I CALLED THE COPS on poltergeist
I called the police, but what I really needed was a priest. By Rich Wright, 29
Apiercing pair of eyes stared at me from inside a glowing skull, which seemed to be resting on the bannister of the stairs.
‘Muuuuum!’ I screamed. I was six years old and had woken in the night to find the bald, disembodied head looking in my bedroom door.
Talk about terrifying! And it wasn’t my last experience with Spirit. Far from it.
Weird things were always happening in that house. Once, Mum invited the neighbours and they fled in terror when a massive face came out of our lounge mirror. Another time Mum and I had to sleep in the bath when an unseen force held the bathroom door shut all night.
We’d finally moved out when I was eight, but my spooky experiences didn’t let up.
At 14 I’d seen a beautiful glowing creature, like a colourful jellyfish, travel across my bedroom floor.
Later, in one of my first rental flats, I’d seen the ghost of a spooky young man grinning at me from the sofa.
In July 2020 my niece, Courtney, told me she was moving out of her rental house in Bishop Auckland.
‘You should take the lease over,’ she said. ‘You’re always saying you want to live nearer us all.’
I’d taken Courtney’s advice and at first I’d loved living in the smart Victorian conversion.
But a few weeks in I started hearing odd taps and scratches from the floorboards and walls. I started to sense a heaviness in the atmosphere too.
One night I was woken by someone pinching my leg. When I looked I had bruises.
Days after that, some decorative stones I kept on the loo flew across the bathroom and landed on the floor.
Things came to a head one night last Autumn when I was woken by a noise from downstairs, like someone dragging something heavy across the living room floor, followed by a loud crashing sound.
Someone had broken in!
I grabbed my phone and stabbed in 999, my heart banging so hard it felt like it would burst from my chest. ‘I need the police,’ I hissed into the handset.
When the police arrived, I plucked up the courage to leave my bedroom and let them in.
Downstairs, my bike had been thrown across the living room and a baking tray was on the kitchen floor, but nothing seemed to be missing.
‘Someone’s definitely been in here,’ I told the officers.
But they looked flummoxed. ‘We can’t see any sign of forced entry,’ one said after having a look round. I was just as confused. I really had thought someone had broken in. Now though, I wondered if it wasn’t the police I needed, but a priest...
Days later I visited my local Catholic church and told the priest what had happened.
I was so grateful when he agreed to come round and bless the house.
When he visited, he didn’t confirm or deny whether he could sense anything, but I noticed his face change when he went into my bedroom and he spent more time in there than anywhere else, so I wondered if he’d sensed something in that room.
Since the priest’s visit, things have got better. I still feel there’s something here, but it doesn’t feel threatening.
After so many incidents, in so many different places, I don’t know if I attract spirits or am just able to sense them. But
I still can’t believe I called the police over a poltergeist!
I heard a loud crashing sound