By Roy Hale

​

Who was that man ?

When I was first approached by paranormal magazine ” Project Reveal ” to write an article for their online magazine, I was told I could write about either any of my UFOs or ghost experiences I may have had, or UFOs and ghosts in general,  so I am going to tell you about my very first ghost encounter ! 

Before I do begin with my story, please let me introduce myself to you, my name is Roy Hale and  I am the editor and owner of ” The Lost Haven website, which incorporates Down To Earth UFO Online Magazine ” I am also one of the cofounders of ELUFON ( Essex and London UFO Network) which investigated UFO sighting cases across East London and Essex mostly in the mid 90s to the mid to late 2000s, although recently some of its original members have been active on skywatches over parts of eastern England. Also to mention, I have appeared and been interviewed over the years in numerous media outlets, TV (CH4 – BBC ) , radio (BBC )  and magazines  and with this I have witnessed the change in the UFO and paranormal scene as the introduction of social media * youtube and alike *  has become more prominent and made it easier for people to view, and to also upload their own captured footage of UFOs, spectres, weird creatures and all kinds of phenomena which I must admit even make me gasp at their sheer oddity ! ) So now we know each other…let me continue on what I consider to be a life journey of very odd and quirky happenings !

My very first ghostly sighting happened when I was 12 years old, I was the kind of teenager who liked adventure a lot ( I am a Sagittarius so that should tell you everything about my adventure side ) and so with that in mind  here is what occurred on that weird day. 

I was on my way back from my local playing fields ( Hackney marshes, Hackney East London) as I used to go there quite often  with friends and family, being a  great space for us kids at the time to run around and also explore, so this time I had just left my friends just before I reached the library and I was walking along past the local library when I decided than rather to carry on straight down the high street towards my block of flats ( I lived in Bannister House, Homerton at the time ) I would take the shortcut past the old church and head down the back alley which was adjacent to the church and which also ran parallel with the kids adventure playground, a place I used to frequently inhabit as it was such a fun place to be at ! So I crossed over from the library and walked over towards the old church, and I began to walk past the old church wall at the back of the church.

( wall was about 2.5ft in height with added old metal black Victorian fencing embedded within the stone wall to make it a little  harder for people to just hop over –  Also NOTE:  I have managed to screen capture a few images of how St Barnabas church on Homerton high street is today, and you can clearly see the back of the church where I was and the layout of how it looked back then, remarkably unchanged after all these years * )

The time was around 4.45pm to 5pm, so it would be considered early evening, but as the above picture shows more or less I had the same kind of view as seen in the picture, not too overcast and still with some adequate light to my view, so anyhow as I began to walk past the wall I noticed out of the corner of my eye a figure at the back of the church where all the old graves were and he looked as if he was digging out earth from the ground ? I turned to look at him for about ten seconds, and then not taking anything else into account I carried on walking down the back of the church (see below picture ) 

when as I was quarter of the way down the back of the church road, it suddenly dawned on me that the church had stopped burying people in its ground many years ago ! With that I ran back to the church wall to take another look towards the back of the church to see if I could spot this figure again ? And to my utter shock there was no one there to be seen ? I was besides myself with many feelings, shock being one, interpretation of the unknown that I had just witnessed, a little sacred too but also overwhelming curiosity ! So with all those feelings boiling up inside of me, I placed both hands on the small black fence on the wall and lifted myself over into the church grounds, I immediately began to walk over to the old graves at the back of the churchyard to see if this character I had seen ( DESCRIPTION: he was wearing a classic grey 1920s flat cap, with a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, black trousers and bracers ) was still around?  So there I was walking around the old graves from the early 20s and Victorian period looking for any sign of any kind of movement, from either a new grave being dug or an old grave being dug up, but I could find nothing, all I could find at the back of the wall was old branches that had fallen from the trees just laying in a semi piled naturally scattered bunch, like they had fallen off the tree over time and the wind and elements had moved them along the graves over a period of time. 

Now please bear in mind, I was just 12 at the time, so my investigatory powers was at a  very minimal start at that age, but I must admit I actually did feel a run of adrenalin once I started walking towards the back of those graves, not because I was heading into a collection of old graves, ( that for some unexplained reason didn’t phase me so much at the time), but I now feel it was because I was waiting for this chap who I had seen digging at the earth to suddenly appear at me and say ” boo” or something to like that, because that would have sent me running back to the church wall I can tell you !

