Advice for Reporting Paranormal Encounters

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribbeye. Grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with three hundred sixty five brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices Whole Foods Market, makeake your summer sizzle. E invest in something that seemed incredible at first didn't li up to the height. Like those five dollar roses at a gas station or a second hand piece of technology that breaks in the first ten minutes. Marketers know that feeling We optimize for the numbers that look great. impressions reach and react that when they don't show revenue, Well That's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that Bullpan Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO LinkedIn adds generates the highest roAas of all major ad networks You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title M cut the blls spend Advertise on LinkedIn the network that works for you two hundred and fifty dollars on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a two hundred and fifty credit for the next one 's go to LinkedIn d. com slash broadcast. That's linkedIn d. com slash broadcast Terms and conditions apply Hello, hello. Wlcome to a very special bonus episode of Uncanny Cold Cases. It is a case update where we can deep dive together into all of the brilliant questions and theories that you've been sending in on these amazing stories. Expect new leads, new evidence and incredibly Given that some of these cases are centuries old. newew witnesses So Let us dive straight in, shall we? Because I'm Danny Robbins And for the last time this series, this is uncanny cold cases. What has pass Howusic In the cold where lear Stst. secret still rem ia, here we go again. What a series it has been from creepy text messages Poltergeist trying to solve its own murder. We've had DIY exorcisms, ghostly nuns, an alien kidnapping, scary clowns, Victorian folk devils and a ship full of terrified sailors. You see I didn't say seamen. We've had it all, or have we? because as ever, we will be hearing both sides. teeam skeptic Tam believer and here they are. It is for Tam skeptic, forensic psychologist, Dr. Kira O'Keefe and for team belieelver, writer and parapsychologist Evelyn Hollllow Kiran, before we crack into these new leads, what's been your favourite case this series I think people might be surprised that I don't say Borley Rectory because even though that is one of my favourite cases, the cases we've worked on, it would probably be Betty and Barney' experience. Bty Barny Hill, are the UFO? Yeah, absolutely. There's such detail in that case and You know, really difficult for a skeptic to unpick a lot of that. And that one that really moved people It's quite an emotional case, that one. Evelyn scariest moment in the series Controversially I'm going to say sand down clown. Because if it's not supernatural, then there was a real person dressed as a big clown robot thing hanging out in the Isisle of White taking children to a random hut to talk to them, which is way scarier than anything I can come up with a strange, creepy one. All right, well look, there is loads to talk about and also we will have some news later on this episode about a brand new series of Uncanny and Uncanny summer specials, exciting times But the series of cold cases kicked off with one of the most infamous poltergeist tauntings in British history, sometimes called the world's most violent poltergeist, the Black monk of Pontif Fractor, that fateful address East Drive up in Yorkshire. Let's just remind ourselves How scary this one was Evelyin, this is often referred to as the most violent poltergeist case in British history Do you think the Priter family were actually in danger? Yeah, they're absolutely in danger, because they're either in danger from an unseen supernatural force, or they're in danger from another person in the house, perhaps one of their own family members or neighbours, or they're in danger from themselves. I think regardless of what you believe this case is caused by, we've escalated to the point now of threat to life And so it doesn't matter if it's supernatural or not, these people are in absolute danger And we've hadads of thoughts and theories on this one, haven't we? Ian White from Payton in Devon emailed to say, Wow, this really is the strongest case I've ever heard of. Paul, meanwhile, on the YouTube comments was saying, I'm a believer, but I'm skeptical about this one. How do we know the family didn't make the whole thing up? People really torn about this And the most dramatic moment, Evelyn, was when Diane, the teenage daughter of the Pritchyard fam, is dragged upstairs seemingly. She's got marks on her neck as if she's been strangled. Such a frightening idea. the idea of a paranormal entity having a physical impact on a person. You've got a skeptical theory on this from a listener, haven't you I do So this comes from a listener called Fiona Kusland and Fiona says in the eighties, I was in the Lincashire pololice Force assisting the custody sergeant to