Family swap their haunted house in Cardiff after ghost terror.
Lisa Way claims to see faces at the windows and floating limbs in her mid-terrace home. Family even brought in a vicar being drafted in to perform an exorcism.
A terrified family have swapped a house amongst themselves because they fear it is haunted.
And
the hot potato house is still showing signs of a paranormal presence
despite a vicar being drafted in to perform an exorcism.
Lisa Way, 38, first detected an eerie presence in September 2011.
She claimed to see faces at the windows and floating limbs in her mid-terrace home on Ely’s Marcross Road.
She
said at the time: “I saw a white light flash by the door. We started
taking pictures with our camera phones – and the strangest things
started showing up.
“Arms coming round the doors, legs coming down the stairs.”
At the time Ms Way said she was desperate to leave but claimed the council refused to help.
However
last year her cousin, Kirsty Purcigo, 27, who lived opposite in a
slightly smaller house needed an extra bedroom. So the pair agreed to
trade.
And though the level of paranormal activity has subsided
since Ms Purcigo and her family took the plunge and moved into the
allegedly haunted property, it hasn’t abated.
She said: “No, it’s been quiet since we moved in last year. It’s probably out for her, not us!”
But
the apparitions have developed a taste for late-night viewing – the
family television has developed a habit of turning itself on, say the
family.
Despite the occasional unwanted TV switch-on and warnings
of lurking bad omens in the house, Ms Purcigo was relaxed about unwanted
spiritual guests when Lisa suggested a swap.
Kirsty said: “It wouldn’t bother me unless something did happen to the kids. I know that there’s nothing there anyway.
“Kids
don’t want to be scared, like even my daughter – she’s not bothered.
She knows about, she was over here as well when we saw the arm on the
stairs. She enjoyed it anyway, she loved it. And my youngest is one so
doesn’t know anyway.
“My partner said he can’t feel anything in there. But I like it, I watch all those programmes on the television.
“Lisa had the priest from the church come up and do all the blessings.”
But did the Churchman’s work make a difference?
Kirsty
said: “To her – no. I feel more calm in here now. I don’t feel
threatened by anything. As long as my kids are alright, it doesn’t
matter.”
And despite their elaborate plan, Lisa insists the spirits have followed her over the road – but only that of her grandmother.
She said: “My nan’s over here with me, but we’re not scared any more. Even if they do follow me I don’t care.
“I realised I have a gift for seeing dead people, I’ve got used to the fact that I’m always going to see and feel them.”
'Faceless monk' spotted in window of St Peter and St Paul Church in Borden by Sittingbourne photographer Laura Dickson.
An amateur snapper thinks she might have captured a series of phantom photo bombings.
Laura Dickson, from Sittingbourne, has taken several photographs in which ghostly figures mysteriously appear.
The latest incident took place during an afternoon shoot at St Peter and St Paul Church in Borden on Wednesday.
When she returned home to view the results of her work, the 26-year-old was stunned to discover one picture of a church window seemed to include the spooky spectre of a faceless monk in a habit.
It is the fourth time she claims an apparition has inexplicably turned up in a photograph she has taken.
Machinist Laura, 26, said: "People might say it's a trick of the light, but I think it's definitely something spiritual.
"I've always believed there's a spirit angel looking over me, so maybe these images are connected with that.
"When I looked at what I'd taken at the church when I got home, I saw straight away what I thought was a monk in a habit.
"I blew it up on my computer to have a closer look and it confirmed what I originally thought.
"I called my mum, and she saw it straight away as well."
Father John Lewis, vicar at the church for nine years, remained sceptical of Laura's claim to have inadvertently photographed a random wraith.
But his description of St Peter and St Paul's history added further intrigue.
He said: "The existing building dates from 1160, something like that.
"I believe the original church was founded by monks from Leeds Abbey."
Among the other occasions Laura thinks a ghost was caught in her camera was in 2010, when she photographed a room at Yesterday's World in Hastings.
She believes there is a face wrapped in a black cape in the right hand corner of the picture.
Laura said the shot also includes orbs and she is so convinced of the otherworldliness of the pictures in her collection that she plans to show them to a medium.
Her passion for all things afterlife has not affected her boyfriend, 42-year-old Bradley Smith, who she said refused to join her on a haunted hunt around the Borden church.
She said she has since returned to the site, but the window was empty both of human and spectral beings.
"I've photographed the church three or four times before and it's the first time I've seen anything like this," she said.
TAMWORTH, more than most other English towns, is blessed with many ghoulish and ghostly legends, dating back in time immemorial.
No-one knows if there is any truth in them, but they are probably based on actual happenings in our wonderful history.
Visitors to the Castle and members of staff who work there very often tell of inexplicable goings on – a sudden chill in the air; the sound of moving furniture in empty rooms; fleeting glimpses of spirits floating across rooms and passing through thick, solid walls; poltergeist activities and many more stories that make people's hair stand on end.
But there are two ghostly legends that are told more often than any others.
One favourite story relates to a young, beautiful woman, dressed in white.
It belongs to the legendary tales of King Arthur and the Round Table.
It is said that the young lady was captured and imprisoned by an evil knight, Sir Tarquin, who was an enemy of Arthur.
After a while the lady fell in love with her captor, although he did not reciprocate her feelings.
Then King Arthur despatched noble Sir Lancelot to deal once and for all with Sir Tarquin.
He challenged the miscreant to release the young maiden, but Sir Tarquin refused and a sword fight ensued in Lady Meadow, whereby Sir Lancelot dealt a fatal blow to his adversary.
On learning of Sir Tarquin's death, the young lady was inconsolable and climbed to the battlements of the Tamworth fortress, threw herself to the ground and was killed.
The legend says that her voice can still be heard on certain nights, wailing her despair to the four winds from the top of Tamworth Castle.
Poor old Lancelot! The story does nothing to enhance his reputation as a chivalrous knight, famed for saving damsels in distress.
Sadly, the tale, although a good one, holds no credence.
