What did Columbus see? It seems like he saw what would be normally described as a UFO a bright light, acting strangely in the sky, something that is not a star or the moon, or a meteor falling to earth. Whatever those things are, that's what Columbus saw. As for Kenneth Arnold's sighting being given too much attention, I agree that it has, at least in the context that these unidentified flying objects have been around for centuries. They didn't suddenly appear that day Kenneth Arnold saw them. What happened that day was the American press finally woke up to the story and branded them in this case, as flying saucers.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Mack Maloney interview
Over at Tim Binnall’s website Binnall of America I interview Mack Maloney, author of the new book UFOs in Wartime. In the book Mack looks at UFO cases not just since Kenneth Arnold’s famous June 24, 1947, sighting of nine "flying disks" in formation near Mount Rainie, but also sightings of mysterious aerial objects going back to the time of Christopher Columbus and even as far back as Alexandra The Great. Below is an extract:
Saturday, 26 November 2011
Quirky history
Below you can read my "Quirky History" article that was published in issue 61 of Paranormal Magazine.
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Since September of last year I’ve been writing a column for the South Wales Evening Post, entitled "Grand day Out". Originally a one off outing the column quickly morphed into a regular weekly feature for the weekend section of the newspaper and has involved me visiting different tourist hotspots in Swansea and surrounding south west Wales region. Some of the places I have visited have included Swansea Museum, Mumbles Pier, as well as Oakwood Theme Park and Folly Farm in Pembrokeshire.
While a paranormal connection to any of these popular tourist haunts might sound at first unlikely, in every case there has been at least a tippet of what might be called ‘quirky history’ attached to either the actual place itself or to the immediate vicinity.
Originally set up by the Royal Institution of South Wales (a local group who wanted to investigate all aspects of history, the arts and science at the beginning of the 19th century) Swansea Museum was completed in 1841 in the grand neo-classical style, and is the oldest museum in Wales.
The main museum on Oystermouth Road contains all kinds of unusual objects from Swansea’s past as well as the wider world. The building’s six galleries house everything from an ancient Egyptian mummy to a traditional Welsh kitchen. However, what few visitors realise is that the museum is allegedly one of the most haunted buildings in Wales.
I spoke with one of the staff there, Catherine Perrie, who told me she and two colleagues (Paul Giuffrida and Trish Nicholls) had seen a ‘dark-cloaked figure’ walking up and down the stairs.
When I interviewed Catherine further she told me that she saw the strange figure on top of the stairs twice, on two different evenings. While reading, she saw the outline of a figure on the top of the stairs. When she turned to see who (or what) it was, though, the apparition quickly turned and ran up the next flight of stairs leading to the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery room, where, according to Catherine, the strange activity in the building "seems to be mainly focused."
When I talked with another staff member who saw this ‘cloaked figure’ on the stairs, Paul Giuffrida, he shared with me two other strange experiences that he had had at the museum. The first of which took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" a few years ago.
Paul Giuffrida shared with me two other strange experiences he had had at the museum. The first of these took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery. While putting a window in for one of the exhibits, "The Victorian Room" (where Catherine told me visitors had reported cold spots and a "presence"), Paul said he heard "a lot of noise ... tapping and banging" coming from the corner opposite the lift. Naturally, he assumed someone must have come upstairs but, on investigation, he discovered nobody had.
On another occasion, this time at the museum's collection centre at Landore, Paul told me that while he was working in the storage area he heard "loud whistling" in his hear.
In addition to these two accounts, Paul also related to me that when a medium had been brought in to investigate the strange activity at the museum, they were told the ghost of someone who committed suicide on the lightship "Helwick" now haunted the museum; this might even be the cloaked figure who had been seen on the stairs.
Roger Gale, Swansea Museum's Exhibition and Events Officer, wasn’t convinced about this, though, since he doesn't believe in the abilities of mediums and other psychics. Despite this, however, Roger did admit after some coaxing to seeing and experiencing things at the museum. Although a little embarrassed, Roger went into some detail about a full-bodied apparition he saw. It had "come out of the wall" and walked along a corridor before vanishing. Roger said the apparition was in view for at least 15 to 20 seconds and that it looked so lifelike that for a moment he thought it was one of his colleagues.
"It was as real as you are now," he said. I run into similar ghost stories at Mumbles Pier.
The gateway to the Gower Peninsula, an area of immense unspoilt natural beauty unparalleled in South Wales, Mumbles in Swansea is best known for its historic pier, castle, lighthouse and other popular seaside attractions.
