Paranormal Magazine

IT’S a story likely to confirm whether you’re a true believer or a true sceptic.

Twins Phil and Mick Cahalane, 45, possess a family photo with an intriguing story.

According to the brothers, the photo was taken more than 100 years ago in Scotland and shows their great-grandfather with the image of a “saintly” figure.

The pair first saw the photo as children, when their mother produced it at a family gathering.

“What I heard was that he had gone on a boat trip out in the ocean somewhere and a really bad storm came through as he was fishing,” Phil, who lives in Quakers Hill, said.

“He started praying because he thought he was going to die. The storm passed and because he thought it was safe, he kept fishing, and that’s when he caught most of his fish.

“When he got to land he took a photo with all the fish he caught and this image showed up in the photo.”

The boys were told the figure was St Teresa of Avila .

Mick, who lives in Colyton, said his mother used to carry it around with her up until her death last year.

After that, his father carried it in his wallet until he died six months later.

At that point the family discovered it in their father’s possessions.

“I’m not a real big believer but this shows people that maybe something is out there, and that gives people hope,” Mick said.

The brothers’ inquiries into the photo’s origins proved futile.

“No one really talked about it (when we were younger). It was no big deal,” Phil said.

“Over 45 years I think I only saw it twice. Now no one really knows the story and everyone in the family who did has died.”

He said no one even knew his great-grandfather’s name because it changed when he migrated to Australia.

Phil said he would sell the photo if anyone wanted it.

“We’re not out to fool anyone,” he said.

“Mum was a very honest woman; it was a very personal thing for her,” Phil said.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m not out to waste anyone’s time and neither is Mick.

“I just think if someone wants to pay for it, why not? You only live once. Why not enjoy it?”

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An anonymous hacker in Austin, Texas, played a prank on morning commuters earlier this week by changing the public safety message display of two LED road signs to warnings of zombie attacks.

Some of the messages included apocalyptic warnings like “The End is Near !!!,” “Zombies in Area – Run!” and “Nazi Zombies, Run!”

Hacking LED road signs isn’t considered a difficult task because many of the people in charge of setting their security protection are (usually) not technically savvy. For example, the control pad inside the LED casing usually has the same default four-letter password(”DOTS”) as every other sign. In addition, many sites on the internet provide easy hacking How-Tos, though you don’t need to follow a road map to notice that the back of the panels are only protected by a small lock.

If you take into account the fact that almost anyone can walk up to the signs without being noticed, it’s quite easy to understand how it’s a perfect recipe for mischievous hackers. Actually, it’s more of a surprise it doesn’t happen more often. MIT students, to name one famously hack-happy group, have been posting road sign hacks on the net for many years. However, their humor often veers closer to East Coast cultural worries, such as unexpected attacks from Godzilla.

The sign may have been inspired by the top-grossing computer game Call of Duty 5: World at war, which has a bonus level featuring a Nazi zombie attack. It may not be the real thing just yet, but if you’ve come across anything zombified please write in and let us know.

Tell the editor about your own experience with the paranormal. Submit your story via our website, www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk, or get in touch directly: email editor@paranormalmagazine.co.uk, or write to Richard Holland, The Editor Paranormal, Jazz Publishing, The Old School, Higher Kinnerton, Chester CH4 9AJ.

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Rather than coming coming from outer space, the flying saucers could have a much more earthly point of origin – Ireland.

Clouds formed by rising air currents can pile on top of each other forming bizarre shapes that resemble the alien creations of science fiction.

This strange apparition hovered over the British coast for almost an hour and was captured by Sonja Lewis as she worked at Borth Golf club, Mid Wales.

“I’d never seen anything like it before it was like four clouds piled up on top of each other,” she said. ”It was quite beautiful.”

“It stretched from hole one of the golf club right over to hole 18 and everyone could see it.

“Apparently one cloud can attach itself to another through their moisture content and they can appear to be surfing each other.

Met Office forecaster Bob Syvret explained that the unusual formation was a lee wave which are formed near mountain ranges when the wind and atmosphere is right and it is usually sunny.

“The Dyfi Estuary would be a perfect location for one, although it is likely it would have actually been formed in Ireland.”

