1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:23,760
In the state capital of Alabama, did an awful specter terrify this man?

2
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,800
There was no expression on her face at all.

3
00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:29,520
It was just a kind of a blank stare.

4
00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:36,520
In a photograph of an empty room, what explains this ghostly figure?

5
00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:42,640
And was the sale of this haunted house obstructed by real spirits from the past?

6
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:48,600
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clark, author of 2001 and inventor of the communications

7
00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:49,920
satellite.

8
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:54,720
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds.

9
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:28,720
In the days of the British Empire, here in the highlands of Sri Lanka, the members of

10
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:33,520
the Hill Club used to while away their evenings in this reading room.

11
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:39,240
Tonight as I sit here in their place, every nook and cranny speaks of the past.

12
00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:44,400
Presences from the 19th century seem to lurk in the shadows all around me.

13
00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:50,560
Real adventurers, tea planters, map makers and surveyors, hunters weary from the pursuit

14
00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,040
of elephants, leopards and deer.

15
00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:58,840
In fact, I'm surprised no one has ever claimed that this room is haunted, as far as I know.

16
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:03,000
It fits the traditional picture of an abode of ghosts perfectly.

17
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:08,640
Yet, the more I investigate reports of hauntings, the more I realize they come from the most

18
00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:12,000
unlikely places.

19
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:18,000
The Alabama state capital dates back to before the Civil War and needs skilled craftsmen to

20
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,840
maintain its traditional beauty.

21
00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:24,680
James Gamage is a specialist in restoring old buildings.

22
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:31,520
One night he was working late, alone in the rotunda, when he got the fright of his life.

23
00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:34,600
I've been through quite a few things, close calls and cars.

24
00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:36,800
I've been in a few war zones.

25
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:41,480
Been on board a few airplanes that have come close to going in.

26
00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:44,680
But this, I put at the top of the list.

27
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:49,800
This is one of the most frightful things I've ever had happen.

28
00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:53,400
The glossy sheen of the metal doors acts like a mirror.

29
00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:58,280
Intent on his work, James thought he saw the reflection of a person behind him.

30
00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:04,160
He turned to speak, but his uninvited visitor was not of flesh and blood.

31
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:05,600
What I saw was a lady.

32
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:08,360
She was dressed in Civil War period dress.

33
00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:13,480
The dress she was wearing was not a heavy duty hoop type skirt, but it was outer ways

34
00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:15,440
and it went down ways.

35
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:18,120
It was an opaque white type image.

36
00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:21,880
It definitely was the figure of a lady.

37
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,000
There was no expression on her face at all.

38
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,360
It was just a kind of a blank stare.

39
00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:33,880
And she moved across and went into the back direction back here behind me.

40
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:37,120
When she came back, she had the same expression.

41
00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:39,600
Nothing changed.

42
00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:43,240
Like I said, she took no notice of me whatsoever.

43
00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:44,720
But I did take notice of her.

44
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:51,000
And I thought that it was about time to leave.

45
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,880
The next morning, James went to his boss.

46
00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:59,160
He insisted he could no longer work alone at night in the capital.

47
00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:01,240
Bill Woodsmoor was sympathetic.

48
00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:04,520
He was somebody that I would depend on.

49
00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:06,000
When he tells me something, I believe it.

50
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:07,000
He was very agitated.

51
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:08,000
He was nervous.

52
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:09,000
He couldn't keep his hands still.

53
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,920
He could tell something that happened the night before they had affected him.

54
00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:17,240
My own custodial staff has talked about seeing shadows move through the building when they

55
00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:20,880
know no one's there at night, hearing doors slam closed when they know they're the only

56
00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:22,560
ones in the building at night.

57
00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:25,320
So we have heard stories like that.

58
00:04:25,320 --> 00:04:30,080
At the time of the Civil War, many Southern soldiers died on the battlefield.

59
00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:35,120
It is said that the ghostly woman is a distraught wife searching the capital for news of her

60
00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:36,120
husband.

