The Tower of London

Next we turn to another haunted castle, perhaps the most famous haunted castle of them all. The Tower of London has stood for more than 900 years, and has been the scene of countless executions, murders and other grisly deaths. Commissioned by William the Conqueror, it stands on the north bank of the Thames in central London, and was initially seen as a symbol of the oppression imposed on the English by the new Norman regime. Originally constructed as a royal residence and defensive stronghold, it was used to hold state prisoners from 1100 onwards, though this use was at first incidental. From the Tudor period, however, the Tower was used less as a royal residence, and began to acquire a reputation as England’s most grim and forbidding prison, used to hold enemies of the state, including religious and political undesirables. It was the realm’s chief torture centre, and was the place where the rack was first introduced to England in 1447 by the Duke of Exeter, Constable of the Tower. Although the use of torture ended in the eighteenth century, the Tower continued to function as a prison and a place of execution. Among the last people to be held prisoner in the Tower (to date) were Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi Party (1941) and the Kray twins (1952). The last person to be executed there was Josef Jakobs, a German spy, in August 1941.

With such a history of imprisonment, torture and execution, it would be surprising indeed if the Tower did not have the reputation of being haunted. Among the spirits that purportedly haunt the Tower are several royal ghosts. Perhaps the most famous is Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, who was held at the Tower prior to her execution there in 1536. Her ghost has reportedly been seen on numerous occasions, sometimes lacking a head, sometimes carrying it, on Tower Green and in the Tower Chapel Royal. The ghost of Lady Jane Grey, the ‘nine-day Queen’, who was likewise executed at the Tower in 1554, is also said to haunt the castle. She is usually seen standing on the roof of the Salt Tower, although no sightings of her have been reported for several decades. Another female spectre of royal blood is that of Arbella Stuart, cousin of James I, who was imprisoned and possibly murdered at the Tower. She reputedly haunts The Queen's House, considered one of the most haunted buildings at the Tower of London.
The ghost of an actual King of England, Henry VI, is said to haunt the Wakefield Tower. Henry, who was murdered here by the Duke of Gloucester in 1471, is said to appear and walk around a few minutes before midnight in the area in which he died. The uncrowned boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard (the Princes in the Tower) who were also supposedly murdered by Gloucester following his seizure of the crown, have been seen in various rooms in the Bloody Tower where they were incarcerated.

Other famous individuals whose ghosts purportedly haunt the Tower include Thomas a Becket, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Guildford Dudley and Guy Fawkes. Why Becket would haunt the Tower seems something of a mystery, since he did not die there and was never a prisoner there. Perhaps, having been murdered on the orders of the King, his spirit chose to haunt the symbolic seat of the monarchy. Raleigh also did not die in the Tower, though he was held prisoner there for years. Fawkes was tortured in the Tower prior to his execution, while Dudley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey, was executed along with his wife a t the Tower.

The other ghosts of the Tower may not be the spirits of famous individuals, but their appearances are frightening all the same. These include a grey lady who haunts the Queen’s House and apparently only manifests herself to women; and a phantom man in mediaeval clothing who appears in the same building. Another lady, dressed in white, is said to haunt the White Tower, and the strong scent of her perfume has been noticed by many visitors.

Over the centuries military personnel stationed at the Tower have reported various supernatural incidents. One curious manifestation was witnessed during the Second World War, when a soldier guarding the main entrance to the Tower reported seeing a group of people in old-fashioned uniforms walking towards the gate carrying a stretcher containing a headless body. The figures faded away just before they reached the guard. Quite a different sort of ghost witnessed by another guard was the phantom bear that allegedly appeared by the Martin Tower in 1816. The spectral beast charged at the soldier, who attempted to bayonet it, only to find that his weapon passed straight through the creature. The soldier collapsed with fright and, so the story goes, later died of shock.

Another curious Tower legend concerning animals is that of the ravens. According to the story, if the number of ravens resident at the Tower falls below six, the Crown will fall and the kingdom will fall with it. The ravens of the Tower have been protected since the time of Charles II, and in fact have their wings clipped to ensure they cannot leave.

These and other legends and stories about the ghosts of the Tower continue to be retold, and fresh sightings are reported at intervals. If you are ever in London, the castle is well worth a visit. Perhaps you too will experience an encounter to be added to the long list of sightings at this most haunted of sites.

Dover Castle

The tale of the haunted castle is almost a cliché. But in the case of Dover Castle in Kent, England, the hauntings are very real, according to the large number of witnesses who have testified to having experienced paranormal happenings at the site.  

