The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

by Haining, Peter

  D SCOTT ROGO was an American writer widely respected for his enquiries into parapsychology who, like Arthur Koestler, died tragically – his body being found stabbed to death in his home in North Carolina in August 1990. Like Koestler he developed an interest in the supernatural while in his teens and aside from contributing to a number ofscientific journals also relayed the results ofhis research in books such as An Experience of Phantoms (1974), On The Track of the Poltergeist (1986) and Beyond Reality (1990). Among the many studious reports, his tale of a haunted house written for the UFO Annual in 1975 is both revealing and vivid.

  THE PSYCHIC FORCE OF EVIL

  Location: Los Angeles, California, USA, 1972

  In 1972, I was fortunate enough to move into a bona fide haunted house and make it my home. It was an old, small, Spanish-style house originally built in the 1920s and was located in one of the many outlying suburbs of Los Angeles. This move was the opportunity of a lifetime, and for two years I was able to keep a month-to-month chronicle of a wide assortment of phenomena – from mysterious phantom footsteps to disembodied voices – which occurred there. It was a fascinating as well as educational experience, and one I wouldn’t trade for the world. But even though I fully enjoyed my two-year stay, on one occasion I did have a very disturbing experience in the house . . . so disturbing, in fact, that afterwards it made me think twice about ever sleeping in the house again.

  It happened one night in 1973. By that time, I had already lived in the house for well over a year and a half, so I certainly wasn’t nervous about being there. But this night was different from any other. I had gone to sleep about one o’clock in the morning, which was about usual for me, but woke up with a start within a couple of hours. And as I awoke, I was overcome by a feeling that there was something evil and horrid in the room with me. I could even sense from exactly what part of the room the influence was emanating. It seemed to be coming directly from the wall right next to my bed. It was an awful sensation and, before I even knew what was happening to me, I catapulted out of bed and made a beeline for the door. The only thing on my mind was that I had to escape from the room at any expense. I was in a state of stark panic so there was no compromising. I couldn’t even get hold of myself enough to analyze my thoughts. My only concern during those few brief moments after I awoke was to get the hell out of the room, and away from the evil I felt there, just as quickly as I could.

  By the time I realized what was going on, I was standing in the middle of the den, into which my bedroom opened. My heart was pumping madly, but somehow I felt relieved just to be away from my room and whatever was in there. I just stood there, naked and stunned, and slowly tried to get a grip on myself. On one hand, I realized that my actions were totally irrational. But, at the same time, I also knew that something very real and powerful had manifested itself in my room and that my panic was a direct response to it. So, I just stood there and waited to see what would happen next.

  Slowly but surely, my heart stopped doing flip-flops and my nerves calmed down a bit. I even began to snicker at myself for getting so scared, but, nonetheless, I still felt a bit nervous about re-entering the bedroom. It took several more minutes before I was able to summon up my courage and sneak back into bed. The room “felt” perfectly normal when I re-entered it. Whatever evil had saturated the room was now gone.

  This experience was the most vivid I ever had in the house. I never experienced anything like it again during the remaining year I lived there. But I’ll never forget that experience as long as I live and, frankly, I hope I never have a similar experience again.

  EDDIE BURKS has been described as the busiest ghost hunter in Britain. Although he experienced a “tunnel vision” of a magic garden at the age of five, the paranormal played no more part in his life while he was employed for many years as the Civil Service’s Principal Scientific Officer. The day after the death of his wife in 1970, however, he sensed her presence and realized he had the ability to communicate with spirits. Since then he has investigated several hundred hauntings which have ranged from the ghost of a young man killed during the Civil War to an American pilot shot down over Germany who materialized to Eddie in Lincolnshire. His most famous enquiry as a “ghostbuster” occurred when he was asked to tackle a spirit haunting a London bank, as he told the Independent in January 1994.

  THE COUTTS BANK REVENANT

  Location and date:

  Strand, London, UK, 1993

  Coutts Bank had been having a lot of problems with the lighting and computers at their London headquarters in the Strand during the winter of 1993. The engineers were baffled and the staff was feeling very uneasy about things. Matters came to a head when a headless apparition was sighted. That was when I was called in to investigate.

  As I usually do, I walked up and down the area where people had reported the ghost. When I sense a spirit, my level of consciousness changes. Not unlike the way you feel when someone is standing behind you. Then it develops into communication: a sort of inner voice. The process is not verbal. I suppose that my subconscious turns their messages into words. I certainly don’t know who the spirits are at first.

  I sensed a very unhappy spirit in the Coutts’ building and he began communicating about his life. He said, “I have been waiting a long time. I practised the Law. I would not bend to the Queen’s command conveyed to me through her servant, who held the great seal, so a case of treason was trumped up. I was beheaded not far from here, on a summer’s day, which made me loath to depart.”

  By this time I could see a figure. He was tall and slim, with a thin face and aquiline nose, dressed in Elizabethan finery. I described out loud what I could see and the ghost replied, “That is a fair description, but you have not mentioned my ornaments.”

