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It is an interesting point. I suppose many people have claimed to have been pushed by a ghost, and poltergeists famously throw objects and bang on walls etc.

Interestingly, In the well-documented and still unexplained Stocksbridge Bypass haunting, the two Police officers claimed their car received a heavy blow on the boot area after seeing the ghostly figure.
This reminded me of having my own car apparently thumped back in July -

Today I biked a few miles out of town to pick up my car from t'garage after its dreaded MOT. All went well and I loaded t'moke into t'banger and set off for home.

After about a mile I pulled into a rural lay-by to look at my phone. As I was composing a reply to a message I heard two loud THUDs on the car roof right over my head.

Jumped out of my skin and thought 'Some twat's messin' about!' :mad:

Looked all around, expecting to see maybe a couple of giggling teenage boys speeding off on bikes; nobody in sight, no birds circling, absolutely no explanation for the bangs.

Didn't linger - laid rubber! :chuckle:
@Giant R responded with a description of hearing a big bang on the roof of a car being driven home from an abandoned ghost-hunt.

Edit - was called away so didn't finish my post.

When I heard the bangs I didn't linger to investigate, I just did one. As a woman parked alone on a country lane, even in broad daylight, I'd heard enough unpleasant stories to know better.
I'd already had a good look round preparatory to my 3-point turn and knew there were no obstacles or loiterers.

My feeling later was that my worry about the position my car was in, on a rural but busy lane with fast-moving traffic and poor visibility, had been somehow expressed by the bangs.

@Giant R was in a car full of tense, wound-up teenagers, and the Stocksbridge police heard the bang after seeing the ghost.

My point is not that anyone imagined things; far from it. Hearing/feeling the bangs reminds me of the belief about a person's own energy and emotions causing poltergeist activity.

I believe this because I have seen and heard it done with witnesses. Great fun. :)
 
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Another poltergeist for the penultimate episode, and two blokes called Hog and Mowgli, which was if anything more improbable than the poltergeist. But I liked the way it all tied together in the end, maybe a little too neatly, though satisfying for a story. When she started I immediately thought "mice", by the time she'd finished I was all "Oh, a time traveller intervened and gave her the knowledge to prevent a murder! Obvs."
 
Two things struck me from the latest episode:
1) the events happened in a street that I used to know very well indeed
2) the sceptic really does talk utter rubbish.

Me too. That's around 4 miles from where I live.
Tanfield House is currently a car dealership.
Would love to know if the staff have ever experienced weird stuff there.

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Does anyone else find the repeated playing of the theme tune lyric "I know what I saw", irritating?

I heard the whole song (by Lanterns on the Lake) a few weeks ago, it's quite atmospheric but there's a bit more to it than the few seconds we always get on the podcast.

Anyway, Danny is live-tweeting the last in the series tonight at 9 or 9.30 I believe.
 
Last episode of what's been an entertaining series, I could quibble about this and that but Danny is sincere and the interviewees seem to be too.

Loved the title of this one: "Bloody Hell Ken"! Sounds like it could double as a John Shuttleworth show episode too.

Nice to hear from Tracy-Ann Oberman, too, I've always liked her and her anecdote tied in nicely with the premise that it was the past visiting the future that may be the cause of these hauntings. Don't know if that's wholly convincing, if we were in America I suppose they'd be blaming demons, and the ghosts from the past explanation is preferable.
 
I got an increasing feeling of deja-vu while listening to story of events the Tanfield House as related in 'Uncanny' episode 14. Eventually I realised that the story was included in some detail in 'It Happened To Me...." in the FT mag, under the title 'A Helpful Poltergeist', printed in FT 405 dated May 2021, if anyone wants to check it out. Apologies if this has been pointed out already.
 
I got an increasing feeling of deja-vu while listening to story of events the Tanfield House as related in 'Uncanny' episode 14. Eventually I realised that the story was included in some detail in 'It Happened To Me...." in the FT mag, under the title 'A Helpful Poltergeist', printed in FT 405 dated May 2021, if anyone wants to check it out. Apologies if this has been pointed out already.
Well spotted - here's the text lifted from my Kindle:

