ghostsuk

One of the most haunted houses in Britain has been closed to ghostbusters because the temperatures in the ancient building have plummeted to a demonic new low. "I have had to shut now because the cold here is so awful, " said John Humphries, 78, owner of the former Ram Inn at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, which features prominently in a new ghost guide in a national magazine.

"Ghost-hunters say they are used to the cold, in castles, barns and places like that, but I've something here which is terrible, " he said. "The cold here is something different from normal cold. It gets right into you." John lives in a small part of the rambling house at Potters Pond - "apart from them", he told me, referring to the ghostly companions which have made him something of a media celebrity over the years.

"They let you know who actually owns the building, " he said. "I'm only a lodger." He added: "I'm not allowed to have central heating because the building is nearly a thousand years old and it would ruin the timbers. I have one part which I can keep heated." Wayne Dietrich, from Swindon, a ghost-hunter visiting the house this week just before the closure, said: "If you think it's cold outside, it's even colder inside. The time of year doesn't make much difference." John will blithely recount stories of his many encounters with the ghosts that share his home, parts of which date from the 12th century. He has been thrown across rooms, rocked violently on chairs, and witnessed people and furniture hurled down stairs.

It's often thought the reason for all this is that the house is built over an ancient burial ground. Visitors describe its atmosphere as oppressive, even evil.

Tales abound of devil worship, mysterious deaths and exorcisms, cold spots and strange flickering lights. Phantoms include a cavalier, a witch, a monk and a black cat.

There's also a "black shape" which John equates to an "incubus", an evil male demon which preys on women.

And the eerie Bishop's Room is a particular challenge for anyone braving the supernatural by staying over night.

JOHN, a former train driver, bought the property from Whitbread's in 1968 when it had been empty for three years and was near derelict and facing demolition, despite being regarded as the oldest inn in England.

"I couldn't believe they were going to knock it down - it's here only because I bought it, " said John. "But I didn't know it was haunted then."

On January 6, 2006, Henan Province's Dahe Daily newspaper reported that the local police department was unable to take an ID photo of Ye Xiangting from Yelou Village in the Yangzhuang Township of Wugang City, Henan Province. No image of Ye Xiangting showed up in the computer photos, and there is still no clear explanation for the result.

Ye Xiangting told the reporter about his recent visit to the Yangzhuang police station to get a photo taken for a new ID card. He sat in front of the camera, but no image of him would show up in the photo. The staff checked the camera very carefully, but found no problems. He retook photos of Ye Xiangting, but no photos of Ye Xiangting was found on the computer images.

The staff had Ye Xiangting carefully check his clothes to be sure he did not carry anything that would interfere with the equipment. Finally, Ye sat in front of the camera and was photographed from every angle. The staff still failed to get any images of him.

The staff could not find a reason. They took images of Ye Xiangting with other people. They were stunned when the other people showed up in the computer images, but not Ye. Ye Xiangting seemed to have "disappeared" from the photos. In the end, the staff had to give up. Ye Xiangting said that he has never encountered this kind of problem before. Normally, he could be photographed.

The police station chief told the reporter they have encountered two similar cases. They are unclear about the cause and hope the experts can offer an explanation.

There's something sinister about three of the best-known buildings in Notts - they"re haunted, according to a new book. JOHN BRUNTON takes a walk on the spectral side, and considers some other eerie stories from the county, too

There's a strangeness about Room 19 at Wollaton Hall, a dark secret that sometimes eerily tries to communicate itself to visitors.

That's the view of author Richard Jones in his new book, Haunted Houses of Britain and Ireland.

Until recently, Room 19 was used to show fossils. They're being moved out at the moment as part of the Heritage Lottery work going on at the magnificent Tudor mansion.

But it's not what is on view in Room 19 that matters to author Jones.

Rather it's what isn't visible to the naked eye that concerns him.

And that is the world of the supernatural.

The first floor Room 19, on the west side of the hall overlooking the lake, is a maelstrom of ghostly activity, he says in his book.

Wollaton Hall, built in 1588 by Sir Francis Willoughby, has a long and well-attested tradition of supernatural phenomena, writes London paranormal historian Jones.

