Anyone who claims there is no spirit left in the New South Wales Parliament should try spending a night there alone.
There is the ghostly man who walks through the floor, a silent horse drawn carriage out the front and, down the road, a phantom baby cries at night.
Once a hospital complete with a morgue, NSW Parliament House is giving up its ghostly secrets for a new history project. Most staff have a tale of a shadowy figure in the corridor, lights flickering or a strange tap on the shoulder out of thin air. And down the road at Government House the stories are even more terrifying.
The most common include a baby that cries in the night from under the building, shadowy soldiers out the front on misty mornings and an old woman in a rocking chair in one room. The old morgue under the theatrette at Parliament, which is preserved but bricked up, is considered by some to be the source of the ghosts. Education staff will compile the tales in a new bulletin named The Ghosts And Ghost Stories of Parliament House.
One parliamentary staffer said: "A guy was here late one night and there was a hand on his shoulder, he turned around and there was no one there. "The ghost stories are worse at Government House, the most common one is that a baby cries and no one can find the baby."
Another said: "You hear about people in old fashioned garb mysteriously appearing, walking down stairs or even walking through the floor." Parliament education officer Daniela Giorgi wrote in the latest Legislative Assembly newsletter that the bulletin would "explore the strange phenomena that have been reported throughout Parliament for many years".
"The building has housed the legislature for over 150 years but disembodied spirits nursing unrequited civil passion are not the only ghosts that wander these corridors of power," Ms Giorgi said.
"Once the building housed the Rum Hospital and morgue." Long-serving MP Chris Hartcher said ghosts included a man who died in his office. Mr Hartcher and fellow MP Paul Gibson said they had never seen a ghost.
There is no Thai who does not know Mae Naak. While mentioning her can make young children run and scream hysterically in the "Nang Naak game", mothers invoke Mae Naak's name to quiet their crying infants; otherwise, the ghost might break their necks and eat their heads with chilly sauce. The gothic tale of Mae Naak Phra Khanong has been filmed more than twenty times; moreover, every one of them is a box-office hit. Thai youths grow up watching her ghostly tale on television.
Whether Nang Naak was a real person or just a fabrication is still as mysterious as the myth itself. There is no historical evidence of her existence. However, most Thais tend to believe her story is genuine, or at least some parts are. Popular legend tells that she was born in the Phra Khanong area of Bangkok about a hundred and thirty years ago during the later period of King Rama IV (1851 - 1868) and died of childbirth complications some eighteen years later in the early part of King Rama V's regime (1868 - 1910). Others assume that she lived during the reign of King Rama III (1841 - 1851). Some believers even date her presence back to more than two hundred years ago in mid-eighteen century Ayutthaya.
Likewise, the detailed background of Nang Naak also varies from one tale to another, from being an ordinary farm girl to the daughter of the village chief. Nonetheless, her doomed fate and horrible deed stay the same. It begins as a love story. A teenage girl named Naak falls deeply in love with a handsome young man, Nai Maak. Some sources state that the couple are childhood lovers who grow up together, while another version take on the more tragic flavor of "Romeo and Juliet" in which their romance is opposed by Nang Naak's wealthy and powerful father, for Maak is of poorer and lower origin. No matter how harsh or smooth the situation is, they eventually manage to be together. Shortly after they get married, Nai Maak is conscripted for military service, involuntarily leaving his pregnant bride behind with tear and fear. The dutiful wife waits for her lover's return, but that day never comes in her lifetime. Haplessly, Nang Naak dies during labor along with her unborn child. Although they are buried instantly according to local tradition, her strong spirit refuses to perish. When Nai Maak comes back from the war, the ghost of Nang Naak disguises herself and her "infant son" as humans. Their uncanny reunion is sweet but brief. Despite her arduous effort to blind Nai Maak to reality, Nang Naak cannot prevent him from learning the truth of her death. The revelation itself provides one of the most memorable scenes in the story when Maak sees his wife grotesquely stretching her arm through the floorboard of their elevated house to pick up a fallen lime, or a knife in another version, on the ground.
The supernatural romance then transforms into a macabre horror. The terrified husband runs away, and the scary ghost follows. There are many gory accounts of how Nang Naak chases, harasses, and even kills whoever comes between Maak and her. In order to get rid of the gruesome spirit, the villagers resort to all the possible religious means including exorcist and voodoo shaman, which soon prove to be futile.
Another rendition states that Maak remarries after the death of Nang Naak. The jealous ghost is enraged, and she terrorizes the new couple along with the miserable community. In all versions, Maak finally takes refugee in the Mahabute temple. Defying the monks, Nang Naak persists and pursues. At last, a gifted young novice from far away comes to the village and rests her tormented soul.
