by John Pinkney
George Worrall was found guilty of murder. He was hanged in the Old Yard overlooking George Street, Sydney.
Almost two centuries later, Fisher’s ghost continues to generate argument. Sceptics say that farmer William Farley probably invented the apparition in a bid to divert suspicion from himself. Others believe that this was an authentic case of spirit intervention in the cause of justice.
Controversial though it may be, this classic Australian case fits a pattern chronicled by paranormal research organisations worldwide. The societies’ casebooks abound with reports of ghosts determined that their murders be avenged, or anxious that their mortal remains be cared for. In one celebrated British incident a schoolteacher began to haunt his family 10 years after his death. An adult grandson inspected the man’s grave. It was in a part of the cemetery that had been flooded by a swollen stream. The coffin was relocated - and the haunting ceased.
* * *
THE BALLAD OF FISHER’S GHOST
In the Colony of New South Wales,
Long miles from London Town,
There liv’d a man named FISHER,
Whom DEATH could not strike down.
Chorus
O, clubbed about the pate was he,
And buried in the mud,
Yet his GHOST broke free
To o’ersee
The avenging of his blood.
‘Twas a farmer’s horse saw FISHER,
Enwrapp’d in tomb-shroud white.
It peer’d, it rear’d, it disappear’d
Into the black Bush night.
Struck down before his time was he,
Unpray’d for, hidden deep,
But his GHOST cried loud
From its slimy shroud,
“REVENGE! Or I’ll never sleep!”
The farmer stagger’d to his feet,
And met the PHANTOM’s eye,
And heard it shout, in righteous wrath,
“Mark well! My grave is nigh.”
Constabulary found the bones,
And swiftly sheeted blame
Upon the EVIL MURDER’R,
George Worrall was his name.
‘Neath leaden sky, they hang’d him high,
For sorely had he sinn’d.
And he sniff’d the smell of the flames of HELL,
As he twisted in the wind.
O, poor lov’d, gentle FISHER,
Deep-buried in the mud.
Thy GHOST burst free
To o’ersee
The avenging of thy blood!
* * *
The Death Light that Shocked Three Stockmen
My files contain hundreds of first-hand accounts of phantoms that have been seen or heard in the Australian bush.
A particularly disturbing event involving three witnesses was described to me by Jim Lawlor of Mascot, New South Wales. ‘I was working in the Gulf of Carpentaria,’ he told me. ‘At about six one morning, when we were about to make breakfast, we realised that one of our mates, a drover, had gone missing. We dropped everything and spent days searching. But when we found him at last he was lying dead, where he’d been thrown from his horse.
‘We decided to camp at the site overnight and take the body back in the morning - a decision we would soon regret. That evening I was getting wood for the fire when something compelled me to look across to the spot where we’d found our mate.
‘A bright white light was floating directly above the place where his body had lain.
‘I yelled for my friends and one of them raced out with a rifle. But when he saw that light he dropped the gun and ran for his life. The light hung there for another five minutes before the darkness closed around it. We all discussed it for days afterwards - and one theory we thought hard about was that our dead mate had somehow managed to come back, briefly, to say goodbye.’
ANOTHER CASE of an outback entity which seemed to be purposeful in its behaviour was described to me by N.D. Collette of Deception Bay, Queensland. After migrating to Australia from Sri Lanka, I got a job at a sheep station near Narrabri,’ he said. ‘Our cottage was several yards from a creek. One morning my wife told me she’d been unable to sleep the previous night - so had got up to make tea.
‘While waiting for the kettle to boil she glanced out of the window and saw a man - he seemed to be very old - walking along the creek bank, carrying a hurricane lantern. My wife was considerably disturbed by the look of this person. She couldn’t explain why, but simply kept repeating that there was “something wrong” about him. Next day, hoping to set her mind at rest, I asked the manager who the old bloke was.