 

Guarding the shortest crossing point of the English Channel, Dover Castle is the largest castle in the UK and has been a key military stronghold from the Middle Ages through to the Second World War. Human activity on the site goes back even further. Excavations have provided evidence of Iron Age activity in the locality, and the site may have been fortified with earthworks at that time. In the Roman period, a lighthouse was erected, the ruins of which are still visible inside the present castle. Later, a fortified Saxon burgh is believed to have existed on the site, centred around the church of St Mary de Castro (which still exists, though heavily reconstructed). The church re-used the old Roman lighthouse as a bell-tower. A Norman motte and bailey castle was erected at Dover shortly after the 1066 invasion, but the castle we see today began to take recognisable shape during the reign of Henry II. The defences were improved in the later Middle Ages and the Tudor period to take account of the new importance of gunpowder and cannon. The castle played only a minor role in the English Civil War, but due to its strategic location, was of great importance both in the Napoleonic Wars and in the Second World War. A network of tunnels was dug into the chalk hillside beneath the castle. The first of these were created during the mediaeval period, but they were greatly extended during both the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War, when they served as a barracks, underground military command centre and hospital.

 

Today, the castle is managed by English Heritage and open to the public as a museum. Over the years, visitors and staff have reported a multitude of ghostly phenomena on the site. The castle keep is one of the main areas of activity. Apparitions include the ghost of the lower half of a man in the King’s bedroom, a woman in a flowing red dress around the stairwell, and a spectral cavalier in the keep’s basement. This last figure is reportedly dressed in early seventeenth century clothing, wearing a black wide brimmed hat and a purple cloak, with long dark wavy hair and a moustache. A figure in blue has also been reported on many occasions in the mural gallery area, and on one occasion a camera crew walking below the keep reported hearing a ghastly scream from above.

 

One of the castle’s most famous ghosts is the spectre of a headless drummer boy, frequently seen on the battlements outside the keep. This figure is said to be the ghost of 15-year-old Sean Flynn, who, in the early 1800s, was supposedly sent on an errand to the town carrying a substantial amount of money. He was ambushed by other soldiers in an attempt to steal the money, and, so the story goes, he was decapitated by one of their swords as he attempted to fight them off. Over the centuries numerous witnesses have reported sighting his ghost, or hearing phantom drumming noises in the vicinity of his murder.       

 

The most haunted areas of the castle, however, appear to be the underground tunnels. There have been numerous sightings in the WWII tunnels, mostly of ghostly servicemen. In 1989 one visitor reported seeing a man dressed in military uniform walk through a metal plate door. Other apparitions reported from the wartime tunnels include the ghost of a man who was killed while setting up radio equipment, a spectral doctor in the underground hospital, and strange moving shadows in the old operating theatre.. On one occasion the phantom radio technician apparently walked straight through a visitor.

 

The mediaeval tunnels also appear to have their fair share of ghosts. The spectre of a seventeenth century soldier, wearing a helmet and carrying a pike, has been reported in the old guardroom at the furthest end of these tunnels. A man in a blue cloak has also been seen walking along the tunnels. The area of greatest activity appears to be the area beneath St John’s Tower, where the distinct sound of heavy wooden doors being slammed shut is reported on fairly frequent occasion, while phantom screams and moans have also been been heard in this area. On one occasion two visitors claimed to have seen the apparition of a human body dangling from above.

 

In 2002, the TV series Most Haunted Live conducted an investigation of the castle. The programme invited medium Derek Acorah to conduct a psychic survey of the castle. Acorah claimed to sense a psychic impression of wounded men in the tunnels below St John’s tower, and the spirit of a Napoleonic era doctor tending to them. In the lower level tunnels he detected the ‘psychic energy’ of prisoners once incarcerated there. Acorah also claimed to sense the spirit in the King’s bedchamber, which he identified as that of a one-time servant of an eighteenth-century King, and further claimed that he could sense the spirits of the drummer boy, Sean Flynn, and the ghostly pikeman in the underground guardroom. An experiment was also conducted in which a ‘trigger object’ a large key, was placed in the guardroom. This key was later found to have moved, apparently of its own accord.       

 

Every year, more ghostly stories are reported from the castle by staff and visitors alike Sceptics may dismiss these stories as local folklore, the products of over-active imaginations, or outright fabrication. But how many of them would care to spend a night alone in the keep, or in the maze of tunnels beneath the castle? And if they did so, might they just possibly experience something that would change their minds about the reality of the supernatural?        

Alcatraz

There are few places more haunted than Alcatraz , the most famous of America’s prisons. Located in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Island has been a place of superstition and fear since long before the penitentiary was built. Today, it is one of the most well-known sites of alleged paranormal activity in the world.

