Hans Holzer was a well-known author and parapsychologist who's written work,
which included 120 books on the subject of the paranormal, span from
the early 1960s through to the 21st century. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1920,
Hans and his family moved to New York in 1938, out of fear of the ever looming
war which would consume Europe for six years. This is the place where Hans
Holzer would remain, to carve out his career as one of the most prolific ghost
hunters of his generation. While probably best known for his investigation into
the often disputed Amityville haunting, there are numerous other houses and alleged
hauntings that Holzer has been associated with. This is just one of them.
According to Peter Underwood's 1985 book The Ghost Hunters, Holzer's already budding
interest in the paranormal was encouraged when he became friends with a
New York journalist named Denton Walker. It was the 1950s, and Walker had recently
bought a house in Rockland County, which lies to the south of New York State.
Walker was convinced that the place was haunted. Hans Holzer, who visited the
house with fellow famed parapsychologist Eileen Garrett, also became convinced.
In fact, Holzer said that it was one of the most interesting cases he had ever been
involved in. Denton Walker explained that he had heard sounds in and around the
house. Sounds of which there was no apparent source, and he said that he
always felt that someone or something was trying to get into the building.
On at least two nights he was awakened by a loud knocking at the door, only to return
to his bedroom baffled, because there was no one there.
Denton Walker had a live-in servant who claimed to have similar experiences.
So much so that he eventually refused to stay in the house alone. One guest, after
spending two nights there, left saying that he would never be able to sleep in
the house again. On another occasion, a pewter jug, which was in near-perfect
condition, was found to have clear thumb and finger indents -
as if someone had grasped it tightly enough to warp the metal. It was a
Saturday afternoon when Hans Holzer, Eileen Gerrit, her secretary, and a
magazine journalist entered the Rockland County dwelling. Eileen Garrett pointed
out one of the upstairs bedrooms as the most affected area of the house. There in
the bedroom she settled into a chair, and while the rest of the party were
downstairs, she described to Denton Walker her psychic impressions of the
house and its past. She explained that the road that abruptly ends at the front of
the house once carried on through the site of the property and beyond, leading
up to the foot of the Ramapo Mountains. She confidently claimed that the bedroom
had once been partitioned and used as a storeroom for grain and fruit, and that
she had a clearer sense of someone kneeling at the window, acting as a
lookout and brandishing a gun. Uncertain of the latter claim, Walker confirmed
that he had moved the room's partition himself when he moved in. Eileen Garrett
then called everyone in the house into the bedroom, and as they gathered around
the chair, she fell into what was described as a "cataleptic state." Her eyes
rolled back and she began to convulse violently. After a few moments she fell
off the chair and lay on the ground, clutching her head as if in pain, and
speaking in a deep masculine voice and broken English. She held out her hands in
defensive poses, screamed out in pain, and nursed what appeared to be an injured leg.
During her violent trance she told the story of a Polish mercenary, who was
chased into the house during the Revolutionary War by British troops.
There he hid out of sight before eventually being found and badly beaten.
His leg was broken, his head was beaten in, and his teeth were knocked out.
Surviving the ordeal, he remained in the house for several days before eventually
dying from his injuries. Whether this was theatre or a true experience of the
paranormal, the old lookers did not know, but it went on for almost an hour before
Garrett came back to her senses. During his retelling of the story to
Peter Underwood, Denton Walker exclaimed that Eileen Garrett was either a very
good actress or she was genuinely possessed. So were the inexplicable
events that occurred in his house caused by the tortured spirit of a Polish
mercenary? Walker Denton couldn't be sure. However, he could not deny that the
atmosphere in the house was greatly improved following Eileen Garrett's
visit. And he went on to spend many peaceful days and nights there.
What's more, on further investigation, and true to Garrett's claims, Walker found
out that the road that abrubtly ended in front of the house, did in fact run to the
foot of the Ramapo Mountains, where it's said US troops hit their horses from the
British during the American Revolutionary War.
This house stands on Birmingham Road in the town of Kidderminster, England. In May of 1959
it became the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Halstead and their nine children.
