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

Sunset in the Buttercup Room (September 1985). Before long I began to notice peculiar noises. The first concerned my cheap Woolworth’s alarm clock. The ticking was only audible at close range, but a few minutes after I got into bed it would tick incredibly loudly. I knew that everyday sounds are amplified at night, and, from my camping trips was aware of how heightened awareness can distort perception. But there was a pattern to the ticking which was just odd. It went like this: Get into bed, read, reach for the light switch. Silence for five or so minutes then:

“TICK TICK TICK”

It was 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 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.

“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.”

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. 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.

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.

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. Portrait with claws (1986).

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.

Tanfield House cartoon, with something horrible lurking in the drains (1986) Research for a rational explanation

“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)

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.

“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)

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.

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. 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.

“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)

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. 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.

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:

“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”

Cartoon with shadow in the woodpile, the demon alarm clock next to me (October 1986) 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.

“I think I know what can be good. And darkness frightens me when I am tired and sometimes I am overtaken by it.” 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 Dark Tower (Etching, 1986) 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.

“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.

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.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ pattikeane.illustration/

Twitter: @KeanePatti

DUNLUCE CASTLE & THE WAILING BANSHEE

written By Charlie Hall The Musical Medium

Along 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.

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.

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

THE FIREPLACE

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.

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 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.

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. Charlie X

By Hubert Hobux

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Do Earth feelings run deep?

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 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.”

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!

Ihad 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!” 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...

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.

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. 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?” Well...

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.

In 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 M ost 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.

All sounds rather like poltergeist activity to me. Eli

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