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Did this woman really see a burning house in this empty field?

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Was she witness to a tragedy yet to happen?

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There is no doubt in my mind what so ever as to what we saw.

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And did this man see back in time to glimpse a vision of the past?

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And why did this arctic explorer map a land that never was?

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Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and inventor of the communications satellite.

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Now in retreat in Sri Lanka he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds.

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This is the oldest government department in Sri Lanka, the survey set up by the British in 1800.

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It still keeps to some of the empire's traditions.

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For example, the boss is called the Surveyor General.

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But otherwise it's a thoroughly modern place using satellite imagery to make maps of every feature in this island of 65,000 square kilometers.

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Thanks to survey departments like this one, we should now have an accurate picture of the entire planet.

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But do we? Because travelers are reporting on eerie phenomenon.

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They say that buildings they spot from a distance turn out not to be there.

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Sometimes they discover that the building was demolished years before.

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Sometimes it never existed at all.

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Such tales seem weird, even preposterous.

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But I take them seriously when they come from reputable observers.

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This wild and uninhabited glen in the highlands of Scotland is one of Europe's loneliest places.

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It's accessible only by boat, helicopter or the most determined of hill walkers.

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George Bruce and Donald Watt are both members of mountain rescue teams.

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They are intrepid climbers and know the moods of the mountains.

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I've been walking for about 40 years in the Scottish Highlands.

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And with George here, we've been doing that 30 years together.

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And all kinds of conditions day and night, and winter and summer all year round.

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We don't imagine we're seeing things, but we see and we know we're seeing.

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The last time they came down the slopes of Ben Finley, the friends were on the first stage of a weekend hike.

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The day was beautiful. It was the 3rd of May, all pint-tight conditions.

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The sky was pure blue, but a snow on the ground, visibility was absolutely fantastic.

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The two planned to shelter in a ruined house further up the valley,

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but to their surprise they spotted another building first.

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I was about 100 yards behind George up the hill.

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I saw this cottage before George stopped, and then he stopped ahead of me.

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And I got down to him, and he turned to me and said,

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I can't even see it. So we both saw the same thing, but we saw it quite up at the top.

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The cottage was in clear view at the water's edge, but it was not on the map.

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The thing that struck me was there was no moss on anything in the roof.

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Normally in these cottages the slates would attract some moisture, a bit of moss,

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and it would look worn a bit. This thing wasn't a worn.

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The sun was reflecting off the slates, and it was almost as though it had been,

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well, either in a good scrub to clean it up or freshly built.

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So we just kept going down.

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We went into a kind of little gully system, right down to the lock side,

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walked through the path, anticipating the cottages, there was nothing there.

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The house had vanished. George and Donald were mystified.

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Both were completely certain that they had seen a real building from above.

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I know exactly what I saw. It was solid.

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Sitting on the side of the lock, on solid ground, with solid ground behind it,

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and all around about it. Two windows in the bottom, two door windows in the top,

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two chimneys, no smoke I'm afraid, but very new looking.

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Where we're standing now, here, is where we think we saw it.

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It's very strange again. I remember very late years ago doing exactly what I'm doing.

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I'm standing here, we walked about here, totally puzzled,

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walked right down to the end, to what we could see right down the lock, no cottage.

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And I feel somewhat similar just now. I'm still surprised it's not sitting here.

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I think it should be sitting here.

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And maybe someday I'll come back and then this in the future, and we'll be sitting here.

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Yeah, it's a strange feeling.

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Only 60 miles north, Susanna Stone believes she too may have had a brief glimpse of the future.

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Come on, come on.

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It happened one evening as she drove her friend home after dinner.

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Susanna Stone, who is now a local, has been living in the city for a long time.

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She's been living in the city for a long time.

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She's been living in the city for a long time.

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She's been living in the city for a long time.

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She's been living in the city for a long time.

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We drove along this April evening, peacefully lovely evening, a light evening,

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and we came round the church.

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And to a horror, we saw a large-ish house, high house, blazing, flaming.

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The flames were coming out of all windows, the upstairs and the downstairs

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and curling up the lintels.

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the downstairs and curling up the lentils.