Certain versions claim it is the venerated Somdej Phra Puttajan from Thonburi who seizes the fierce spirit, whereas some editions combine the two together as the heroes. In all cases, the Buddhist representative imprisons Nang Naak in a ceramic pot and drops it in the river. In some of the renditions, the skull of Nang Naak is made into a belt buckle by the monk, which passes into the possession of the Prince of Chumporn and then disappears.
Maak nevertheless, becomes a monk in some versions, and in others, he begins a new family and lives happily ever after. Yet this otherworldly saga of love and revenge does not end there. Numerous stories about Mae Naak's reappearances are widely and frequently spread, from Bangkok to Pattani, casting her in many roles from being a guiding angel to an enraged ghost.
The story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong (or simply Mae Nak) is a well known and popular Thai ghost story. The story, as told, happened during the reign of King Mongkut, concerning the beautiful Mae Nak (literally "Miss Nak"), a native of Phra Khanong in Bangkok, and her husband, Mak.
With Nak pregnant, Mak is called off to war (in some versions of the story the war is against the Shan tribe, while others are not specific), and is severely injured. While he is being nursed in central Bangkok, both Nak and the child she is carrying die during childbirth. When Mak eventually returns home, however, he is cast under a spell and finds his loving wife and his new child waiting for him and nothing wrong. Neighbours, who try to tell Mak of the death of his wife and to warn him that he is living with her ghost, meet with grisly ends.
One day, while Nak is preparing nam phrik, she drops a lime down to the cellar. In her haste, the ghost extends her arm to pick the lemon from the upper floor through the floor's hole, not knowing that Mak saw the whole event. Terrified, Mak realises she is a a ghost, and connives to flee. At night, Mak lies to Nak by saying that he wants to get out of the hut to urinate at down floor. He then breaks a little hole in an earthen jar which is filled with water, so that Nak will think that he is urinating, and Mak flees.
After discovering her husband's leaving, Nak pursues him. Mak sees his wife's ghost and conceals himself in a Blumea bush. It is traditionally believed that ghosts are afraid of Blumea. Mak then runs to the temple of Wat Mahabut, where Nak cannot enter the holy area. Nak subsequently terrorises the people of Phra Khanong as she expresses her anger with them for helping Mak to leave her.
Eventually, Nak's ghost is exorcised by a powerful exorcist, who confines her within an earthen pot which is thrown into the river.
There are several versions of the story at this point. In one, an old couple, new residents to Phra Khanong, acquire the ghost pot while fishing, while in another it is two fisherman (age and residency unknown) who dredge up the bottle. Nak is then freed by the unwitting couple, or the fisherman (depending on which version you read).
Eventually, Nak is suppressed by the venerable monk, Somdet Phra Phutthachan (To Phrommarangsi), and again there are several versions of the story. In one, the monk confines her within the bone of her corpse's forehead, and binds that bone within his waistband (and, according to a legend, the waistband passes through the hands of various persons and is currently in the possession of royalty). In another, the monk foretells that in a future life Nak will be reunited with her husband, and so the ghost voluntarily leaves for her next life.
Mae Nak's story is popular because of her true love and devotion for Mak.
Actually this story happened to my mom. It was during the 60’s, when she was still sleeping with her brothers and sisters in one house. They have inherited a big house from my grandfather (he was a doctor), so having a couple of her cousins sleeping over is not a problem. Their house was built near a river with a wooden bridge over it (you’ll know what the wooden bridge is about later on my story).
Here’s where her story begins. All of them came home late from a party (back in the 60’s parties were great and being invited to one means you are popular), they were all tired and decided to call it a night and went to their own rooms. My mom was staying with 2 of her sisters in one room. Her bed was located right beside a big window that’s made out of wood and would just open from the middle then the shatters will just slide from side to side.
That night, due to excessive drinking, my mom woke up because she needs to go to the bathroom. So she went and went back to bed. When she was about to doze off, she could feel something or someone was watching her. She opened her eyes and she saw a lady with long black hair outside their window, she was also wearing a black dress and her eyes were red. The lady was staring at her with a creepy grin on her face. My mom couldn’t move. The scary part of it was my mom’s room was located at the second floor; in short the lady was floating.
She tried to call her sisters but they could not hear her. She felt so scared and just covered her self with her quilt. After a few minutes, she tried to check if the lady was gone but when she peeped out of her quilt, the lady was still there, staring and grinning at her. She just decided to just hide herself under quilt and eventually she had fallen asleep.