All King Arthur stories are legends about pre-Saxon days when, as far as we know, there were no castles or battlements in Tamworth, nor have there been any signs that any ever existed.
Tamworth's most famous ghost story dates back to the 9th century, when a lady called Editha, (not to be confused with St. Editha of St. Editha's church), established a nunnery in Polesworth, known as Polesworth Abbey.
It survived and flourished, even though this area suffered repeated invasions from Viking marauders, who often targeted places of worship for their spoils of battle.
When, in 1066, King Harold was defeated at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror shared the lands and properties of the vanquished among his nobles.
It was his Champion and personal friend, Robert de Marmion, son of William de Marmion of Normandy, who was granted the fortress at Tamworth, among other estates.
Robert immediately instigated the building of a stone keep in the fortress, probably using slave labour, Tamworth men and boys, to haul the large stones from the quarry to the top of the mound.
It was the beginnings of the Castle you see today and the Marmion's tyrannical rule over the good folk of Tamworth.
He and his extended family remained stewards of the Castle for over 800 years.
Most of the Marmions were despised by the local populace, as in the time of their tenure, through plagues, fires and famine that hit the town, they rarely lifted a finger to help the people. But they were never hesitant in taking men from the town to fight their battles.
On his acquisition of the Castle, Robert de Marmion did nothing, or very little, to endear himself to the people.
Much worse, he fell foul of the law and with the church as, seeking more land to enrich himself, he expelled the nuns from the abbey at Polesworth and 'acquired' the place for his own personal use.
Having been turfed out of their home, the nuns sought refuge in a convent at Oldbury, near Atherstone.
The legend says that one night, shortly after their expulsion, Robert was visited by Editha in a dream.
She had apparently risen from her grave and made her way through the castle walls in order to haunt him.
Dressed as a veiled nun, wearing black and with a crozier in her hand, she admonished him for his treatment of the nuns and whacked him hard with her crozier.
Stairwell where a lady in black is often seen.
She said that unless the nuns were returned to their rightful place, he would suffer a violent, torturous death.
The apparition scared the wits out of the noble baron, so much that, looking for a shoulder to cry on, he confided with his friend Sir Walter de Somerville about the dream.
Sir Walter noticed how shaken the baron was, but could not console him.
Robert de Marmion died in 1101.
It is said that he went to his grave still harassed by nightmares caused by the visitation of Editha's ghost.
In common with most ghost stories, there are variations to this story.
Another version says that it was the Champion's grandson, the third baron Robert Marmion, who expelled the nuns and whom Editha visited in 1139.
It also states that it was he who allowed the nuns to return to Polesworth Abbey.
In a document that still exists today, written by the fourth baron, Robert de Marmion, it states that his father gave the nuns the abbey at Polesworth as a gift.
This, of course, is a gross misrepresentation of the truth.
In fact the Marmions were returning to the nuns their own property and restoring their rights to them. This document epitomises the unpleasant attitude of the Marmion family.
Even though the third baron had complied with Editha's wishes, he was still to suffer a violent death, being killed in Coventry in 1143.
Apparently to this day, Editha, often seen in her black robes, still walks the floors and passes with ease through the solid walls of Tamworth Castle.
I regard myself as a somewhat sceptical man who doesn't believe in ghosts.
But ask me if I would spend a night alone in Tamworth Castle with just candles for company – not on your life!
Florida is hot. Georgia is backward. Texas is big. Tennessee is racist. California is expensive.
And Pennsylvania, according to Google, is haunted.
Google last week released results of queries that summarize any state with just one word, based on its autocomplete method that predicts searches based on popular activity from other Google users on the web.
My Vong and Savan Yiv don’t disagree with Pennsylvania’s status at all. They claim the Kennett Square building they work in could be haunted. But the spirits, they say, are friendly.
Last month, Yiv was at the register at Polished Salon on Union Street closing down for the day when she said she saw a figure pass by her. The air suddenly became cold, and something smelled “funky.”
“I chased it,” she said. “I didn’t get a good look at his face. I followed it through two doors and then it disappeared.”
Then over a week ago, Vong said she saw a “figure” as she was closing up for the day. She remembers it was a little girl with long black hair covering her face.
“Something walked by me, and it was really creepy,” she said.
Vong brushed it off and went to Boothwyn, where she lives. Later that night, she said her 6-year-old son was brushing his teeth when he saw a little girl with dark hair.
“She followed me home,” Vong said.
Later that night, Vong’s boyfriends said he felt something tugging on his leg, pulling him off the bed. Now, he won’t stay in the apartment unless others are there.
“He’s freaked out now,” Vong said.
Yiv said she too has seen the spirit of the little girl with black hair.
“I don’t know who she is, but she’s light-skinned and she’s curious,” she said. “Some people have told me maybe she’s trying to look out after me.”
Yiv said she wears a necklace her mother gave her to ward off spirits. She said she’s not afraid of the spirits because of her Cambodian culture.
Vong, meanwhile, said she is certain she saw a ghost.
“I believe in spirits,” she said. “I know what I saw.”
A HOME reputed to have belonged to the most wicked man in Edinburgh – and thought to have been lost for hundreds of years – has been found by researchers.
The house of horrors belonged to Major Thomas Weir, known as the Wizard of West Bow.
Once a pillar of the community, he shocked the city after admitting crimes including bestiality, incest with his sister and communicating with the dead.
After his prompt execution in 1670, his West Bow abode was shunned for two centuries – said to be haunted by several ghosts.
It was presumed to have been destroyed in 1878 after a number of dilapidated old houses at the head of the West Bow were demolished.
But through painstaking historical research, Cardiff University historian Dr Jan Bondeson claims it was not razed and was in fact incorporated within a newly built chapel – today the Quaker Meeting House at Victoria Terrace.
The senior lecturer has written about the spooky find in this month’s Fortean Times, a magazine for lovers of the unexplained. He said: “Major Weir’s house in the West Bow was recognised as the most haunted in Edinburgh. Although no person dared live there, its windows were lit up at night, with weird shapes flitting past the dirty panes and strange music coming from inside.”