I stayed in the churchyard grounds for about ten minutes, I walked from one end to the other looking for earth movement, any signs or clues I could get to back up what my eyes had clearly seen, but there was nothing, and I must admit I felt a little let down, because not only had I seen the man very clearly, but his actions were so precise in what he was doing, he looked committed shall we say, he had a reason or purpose to be there and doing what he was doing, and the fact that he wasn’t there once I had hopped over the wall to check, was beginning to confound on me terribly, I mean I had actually realised that I had seen something utterly mystifying , and something that could not be qualified by my mind at that very time, believe me I have mulled over this experience from time to time and tried to rationalise the visual of the man and place the sighting of this ghost into some form of rational perspective, but if you see a full grown figure dressed albeit in very old looking clothes and suddenly too and especially at such a young age of 12, it does make one feel at odds with the world around you, by that I mean; I saw him and no one else did, so I still battle within myself to try to figure out, who was he? What was he doing ? Was he the  vision of a time trapped ghost who was a gravedigger from the 1920s or possibly earlier? Why was I allowed to see him ? Was this a chance luck sighting of a window into the past ? Had anyone else seen him before? Would people think I was a little crazy if I told them about him? Well to answer the last point, I actually got home that day and spoke to my mum, I told her I had seen a ghost that day on the way back from the hackney marshes and it was in the back of the old St Barnabas Church near the playground, she asked me , what did the ghost look like, I described what he was wearing and his actions, wearing a typical flat gray cap of the 1920s, white shirt rolled up to the sleeves with bracers on it and black trousers, and it was the answer that my mum gave me that settled me right there and then, she said ” well, you may have just seen a ghost because it sounds like you spotted an out of date looking man doing something unusual in the back of the graveyard. ” but my mum said to me, just keep it quiet for now and let it be, telling too many people might make them laugh at you for all the wrong reasons, by that I think she meant I wouldn’t want to go through my teenage years having to constantly tell people what I had seen in great detail, only to have them ridicule me about it after I had finished, so I lived with it for many years, I have told a few close friends over the years but I now accept it as  a ghostly unexplained figure of the past who was seen by me  doing something to the earth in that graveyard that even today I still cannot explain.

Roy Hale.

………………………………………

The Lost Haven Website :

http://www.thelosthaven.co.uk

Roy Hale Email:

roy@thelosthaven.co.uk

Roy Hale Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/roy.j.hale

……………………………………..

Credits: All pictures are Copyright of Google Inc.  

A guide to the  history of the Church of St Barnabas can be found at the below link:  

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1226794

By 

Andy Owens 

Long Can is an award-winning, seventeenth century, Grade II listed building, set on the outskirts of Halifax, West Yorkshire. 

With its mullioned windows and fine stone façade, it looks every bit the traditional English manor, but as we drove towards it, up a steep hill and along a country lane, at the dead of night, I couldn’t help thinking of the Marston House in Salem’s Lot.

Why? 

My friend Chris, whose business partner had converted Long Can into a pub, had arranged for us to spend an evening there on a ghost hunt, as research for my new book – my next international worst-seller – and had made only one condition: that we experiment with a Ouija board.

‘I’m not playing Ouija!’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s evil!’

‘Don’t be such a wuss!’

‘I’m having nothing to do with it!’

‘Let me get this straight. You’re prepared to spend nights in haunted houses, hunting for ghosts and spirits – which, incidentally, don’t exist – and yet you don’t want to communicate with them?’

When Chris put it like that, I could see his point. What was the point of ghost hunting, armed to the tootsies with cameras and tape-recorders, if I wilfully avoided Ouija – the most commonly acknowledged form of communication between mankind and the spirit world?

But I had a question for him.

‘Bearing in mind that you don’t believe in the supernatural, what would you do if the Ouija board worked?’

Chris thought about this.

‘Then I would have to revise my ideas,’ he said.

So here I was, sacrificing my safe and comfortable existence to invasion by otherworldly forces. Dark denizens from distant dimensions could merrily strut their phantom foxtrot into my home, my mind, my very soul. A veritable legion of spirits, spooks and the entire cast of Rent-a-Ghost would follow me home and I would be forever goaded by ghosts, hounded by hauntings and plagued by poltergeists. And all these spiritual shenanigans just to afford Chris the opportunity to ‘revise’ his ideas. I didn’t like the sound of this at all. 

Like everyone else, I had heard bad things about Ouija.

Even cynics, who scoff at the supernatural and giggle at ghosts, will turn deathly silent at its mere mention. Their hoots of derision will quickly die away, as they cross themselves like devout worshippers and refuse even to discuss it. Ouija is far from a board game, they will argue. It is snakes and ladders for devils and demons. 

Recently, I had accompanied a paranormal research group to a haunted pub, which was ‘licensed to serve spirits’ (yawn), and we had all sat round a table with our fingers on a glass, encircled by letters from the alphabet, together with cards marked ‘Y’ and ‘N’ for Yes and No. 

