The Occult Section

Yes, it’s another addition to the list of celebrity ghost stories. Apparently Miley Cyrus had some paranormal activity in her London apartment during her 2009 tour. I’m terrible at research, so does anyone know if she had been smoking marijuana back then? Also, this is not the first time the Cyrus family has been linked to the paranormal…or featured  on our blog (see here, here and here, where Billy Ray Cyrus was supposed to host a show on SyFy).

“A ghost? That’s pretty cool!”

The 20-year-old singer and her family rented an apartment in the English capital during her 2009 European tour but they had to move to a hotel after a number of ghostly encounters.

She told British Elle magazine: “It was seriously so terrifying. One night, my little sister — it sounds crazy to tell you — but she was standing in the shower and all of a sudden, I hear her scream. I run in there and the water had somehow flipped to hot but it was still … It wasn’t like the water had just changed, the knob had turned but she hadn’t turned it and it was burning her. She was really red.

“I thought I had seen a little boy sitting on the sink watching me take a shower so I felt really freaked out. I was sitting there the next night and maybe I’m crazy, but I could have sworn I could see this little boy sitting there on the sink, kicking his feet.”

The family later discovered the apartment was reportedly haunted and Miley has vowed never to stay there again.

She said: “We found out that there was this older man that owned it [the bakery that had once been in the building] and his son lived with him there, and I guess the wife died or something, she had gotten sick.

“So it was just the son and the dad that lived there in the bakery, and then the dad died and the son took over the bakery, and I thought I was seeing the son. I’m not even kidding.

“I had to move. That’s not a lie. I will never stay there ever again.”

I think it’s safe to say that ever since Ghost Hunters came on the air, any business that can charge admission of some kind is not “reportedly haunted.” Hell, it’s an easy way to make a buck, and all you have to do is make up some cliché, non-verifiable story, and the knuckleheads will eat it up and pay $200 to get in and investigate with 150 other knuckleheads. Like, totally seriously though, old faucets and valves can move on their own if they are old, broken,, and there’s enough water pressure. Like, totally.

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I suppose anywhere can be haunted, in theory. So why not a car wash? Why not, indeed. I found this story about an alleged haunted car wash in England. I know car washes are notorious for their unfortunate history of gruesome employee deaths. Or am I thinking of something else?

“Would you like fresh pine, fire & brimstone, or cigarette smoke?”

A columnist writing for the Jarrow and Hebburn Gazette in England said he was asking for ghost stories from his readers when one in particular stood out. The story came in from a former carwash worker in England who said he, along with his former co-workers, believed the carwash to be haunted.

Reader Jimmy Swift told Mike Hallowell about the room where the containers of wax were stored.

“I walked into the room as normal, and went to get the first of the containers,” Swift said. “Just as I was about to pick it up I suddenly felt very strange, as if I was being watched. …I looked around but there was definitely no one else in there, so I just left. The next morning I went into the room again, and straight away I got the same feeling, as if someone was staring at me. This time I mentioned it to another lad who worked there, and he said, ‘Why do you think the new person always gets that job? No one else will go in there – it’s haunted.’

Swift said soon after that he told his boss he was quitting. Upon quitting, his boss said he once found a dead dog in that same storage room.

Hallowell said he tried to contact the carwash, but it has since been closed down.

Perhaps, that’s a good thing …

As a rationally-thinking person (in the paranormal field? I know, crazy, right?) I’m more inclined to think that the employees are sensitive the machinery in said car wash and having paranormal experiences because of the electro-magnetic fields that the machines can put off. One of the prevailing theories these days is that all of the electro-magnetic energy around us is affecting our brains and causing us to hallucinate, and thus, see and hear ghosts, or feel like we are being watched. It’s not proven, but it’s more plausible to me than the car wash being haunted.

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I’m pretty convinced I could put a photograph up of anything on our paranormal website, draw a red circle around some random spot in the photo, and people would swear to God that they could see all manner of things in the red circle. I actually don’t need to be convinced, because it happened to us about two years ago. We put an image up on our Facebook page about how random patterns can look like meaningful things, like an apparition, and people swore they saw a ghost, even though we knew it was just our flashlights bouncing off the side of the building. But people still swore they saw all sorts of things. So of course I saw this story and had to blog about it, because it has the little red circle, and otherwise, I doubt I ever would have seen the alleged ghost.

A red circle around anything means it’s paranormal.

GOOGLE images of a village that was destroyed in 1946 appear to show the ghost of a man hovering over an abandoned farmhouse.

The aerial shots show Charlton on the outskirts of Bristol, which was demolished in 1946 to make way for Filton airfield.

Now all that remains of the old pub, pond and few cottages are roads overgrown with grass and the shell of a farmhouse – which the ‘ghost’ calls home.

