Jordan Moore, a forward for football teams such as Dundee United, Airedrie United and Queen’s Park and who also battled skin cancer in 2014 was back in the news today for the  strange events he claims to have had while trying to rejuvenate his career  while recently playing for Limerick in Ireland.

Moore claims that a man threatened to ‘send him home in a box’ if he broke a treadmill, that the local pub was run by the mob and that the club would pay him some of his wages he was owed for playing by getting change from the club burger van!

Although some in Limerick have accused Moore of an overactive imagination about their home and making up stories to explain why he left Limerick and went back to Scotland, Moore also talked about how the old convent the club had him stay in was haunted and that a nun had committed suicide in the very room he slept in!

Here is Moore’s account of his experiences:

“I stayed in an old convent. The front garden was a graveyard.

The other boys were all local so I stayed there myself. I just had a room in an old chapel and it was scary at night because of all the ghost stories.

A nun had committed suicide in my room and the grave stone in the garden overturned. One of the things on it was ‘Room 106’ and that was the room I was in!

I heard stuff all the time. There was the sound of scraping on the walls inside the room every night. I swear this is true. My team-mates couldn’t believe I was living there but to rent somewhere was going to be £800 a month and I didn’t know how long I was going to be there.

Was I scared? 100 per cent I was. I would lock the door and my window before going to bed. I was there on my own – and it was massive – pretty much all the time.”

Now of course this could be just what some in the press and indeed in Limerick are saying, that he is just making up tall tales and the information presently available does not name the convent so it is hard to verify the claims that such a convent exists in that location.

That said it does make an interesting story…what do you guys think? Was Moore in a haunted convent or is he just try to wiggle out of trying to talk about why he abruptly left his most recent football club and went home?

-Thomas Spychalski

(Via Daily Record)

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The Hopkinson Vintage: Antiques and Art Centre on Station street in Nottingham has been around for one hundred and thirty years.

Originally the building was the site of Hopkinson LTD, which was an engineers merchant who sold their wares to various factories in the area.

Now it seems if the employees of Hopkinson Vintage are correct that the original owner of the site, Mrs. Hopkinson herself has come back to make sure things are still running smoothly at her former business.

One of the employees, Liam Woodgates noticed some disturbing footage one night on the shop’s CCTV camera system that gave a little more credence to the story that perhaps Mrs. Hopkinson was indeed roaming the sales floor…

Woodgates claims that one night he was doing maintenance on the CCTV system when he noticed something strange in what the system was currently recording:

“Out of the corner of my eye I spotted – on channel 16 – something moving.

I thought there must be someone in the building, you hear all these stories of people hiding in shops and breaking out at night.

As I looked at it I saw this ghostly figure floating through the rails.

I waited for it to come back a bit longer after that but I didn’t see anything else. I didn’t go and check…To be honest, I didn’t fancy it.

I’ve always been quite skeptical with these sorts of things, but I’ve been trying to explain this and I can’t come up with an answer.”

Here is the video that was taken that night in Nottingham:

While we have to admit the video is intriguing and there seems no immediate reason for anybody to be lying about the video as well, it could really be anything from car headlights or a flashlight to the ghost of Mrs. Hopkinson herself.

What do you guys think?

Is this the ghost of the former proprietor or is there a much simpler explanation that could answer this mystery?

Perhaps she just wanted to try on some vintage jeans?

–Thomas Spychalski 

(Via The Daily Star/Ghostly Activities)

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Peckish? You might be eyeing up a piece of candy found behind the sofa, wondering what its “best before” date is, whether you could still eat it without catching the lurgy.

Alternatively, if you head to the National Museum of Ireland, you could get a lick of a 2,000-year-old block of bog butter which some experts think could still be edible.

Now that is a way to make any meal more interesting and if your having a bruch or dinner party it makes for a great conversation piece.

How has it been preserved for so long? The bog simply acted as a larder due to its high levels of acid, and low temperature and oxygen.

Weighing in at a considerable 10kg, the lump is made from cow’s milk and was likely preserved in a bog either for later use or as a religious offering. If it were being saved as food, this was a luxury item that could be sold on to pay taxes; if it were a donation to deities or spirits, however, the butter was never meant to be dug up.