What is less well known, however, is that holidaymakers risk getting more than they bargained for at "The Mumbles", as the old fishing village is slowly gaining a spooky reputation for haunted locations. But maybe this isn’t surprising as Mumbles has always been considered a place apart, as this old poem has it:
The seaside town began its status as a popular tourist haunt when Mumbles Pier, designed by W. Sutcliffe Marsh and promoted by John Jones Jenkins of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway, first opened on May 10, 1898.
Stretching 225 meters out into Mumbles Bay, the Victorian built pier was once the only way to visit Swansea in style. The White Funnel paddle steamers of the Bristol-based P & A Campbell Ltd company would dock on the end of the pier unloading tourists who would then make their journey via the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, which was the world’s first passenger railway. And although in recent years the pier has fallen into a state of disrepair with a large section fenced off to visitors and other areas patched up to maintain safety; the bustling holiday magnet still welcomes thousands of visitors each year from across Wales and the world, all of them attracted to the beautiful beaches, pubs, restaurants and famed scenery of the Mumbles coast.
With such a happy history Mumbles Pier isn’t automatically the first place ghost hunters might think to look for proof of the paranormal. Nevertheless, there is at least one ghost story linked with the popular Victorian walkway. The figure of a young woman wearing a long dress and what looks like a scarf or shawl wrapped around her face has been seen walking on the pier late at night, long after closing at 8.00pm. The apparition allegedly disappearing before anyone can ask her who she is? Or why she is haunting the pier?
And Mumbles Pier isn’t alone. Oystermouth Castle (aka Mumbles Castle) built sometime around 1100 by William de Londres, and later rebuilt in the thirteenth century by the infamous de Breos family, after being burnt down by the native Welsh twice, also has a resident spectre. Known as the "White Lady of Oystermouth Castle". This apparition of a woman dressed all in white has been experienced many times by visitors to the battlement.
The "White Lady" is usually seen weeping, with the back of her dress ripped away and a series of brutal welts on her back. The woman then abruptly vanishes as if she had never existed before witnesses can offer her any help. Reports of the "Woman in White" allegedly go back centuries, leading some paranormal investigators to believe she might have died after being tied to the medieval whipping post - which still stands in the castle’s dungeon, and tortured.
When I visited Pembrokeshire I found evidence for torture of a totally different kind.
Pembrokeshire is best known for its rugged natural beauty and tourism magnets, including Oackwood Theme Park and Folly Farm. In recent years, however, the idyllic maritime county has made national headlines for quite a different reason. Mystery "big cats" have been sighted wandering the county, and leaving paw prints and the gory remains of mutilated livestock in their path.
As late as last January it was reported that a former police officer, Michael Disney, had had an encounter with an animal described as being similar to a "puma or panther". In a statement passed to the police, Mr Disney said he was travelling around 10 to 15mph on a single-track lane when the animal crossed just five meters in front of his car.
"I immediately stopped my vehicle and stared at this animal. It had a large cat-like head, muscular build and was approximately three feet tall … I am 100% certain that this was a puma or panther-like animal and was definitely not a dog, cat or any other domestic animal. It was not something I had seen before other than in a zoo," he said.
Mr Disney’s close encounter with an ABC or "alien big cat", which took place near the village of Treffgarne, six miles north of the market town of Haverfordwest, was touted by the Pembrokeshire council as being the "most definitive yet." However, big cat sightings in the region and throughout England and Wales are nothing new.
Members of this writer's own family have on occasion heard "growls" and once even saw what they thought was a puma or panther, "carrying a dead sheep in its mouth." And during the last decade there have been hundreds of similar reports of large big black cats roaming the remote hillsides and valleys of Wales - many of these sightings taking place in the Pembrokeshire region.
Between April 2004 and July 2005, 123 sightings in Wales were reported to the research group Big Cats in Britain. And in March of last year newly released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that a government agency tasked with investigating more than 100 sightings across England since 2005, concluded that 38 were genuine.
But if these creatures are in fact real, and not just the stuff of myth and human imagination, where could they have come from?
The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only fulltime scientific organisation in the world dedicated to the study of unknown animals. I subscribed to their journal Animals & Men and had an opportunity to interview their Zoological Director, Richard Freeman, about the evidence for a breeding population of big cats roaming wild in the British countryside.
"There is no doubt big cats are alive and well in the UK", Richard Freeman told me.
The former Zookeeper from Leeds adding: "A female puma was captured in Inverness in 1980."
