Ghosts in the news!

6th

Not if the petition i'm geting together has anything to do with it!

Sapien

Five Americans Lift Table

World Stunned

6th

Sapien wrote:

Five Americans Lift Table

World Stunned

Thats what i though ... but I have to report it as I find it

6th

Mary Roach answers questions about "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife." Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity:

What got you interested in writing about science tackling the afterlife? Marna Baker, Scappoose

When I was working on "Stiff" I came across a Massachusetts doctor who, in 1907, put dying men on a big bed-scale he rigged up, to see if the needle moved as they died. I just loved that can-do spirit, the idea that we can use scientific method to pin down something as ethereal as the human soul. That's what sparked my curiosity. I decided to see what else people had come up with.

Before you began extensively researching your book, did you have a fairly firm opinion about the possibility of an afterlife? If so, did this opinion change, waver or get stronger by the time you had finished writing? Ann Garcia, Hillsboro

I had no idea what awaits us. I'm not one of those fortunate people who have a strong background of faith to lean on. I tended to think that if there were something out there, someone would have stumbled onto proof of it. So I decided to look into it; see if anyone had. As for how my opinion changed, well, that would be giving away the ending of the book!

If there is an afterlife, what would be the best foolproof way to prove it? Helena Silberstein, Southeast Portland

Well, my favorite attempt to get the foolproof answer was that of an encryption expert named Robert Thouless. He encoded two phrases in what he was certain was unbreakable code. He announced the project and printed the snippets in a paranormal journal, inviting members and mediums to try and contact him after he died and obtain from his ethereal self the key to break the code. Alas, although some 100 people submitted what they believed to be the keys, the results were invariably, to quote one Thouless Project report, "a meaningless jumble of letters." One party insisted that he had made contact with Dr. Thouless with no fewer than eight different mediums. Unfortunately, this man reported, Dr. Thouless had "forgotten the keys."

How do you define a "soul"? Kirk Sellman, Tigard

I use it interchangeably with "spirit," or "consciousness." That invisible thing that's there when you pull the sheet off a ghost. Whatever the heck that is. Your thoughts, minus your brain -- if indeed you can have thoughts without a brain. One of the researchers I interviewed in "Spook" used the analogy of a computer: Perhaps your consciousness is the operating system, he said. Take away Word and Quicken and AOL, and there you are. Some blinking energy, core thing. Eternity as the back of the closet where the broken-down Dells and Compaqs go.

Is the idea that we hear so often about people when they die "following the light" or "going into the light" something that has been talked about in the past? Or is this a modern concept? Mary MacKenzie, Southeast Portland

The basic elements of the near-death experience are very old, and they crop up in cultures around the world. With some interesting variations. For instance, in China, instead of the bit where one of your loved ones tells you, "It's not your time, go back" the guy was told, "There's been a clerical error."

Article HERE

6th

Enchanted Boundary
Mediumship Bridges Life and Afterlife
By Pauline Uchmanovitz

Theodor Prinz, A Ghost, c.1900, Germany, gelatin silver print, 22.8 x 17 cm, private collection. (Image from The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, a catalog of photos from the exhibit of the same name at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2005. Published by Yale University Press, 2004.)
My father died unexpectedly this past spring. He donated his remains to medical research; there was no body, no wake. We survivors held a simple funeral mass. Later the same day, I attended the "blessing" of a friend's business, where a medium reputedly able to communicate with those who have passed into spirit officiated. Afterward, the medium embraced me, surges pulsing through my body as she pronounced, "He's fine." Releasing me and passing her hand over her abdomen, she added, "I'm getting something right here—maybe a ruptured appendix." No autopsy had been performed on my father, but my family suspected an intestinal aneurysm was the cause of death.

