33.02 - MU Podcast - The Ghost Slide
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Welcome to Mysterious Universe, Season 33, Episode 2. Coming up on the show, we've got a haunting in Sheffield, conversing with the Kundalini, and two decades of a ghost light in your bedroom. I'm your host, Benjamin Grundy. Joining me is Aaron Wright. How does the guy sleep?

What is the ghost slide? Is it just a light on all the time? No, it's a slide. The ghost slide. Oh, I thought you said ghost light. No, it's two decades of a ghost slide in your bedroom, which is even worse. Do we have to re-record or can we keep going? No, I don't care. It's the last two of you. What's a ghost slide? Well, that will all be explained on this episode. That's the point of this episode. Like a wee? Yes. I don't want to give it away, but yes. I didn't want to say anything. I thought ghost light was passable, maybe a little bit bland.

No, it's a ghost slide, but all will be revealed because I'm going to be going into this really fantastic book. And I'm kind of reluctant to talk about ghost stories because most of the time ghost stories kind of, you hear a little couple of bangs upstairs and you feel a little bit uncomfortable and that's it. But this story just goes in a direction that I didn't expect at all. And funnily enough, it seems to parallel quite a lot with some of my own personal experiences I had

Also almost two decades ago. It's his debut book, isn't it? William C. Grave, The Lady in the Bay Window. That's right. I strongly recommend, like I'm going to give you the gist of this story, but I strongly recommend that you pick it up, not only because it's a great read, like considering that he says, I'm not an author, but I wanted to tell my story. He's also written it so that he can donate the profits to the Cavendish Cancer Care, which is a local charity that helps support people that are suffering from cancer. Oh, good on him. Because his mother, unfortunately, suffered from some stage four, you know, terrible cancer.

rare cancer and sadly she passed away before she was able to read the end of his book but you know out of something so sad comes something that is quite

helpful. This really is an incredible book. So before I get into that, though, what have you got coming up? I'm going to be telling a story in Plus about a Danish man who, when he was 18, this was about 40 years ago, he lived in a small town in Denmark and he was a bit of a loner, didn't have too many friends in high school. And one day the librarian noticed that he looked quite lonely and invited him out to a yoga workshop she was going to. And so he agreed. They went along and

He started doing this yoga practice and it all went really well. He made a few friends there. And eventually this woman that invited him, she had other things going on and she stopped going, but he kept attending these yoga classes. Great. I mean, that's really, you know, yoga can be quite grounding. Yeah, he was getting a lot out of it until he went home one afternoon. And this was after doing a long...

meditation workshop. Like he was doing a little bit of meditation after the yoga, like maybe five minutes at the end of the class. But then he was invited to do a longer meditation retreat, which was hours and hours of sitting. He didn't clean his mat, did he? He caught a clive. Well, he ends up going home one evening after these meditation sessions and he feels this weird nervous energy in his stomach and he can't go to sleep.

And he thinks, that's weird. Maybe I ate something that doesn't agree with me. And then the next night, he also can't sleep. And again, he feels this weird stirring energy down in his lower regions. Oh, I know where this is going. And the third night, he doesn't sleep. And by this point, he's starting to panic. And that's when the visions start coming at night. He starts to see bizarre, horrific things.

visions screened into his mind and ultimately what we've got coming up

is Peter Nilsson's Kundalini Awakening. Bingo. A absolute disaster. Really? Like people talk about Kundalini as this spiritual energy, you know, coiled up in the root chakra that's ready to emerge and push you towards some kind of enlightened state. Not on this show. It just turns you into some weird horny hot box that ends up destroying your life. We prefer the stories where this spontaneous so-called awakening happens

you psychotic. And that's precisely what happened to Peter. That's where the stories are, Ben. Yeah, well, luckily he was able to manage it. It's fascinating how he managed it. And eventually he got into the IFS healing.

healing system or the IFS psychotherapy. You might remember a book, we covered this back in, I think it was May or April last year from Robert Falconer. It was called The Others Within Us. I do, yes. Internal family systems, porous mind and spirit possession. Internal family systems is this, I guess, psychotherapy that was invented by an American in the 1980s. But

In a nutshell, it's the idea that your psyche is broken up into parts and that these individual parts of your psyche are conscious entities in their own right. Yes. And this particular book from Robert Falconer

revealed that some of the practitioners that have been doing this kind of healing therapy noticed that there were aspects of psyche that started to emerge in their patients that weren't necessarily a part of the patient themselves. They were external. And so that's what that whole book was about. I'll link to it in the show notes if you want to go back to that. But anyway, this Danish guy, what was his name again? Peter Nilsson.

He ended up training in this IFS system and he discovered a way to converse with the Kundalini. What? So like the serpentine energy?

Really? He has full-on conversations with it, including other patients who have come to him specifically because he's now a specialist with this. So if you have that spontaneous stirring that some people believe is this kundalini energy emerging, and the idea is that it goes up through the chakras and goes up through your spine. Remember we covered that work from Anthony Peake just last year. Yes.

And the discoveries are from a 1930s German biologist who discovered a nervous system in an eel, which he, I think it was called the Rayner nerve or something. Something like that. And then this discovery was confirmed by North Korean scientists. Always a reliable source. Well, the German guy's discovery was lost. And then this North Korean guy was the Bonghan nerve or something. Yes.

And then the South Koreans tried to verify his research and they discovered, well, this German guy discovered it in the 1930s. So the idea was there was this biological basis for the idea of the Kundalini.

And it seems as though Peter has been able to not only tap into that, but tap into the psyche that's supposedly behind this energy. It's bizarre. It's wild. You were ready to go quite early today. So it must be one hell of a story. You must have just gotten through it. It's a pretty, I mean, it's a short book, but it's just packed full of some amazing experiences. So looking forward to sharing it. Fantastic. All right. Well, let's get into that later on in the show, but let's jump into The Lady in the Bay Window, A True Story of a Haunted Sheffield Home by William C. Grave.

I really enjoyed this. And the reason why I did is because it had parallels to the experiences that I had about 2014.

20 years ago. And it's funny because all throughout the book, he's kind of describing that while he's, you bend in the background here, he's telling me to adjust my microphone. It's way out here. I can't hear you. I want people to see my face. All right, there we go. Not that people need to see my face, but anyway. So he was saying, look, I'm a skeptic, right? I remain a skeptic of these things, despite the fact that for 20 years, he has been subjected to some of the most bizarre and outlandish paranormal experiences that you could possibly imagine. But I like it in a way that he's still grounded.

And, you know, over the years, people have asked us about our paranormal experiences. And one of the reasons that kind of spurred me into getting into Mysterious Universe, and if you've been listening for a long time, you'll know this. That time you saw the floating head?

No, there was no head. There was no head. So skip ahead for about 10 minutes if you're familiar with this. But basically, it's very similar in that I moved into this old house built around the 1930s, maybe 1920s in Sydney, in inner city Sydney, in a place called Leichhardt, already a very culturally rich and kind of exciting location. I was young and I moved in with a friend into this house. And immediately when we moved in, there was just something off, like a just...

And no one could put their finger on it because we'd have friends come around and, you know, work colleagues and everyone was like, there's just something about this place. And we figured it was just simply because it was old and run down. And even now where people complain about Sydney property prices, but even back then when you broke in your early twenties, this was extremely expensive and just still a mess. Like it was a really run down place. And, um,

You know, there were things like there was some, there was a concert on or something. And one evening as I was getting ready to go out because there's no one else in the house and I was going to go and meet them. There was this feeling of immense cold. This is in the middle of summer in Sydney. It was a chill. Yeah, it was hot outside, but it was freezing inside. Did you have air conditioning? No air conditioning, you know, but a poorly insulated 1930s home. And from the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw like a black mist or shadowy shape or something head from this...

living room, kitchen area and head towards the bathroom, which was right next to my bedroom. And immediately it was one of the first times in my life that at that point I had suppressed a lot of my experiences as a child of seeing things. And this is why I'd gone into the field of science and had gone down this path. I was like, oh, that's absurd. You know, if it's not in a journal, that's absurd. That doesn't exist. Where I was first like, holy shit, there's something really terrifying in this house. And I got out.

