The Dalkeith Fire Station

In the Midlothian village, the fire fighters of the Dalkeith fire house are bothered by a slew of paranormal activity. Surprisingly, it doesn't surprise the men of this station. Apparently,  the station was built on the ruins of an eighteenth century abbey. At the time, there had been many excavations on the building, which tends to churn up spiritual activity. The fire men have reported strange noises, eerie screams and loud banging sounds in the middle of the night. The current Commander, Commander Wotherspoon, called the Angels Gateway Spiritualist Church in Bilston, to get rid of the entity, which they believed to be that of a monk. 

The leader of the organization came to try and help out. Through a reading, she determined that there were in fact several ghosts haunting the property, but only one was causing the disturbance. She discovered that the it was the ghost of a monk named Thomas Howard, a monk who had been raised in the abbey, but also dabbled in the dark arts. She also said that he was an evil entity who had done horrible things in life. This ghost was the reason the fire men felt on edge when there because he shifted the energy. 

On the evening of January 23, 2005, the woman and eleven other members went to the fire house in attempts to banish the spirit. They managed to conjure up Thomas Howard, and he spent most of the vigil explaining himself and telling his life story. He also told stories about how he caused the deaths of many people. at one point during the cleansing ceremony, the leader of the ceremony was forced into a kneeling position with her hands close to her chest. The monk explained that this was what he did to his victims. They managed to get the monk to cross over, apparently he just wanted his story to be told before he left this world.

Ghosts of Alzatraz

In the late 1850s, the first inmates to occupy Alcatraz were military prisoners who were put to work building a new prison that later became known as "The Rock." The U.S. Army used the island until 1933, at which time the Federal Government decided to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates.
Alcatraz was designed to break rebellious prisoners by putting them in a structured, monotonous routine until their release. Prisoners were given four basic things - food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Receiving anything beyond that had to be earned. Famous criminals, such as Al Capone, George "Machine-Gun" Kelly, Alvin Karpis and Arthur "Doc" Barker, spent time in Alcatraz. Mobsters in other prisons often managed to manipulate special privileges from guards, but not at Alcatraz.


Tough Punishment
The Strip CellPrisoners refusing to follow prison rules risked being confined to the Strip Cell, located on the lower tier of D Block. It was a dark steel cell, where inmates would be stripped naked and given water and bread once daily, an occasional meal and a mattress at night. The only 'toilet' was a hole in the cell floor and there was no sink. While there, convicts had no contact with others, spending their time in pitch-dark solitude.
The Hole on D BlockSimilar to the strip cell, there were five 'hole' cells also on the lower tier, where prisoners were kept in isolation for up to 19 days. The cells had a toilet, sink, lightbulb and a mattress provided during the night only.


Prison Closure

Because of the huge cost to refurbish the prison it was closed in 1963. Later the island and parts of the prison were reopened by the Parks Services for daily public tours.
Tales of TortureThe fact that Alcatraz was built on an island and kept so isolated from public view, tales of inmates being tortured and of their bitter spirits coming back to haunt the halls of Alcatraz began to circulate.


The Ghost Stories of Alcatraz
The Utility Corridor

One of the areas which some claim is the most active with paranormal activity is a utility corridor where inmates Coy, Cretzer and Hubbard were plummeted with bullets after a failed prison escape. It is there that in 1976 a night security guard reported hearing unexplained eerie clanging sounds coming from inside.


Cell 14D

Cell 14D, one of the 'hole' cells is believed by some to be very active with spirits. Visitors and employees have reported feeling a raw coldness and at times a sudden 'intensity' encompasses the cell.


Tales have been told of an event in the 1940s, when a prisoner locked-in 14D screamed throughout the night that a creature with glowing eyes was killing him. The next day guards found the man strangled to death in the cell. No one ever claimed responsibility for the convict's death, however the next day when doing head counts, the guards counted one too many prisoners. Some of the guards claimed seeing the dead convict in line with the other inmates, but only for a second before he vanished.