Native Americans believed the island was inhabited by evil spirits, although this did not prevent a few of them from taking refuge there when displaced from their homelands. Later, the island’s value as a potential defensive stronghold was realised, and in 1854  the military decided to build a fortress there to guard the entrance to the harbour. Alcatraz Citadel, also known as Fort Alcatraz, was completed in 1859 and served as an important Union stronghold in the US Civil War. It became a prisoner of war camp in 1861 and a military prison in 1868. Conditions at the military prison were grim, and numerous inmates perished on the island, both during and after the war.

After the original citadel collapsed, a concrete military prison was erected on the site in 1912. In 1933–1934, the building was modernised and became the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Between 1934 and 1963 some of America's most dangerous criminals were incarcerated at Alcatraz. In that period, eight people were murdered at the prison by inmates. A guard was murdered in the laundry room in the late 1930s, two prisoners died during an escape attempt in 1946, and five other inmates were killed in violent attacks. Five others committed suicide, and at least a dozen died in total trying to escape.

Given the number of deaths and the scale of human misery experienced on the site, it is perhaps not surprising that Alcatraz acquired the reputation of being haunted. Reports of ghostly activity began while the prison was still operating, both from prisoners and from staff. These included phantom whispering sounds, spectral blue lights and figures, phantom gunfire, cannon blasts and fire alarms going off of their own accord, the clanking of chains and eerie groans, and the apparitions of Civil War era inmates who had died on the site during its time as a military prison. One story relates how a prisoner on the notorious D-block reportedly screamed for hours, claiming that there was an entity with glowing red eyes in the cell with him. He was supposedly found dead the next morning, with a purple face, bulging eyes, and unidentified finger marks around his throat. Some of the guards reportedly experienced ghostly activity too, including cold spots, unseen fingers on the back of their neck, and crying in the night. Several guards reported seeing the spectre of a man with mutton-chop sideburns, dressed in grey, whose appearance turned the room icy cold. The Warden of Alcatraz, James A. Johnston, did not believe in ghosts, but even he reported unexplained sobbing coming from the old military dungeons beneath the prison, followed by an icy wind that swept around him and his group.     

Since the prison closed in 1963, reports of paranormal activity have continued. Alcatraz became a museum in the 1970s, and since that time numerous visitors and staff have reported strange experiences. These have included feelings of being watched, unexplained footsteps, moaning, screams, crying, unexplained clanging sounds, and locked cell doors opening of their own accord. The ghost of former inmate Abie Maldowitz is said to haunt the laundry room on C-Block, where he was murdered. The most haunted part of the prison is reputed to be D-Block, especially cells 11-14. These were the solitary confinement cells known as ‘The Hole’, where prisoners were stripped, beaten, kept in darkness and on starvation rations, and forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Cell 14-D, the worst cell of all, is considered to be the most haunted cell in the prison. The cell is always intensely cold, even in summer, and many visitors have reported intense sensations of a presence there. Some staff refuse to visit this cell alone. 

Another ghostly hotspot in the prison is the shower room, where many visitors have reported experiencing cold chills, as well as icy fingers touching their necks. Phantom banjo sounds have been reported emanating from the room; it is said that Al Capone used to practice banjo there. Other famous inmates who have been claimed to still haunt the prison include Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, who has allegedly been sighted in the prison bakery and kitchen, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly, who is said to haunt the church.

Former inmate Leon “Whitey” Thompson, who later returned to work as a guide at Alcatraz, believed he had encountered the ghost of his former cellmate Johnny Haus at the jail in the 1980s. Another guide who has reported paranormal activity is Lori Brosnan, whose experiences include unexplained sounds and locked cell doors – to which only she had the keys – opening in the middle of the night. The utility corridor where three prisoners were killed in a failed escape attempt is said to be one of the most haunted spots in the prison. One witness was a night watchman, who reported inexplicable clanging sounds coming from the corridor in 1976. He did not believe in ghosts, but he could find no explanation for the noises. It is said that the recurring disturbances on this corridor caused the access door to be welded shut for a time.      

These are just some of the ghost stories of Alcatraz. The National Park Service, which operates the island as a tourist site, officially dismisses the claims of supernatural activity at the former prison. Many of its own employees, however, are believers. In light of the history of the site, many people would agree that if any place were likely to have ghosts, that place would be Alcatraz.

The faces of Bélmez

Bélmez de la Moraleda is a sleepy rural town in in the hills of the Sierra de la Magina in Spain’s principal olive oil region. Here, in the summer of 1971, Maria Gómez Pereira  was playing with her infant grandson in the kitchen of the family home. Suddenly the child cried out excitedly and pointed at the floor. What he had seen there may have been nothing more than a diverting new game to him, but it terrified his grandmother. For the image of a human face had inexplicably appeared on the concrete.