"Room 19 seems to be particularly rich in ghostly activity.

"People walking through it have experienced sudden and violent drops in temperature as well as sensing a strong but hostile presence," he continues.

"On one occasion, a lady visitor, who also happened to be a spiritualist medium, was overcome by an overwhelming sensation of grief."

She believed the room had experienced great happiness. But it had also been a place of considerable sadness.

Jones continues: "It was later discovered that Room 19 had been used by the Middleton family (owners of the hall from the 18th Century until its purchase by Nottingham City Council in 1925) as a maternity room and also the place where dead members of the family were laid out before burial.

"The room is also prone to more traditional forms of supernatural activity, including doors being mysteriously slammed and lights being seen from the outside after the hall has closed for the night."

Room 19 is not the only seat of strange activity in the hall. There have been more ghostly goings-on, the author reports, in the great hall and minstrels' gallery above.

Stranger still, it's also said a German officer haunts the courtyards, a reminder that Wollaton Park was used as a PoW camp during the Second World War.

Newstead Abbey can claim to have more than its fair share of strange, spectral activity, too.

But the saddest story centres on the sister of the fifth Lord Byron, a close ancestor of the rakish poet Lord George Byron.

The fifth earl, because of his menacing and strange behaviour, was known as "Devil Byron".

Jones writes: "He refused to speak to his sister after she became embroiled in a scandal and would not even end the feud as she lay on her deathbed, pleading for a reconciliation."

Her distracted ghost is said to wander the grounds wailing: "Speak to me, my lord, do speak to me."

A more celebrated ghost still makes its presence felt at Bestwood Lodge.

Now a hotel, the original building was a love-nest for Charles II and his mistress, the former theatre orange-seller Nell Gwynn.

"Although her ghost is said to roam the premises, sightings of her are, in fact, quite rare," says Jones.

It's not Nell's spectre that haunts Bestwood Lodge, rather an unmistakable fragrance.

The book continues: "Staff have long commented on the delicate, though distinctive, bouquet of oranges that seems to hang heavy in the air of the hotel's family room whenever families with children have stayed there."

But there's also a darker side to Bestwood Lodge.

The book explains: "Elsewhere people catch wraith-like glimpses of figures in medieval dress that seem to be quite solid one moment, but which vanish the next.

"Footsteps have been heard plodding along corridors in the dead of night, and these are occasionally accompanied by the heart-rending sound of children sobbing - even though no children are known to be on the premises when the eerie weeping occurs.

"Mediums visiting the hotel have detected sundry spirits lurking within its walls, and on one occasion a psychic was overcome by the choking smell of smoke followed by the disturbing sensation of flames, as though an invisible fire was raging around her.

"Finally, a barman at the hotel once went down into the cellar to change a barrel and was scared rigid when the lights suddenly went out and a disembodied voice inquired politely: 'Can I help you, Sir?' Letting out an almighty scream he raced upstairs demanding to know which of his colleagues had played a joke on him.

"When he learnt that none of them had been responsible he became decidedly unnerved, and later quit his job as a result of the terrifying encounter."

Haunted Houses of Britain and Ireland by Richard Jones is published by New Holland on October 31 at £19.99

From legless women to disembodied arms

Many strange stories are associated with the ruined 18th-century Sutton Scarsdale Hall in Derbyshire, between Chesterfield and Bolsover.

In the 1960s, says Richard Jones, two men walking near the hall in the early hours saw a legless, sobbing female apparition that wore a white hood with slits for the eyes.

The figure shouldn't feel lonely as Sutton Scarsdale Hall has a decent complement of spectral occupants. "The smell of tobacco drifts around different sections of the building and can be quite overwhelming," adds Mr Jones. Also heard are phantom footsteps, while

strange lights have been seen hovering in mid-air. Jones adds that a disembodied arm appears to beckon people to the cellar, "where it has been suggested that a long ago act of forgotten infamy left the livid limb earthbound for evermore".

Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham, certainly looks the part. Its exterior was used in the 1999 remake of The Haunting, starring Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones.

