St. Bartholomew's Church, London

St. Bartholomew's Church is a place with a long history. It was founded by, of all people, a court jester of Henry I. This jester was named Rahere, and by all accounts, he was a very pious man. The ghost of Rahere is said to walk the church, and evidently, it is always seen at 7 a.m. on July 1.

A figure thought to be that of a monk has been spotted more than once in the church. On another occasion, a man saw a cloudy white object that gradually took the form of a woman in white. The man recognized the figure as his daughter, who lived in Australia. The man was horrified, believing that the apparition was a premonition of his daughter's death, even though the figure looked overjoyed to see him.

Some time later, the man received a letter from his daughter. She had been dangerously ill, she said, but was now recovering. She recounted a strange occurrence: during her illness, she had a dream that she was in St. Bartholomew's Church, and was ecstatic to see her father there. She noted the day and time of this happening (as had her father), and when they compared notes, they saw that the uncanny incident had happened to them both simultaneously.

Walsingham haunted house in Georgia

I ran across this story for the first time when I read Bernhardt J. Hurwood's Ghosts, Ghouls, and other Horrors. It's alleged to have happened somewhere in Georgia, though the area is never specified.

I just found it again, in a book called True Ghost Stories, by Hereward Carrington. This book was published in 1915, and contains at least one other story republished by Hurwood.  Carrington claimed that the story was originally published in The San Francisco Examiner. Edited to add: Carrington was telling the truth; the story was printed in the Examiner, on November 29, 1891. Since you need a subscription to view the story, I wasn't able to read it in full, but I saw enough to know that this is the same story.

According to the story, a family named Walsingham moved into a house that was horribly haunted. The usual supernatural occurrences were noted, such as footsteps, the doorbell ringing when nobody was at the door, and items knocked over. With time, the family found it impossible to sleep, as the visitants made too much noise. Screams, shouts, and groans were heard around the house, sometimes even from under the house.

The family dog, a mastiff named Don Caesar, hated whatever was happening in the house, and often growled and barked at something invisible to the family. One day, he tried to attack something in the hall, and fell back - dead. His neck had been broken. Weirdly, the family cat appeared to enjoy the entities, and often appeared to be enjoyed pets from unseen hands.

One evening, as the daughter of the house sat at her vanity table, she felt someone place a hand on her shoulder. She looked in the mirror and saw the hand, but there was no body. Her screaming alerted the family, but nothing (including the hand) was to be seen when they entered the room. Her father, on another occasion, watched as the prints of bare feet formed in the dirt alongside him as he walked through the garden.

One night, several guests who had been invited to dinner got much more than they had anticipated. As they sat at the table, a groan was heard from the room above. By that point, the vocalizations were so common that nobody thought much of it. Soon, though, a red liquid began to drip from the ceiling and soak into the tablecloth. It resembled blood so much that Mr. Walsingham and some of the guests ran into the room above the dining room and pulled up the carpet.

They found nothing but dust. Meanwhile, the liquid continued to drip from the ceiling of the dining room. The following day, the tablecloth was analyzed, and the liquid was found to be blood. Human blood.

That was enough for the Walsinghams, who moved out. Nobody dared move into the house after that, given its reputation. Ghost hunters galore went to the place, but not many had the nerve to stay there overnight.

One such man was a fellow by the name of Horace Gunn, who bet that he would be able to spent twenty-four hours alone in the house. Carrington's book speaks of Gunn in the present tense; for example, the book states that "he declares that there is not enough money in the country to make him pass another night there. He was found the morning after by his friends with whom he made the wager, in a swoon. He has never recovered from the shock of his horrible experience, and is still confined to his bed suffering from nervous prostration."

Gunn attempted to light a fire in the fireplace when darkness fell, but each match he struck went out; he claimed that the matches were blown out by something invisible. Gunn, resigned to passing the rest of the night in darkness, was almost asleep when all hell broke loose. A loud shout, seeming to come from under the house, was heard. Footsteps ran upstairs and down, as if one person was chasing another. Finally, the noise stopped, and Gunn dared to hope that nothing more would happen.

He was wrong. He saw a light manifest on a wall, and the light gradually turned into a human head. Just a head, without a body. The head had long, shaggy white hair, and an injury in the temple that was bleeding profusely. The eyes looked directly at Gunn, who was frozen to the spot.

When the head disappeared, the spirits began to scream and howl, shaking the house and making an incredible racket. Gunn decided to forget all about the bet and leave as quickly as he could, but the entities had other ideas. When Gunn had almost reached the door, an icy hand seized his ankle and pulled him to the floor, when other hands (or the same?) gripped him by the throat and choked him unconscious. Gunn's friends found him the following morning, his throat bruised by the marks of thin fingers with long nails.

So. What is the real story here? Did the Examiner print a fictional story for Halloween, only to have it taken seriously? If there is any truth to the story, where is the house? Was the family really named Walsingham, or was the name changed to protect their privacy? Was this simply a 19th-century hoax, like the Amityville story almost a century later?

The Supernatural in Paris

During WWII, a French woman played a dangerous game. Her husband was in the Resistance, and the woman took a Nazi lover so that she could pass on information to her husband. One night, the woman came to the Pont Marie in Paris, where she had arranged to meet her husband. The man never showed up, and his wife froze to death. Her ghost is supposed to haunt the bridge to this day, eternally waiting for her husband to arrive.

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Pere Lachaise Cemetery has enough bodies in it to account for a plethora of ghosts. Among the specters seen there are author Marcel Proust (said to search for his lover every night) and rock star Jim Morrison.

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Parc Montsouris is one for the stout of heart. It is said that when the guillotine was first coming into common use, the current park area was used to test the new device. Now, the park may be haunted by the headless ghosts of the first victims of Madame La Guillotine. These gory apparitions are joined by Isaure De Montsouris, the man for whom the park is named. Evidently, he was murdered by bandits, and remains at the site of his untimely death.

I'm baaaaack!

After a long hiatus - too long - I've returned for more ghostly hijinks.

I thought it appropriate, since it's Halloween.

Here are some stories to get you going. More to come!

Ida Lupino's ghost story

Ida Lupino was a popular actress of Hollywood's Golden Era who branched out into directing at a time when few women were directors. She became the only person ever to direct AND star in an episode of The Twilight Zone (the name of the episode is "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine").

Ida was raised in London, where her parents, Stanley and Connie, were popular stage performers. When her parents were performing, Ida was cared for by her paternal grandmother.

One evening, when Ida was a child, the phone rang. Her parents were performing; grandmother asked Ida to answer the phone, as her hands were full. Ida picked up the phone and heard her father's friend Andrew speaking. Andrew said in a monotone: "Stanley... I must speak with Stanley... It's very important..." Ida said hello to "Uncle Andy", as she called him, and explained that her parents were performing that night. Andrew, however, continued to state that he had to speak with Stanley.