Father's birth date was the obverse of auspicious: October 29, 1929. So he liked to substitute Allhallows, when a portal purportedly opens between the realms of life and death . Can entities pass between opposite sides of this imposing boundary? Yes, claim recent scientific studies. In Paranormal Experience and Survival of Death (SUNY University Press, 1993), Carl B. Becker reviews empirical evidence and counterarguments in this debate, distinguishing among various phenomena implying survival after death: hauntings, ghostly apparitions, memories of past lives, and out-of-body experiences (OBEs), including so-called "near death." Extrapolating from quantum physics (the study of minute energies), he posits life after death as a continuing OBE, "producible experimentally and confirmed by independent testing agencies." Researchers investigating the survival-after-death hypothesis also study mediumship, the ability to enter an altered or heightened state—either conscious (aware and able to recall) or trance (unaware and not able to recall)—and psychically receive information from disembodied intelligences. Sometimes called "channeling," mediumship was popularized in the 19th century by "Poughkeepsie Seer" Andrew Jackson Davis and is practiced today in various forms, including by adherents of the Spiritualist Church, who "affirm" in their creed the continuity of "personal identity after death" and who acknowledge "communication with the so-called dead [as] fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of Spiritualism."

Marisa Anderson, acclaimed psychic and spiritualist medium based in Newburgh, extrapolates from her understanding of astrophysics (the study of stars, including electromagnetic energy) when describing the passageway between physical and nonphysical existence. "You can be on both sides of the universe at the same time. In physics, it's not an impossibility or an improbability that we can be crossing a city street and be somewhere else; it happens naturally in other dimensions of time and space." She adds that, similar to videotaping, "you can relive events or transmute thoughts in time and space. An event in history can actually be replayed over and over again in time and space if certain circumstances are occurring." Mediums tap this cosmic network, and for those who think that idea far-fetched, Anderson contends, "A videotape would have been insane 200 years ago."

Anderson, a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, New York Academy of Sciences, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, has appeared on radio and television and has helped solve numerous homicide cases. Her interest in this ethereal landscape evolved from having "died" by drowning as a child. "I didn't get beyond a particular corridor—not into the Beyond," she explains. But she perceived "death" as an abandonment of the corporeal body combined with an awareness "that there are limitless actions in time and space. People do not die; they go somewhere."

While some mediums practice in the privacy of religious or family settings, others offer their services to a wider public. Though séances are now passé, some mediums still offer public demonstrations by initiating contact with spirits, then delivering their messages to specific audience members. Others provide "readings" at small-group parties; some work with law enforcement to aid in solving homicides; most conduct private sessions with individual clients, either in person or over the phone. A private, one-hour session can range in cost from $50 to $150. Mediumship is not credentialed, though the field is moving towards professional certification, chiefly through the apprenticeship system. For instance, Tannersville-based Adam F. Bernstein has completed courses in channeling and advanced mediumship with internationally renowned medium/author Sharon Klinger at Lily Dale, a longtime spiritualist assembly thriving in far-western New York State.

continued .....

6th

.... continued from previous post:

Bereavement counseling is a major reason someone consults a spiritualist medium. Anderson and Bernstein, along with Laurie (last name withheld by request), a channel who conducts sessions at the Awareness Shop in New Paltz, all say that people come to them inquiring about family members or pets who have passed. Such clients may seek closure, resolution, or comfort. Bernstein says people sometimes sense a loved one is still around and want proof. Laurie notes that potential clients might be having dreams or receiving messages—verbally, impressionistically, or symbolically—from those who have passed, and seek her services because they "need to know that their parent or child is okay."

Mediums vary widely in their methods, but many conceive of a session as a "conversation" between human and spirit-world beings. A client, known as a "sitter," takes a comfortable position and relaxes (often through prayer or meditation). Next, the medium opens his or her "channel," then dictates impressions or messages that the client subsequently corroborates or clarifies. Anderson, whose method might be best described as spontaneous-psychic transmission, works mainly over the phone. She begins a session by asking only a client's name then tells the person what he or she wants to know. In rare cases, she prompts, "Give me the reason why you're here because I'm not getting it." She then receives "impressions from the other side," which vary according to where the person-spirit is located. She likewise may visualize sight, sound, or smell, or intuit visual or verbal narratives. In certain cases, she might actually "see" files or documents, known as "remote viewing."