restrain a prisoner. It wasn't until the prisoner was calmed that I noticed that in all the kerfuffel, the duty sergeant had a strong grip around my wrist, thinking it was the prisoners. So you can see that in the heated moment things like this do happen. ide those marks on Diane's neck could have been from a family member and a helpper in that moment. Kiran this kind of strays into thoughts that you had when we were talking about the case. But if it is a mark from a family member Are they helping her from? What is dragging her up those stairs I think I can equate that experience with some of the cases of demonic possession that I've witnessed where you have individuals that are genuinely trying to restrain the person from the fact that they feel as though they're possessed. It doesn't necessarily mean that the people doing the restraining necessarily believe that something paranormal is happening to them. And I think we've got to think about that in the same way we do think about Diane's experience. I think we are all just reeling for a moment by the that you're saying you'veitnessed cases of demon sess This is a sign to you we did not expect. Tell us some more, please Do you really want to know about? Yes, youve Well I I' like to know Karen. tellell me about the most amazing experience that I had, which was in Rome I was in Rome with my wife and we'd just been to the Colosiseum and we were walking back to where we were staying. and every time we walked back we took a different route through a hidden kind of you know street kind of off the main street. And we walking and saw a lovely little church and said, let's go in. we went in And we could hear the oddest noises coming from the back of the church behind the altar, kind of off to the side. What kind of was? And it was kind of groaning, some screaming noises, some shouting noises just C a Fuffle is the best way of putting it and There was a guy there that was putting out prayer books and I started to talk to him and he said that there was an exorcism going on at the back of the church. And you were hearing that. And we were hearing it and I managed to convince him for me to go and witness what was going on. I went into that room and I witnessed very briefly just for about five minutes an exorcism. What was that like to see My research has looked at it from a very psychological point of view. so I know in my heart of all the research, there's psychological explanation for it. That did not detract from the fact that when I was in there, I felt a chill And I felt a chill because even with all of my skeptical perspective, here was somebody rereathing on this table and the priest there going through the ritual Ramanum and the exorcism ritual And it's that moment of thinking, this person feels they are possessed by a demon And for a moment it was genuinely terrifying. And then I slipped into, I'm going to be a scientist and observe this before I was ushered out and told I had to leave. Wow, amazing. Crucially, how did the rest of that holiday go after you cut short your romantic walk to go to an exorcism? We never talked about it for the rest of the holiday. She didn't want to know what I saw Your commitment to the cause is remarkable. Look, lots of people commenting on this Back monk pontifact episode, asking why the family stayed in that house for so long. Bloke in a bathtub says, what I really don't understand, you say Jean lived in that house until two thousand one. If my daughter had been accosted by an unseen force, I would have taken my whole family out of there immediately, It's a good point. I think I probably would have too. But Flossy, nineteen eighty five had an interesting counter to that, saying it was a cououncil house. Being rehoused wouldn't have been that easy. You can only flee from somewhere if you've got another place to go. It's so true. Evelyn, this chimes of things you were talking about on the South Shields poltergeist episode. When you've got a family living in terror, why don't they move? It's not always that easy. No, moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. It's also very expensive. Your credit might be bad, you might not have the money to move. If you've got kids, they could be enrolled in schools there, you've got family there It's not as simple as just putting in your notice and moving somewhere else. Also, interestingly, the reason they stayed was because the phenomenon stopped. Ge lived until two thousand one, but the phenomena wasn't still going on I got an interesting email here from Corn Mackenzie, who was trying to make sense of that rhythmic banging that we heard in thirirty East Drive. It was described as drumming, if you remember, it plagued the family, and Corin was wondering if there was a historical connection to this, saying it seems Ponttefract was a strategic royalist stronghold during the English Civil War. and there are still road names in the area like Cromwell Crescent and Olivers's Mount, so perhaps some of the soldiers were camped here Ri interesting wondering if that drumming sound was literally that a