61
00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:41,760
When I explained it to Mr. Woodsmoor the following morning, he kind of laughed about it and told

62
00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:44,480
me you're not the first one.

63
00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:46,400
And you saw her.

64
00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:47,400
You saw her come through.

65
00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:48,400
I said, yes, I did.

66
00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:51,480
And I said, I don't believe that I'll be doing any more work at night.

67
00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:53,800
You will have to experience what I did.

68
00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:57,400
You may make your own decision as far as your disbelief or whatever.

69
00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:04,800
But I have experienced it and I believe in it.

70
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:09,800
From Bluebell Hill in Southern England come reports of a bizarre modern ghost.

71
00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:15,160
She appears at random on this road and leaves her victims shaking with terror.

72
00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:20,840
Ian Sharp was driving home one night when a girl appeared from nowhere.

73
00:05:20,840 --> 00:05:23,120
The lady ran in front of the car.

74
00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:26,760
I hit her on her left hand side.

75
00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:31,840
As I hit her, she turned her head and she was looking at me.

76
00:05:31,840 --> 00:05:35,440
She went down under the front of the car.

77
00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:39,480
Now she had shoulder length hair rolled inwards.

78
00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:44,360
Fair hair, a fringe with big eyes.

79
00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:46,060
She had a round face.

80
00:05:46,060 --> 00:05:52,760
She had a high neck jumper thing on her something and a light coloured coat.

81
00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:53,760
I was terrified.

82
00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:55,560
I didn't know what to do.

83
00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:59,960
All I could think of was this lady under the car.

84
00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:03,520
I then had to look under the car.

85
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:08,800
I bent down and looked under the car.

86
00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:14,600
And there was nothing there.

87
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:15,840
My brain is going.

88
00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:18,480
I don't know what to do.

89
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:22,640
Ian managed to call the police who raced to the sea.

90
00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:25,520
I was still shaking like a loop.

91
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:31,080
If I had been looking for the body or the person who I had hit, we couldn't find anybody.

92
00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:37,120
And then it was then that the policeman told me we've got to put this down to another sighting

93
00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:43,200
of the ghost of Bluebell Hill, which I had never heard of before.

94
00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:48,680
The hauntings are thought to have begun after a fatal car crash on Bluebell Hill.

95
00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:51,160
Every year produces new witnesses.

96
00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:52,680
One is Chris Dawkins.

97
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:58,120
The girl ran out and sort of semi-turned towards me as I hit her.

98
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:03,160
She was wearing a white or cream top jumper, a pillowed type thing.

99
00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:07,280
I just stopped and got out and ran around the back and stayed in panic.

100
00:07:07,280 --> 00:07:09,560
I mean, I thought I'd actually killed someone.

101
00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:15,880
And when you actually get out and find that there's no one there, you know, you start

102
00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:17,960
getting very worried about it.

103
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:25,960
We actually found Chris sitting in his car at the telephone kiosk, sitting in a passenger

104
00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:28,960
seat very shaken, very scared.

105
00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:32,960
And he absolutely adamant that he'd knocked somebody over.

106
00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,280
And so we checked all over his car.

107
00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:37,440
We checked around it underneath it.

108
00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:41,320
There was no signs of any damage to the car.

109
00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:43,640
Nothing that would suggest that he'd hit anything.

110
00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:49,080
We then carried a thorough search out of the village itself where exactly it happened.

111
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:51,960
The gardens, the road, and we found absolutely nothing whatsoever.

112
00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:56,520
I can't begin to explain what happened to Chris that night.

113
00:07:56,520 --> 00:08:00,920
He dealt with something, or hit something that night, which I'm no expert.

114
00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:02,920
I just can't explain.

115
00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:12,240
Even in the early days of psychic research, at the end of the 19th century, investigators

116
00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:17,680
called in physicians and psychologists to help explain the phenomena being reported from

117
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:19,680
apparently haunted places.

118
00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:25,920
Today, experts agree that hallucinations and illusions often occur in the weird transition

119
00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,960
period between sleep and wakefulness.