"These are descendants of escapees and deliberate releases", he explained.
"Until the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976 anyone could keep anything they wanted as a pet and up until the early 1980s any old duffer could start a zoo in their backyard! The nucleus of the current big cat population in the UK was from these irresponsible people."
When people normally think about the paranormal they tend think about big Hollywood films such as The Exorcist or Close Encounters, but do a little research and maybe you’ll find evidence of some "quirky history" in your own local area.
-------------------------------------
Quirky History
By Richard Thomas
While a paranormal connection to any of these popular tourist haunts might sound at first unlikely, in every case there has been at least a tippet of what might be called ‘quirky history’ attached to either the actual place itself or to the immediate vicinity.
Originally set up by the Royal Institution of South Wales (a local group who wanted to investigate all aspects of history, the arts and science at the beginning of the 19th century) Swansea Museum was completed in 1841 in the grand neo-classical style, and is the oldest museum in Wales.
The main museum on Oystermouth Road contains all kinds of unusual objects from Swansea’s past as well as the wider world. The building’s six galleries house everything from an ancient Egyptian mummy to a traditional Welsh kitchen. However, what few visitors realise is that the museum is allegedly one of the most haunted buildings in Wales.
I spoke with one of the staff there, Catherine Perrie, who told me she and two colleagues (Paul Giuffrida and Trish Nicholls) had seen a ‘dark-cloaked figure’ walking up and down the stairs.
When I interviewed Catherine further she told me that she saw the strange figure on top of the stairs twice, on two different evenings. While reading, she saw the outline of a figure on the top of the stairs. When she turned to see who (or what) it was, though, the apparition quickly turned and ran up the next flight of stairs leading to the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery room, where, according to Catherine, the strange activity in the building "seems to be mainly focused."
When I talked with another staff member who saw this ‘cloaked figure’ on the stairs, Paul Giuffrida, he shared with me two other strange experiences that he had had at the museum. The first of which took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" a few years ago.
Paul Giuffrida shared with me two other strange experiences he had had at the museum. The first of these took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery. While putting a window in for one of the exhibits, "The Victorian Room" (where Catherine told me visitors had reported cold spots and a "presence"), Paul said he heard "a lot of noise ... tapping and banging" coming from the corner opposite the lift. Naturally, he assumed someone must have come upstairs but, on investigation, he discovered nobody had.
On another occasion, this time at the museum's collection centre at Landore, Paul told me that while he was working in the storage area he heard "loud whistling" in his hear.
In addition to these two accounts, Paul also related to me that when a medium had been brought in to investigate the strange activity at the museum, they were told the ghost of someone who committed suicide on the lightship "Helwick" now haunted the museum; this might even be the cloaked figure who had been seen on the stairs.
Roger Gale, Swansea Museum's Exhibition and Events Officer, wasn’t convinced about this, though, since he doesn't believe in the abilities of mediums and other psychics. Despite this, however, Roger did admit after some coaxing to seeing and experiencing things at the museum. Although a little embarrassed, Roger went into some detail about a full-bodied apparition he saw. It had "come out of the wall" and walked along a corridor before vanishing. Roger said the apparition was in view for at least 15 to 20 seconds and that it looked so lifelike that for a moment he thought it was one of his colleagues.
"It was as real as you are now," he said. I run into similar ghost stories at Mumbles Pier.
The gateway to the Gower Peninsula, an area of immense unspoilt natural beauty unparalleled in South Wales, Mumbles in Swansea is best known for its historic pier, castle, lighthouse and other popular seaside attractions.
What is less well known, however, is that holidaymakers risk getting more than they bargained for at "The Mumbles", as the old fishing village is slowly gaining a spooky reputation for haunted locations. But maybe this isn’t surprising as Mumbles has always been considered a place apart, as this old poem has it:
Mumbles is a funny place,
A church without a steeple,
Houses made of old ships wrecked
And most peculiar people.
The seaside town began its status as a popular tourist haunt when Mumbles Pier, designed by W. Sutcliffe Marsh and promoted by John Jones Jenkins of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway, first opened on May 10, 1898.
Stretching 225 meters out into Mumbles Bay, the Victorian built pier was once the only way to visit Swansea in style. The White Funnel paddle steamers of the Bristol-based P & A Campbell Ltd company would dock on the end of the pier unloading tourists who would then make their journey via the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, which was the world’s first passenger railway. And although in recent years the pier has fallen into a state of disrepair with a large section fenced off to visitors and other areas patched up to maintain safety; the bustling holiday magnet still welcomes thousands of visitors each year from across Wales and the world, all of them attracted to the beautiful beaches, pubs, restaurants and famed scenery of the Mumbles coast.