That was the extraordinary claim made by the Pereia family, the house’s occupants. According to their story, the face wore a deeply sorrowful expression that only deepened when they tried to clean it off. Eventually they destroyed the image with a pickaxe, and laid new concrete down. But a few weeks later another face appeared, even more clearly defined than the first.

This time the family involved the local authorities, and the section of concrete was carefully removed and sent away for study. The floor was once again repaired, only for further faces to appear. The media soon picked up the story, resulting in the house becoming a magnet for tourists by the spring of 1972. The phenomenon was to continue for another thirty years.

Experts analysed the images, but were unable to prove that they had been faked. Chemical analysis failed to confirm the use of paints or dyes, though sceptics continued to believe that the family had produced the images by means of some oxidising chemical or pigment that stained the concrete. If the faces were indeed faked by the family, their motive is not obvious. It could not have been financial, as they never charged visitors for entry to the house, and they did not accept donations. While the town of Bélmez may have benefited financially from the tourism boost, the Pereia family did not.

When the floor was excavated in the hopes of finding whatever was causing the phenomenon, a mediaeval cemetery was discovered. The bones were removed and reburied elsewhere, but as soon as the floor was restored, the images began to appear again. Ultra-sensitive microphones placed in the house picked up sounds of strange voices, cries and agonised moans inaudible to the human ear. Despite the disturbances, Maria Gómez Pereia continued to live in the house for the remainder of her life. The faces continued to appear at intermittent intervals over the following decades.

The Bélmez case was dubbed by one investigator as the most important paranormal phenomenon of the twentieth century, and the mystery is still going strong today. Maria Gómez died in 2004, but reports of fresh faces appearing at the property have continued over the last ten years. Doubters continue to claim fraud, but many others regard the phenomenon as genuine. They speculate that the site of the house was once the scene of a terrible incident, perhaps connected with some form of mediaeval witchcraft. Whatever the truth, the house in the once-obscure little town of Bélmez remains one of the most famous sites of alleged paranormal activity in the world.

UB-65: The haunted submarine

There are a number of ghost stories connected with the Great War, but one of the most famous is the tale of UB-65, a German U-boat (submarine) that served from 1917 to 1918. Allegedly haunted and believed by her crew to be cursed, the vessel experienced a series of strange phenomena before finally sinking in mysterious circumstances with the loss of all hands.

UB-65 was constructed in Hamburg and launched in July 1917. From the start she was plagued by bad luck. Four deaths occurred during her construction, including a workman killed by a falling girder and three engineers killed by fumes in the engine room. While she was on sea trials, a crew member was swept overboard and drowned. On her first test dive, a ballast tank failed, causing the submarine to sink to the bottom.  She remained there for twelve hours. Just as the oxygen was about to run out, the crew managed to repair the damage and surface.

Despite these problems, UB-65 was commissioned into service following her return to the harbour. While refuelling and taking on board weapons, a torpedo exploded, taking the death toll to 11. One of the victims was Lieutenant Richter, the ship’s second officer, who had been overseeing the loading. Not long afterwards, as the damaged submarine was being towed into dry dock for repairs, a crewman swore he had seen the dead officer standing on the prow of the vessel. This was to be the first of many alleged sightings of the ghost of Lieutenant Richter aboard UB-65.

As the repaired submarine was preparing to set out on her first mission, two crewmen reported sighting the spectral officer on separate occasions. Once at sea, the entire engine room staff allegedly reported seeing the ghost standing beside an instrument panel. The duty officer on the bridge also reported seeing the ghost on the prow and watching as it faded from sight. The Captain, having had enough of this ‘foolishness’, berated a crewmember over a further alleged sighting, but then saw the spectre for himself, standing on the submarine’s prow in the midst of a storm.    

The situation had so affected the morale of the crew that the Imperial Navy had the ship exorcised by a priest. On her next tour of duty, UB-65 had a new crew, and a new captain, who forbade any discussion of the alleged haunting. But the ghost continued to be seen. One witness was the Chief Petty Officer, who claimed that the spectral officer had walked right through the bulkhead into his quarters. Another sailor went mad after seeing the ghost and leapt overboard to his death.

In July 1918, UB-65 was sighted on the surface in the Irish Sea by an American submarine. The US vessel, which was submerged, prepared to attack. Before the Americans could fire, however, the U-boat was suddenly stricken by a huge explosion and sank with all hands. It was the final blow in a long series of disasters for the jinxed ship.  

