Spooks On The Tube: Ghosts Of London Underground

staticgirl said:
I think that was extra spooky because it wasn't really dramatic. Just a bad feeling and what looked like a patch of blood where there shouldn't be any.
Click to expand...
Could be a natural rain water drips coming through from the ceiling above, which could easily contain iron ~ making it a reddish-brown colour, which is giving it that 'blood-like' appearance?
 
Last edited:
Sid said:
Could be a natural rain water drips coming through from the ceiling above, which could easily contain iron ~ making it a reddish-brown colour, which is giving it that 'blood-like' appearance?
Click to expand...
In hindsight lt seems unlikely that it was blood, but in that atmosphere it seemed plausible that it was. As i recall the conversation went something like, this. Me: "Zoinks! is that blood?!" A: "i think so!" Me: "let's get out of here". If A had said "i don't think so" it could have been less spooky all round. But empty disused Tube stations can be eerie places.

On the other hand, some years before that experience i spent an hour or two in a disused tunnel on the first tube, the City and South London Railway. It was pitch black, with only torches for light and there were lots of stalactites etc, but it didn't seem spooky there...
 
Last edited:
atrainsghosts001.jpg
 
Sid said:
They haven't got a ghost-of-a-chance of charging them for travelling on the underground ~ that's just barmy, and quite off the rails!
*P.S. Doesn't cover them being seen standing on, or around the platforms though! :)
**P.S.P.S. I've always thought they'd have their own form of fee-less transport anyway! :) :litg:
Click to expand...
Too right!. If pensioners are entitled to free bus passes, surely being dead so a ghost should have the same perks?.
 
Floyd said:
He recalled: ‘Twas around six of the evening at a Bakerloo line Underground Station – about a week ago.

‘I was in pursuit of my duties as an employee of London Underground

I wonder if this guy talks like this all the time?
Click to expand...

I reckon that’s the chap who reads the announcements on the Temperence Line - between Rickets Lane and St Lepers Without.

(Limited service: 1823 to 1901 only.)
 
Floyd said:
He recalled: ‘Twas around six of the evening at a Bakerloo line Underground Station – about a week ago.

‘I was in pursuit of my duties as an employee of London Underground

I wonder if this guy talks like this all the time?
Click to expand...
He definitely has mutton chop sideburns and carries a brass pocket watch.
 
Floyd said:
He recalled: ‘Twas around six of the evening at a Bakerloo line Underground Station – about a week ago.

‘I was in pursuit of my duties as an employee of London Underground

I wonder if this guy talks like this all the time?
Click to expand...
That's the sort of language you put in your written response to a skin, as @kesavaross will attest. :nods:
 
Yithian said:
Don't be a bore.

It's a twelve minute video with a two-minute ad-read.

It isn't 'just' flogging a product.
Click to expand...
Well. . . that's my personal view.
How long will it be before we start getting twelve minute ads, and two minutes of any factual content? :thought:
 
Last edited:
I visited London several times in 2019, as I'd been trying to hop onto several grad-schemes that interviewed in the city. I also visited for more Fortean reasons, but this wasn't one of those times.

After finishing up one such grad selection day, I remember standing in a mostly empty underground station - I'm pretty sure I was somewhere in zone 1 (it was definitely not Bethnal Green) - and hearing what sounded like sirens. Not the modern kind but the air-raid sort you might have heard in the Blitz.

It was faint, and whistling draughts over electrified rails can produce all kinds of weird sounds. Moreover, I don't think air raid sirens are a frequently reported phantom sound in the Tube stations.

But it was obviously strange enough that I remembered it.
 
LadyDunmail said:
I visited London several times in 2019, as I'd been trying to hop onto several grad-schemes that interviewed in the city. I also visited for more Fortean reasons, but this wasn't one of those times.

After finishing up one such grad selection day, I remember standing in a mostly empty underground station - I'm pretty sure I was somewhere in zone 1 (it was definitely not Bethnal Green) - and hearing what sounded like sirens. Not the modern kind but the air-raid sort you might have heard in the Blitz.

It was faint, and whistling draughts over electrified rails can produce all kinds of weird sounds. Moreover, I don't think air raid sirens are a frequently reported phantom sound in the Tube stations.