With such a happy history Mumbles Pier isn’t automatically the first place ghost hunters might think to look for proof of the paranormal. Nevertheless, there is at least one ghost story linked with the popular Victorian walkway. The figure of a young woman wearing a long dress and what looks like a scarf or shawl wrapped around her face has been seen walking on the pier late at night, long after closing at 8.00pm. The apparition allegedly disappearing before anyone can ask her who she is? Or why she is haunting the pier?
And Mumbles Pier isn’t alone. Oystermouth Castle (aka Mumbles Castle) built sometime around 1100 by William de Londres, and later rebuilt in the thirteenth century by the infamous de Breos family, after being burnt down by the native Welsh twice, also has a resident spectre. Known as the "White Lady of Oystermouth Castle". This apparition of a woman dressed all in white has been experienced many times by visitors to the battlement.
The "White Lady" is usually seen weeping, with the back of her dress ripped away and a series of brutal welts on her back. The woman then abruptly vanishes as if she had never existed before witnesses can offer her any help. Reports of the "Woman in White" allegedly go back centuries, leading some paranormal investigators to believe she might have died after being tied to the medieval whipping post - which still stands in the castle’s dungeon, and tortured.
When I visited Pembrokeshire I found evidence for torture of a totally different kind.
Pembrokeshire is best known for its rugged natural beauty and tourism magnets, including Oackwood Theme Park and Folly Farm. In recent years, however, the idyllic maritime county has made national headlines for quite a different reason. Mystery "big cats" have been sighted wandering the county, and leaving paw prints and the gory remains of mutilated livestock in their path.
As late as last January it was reported that a former police officer, Michael Disney, had had an encounter with an animal described as being similar to a "puma or panther". In a statement passed to the police, Mr Disney said he was travelling around 10 to 15mph on a single-track lane when the animal crossed just five meters in front of his car.
"I immediately stopped my vehicle and stared at this animal. It had a large cat-like head, muscular build and was approximately three feet tall … I am 100% certain that this was a puma or panther-like animal and was definitely not a dog, cat or any other domestic animal. It was not something I had seen before other than in a zoo," he said.
Mr Disney’s close encounter with an ABC or "alien big cat", which took place near the village of Treffgarne, six miles north of the market town of Haverfordwest, was touted by the Pembrokeshire council as being the "most definitive yet." However, big cat sightings in the region and throughout England and Wales are nothing new.
Members of this writer's own family have on occasion heard "growls" and once even saw what they thought was a puma or panther, "carrying a dead sheep in its mouth." And during the last decade there have been hundreds of similar reports of large big black cats roaming the remote hillsides and valleys of Wales - many of these sightings taking place in the Pembrokeshire region.
Between April 2004 and July 2005, 123 sightings in Wales were reported to the research group Big Cats in Britain. And in March of last year newly released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that a government agency tasked with investigating more than 100 sightings across England since 2005, concluded that 38 were genuine.
But if these creatures are in fact real, and not just the stuff of myth and human imagination, where could they have come from?
The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only fulltime scientific organisation in the world dedicated to the study of unknown animals. I subscribed to their journal Animals & Men and had an opportunity to interview their Zoological Director, Richard Freeman, about the evidence for a breeding population of big cats roaming wild in the British countryside.
"There is no doubt big cats are alive and well in the UK", Richard Freeman told me.
The former Zookeeper from Leeds adding: "A female puma was captured in Inverness in 1980."
"These are descendants of escapees and deliberate releases", he explained.
"Until the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976 anyone could keep anything they wanted as a pet and up until the early 1980s any old duffer could start a zoo in their backyard! The nucleus of the current big cat population in the UK was from these irresponsible people."
When people normally think about the paranormal they tend think about big Hollywood films such as The Exorcist or Close Encounters, but do a little research and maybe you’ll find evidence of some "quirky history" in your own local area.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
UFO over Hollywood?
I had an email from someone called Roger Avery who claims to have recorded this video.
In his email Roger writes:
In his email Roger writes:
Richard,On YouTube Roger also gives the date and time of his alleged sighting.
We live in the Hollywood Hills. My wife started taping what I thought was a blimp in the sky. She said it suddenly just appeared. She started recording it, but it zipped away seconds later and scared the crap out of us. We looked around for another 20 minutes but it never came back.