Some sources state that the American crew saw a figure in an officer’s overcoat standing on the prow of UB-65 just before the submarine went down. Did Lieutenant Richter make a final appearance right before his shipmates joined him in the netherworld?

Ballechin House

If Borley Rectory has a reputation as England’s most haunted house of all time, Ballechin House holds a similar distinction in Scotland. Like its English counterpart, the original house was demolished decades ago, yet the legends about the site go on to this day.

Located near Grandtully, Perthshire, the house was built in 1806 on the site of a much older manor house, occupied by the Steuart family since the fifteenth century. Its early years appear to have been free of paranormal phenomena, but in 1834 Ballechin was inherited by a Major Robert Steuart, who spent his later years living in the house with numerous dogs. During his military service in India, Major Steuart, who seems to have been somewhat eccentric, had come to believe in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. He reportedly claimed that after his death, he would return in the form of a dog. Following the Major’s death in 1876, the house was inherited by his nephew John Skinner, who reportedly shot all fourteen of his uncle’s surviving dogs.

It seems that the Major and his slain dogs did not rest in peace, however. The first odd phenomena were reported not long afterwards. These began with an inexplicable smell of dogs, frequently noticed both by the occupants and by visitors to the house. This quickly progressed to reports of invisible furry bodies brushing against people’s legs, and sensations of being nudged or pawed by invisible canines. Then voices began to be heard, incomprehensible but angry sounding. The governess left in a hurry, complaining of invisible canine phantoms. A priest who stayed at the house in 1892 reported strange noises, angry voices and slamming doors. A group of nuns who rented a cottage in the grounds also reported supernatural disturbances.

After John Skinner died in an accident, the house was rented out to a family in 1896. They left after a few weeks, complaining that the house was haunted. Their experiences included the noises and angry voices as well as the sound of a person with a limp walking around the house. Interestingly, Major Steuart sustained a permanent leg injury during his Indian service and reportedly walked with a limp. The apparition of a woman in a silk dress was also allegedly sighted by various members of the family. It has been suggested that this particular spectre might be that of Major Steuart’s former housekeeper, with whom he was rumoured to be having an affair according to local gossip, and who died the year before the Major himself. There were also reports of poltergeist-like activity, including bedclothes being snatched off beds in the middle of the night. The family were sufficiently unnerved that they were prepared to forfeit more than nine months’ rent in order to leave the house.          

In 1897 the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) rented Ballechin and conducted an investigation between February and May of that year. They recorded numerous strange phenomena, including the sound of dogs moving around the rooms and the apparition of a black spaniel. Uncannily, Major Steuart is supposed to have said that he wanted to be reincarnated as a black spaniel. The apparition of a nun was also allegedly sighted in a nearby glen, where investigators were supposedly directed in a Ouija board session held at the house (Major Steuart’s sister had been a nun, though whether there was any connection is unclear). The story was published in 1899 by two of the investigators, and serialised in The Times. This exposure sealed Ballechin’s reputation as the ‘most haunted house in Scotland’.    

Rumours about the house continued to grow, with the tales likely becoming increasingly embellished as they were passed around. These supposedly included the apparition of a disembodied hand grasping a crucifix, an unearthly scream that was said to echo through the house at midnight, and a spectral, Quasimodo-like hunchback.  By 1932 the house was uninhabited, and remained so for three decades. Then, in 1963, much of the building was gutted by a fire. The greater part of the building was subsequently demolished, apart from one wing which had been the former servants’ quarters, and an outbuilding.

Reports of paranormal activity at the site continued, however. Jack Richardson, the priest and popular author, visited the site in the 1970s and reported an eerie clinging sensation in the old cellars, as though something were grasping his neck. Richardson interviewed the then-tenant of the remaining wing, a gentleman named Alasdair, who claimed that the old cellars were the most haunted part of the site, although he declined to say whether he himself had actually seen any apparitions. Other witnesses claimed to have seen the spectre of a black dog on the site.

In 2009, the remaining wing was extended, with the new part of the building being constructed over the site of the previously demolished main house. The resulting building, renamed Old Ballechin, was recently up for sale. It remains to be seen whether the new occupants report any supernatural happenings and open a new chapter in the history of what was once known as Scotland’s most haunted house.    

The Flying Dutchman

There are few ghost stories as enduring as the legend of the Flying Dutchman. The tale of the ghost ship doomed to sail the seas forever is perhaps the most famous of maritime legends. But there are in fact several versions of the story, and it is unclear exactly how and when the legend began.