The building is the site of numerous spooky goings-on, says Richard Jones.

The best known is the figure of a man, who has been visible in the library doorway for up to 20 minutes at a time before disappearing into thin air.

Hauntings in Upper Pennsylvania

If you ever find yourself in the area around Towanda, Pennsylvania, keep your eye out for ghosts. It is said that back in the 1880s a maintenance worker killed all of the residents on the fourth floor of the Malta Home in nearby Granville and hid the bodies in the attic. Now, it is said that you can hear the residents roaming the grounds of the surrounding village of Granville, moaning and searching for families that once lived in the surrounding homes. Also in nearby Canton, there is an old railroad tunnel with seven large steps leading up to the top. It is said that a boy was riding through on his bike and was hit by the train, and now still haunts the tunnel. Some nights he will appear, but there are always sounds of train whistles, footsteps and a child's laugh. On Sayman Road in Dushore, witnesses have reported seeing hanging bodies on the side of the road. When lights are flashed at them, they disappear. There was said to be sacrifices in these woods, and unexplained noises can be heard. At the Pelachik House in Sayre the ghost of a murdered constable still patrols. This was a house of ill repute in the early 1900s. And finally, the Barclay Cemetery is haunted by the ghosts of miners. Mining axes can be heard striking the ground in spots throughout the graveyard, tiny piles of coal are found throughout the grounds, voices can be heard yelling at each other and footsteps and running tend to run throughout the grounds. It is also said that there is at least one family, maybe more, that was buried here who died from the Black Plague. Pennsylvania paranormal? Definitely.

Murder, Mystery, Ouija Boards, and an Election

Twenty-eight years ago, Italy was shocked by the mysterious kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro. A candidate in the current Prime Minister election in Italy is Romano Prodi. In 1978, Prodi attended a seance in which he claimed to have discovered a tantalizing clue about the kidnapped Moro's whereabouts through a Ouija board. During the seance, the spirit of a dead politician began speaking to them through the ouija board. They asked where Moro was being held. He spelt out a number of place names, and then the word "Gradoli". Prodi said noone understood what that meant, but his friends found that it was actually an Italian village near Rome. Word of the seance soon reached police ears and within a week hordes of police descended on Gradoli, but found nothing. In fact, Moro was being held as a prisoner in a block of flats in a street called Via Gradoli, in Rome. Almost two months after his kidnapping, Moro was shot dead. Police subsequently discovered where the Red Brigades had hidden him and pressure was put on Prodi, a devout Roman Catholic, to reveal the truth behind the seance. He has always stood by his paranormal version of events although some Italians suspect that Prodi heard from his contacts where the militants were holding Moro and invented the ouija board session as a way of protecting their identity.

Bee Gees Singer Shares House With Ghost

Robin Gibb, the 57-year-old Bee Gees singer, claims his 12th-century house is haunted by a spook who likes to play pranks on him and his family. Robin said: "There's a resident ghost who mysteriously fills up the water in the old font in the chapel which we converted into a dining room. Robin Gibb is reportedly a paranormal enthusiast and sang lead vocals for "Giving Up The Ghost" on the band's 1987 album ESP. According to Gibb's wife, their four-year-old son also claims to have seen ghosts. She says he described a "John and Mary who lived there and their friend Elizabeth. He had no framework for historical costume, but he told me Mary wore a dress down to her ankles. He also said one of the children had never grown up. I discovered a very detailed account of a John and Mary Rose who once lived on the site. They had two children, one of whom died in infancy."

Did mixmaster see Mary in bathroom?

The police, the PM and the psychic

Wednesday, April 5, 2006
SCOTT HEWITT Columbian staff writer BATTLE GROUND A ghost, or the rumor of one, can be good for business, at least.

"It's a fun thing. It's kind of interesting," said Battle Ground bar owner Bobbi Halleaux of Buzz's Sports Bar and Grill at 705 S.E. First St. "I don't want to say I'm not a believer, but nothing supernatural has ever happened to me."

Bartender Erica Lincoln says otherwise, though she's squeamish about admitting it.