‘He gave me quite a shock when he replied that it was no one living. It was the ghost of Old Joe, an odd-job man who used to herd goats in the area many years before. Joe apparently knew all his animals by name, and if one strayed he’d search for it at night with that hurricane lantern. I never saw the apparition myself - but during the time I worked on that property, I learned that everyone took Old Joe for granted. He’d been dutiful while he was alive and it was well known in the district that he’d stayed that way long after he was buried.’
Drowned Spectre Disturbs a Hotel
In February 2005, at exactly four o’clock in the morning, a loud blast resonated through the tiny Barwon Hotel in Winchelsea, Victoria. Publican Bob Atkins was unsure for a moment where the noise had come from. ‘But then I checked our private bathroom,’ he told me. ‘A can of hairspray, which my wife had left on a shelf, had exploded and hit the far wall. The force must have been pretty intense, because the can was still rolling back and forth when I got there around 30 seconds later.
‘The tin had been sitting in our bathroom for months - and we could think of absolutely no reason why it had blown up. There was no source of heat and it was a mild night. It was just another of the unexplainable things that have happened here since we took charge a year ago.’
Bob Atkins had been warned, before he moved in, about the inn’s resident spirit. As a sceptic he hadn’t expected anything significant to happen. After a few months, however, the first of a series of mysterious events began to occur. Plates, glasses, account books and other items would inexplicably vanish - later resurfacing elsewhere in the building (a phenomenon commonly noted in cases of paranormal activity). At night, the couple would apply the security clamps at the top of the double doors - only to find them unbolted in the morning.
The Barwon, built in 1843, has been haunted for more than a century. When I first investigated the case, locals assured me that the phenomena were caused by the ghost of a stockman who drowned in the nearby river in 1894.
Chef Rick Robertson recalled disconcerting events which occurred while he was spending a night in the bluestone staff quarters. ‘It was exceptionally chilly and the river was swollen,’ he recalled. ‘I was fast asleep when I was woken by waves of bitter cold. Astonishingly the room was full of mist - the only time I’d ever seen it drift all the way up from the river into the pub. It filled the room and was suffocating, like snow being pressed into your face. I tried to get out of bed and wake the other two guys in the room, but I couldn’t move. I seemed to be frozen solid.
‘I tried to yell, but I couldn’t make a bloody sound. The paralysis lasted for about 20 minutes. Then the mist disappeared along with the ghost - and the room warmed up again. I’m a big bloke and I don’t scare easily - but those were the most alarming moments of my whole life.’
Witnesses to hauntings often speak of being paralysed and struck dumb. Some parapsychologists believe this ‘loss of power’, sometimes combined with sudden drops in temperature, may be caused by the entity sucking energy from the room.
The Miner and the Frozen Phantom
A similar story of terror and bitter temperatures was told to me by R.J. Billings of Rosebery, Tasmania.
‘I’m trained to deal only with facts,’ he wrote. ‘But I have no doubt about the incredible thing I - and colleagues - saw in a Peko Mines shaft at Warrego in the Northern Territory.
&
nbsp; ‘For weeks this major mining project had been suffering from bad luck, with injuries and equipment breakdowns. I found myself becoming really disturbed by the place - especially by the first hole, where the temperature would suddenly drop remarkably, making the hair on my neck prickle. One afternoon, trying to fight down a powerful compulsion to run away, I returned to the hole to pick up drill steels. Suddenly my hair stood on end as I felt someone brushing the back of my neck.
‘I swung around - and in the glow of my cap lamp saw a human figure standing about 10 metres away. It was shadowy and seemed to be naked. I got out as fast as I could. Colleagues subsequently told me that they had seen the figure also. It was generally believed to be the spirit of an engineer who died in the area.’