I posted the video to youtube here.
please let us know what you think,
Roger
This was yesterday at July 26, 2011 at 11:17 a.m. I want to know if anyone else saw it? Can you please comment here? Any other videos of it?My first impressions are that this is an obvious hoax. The people talking in the video sound like they are acting to me. And the UFO seems to be following the script too. Just thought I’d post this to see if others have had the same email.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Para-News text interview
In a special text interview posted at Binnall of America, Henry Baum of Disinformation turns the tables on me and asks me some questions about my new book PARA-NEWS - UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptozoology and much much more published by Bretwalda Books. Read it here.
The Appleby poltergeist
The following guest article is by Rupert Matthews, author of the book Haunted Hampshire.
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Another late 19th century case that was well documented took place in a home near the village of Appleby in what was then Westmorland, but is now Cumbria. One of those involved kept a diary and wrote down the events as they happened, allowing us to follow the progress of this particular visitation in detail.
The house in question was a former flour mill which, like so many in England, was abandoned in the 1880s when cheap grain imported from North America and milled at dockside industrial mills took over the market for mills. In 1887 the semi-derelict old watermill was bought by a businessman from Manchester named Fowler to be a comfortable country home for his family. He would have to go to Manchester to work, and intended to stay in a small apartment over his business when he did so. At the time that family consisted of Mr Fowler, his wife and two daughters: Teddie aged 12 and Jessica aged 14.
Before the family moved in the old mill had to be converted to make it suitable for use as a house. Most of these changes were cosmetic, but one was more substantial and came to have relevance to what followed. The mill water wheel had formerly been linked to a large axle which entered the mill through the side wall overlooking the river. It was connected in the 'wheel room' to a mass of machinery, gears and so faorth that converted the motion of the wheel into movement that could be used by the milling machinery. The room was lit by a large window while a door gave access to some stone steps and a gangtry from which the wheel itself could be inspected and, if necessary, repaired. A door led from the wheel room into the kitchen.
Fowler hired workmen who removed the wheel and all the machinery. He then had the door bricked up, but left the window as it was. The wall separating the wheel room from the rest of the kitchen was torn down and replaced by a more flimsy partition that stood much closer to the wall with the window overlooking the river. This created a much larger kitchen with a storeroom occupying the reduced space of the wheel room - which however was still termed the wheel room.
The bilding work was finished in early May 1887 and the family moved in. About two weeks later, Teddie complained of feeling ill and began to run a slight fever. Her mother put her to bed and decided that she should rest there for a day or two. That evening the other three members of the family were eating supper in the kitchen when the sound of breaking glass came from the wheel room.
Mr Foster went into the room to find a pane of glass in the window had been smashed. At first he thought that a large bird might have flown into the window and broken it, but he soon decided that the pane had been smashed deliberately. He peered out but could see nobody. He then walked through the kitchen and out into his garden from where he could get a good view up and down the stream, and of the path that ran along the far side. Again, nobody was in sight.
Foster then returned to the wheel room and began clearing up the broken glass. He quickly found the missle that had smashed the window. It was a large stone identical to those found in the rocky bed of the stream, and it was still wet. It was obvious where the stone had come from, but who had thrown it was a mystery.
Ten days later the family were again at supper when the sounds of somebody knocking on the far side of the partition to the wheel room began. The knocking noises got louder and more insistent, then moved to the door that led from the kitchen to the storage room. Thinking some prankster was at work, Foster walked over and opened the door. The noises stopped at once. There was nobody in the room.
Three days later Mrs Fowler and Jessica were in the kitchen engaged in housework when they heard voices coming from the wheel room. The voices were not loud, and neither Mrs Fowler nor Jessica could catch what they were saying. They knew that nobody was in the wheel room and fled the house. They were standing in the garden wondering what to do when a man who worked on a neighbouring farm was seen walking down the lane. Mrs Fowler told the man that she was worried that somebody was in the house. The farmhand went in and searched diligently but found nobody.
That night the voices in the wheel room came again as the family were at supper. This time they were louder and could be heard to be a man and woman, though the words could still not be made out. There then came a sound like a saucer being dropped on the floor and broken. Mr Fowler quickly opened the door to the wheel room. The voices stopped. There was no broken saucer, nor anything that could have explained the noise.
Mr Foster knew that on the folowing Monday he would need to go to Manchester, and would need to stay there for several days to look after his business. He did not want to leave his family alone, but dreaded what would happen if he announced that the house was haunted. He sent for an employee named Dick Carter, whom he knew to be level- headed, and asked him and his wife to come to stay at the mill.