Ida's grandmother, confused by what she was hearing from Ida, took the phone and, after listening for a moment, asked, "Andrew, are you ill?" Then she made a sound of exasperation and explained that the call had been cut off. She contacted the operator to ask what number had just called them - and the operator said that no calls had been made to their number in more than an hour.

That night, Ida was allowed to stay up until her parents returned from the theater. When her grandmother told them what had happened earlier, Connie Lupino fell into a chair, looking as if she were going to faint. Her father, white-faced, insisted that Andrew could not have called that evening.

"He did," her grandmother persisted, "and I think you should call him back. He didn't sound well."

Finally her father said, "Mom... Andrew is dead. He hanged himself three days ago."

Edgar Allan Poe

The death of Edgar Allan Poe is still unsolved, and something that the author himself might have liked to write about (as he did in his short story "The Mystery of Marie Roget").

In 1849, Poe took a trip to New York. When he left the residence of a friend, he accidentally took his friend's walking stick, leaving his own behind. On his train journey back to his home in Virgina, Poe vanished. Days later, he was found in a Baltimore saloon, in very bad condition. A journalist friend took him to the hospital, where he died later. Nobody has ever been able to determine why Poe vanished, where he had been, or what caused his death. One of the riddles of his disappearance is that, when he resurfaced in Baltimore, he was wearing a suit of clothes that didn't belong to him - but he still had his friend's walking stick.

Poe was never lucid long enough to explain what had happened to him, though in a rare bout of clarity, he stated that "the best thing my friends could do, would be to blow my brains out with a pistol." His last words were typical of his short, impoverished, tortured life: "Lord, help my poor soul."

Poe has not rested easily in the city of his death. His ghost - or, at least, the ghost of a man in dark clothing - has been seen in the streets near his old residence. The spirit also can be seen in the cemetery in which Poe was buried (and later, reburied in grand style). Another place frequented by the author is the Horse You Came in on Saloon.

2009 is the bicentennial of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, and the city of Baltimore is offering many events to commemorate one of its best-known citizens.

Tower of London

The Tower of London is one of the planet’s most haunted locations – not surprisingly, given the number of people who have been executed there. The headless ghost of Anne Boleyn (buried in St. Peter ad Vincula chapel near the site of her execution) has been seen floating around the grounds of the Tower, sometimes carrying her head. In 1864, a sentry challenged what he thought was a woman approaching him; when she made no response, he thrust at her with his bayonet.

The bayonet passed right through the figure.

The sentry was charged with sleeping on duty, after he was found unconscious following the encounter with the ghost. He was only saved from a court martial when others reported that they had had same experience.

Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for only nine days, was executed at – and haunts – the Tower. Her spirit has been seen on the battlements.

The Bloody Tower was haunted by the ghosts of two little boys, thought to have been the two princes who were smothered (possibly on the orders of Richard III) in their room in 1483. The two figures, wearing nightshirts, were seen standing hand-in-hand before vanishing.

Another victim of Henry VIII met a gruesome death on Tower Green. The 70-year-old Countess of Salisbury was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head on it. She attempted to run from the executioner, who followed her, hacking her with his axe until she was dead. A ghostly reenactment of this scene has been witnessed by visitors to the Tower, while the shadow of an axe falls over the green.

Sir Walter Raleigh has been seen strolling the grounds; unlike most prisoners, he had the freedom to move around the Tower.

The tortured screams of Guy Fawkes sometimes ring through the area.

Haunted hotels

With Halloween approaching, what better time for those in the United States to get yourself a REAL haunt by staying at a haunted hotel?

Autumn is the perfect time, in my opinion, to try out a new haunt. Dry leaves rustle outside the windows; the air is sharp and scented with wood smoke; the full moon highlights increasingly bare branches.

With haunted lodging so popular, and advertised so well, chances are excellent that there's a place near you where you can take a weekend break or a longer vacation. Haunted hotels are all over the U.S., and you should be able to find one within your affordability range. Some of the larger hotels also offer ghost tours as part of their services (though not all tours are included in the price of your stay).

This link will provide you with information on hotels, prices, locations, and best of all, ghost stories from the hotels!

Enjoy your frightful night.

Haunted real estate

Yes, you can buy your very own haunted house - if you don't mind the fact that it's always "on", so to speak, and highly unpredictable in the phenomena that may occur.

It can be difficult for realtors to sell houses in which crimes have occurred, as well as those reputed to be haunted. Especially if the haunting occurs as the result of the crime.

Some states require the seller to disclose a haunting; there was a case in New York, in 1991, when potential purchasers were able to back out of the deal upon learning that the property they planned to buy was reportedly haunted.

34 states require the disclosure of any facts that might cause the property to be devalued. The hardest homes to sell are those in which a murder has taken place, and even worse if more than one murder occurred. The homes of suicides are almost as difficult to sell, and haunted homes rank third on the list.

There are, though, those who really do want to live in a haunted house; those who do, are in luck, because a quick Internet search turns up several sites dedicated to helping those find a haunted property. Happy h(a)unting!

The Tower of London

The Queen's House

Arbella Stuart's ghost may haunt The Queen's House on Tower Green.

The Governor of the Tower from 1994 to 2006 who lived in The Queen's House tells of some strange occurences at night.

Arbella Stuart married William Seymour (tne nephew of Lady Jane Grey) in 1610, without the permission of King James I. Both Arbella and William were heirs to the throne; King James regarded this marriage as a threat, and subjected Arbella to house arrest in Lambeth. William was imprisoned in the Tower.

Arbella escaped house arrest and planned to free William so that the two could flee to France. William did indeed escape the Tower, but he missed their meeting. Arbella sailed for France alone, but she was recognized and sent back to England - now, it was her turn to experience the Tower. William, the luckier of the two, escaped to France, never to see his wife again. Arbella died in 1615, in what is now The Queen’s House.

Major General Geoffrey Field, Governor of the Tower of London from 1994-2006, lived with his family in the Queen's House. He told this story:

"Soon after we’d arrived in 1994, my wife Janice was making up the bed in the Lennox room when she felt a violent push in her back which propelled her right out of the room!

"No one had warned us that the house was haunted – but we then discovered that every resident has experienced something strange in that room!

"The story goes that the ghost is that of Arbella Stuart, a cousin of James I, who was imprisoned and then possibly murdered in that bedroom.

"Several women who slept there since have reported waking in terror the middle of the night feeling they were being strangled, so just in case we made it a house rule not to give unaccompanied female guests the Lennox room."

A haunted bar

From the outside, Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky, looks like any other example of boring, ugly architecture. However, paranormal activity in and around the place has brought psychic after psychic, and an exorcist, to the bar, in an attempt to lay the ghosts that are, apparently, out to harm the living. It has been said that the building is one of the most haunted locations in the United States.