military rhythm somehow playing again as an echo of the past Whatite folker. It is quite a thought and you know, I think it's great some great investigative work there to try and find out, you know, what could be causing that particular sound. It is a paranormal theory, let's be honest, so I'm not a supporter of it, but I love the investigative work that hass gone into it. But of course the most interesting theory for this drumming came from you yourself. Do you remember what you said? This this is about the mind? It is about the mind. Let's just remind ourselves on this theory Evely, that rhythmic drumming that they hear is a small detail, but can you imagine how frightening that would be to hear that reverberating around your house. So normally in Puler guy's cases, noises are something we talk about at the beginning. And it usually starts with sort tappings and scratchings, things that might be misinterpreted as mice or insects. And then it seems to ramp up Now normally we would look for explanations such as the building settling or the heating coming on and off, pipes expanding and contracting, but this is rhythmic, and it's happening again and again and again. And we can't seem to find any natural environmental explanation for it. Now sound doesn't come from nowhere, somethingomething has to be causing it. So unless the mice have decided to start a thrash metal band somethingomething has to be causing the drumming I love it. And of course, we want your best suggestions on what we should call that mice heavy metal band Duns and rodents, perhaps Kerin, it was such a crisis one. We've had loads of theories on it. I know you've selected your favourite skeptic theory them all. Yes. I've got a theory here from Peter Lawrence, who says, Hi Danny. apologies if you think this is a bit bonkers. I'm an archeologist with a great interest in folklore and the supernatural and enjoy mad ideas Pontterfract is well known for making sweets called pontterfract cakes, and the main ingredient is licorice. There were a large number of Pontifrat cake manufactrs up to the mid twentieth century, there are still some now, and the town was surrounded by licorice fields Now licorice contains glycericin which amongst other things, can cause hallucinations Pontiffrat seems to have more than its fair share of hauntings. Perhaps this is why. Oh my goodness, me someome people watching and listening will have had a pontifrat cake, these little licorice sweets. I look this up now. and apparently, in two thousand four, healthcare professionals warned against over indulgence in pontifract cakes. A fifty six year old woman was admitted to hospital following an overdose An overd dose of pontifratase. Kiirin, you were blaming Mldy popcorn for causing hallucinations in our last Uncanny series. Could Peter have cracked macosia? Well, all credit to Peter for bringing in a food explanation and a food skeceptical explanation. I love that idea. The thing we've got to be careful of is what does this particular food ingredient cause? And we know that it causes of a reduction in blood potassium levels, and that can result in an issue with your kind of body balance, but also have an effect on some aspects of your nervous system. So we know it affects those. doeses it then result in a hallucination I think there would have to be a particular level of intake of licorice to be able to cause that hallucination. And I think probably we would have heard about it from the family in some way that there would have been a huge amount of intake of lquicorice to cause these hallucinations. I love itough, is one of the most magical things I think about the Uncanny community, all these amazing theories coming in, people deep diving into these cases Secret still rem From nineteen sixties Pontterfact, let's head to Victorian London. and that really creepy story, sppring heeled jack. This was case seven of the series and it really seemed to grab your imaginations, setting my inbox on fire. which is of course, Exactly what Jack did. Remember those descriptions this tall figure with cllaws the hands breathing fire from a twisted, cruel mouth. And weirdest of all Dressed in something that sounded a lot like Lycra He seemed so fantastical like a supervillain. so imagine how blown away We were By how many people got in touch to say that they themselves believe that they'd had an encounter with Spring Heeled Jack or something very like him. Evan This was absolutely incredible Yeahes, so we've got quite a few people who've had different sightings or people they know have seen things. One of them is a man called Robert and he has told us that his grandmother saw Spring heeled Jack in Liverpool in nineteen oh four. Another person called Anna emailed to say that her grandmother had had an encounter too also in Liverpool, but this time it was in the nineteen thirties. Paul's granddad believed he saw Spring healed Jack in Warrington during the Second World War Edward sent us a story about an encounter in Leicester in nineteen twenty nine. His uncle was so affected by what he saw that he had