The next day, everybody went down for breakfast. My mom did too, even though she was tired due to what happened that night. She did not try to tell everybody because they would just think that she was dreaming. Then a guy cousin of her came out looking as if he hadn’t slept all night and just freaked out on them saying that he saw a lady outside their window (the boy’s bedroom was located on the first floor). Then he described what he saw, my mom realized that he was describing the same lady she saw outside her window. So she decided to tell them on what happened to her that night. Most of them were skeptical.
Later that week, my mom was just about to get in their house when she saw a big commotion beside the wooden bridge. There were a lot of people looking over with the police too. She saw that her cousin was one of the spectators. When he saw her, he just ran to her and said that somebody found a sack with a dead girl inside. Later in the news, they post a picture of the girl and it was the lady my mom and uncle saw.
'And then, when he saw the other side of the car, where his date had been sitting not 15 minutes earlier, on the door handle, hung . . . a bloody . . . HOOK!"
It's always happened to someone's friend or their brother or sister. And it's always just one or two steps removed from you, and close enough to a credible source that will temporarily disable your internal BS detector.
Anyone who has ever spent a few idle hours trading stories with their friends will know some of the most common urban legends -- the crazy man with a hook for a hand, the prank-calling murderer, the human finger found in a can of soup.
Occupying a place on the pop culture shelf somewhere between the Guinness Book of Records and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, urban legends are the modern mutation of traditional oral culture, sharing chills as well as warnings and values to all who care to listen.
According to the "How Stuff Works" Web site, urban legends can be subtle or not-so-subtle lessons (finger in soup equals beware of processed food), moral warnings (don't engage in pre-marital sexual activity in parked cars or something really bad will happen to you) or are just simple bastardizations of actual stories that have had bits and pieces added on for entertainment value as they are passed from person to person.
In Japan, fantastical storytelling is rampant in anime and manga, and Japanese ghost stories have been a topic of much interest in academic circles as well as those who just looking for a good scare.
Here's a selection of some of Japan's most famous:
"Toire no Hanako-san"
A young girl raises her hand in class. She has to use the facilities.
As she walks down the hallway and enters the bathroom, she becomes uncomfortably aware that she is completely alone.
But an eerie feeling steals over her as she walks by the empty stalls -- one, two, three. As she walks, she gets the feeling that she is no longer alone, and there is a presence with her in the bathroom.
As she passes the fourth stall, she sees a gleaming pair of eyes staring back at her.
This is Hanako-san.
Found in every elementary school in Japan, Hanako-san, or more formally, "Toire no Hanako-san," inhabits the fourth stall of the girl's bathroom.
The ubiquitous ghost is sometimes rumored to be the spirit of a suicide prompted by "ijime," or bullying, but is also known to just be there, for no reason.
In fact, Hanako-san doesn't seem to really do that much except scare the hell out of the kids that need to use the restroom.
The story is well-known enough to have been made into a horror movie ("Toire no Hanako-san") that, in true horror film form, spawned a sequel ("Shinsei Toire no Hanako-san").
"Kuchisake onna"
It is a dark and dreary night.
Cruising down a deserted country road, a lone driver rubs his eyes and fights to stay awake.
As the car takes a turn, a beautiful woman hails from the side of the road.
She is wearing flowing white. The driver, entranced, pulls by the side of the road to give the woman a lift. As she approaches the car he sees that her eyes are stunning, her body, lithe and graceful, a true beauty.
The lower half of her face is draped with a white cloth.
After slipping into the back seat and waiting for the car to resume its journey, the woman asks the man, "Am I beautiful?"
He answers, "Yes, you are beautiful," his eyes flicking toward the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of his passenger's face.
As he does so, however, she pulls the cloth from her face, revealing a horrible gash of a mouth, sliced from ear to ear, with a red tongue twisting in it's cavern.
Through the driver's subsequent screams, all that can be heard is "Am I beautiful? Am I beautiful? Am I . . ." repeated over and over again.
An alternative version of this story has "Kuchisake onna," or the "Split-faced women" -- who can reportedly run 100 meters in 3 seconds -- chasing and disfiguring young children. This tale gained large currency around Japan in 1979, for some reason. It's also been reported that Kuchisake onna can be distracted by throwing fruit at her, leaving the intended victim with just enough time to make his or her escape.
Treacherous customer
A taxi driver is traveling down a lonely mountain road.
A person steps out of the darkness to hail a ride. After getting into the back seat, the passenger asks the cabbie to take him to a place the cabbie has never heard of.
No matter, the passenger assures him, if the cabbie doesn't know the way, he can give him directions. The cabbie shrugs his assent and they drive off down the road.