I was convinced by the authenticity or her tone when Anderson told me that my father "knew" in advance he would pass. "He had circulatory weakness—something related to the heart." (Indeed, he had a pacemaker.) She also gave correct names or initials for a neighbor and a sibling, determined that my father had built a "cabin" and planned for more expansions (blueprints discovered after his death confirm this), and that he reunited with a small, furry pet (a rabbit). "He's in a place where he's still resolving issues," she concluded.

Laurie inaugurates a face-to-face session with causal, information-gathering conversation, then follows with a tarot reading. What happens next is akin to conscious channeling. "Someone will come through as a voice I hear in my head—my own voice, but not coming from me," she says. Laurie also gets sensory impressions, such as aromas of perfume, cigarettes, or flowers, and usually asks spirits for communication more specific than "I miss you" or "I love you." Frequently, the deceased show her how they died. One such case involved a young son who Laurie sensed perished in a bombing; his mother corroborated that he died in a manhole explosion.

Bernstein instructs clients not to tell him who has passed, preferring to work from "intuitive rather than intellectual information." He has sitters relax in a chair while he achieves "a heightened state of vibration through meditation, raising [his] energy to the level of spirit entities." During phone sessions, if information does not readily arrive, he may throw a tarot card for inspiration. In addition to receiving names, occupations, and past events the client recognizes, messages typically are encoded in symbols and empathetic sentience. "Images are more subtle than everyday images; you have to be calm and receptive and acknowledge every symbol—universal as well as pop culture. If you see Lucille Ball, you get that the person was a little zany." Or coughing may signify a lung-cancer victim.

Bernstein likens his mission to grief counseling. "One of the reasons I have a calling to this work is that I see the healing when people realize we really don't die. As those fears fall away, people can see their potential. We are all spirits in bodies; we contact spirits out of bodies." When I confess lingering curiosity about the life-after-death hypothesis, his soothing voice suddenly drops to a heavy, resonant monotone, imparting: "Your dad was supportive in body; he will still be with you and supportive, in your challenges and triumphs."

Article HERE

6th

Ok well spotted by Stoner last week on this:


It was also on the front page of the Irish Mirror which I will post later.

6th

Ok as above but this is from The Irish Mirror front page - rest of story to follow:

Zillah

Sapien wrote:

Five Americans Lift Table

World Stunned

6th

If you liked that you'll love reading who the psychic was in the above galway case!

Aisling&M

I'm curious about that story......is there a link to the full thing?
Who was the psychic?

Stoner

my library account record only goes back to last may, I know its in this book
http://www.maverickhouse.com/books/paranormal.php

but there is a whole book on it somewhere, I'll continue to look

ok found it, on boards lol

the Fahey case along with Sandra Ramdhanie as detailed in the book so this is old stuff that you guys have discussed before and some people were banned over it , the book was very good. It's a bloody small world all the same, yet another boards person uncovered. A deadend, Ghosts in the Old news maybe?

hairyfairy00

Is it in todays paper??
I'm sure some of ye know about the other house in Galway that was haunted a few years back (there was a book written). My dad worked with the guy who lived and still lives there, i saw for myself the effect that the haunting had on that family. The house owner aged about 20 years while it was all going on.

6th

ok there not really much point me putting this up as the site I upload to resizes eveything - making this very hard to read!

However I'll pop it up til tomorrow when I can pop it up onto my site in higher resolution.



*Edit: Big apologies for the size of this file but its only so people can read it.

hairyfairy00

I'm from that area and i have never experienced anything but i know people who have, my friend was renting a house with some friends in an estate about 300 yards from the Corcorans, they ended up moving out about 6 months later because the house was haunted.
In between their estate and the Corcorans estate there is an old grave yard, when there were apartments being built about 8 yrs ago in a field neighbouring it i remember them finding graves in the field that they never knew existed, I'm not sure but i think they found some babies graves.

6th i know the name of the estate mentioned in the paper, if you want it PM me and i can give it to you, i think it would be wrong if i gave the name here for everyone to see.

P.S The Rahoon cemetery that is mentioned is a 'new' grave yard and it is further away from their house than the old one

6th

hairyfairy00 wrote:

6th i know the name of the estate mentioned in the paper, if you want it PM me and i can give it to you, i think it would be wrong if i gave the name here for everyone to see.