I got out that night. Funnily enough, went out, went drinking with my friends, came home, felt nothing. This is very much what we hear in this book with William C. Grave. There's a lot of young, hanging out with your friends, drinking, going, carrying on. But I wonder if that somehow contributes to fueling the energy of these things, which I'll go into. But regardless, after this happened, there were events where I had a friend. I was in Canberra and my friend was up here in Sydney and he was in my bedroom and he was telling me like,

someone tried to open the bedroom door at about three o'clock in the morning. And I'm like, no, they didn't. And no one else was in the house. No one else was in the house. And he was insistent that someone tried to do this. And it got to this point where I went up the road because it was a local pub. And this is where everyone would go drinking and you got to know your neighbors. And I went up the road and these people that have been locals for a long time were chatting away. And it's funny because they've been there for a long time, but they were like, oh, you've moved in. Whose grandfather has moved into the house with you?

And both of us, our response was, what are you talking about? No one's grandfather's in the house. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I walked past. I walk my dog every day. And in the evening or in dust time, there's a guy who's an elderly man sitting on your balcony. And I went, no, that's just, that's not true. That's absolutely not true. There's no one there. And this guy was insistent. Now,

What will become apparent later on when we talk about William's experiences is this is something that I haven't revealed when I've spoken about these experiences before. But I found out years later, years and years later, and it was just this weird synchronicity, this weird coincidence, that I happened to meet someone who lived across the road from me in that house, like in that street, right? Like diagonally across the road from me. She was insistent that there was people saying to her that there was some old man sitting on her balcony. And I'm like,

So immediately, right, when I heard that, I was like, okay, then clearly that must be a joke that they play on new people that move into the street to kind of review. That's immediately what I'm thinking. Sure. But now I'm like, in light of what I'm going to describe to you from William, I'm like,

is that actually what happened? And in light of the other things I experienced there, perhaps it's not. Didn't you see a man standing in the hallway? Well, this is the crescendo, which I'll get to, right? So I don't know exactly the timeframe because it was so long ago now, but in this house, because of the way that it was built, the laundry was under it and it was this crappy, like, I didn't even like going down there. And there was this alcove there and the alcove had nothing in it. So we ended up putting like a cabinet in it or something just to, you know, chuck detergent, laundry detergent, that kind of stuff.

And I went to see a psychic because I'd been not enjoying work and I was unhappy where my life was going. So a friend said, hey, go and check out a psychic. I go and speak to the psychic without talking anything about the house. I had no interest in talking about the house. And she's like...

Your house is haunted. There's two men and a woman that live in the house and they always hang out around the old stove. And I'm like, what old stove? There's no old stove. Oh, that's what the alcove was. That's what the alcove was. And this is the way that these houses were built. You'd have this big, rustic metal kind of stove that was under the house. It was pushed into this alcove. So immediately when I get home, I run downstairs and I check it out. Obviously with the lights blaring, every light turned on because it did feel uncomfortable. And

You could see that there was a previous outline and this indent of four kind of marks where they had to be in like this large metal stove. But no doubt, they're very valuable now. People pay a lot of money to put these into renovated houses. So no doubt that's been removed and replaced. But yeah, where it reached this crescendo was that

one particular evening, two of us were in the house and we were awakened to the sound of shattering glass. Like it was undoubtedly shattering glass. Like I couldn't describe it any other way. And you know what the sound of shattering glass is. You know that. So I was freaked out because I was sure that someone had broken through the front door because it was a glass front door. Sure.

And there were people out in the streets and, you know, there's a few kids. I mean, it's inner city Sydney. So there was, you know, a little bit of crime. So I'm like, okay, someone's in the house. And I was freaked out. So I was like pushing stuff up. I'd rather a ghost to be honest. Me too. I was like pushing stuff up against my door. I was like really freaked out. Like how am I going to climb out the window? Unfortunately, we can't have guns here. So otherwise I would have strapped up. Can't even use your cricket bat anymore. You can't. Yeah, right. So I'm like, okay, this is not good.

Called the police because I genuinely believed that there was someone in the house. And finally, they arrive. I come out and open the door.

There's nothing except for the fact that there had been a book that had been in the kitchen area. And this book had fallen onto what happened to be a pot of fertilizer, like granular fertilizer. And the book had hit the fertilizer and had scattered all across the floor. So something did break. Well, it didn't necessarily break, but yeah, the container opened. But the sound of the container is completely different to the sound of shattering glass. And we both heard it.

Both of us were like, no, hang on a second. We both heard the sound of shattering glass. Of course, the police were very understanding and they went off and I felt really bad for wasting their time. But also where this book was, there was no way that this book could have fallen because it was sitting horizontal. How would it fall off a bookshelf when it's sitting and it was a phone book? How would that happen? All of this reached this crescendo where

there was a lot of, with the person I'd moved in with, we had started fighting and then the energy and the tempo had really picked up inside the house and she'd gone to move out and I was in the house by myself and I was ready to leave because I'd had enough. And on this particular evening, I was cooking and just out of the corner of my eye, I saw something and I was like, oh, and I turn and I look and where it was, you would have a kitchen dining room kind of area and then it would drop down into the actual kitchen, the cooking area itself. And I turn and I look and this

And this platform area had been raised from where it was previously. No, sorry, the kitchen area had been lowered. I'm sorry, the kitchen area had been lowered. So where I looked, there

There was this form and it was the form of a man in probably, you know, I would say he would be like a normal sized man wearing a black suit, shiny buttons, like six shiny buttons on both sides. This weird like chain across, which I didn't realize at the time I was so young and never even understood what it was. It was a fob watch that he had across his wall. And I'm there trying to take in what I'm seeing and understand what I'm seeing. I look up and up and up. I don't know. And it's like,

It obviously happened much faster, right? But everything seemed to slow down as I was taking this in. And I looked and there was no head.

And it wasn't no head in a Scooby-Doo costume, like blood everywhere. It was just like Photoshop where you remove something. Oh, right. So there wasn't like a wound or anything? There was no wound. Just faded out. Not even faded. It was just like perfect, just not there, right, of this reality. Weird. And later on, after I'd looked into some of the history of the house, yeah, the kitchen area had been lowered. So the way that this was, he actually would have been –

before, or the space would have been higher. So his head would have been at that place in the 1930s through to the 1940s or 50s. So did his head go all the way up to the ceiling? No, no. There was nothing. It was just this man with this no head there. And that was it for me. That was like, I'm done. I'm out. I'm out.

I've never seen a ghost since. I've sensed presences in houses since then, but I've never seen anything like this before. And when you expect to see a ghost, of course, even back then, I was like, a ghost is something that is transparent or it's a black shadowy kind of figure. It's not a perfectly formed, just like you and me, except for a missing head. Would you have stuck around if he did have a head?