The original building was constructed in the 1850s, as a slaughterhouse. The only tangible remnant of the first structure is a well in the basement; this is where blood from slaughtered animals was drained. At the beginning of the 1890s, the slaughterhouse was closed, but the story is that the basement was used by Devil worshippers who sacrificed animals, then threw the corpses into the well. In 1896, the fun came to an end when a murder trial rocked the area. Thousands of people milled around the courthouse, unable to get in, while others (who actually bought tickets to the trial) enjoyed the show indoors.

The trial concerned the savage murder of Pearl Bryan, from Greencastle, Indiana. 22-year-old Pearl was very popular and a member of a good family. She was also pregnant. Her lover (introduced to her by her cousin, William Wood) was Scott Jackson, a student at the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in nearby Cincinnati. Unknown to both Pearl and Wood, Jackson was said to be member of the Devil worshippers meeting in the old slaughterhouse. Jackson soon became intimate with Pearl; when she became pregnant, she went to her cousin for help. Wood told Jackson of this turn of events, and Jackson made arrangements for Pearl to travel to Cincinnati for an abortion.

On February 1, 1896, Pearl (now five months pregnant) told her parents she was going to Indianapolis. In reality, she had arranged to meet Jackson and his roommate, Alonzo Walling, in Cincinnati. Her parents would never see her again.

Jackson first tried to induce an abortion with chemicals, such as cocaine (which was found in Pearl's system when an autopsy was performed). He then tried dental tools, to no avail. Pearl was now bleeding and very frightened, but still pregnant. They traveled to an out-of-the-way place near Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where the two men had better luck with the dental instruments when they used them to murder Pearl by decapitating her. Later examination by a doctor determined that Pearl was still alive when her head was cut off; this conclusion was reached due to blood discovered on the bottoms of some of the leaves at the murder scene.

Pearl’s headless body was discovered less than two miles from the former slaughterhouse; she was identified by her shoes. During the trial, Walling testified that Jackson had first had the idea to dismember Pearl and throw the parts of her body into the sewers of Cincinnati. As it was, only her head was taken. Her long hair was later found in Jackson’s room.

Pearl’s head was never found; the story is that it was used for a ritual at the former slaughterhouse, then thrown into the well. Jackson and Walling were found guilty and sentenced to death. Charges had been brought against Wood, but were dropped when he agreed to testify against Jackson and Walling. Some reports stated that Jackson and Walling were offered life sentences if they would tell the authorities where Pearl’s head was. They refused, and were hanged behind the Newport courthouse on March 21, 1897.

Rumors got out that Jackson and Walling feared "Satan’s wrath" if they gave away the location of Pearl’s head. A reporter commented after the hanging that as the noose was put around Walling's neck, he threatened to come back and haunt the place. The same reporter also claimed that a curse seemed to have befallen many of the people involved with the case, with many of them experiencing various misfortunes and dying tragically.

The slaughterhouse was torn down some years later, and a roadhouse was built on the site. During the Roaring '20s, it was a speakeasy. Stories are told of many murders occurring on the premises during that time. Given the fact that the place was a den of alcohol and gambling, both illegal, the murders were never reported, and the bodies taken elsewhere; this meant that all the murders went unsolved.


Prohibition ended in 1933, and the building was bought by E.A. ("Buck") Brady. He operated a tavern/casino, the Primrose. Once news of the thriving business reached Cincinnati mobsters, they attempted to muscle in on it. Brady resisted all their attempts. The mobsters then began to vandalize the place, as well as harassing and even beating up customers outside. Eventually, a shooting occurred, in August of 1946. Brady was charged with the attempted murder of Albert "Red" Masterson (another crook), but he was released later. Buck then sold his business to the hoods. Almost twenty years after the shooting, in September of 1965, Brady committed suicide.

The building now became another nightclub, the Latin Quarter. During the 1950s, another ghost joined the ranks. Johanna, the daughter of the club's owner, fell in love with a singer performing in the club and (shades of Pearl Bryan!) became pregnant. Her father, outraged, had his mob buddies kill the singer. Johanna tried to murder her father with poison, then killed herself. Her body was found, of course, in the basement. The autopsy report stated that she was five months pregnant, just like Pearl.

In early 1978, the building was purchased by Bobby and Janet Mackey; they planned to make it into a country bar. Mackey, a singer, was well-known in the area. The bar became a popular hangout quickly.

The first employee hired to work at the new bar was caretaker/handyman Carl Lawson. Not only did he work in the building, he also lived there. His apartment was located upstairs. Lawson was also the first to report strange happenings in the building. "I’d...make sure that everything was turned off. Then I’d come back down hours later and the bar lights would be on. The front doors would be unlocked... The jukebox would be playing the ‘Anniversary Waltz’ even though I’d unplugged it and the power was turned off," Lawson said in an interview.

Lawson also saw the ghost of an angry-looking man behind the bar; he was the only person present who saw it. Not long after this, Lawson came into contact with a ghost named Johanna. Lawson could see and hear Johanna, and the two of them carried on conversations, which led to the idea that Lawson had started talking to himself.

Lawson came to the realization that the basement was the center of the paranormal activity; more precisely, the location of the well. Lawson was aware of the stories surrounding the history of the site. He decided to bless the well with holy water, in an attempt to calm the place. The plan backfired, and the activity, rather than decreasing, increased. Other employees, as well as some customers, now began to experience the phenomena. Items moved with no visible cause; voices were heard. Bobby Mackey, not a believer in ghosts, worried that the stories would drive away existing and potential customers. However, soon his wife had experiences of her own.

Janet, when in the basement, smelled an overpowering scent of roses (the scent that always manifested itself when Johanna was near). An invisible force seized Janet around the waist, lifted her, and threw her down. She ran to the stairs, only to encounter a strong force that was trying to push her down the steps. A voice began screaming, "Get out!"

Janet was five months pregnant at the time.

Writer Doug Hensley overcame the initial resistance of customers and staff alike to investigate the ghostly happenings. He soon had thirty affidavits testifying to the paranormal activity in the club. One story concerned a headless ghost wearing clothing from the 19th century; this ghost had been seen by several people, all of whom gave the same description of her. Hensley dug through historical records and old newspapers, finding the forgotten stories of Pearl Bryan and Buck Brady. (Brady's ghost has also been seen on the premises.) Hensley wrote a book containing these stories, and he has taken part in several investigations. An attempt, in 1994, to exorcise the place had as much effect as Carl Lawson's holy water.

The club is still open, still popular, and still haunted.

