Paranormal Magazine

[featured in Paranormal magazine issue 44, February 2010]

Horses’ manes across southern England and Wales have been found plaited in a mysterious manner. The incidents have been variously blamed on pagans, gypsies and rocking horse manufacturers. RICHARD HOLLAND is intrigued.

An odd phenomenon has been causing concern among dozens of British horse owners. Several regional papers have reported that horses have been found to have obtained plaits in their manes, which have appeared overnight. Many breeders are convinced it’s the work of thieves.

Harriet Laurie, from Bridport, Dorset, who runs a horse owners’ website, says that many owners in west Dorset and the neighbouring counties have found these plaits in their horses’ manes. She has found them herself.

‘When one of my horse’s manes was plaited it took me some time to unpick as the wind had whipped it into a sort of dreadlock,’ she said. ‘But underneath were three strands neatly plaited. It is most bizarre.

‘Whatever it is there is a lot of fear and anxiety. I know of about 12 horses that have had it done.’

In Wiltshire, there was no doubt in the minds of owners that the tiny plaits were the work of would-be thieves. The idea is that the most valuable horses are marked in this way so that they are easy to identify under cover of darkness. Of course, it doesn’t explain how the thieves are able to view the horses and then plait them in daylight without being spotted.

The owner of a grey Arab mare in East Grimstead told the Salisbury Journal: ‘My horse’s mane was plaited last night. I asked a neighbour to keep an eye on her … and they saw somebody walking up their track at about six o’clock.’

It transpired that the woman only examined her horse’s mane for plaits when she heard of a similar case nearby. ‘Sure enough’, as she put it herself, she found one.

Similar cases have been reported from Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Mid Wales. In Hampshire two horses have suffered the rather more serious indignity of having their tails lopped off. It was suggested that the hair might be used to help make expensive rocking horses.

Theories as to horse thieves are not being with any serious concern by police. No thefts have been reported from any of the areas affected.

PC Tim Poole, who has investigated the incidents in Dorset, said: ‘We can’t completely rule out the possibility of theft. We did have intelligence from Avon and Somerset police that it is a gypsy trick, which it may or may not have been.’

However, PC Poole is convinced the plaiting is carried out as rituals in white witchcraft. He quoted an unnamed ‘warlock’, who told him: ‘This is part of a white magic ritual and is to do with knot magick. It would appear that for people of this belief, knot magick is used when they want to cast a spell. Some of the gods they worship have a strong connection to horses so if they have a particular request, plaiting this knot in a horse’s mane lends strength to the request.’

He added: ‘The fact that this rash of plaiting coincides with one of their ceremonial times of year [the winter solstice] adds weight to the theory.’

However, several prominent Wiccans denied even hearing of such a practice. Catherine Hosen, of the Pagan Federation of Wessex, for example, responded: ‘It’s certainly not any ritual that I’m aware of. Pagans have a strong respect for anything to do with nature. They would ask permission before removing a branch from a tree, let alone do anything to a horse.’

She added: ‘Any day in the year you could say it’s close to some pagan ritual because the calendar is pretty full of them.’

Compounding the mystery is the fact that several of the targeted horses have been kept secure, in one case behind high electric fences. Other plaits were found after stormy nights, suggesting a real dedication to the task, and at least one affected horse was described as ‘very hard to catch’.

Only the Dorset incidents made the national press, the others were found thanks to the magic of Google. Something tells me this is going to run and run, as word spreads and more owners check their horses for plaits, most of which might indeed have been made by the wind.

What intrigues me most, though, is the clear parallel these incidents have with folklore. Centuries ago horses found with such manes would have been considered ‘hag ridden’, that is to say, ridden overnight by witches (no offence to modern practitioners!), or similarly used and abused by the fairies.

I reprinted several examples in my book Bye-gones (1992), extracts from a journal of the same name. Here is just one, reported by a farmer on the Welsh border in 1893:

‘Not long ago I caught a young colt for the purpose of breaking it in. A servant who was assisting observed, “They have been riding this one right enough.” I asked, “Who?” “Well, the fairies.” “How do you know?” I asked him again. “Don’t you see how they have plaited the mane?” he replied; “they always do that when they have a ride.”

‘Oddly enough the mane was plaited in a wonderfully artistic manner.’

(This article can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 42)

Generally it’s believed that ghosts tend to haunt places which have seen a great deal of life – and therefore death. But apparitions are also reported from the open countryside, even from the most remote locations, as JANET BORD explains.