120
00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:34,240
They can be caused by images from dreams lingering on, or thoughts assuming a solid

121
00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,160
form as sleep approaches.

122
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:43,160
These may account for the spooky experiences sometimes described by people lying in bed.

123
00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:51,160
Captain Barney Concanon is an experienced airline pilot.

124
00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:02,160
One of his regular overnight stops has been an airport serving the northeast of England

125
00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:05,160
at Teeside.

126
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:10,160
The crews were always booked into St George's Hotel, right by the airport.

127
00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:15,160
When the building belonged to the Royal Air Force, the hotel was the officer's mess.

128
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:21,160
In 1951, a small plane crashed on landing, careered across the car park and smashed into

129
00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:23,160
the wall of the mess.

130
00:09:23,160 --> 00:09:26,160
The pilot was killed by falling masonry.

131
00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:30,160
The mess was rebuilt and is now part of the hotel.

132
00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:34,160
There are stories of a ghostly airman seen in its corridors.

133
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:40,160
Captain Concanon was skeptical until the night he was booked into Room 62.

134
00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:48,160
I came into the room, got undressed as normal, put my raincoat on the bed because it was

135
00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:55,160
so cold. There were four or five blankets on the bed already and lay down on my stomach,

136
00:09:55,160 --> 00:10:01,160
wrapping the blankets around me, just leaving my nose so that I could breathe.

137
00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:09,160
And I must have been lying there for five minutes when I felt a sudden pressure on my legs,

138
00:10:09,160 --> 00:10:17,160
on the back of my legs, as if somebody had walked into the room and sat on my lower legs.

139
00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,160
It only affected me from the knees down.

140
00:10:23,160 --> 00:10:29,160
I thought to myself, the story of the ghost came back to me at that time.

141
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:33,160
And I wondered whether I should put the light on or what I should do.

142
00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:37,160
And I decided not to. I decided to brave it out, in fact.

143
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:44,160
And I turned around and I said, go away, but in much stronger language.

144
00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:53,160
And it went immediately. As soon as I said go away, it disappeared.

145
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:58,160
I didn't even put the light on. Afterwards, the room became warmer.

146
00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:01,160
I was quite comfortable and I went to sleep.

147
00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:06,160
Unaware of the stories on her first night in the hotel,

148
00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:10,160
Stewardess Lisa Cox settled down for a good night's sleep.

149
00:11:10,160 --> 00:11:17,160
I woke less than an hour later and there was the weight of a heavy person lying on me

150
00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,160
from the top of my head all the way down my body.

151
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:28,160
And it took me just a couple of seconds to realise that I wasn't at home and that I was in the hotel.

152
00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:32,160
And of course, then I was petrified. I couldn't move.

153
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:38,160
And I realised that it just must be a ghost. There was no other explanation and I was wide awake.

154
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:42,160
I couldn't move an arm or a leg. I was pinned down.

155
00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:45,160
And the only thing I could hear was my heart beating.

156
00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:49,160
And whilst I was pinned down, I could see movement.

157
00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:55,160
And when I moved my eyes, looked towards my left, the curtains which are very heavy and I'd drawn open,

158
00:11:55,160 --> 00:12:02,160
were moving upwards from the ground, not blowing outwards as though in a breeze.

159
00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:07,160
But as though somebody had put two hands underneath them and was lifting them up,

160
00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:10,160
they were crumpling and they were about a metre off the floor.

161
00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:14,160
After a couple of minutes, the weight left Lisa.

162
00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:17,160
She fled the room too terrified to return.

163
00:12:17,160 --> 00:12:21,160
Real as such experiences seem to those who suffer them,

164
00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:26,160
some scientists suggest they are caused by a condition known as sleep paralysis.

165
00:12:26,160 --> 00:12:34,160
Some people think that this sort of thing happens with particularly airline people who are flying all over the world,

166
00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:39,160
different time zones and so on, getting very tired.

167
00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:45,160
And when they go to sleep, they enter a state of semi-consciousness,

168
00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:51,160
neither sleeping nor waking, in which things like this can occur.