The passenger proceeds to give the cabbie increasingly complex directions, through small towns, down back streets, out into the country again.
As he drives through the misty night, the cabbie becomes increasingly uneasy, after all, they have been driving for quite a while.
As he turns to ask the passenger in the back exactly where they are, he is shocked to find that the passenger has disappeared . . . just as his taxi drives over the edge of a cliff.
"Kokkuri-san"
"Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san."
Two girls, sitting across from each other over a paper scrawled with the hiragana alphabet grasp a pen between them, chanting the name softly. "Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san, tell me, when is the date of my death?"
The question hangs in the air as the pen slowly begins to move, spelling the answer out on the sheet of paper. The rest of the group watches in breathless anticipation.
Kokkuri-san, Japan's answer to the Ouija board, has graced schoolrooms across the country for years with answers from the beyond.
In this game, the hiragana alphabet is drawn on a piece of paper, and two people hold a pen, ballpoint touching the paper, in the center.
Closing their eyes, they ask "Kokkuri-san" a question, and the spirit is supposed to move the pen in an answer.
According to a Japanese friend, much like Ouija, most people realize that the other person is moving the pen purposefully, but everyone makes their dutiful squeals of "sugoi!" and "kowaii!" anyway.
Also, in line with its Ouija board counterpart, the game has been subject fodder for horror movies such as the aforementioned "Shinsei no Toilet no Hanako-san," and one called simply "Kokkuri-san."
In late afternoon under a blustery November sky, Joseph arrived at the graveyard in his blue Chevy sedan. Partnered by a light wind, autumn leaves danced a ballet under billowing dark clouds, pregnant with rain. Joseph parked his car and opened his door, stepping out onto the pavement and around to the trunk.
The graveyard was draped in an eerie stillness like a thick carpet of sleep. Ripping through the silence screeched the ornery "Caw!" of a raven perched high atop a nearby tree. It's raw greeting startled Joseph who looked upward to locate its source. Detected, the crow flapped sluggishly, launching itself lazily from its current location, then floated across the yard to another perch.
Inserting his key into the trunk lock, Joseph sprung the latch and lifted the lid. Inside, his gear lay neatly packed. He carefully lifted the tripod, placed it on the pavement and rested it against the bumper. He lifted two cases containing cameras, one for still shots and the other for video, and draped their cords around his neck. He grabbed a leather gear bag, shifted it to his left hand and pushed the trunk lid down. As he turned around, he picked up the tripod, balanced it over his shoulder and headed out across the lawn. The grass crunched beneath his shoes as he surveyed the yard, looking for a place to set up.
The headstones gleamed chalk-like across the lawn like bony specters. He stopped occasionally to study the more intriguing ones before moving on. He located a bench under a thicket of trees, and after a few moments of contemplation, decided this was as good a place as any. Placing his bag on the bench, he set up his tripod and mounted his video camera. After a few adjustments he was ready to begin shooting.
Haunted CemeteryA damp wind stirred and Joseph turned up his collar to block it out. Then he strode to the bench. As he opened his digital camera case, he pondered his newfound passion for the supernatural.
It began only a year earlier when a towel-wrapped Joseph had come face-to-face with an apparition at his bathroom door. Joseph was exiting his shower, scrubbing his wet hair with a towel when he encountered a boy, drenched and trembling, standing there looking very traumatized and disoriented. Instinctively, Joseph had gone to the boy's aid by extending his hand in a gesture of help. The boy vanished instantly leaving behind a bewildered Joseph, empty-handed and completely creeped-out.
After that, Joseph became fascinated with ghosts and developed those fascinations into a hobby of searching for and gathering paranormal evidence. He didn't particularly believe that cemeteries were the best place to encounter spirits. He figured spirits had more interesting places to hang out than a gloomy, boring cemetery. But Joseph had come across a recent internet broadcast that this particular cemetery was the resting place of several prominent figures and had also been the site of recent vandalism by tourists. These insolent occurrences had reportedly agitated the inhabitants, causing an upsurge in anomalous activity. The broadcast whet his curiosity and the fact that it was only 40 minutes from home compelled Joseph's visit. He wanted to gather some video footage and photos, see what he came up with, and take it from there.
Starting in the east corner, he worked the video camera, scanning the graveyard slowly around to the west. He was mindful to pick up as much detail in different areas as possible and panned the camera back and forth several times in order to ensure that he picked up any structure of interest in the yard. Then, finding a position that displayed the most unobstructed view of the cemetery, he left the camera rolling on its own. Then he grabbed his digital camera and set out across the grass for stills of select headstones.