Many children – including the father of Robert Louis Stevenson – were told to avoid the Major’s residence and to be wary of a ghostly coach pulled by six fiery horses.
Dr Bondeson said: “Contrary to local belief, Major Weir’s house still stands today.
“This is a matter of some interest for Edinburgh antiquaries, since the area around the Lawnmarket and the Bowhead is one of the most ancient parts of the city, containing many of the existing pre-1750 buildings in the Old Town.”
Manager of the Quaker Meeting House Anthony Buxton was amazed at the revelation. He said: “This was the first time I had been told Major Weir’s home was actually here. I have to say, from my reading of its history I thought it had been demolished by people who did not want anything to do with it. That said, one of my staff some years ago said he had seen Weir walk through the wall. If Dr Bondeson is right, his house is in our toilet – which seems quite appropriate.”
Historian Des Brogan, the director of Mercat Tours, described Major Weir as a “larger than life character”.
‘Right ingredients to become hot spooky tourist draw’
The new discovery makes the Weir residence a key rival to two other spots for the title of Edinburgh’s most haunted.
Mary King’s Close has become a huge tourist draw thanks to its supernatural heritage. But the sealed off Old Town street struggles to compete with Greyfriars Kirk – said to be one of the most haunted spots in Britain. Home to a violent spook called the Mackenzie Poltergeist, between 1990 and 2006 there were 350 reported attacks and 170 reports of people collapsing.
One tourism source said: “This new discovery is interesting. The Weir home has all the right ingredients to become a hot spooky tourist draw.”
A selfie with my guardian angel: Pastor believes ghostly veiled figure is a 'sign from God' for couple who just got married.
Pastor and wife believe image means God has something big planned
Photo was taken by a new church member the day after being baptized
Photographer claims not to have altered the image in any way
California pastor Danny Goia and wife Daniela claim they've received a sign from god in the ghostly image of a veiled woman hovering in the background of a photograph.
'I can clearly see the face,' Daniela said. 'I can even see the long hair. I can see, like a veil that covers all the way to the floor.'
The couple, who preside over First Romanian Pentecostal Church in Anaheim, said the photograph came to them through a member named Radu.
Radu declined to appear in person for television news crews, but explained that he had taken a picture of a co-worker at an Irvine warehouse two weeks ago and saw the figure floating over the man's shoulder.
Radu claimed not to have altered the image in any way.
Radu and his wife were recently baptized at the church and married later that day.
'The next day was when this photo was taken,' Daniela told CBS 2.
'God is trying to reveal to the people before something major will happen,' Danny Goia added.
The pair believe that the image is both a message from God and an angel watching over their new member.
Danny Goia presented the image to his flock on Thursday during church service, admonishing them to prepare for big events.
'God wants to say, 'Hey, get ready. Get well with me because something good is gonna come soon,' he said. Article > Daily Mail
VIDEO: 'Real' ghost caught on camera in Clophill church ruins.
A PAIR of paranormal investigators have captured 'video evidence' of a supernatural being in a deserted Bedfordshire church.
The UK Haunted team posted their spooky outing to St Mary's Church, Clophill, on YouTube earlier this week.
Alex Duggan and Michael York, based in Northampton, are the duo behind the footage and say they only noticed the apparition after a fan pointed it out.
Alex said: "We actually shot the video in the summer of 2012 but last week someone commented on the footage saying that they could see something. When we slowed it down it was obvious. [Watch the video below]
"At first I thought it was glare from the infra red light but it seems to be moving in a different direction from the camera.
"Slowing it down, you can see it does actually turn into the shape of the figure that turns its head, looks and then disappears."
The experienced ghosthunter says that he and the team have had other supernatural experiences in the grounds of the church.
"It's a pretty eerie place, right in the middle of a field", Alex added. “I was in the graveyard a few months ago when I heard a woman shriek. At another point I was standing on a grave - but didn’t realise it - and through my voice box gadget I heard the name ‘Frank’.
“I looked down and saw that I was standing on the grave of a man named Frank.”
For decades St Mary’s has been at the centre of haunted tales: one involves a coven of witches who supposedly held a Black Mass at the church one dark night in March 1963, and whose evil spirits still linger around the ruined building.
Reports of locals camping out on the night of Halloween night in a bid to witness these ungodly goings on are also not unheard of.
Last year, the church featured in independent feature film The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill directed by local man Kevin Gates,
”Before we came we had heard lots of stories about demonic activity at the church and we wanted to see it for ourselves”, Alex added.
When it comes to naysayers, he is adamant that the Clophill footage speaks for itself.
"I would say 'be open minded, but dont be fooled'. You see these things on TV and think 'that's a load of rubbish' but when you are in control of the environment like we were, you know what is real and what is not.
"We would never say to people 'you have to believe this', we leave it open for other people to decide."
Has a ghost been caught on camera at 'haunted' pub?
Spooked staff at one of Britain's oldest pubs believe they have caught a ghost on CCTV.
The freaky footage, which appears to show a shadowy figure flickering into view by the bar, was filmed at Ye Olde Man and Scythe in Bolton.
Manager Tony Dooley spotted the spectre when he checked the cameras on Friday morning and found they had mysteriously stopped recording at 6.18am.
"I came down and saw a glass smashed on the floor so I was instantly suspicious and went to check the CCTV and found it has stopped working," he said.
"We checked the footage and it revealed this figure.
"To be honest I was a bit concerned - I'm a bit of a sceptic when it comes to ghosts but you become more of a believer when you see things like that."
The pub, which dates from 1251, is the fourth-oldest pub in Britain and is reputedly haunted by the Seventh Earl of Derby, James Stanley.
The royalist, whose family originally owned the inn, is said to have spent the last hours of his life there before he was beheaded in 1651 towards the end of the Civil War.
The chair he sat in before he was taken outside and executed is still in the pub today - and some say so is he.