It was actually dug up, roughly 2,000 years after it was buried, by Jack Conway who chanced upon it while working at the Emlagh Bog, Drakerath, near his hometown of Maghera, and promptly contacted Cavan County Museum. The butter was 12 feet below the surface, and as little effort seems to have gone into hiding it, the original owners likely meant to recover it at a later stage.

The find is of particular interest as in medieval Ireland, the Drakerath area was a cross-section of 11 towns, where the boundaries of three baronies met. Describing the area as a political “no man’s land,” Andy Halpin, of the National Museum’s Irish Antiquities Division, added: “These bogs in those times were inaccessible, mysterious places… Theoretically the stuff is still edible but we wouldn’t say it’s advisable.”

Spoilsport. With a waxy but crumbling texture, the bog butter is thought to taste similar to very strong cheese, and its apparent distinct stench attest to that!

The find has now been donated to the National Museum of Ireland for further research and analysis, including carbon dating.

–Philip Bates

Philip Bates is Editor of The Doctor Who Companion and you can read his posts at that site by clicking here.

(Via C-Net)

Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray is only in his second year pitching for a Major League Baseball club, but at twenty-four years old already shows promise to be a major contributor to his team.

While surely Jon Gray will still be throwing sliders and acquiring strike outs for years to come, he also has an interest in paranormal investigation, which he does in his spare time away from baseball.

Gray formed his interest from his own encounter with the paranormal, which happened when he was just ten years old.

That experience made Jon Curious enough to trade in his pitcher’s mitt for a tape recorder and K2 reader in the off season…

According to MLB.com, Gray’s experience as a child made him think that: “Maybe [the paranormal] is real”, and it inspired him to have a life long interest in the subject as well as go out and investigate on his own.

Although the pitcher has not been a part of any investigation that has reached the proportions of him throwing a shut out or winning the Cy Young Award, it at least shows honesty in his efforts and a desire to discover the truth about a haunted location, not sensationalism:

“I’ve investigated three times now and I haven’t seen anything, but just that one time [when I was ten]…made me a believer.

Besides a weird feeling every now and then, I haven’t had any hard evidence…My backpack’s been moved before, but that’s all. I haven’t caught any voices or any visual evidence.”

Gray does like to do his investigations alone though, and also believes that there is indeed a ‘dark side’ to  paranormal phenomena that people should be wary of coming in contact with:

“I usually go by myself.

My dad’s been with me twice, my wife’s been with me twice, too. She’s not into it as much as me. She likes it; she thinks it’s fun. She’s kind of scared, I think.

I do believe there is a dark side, like demons. You gotta stay away from them and never provoke.”

Either way it is nice to see professionals in other fields acknowledge that there could be something to the paranormal and that not every time you step out onto the “field” will result in a home run every time at bat.

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via MLB.com)

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Recently Mark Vernon has had one of his many paranormal videos from his You Tube Channel featured by the press online including sites such as: The Wakefield Express, The Daily Mail  and The Mirror.

News From The Spirit World contacted the fifty year old self professed paranormal investigator and clairvoyant and asked him to tell us more about the video’s origins as well as more about Vernon himself and what he does in the paranormal universe.

What we got, besides some interesting video and photographic evidence to consider, was a compelling story about a man with a couple ghost companions and also offer from Vernon to use his gifts to help others with paranormal problems for free…

Vernon told us he hunts for ghosts with two spirits who are known to help and have given him assistance in his investigations over the years.

Mark’s Photo of the spirit named “Kara.”

One spirit is of Sumerian origin and named “Kara” and the other is a twelfth century monk named “Father Daniel.”

The spirits are used to bring out any paranormal activity that may reside within a location according to Vernon and he is able to summon them at will.

They also are not afraid of being filmed or photographed and Vernon provided us with a picture of Kara, which you can see to the right.

Recently Mark Vernon and his two spirit companions visited the Cathedral in Wakefield, West Yorkshire which resulted in the video below which has recently gained popularity on the internet:

In the video you can see a shadowy shape move past the camera and a voice that appears to be saying: “I’m Here.”

Vernon shared with us the story behind the video and his other paranormal investigations:

“I have been investigating [for] thirty-five years now…I help out people suffering from paranormal problems. I travel all over the country visiting and helping people in need [of help with the paranormal].

