Thursday 26 December 2013

MEDIEVAL CASTLE RISING - NEW DOCUMENTARY FROM HAUNTED EARTH


Here we visit a 12th century castle Keep in the village of Castle Rising, Norfolk where Chris Halton narrates the history of the site, plus some of the royal personages connected to it. The most famous, Queen Isabella of France allegedly haunts the building, and during our stay some paranormal related material was also recorded.

This appears right after the end of the main documentary.

A special show for viewers over Christmas 2013.

Youtube Link:



Vimeo Link:

MEDIEVAL CASTLE RISING - A visit to a castle haunted by Queen Isabella of France from Haunted Earth Tv on Vimeo.


Monday 23 December 2013

THREE INFAMOUS AMERICAN HAUNTED HOUSES



Whilst numerous decisions go into buying a house, one would imagine that houses famous for being haunted would go unsold. Not so, it appears; there are numerous websites dedicated to helping potential buyers find haunted houses across the country. Whilst the infamous  supernatural activities reported within the movie-inspiring house in Amityville, NY have been mostly discredited, there are a number of properties that have far more grisly back stories. Here are the stories of three houses with bizarre, gruesome and haunted histories.

LaLaurie Mansion

New Orleans, LA is a city of legend, voodoo and a number of haunted houses. It is, perhaps, most famous for its French Quarter, which is both a mecca for tourists seeking the New Orleans experience of Cajun food, music and all-night drinking and a center for the iconic Creole architecture for which the Crescent City is known. Not far from the center of the French Quarter, on Royal Street, one can find the LaLaurie Mansion – owned, until recently, by actor Nicholas Cage.

Considered one of the most haunted houses in a city know for its ghosts, the mansion’s gruesome past dates back to 1832 when Delphine Lalaurie – who was known for her beauty and became one of the city’s most prominent socialites – moved into the house with her husband, Louis, a doctor, and their daughters. The Lalauries had a number of slaves and as rumor spread of their brutal treatment, the couple’s famous dinner parties were less and less well attended.

The slaves who worked in the house seemed to regularly disappear without explanation.

In 1834, a fire – believed to have been deliberately set – broke out in the kitchen and swept through the house, requiring the fire department to battle the flames. What the firefighters discovered behind a barred attic door may be the most horrific scene of torture, mutilation and butchery ever encountered within a domestic dwelling.

According to newspaper reports at the time, slaves were found suspended naked from the walls, strapped to tables and confined in small cages. A number of these slaves had been subjected to terrifying mutilations, such as having had their stomachs sliced open and their entrails wrapped around their bodies or having had their mouths packed full of animal excrement and sewn shut. Bodies parts were found in buckets or strewn across the floor. One female slave – still living – had had her limbs broken and reset at strange angles; another had had her arms and legs amputated.

The Lalaurie family escaped the house as a vengeful mob gathered outside; what became of them is not clear. Since that time , the house has changed hands numerous times and has served many different purposes. One thing that has remained consistent, however, is that each business venture or other project that has been operated from the house has quickly failed and many of the various owners and tenants have reported strange phenomena and disturbing occurrences.


The Borden House

Andrew Borden, a well-to-do businessman, lived in a fame house in Fall River, MA, with his second wife, Abby, and his two daughters, who were conceived by his first wife. On August 4, 1892, Borden and his wife were killed with an axe inside the house – Andrew’s head was severed as he sat on a leather couch in a downstairs room. Abby had been killed whilst making a bed in an upstairs room. The mystery of this double murder has never been solved. The property still stands and is, perhaps, one of America’s most famous haunted houses.

A number of rumors surrounded the family and their relationships; there were stories of tensions – even animosity – between the daughters and their step-mother. Other rumors had it that the daughters, Lizzie and Emma, were afraid that their father was planning to leave his estate to his second wife and her family. Andrew Borden was portrayed, after his killing, as an evil and mean man who neglected his daughters. Later research has revealed, however, that Borden was somewhat generous with Emma and Lizzie and that the latter – who became the prime suspect in the murders but was eventually acquitted – cared deeply for her father.

At the time of the murders, Lizzie and Bridget Sullivan, the housekeeper, were both at home, although Lizzie said that she had been outside the house at the exact time of the murders; having gone to the barn at the back of the house to fetch something. Emma was out of town, visiting friends, but the girls’ uncle, John Vinnicum, was staying with the family. It appears that Vinnicum was not in the house at the time the crimes were committed.

Lizzie was arrested and spent some 10 months in jail, awaiting trial. She was acquitted and continued to live in Fall River. She died in 1927.

The house is now known as the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum. Through the years, several visitors to the house have reported strange and disturbing experience or apparitions.

