If you’re new here, allow me to explain: I’m a paranormal researcher who uses scientific scepticism to look for rational explanations for the weird and spooky things people experience. I don’t believe in the paranormal, but it’s a subject that endlessly fascinates me, and I’ve been investigating ghost mysteries for over 20 years.

2025’s Worst Ghosts list has it all: haunted hotels, medieval doorways doing a lot of heavy lifting, night-vision apparitions courtesy of Ring doorbells (of course), legend trippers calling themselves investigators but not knowing how cameras work, and ghost-hunting gadgets lighting up the countryside like a 90s rave.

So, without further ado, let’s jump into the worst ghosts of 2025! ⛈️

#5 By golly, a ghost!

The first ghost on the list technically dates back to 2016 but made the headlines in 2025. The holiday photo was taken at the famously haunted Stanley Hotel where Henry Yau claims he deliberately waited until the grand staircase was clear of people before taking the photo, only to later discover a dark, human-shaped figure standing at the top of the stairs. He shared the image on Facebook with a red circle for clarity and the immortal caption: “By golly! I think I may have captured a #ghost.” The hotel, of course, is best known for inspiring The Shining, which did absolutely nothing to calm the internet down.

What we’re likely looking at here is a combination of low light, long exposure, and someone quietly not being as gone as hoped. Hotel interiors like this are dim, warmly lit, and full of reflective surfaces; a person moving or standing still briefly at the top of the stairs can register as a dark, semi-defined shape, especially if they’re dressed in darker clothing and partially backlit. Add a bit of noise, compression, and expectation - plus the psychological boost of knowing the hotel’s reputation - and suddenly a perfectly normal human becomes a Victorian-looking apparition.

As for the sudden illness afterwards? Chalk that up to altitude, excitement, a late dinner, or the creeping realisation that you’ve just accidentally invented a ghost story you’ll be explaining for the next nine years. By golly, indeed.

#4 The ghost of a miner’s wife

This one comes courtesy of a Ring doorbell in Staffordshire via those top class journalists over at LadBible. Homeowner, Kerry-Anne Docherty, spotted what looked like a semi-transparent figure drifting past her neighbour, Jackie Batt, in night-vision footage captured early one morning. Batt, who says she didn’t see anyone else at the time, later suggested the tall, hat-wearing figure resembled a woman in 1940s clothing and speculated it might be the ghost of a miner’s wife, given the history of their houses.

The reality is that transparent figures (and even animals and cars) in Ring doorbell night-vision footage are a well-documented camera artefact rather than evidence of anything paranormal. In low-light conditions, Ring cameras rely on infrared illumination, heavy video compression, and frame-to-frame noise reduction to produce a usable image. When a person or object moves through the scene, these processes can partially blend frames, smear motion, or preserve the static background more strongly than the moving subject, creating the illusion that a person briefly fades, doubles, or becomes see-through. Reflections of infrared light from nearby walls, windows, wet surfaces, or even slight lens smudges can exaggerate the effect, particularly in night mode where the system is already working at the limits of what the sensor can resolve.

Or, you know, it’s the ghost of a Miner’s wife, I guess 🤷

#3 Empress Matilda (but make it a doorway)

This one comes from Oxford Castle, where an Australian backpacker on a daytime tour accidentally photographed what tabloids like The Mirror quickly identified as the ghost of Empress Matilda. The pale, cloaked figure appears to be standing in a shadowy doorway inside St George’s Tower - a location famously linked to Matilda’s dramatic 12th-century escape during a siege. The photographer says the room looked empty moments earlier and they only noticed the figure later when reviewing the photos at home, a detail which, naturally, did not calm anyone down.