Ghosts seem to be particularly attached to buildings, the spookier the better – churches, castles, stately homes, and ruins of all kinds. They are equally drawn to more domestic settings – pubs, hotels and, of course, everyday houses.

Wherever people have gone about their lives, be it the lords and ladies of bygone eras, or the humble labourers of more recent times, ghostly echoes remain of all manner of traumatic events that have taken place down the centuries.

But what about the wild, windswept uplands?

The wild open spaces of Britain are likely to have been sparsely populated – some rarely even visited – but do they too carry echoes of the past in the form of ghosts and hauntings? It would seem so – and the manifestations are often just as strange and unexpected as those of lowland ghosts.

Sometimes the trigger for a particularly strange haunting may be hard to discern. I am thinking especially of the ghostly ‘hairy hands’ which were said to haunt a stretch of road on lonely Dartmoor in Devon. The first inkling of something strange was in 1921 when Dr Helby, who worked at Dartmoor prison, was flung off his motor cycle and died of a broken neck in March that year. A few weeks later a motor coach drove off the road and some of the passengers were thrown out. The driver later said he had felt invisible hands pulling at the steering wheel. Two men on a motorcycle had trouble with their steering while coming down the same hill, and in August that year a young army officer on a motorcycle was slightly injured when he was thrown onto the grass verge. He later commented: ‘It was not my fault. Believe it or not, something drove me off the road. A pair of hairy hands closed over mine. I felt them as plainly as ever I felt anything in my life – large, muscular, hairy hands. I fought them for all I was north, but they were too strong for me. They forced the machine into the turf at the edge of the road, and I knew no more till I came to myself, lying a few feet away on my face on the turf.’

Local people thought the accidents were caused by excessive speed and the road camber, but a man who used to wander on Dartmoor at night told of hearing an awful scream near the hill where the accident occurred; and a woman saw the hairy hands in 1924, clawing at the window of a caravan where she was staying, only half a mile from the haunted road.

Whatever was responsible for the ‘hairy hands’, they were linked to a possible death. Death is frequently the catalyst for hauntings, as seems to have been the case in the Dorset hills in the early years of the 20th century. Bill Smith gave a first-hand account of his experience, which took place when he was a lad, walking with his uncle late one bright moonlit night in 1915 from Combe Down to Norton St Philip. They noticed a movement in the dry-stone wall, possibly a sheep that had got trapped, and went to look, but could see nothing and there were no sheep to be seen in the field, only the valley dropping away below them. Then they heard a horrible scream, but again there was nothing to be seen.

They sat and rested for a while, and then heard the scream again – this time they also saw what looked like a man rising out of the ground 20-30 feet below them. The uncle went to investigate, but again found nothing, and he said that the figure appeared to go back into the ground, though there was nowhere for anyone to hide and the ground was firm. As they continued walking up the hill, the uncle pointed out a large stone in the wall which had a large red ‘M’ on it. He said it was known as the Murder Stone, because a man had been murdered there many years ago.

Some months after this possible sighting of the ghost of the murdered man, a workman found an old stone coffin buried in the hillside, but there was no skeleton inside it.

Tragic suicides may sometimes be the trigger for ghostly sightings on the downs above Beachy Head in East Sussex, the high cliff from which so many people have thrown themselves 545 feet on to the rocks below. It is rumoured that there is something about the cliff top that makes people want to throw themselves off it, and certainly if you suffer from vertigo I can confirm that it is a place best avoided!

There have been tales of a black-clad monk beckoning people to their deaths, and a lady in grey often seen on the cliff edge is thought to have been a suicide victim herself in the 1850s. A man walking on the downs in 1976 saw the ghost, as did his dog, which began growling and quivering with fear. The ghost bent down as if to stroke the dog, which ran off howling, whereupon the ghost disappeared. Another cliff-top ghost was that of a woman looking like a farmer’s wife and carrying a bundle, possibly a child, which she hugged close to her before stepping off the edge.

Further west along the south coast, inland from Worthing, stands the high point known as Cissbury Ring, an Iron Age hillfort on the West Sussex Downs. It is a lonely, atmospheric place, haunted, according to local lore, by a highwayman executed there in the 18th century, who said he would never rest after his death. Following burial in the middle of the road, his corpse kept coming to the surface again, and his ghost was seen riding along the track. Cart-drivers would drive straight through him, and they would also report that their wheels had gone over something lying on the road, even though there was nothing to be seen there.