Cheers

hairyfairy00 wrote:

In between their estate and the Corcorans estate there is an old grave yard, when there were apartments being built about 8 yrs ago in a field neighbouring it i remember them finding graves in the field that they never knew existed, I'm not sure but i think they found some babies graves.

It was common enough for suicide victims, babies born from "dodgy" circumstances etc to be burried just outside graveyards. Its a practiced thats died out (thankfully) but I supposed you'd need to know how old the Graveyard was.

hairyfairy00 wrote:

The Rahoon cemetery that is mentioned is a 'new' grave yard and it is further away from their house than the old one

The newspaper probably got the details wrong on that ... wouldnt be the first time

Aisling&M

That is interesting. It's very rare that a spirit could cause so much physical effect on people. If this is true I hope that psychic is getting some help on releasing it!

6th

Not to take away from the suffering of this family but when I see things like this I have to think about other possibilities.

One of these is that maybe its the wife who is causing the harm to the husband. She may be suffering in some way and be unaware that she is doing it. He may then be going along with this fantasical story out of fear of ridicule for being a beaten husband or out of loyalty to his wife and family.

Seeing as he is a father of 10 there must be some amount of stress and strain going on in there lifes anyway.

Please note though that I am not saying that the above is the case but that in these curcumstances it could be another possibility.

6th

They are eerie sensations, more common than one might think: A man describes feeling a shadowy figure standing behind him, then turning around to find no one there. A woman feels herself leaving her body and floating in space, looking down on her corporeal self.

Such experiences are often attributed by those who have them to paranormal forces.

But according to recent work by neuroscientists, they can be induced by delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that she was hanging from the ceiling, looking down at her body. In another woman, electrical current delivered to the angular gyrus produced an uncanny feeling that someone was behind her, intent on interfering with her actions.

The two women were being evaluated for epilepsy surgery at University Hospital in Geneva, where doctors implanted dozens of electrodes into their brains to pinpoint the abnormal tissue causing the seizures and to identify adjacent areas involved in language, hearing or other essential functions that should be avoided in the surgery. As each electrode was activated, stimulating a different patch of brain tissue, the patient was asked to say what she was experiencing.

Dr. Olaf Blanke, a neurologist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland who carried out the procedures, said that the women had normal psychiatric histories and that they were stunned by the bizarre nature of their experiences.

The Sept. 21 issue of Nature magazine includes an account by Dr. Blanke and his colleagues of the woman who sensed a shadow person behind her. They described the out-of-body experiences in the February 2004 issue of the journal Brain.

There is nothing mystical about these ghostly experiences, said Peter Brugger, a neuroscientist at University Hospital in Zurich, who was not involved in the experiments but is an expert on phantom limbs, the sensation of still feeling a limb that has been amputated, and other mind-bending phenomena.

“The research shows that the self can be detached from the body and can live a phantom existence on its own, as in an out-of-body experience, or it can be felt outside of personal space, as in a sense of a presence,” Dr. Brugger said.

Scientists have gained new understanding of these odd bodily sensations as they have learned more about how the brain works, Dr. Blanke said. For example, researchers have discovered that some areas of the brain combine information from several senses. Vision, hearing and touch are initially processed in the primary sensory regions. But then they flow together, like tributaries into a river, to create the wholeness of a person’s perceptions. A dog is visually recognized far more quickly if it is simultaneously accompanied by the sound of its bark.

These multisensory processing regions also build up perceptions of the body as it moves through the world, Dr. Blanke said. Sensors in the skin provide information about pressure, pain, heat, cold and similar sensations. Sensors in the joints, tendons and bones tell the brain where the body is positioned in space. Sensors in the ears track the sense of balance. And sensors in the internal organs, including the heart, liver and intestines, provide a readout of a person’s emotional state.

Real-time information from the body, the space around the body and the subjective feelings from the body are also represented in multisensory regions, Dr. Blanke said. And if these regions are directly simulated by an electric current, as in the cases of the two women he studied, the integrity of the sense of body can be altered.