Before Carter arrived, Foster screwed two stout metal bars across the door that led from the kithen to the wheel room so that it could not be opened from either side. As he did so a stone smashed through the window in the wheel room. Foster then fixed a wire mesh over the window on the outside. On the Monday, Foster explained to Carter what had been going on and expressed his fear that the house was haunted. Carter promised to keep a close eye on things. Foster then left for Manchester.
That evening it was Mr and Mrs Carter, Mrs Foster, Teddie and Jessica who ate supper in the kitchen. The two women were clearing up when the manifestations began, this time far more dramatic than before. The first thing that happened was that a cup fell off the dresser, followed by a pair of saucers and another cup. Then a jug of beer tipped over and spilled its contents all over the floor. This was followed by the fire irons which began dancing about in their holder. The coal scuttle then began shooting out pieces of coal that flew across the room. The girls screamed and dived for cover, followed quickly by Mrs Fowler. Carter stood up and surveyed the mayhem around him. He had promised to keep an eye on things and was determined to note carefully everything that happend so that he could report to his employer. Suddenly everything fell still.
Then noises came from the sealed up wheel room. It sounded as if the boxes in the room were being thrown about. Then came the sound of hammering and banging. Carter ushered everyone out of the house, then got into a small boat and crossed to the far side of the river to get a good view through the window of the wheel room. He watched as packing cases moved back and forth. Then an empty pram was seen floating up to the ceiling, then moving off to one side. The pram drifted past the window five times. Then the movements and noises ceased. After 20 minutes of silence, Carter recrossed the stream and entered the house. All was quiet, so he waved the others in. Carter sat up all night in the kitchen while the others went to bed. Nothing much happened and Carter dozed off toward dawn.
Next morning, Carter got a ladder and climbed up to peer into the wheel room. All the packing boxes had been piled up against one wall. The pram was perched on top.
Nothing happened for the rest of the week, but when Fowler came home the disturbances broke out again. Once more the packing cases and pram were moved about the sealed room, loud hanmmering noises were heard. Then the voices came back. Again the actual words could not be heard but it sounded as if the man and woman were having an argument. This lasted an hour, then quiet returned.
Over the months that followed the disturbances continued unabated. There might be a few days when nothing happend, then the noises and movements would come back. Mr Fowler’s diary for two weeks in August are typical. The references to everyday life have been ommitted, but the entries relevant to the visitation read as follows:
Saturday Augsut 13Four jugs broken in kitchen. Several knocks on door. Scraping sound on wheel room window.
Monday August 15Cat frightened at something in kitche, and has run away.
Thursday August 18Five spoons found on floor of kitchen this morning, on dresser over night. Jess had a plate thrown at her. Noises in the wheel room.
Sunday August 21Queit, except for jug of water upset, and knives found in sink.
Friday August 26A noisy night last night. On guardoutside wheel room. They kept it up for nearly two hours. Ink bottles thrown to floor.
Monday September 5No sleep last night. On guard all night. Hell is in the wheel room. Wife stayed up part of time.
It is hardly suprising that the Fowler family felt like a holiday after such a summer. Mr Fowler had a married sister living on the Isle of Man and he arranged for them all to go to visit her for a couple of weeks in September. Before leaving he made a point of putting all loose objects away, locking every door and making a careful note of where everything was. He then asked a neighbour to keep an eye on the place, coming to check the outside doors and windows were locked every day.
The Fowlers were away for four weeks. When the time came to return home, Teddie asked if she could stay on with her aunt. So it was that Mr and Mrs Fowler returned home with only Jessica. They found that the house was exactly as they had left it. There were no further manifestations of any kind.
Once the trouble was over, Fowler felt mroe able to talk about the events. He talked to the local curate who agreed to do some reasearch. He discovered that one of the former workers at the mill had been a Welshman named Tom Watkins. Watkins had been employed to look after the machinery in the wheel room, and often slept in the room when the mill was busy. Watkins formed a friendship with a local woman, and the woman’s husband took exception to the way the 'friendship' was progressing. One night in the local inn a fight had broken out between Watkins and the husband, which ended with the latter dying from a blow to the head. Watkins was arrested, but let go after it became clear that the other man had attacked him first. Watkins and the widow had then moved off to Wales and their subsequent fate was unknown.
The visitation was promptly put down to a haunting connected to these events. The ghost heard arguing in the wheel room were assumed to be those of Watkins and his lover.