A helpful poltergeist
Most of the stories I have heard about poltergeists are negative, of here is one that I believe tried to help my flatmates and me. It started as low-level annoyance. However, a year after I moved to the flat it seemed to me that the polt tried to warn me of impending danger, implying it had some sort of premonition. This of course is my subjective interpretation.
I am a professional artist, but my greatest love in life is the natural world –animals, insects, botany and astronomy. I was never afraid of the dark. I often went wild camping by myself and had lived happily alone in a derelict attic in a three-storey empty building prior to moving to the place where these events took place. I wasn't interested in the supernatural.
At the end of my first year at art school in Farnham, Surrey, in 1985, I was lucky enough to be offered a room in a very dilapidated flat. Finding anywhere affordable in ultra-posh Farnham was absolute gold dust.The flat had a fantastic pedigree as a student home. It was the upper storey of a detached building on a main road, above a tiny transport cafe and car showroom.Though it was quite an ugly building, resembling a rendered concrete block, it was very old and I believe had once been a coaching inn.
I had two fantastic years there with my friends, but I was plagued by something that for the first year frightened me. It started when I agreed to swop rooms with a very down-to-earth flatmate, who said she felt depressed in her room. From that time I was disturbed by vague noises, rustling, bumping, scratching and mechanical ticking that came from every corner of my room.
The disturbing thing about the noises was the sense of deliberation –for instance a digital clock that would start to ‘tick’, which was impossible. The noises seemed choreographed to attract my attention. To begin with, they would typically start up when I finished work for the evening and prepared for bed, but always wide awake and alert. I would go through the usual “it's just my imagination”thoughts. I would climb into bed, keeping the light on. There would be a pause and then the clock would start to tick again. If I got out of bed and looked at it, it would stop. Back into bed, a pause, and it would start again. I did endless experiments, such as inviting friends to listen to it. I replaced it with another clock –and it happened again. The noises were not caused by mice, rats or deathwatch beetles, pipes or relayed sounds from other rooms, all of which I had experienced in other places. The sounds could come out of a coat, an empty corner of the room, or my paint box. When I walked towards the sound or pressed my ear to the wall, the sound would start up somewhere else. This repeated night after night. The noises never woke me up at this time –the trouble was getting to sleep at all!
I never got a sense of evil, but felt the timing of the sounds indicated that whatever was causing them was somehow aware of me, and the implication was quite scary. I contacted the previous tenants, who had lived there for over 10 years, and they said there was a ghost, but it was a friendly one, and they hadn't mentioned it as we were quite young art students and they didn't want to frighten us. I wasn't very reassured.
During one memorable night, when two of my flatmates were away, and the third, a teetotaller, had got blind drunk and passed out in her room, the power went off –no lights and we didn't have a phone. (We used the call box across the road.) I was working in my room –about 10pm, when from all around the flat a series of huge crashings and thumps started echoing along walls and passageways. I ran into my friend's room and tried to wake her, to no avail. I sat by her bed for an hour listening to the sounds and by now terrified, but in the end I felt I had to know what was going on. I grabbed the candle and tried to follow the sounds as they bashed along the wall. I found nothing and spent the rest of the night guarding my friend and trying to read a PG Wodehouse book by candlelight to cheer myself up and block out the sounds.
From then on, over the course of a few months, the loud bashings and bangings started to ramp up and became weekly. My flatmates were often out or away, so didn't hear it or dismissed it as old house noises.The sounds came from the walls, the ceiling, and in passageways that didn't connect. I traced all the pipes in the flat –and investigated boilers, etc –but nothing mechanical seemed to be going on.The flat was sparsely furnished with wall-mounted pipes, no central heating (just a tiny water heater in the kitchen and bathroom), and no cavity walls.The noises just seemed to come from everywhere.
I would peer through the windows of the café and showroom below, but they were empty and quiet. During the holidays my flatmates returned home and one left college. The rooms were sublet to new tenants. I moved to a room at the end of a passageway that felt safer, but the sounds followed me and now it was night after night, getting louder and wilder.
One night, at about three in the morning, I finally cracked, jumped out of bed and rushed out of my room in a complete and utter rage, ready to confront whatever was tormenting me, come what may. Outside my room was a man with a baseball bat. The new tenants were a young couple. Her criminal ex-boyfriend and his brother had broken down the front door and had come to attack them.I jumped on the man with the bat and we had a wrestling match, while his brother attacked the girl as she slept. She sustained serious head injuries and was hospitalised, but luckily her boyfriend woke in time to stop the attack. If the two brothers had not been interrupted,things could have been even worse.
From that moment on I felt differently about the poltergeist and thanked it. Without the build-up that led to my complete rush of rage I could never have fought off the intruder. After that night the bashings and bangings stopped and returned to a cheeky rustling or bumping. I had a sense that the poltergeist was pleased. It was almost a sense of achievement. From then on the noises were like someone just mooching about, doing the housework, in the background. I was OK with it.
It has been suggested that the banging sounds were the attackers exploring the building externally –but the couple had only rented the room the previous week, whereas the crashing noises had been going on for at least a month and probably more. Besides, the flat was basically a box with four external walls, and it would have required ladders to reach the roof. Despite my making peace with my poltergeist, it was actually a huge distraction at the time, especially during the first year, and I would never like to repeat the experience. I have lots of writing from the time as I keep a diary, but I have never read those entries, probably because I don't want to “go back there”. The flat still exists, though I have no idea of its subsequent history.
Anyway, thanks for all the great stories in FT. I really love the fact that they are not sensationalised, and every explanation for unusual events or phenomena is explored –it makes for a really interesting read. Patti Keane By email
 
I feel it should be recognised that BBC Radio has not been known to offer much airtime to things Fortean and the paranormal so well done to Danny for his relentless work on 'The Battersea Poltergeist' and 'Uncanny', both of which have been highly popular on the BBC Sounds app.
 
I feel it should be recognised that BBC Radio has not been known to offer much airtime to things Fortean and the paranormal so well done to Danny for his relentless work on 'The Battersea Poltergeist' and 'Uncanny', both of which have been highly popular on the BBC Sounds app.
Well said, WeirdExeter. Despite my occasional criticism on here of a few small nitpicky things, I have thoroughly enjoyed the series, as I did 'The Battersea Poltergeist'. It's good to know that it has been well received and I'm looking forward to series 2. I wonder what Danny will dig up for our delight and delectation. Bring it on!
 
Danny also said he had an in-depth, one story series on the way too, like his Battersea Poltergeist series. Intriguing!
I would love a series that tracks down and interviews children involved in UFO and ghost cases from the past to get their perspective now they are adults eg Welsh Triangle, Mann family UFO children, Enfield poltergeist…
 
Found out yesterday from a colleague who also listens to this that our office is a five minute walk away from the house featured in the 'I Will Kill You All' episode, with the manifestation of the dead child and footsteps on the stairs. Might go for a stroll past when I'm next in.
 
Found out yesterday from a colleague who also listens to this that our office is a five minute walk away from the house featured in the 'I Will Kill You All' episode, with the manifestation of the dead child and footsteps on the stairs. Might go for a stroll past when I'm next in.
We'd expect no less. Possibly nip round the back, try a door? :evillaugh:
 

Keeping track of when things are released defeats me so haven't yet heard all the episodes.
Saving them for bedtime listening. ;)

Case 13: The Return of Elizabeth Dacre is shaping up nicely. :)
 
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