He strode to the oldest part of the cemetery. Bordered by ancient trees, it was situated along the east wall and underneath he found one of the cemetery's oldest graves. Its modest headstone was weathered and worn, and after 250 years, its inscription barely legible.
After several adjustments to his camera settings, he started clicking shots getting as many different angles as he could. From here, he moved down the row to get the other graves in a similar fashion.
Overhead, the blustery sky grew dark and Joseph figured he had only about twenty minutes before the clouds began to dump its contents. He moved quickly out towards the center and across to the other side, making any needed adjustments to the camera settings and snapping more photos. The ornery crow returned and cawed another announcement.
"I better get going," thought Joseph and he started back into the direction of the bench. Pushing his luck, Joseph turned and held his camera in front of him. He aimed it randomly across the lawn and snapped a shot with his index finger. The crow sounded once more, this time with grave urgency. Joseph turned to view it, still holding his camera in his outstretched hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something stir in the camera's LCD. He turned back to the screen to view the image head on, but all he saw was an eastern view of the cemetery.
The air grew heavy and Joseph knew rain was imminent. He returned to his video camera, its red indicator light signaling that it was still running. Joseph turned again, extended his right arm and attempted just a couple more shots before the clouds let loose. He aimed the camera randomly across the grass and snapped another shot.
Then he turned his head slightly to the left, but kept one eye on the screen. As he suspected, he saw a white figure crawling ominously across the lawn. But this time he noticed . . . it was headed in his direction!
Joseph dropped his arm and visually inspected the area he was shooting without looking through the LCD. There was no white figure visible, only the graveyard: very still and very, very quiet.
Lifting his arm and returning the camera to its previous position and using a sideways glance, he watched through the LCD as the white figure crept slowly and insidiously across the grass. It seemed that despite the labored crawl, it was much closer than before and Joseph calculated that every time he lowered the camera, the figure traveled 100 yards instantaneously!
The rain began as a light sprinkle, and Joseph raced to his video camera panning it over into position attempting to pick up the image of the white figure. When the figure didn't appear, Joseph's jaw dropped in amazement.
Lifting his digital camera and viewing once again out of the corner of his eye, he relocated the specter. It had moved much closer and this time Joseph was able to pick up details in its form.
It was creeping along on its belly, arms bent at elbows dragging itself forward, the lower half of its body limp and useless. In jerky, unnatural motions, its head lurched from side to side. Its ghastly face was a horror to behold. Two hollow sockets glared at Joseph across the distance while its tongue lolled in its mouth, slack jawed and hungry. As Joseph studied its face, the glaring countenance told him he was being apprehended with careful determination—and malice.
Terrified, Joseph dropped the camera and began tearing down his equipment. The air filled with the dank odor of mold and rot giving Joseph knowledge that the specter was upon him, probably no more than just a few feet away. He tried to dismount the video camera but was so frightened that his trembling hands betrayed him. Clumsily, he knocked his video gear over, its red indicator light fading to black as it hit the ground.
He grabbed the digital camera and held it up once more. He found the entity and discovered that it was nearly upon him, creeping relentlessly in pursuit. He had no choice but to leave his gear behind. He dropped his camera in the grass and fled, running mindlessly towards his car, a projectile of utter fear.
The sprinkle of rain intensified and the grass grew wet under Joseph's feet. The crow cawed laughingly in the trees, and the Laughing Crowsmell of mold became heavier and more intense.
He was only 50 feet from his car when he slipped on the slick grass, flying headlong into a monument, striking his head on the stone. The crow cawed one last time and the drizzle of rain became a torrent. Joseph lay on the grass, unconscious and bleeding. He wasn't found until the next day.
Three days later, Joseph sat upright in his hospital bed, head wrapped in a turban of bandages. His equipment had been retrieved, but the video camera was ruined.
By some miracle, his digital camera survived the torrential rains and he held it now in his hands, attempting to review the photos on its memory card. He searched for evidence of the malevolence that had pursued him. He scrolled through the images 100 times, scrutinizing the headstones, the trees and the random shots of the lawn. He found no evidence of the entity in any of the photos. Eventually he came to realize and accept that the ghost was only visible through his LCD.
Sadly, he had no evidence of his encounter, save a nasty concussion and ruined gear. The only witness an ornery old crow.
'I am not so superstitious as some of your physicians - men of science, as you are pleased to be called,' said Hawver, replying to an accusation that had not been made.
'Some of you - only a few, I confess - believe in the immortality of the soul, and in apparitions which you have not the honesty to call ghosts. I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not, but have been - where they have lived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left their impress on everything about them. I know, indeed, that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to yield, long afterward, an image of one's self to the eyes of another.