Hundreds of soldiers and civilians were also killed outside the pub in the Bolton Massacre of 1644.
With such a bloody history, it has long been considered a hotspot for paranormal activity and a psychic evening held there in 2006 reportedly found it to be haunted by at least 25 spirits.
Among them is said to be a woman who hung herself in the cellar several centuries ago as well as an eight-year-old girl and a phantom dog.
"There have always been rumours it is haunted and we've had psychic readings done here in the past," said Tony.
"Occasionally you hear things and wonder if it's just the building settling down or whether it's something else.
"It's the fourth-oldest pub in Great Britain so it's had its fair share of deaths and whatnot."
Is the Famous Winchester 'Mystery House' Really Haunted?
The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California has been a popular tourist attraction for many decades, and its bizarre and spooky history has made it one of America's most famous haunted homes.
According to legend, Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms tycoon William Winchester, was told by a psychic medium that the family estate was cursed by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles. The only way Sarah could escape the curse, so the story goes, was to move west from Boston to California and build a new house... and keep on building it, non-stop, for the rest of her life. It seems she took this advice very seriously, supervising round-the-clock construction on the property from its groundbreaking in 1884 until her death in 1922.
Along with the paranormal rumors, the house's strange reputation also comes from the seemingly random pattern of construction (there were never any blueprints), which includes dead-end corridors, secret passages, and stairways that suddenly double back or lead outside the building. The randomness is allegedly due to Winchester's attempt to outwit or confuse the ghosts which wandered the mansion's halls.
But is the Mystery House really haunted? That remains to be seen, but there have been numerous reports of strange phenomena in the house over the years. Many paranormal investigators (including legendary showman Harry Houdini) have visited the mansion to determine if spirits were present, and the building's caretakers have reported strange, unexplained occurrences... including the sound of breathing in Sarah Winchester's bedroom.
The
Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California has been a popular
tourist attraction for many decades, and its bizarre and spooky history
has made it one of America's most famous haunted homes. - See more at:
http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/famous-winchester-mystery-house-really-haunted#sthash.nZBXRS9t.dpuf
The
Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California has been a popular
tourist attraction for many decades, and its bizarre and spooky history
has made it one of America's most famous haunted homes. - See more at:
http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/famous-winchester-mystery-house-really-haunted#sthash.nZBXRS9t.dpuf
The
Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California has been a popular
tourist attraction for many decades, and its bizarre and spooky history
has made it one of America's most famous haunted homes. - See more at:
http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/famous-winchester-mystery-house-really-haunted#sthash.nZBXRS9t.dpuf
The
Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California has been a popular
tourist attraction for many decades, and its bizarre and spooky history
has made it one of America's most famous haunted homes. - See more at:
http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/famous-winchester-mystery-house-really-haunted#sthash.nZBXRS9t.dpuf
‘I saw a woman in white’: How spirit spooked ghostly Alec Guinness by the side of his bed
Letters published for the first time today reveal Oscar-winner had a real-life otherworldy encounter
Sir Alec Guinness claims he saw a ghost while in Bangalore filming David Lean's A Passage To India
Wrote to his wife: 'A very conventional white ghost appeared, an elderly... woman in grey white and heavily veiled'
Sir Alec Guinness played Marley’s ghost on the big screen and was resurrected as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films.
But the Oscar-winner also had a real-life otherworldly encounter, according to letters published for the first time today.
Then 69 and a devout Catholic, Sir Alec said he saw a ghost while in Bangalore filming David Lean’s A Passage To India.
In a letter to his wife Merula dated March 23, 1984 he wrote: ‘Last night I heard my bathroom door click open. I was immediately awake and called, “What’s that?”
‘A very conventional white ghost appeared, an elderly... woman in grey white and heavily veiled.
‘I couldn’t make out her face. She moved... with dignity down the side of my bed and as I clicked on the light she disappeared.’
Guinness, whose credits include The Bridge On The River Kwai and The Ladykillers as well as Marley’s ghost in the 1970 film Scrooge, told his wife if he hadn’t seen a spirit then he must have been dreaming ‘while sitting up and awake’.
Although deeply religious, Sir Alec was interested in the psychic world and reportedly told James Dean not to drive on the day the star died in a crash in 1955.
Piers Paul Read, Guinness’s official biographer, last night said he was not aware of the letter.
He said: ‘Alec was quite superstitious... In the Navy he also had a premonition about being drowned in an oncoming storm. I don’t think he claimed to be psychic but he was open to the idea.’
In other letters acquired by the British Library, Guinness reveals he and director David Lean, who had worked together five times previously, were barely speaking during the filming of A Passage To India.
Their rows lead Sir Alec to write: ‘I don’t think I will ever bother to do a film again.’
In another letter he delights in having been to Mass as he feels it allows him to keep on hating Lean.
Could it be a wine-d up? ‘Ghost’ smashes bottles of red in Aussie pub
A ghost with a sophisticated taste in wine has seemingly been caught on CCTV smashing up bottles of red in true rock n’ roll style.
Staff at the Carlisle Castle Hotel in Newtown, Sydney, were spooked when inexplicable events kept happening in the establishment, including taps turning on by themselves.
Then bottles and glasses were flung to the floor on two separate occasions with both captured on camera.
Peter Bradbury, the owner of the pub, told the Inner West Courier: ‘We have the cameras on when we’re doing the tills and we’ve seen a few strange things.
‘It’s all very strange. I don’t know how long it’s been coming but it’s become quite a regular in the last few weeks. There’s been a few bottles of wine falling off the shelf.
‘Red wine seems to be the choice, apparently he likes the red. Expensive wine too, he picked a Kilikanoon last night, which is about $27 (£15) a bottle.’
The unexplained occurrences have left many bamboozled, with pubgoers expressing their thoughts on the bar’s Facebook page.
One said: ‘The first bottle to fall was on the edge so the vibrations of his footsteps would have caused it to fall, the second bottle, who knows.’