Fiona Powell, from Bristol, spotted the dark figure – who appears to be wearing a 1940s style flat cap — when she was scouring aerial views of the local area on the internet.

The mum-of-two said: “I was looking around the Brentry and Pen Park area, as it’s near where I work, and went on to look at Filton Airfield.

“Then suddenly in the right hand corner I noticed the dark figure of a man with a cap on above the site of an old building.

“It looked quite spooky so I called my husband over — we zoomed in again and again and couldn’t believe it.

“I’m quite open-minded about ghosts and this could be one.

“If it had been just anywhere in Bristol I wouldn’t have found it so interesting, but because it was on the site of an old farmhouse in a village that was abandoned, I thought it was fascinating.”

Again, this is clearly matrixing, something we’ve discussed in this blog many, many times. And let’s just assume for a moment that this really is a ghost. Why would it tower over the village?

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This is a fascinating story that I frankly don’t know how to process. The location of the body of 32-year-old King Richard III, who died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, has been unknown for centuries. Fast forward to 2009, when Philippa Langley allegedly sensed the exact spot where his body was (underneath a parking lot) and funded an excavation. A body was discovered and just recently has been confirmed as that of the king. Is Philippa Langley psychic? Or is there something else afoot (and if so, what?)?

A 3D reconstruction of King Richard III’s face

A WRITER told yesterday how her intuition led archaeologists to the lost remains of King Richard III.

Edinburgh-based Philippa Langley was researching a play on the king, known as Crookback because of his deformed spine, when she had a hunch she was standing on his grave.

She funded a dig of the site – a council car park in Leicester.

And DNA results have now confirmed a body found there was that of the 32-year-old king, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

It matches the genetic make-up of two living descendants of Richard.

The skeleton also has a curved spine, confirming contemporary accounts.

Philippa, who is secretary of the Scottish branch of the Richard III Society, recalled the visit which prompted the dig yesterday, saying: “It was a hot summer and I had goosebumps so badly and I was freezing cold.

“I walked past a particular spot and absolutely knew I was walking on his grave.

“I am a rational human being but the feeling I got was the same feeling I have had before when a truth is given to me.”

What are your thoughts? While this entire story seems kind of unreal, it’s fascinating to me how it’s all played out.

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It seems like every week, there’s another “ghost” captured in a photograph, and the media runs with it, giving credibility to these very dubious claims. I came across this story from the U.K., and found a great many things wrong with the photograph.

A grandmother was left astonished after a photo posted on Facebook from her granddaughter’s christening appeared to show the ghost of her late husband.

When Heather Sewell, 50, first saw the picture she immediately spotted the apparition, bearing a striking resemblance to her late husband Terry.

The black and white face can be seen above the church font hovering over baby Mia-Bella Kennett and the rest of the family.

The bizarre image was caught on camera at St Martin’s Church, Canterbury, Kent by Mrs Sewell’s son Jamie, 29, on his mobile phone.

It was only when the grandmother-of-two was looking through the photos online later that she spotted the familiar face beside the family.

Mrs Sewell, from Petham, Kent, said she could not believe the likeness to her late husband.

Terry Sewell, who worked as a labourer, died 17 years ago after committing suicide aged 41.

Mrs Sewell, who works as a taxi driver, said it was ‘upsetting’ to see her husband’s face.

She said: ‘ I tried to convince myself that it was not Terry – but it is so convincing that I believe it is.

‘Terry had a long face and so does the ghost and it has the same hair style as Terry had.

‘The ghost is also the same height as Terry was – about 5ft 8in.

‘I am quite a superstitious person, but I am not over-the-top.

‘I do believe there is something out there – there are too many things in the world we cannot explain.’

She added: ‘I was so shocked when I saw it, as we all were.

‘It looks very much like Terry. I know there has been no photo trickery so it is all very spooky and perhaps not what you want to see at a christening.

‘I was in the pub afterwards when I first saw the Facebook page and everyone was stunned because it’s so clear.’

St Martin’s is the oldest church in the country that is still in use for religious services, but a ghostly encounter has never been reported previously at the church.

Heather’s daughter Gemma Sewell, 27, and her partner Jamie were joined by their older daughter Jaiden, 5, and two sets of godparents for Mia-Bella Kennett’s Christening.

First of all, I have a hard time believing that nobody saw this figure in the photo before it got posted to Facebook. With or without the red circle, it’s pretty obvious that there is something in the photo. Secondly, why would the ghost be in black & white in a color photo? It almost seems as if a black &white photo was superimposed over this color one. Third, there is so little detail in this alleged ghost’s face that it could be almost anybody. It looks vaguely like a number of people I know, so I’m guessing some pareidolia/matrixing could be at play here. Lastly, the alleged ghost seems to be standing in front of the family, staring at the camera. Why wouldn’t the spirit be watching the baby instead of posing for a photograph? A little critical thinking goes a long way, folks.

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