Violent death was also the trigger for a haunting on the windy hills of the Derbyshire High Peak. A young couple were murdered in 1758 in the spectacular

limestone gorge known as Winnat’s Pass while they were eloping to get married, their skeletons being discovered decades later by miners working at the spot, and reburied in the churchyard. On windy nights, or so it is said, the cries of the murdered lovers, begging for mercy, can still be heard in the pass. No doubt there have been many murders in the lonely hills and mountains of Britain down the centuries, some of the victims still lying undiscovered. It is impossible not to wonder whether these tragic victims relive their terrifying last moments for all eternity, albeit rarely seen by any living human.

Do ghosts appear if there is no human being present to see them? Or is the presence of a human consciousness somehow a necessary catalyst for the ghostly manifestation? How much does the eerie mountain atmosphere contribute to the creation of the right circumstances for a ghost to appear – or for the witness to believe that a paranormal event is occurring?

This is particularly relevant to the case of the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, the highest mountain in the Cairngorms (Aberdeen/Moray). As Karl Shuker’s article on the previous pages has explained in detail, walkers on the mountain, beginning with Norman Collie in 1890, have reported hearing footsteps following them, and others claimed to have seen giant figures which left no footprints. The mountain is well-known for a distinctly spooky atmosphere on its wild and rocky slopes.

Not far behind in the strangeness stakes are the reports of phantom soldiers, and even whole armies, being seen on hills and mountains throughout Britain. The most famous case was that of Souther Fell in Cumbria, where there were sightings on Midsummer Eve in 1735 and 1737, and again in 1745 before the Scottish Rebellion. A vast army was clearly seen by numerous witnesses in 1745, but a search of the hillside next morning revealed no hoofprints. A spectral army was seen marching across Helvellyn, also in Cumbria, on the eve of the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.

More recently two men carrying out geological research on Skye in November 1956 saw dozens of men wearing kilts. The scientists were camping in Harta Corrie in the Cuillin Mountains, and it was early one morning when they watched the men scrambling along the mountainside in total silence. One night soon afterwards they saw them again, this time retreating in disorder towards the Bloody Stone which marks the scene of a battle in 1395. When they reported what they had seen to local people, they were told that Harta Corrie was known to be haunted. If it is true that strong emotion can somehow imprint itself onto a landscape, with the focal events of the emotion being replayed to startled witnesses as a ghost sighting, then it is hardly surprising that many of the ghosts are soldiers and murder victims.

But there are also ghosts who do not at the time appear to be anything other than living people, and it is only later that the strangeness of the encounter becomes apparent. University lecturer Kenneth Richmond was climbing Ben Ime in the mountains of Argyll and Bute when he met an old man who was wearing a bowler hat and carrying a large paper parcel. Despite

his age, he did not appear to be out of breath, and Richmond wondered what he was doing there, so he spoke to him. They had a normal conversation, during which the old man said he was going to catch a train, and they parted. When Richmond looked down the snowy slope shortly afterwards, there was no sign of the figure, and on his way down he realised there were no other footprints in the snow, only his own. He also learned there was no train at the time given by the ghost.

Another report of a speaking ghost seen in the uplands comes from the Rhinog mountains near Harlech in Gwynedd, where Redfern Thomas and his son were climbing the ‘Roman steps’ in the late 1920s. The mountaintop was deserted except for sheep and birds; then suddenly they became aware of the presence of a nicely dressed young girl, who approached them and greeted them in Welsh. Mr Thomas replied – and then she suddenly disappeared. Although they searched, they could find no trace of her.

Another Welsh case also featured a young woman, who was seen dancing near the top of Moel Famau, the high point of the Clwydian Hills on the Denbigh/ Flint border. A young couple climbed the hill one evening, being the last people up there. Close to the memorial, they saw a young woman in a light blue dress dancing. They were surprised because it was very cold on the hill. Less than a minute later, they could no longer see her, and despite looking on all sides of the hill, she had completely disappeared. Other walkers have reported seeing people on the hill who then disappeared without trace. Cases like these are very puzzling indeed, but at least hese ghosts are of people. Strange as it may seem, it would appear that inanimate objects can also appear in ghostly form, such as the cottage seen by two reliable witnesses in Scotland in May 1987.