There are some details that remain consistent across each version, however. The curse laid on the ship, to sail on a never-ending voyage from which she can never make port, is usually said to be punishment for some great sin committed by her captain, and sometimes by her crew. In many versions of the tale, the vessel is said to glow with an ethereal light. Sighting the ship, which is often accompanied by bad weather, is always taken as an extremely bad omen. Many vessels are said to have met disaster shortly after an encounter with the phantom.

The tale is generally believed to have originated in the seventeenth century, though the oldest extant versions date from the eighteenth. According to one version of the story, the captain of the Flying Dutchman made a pact with the Devil in exchange for the fastest ship on the seas. Another version names the captain as one Hendrick van der Decken, and identifies the ship as an East Indiaman that sailed from Amsterdam for the Dutch settlement at Batavia around 1680. The voyage was uneventful until the ship reached the Cape of Good Hope, when a sudden storm wrecked the rudder and tore the sails to shreds. The crew, believing the storm to be a warning from God, advised the captain to abandon his attempt to round the Cape.  In a rage, van der Decken is said to have rejected their pleas to make for port, swearing an oath that he would remain at sea until the Judgement Day rather than do so. In retribution for his defiance of the Almighty, so the story goes, he was sentenced to do just that.

According to other tellings, however, the captain’s crime was to kill his wife and brother, who he wrongly suspected of having an affair. In still other versions, the vessel is a pirate ship, cursed for some dreadful crime committed by her crew. Some witnesses claim to have seen skeletal figures manning the rigging, or the captain himself begging for mercy from the heavens. Others say that the Dutchman tries to lure other ships on to the rocks, so that the sailors will drown and be forced to join the crew of the phantom ship. Supposedly, a member of the Dutchman’s crew can gain rest only if another sailor takes his place. There are other versions, however, which say that the captain may visit shore once every seven years, searching for the love of a good woman, the one thing that can break the curse. It is claimed that, if hailed, the crew of the ghost ship will offer letters for delivery to long-dead people on land. Accepting these, however, is certain to bring misfortune.

     

There have been countless reported sightings of the spectral vessel over the years, in locations all across the globe, but particularly in the waters around the Cape of Good Hope. There were sporadic reports throughout the nineteenth century. The captain of HMS Leven, a Royal Navy warship, recorded two sightings of the Dutchman in 1823. Twelve years later, another British ship encountered an old-fashioned vessel heading straight for them in the midst of a terrible storm, which vanished just as a collision seemed inevitable. And in 1879 the SS Pretoria also encountered the ghost ship after changing course in response to strange lights, which were taken to be a distress signal. The crew of the steamer reported sighting a strange sailing vessel, which vanished when the Pretoria approached.

One of the most famous nineteenth century encounters involved a young British prince, who later went on to become King George V. In 1881 he was serving as a midshipman aboard the ironclad frigate HMS Bacchante. On July 11 of that year, while sailing off the coast of Australia between Sydney and Melbourne, he recorded in his diary: “At 4am, the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows.” The apparition was sighted on this occasion by thirteen witnesses. The prince’s tutor, John Dalton, who accompanied him on the Bacchante, described the ghost ship as being aglow with a red light. A few hours later, the lookout who had been the first to spot the Dutchman fell from the topmast and was killed.  

Sightings continued during the twentieth century. In 1911, the Orkney Belle, an American whaling ship, seemed about to collide with the Dutchman off the Cape Peninsula, until the ghost ship performed her usual trick and vanished. In 1923, a century after HMS Leven encountered the phantom, it was again sighted by Royal Navy personnel. One of the witnesses, Fourth Officer Stone, drew a picture of the ghost ship. The vessel, which they studied through binoculars, was reported to be glowing with an eerie light and to have a transparent mist where sails should be. Stone, and Second Officer Bennett, another witness, were subsequently interviewed by the Society for Psychical Research about their experience.

Another well publicised incident took place in March 1939, on Glencairn Beach on the tip of South Africa. Several dozen people on the beach reported seeing a fully rigged sailing ship suddenly appear out of the haze, her sails drawing well despite a lack of wind. Just as the ship appeared to be heading for destruction on the coast, she vanished as suddenly as she had appeared. Numerous articles about the incident appeared in newspapers the following day, with various theories being advanced to explain the sighting. The obvious explanation for the mystery ship was a mirage – that the people on the beach had seen a naturally refracted image of a ship sailing somewhere over the horizon. But witnesses stated that the ship was quite unlike any modern sailing ship, and was of a design that last sailed more than two centuries earlier. Several identified her as a Dutch East Indiaman.

In 1942, the Dutchman reportedly sailed into Table Bay. In the same year, the phantom vessel was sighted in the waters off the Cape by HMS Jubilee, which changed course to avoid a collision. In 1943, an Australian naval vessel, HMAS Beresford, disappeared while travelling westward towards the Cape. Before her disappearance, Beresford broke wartime radio silence to broadcast her final signal, a two-word message: ‘Flying Dutchman’.