As an example, Dr. Blanke described the case of a 22-year-old student who had electrodes implanted into the left side of her brain in 2004.

“We were checking language areas,” Dr. Blanke said, when the woman turned her head to the right. That made no sense, he said, because the electrode was nowhere near areas involved in the control of movement. Instead, the current was stimulating a multisensory area called the angular gyrus.

Dr. Blanke applied the current again. Again, the woman turned her head to the right. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

The woman replied that she had a weird sensation that another person was lying beneath her on the bed. The figure, she said, felt like a “shadow” that did not speak or move; it was young, more like a man than a woman, and it wanted to interfere with her.

When Dr. Blanke turned off the current, the woman stopped looking to the right, and said the strange presence had gone away. Each time he reapplied the current, she once again turned her head to try to see the shadow figure.

When the woman sat up, leaned forward and hugged her knees, she said that she felt as if the shadow man was also sitting and that he was clasping her in his arms. She said it felt unpleasant. When she held a card in her right hand, she reported that the shadow figure tried to take it from her. “He doesn’t want me to read,” she said.

Because the presence closely mimicked the patient’s body posture and position, Dr. Blanke concluded that the patient was experiencing an unusual perception of her own body, as a double. But for reasons that scientists have not been able to explain, he said, she did not recognize that it was her own body she was sensing.

The feeling of a shadowy presence can occur without electrical stimulation to the brain, Dr. Brugger said. It has been described by people who undergo sensory deprivation, as in mountaineers trekking at high altitude or sailors crossing the ocean alone, and by people who have suffered minor strokes or other disruptions in blood flow to the brain.

Six years ago, another of Dr. Blanke’s patients underwent brain stimulation to a different multisensory area, the angular gyrus, which blends vision with the body sense. The patient experienced a complete out-of-body experience.

When the current flowed, she said: “I am at the ceiling. I am looking down at my legs.”

When the current ceased, she said: “I’m back on the table now. What happened?”

Further applications of the current returned the woman to the ceiling, causing her to feel as if she were outside of her body, floating, her legs dangling below her. When she closed her eyes, she had the sensation of doing sit-ups, with her upper body approaching her legs.

Because the woman’s felt position in space and her actual position in space did not match, her mind cast about for the best way to turn her confusion into a coherent experience, Dr. Blanke said. She concluded that she must be floating up and away while looking downward.

Some schizophrenics, Dr. Blanke said, experience paranoid delusions and the sense that someone is following them. They also sometimes confuse their own actions with the actions of other people. While the cause of these symptoms is not known, he said, multisensory processing areas may be involved.

When otherwise normal people experience bodily delusions, Dr. Blanke said, they are often flummoxed. The felt sensation of the body is so seamless, so familiar, that people do not realize it is a creation of the brain, even when something goes wrong and the brain is perturbed.

Yet the sense of body integrity is rather easily duped, Dr. Blanke said.

And while it may be tempting to invoke the supernatural when this body sense goes awry, he said the true explanation is a very natural one, the brain’s attempt to make sense of conflicting information.

Article HERE

6th

A BAR in York's city centre is to be investigated for ghostly goings-on, which may be malevolent, before Halloween.

Preparations are well under way for the city's annual festival of the paranormal.

The highlight of this year's spine-chilling festival will be a paranormal investigation of Thomas's Bar, in Museum Street, York.

Rachel Lacy, York's Ghost Finder General, said: "We have had reports of hauntings about this property, but to our knowledge it has never been investigated, so our overnight investigation will be the first one ever done.
continued...

"It's a place that has regularly had strange goings-on for the last 30 or 40 years - nothing spectacular, but things moving around, which could indicate poltergeist activity."

The psychically-attuned may already know it - but if not, the third York Ghost Festival will be held on Friday and Saturday, October 27 and 28.

Spirit-ridden York can be a pretty frightening place - lurking in its snickets lie hundreds of spooky inhabitants, according to research conducted in 2002.

The Ghost Research Foundational International recorded 504 hauntings when it inspected the city.

Other fright-filled events are in the pipeline - but still remain shrouded in mystery.