to be sedated by a doctor. Wow. And it just it goes on and on and on. We've got Helen who's told us about a series of sightings in Halifax in the nineteen thirties and Jedos of a sighting in Shropshire as late as nineteen seventy seven.ty seven. Wow, there's such a spread of time in that It is and you could argue, does it make it more evidential. But people have been seeing ghosts. in their thousands. and here we've got Spring Heel Jack being seen by multiple people. It doesn't necessarily make it more evidential, but iting The thing to describe though this figure, isn't it? And you know we've got a really interesting one here. I promised you a new witness I've got one You thought nineteen seventy seven was a recent sighting. I have got somebody for you believes that they saw Sring Heel Jack in nineteen ninety seven. Her name is Michelle Spoke to her earlier Listen to this Tell me about what you saw It was the day of Lady Night's funeral and I was a reporter. said well, I am a reporter. So I was going down on behalf of a national newspaper to report on the people who had slept overnight in Hyde Park to pay their respects to Lady Dy And we were told we had to be there about five o'clock, five thirty and was dark obviously. and my boyfriend accompanied me, which is very nice of him. And so we walked from where we were living, which is probably about forty minutes away. and as we approached Hyde Park and the very ground sucoed white you know, mansions that you get As the corner of my ey, I saw this man leaping from wall to wall And it was just the weirdest thing I've ever seen because he looked like he was literally on a trampoline or something. mean nowadays I'd say he was like a marvel character What kind of gaps are we talking between the buildings here? We're talking probably about I't know, ten, twenty foot And he was quite clear, so You know, when people say they've seen a ghost and it's kind of quite. gy, but he was quite a clear image of a man basically. The way he was moving was supernatural. It was just very strange and he He had kind of black cocktails, sort of hanging. So he looked kind of like a I don't know, maybe an eighteenth, nineteenth century foop or something. In fact, Danny, I hate say it, but his hair was a little bit like yours, it was quite floppy. Oh, really? Yes, it was actually. He was a sort of indie styled th that, was it? That's right. Okay This is a huge moment in our country's history, this moment of National mourning, isn't it Yes, yeah. and it almost felt like Whatever it was was kind of I like thed use the word feast, but it seemed like he was feasting on on the kind of grief and the kind of people's energy and seem very excited by that. So you felt this was a reaction to what was going on on those streets in that park down below where he was Yeah, I did. I felt like he was really enjoying it all the kind of heartache and the grief I'm going to say one word that everybody watching this or listening to this who is a skeptic will want me to ask about Hllucination. Is it possible that you were imagining this Oh I was awake, I was walking, I was quite kind of nervous about gettinget to the location that I needed to be then to do my job. I don't think I was at any point hallucinating no, not at all. Has it changed the way that you feel about these things about the idea of the paranormal It has actually made me feel very uneasy. He's probably still out there. Abssolutely amazing stuff. We love an eyewitness account on Uncanny. to say that Princess Diana and Spring Heel Jack was not on my uncanny Cldcas's Bingo card. No, it's going to be some bingo card at this rate. It's a weird one, but also it's really interesting. It's much later than we would think you know it's in the nineties. The lady is a correspondent for a newspaper. She's quite sensible. It was on an open public place on a street. It's not like it's the middle of the night and you're seeing shads out of your eye. so who or what is it C, what do you make I think there could be a perfectly rational explanation here. And even though we're dealing with somebody that's a correspondent, a journalists who should know what they're looking at, remember this setting, it's Paralmile It's a huge public event There are going to be police officers around, especially armed police officers and snipers. And some of these individuals when they are moving into position can appear to be very acrobatic and they wear dark clothes and they wear dark masks. So who's to say that's not what she theory somebody from a police unit that breathes fire and has big claws. Yeah. Who knows. look reallyally interesting. I think that is a genuinely good theory. One other really interesting new lead on this case came in an email from Claire. and it takes us somewhere that we absolutely would not have expected to go for this case. Asia Claire says, I've just been listening to the uncanny episode on Spring Heel Jack and it immediately triggered a bizarre terrifying memory from my time living and working in rural Sri Lanka in twenty eleven. It was known as the Greece Devil