The Dutchman does indeed appear to have been very active during the wartime years. Two witnesses aboard an American warship, USS Knight, claimed to have seen the phantom in broad daylight, approaching their convoy on a voyage to South Africa in 1944. They described her as an old-fashioned vessel with tattered sails, looking as though she was beating into a gale, which came within two thousand yards of their vessel before vanishing. Fearing ridicule, however, the two seamen did not officially report the sighting. The German Navy also had encounters with the Dutchman during the course of the war. Admiral Karl Doenitz recorded that several of his U-boat captains had encountered the ghost ship, particularly off the Cape peninsula. Most of these vessels were lost quite soon afterwards. One reported witness, however, the U-boat ace Otto Kretchmer, survived his encounter with the ghost ship, though another submarine from his wolf-pack was subsequently lost.   

Sightings continued after the war. In October 1955 witnesses aboard a Samoan yacht, the Joyita, apparently reported sighting a fast-moving galleon following their vessel. The following month, the Joyita was found abandoned north of Fiji, her passengers and crew missing. In the same year, the phantom ship was reportedly spotted from shore, by witnesses in a Cape Town café. And in 1959, the crew of the Dutch freighter Straat Magelhaen reported a near collision with the Flying Dutchman. The phantom ship was reportedly under full sail and a figure could be seen at the wheel.

There have been no well-authenticated sightings of the Flying Dutchman in recent years, leading some to speculate that the phantom ship and her crew may at last have been released from their curse. Others believe that the Dutchman still roams the seas, waiting to catch some unlucky vessel and her occupants unawares….  

Borley Rectory

Borley Rectory

Once known as England’s most haunted house, latterly dismissed by sceptics as merely the scene of an elaborate hoax, the story of Borley Rectory continues to stir controversy seventy years after the building itself was demolished.

The small Essex village of Borley stands on a hillside overlooking the valley of the River Stour. Its church dates to the twelfth century, while the famous rectory, a rambling Victorian building, was constructed in 1863 on the reputed site of a mediaeval monastery. Its first occupants, the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull, his wife and children, moved in shortly afterwards. Over the following decades, so it is claimed, innumerable strange happenings took place at the rectory. There were sightings of a headless monk, a spectral nun, a phantom coach and the ghost of a former priest. There were reports of poltergeists, bells ringing, mysterious writing appearing on walls and strange monastic chantings. There were phantom lights, sudden temperature drops, unexplained smells, objects mysteriously appearing, and countless other inexplicable phenomena.

The happenings reportedly began not long after the Bull family had moved in. They started with mysterious footsteps and taps in the night, and progressed to phantom voices and the inexplicable noise of ringing bells. Then one of the daughters claimed to have seen the figure of an old man in a top hat in her bedroom, and another daughter was reportedly awakened by a slap in the face from an unseen assailant. A ghostly nun was sighted on several occasions.

The nun apparently became quite a nuisance, startling visitors by peering in through the rectory windows. Sightings of her were said to pre-date the rectory’s construction. She was said to be a wayward sister from a nearby convent, who had eloped with a monk from the monastery that once occupied the site of the rectory. When the pair were caught, so the story went, the monk was beheaded and the nun was walled up alive.

Despite the unnerving phenomena, the family stayed. In 1892 Henry’s son, Harry Bull, succeeded his father as parish rector, and continued to live in the house with several of his siblings. The younger Bulls seem to have enjoyed telling servants and villagers that the house was haunted. As he grew older, Harry Bull spent much of his time in the summerhouse, from which vantage point he claimed to have seen the ghostly nun, a phantom coach and other apparitions. By the time he died in 1927, the rectory had gained a strongly established reputation as a ‘haunted house’ in local folklore.

After Harry Bull’s death, the house stood empty for more than a year, until the new rector, the Reverend Guy Eric Smith, took possession. Soon after moving in, while cleaning out a cupboard, the vicar’s wife found a brown paper package containing the skull of a young woman. Following this, the couple reportedly experienced phenomena including unexplained footsteps, phantom lights in windows and ringing bells, and Mrs Smith reported sighting the phantom carriage. The Smiths contacted the Daily Mirror, which sent a reporter and published the first in a series of articles about the rectory. The paper also arranged for a paranormal researcher, Harry Price, to visit the house. Several new phenomena apparently coincided with Price’s initial visit, including poltergeist activity and ‘spirit messages’ tapped out from the frame of a mirror. Objects also began to mysteriously appear, including pebbles, keys and medals. The Smiths had apparently had enough and left Borley in July 1929.