Over the years, I have trained my body to detect  spirit energy and I am very sensitive to it, I have a detection range of about 20 feet at the moment, that means if I walk into a room, I can normally tell you if its haunted straight away.

I have visited Wakefield Cathedral a few times as I find it a relaxing place to sit and mull over things.

It’s when I decide to have a walk round the place is when [the paranormal activity]  normally kicks off and after the major renovations that have just happened at the church, I was expecting a rise in sightings in or around the church.

I’ve never been in before with a camera.

I walked round for about four to five minutes,trying to find a portal…I can feel them if I walk through one but it is a different kind of  energy ” feeling ” but similar to spirit energy, and I can also hear [the portals] if they are open.

I was getting this feeling in front of the altar but beneath my feet…I don’t know the layout of the church in its lower depths as people are not allowed down there, but I will make an educated guess and say that there was a crypt below where the ghost was captured on film.

I did get some EVPs whilst I was there,some of them weren’t very nice !

I do believe the ghost says ” I’m here, ” as he walked in…I believe they are many spirits there [at Wakefield Cathedral].. .and the rest is history…”

Mark Vernon says he would like to state that anyone who wants help or advice about a haunting or other paranormal phenomena can email him at: markbeezneez@gmail.com.

You can of course also find Mark on his You Tube channel.

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via Mark Vernon)

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If you read about or investigate the paranormal for a hobby, you probably have come across the story of the Amityville Horror, where a family in Amityville, New York spent twenty-eight horrific days in one of the most infamous haunted houses in the world.

The house, which is located at 108 Ocean Ave (formerly 112 Ocean Ave before the gawkers and tourists became too much to bear after the original film’s release in the late seventies and the street number was changed), also was where Ronald Defeo murdered six of his family members while they slept in November 1974.

Later the Warrens would come in to investigate the house in 1976, leading to one of the most chilling and controversial ‘real’ ghost photographs of all time, The Amityville Ghost Boy.

There is another photograph connected to the ever growing and confusing Amityville legend that has never really been brought to light.

It is said to have been taken in 1922 in the house that stood on the same property on which the Dutch Colonial the Defeos and Lutzes both lived in later stood.

And the figure within the captured image was claimed to be conjured during a seance no less…

The glass photographic plate belongs to Amityville Rock, an individual interested in the Amityville story who used to heavily post on forums and messageboards about the case and also ran several versions of his own Amityville website.

Amityville Rock said he acquired the glass plate in 2003 from another party who wished to remain anonymous.

The photographic plate was said to have been taken during a seance held in the prior house on the property (which was later moved off of the ‘horror house’ land when the Moynahan family was having the infamous dutch colonial house we all know and fear built) during the time the Ireland family owned the property.

The physical plate itself bears the inscription: “Kodak c. 1925.”

It was also claimed online that a multi media professor had examined the plate and to his knowledge the plate nor the image had been tampered with in any way.

All the current owner of this mysterious image will say is that he acquired it from an individual that had found it in a collection of belongings that was inherited by a cousin of Annie Ireland and that the party wished to remained anonymous if Amityville Rock went ahead and published the photograph on the internet.

However there is disagreement as to when ownership of the property changed hands and some sources claim the Irelands sold the property in 1924 while the 1920 Amityville census records capture to the right claims that the Moynahan family already had taken residence at the location.

Seances were indeed popular during that time period, but that would not be too hard for someone to research and the fact that the prior owner of the plate swore the current owner to secrecy as to their identity is of course a little suspicious as well.

Beyond that…well, the photograph definitely catches your eye and has its charms but to me is just looks like someone in a black cloak and some kind of mask, maybe even a inanimate prop.

Regardless, much like The Amityville Ghost Boy photograph, it is an intriguing bit of lore connected to one of the most popular paranormal cases in history.

We have been in contact with Amityville Rock even though it has been slow going but we hope to get more information on this photograph as soon as possible and will update this post accordingly. 

–Thomas Spychalski

Yoga, Harry Potter, and Twilight are the causes of an upsurge in demonic possession, according to Father Cesare Truqui, successor of Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist for some 25 years.

Twilight I can believe – but yoga?

Okay, so it’s not solely Twilight he calls “Satanic”; it’s anything that portrays vampires or demons as something desirable or in any way sexy. Let’s hope he’s never read Vampirella!