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Perhaps you have photographed or caught video footage of the possibly paranormal in the skies. If so we would love for you to get in touch and send in your evidence of the unexplained to our office. Write to Richard Holland, The Editor Paranormal, Jazz Publishing, The Old School, Higher Kinnerton, Chester CH4 9AJ, or submit your story via our website, www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk, or get in touch directly: email editor@paranormalmagazine.co.uk

Paranormal editor RICHARD HOLLAND explores the eerie aspect of the crossways in British folklore.

In Britain, crossroads, bridges and stiles were all once considered eerie after dark. Because they connect places rather than being actual places themselves, they were considered shadowy, otherworldly, what is technically known as ‘liminal’.

These liminal sites suggested places where the boundaries between the physical world and the spiritual world might be less defined. There was a symbolic aspect, too, to the concept of passing over a style or a bridge or choosing the correct path at a crossway.

In ancient Europe crossroads were associated with Hecate, a minor goddess of the ancient Greeks who was adopted by the Romans and who has links with the winter goddess, the ‘crone’ of Celtic mythology. Hecate was considered ‘queen of the ghosts, and therefore of all manner of magic, the blacker the better’ (H J Rose, in A Handbook of Greek Mythology). She was known as triodos or trioditis, meaning ‘the goddess of parting ways’ and her image was often placed at crossroads. ‘Hecate’s suppers’ were left at crossroads to feed the malevolent spirits which followed the goddess and to dissuade them to go in search of human prey. The offerings sometimes included cakes set with candles like our modern birthday cakes.

Similar beliefs may well be universal: in India, for example, offerings were made at crossroads to Rudra, the god who rules ghosts and evil powers. In Japan, phallic symbols used to be set up at road junctions to protect passersby.

This Feature can be found in Paranormal issue 30 still available for purchase. For subscription information simply click here.

[Sources: The Lore of the Land by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson; Glimpses in the Twilight by F G Lee; Haunted England by Christina Hole; Folklore of Wets and Mid Wales by J C Davies; A Handbook of Greek Mythology by H J Rose; E D Philips writing in Man, Myth & Magic; Wales of the Unexpected by Richard Holland.]

The Borley Bug, © Joyce Mercer

RICHARD HOLLAND revisits one of the strangest stories regarding one of Britain’s most celebrated haunted houses, Borley Rectory.

The story of Borley Rectory on the Essex/Suffolk border is one of the best known in British ghost-lore. Investigated, among others, by the legendary Harry Price, who dubbed it the ‘Most Haunted House in England’, the Rectory burned down in 1939 after years of ghostly activity.

One of the strangest of the myriad phenomena reported from Borley was that experienced by a Mrs Margaret Wilson; it strikes me as being quite unclassifiable, if not unique. Mrs Wilson was a painter whose favourite subject was ‘old and picturesque houses’. Unfortunately, as Price pointed out to her, Borley was not very old and in his own opinion ‘ugly’. This did not deter the lady, however, and having obtained permission to visit, she set up her easel on August 22, 1938.

The rectory had been vacated by this time and Mrs Wilson was entirely alone in the garden. She chose a spot near the summer house and opposite what had become known as the Nun’s Walk, two areas where apparitions had often been seen. She insisted that her interest in Borley had been aesthetic rather than spiritual and, after meeting her, Price stated that he found Mrs Wilson ‘particularly unemotional and… a very hard-headed businesswoman, in addition to being an artist’. Nevertheless, she found the place oppressive.

This Feature can be found in Paranormal issue 31 still available for purchase. For subscription information simply click here.

[SOURCE: The Most Haunted House in England by Harry Price, second revised edition, March 1941, pp 132-7].

Fed up with constantly complaining about the rotten British weather, Paranormal editor RICHARD HOLLAND puts things in perspective with some examples of meteorology gone mad.

The British are often accused of talking too much about the weather. And it’s a fair cop, because we do. When we’re not moaning about it. Considering the fact we have a mild climate and don’t have to put up with typhoons, tornados, blizzards, drought or earthquakes – at least not very often – this may seem absurd. I guess we’re obsessed with the weather because we never know what it’s going to do next, and despite millions of pounds spent on meteorology, it remains stubbornly unpredictable (moaning about inaccurate weather reports is almost as popular a pastime as moaning about the weather itself).

After two particularly lousy British summers, we’re complaining more than ever, so I thought it would be fun to dig out some reports on really weird weather. Twenty years ago, when I first started seriously researching the supernatural, I turned my attention to an obscure old journal called Bye-gones, published in the years before World War 1, which contained many nuggets of paranormality from Wales and its border counties.