-----------------
The Appleby Poltergeist
By Rupert Matthews
Another late 19th century case that was well documented took place in a home near the village of Appleby in what was then Westmorland, but is now Cumbria. One of those involved kept a diary and wrote down the events as they happened, allowing us to follow the progress of this particular visitation in detail.
The house in question was a former flour mill which, like so many in England, was abandoned in the 1880s when cheap grain imported from North America and milled at dockside industrial mills took over the market for mills. In 1887 the semi-derelict old watermill was bought by a businessman from Manchester named Fowler to be a comfortable country home for his family. He would have to go to Manchester to work, and intended to stay in a small apartment over his business when he did so. At the time that family consisted of Mr Fowler, his wife and two daughters: Teddie aged 12 and Jessica aged 14.
Before the family moved in the old mill had to be converted to make it suitable for use as a house. Most of these changes were cosmetic, but one was more substantial and came to have relevance to what followed. The mill water wheel had formerly been linked to a large axle which entered the mill through the side wall overlooking the river. It was connected in the 'wheel room' to a mass of machinery, gears and so faorth that converted the motion of the wheel into movement that could be used by the milling machinery. The room was lit by a large window while a door gave access to some stone steps and a gangtry from which the wheel itself could be inspected and, if necessary, repaired. A door led from the wheel room into the kitchen.
Fowler hired workmen who removed the wheel and all the machinery. He then had the door bricked up, but left the window as it was. The wall separating the wheel room from the rest of the kitchen was torn down and replaced by a more flimsy partition that stood much closer to the wall with the window overlooking the river. This created a much larger kitchen with a storeroom occupying the reduced space of the wheel room - which however was still termed the wheel room.
The bilding work was finished in early May 1887 and the family moved in. About two weeks later, Teddie complained of feeling ill and began to run a slight fever. Her mother put her to bed and decided that she should rest there for a day or two. That evening the other three members of the family were eating supper in the kitchen when the sound of breaking glass came from the wheel room.
Mr Foster went into the room to find a pane of glass in the window had been smashed. At first he thought that a large bird might have flown into the window and broken it, but he soon decided that the pane had been smashed deliberately. He peered out but could see nobody. He then walked through the kitchen and out into his garden from where he could get a good view up and down the stream, and of the path that ran along the far side. Again, nobody was in sight.
Foster then returned to the wheel room and began clearing up the broken glass. He quickly found the missle that had smashed the window. It was a large stone identical to those found in the rocky bed of the stream, and it was still wet. It was obvious where the stone had come from, but who had thrown it was a mystery.
Ten days later the family were again at supper when the sounds of somebody knocking on the far side of the partition to the wheel room began. The knocking noises got louder and more insistent, then moved to the door that led from the kitchen to the storage room. Thinking some prankster was at work, Foster walked over and opened the door. The noises stopped at once. There was nobody in the room.
Three days later Mrs Fowler and Jessica were in the kitchen engaged in housework when they heard voices coming from the wheel room. The voices were not loud, and neither Mrs Fowler nor Jessica could catch what they were saying. They knew that nobody was in the wheel room and fled the house. They were standing in the garden wondering what to do when a man who worked on a neighbouring farm was seen walking down the lane. Mrs Fowler told the man that she was worried that somebody was in the house. The farmhand went in and searched diligently but found nobody.
That night the voices in the wheel room came again as the family were at supper. This time they were louder and could be heard to be a man and woman, though the words could still not be made out. There then came a sound like a saucer being dropped on the floor and broken. Mr Fowler quickly opened the door to the wheel room. The voices stopped. There was no broken saucer, nor anything that could have explained the noise.
Mr Foster knew that on the folowing Monday he would need to go to Manchester, and would need to stay there for several days to look after his business. He did not want to leave his family alone, but dreaded what would happen if he announced that the house was haunted. He sent for an employee named Dick Carter, whom he knew to be level- headed, and asked him and his wife to come to stay at the mill.
Before Carter arrived, Foster screwed two stout metal bars across the door that led from the kithen to the wheel room so that it could not be opened from either side. As he did so a stone smashed through the window in the wheel room. Foster then fixed a wire mesh over the window on the outside. On the Monday, Foster explained to Carter what had been going on and expressed his fear that the house was haunted. Carter promised to keep a close eye on things. Foster then left for Manchester.