In reality, this is a like a case of architectural pareidolia: a narrow stone recess photographed at an angle, with the inner room not properly visible, taken in uneven daylight, picking out some elements and leaving the rest in shadow. The “figure” has no face, limbs, depth, or separation from the surrounding stone - just a convenient vertical light patch doing its best impression of a medieval woman once a story is attached. Without the caption, it’s a doorway. With it, it’s suddenly Plantagenet royalty popping back in to check nobody’s nicked her escape route…

#2 Lady Dinah Pearce’s ghost in motion

This photo comes from a séance held at The Pearce Institute in Glasgow, where according to The National, ghost hunting event staff claim to have captured on camera the ghost of Lady Dinah Pearce, benefactor of the building and widow of shipbuilding magnate Sir William Pearce. The photograph was taken after a late-night séance in which participants sat around a table calling out to Lady Pearce, and was later shared by Paranormal Scotland Ltd as what they describe as their clearest evidence yet of an “intelligent haunting” (👀).

It’s claimed the photo shows the outline of a figure, including face and clothing. In reality, it shows multiple seated people who are already visibly blurred, strongly suggesting a slow shutter speed or long exposure in low light. When someone moves through the frame - or shifts position - they appear semi-transparent, smeared, or partially overlaid on the background, producing exactly the kind of apparition effect seen here. There’s no single, stable figure - just motion blur, camera shake, and overlapping exposures doing what they’ve always done best at séances - creating something uncanny enough for the brain to promote it straight to ghost.

#1 The blood moon EDM rave ghost

This entry comes from Kinnitty Castle, where a group calling themselves Paranormal Supernatural Investigations Ireland (paranormal and supernatural, just in case you were worried they’d miss anything) claimed to capture an “extraordinary mass of energy” at a stone circle following a blood moon. According to the group, their equipment was “lighting up,” the atmosphere was “electric,” and a mysterious shape appeared in one photograph but not the next - which they took as clear evidence of an entity making itself known.

What the image actually shows is a low-light, long-exposure photograph featuring significant motion blur, camera shake, and a frankly heroic amount of red and green LEDs from ghost-hunting equipment. The result looks less like an ancient spirit and more like someone accidentally wandered into a forest rave while the DJ was mid–light test. The dark, semi-transparent figure is consistent with a person moving through the frame during a slow shutter, while the neon ground glow is just gadgets enthusiastically painting the landscape like it’s Glastonbury, but for vibes.

Either that, or the ghosts of Offaly have finally embraced drum and bass 🙌

Thanks for reading, and for indulging this annual tradition of gentle scepticism and festive side-eye. Whether you’re spending the holidays with family, friends, or quietly reviewing blurry photos from haunted hotels on a solo stakeout, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, peaceful New Year - and may 2026 bring us fewer red circles, fewer masses of energy, and just the right number of rubbish ghosts.

Coming in 2026…

In January, I’m turning on subscriber referrals which will unlock exclusive The Ghost Geek rewards, including The Ghost Geek Practical Field Kit and The Ghost Geek’s Tips & Tricks - handy, no-nonsense guides to paranormal research and making sense of ghost stories in the wild, including print out and keep resources. All you’ll have to do to is share The Ghost Geek with your friends and family. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the launch for these freebies!

#5 The Chilean Ghost Hiker

A group photo taken by friends during a hike in Chile went viral this year for one unsettling detail: a mysterious face that appears between two women on the left of the image. According to LadBible (👀) the eerie apparition left viewers shocked, with many reporting goosebumps and genuine fear upon spotting the face peering out at the camera, with many people sure it is a ghost.

However, if you look at the spooky face and trail your eyes up, you’ll see the top of a person’s head sort of peeking above the two women whose faces are properly lit. There’s even a cloth headband visible (circled in the close up above). This ghostly apparition appears to be nothing more than a person joining the group for the photo whose face is blocked from the light and cast in shadow. A filter applied to the photo deepens the shadows and casts a blue hue to them adding to the creepy effect.

#4 Urban Explorer Photographs Child Ghost

Earlier this year, urban explorer Jayde McKenner entered an abandoned Wiltshire mansion and among the many photos taken of the ruin, and there is one photo McKenner claims shows the apparition of a ghostly child-like figure in a nightdress at the end of a corridor. According to the Metro, McKenner described the building as having an eerie atmosphere and says she felt watched during her visit.