Hellcatraz

Alcatraz is one of the most famous prisons in the United States. Al Capone was an inmate here, along with George "Machine-Gun" Kelly. Its isolated location, on an island in San Francisco Bay, helped to keep the prisoners behind bars.

In 1847 the United States military put the island to use. They established a fort, then in 1854, the first lighthouse on the Pacific Coast was built. In 1859, the first (military) prisoners were sent to the fort. In 1861, Confederate prisoners began to arrive. Some were soldiers; some merely sympathized with the South. The fort was much smaller in those days, and the men were kept in the guardhouse basement, lying on a stone floor with no heat or running water - and nothing in the form of a latrine. Lice were rampant, and diseases spread easily. The stereotypical prison punishments - being chained to an iron ball, subsisting on bread and water - were common.

In 1904, the prison was updated. The stockade wall was extended; several new buildings were constructed. Surprisingly, the earthquake of 1906 didn't damage any of the buildings, so prisoners from the hard-hit mainland jail were brought to the island as a temporary measure.

In those days, though the rules were strict, the facility was, by and large, minimum-security. Quite a few of the inmates had jobs working for the military families living on the island, and some even took care of officers' children. Some took advantage of the low security to attempt escape, but of those who tried, some had to be rescued, while the rest drowned in the bay.

In 1933, Alcatraz was turned over to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to become a model for an "escape-proof" prison. James A. Johnston became the warden. He created rules and regulations for Alcatraz and hired the best men available to work in it. Soon, the appearance of the prison had undergone a dramatic change. Gun towers were built, barbed wire encircled the premises; the cellblock was constructed on the old fort. Inside, the locks were electric, and tear gas could be sprayed from the ceilings. In addition, housing was built for the guards' families and the former lighthouse keeper's residence became the quarters of the new warden.

The worst inmates from prisons around the country were now being sent to "the Rock". Among these were Capone; Kelly; Robert Stroud (the "Birdman" of Alcatraz); Floyd Hamilton (one-time driver for Bonnie and Clyde), and Alvin ("Creepy") Karpis.

It was in August of 1934 that Capone arrived at the prison. Prior to this, he had been an inmate in a federal prison in Atlanta, enjoying special benefits. Alcatraz, though, was an entirely different matter. Johnston recognize Capone quickly, and when speaking to him for the first time, simply issued a prison number.

The "Strip Cell", also called the "Oriental", was used for punishment. It had no toilet and no sink. A hole in the floor, which could be flushed from outside the cell, was used for human waste. Inmates undergoing punishment were put naked in the cell, and received only small portions of food. It had the usual bars, with an opening through which food was passed, but it also had a solid steel door, which left the inmate in blackness. Inmates were usually confined to the cell for a day or two. The only furnishing was a straw mattress, which was removed in the morning. The prisoners dreaded this punishment, which was used only in extreme cases.

Another kind of cell was known as the "Hole". These were found on the bottom tier of the cells, and again, were feared by the prisoners. The mattresses were taken in the mornings and the prisoners received bread and water, with a regular meal every three days. There were the same steel doors, but a (dim) lightbulb hung from the ceiling. Up to 19 days were spent in here, creating a form of psychological torture for the inmates.

When an inmate was forced into the "hole", he was almost always beaten by the guards. D Block contained four such "holes", and the screams of the inmates were heard clearly by the other prisoners in the block. When this happened, the other inmates would make loud noise, which was then heard in the B and C blocks, who would also create a ruckus. Men who spent time in the "hole" often ended up in the prison hospital; some had their health damaged by lying naked on the concrete floor. Some died in the "hole". (Al Capone once went the full 19 days for attempting to bribe a guard.)

In front of A Block there was a staircase leading to a steel door, which in turn led to corridors going to the gun ports from bygone times. Two rooms in this area, which was underground, were used as dungeons. Prisoners who were thrown, naked, into the dungeons were chained to the walls before being locked in; no matter how loudly they screamed, nobody could hear them in the main building. There was no toilet, only a bucket - and it was emptied only once a week. Rations were two cups of water and a piece of bread daily, with (as in the "holes") a larger meal every three days. The wall chains forced them to stand twelve hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. At night, they were provided with a blanket.

In just one year - 1937, only a few years after the prison opened - 14 prisoners went insane, such as Rube Persful. Persful, once a gangster who robbed banks on the side, worked in a workshop at the prison. One day, resting his left hand on a piece of wood, he took a hatchet and, laughing, started to chop off his fingers. He then implored a guard to do the same to his right hand. It may be that the number of breakdowns at the "Rock" was higher than at any other federal prison.

In May 1946, Bernard Coy, Joe Cretzer, Marvin Hubbard, Sam Shockley, Miran Thompson, and Clarence Carnes took several guards hostage in an attempt to escape. By the end of the attempt, three of the guards were dead and others had been wounded. Two of the guards had been brutally murdered in cells 402 and 403; these cells were later renumbered to C-102 and C-104. The U.S. Marines stormed the island and used heavy weaponry in an assault on the block. The inmates, even knowing that resistance was futile, decided to fight. The warden (not knowing how many were involved in the uprising) called for additional help from other organizations, so that eventually, he received aid not only from the Marines, but from the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, many guards from nearby prisons, and several police units had been brought in.

Finally, after two days, Cretzer, Coy and Hubbard attempted to take refuge from the gunfire in a utility corridor, only to be killed by bullets and metal fragments from other explosives. The other three, hoping that no one could identify them as being part of the proceedings, went back to their cells. Thompson and Shockley went to the gas chamber at San Quentin; and Carnes was sentenced to life plus 99 years (in consideration of the fact that he had helped some of the hostages when they were wounded).

On March 23, 1963, now falling into disrepair due in large part to the corrosive salt water and air, Alcatraz was closed. Almost ten years later, in 1972, an act of Congress created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Alcatraz, now a tourist attraction, opened to the general public in the autumn of 1973.

Ghosts and unexplained phenomena

When Alcatraz was still a prison, quite a few guards experienced odd occurrences between 1946 and 1963. Strange, unexplained smells were noticed; sounds of sobbing were heard; even specters were seen. Civilians on the island said that they sometimes saw the ghosts of prisoners and soldiers. Warden Johnston, a very down-to-earth man, once heard sobbing as he took a group of guests on a tour of the prison. He believed that the sobbing came from the inside of the dungeon walls. Then, an icy cold draft of air was felt by the group.

One night in 1976, a guard heard strange noises behind a steel door in Block C. This door, funnily enough, is the one leading to the utility corridor where the three inmates were shot to death in the 1946 escape attempt. The guard opened the door and sent the beam of his flashlight down the corridor. Seeing nothing, he closed the door... and the noises began again. He opened the door a second time. He saw nothing. He shut the door again and left.

