retold in books and on websites. During this retelling we often inadvertently corrupt them by imprinting our own beliefs and opinions or emphasising the interesting parts while leaving out the boring bits - this can dramatically change how the story is perceived by the person it’s told to.

It would be very easy for some who believe that a grey monk haunts Woodchester Mansion to retell my story, and since they believe I saw a monk, that’s how they will tell it, thus perpetuating the myth of a monk which will be perceived to be a full-bodied, identifiable apparition of a monk by those who hear this retelling of the story. The reality might be that no one has ever seen

a grey monk at Woodchester Mansion, but we might have all seen that same grey shape which could at a stretch be described as being sort of like a hooded figure.

If anyone has seen a full-bodied apparition then it would be Danny Moss, who leads The Haunted Hunts paranormal team, so I asked him for his opinion on apparitions. Danny thinks that there’s a rational explanation for at least 90% of reports of the paranormal. He said that seeing a ghost is all down to our imagination and preconceptions of the haunted location, “people put two and two together and automatically assume they’ve seen a ghost.”

Knowing this to be true, I did all I could to try to debunk my experience. I spent some time back in that same area where I tried to sniff out non-paranormal explanations. Some parts of the building had ceilingmounted electronic sensors with a green light that flashed every few seconds. So, I thought perhaps there might have been some kind of mist drifting across the corridor that was temporarily illuminated by the flashing light, but on inspection, there were no sensors in that particular corridor.

Danny added, “to witness a real full-bodied apparition is an extremely rare thing and I believe that it’s luck, you have to be in the right place at the right time and that may only occur on a particular date and at a particular time, which makes it even less likely to see one.”

So, was I lucky? Was I in the right place at the right time and managed to experience real paranormal activity? It’s very hard to say. If I had to commit to an answer, I would

say no, but it was definitely unexplained and very unusual, which as a sceptic is quite high praise for a possible paranormal happening. The incident didn’t give me any reason to conclude that what I had seen was the spirit of a dead person, but since it could so easily be described as a shrouded figure or a monk, it does help me to better understand what others have seen, no matter what the cause of it is.

Danny said, “I think a lot of the shadow people and dark masses people see nowadays can be caused by sleep deprivation. Investigators are often up until the early hours of the morning and it’s common that people see things out of the corner of their eye.”

Could it have been my eyes playing tricks on me? Yes, of course. This is always a possibility, especially when it’s only witnessed by one person, and it’s not caught on camera. However, I’ve not seen anything like it before or since, and it wasn’t merely something I saw out of the corner of my eye, it appeared directly in the centre of my field of vision.

However you describe it, it’s definitely the closest I’ve been to seeing what could be called a ghost. It’s possible that I was mistaken or that there was a rational explanation, but to me it’s unexplainable and it’s comparable to sightings that other people have reported. Rightly or wrongly, those people are often confident enough to call what they experienced a ghost, so I think it’s reasonable to classify my experience the same way. Therefore, I do feel that I saw a ghost.

THE DEEPER WE DIG...

Having read Jane Rowley’s excellent piece on residual energy in issue 33, I felt compelled to give some serious consideration to the practical implications of residual energy when placed in an historical context, and so in a deviation from my usual concerns within these esteemed pages regarding the lore of regional Britain, I ask you to join me on this detour as we consider something quite different.

On occasion, through my work with the Local Mythstorian project, I have had cause to speak at various events relating to local history and folklore. I absolutely love doing them, and one theme that is never too far away from me when I’m on “stage” is the nature of the relationship between history and the paranormal. It is a topic that always serves to ignite debate, and one that enjoys quite a range of positions when it comes to belief. As my audience is usually predominately historical in focus, one position regularly adopted says that the two topics - specifically when it comes the issue of ghosts - should be kept distinctly separate. I respect that view, but for me, it’s a practical impossibility when we’re dealing with folk memory and lore. Even for the most empirical of historians, it must surely be a positive that the “spookiness” attached to certain corners of history is something that will encourage an interest in the deeper history of a subject? And for those of us more supernaturally inclined, that same sense of otherworldly companionship can bring real excitement to certain subjects that might otherwise prove quite difficult to penetrate. It was one such debate following a recent event that prompted a question to me; and one that I have heard asked, often somewhat lazily, more times than I care to remember over the years. A question that is often asked in a manner that suggests it may act as a match-winner in such debates; “If ghosts are real, then why are there no Cavemen ghosts?”

By Eli Lycett

There are a number of classic motifs shared across the spectrum of visual haunting that we will all be familiar with, but perhaps none more so than the image of the ghost that drifts through a solid wall, or seems to glide across the floor; floating, it would seem, through our mortal realm, free from any sense of gravity or physical laws. These reports are often found in tandem with a sense of repetition; recorded actions that appear unconnected to the world in which they take place. On occasion they will inspire debate about stone tape theory and the existence of electromagnetically recorded, emotionally super-charged imprinting. It’s this classic haunted house stuff that gives rise to tales of footsteps heard on the stairs at 1am every morning and security alarms being sounded at the same time, over and over. Quite distinct from any sense of intrusive poltergeist manifestation or more interactive forms of haunting, the “spectral replay” is also the kind of haunting most casual observers of the ghost topic will recognise.