Speaking to The Independent, Father Cesare says he’s seen an increase in individuals with inhuman strength or speaking in tongues, including one case involving a “small woman, who could not be pinned down by three strong men.” These resulted in a Catholic meeting in Rome where authorities and delegates discussed demonic possession, a meeting also attended by Professor Giuseppe Ferrari, head of The Group on Research and Socio-Religious Information (an Italian occult watchdog).

“There are those who try to turn people into vampires and make them drink other people’s blood, or encourage them to have special sexual relations to obtain special powers,” Professor Ferrari says. “These groups are attracted by the so-called beautiful young vampires that we’ve seen so much of in recent years.”

Father Cesare Truqui’s comments about yoga do have precedent, however. Five years ago, introducing a screening of The Rite, a 2011 film starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest, at a film festival in Umbria, Father Gabriele Amorth said yoga “leads to evil, just like reading Harry Potter.”

Father Gabriele is the honorary president of the International Association of Exorcists, having founded the group in 1990, and explains his – ahem – position on the matter: “In Harry Potter, the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses. Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

Naturally, Giorgio Furlan, founder of the Yoga Academy of Rome, wasn’t happy with this.

“Yoga is not a religion or a spiritual practise,” Furlan said in 2011. “It doesn’t have even the slightest connection with Satanism or Satanic sects.”

But yoga apparently does find its roots in ancient Hinduism, with many of the positions practiced originally unique ways of worshipping Hindu deities.

In the past 15 years, there’s been a 100% increase in requests for exorcisms, leading to the Catholic Church taking on six more exorcists and bringing the total number to 12.

Father Cesare warns that you have to train to accurately exorcise, however, so if your plans for the weekend involved getting rid of some demons, think again.

–Phillip Bates

Philip Bates is Editor of The Doctor Who Companion and you can read his posts at that site by clicking here.

Reported by both  The Daily Star and The Indian Express,, a recently uploaded YouTube video claims to show a spirit rising from a recently deceased person in a hospital in China.

Uploaded on August, 2nd, 2016 by the ‘Crazy Worldvdos’ channel, it has quickly reached nearly one-hundred and eighty views and has begun to circulate around the usual paranormal news and discussion sites on the internet.

In the video, a ghostly shape can be seen rising from the hospital bed and moving towards a doorway at the top of the screen as purportedly caught by the CCTV cameras at the hospital.

Now usually these videos can easily be seen for the fakes that they are and this one is definitely not the exception to the rule:

From the perfectly visible ‘ghost,’ that just looks like a man in a sheet to the fact that the ‘spirit’ needs to use a door to get out of the room, this video is not very credible at all.

As usual, if it seems too good to be true it most likely is.

There is also the creepy music and sound effects and the question of why at the end of the footage does the camera seems to go in for a close-up of the room before getting slight jostled? A CCTV is usually fixed in most cases, especially a model that would have the kind of video quality show in the upload.

A CCTV is usually fixed in most cases, especially a model such as the ones that would have the kind of video quality shown in the upload.

Not to mention that the channel itself seems to have uploaded different ‘click-bait’ videos, as evidenced by the abundance of pop-up links that pretty much make the video of the ‘ghost’ unwatchable anyway.

There may indeed be life after death, but this is not the evidence that will prove it.

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via Indian Express)

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The house at 108 Ocean Ave in Amityville, New York has become an infamous icon in both fictional horror circles and with those with an interest in true-life stories of paranormal phenomena.

Over the years it has also become an unofficial tourist attraction as well, with people stopping to gape at the house and pose for photographs with the house as a backdrop.

Many times it has even been suggested that the dutch colonial home should be converted into a tourist attraction such as a bed and breakfast style lodging accommodation or a paranormal museum.

Add those ideas to others including the intense desire by paranormal investigation teams to have access to the house and conduct the first known investigation of the property since the Warrens in 1976 and you have a lot of people who would like to see such a plan come to fruition.

One individual took this idea and ran with it straight to the crowdfunding website ‘Go Fund Me‘ in June of this year.

Although the idea of being able to actually walk into the Amityville Horror House and see the locations where not only a brutal multiple murder occurred but also the site of one of the most famous haunting cases in recorded history seems like a dream come true, don’t pack your bags just yet.