An employee was walking in front of A Block when she heard a scream coming from the bottom of the stairs. She ran without checking the source of the noise. stated Only the day before another employee heard men's voices in the hospital ward. When he investigated, he found the ward empty.

Cell 14D, one of the infamous "holes", has a very creepy atmosphere. One guide stated that it's always cold, so much that a jacket is necessary if anyone wants to spend more than a few minutes in it. When Alcatraz was still a prison, many guards mentioned frightening occurrences near all of the "holes", but especially, 14D.

In the mid-1940s, an inmate was put in this "hole". The guard later stated that soon after the door was locked, the man began to scream. He shrieked that something was in there with him, something with "glowing eyes". He continued to scream well into the night. Then there was silence. The next day, the inmate was found dead in his cell. His face was frozen in a look of horror, and his throat showed clear marks, made by two hands. The autopsy reported that the cause of death was strangulation, but not self-inflicted. There was a belief that one of the guards had done it, out of an inability to handle any more of the man's screaming. However, some officers believed that the killer was the ghost of a former inmate. On the day after the mysterious death, the guards were doing the regular head count when they noticed one extra person in the lineup. The extra man was the recently-deceased inmate. As the guards stared, he vanished.

Alcatraz is still open to tours by the public - including the legendary, infamous Cell 14D.

Abraham Lincoln and the supernatural

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, and the first to be assassinated. He lived a deeply sad life - the death of his mother, the death of his first fiancee, Ann Rutledge, a turbulent marriage to Mary Todd, and the deaths of two of his children (another child, Thomas, died in 1871). Lincoln often sat by his son Willie's crypt, crying for hours. Mary Lincoln's method of coping was to immerse herself in seances, much like Sarah Winchester in years to come, attempting to communicate with her deceased sons.

Early in the year 1865, Lincoln spoke of a dream he had had: "About ten days ago I retired very late...I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.

"There, the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room. No living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed alone...I was puzzled and alarmed.

"Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face covered, others weeping pitifully.

"'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin.'"

The outburst of grief at this news was so loud that Lincoln awoke. On April 14, with the Civil War finally at an end, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre when he was shot in the back of the head by actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was carried to a nearby boarding house, where he died at 7:22 a.m., April 15, 1865.

The grief surrounding this first presidential assassination was overwhelming; people wept openly in the streets. Lincoln, who had not been a very popular president, suddenly became a hero and a martyr to millions.

After lying in state in the East Room, as in his dream, Lincoln's body was put on a train to Springfield, Illinois. According to popular legend, on the anniversary of this sad trip, two ghost trains are seen slowly traveling between Washington, D.C. and Illinois. The first train contains a military band (sometimes reported as a band of skeletons) playing a funeral dirge. A second steam engine follows it, pulling a flatbed car with Lincoln's coffin resting on it. They never do arrive in Springfield.

A curious twist of fate involves Lincoln's oldest son, Robert. Late in 1864 or early in 1865, Robert was standing on the platform of a railway station as a train pulled in. Robert was somehow swept off his feet and found himself falling into the gap between the train and the platform; had he fallen, he would have been crushed. A stranger on the platform seized his collar and pulled him to safety.

Robert turned to thank the man, and recognized him: He was Edwin Booth, a very popular actor, whose far-less-successful brother was John Wilkes Booth. Edwin had no idea that he had saved the President's son until Robert sent him a heartfelt letter of gratitude later. After the assassination, Edwin took comfort in the fact that he had been able to save one of the Lincolns.

When Ulysses S. Grant was president, one of the household staff claimed to have seen Willie and talked to him.

Calvin Coolidge's wife Grace Coolidge was the first person to report seeing Abraham Lincoln's ghost. She claimed to have seen him standing at a window in the Oval Office, hands behind his back, looking across the Potomac River.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was President, the country first experienced the Great Depression, and then, World War II. Lincoln's ghost was seen more often at this time.

During the war, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was a guest at the White House. One night, she was awakened by a knock on her door. When she opened the door, she was confronted by the figure of President Lincoln standing in the hallway. The queen fainted; when she came to, she was lying across the threshold, alone - the ghost was gone.

Once, Mary Eben, Eleanor Roosevelt's secretary, found Lincoln's ghost in the northwest bedroom, sitting on the bed. He was pulling on his boots. The secretary screamed and ran, bursting in on Mrs. Roosevelt and shouting, "He's up there, pulling on his boots!"

"Who is?" Mrs. Roosevelt asked.

"Mr. Lincoln!" was the reply.

Other staff members of the FDR administration said they'd seen Lincoln lying on his bed occasionally, in the afternoons.

During the Truman administration, his daughter Margaret, who slept in that area of the White House, often heard knocks on her door late at night. She never found anyone when she investigated. She told her father, who thought the noises must be caused by the floors settling; he then had the White House rebuilt entirely. It was the best decision he could have made - the chief architect told Truman that the building had been in danger of collapsing. Was Lincoln's ghost trying to warn the Trumans of the danger?

No reports of Lincoln's ghost have been made in recent times... but given his haunted life and death, one may occur at any time.

Lincoln's son Robert, the only one who lived to adulthood, sat by his father's bedside and watched him die. In 1881, working for President Garfield's administration, Robert witnessed Charles Guiteau shoot Garfield, who died weeks later. In 1901, Robert was invited to the Pan-American Exposition. It was here that Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley.

Robert became convinced that he was a curse; he was afraid to associate with any other President, due to these deaths. However, he did allow himself to meet with then-President Harding, in 1922, to unveil the Lincoln Memorial.

Harding died in office the following year.

Gettysburg ghosts

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, in 1863. Ghosts - on the battlefield and in various buildings - have been reported for decades.

Gettysburg College - or as it was then called, Pennsylvania College - is one of the haunted buildings. During the war, there were only three buildings forming the college; there were only about one hundred students at the time. The campus served as a field hospital during and after the battle.

Pennsylvania Hall, built in 1837, is one of the worst haunted of the college buildings. The Confederates seized it during the battle for use as a lookout point and hospital. Robert E. Lee himself used the cupola as a lookout point to watch the battle.

The field hospital, with its wounded and maimed soldiers, may be the most haunted area. There was no anesthesia in those days; antiseptic surgery was still in the future; bullet wounds were often treated by amputation. The area outside the operating rooms was used to put the soldiers who couldn't be saved. They were left there to die.

One night, two administrators were working on the fourth floor. As they left work, they boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the first floor. The elevator moved down, past the first floor, coming to a stop in the basement. The doors opened, and the administrators saw a sight they had never imagined they would see.

1863 had come to vivid, gory life in the basement. The walls were spattered with blood. Wounded soldiers were sprawled on the floor, with doctors attending to them. To add to the eerie effect, the whole scene was silent.

The administrators pushed the elevator button frantically, trying to close the doors and leave the scene. Just before the doors closed, though, one of the orderlies looked up and directly at them, as if he were asking for help.