The Ridge Avenue Mansion

Pennsylvania is home to numerous haunted house stories and probably the most famous – a house once known, indeed, as the most haunted in America – was located at 1129 Ridge Avenue in the city of Pittsburgh. Also known as the Congelier House, the house was built by a wealthy Texan in the 1860s. Allegedly, Charles Wright Congelier lived there with his wife, Lyda. Also living with them was their maid, Essie. In the winter of 1871, Lyda found out that her husband was having a relationship with young Essie and it is said that she stabbed him 30 times before cutting off Essie’s head with a meat cleaver.

Sometime after the brutal slayings, a neighbor found Lyda sitting in a rocking chair, muttering to herself. She refused to respond to the neighbor’s inquiries and, as the story goes, the neighbor, approaching Lyda, noticed that she was cradling something wrapped in a pink blanket. When the neighbor reached out to touch the blanket, it unraveled and Essie’s head fell out and rolled across the floor.

Although it is not clear what became of Lyda, the mansion on Ridge Avenue would terrify locals for many years to come. It stood empty until 1892, when it began to be used to house railroad employees. It was not long before this idea was abandoned after a number of the tenants fled the house, claiming to have heard a woman screaming.

The house once again stood vacant for some time until a Dr. Adolph C. Brunrichter purchased it in 1900. After moving in, the doctor lived a seemingly quiet life and neighbors saw very little of him – although there were rumors of him conducting grizzly experiments on young women. In 1901, neighbors were startled by a piercing scream from inside the mansion, followed by what seemed to be an explosion or flash of light which swept through the interior, shattering every window. Brunrichter fled the house and disappeared before police arrived. During a search of the property, police found a decomposing body strapped to a table and five headless women buried in shallow graves in the basement.

Rumor had it that the doctor had been experimenting with attempts to keep the heads of the women alive after decapitation; it was even said that he had succeeded in doing this for very brief periods of time.

In the 1920s, the house was visited by Thomas Edison, who was apparently deeply affected by the place. He was constructing a machine that was designed to allow communication with spirits of the dead, but he died before completing it. In 1927, local police arrested a drunk who claimed to be Dr. Brunrichter. The man told police a strange tale of demons, sex orgies and torture – all of which, he claimed, had taken place in the house while he had lived there. Despite his confession, Police could find no reason to detain him and he was released, never to be seen again.

As strange and gruesome as this tale is, further research eventually concluded that there was probably little – if any – truth to it. Even though this location enjoyed its place among the most famous haunted houses in the country, there appears to be little evidence that Charles, Lyda and Essie ever existed. Shortly after the alleged second disappearance of Brunrichter, a huge gas explosion was said to have destroyed the house completely. In reality, a Marie Congolier a member of the real family that constructed the house, was killed in the explosion but the house itself remained undamaged. It was eventually torn down.

Some would tout the purchase of a haunted house – particularly a famous one – to be a novelty or even an investment. There are many such properties across America; some of their histories are urban legend, some real – and some a bizarre combination of the two.

By Graham J Noble

Source: GuardianLV


IS THIS THE GHOST OF A LINCOLNSHIRE MEDIEVAL MONK?



























A ghost who reportedly haunts Greestone Steps in Lincoln may have been caught on camera by a young ghost hunter.

Paul Otley took his daughter Kaya Jordan Otley on the Lincoln Ghost Walk on December 13 to celebrate his birthday.

When the group of 15 got to the Postern Gate and the Greestone Stairs they were told about a Monk who it is believed hanged himself from the archway.

Kaya took a picture on her mobile phone and it is claimed you can see the outline of a hanging figure under a stone archway.

Mr Otley said: "Once one person in the group saw what appeared on her photograph her phone ended up being passed around and it completely enhanced the experience for everyone.

"You can clearly see feet dangling above the ground and can make out the shape of a figure wearing a long robe, and the head at the top with something coming from the side.


"My daughter was completely spooked out although excited at the same time.

"I have been informed by people in this field that apparitions are often more likely to reveal themselves to children."

Margaret Whitby-Green, of Lincoln Ghost Walks, said it wasn't the first time he had been caught on camera.

"We believe there is a 16th century priest and a monk that haunts that area," she said.

"It is a very haunted area.

"He has been seen there a few times and we have got a couple of pictures in the past."

Source: LincolnshireEcho



Sunday 15 December 2013

BEST SEASONS GREETINGS FOR 2013




May I and Haunted Earth wish you the very best Christmas and I will see you all after Boxing Day as I am away tomorrow on a film project.

Being released Boxing Day is a new presentation from our recent visit to a very fog bound castle, at Castle Rising, in Norfolk which includes a historical tour followed by some strange activity detected on the day.