Warden Johnston

Other stories have circulated that Warden Johnston, nicknamed "The Golden Rule Warden," also faced a bizarre event while showing some of his guests around the prison. According to the story, Johnston and his group heard someone sobbing from inside the prison walls, and then a cold wind whisked past the group. Johnston could never explain any reason for the occurances.


Cell blocks A, B, and C

Visitors to cellblocks A and B claim they have heard crying and moaning. A psychic visiting wrote that while in Block C he came upon a disruptive spirit name Butcher. Prison records show that another inmate in block C murdered Abie Maldowitz, a mob hitman known as Butcher.


The Ghost of Al Capone

Al Capone, who spent his last years at Alcatraz with his health in decline from untreated syphilis, took up playing the banjo with a prison band. Fearing he would be killed if he spent his recreational time in the "yard," Capone received permission to spend recreation time practicing his banjo in the shower room.


In recent years, a park ranger claimed he heard banjo music coming from the shower room. Not familiar with the history of Alcatraz, the ranger could not find a reason for the sound and documented the strange event. Other visitors and employees have reported hearing the sound of a banjo coming from the prison walls.

Atchison's Haunted House

Sallie's, the Heartland Ghost, North 2nd Street Home – Sallie, the “Heartland Ghost,” is said to haunt this house that once belonged to a local doctor. The tale of Sallie’s ghost has been featured three times on the popular 1990’s paranormal television show Sightings, as well as Unexplained Mysteries. Long ago, six-year old Sallie grew terribly sick during the night with severe abdominal pains. Sallie’s mother rushed her to the doctor’s house, where his family lived on the upper floor and he operated his practice on the main floor.

Sallie’s mother listened as the doctor diagnosed young Sallie with a severe case of appendicitis, requiring immediate surgery. The little girl panicked at the sight of the surgical tools and the doctor was forced to hold her down to give her ether.

However, in his haste, the physician did not allow the anesthesia to take its full effect and began operating. Sallie awoke during the initial incision and began fighting and wresting against the pain. Before she died, she was said to have looked at the doctor with both fear and loathing, and remains within the house to this day.

In 1993, the house was rented to a young couple who reported that Sallie made an almost immediate appearance, playing frequent pranks such turning electrical appliances on and off, turning pictures upside down, and scattering their child’s toys about the nursery.
Shortly after these harmless pranks, the ghostly activities turned malevolent, with the young husband suffering from frequent attacks. The couple also experienced a number of small spontaneous fires throughout the house. In fact, when the Sightings crew was at the house filming for the upcoming show, a red welt appeared on the stomach of the man and then began to bleed. The man, who described a severe drop in temperature prior to the attacks, would often be left with a number of long bloody scratches.

At their wits end, a psychic was consulted who informed the couple that there were actually two spirits within the house. The psychic indicated that it was not Sallie who was responsible for the malevolent activities, but rather a ghostly woman of about 30. While Sallie may have been responsible for the harmless pranks, it was this older woman who was the evil one. Allegedly, this mysterious woman was, at first, fond of the gentleman who lived in the house and tried to get close to him, while at the same time, attempting to drive a wedge between he and his wife. When she was unsuccessful at this, she began to attack the husband.

Finally, after the husband felt a strong shove from behind that nearly sent him over the stair railing, the couple could no longer take it and moved from the house.

Since, this couple has moved, later residents have reported no activity occurring in the house.

The Tower of London

The Tower of London

Grim, grey and awe-inspiring, the Tower has dominated the London landscape and the pages of history, since its construction by William the Conqueror in 1078 and today it is, perhaps, the most haunted building in England.

The Wakefield Tower is haunted by that most tragic of English monarchs, Henry VI, whose weak and ineffectual reign ended here with his murder “in the hour before midnight” on 21st May 1471, as he knelt at prayer. Tradition asserts that the knife with which he was “stikk’d full of deadly holes” was wielded by the Duke of Gloucester (later the infamous Richard III). On the anniversary of his murder, Henry’s mournful wraith is said to appear as the clock ticks towards midnight, and pace fitfully around the interior of the Wakefield Tower until, upon the last stroke of midnight, he fades slowly into the stone and rests peacefully for another year.