There are many factors that scream ‘get out’ at any potential investor in such a scheme.

Go Fund Me user Carl Whiteley started the campaign on June 9th and the description of his goals for the potential crowdfunding income and the property itself are as follows:

“The Amityville house is the most famous haunted house in the world and the focus of many movies and books…and it’s up for sale!

We want to buy the house and make it into an attraction. During most of the year, the house will be open to the public for visits and as a B&B so people can spend this night in this haunted house.

During the Halloween period, the house and the grounds will become home to the best Halloween attraction around.

This house is culturally important and rather that it be a residential home we want to make it something for fans and those with interest in the paranormal.”

Despite these intentions, there are a few issues that do not add up that make such a venture seem a near impossibility.

An old saying goes that location is everything and in the case of the Amityville Horror House becoming your favorite B & B that may be the case as well.

The property is very close to the houses on either side of its property line, meaning that having a large crowd of people milling about and coming and going from the house a very unfeasible event, to say nothing about facilities and parking such an undertaking would require.

Unless someone was to buy a lot of the area around the home, a lot of which is residential, this makes the idea of a public venue at the location hard to imagine becoming a reality.

Before I mentioned how many people already treat the house as a tourist hot spot, with people coming to take a look at the house and maybe even capturing video or photographs as well on or near the property.

Sadly, as much fun as these people are having on trips to go to visit the infamous location, many of the neighbors and multiple prior owners of the house itself dislike this activity and the disruption it causes their daily lives.

Finally, the biggest hurdle we can see in this venture is the fact that despite over two hundred Facebook shares at the time of writing the campaign has yet to raise one single red cent for its cause.

Perhaps they should ask the resident ghosts for a loan?

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via Go Fund me)

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Kingsley Agbaire of Warri, Delta State in Nigeria murdered his friend and business associate, Lawrence Okoh, on August 4th of this year after a botched sale of auto parts that turned into murder.

Suspicions were raised by Okoh’s wife after he did not return to his home in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Friends and family tried to reach Okoh after he stated that some of the parts he brought out to Agbaire were now missing and Agbaire was nowhere to be found.

Okoh was warned to leave Warri after this incident but Agbaire convinced Okoh to stay in the area, which has a dangerous reputation.

On the evening on August 4th, Okoh’s wife tried to reach him by cell phone but the person who answered told Okoh’s wife that she had reached the wrong number.

A police investigation revealed that Okoh had been murdered.

When Agbaire was taken into custody he pleaded to Okoh’s ghost for forgiveness and it was captured on video…

Police would later discover Agbaire had disabled Okoh’s cell phone and had been identified as the one who had sold the missing auto parts to a dealer in Warri.

For weeks Agbairer stalled in discussing Okoh’s whereabouts, saying at first he had simply left Agbaire’s residence on August 3rd.

Eventually, Agbaire was begged by Okoh’s wife to disclose her husband’s whereabouts.

This time, Agbaire broke down and confessed to killing Okoh with a bottle to the head after they had ‘rendered him weak’ in some unknown fashion.

Agbaire lead authorities to where Okoh was buried face down in a dump and when arriving at the scene asked authorities to loosen his restraints so he could beg for forgiveness from his former business partner.

He also claimed that he spotted Okoh’s ghost in the gathering crowds and this was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube:

Agbaire stated: “Lawrence, forgive me. It was the devil that pushed me into killing you. You did not offend me in any way. Please forgive me.”

Please forgive me.”

No other information is available about this crime at the time of writing.

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via Ebalsblog)

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The pop/disco group the Bee Gees were among the most popular music groups in recent musical history.

Formed in 1958 by Manchester natives Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb, the group would not only eventually be inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 but also are one of the best-selling groups in history, surpassed only by such superstars as Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney and McCartney’s former band, The Beatles.

Along the way, they endured not only huge successes but also drama and tragedy as well, with many line-up changes, substance issues and eventually, illnesses that would lead to the deaths of both Maurice and Robin Gibb, leaving Barry the last remaining Bee Gee alive today.

The Daily Star recently published an article that claims that both Barry Gibb and his wife  have seen the spirits of two his former bandmates and family members since their deaths…

Barry claims that he has seen the ghost of his brother Robin Gibb, while Barry’s wife, Linda Gray Gibb, has claimed to have seen the ghost of his brother Andy Gibb.

