Spectral monks and historical spooks
ALAN MURDIE rounds up six months’ worth of the latest hauntings from around the uK
H istoric and legendary figures, spectral monks, a deceased footballer, an accident victim and even inanimate objects such as an aeroplane have all been reported as ghosts actively haunting homes, pubs, roads, and skies around England in the six months between December 2016 and May 2017. The following article summarises a number of cases appearing in the press and on-line news sites; all should be treated as being “alleged”.
A jaywalking male apparition stepping out onto the A15 road at Sleaford in Lincolnshire made news in early December 2016. First reported in 1998, shaken motorists speak of a man “with his hand up” walking into the path of traffic, and of a “black silhouette figure of a man” running across the road. Witnesses believe they have driven into him but no one is found when they stop. Margaret Green, who used to lead ghost walks around Lincoln, states: “I was told that it was a young man who was speeding along the road and crashed and died. The theory is he is warning other drivers who are driving too fast on the road.” Some connect this ghost with a phantom pedestrian dubbed the ‘Ruskington Horror’ near Corby Grange, dubiously linked with a plague burial site ( www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk 5 Dec 2016).
In Cornwall, an anonymous ghost was blamed for overturning a pub Christmas tree. Landlord Richard Jago came into the bar of the 500-year-old White Hart pub at Bodmin to find the decorated tree had been balanced upside-down overnight. He is convinced his pub is haunted after experiencing footsteps, voices, banging sounds and bottles moving. ( CornwallLive website, 2 Dec 2016). In January 2017 Mary Ryan told the
Daily Express that she believes a boy who appears standing behind her in a photograph taken when visiting the Tower of London is the ghost of 12-year-old Edward V. The boy king was one of the two Princes who disappeared at the Tower in 1483, incarcerated by their uncle Richard III. Miss Ryan visited the Tower with her boyfriend and two daughters and noticed nothing unusual when the photograph was taken. No independent analysis is reported on the picture and the possibility that this shows a living boy remains. ( D.Express, 6 Jan 2017).
A fortnight later, John Mooner of the British Earth and Aerial Mysteries Society (BEAMs) also received similar national publicity after he claimed to have photographed another mediæval spirit. He interprets wispy shapes in a photograph taken at Cockington, Devon, as the spirit of Robin Hood brandishing a ghostly sword, notwithstanding the fact that Robin has no traditional association with the county apart from appearances as a character in folk plays. Other people have interpreted the shapes as a cavalier, or simply drifting smoke. Exactly what Robin is doing spoiling photographs is unclear. Mr Mooner also claims success photographing aliens last autumn. ( Sun, 23 Jan 2017).
More plausible CCTV film recording the door of a candle lantern swinging open by itself was obtained in the bar of the
Tracy Proctor reported being targeted by a ‘manhating black monk ghost’ who ruins her chances of finding a new partner
Antrobus Hotel in Amesbury, Wiltshire. The incident occurred during a ghost hunt organised by the group Wiltshire Paranormal. Selena Wright and other members the group state the phenomenon was accompanied by a loud clicking sound. ( D.Express, 31 Jan 2017).
In February 2017 a mysterious plane was observed in the skies over the Derbyshire Peak District. Many witnesses state that the white aircraft makes no sound and conclude it must be a ghost. Local press and media declared themselves ‘inundated’ by calls and letters about the plane, which resembles a Douglas Dakota aircraft from World War II. Only a few working examples remain today, with flying confined to the summer months. Phantom planes are an established part of the ghostlore of Derbyshire Peaks and a Douglas Dakota crashed in the hills in 1949, killing 24 people. However, aviation enthusiasts raise the possibility of this being a material aircraft being given test runs during the winter and modern technology used to dampen engine noise. ( Derbyshire Times, 13+22 Feb 2017).
On the ground, troublesome domestic ghosts featured throughout February and March 2017. Author and former model Alex Best, 44, reported a haunting at her cottage in Kingswood, Surrey. She suffers taps turning on, lights switching on, moving furniture and the disappearance of her keys and mobile phone. One proposal is the ghost is her former husband, deceased football star George Best (1946-2005) to whom she was married between 1995 and 2004 and who died of liver failure. However, Ms Best rejects this suggestion, believing the ghost is an old man named Tom who once lived at the property. ( Belfast Eve. Telegraph, 3+15 Feb 2017).