Almost as soon as they'd moved in, and for the next eight months, according to the
family, they had heard loud thudding, crashing and dragging sounds, along with
footsteps coming from one of the bedrooms of the victorian-era property.
Whenever they went to investigate, there was no signs of life. The unexplained
noises were almost a daily occurrence. And the Halstead's, especially the
children, became so traumatised, that in December of 1959, eight months after
they've moved in, they appealed to the Kidderminster corporations housing
officer to find them a new place to live. When asked why it took them eight months
to make the request, they stated that recently the noises had become much more
frequent, louder, and drawn-out for longer lengths of time. Besides, they were afraid
to speak out about the tales of a possible haunting for fear of being
ridiculed by neighbors. When the disembodied sounds reached their peak
during the second week of December 1959, three members of the Birmingham psychic
research society, led by a Mr. L.A. Payne, agreed to visit the family on December 20th.
They were quick to disregard the Halstead's claims. After spending just 90
minutes in the house, they left with the opinion that there was nothing there of
a paranormal nature. Mr. Payne later said that if the disturbances continued, then
he would consider a more thorough investigation. The story attracted
attention from the local press, and on December 18th 1959, Mrs. Halstead was
quoted by the Birmingham Daily Post as saying:
I could not find out how long the Halstead family remained in the property, but the former owners death,
which gave way to the Halstead's occupancy, may or may not, hold the
answers to their experience. According to this headline the local press certainly
wanted people to think so. A once wealthy man by the name of John Robinson used to
own the property, and for ten years prior to the Halsteads, he lived there alone.
An engineer by trade, he became increasingly frustrated with the
government's refusal to fairly compensate him for the requisitioning of
his factory during the second world war. Because of this he refused to pay a
penny to the state, padlocked his gates, and sealed his letterbox to stop the
delivery of payment demands and court summonses. He was declared bankrupt by
his creditors in 1955. John Robertson eventually became a recluse
according to the press, and died alone in the house in May of 1958. His body was
found a month later. His cousin, who inherited the house, sold
it to a property developer, and the Halstead family moved in in May of 1959,
exactly one year after the lonesome death of John Robinson.
On the edge of South Somerset in England, lies the town of Yeovil. In the town
centre, on middle street, is the remnants of the Elephant and Castle Inn.
The building opened its doors as a public house and hotel in 1860 and served as
such for a hundred and seventeen years under various managements. Before 1860 it
housed a blacksmith and cutler. Although no longer a public house and
hotel, much of the original structure remains. Even the Elephant and Castle
name remains along the front of the building as it looked in 1977, when it
finally closed its doors for business. The building's history involves a tragic
story - although this story is not thought to be linked to its haunting.
The story goes that the first licensee of the pub - a man by the name of Job Osment -
acquired the establishment in 1860, and ran it with his wife Sofia, until his death two
years later. On Tuesday April 1st 1862, Mr. Osment threw himself from the window
of one of the above rooms. It was reported at the time that his wife
caught him in the act and tried to stop him, but was
unsuccessful. Although Osment survived the fall, he died of his internal
injuries soon after. At the inquest into his death it was agreed that Mr. Osment
had thrown himself from the building in a state of temporary insanity.
As mentioned before, this story serves only as a glimpse into the building's history,
and does not appear, at least, to be linked to the sightings of an apparition
of a woman, thought to be in her 20s. A former landlady of the pub named
Mrs. Sword, stated sometime in the 1970s, that she had seen the woman several times and
that she wore a long white gown, a kind of headdress, and carried a candle or
lamp with her. Mrs. Sword believed that what she saw was the apparition of a
former maid or employee of the hotel. She also mentioned that there was a lot of
noise at night; loud thudding, the moving of cutlery in the kitchen, and the
stacking of plates. But when the noises were investigated, nothing was ever found
to explain it. I was unable to pinpoint a year for
these reported incidents, but it must have been sometime between 1965 and 1977,
because there is no specific named licensee listed between these dates,
and Mrs. Sword's name is not listed as a licensee before 1965. These next reported
accounts are equally vague, as no date or year was mentioned. It's said that a man
who once stayed in one of the rooms of the hotel, claimed to have been woken up
around 5:00 a.m, and was faced with a ghostly apparition, again of a young
woman, who he described as being around 24 years old - wearing a long white gown
in headdress that covered most of her hair. He said that after a few moments
she disappeared into the wall of the bedroom, first passing through a wardrobe.