"I hate doing this, it makes me seem like a kook," is how she begins a telephone interview.

After that disclaimer, Lincoln describes what she experienced after leaving Buzz' downstairs bathroom and starting to climb the stairs back up to the main floor.

"As the door was closing I looked over and saw a woman standing there. Probably about five feet tall, not very tall. She had a hat on with a feather. The thing is, it didn't take very long. It was as the door was closing.

"I just remember the image of a woman who wasn't very tall, with a wide-brimmed hat with a feather," she said.

Apparently the place is listed somewhere on the Internet as a "paranormal spot," said Halleaux. Since the occasional customer has come in brandishing the spooky listing and saying "Hey, your place is haunted," she wasn't surprised to be contacted eventually by a group of spook sleuths who call themselves Southwest Washington Paranormal Research.

Group member Donna Forrest had already done some preliminary investigating at Buzz's with a tape recorder; she asked the empty lavatory if anybody was there and came away with the breathy voice of a woman saying yes.

So a few weeks back the SWPR group (good luck with www.swpr.org, which always crashes my Internet connection) brought its recorders and cameras and super-sensitive souls to see what's buzzing at Buzz's.

Yes, a super-sensitive soul does appear to be standard ghost-hunting equipment, according to SWPR founder Kimberlie Travis of Kelso.

"It requires a special person to do what we do," said Travis, who tells of receiving some mind-blowing communications from her brother after he died in a car wreck.

Bartender Lincoln, too, said she's the kind of person who's predisposed to "catch things out of the corner of my eye. Maybe I'm clued into it a little more than most." Lincoln said she frequently gets "chills" at Buzz's, even in summertime.

Still, if paranormal sensitivity is inborn, evidence also suggests it can be nurtured (or conjured, if you prefer) by everything from campfire stories to the big screen.

Travis said her father used to spin family ghost stories he swore were true. That's the same father a Nazarene preacher, she said who treated his fledgling ghostbuster to drive-in horror flicks when she was all of 2 years old.

"Ghost books, psychics, near-death stories, occult stuff, religious stuff" was her childhood reading regimen, she said.

D&D in B.G.?

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you feel about hauntings the ghostbusters didn't find much at Buzz's (formerly Pete's Sports Barn and Schnitzel House).

For one thing, the place doesn't close until very late, and even then it proved hard to chase off the curious and calm down the (psychic) atmosphere. There was precious little quiet time left until sunup, and quiet time is what you need to spot the normally unspottable.

But even if visiting hours are unlimited, Travis said, spirits can be fickle. "We can go through hours and hours or evidence and not see a darned thing," she said.

Just sensing a presence isn't good enough for her group of skeptical investigators, she said. They need proof that holds up under scrutiny. They don't want to be identified with the fly-by-night faddists currently flooding the paranormal field the "thrill seekers and guys who play too much Dungeons and Dragons," as SWPR member Desi Coss put it.

Anyway, the buzz about Buzz's ghost, according to Halleaux, is that the place was originally a brothel, and the figure Lincoln glimpsed behind the bathroom door was the madam.

Her name, legend has it, was Mary.

A SENIOR Australian Federal Police officer has been suspended for consulting a clairvoyant over a threat to assassinate Prime Minister John Howard.

Although bound by the AFP's strict code of conduct regarding confidentiality and national security, the officer turned to a small-town psychic he knew socially and disclosed classified information about Mr Howard and the death threats.

In a statement to The Sunday Age yesterday, an AFP spokesman said: "I can confirm we are currently investigating the matter. A member of the AFP has been suspended … The AFP takes seriously all allegations of misconduct by officers, and does not condone the use of psychics in security matters."

The Sunday Age can reveal that the mystic at the centre of the controversy is Elizabeth Walker, a Scottish-born medium based in the NSW Snowy Mountains town of Cooma.

When confronted yesterday, she said: "It's an extremely sensitive situation … how did you find out about this? If this gets out, the lad will lose his job.

"I can't comment because in my profession client confidentiality is paramount. I don't divulge any of the stuff I do. I've done lots of people. I've done political people, famous people, but I don't talk about who's been in. I don't even discuss it with my husband."

