The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

by Haining, Peter

  Tragedy Follows Protests Over Ghost Drama

  Source and date: Mail on Sunday, 8 November 1992

  Ghostwatch, the BBC’s controversial Halloween TV spoof, was blamed yesterday for a teenager’s suicide. Profoundly disturbed by last Saturday’s programme, eighteen-year-old Martin Denham hanged himself from a tree – called The Witch Tree – near his home in Nottingham. A suicide note on Martin’s body read, “Dear Mum, please don’t worry. If there are ghosts I will be a ghost and I will be with you always as a ghost.” The documentary style of the drama starring Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and Mike Smith, terrified thousands of viewers who jammed BBC switchboards in protest at its reality and the gory scenes. Yesterday distraught parents April and Percy Denham told how they tried to reassure Martin, who had a mental age of twelve, that it was all make-believe. The BBC point out that the programme was billed as a drama, but Mrs Denham says there should have been a specific warning. Martin had sat transfixed by the programme where the depicted haunted house was, like his own, on a council estate. A BBC spokesman said yesterday that the programme was clearly advertised as fictional drama and added, “Of course, we are very sorry to hear of this tragic event. However, we need to know more about this case before venturing any comment.”

  Dead Major Returns to Haunt Old Comrades

  Source and date: The Times, 19 March 1994

  Major William Henry Braddell has decided to renew his membership of the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly more than half a century after being killed by a German bomb. To the delight of psychic investigators and the shock of the staff, the major – who was nicknamed “Perky” – has taken up residence in the Egremont Room. A porter saw the apparition wearing an ankle-length First World War trenchcoat in the small hours gliding slowly from a corner before disappearing. Floodlights outside the London club, which switch off automatically at midnight, came on as the ghostly old soldier appeared at 3.07 a.m. After he faded into a wall they went out, Trevor Newton, the night porter, said. Mr Newton, described by fellow staff yesterday as “a very steady man” who had never heard of Major Braddell, was “rooted to the spot” after his encounter. He has ventured back into the Egremont Room, “but not with any great enthusiasm”. The connection was made by Peter Brabbs, a former club steward who knew the “bluff and humorous” Major and recognized the description of his ankle-length trenchcoat. He always wore this and was in the club on 19 May 1941 when a German bomb fell. Major Braddell had left the room to make a telephone call and when he returned his two fellow drinkers were dead. A week later, the Major himself was killed by a bomb in Kensington. Psychic investigators say there has been incredible interest, but there are no plans to exorcize the major’s ghost. Peter Brabbs said, “I do not think he has returned to terrify people. The major has probably come back because he was happy here. He’s among friends, too; there are quite a few other ghosts.” One of these is said to be that of a man who went berserk after visiting the club. “You always know when he’s about because there’s an icy blast through the rooms. ‘Perky’ will be company for him and can perhaps cheer him up a bit.”

  Scientific Spirit Turns to Study of Ghosts

  Source and date: New York Times, 25 August 1994

  Reports of ghostly apparitions cannot be dismissed as the rantings of the insane or the work of hoaxers, a senior clinical psychiatrist said yesterday. Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who has been studying reports of ghosts in Britain and the United States, said that people to whom the dead appeared had normal, healthy minds. He said there appeared to be an explanation for the sightings, which defied traditional science. “Evidence for these kinds of experiences are too frequent to be dismissed,” Professor Stevenson said, citing studies that claim 10–15 per cent of the population had seen apparitions. He has been studying cases dating back forty years in which someone who has died or is about to die appears to a close friend. The professor said that these reports could be checked by scrutinizing death certificates for the time of death and by carefully controlled interviews with the person and family involved. “Studies of the mentally ill show they are not gifted in the same way. They may hear voices and see people, but this is usually related to their illness and their claims cannot be substantiated,” said Professor Stevenson.

  Ghostly Pulling Power

  Source and date: Northern Echo, 29 April 1995

  “We couldn’t believe it,” said Pam Scarr, landlady of the Bonnie Moor Hen at Stanhope in Weardale. “The pump tap goes down all on its own and enough beer to fill a half-pint glass is pulled and just pours in the drip-tray underneath.” Pam and her husband, Joe, are getting used to having a ghost behind the bar at their pub, but there are frightening moments. The pub is next door to a graveyard and while the couple have laughed off locals’ stories, “We have heard bloodcurdling screams from the cellar and barrel taps switching themselves off that have changed our minds,” says Pam. She adds, “I am frightened – but whenever I go down to the cellar I just sing loudly all the time and keep telling myself the ghost won’t harm me.”