This was termed Glass Divination – a method of spiritual communication – employed by many research groups. And I can’t recall anyone quaking like a jackhammer at the mere thought of it.

But how is this different from Ouija? As far as I can see, they are exactly the same.

How come Glass Divination is viewed as an acceptable paranormal experiment, while Ouija attracts evil beyond belief, inviting The Twilight Zone to set up camp in your lounge and Satan to build a bunk-house in your brain?

None of this made any kind of sense to me – or Chris.

He related how he had played Ouija at his own home with a couple of friends – and the glass had moved.

‘A-ha!’ I cried triumphantly.

‘A-ha nothing,’ replied Chris. ‘My mate was pushing it. You could tell. Besides, if there are evil spirits in my house, then they’ve been very quiet. Nothing weird has happened. If they were hurling my bed around the room, then I must have slept right through it, ’cos I didn’t feel a thing.’

Despite my objections, Chris had argued me out of the ring, like a linguistic Mike Tyson. So I had no choice but to agree.

I had originally heard of Long Can, many full moons ago, while researching for my first book. Webster’s Brewery, who used to own the building and used it as their visitor’s centre, suggested I contact the catering manageress, who had reported some spooky happenings. 

Sarah Thornton told me how she had heard a door open on the floor above, followed by the sound of footsteps, but when she investigated, there was no one there. A waitress had seen the image of a grey lady vanishing through the floorboards, and a cleaner had been tapped on the shoulder in the toilets while she was alone.

I had suggested that we invite a psychic to the house but Chris said we would be better without them. There is little more frustrating than a psychic saying they can sense a presence, when nobody else can see or sense anything. We wanted an impartial investigation without psychics, dowsing rods or a book of spells in sight.

Long Can was originally two cottages designed by local clothier James Murgatroyd, but was later converted into one large building. Now, it had now been entirely renovated, since Websters moved out, but there was still no furniture other than two chairs and a small table. And this was what worried me the most. For these are the furnishings of Ouija.

Once we had figured out which key fitted which door, we entered the main room. Leaving our equipment there, we set about stalking the house from top to bottom, unlocking further doors and switching on lights as we went, to get a feel for the place. 

For all his scepticism – no doubt partly fuelled by our ghost-free night at Chingle Hall, in Lancashire, (Britain’s most haunted) nine years previously – I admired the extent to which Chris had prepared for the vigil. He had printed out all the letters of the alphabet, all cut-out neatly onto squared paper, together with two larger squares with the words Yes and No printed on them.

Chris surmised that if he was wrong, if there were such things as ghosts, and they wanted to communicate, to relate a message from the other side, to warn us to leave Long Can immediately, with our tails (firmly intact) between our legs, never to return, or even – I hoped – give us the next winning Lotto numbers, then we would need a proper surface, to enable the glass to glide with ease. 

Chris wanted nothing – absolutely nothing – to stand in the way of supernatural communication. And then, if still nothing happened, it would confirm his view that all this Ouija stuff was a load of supernatural stinkers.

My thoughts turned to my writing.

‘If nothing ghostly happens, this will make a very short chapter,’ I said.

Chris sighed. 

‘Nothing ghostly is going to happen wherever you go, so it’s going to be a very short book.’

We each leaned forwards, placing fingers on the upturned glass, in the centre of the makeshift Ouija board, and took it in turns to utter the immortal line ‘Is Anybody There?’ punctuated by expectant pauses of anticipation.

‘Is There Anybody There?’

Silence.

‘Is There Anybody There?’

Silence.

After about fifteen minutes of this – and we had given any resident spirit the most blatant opportunity to get in touch – we brought the session to an end and packed up ready to go.

As we locked the outer door, and made our way to the car, we each cast an instinctive (hopeful?) look to the darkened windows, expecting to see someone or something that shouldn’t be there, but there was nothing but transparent glass reflecting the shadowy interior.

As we drove back home, Chris nodded in satisfaction. He had now spent two nights ghost-hunting. One playing the ’evil’ board game Ouija, and one in the most haunted house in England. And – as he expected – nothing had happened. 

Stinkers had won hands down.

Bullying and harassment in the Paranormal Field: EXPOSED!!

Hello guys im Charlene Kemp, I currently work for Ghosts of Britain. I am also a member of Para Police, A team of investigators who are trying to at least monitor the field to expose the fakes and basically exposing how activity can be faked to educate people to not believe everything they see on TV programmes and Youtube.