No, I wouldn't have anyway. What if he was smiling and he had a cigar and he was like, yeah. No, none of that. But it became abundantly clear to me that this particular man was strongly connected to that house somehow. So what's the deal with the sightings across the road of another guy in the house? Is it the same guy? Well, I don't know. I don't think so. Same ghost? Maybe it is. But no one else that had seen this thing on the balcony and on the other balcony had seen

describe it as looking anything unusual. Okay. And you would, right? If you saw someone with their head missing, you know, whether or not it had a wound, you'd be like, hang on, I saw something really weird, but it wasn't. It was just enough. And I feel like all this stuff kind of, it's not just the haunting itself. It's all the surrounding synchronicities and weird things that happen. Hmm.

that really reinforce just the strange elements of this. It's almost like there's a hot zone of activity that you're involved in and it seems to suck everyone else in around you. And that seemingly is what's happened with William and his experiences. So let me jump into what happened to William. So his story parallels in a really strange way. So

He says, this is the story of number 333. It's this semi-detached house. It's in Sheffield in South Yorkshire in England. He purchased this property in the mid to early 2000s. He was only 19 years old, I believe, when he purchased this house. And he was actually living with his family. And he was working as a car salesman. And when he was working as a car salesman, he was making good money. He made good money. And his family was saying to him, look, you know,

Maybe you should think about doing something with this money that you're

that you're making from the amount that it sounds like without casting any aspersions because I was just as bad. It sounds like he likes to go out and have a couple of tipples with his mates, a couple of drinks with his mates. So maybe his family were like, look, before you spend that all, how about you put it into something? So he, with his fiance of the time, they decided that they're going to go and buy a house. You know, a smart thing to do. So they go out, they start looking around, looking for properties for sale. And it just so happens they came across this semi-detached home in the south of the city. It was near a place called Charnock.

And they quickly arranged a viewing. Now, William was really eager to see this property and he drove over to it the day before he actually had the inspection just to view the outside. And he said, you know, when he looked at this house, it kind of had this classic already haunted cliche feeling to it. It was dark. It was weather worn. It had these big, almost, um,

I don't know what it would be like Hitchcock Bay windows there that were overlooking the front garden, but the garden was overgrown, but it's perfect for the first house for a 19 year old, right? So he takes his fiance to see it. She really wants to see inside, but she's happy to see it. And they do, they view the property and they put an offer to the seller. And strangely enough,

the deal or the offer was accepted rather rapidly. Maybe there's something to that, maybe not. People have to move on quickly, but it would be several weeks before they could pick up the keys. Now, around a week later or so, this is at the end of the year, it's a cold December night,

And William had been out with some friends and it was like a work night out. And he's speaking to his friend Craig and Craig, he offers Craig a lift home essentially. And as they're chatting away and Craig's like, what have you been up to? And I'm completely paraphrasing here the experience that happened. But as they're talking, he's like, oh yeah, you know, me and my fiance and we're going to buy this new house. And Craig's like, oh, well, you know, it's, it's on the way. Let's, let's go and have a look.

He says, okay, okay, sure. So they do. So William drives his friend Craig to this place and he pulls up at the front and Craig says to him very politely, oh yeah, you know, it looks like a really lovely place. But then he goes, who's the old lady in the bay window?

Like really nonchalant about it. Just really easygoing. And like as a person who was physically seeing someone in the window. Yeah, this really is like your experience, isn't it? It's just stunningly parallel. So he's like, William says, what are you talking about? There's no one in the window. He's like, yeah, yeah. He's like in the top bay window. Like look up there. There's an old lady staring at us. Now William looks up at the house and he can't see anything. This is a really strange thing, right? And I wonder if it comes down to...

people's natural predisposition to being able to sense certain phenomena. Like you may be able to experience some of it, but it might be stronger in the, you know, touch senses or in the smell senses or something. For this guy, for Craig, he could see it. And he's like, but what he's seeing is like, what is it? It's just a normal elderly lady up in the house. And so,

He tells Craig, he's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's the house next door. Like it's a semi-detached house. The property number is three, three, three. And like, he looks back up and Craig is insistent. He's like, yes, she's looking at us right now. You must be able to see her. She's on the cover of the book too. Yeah, right. And, and he's like, I can't, I can't see her. And Craig just, just simply, he just kind of like shrugs his shoulders and they drive off.

And William asks him, he's like, well, what does she look like? And he says, well, she was quite a small old lady, probably in her eighties. She was wearing a darkish colored cardigan over a white blouse. She had short gray permed hair and had this quite piercing stare. Was she shaking her fist at them? Well, she didn't look happy at us parking outside her house.

And then that's kind of weird, right? But see, William, and this is rightly so, right? He goes, well, he doesn't say this to Craig from what I understand, but he goes, he must be joking. He must be joking around. He must be playing a game with me. There's no way that there was a woman standing up in that window. So around a week passes and we get to December the 18th, 2004, and William and his fiance get the keys to the house. And William knew some of the details about the house, but not a lot. Like

lot, like just some small details, but he's given the keys and he's like, oh, before I even move in, I'm just going to run over to the house and just check it out and check a few things. So he goes over and he opens the door. And as soon as he opens the door, this rather large bald man just starts barreling towards him. Now, immediately I'm like, is he seeing a ghost? Like what? Like the door was locked and you're unlocking the door and you're going in. No, no,

It's the previous owner. And he introduces himself as Nick. And he's like, oh, sorry to scare you or to upset you. I'm just here fixing up the kitchen that I've sorted out for you. I've just reinstalled the kitchen. I left my tools here. So I've just come to pick up the tools.

And of course, William is like, oh yeah, okay. Nice to meet you, Nick. And everything's fine. And he says, this woman kind of appears, right? It's not the same woman, but this woman appears and she introduces herself as Nick's mother. She doesn't give a name or anything.

And they just have this friendly back and forth chat about the house. And she's like, well, you know, Nick purchased the house for me after, you know, I've been alone for a while. It's a house from the 1930s. It used to be a council house. There was an old woman who was living here. Oh, that's funny that she mentions this. Why would you mention it? Right. So she's like, there was an old lady who was living there, but she's passed on. That's when I purchased it or Nick purchased it at auction. Yeah.

And then she leans in, right? Because Nick's distracted. The son's distracted. And she leans into William. She's like, there's something not right with the house. And straight away, Nick is like, mother!

mother, you know, don't, don't scare the young boy. Like this guy's 19. He's a kid. He's just got, you know, he's not concerned about this kind of stuff. That's the first thing you want to hear when you're getting the keys to your new investment. Isn't it? You know, but again, I think he really does have this skeptical approach to stuff. So I think for the most part, if you're, you know, young and, you know, you don't believe in this nonsense, that's not going to put you off. And it seems like it doesn't. He's just like, look, I, you know, chalked the conversation up to it just being, you know,

something that was not really of that importance and he kind of moved on. So he moves in with his fiance and he said, I didn't put two and two together, but he probably should have with what was going on. But they were waiting for the house to have the carpets fitted and getting a few things sorted out, some of the final furnishings to go in. So his fiance was like, oh, look, I'm going to stay living with my parents until the house is actually ready.

And William's response is, yeah, cool. That's not a problem at all. So he's there by himself in the house. So he invites a number of friends around to have this unofficial housewarming just to celebrate the first night in the house.

Five friends arrive. These five friends come over. They bring their sleeping bags with them, of course, plenty of beers. And it's important, though, I should say, because people go, whenever you see something, what's the first reaction you get from people? Have you been drinking or were you drinking? But something I really have to reiterate is how often is it, considering how widely distributed alcohol is and how so many people have had alcohol, do people actually see ghosts or spirits? Yeah, you don't really hallucinate. You don't hallucinate. Yeah.

You do dumb and stupid things, you say stupid things, but it doesn't cause you to hallucinate and get confused, but not like this of what people are describing. So

One of William's friends, his name is Greg, they've got their sleeping bags. They were all in the living room and there was a board game in the center of the room. I think it was Monopoly or something. Now they're all just there laughing. It's a cacophonous kind of noise. Like they're knocking down drinks and they're, you know, talking about houses and playing cards. And, you know, all of a sudden Greg just starts screaming, like screaming in a panic. And he jumps up and he goes running like into the kitchen and,

And the rest of them, or the five other guys, are just standing there going, what the hell happened? Like, what's this guy? No one saw anything, right? There was just this small Christmas tree in the corner that William had set up before the guys had arrived.