Donald Watt and George Bruce were very experienced climbers, and members of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team. While descending Beinn Fhionnlaidh near Cannich (Highland) they noticed a two-storey cottage on the loch shore below. It was made of granite and looked in good condition, and they decided to head for it. They were puzzled because they hadn’t seen it on the map and didn’t know of its existence. They kept it in their sights for some time and then lost view of it. They assumed they would see it when they got over the crest of a hillock, but when they joined the path along the shore there was no cottage to be seen. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to locate it. Afterwards they found that there had been a lodge at the loch, but it was now under water since the area was flooded and dammed in the 1950s. They were very glad that they had been together and could both confirm that they had seen the cottage clearly. As George commented: ‘This has shaken us. I have an open mind but this defies all explanation as far as I’m concerned.’

It would be easy to dismiss all these witnesses as mistaken in what they saw or experienced, but that becomes more difficult when there were two of them, as in the last three cases. However, having myself experienced strange events that defied logical explanation, and with trustworthy friends whose own experiences I have had to take seriously, it is clear that strange and unexpected things do happen, even on Britain’s lonely hills, moors and mountains

Ever since the days of Dickens and M R James, the fictional ghost story has been associated with Christmas. JOHN STOKER discovers that many ghosts started this tradition themselves, choosing to haunt many locations in the UK at Yuletide and New Year.

On December 19, 1843, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, a book which was destined to become the world’s most famous ghost story. Dickens was no stranger to the paranormal, although he loathed spiritualism, and tales of ghosts had appeared in many of his works, such as The Pickwick Papers.

It really isn’t surprising that Ebenezer Scrooge should have been visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve as this particular night can boast more spectral apparitions than any other night of the year, even Hallowe’en.

Many Christmas haunts are the result of events which happened on this very night, such as events at the Shipwright’s Arms in Faversham in the 19th century. That particular night had been a stormy one and a vessel had run aground on the Kentish coast. The captain of the ship was washed up on the shore and managed to stagger to the inn, where he beat repeatedly on the door. But the landlord, thinking some of his customers had returned for another drink, refused to leave his bed.

On Christmas morning the door was opened to reveal the captain’s frozen body. The sailor may have failed in his attempt to enter the inn, but his ghost has no such problems. The phantom has been seen in the bar, usually preceded by the smell of tobacco and rum. One landlady woke up one night to see the captain glaring at her from the foot of her bed and another landlord found himself sleeping with the ghost.
Another tragedy which is said to have occurred on Christmas Eve was the destruction of a Shropshire village just south of Shrewsbury. Many of the villagers had rejected Christianity and had returned to worshipping the old gods. But following many days of rain, a flood swept away the entire village and consigned both homes and church to the bottom of what is now Bomere Pool. Anyone crossing the lake on Christmas Eve can listen out for the Sanctus Bell which sounds deep beneath its waters.

Bells sound for a more protective reason at Dewsbury Parish Church in Yorkshire. One of the bells is named after the murderer Sir Thomas de Soothill who wished to atone for his crimes by donating it to the church. It is now rung on Christmas Eve for the exact number of years since Christ’s birth in order to protect the parishioners from the Devil himself. All will be well as long as the bell-ringing ends before midnight.

Church and clergy

For the clergy Christmas Eve is the busiest night of the year and for some not even death can prevent them from continuing to shepherd their flocks. The Reverend Nathaniel Templeman, rector of St Peter’s Church in Dorchester, died in 1813 and his body was interned in the church itself. He was a strict cleric and kept an eye on the conduct of his congregation.

On Christmas Eve of the following year two wardens were decorating the church and when they were finished their thoughts turned to the ample supply of communion wine in the vestry. As they sat on the pews downing the drink they suddenly felt that they were not alone. They looked up to see the figure of the dead clergyman walking towards them with his hands raised and a terrible look on his face. He seemed to be yelling at them but no sound came from his mouth. One of the wardens collapsed and the other fell to his knees and prayed. The spectre then moved towards the altar and vanished.

The ghostly cleric still makes appearances to this day as does the spectre of a monk at Strata Florida in Ceredigion, Mid Wales, who is seen in the ruins of the abbey on Christmas Eve attempting to rebuild an altar.

Seasonal terror was also in store for three girls who sneaked into a churchyard in North Leigh in Oxfordshire after being told of a Christmas Eve ritual which would reveal the faces of their future husbands. The ritual required a handful of hempseed to be thrown over the shoulder while reciting the words:

“Hemp-seed I scatter, hemp-seed I sow;
He that is my true love, come after me
and mow.”