Crisis Historically, a Grease robber was just a thief who lubed up to evade capture. But in the summer of twenty eleven, amidst a wave of local anxieties just two years after the Civil War ended The myth mutated into something straight out of uncanny Suddenly, villagers were being terrorized by a nighttime predator. The descriptions were pure, spring heeled jack a shadowy figure in tight black clothing and a mask, scaling walls and crucially, allegedly leaping across rooftops with supernatural agility. Some terrified locals even claimed he had springs on his shoes I was travelling through the affected villages for work at the time, and the atmosphere was pure hysteria. Whole communities stopped sleeping. Men formed armed vigilante mobs with machetes and innocent outsiders were brutally attacked By september twenty eleven after riots and arrests Grease Devil just vanished back into the shadows Evelyn, this is so interesting, isn't it? This this is something created by humans, why do we think such a similar figure keeps recurring in places all over the world. Yeah, it's really interesting. It's such an od odd description. It also reminded me of something called the Monkey Man of Delhi. This is something that caused a brief panic back in May of two thousand one where a creature that was described to be around four feet tall, it had metal claws, a metal helmet, glowing red eyes and three buttons on its chest. So lots of similar features to brring you old Jack on a much smaller scale. And people were freaking out about it. It was, you know, mass panic, like this monster was terrorizing people. And I'm not sure I can explain that unless it's either a type of mass hysteria Or it's something supernatural. Un Cany commommunity, what do you think? Absolutely chilling, isn't it? That idea that something like Spring Heeled Jack could really be out there, something that we can't explain or understand, feeding off our emotions. to stop us all Having a sleep this night, I will give the final word on this case for now to D D says, Hi Danny, fellow skeptics and believers alike One word If you are not already familiar with Park or, Google it right now and there's deathifying jumps and leaps that people do in urban environments, leaping from building to building been a particularly early adopter of this right back in Victorian times. Kein You ever tried parko No, I've remained firmly grounded as the skeoundic Could it have been? a Victorian precursor, an early adopter here It could have been, there's a really strong possibility, you know The fact that there were acrobats in existence in the past, there were circus performers doing similar sort of things. You know we've got this term parker as a modern contemporary term, but it's just a term to describe exactly what these individuals are doing, jumping from roof to roof. So yeah, maybe an early adopter All right, some great theories so far. I'm loving it, loving it, loving it. Now if Spring healed Jack was weird We are about to go One weirder Case five. the sandown clown, the scariest story of them all, Evelyn said, set on the Isle of White. heard Tw children called Fe and Mark Discovered a person, a creature, if you like Here's how strange it was stepped onto the bridge And then The hand reaches up from the water, bizarre and frightening enough in itself, but even worse, this is a blue, three fingered hand. It grabs the edge of the wooden bridge. Fake gasps and it gets worse. The hand is followed by an arm and then a figure heaths itself from the dark water It is enormous, nearly seven feet tall and grotesquely strange on its head is a yellow pointed hat an ten ee jutting from either side. Its face,' a geometry lesson gone wrong. Triangular eyes, a square nose, unmoving yellow lips and it has no neck at all. It head seems fused directly to its shoulders Was it an alien? Was it a ghost and why did it call itself all colours Sam Kirin, one of the most poignant parts of this investigation, I think, was the fact that we actually managed to track down and we heard about how she'd lost her memory of her childhood in that traumatic serious accident in her teens. We've got to say, lots of people have been getting in touch with us to query that and to say they had heard another podcast claimed to have interviewed Fay. Yes. We know that an isle of white based folkloreist claimed recently to have spoken Feay and interestingly, in that interview, she says that she met Sam again on a number of occasions, I think, four occasions Let's be clear about this Our f is not that f We are certain, aren't we that Rfe is the right for the one who actually saw us. We've done an incredible process of due diligence tracking down this person. Exactly. We're as sure as we can be that the Fe that we spoke to is the genuine Fe. We looked through all the written documents of the time and even to the extent where we got in touch with Fey, she was surprised that she had been tracked down, which kind of hints to me that nobody else had spoken to her People also wondered whether we could talk to Mark, the boy that Fey was with. So we tried hard to track Mark down, We've not been able to, but we would absolutely love to say that if anybody out there knows Mark or if Mark himself is listening to the podcast then please do get in touch. We love to know more your experiences on that day Evan But the hell was all colours sound. We've got a particularly disturbing f theory on this, haven't we We do, so this theory comes from Joan and Milton Keeenes, and she says, I have had a chilling thought about what all colour Sam could be What if he was someone from all of our futures? A human, but after some kind of future disaster, some environmental or nuclear catastrophe, that has meant that the human race disfigured or re evolved into something different and they have learned to survive in a different way. That would make sense of him saying that he was a sort of ghost, that he was something out of time This to me, is more chilling than any supernatural or alien encounter. Blny hell, Joanne, you are not wrong. That has slightly blown my mind with its scariness. Why the hell did we read that out? Visions now of morphing into some sort of post apocalyptic creature with three blue fingers and a pointy head. Keep all of your theories coming in on this. All of our cases remain open investigations. We'll try and come back to them more. You can email me, uncanny at bbc. co. Uk or find me Danny Robbins on social media. Maybe you are the person that can defrost one of these cold cases. Secret The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods market, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribeye. grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with three hundred sixty five brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices Whole Foods Market, Make your summer sizzle everver invest in something that seemed incredible at first didn't live up to the height Like those five dollar roses at a gas station or a second hand piece of technology that breaks in the first ten minutes. Marketers know that feeling We optimize for the numbers that look great. impressions reach and react when they don't show revenue Well That's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that Bullpan. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO LinkedIn ads generates the highest RAas of all major ad networks You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more cut the bull spnd Advertise on LinkedIn the network that works for you two hundred and fifty dollars on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a two hundred and fifty credit for the next one Just go to linkedIn d. com slash broadcast That's linkedIn d. com slash broadcast Terms and conditions apply Okay, let's talk about another case. and one of the stories that generated the most chat this series was undoubtedly the South Shields pololtergeist. That first big poltergeist story the digital age occurring in two thousand five and two thousand six in the coastal town of South Shields, close to Newcastle in the northeast of England. Marianne and her partner Mark and Marianne' son Robert. We were a family under siege. This one was properly creepy will die today Marianne is so desperate for it to stop that she turns her own phone off. Ben My landline rings. Marianne answers hesitantly. She is met with a flat, robotic voice, the kind that you get when somebody sends a text message to your landline by mistake ide today It's gotta get you then veryer end almost child like vibe Ma' And you were very definitely split on this case between team skeptic and team believer. Some people feeling that the phenomena was incredibly convincing, other people feeling that there was a potential human hand behind it Hula Buler has a fairy e they do so they said I am thinking that the ghost wants the mum all to himself and will be trying to remove Robert and Mark. I kindt decid if that's a sweet idea, or an incredibly creepy one I mean, probably a fairly creepy one, but I mean it does attach our sense of agenda to the case, you know, which was the the whole point for us. you know, why is this happening and what does it want? Lots of people wanted to talk about those creepy text messages that Marianne received on her phone. They seemed to come from Mark's phone Yeah, so people were wondering if someone could have just saved a new number in Marianne's phone and saved it under Mark's name instead. And that is possible. Sould that would be found that quite quickly, wouldn't it? Well, that's it, sureurely you wouldd find that quite quickly, but also they would have to know to text the housephone because the phone, the bathroy was taken out, the SIM card was taken out, it was turned off on the table in front of them and then the texts went to the housephone, which I mean if it is somebody doing that, they would have to have a line of sight on them the entire time Kirin, you've quite a bit of time to think about this one now. How do you explain those text m passages? Yeah, well, I've been quite interested in the number of comments that have come through from people saying it was quite easy back then be able to sit at a computer and type in the number into a web browser and send messages. You know notot a very secure way of doing it, but it was possible back then. So it's possible that that's what's happening. The only thing about it was that Mark was sat with Marianne when those messages came through. so he wouldn't have been responsible if that was the This would be a third person and somewhere remotely doing this. And I think that's the thing to consider, which is quite worrying that you've got maybe somebody else involved in this particular case. But yeah, you're right. someomebody would have to be outside of the house actually sending these messages using this web browser method. Really disturbing idea. And Talking about communication as well, lotots of people getting in touch about that suggestion that there was an entity called Sammy who was communicating with Mark and Marianne using that child's doodle board in the cher sketch type thing. Rachel got in touch to say that she'd had a similar experience actually. She says, I did a ghost hunt a few years back at the haaunted Museum in Stoke on Trent and says I asked how many spirits were in the room, no response. Later in the night, an Eetcher sketch in the corner of the room. The number four written on it. We watched the CCTV from the whole night Nobody touched it first down my spine. Carly from Stain. Natz had a theory about those red marks that appeared on Mark's body. Remember he'd thought they'd been caused by a potential supernatural entity in the house? Carly says, whilst I am one hundred percent team believer, I can't ignore the skeptic theory that jumped out at me when I heard about Mark's injuries, as it sounded and looked veryery similar to an autoimmune condition I used to suffer from Red lines would appear on my skin and look uncannedly like thick scratch marks. My doctor just said they were caused by stress and had to wait until it passed It was embarrassing as it looked like I'd been attacked. They happened during a time of great stress in my life and it lasted a good few months before just stopping. Thanks so much, Kari, and Mark was certainly under a lot of stress there, wasn't he be what caused the markarks and what do you of that I mean, quite possibly, but it doesn't explain say the black apparition that Marianne and Mike saw or lots of the other things that happened in the house. I think for us we can always find one possible explanation for each individual event that happens, but it's much harder in the context of all of them happening together. All right, look, we can't finish talking about this case without talking about that moment with the water bottle. Mike, the investigator woke up, remembered to find his seemingly balancing in an impossible position. We got that photograph that Mike of it And then Kiran, you would say this wasn't impossible at all. and you were determined to prove that it was easy to do. You weren't able to do it in the moment. but we set that challenge to everybody watching and listening to see if they could do it We were delued with responses. Evan, does this not evidence on the head So I think for me, the experiment is only accurate if we know exactly what the bottle is and exactly how much water is on it and wed recreate it on the same table conditions. becausecause the bottles are all different, the volumes of water are all different. Does it make it less impressive? Absolutely. But I think what the audience has proved is that it is possible if you try really hard, you know peopleeople were attempting it again and again and again didn't try at all He just put his bottle on the table, he fell asleep and when he woke up It was sitting like that. so unless you're saying he was sleep balancing it, then no, I don't think it totally rules it out. Kirin, one case we haven't talked about yet is case six, the haaunting of HMS Aspa haaunting at sea. And during that, you told us about an experience that you had had on board a boat, the SS Great Britain in Bristol. You'd been on a ghost hnt there. You said it was the only time that you felt genuinely spooked. you were going down to the lower class accommodation. And you know what? You aren't alone. I got an email about this from Amy Womersley And she said It's so fascinating that Kiiran mentioned the SS Great Britain Bristol I went to look around there last month and I felt deeply unnerved going down to the same spot. I thought to myself, this has got to be haunted and sure enough, when I Googled, one of the captains went missing on that ship and apparently he is the guy that haunts it So there you go. We' got multiple witnesses now, you and Amy. is this proof? that you had a paranormal experience? No, not Not at all. You know It's quite a creepy, creepy area of the ship. For anybody that goes down there, a lot of the other kind of lower parts of SS Great Britain are quite luxurious. The fact that it's the lower class accommodation means the way they've set it up, everything is very cramped, there's lots of mannequins around, it's very dark and dingy. so I'm