Andy Gibb, who was never in the Bee Gees itself, was a solo recording artist who died at the young age of thirty from complications of substance abuse.

Robin Gibb, who was one of the main trio of talent in the Bee Gees, and also Maurice Gibb’s fraternal twin, died at sixty-two years of age after battling various health issues.

Barry Gibb had this to say about his paranormal experience:

“It’s not fun because you’re not quite sure what it was about…if it was real.

Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe it’s real.

The biggest question of all is: “Is there life after death?”

I’d like to know.”

–Thomas Spychalski

(Via The Daily Star Sunday)

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The RMS Queen Mary is an interesting paranormal site to study. Listed as one of the top ten most haunted sites in the US, it is intriguing to see such a quintessentially British artifact inhabiting a site in California. But, of course, being a trans-Atlantic vessel, she has always been a daughter of two worlds and I suppose it is fitting that a ship born in the UK should end her days in the US.

For those who are not aware of the history, the Queen Mary was one of two cruise ships (the other being the RMS Queen Elizabeth) built by Cunard and launched in 1934 to make trans-Atlantic crossings. She did this with style and elegance for several years, with a brief spell painted gray for military service as a troop carrier in WWII (renamed the Grey Ghost), before finally being retired in 1967. Another ship (the QM II) took over the name in 2004 when that ship replaced the now retired QE II (launched in 1969) as flagship of the Cunard fleet.

After retirement, the Queen Mary was converted into a hotel and tourist attraction in Long Beach, California where it is still permanently moored and has played host to holidaymakers, museums, the Walt Disney Corporation (who owned it in the 80’s)* and even a Roller Derby team (Long Beach Derby Gals who used it as a venue but now seem to have moved elsewhere).

And, if the rumors are to be believed, ghosts…

It is actually not unexpected that a famous venue with such a history would attract ghost stories. The QM served for many years, including being involved in war, and 49 passengers and crew are said to have died on her (not to mention the unrecorded numbers of prisoners of war and soldiers who died on her during the war). The shock would be if there were not any ghost stories at all rather than it being listed as the 6th most haunted site in the USA (with 130 officially recorded ghosts). Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it cannot be denied that historic settings with a story behind them gain an atmosphere that is conducive to hauntings – atmospheres that inspire the imagination if nothing else. Which is why you can have the chance to tour the ship as a ghost hunter and why Paranormal Television programmes feature it.

So what are the hauntings associated with this retired cruise liner?

Well, the most famous is the ghost of John Pedder, a fireman (someone who stoked the boilers, not a fire fighter) who died on the ship in 1966 during a routine drill**. He was crushed by a watertight door (referred to as ‘Door 13’) and it is believed that the ghost wearing blue overalls, referred to as ‘Half Hatch Harry’ by the ghost tour, is John. Though some sources suggest it could be another crew member called John McKenzie who died in a similar way in 1942.

There are also a number of (mostly) female ghosts in the area of the two swimming pools, despite no one ever being recorded as drowning in either one. The most prominent of these is a girl called ‘Jackie’ who is seen in various locations over the ship (such as the Boiler room). In addition, there are reports of wet footprints appearing with no sign of the feet making them. The first class swimming pool (the only one of the two pools that remains) is currently monitored 24 hours a day by a camera that is specifically there to look for ghosts because so many sightings are reported there. In the show ‘Most Haunted USA’, psychic Derek Acorah assigns the name Kathryn Miller to one of these ghosts and adds dates of somewhere in the 1930s and 1960 though we have no way to confirm these details.

The changing area behind the swimming pool is also a location of supernatural activity with several psychics describing it as  ‘a swirling vortex of negative energy, something like a dimensional gateway’. The story here is linked to a woman who was raped there – presumably the emotions underlying this rape being a trigger for this negative energy vortex. Though there are no other details of this incident or indeed any evidence it ever happened – every source seems to refer back to the same claim made by psychics. This suggests either an exceptional cover-up (and if the victim was wealthy or aristocratic I can see this being the case but even then if the incident itself was known about at all there would surely be some details such as the name of the victim) or it never happened. I’ve done some reasonable digging on this and so far have not found any mention of this rape other than what the psychics claim.