But it was obviously strange enough that I remembered it.
Click to expand...
It seems that it's actually caused as a result of the electric currents on the rail and how they get passed along the lines as the train rolls over.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/london-underground-i-tested-noise-24351605
 
LadyDunmail said:
I do like it when my hunch is right. :chuckle:
On the other hand, I've been in tube stations since then and never heard anything like it since. I wonder if it was the acoustics of that particular station?
Click to expand...
I guess sounds that are created inside a tube can be multiplied and distorted. :thought:
 
So this one is doing the rounds and relates to a FOI request:

We have carried out a keyword search of all London Underground incident reports over the requested timeframe using the following words: ghost, paranormal, spirit, apparition, ghoul, phantom, poltergeist, banshee. The search returned 156 results, but only one of them related to paranormal activity. This related to a distressed 15 year-old-boy at King’s Cross on the Metropolitan line in December 2023, who also mentioned that he had seen ghosts. The remainder of results were records talking about being in “good spirits” (typically a customer or train driver after an incident) or spirit as in alcohol (customers who were intoxicated/carrying a bottle of spirit).
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-3164-2425

Made me immediately think of the tragic fire at Kings Cross back in the 80s and other reported paranormal evens from that tube station such as the flapper gates opening and closing themselves at night. Unfortunately we will probably never know anymore unless the boy in question chooses to go public.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
So this one is doing the rounds and relates to a FOI request:

We have carried out a keyword search of all London Underground incident reports over the requested timeframe using the following words: ghost, paranormal, spirit, apparition, ghoul, phantom, poltergeist, banshee. The search returned 156 results, but only one of them related to paranormal activity. This related to a distressed 15 year-old-boy at King’s Cross on the Metropolitan line in December 2023, who also mentioned that he had seen ghosts. The remainder of results were records talking about being in “good spirits” (typically a customer or train driver after an incident) or spirit as in alcohol (customers who were intoxicated/carrying a bottle of spirit).
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-3164-2425

Made me immediately think of the tragic fire at Kings Cross back in the 80s and other reported paranormal evens from that tube station such as the flapper gates opening and closing themselves at night. Unfortunately we will probably never know anymore unless the boy in question chooses to go public.
Click to expand...
I've wondered why there aren't more reported sightings at Kings Cross considering how well known the fire is.

There have been media reports about the 1975 Moorgate tube crash - has the station had any strange phenomena reported since?

I wonder if people tend not to see ghosts from a distressing relatively recent disaster (within their lifetime, or recent decades) because they don't want to? Maybe we only see what our brains allow us to see (like a form of self censorship - preventing us seeing anything too distressing)?

I've often thought about the twin towers and what sort of phantom sightings that might cause. Either seeing the towers that are no longer there or worse.
The London tube attacks are another recent event that could potentially be a source of phantom sightings of some sort. I suspect no-one would want to see those. There was also the bombed bus above ground.
More recently the Manchester Arena bombing was another traumatic event with fatalities.

I do wonder if there is something in our minds that prevents us from seeing anything connected to such awful recent events. This makes me wonder whether we only see ghosts relating to traumatic events when they are really ancient/historical, because we have a psychological distance from them?

I realise that this theory would mean that our perception of phenomena are controlled by ourselves. Does this mean the phenomena only exist if we perceive them? Are they a creation of our minds rather than an external source?
 
Earthly oddity said:
I've often thought about the twin towers and what sort of phantom sightings that might cause. Either seeing the towers that are no longer there or worse.
Click to expand...

Without wanting to stray too far from the thread, I've often wondered the same about 9/11 but from some cursory research, I didn't find much at all. I also looked into the holocaust and concentration camps and again, did not find much.

I think what prompted me to look into this were the various reports of phantom apparitions which followed the Japanese Tsunami in 2011. It struck me how quickly these reports surfaced, in contrast to other significant and traumatic world events. I've wondered how much this has to do with the culture of Japan, regardless of whether the phenomena is 'real' or not.

I wonder whether in Western societies it just feels too much of a taboo to discuss such things openly. I'll admit, even modest research around these topics made me feel uncomfortable and knotted my stomach slightly, as if I were some sort of unwilling dark tourist. The most common things I came across with regards to those topics were after death communication (9/11) and past lives (the holocaust).

Overall I've come the conclusion that to even begin to comprehend fortean phenomena, it's imperative that you understand and appreciate the culture in which it is taking place. Without that piece of the puzzle, I don't think it's possible to truly get to grips with it.
 
There is a sandwich lady ghost associated with 9/11:

Marra said he saw her a few times, always from more than 50 yards away. And each time, as he strained to make sense of what he was seeing — the ghostly lady vanished.

“But you could clearly see it was a person,” he said.

Now retired and living in Millstone, NJ, Marra, 48, said he initially buried the memory of the spirit.

But he remembered in 2013, when he was conducting interviews for the book.

A retired crime-scene detective asked him, “You ever hear the stories about the old Red Cross worker trying to serve sandwiches and coffee out by the sifters?”

https://nypost.com/2015/03/15/911-rubble-haunted-by-female-ghost-book/

There is the theory of ghost being people who don't know they are dead and unfortunately the lucky victims of 9/11 were the ones who didn't know about it. What we know for certain is that not everyone who dies in. tragic accident will be seen as a ghost but there often seems to be one, such as the suitcase ghost of Heathrow Airport:

https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/b...ow-airport-spooky-briefcase-carrying-21654155
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top