not surprised other people had experiences, but I'm very grateful for Amy for sending that let. There you go You've got that kinship of being spooked on the Est of Great Britain. You've got a couple of quick theories for us about case ten, the Great Amherst mystery, the story of Esther Cox. Yes, two good skeptic theories that relate to that amazing moment where Esther seems to swell up and her hair stands on end. Richard Graves s Hi Danny. My partner is a nurse who suggested that Esther may have suffered a sites This is a rapid noticeable weight gain that gives pressure on the organs I imagine that pressure might make you feel like you're dying Banging to make it disappear is still something I'm working on Yeah, that was really odd moment, wasn't it? That loud bang that seems to make Esther deflate? Theory number two Theory number two, here we go This is from John Charlesworth and he says, you reported that Esther's hair was standing on end which stopped after three loud thundercaps I was on a holiday in Greece many years ago and one day we climbed up to a high ruined castle as a storm was brewing Nearing the top I could see tourists ahead of us giggling and pointing at each other. Everyone's hair was standing up Somewhere in the back of my memory I recalled that this was due to the static in the air just before a likely lightning strike. I warned everyone around me and we ran for cover then an almighty storm began The fact that in Esther's case, this incident ended with three thundercaps is hardly surprising. At that moment, the static would have been discharged and the phenomenon would cease. Brillianting one. againain, so many brilliant theories coming in on this case. The standout moment of that one, the moment I will remember, and I think one of the most memorable images across the whole series Ein Lighted matches seemingly appearing in the middle of nowhere'm falling from the air. Yeah, lots of them too, not just one or two, but you know dozens of them to the point where you know one of the investigators is sitting there basically asking for a lit match on command wh he's smoking. It's incredible because where does that come from? And in this old house which would have rafters and someone would have to be up in the rafters with a matchbook scubbling around in any room they went to striking a match and then dropping it down and it would have to not extinguish as it is dropped as well. J a really odd moment in a case. Okay, thanks. still lots and lots of emails messages coming in on Bory Rectory. We did that double episode of that the last couple of episodes. We're still processing all that information, We'll update on that in a future episode Evelyn one of the most moving cases this series, I think was the one that Kiiran picked out as his favourite, the Betty and Barney Hill UFO case. It's so difficult, I think for anybody to come out and talk about these kind of experiences, hauntings or UFO's. In this one it was particularly difficult, I think the stigma around them and their experiences. What would be your advice to anybody who's watching this now and has a strange experience like a UFO or a ghost? What would you say So I think first of all, it's about recording the information, not only because it helps us and it helps other people investigate it or look at it, but also because it's good for your brain. When you experience something that's potentially traumatic or frightening, the memory can become distorted and the more you think about it, the more the memory shifts, the more confused you can become, you can start to misreember details If you write it down or you're able to record it, even if it's as simple as making a voice note on your phone or writing something down in the moment, but it also helps you remember that it was real, that it really did happen to you. And then you can also check that moment against other information. So in a UFO case, you could check against satellites in the area. you could check against meteor showers, environmental phenomena Having an exact direction of what you saw in the sky, exactly what was in that sky that night will help you dispel whether or not it is a UFO or it was something else, whether it was something explainable. And so hopefully that brings you some sense of comfort. But for us, it's always that no matter how silly it feels or no matter how you feel like, o well, it was nothing or I'll just not speak to anyone about it. It's too weird Reord it and write it down You can verify it and then you can potentially speak to other people and find out if someone else saw the same thing. And just trust that either it is something natural or you're not crazy. And of course the other thing that you could do is contact us here at Uncanny because we are currently plotting Our next uncounty series. Real life potentially paranormal encounters people who experienced them Brand new cases coming at you later this year and you could be one of those episodes. Get in touch, email me on uncanny at bbc. co. uk. All right, thank you so much to both of you. I've loved digging into these.