The first girl was unsuccessful, saw nothing and died a spinster. The second girl had a vision of a coffin and died a few months later. The third girl decided that predicting the future was not for her and ran from the churchyard warning others to leave the ritual well alone.

Another mystery surrounds two lines in the poem Grantchester by Rupert Brooke who wrote:

“And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.”

Brooke never explained the meaning of these lines but they refer to Madingley Hall in Cambridgeshire which Sir John Hynde began building in 1543. Following Sir John’s death in 1550 the house was completed by his son Francis who ransacked St Ethelreda’s Church in Histon and used the wood and stone as building materials for his new structure. He also sold the lead from the roof of the church as well as the bells.

His mother, Lady Ursula, was horrified by this action and on Christmas Eve her ghost can be seen walking from the Hall to a nearby church as she wrings her hands in fury. A ghostly party is sometimes glimpsed as well as a young man with a skull for a face.

Out and about

Christmas Eve would also seem to be a night favoured by ghosts for travelling. At Roos Hall in Beccles a spectral coach driven by a headless coachman and pulled by four headless horses has been seen. Nobody knows who the coach is supposed to collect, but the Devil’s footprint has been found in a brick in one of the bedrooms and a window refuses to stay locked.

Another ghostly coach carries Abigail Marston through the Essex village of High Lever, comes to a halt at where her house once stood and then vanishes. Anne Boleyn also makes a seasonal journey at Hever in Kent as she crosses a bridge across the Eden.

George Napier is another phantom who travels with a purpose. He was a priest who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown and was executed and dismembered in 1610. Parts of his body were returned to his village of Sandford-on-Thames but no one could find his head. So on Christmas Eve George Napier sets out in his coach looking for his head. Anyone who sees him risks death. A farmer had a glimpse of the coach and died the following year as did two other men who braved the sight of the long dead priest.

A ghostly horseman, Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville, who was excommunicated for his sins by the Pope and denied a Christian burial, has been seen to gallop through Oak Hill Park in East Barnet. He then rides towards the local church and vanishes through the wall.

Ghoul-tide

Christmas Eve also marks the start of a seasonal haunt at Sandringham which would appear to be centred round the servants’ quarters. Poltergeist activity is rife with lights being switched on and off, the sound of ghostly footsteps and Christmas cards being moved around. Heavy breathing has been heard to come from an unused room which some of the staff have refused to enter. A strange shape has also been seen and the haunt continues through the holiday period.

Sandringham is not the only royal residence to be haunted. Major John Gwynne was Private Secretary to King Edward VII and involved in a divorce scandal. Realising that he had now been cast out of society, Major Gwynne went to his first-floor office at Buckingham Palace and put a bullet through his head. On Christmas Day the sound of the fatal gunshot can be heard in the Palace. Edward VII’s mistress, the actress Lillie Langtry, also appears on this day at the Cadogan Hotel where she has been seen in the dining room which used to be her private quarters.

At the ruins of Verdley Castle at Fernhurst in Sussex the ghost of the last wild bear to be seen in England appears on Christmas Day. An Australian television crew went in search of the spectral animal but were unable to find it, having made their visit in July! A ghostly game of Shinty is played near the church in Dalarossie near Inverness. A number of the villagers played a match when Christmas Day fell on the Sabbath and they were forever cursed to replay the match once a year.

The church of St John the Baptist in Boughton Green, Northamptonshire, has a unique Christmas ghost. It is either the spectre of a beautiful woman or a handsome man depending on the gender of the witness. The ghost asks for a kiss but whoever obliges the phantom is doomed to die within the month. William Parker kissed a red-headed girl in the churchyard at Christmas in 1875 and suffered such a fate.

A young French governess met her end in the same century not long after she had been engaged to teach the children of the Petre family at Dunkenhalgh Hall in Lancashire. She fell pregnant to a visiting army officer and after he abandoned her she flung herself from a bridge into a nearby river. At Christmas she returns in the shroud she was buried in.

The dying year

As the New Year approaches ghosts are on the move again. On December 29, the spectre of Thomas Becket passes through the Devonshire village of Lapford in search of the knights who murdered him. On the same date a knight in full armour visits Kemsing Church in Kent to pray at the altar. New Year’s Eve sees a phantom coach driven by a headless coachman visiting the Molesworth Arms at Wadebridge in Cornwall. Some have seen it while others only hear the sound of hooves and the clatter of the vehicle, and at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire a headless Lady Jane Grey arrives in a coach pulled by four headless black horses.