In Wakefield, yorkshire, Tracy Proctor reported being targeted by a ‘man-hating black monk ghost’ who ruins her chances of finding a new partner. Ms Proctor, 52, says the ghost is protective of her but has driven away her two sons and male friends and admirers, scared by a hooded figure and unexplained footsteps. Keys, glasses and e-cigarettes have moved mysteriously and the underwear of an antique dressed doll she keeps in the house has been pulled down. Parallels have been drawn with the ‘Black Monk of Pontefract’ case (1966-68), but Ms Proctor maintains she has only vaguely heard of the infamous socalled poltergeist that rampaged at 33 East Drive, Pontefract, and which has allegedly returned in the wake of the 2012 horror film on the case, When the Lights Went Out (see FT293:28-37). Ms Proctor also reports a phantom corgi being present. ( D.Mail, 9 Feb 2017). In york, single mum Tracy Bruce, 21, fled her one-bedroom flat with her young son after scratches, object movements, plugs pushing themselves out of walls and electric toys working by themselves. ( D.Mirror, 1 Mar 2017). Two weeks later in Bury, near Manchester, a ‘pervy ghost’ wearing a white hoodie and jeans was claimed to be aggravating women by grabbing them at a family home. ( Sun, 15 Mar 2017). At Cotteridge, Birmingham, 87-year-old pensioner Ron Roberts revealed his sheltered flat was haunted by the ghosts of a man and a troublesome woman. Mr Roberts has seen the unexplained figure of the man in his kitchen. He has not seen the woman, but blames her for breaking the video, turning off lights and ringing the doorbell. He has undergone the disturbing experience of feeling both ghosts getting into bed with him and believes they are former residents of the flat who died 22 years ago. ( Birmingham Mail, 4 Mar 2017).
Predictably, a phantom monk is deemed responsible for disturbances at the Merry Monk Bar and Carvery Restaurant at Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham. At least that is the conclusion of the landlord and the group Ghostnortheast. The monk is blamed for anomalous electrical activity, voices, doors opening and shutting by themselves, temperatures drops, unexplained figures in the bar and an eerie feeling sensed by visitors. During an investigation, a wooden cross was thrown by an unseen presence (a somewhat unchristian action for a ghost
in holy orders). Elaine Kelly and Bev Rodda from ‘Spectre Detectors’ have a CCTV image showing what is interpreted as the monk’s face. The bar stands on former monastic lands and local lore avers a friar was once burned at the stake there. ( Sun, 21 Mar 2017; Northern Echo, 22 Mar 2017).
Another ghost monk (known as ‘Cuthbert’) claimed to be haunting the Rutland Arms at Newark, Nottinghamshire, with the release of the image of a shadowy form at an upstairs window (actually captured in August 2016). Filmmaker Sean Reynolds, 33, was shooting a programme on ghost hunting. A few days later footage of a ladder purportedly moving by itself and scaring a workman was posted on-line, but the Sun reports it was unable to verify this footage. ( Sun, 24 Mar 2017).
The most publicised ghost report in April concerned a clip of what was claimed as a male apparition filmed coming through a door and moving along a corridor at Wentworth Woodhouse mansion in South yorkshire. The image was obtained by a film crew member of the TV series Most
Haunted. A new series of the show aired on the channel Really on 21 April 2017. Presenter yvette Fielding describes the film as ‘ground-breaking’, identifying the form as a shadowy figure previously reported walking the corridors of the building built by the first Earl of Stafford in 1630 (traditionally, the shade of Stafford appeared to Charles I on the eve of the Battle of Naseby). Other apparently paranormal activity detected during the programme included noises, doors slamming, objects being thrown and chairs ‘unexpectedly appearing’.
Another strange image reported in April was taken at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds, and inevitably interpreted as a ghostly monk, perhaps ‘the Old Abbot’. In April the
Yorkshire Evening Post website published two photographs taken seconds apart by
Sophie Davey after the gates of the Abbey had been closed to visitors, the second of which appears to show an unexplained figure by a pillar. However, as Andrew Green noted in Ghost Hunting: A Practical
Guide in 1973 concerning the nearby Kirkstall Abbey House Museum, “Any shape that at all resembles the human outline, however vague, is immediately assumed to be that of an apparition… Once an incident has been reported in the local paper the witnesses’ stories become exaggerated”. Between 1968-73 at least four people witnessed apparitions and experienced phenomena at the museum and Leonard Cooper, a yorkshire author whose grandfather lived in the property when it was a private house, stated that ghosts were present in the 1880s.