Doubtless the impressing personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes - mine, for example.' 'Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying sensations to the wrong kind of brains,' said Dr. Frayley, smiling.
'Thank you; one likes to have an expectation gratified; that is about the reply that I supposed you would have the civility to make.'
'Pardon me. But you say that you know. That is a good deal to say, don't you think? Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you learned.'
'You will call it an hallucination,' Hawver said, 'but that does not matter.' And he told the story.
'Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian. The relative at whose house I had intended to stay was ill, so I sought other quarters. After some difficulty I succeeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no one knew where, not even his agent.
He had built the house himself and had lived in it with an old servant for about ten years. His practice, never very extensive, had after a few years been given up entirely. Not only so, but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become a recluse.
I was told by the village doctor, about the only person with whom he held any relations, that during his retirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study, the result of which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional brethren, who, indeed, considered him not entirely sane.
I have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it, but I am told that it expounded a rather startling theory. He held that it was possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his death with precision, several months in advance of the event. The limit, I think, was eighteen months.
There were local tales of his having exerted his powers of prognosis, or perhaps you would say diagnosis; and it was said that in every instance the person whose friends he had warned had died suddenly at the appointed time, and from no assignable cause. All this, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell; I thought it might amuse a physician.
'The house was furnished, just as he had lived in it. It was a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a student, and I think it gave something of its character to me - perhaps some of its former occupant's character; for always I felt in it a certain melancholy that was not in my natural disposition, nor, I think, due to loneliness.
I had no servants that slept in the house, but I have always been, as you know, rather fond of my own society, being much addicted to reading, though little to study. Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejection and a sense of impending evil; this was especially so in Dr. Mannering's study, although that room was the lightest and most airy in the house. The doctor's life-size portrait in oil hung in that room, and seemed completely to dominate it.
There was nothing unusual in the picture; the man was evidently rather good looking, about fifty years old, with iron-grey hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes. Something in the picture always drew and held my attention. The man's appearance became familiar to me, and rather "haunted" me.
'One evening I was passing through this room to my bedroom, with a lamp - there is no gas in Meridian. I stopped as usual before the portrait, which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression, not easily named, but distinctly uncanny. It interested but did not disturb me.
I moved the lamp from one side to the other and observed the effects of the altered light. While so engaged I felt an impulse to turn round. As I did so I saw a man moving across the room directly toward me! As soon as he came near enough for the lamplight to illuminate the face I saw that it was Dr. Mannering himself; it was as if the portrait were walking!
'"I beg your pardon," I said, somewhat coldly, "but if you knocked I did not hear." 'He passed me, within an arm's length, lifted his right forefinger, as in warning, and without a word went on out of the room, though I observed his exit no more than I had observed his entrance.
'Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call a hallucination and I call an apparition. That room had only two doors, of which one was locked; the other led into a bedroom, from which there was no exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an important part of the incident.
'Doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace "ghost story" - one constructed on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the art. If that were so I should not have related it, even if it were true. The man was not dead; I met him to-day in Union Street. He passed me in a crowd.'
Hawver had finished his story and both men were silent. Dr. Frayley absently drummed on the table with his fingers.
'Did he say anything to-day?' he asked - 'anything from which you inferred that he was not dead?' Hawver stared and did not reply.
'Perhaps,' continued Frayley,' he made a sign, a gesture - lifted a finger, as in warning. It's a trick he had - a habit when saying something serious - announcing the result of a diagnosis, for example.'
'Yes, he did - just as his apparition had done. But, good God! did you ever know him?' Hawver was apparently growing nervous.
'I knew him. I have read his book, as will every physician some day. It is one of the most striking and important of the century's contributions to medical science. Yes, I knew him; I attended him in an illness three years ago. He died.'
Hawver sprang from his chair, manifestly disturbed. He strode forward and back across the room; then approached his friend, and in a voice not altogether steady, said: 'Doctor, have you anything to say to me - as a physician? '
'No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man I ever knew. As a friend I advise you to go to your room. You play the violin like an angel. Play it; play something light and lively. Get this cursed bad business off your mind.'
The next day Hawver was found dead in his room, the violin at his neck, the bow upon the string, his music open before him at Chopin's Funeral March.
Most of us will remember the movie entitled THE ENITY, but how much of it was true? Actually, most of it... Well maybe not the ending... Carlotta Moran now probably in her 60s apparently still reports such anomalies. The physical attacks don't take place anymore, however, this particular case has become known world wide and its generally down to one particular investigator. That man was Kerry Gaynor, a parapsychologist from Los Angeles who specialised in the study of hauntings and poltergeist infestations. He stumbled on this spectacular investigation whilst visiting a book store...