I do not see a “figure” at all, but would suggest this is likely an object in a messy, derelict space shown in the distance of a low quality photograph. It isn’t unusual for Urban Explorers (the large majority who do not gain access to buildings legally) to report paranormal experiences while visiting locations, however they’re often not alone in the building, even if they think they are.

Additionally, a general sense of unease is often reported by people who are exploring unfamiliar places, such as ghost hunters walking around spooky places in the dark, or Urban Explorers breaking into derelict buildings to explore them. These eerie feelings are likely a hypervigilance produced when the amygdala1 (a part of the brain responsible for processing fear) becomes activated when a potential threat is perceived, even if no threat is immediately obvious.

#3 Mexican Roadside Ghost

A photo taken at the site of a fatal car crash in Mexico City went viral this year because it is claimed the photos shows a ghostly figure standing behind a telephone pole silently observing the wreckage. According to Unilad () The crash occurred in the early hours of January 24 and resulted in the death of a 24-year-old man and left a 23-year-old critically injured.

Some claim the figure, dressed in a black robe with a pale face, is linked to the crash but in all reality, you can see a number of onlookers in the background of the photo. There is nothing to suggest this figure is anything but another onlooker shown in a low quality photograph. Even the police officers at the forefront of the photo look slightly distorted. Are they apparitions, too?

#2 Darlington Hippodrome Apparition

A family photo taken during a live Peppa Pig show at Darlington Hippodrome has sparked online intrigue after capturing what appears to be a ghostly figure in an empty row behind two children. Kirsty Ward, the mother who took the photo, shared it in a supernatural Facebook group, where it quickly gained attention. According to The Northern Echo, other theatergoers confirmed no one was in the row at the time but I trust this claim very little based on the inherent issues with eyewitness testimony and human memory.2(See: American Psychological Association, 2023).

Some people have claimed the apparition was caused by a camera glitch while many others insist it is a genuine paranormal apparition. However, I think there is a creepier explanation here: a child. To me, the photo looks to show the blurred movement of a fast-moving child running along the empty row of seats behind those being photographed. Totally creepy...

#1 The Haunted Mirror of Rotherham

Coming in at the number one spot is a haunted mirror, which seems like an apt way to close out a list reflecting on the year...

Earlier this year, a Rotherham-based ghost-hunting group claimed to have captured paranormal evidence at a “poltergeist house” in Rawmarsh, reporting a distorted reflection of team member Susan Booth in a mirror. Not just a mirror, a haunted mirror. Ooh err...

The group, led by Darren Ross, was shocked by the image, attributing its eerie appearance to supernatural activity. However, as I wrote back in August, the photo shows poor photographic conditions, including low light, heavy pixelation, and motion blur, which likely explain the distortion of Susan’s reflection. Instead of issuing challenges to skeptics to go and visit the site themselves, I instead suggested Darren’s efforts would be best spent using a tripod and turning the lights on. Who knows, maybe 2025 will be the year that happens!

So there we have it, folks. The worst ghosts of 2024! Wishing you a very happy new year ✨

Without further ado, here are the Worst Ghosts of 2023!

#5 Ghostly Face at York Museum

The York Mix reports that a woman called Zoe Callow snapped this photo at York Castle and believes that it shows a ghostly face peering out at her from within an old-fashioned carriage. Callow told reporters:

We were in the Victorian Street part of the museum ... I didn’t feel or notice anything unusual at the time and wasn’t aware of anything else of an unexplained nature occurring on the day.

I didn’t even notice the strange anomaly in the picture ... it was pointed out to me by Llywela Wharton – one of the members of our paranormal team.

This last piece of info makes sense of the situation. Ghost hunters are the only people I know who will describe a normal day as “not being aware of anything of an unexplained nature occurring”. What a weird sentence to use.

In my opinion, it looks more like a Polar Bear than a human which I think raises a rather important question: what is the ghost of a Polar Bear doing at York Castle?