After this ordeal, whenever either of the administrators had to work at night, they took the stairs.

William Terriss

Good-looking actor William Terriss (born William Lewin) was a very popular stage figure of Victorian England. He was noted for his portrayals of heroes, which earned him the nickname of "Breezy Bill". He was popular offstage as well, being noted for his generosity, especially towards fellow actors. One night, he arrived at the theatre dripping wet, as his contemporary, Ellen Terry, recalled. He shrugged off the usual jokes ("Is it raining, Terriss?"). It was only later that everyone learned he had dived into the Thames to rescue a child in danger.

Terriss would, eventually, have enormous cause to regret his generosity towards Richard Archer Price. Terriss had helped Price to find work as a struggling young actor, but Price's alcohol problems and mental illness made him difficult to deal with. Eventually, Terriss had Price fired, though he continued to send Price money (through the Actors' Benevolent Fund) and tried to help him to find work elsewhere.

On December 16, 1897, now desperate and out of money, but impossible to work with, Price caught up with Terriss at the door to the Adelphi Theatre, which Terriss was unlocking. Price stabbed Terriss in the back, and as Terriss turned towards him, stabbed him in the side and again in the back. Actress Jessie Millward, Terriss' leading lady and lover, heard the commotion and opened the door from the inside, when Terriss fell against her. His last words were whispered to Millward: "I will come back." He was buried in London's Brompton Cemetery.

Price was caught instantly, telling the police, "I did it for revenge. He had kept me out of employment for ten years, and I had either to die in the street or kill him." Though Price was found guilty of murder, he was also found to be insane. He died at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in 1936, frequently writing and acting in his own plays, performed for the amusement of thrill-seekers who enjoyed visiting psychiatric hospitals.

True to his word, Terriss has indeed come back, and stayed. His ghost has been seen at the Adelphi, as well as making frequent appearances at the Covent Garden tube station. (Terriss was murdered ten years before the tube station opened; he used to buy goods from a bakery that stood on that spot, hence his tendency to revisit the area.) In 1955, ticket collector Jack Hayden saw the ghost of Terriss, wearing an opera cloak and gloves, holding a cane, and "with a very, very sad face and sunken cheeks"; the specter was seen walking the platform or climbing the spiral staircase. Once, the ghost entered the former cafeteria through a closed door. He stood, wordless and unmoving, before leaving through the same closed door; the employees were thunderstruck.

In distinct contrast to the kindly nature of Terriss during his lifetime, his ghost is often a frightening one. The spirit made itself known for what may have been the first time in a dressing room at the Adelphi in 1928, when a young actress known only as "June" was trying to sleep before a performance. First, the couch underneath her began to shake. When she investigated, she found nothing. The couch continued to shake, and then she saw a greenish mist. Her arms were clutched tightly by unseen fingers. A sound of two knocks ended the supernatural display.

Later, June found that her dressing room was once used by Jessie Millward. Terriss, during his life, was in the habit of knocking twice on her door with his walking stick as he passed it.

June's arms were bruised for several days.

Several Adelphi employees witnessed Terriss' last appearance at the theatre, in 1950. He tended to appear (as with June's experience) from a green mist, frightening spectators. The last sighting of the ghost in the Covent Garden Station occurred in 1972, but staff members still hear footsteps and whispering in the station.

No. 50, Berkeley Square

In times past, the 18th-century house at No. 50, Berkeley Square, was known as "the most haunted house in London". A certain upstairs room had an evil reputation; it was said that nobody could spend a night in it without dying of fear or going incurably insane.

The ghosts of No. 50 are found throughout the house. The ghost of a young woman has been seen clinging to the outside of a window, screaming for help; evidently, a woman named Adeline fell from that same window in an attempt to escape her uncle, whose intentions were, to say the least, dishonorable.

Another ghost is seen upstairs. She sobs and wrings her hands. This little girl met her death at the hands of a truly sadistic servant, who either tortured or frightened her to death.

The worst ghost is the one that haunts the sinister upstairs room. One rumor has it that a previous tenant kept his insane brother in the room, only feeding him through the door due to his extremely violent nature. The ghost of this brother is said to haunt the room, as well as other areas of the house. Some reports state that the ghost is a sort of shapeless mass; others, that it is the figure of a man with his mouth gaping open. All agree that it is a horrifying sight.

In the 1870s, neighbors reported hearing loud sounds coming from the house - bells ringing, windows opening, furniture being move. When anyone investigated, the house was quiet and peaceful.

At one point in the house's history, a maid was given the haunted room as her bedroom. Not long after everyone had gone to bed, her screams sent the entire household running to her room. She was found lying on the floor, eyes bulging, and died the following day at St. George's Hospital. She could only say that what she had seen was "horrible".

30-year-old Sir Robert Warboys accepted a wager of 100 guineas that he would not be able to spend the night alone in the room. A bell was set up so that he could ring for help, if needed. The rest of the party remained in the drawing room while Sir Robert occupied the haunted room, armed with his pistol. The agreement was that Sir Robert would ring twice if he needed help.

Shortly before 2 o'clock in the morning, a faint ring of the bell was quickly followed by a loud peal. The others ran upstairs to the room, hearing a gunshot ring out. When they entered the room, Sir Robert was lying across the bed, dead, with a terrified expression on his face.

In 1872, Lord Lyttleton slept in the haunted room, with two shotguns for company. He claimed that something leaped at him from the dark, so he fired one of the guns at it. The ghost disappeared.

In the 1880s, the house's reputation still as active as ever, two sailors decided to spend the night in it, after drinking all their money. The house, not surprisingly, was empty at the time. The two of them broke in, and having found the downstairs to be unlivable, went upstairs to find a place to sleep. Of course, they settled on the haunted room.

Later that night, the two men heard the sound of bare feet mounting the stairs. There was something very sinister about the sound. The two of them watched as the footsteps approached the room, then the door opened and a horrifying specter entered. One of the sailors dodged around it and ran. Running pell-mell down the street, he cannoned into a policeman, and dragged him back to the house.

They found the body of the other sailor impaled on the railings in front of the house, underneath the window of the haunted room.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the house was owned by a man who hired an elderly couple to take care of it. They were never allowed to enter the haunted room. Every six months, the man would visit the house, lock the couple in the basement, and spend hours in the room.

No. 50 is now occupied by antiquarian booksellers. Depending on the reports you read, either no strange occurrences have happened, or a cleaning woman saw a brownish mist in one room, while an employee had his glasses snatched off his face and thrown across the room. It is said that in the 1950s, the police gave notice that the top floor of the house, which was "unsound", was not to be used for anything - not even storage. The notice is still in effect.