Kerry Gaynor explains...
It was 1974 when Gaynor began to investigate the Culver City, California, haunting. "At the time I had a colleague named Barry Taff," said Gaynor. 'We were working under the auspices of Dr. Thelma Moss, but Barry and I did most of the research on this case." Gaynor notes that Moss was a prominent UCLA parapsychologist who is now retired.
Gaynor and Taff made an appointment with the woman from the bookstore to discuss her case. Gaynor said the first time they visited the woman they conducted a two-hour interview. But Gaynor knew that she was holding something back. I kept pushing her," said Gaynor. "Finally she said that a ghost had raped and beat her.
'We laughed when we left her home, and I thought she was probably off her rocker. But she called me back a few days later and said that several people visiting her had seen an apparition, And this is what we're always looking for independent verification of the phenomena.
"I'm a scientist and that's how I approach it. I don't take their stories at face value. Their story is the beginning and I don't discount it, but I'm there to experience the phenomena and document it."
The Entity case was to become one of the most famous in paranormal research history. It was so well-documented, in fact, that a movie was made about it. The 1983 film The Entity starred Barbara Hershey and was loosely based on the Culver City haunting. Gaynor and Taff served as technical advisors on the film.
Visual Evidence :
The second time Gaynor and Taff visited the Entity house, things began to happen. Although they never saw the apparition, they witnessed visual phenomena. "We were seeing little pops of light," said Gaynor. "They would happen quickly. We would try to shoot the camera, but they were happening too quickly and we just couldn't catch them. We were shooting with a Polaroid and with a 35mm camera."
I was standing in the kitchen talking to the woman's 16year-old son when a lower cabinet door slammed open and a pan came flying out," said Gaynor. It flew out and landed about three or four feet from the cabinet. I immediately tore the cabinet apart to see if there were any tricks, or if anyone was hiding in the cabinets. But there was nothing. And that's when everything started.
"The lady screamed, 'It's in the bedroom. We ran in there and that's when all the lights started happening. Thats when we got the Polaroid shots.
"The lady shouted, 'The ghost is in the comer.'We snapped the picture, but it was bleached out and not very interesting.
"She shouted again, 'It's in the corner.' And again the photo was bleached. At this point, I thought the camera wasn't working. So I took two control pictures. I asked her if the ghost was gone. She said yes. The picture came out perfectly. A few seconds later I took another one. Perfect picture.
"But then we got the most interesting Polaroid. The woman said, 'It is right in front of my face.' Those were her exact words. So we took a shot. And in the photo you can see the curtains and the buttons on her dress, but her whole face is obliterated. We took a second picture when she once again said, 'It's right in front of my face.' Amazingly, her face was obliterated again, but you could see details in the rest of the picture.
"At this point I wanted another control picture. So I asked if the ghost was gone. When she said it was gone, the picture I took was perfect."
"On the third night we decided to start with a seance in the bedroom," said Gaynor. The walls of the bedroom, however, were covered with chipped and uneven paint. Some of Gaynor's colleagues had commented that the uneven paint created images in his photographs. So the researchers covered the walls entirely with black poster board, so that nobody could make that claim again. They also numbered the black paper boards with a magnetic orientation and a number.
"Then the lights appeared," said Gaynor. 9 would call out, 'All right, blink three times on board number two for yes. Blink twice on board number five for no.' It would blink on the exact board that I asked it to. At that point the level of excitement really increased, because it seemed like we were communicating with something intelligent.
"But I was very concerned that somebody was faking it by projecting light onto the wall. So I said to it, 'If you're really here, come off the wall. 'I didn't think anything would happen. But then the light pulled right out of the wall and floated into the middle of the room. It started spinning and twisting and expanding in different directions simultaneously. I had nine professional photographers shooting every angle of that room.
It was extraordinary because it was floating in the middle of the room and the light was dimensional. It is very difficult to fake something like that. If you project light, you have to project it onto a flat surface. You can't project light into empty space unless you have some kind of very sophisticated laser system."
Gaynor said this was not likely a sophisticated hoax because this house had twice been condemned by the city, and the investigators had sealed off the entire bedroom. Nobody could go in or out during the photo session.
"What we saw was not what ended up in the photograph," said Gaynor. "We were seeing balls of light, but the photo shows arcs of light over the woman's head."
Taff, Gaynor's colleague at the time and now a Los Angeles parapsychologist and writer, confirms witnessing this phenomena at the Entity house. Taff described the lights as three, dimensional greenish-yellow, to-white balls of light. "We never saw arcs of light. We saw balls of light," said Taff. "However, the camera captured arcs.'; The team captured a spectacular 35mm photo showing reverse arcs of light over the woman's head.
