Ghosts: The Truth

By TempleofMysteries.com

Do ghosts exist? Do you believe in ghosts? Many thousands of people claim to have seen them, even interacted with them - and often even entrenched sceptics have been converted by a moment’s brush with ‘impossible’ paranormal entities. Sometimes ghosts are benign, protecting and warning about imminent danger; sometimes they are neutral, merely appearing and disappearing without any apparent awareness of the living. But sometimes they are evil, causing untold mental and physical problems for those they haunt - especially the destructive hauntings known as poltergeists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TempleofMysteries.com
• Release date: Dec 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301559787

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Ghosts: The Truth

by

TempleofMysteries.com

Copyright 2012 TempleofMysteries.com

Smashwords Edition

Classic Ghost Stories

Case Histories

Ghosts and Poltergeists

Invented Ghosts

The Classic Crisis Apparition

The Haunting of an Expert

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Do ghosts exist? Do you believe in ghosts? Many thousands of people claim to have seen them, even interacted with them - and often even entrenched sceptics have been converted by a moment’s brush with ‘impossible’ paranormal entities. Sometimes ghosts are benign, protecting and warning about imminent danger; sometimes they are neutral, merely appearing and disappearing without any apparent awareness of the living. But sometimes they are evil, causing untold mental and physical problems for those they haunt - especially the destructive hauntings known as poltergeists.

Classic Ghost Stories

Henry’s Queen Catherine

Although no fewer than 30 ghosts have been witnessed at Hampton Court, Henry VIII’s south London palace, it is the phantom of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, which has been seen the most recently.

In April 2000, two women on separate guided tours felt as if something invisible had punched them, then fell down in a dead faint outside the door to Henry VIII’s private chapel. On recovering, they both described feeling hot and sweating profusely. 

For hundreds of years, people have seen the ghost of woman dressed in white who is believed to be the tragic Catherine, running fast down the upper gallery, her face a mask of despair and fear, her scream freezing the blood of the many witnesses.

Accused of adultery with Thomas Culpepper, She had been put under house arrest in the palace in 1541, while her royal husband decided on her fate. On one occasion she broke free from her guards and ran full tilt down the hall - some 40 feet (12m) - to hammer on the door of Henry’s private chapel, hysterically begging for mercy. Kicking and screaming, she was dragged to her room, but the moment of her greatest despair - the long run down the hall - has been re-enacted many times since by her ghost.

A few days after this scene, she was despatched to the Tower of London, where she was beheaded on 13 February 1542.

Some witnesses have described seeing a womanly ringed hand knocking on a door in the interior of the palace. One particularly quick-thinking witness managed to sketch the ring, which was then discovered to match one worn by Queen Catherine in a portrait.

After the two incidents of fainting in April 2000, the Palace authorities called in psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, who conducted a four-night vigil there, complete with video camera, pressure gauges, electromagnetic sensors, humidity monitors, and a thermal imaging camera worth £50,000.

Approximately 400 visitors were then asked if they could feel a ‘presence’ in the haunted gallery: more than 200 claimed to feel a sudden drop in temperature, some said they sensed a phantom presence, while a few alleged they actually saw Elizabethan figures.

However, the researchers discovered that the many concealed doors scattered throughout the Palace are probably the culprit - at least of the temperature drops. In two particular spots, the temperature plunged by 2 degrees Celsius.

Dr Wiseman said: ‘You do, literally, walk into a column of cold air sometimes. It’s possible that people are misattributing the phenomena.

‘If you suddenly feel cold, and you’re in a haunted place, that might bring on a sense of fear and a more scary experience.’

At one point in their overnight vigil, the team thought they had caught evidence of a paranormal entity with their thermal camera, which seemed to show a weird figure moving about. However, when they checked, they discovered the ‘ghost’ to be dutifully removing a hoover from a cupboard.

Dr Wiseman, who is also a gifted professional conjuror, is intensely sceptical - indeed, he is a member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which is dedicated to debunking what it regards as ‘anti-rationalist superstition’ in all its forms. 

Although one in seven people claim to have seen or felt a ghost at some time in their lives, he believes that the power of suggestion plays a large part in most reports of a ghostly presence.

But how can Dr Wiseman’s theory of suggestibility explain the ringed hand episode (see above)? What are the other sceptical or scientific theories that might account for this ‘haunting’ - and perhaps many, if not all, others?

The Edinburgh vaults

Dr Richard Wiseman was also leader of a team that - perhaps historically - investigated another classic haunting, that of the vaults and tunnels under Edinburgh Castle and Royal Mile, which has been the scene of ghostly happenings for many years. 

In April 2000, as part of Edinburgh International Science Festival, Dr Wiseman carried out a 10-day study of the reactions of no fewer than 250 volunteers - all from the general public - and some of his own team, to the spooky area that lies underneath some of the city’s oldest and most blood-soaked areas.

The volunteers were carefully vetted to eliminate anyone who had been down there previously, and none of them were told which parts were allegedly haunted. They were all asked to record any unusual experiences using a (Blair Witch-like) video diary. After the 10-day experiment finished, 44 per cent admitted to some kind of weird experience in the vaults, although those who had spent time under the Castle itself came up with ‘nothing particularly spectacular’, according to Dr Wiseman.

However, volunteers who had been allocated the vaults, which are huge cellars under the 18th-century arches of the South Bridge, told a very different story.  Many of them recorded many ‘negative’, or even ‘quite extreme’ reactions, including the sensation of their clothes being grabbed by invisible hands and strong feelings of being watched. At least one volunteer saw a ghost - a man in a leather apron - walking across a doorway. It was later revealed that the area had once been used as wine cellars and workshops for workers in leather.

A very unexpected reaction

Although most of those who reported ghostly happenings had a predisposition towards a belief in the paranormal, one of the weirdest events happened to a research team member, a female psychologist who spent a night alone in one of the vaults. Dr Wiseman later reported what had happened:

‘Almost immediately she reported hearing breathing from one corner of the room which was getting louder. She thought she saw a flash or some sort of light in the corner but didn’t want to look back. She was not far off crying for 20 minutes but she kept talking. The lady is an intelligent woman and while she was part-scared, she was also curious and kept talking to the camera. She didn’t move, even after we went in. It was a very unexpected reaction, but 20 minutes later she was fine.’

Significantly,