169
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:59,160
But my answer to that would be, I've flown all over the world, I've stayed in hotels all over the world.

170
00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:02,160
I've never had any problem of this sort before.

171
00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:08,160
I know the St. George's Hotel is haunted, I'm 100% sure, because it happened to me, it wasn't a dream.

172
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:13,160
I know that I was wide awake and that's why I was so frightened, I was petrified.

173
00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:26,160
Sometimes stories of hauntings clash with the hard commercial realities of the modern world.

174
00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:30,160
Can the alleged presence of ghosts affect house prices?

175
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:34,160
Well, it's a question lawyers have had to take seriously.

176
00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:40,160
In Italy in 1960 this paranormal problem was the subject of a learned treatise.

177
00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:46,160
And more recently in the United States the courts have tried to untangle the answer.

178
00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:52,160
NIAC is a comfortable suburb of New York on the shores of the Hudson River.

179
00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:56,160
One property has more to offer than most.

180
00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:02,160
The house's owner for 23 years, Mrs. Helen Ackley, now lives in Florida.

181
00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:08,160
She and her husband brought up their three children in the house with ghosts for company.

182
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:14,160
My house was haunted by three different ghosts that we could say for sure.

183
00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:22,160
One was an older gentleman, one was a young girl, and one was a young navy lieutenant.

184
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:29,160
Oh, I love the ghosts, all of them. They were there, I could feel them,

185
00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:34,160
but however they did not intrude upon me, but they were there if I needed them.

186
00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:42,160
And there were times I called on them, and it seemed as though they understood and tried to help.

187
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:48,160
Helen's friendly feelings towards the ghosts are confirmed by her neighbors across the road.

188
00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:56,160
The Ursula family were close friends of the Ackleys. James Ursula grew up alongside Helen's son, William.

189
00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:59,160
He remembers spooky incidents.

190
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:06,160
William had a habit of every night going down into the basement and locking up and making sure everything was secure.

191
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:11,160
And this time he saw something white outside glowing and he had no idea what it was.

192
00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:19,160
And his eyes shot up and he saw this revolutionary war ghost, and he was panic-stricken.

193
00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:23,160
And he turned around and ran right into one of the walls in the basement.

194
00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:30,160
And he came upstairs and his mother saw him and Helen, and she just started laughing

195
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:34,160
because she knew he had seen the ghosts for the first time.

196
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:39,160
The Ackleys really felt that the ghosts were part of their family, I'm sure,

197
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:44,160
because they never had any fear, there was never anything negative.

198
00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:50,160
In fact, it was as though they were sort of guardian angels or something in the family.

199
00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:56,160
The time came when widowed Mrs. Ackleys had to move from the 18-roomed house.

200
00:15:56,160 --> 00:16:00,160
She wanted to join her son, who had set up a business in Florida.

201
00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:03,160
With regret, she put the house up for sale.

202
00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:06,160
The estate agent was Richard Ellis.

203
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:10,160
He was worried about mentioning the house's extra features.

204
00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:15,160
We kind of took a deep breath and we approached the buyer on it and he left about it.

205
00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:16,160
He just joked about it.

206
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:20,160
And then a couple of weeks later he called us and was very serious about the whole thing.

207
00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:25,160
And at that point we set up a meeting for him to meet with Mrs. Ackleys.

208
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:31,160
And she spoke with great enthusiasm about the ghosts and at that point I think he became very concerned.

209
00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:35,160
And shortly after that meeting he decided he did not want to buy the house.

210
00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:42,160
The buyers had put down a substantial deposit, but they now wanted to cancel the deal.

211
00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,160
A dispute arose over who would keep the money.

212
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:47,160
The case ended up in court.

213
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:53,160
The judge threw out the buyer's claim, saying it was too late for them to change their minds.

214
00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:59,160
The buyers took the case to the appeal division of the Supreme Court of New York.

215
00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:02,160
The presiding judge was Israel Rubin.