  Phantom Army on the Move

  Source and date: Sunday Times, 29 June 1997

  Some of the weirdest ghosts of the handover of Hong Kong to the rule of China are the hordes of mythical soldiers who have been repeatedly spotted in the centre of the former British colony. Of course, everyone is used to the idea of the People’s Liberation Army arriving. But the sight of their green uniforms and red stars is chilling. Rumours that a “phantom army” was on the move last week created an almost hysterical reaction among local people until it was revealed that a newspaper had organized a stunt with two reporters dressed up in uniform to go out asking for money. The two unfortunates returned bruised, their uniforms in shreds. Mythical sightings of foreign troops are now regarded as a classic sign of imminent unrest. During the First World War, ghostly Russian Cossacks were spotted throughout Britain, “with the snow still on their boots”. They turned out to be heavily accented Scotsmen from Ross-shire not Russia.

  Treat Ghosts Politely!

  Source and date: Village Voice, 11 August 1998

  Archaeologist Alyssa Loorya reckons she has found the way to prevent ghosts in haunted houses from making life difficult for their occupiers. While Ms Loorya and a team of builders were renovating Lott House, one of the few remaining Dutch farmhouses in Brooklyn, NYC, they encountered a number of weird problems. Light bulbs kept burning out soon after they had been replaced, doors were forever slamming although the windows of the Lott House are boarded up, and workers reported a number of strange manifestations. Enquiries revealed that the late owner of the property, Ella Suydam, who had died there in 1989, aged 92, was a stickler for old-fashioned courtesy. “That gave us the clue,” says Alyssa Loorya. “All the noise in the house must have upset her ghost. We ring the bell now when we come into the house and even say hello to Ella. It seems to have quietened everything down.”

  Spooked Spies Go on a Ghost Hunt

  Source and date: Sunday Times, 20 December 1998

  Britain’s spies have been spooked. Military intelligence officers may deploy electronic surveillance equipment to hunt for ghosts in the 850-year-old abbey that is their new headquarters. Balls of white light have floated in mid-air in the billiard room in front of one officer. Another member of staff said she had twice seen a figure thought to have been Rosata, a nun who was forced to watch her lover’s execution and was then entombed alive in a wall. Other officers have heard children’s laughter and seen lights coming from unoccupied rooms. Even animals have been affected: two guard dogs with perfect records for obedience and bravery had to be sent for retraining after they refused to go near the priory. The hauntings were reported over the past few months at Chicksands Priory, near Bedford, which was taken over by the Intelligence and Security Centre, an agency established two years ago by the RAF, army and navy to oversee covert intelligence operations. Its staff ridiculed warnings about the building’s histor
y – it is reputed to be haunted by nine spirits including the nun and a suicidal baronet – until they moved in. Brigadier Chris Holton, the centre’s director, said, “The ghosts are talking to us. It’s ironic that an intelligence organization should be haunted, but the priory is rotten with memories, echoes of the past that are still with us today.” Some officers have welcomed the hauntings as a character-forming challenge and have asked for rooms believed to be affected. Holton believes the apparitions are not spirits, but “recordings” of traumatic events imprinted in the fabric of the building and endlessly replayed. Earlier this year military surveillance equipment, including seismic detectors, was used to monitor movement and temperature change. The man operating it heard “strange noises”, but the group intend to stay put. Says Brigadier Holton, “What we do here is all about the blurring of barriers. Prejudice is the greatest threat to good intelligence and we must always keep open minds. There is a definite spiritual element to the intelligence business – so this building makes us feel very alert.”

  US Airman’s Ghost

  Source and date: The Times Diary, 28 June 1999

  Spooky sightings at Cirencester Park, the stately pad of Lady Sarah Apsley. The former beauty queen was out walking her dogs when she happened upon a friendly-looking young man in airman’s uniform, leaning against the historic 60-foot Queen Anne’s Column which towers over the acreage. She says, “The clouds were just breaking up and I glanced at the sky and said, ‘It looks as if it’s going to brighten up.’ When I looked back he had vanished.” According to a forest worker, a US airman’s ghost has lurked in the park since the Second World War.

  The Haunted Supermarket

  Source and date: Daily Mirror, 2 June 2000

  With the dawning of the new century, the last bastion to resist being haunted has fallen. The 24-hour Tesco Superstore in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk has been plagued by a spectre that has been haunting the store’s cafeteria in the small hours. Last month there were also reports of poltergeist phenomena being seen by customers. The supermarket stands near the remains of the mediaeval St Saviour’s Hospital, traditionally home for the ghost of a “Grey Lady”.

  Film Star Moves in with Ghost

  Source and date: Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2000

  Kate Winslet, the twenty-five-year-old star of the twentieth century’s biggest grossing movie, Titanic, was warned yesterday that she will be sharing the house on the Cornish coast she has just bought with a ghost who appears early in the morning. She has paid a reported £380,000 for the house at Tintagel and is spending thousands renovating the property which has spectacular views over the Atlantic. Miss Winslet will be living in what is reputed to be one of the most haunted parts of Britain. The house is 500 yards from the ruins of Tintagel Castle, said to have been King Arthur’s Camelot, and below a hotel that has three ghosts of its own. The actress, who as a child appeared in a film called A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, already owns a house in west Cornwall, near Angarrack, bought the property privately and is thought not to have known of the ghost. “The secret is now out,” said John Mappin, the joint owner of nearby Camelot Castle Hotel. “I know people who have seen the ghost and he is definitely friendly. The house used to be the cottage of the hotel’s engineer, who died about seventy years ago, and some people believed it was his ghost that inhabited the house now,” said Mr Mappin. “He has been seen walking from the house to the hotel as if he was going to work. No one has ever been frightened of him and I think he probably adds character to the house.” The hotel itself has three ghosts, says Mr Mappin. One throws paintings from the walls if he dislikes them. Another is a nurse who wakes people as if giving them a bed bath late at night. And the third goes through the rubbish bins.