Rugby's haunted home?: Tackling ghostly goings-on at Salford stadium
Staff have reported an unexplained object that was caught on CCTV cameras running across the pitch, strange noises, lifts going up and down on their own accord and a glass moving off a boardroom table during a meeting
With the stadium the base for clubs nicknamed Red Devils and Sharks it is only to be expected there would be plenty of surprises - and not always of the most pleasant kind to keep the fans enthralled.
But we can reveal there is action of a very different kind at the AJ Bell Stadium at Barton, the home of Salford Rugby League, Sale Rugby Union and United's academy at night when the ground and barren land surrounding is pitch black and deserted.
Things are going bump for there are spooks about with staff reporting some odd goings-on including an unexplained object that was caught on CCTV cameras running across the pitch, strange noises like footsteps inside the stadium, lifts going up and down on their own accord and a glass moving off a boardroom table during a meeting.
"We're haunted, it's as simple as that," said one petrified stadium worker who refused to give her name because she thought whatever is giving her the jitters might target her.
"Everyone is talking about what's going on here at night. Is it some kind of curse? We don't know but it is weird. Virtually every night something happens be it a sinister figure in the match security office or cleaners refusing to work on their own because they are frightened.
"Do we call in the Ghostbusters? Well, what I'd say about that is it seems to be a friendly sort of spook, not malicious but certainly mischievous.
"The M60 Barton Bridge is always busy, even at night so vehicle headlights could be playing tricks. Whatever is happening staff are always talking about things that cannot be explained like items going missing and then turning up a few days later in a different place."
Stadium janitor Mark Young, 38, said: "The weirdest unexplained happening- and there have been a few - was that night something ambled across the pitch. We all thought it was big fox but on the camera it looked like a gorilla, baboon or even a cheetah
"That was a complete mystery, as was the image in the security box which was checked out but nothing found. I don't want to make out I'm scared because I have a reputation to maintain!"Security officer Matthew Gilmore, 21, added: "We are always monitoring the cameras and haven't got any absolute proof that we are haunted but we check out many reports of strange footsteps being heard at night.
"When we were discussing what's really happening someone said there is an old story of a young boy and a dog drowning and then freezing in a brook near here, and that's why all this has started. You never really know do you?
'Ghost' photo captured outside Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Cecil Hotel was once a part-time home to serial killer "The Night Stalker" and murder victim "The Black Dahlia," but it may now be home to a haunting new visitor.
An Eyewitness News viewer claims to have captured a ghostly image outside of the famous downtown Los Angeles hotel.
Koston Alderete, a Riverside boy with a love of scary films and ghost stories, took the picture, which shows a ghostly figure outside a fourth floor window. He says it looks a little too real.
"When I looked at that window, it just looked kind of creepy to me, and then I showed my friend, and he kind of freaked out. It just creeps me out still," said Alderete.
Alderete says his ghost photo has already cost him some sleep and caused him to have a nightmare.
The Cecil Hotel has had its share of suicides and bizarre deaths, including the death of a missing tourist whose body was found in a water tank on the roof of the hotel last year.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO - Inside the 'portal to hell': Relative gives investigators tour of haunted Indiana home where 'possessed' children were 'chanting satanically' and saw 'ugly, black monster'
MailOnline has obtained exclusive audio and video footage from the exorcisms of Latoya Ammons
She who was 'possessed' along with her three children after moving into home in Gary, Indiana, in 2011
Video shows police, utterly convinced case is real, being given a tour by Latoya's mother
She claims children were 'satanic chanting' and saw 'big, black monster'
Police audio also features a 'demon' rasping 'hey' in the basement
Sons were taken to hospital after one was inexplicably thrown in the house - while there a nurse and a CPS worker saw him 'glide' backwards up a wall
Town's veteran police chief, Charles Austin, says basement is 'portal to hell' and he saw objects moving and shadowy people
He even claims he was 'attacked' away from the house by spirits
MailOnline also has obtained picture of 'frozen' finger of DCS worker who touched mystery ooze that was dripping in house. She never returned
Catholic priest Father Michael Maginot carried out exorcisms on Ammons in English and Latin and talks of his personal battles with named demons
The footage is shaky as the camera pans to and fro moving from room to room – each in a state of disarray, left in haste - before descending into the basement.
The cellar is lit by naked bulbs. With bare walls and concrete floor it looks cold even on film and is all but abandoned, except for a small table covered in a cloth.
An open Bible and burned out vestige candle sit on it. Salt is scattered on the concrete floor – a desperate ritualistic attempt to rid this place of evil.
Seen here for the first time, this is video footage from the Gary, Indiana police investigation into a case that is, without question, the most bizarre and disturbing in their history: the possession and exorcism of Latoya Ammons.
Throughout the hour-long film officers hear testimony of children picked up and flung against walls and furniture; of adults being ‘choked to death’ by some supernatural force; of a demonic form appearing in different shapes – the shadow of a man, a black looming monster; an apparition of a withered old lady with red eyes and hood; of a house that bled clear, odorless oil and of the household’s three children convulsing and chanting Satanic verses.
In a chilling aside, in a separate audio recording made by one of the officers as he took pictures while his colleague filmed – audible here exclusively at MailOnline – the two officers’ speech is cut across by a whispered, but clear, ‘Hey.’ Neither said or heard it at the time.
Both are now convinced it is a demonic rasp, issuing a welcome or a challenge as they stood unwittingly on the lip of a ‘portal to hell.’
At one point, Latoya Ammons’s mother, Rosa Campbell, who acted as ‘paranormal tour guide’ to the officers drawn from Gary, Lake County and Hammond Police Departments, admitted saying to her daughter: ‘Nobody’s going to believe this, Toya.’
Certainly few involved in the case wanted to when it began in early spring 2012. But today, the veteran police officers, experienced physicians, paramedics, nurses, social workers and clergy linked to the case speak of being ‘attacked’ by demons, profoundly shaken and left with little choice but to believe that ‘something’ possessed the 32-year-old mother-of-three and the rented home in which she, her children and her mother, lived from November 2011 until May 2012.