Greg's behavior was completely unusual and had never been performed before. So they finally go and speak to Greg when he calms down and they say, what the hell happened? And Greg, instead of answering, he's just staring. I'm just pointing for my notes here. He's just staring at this Christmas tree. They're all looking at him. What are you doing? And he's clearly terrified. Clearly something has disappeared.

distressed him and upset him to a point where he can't speak. Now, finally, when they'd calmed him down without knowing, this is the thing, he hadn't described this to anyone else. And Greg wasn't known to Craig. Do you know how white people have these clover-lipped people in their lives? So, like, there's a lot of this going on in the book. But Craig was a work friend and Greg is a separate friend. There's no connection between them. But Greg goes, look,

Didn't you see her? Didn't you see it? I'm like, what are you talking about? And she says, an old lady. She was sitting there in an invisible chair next to the Christmas tree. She was just staring at me, hovering on nothing. Now, this is fascinating as well, because it's not like a transparent form. It's not a ghostly form. It's not a wraith. It's a fully opaque woman. Well, I was going to say, if he just saw an old lady sitting

kind of appear and disappear. That doesn't really explain why he was that freaked out. But yeah, if you add the fact that she's hovering on an invisible seat, I guess that makes it a little bit more terrifying. That's enough to truly terrify you, right? So immediately, you know, William points out that he was, um...

concerned because of what Craig had said previously. He's like, hang on, now we've got two people. And he says, okay, well, you know, what does she look like? And he's like, well, she was probably in her eighties, maybe in her nineties. She had short gray hair, a long skirt, white blouse, a dark colored cardigan. And she was staring right at me. Now, William says this description matched almost exactly what had previously been seen

in the window. She didn't say anything to him? No, nothing was said. She was just kind of glaring, right? She's just still pissed off that her house is full of all these men. Yeah, all these young drunks, right? And so he said there was no further incidents that evening, but...

He said, I felt that I was glad that I wasn't in the house alone that night. Now, 2004 moved into 2005. His fiance had moved in. He was pretty relieved that he'd witnessed no further strange events. Although he met a neighbor and this neighbor's name was Tezza.

And Tezza. Yeah, just Tezza. But I think it's short for Terrence or something. And so he's just chatting away with Tezza. And you've got to be careful. It's funny because I was the same, right? When I started seeing these things all these years ago in this house, when I was talking to neighbors and things, I was really reluctant to mention anything about ghosts. And you really would. It's almost like this weird don't ask, don't tell ghost edition because you're like, oh,

oh, is anything unusual happened in the house? I see. People said anything? No direct questions. No direct questions. And that's what he's doing to this Tezza guy. And he's like, oh, you know, is there anything unusual in the house? And then he's just like, oh, screw it. He's like, has anyone ever seen ghosts in the house? And this Tezza guy

His reaction is like, no, not really. But in saying that, you know, there used to be a lady that lived there. She was well known. She was Mrs. Tompkins. Now, this is a pseudonym that William has applied to her name. But she took great pride in the home. She always kept her windows sparkling clean. And, you know, she'd passed away several years ago.

But maybe that's who was in the house now. Tezza was open to this possibility. So by that summer of 2005, William was once again living alone in the house after his fiance had broken up. And I found that to be interesting as well because it's like,

These sorts of experiences disrupt friendships and relationships. I have no doubt about it. At the time when this was happening to me, I lost friendships, my roommate moved out. It causes an immense amount of disruption because in a way, I don't know if it's the energy of the experience or if it's just simply that your worldview is being challenged and it causes you to go a bit crazy.

Because it's like, this isn't possible. And yet it's happening. Like you're having these experiences. There's nothing you can really do about it. There's nothing you can do about it. Right. And you don't want to, you don't know what to do. Like, of course I reached out to a psychic and that was slightly helpful, but the reality is, you know, especially when you're a young bloke. Did the psychic do it?

Did the psychic give you any advice on what to do about the situation or just point out that your house is haunted? It was just pointed out that the house is haunted. Okay, great. But I don't put that on the psychic because for whatever reason, I wasn't like, well, what do I do to get rid of them? How do I get rid of them? And in some ways, I feel like I don't think I wanted to get rid of them. Like, it's just...

I was renting. No, no, I didn't want to be with them. I was leaving, but I just didn't want to deal with it. Like I was renting, I could leave and that's what I did. Like I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to have people coming through. But I suppose if you purchased a house and you know, like stamp duty and all this taxes and stuff, but well, this is my house now and I'm going to, I'm going to kick you out.

So, he says that, look, I got a couple of roommates in. One was Doug and the other one was a man by the name of Dan. And he said he ended up becoming really good friends with Dan, like really good friends. And they got along really well. And now William at the start, funnily enough, didn't mention any of the weird events that had occurred previously to his new lodgers.

But one evening, they were getting along well, and once again, after a few beers, he told them about the strange experiences. This is William told his flatmates, Dan and Doug, about what had been taking place. And he was expecting them, much like Tezza, to have this kind of repulsive reaction to it, but they didn't. They were really intrigued. Like, they were really fascinated. And Doug says something strange. He's like, what's with the loft? Like, what's up in the loft?

And William's like, oh, I didn't really think of that. But there was. It was like this access panel to a loft up in the roof. And he's like, I've never actually been up there. So all of them with a little bit of Dutch courage on board, a little bit drunk, like, let's go up and investigate. Let's go up there. Now, this is the thing that happens with some of these ghost stories. Don't get your hopes up because the reality is,

nothing really happens, right? They go up, they go and have a few drinks. They basically, because they didn't have a ladder. I like how you sell the little story before you tell it. No, I have to, because it's, I don't want you to be like, Oh, I can't wait to hear this now. Yeah, I don't want you to hear, you know, like you need your soundboard ready to go. It's not what you think though, but it does it more what this entire book is though, which is what I really enjoy about it, is that it's like the end actually all ties it together, which I'll explain.

Yes, better than that, though. And it actually makes you think, because this is what these stories are. Like a general ghost story, yeah, like I'm done. I'm done with just like...

like trying to be scared or, you know, just to, I want to know about the complexities of this stuff. And this is complex, right? Because I didn't get it at first. So they go into this loft space and they're like, they must've been standing on each other's shoulders because there was no ladders. And they get one of the guys, I think it was Doug. Doug, yeah, Doug was hoisted up into the loft. And Doug has this old, I don't know if I should say old, but for the time, cutting edge, you know, flip smartphone with a

tiny little LED torch on it, right? Because they've got no torches. They've got a few beers on board. So Doug hoiks himself up and he's looking around, can't see anything. He flip opens his phone and he turns the light on. Almost immediately, he completely flips out, like completely loses it. What? And jumps back down, all of them kind of collapsing into a heap on the floor. And they're like, what, what, what, what did you see? He's like, the chair, the chair. Oh, the chair that she was sitting in, the invisible chair. The chair! They get

invisible chair was up in the attic or in the loft. Now they didn't know these guys, Doug and Dan didn't know. I mean, they've been told a few details, right? But it was like, maybe he must've been set up with the, just previously that just, oh yeah, my friend saw this woman kind of sitting on a chair. So what do they do? He finally calms down. Doug calms down. They all get up into the roof and they look and they find that there is this stool, this stool, which is just like sat in the middle of the loft.

But if they didn't see the chair, if the chair was invisible, how did they know it's the same chair? They don't. Okay. They don't. So the guy's getting scared by a chair. And maybe, and maybe it's because he was telling, but he was, but it was weird the way it was positioned. It was weird, you know, that just right after that, they're looking in the loft and they find it. And of course, you know, like it was this weird,

full form woman sitting on this invisible chair so he calms down and they go up into the back into the loft and doug pulls out his smartphone and he films like several minutes of footage like just kind of around the room now the three friends return to the living room and they're you know chatting about why would someone leave a single wooden stool in the middle of the loft like this is weird they didn't spot anything out of the ordinary on the video footage um

But they watched it several weeks later, right? After they'd sobered up. And they claim to have seen several strange orbs of light moving around in that loft. And a friend explains that, well, yeah, like that you've got haunted activity going on inside your house. These are signs of a spirit or a spirit manifesting. Now, of course, they didn't know that, right? Because they're just, you know, young people that aren't knowledgeable about this kind of stuff.