The unicorn Pub in Marden, Kent, also had a wandering male spectre. The pub has been re-opened by Kellie Maloney, a former boxer who underwent a sex change in 2014. She believes the friendly spirit, “a landlord from the 1800s”, is haunting the building, and comes “through the coffee shop after closing time and disappears up the chimney.” ( D.Star, 25 April 2017).
In May, ghost hunters Paranormal Friends reported making contact and holding séance conversations with a spirit identified as “Sergeant Eric young” in the Wartime Recovery Group Museum at Sleap Airfield, near Wem, Shropshire ( Shropshire Star, 7 May 2017). Meanwhile in Devon, Suzi Chadwick, who took over the Church House Inn at Churchstow, in January 2017, reports that members of her family have experienced footsteps, “a figure in a tweedy fabric” (again interpreted as a monk), a presence in a corridor and a sensation of someone sitting on a bed. Daphne Lanham, who worked at the pub for 23 years, tells of shadowy figures and glasses flying off the shelves. A medium called in by Ms Chadwick declares the pub has numerous spirits, including several monks, a man called Francis and a lady in black called Margaret. ( Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette, 3 May 2017).
The foregoing selection of contemporary haunts could have been greatly expanded if all the stories of the “Does this photo show a ghost?” variety were included. Public fascination with ghosts shows no sign of evaporating; for example a charity ghost walk at old Worcester Royal Infirmary in February 2017 attracted hundreds of entrants. unfortunately, in the 21st century news items increasingly stem from a single unanalysed image or footage rather than actual witness testimony with the exception of physical phenomena (e.g. the moving candle lantern door at Amesbury). Press coverage is all the poorer for it, and far from advancing enquiry, the fixation on publishing ambiguous photographs inhibits any greater scientific or philosophical understanding of the age-old question of ghosts. Actual eyewitness testimony is replaced with dubious and imaginative interpretations of what a photograph might possibly represent, since in most cases absolutely nothing unusual was noticed at the time. Regrettably many ghost hunting groups fail to engage in any critical examination of the images they obtain since they already believe they know the answers, typically convinced that a ghost is a spirit of the dead rather than an experience to be explained. For many, the principal purpose of obtaining and publicising a ‘ghost photograph’ is a confirmation of pre-existing beliefs rather than any advance in our knowledge of apparitional experiences. Arguably, proper analysis requires consideration of four elements: sense perception; the cognitive construction of images; the emotional comprehension; and the social and cultural confirmation. (See H Stenger, 1993: Die Social Konstruction okkulter Wirklichkeit. Eine Soziologie des ‘New Age’).
Altogether, it must be admitted that few of these stories – certainly as reported – approach the strict-proof criteria required to be suggestive of even a prima facie case in psychical research. Indeed, if reported accurately, a number appear to be of psychological rather than parapsychological interest, though certain consistencies with reports in previous years are present, particularly with pub hauntings.
undoubtedly, many contemporary haunting manifestations, especially involving small-scale incidents, go wholly unreported. Over the same period, I received privately two first-hand accounts involving strange physical events within domestic dwellings. One was an unexplained incident coinciding closely with the death of a friend of the percipient, whilst the other involved the movement of an object in the vicinity of a living person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than being ghosts, unconscious psychokinesis from a living person might provide at least a partial explanation for such cases (as well as several listed above).
Limited in value as press reports may now be, they are nonetheless of folkloric and sociological interest. Although I have not undertaken any specific statistical analysis, one may gain the impression, at least superficially, that we are seeing an increase in hauntings attributed to mediæval monks. Historically, monk apparitions prove most common in the period between 1880-1970, with a crest in numbers reached from the early 1940s through to the mid-1960s. Thereafter, sightings of monk ghosts undergo a decline, with relatively few in the last two decades.
Furthermore, a qualitative change may also be apparent. Whereas past accounts describe monkish apparitions as neutral or even friendly and helpful to witnesses, today’s ghostly monks are presented as increasingly troublesome and hostile. If correct, what can explain such an apparent resurgence and a simultaneous change in tone and demeanour of England’s spectral monk population? This is a question that the theologian, the psychical researcher, the spiritualist, the psychologist, the sociologist and cultural commentator all might like to ponder.