The massive White Tower is the oldest and most forbidding of all the Tower of London’s buildings and its winding stone corridors are the eerie haunt of a “White Lady” who once stood at a window waving to a group of children in the building opposite. It may well be her “cheap perfume” that impregnates the air around the entrance to St John’s Chapel, and which has caused many a Guard to retch upon inhaling its pungent aroma. In the gallery where Henry V111’s impressive and exaggerating suit of armour is exhibited, several Guards have spoken of a terrible crushing sensation that suddenly descends upon them as they enter but which lifts, the moment they stagger, shaking from the room. A guard patrolling through here one stormy night got the sudden and unnerving sensation that someone had thrown a heavy cloak over him. As he struggled to free himself, the garment was seized from behind and pulled tight around his throat by his phantom attacker. Managing to break free from its sinister grasp, he rushed back to the guardroom where the marks upon his neck bore vivid testimony to his brush with the unseen assailant.

A memorial on Tower Green remembers all those unfortunate souls who have been executed here over the centuries. Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey are both said to return to the vicinity, whilst the ghost of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury returns here in a dramatic and alarming fashion. At the age of seventy-two she became an unwitting and undeserving target for Henry VIII’s petty vengeance. Her son, Cardinal Pole had vilified the King’s claim as head of the Church in England. But he was safely ensconced in France and so Henry had his mother brought to the block on 27th May 1541. When told by the executioner to kneel, the spirited old lady refused. “So should traitors do and I am none” she sneered. The executioner raised his axe, took a swing at her and then chased the screaming Countess around the scaffold where he, literally, hacked her to death. The shameful spectacle has been repeated several times on the anniversary of her death, as her screaming phantom continues to be chased throughout eternity by a ghostly executioner.

The Bloody Tower, the very name of which conjures up all manner of gruesome images, is home to the most poignant shades that drift through this dreadful fortress. When Edward IV died suddenly in April 1483, his twelve year old son was destined to succeed him as Edward V. However, before his coronation could take place, both he and his younger brother, Richard, had been declared illegitimate by Parliament and it was their uncle, the Duke of Gloucester who ascended the throne as Richard III. The boys, meanwhile, had been sent to the Tower of London, ostensibly in preparation for Edward’s Coronation, and were often seen playing happily around the grounds. But then, around June 1483, they mysteriously vanished, and were never seen alive again. It was always assumed, that they had been murdered on Richard’s instructions and their bodies buried, somewhere within the grounds of The Tower. When two skeletons were uncovered beneath a staircase of the White Tower in 1674, they were presumed to be the remains of the two little princes and afforded Royal burial in Westminster Abbey. The whimpering wraiths of the two children, dressed in white nightgowns, and clutching each other in terror have frequently been seen in the dimly lit rooms of their imprisonment. Witnesses are moved to pity and long to reach out and console the pathetic spectres. But, should they do so, trembling back slowly against the wall and fade into the fabric.

Returning to the White Tower, and the fearless Custody Guards who wander its interior in the dead of night, there is the eerie occasion when Mr Arthur Crick, decided to rest as he made his rounds. Sitting on a ledge, he slipped off his right shoe and was in the process of massaging his foot, when a voice behind him whispered, “There’s only you and I here”. This elicited from Arthur the very earthly response “Just let me get this bloody shoe on and there’ll only be you”!

A Ghost Finds Peace

A Ghost Finds Peace

In Kennet Valley in England, there is a village called Ramsbury. 75 years ago, there was an exceptionally haunted house.

Samuel and Mary Jane Bull had lived very happy lives in the village until Samuel passed away. Mary Jane dealt with it well, until she became sick. Her married daughter moved back home to take care of her sick mother. She also had to bring her husband and five children. The house was incredibly crowded.