That evening it was Mr and Mrs Carter, Mrs Foster, Teddie and Jessica who ate supper in the kitchen. The two women were clearing up when the manifestations began, this time far more dramatic than before. The first thing that happened was that a cup fell off the dresser, followed by a pair of saucers and another cup. Then a jug of beer tipped over and spilled its contents all over the floor. This was followed by the fire irons which began dancing about in their holder. The coal scuttle then began shooting out pieces of coal that flew across the room. The girls screamed and dived for cover, followed quickly by Mrs Fowler. Carter stood up and surveyed the mayhem around him. He had promised to keep an eye on things and was determined to note carefully everything that happend so that he could report to his employer. Suddenly everything fell still.
Then noises came from the sealed up wheel room. It sounded as if the boxes in the room were being thrown about. Then came the sound of hammering and banging. Carter ushered everyone out of the house, then got into a small boat and crossed to the far side of the river to get a good view through the window of the wheel room. He watched as packing cases moved back and forth. Then an empty pram was seen floating up to the ceiling, then moving off to one side. The pram drifted past the window five times. Then the movements and noises ceased. After 20 minutes of silence, Carter recrossed the stream and entered the house. All was quiet, so he waved the others in. Carter sat up all night in the kitchen while the others went to bed. Nothing much happened and Carter dozed off toward dawn.
Next morning, Carter got a ladder and climbed up to peer into the wheel room. All the packing boxes had been piled up against one wall. The pram was perched on top.
Nothing happened for the rest of the week, but when Fowler came home the disturbances broke out again. Once more the packing cases and pram were moved about the sealed room, loud hanmmering noises were heard. Then the voices came back. Again the actual words could not be heard but it sounded as if the man and woman were having an argument. This lasted an hour, then quiet returned.
Over the months that followed the disturbances continued unabated. There might be a few days when nothing happend, then the noises and movements would come back. Mr Fowler’s diary for two weeks in August are typical. The references to everyday life have been ommitted, but the entries relevant to the visitation read as follows:
Saturday Augsut 13Four jugs broken in kitchen. Several knocks on door. Scraping sound on wheel room window.
Monday August 15Cat frightened at something in kitche, and has run away.
Thursday August 18Five spoons found on floor of kitchen this morning, on dresser over night. Jess had a plate thrown at her. Noises in the wheel room.
Sunday August 21Queit, except for jug of water upset, and knives found in sink.
Friday August 26A noisy night last night. On guardoutside wheel room. They kept it up for nearly two hours. Ink bottles thrown to floor.
Monday September 5No sleep last night. On guard all night. Hell is in the wheel room. Wife stayed up part of time.
It is hardly suprising that the Fowler family felt like a holiday after such a summer. Mr Fowler had a married sister living on the Isle of Man and he arranged for them all to go to visit her for a couple of weeks in September. Before leaving he made a point of putting all loose objects away, locking every door and making a careful note of where everything was. He then asked a neighbour to keep an eye on the place, coming to check the outside doors and windows were locked every day.
The Fowlers were away for four weeks. When the time came to return home, Teddie asked if she could stay on with her aunt. So it was that Mr and Mrs Fowler returned home with only Jessica. They found that the house was exactly as they had left it. There were no further manifestations of any kind.
Once the trouble was over, Fowler felt mroe able to talk about the events. He talked to the local curate who agreed to do some reasearch. He discovered that one of the former workers at the mill had been a Welshman named Tom Watkins. Watkins had been employed to look after the machinery in the wheel room, and often slept in the room when the mill was busy. Watkins formed a friendship with a local woman, and the woman’s husband took exception to the way the 'friendship' was progressing. One night in the local inn a fight had broken out between Watkins and the husband, which ended with the latter dying from a blow to the head. Watkins was arrested, but let go after it became clear that the other man had attacked him first. Watkins and the widow had then moved off to Wales and their subsequent fate was unknown.
The visitation was promptly put down to a haunting connected to these events. The ghost heard arguing in the wheel room were assumed to be those of Watkins and his lover.
Rupert Matthews is the author of the book Haunted Hampshire which is published by the History Press (ISBN 978-0752448626) and available on Amazon and from all good bookshops. You can find Rupert’s website at www.rupertmatthews.com. He also maintains a blog about the unexplained at www.ghosthunteratlarge.blogspot.com.
If you would like to contribute a guest article for the website please contact Richard Thomas at richard@richardthomas.eu.
If you would like to contribute a guest article for the website please contact Richard Thomas at richard@richardthomas.eu.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Chupacabras: zooform or cryptozoology?
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