The AFP hierarchy was alerted in December to the security breach. The officer was not part of the Prime Minister's personal AFP security entourage, but he knew all about the death threat, and also knew it was being treated seriously.

Knowing some investigations had hit a dead end, the officer took matters into his own hands and turned to Mrs Walker.

It is unclear how he was exposed, but his actions sparked an internal inquiry that resulted in Mrs Walker — who reads "auras" and "past-life energies" — being questioned.

Inquiries by The Sunday Age reveal that Mrs Walker is not registered on a database of clairvoyants held by the Australian Psychics Association.

The ALP's spokesman for homeland security, Arch Bevis, said he would be greatly concerned if the AFP was using clairvoyants.

"I think, perhaps, this fellow has watched a few too many of the US detective shows," he said.

The AFP had doubled security staff between 2002 and 2005, Mr Bevis said, but that, apart from the comical aspect, the incident raised the serious issue of adequate training. "This does make you wonder … if the vetting of recruits is as thorough as it should be, and whether officers are receiving adequate training," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Howard said: "We don't run the AFP and if there is a matter regarding discipline or an individual officer it really is something for them to deal with."

A national security and terrorism expert, Clive Williams, who is a former Defence Intelligence Organisation attache to Washington and now adjunct professor at the Australian National University, said the use of a clairvoyant for such a task was "highly unusual".

"I am aware that the United States engaged psychics during the Cold War to spy on the Soviet Union but abandoned the program," he said. "This sort of thing is really at the fringes of credibility."

Known as "close protection officers", Mr Howard's team of specially assigned AFP agents have a platypus as their mascot.

Barry Williams, of Australian Skeptics, said he "would be very worried" if he were John Howard. "I know security and intelligence gathering can be a very hard job at times," he said.

"But if your critical faculties are intact and you are going to a psychic to ask for help on something like this, then I think you should be looking for another job."

Linthwaite mum: 'I can talk to the dead'

FROM her earliest years Nicole Sheldon says she has been visited by people from the spirit world.

"When I was a toddler my father said he could hear me talking to someone in my bedroom. I was holding a rag doll and he could hear an old lady's voice talking to me through the doll. It was something that he could never explain, although I can't remember it.

"There were other incidents that everybody in the family still talk about," explained Nicole, 34.

"The earliest thing that I can remember is when I was sharing a bedroom with my sister and a toy vac moved across the floor by itself and came to rest at my bedside. My sister saw it as well and we both started screaming," she added.

Nicole, who now lives in Linthwaite but was brought up in Bradford, says her family lived in "an incredibly haunted house."

WITCH: I DON'T WANNA LOCH DJ
High Priest's curse threat to Fatboy Slim

A WITCH has threatened to put a curse on Fatboy Slim's Loch Ness concert.

White witch Kevin Carlyon fears Fatboy's dance grooves will scare off Nessie and ruin a ritual to help childless couples.

The High Priest of Loch Ness fears the DJ's tunes will spoil the mood as the couples make love by the waterside.

The 47-year-old is planning to curse the venue at Dores to prevent 20,000 concert-goers turning up.

Kevin, from Sussex, said: "I am wondering whether it's worth coming up before the concert and casting a spell on it so it doesn't happen.

"I would take a couple of talismans into the field where the concert is due to take place and make a curse to try to ensure the event is rained off or doesn't get permission from the authorities.

Understandably, the things she saw and the voices she heard used to frighten her as a child, but as she got older she conquered her fear by developing an interest in the paranormal.

Nicole, who now has four children of her own, says that as a teenager she learned to banish the voices but the loss of her mother in 1994 led to a decision to find out more about her "abilities".

"I got in touch with other mediums and learned how to protect myself. I found out that I had spirit guides and who they were. I was not embarrassed by what I was any more," she says.

Of course, not everyone believes that there are such things as mediums or that they can make contact with the deceased. Nicole's own father, she says, has always been sceptical. But she has no doubt at all that she has been given a gift and that she is not mentally deluded. "When I get a message for someone it is spot on. I'm not just giving out generic information, it's personal and people are often surprised by what I tell them and how I know. So it can't be a mental health problem," she explained.