Last year's festival lasted an entire week in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot.

This time round, though, the organisers have cut the festival down to two days of concentrated ectoplasmic activities.



Ghost Finder General Rachel Lacy

Ghost Finder General Lacy added: "We get a good mix of people in every year. Many are locals, wanting to know more about the hauntings of the city - after all, how can you live in such a haunted city and not want to know more? But we also get visitors from further afield. Last year people came from across the Pennines and even as far away as Portsmouth - obviously ghosts are big business!"

Article HERE

6th

From RTÉ:

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt has claimed that the set of her 'Ghost Whisperer' TV show is haunted.

Hewitt plays a woman who can communicate with spirits of the dead on the series, but she insists that there is nearly as much paranormal activity off-screen.

"We've had lights move, literally three and a half inches to the left, as you're sitting there the lights move," Hewitt told US chat show host Megan Mullally. "We've had lights burst over actors' heads when they're playing people who don't believe in ghosts. A light will burst into a million pieces right over them.


"People are like, 'we're not guest-starring on that show,' but for us as a crew we're kind of like, awesome maybe they (the ghosts) are with us."

Article HERE

LostinBlanch

Not sure if this shouldn't be on the politics forum. But they've tried everything else so they might as well give this a go

Mystic Mum Helps Hunt For Soldier
THE Israeli armed forces have resorted to using a medium to try to locate the corporal who was spirited into Gaza by Palestinian militants on June 25 and who has not been heard from since, writes Tim Butcher.

Despite covering every inch of the Gaza Strip with surveillance drones and having an extensive informer network, Israeli intelligence has failed to yield the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit (20).

The army has deployed Orit Tomer Ish Yemini (41), a mother of three who is a medium. Aware that it smacks of desperation, the army has officially refused to admit working with her. (©Daily Telegraph, London)

jen83

New_Departure06 wrote:

I don't fully see Most Haunted as a hoax. Some of the stuff that happens could be real. In particular, in the Kinnity Castle episode there was an image of a man that was lit-up outside the window.

Was it an image of a man? I never fully knew what they saw outside that window

6th

The South Dakota town with the greatest history of hauntings is Deadwood, a Wisconsin paranormal investigator and author says.

"Probably because of the history of violence and all the deaths that occurred there," said Terry Fisk, who was in Sioux Falls on Sunday to promote the book he co-wrote with Chad Lewis.

The book, "The South Dakota Road Guide to Haunted Locations," lists various places, most open to the public, that are allegedly haunted.

"We took photographs, we got directions, we checked out the history of the place, we interviewed people that had had experiences there," Fisk said.

While a bed and breakfast in Madison that has been the site of strange occurrences is listed, Brenda Grogan told Fisk she knew of at least two others, and she posed a question to him: If a building such as the old Masonic Temple in Madison is torn down, where will the ghost go?

"Some are attached to the building itself," Fisk replied.

But he knows of at least one case where a haunted boarding house was torn down, and the steakhouse built on the site subsequently was haunted. It, too, was torn down, but the gas station erected on the same site experienced mysterious happenings.

Fisk, who also investigates UFO sightings, Big Foot appearances and crop circles, has always been interested in the paranormal.

But it was an event several years ago that piqued his interest and led to a full-time pursuit of the paranormal and writing career.

He and his brother visited the cemetery where their great-great-grandparents are buried. When the picture of Fisk standing next to their grave was developed, "there was like a bluish-white mist that appeared to be coming out of the grave and surrounding me."

But at the time the picture was taken, there was no mist or fog in the air, Fisk said.

Shortly afterward, Fisk attended one of Lewis' conferences in Eau Claire, Wis., about the unexplained. They eventually teamed up.

Several years later, Fisk took his fiancée to the same grave site. She said to his great-great-grandmother, "Eliza, if you're here give us a sign."

When Fisk tried to take his fiancée's picture at the grave, the batteries, newly inserted in the camera, were dead. Another set of new batteries also failed to work. Later, the camera worked fine.

"(It's) quite a common occurrence with paranormal investigations, that the batteries will just suddenly be drained," Fisk said.

