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Ghost Riots (Crowds Descending On Reported Ghost Sites)

Kingsize Wombat

Kingsize Wombat

Justified & Ancient
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Jan 19, 2016
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I didn't know that used to happen, but apparently ghost sightings used to draw huge crowds on the off-chance that they might re-appear - and cause all sorts of public disturbances?

The Mystery of Ghost Riots

Let’s pretend that your neighbour John Smith on Treacle Row in London, has reported that he has seen a ghost in a flowing gown running up and down the stairs. Now think carefully about this one. What would you do? Would you
a) go and stand in the cold and rain and fog outside his house and watch for three or hours hoping that the ghost would turn up
b) have an early night and do some light reading or play chequers with the wife/husband.

Who but a moron would go and stand outside on the offchance that the sweep of a dress might glimmer through a distant window? Well, the answer is the populations of most British towns for much of the last two hundred years. Hard as it may be for us to believe, ghosts were to the general populace, like cat nip to furry things. Here are some examples from London from 1867-1921. It would be difficult to go much later but the reports go way back into the nineteenth century and presumably beyond and, of course, they can be found in many other British cities and, indeed, towns and villages. In the capital though they sometimes took on quite frightening dimensions.
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Source: http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/01/20/mystery-ghost-riots/
 
This certainly used to be a thing. In fact, some years ago I was hoping to organise a group ghost-watch to spot one that only appeared every couple of decades or so. It didn't happen something else occurred that took up the time instead.

At the same spot in the past, though, there used to be hundreds of people waiting rowdily to greet the ghost. If anyone'd been foolhardy enough to dress up as it and parade along the lane or wherever they'd've been mobbed!
In fact I seem to remember reading that this has happened in the past and the jokers have been injured.
 
escargot1 said:
This certainly used to be a thing. In fact, some years ago I was hoping to organise a group ghost-watch to spot one that only appeared every couple of decades or so. It didn't happen something else occurred that took up the time instead.
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Are you saying the ghost-watch didn't happen, or that it did, and a different occurrence to the one you were expecting took place?
 
OK then.

*wavy lines...*

In a book I read as a teenager there was an account of a ghost which 'walked' every so many years, ten or more. In the past, the appearance of the phantom was confidently expected by the local villagers and they'd gather by the score to watch, and the story goes that he DID show up.

He was supposed to be a knight - Sir Geoffrey? - who was seen on that particular date strolling in full armour along a rural path.
The next date he was due to visit was in, I think, the autumn of 2005 or 6. There didn't seem to be any interest that I could see, apart from my own, so I had fully intended to go along with whoever else I could cajole to accompany me on this fool's supernatural errand.

Dunno if anyone local to the ghost did turn up to see him.

Unfortunately something happened that put all my plans on hold indefinitely so I missed it. It's all on'ere somewhere.
 
Krepostnoi said:
There's apparently a ghost ship - the Lady Lovibond - that turns up every 50 years to replay its sinking on the Goodwin Sands. I was, carelessly, in Russia when it was due to appear in 1998. Shall we all clear a space in our diaries for 13/02/2048?
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I think that has been pretty conclusively debunked sadly....
 
When I have time I will look out the book and remind myself about where and when the ghost might walk again!
There may have been plans to build along there. I'd buy one of those houses.

Wasn't there a big spread about one of these mass ghost-vigils in the mag a few years ago?
 
escargot1 said:
When I have time I will look out the book and remind myself about where and when the ghost might walk again!
There may have been plans to build along there. I'd buy one of those houses.

Wasn't there a big spread about one of these mass ghost-vigils in the mag a few years ago?
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ye, victorian flash mobs, lots of people turning up to gawp as soon as a ghost was rumoured, with the police getting involved, i have the book the article came from ....i think
 
The only occurrence of this that I can think of was the ghost of Anne Boleyn (I cant remember if it was so frequent, that people would gather monthly or if it was always on the date of her death) but im sure the tower guards / beef eaters would all wait for her to appear & not be disappointed. (of course this was all prior cameras) & as stone tape theory suggests, wears down with age until it stops.........
 
Frideswide said:
lalalalalala I'm not listening!
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With her head tucked underneath her arm

WITH HER HEAD TUCKED UNDERNEATH HER ARM (R.P. Weston / Bert Lee) Stanley Holloway (Monologue)

In the Tower of London large as life, The Ghost of Anne Boleyn walks they declare.
For Anne Boleyn was once King Henry's wife,
Until he made the headsman bob her hair!

Ah, yes, he did her wrong, long years ago
And, she comes up at night to tell him soooo!

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour.

She comes to haunt King Henry,
She means to give him 'what for',
Gadzook! She's going to tell him off
For having split her gore,

And, just in case the headsman
Wants to give her an encore,
She has her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her had tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour.

Along the draughty corridors,
For miles and miles she goes.
She often catches cold, poor thing,
It's cold there when it blows.
And it's awfully awkward for the Queen,
To have to blow her nose,
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour!

Sometimes gay King Henry gives a spread,
For all his pals and gals and ghostly crew.
The headsman carves the joint and cuts the bread
Then in comes Anne Boleyn to 'queer the do!'
She holds her head up with a wild war whoop!
And Henry cries, "Don't drop it in the soup!"

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour.
The sentries think that it's a football,
That she carries in.
And when they've had a few they shout,
'Is Ars'nal going to win?'

They think it's Alec James,
Instead of poor old Ann Boleyn,
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour.

One night she caught King Henry
He was in the canteen bar
Said he, "Are you Jane Seymore, Anne Boleyn or Catherine Parr?"
"How the sweet san fairy ann,
Do I know who you are?"
With your head tucked underneath your arm!