As she showed the investigating officers, accompanied by social worker Valerie Washington, around the home in May 2012, Rose repeatedly stopped to recall the events which had, by that time, driven the family from the residence.
Standing in the kitchen she claimed: ‘I heard dogs barking, it sounded like there were dogs barking in here.’ The family had no pets. And when she investigated she saw, ‘A shadow of somebody moving.’
Downstairs in the basement, a focus for much of the disturbances, Rosa recalled an occasion on which she was down there alone doing some cleaning: ‘I started coughing and joking so bad…I was praying the whole time and they don’t like for us to pray. They don’t like that at all.
‘Something down there was choking me to death, I don’t know what it is.’
On another occasion she said that her daughter, Latoya and godson were in the basement when, according to Rosa: ‘He felt like something was stabbing him in the stomach. The more he was was reading the Bible, the more it was stabbing, punching... they saw something flying across the room and land “blam” like that.’
Rosa reached for the object she claimed had been flung by some demonic force – a small Holy Family ornament.
She also said that her daughter had told her that, as the force had grown in power she had seen it’s full manifestation in her bedroom one night. ‘She said it was like a scary, ugly, black monster… she couldn’t say anything else.’
Two of them most disturbing physical manifestations were witnessed by several medics and law enforcement officials.
The first, Rosa recalled, was during a visit to family physician Dr Geoffrey Onyekum on 19 April 2012. Both focused on the youngest child, then 7. She recalled: ‘I saw “it” trying to come out [of him]. It was trying to break loose in front of the doctor.
‘His head was turning, his eyes rolled back, his mouth went crazy, he started talking in tongues then it threw my grandson completely across the room.’
The nurse who witnessed this would not go back into the room while the doctor, realizing this was well beyond his capabilities, called police and paramedics to take the child and his brother, both of whom fell unconscious, to Gary ER.
When there, and in the grips of demonic possession, his grandmother maintained, her youngest grandson – growling and gurning – walked backwards towards a wall then glided up it, walking backwards to above her head height, holding her hands all the way as she tried to coax him down and ‘it’ out, before flipping over her head and landing on the floor.
The child had no recollection of the event that was witnessed by nurses, social workers and paramedics all of whom recorded it in official reports.
Gary Indiana Police Captain Charles Austin, 62, was there the day the footage seen here was recorded. He entered a skeptic and left convinced that he had just witnessed a ‘portal to hell.’
Speaking to MailOnline he said: ‘Everyone of us who was there that day in the basement and who saw what we saw, went through what we went through after…we all think the same, we all call it the same. That bit of dirt is a portal to hell.
When Capt Austin heard of a bizarre initial report on a Monday afternoon his sergeant told him that Child Protection Services were involved.
Capt Austin, 62, said: ‘The sergeant told me that the children had been missing school and there was talk of satanic goings on. He was very leery of it. I contacted some people, high-ranking officers; we decided to take a look.
‘I walked in there thinking this was nothing but a hoax, a concocted story.’
Instead what he experienced that day in the spring of 2012 shook him to his core, threatened his life and became part of the documented history of one of the most disturbing and baffling cases in Indiana’s police history.
Capt Austin’s assertions were echoed by Roman Catholic priest Father Michael Maginot, also interviewed by MailOnline.
Father Maginot may be a more natural candidate to believe in supernatural phenomenon than a cop of 37 years' standing who prides himself in being an ‘aggressive and assertive law enforcer.’
But, like Capt Austin, he set out to disprove the story. Instead he would conduct one minor and three major exorcisms on mother-of-three Latoya and told MailOnline that he himself had been the target of demonic attack for his involvement in the case.
Over a six-month period Latoya claims that she and her children were possessed by demons.
She says that the house in which they lived was ravaged by malevolent spirits, that her daughter, then 12, and sons, 9 and 7 respectively were physically attacked – thrown against furniture, dragged from the sofa, punched and tormented until their gums and noses bled and they struggled to breathe.
She says the house ‘dripped oil,’ that shadowy figures walked the rooms at night, that footsteps could be heard coming up from the basement only to be followed by a furious pounding on the door leading from it to the main house when, in increasing terror, she and her mother put a lock on it.
There were swarms of dead horseflies on the porch – swept up one day only to return in equal abundance the next. Lights flickered, phones played up, television signals scrambled and reverted to normal on a whim.
She claims the family was terrorized beyond all endurance. And the impact in school-time lost and medical treatment sought saw the Department of Child Protection Services step in and call in first he police, and finally after one particularly harrowing event, Father Maginot.
Sitting before the fire in the main room of St Stephen the Martyr’s rectory in Merrillville, Indiana, Father Maginot admitted he only became involved by chance. He happened to be covering for the usual chaplain of Gary ER on the weekend when a medic called in some distress to report a bizarre occurrence.
He said: ‘We were having our bible study after mass when I got the call saying “You’re a Catholic priest. You do exorcisms. We need you to do one.” They went onto tell me that a little boy had just walked, glided, backwards up a wall and flipped over to land on his feet.
‘They said he was growling, they described all sorts of things. I went of course.’
Father Maginot speaks rapidly and earnestly. He is affable, open and welcoming but he is no fool. He set out, he insisted, to disprove any notion of the occult. To do an exorcism, permission is needed from the Bishop. Fr Maginot admitted he was reluctant to go down that path having approached Bishop Dale J Melczek, Bishop of Gary some years earlier on another matter involving possible supernatural events only to receive short shrift.
He said: ‘I set out to disprove it because to be honest I didn’t want to get the bishop involved. But I had policemen, social workers, doctors and security guards telling me what they had witnessed.
‘I couldn’t just dismiss them all. That was a Friday. So I met with the mother and grandmother on the Sunday.’
In an involvement with the case spanning five months, Fr Maginot never met or examined any of the children.
But he became convinced, he said, that Latoya was indeed possessed and that the house in which she and her children lived had become cursed as a result of a hex placed on her.