  Ghostly Traffic Jam

  Source and date: The Times, 6 September 2000

  A survey published last week claimed that the M6 Motorway is the most haunted road in Britain. Phantom Roman soldiers, a ghostly woman hitchhiker and a spooky lorry are just some of the strange visions that have been reported. Another haunted highway is the A9 in the Scottish Highlands where drivers have reported a ghostly stagecoach with footmen.

  Mobile Phones Killing off Ghosts

  Source and date: Sunday Express, 14 October 2000

  Britain’s ghosts are being killed off by the mobile phone explosion, according to experts on the paranormal. Haunted tourist attractions across the country could be under threat if the UK’s 39 million-plus cell phones continue to grow in number. Paranormal events, which some scientists believe may be caused by unusual electrical activity, could be “drowned out” by intense electromagnetic fields and microwave radiation from mobile calls and text messages. Tony Cornell of the Society for Psychical Research said, “Ghost sightings have remained consistent for centuries. Until three years ago, we’d receive reports of two new ghosts every week. But with the introduction of mobile phones fifteen years ago, ghost sightings began to decline to the point where now we are receiving none. They could be drowning out our ghosts.” Experts say the spooky pattern is mirrored in other countries. American researchers running short of their own spirits have begun travelling to the UK – only to find ghosts and ghouls in even shorter supply here. Now the SPR is considering sending ghost hunters to more isolated parts of the world. They hope areas with low mobile phone usage may still have significant ghost populations. Armed with specialist spook-detecting equipment in-eluding the prized SpIDER – or Spontaneous Incident Data Electronic Recorder – they hope to stop Britain’s ghost stories becoming a dead subject. SpIDER seeks out ghosts by logging temperature changes and fluctuations in magnetic fields and listening for unexplained noises. It then takes infrared photographs and videos. Researchers may also resort to using modified mobile phones in future paranormal investigations. Mr Cornell said, “Perhaps we could use mobile phones with a slightly different frequency – that way we could phone the ghosts up and get some answers.”

  Ban Sought on Ghost Stories!

  Source and date: Northwest Evening Mail, 24 December 2000

  A Mrs Chen of Taiwan has set a legal first by taking out an injunction against her husband to stop him telling her ghost stories, complaining that he was giving her nightmares, according to the Apple Daily Taiwan newspaper. She first filed a complaint with police, and then applied for a personal protection order, which was approved by a district court in Taichung. The couple have been married for twenty years and have two daughters. They separated a few years ago, but have never divorced. Mr Chen found work away from home, at an orchard, but returned every few months to visit his daughters for a few days. His wife claimed he often returned home in the dead of night in a drunken stupor. He would then tell her ghost stories for at least an hour, despite her repeated pleas for him to stop. In his defence, Mr Chen claimed he was only sharing work stories with his wife.

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  The Ghost Hunters

  Fifty Authentic Supernatural Experiences

  The serious science of ghost hunting – careful and meticulous enquiry into the supernatural – owes a great deal to the pioneer work of two women: the English writer and researcher Catherine Crowe (1790–1872) and the Scottish feminist Eleanor Sidgwick (1845–1936), who became a driving force behind the influential Society for Psychical Research. Both were far removed from the ideal of typically reserved Victorian gentlewomen. Miss Crowe was a painstaking enquirer who braved many haunted houses in order to write her books; while Mrs Sidgwick, the sister of Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, was a free-thinker prepared to risk association with “what in the public mind was likely to be regarded as a cranky society” and brought a keen intelligence and critical eye to investigating the stories of the paranormal that were then so fascinating Victorian society

  Catherine Crowe came to public attention in 1848 with The Night Side of Nature, a groundbreaking investigation into the supernatural based on historical evidence and a variety of contemporary accounts ranging from her native Kent to the Highlands of Scotla
nd. She worked diligently to separate the facts from the gossip, rumours, imaginative exaggerations and even pure deception that embellished many of the ghost stories. In her Introduction, Miss Crowe made a direct appeal to the academic community, urging them that the more credible reports deserved proper scientific investigation:

  “I avow that in writing this book I have a higher aim than merely to afford amusement. I wish to engage the attention of my readers because I am satisfied that the opinions I am about to advocate, seriously entertained, would produce very beneficial results . . . If I could only induce a few capable persons, instead of laughing at these things, to look at them, my object would be attained and I should consider my time well spent.”