There are more ghosts per capita in England than any other place in the world. Many people claim to see them there, more so than anywhere else.

Hampton Court

The most haunted place in England is Hampton Court. On one occasion an off duty policeman outside the Court gates said he saw eight ghosts approach. The Haunted Gallery at Hampton Court has, on a number of occasions, seen and heard the screaming ghost of Catherine Howard who was dispatched to the Tower of London to be beheaded by Henry VIII, her ghost has been seen there running down this corridor pleading for her life...

Borley Rectory

Borley Rectory was in Essex - the site was mentioned in the Domesday Book but the really interesting thing about it is that in the year 1362 there was a nunnery on the site.

Well, one of the nuns wanted to run away with a monk from the local monastery. Their affair was discovered, and he was hanged and she was bricked up alive. Later, a rectory was built on the site of the convent by Henry Bull in 1863.

Soon after the rectory was built, a nun began to appear in the grounds, objects were thrown by unseen hands, footsteps and screams in the night were heard, cold spots and strange odours appeared and unlit rooms were illuminated, and a phantom coach rattled through the house. Later, writing appeared on one of the walls addressed to the wife of an owner of the rectory.

The hauntings continued until the rectory burnt down in 1939 and witnesses reported seeing a figure of a woman in the flames...

The Thing

A spooky experience from one Researcher...

'I was in a band with a crazy acid-head guy, and one year, think it was '93, his girlfriend Susie invited us to a Halloween party at this castle in Cumbernauld, which is in Scotland.

'There were about 30 people there and we had a big meal and then did the party thing. It got pretty late and David, the acid-head shared out his sacramental, or just plain mental, LSD. He was pretty insistent about it too: so I accepted the proffered tab, but quietly pocketed it.

We had a guitar and some handdrums with us. The walls were two feet thick, so we didn't care about noise, and we made crazy mad music. David's acid-warped brain sent him flailing around the room drumming on every available surface.

He and his girlfriend, had a fierce, intent, drugged glow and their behaviour was affecting the party's atmosphere strangely. I suddenly realised that they really were glowing, and sending off sparks, then I realised that it wasn't them - just beyond I could see a thing that was in the hall with us. There was a shape, glowing quietly green, like a Kirlian photograph but without anything to generate the aura... A man-shaped space, that felt very sad and lonely. I stopped playing, and slowly the din in the room ceased.

'Do you see it?' I said.

The shape stepped forward. I hesitated, then spoke to it... I couldn't get any words from it but the sense of it flooded my brain, that it missed life, and it missed the days when there had been travellers here, feasts, children, laughter... I told it with my mind, that it could go free, it didn't have to stay here, if it was in pain... I don't know if it heard, but the shape writhed, like it was wrestling with something. It paled, and then it dissolved from my vision, and whether it left or just decided it didn't want to talk anymore I couldn't say.

The next morning, David and Susie woke up late. We packed up and went back to Glasgow. On the way back, David told me that he woke up just before dawn to find something sitting on his sleeping bag. He knew it was watching him and his girlfriend, so he woke her to see if she felt it too, but as soon as he moved it was gone, leaving a faint imprint on his sleeping bag.'

Weird, Really Weird

And a strange story from another Researcher...

I had this really scary dream when I was 14...

'I'm at a house that belongs to a friend, there are a few people around. Another friend is cutting up a fallen tree with a chainsaw. The chainsaw is extremely loud. Suddenly the guy who lives in the next house shouts out over the fence, 'Shut that noise up!'. He is a big ugly guy and he is really upset by the chainsaw being so loud.

He jumps over the fence and moves towards my friend with the chainsaw. There is a struggle and suddenly, blood. My friend cuts the guy's arm off, and oh boy, that really sets him off. He basically started melting. We all run to the car and started to drive off. The melting guy just starts running after us. We drive up a dirt road and come to a dead end.

I woke up with the screaming of the melting guy coming up the road, still after us...

Now the really scary thing is, about three months later I went to visit a friend's house. He lived on a dirt road that came to a dead end. The house I dreamed about was identical to the house I was visiting and even freakier still, is the fact that the neighbour's house was the same too... Only a very old lady lived there. Spooky!

Since then I have heard stories about Satanic cults and also animal sacrifices in that area. There was even a large red (blood?) stain on the road at one stage.'

Really spooky!!

Strange but True

In Japan ghosts are believed to be unable to say the syllables 'mo' and 'shi'. When meeting somebody on an unlit road it became customary to call out the words 'Moshi moshi' to reassure the other person that you were alive - and challenge them to do the same.

Nowadays, Japanese people still answer the phone with 'Moshi-moshi'.