As an eerie footnote, one of the streets leading to Berkeley Square is Bruton Street - once the residence of the murderous Metyards (see A London Ghost).

A London Ghost

From the Newgate Calender:

SARAH METYARD AND SARAH MORGAN METYARD, HER DAUGHTER

Executed at Tyburn, 19th of July, 1768, for the Cruel Murders of Parish Apprentices

SARAH METYARD was a milliner, and the daughter her assistant, in Bruton Street, Hanover Square, London. In the year 1758 the mother had five apprentice girls bound to her from different parish workhouses, among whom were Anne Naylor and her sister. Anne Naylor, being of a sickly constitution, was not able to do so much work as the other apprentices about the same age, and therefore she became the more immediate object of the fury of the barbarous women, whose repeated acts of cruelty at length occasioned the unhappy girl to abscond. Being brought back, she was confined in an upper apartment, and allowed each day no other sustenance than a small piece of bread and a little water.

Seizing an opportunity of escaping from her confinement, unperceived she got into the street, and ran to a milk-carrier, whom she begged to protect her, saying that if she returned she must certainly perish, through the want of food and severe treatment she daily received. Being soon missed, she was followed by the younger Metyard, who seized her by the neck, forced her into the house, and threw her upon the bed in the room where she had been confined, and she was then seized by the old woman, who held her down while the daughter beat her with the handle of a broom in a most cruel manner.

They afterwards put her into a back room on the second storey, tied a cord round her waist, and her hands behind her, and fastened her to the door in such a manner that it was impossible for her either to sit or lie down. She was compelled to remain in this situation for three successive days; but they permitted her to go to bed at the usual hours at night. Having received no kind of nutriment for three days and two nights, her strength was so exhausted that, being unable to walk upstairs, she crept to the garret, where she lay on her hands and feet.

While she remained tied up on the second floor the other apprentices were ordered to work in an adjoining apartment, that they might be deterred from disobedience by being witnesses to the unhappy girl's sufferings; but they were enjoined, on the penalty of being subjected to equal severity, against affording her any kind of relief.

On the fourth day she faltered in speech, and presently afterwards expired. The other girls, seeing the whole weight of her body supported by the strings which confined her to the door, were greatly alarmed, and called out: "Miss Sally! Miss Sally! Nanny does not move." The daughter then came upstairs, saying: "If she does not move, I will make her move"; and then beat the deceased on the head with the heel of a shoe.

Perceiving no signs of life, she called to her mother, who came upstairs and ordered the strings that confined the deceased to be cut; she then laid the body across her lap and directed one of the apprentices where to find a bottle with some hartshorn drops.

When the child had brought the drops, she and the other girls were ordered to go downstairs; and the mother and daughter, being convinced that the object of their barbarity was dead, conveyed the body into the garret . They related to the other apprentices that Nanny had been in a fit, but was perfectly recovered, adding that she was locked into the garret lest she should again run away; and, in order to give an air of plausibililty to their tale, at noon the daughter carried a plate of meat upstairs, saying it was for Nanny's dinner.

They locked the body of the deceased in a box on the fourth day after the murder, and, having left the garret door open and the street door on the jar, one of the apprentices was told to call Nanny down to dinner, and to tell her that, if she promised to behave well in future, she would be no longer confined. Upon the return of the child, she said Nanny was not above-stairs; and after a great parade of searching every part of the house they reflected upon her as being of an intractable disposition and pretended she had run away.

The sister of the deceased, who was apprenticed to the same inhuman mistress, mentioned to a lodger in the house that she was persuaded her sister was dead; observing that it was not probable she had gone away, since parts of her apparel still remained in the garret. The suspicions of this girl coming to the knowledge of the inhuman wretches, they, with a view of preventing a discovery, cruelly murdered her, and secreted the body.

The body of Anne remained in the box two months, during which time the garret door was kept locked, lest the offensive smell shouild lead to a discovery. The stench became so powerful that they judged it prudent to remove the remains of the unhappy victim of their barbarity; and therefore, on the evening of the 25th of December, they cut the body in pieces, and tied the head and trunk up in one cloth and the limbs in another, excepting one hand, a finger belonging to which had been amputated before death, and that they resolved to burn.

When the apprentices had gone to bed, the old woman put the hand into the fire, saying: "The fire tells no tales." She intended to consume the entire remains of the unfortunate girl by fire but, afraid that the smell would give rise to suspicion, changed that design, and took the bundles to the gully-hole in Chick Lane and endeavoured to throw the parts of the mangled corpse over the wall into the common sewer; but being unable to effect that, she left them among the mud and water that was collected before the grate of the sewer.

Some pieces of the body were discovered about twelve o'clock by the watchman, and he mentioned the circumstance to the constable of the night. The constable applied to one of the overseers of the parish, by whose direction the parts of the body were collected and taken to the watchhouse. On the following day the matter was communicated to Mr Umfreville, the coroner, who examined the pieces found by the watchman; but he supposed them to be parts of a corpse taken from a churchyard for the use of some surgeon, and declined to summon a jury.

Four years elapsed before the discovery of these horrid murders, which at length happened in the following manner. Continual disagreements prevailed between the mother and daughter; and, though the latter had now arrived at the age of maturity, she was often beaten, and otherwise treated with severity. Thus provoked, she sometimes threatened to destroy herself, and at others to give information against her mother as a murderer.

At last information concerning the affair was given to the overseers of Tottenham parish, and mother and daughter were committed to the Gatehouse. At the ensuing Old Bailey sessions they were both sentenced to be executed on the following Monday, and then to be conveyed to Surgeons' Hall for dissection.

The mother, being in a fit when she was put into the cart, lay at her length till she came to the place of execution, when she was raised up, and means were used for her recovery, but without effect, so that she departed this life in a state of insensibility. From the time of leaving Newgate to the moment of her death the daughter wept incessantly.

After hanging the usual time the bodies were conveyed in a hearse to Surgeons' Hall, where they were exposed to the curiosity of the public, and then dissected. (end)

After what was left of Anne Naylor was thrown into the sewer grate, people reported a figure dressed in white moving around the area. The hauntings continued even after the double executions of the hideous Metyard pair, on into the twentieth century, by which time Chick Lane had been renamed West Street. Some of the older buildings were torn down and new buildings constructed on the sites, yet the eerie occurrences remained. Anne Naylor's spirit, still not at rest, is sometimes heard screaming by passengers on the platform at the Farringdon station of the London Underground.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

One of the classics.

Dorothy Walpole, in her younger days, was in love with her father's ward, Charles Townshend. Her father wouldn't allow the two to marry, lest people should think that he was after the Townshend fortune. Charles married another woman, and Dorothy eventually started up a relationship with the "infamous" Lord Wharton, who was a real ladies' man.