And like these strange events can continue in this sporadic fashion. And it happens for the next few years. And the housemates would hear heavy footsteps that would come from various parts of the house. Occasionally they would see this shadowy figure out of the corner of their eye, much like I did. William would later say that, you know, there was all kinds of paranormal activity that was taking place, but he was working so hard that he really wasn't home that often. But there was this one particular time where

It was a Saturday evening and there was some football match that was on. And so he wanted to sit with his housemates and watch this. And this was new housemates by this point, I believe. Oh no, it wasn't new housemates yet, but they had two new friends in, Ben and Brad. And they're all drinking. They've got another friend called, nicknamed Bungle.

And these six guys are sitting around this game, right? And as they're sitting around this game and they're sitting on the lounge, there was this chase kind of Ottoman that was at the bottom. And they all had their feet up on this Ottoman.

Now, they claim that as William and two others were sitting on this couch, on this settee, they call it, in front of the television, out of nowhere, the couch lifted into the air on William's side, almost as if a pair of invisible hands had hoisted it up. And it was witnessed by the three other guys and, of course, the three guys sitting on it. But there was nothing there. And none of them could have used their feet to lift it up because all of their feet were up on this ottoman.

So six people see this. This doesn't sound like sweet old lady ghost activity. No, no. And it does get a little bit, it has a poltergeist feel to it later on. But immediately I'm like, I wonder had I stayed in that house, would the activity have accelerated? Probably, especially if you'd interacted with it or tried to communicate. This is what's going on though. You've got new housemates coming in. You're telling the stories. The activity is kind of seemingly lifting up and they do. Did he have his feet on the lounge or something? She was pissed.

Yeah, maybe, but it wasn't hers. But again, you're right. Going back to what Tezza had said, how she kept this, she was house proud. And, you know, these boys are all there, you know, having drinks and probably pouring their drinks on it. And God knows what else, maybe it ticked her off. But for them, you know, that was enough. That was like one of the guys, Brad's like, yep, I'm getting the hell out of here. The other friends remained at the house, but the atmosphere was just a little bit off, still joyous, but a little bit off and they got out. So 2008,

We get to, because this is a story that's, you know, from the headline, you know, continues over two decades. Doug and Dan had moved out. William was back living in the property by himself, but he was paying all the bills by himself. And he was,

under a bit of a strain in his finances. And 2008 was the economic crash, of course, around that time. And it just so happened that his brother, Darren, had just gotten married to his wife. And he says to them, well, how about you move into the house so you can cover the bills for me and I'll move back in with my parents or something. And it all goes well. Everything's fine. Darren and his fiance were there for a short period of time where everything's going great.

until they start to witness a lot of parental activity. So it's not just isolated to William. It's also happening to Darren and his fiance or his wife at that time as well. And, you know, he said that something doesn't feel right. That's the first term that he used, which is funny because that's what the lady had said about the place. And he says, there's a presence somewhere in the room. And it's like,

There's something off. So William goes back, like Darren and his wife move out. William goes back into the house and he says, undoubtedly there was a presence in the house, but this time it was stronger than ever. And it was almost as strong as that. There was someone physical in the house, like really physical standing there. Now,

For him, this is where it changes, right? Someone who's very skeptical, but it's funny how people that are really skeptical about this stuff. I'm not saying this is William, but this is something I've noticed. People that are really hardcore skeptical about it, which he's not, but it's actually a defense mechanism because they've had experiences. And it's like this reaction formation thing of like, no, no, no, no, no, it's denial. No, no, no, it's not happening. But he says around this time, he'd been through it. Like the poor guy, he'd been through some rough times because his friend, Dan, who previously had lived in the house, had died.

And we don't know how he died at this point. But for some reason, when Williams moved back into the house, he's like, there's a heavy presence in the house. And like I said before, it's like this physical form. So he says, I can feel that you're here with me. Is this Dan?

or some other spirit in the house now we never learn how his friend died we do learn later on okay but we don't know how but he's really upset about losing his friend right and he gets no response so he pulls out his mobile phone and he takes a picture of the space directly in front of him where he's sure that there's the presence like almost a physical but an invisible presence standing there and he says that it kind of dissipates and he goes over he's watching tv

And he's like going through his phone. He took two photographs and he's looking at these photos and he says on the second one, he's stunned because while in the photograph, he can't see anything right directly in the space in front of him. He can't see the TV in the background and he looks at the television screen. The television was off, but it was reflecting from the light. He zooms in more and more and more until finally this image on the screen becomes clear.

He says there standing over him, and I want to read this verbatim, was a dark shadowy figure that certainly was not Dan. Dan had been slim around six feet in height, but this figure was much taller and towered over me as I stood there.

He says, this wasn't just, it was a black mass, but he says, you could make it out. It was definitely a bulky looking guy. Not an old lady. It's not an old lady because that's what I was expecting. Right. I'm like, okay, well, you know, maybe the old ladies missed him. Nope. That's not her. It's something. And this is where it starts to become apparent to me that there's more than one spirit in the house. He obviously doesn't include the photos in the book. No, no. So, um, it's,

Well, the reason why that phone... This is the thing, right? Here's the kick it is. The reason why that's not included is because, once again, he's drinking at a party and he lost his mobile phone at that party weeks later. So I'm like, okay, well, that sucks. Very similar to your experience. Probably. I have lost many mobile phones at drinking, so I'm not surprised at all. So yeah, he's like...

This is obviously, there's something very unusual about this house. And he says, several months later, it was the summer of 2009 now, two new housemates had moved in. You've got Paul and Matt. Paul's in a larger bedroom. Matt's in a smaller bedroom.

And it was around this time that Darren, his brother, had shown up because I think he was having trouble with his marriage or something. And he was like, oh, I'm just going to stay here for a while. So they're all there just watching television one evening, as you would normally. And I'm just looking at the time. Yeah, so they're all just there. And all of a sudden, one of the housemates is like, quick, quick, quick, turn the television off, turn it off.

He's like, what? And Matt is like pointing over to under the door. Now in these houses, these old British houses, they're not really built like the modern homes we have. Basically, you kind of shut yourself off into these little, because it's so freaking cold. Yeah, yeah. The windows are smaller. The windows are smaller. You shut yourself off into, like, it's not this open plan living unless you're in a more modern home with, you know, better, you know, air conditioning and heating systems. So they're looking right. And they said that they can see someone

It's clearly a man walking about in the light below the door. There's someone in the house. You can see it. Now, William says that they then hear footsteps coming from outside the living room. And these footsteps were the sound of a heavy-footed person with boots on. And almost when it was noticed and the television had been muted or turned down, the presence walked away towards the direction of the staircase and then seemingly went up the stairs and became less audible with each step as it climbed.

So this is an actual physical presence in the house. Now he is freaked out. The other housemates are freaked out, but look, yeah, it's three or four strapping young men. They all go running out.