This photo was published in Popular Photography magazine. "Popular Photography has never published a ghost photograph before or since," said Gaynor. "But they published this one." This photograph was also broadcast on the television show Sightings in 1992.
Gaynor said he was not able to rid the woman of the assaulting ghost. "I'm not an exorcist," said Gaynor. I document the phenomena. I research the phenomena, and I do a lot of counseling with these people."
The woman described the attacking entity as a solid male figure that she did not recognise. So how did the woman know it was a ghost? "Because after the ghost assaulted her," said Gaynor, "it faded away."
"There were actually three apparitions according to her account," Gaynor stated. "Two would hold the woman down and the third would rape, her. It was horrible. She would call me in the middle of the night screaming, and I would go over there and she would be all beaten up. She had black and blue marks all over her body." But Gaynor never witnessed the attacks nor saw the apparitions in solid form.
Gaynor said, however, that he and several of his colleagues did witness the formation of a full-figured apparition. 'Ve saw the head take shape and then the shoulders. The light extended down to the ground until it became a full humanoid figure of greenish-white light. Then it just vanished, almost as if somebody pulled the plug. It didn't fade away. It just vanished. Everybody was completely in awe and silent as we watched this happen."
Taff adds, "After the apparition disappeared, two young men assisting our investigation passed out and had to be carried from the room."
"The question, of course is, Were the attacks done by a person, or were they done by a ghost?" said Gaynor. "And there is no way to distinguish between the two. The apparition didn't rape anyone else except the woman. These attacks were very personal.
"The attacks only happened very late at night. One night the woman's 16-year-old son heard his mother screaming. He ran into her bedroom and saw his mother being thrown around on the bed. When the son reached over to help her, something hit him on the head and threw him across the room. He broke his arm."
Gaynor noted an unusual coincidence. When the movie The Entity was being filmed, the actor playing the role of the son broke the same arm while filming this particular scene.
The woman was attacked about 15 times during the ten-week investiga,tion. "But she got stronger," said Gaynor. "And she was able to realise that she wasn't crazy and that there really was something going on. She got stronger, and in my opinion, she outlasted it."
The woman moved five times, but the attacking entity followed her. She eventually moved further away. "As she moved," Gaynor said, "the phenomena diminished, and after about two years the attacks stopped altogether,"
Gaynor said he cannot prove ghosts exist. But what is proof? "A ghost in a jar," said Gaynor, "or at least that's what the scientific community would want."
Gaynor said he doesn't feel any need to convince the world to believe in ghosts. I want the public to know about it, but I don't have an agenda. I'm not interested in standing on a pulpit and saying, 'You must believe in ghosts.' Something is going on that demands our attention. I'm much more interested in figuring it out."
Toyol This is a spirit which is kept in a jar with a foetus and some special liquid to preserve it. The toyol is kept by people to do their bidding, but the price for keeping it is you HAVE to feed it your own blood EVERYDAY. Some toyols have special 'needs' as well. If the spirit is that of a child, you'd usually have to provide it with a couple of toys to play with. If money goes missing and white ants (or termites) are found where the money should have been, the toyol has just done its bidding for their master.
Pontianak This is perhaps the most frightening of all ghosts and ghouls of South East Asia. It is said that the pontianak is the spirit of a woman who died of childbirth. Sometimes she can look very beautiful, but most of the time she has razor teeth and stalks the night in search for men or pregnant women (it is said she could not bear the thought of other women being able to enjoy motherhood)to suck blood from (sometimes eat the flesh of babies ripped out from their mothers). There are many stories of the pontianak, but perhaps the scariest is the one which happened on the Malaysian highway.
Kum Kum The Kum Kum is an old witch who attacks young virgins in her attempt to regain her youth and beauty. According to legend, she got her name as she cannot say the whole Malay greeting and can only say these 2 syllables.
Hantu Tetek Loosely translated from Malay, Hantu Tetek means 'Ghost Breast'. This ghost is female (DUH!) and has huge breasts, which she is said to use to suffocate her victims (who are men. DUH!) Bomboh This is neither ghost nor ghoul, but a man practised in the arts of magic. He is often the man locals will turn to with a 'difficult' problem to solve and he will do it, often for a small fee. Don't worry though, it's a financial fee. Jiang-Shi Jiang-shi is the Chinese vampire. Does the same thing as Dracula and sucks blood, but they can only hop around with their arms outstretched. They don't talk at all & you can escape them by throwing a handful of glutinous rice. The grains will hit the Jiang-shi like little firecrackers, giving you time to make your get-away.