One of the children claimed to see the apparition of Samuel's spirit. They would see him climb the stairs, seemingly trying to tend to his wife's needs. Apparently it had been happening for months and Mary Jane had come to love her deceased husband's visits. He sat on the side of her bed and offered a soothing hand.

Eventually they moved into a bigger house and Samuel's ghost was never seen again and Samuel was never seen again. Apparently he wanted them to move into a bigger house.

The Lady in White

12 days till Halloween!

The Lady in White

It was a full moon, and John, a workman, was hired to do some exterior repair work on a lighthouse. It was a calm quiet evening. Odd, considering that only a month previous a hurricane had slammed a ship against the rocky coast right below the lighthouse killing everyone except a baby. The baby was soon adopted, and everyone tried to forget the horrific scene.

John had almost finished his job, when he was distracted by the sound of a moan in the wind. It sounded like it had been blown from the shoreline. But there was no wind, the night was still.

Slightly freaked, he turned to continue to his task, but, before he turned around, he saw the image of a woman, wearing a white tattered dress. Her pathetic form floated towards him until he could see her very clearly. John fled to the bunkhouse, where his coworkers were relaxing.

When asked what was wrong, John explained what had just happened to him. All of the men had had experience out on the sea, and were familiar with all of the superstitions and legends of nautical life. They believed his story, and were scared themselves.

Over the next two months, the woman was seen again. The image haunted people due to her sad forlorn look. They all agreed at the terribleness of the woman's demise, and her eternity with a broken heart.

The news of the sightings soon spread to other communities. The lighthouse could not keep staffed. No one wanted to run into the ghost.

Others did whether they wanted to or not. Some also claimed to hear the moan like John had that night. A few were haunted by the horrible look in the phantom's eyes as she lifted her head and seemed to look pleadingly into their eyes. It seems that she is looking for help.

A few years later, the man who had taken the child from the mother's arms heard about the haunting. He would never forget having to pry the baby out of the mother's arms.

The man, and a few other people gathered to give the woman a memorial, in hopes of helping the woman cross over.

And for years, they thought it had worked.

And for many years it did, and still does. The woman is hardly ever seen now, and only when the moon is full in the sky.

Phantom Horseman at the Brandywine

16 days till Halloween!

The Phantom Horseman at the Brandywine

No one knows who he is, when he was first seen, or why he is still lingering at the Brandywine battlefield. He is always seen riding horseback in the middle of the battle field on fall nights. Some reports say that he has been seen crossing Chadds Ford in military clothes.

He has also been seen in the Brandywine Valley. People have seen him galloping through the trees and incredible speeds. His face is always pale and emotionless as his rides, always in a hurry.

There are also sightings of him crossing the road, where it crosses across the battlefield. Drivers have spotted the rider galloping towards them as they drive down the road. Drivers usually swerve out of the way startled at what they see. When they look in their review mirrors they are shocked at the lack of a horseman behind them.

Paranormal investigators believe that the ghost is General Mad Anthony Wayne. Apparently, he is looking for the bones from his body that were lost when his body was transported from Erie to his home town of Randor. The Brandywine was the worst loss of Wayne's career. He had received orders from George Washington, who had told him to hold on Chadd's River , that the British were coming. Washington expected Wayne to fight off the British at the Brandywine. When the battle comenced, Wayne and the other American soldiers but up a desperate fight, Wayne ran up and down the battle field, rallying his troops. He refused to admit the loss of a clearly loss battle.

Wayne had been haunted by that battle for the rest of his life. This is why many believe the ghost is Wayne, still fighting in the afterlife.

There are many other theories as to who the rider is. Some even claim that the ghost doesn't have a head. He is also no longer visible than twelve seconds, so it's hard to be sure. He is also said to be brandishing a saber. If the ghost is headless, who died of gout, it's probably not Wayne.

Some believe that there could be two ghosts haunting the Brandywine. It is hard to argue the paranormal activity there, no matter what the event that got the ghost there. His ride is a reminder of the bloody history of our nation's founding