Shaking his head, aware perhaps of how unbelievable the story, he admitted; ‘I think there was a curse placed on the mother, that she was the focus, possibly by an ex-boyfriend or his wife, and that combined with some tragedy and perhaps occult practices that had taken place in that house before and that had opened a portal.’
It is the conclusion Capt Austin has drawn against every logical thought that told him that just could not be true.
Speaking from Gary Police Department Headquarters, he has run every department from narcotics to homicide, gang intelligence to autodetail. He has taught 500 officers and received the department’s highest reward for his service. He doesn’t believe in the sort of ‘garbage’ he thought he was being fed in by the two women at Caroline Street in Gary two springs ago.
He said: ‘I was skeptical. I was leading the pack through the house. We walked in and the first thing we see is in the living room there’s a candle burning and a bible and a little altar with a crucifix – same in every room in the house. There was a drawing on the refrigerator done by one of the boys that was Jesus on the cross but behind him there looked like demonic figures.’
The further into the house he investigated the less comfortable he felt. Things just seemed ‘odd'.
He said: ‘Underneath the stairs was dirt and a candle. I was trying to figure out what was going on there because the rest of the basement was cement.
‘I took pictures of the candles and crucifix under the stairs on the dirt.’
Those pictures, taken on his iPhone, subsequently disappeared he said, and the phone which he used that day never behaved the same again.
But before those images disappeared, he said, he saw that they contained figures he had not seen before; figures he said were not there before, standing around him and beneath the stairs.
According to Capt. Austin: ‘The officer behind me took pictures of me standing in front of him and in his pictures he saw lots of figures too.’
With the practiced narration of an experienced witness, he continued: ‘I said, “Enough of this garbage.” On leaving the property I went to a gas station and made a phone call.
‘I had my police radio, my squad car dash AM/FM radio, my police cell and my iPhone. I was looking at the pictures I had taken on my iPhone when I made this call and all of a sudden this growling voice came from my AM/FM radio.
‘It said, “YOU OUTTA HERE” Then a lot of garbled other stuff and static.’
After that, according to Capt. Austin, every other officer present that day had problems with their radios, phones and house alarms.
Most alarming for Capt. Austin was an incident he had two weeks later when he was, he said bluntly, ‘attacked.’
Returning home in his Infiniti SUV he said, ‘the electric door to my garage would not open. It had been fine before. I pressed the keypad it must have been 10 times then gave up.
‘I exited the vehicle and went to flip the main power in the garage but that didn’t work, then the house and finally that worked.
‘But when I went back to my car the driver's seat was just moving backwards and forwards by itself. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
‘When I took the car to the shop to get it looked into they said if I hadn’t brought it in it could have caused an accident and I could have been killed because for some reason the seat was about to collapse.’
The next time Capt. Austin was in the house it was with Father Maginot several weeks later.
They brought a dog, thinking perhaps they would find a crime scene, perhaps human remains, that might account for the disturbances but the dogs found nothing.
The men dug, five foot down into the dirt in the basement and unearthed a bizarre collection of objects: boys’ socks with the ankle portion cut out, a fake fingernail, women’s panties, a heavy, corroded iron weight, a broken plastic shoe horn and a red oval kettle lid.
Household trash? Or objects ritualistically buried in an attempt to summon something up or keep something at bay?
By then even the most level-headed present were open to the latter explanation and several of the people who had visited the house on the first inspection, including the original CPS case worker, had become so shaken by the day and its aftermath that they refused to go back.
Department of Child Services, family case manager Samantha Illic was part of the group that visited the house on 10 May 2012 when officers recorded the scene and Campbell’s accounts of many strange and disturbing events.
During that visit Illic reached to touch a cabinet that appeared to be dripping clear oil. Both Capt. Austin and Father Maginot tell a similar tale.
According to the Capt: ‘She touched it with her pinky and her finger just went flush free of blood, it was white like it was dead. She was holding up her hand saying, her finger was numb and the side of her hand.’
Father Maginot described the seemingly spontaneous ‘wound’ or affect as like ‘a blister after a burn.’
He said: ‘Her whole finger had this grey, white colour – a death colour. She wondered after if maybe there had been a bug that had bitten her but she didn’t see anything or feel anything.’
Father Maginot’s experience of the exorcisms of Latoya is similarly unnerving.
He met with Latoya and her mother at the house and, he said, for two hours they conducted an interview without any incident.
The women told him what they claimed was going on. He said: ‘Only the children saw definite figures but the grandmother saw a shadow of a man and they would find dirty footsteps in the front from in the morning just paced to and fro and going nowhere.
'Ghostly things are easier to deal with,’ said Father Maginot, explaining: ‘A lot of the time as Catholics you can have a mass, pray for them, tell them to go into the light, not to be afraid. But demons are different. You're inviting in guests from other realms and they don't necessarily want to leave.'’
During his visit to the Carolina Street house Father Maginot said that among the many strange phenomenon he witnessed were walls dripping with oil, Venetian blind rods tilting from side to side in unison and apparently for no reasons, seemingly set footprints appearing on the floor.
Lights repeatedly flickered then stopped when approached in such a way that the priest became convinced this was ‘an intelligence’ not simply an electric fault.
The final straw, the family told him, was when they were sitting as a family watching television and a bottle of Febreeze floated up, moved in the air before being hurled into Latoya’s room, smashing a lamp. In the aftermath they saw the shadow of a man.
They left the house for a hotel that night and never returned to live there again.
A clairvoyant who had visited the house and told Latoya she saw ‘hundreds of demons’ in the basement had told her to anoint the house with oil and put salt down to seal the gateways to demons.
Father Maginot did the same during his visit, uttering blessings and trying, at every turn, to find a logical explanation for the things he was seeing and the things these women were telling him. But increasingly he struggled.
He said: ‘I was trying to find a focus for it, to understand where it was coming from because that can help solve these things.’
Father Maginot became convinced that Latoya’s former lover was a ‘trigger’ or possible ‘source'.