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Susanna knew the road like the back of her hand. She had driven up and down it every

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week for years.

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We stopped the van and we turned off the engine and we watched it. It had long narrow Georgian

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windows which are quite different to any of the other houses around here and it had a

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long narrow door in the middle that was shut.

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The building Susanna saw was on the grass field beyond where the new road now runs.

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It stood just where the football goalposts are.

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The blazing house that we saw was just exactly there and it was very obvious, very clear

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it was by itself those wooden houses weren't there.

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Fearily they heard no noise and saw no people. They wanted a closer look.

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So we set off and we got nearer to it and we went quite a distance down. I was driving

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and she was watching and when we got quite near it vanished completely disappeared. It

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just simply wasn't there. So I thought well perhaps the levels had changed. We may be

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lower down and perhaps I'd got my angles wrong and we couldn't sit.

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Susanna dropped her friend off and began the journey home but close to the field where

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the two had seen the blazing house she had a puncture. She had to walk to a telephone

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to call for help.

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As I walked on up the hill I realised that there was something terribly wrong. It was

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something very strange. There was nothing in the field that I just walked past and I'd

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looked into the field and a few humps and bumps in it and some stones but no house,

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no ashes, nothing. So I thought that's most extraordinary. I really felt quite frightened.

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I've often thought about this since and it worried me as I walked up the dark road as

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to what on earth we had seen, the two of us. And I really don't know but except that

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I have a feeling that perhaps it's the future. I just wonder and if anyone ever builds a

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light-colored house in that position I'm not a bit sure what I'd do about it. I think

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I might have to go knock on the door and warn them.

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Mount Lowe rises above the city of Los Angeles. It's a wilderness haven above the smog.

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At the turn of the century the mountain was a popular tourist attraction. A railway took

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daytrippers up for a breath of fresh air and lunch in the Alpine Tavern Hotel.

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The more adventurous could ascend to the very top and enjoy the panoramic views thanks to

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Herbert the Mule. But even Los Angeles' favourite day out could not survive the economic depression

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of the 1930s. The resort closed and now all that remains of the railway is a track for

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hikers. Bo Osjo is a clean walker.

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The first time I hiked to Mount Lowe was in the 1970s. I hiked from the bottom of the

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mountain which is about four miles up here I think. I saw a huge building up here that

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looked like a hotel, green in colour. I saw a maid was sweeping a big staircase. She was

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using an old fashioned hand broom and nobody does that today. They use vacuum cleaners or

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other tools but it looked kind of old fashioned. Puzzled, Bo went down the mountain and described

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the hotel to a friend, Vaughan Thompson. An argument began. I told him, I said there

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hadn't been any buildings up there in years. I knew there had been in a long time ago but

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they burned down and they were just gone. I said to him, this hotel is still standing

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on Mount Lowe and he said no way, there are no buildings on Mount Lowe, there haven't

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been in our lifetimes. And I said yes there is because I have seen it. I certainly wasn't

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dreaming. This was reality. It was as real as anything can be.

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Although no one will believe him, Bo refused to budge from his story. He climbed the mountain

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again. This time he went to the exact spot where he had seen the hotel standing. He found

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his friends had been right. There was only rubble.

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There was no building. There was just this empty structure with high trees and it was

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a very surprising situation. I am 100 percent sure the hotel was there.

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The cars came up right up to the front of the hotel.

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Brian Markroft, a Mount Lowe Ranger, keeps a collection of old photographs. Amongst

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them, Bo recognises his Phantom Hotel.

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That is one. That looks exactly like it.

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Gee, that's fascinating because you know it burned in 36. The shell of it sat here for

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years. A ban on it in 1959, what was standing was dynamite into the ground.

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But that is the hotel, right?

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Bo is certain he saw this hotel building almost 40 years after it was destroyed.

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There was a very scary experience because I question myself what else have I seen that

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is not there. And it was with me for a long time when I was out hiking alone. I always

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question myself is that for real or is it not?

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The people who report sightings of apparently phantom buildings are usually condemned to

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years of frustration without ever discovering what they really saw. Yet sometimes a little

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persistence, a fresh look and a bit of luck finally solve these mysteries. Here's one

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such case. Ironically, it comes from the city that thrives on confusing reality with illusion.