Until then,

                  Chris Halton


Monday 9 December 2013

AN AMAZING SPIRITUAL ENERGY LIGHTS UP A GRAVESTONE - ACTUAL VIDEO

Really odd light anomaly with an orb
Last Saturday evening, Haunted Earth tv shot an investigation within the ruins of St Peter`s Church, Alresford. Although the video is unprocessed, we certainly heard voices, captured strange light anomalies, and smelt an unusual herbal smell - like cannabis which seemingly followed us around.

In the summer, a day and night visit elicited the same smell which many attribute to the ghost of a woman called the `Grey Lady` or `White Lady`.
The impression was that this woman was more a recent burial, and that she seems interested in people visiting the church.

On our last summer visit we picked up the sound of someone walking around us, and some great EVP.

The new video will be available later, but an earlier visit is shared below (2nd down).

The church was built about 1300, by Anfred de Staunton, and which burnt down in 1971.
The ruins are perhaps in material at least, far older as the structure relied heavily on re-salvaged stone and Roman brick.

This energy seemingly floated in from outside the church
The church although a ruin is still used for burials, and the building remains are known to many paranormal groups for it`s sometimes very quirky activity.

One such investigator, John Hancock from nearby St Osyth, shared with me the most unusual paranormal capture that I have ever seen.

John takes up the story:

`The footage was just as it happened, I saw the light and have never had it before where it remained and got brighter and moved about. We was all mesmerised by it.
I do find Alresford does have an aura about it that I dont feel in other church yards.`
The grave was for a married couple (name withheld) who passed away in 1957 and 1968.



And here is a short version of our summer visit.





Saturday 7 December 2013

HAUNTED HAPPENINGS IN OLD HOUSE - IS THIS A SPIRIT ANOMALY CAUGHT ON CAM?

Former policeman Matt Hilton was living in a large Victorian house when strange happenings occurred. Now he’s using that experience as the basis of a new book – and has opened his mind to the possibility of paranormal activity elsewhere.

The author, from Abbeytown, near Silloth, insists he still takes sceptic’s approach when hearing stories about strange goings on.

But the 48-year-old has established his own group to conduct investigations and is looking for locations they could investigated.

He said: “We will do our best to offer alternative natural explanations, in the hope that what is left over or unexplainable is, in fact, paranormal.”

Matt says he has been open-minded about the possibility of places being haunted since the experiences he and his wife had 26 years ago.

“We experienced quite a lot of paranormal activity in the house – to the point where we gave up and left,” he said.

Much of the activity they experienced was the likes of unexplained bangs and items moving.

“My wife had nightmares. It frightened us,” Matt added..

“The group I’ve set up is looking for anyone who would like us to come in and do an investigation.”



Story: News&Star

Thursday 5 December 2013

CHARLES DICKENS - THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTMAS PAST

By Vic Zoschak

Charles Dickens 
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has become a beloved part of the literary canon – and for many an indispensable part of the holiday season. The story embodies the goodwill associated with the Christmas season – and it has the Victorians’ favorite elements of a good Christmas story: ghosts. Dickens wrote other Christmas tales that also incorporated phantoms and ghosts, as did his Victorian cohorts. But why this obsession with ghosts at Christmas time?


An All But Dead Holiday–With Pagan Roots

By Dickens’ time, Christmas was not much of a holiday. In fact, for most people it was still a work day. The Industrial Revolution meant fewer days off for everyone, and Christmas was considered so unimportant that no one complained. This was thanks to none other than Oliver Cromwell, the Lord and Protector of England in mid seventeenth-century England. Cromwell had toiled to eradicate Christmas altogether because the holiday had no scriptural basis; the Bible mentions no “holy day” other than the Sabbath and certainly doesn’t exhort Christians to celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25.

Furthermore, Cromwell knew that the date of December 25 was shrewdly chosen by early Christian officials who wanted to replace pagan rituals with Christian ones. The day was selected because of its association with two pagan holidays, Yule and Sol Invictus (the birthday of the Unconquered Sun). Both were celebrated in conjunction with the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. On this night, the boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds were considered particularly permeable. It was believed that spirits would return to Earth to finish unsettled business - exactly what Jacob Marley does in A Christmas Carol.

Spinning a Winter’s Tale

While there’s scant proof that the Christmas ghost tale existed as a consciously undertaken tradition before the Victorian era, there is etymological evidence that the tradition stretches back at least to Shakespeare’s time. In “A Christmas Tree” (1859), Dickens writes, “There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things over time, for we are telling Winter Stories–Ghost Stories, or more shame for us–round the Christmas fire.” That phrase “winter stories” and its variant “winter’s tale” had mostly fallen into disuse by Dickens’ day, but it refers to a fantastical yarn that one would weave to entertain interlocutors around a wintertime fire.

Christopher Marlowe
An even more specific connotation for “winter story” or its relative “winter’s tale” notably shows up in
Christopher Marlowe’s The Jews of Malta (1589) with a very specific definition: a “winter’s tale” is a ghost story.