The house again stood empty until the following year, when the Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster (a cousin of the Bulls) moved in with his wife Marianne and their adopted daughter Adelaide. The Foysters too were soon claiming to have experienced paranormal phenomena. In 1935 the priest wrote an account of various strange happenings during his time at Borley, including servants’ bells ringing of their own accord, objects being thrown about, shattering windows and Adelaide being locked in a room with no key. Marianne Foyster claimed to have been thrown out of bed by the poltergeist, and to have seen various apparitions. On two occasions, her husband had attempted an exorcism with no success. Various writings appeared on the walls, most of them addressed to Marianne. These were mostly illegible, but one was a plea to ‘get help’ while another asked for ‘light, mass, prayers’. Two small fires also mysteriously broke out in the house, and there were often strange smells, especially of lavender. The hauntings continued to attract public attention, with further articles being published in the Daily Mirror and several paranormal investigators visiting the house. Harry Price himself returned to the rectory in October 1931. The Foysters left Borley in October 1935 due to the vicar’s declining health.

The next priest of the parish chose to live elsewhere, and the rectory stood empty until 1937. In May of that year Harry Price took out a lease on the house, and advertised for ‘responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical and unbiased’, to join a rota of observers. Out of a total of more than two hundred applicants, he chose forty-eight. Various paranormal happenings were reported by different members of the team, including moving objects, unexplained noises, a piece of soap being thrown across a sealed room, and a sudden and inexplicable temperature drop of ten degrees recorded on a thermometer. A medium who conducted a séance in the building claimed to have made contact with the spirit of a 17^th century French nun. This unfortunate lady, the medium claimed, had left her convent and travelled to England to marry a member of the Waldegrave family, who had occupied Borley’s manor house at that time. She was said to have been murdered in an earlier building on the site of the rectory. The medium also claimed to have made contact with a second spirit by the name of Sunex Amures, who said he would burn the building down at nine o’clock on the evening of 27^th February.  

After Price’s one-year lease came to an end, the rectory was purchased by a Captain W.H. Gregson. While he was in the process of moving in, the rectory caught fire and was gutted. Gregson blamed an oil lamp being knocked over in the hall. The insurance company believed the fire had been started deliberately, but were unable to prove it. A Miss Williams from nearby Borley Lodge claimed to have seen the ghostly nun in an upstairs window while the house was burning. Other witnesses spoke of seeing spectral figures moving about in the flames. The date was 27^th February 1939.

In 1940 Harry Price published a book, entitled The most haunted house in England, which set the seal on the rectory’s national and international fame. In August 1943 Price conducted a brief excavation in the ruins of the house and discovered bones, which he believed to be those of a young woman. Local opinion, however, held them to be animal bones. The remains were eventually buried in the churchyard at Liston, after Borley church refused to accept them. Price published a second book about the house in 1946, entitled The end of Borley Rectory, further cementing the fame of both the rectory, and Price himself.

After Price’s death in 1948, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) investigated the Borley case, and their findings were published in a 1956 book entitled The Haunting of Borley Rectory. It concluded that Price himself had fraudulently produced some of the phenomena and that others had been faked by Marianne Foyster. Other phenomena, it was concluded, were due to natural causes, such as rats, and the unusual acoustics of the house.

Some of the legends surrounding the house definitely appear to have been false. In 1938 the Essex Archaeological Society stated that the monastery that had supposedly once occupied the site had never existed. There was no known historical basis either for the tale of the beheaded monk and the walled-up nun. The stories may have been made up by the Bull children to romanticise their home, possibly inspired by similar stories in fiction.

In later years Marianne Foyster admitted to having faked some of the phenomena herself. She also admitted to having an affair with the lodger and using paranormal explanations to cover up their activities. Louis Mayerling, a member of Price’s team, also admitted many years later that Price and his associates, including Mayerling himself, had faked many phenomena. Yet even he claimed to have experienced genuine paranormal activity in the house on at least one occasion. Charles Wintour, another member of Price’s team who later became a well-known newspaper editor, concluded that the house was genuinely haunted, but also stated that Price was exaggerating the phenomena and destroying the credibility of any genuine paranormal activity captured.

Whatever the truth is, it should be remembered that reports of paranormal activity at the rectory started long before Price and Marianne Foyster came on the scene. Spectral happenings are still reported to this day, from the site of the rectory and in the nearby churchyard. While it does appear that the Borley stories have been exaggerated, and at least some of the phenomena were faked by Price and others, some people still believe there is a core of truth in the rectory’s reputation as England’s most haunted house.