The story seemed to end happily in 1713, when Dorothy finally married Charles Townshend after the death of his first wife. Thirteen years later, though - and what an unlucky combination of thirteens it was! - Dorothy's death was pronounced on March 29, 1726. The cause was stated as smallpox. Rumor abounded, though, that an empty coffin had been buried, and that Dorothy was still alive, kept captive by her husband after he learned of her earlier affair with Wharton. Other rumors had it that Dorothy died when a push from her husband sent her down the grand staircase, breaking her neck in the fall.

In the early 19th century, King George IV (then Prince Regent) saw the apparition of a pale woman, hair dishevelled, standing by his bed. He promptly left the house, stating that he had seen something he hoped never to see again; soon, all the servants had decamped as well.

A Colonel Loftus then saw Dorothy in 1836, when he was a member of a large house party. One night, he saw a woman in a brown dress in the hallway, but she disappeared before he could speak to her (thinking she was another member of the party whom he hadn't yet met). The following night, Loftus saw her again; this time, he was able to approach her and look her in the face. To his horror, he saw that her eyes had been gouged out. Again, the "brown lady" vanished.

Captain Frederick Marryat, a popular author, had a memorable run-in with the ghost. By that time, tales of the Brown Lady were told and retold, and Marryat was familiar with the story before he stayed at the Hall. One night, two young men knocked on his bedroom door and invited him to come to the room where one of them was sleeping, so Marryat could see the new gun the young man had bought. Marryat agreed, visited the bedroom, and duly admired the weapon. When he returned to his own room, the young men volunteered to accompany him, "In case you meet the Brown Lady."

On the way back to Marryat's room, the three men saw a light approaching them. Thinking that it was a nurse coming from one of the nurseries, and not wanting to frighten her, they hid behind a door. Marryat was standing near the crack between the door and the jamb, and he watched as the light stopped in front of him, and the Brown Lady herself, eyeless, looked at him with a "diabolical" grin on her face.

Also armed, Marryat jumped from behind the door and shot at the apparition, which disappeared. The following day, the bullet was found in the opposite wall. The Brown Lady never again appeared when Marryat was in the house.

In 1926, two young boys saw the Lady. Perhaps her most famous appearance occurred in 1936, when two photographers from Country Life magazine were taking photos of the interior:






Is it real, or is it simply a double exposure? These two men were journalists, well-respected in their field, and not the sort of people who were likely to perpetrate a hoax.

Maybe someone will take another photo of the eyeless Brown Lady.

Elliott O'Donnell

His books scare the hell out of me. O'Donnell (1872 - 1965) became famous, after working at various odd jobs, as a ghost hunter and writer on various subjects of the supernatural.

O'Donnell liked to relate the story of his father's death, which occurred when Elliott was only six months old. The O'Donnell family was haunted by a banshee, which woke the whole house with its shrieks one night. His mother asked one of the servants what the noise was; the servant replied that one of the O'Donnell's had died that night. The following night, the family heard his father's footsteps ascending the stairs to the nursery. O'Donnell's nurse heard the nursery door open, then saw a light and heard a voice, which she recognized as her employer's, speaking; the voice was too fast, however, and she was too frightened, to make out anything he said. The voice stopped, the light went out, and the footsteps went downstairs again.

These events occurred at the same time the following night, and each subsequent night, for six weeks. At no time was anyone able to speak to the ghost, or to understand what it said; they were overwhelmed with fear. Finally, Mrs. O'Donnell received a letter informing her that her husband was dead, under suspicious circumstances. On vacation, and having taken it into his head to visit Abyssina (as it was then called), he was later found in the town of Arkiko, on the coast of the Red Sea. Mrs. O'Donnell heard later from people familiar with the area that they had no doubt he had been murdered by a local gang, one who murdered and robbed any foreigner with money.

Henry O'Donnell's murder occurred around noon of the day the banshee made itself heard at his home in Ireland.

O'Donnell claimed that the banshee next manifested itself to his youngest sister. As she was climbing the stairs one day (years after Henry O'Donnell's death), she saw a head looking at her from above. The head was so frightening that O'Donnell's sister was frozen to the spot, but finally, she turned and rain downstairs. As she did, laughter echoed after her, so loudly that everyone in the house could hear it. A few days later, one of their aunts (on his father's side) died, and a week after the appearance, Mrs. O'Donnell was dead.

This is a pretty good background for someone who would later become well-known for his supernatural experiences and writings. O'Donnell was always ready to check out stories of hauntings; to hold vigils in abandoned houses; to talk to those who had tales to tell; to take a look at haunted rooms.

I will say that I've discovered quite a few discrepancies in his stories. In one book, he writes a few stories in the first person, as if they happened to him. In another book, he writes them as having been related to him by the person who experienced them. His stories are so detailed, too, that I wonder how much he just invented - after all, the man must have been very aware of the power of a good story. He must have listened to a hell of a lot of people, too, to be able to come up with so many compilations. He also wrote fiction (well, stories that he admitted were fiction, anyway). He was very interested in folklore, too, and wove it into his works. Some of his writings deal with the "classic" stories, such as Raynham Hall, Borley Rectory, and the like. (More on these in other posts, by the way.)

His stories were highly regarded by horror author August Derleth, who wrote that he used to wait for Sundays to come so he could read another story by O'Donnell in The American Weekly. Harry Ludlam edited some story collections of O'Donnell's, and Bernhardt J. Hurwood was another fan.

He did a series of radio shows based on his works for CBS in the 1930s, and if anyone knows where I can get copies of those shows, I'd be very grateful.

When I started reading him, his books were out of print, and hard to find. As it is, even now his books often sell for staggeringly huge prices. Fortunately for all of us who love a good ghost story, many of his books are now in print again. They aren't cheap, but it's a far better alternative than paying eight hundred dollars for one of his works.

O'Donnell heads my list of a good, scary author of ghost stories.

The ghost of Valentino

Rudolph Valentino died suddenly of complications due to a perforated ulcer in 1926, at the height of his popularity. Fans around the world committed suicide when they heard the news. He was only 31 at the time of his death; the hysteria surrounding his funeral was something to see. Since Valentino died in New York, his body had to be sent (by train) back to California for his burial. Crowds surrounded the train at every stop on the long trip across the country, climaxing in Pola Negri's antics (she claimed they were engaged) when it finally arrived in California.

Valentino's house, Falcon Lair, was reported afterwards to be haunted by his ghost; one woman even claimed that he had chased her through the hallways. Another claim is that he haunts a Hollywood hotel.

Falcon Lair, like so many of the grand homes of the once-great Hollywood, is no more. It went up for sale in 2006 and was then destroyed the same year. When Valentino first came to the States, he was often homeless. Now, he is again.

The address of Falcon Lair was 1936 Bella Drive. Here is how it looks today:


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