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A place where nothing is what it seems, Hollywood, USA.

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This woman is on her way to a meeting that she hopes will resolve a mystery that's been

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bothering her for years. Her date is with Larry Gelbman. He is a movie actor with an

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interest in the paranormal.

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Shirley Lawrence used to be part of the Hollywood Dream Machine. One day near Paramount Studios

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she found a little basement shop.

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For the first time I saw a sign on one of the doors that said book store step down.

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After browsing for a while Shirley turned to go but was stopped by the shop owner.

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Shirley loved the book. She looked forward to returning to the shop next time Paramount

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employed her talents.

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I wanted to thank this lady because I loved the book so the next time I worked at Paramount

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I went back to that bookstore. But it wasn't there. It was gone.

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A paranormal publication picked up Shirley's story. She believed the book shop had been

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a phantom. But one reader knew better. From his own days at Paramount, Larry remembered

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exactly where it was.

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I was really amazed because I'd been to that book shop numerous times. I couldn't believe

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it. So I did go over and I prowled around like a good detective and I found out that

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the signs hanging in front were gone, the window markings were gone and a new man was downstairs

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three, four steps down. So I went and talked to him and I said you're running the book

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shop and I looked around and we're running books. He says no I'm an engineer.

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The book shop had indeed vanished but its disappearance was not paranormal. The building

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still stood but an engineer's office had taken it over. If Shirley had looked harder she would

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have discovered the truth. But now it's too late.

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You recognise any of that?

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Oh how it has changed. Well there's the same old gate Paramount pictures.

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Yes.

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And the bookstore was just down for just a minute.

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The book shop's expanding empire has engulfed the whole street.

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Ben Fleet Downs in Essex is the unlikely location for one of the most famous reports of phantom

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buildings in the annals of psychical research. This is the story of how investigator Melvin

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Harris believes he has cracked this long standing puzzle. Earlier investigators Bob and June

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Andrews were told that two people had spotted an old house deep in these woods by the railway

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tracks but it had never been seen again.

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One Sunday afternoon they were going along to their friends and they saw what they thought

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was a large imposing Georgian house from which ran a girl and a dog. They looked at this

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and they saw what they later described as a gravel drive leading to the Georgian house.

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Then they went to their friends and said we've just noticed this Georgian house on the way

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to see you which we've never seen before. And their friends said well of course there

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isn't one there at all.

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The couple lived locally and were asked by the society for psychical research to look

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into the mystery and see if they could resolve it.

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We spent two evenings walking along together along the path looking in all directions and

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there was just literally nothing at all to be found. We went to the library, we asked

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relevant questions, we looked at maps that they had such as they had. We then looked

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at these ordnance survey maps and the borrower engineers. There was nothing there that they

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could have claimed to have been remotely like a Georgian house.

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The case was reported in the prestigious journal of the Society of Psychical Research.

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Bruce and Grace McMahon described the house they saw. They said they had searched the

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wood and had never found it again.

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Melvin Harris thinks the key to the mystery probably lies close to the scene of the sighting

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in the little local library at Hadley.

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It was a story that was cobbled together by two children. They talked about an imposing

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Georgian house. Well the first thing I thought well most children don't know much about architecture.

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A Georgian house is maybe just a rough guess. So I'm not looking for an imposing Georgian

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house. I'm looking for a large house in the forest.

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Harris knew the Andrews had studied ordnance survey maps but he thinks they had been given

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the wrong map by the wrong library.

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If you go to Southend and ask for the last scale ordnance survey maps you'll see this

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map and that map doesn't show the Bentley Downs in full. They really need to go on much

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further and as you see on this map the Downs down there they go right across the many inches

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and in the middle of that wooded area the path walked by the children the Andrews and

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the centre of the wood is a small rectangle which was a house.

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The map in Hadley library showed a house called Rayview. The Andrews had missed it for two

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reasons. They had not been shown the full map of the Downs. Secondly they had not been

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told that the original report had come from children.

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They must have taken their friends to the wrong place.

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Yes they still went to the same road every time.