This is also the night on which the Devil claims souls. Ranworth Old Hall in Norfolk was the home of Colonel Thomas Sydney who was challenged to a horse race on New Year’s Eve, 1770. The Colonel, seeing that his competitor was winning, shot the man’s horse and its rider died from a broken neck. Later that night the Colonel held a seasonal celebration and to his horror was joined by the Devil himself who carried him off the Colonel on a black horse which galloped across Ranworth Broad, its hooves raising steam as they hit the water. Each year the ghostly image is replayed.

The Isle of Wight is one of the most haunted places in Britain and at Knighton Gorge many of the islanders gather on New Year’s Eve in the hope of seeing the spectral appearance of a mansion which was demolished many years ago. All that remains of the house are two gateposts but on the last night of the year the mansion is said to reappear together with its inhabitants. Not many people have seen the house but others say that they have witnessed strange lights, experienced poltergeist activity and even glimpsed a phantom coach and horses.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve the ghost of London’s most infamous serial killer, Jack the Ripper, has been seen throwing himself off Westminster Bridge into the icy waters of the Thames. Some Ripperologists have pointed out that one of the chief suspects for the killings, Montague Druitt, also drowned himself in the river and his body was recovered on December 31.

A short distance away is Westminster Abbey and the tomb of Charles Dickens. The great writer had always wanted to be buried in Rochester and this could be why his ghost has been seen on Christmas Eve strolling between the tombstones in the Kentish town he loved. Then just before midnight he checks his watch by the Corn Exchange clock as he welcomes in the season he always loved.

MARK OTTOWELL investigates the spooky accounts of hauntings experienced at the Historic Dockyard at Chatham in Kent.

In 2007 Mick, a member of the local Chatham Historical Society, and his dog Ben, were staying at the Historic Dockyard at Chatham in their campervan. During that evening, Ben suddenly started to growl at something or someone outside. Unusual behaviour for such a mild-mannered dog, thought Mick, trying to calm him.

He looked out of the window but could see nothing in the enveloping blackness that might have caused his dog to behave in such a manner. Mick was uneasy. He looked outside but nobody was there. He went back into the van and Ben started growling again, the hackles rising on the back of his neck. Then Mick saw something that chilled him to the bone.

An inexplicable mist was appearing and disappearing on the side window as if someone were breathing on it. Mick went back outside. Still there was not a living soul in sight. It struck him that the mist on the glass was about the height of a young child. Perhaps the cause of it was the mischievous ghostly children who roam around the Dockyard playing their tricks?

This article can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 39

From his home in Texas, Englishman Nick Redfern has probed mysteries on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming one of the world’s best known UFO researchers, monster hunters and chases after all things paranormal. Here Nick has a stab at compiling a list of his ten most intriguing and exciting investigations…

10. “In 1999, I has the opportunity to interview a man who had a curious and somewhat disconcerting encounter in the Staffordshire town of Penkridge…”

9. “Salavador estimated that the source of the growling was within thirty feet of him and he got the impression that a hostile entity was circling him.”

8. “There were about three of four of us watching as something was speeding across the screen; and this was fast, very fast.”

7. “Deep within the maze of dark old tunnels, distinctly strange and diabolical  things are said to lurk.”

6. “A tall tale designed to see how gullible I was, or something stranger? To this day, I am still not sure”

To learn more about Nick’s investigations and to discover which cases are in his top 5 the full feature can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 38

The ancient Egyptians were highly superstitious regarding death and burial. Carrying out the elaborate rituals incorrectly could result in a haunting or possession by very angry spirits. Egyptologist Bridget McDermott explores the afterlife beliefs of this fascinating civilization.

In ancient Egypt, the death of an individual was met with ritual and superstition. While public mourning was fashionable, the corpse was removed from view. It is rarely referred to in Egyptian iconography. Crafted by the gods from clay or tears, the Egyptians understood the perishable nature of the human body. They abhorred the thought of decomposition, and after death, the body was quickly distanced from living.

In view of the heat, a corpse required immediate treatment or burial, although there were a few exceptions. Embalmers were known to take liberties with their clients, so young women were left to decompose a little. Executed criminals were deprived of an afterlife: they were left above ground where their remains were devoured by animals and birds.