Another visitor described the woman as small, and as with the other accounts, was
wearing a white gown and carrying with her a nightlight of some kind.
Another online source states that the apparition has also been seen carrying a sword,
but I couldn't find any actual account that mentions this.
the late Peter Underwood, as many of you will know, is one of the most respected
paranormal investigators the world has seen. For me, his level-headedness, his
tendency to steer well clear of sensationalism, and the fact that he was
always skeptical, even of his own findings, makes this account all the more chilling.
In 1986 he told this story to the london-based LBC radio station.
It concerns an incident that occurred at the Newark Park House in the Cotswolds
in the county of Gloucestershire. Underwood and his team of investigators
paid the place a visit after there had been numerous reports of whispering
voices, footsteps, and rustling sounds on one particular staircase. He said that
they had waited on this staircase for hours in sheer darkness, and, like on so
many other night vigils before, experienced nothing out of the ordinary.
They then heard a sudden rustling sound coming from the landing at the top of
the stairs. They quickly pointed their one camera in the general direction that
the sound came from, with the intention of taking a photograph of the landing if
the noise was heard again. By Underwood's own account, they waited for a further
three or four hours, but with no further activity occurring, the team moved to a
different room where they ate some food and planned to retire to their bedrooms.
While they ate they listened to the recording of the night's apparently
fruitless vigil. At one stage of the recording Underwood claims that they
heard two very clear voices. One was a male voice which said "it's looking".
This was immediately followed by a female voice which said "it's looking at us".
He assured LBC radio that no one in the team spoke during the recording and
believes that the disembodied voices were from another time, and were
referring to the investigators' camera.
This tale comes from the state of Louisiana, and is based on a story
relayed by a soldier named John, who was a military police officer in the Air
Force Reserves. In late August of 2005, John along with other members of the Air
Force Reserves, were patrolling the streets of New Orleans
offering food, water and what little medicine remained following the
devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina, which had made landfall a few
days before. They were also offering transport to those who were left with
nowhere to live and wanted to evacuate. The mission, he said, was made difficult due
to the bad feeling between the people of New Orleans and the military; as there
was a strong belief, fueled by media reports, that the military were harassing
the people of New Orleans rather than showing support.
John stated that this simply wasn't true, and they were just there to help fellow
Americans. There was one incident he recalls whilst patrolling the Ninth Ward,
which lies to the east of the city and was one of the worst affected areas.
The officers were calling out to the now boarded up houses, explaining who they
were and their purpose. After a while some people began to emerge from their
devastated homes. When asked if they wanted to evacuate, many refused for fear
of their homes being looted and losing what little possessions they had left.
The ones who agreed, joined the unit. As the officers scanned the flood-battered
houses, they noticed one house that stood out. It looked a lot older than the ones
immediately surrounding it. John said that it resembled a plantation house
from the Civil War era, just not as grand. unlike the other houses, it was not
boarded up. As John scanned the building he noticed a young girl stood in the
window of the second floor. He smiled and waved to reassure her that he was there
to help and that she had nothing to fear. "She smiled and waved back, from what I
could tell", John said. He called out asking where her parents were, but she
just stood and watched him. After many hours of military service in
some of the most war-stricken areas of the world, John said that a kind of sixth
sense told him that something wasn't quite right. He focused on the girl,
wondering why, amidst this devastation, she looked happy and unaffected by the
nightmare that surrounded them. As John's attention from the girl waned, an old man
rode up on his bike and asked if he and seven members of his family could be
evacuated. John told him he'd be happy to help, but then
asked about the old house. He pointed up the window on the second
floor and asked if he knew anything about the family who lived there, and the
young girl, who by now had moved away from the window. The old man smiled, put
his hand on John's shoulder, and said:
The old man then rode away to fetch his family,
but as he did, John heard him say: