Speaker 1: Hello. I'm Richard McClain smith, creator of Unexplained. The following
Speaker 1: is an extract taken from a new book, which is
Speaker 1: available to buy in print and audiobook at bookstores and
Speaker 1: online in Waterstones, Blackwells, and Amazon, amongst other outlets. The
Speaker 1: book will also be available to purchase in the US
Speaker 1: and Canada in fall twenty nineteen. I Hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: Chapter ten. Every story is a ghost story. The ghost
Speaker 1: holds a unique place in the world the supernatural, As
Speaker 1: capable of scaring as senseless as they are of inflicting
Speaker 1: us with the deepest of melancholies, they also come in
Speaker 1: many forms. The ghosts that we carry with us in
Speaker 1: our daily lives, memories of those we have loved and lost,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even wronged, thoughts that sit in the deepest
Speaker 1: parts of the psyche straining to become manifest. But what
Speaker 1: are the apparitions that seem not to have been brought
Speaker 1: forth from the subconscious, Those that have no connection to
Speaker 1: the observer, but instead seem to be reaching out to
Speaker 1: us from a seemingly timeless space. For some, to witness
Speaker 1: a ghost, particularly that of a relative, might bring a
Speaker 1: certain comfort. The reassuring glimpse of a life beyond death
Speaker 1: almost without exception. However, dating back to our earliest cultures,
Speaker 1: from those of the Igbo in West Africa to the
Speaker 1: Bengali of South Asia, the sighting of a ghost was
Speaker 1: rarely something to celebrate. Commonly, the appearance of a ghost
Speaker 1: would speak of something unsettled, the result of a body
Speaker 1: not properly buried, perhaps, or one that had been lost
Speaker 1: at sea. Or it might be a sign that the
Speaker 1: cause of death was suspicious and required avenging. Failure to
Speaker 1: rectify the situation could condemn the ghost to an eternity
Speaker 1: of restlessness. For the ancient Sumerians, death was an act
Speaker 1: from which there was ordinarily no coming back. The souls
Speaker 1: of the dead left to dwell in Kur, the land
Speaker 1: of no Return. It was a place where all men
Speaker 1: and women were equal, regardless of their actions in life,
Speaker 1: no matter how rich or poor, a place where they
Speaker 1: would remain for the rest of eternity in dreary unlight,
Speaker 1: watched over by Irish Kegal, the dark Queen of the
Speaker 1: nether world. The oppressive conditions of Kur were said to
Speaker 1: be alleviated for the dead if their surviving family continued
Speaker 1: to make offerings of food and drink once they were gone.
Speaker 1: Failure to do so would see the ghost of the
Speaker 1: deceased return to punish their callous relatives with misfortune and
Speaker 1: ill health. In ancient Japan, the appearance of a ghost
Speaker 1: or yuri was especially ominous. Yuri was sometimes said to
Speaker 1: transform from souls or racon in fits of explosive emotion,
Speaker 1: often motivated by vengeance. Violent murder or suicide would almost
Speaker 1: always presage the arrival of a yuri intent on retribution.
Speaker 1: Until the disturbance had been settled, they would be fated
Speaker 1: to haunt the living indefinitely. Yuri are traditionally portrayed as
Speaker 1: women with long black hair, wearing white burial robes, with
Speaker 1: hands hanging loosely from the wrists, an image that fans
Speaker 1: of the character Sadako Yumama might recognize from author Koji
Speaker 1: Suzuki's Petrifying Ringou series. Yumamer's portrayal as a traditional yuri
Speaker 1: with a ponchhot for climbing out of TVs and video
Speaker 1: monitors as realized devastating effect in Hideo Nacata's Terrifying nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight adaptation of the first book in the series.
Speaker 1: Is for me the most nightmarish betrayal of a ghost
Speaker 1: in cinematic history. Often, a ghost or apparition is said
Speaker 1: to be inexorably linked to a specific location. For those
Speaker 1: of us living in the United Kingdom, there are many
Speaker 1: such ghosts. Two of our tourist boards claiming the Great
Speaker 1: Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle as their respective country's
Speaker 1: most haunted destinations. However, I have always found such a
Speaker 1: notion problematic in a very literal sense, at least for
Speaker 1: reasons laid out with a great, mournful and affecting beauty
Speaker 1: in a ghost story. In this striking twenty seventeen film,
Speaker 1: written and directed by David Lowry, the eponymous ghost of
Speaker 1: the title, having chosen to remain behind on Earth, is
Speaker 1: fated to drift through time as all the world changes
Speaker 1: around him, Although Lowry slips the ghost back into his
Speaker 1: original corporeal timeline. I have always wondered where such a
Speaker 1: ghost might end up were it not so easy to
Speaker 1: escape the seemingly ceaseless arrow of time. Just where might
Speaker 1: a ghost be left a haunt tens of billions of
Speaker 1: years from now, when the planet has long since been
Speaker 1: obliterated by the sun. When it comes to the sheer
Speaker 1: terror of the supernatural. For me, there are few more
Speaker 1: disturbing notions than the Poltergeist, malignant spirits of wrathful energy,
Speaker 1: dead set on singling you out for inexplicable and therefore
Speaker 1: deeply frightening reasons. Though some consider supposed poltergeist activity to
Speaker 1: be the result of the extrasensory projections of troubled teenage minds,
Speaker 1: it is surely in the betrayal as an active spirit
Speaker 1: that the notion is most potent. I have always felt
Speaker 1: a little haunted by this idea. Doubtless there are many
Speaker 1: of my generation whose first experiences of the fabled knocking
Speaker 1: ghost came through Toby Hooper's mesmeric nineteen eighty two film Poltergeist,
Speaker 1: which many forget was written by Steven Spielberg. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: is simply nostalgia that draws me back to this masterful movie,
Speaker 1: hypnotic in its alluring fusion of slick Hollywood with a
Speaker 1: less familiar place that seems to call out silently to
Speaker 1: us from somewhere between the frames. But there is something else,
Speaker 1: although there is little telling which was cause and which effect.
Speaker 1: For as long as I can remember, since seeing this film,
Speaker 1: I have had a recurring, terrifying poltergeist nightmare, always occurring
Speaker 1: in that liminal, lucid space surely before waking. It begins
Speaker 1: with me standing at the top of the stairs of
Speaker 1: an old childhood home, while friends or members of my
Speaker 1: family are gathered at the bottom. But as I walked
Speaker 1: down to join them, something has caught me in its grip,
Speaker 1: something of unfathomable malignance from which I know I cannot escape.
Speaker 1: As I kick and scream, it continues to pull me
Speaker 1: back further and further, and then I wake up. Every
Speaker 1: time it is the same. I understand this to be
Speaker 1: a common dream trope, and was once advised that the
Speaker 1: way to do away with it might be to try
Speaker 1: to turn around and face this unseen manifest fear. I've
Speaker 1: not yet been able to achieve this, though I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a good lesson in there somewhere. So it always
Speaker 1: fills me with a particular sense of caution, but no
Speaker 1: little excitement when I learn of new alleged politgeist events,
Speaker 1: particularly ones that invoke the work of Nigel Neil involving
Speaker 1: learned men and women on the hunt for ghosts. At
Speaker 1: thirty three years old, Tony Cornell was by no means
Speaker 1: the most senior member of the Cambridge University Society for
Speaker 1: Psychical Research, but he was certainly one of the more proactive,
Speaker 1: always on the lookout for a new sight to investigate.
Speaker 1: Like most members of CUSPR, he was a proud rationalist
Speaker 1: with little time for superstition or spiritual nonsense, whose interest
Speaker 1: in supposed paranormal and supernatural events began from a thoroughly
Speaker 1: skeptical point of view. He did, however, maintain a healthy
Speaker 1: fascination with the strange due to a peculiar event he
Speaker 1: had experienced ten years previously. As a young naval officer
Speaker 1: during the Second World War, Tony had been stationed in
Speaker 1: southern India close to the Nilghirie Mountains, where he became
Speaker 1: enthralled by stories of the local fakir, holy men and
Speaker 1: women without any possessions or relations, who are believed to
Speaker 1: possess mystical powers. It was said that a fakir could
Speaker 1: perform miracles, with many people traveling for miles to seek
Speaker 1: their wisdom and guidance. One such fakir was said to
Speaker 1: be living in the hills not far from where Tony
Speaker 1: was billeted, and although thoroughly dubious, Tony was none the
Speaker 1: less intrigued enough to try to find the man in
Speaker 1: the hope of witnessing these miracles for himself. After a
Speaker 1: number of hours trekking through rolling, tree capped hills across
Speaker 1: treacherous paths flanked by steep, jagged cliffs, Tony had made
Speaker 1: it to about six thousand feet above sea level when
Speaker 1: he came across an old man in simple clothes standing
Speaker 1: at the end of a small plateau as if he
Speaker 1: had been waiting for him. To the side of the
Speaker 1: plateau lay a steep drop into a gully with a
Speaker 1: stream gushing through it. Without acknowledging the young Navy officer,
Speaker 1: the fakier asked what it was the Tony wanted. I
Speaker 1: hear you couldn't perform miracles, You're too materially stick. But
Speaker 1: I'll give you what you want. There was a pause
Speaker 1: as the fakier thought for a moment. Tony smiled awkwardly,
Speaker 1: suddenly self conscious at this clash of cultures. Look towards
Speaker 1: those hills, my son, Tony was not quite sure what
Speaker 1: to expect. He pointed towards some prominent peaks in the east.
Speaker 1: Those hills The fakir gestured yes with a gentle nod
Speaker 1: of the head, and Tony Julie turned back to inspect
Speaker 1: them Yoyoshi. Tony looked confused, scratching his head before turning
Speaker 1: back to the man. I'm sorry, I don't but the
Speaker 1: man wasn't there. Tony heard a shout from the far
Speaker 1: side of the stream. Well, my son, did that entertain you?
Speaker 1: Tony stood for a moment, trying to fathom how a
Speaker 1: seventy year old man could have dropped into the gully
Speaker 1: and raced to the other side at the fast flowing
Speaker 1: waters in only a matter of seconds. Smiling now to himself,
Speaker 1: he watched as the fakir slowly picked his way along
Speaker 1: the rocky bank before disappearing into the bush. Are you
Speaker 1: always taking care of your family? Do you often take
Speaker 1: care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to
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Speaker 1: The Society of Psychical Research, of which Tony's CUSPR group
Speaker 1: was an affiliate, had been established in eighteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: largely in response to a peculiar craze that had been
Speaker 1: gripping the nation, which had its origins in a small
Speaker 1: wooden house in the tiny hamlet of Hydesville, New York.
Speaker 1: It was there that, in eighteen forty eight, two sisters,
Speaker 1: Kate and Margaret Fox, claimed to have made contact with
Speaker 1: the spirit of a dead man who had communicated with
Speaker 1: them through a series of knocks and bangs. In other words,
Speaker 1: they had allegedly made contact with a poltergeist, and in
Speaker 1: doing so had inadvertently created a movement that would come
Speaker 1: to be known as spiritualism. As news of the Fox
Speaker 1: sisters incredible claims spread through the UK, it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before everybody from scullery staff to Queen Victoria were conducting
Speaker 1: seances in an attempt to communicate with the dead. As
Speaker 1: the movement grew in popularity throughout the world, so too
Speaker 1: did the stories of strange paranormal happenings that seemed suddenly
Speaker 1: to be breaking out everywhere. For those caught up in
Speaker 1: the scientific fervor of the Enlightenment age, the emergence of
Speaker 1: such stories was a horrifying repost to the increasingly rationalist
Speaker 1: and atheistic principles catalyzing academia at the time. However, although
Speaker 1: many in the scientific community dismissed paranormal claims out of hand,
Speaker 1: a small number of academics, led by Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick,
Speaker 1: William Barrett and Edmund Gurney, amongst others, decided instead to
Speaker 1: approach these varied problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind,
Speaker 1: in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which
Speaker 1: has enabled science to solve so many problems once not
Speaker 1: less obscure nor less hotly debated, and so the spr
Speaker 1: was born, the world's first ghostbusters. The Cambridge branch of
Speaker 1: the society had been founded in nineteen o six and
Speaker 1: fifty years later existed mostly as an organization for like
Speaker 1: minded people to get together and share stories regarding the
Speaker 1: latest papers and theories they had read. But sometimes, if
Speaker 1: they were lucky, the chance for something more hands on
Speaker 1: would crop up, like that which Tony brought to the
Speaker 1: group one evening in November nineteen fifty seven. The curious
Speaker 1: case had presented itself a few days earlier, when a
Speaker 1: young journalist based out of Wisbeach, some forty miles north
Speaker 1: of Cambridge, had contacted him at the beginning of October.
Speaker 1: Anthony Wilmot, who worked for the Wisbeach Advertiser, had overheard
Speaker 1: a conversation about some mysterious goings on at an old
Speaker 1: manor house known as Hanneth Hall, situated out in the
Speaker 1: fens not far from where he lived. The house, he
Speaker 1: would later discover, had been plagued by hauntings for years.
Speaker 1: Wilmot didn't care much for silly ghost stories, but after
Speaker 1: learning one of the current tenants was the local labor
Speaker 1: candidate Deryck Page, he couldn't resist following up on the story,
Speaker 1: having arranged to interview Derreck and his wife Audrey, as
Speaker 1: well as Audrey's mother Rose, who lived with the family.
Speaker 1: Wilmot had arrived with tongue firmly in Cheek, only to
Speaker 1: find them in a state of some distress. For the
Speaker 1: next hour, he was treated to a variety of extraordinary
Speaker 1: tales outlining their experiences. Since they had arrived from Cheshire
Speaker 1: two months previously, they had only been there a matter
Speaker 1: of days, as Audrey explained, when she was first awoken
Speaker 1: in the early hours of the morning by the sound
Speaker 1: of a very clear and insistent tapping that seemed to
Speaker 1: be coming from just outside her bedroom. Thinking she had
Speaker 1: only imagined it, she turned to go back to sleep,
Speaker 1: only for it to come again, this time a little louder.
Speaker 1: Sitting up in bed, Knowing it couldn't have been Dereck
Speaker 1: since he stayed in Ipswich during the week for work,
Speaker 1: she had assumed it was one of the children, or
Speaker 1: perhaps a mother who slept in the bedroom opposite. Yes, Hello,
Speaker 1: Audrey bolted upright and hurriedly switched on the bedside light Hello,
Speaker 1: but there was no reply. Collecting herself, she stepped out
Speaker 1: of bed and made her way cautiously towards the door.
Speaker 1: With a trembling hand, she took hold of the handle
Speaker 1: and eased the door open a fraction. Peering through the
Speaker 1: gap into the corridor beyond, there was nobody there. Ever
Speaker 1: since that night, the family had been hearing similar knocks
Speaker 1: and taps throughout the house. Audrey was certain that on
Speaker 1: a separate occasion she had heard footsteps descending stairs with
Speaker 1: a clearly defined shifting of weight from one foot to another.
Speaker 1: She had been alone in the house at the time.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Awdrey's mother Rose had woken up
Speaker 1: after feeling a violent jolt against her bed, and not
Speaker 1: long after, despite being partially deaf, she had been woken
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night by an inexplicably loud,
Speaker 1: crashing sound just outside the door, as if the door
Speaker 1: itself were being smashed in. Derec had not heard these
Speaker 1: noises himself, and joked that it was probably the old
Speaker 1: Tories who used to own the house, turning in their
Speaker 1: graves at the thought of him living there. He did
Speaker 1: recount one rather strange story of his own. However, not
Speaker 1: long after they had moved in, his mother had traveled
Speaker 1: down from Manchester with a view to staying with the
Speaker 1: family for a few weeks. After a couple of nights
Speaker 1: sleeping in the spare bedroom, she began to experience a
Speaker 1: recurring set of bazaar and terror fine nightmares. A couple
Speaker 1: of times she had found herself floating out of her
Speaker 1: body and looking down at herself as she slept, with
Speaker 1: the very vivid sense that something profoundly malignant was trying
Speaker 1: to pull her away, and that if she didn't return
Speaker 1: to her body, she would never wake up. Other times,
Speaker 1: she found herself trapped under the legs of a horse
Speaker 1: as it kicked violently at her face. After less than
Speaker 1: a week, having also started to hear the noises, she
Speaker 1: made a hasty retreat back to Manchester. Audrey and Rose
Speaker 1: told the young journalist that the knocking sounds had become
Speaker 1: worse over the last few weeks, and that increasingly they
Speaker 1: seemed to be coming from one room located at the
Speaker 1: north end of the first floor. The room was assumed
Speaker 1: by the family to have been a bedroom at some point,
Speaker 1: owing to its size, but was currently being used for storage. Since,
Speaker 1: unlike every other room in the property, it had never
Speaker 1: been rigged up to the mains, the pages were happy
Speaker 1: to keep it that way and rarely had cause to
Speaker 1: go in there. After leaving Hanneth Hall that afternoon, Wilmot
Speaker 1: determined to do some further digging of his own, and that,
Speaker 1: as he explained to Tony over the phone a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, was when things started to get really interesting.
Speaker 1: The house, as he discovered, had been built some time
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century and was thought originally to have
Speaker 1: belonged to a Richard Sparrow, earning it the nickname Sparrow's Nest.
Speaker 1: Over the years, it had been passed through a number
Speaker 1: of owners, gaining its current name after being purchased by
Speaker 1: Joseph Hanneth in eighteen twelve. The house was sold again
Speaker 1: to George Williams in eighteen ninety nine, who elected to
Speaker 1: keep the name Hannath Hall. Wilmot got in touch with
Speaker 1: the building's current owner, Hugh Williams, George's grandson, to find
Speaker 1: out more. Much to his surprise. Hugh and his family,
Speaker 1: who had lived in the house for forty years before
Speaker 1: deciding to rent it out to Audrey and Derrick were
Speaker 1: more than familiar with the spooky goings on there. Hugh
Speaker 1: went on to describe an incident a few years back
Speaker 1: involving his brother Peter, who, while staying alone in the house,
Speaker 1: had witnessed a door handle turning of its own accord.
Speaker 1: Another time, Hugh's nieces had suffered vivid nightmares while sleeping
Speaker 1: in the now disused room at the far end of
Speaker 1: the property, and had also awakened one night to find
Speaker 1: a pair of blood stained hands floating in the room
Speaker 1: with them. That wouldn't be the bedroom on the north
Speaker 1: side with it by any chance, Wilmot had asked, you
Speaker 1: mean the haunted bedroom, replied Hugh. As it turned out,
Speaker 1: Hugh's family had taken to calling at this on account
Speaker 1: of a morbid story they had heard about one of
Speaker 1: the previous owners, long before the house had been wired
Speaker 1: for electricity. The haunted room had in fact been the
Speaker 1: sole master bedroom. As the story went, it was in
Speaker 1: this room that the wife of former owner Joseph Hanneth,
Speaker 1: who bought the property from his father in eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: had died young. The death had left Joseph so bereft
Speaker 1: he couldn't bear to release the body for burial, deciding
Speaker 1: instead to have it interred in an open coffin, which
Speaker 1: he kept at the end of the marital bed. For
Speaker 1: six weeks and increasingly unhinged, Joseph continued to order his
Speaker 1: servants to bring his wife three meals a day as
Speaker 1: her body steadily putrefied. Eventually, with the stench becoming unbearable,
Speaker 1: Joseph was brought to his senses just long enough to
Speaker 1: take the body into the front garden, where he is
Speaker 1: said to have buried it under a large horse chestnut tree,
Speaker 1: as Wilmot continued to explain over the phone to Tony.
Speaker 1: Since the first article had been well received and with
Speaker 1: Halloween drawing near, he approached Derec and Audrey about the
Speaker 1: possibility of spending a night in the house with a
Speaker 1: view to publishing another article about it. Since the couple
Speaker 1: were eager to prove they weren't making anything up, they
Speaker 1: welcomed Wilmot, joined this time by a senior colleague from
Speaker 1: the paper, as well as a local friend and his
Speaker 1: pet labrador, Simba, back to Hanneth Hall on thirty first
Speaker 1: of October to conduct an investigation. Later that night, as
Speaker 1: the devil's hour approached, and with Audrey Rose and the
Speaker 1: children fast asleep, Deryck, Wilmot and his colleague took up
Speaker 1: positions on the landing, while the friend and Simba kept
Speaker 1: watch in the old master bedroom. Despite some initial nervous joshing,
Speaker 1: it hadn't taken long for a pervasive eeriness to descend,
Speaker 1: when from somewhere in the house a clock struck twelve.
Speaker 1: Simba began to whimper mournfully. A noise was heard from
Speaker 1: inside a spare bedroom off to the side, but not
Speaker 1: one of the men had the courage investigate. A moment later,
Speaker 1: they all sensed a significant drop in temperature, followed by
Speaker 1: the smell of sandalwood that seemed to be sweeping back
Speaker 1: and forth along the corridor, although little else occurred that evening,
Speaker 1: whether it had been the charge of the occasion or
Speaker 1: merely the atmosphere of the evocative old building. When the
Speaker 1: men finally called it to night at two thirty am,
Speaker 1: it was with the distinct impression that they had experienced something.
Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain Smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you, tell
Speaker 1: a doc gives you acts to a licensed therapist to
Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven
Speaker 1: am to nine pm local time, seven days a week.
Speaker 1: Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
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