IN JANUARY 1986, workers at a remote gold mine in Australia’s north were mystified by an entity which may or may not have been of human origin. The haunting was described to me by Territorian Frank Dunston of Berry Springs:
‘I was employed at the Granites mine construction camp in the Tanami Desert. One evening just after sunset I was in my demountable room, lying on the bunk reading a book. Suddenly the room was filled with a continuous, hollow-sounding wailing noise. Nothing was visible - but I could sense something hovering about 60 centimetres from my face, weaving and bobbing and making that weird sound. I lay still and said nothing. After a good five minutes the being - or whatever it was - seemed to tire of its sport and left at high speed with a long departing clamour.
‘At dusk the following evening the thing returned. I first heard it speeding through the camp, then it filled my room with a deafening cacophony. This time it only stayed for about 30 seconds, before apparently deciding that I was no fun at all. It subsequently moved into an adjacent demountable, where I continued to hear it for a long period.
‘At no time did I feel threatened by this visitor - and I now regret not having spoken. I belatedly believe it was looking for some kind of reaction from me - and shrugged me off as a dead loss when I didn’t respond.
‘The history of mining at the Granites goes back to 1900, and many goldseekers, black and white, died there in the early years. However, I don’t believe this entity was a ghost. There was no drop in temperature (the room was air conditioned anyway) and all the usual reported signs of phantom visitation were missing. I think the thing was much more likely to have been a genius loci, or local guardian spirit.’
Apparition Alarmed a Brisbane Councillor
Jim Matheson JP, a Brisbane city councillor, was so shaken by his encounter with a bushland ghost that in 1957 he published the details for posterity.
The nightmare, Matheson claimed, began when he was driving alongside Queensland’s historic Blairmore Station. On a corner, his car skidded into deep mud. Unable to drive it back onto the bitumen he climbed into the rear seat to sleep overnight. As he began to doze, a second car, containing a businessman and his wife, became bogged close by. After trying unsuccessfully to help free the couple, Matheson returned to his vehicle.
He was woken a second time by piteous cries for help, which seemed to be coming from a nearby paddock. He pulled on his boots and waded through the mud toward the sounds. Suddenly, in the drizzling darkness, he noticed a flickering light. Assuming it was attached to a car or motorcycle he struggled on. But as he drew closer he realised that the light was not a part of anything else. It was floating freely, swirling and constantly changing shape.
‘The light began to seep towards me,’ Matheson recalled. ‘I was simply terrified - and all my instincts told me to run. But I couldn’t move. I just stood there, frozen.’
He was saved by the screams of the woman in the second car. ‘In some way I never understood, the sound freed me,’ Matheson recalled. ‘I was able to turn around and scramble away across the paddock.’
Too wary to sleep, the three people made a fire from sticks and paper and stayed close to it all night. Next day Jim Matheson searched the paddock, but could find no trace of whatever had threatened him. Several days later, however, a cattleman insisted that the light he had encountered was what local Aboriginals called ‘the debil- debil’ of Blairmore Station.
On Christmas Eve 1869 a postman had been delivering letters to the station when he had a seizure and was pronounced dead. However, Aboriginals were convinced that he had still been breathing shallowly when the coffin lid was nailed down. Having suffered the horror of live interment, he had lingered as a sinister avenging spirit.
* * *
STEED WAS SCARED, BY A GHOSTLY GULLY
Another account of a horse that ‘sensed’ a murder was related to me by Don Wilmott of Carindale, Queensland.
‘It happened when I was a young man,’ he said. ‘I was riding home one night, returning from a euchre game. The route I planned to take included a gully, which was spanned by a small wooden bridge. I was slouched comfortably in the saddle, half-asleep, when my horse suddenly snorted and reared - almost throwing me.
‘Now wide awake I saw we were about to cross that bridge - and looked to see what had spooked the animal. As nothing was visible I nudged him in the ribs and urged him forward. Again, he snorted wildly and flinched back. Try as I might I couldn’t get him to cross that bridge. Finally I had to lead him further down the gully, then walk him over.