Every time he asked her about this man – who is not the father of any of the children – Latoya complained of more symptoms of the possession, fever, cold, headaches, nausea and convulsions.
He said: ‘After almost four hours when she was going through one of these moments I took my crucifix and put it to her forehead and she began convulsing.
‘I had thought the demons were with the kids but now I could see they were with her. She was the source. They jumped from her and they jumped from child to child – they would pick up each other’s chants, or convulse in turn, act crazy, or growl in turn. But they were with her.
‘I said, that’s enough. We’re not prepared to do an exorcism here but I’ve got enough there’s no need to torture anyone.’
Instead on June 1, 8th and 29th Latoya came to St Stephen the Martyr, Church in Merrillville and submitted to three major exorcisms.
She had, by then, moved out of the Carolina Street house in Gary and was living in a new apartment in Illinois. At the time the children were in state care but they have since been returned to their mother and grandmother.
Father Maginot recalled: ‘I carried out the first exorcism in English and there was no incident. It was like it had already gone but they do say they play possum.’
Father Maginot gave Latoya a crucifix and a rosary made of Benedictine medals. As she left the church the rosary ripped into five pieces.
Later Latoya reported to the priest that the corpus, the figure of Christ on the crucifix he had given her, had similarly been torn off.
‘I had to figure out how to provoke the demons and drive them out,’ Father Maginot said, rocking to and fro in his easy chair.
Latoya had researched names and felt two belonged to her demons. Father Maginot will not repeat either - one is a biblical name, other is not – because he does not want to risk calling them.
He explained: ‘It’s a very personal thing. Once you have their name, it’s as though you have them caught. They like to work in mystery and darkness. Once you shine a light you show their limitations and they don’t like that.’
As if to prove that point Father Maginot recalled how he was ‘attacked by demons’ the day before the second exorcism.
Out riding his bike a series of near accidents and unsettling moments climaxed with him being seemingly spontaneously thrown from the saddle of his bike into the grass at the side of the bicycle path he was following.
He said: ‘I looked and saw that the seat of my bike was completely twisted but it made no sense because it was absolutely tight and I had to really pound it to straighten it out. I was in no doubt I had been attacked. I was being warned.’
The second exorcism saw a more violent response. The exorcism is, Father Maginot explained, a ritual repeated over and over, with the priest narrowing in on the demon and its triggers.
He said: ‘You try to protect yourself as much as you can. You go to confession because if there are any unconfessed sins it will use that.
‘It will use anything possible to deflect, or distract or scare you.
‘You will think you’re torturing the person but you’re not. You’re torturing the demon.’
The final exorcism was in Latin – praising God and condemning the demon.
‘The parts that were praising God there was no reaction from Latoya,’ Father Maginot recalled. ‘The parts condemning the demon she convulsed which was interesting to me as she doesn’t know Latin.’
Latoya said she felt herself being pulled up as if to levitate, but Father Maginot saw no sign of that.
After a third exorcism Latoya fell asleep he recalled. He gave her the now mended rosary and she took it home with her.
‘I never heard from her again,’ he said. ‘I was anticipating more. I was anticipating another at least but it turned out the game was over.'
After the final exorcism Father Maginot visited the house and blessed it with what he referred to as a 'more serious blessing.' He said: 'This involved incense and salt and Holy Water.'
There were already new tenants in place and they had reported no problems since the priest had 'sealed' the portal with salt and blessings following an earlier investigation.
But, he said, he told landlord Charles Reed, 'If we don't deal with this now, properly, this will not go away. This will close the portal and seal it.'
Father Maginot is in no doubt that the possession was real and that everything that happened to Latoya and her children and everything that others witnessed was the work of demons – fallen angels, God’s creatures turned against God and against man.
And for all his reluctance the same seems to be true of Capt. Austin. He said: ‘It shook me, everything to do with this. It shook me. This was a situation that was so out of my normal habitat. Did it shake me? Yes to a certain degree it did.
‘You tell me. What do you think happened?
OTHER FAMOUS CASES OF DEMONIC POSSESSION.
Anna Ecklund - 1912-1928 - Earling, Iowa
Anna was just 14 when she was allegedly cursed by her father and aunt - and soon she was unable to be near religious artifacts or churches. She underwent an exorcism in 1912, but her father and aunt then prayed for Satan to visit her again.
In 1928, she asked the church for help and was put in a convent. But when nuns came near her she would hiss at them, speak in foreign languages and levitate. After three more exorcisms, she was declared free of the demons.
Roland Doe - 1940s - Cottage City, Maryland
Doe - known as the inspiration behind the Hollywood film, The Exorcist - was 14 when his aunt encouraged him to use a Ouija board in the 1940s. When she died, he might have tried to contact her this way and it is believed this gave demons the chance to reach him.
When he was possessed, religious artifacts began flying off the walls and people could hear footsteps and dripping inside his home. Scratches also began appearing over his body, which levitated and contorted. His family contacted a Catholic priest and an exorcism was performed more than 30 times, sometimes injuring the priest before they were eventually successful. Doe went on to have a normal life, according to reports.
Anneliese Michel - 1973 - Germany
Anneliese was a 16-year-old Bavarian girl who had suffered with epilepsy and mental illness. In 1973, she began to hear voices, drink her own urine and became intolerant of religious symbols. She begged her family to take her to a priest to rid her of demons. Two local priests secretly agreed and performed nearly 70 exorcisms (each lasting up to four hours) in 10 months - but her parents stopped treating her health issues, and she died from emaciation and starvation. The film The Exorcism of Emily Rose is loosely based on her life.
Michael Taylor - 1974 - Yorkshire, England
Taylor was a married Christian who was accused by his wife, Christine, of having an affair with a prayer group leader. He responded with anger and continued to act erratically, leading some people to think he was possessed by evil.
He eventually underwent an exorcism that last for more than 24 hours and priests believed it to be successful. They warned that a demon may still be inside of him. When he went home, he murdered his wife and was later found wandering the streets. He was found not guilty in her murder by reason of insanity.