Becoming a medium has offered new opportunities to Nicole, who used to work in factories making hi fi equipment, coats and crisps before becoming a mum. Her children range in age from 14 years to 18 months.

She sees herself as a young mum from an ordinary background who has extraordinary psychic abilities.

Her husband Trevor, who used to work in IT sales, is now her full time manager and runs their business, UK Haunted, an events company that stages ghost hunting evenings.

Nicole herself has become a show medium - her first major show this year is on April 24 at The Holiday Inn, Brighouse - and is the featured medium on BBC Radio Lancashire's Ghost Zone with Most Haunted's Jason Karl.

Her stage show, The Nicole Sheldon Experience, has a variety performance feel to it, with appearances by other mediums and special acts as well as Nicole herself.

Nicole is of the belief that when we die we enter a spirit world and that some spirits are able to communicate with the living through a medium.

"Not everyone is capable of this. I have never had a message from my mum but some mediums say that family members rarely come through to you."

In order to open a channel to the spirit world she meditates before a performance or reading.

"I go out and talk to the audience for a while and feel the spirit people come, and hear voices, and sometimes I can see and feel them.

"The spirit people often just want to say hello and let their loved ones know that they are still around them. Sometimes they have a purpose.

"I once had a boy come through who was a teenager who had died from a drug overdose.

"His death certificate had said that his death was misadventure but he wanted people to know that he had taken his own life because he couldn't get off the drugs. People in the family were arguing about it and he wanted them to stop," explained Nicole.

Because her own mother visited mediums Nicole says she understands that many people find comfort by seeking contact with the loved ones they have lost.

But what does she say to those who think that what she does is a trick or gimmick?

"I don't say anything. That's up to them, I don't try and push it on anybody. I didn't choose to be a medium, it chose me."

"I have already stopped two raves in Kent by cursing their sites.

"I am not a killjoy but Nessie likes her quiet. I don't think Fatboy Slim's music will tempt Nessie to come out of the water. I think she will probably take a holiday instead."

The former wrestler added: "I plan to carry out rituals for four Scottish couples who are having trouble conceiving from June 21, the day of the summer solstice, until June 24, the day of the concert.

"The couples will be encouraged to make love on the shores of Loch Ness, in private of course.

"All this concert palaver may make it difficult for them to relax."

Event promoter Robert Hicks saw the funny side.

But he said: "I thought white witches were supposed to be good. It's not very charitable to put a curse on 20,000 people who are having fun."

Around 19,000 tickets have been snapped up for the concert at Clune Farm since going on sale on Friday.

Also lined up to perform at the June 24 gig are dance favourites Mylo and Slam, as well as leading DJ Carl Cox. More acts will be announced in the coming weeks.

Police Baffled By Paranormal Activity In British Pub

British police responding to a call about a possible break-in at a pub in northern England Monday found themselves in the middle of a ghoulish riddle. Officers arrived at the Low Valley Arms pub near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, 400 kilometres north of London, after being told the alarm had been set off, but instead of finding any signs of a robbery, they were faced with a shaken landlord convinced he had encountered a ghost with half a face missing in the ladies washroom. Although they saw no ghoul-described as a woman in flowing white gown-officers were shocked to find toilets flushing themselves, said Insp. John Bowler of South Yorkshire Police. Pub landlord Roger Froggat, 55, and his wife Kathryn, 49, moved in a year ago and said they had seen nothing before, despite rumours of a resident spectre. "I heard the alarm go off for a second time, went into the pub and all the television screens had turned on," the pub owner said.

"I went to check the rest of the pub and standing in the women's lavatories was a woman with half her face missing. I was petrified." Officers found no signs of forced entry and were left quite scared, Bowler added.

Since the ghost story became public, the pub has become the talk of the town, attracting everyone from mediums to a national television film crew determined to catch a glimpse of the mystery woman should she appear again.

Despite their shock, the Froggats said they have no plans to leave their village pub.

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