Now I remember those old women’s words
Who in my wealth would tell me winter’s tales
And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night

Shortly thereafter Shakespeare would play on this meaning with A Winter’s Tale (1623), in which Prince Maximillius says, “A sad tale’s best for winter; I have one / Of sprites and goblins.” Later in Saducismus Triumphatis, Joseph Glanville’s treatise on witchcraft published posthumously in 1681, Glanville admonishes individuals who dismiss the existence of witchcraft as “meer Winter Tales or Old Wives fables.”

Robert Louis Stevenson would later evoke the winter’s tale with The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale (1889). Though the story contains no ghosts of the usual sort, the Master cheats death multiple times. He essentially haunts his brother, Henry, who eventually exclaims, “nothing can kill that man. He is not mortal. He is bound upon my back to all eternity–to all eternity!” Later, after the Master’s body has been buried, Henry still does not believe the Master has perished. Henry is incredulous: “He’s not of this world, neither him nor that black de’il that serves him.”


A Victorian Predisposition for the Ghostly

The Victorian Age was one in which spiritual beliefs were constantly being upended by scientific discoveries. It’s no wonder that Victorians turned to spiritualism and other superstitions to distract from that state of uncertainty, or that seances, table rapping, and other fads took hold. Another of these was telling ghost stories, and Dickens was far from the only author to participate. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was noted for his rather eccentric spiritualism. Edith Nesbitt, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Rudyard Kipling all wrote ghost stories that often get overshadowed by their more famous works. And Henry James uses Christmas ghost storytelling as a frame for Turn of the Screw. Most importantly,Washington Irving had actually presaged Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers’ Gabriel Grub character (a character visited by goblins in Mr. Warble’s Christmas tale) with his own depictions of the Christmas holiday, a relationship that we’ll explore in an upcoming post.

The tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas stuck. Slightly later, Eton Provost and author Montague Rhodes James would entertain his students with ghostly tales around the Christmas fire. HP Lovecraft’s “The Festival” was written for Christmas. And twentieth-century Canadian author Robertson Davies would spin ghost tales for Massey College students every Christmas season. Though not widely practiced, the winter’s tale lives on as a Christmas tradition.

Source: ILAB




Wednesday 4 December 2013

IS THIS THE GHOST OF THE WHITE LADY OF RUFFORD?


Is this a ghost in the doorway?

Look closely, and you may just be able to make out a ghostly image on these photos captured by a quick-witted teenager.

Cameron Hamilton caught the misty white figure on the snaps when he used his iPod Touch while visiting Nottinghamshire County Council's Rufford Abbey Country Park with friends.

Staff think he might have captured images of the ghostly White Lady of Rufford who, according to legend, is believed to be the spirit of ill-fated Arbella Stuart.

Cameron, 15, from South Drive in Bilsthorpe, Notts, said his belief in the supernatural has been bolstered after seeing the ghoulish snaps.

"I was quite surprised and was not expecting it. I believe in ghosts and the supernatural and this has further convinced me that they do exist, " he said.

His mother, Helen, said they were shocked by what they saw when they looked at Cameron's pictures at home, and went on to show staff at the country park.

"Cameron has taken it all in his stride," she said.

"Apparently he was reading the information panels in the Abbey 'Undercroft' about the ghostly legends of Rufford and decided to take some photos to see he could capture anything spooky on film.

Close-up of the doorway.

"It was only when he got home and we examined the film that we saw this image of a White Lady clearly in shot. You can make out the jewellery she is wearing and her face too."

The photographs show the arched stone doorway to the medieval Cellarium area of the ruins, and appear to show a misty white figure.

Debbie Hibbert, who manages the tourist information centre at Rufford Abbey, which is managed by Newark and Sherwood District Council, said: "It certainly looked like a figure - like a young woman in full old fashioned dress, hovering over the door."

Nottinghamshire County Council Visitor Services Manager Linda Hardy, who is based at Rufford Abbey, explained the history behind the legend of the White Lady.

She said: "There's a local legend that one of the ghosts of Rufford is The White Lady - who some say is the spirit of Arbella Stuart, tragic granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick.

"Her parents were secretly married at the Abbey. I've heard of one or two sightings of her by local people in past years.

"Maybe Cameron has managed to capture a genuine Ghost of Christmas Past."

Rufford Abbey hosted an evening event to look for ghosts a few weeks back - and with its background as a Cistercian Abbey and a grand country house, there have been numerous sightings of different ghosts throughout the years.

One type of white rose in the rose garden at Rufford Abbey is also named after The White Lady.

Source: TheGuide

My view:

To me this looks like a photographic anomaly caused by the light from the archway. I do not see what the media see, which is newspaper sales.