  He showed me the rings on his hand and the chain and medallion around his neck. He explained, “At my execution I took off my doublet and ruff for I did not wish them to be spoilt. They were to be given to my son. I put around my shoulders the black mantle which was part of my accoutrement in Law. I did not mind if this were stained, for it was stained already through this injustice.”

  The ghost believed I could help him. He said, “My hope is growing. If you can get me from this place, I shall be much obliged. I wait upon you.”

  At that moment I saw a woman dressed in Elizabethan costume, all in white. She took the man’s hand and led him towards the clear light behind them. He looked back and thanked me and the others for helping him.

  My help is to hold the person steady, because they release an enormous amount of emotional energy. There are other spirits helping them, too – whose identities I don’t know – and they bring the person who will take them to the light once they are released. I don’t think they are always the same, but I sense there is someone among them who has sympathy for the person.

  After releasing the man, I left it to Coutts’ archivist to try to find out who he was, on the few facts available. Father Francis Edwards, who is a member of the Royal Historical Association, read about the haunting in a newspaper and identified the phantom as Thomas Howard, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk, through his mention of practising the Law, the trumped-up charge and his execution in 1572 by order of Elizabeth I.

  The Duke was one of the few people to get “stuck” when he died – the vast majority go through to the other life without trouble. He was beheaded at Tower Hill, two miles away from Coutts, but his family owned property in the Strand area. Sometimes ghosts follow a particular person, which can be very troublesome, but in cases like his they remain in a particular place.

  Through Father Edwards, I met Lady Mary Mumford, a descendant of Thomas Howard, who organized a memorial service for her ancestor. On the evening after this I received a communication from the Duke. It said;

  “You pleased me greatly with the honour you did me yesterday. Put aside any doubts which you may have entertained concerning the true value of the service, for it has truly relieved me of the vestiges of my sadness and now I feel
free to step forward into the greater light. I owe you all a debt which I can only repay in the coinage of love whose quality is raised by my greater awareness of the presence of our God. Therefore accept my love and, when you can and when you will, reflect upon me and send me a token of your love. You may think that a gulf of time does separate us, but it is a moment only, and to me you are my brothers and sisters forever united and bound in the love of God. Remember me in your prayers as I will remember you until the blessed day when we meet in joy. Thank you and I bid you farewell.”

  MIA DORAN has become familiar to the British viewing public as the psychic on the TV series, Haunted House, arguably the best of the spate of “ghost hunting” programmes screened in recent years. She saw her first ghost as a child of twelve and by the time she reached her early twenties had become a medium sought after to solve paranormal mysteries. Reports of her successes in the media led to the creation of the popular television series. Despite the painful emotional experience of losing her son, Shane, when he was 25, Mia now believes that some of the best psychics have been through similar traumas, a fact which enables them to be more “open” to the spirits of the departed. In February 2007 she talked about her life and experiences to the Sunday Times Magazine.

  SENSING GHOSTS

  Location and date: Minster, Kent, UK, 1974

  I was sensitive as a child. If somebody was upset, I would hurt for them. I didn’t like arguments. If my mum and dad had a row – though they hardly ever did – I’d get very tense about it. I had a real need for harmony, and still do.

  All my mates wanted to come round our house because my parents were so laid-back and open, especially my mum. My brothers’ friends used to call her Mrs D and send her Christmas cards, and they treated her with great respect.

  The nun was the first time I saw a ghost. She was standing under what used to be the old wishing-well gate at the abbey. I was looking at her, but I was more interested in my bag of chips. Then she disappeared. I said to Dad: “I’ve just seen a ghost!” He said: “Don’t be silly.” My friends wouldn’t believe me either. The only person who took it seriously was my mum. But she made no big deal about it. I think that helped me be matter-of-fact too. Even though she believes, she looks for the logical first.

  I know Mum is gifted. Years ago she told me she could see me in a big white house with a horseshoe drive and a pond. I was in a horrible place at the time, struggling. But by sheer luck, I came to have that house. I know she could do what I do, but she can’t do it to order, like me. And she’s shy. First time she watched me on TV she did it with a pillow over her face. She won’t come to see me at a show in case she puts me off. But if we have a sad or a puzzling case I might tell her about it, because she has great empathy with people.

  I see the ability, this heightened awareness, in all my family. In our house we often have ashtrays spinning and doors opening all on their own. Nobody freaks out. We often get ghosts here, but they’re not hauntings. If you do a lot of readings in a place, I think you create a doorway – until you go back and close it.

  I’ve never been scared of ghosts. I just feel this is something I’m meant to do. When I help people with hauntings, they have often had priests in, all sorts, and they’re terrified by the time I arrive. I get angry. I think: “How dare it frighten these people?” If I can sort it out, I have to. I was brought up a Catholic, a religion that preaches there’s no such thing as ghosts, yet trains priests in exorcism. I used to think it was hypocritical. Then I found out if you denounce ghosts you weaken them, so it’s quite a clever move.