Article HERE

6th

Ireland's leading exorcists have called for the creation of a special forum to deepen our understanding of the paranormal world.

Exorcists within both the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland want the forum set up to learn more about spooky goings-on around the country.

Between them Fr Pat Collins and Rev William H Lendrum have carried out hundreds of exorcisms. Among the frightening cases they have dealt with include a 10-year-old boy who became possessed after using a Ouija board and the ghost of a young woman who physically attacked people living in her former home.

Despite being from different traditions the two churchmen have also worked together on a number of exorcisms. But they both believe the world of the paranormal is something, which requires much more investigation.

"This is a part of Christianity that has been overlooked or simply ignored," Rev Lendrum claimed.

He added that the creation of a forum would bring this issue into the centre and give us an opportunity to discuss it in detail.

Article HERE

6th

A CANDLE flickers, a shadow darts past the corner of her eye, she hears the low sound of tapping in the hollow walls...
...Is it one of the myriad ghosts said to inhabit the 16th century Mains Hall in Singleton?
Or is it owner Adele Yeomans taking a claw hammer to the walls of her Grade II Listed manor house in a bid to reveal its secrets?
Her latest discovery, she believes, is a priest hole hidden behind plasterboard in a downstairs hallway which could link to a hidden room behind a bookcase in her study.
The amateur historian has spent three years restoring the house to its Tudor beauty and has become increasingly intrigued with the spooky stories of its past.
But now she fears her home improvements have disturbed some less-than-earthly spirits.
She said: "I think I have triggered a paranormal surge of happenings in the house, every time I start a bit of DIY the spectral activity increases.
"There are stories of ghostly goings on throughout the history of the hall but since I uncovered the hide we have noticed more whisperings and footsteps, and visitors have even said they felt someone brush past them and touch their hand on this corridor.
"I am not surprised – the priests went to great lengths to remain undetected and what do I do but go and reopen the hide, no wonder they are in a state of unrest!"
Ghostly monks, cavorting cavaliers, regal ladies and phantom children are just a few of the spectral visitors Adele, husband Roger and children Beccy, 18, and Josh, 16, live with.
Part of Adele's morning ritual is to say good morning to a female phantom named Lily who she believes was a maid at the hall as recently as the 1940s.
It was Lily's daughter who gave Adele a clue to the location of the hide by describing a wood-panelled corridor with a hidden entrance.
Adele has now drafted in the Ghost Research Foundation to investigate the hall in a public seance on Halloween.
She added: "I can understand why people would want to hang around here after they die, it is a beautiful house. I can imagine those who felt an attachment to it would want to watch over the place.
"If any future owners strip it and go all minimalist and chrome I will come back to haunt them!"

Article HERE

6th

Ghostbusters called in at village hall
25 October 2006 | 10:37

CRAIG ROBINSON

WITH Hallowe'en fast approaching it is understandable that some of us may be getting a little jumpy as our thoughts wander towards all things supernatural.

This is certainly true in one Suffolk village where a team of “ghostbusters” have been called in to rid residents of a suspected spirit.

Suffolk and Norfolk Paranormal Investigations (SNPI) was asked to look into a “presence” at Layham Village Hall following an incident last month.

A resident of the village, near Hadleigh, was working in the building when he had a “feeling of being pushed and a loss of balance”.

As a result Haldeigh-based experts SNPI were contacted and set up their ghost hunting equipment for the night.

Richard Keeble, a founding member of SNPI, said: “We arrived at the hall around 10pm and immediately felt that something could be there.

“We set up infra-red video equipment and audio recordings and the temperature was noted - which was considerably cooler within the hall than outside.

“Photos were taken within the building and a few orbs were caught on film. A quiet vigil was held within the hall and during this time the silhouette of a person was seen to walk outside past the windows and seemed to walk down one side of the hall.

“A short while later this was seen again so a member of the team went outside to see who was about, only to find no one in the area.”

At one point Mr Keeble said a strange feeling of being pushed and a loss of balance was felt when walking past a particular area in the hall and an infrared camera was set up.