You can read the rest of this feature in Paranormal Magazine issue 38

Terror in Tinsteltown as John Stoker directs us towards spectres of the stars and other nightmares in the Land of Dreams.

In 1923 a real estate company erected a sign in the foothills of Los Angeles which was to become one of the most famous symbols in the world. It consisted of 13 letters constructed in sheet-metal, painted white and standing 50ft high. Illuminated by 4,000 20-watt light bulbs it could be seen from as far as 25 miles away. It spelled out ‘Hollywoodland’ and to many it represented a place where dreams could become a reality. But where there are dreams there are also nightmares.

On Friday, September 14, 1932 a young actress called Peg Entwistle left her home in Beachwood Drive and walked up the southern slopes of Mount Lee towards the Hollywood sign.

Peg had seen her dream of celluloid stardom collapse and she was severely depressed. She took off her coat, placed a note in her purse and with the help of a ladder left by maintenance men she climbed to the top of the letter ‘H’ and jumped to her death. The following day a letter arrived at her home offering her the lead in a stage play.

The rest of this feature can be read in Paranormal issue 36.

One of the most enduring aspects of ghost hunting is the opportunity to immerse oneself in the history and heritage of our haunted past; days and nights spent in grandiose and ghoulish chambers, damp dark dungeons and remote idylls where the diseased arm of ‘development’ has yet to reach.

It is in these unique and special places that I have spent much of my life, with only the ghosts of long forgotten pasts for company.

I consider it an honour to have been
granted permission to experience the strangeness that permeates these haunted places, and I am delighted to share my top ten strangest encounters with readers of Paranormal Magazine; join me now for a spirited jaunt around my favourite old haunts…

10. Creech Hill                                9. Charleville Forest Castle

8. Highwayman Inn                        7. Michelham Priory

6. Whatley Hall Hotel                     5. Lower Mere Park

4. ‘Margells’                                    3. Hall I’ The Wood

2. My own home                             1. Athelhampton Hall

For the full in-depth rundown of Jason Karl’s top ten haunted spots, check out Paranormal magazine issue 36

JASON KARL describes an extraordinary case of a sexual haunting he has spent several years investigating at an old manor house in the North West of England.

Extract - After slipping into a deep sleep, Sarah was awoken by a strange feeling which she described as a ‘muscular man pressing down upon me with great force’. Strangely, though, her reaction was from far from fear:

‘The feeling lasted for almost an hour and the experience was incredible,’ she told me. ‘It was as if a man was making love to me, I could feel the physicality of him, pressing against my skin.’

(Full article in Paranormal issue 35, available now. CLICK HERE to buy the issue and for subscription information, or CLICK HERE to download the digital issue from www.zinio.com

Paranormal editor RICHARD HOLLAND re-examines the strange cases of Gef and the Pwca Trwyn, two weird entities who befriended farming families in remote corners of the UK.

In his book Invizi-kids, Michael Hallowell devotes a chapter to one of the most extraordinary stories in the paranormal records, that of Gef, ‘the talking mongoose’.

Gef was a kind of familiar spirit who took up residence in a farmhouse on the Isle of Man during the first half of the 1930s. Hallowell ponders whether Gef was an elaborate example of the not-so imaginary friends he discusses in his book. The story is often included among those of poltergeists but when I revisited the case, I was struck by how similar it was to old tales of fairies who attach themselves to families.

Doarlish Cashen (Cashen’s Gap) no longer stands but in the 1930s it was an isolated and rather bleak farmhouse built of slate and faced with cement. So exposed was it on a slope of Dalby Mountain that when Mr Jim Irving moved there in 1917, he constructed an inner frame of match-boarding to keep out the wind. The space between this boarding and the exterior wall is important to the story, because the ‘mongoose’ used it to run about the house and to hide behind when conversing with the family.

Irving lived at Doarlish Cashen with his wife Margaret and daughter, Voirrey. Voirrey was aged between 13 and 17 during the four years of the mystery; adolescent girls are recognised, of course, as typical attractors of poltergeist activity. Initially, Gef’s activities were similar to those of a poltergeist: taps, thumps and scratches coming from behind the match-boarding. This progressed to ‘a crack that shook the place and set the pictures swinging’. Animal sounds of barking, growling and hissing followed and then, most amazingly of all, the ghost started to speak.

You can read the rest of this article in issue 28 of Paranormal Magazine

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