216
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:08,160
The basis of the appeal was that Mrs. Ackleys was not fulfilling her obligation to leave the house unoccupied.

217
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:12,160
It was still inhabited by the ghosts.

218
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:20,160
We had a balance of whether a ghost should have been disclosed as against a threat.

219
00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:27,160
A ghost should have been disclosed as against a theory or principle of law that is almost universal in the United States.

220
00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:37,160
That is caveat emptor, let the buyer beware that the buyer has to be beware of what they're buying and has to do an adequate search.

221
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:43,160
And once they do that search they're actually stuck with what they are purchasing.

222
00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:52,160
Judge Rubin's ruling was that the deposit should be equally divided and that the unhappy buyers would not be held to their purchase.

223
00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:56,160
He took practicalities into consideration when making his decision.

224
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:01,160
When you purchase a house you usually have certain inspections made of a house.

225
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:08,160
If you want to check on the construction of a house you call someone that's an engineer or someone that's an expert in construction.

226
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:12,160
If you want to check for termites you call someone in that's a termite inspector.

227
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:14,160
There's someone to call.

228
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:19,160
So we said in this kind of a case we quoted ghostbusters we said who you're going to call.

229
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:26,160
The immediate result of the case was that the presence of ghosts had to be revealed before a sale.

230
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,160
But since then in New York the view has softened.

231
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,160
Estate agents are not obliged by law.

232
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:38,160
I think I would probably bring it up to a potential buyer as a matter of conversation.

233
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:41,160
But we do not have to disclose it.

234
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:44,160
On the other hand we cannot lie about it either.

235
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:49,160
I mean we were asked directly do you know of a ghost that's in this house or have you heard of anything.

236
00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:51,160
We have to disclose that to a buyer.

237
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:56,160
The Ursula's worry that the ghosts had not been consulted.

238
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,160
James thinks they weren't best pleased.

239
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:07,160
The first Christmas that the Ackles weren't here we had a lot of bells hanging around the house.

240
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:10,160
And for some strange reason they just started ringing.

241
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:17,160
And we thought they were because of the wind in the house we'd move them and they'd still ring.

242
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:21,160
And I just thought it was so creepy that that would happen.

243
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:28,160
I really think the ghosts were trying to express themselves and say we've had something happen here and we really don't like it.

244
00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:32,160
Our friends have gone and we're really upset about it.

245
00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:39,160
Hauntings are never easy to investigate.

246
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,160
By their very nature they're fleeting and elusive.

247
00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:48,160
And the people who believe they've seen weird phenomena are often too frightened to provide rational testimony.

248
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:54,160
So it's not surprising that explanations may take a long time to emerge.

249
00:19:54,160 --> 00:20:03,160
In fact more than a century later we're only just beginning to understand some famously spooky cases from Victorian England.

250
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:09,160
This fine mansion in Cheshire was the seat of Lord Combermere.

251
00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:11,160
It boasts a splendid library.

252
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,160
In 1891 a Miss Civil Corbett took a remarkable picture.

253
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:21,160
Her technique intrigues photographic expert Adam Hart Davis.

254
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:27,160
She exposed it for an hour, a long, long exposure between two and three in the afternoon.

255
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,160
And you can see the sun is streaming into the room here.

256
00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:31,160
It's lovely.

257
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:38,160
And when she came to develop the photograph she was amazed to find that in this chair on the left there is a sort of shadowy figure sitting.

258
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:41,160
And she was rather surprised by this and she consulted her sister.

259
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:44,160
And one of her sisters said that's Lord Combermere.

260
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,160
Absolutely positive. She was absolutely certain.

261
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:49,160
There is a slight difficulty though because Lord Combermere was dead.

262
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:54,160
He'd been run over by a cab in London a few days earlier and he died from his injuries.

263
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:59,160
And he was, while this picture was being taken, he was actually being buried in the graveyard a few miles away.

264
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:03,160
And so that of course made everyone think it's got to be his ghost. It must be his ghost.

265
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:08,160
Sir William Barrett, a pioneer of psychical research, was not convinced.