So over the past few weeks I have had numerous messages from various people within the paranormal field who have reported to me that they have suffered at some degree some kind of bullying and harassment from others who are in the field. As I take a part of the Para police I have felt that I need to raise awareness of this. Unfortunately within the paranormal community there are individuals who I would class as your school ground bullies. Who set out to destroy peoples personal lifes, business, reputation, events, evidence and basically torment a person to such a degree they feel that they no longer can continue in the field.

Another issue I also had was regarding a lady who claimed that she could 100% make contact with one of your love ones, initially I heard of this and was mad, how could any medium make should a big claim, in my eyes she was a con, she claimed you would be able to see, feel and have 100% contact with your past loved one for a price. So after hearing this I was 100% certain I was going to expose this lady, I was going to make an appointment with this lady and try and have her contact my ‘dead aunty sue’ ( I haven’t got a dead aunty sue) but if she made contact then this proved my exposure that she was a con. It wasn’t until I further looked into this lady that I realised something, I watched her videos and how she was on these and what she claimed to have and be. And actually realised that this lady infact has a severe mental health issues, she  has stated this in her videos and that she was being treated for such and claims to have helped others in a similar situation I had the hanging feeling that she may be in fact preying on those who suffer with a mental health problems. So I looked into her further and decided to give this lady a ring to see what she was about and how she was. Her behaviour on the phone also indicated and confirmed to me in my opinion that she did have some kind of mental health issue and it came across to me that she may have been quite medicated while speaking with her. I came to the decision to no publicly expose this lady, if others chose to then that is up to you.

This lady hosts such a demonstration in your home at a cost, but it has to be within her area. With this in mind my conclusion of this was due to what she may have she would in fact 100% believe she can contact any passed loved you wish and therefore wasn’t intentionally conning people has she fully believes she can even though in hindsight she properly cant and yes is conning people but this to me isn’t intentional. This then leads me on to my next part, because the field isn’t regulated in any way it allows such a person to work within the field, it is open to everyone, there is nobody to monitor it. If it was regulated in some way and we somehow had to register what we did to a panel of people to be considered to work in the field then maybe people who make such big claims wouldn’t be working within the field. As a result of this, understandably this lady has been subjected to negative posts regarding her claims, I understand why with the claims she is making but please bare in mind this lady is suffering with a mental illness and just because this lady looks physically well it does mean that this lady is well, and such posts could potentially trigger a massive un wanted reaction from this lady to herself, yourself or others, please bare this in mind.

My only warning to the public is if a medium is making such a claim please think before booking because you are most likely going to leave very disappointed after also paying for a service which someone could not provide for you or that you believed to not be true.

Some of the other complaints are as followed, potentially trying to close down a location, trying to cancel events, ringing the police to incidents which haven’t even occurred, passing messages to love ones and friends to turn them against the person, sending abuse which include threats, trying to destroy a peoples reputation within the field, constantly bombarding a person with messages of abuse, posts directed at another person or group, turning up at peoples places of work to give abuse even death threats!!…..the list is endless and seriously makes me question why I got into this field altogether.

The biggest problem I believe causing this is social media, messages are flew between people, screen shots are taken, this is then used as some kind of evidence against another person. Posts are directed at individuals and posters and mini videos made to take the mick out of who they are having the conflict with. This guys is childish!! And please bare in mind that I have been informed by many that there is indeed a app that is now available which enables a person to edit screen shots in some way.

You then have whose who take sides, these people only have heard half the story and cast a judgment before they have even spoken to the party being accused. There are two sides to a story as some would say three 😉 and before any judgement can be cast you should look at both sides instead of jumping on the band wagon and joining those who are causing the drama. I understand that sometimes people can pull the wool of people’s eyes but please bare in mind that you have only heard half the story before involving yourself.

If you have a disagreement with someone and it cannot be resolve then my best advice would be to please just delete that person, have no other contact with them, consider it a lesson learnt and move on. Easier said than done Im sure you are all sat there thinking…this is true but what you have to sit down and think about is why you are in this field….is it to make friends/enemies and slate each other or to gather some evidence, enjoy investigating the unknown and to find some comfort for yourself?

I know which one it is for me…..and if I meet some friends along the way who I trust then great (which I have may I add many) but if I hadn’t would I still have the passion and interest….yes I would.

Below is a Live Steam #TheparanormalSkeptic Lee Steer did regarding Bullying issues within the field, some of the legal jargon which surrounds it and what he feels is the best course of action to take.

Update

Here is another article by Claire Barrand 

Give it a read guys it raises some fantastic points 

http://www.clairebarrand.com/#!The-Unique-Reason-behind-Bullying-and-Personal-Attacks-within-the-Paranormal-Community-REVEALED/o8t7l/583739b5e417294c9dc7ab2c