In an edition of May 1889, for example, I found this snippet: ‘In Cardiff it was noticed that after a fall of rain, pools of water in the thoroughfares were tinged with red – the effect of what is known as “red rain”. In past generations this appearance produced the gravest alarm, a fall of so-called “bloody rain” being regarded as a sure precursor to plague.’

This Feature can be found in Paranormal issue 30 still available for purchase. For subscription information simply click here.

[Sources include: Volumes of Bye-gones dating from 1886-1910; Some Medieval Cases of Blood Rain by John Tatlock (1914); Phenomena by John Michell and Robert J M Rickard (1977); newscientist.com; sursock.blogspot.com; Deseret News (Salt Lake City) Aug 26, 2006.]

Author: J. J. Lumsden

Publisher: Bennion Kearny

Price: £10.99 (Paperback)

(7 votes, average: 4.57 out of 5)

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This page isn’t intending to review works of fiction as a rule, but since J J Lumsden seems to have come up with a concept which ‘fills a new literary space’, we’ll make an exception.

The Hidden Whisper is a mystery story centring round alleged poltergeist activity that breaks out in a couple’s home in Arizona. The author’s credentials could scarcely be better for the subject: he’s an experimental parapsychologist, based in the UK, with a PhD from the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh. 

As well as weaving an intriguing and well-written novel around paranormal events, Lumsden also provides about 20,000 words of non-fiction endnotes which go into the subject of the poltergeist phenomenon in more depth. Authenticity is clearly the author’s watchword.

An appealing blend of science and detective story, The Hidden Whisper is described as the ‘Sophie’s World of parapsychology’. 

Author: Paul Screeton

Publisher: Heart of Albion

Price: £14.95 (Paperback)

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Folklorist Paul Screeton has been gathering what we now call urban myths since long before the term was coined.

Mars Bar & Mushy Peas is named after two persistent yarns: the spurious chocolate bar unfairly thrust on (as it were) Marianne Faithfull and the pot of a Northern delicacy Peter Mandelson allegedly mistook for avocado dip.

In a series of knowledgeable and witty essays, Screeton focuses on the cult of celebrity and the way stories are built up around them. He also discusses fake folklore to benefit tourism; the clash between Forteans and folklorists; the ‘barmy belief’ (his words) of global warming; and the entertaining subject of ‘penis lore’.

Familiarity with contemporary folklore can be a helpful guide when handling reports of paranormal activity: you learn to spot suspicious trends and too often repeated details. But Screeton’s book isn’t just useful: the roster of celebrity tall tales will keep you chuckling.

Author: Geoff Holder

Publisher: Tempus

Price: £12.99  (Paperback)

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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One of the most accessible and beautiful islands off the west coast of Scotland, it is no surprise to discover that Arran is also one of the most enigmatic. This guide to a mysterious corner of Scotland is a much more satisfying production than Milne’s: packed with photographs and boasting a handy bibliography and useful index. It is one of an ongoing series by Tempus.

Holder has done a superb job of plumbing the depths of Arran’s mysteries. He divides the island into sections and presents for each a dense body of detailed accounts of antiquities, legends, folklore, paranormal phenomena – and the just plain quirky.

The quality of his research is outstanding and his enthusiasm for his varied subjects shines out on every page, whether he’s discussing a stone circle, a fairy legend, an old shipwreck or a headless ghost.

On many occasions over the years, I have considered visiting Arran – now I feel I must. 

Author: Graeme Milne

Publisher: Cauliay Publishing

Price: £8.99 (paperback)

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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I approve of the current cottage industry of local ghost books. Written by enthusiasts in the field, as it were, they always contain first-hand accounts of experiences that wouldn’t otherwise have found their way into print. There’s always something new to be found.

Contrary to its title, Milne’s book fits into this category, for ‘the North’ here refers only to the North-East of Scotland and its regional capital of Aberdeen. Milne has taken considerable trouble in tracking down stories, visiting locations and compiling first-hand accounts of ghosts and other phenomena such as alleged time slips.

Although the book is a rather amateurish production – it could have done with a more careful proofreader and page numbers on the contents page are mysteriously absent – the contents are what count and you’ll find a varied selection of unfamiliar accounts to interest you, my favourite being the invisible animal that was apparently released from a locked attic.

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