“This was positioned looking out towards an old church which neighbours the village hall and was left running throughout the evening,” he said. “When I was outside I felt something hit my head, similar to a small stone being thrown, but nothing or no one was seen to be in the area.

“It seems the activity was more outside the building - from the direction of the church yard - and the spirit circulated the perimeters of the hall and occasionally came inside to visit.

“We were asked to get rid of it but couldn't because it was gone after an hour or so. We would like to return and carry out further investigations in the area surrounding the hall.”

Richard Groom, who takes bookings and holds the key to the village hall, said he contacted SNPI after listening to the concerns of a local resident.

“I know Richard Keeble who runs the outfit in Hadleigh so I gave him a call to come and investigate in the village hall,” he said. “A chap was working in there and said he had a feeling of being pushed and losing balance so I thought it might be interesting for Richard to have a look around.”

However residents in Layham are still yet to be convinced their village hall is the haunt of the undead.

David Pratt, chairman of the village hall committee and vice chairman of the parish council, said: “I wouldn't say I like being in there in the dark but I've never come across anything ghostly.”



HAUNTED EAST ANGLIA

EAST Anglia appears to have had more than its fair share of ghostly goings on over the centuries.

From hanged monks, to beheaded coachmen and things going bump in the night, the region has been home to plenty of paranormal activity.

Blythburgh Common is said to be haunted by the ghost of Tobias Gill, also known as Black Toby. Legend has it that his ghost is regularly seen thundering across the area where he was hanged on a hearse pulled by four black horses.

Borley Rectory, in Essex, near to the Suffolk border, is reputed to be the most haunted house in the UK, with a beheaded coachman, a hanged monk and a nun bricked up alive in the walls of the vaults beneath the rectory regularly roaming the area, according to some.

Ancient House in Ipswich is said to be haunted by an elderly woman, while the town's PJ McGinty's Pub, in Northgate Street, is thought to be haunted by a monk who was murdered and thrown down the indoor well.

The 'lost city' of Dunwich is another centre for paranormal activity. To this day, monks are said to walk in procession chanting ancient verses. Some claim the bells of Dunwich's lost churches can be heard ringing on stormy nights.

And there have been numerous reports of mysterious footsteps and unexplained knocks at the Crown Inn at Bildeston, with a maidservant believed to haunt the courtyard and stable where she took her own life.

Medieval Bury St Edmunds has a rich history of ghost sightings and stories, mainly centred around the Abbey ruins but also in the older buildings in the town centre.

Article HERE

6th

This is one of the times where I have to say that I just post these stories ... i'm not claiming I believe them or not!

Israeli-born celebrity psychic says US troops found fugitive Iraqi ex-dictator through power of paranormal

Did a clairvoyant help US commandos ferret Saddam Hussein out of his hiding place in Iraq three years ago?

Israeli-born celebrity psychic Uri Geller, best known for his spoon-bending antics, says the power of the paranormal led US troops to the fugitive Iraqi ex-dictator.

"You remember when they found Saddam Hussein in Iraq? A soldier walked over to a rock, lifted it and then found a trap-door and found him in there," Geller told Reuters.

"Well, I know that that soldier walked over to that rock because he got information from a 'remote viewer' from the United States."

Geller, who says he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War, said his information came from a high-level source involved in US paranormal programs.

A US military spokesman in Iraq had no immediate comment. At the time of his capture, US commanders said a source close to the fugitive had given him up under interrogation.

A Brazilian psychic tried last year to claim a USD 25 million bounty offered for Saddam's capture, saying he had described the hiding place in letters to the US government.

Full Article HERE

Steyr

That old graveyard in westside aka rahoon is right next to the apartments and is more or less at the base of the hill going up to the "new" cemetary. there are somb tombs still standing albeit leaning and collapsing but you can see inside them.

Ziycon

its possible that there are/where unmarked graves that where never discover and hence the estate was built over it, i've heard stories about unmark graves being uncovered on construction sites before!

On a lighter note, this Galway haunting reminds me of Poltergist 2 which was on the other night! They moved the headstones but not the bodys and built the new estate!