‘The incident puzzled me, especially as the horse had crossed the bridge without hesitation earlier in the day. I mentioned the mystery to a neighbour. He immediately said, “Your horse isn’t the only one that shies from that place at night. A man was killed there three years ago - and since then no animal will go near it in the dark.”’
* * *
Fear in Public Places
The Spectre That Stopped a City
The quiet Brisbane suburb of Herston had never known anything like it. Teeming crowds, traffic jams, jostling TV crews, police patrol cars and Black Marias: all here because of an aggressive entity which had appeared - again - in a local park. The latest victim was a 14-year-old schoolboy, who, after his ordeal, was treated for shock in Brisbane General Hospital. The entire city buzzed with speculation about the multiply witnessed phantom and the ugly murder believed by some to have unleashed it. And thousands were now hoping to glimpse the ghost for themselves…
ON A HOT SUMMER NIGHT in November 1965, shop assistant Beverley Neilsen decided to take a walk through the relatively cool climes of Brisbane’s Victoria Park. She was accompanied by her 14-year-old brother Allan, his schoolfriend Eric Pickett and a workmate, Barbara Hoddonot.
Slapping at mosquitoes, the four young people strolled past a weed-covered lake and toward a railway bridge whose supporting banks framed a dark pedestrian underpass. They agreed later that they had all heard the noise at the same time. ‘It was a rustling sound,’ Beverley told the Courier Mail. ‘There was also something bright in the trees - a shape that looked as though smoke was coming from its edges. We ran - and we thought Allan was following.’
But Allan Neilsen was lingering behind. He had seen something in the underpass -a light of some kind - and was walking down to investigate. When they heard his single brief scream Beverley, Barbara and Eric wheeled around and ran back. Allan was standing, frozen and statue-like, about three metres from the subway entrance. He seemed to have had a seizure of some kind. When Beverley touched him he collapsed onto the grass.
‘With help from some other people in the park, we got him into a car in Gilchrist Avenue,’ Beverley said. ‘But he wanted to go back. He seemed to be in a trance.’
Within 15 minutes Allan Neilsen had been admitted to Brisbane General Hospital. Doctors diagnosed shock and sedated him. Next morning he was well enough to tell a contingent of print, TV and radio reporters what he had seen:
Artist’s composite sketch of the apparition more than 100 people reported seeing in Brisbane’s Victoria Park underpass. Courtesy Courier Mail
‘I was getting close to the subway when something floated out from the concrete wall. It was misty and a bluish-white colour and in the shape
of a person…or part of a person. It was a torso mostly…no arms, no head and the legs disappearing at knee-level.
‘The thing was floating in the middle of the subway - then it started moving in my direction. That’s all I can remember before I woke in hospital.’
In the days after the story broke, more than 100 people came forward to say that they too had seen the apparition - always after dark. One man reportedly attacked the entity with a flamethrower. Don Ashe of Enoggerra said he had seen ‘a white cloud in human shape emerge from behind a tree’ and added, ‘I’ve never been so scared in my life.’ Most of the reported sightings had been in the underpass, but some witnesses said they had watched the ‘luminous half- body’ or ‘jacket-shape’ floating above the lake. This claim prompted sceptical observers to suggest that the entity might be nothing more than marsh gas.
Speculation about the Victoria Park haunting swept Queensland. Entire families migrated to the park at night hoping to get a glimpse of the ghost. Country people, their utilities laden with food, camping gear, torches and transistor radios drove hundreds of kilometres to participate. Chaos greeted them. Night after night, all roads and streets surrounding the parklands were gridlocked by buses, lines of double-parked cars, police patrol units and television crews competing for a vantage point. On a single Saturday evening an estimated 5000 onlookers packed the area. There was no room on the grass to spread picnic rugs. Young men misbehaved by throwing rocks at passing trains. And the subway itself became so crammed with sightseers that, as one columnist suggested, ‘the ghost might be having trouble squeezing out of the wall’.