There's nothing. There's absolutely no one in the house. There's no way that anyone could have hidden somewhere. But they said they also hear the bathroom door slamming shut upstairs and then this heavy silence moving throughout the house. And of course, once again, they check and there's nothing. But they've got this mixture of fear and fascination with what's going on. And they actually talk about it. And William describes what's been going on. And they all go back downstairs and they're watching television once again. And not moments after turning the television back on,

They hear the footsteps again. And Darren just starts yelling out. He's like, stop this. You're freaking me out. This is the brother. And as soon as he yells, the footsteps stop immediately. It's strange because that suggests that either somehow vocalizing can diminish the energy or is it that the spirit, if that's what it is, actually heard it.

and responded to it. Yeah, that makes the most sense. But that does make the most sense. So of course, you know, the years progress and go on. 2012, you've got Alan renting the smaller bedroom now. You've got Brundon, maybe German, I don't know. He's in the larger back bedroom. Darren is, you know, still hanging around, but he's out playing golf, you know, during the day and hanging out with his friends. So he's not in the house. But it was around this time that William met his wife and pardon me, his wife is named Grace and she's the manager of this bar. Yeah.

This is one alcohol ghost story after the next. So he meets Grace and he ends up getting along really well with her. And just so happens that Darren and his wife have fixed everything back up apparently. And they're like, let's go on this double date. It's like, yeah, sure. Okay, let's go do that. So they go and they have dinner and do whatever they do.

And they decided that because Darren's place was further, they're like, well, we'll drop you and Grace off at your home first. So they do. So they get to their house in this taxi. They climb out. And just as William's, I don't know, putting stuff back in his wallet after paying or whatever, Grace says to him, who's the old lady in your bedroom? I thought you lived here alone. Oh, no. Something along those lines, right? Again, I prefer the old lady to this other hulking black figure that's getting around. Well, that's true. But he's like,

what the hell? Immediately, obviously his reaction would be that he's shocked because he's just met this girl. You don't tell them, oh, by the way, I've got a ghost living in my house. Right. It's not something that you do. He's like, how did she see it now? He's like, he's trying to dismiss it, but she's looking up at the window. She's like, oh, the woman's gone. And he's like, oh, you must be seeing things like this. There's no woman in the house, but there was something that was kind of off. And he says to Grace, he's like, look, um, what does she look like?

And it's exactly what you think. Quite old, short gray perm, cardigan on, arms stretched out, leaning on the windowsill. And now this is leaning on the window, right? Much like the image on the cover of the book. And this is something that the way that all other people that have seen this have described it in this, like taking this same pose, which would make you think that this is some type of weird stone tape.

kind of apparition which is occurring. And possibly, but from the, what appears to be these elements of intelligence, I don't know if that is what's occurring here. This seems like there's more of an intelligence to it. And that seems to be the case, which we'll get to in a moment. But,

They go to bed and he wakes up in the middle of the night because Grace is saying, there's someone downstairs and it's more than one person. Now, William immediately grabs his phone. He texts Alan and Bundren and he's like, where are you guys? Are you in the house? And I'm like, no, no, no. Like one's still at work and the other one's at a bar or something. And he's like, okay, right. So he runs over to his closet and he pulls all the coat hangers apart and pulls them out, grabs the metal bar,

because that's all he has and pulls the metal bar out and goes, yeah, it goes running downstairs, you know, ready to go and defend the house. And he says, it definitely sounded like there were two people in heavy boots pacing around in the kitchen and the front room and back again. They were loud and clear, almost like they wanted to be heard. Now he was very, and he said also they were careful to step over loose floorboards.

So like, because there was a loose floorboard there that would have made the noise. So, you know, it was like, it's strange. Why would they behave in this fashion? Now he says, he takes a breath and he holds it and he swings open the door expecting to see someone. There's nothing except there's this strange buzzing sound. It's like, what is that buzzing sound? And he realizes it's the television. Like someone had turned on the television. So it's starting to get a little bit poltergeisty here. So,

He goes over, he turns the television off. He makes sure that the doors are locked and secured and everything's fine. And he told Grace what he'd discovered. Now she was happy that there's no one downstairs, but she was upset by the footsteps because you know those sounds and they both heard it. It's like there was definitely something in the house. And this wasn't the first or the last experience, I'm sorry, that Grace would have on the property. She ended up having a wide range of experiences. We move into 2013 where Alan and Brundon moved out.

And apparently Grace had been spending more time at the hair salon where she worked. But apparently because she was so distracted or whatever else, they started having problems, right? Again, there's this disruption to relationships. And so

William starts talking to his friends. And I don't know if word's gotten around. Like he doesn't say that in his book, but I wonder if people are like, yeah, I don't know if you want to. Surely it would. Yeah. But there was this girl by the name of Sadie. She was this 25 year old woman. She was a bit down on her luck and she,

He was like, I've never let a woman that I wasn't dating rent a room before, but why not? It's fine. So he brings in this girl, Sadie, and she's like one of the fellas. She just starts hanging around with them when they have their beer nights or whatever, and things are fine until one particular evening, they have this friend called Seth, and he's a mutual friend. And he's like, I can't get a taxi, so do you mind if I sleep on the couch downstairs? And they say, yeah, sure, no worries. I'll leave the keys out for you so when you go early in the morning, because he had to go early, you don't wait

wake anyone up. He's like, yep, no worries. Now the next morning, Williams awoken to the sound of the door slamming, like it was a loud slam. He's like, oh, Seth, you know, why did you do that? So he goes downstairs just to go and check. And when he goes downstairs, the door is open. Not only is the door open, he's like, hang on a second.

He notices that there's like items that are all scattered out across the pathway at the front. So he opens the door and he goes walking out and he finds that it's Sadie's purse, all of her makeup. Someone had come into the house, had grabbed her handbag from the entry hall and had scattered all the items out over the hallway.

over the hallway. Now he's like, what the hell is this? Now he spins around with the contents of her handbag. I don't know if he collected it up, but he runs back upstairs and he tells Sadie that a bag was on the path and what's going on. And what's weird is that her phone, her money, cigarettes, it's all there.

It's all accounted for. No one stole it. It's not a thief, yeah. It's not a thief. Like if someone's going to break into the house and do that, right? So she comes back outside and they're standing, looking, trying to just comprehend the situation as to what's occurred. Now, this is where it gets a little bit cliche.

And I don't know what to make of this. They come back into the house and it says here, now Marcus Loth has got a great write-up on this on our site as well. He says, as soon as they entered the house, they saw five sharp knives sticking out of the wooden floorboards in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. What's more, the knives had been driven into the floor and were a good two inches deep in the floorboards. Stranger still, and all the more disturbing, the knives were lined up in order of size and evenly spaced.

Whoever or whatever was responsible for this, the act was very purposeful, telling Sadie that she has to get out essentially. And that's where William speculates that perhaps in the book, that maybe this ghost, this female ghost, this old lady didn't like

a woman being in the house. Maybe that's what's going on. We really don't know. We've got no way to go. But with the knives, they're knives from, they are their knives, from a block that they had where they were all lined up. You know when you get a block of knives that they have a pattern to them. It's all shoved into the floor. This always occurs with poltergeist accounts, whether you think it's some sweet old lady or something else.

it always ramps up to a potential threat of violence or something nefarious. Yeah. It's never so benign that it's like, oh, your purse got thrown outside. Oh, look, the couch got moved slightly. It always ramps up to some kind of threat. Yep. Yep. You're absolutely right. Which speaks to the true nature of the activity. It's not just some sweet old lady that's passed away and doesn't realize she's

realize she's dead. Oh no, there's angry. That might be part of it, but there's something else going on. There's something dark and demonic. Absolutely. There's angry people here. So, um, we move again, you know, a couple of years, we get into early 2014. Um, apparently Sadie just left without warning and William was annoyed because she was like a couple of months, uh,

you know, back on rent and she just left all of her belongings behind. And eventually he gets in contact with some family members and they collect their belongings. And he's like, oh, well, you know, all's well that ends well. It's just done. He finds new housemates, a friend that he'd known for, you know, around a decade. And he says things kind of calm down a little bit, but then Darren, his brother, you know, it moves back into the house. And again, he's having trouble with his wife and all this activity starts ramping up. They've got Tim who's there and Tim is

was the only person in the house. He said that when he was in the bathroom, he said that there was like a cord that was attached to the light. So it was not a switch. It was like a cord that was hanging down. He says it was almost like an invisible hand had grabbed this and had reefed it from the wall, spinning around the air several times before smashing into the wall. He's like, that's, that's not the wind. That's not a draft that's doing that right now. He is seeing this now. He sat downstairs anxiously waiting for the other housemates to arrive. Um,

Uh, and they did. Right. And he explains what happened and none of them, and like, this is a rather banal incident in comparison to what else has been going on. But for Tim, that's truly shocking to experience something like that. The housemates are like, Oh yeah, yep. That happens all the time. Um, again, Williams having his usual beers and take out watching television. Darren kind of ventures in, um,

He's getting beers out of the fridge. And it's, what's the time here? Let me just have a look. It was late in the evening. No, I'm sorry. I'm going to say it's late in the evening. It was just before 4 a.m. And this is really important. So Darren has stumbled back in.