B340

Another site of interest is Stateroom B340 which is believed to be haunted by a murdered Purser. However, yet again there are no details given about the name of this Pursur or when and how he died. In this room, there are reports of faucets turning themselves on and sheets flying across the room.

There are many other stories about the ship but these are the main ones. There is. inevitably, much debate over these sightings. Most prominently the article by John Champion which challenged the claims quite strongly. Champion claims that the venue profits significantly from the ghost tours it runs and that this is a good reason for them to make the most of the reputation of the ship. Examining the cases described above critically there is a lot to doubt there. For example, while some of the stories behind the sightings have verifiable details, such as names and dates (John Pedder/John McKenzie) which at least suggests that the incidents that led to the hauntings actually happened, there are a lot of vague details. For example, the alleged rape that has no date or name of victim or the alleged murder that equally has no date or name attached. Plus there is also the mismatch between the official records and the anecdotes – such as the official records listing no death by drowning in the pool but there being ghosts (such as ‘Jackie’) being attributed to drownings. In some cases these could be explained by a cover up by the company and/or the possibly inefficient way in which crimes at sea got reported (which depended on someone reporting to the police at the destination port). This is certainly possible with the sexual assault mentioned above, especially if the victim was from a wealthy or noble family. However, I feel it is as likely that these incidents never actually happened as even rumour will give some details.

Overall, the RMS Queen Mary is a site with a fascinating and ghoulish history. It is obviously an atmospheric place with a lot of gory anecdotes to feed the imaginations of those who visit and certainly an original place for a ghost tour (here in the UK, these are usually done in old churches or castles so a ship makes a difference). However, I feel there needs to be more evidence than presented here before we can say for definite that the ghost claims are true. Feel free to present your opinions and counter evidence in the comments.

*She was never really labeled as a Disney attraction before they let her go. I do wonder what sort of film they may have made if they had decided to use her as an inspiration in the same way they used the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

**Apparently, there was a game the crew would play that involved seeing how many times you could jump through a door during a fire drill before the automatic systems closed it. This tragedy only highlights the stupidity of such practices.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press),  Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires) and Gods of the Deep. He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://dalascelles.co.uk/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

Buy all books by D.A Lascelles here

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The tale of the ‘Winchester Mystery house‘ is an intriguing one that plunges into the heart of the mythology of the Old West. It is also unusual in that the subject of this article is not just in itself haunted but rather was built (allegedly) because of a haunting.

Sarah Winchester was the wife of William Wirt Winchester, widowed when her husband fell victim to Tuberculosis in 1881 and therefore heiress to his vast fortune and a significant number of shares in the company that manufactured the Winchester rifle. The story goes that the grief of losing both her husband and daughter (who died in 1866) led to her consulting a medium who informed her that her family was haunted by the ghosts of all the Native American and Civil war soldiers who had been killed by the Winchester rifle. The medium’s advice was to travel to California and build a house ‘to house the spirits’ in order to appease them. So long as the house kept being built they would leave her in peace.

So, in 1884 she acquired an unfinished farmhouse and hired workmen to begin to convert it into a mansion. And they kept going, adding more and more rooms* to the house right up until Sarah died in 1922 at which point the workmen are said to have stopped work immediately – the to extent of leaving nails half driven into the wood**. The ‘completed’ house is a bizarre entity with a maze of random rooms with no apparent plan and stairs that confused explorers by leading nowhere. This layout was the reason why it took more than six weeks to clear the furniture out after the death of Mrs Winchester, though the sheer size of the property was probably responsible there too.

Sarah L. Winchester

At this point we have some differing tales about the house. Naturally, being incredibly wealthy and linked to such a well known family, Sarah Winchester attracted rumours of eccentricity. It is hard to determine what tales of her are actually true and which are fabrication based on rumour. Tales such as her always wearing a veil and never letting anyone see her face, sleeping in a different room each night to confuse evil spirits out to harm her and rumors of a bell being heard ringing each night at midnight and 2am – which is believed to have been linked to her conducting séances***. There are even tales of a missing gold dinner service that was supposed to have been used to entertain visiting spirits and is believed to be still locked in a safe somewhere in the myriad rooms.