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Harris wants to show the Andrews Rayview and satisfy them that the story of the Phantom

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House grew from a series of simple misunderstandings.

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And you don't associate it from the railway track it just looks like a house stuck on

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the edge but the children were adamant that there was no house in the forest anywhere.

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Yes yes.

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And this is the point they didn't say apart from Rayview which is this house.

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And yet I always knew this house was here.

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That's right but people who know this house can't find it at time.

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You know they will come here they will come for a visit they will try to make a second

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visit and they'll get lost. It's still a very mysterious place for a lot of people.

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Sometimes travellers claim they've seen not just one Phantom building but whole cities.

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For example in 1915 Frank Worsley was captain of Sir Ernest Shacklein's polar exploration

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ship Endurance.

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As he sailed along the Antarctic coast he made this note in his log.

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In shore appears a beautiful dazzling city of cathedral spires domes and minarets.

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Well as Worsley knew the only buildings in the Antarctic at that time were a few wooden

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expedition huts.

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So what was is fabulous but a illusory city.

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I'm glad to say that sightings of this kind can be explained by science.

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The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge houses mementos from polar exploration over

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centuries.

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Besides artifacts of icy adventures it preserves travellers tales of distant lands reported

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by explorers.

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Dr Gareth Reese has discovered that not all of the stories have stood the test of time.

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I think we can say that if all of these reports were true which we now disbelieve the maps

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of the polar regions would be a great deal more cluttered than they are now.

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Arctic explorer Commander Robert Peary claimed to be the first to reach the North Pole.

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On his journey there in 1906 he thought he sighted an undiscovered island in the Arctic

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ocean.

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He named it Crockerland and marked it on his map.

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Now that sighting was subsequently investigated by another American explorer called Macmillan

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who went to look for it in 1914.

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He did not find it although he could see it when he began his journey and this book which

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is essentially the reminiscences of Macmillan shows Crockerland a big question mark on

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it.

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It is found and indeed what we can say now from what we know about the geography of the

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Arctic is that the nearest land in the direction in which these chaps were looking is in Siberia

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2,000 kilometres away.

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At the other end of the earth the Antarctic has its own illusive lands.

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One of the earliest recorded was Peeps Island which was originally recorded in the late

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17th century down here somewhere between the Falkland Islands and the coast of South America.

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It's not there at all it's another of these fictitious islands and Sedosive Banks who

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sailed with Captain Cook in the Endeavour gives a description in his journal of their

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attempts to find it.

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They saw it all right but when they sailed for it and tried to locate it properly it

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disappeared.

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But Sedosive Banks had not been mistaken.

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The lands he, Peary and Macmillan reported had a scientific explanation.

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They were mirages.

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This land behind a lighthouse in Finland is not really there.

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It's a complicated mirage called a Fatta Morgana.

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A Fatta Morgana is a special kind of mirage as well as lifting the image up and magnifying

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it.

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It also involves a lot of stretching so there's a lot of distortion.

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It becomes an unrecognisable shape for example the edge of an ice flow will become stretched

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out and look like very tall thin columns of ice like a crystal cage.

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These don't look like anything every day they look like something from fairy tales.

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So what the explorers reported was real but distorted and out of position.

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The lands did not exist where they were seen.

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We might imagine that as soon as somebody has sailed over the site of a fictitious island

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and proved that it isn't there it comes off the chart.

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This isn't always true and I can show you one example of this in the case of Swain's

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Island which is here near Antarctica.

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This has been known for decades to be a bogus island of fictitious or illusory island.

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It's still here on the map.

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Mirages obviously can't account for many of these reports.

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Buildings can't appear and disappear.

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So what's the explanation?

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I suspect the answer must lie in the observer's mind.

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It's easy to be fooled especially in unfamiliar surroundings and to misinterpret what you

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actually see.

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Something similar once happened to me.

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I used to commute by train to my home in North London.

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One evening when I thought I'd reached my destination I suddenly realized that my surroundings

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were totally unfamiliar.

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Some 50 years later I can still recall the shock of unrecognition.

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Of course in this case I quickly realized what had happened.

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I'd simply gotten onto the wrong train.

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How much more disorientating it must be to know you've seen a building but never to

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be able to find it.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.