He's rather drunk, but he figures that, you know, he'll have a nightcap before he goes to bed. So he goes to the fridge and he pulls out a beer and he's drinking the beer. At 4am. At 4am. And as he's there looking through the window, right, he says he sees something moving in the backyard. He's like, what the hell is that? And he says he moves towards the glass and he sees this bright white shape.

moving around in the outside garden. Now he becomes fully alert and this can happen, right? I mean, yeah, you're drunk, but stuff like this kind of snaps you out of it. And he's watching, he's continuing as this figure, this glowing form moves closer and closer to the window. And he said the figure outside became crystal clear. He found himself looking at a ghostly apparition in the form of an elderly lady floating towards the window with an otherworldly grace.

He says, this is Mrs. Tompkins, this woman that has been up in the windows. Yes, the sound effects didn't work. I know you tried that one. There you go. Now,

He said he continued to watch. Does she look pissed off? Yeah, she's pissed. She's floating? She's floating on the ground. And he's like, but she's like classic ghost form. She's like semi-transparent. She's glowing white. So this is a Scooby-Doo ghost. This is a Scooby-Doo ghost. But what's shocking is that she kind of comes up to the window. She stares in like with this, you know, kind of gaze, this angry gaze.

and then pisses off really quickly, but through the neighbor's wall. Like she just disappears through the neighbor's wall. But the kicker to this thing is that where this neighbor's wall was, it's actually an extension. There would have been the garden there previously. Oh, right. So she passes through. So this is weird. Now Darren ends up drunkenly like falling beneath the, and crouching beneath the kitchen table. Does he finish his beer? I don't know if he finishes his beer, but he does start screaming for William. And William's like, why did you call me to come down? This is ridiculous. Obviously tells him the story that I just told you.

And he's just like, yeah, I've seen Mrs. Tompkins. So this otherworldly activity continues with an increase in regularity and intensity. And William had actually gotten back with his wife, Grace, or his fiance to become his wife. And then odd things occur. So it just so happens that

I think Grace has a seven-year-old son, but he must be older by this point. I think he's a teenager by this point. But essentially become- Are they married or they're still dating? I don't know if they're married or dating by this point. They eventually end up being married. And they don't have their own kids. They don't have their own kids, but that she has a child from a previous relationship, a previous marriage. And this kid, who's living in the house, starts saying, like, oh, why do you keep on calling me downstairs? Like, why are you calling me? And like, we didn't call you downstairs. And he's like, okay, fine.

He goes back upstairs, comes back. He's like, stop yelling at me. Stop calling my name. And they're both, William and Grace, we're not calling you. Goes upstairs finally and then is freaked out because he's like, there's someone upstairs next to my door calling my name. It's a male voice, but it's not William. So it's starting to get to the kid, right? So I think he's 14 possibly by this point. Then the voices continue because you have it that

William was in bed. William and Grace were in bed. And they hear footsteps walking around the garden path and they hear them getting closer. And they both swear that they hear the sound of a voice whispering, let's go on the back. Right. And upon hearing this, like William is just like out, like he's jumping down, ready to go, like ready to beat up whoever's trying to, like some burglar's trying to get into the house. It's this hair raising event, jumps outside with the other housemate.

Nothing. It's like the scene out of Pulp Fiction. There's just nothing there. But they definitely heard these voices. They definitely heard the footsteps. But of course, they didn't sleep very well for the rest of the night. But all of this activity continues. You've got William's friend, Bob, who experiences strange things of a door kind of swinging open in the middle of the night in a form there. The television turning on like poltergeist kind of stuff, which I won't go into in great detail. You can go and check that out for yourself. 2015. Yeah, we pretty much...

have a full picture of poltergeist activity. What's the ghost slide? How does that even make the headline? So let's skip forward. So there's also this other thing about how with these experiences as well that people have, and this is why I recommend you pick up the book because a lot of the experiences seem to be small, but in the greater context, they have meaning. And

And so he's describing this thing of where he has like a weird phantom coin appear, like hit him in the shower. Or he finds it on the floor. He turns around and checks it on the floor. So again, we're checking all the boxes. Yeah, of course. And it's this American penny. And he's like, I don't have pennies. Like, where would I get American pennies? And then he tells his dad about it. I don't know how. I think...

I might be misrecalling it, but it ends up in his dad's place or his friend's place. It's all weird, right? It's all this big collection of stuff. Go and read the book. But what I want to leave you with is that he does two things. He gets a paranormal ghost investigation team in, right?

Finally, he's seeking a solution. He's doing something. After years of just putting up with this. After years. So it's like 2022 and he gets this group in called Team Awakening the Paranormal. Do they have the tracksuits and the logo? They must. Apparently, like they do online, like live streamings of paranormal things. And he's like, he doesn't- What are they called again? Team Awakening the Paranormal. He's a friend of his, Riley, got in contact with them. Dave is the lead of this group.

uh, but essentially it's exactly what you expect. I won't go into it. It's like, they get a bunch of EMF meters. They get, you know, carbon dioxide monitors, Remy pods, like what we've described with the, um, the Bigfoot stuff that we've looked into recently, like all these sorts of things. But what is funny is this conversation that they have where they use an app called a soundbox or something. And it's essentially an app connected to a Bluetooth speaker. And pardon me, it has a dictionary of words. And apparently like

The idea is it's like this EMF thing, sorry, EVP thing where the ghost can randomly, and you can ask questions and words will come through. And they do like they get, they point apparently a, like a laser thermometer into this corner where Mrs. Tompkins had always appeared and they get warm tonight.

and they get the name of it and the name is Robinson, right? And he's like, well, that's actually similar to the name of Mrs. Tompkins. So he's like, Mrs. Tompkins is the pseudonym that he used, but the actual name is closer to Robinson, but he doesn't give the actual name. And then it's like weird because he starts thinking questions and even before it comes out of his mouth, it's like it comes up on the speaker. But basically it's like this voice is like outdoors, right?

And he's like, no, not outdoors because, but where they were, they were in the part of the house that had been renovated. So previously, much like with the neighbor's extension, this was outdoors. So this thing can't understand. But then what, the reason why I mentioned this part is because little things start to come through. So things like this ghost called Shelly.

shows up. There's also the ghost of an old man that had died in the house and had been killed by a loose chair. And I'm like, oh no, the chair again, right? And so what we get- How do you get killed by a loose chair? So apparently he'd been hit in the back of the head by a chair and had died, but we don't know. And apparently this female voice- What? This female voice shows up and says, leave him alone.

Um, and it's like, we don't really understand what happens and leave it what you will, like work out from what you will. But I'm like, is that the invisible chair that was found in the loft? Like had some woman killed a husband? Maybe the chair has been behind the whole activity. Maybe, I don't know. It's like a demonic chair. But that's one thing, right? But then you start getting like, how many spirits are in the house? And the response is three.