  It’s wonderful to find a ghost because it’s quite rare. On the Isle of Sheppey, which is 9 miles by 12, there might be 30. Some are good, some bad. Very rarely are ghosts evil, but I had a nasty one on the last TV series. It unnerved me, but you mustn’t have fear. That’s something my spirit guide, Eric, taught me. Eric’s always telling me off, in a nice way. “Take it more seriously.” Or “Go in again, you’re missing something.”

  If I’m looking for a ghost, I will sense it in my mind rather than see it with my eyes. I was in a bar in Kent when I saw this woman walk past. I knew she was a ghost because she shimmered. First she tapped me on the shoulder. Then she shoved me so hard I shot off my stool. I went storming into the ladies, having a row with a ghost: “What the hell is your problem?” She said it was not her friend who killed her, and I had to sort it out.

  The worst place I’ve walked around was Canterbury Cathedral. It’s supposed to be a holy place but the atmosphere of oppression was terrible. Most hauntings are attached to the location. Rarely will something attach itself to you: if you are strong enough psychically, you won’t allow it. Ouija boards are an invitation and they’re dangerous: I don’t want teenagers playing around with them.

  3

  Phantoms in the Sky

  Ghostly Pilots, Aircraft and Haunted Airfields

  The twentieth century saw the appearance of a new type of ghost after centuries of tales about phantom soldiers and supernatural armadas. The rapid development of the “aeroplane” after the Wright Brothers had taken to the skies in the first heavier-than-air machine on 17 December 1903 was soon followed by sightings of phantom aircraft as well as ghostly pilots and haunted airfields. The carnage of two world wars was obviously a major factor in these and other similar sightings that have been reported during the past 100 years – some undoubtedly authentic, others rather dubious but a number worthy of serious consideration.

  In the early years of the new century, superstitious people understandably likened the first reports of “mysterious shapes” in the skies over Britain, Europe and America to ghosts. It was, in fact, all too easy to mistake the pioneer “flying machines” for the supernatural figures that had haunted the minds of previous generations. No-one had, of course, seen anything like them before: and those fed on the latest novels of Jules Verne and H G Wells were easily stimulated by the sight of flimsy, weaving experimental aircraft. One example of how such perceptions could be exploited is linked to the legend of the “Angels of Mons” in the First World War. This story of supernatural bowmen coming to the aid of beleaguered British troops was widely believed to be true – despite protestations to the contrary by the creator, journalist and fiction writer, Arthur Machen. Indeed, there were even people seemingly ready to be taken in by a very bizarre “explanation” of the phenomenon a decade later.

  In February 1930, stories appeared in the American and British press that a former member of the German Intelligence Service, Colonel Friedrich Herzenwirth, claimed to know the truth about the appearance of the “angels” at the height of the conflict. The Colonel gave an interview to the New York Mirror in which he said that the figures were actually “motion pictures” projected onto “screens of foggy white cloudbanks” over Flanders. They were projected by “cinematographic machines” with powerful Zeiss lenses mounted on German aeroplanes hovering above the British lines. In Herzenwirth’s statement – to which authenticity was added by an explanatory diagram – he said the object of the visions had been to “create superstitious terror in the Allied ranks calculated to cause panic and a refusal to fight”. But the Germans had miscalculated, he explained to the Mirror:

  “What we had not expected was the English would turn the vision to their own benefit. This was a magnificent bit of counter-propaganda, for some of the English must have been fully aware of the mechanism of our trick. Their interpretation of our angels as protectors of their own troops turned the scales completely upon us. Had the British command contented itself with simply issuing an Army order unmasking our trickery, it would not have been half as effective.”

  The convincing Colonel said the Germans had been more successful with their “ghostly motion pictures” on the Russian front in 1915. There the Virgin Mary had been projected onto snow clouds with an uplifted hand as if she was motioning to stop the murderous enemy night attacks. As in France, Herzenwirth said, the German aircraft had flown overhead and “caused entire regim
ents who had beheld the vision to fall upon their knees in terror”. He added:

  “The trick was repeated several times and was invariably successful. We knew from prisoners we took that in some cases companies actually killed their officers and flung their rifles away, shouting that they would be guilty of firing upon an Army over which the Mother of God hovered in protection.”

  The Colonel’s “explanation” of the famous phenomenon was recycled around the world by the media during the next few days, but it took a British paper, the Daily News, to discover the extraordinary truth. The paper’s Berlin correspondent was dispatched to talk to those in authority and reported on 18 February:

  “A prominent member of the War Intelligence Department in the present German Ministry declares that the story is a hoax. There are no records in the official archives dealing with the war that make any reference to the use of a projecting machine from aircraft to mislead enemy soldiers. Herzenwirth himself is a myth. It is officially stated that there is no such person.”

  A frantic search in New York to find the mysterious Colonel soon established that he had vanished as completely as the vision he had described. His claims were a ghost story in every sense of the word . . .

  A rather more plausible account of a “vision” was reported in September 1916 by Flight-Lieutenant Ronald Jacoby who was stationed with his squadron at Pulham, one of the early English air bases in Norfolk. At just after 5 p.m. while he was on a training flight over the Norfolk Broads and was crossing the glistening 130 acres of Barton Broad, he happened to glance down and got a shock that remained with him for the rest of his life.