Though by far the most interesting theory I have read about Sarah Winchester has to be the one that claims she was a Rosicrucian. The evidence is based on there being certain elements to the design and decoration of the building which hint at occult symbology. These include the central room (the Blue room) which is often referred to as her séance room but which, according to Richard Allen Wagner the originator of the theory, could also be described as a Rosicrucian meditation chamber****. There are also 13 panes of glass in every window and there are other Kabbalistic ciphers to be found. Wagner largely poo poos the stories of ghosts and her eccentricity as stories made up by the early tour guides (citing an anecdote from a conversation with a tour guide from his own visit there) and considers a focus on the occult architecture to be the more interesting aspect of a visit there.

Whatever the truth about Sarah’s life, it cannot be denied that this is an intriguing story which goes beyond a basic haunted house. In fact, I spent so long talking about the other elements of this story there is barely time to look at the rumours of hauntings that surround the place – a selection of the typical signs that a place is infested with ghosts such as strange noises and cold spots. Personally, like Wagner, I am sceptical about these and attribute them more to tour guide exaggeration than actual occurrences but am fascinated by the architecture and the psychology/belief system that led to someone building this bizarre structure. Was she building this house out of the belief that it would appease the spirits of the dead her husband’s business had wronged? Or was it because she was exploring the symbolism of the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians? Or had the medium she consulted decided that the best way to help this poor widow overcome her grief was to suggest she had a change of scene and a project to keep her mind occupied in a piece of ‘headology‘ that would likely impress Granny Weatherwax herself?

Whatever the truth, Winchester house remains a fascinating folly.

*Approximately 160 rooms were built in the end, though an official count is not available as each count comes up with a different number.

**Though some accounts claim the workmen stopped working for years at a time at Sarah’s request, so she could get a rest from the noise.

***Midnight is the traditional time spirits arrive in this world, 2am is the time they leave according to some sources but other sources suggest that this ‘Witching hour’ actually extends to 3am, which is the polar opposite to the time Jesus died on the cross at 3pm. Though the ‘Witching hour’ has previously been said to start at 3am

**** I guess the fact she never told anyone she was involved in the order is also evidence since, according to Umberto Eco (author of Foccault’s Pendulum) anyone who claimed to be a Rosicrucian most likely wasn’t

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Browsing social media I could not help to notice that reports of clowns had died down and in its place for the newly minted year were demons.

Yes, demons.

Rather one particular demon (or angel if you think that is what this image is), which has been making the rounds across social media and tons of news outlets since it was posted on Facebook on Sunday.

So what the hell is it?

An angel?

A demon?

A hoax?

Well, one thing is for sure it is one odd image but there are other possibilities…

The photo was posted at sometime Sunday night by Facebook user Richard Christianson of Phoenix, Arizona while he was a couple hours away in Tucson.

After snapping the creepy pic, Richards asked his online friends what it exactly was he had taken a picture of?

Soon the picture was being shared all over social media and by the start of the work week, it was also being picked up by news agencies of all kinds worldwide.

The picture has even started religious debates over whether this is a sign of the Lord of a sign of the Devil.

Before you go rush out and buy that holy water just yet, let’s take a step back here.

First, Christianson seems to have no connection with the paranormal or religious worlds at all, so I see no signs to say he has any interest in that kind of subject matter, so if it is genuine he was not ‘hunting’ for it in that sort of manner. and also a large number of his Facebook photos are not set to

Also, a large number of his Facebook photos are not set to private, so that shows unless he changed the settings after taking the ‘demon pic’ that he does indeed let some of his online photos to be viewed by the public. It would have been odd if they were all private but his profile photos and the one of the demon.

Christianson has also ‘Gone fishin’ from Facebook, as evidenced by this photo.

So it seems, along with comments from his friends on public posts, that he has no interest in the demon picture or gaining any more publicity from it.

Although he did say he saw the thing go up into the sky at some point before making the picture private, but it was New Years after all.

So what do I think?

That is either a very large Christmas prop or decoration of an angel or, even more simply it is a palm tree at night taken from a low pixel camera at night.

Could be right could be wrong, but doubt this is really either a demon or an angel, if the pic was taken in Washinton D.C. I could see the demon thing but nah, there is a much simpler explanation to this viral photo.

What do you think this picture is of?

Let us know in the comments below and don’t forget to share and like us on social media!

–Thomas Spychalski

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