And it's like, one of them's angry. It's like, keep your nose out, apparently. But then there's this other voice that comes out. It was like, maybe we're going back to Shelley. And this voice has come through. It's like, oh, well, are you in the house? And it responds, visiting. Tram, I am dead. And William's like...

Okay. There's a tram line less than a hundred meters from the house. And I'm like, hang on a second. Where is this going? They keep on hearing the name Craig. Of course, Craig was the first person to see Mrs. Tompkins in this entire saga. But then he's like, I think it was Dave who was running this operation. They record something or William must've put his laptop up trying to record stuff as well. And he hadn't heard it previously, but he's like, can you hear a sewing machine?

He's like, yeah, I can hear a sewing. It's like this EVP of a sewing machine. Well, it happens that Mrs. Tompkins, she was a furrier who would make fur coats. That was her job. She was on the machine all the time. Who he found out through the neighbor, right? So all these details, oh, I assume through the neighbor, this information. So that's all like...

Go and read it because it's all explained in there and all these different devices that light up in that. But the real kicker, right, which is the coup de grace as to why maybe I should have stayed in that house that I was renting because maybe I too could have had a ghost slide in my bedroom.

So I'm like, what is with all these different ghosts? It doesn't make any sense. So he gets this spirit medium in called Tim Doyle. I've looked him up online. He is available for other people to hire him. He seems to be quite knowledgeable. And the reason why we know this is because he comes into the house and he says, oh, there's a little boy here. And much like my experience with there being that stove, right? But the stove is no longer there. I would have had no idea that there was a stove there unless the psychic had told me.

He's like, there's a little boy at the fireplace. And he's like, what do you mean? And they go and they walk over and this is where they'd renovated, right? This fireplace used to be there, but the fireplace was just now a plain wall with a sofa in front of it. There is no way that this Tim guy could have known that. And because, and the reason why I say that

It's because the way that William had set it up, he hadn't given the address of the house to Tim or his name before coming. It was all set up. He's like, when you get to a certain street, call me and I will guide you to the house. That's a good way to make sure they haven't researched it beforehand. Exactly. Great way, right? To do so. And of course, he wouldn't have known about, even if you looked online, you wouldn't have known about a renovation that

would have removed a fireplace, right? So it was like, okay, so this little boy though starts giving information that only William could have known. And William had this small issue. I don't know if it was on his groin or if it was somewhere in that area, but it was a very private medical thing where he'd had like a muscle contusion or something. And it went away by itself.

But no one knew about it, obviously, apart from his doctor. And this little boy is like, oh yeah, it was really good that that cleared up. He's like, how the hell did Tim know that? And then new things about his wife, that his wife, you know, had an issue that needed to be fixed and, you know, she was going to be, she needs to sort it out. But he's like, okay. So they start, he's like, do you hear clicking? And he's like, yeah, sometimes in the house. He's like, oh yeah, that's the knitting needles of one of the ghosts, right?

And he's like, yeah, we hear clicking. So finally, Tim, this medium, without knowing anything about the house, I don't think he knows anything about the previous investigation of all these other seemingly random ghosts showing up. And if you recall, it's really important to note this, that throughout these stories, you've got ghosts seemingly transiting the house. They're walking through walls. They're walking through the front door. They're going up and down the stairs. They're closing doors. They're behaving in an odd fashion, almost like they're transient in this house. Tim

Tim straight away is like, oh, look at your master bedroom. You've got a vortex swirling in here. It's actually like a slide, which is being used by a rather fat plump ghost. It is. He's like, what the hell? He's like, oh yes. And he says, there's this like fat woman who is there and she's like, she uses it regularly to come and go and visit her family. He says, it's not just her. There's a hundred spirits roughly that use this slide.

And he says, oh, there's several of these vortexes around the UK, but yes, you just happen to have a ghost light in your bedroom. And that's what's going on. It's not just one, maybe this house itself, maybe the vortex is facilitating people that have died in the house to remain there. But the reality is that this is a transient zone for these spirits to move. And that's why you've got the walking up and down the stairs, the opening of doors and closing of doors. That explains why that's happening.

so many varied types of entities in the home. So many varied... And not just an angry old lady. That's right. And then William has this weird thing of where the battery on his camera drains immediately, but he's like, it was full beforehand. So after finding this out, he obviously listed the home to sell and now he's no longer living in the home. No, he still lives there. Oh.

He still lives there. You're right. I mean, maybe we should contact him and be like, great story. While you were telling the story, I was looking at his Facebook page. There's been a couple of articles in the Sheffield Press writing about his work. And there's a picture of his mother there. And of course, his mother died of cancer and he's donating the proceeds to that

Good on him. But on his Facebook page here, he's posted a video of his, he and Grace must have a child now. This is their baby's crib, their cot. And he says a hand comes in. Now watch closely the top of the cot. You'll see a hand slide in and touch the baby. Oh! He's like, that's not my hand. That's not my wife's hand. And if you watch it again, the hand actually goes through the bars.

As in it crosses through them. It's almost like someone's walking into the room though, isn't it? Oh my God. See how the hand goes through the bar? Yeah. I know that these cameras are low frame rate, so it's going to look weird either way, but this is a little bit strange, especially with the history of the house. Well, I mean, the only thing is, unless he's, I'm not saying that he is, but like this stuff these days is easier to fake. Yeah.

I don't think I can, I can't make, can I make that video bigger? No. But what he's describing the story, I believe him. I think that at least at face value, what he's describing, he's had these experiences and perhaps I'm biased because of what happened to me, but it has these parallels of like, yeah, this is kind of what happens. And it's just, I think though now the fact that it's interfering with his child,

Nope, the fuck out of there. Yeah, I don't understand why people hang around. At least try and get a resolution as in, okay, you've found someone who can perceive some kind of vortex into your bedroom. Find someone who can get rid of it. He did. So with, I didn't describe this. Let me see if I can bring it up. I've closed my notes now. But basically there is this one point where he gets Tim, like Tim identifies that there's this angry man in the house.

And he's like, oh yeah, move on. Because he was like looking for his wife or his partner or something. And he's like, move on into the light. Ghost whispers him and it leaves. But I'm like, you still have a raging portal slide vortex in your bedroom.

It's like a plumber that comes to fix a leaking tap, but to fix it, they just put a plug in the sink. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I don't know. He also said that there's possibly another book coming. So maybe that's why he's staying. But I think once your kids start being affected by this stuff and you've got it on tape, get out.

Sounds like you enjoyed it. I did, though. Yeah, really good book. The Lady in the Bay Window, A True Story of a Haunted Sheffield Home by William C. Grave. Make sure you check it out. I'll link to it in the show notes at mysteriousuniverse.org. Yeah, I'll give you the link to that video of the hand reaching through the crib as well. That's a wrap for this free edition of MU. Tons coming up in Plus, though. We're going to be looking at this insane Kundalini story, the work of Peter Nielsen, who at the age of 18 in Denmark,

started to be accosted by this strange energetic swirling at the base of his spine. In many of these cases, it leads to a full-on psychotic break. And he gets very, very close. So it's really this story of someone just hanging on

buy a thread to sanity and then later in life getting resolutions to what occurs. And now he's like a specialist dealing with people who have similar situations where this so-called energy that supposedly all of us have awakens spontaneously through some kind of mistake. It's cold just living in Queensland in summer.

Well, yeah. I mean, part of his psychosis is he starts seeing snakes everywhere. Really? Yeah. Interesting stuff coming up. We're going to be looking at that. If you want to get on PLUS, head to mysteriousuniverse.org forward slash PLUS.

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And you get a high quality MP3 and access to the back catalogue. All the videos are on the website as well. That's a wrap for this free edition of MU. Thanks for listening. If you're on Plus, stick around for the great stuff after the break. For everyone else, we'll catch you next week.