The invention of the devil that’s what it is. Carry on Screaming 1966 starring Harry H Corbet & Kenneth Williams & Charles Hawtrey & Jim Dale & Joan Sims & Angela Douglas& Bernard Bresslaw & Jon Pertwee & Peter Butterworth & Michael Ward et al, director Gerald Thomas, Joan Sims as Mrs Bung
According to some polls 51% of Americans believe the unexplained shit is caused by ghosts. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s3e10: Ghostbusters, Showtime 2005
The dressed always come back dressed or wearing sheets. ibid.
Why should we be hunting ghosts? ibid.
Why do people believe in ghosts? ibid.
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense, and as they please
They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size,
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare. John Milton, Paradise Lost
Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Arthur Conan Doyle
Ghosts and spirits whisper to me. Yoko Ono
The phenomena they claim don’t fit easily or at all into a very powerful, very coherent view of the world. Dr Frank Wilczek, MIT
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind. Jim Morrison, An American Player
I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me. ’Tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead. William Wordsworth, Affliction of Margaret
Lou Gentile – one of America’s top ghostbusters. For the last twenty years Lou has been battling the demonic and diabolical, helping the haunted and possessed of America. Derren Brown Investigates: The Ghost Hunter, Channel 4 2010
More recently there’s been a change in the way that ghosts are betrayed on the screen: now treated as real-life with real people and subject to serious investigation. ibid.
Nearly half of us believe in ghosts. ibid.
The only supernatural agents which can in any manner be allowed to us moderns, are ghosts; but of these I would advise an author to be extremely sparing. These are indeed like arsenic, and other dangerous drugs in physic, to be used with the utmost caution; nor would I advise the introduction of them at all in those works, or by those authors to which or to whom a horse-laugh in the reader would be any great prejudice or mortification. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749
Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary is said to be one of the most haunted places in America ... There are more ghost sightings here than anywhere else in the United States. Mystery 360: Ghosts Behind Bars, National Geographic 2010
Researchers are amazed and enlightened. So what some people perceive as ghosts could actually be the result of infra-sound. ibid.
There are twelve ghosts in Pluckley, plus one or two more who have shown on the scene recently. For a place this size that is quite phenomenal. As far as villages go this has got the most, undoubtedly the most, haunted village in England. Dennis Chambers, local historian, televised interview
The Borley Ghost: Weird Happenings at a Rectory. Daily Mirror headline; case investigated by Harry Price, author The Most Haunted House in England
I have to say this footage from Hampton Court Palace – if that is a ghost – is the world’s singular most incredible piece of ghost footage. Chris Everard, Lady Die
Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Arthur C Clarke, 2001 A Space Odyssey
The ancient city of York boasts one of Britain’s weirdest sightings. In the shadow of the Minster stands what some people claim is the world’s most haunted building – Treasury House. An army of Roman soldiers is said to tramp through its cellars. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World of Powers
She dematerialised, so then I knew that she was a ghost. Gerry Palus, Chicago, interview Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, the legend of Resurrection Mary
We know the legend of Resurrection Mary. But no-one expects to hit her late one night coming home from their mother-in-law’s. Shawn and Geri Lape
We’ve had hundreds of sightings of entities, ghosts ... I enjoy these ghosts. They don’t bother me at all. I think they come up with some real clever little things. Barton Johnson, General Wayne Inn innkeeper, interview Unsolved Mysteries
January 1 1976 Amityville, NY, just after the clock rings in the 1976 new year Kathy Lutz puts her youngest child Missy to bed. And heads downstairs to sit in front of the fire. Suddenly a hooded figure materialises from the flames. A demon reaching out from another dimension. It was known the world over as the Amityville Horror. Mysteryquest s1e10: Amityville, History 2009
Disembodied voices, objects moving on their own, demonic spirits taking the shape of animals and children. ibid.
In a former sanatorium, said to be one of the most haunted homes in America, reports of paranormal activity include sudden drops in temperature, the appearance of ghostly figures, and disembodied voices uttering threats, such as Get out! A team is going to investigate whether Wolf Manor is indeed one of the most haunted homes in America. ibid.
We would call them ghosts but as a child I just knew them as faces and voices. The voices would be whispering and whispering at me. I would never quite hear what they would say. Sometimes they would call my name. Rosemary Altea, psychic Leicester England, cited Unsolved Mysteries
All argument is against it; but all belief is for it. Samuel Johnson
Some say there are spirits who walk among us. Claims of strange ghostly phenomena have been reported all over the world. Bizarre sounds. Mysterious photos. The Haunted: Paranatural, National Geographic 2013
No one testimony is proof that Muncaster is haunted, but to investigators these accounts over a long time add up to an impressive case ... In particular, who are the children said to be crying in the Tapestry Room? Strange But True?
The word spread around Uniondale [South Africa] like wildfire. There was a phantom hitchhiker on the N9. Within days the newspapers had got hold of the story ... The third appearance of the phantom hitchhiker was in 1980 ... Since then there have been numerous unconfirmed reports of the phantom hitchhiker. ibid.
The phantom hitchhiker story first came to prominence in Britain in the 1950s. Particularly on the A38. ibid.
Flitwick Manor has stood in the heart of the Bedfordshire countryside for over three hundred years ... At the end of last year builders moved in to renovate the manor. It’s now a hotel. They stumbled upon a secret room in the roof which had remained undisturbed for decades. After that things started to happen at Flitwick Manor. Just three days later the Hotel received an odd complaint from a departing guest. But from then on various members of staff began to notice that something had changed at Flitwick Manor. ibid.
Once one of Venice’s most splendid edifices the Campiello Albrizzi stands in the centre of the city ... A stylish backdrop to one wealthy English woman to entertain a group of glamorous friends ... The holiday was launched with a dinner party. Hostess Lady Carole Bamford, who had spent months planning the proceeding ... It was the story of the woman in the dining room portrait ... To make matters worse Venice experienced one of its worst thunder storms for years ... The Venetian holiday was over after just two nights ... The experience left an imprint on the lives of everyone. ibid.
6I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. Jack Kerouac, On the Road