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the midnight hour.
 
I remember reading one of those monthly ‘Unexplained’ mags back in the 80’s about a Templar knight who is supposed to appear every so often somewhere in the Pyrenees. Wish I could remember more. I hadn’t heard of the place before, so it doesn’t ring any bells like Rennes le Chateau etc. I think it was every so many years after the the dissolution of the order.
 
These ghost riots seem to popular in some parts of the USA.

kkk-facts.png
 
Ogdred Weary said:
These ghost riots seem to popular in some parts of the USA.

View attachment 46507
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I went to a student fancy dress party in Hungary where a contingent of young KKK members turned up. They thought they were dressed as ghosts. :chuckle:

The American students were shocked beyond words. :omg:
We Brits were hysterical with laugher. :rollingw:
(This was the same night I accidentally set fire to my Grim Reaper costume so I got laughed at too.)

Anyway... why did the costume hire shop have loads of KKK outfits, complete with the badge on the front? Did THEY think they were ghosts? :dunno:
 
escargot said:
I went to a student fancy dress party in Hungary where a contingent of young KKK members turned up. They thought they were dressed as ghosts. :chuckle:

The American students were shocked beyond words. :omg:
We Brits were hysterical with laugher. :rollingw:
(This was the same night I accidentally set fire to my Grim Reaper costume so I got laughed at too.)

Anyway... why did the costume hire shop have loads of KKK outfits, complete with the badge on the front? Did THEY think they were ghosts? :dunno:
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I recall seeing a ghost outfit in a fancy dress shop many years ago, it was a long white robe for the body and arms and the separate hood/mask had two round eye holes and a smiling mouth but for some reason had a tall, pointed top...
 
titch said:
ye, victorian flash mobs, lots of people turning up to gawp as soon as a ghost was rumoured, with the police getting involved, i have the book the article came from ....i think
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Well get on'ere then, we don't have all day! :dunno:
 
The ghost I'd planned to stalk was the shade of Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville. He walks in a reputedly heavily-haunted area of East Barnet in north London.

There are lots of articles and mentions of Sir Geoffrey available on t'internet. If anyone else is interested in looking him up and popping along for a spot of ghostwatching I'm game. :cool:
 
titch said:
ye, victorian flash mobs, lots of people turning up to gawp as soon as a ghost was rumoured, with the police getting involved, i have the book the article came from ....i think
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have you found it @titch ? :rasp:
 
escargot said:
Wasn't there a big spread about one of these mass ghost-vigils in the mag a few years ago?
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Yep ...
Fortean Times #296 (January 2013)
(Page) 42
Ghost Mobs
Roger Clarke considers the Victorian phenomenon of ghost-hunting flashmobs. What do these public expressions of supernatural interest tell us about the relationship between ghosts and the British class system?

SOURCE: http://ft.gjovaag.com/w/FT296
 
This 2013 article at The History Girls site cites a book covering the subject and presents four 19th century cases of ghost hunters' flash mobs.
The Ghost Hunting Mobs of Victorian London by Imogen Robertson

Judging by the numerous sirens that go by my house every day, Bermondsey still keeps the Metropolitan Police pretty busy, but I doubt they spend as much time as they once did dealing with ghosts or with the crowds that went looking for them. Learning of the ghost hunting flash-mobs has been one of the many joys of The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts by Owen Davies. It’s a scholarly work, brilliantly researched and thoroughly footnoted but it also has a lively style, an original take on the subject matter and a real sense of compassion and understanding of how we see and understand ghosts. ...
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FULL STORY: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-ghost-hunting-mobs-of-victorian.html
 
escargot said:
The ghost I'd planned to stalk was the shade of Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville. He walks in a reputedly heavily-haunted area of East Barnet in north London.

There are lots of articles and mentions of Sir Geoffrey available on t'internet. If anyone else is interested in looking him up and popping along for a spot of ghostwatching I'm game. :cool:
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I’m going for a walk in that very area tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye out for him.
 
I would like to go as a very small group to mark the Glasgow Vampire panic. I am stopped because I dread the idea getting out of hand and starting another version of it!
 
hunck said:
I’m going for a walk in that very area tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye out for him.
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Lucky old you! :D

The area is STUFFED with ghosts -
(safe Britain Express heritage site link)
East Barnet - Haunted By Its Past

At first encounter, East Barnet, a leafy North London suburb, appears calm, comfortable, and conventional. But beneath the superficial lies the supernatural. For this is an area that seems to have attracted and retained more than its fair share of myths and legends over the thousand or so years of its recorded history.

The ghost of a medieval knight who has appeared in full armour on horse-back galloping across East Barnet’s Oak Hill Park, and an ancient oak tree that burst into flames on a clear summer's day early in the 20th century are just two of dozens of legends about the area that persist to the present day.
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escargot said:
The ghost of a medieval knight who has appeared in full armour on horse-back galloping across East Barnet’s Oak Hill Park, and an ancient oak tree that burst into flames on a clear summer's day early in the 20th century
.
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Happens regularly. I'll probably see him tomorrow.
 
titch said:
Yes! Enola Gaia's post helped me narrow the search down and i have a dust covered hard back of "a natural history of ghosts, 500 years of hunting for proof" by Roger Clarke on my lap right now, so what is it i am looking for? apart from a clue and redemption.
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I don't know ... You might try checking the links posted earlier and cross-checking Clarke's book for the cases those links mention as involving crowds / mobs.
 
titch said:
ye, victorian flash mobs, lots of people turning up to gawp as soon as a ghost was rumoured, with the police getting involved, i have the book the article came from ....i think
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@titch - here ya go, does that help?
 
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