The question, have you ever seen a ghost, is naturally much more palatable than engaging with any deeper notion of personal belief. It is far less complicated to discuss solely the idea of what someone may or may not have seen or heard. As such, it’s a lot more comfortable to answer too. It’s this idea of the recorded haunting that I would like, for the duration of this

piece at least, for us to treat as a solid reality, no matter our view on the laws, probabilities and likelihoods of greater ghostly mechanics. Let us accept that somehow, those wafting, looping figures are indeed the recorded imagery of some yet to be discovered science, or hither to unknown element of the light spectrum.

If we accept this as a playbook that we are comfortable with, even if we cannot fully understand how its chapters are written, then we are presented with a series of probabilities. If the haunting is intrinsically bound to a structure or place, existing in some form of tangible energy, then it must surely follow that if we, as proper, bonafide, walking, talking humans, choose to alter the fabric of the structure or place in which the haunting is contained, our experience of the haunting will then also change in line with those alterations.

Let us consider a simple haunting at a country house, where a white lady is seen on occasion to walk from one end of the room to the other, holding a candle. Once a dividing wall is built during renovations, that white lady now becomes a ghost which walks through walls, simply by virtue of the fact we have erected a wall across her ghostly flightpath. Then, let us build an extension onto the country house, the top floor of which meets with the floor level of that which the haunting energy has long been tethered.

n the building of the extension, various repairs were made to the original structure of the house, and now it is actually slightly misaligned from its original elevation. Now when that white lady makes her procession, her energy presents to our senses as little more than a hand being visible, holding the candle out into the upper story of the extension. Suddenly, we have a “disembodied hand”. Quite crude perhaps, but you will take my point, I’m sure.

It is to this idea that historian and presenter Richard Felix speaks to in the story that he refers to as “the best ghost story ever”meaning that of Harry Martindale and the Roman legion at the treasures house in York. Working as an apprentice electrician in March 1953, the 18-year-old Martindale was shocked to his core when, as he worked in the basement of the ancient property, he fell from his ladder at the sight of an entire column of Roman soldiers marching past him. They appeared, he reported, to be marching on their knees. A curious observation, given that 30 years later excavations on the site revealed that two feet below the current floor of the treasures house basement lay the remains of a roman road long lost to historical record. It would seem that the world may change its shape, but the routes of its hauntings do not. They simply get chopped off at the knees.

But what does this observation really tell us? Beneath the story, as great as it is, is a suggestion that material alterations, much in line with my fictitious example earlier, alter the observable pathway of the energy replay. It is this, when considered alongside an apparent half-life of ghostly

energy that seems present around us, that makes for an interesting possibility.

Most ghosts, when seen, tend to be “dressed” in a fashion that we can relate to with relative ease, primarily because they belong to a time period not all that distant from our own. World War 2 uniforms, Victorian-era dresses, even the civil war cavalier and the Elizabethan lady; all periods relatively close to our present day in the rear-view sweep of history. The reason as to why this seems to be the case is sometimes met with a psychological explanation for wider ghostly phenomena. That, as constructs of the human mind, it makes sense that these spectral encounters would owe their genesis of presentation to the periods and references most commonly understood by the modern mind. But what if they’re most common to us because, simply, they are periods of energy with intact hardware? Energies tethered to buildings and infrastructure that we have not yet had chance to destroy via renovation or construction.

Much archaeology is to be found half a meter to a meter below ground level of present day, due to successive historical communities stripping away material and building new a top of the old site, not to mention the additional sweeping soils and silts of time that compound the depths of such sites even further. Balanced against residual energy theories, this would mean that any energies tethered to those constructions connected with such sites have either been “broken” by material re-use or simply buried beneath the earth. Similarly, coastal erosion, river

channel alteration would render former sites of human habitation lost to the world, and with them, the further we go back, the more generators of recorded spectral energy too would vanish in tandem. All things considered, so great is the cumulative transient effect of everyday life, both from the natural world and from our own industrial endeavors that it’s a wonder there is any residual energy in situ at all beyond a 300 year horizon.

And so, the reason as to why there are no “cavemen” ghosts, or rather, as the question likely longs to be reframed - as to why there is a proclivity for in-situ spectral replays to exist primarily within a date range of post medieval history and not before - could well simply be because there’s comparatively little left of the worlds that existed before it. Of course, if this theory was to be taken at face value, it poses another question. If we are to take on the scientific observation that energy cannot be destroyed, where does that residual energy go? The picture must surely be one of thousands upon thousands of years of such energy bleeding into the earth, fragmenting into materials, being reshaped and reused, creating an unfathomable network of spectral batteries that are displaced and reset throughout our modern world. Incoherent and chaotic, their triggers misfiring and our attempts to interpret the resulting phenomena leaving us baffled and confused.

EliAll sounds rather like poltergeist activity to me.

PICTURE CREDIT: JUNKO, PIXABAY

EDITOR

Paul Stevenson @hauntedmagazine paul@hauntedmagazine.co.uk

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Andy Soar @thehauntedguy andy@hauntedmagazine.co.uk

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WRITING TALENT

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