266
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:17,160
He wrote an article suggesting that a footman had strayed into Miss Corbett's photograph, taking an illicit rest in his master's chair.

267
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,160
There are various things that support this.

268
00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:28,160
One is that the figure is quite well lit on the side where the light is coming from so you can see one hand, but is very poorly lit on the other side.

269
00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:32,160
You can't see the figure's legs at all and there's a very neat point here.

270
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,160
All across the picture all the bright lines are doubled.

271
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:42,160
There's a bright one and then a very slightly less bright one beside it, which suggests that the camera was moved during the exposure.

272
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:48,160
Now Miss Corbett herself says that she was out of the room. So somebody jogged to the camera during the exposure.

273
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:54,160
Could it be this person came in, sat down, moved a little bit, suddenly realised he was on camera, rushed out,

274
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:57,160
kicking the tripod as he went out of the door. It's possible anyway.

275
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:03,160
To test the theory, Adam has set his modern camera for an exposure of two minutes.

276
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:10,160
His wooden study seat stands in for his lordship's armchair and as an extra gesture towards authenticity,

277
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:13,160
a footman's coat seems appropriate garb.

278
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,160
I'm going to have to sit here for a minute, but I don't want to be completely still.

279
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,160
The right hand is still, the left hand must move about a bit.

280
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:29,160
I have to move my legs so that they don't register on the picture and I need to move my head from side to side and up and down

281
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:33,160
so that it'll register as a blur but still a head-shaped blur.

282
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:52,160
The experiment's result is gradually revealed in the glow of the dark room.

283
00:22:52,160 --> 00:23:00,160
It's beginning to appear. It's the blacks that come up first and the ghost is shadowy so it'll come up last if it's there at all.

284
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:06,160
I can see the books, I can see the chair. Yeah, there's definitely something there.

285
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:12,160
There's a right hand. Yes, there's a ghost there. Look, look, I'm in it. Terrific, it's worked.

286
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,160
So maybe, maybe we've solved the mystery.

287
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:23,160
Here's the company photograph and here's my photograph and mine's like a sort of section out of this,

288
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:25,160
a sort of small section blown up if you like.

289
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,160
And if you look over here on the left, there's a chair and over here on the left of frame there's a chair.

290
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:33,160
And here there's a shadowy figure. You can see a sort of blurred head

291
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:38,160
and here there's definitely a shadowy figure and you can see a blurred head which does look rather like me, I have to admit.

292
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:44,160
And over in the company of the photograph there's a rather sharp right hand and arm

293
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,160
and that's exactly the same here, sharp right hand and arm.

294
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:54,160
But there is no left arm or hand although there's a slightly blurry bit on the hand-dress there.

295
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:59,160
And here there is no left hand although there's a slightly blurred patch just on the hand-dress.

296
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:01,160
So, so far we're doing quite well.

297
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:07,160
And here we've got no legs at all, the sharp edge of the chair and no sign of legs.

298
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,160
And here, sharp edge of the chair, no sign of any legs.

299
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:25,160
This could still be a ghost. I can't disprove that it's a ghost, but it seems to me that I've made a pretty fair representation of it, myself, just messing around in my own sitting room.

300
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:33,160
I reckon that there's something like an 80 or 90% chance that this was just somebody who wandered into the picture and wandered out again.

301
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,160
Most of us know a place that seems to be haunted.

302
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:54,160
I certainly do. When I was a child living on an old farm in the west of England, the bells once used to summon servants would ring from rooms that we knew for certain were empty.

303
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:58,160
In the end, we put it down to rats in the wiring.

304
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,160
That experience taught me the power of suggestion.

305
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:09,160
An ancient building, empty rooms, the dark shadows of night, conspired to create a ghostly scenario,

306
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:15,160
but all too often a rational explanation comes only with the cold light of dawn.

307
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:19,160
So, I am very skeptical about haunted places.

308
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,160
But I must confess that I have a sneaking sympathy with a man who said,

309
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,160
I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm scared of them.