#4 ‘Ghost’ Snapped on Lauriston Castle Tour

In August, Edinburgh Evening News reported that a couple visiting Lauriston Castle caught a ghostly figure on camera in the Servants’ kitchen. Taken on a phone, the photo does show something that some could consider to be an apparition if they were so inclined. Staff at the Castle were quick to point out that this ghost is just light reflection:

“We had a lovely event in partnership with Edinburgh Living History ... recreating old photographs, during which the castle felt very atmospheric, especially with all our living history volunteers in costume. We have silverware on a dresser in the butler’s pantry which can catch the light like this when taking photographs.”

Interesting, but I think there is an even simpler explanation for this. It is my opinion that this ghost is just light glare coming from the windows to the left of the photo. If you look in the top left of the photograph itself, you can track the light directly from the window down to the alleged apparition.

#3 Paranormal Experts Capture Café Spirit

What would a Worst Ghosts summary be without at least one group of Livestream Ghost Hunters making an appearance? For those not in the know, these ghost hunters livestream their activities to audiences watching at home via Social Media, usually for donations or a subscription fee.

The Derbyshire Times reports that a group called Paranormal Uncovered claim that during the livestream of a Ghost hunt at a café in Chesterfield, one of their viewers spotted a ghost sitting down next to a window.

The so-called ghost is seen in a screenshot taken by a fan called Anita, who pays a monthly subscription to the Paranormal Uncovered channel and also sends them stars (which are micro-donations of $0.01). I mention this not to condemn it but because it indicates that the eye-witness is not an unbiased passer-by, but instead someone who is invested in paranormal narratives.

Anita is watching the livestream to see ghosts, in other words, and (shocker!) she saw one. As mentioned above, people who participate in Ghost hunting like this are more primed to find meaning in randomness, and this is what has happened here. The screenshot does not show a ghost taking a seat during a Ghost hunt, but in fact an illusion caused by a seat. The “leg” of the ghost is the curved side of a brown bucket-style chair, and the “torso” is a shadow on the wall behind the chair and beneath the windowsill.

A Chesterfield ghost that’s a chair! Amazing…

#2 Face Spotted in Photo of ‘Haunted Doll’

Elsewhere in the world of livestreamed ghost hunting, The Scottish Ghost Company made headlines in The Daily Record when they claimed that a doll gifted to them has the ghost of a teenager attached to it. Standard...

A member of the group, Yvonee Hydes says she became convinced of the haunting when the doll began to move furniture which, quite frankly, produces some great visuals in my head.

The Daily Record reports that the group did a livestream event with a camera focusing on the doll, being watched by people at home, some of whom claimed to see a face looking out the side of the dolls head. Yvonne is quoted:

She [the viewer] sent us the photo. I’ve inverted it and wow. It’s not often the inversion picks up on features. We get sent photos all the time and the majority of the time it’s just pareidolia. This doesn’t appear to be.

Ghost hunters sometimes have a fascination with basic image editing tools like applying a sepia filter or inverting the colours of an image. I think possibly because it makes people feel like they’re doing something technical and science-y, even though it’s not an effective way to analyse a photo.

Not to forget that we’re not even dealing with a photo here. This isn’t even a still of raw footage being inverted - instead it’s a screenshot of livestreamed video. The image quality is degraded by broadband connectivity and the original still image is extremely low-res as a result of this. No amount of analysis is going to help. The fact that Yvonne goes on to state that the face isn’t pareidolia after dropping the image inversion nonsense on us is just stunning

That’s exactly what it is, Yvonne. A silly face illusion caused by the doll’s hair.

#1 Woman Spooked By ‘TV Star’s ghost’ in Family Photo

This still image shows the ghost of ‘Carry on...’ star Kenneth Williams apparently. The Daily Star (say no more) reports that a woman called Melanie Armstrong took a photo of her family while out for a walk and spotted the ghost, which she says is the ‘spitting image’ of Kenneth Williams in the background.

I am not offering here a zoomed in version of the photo to make it seem more ridiculous - this is the image in the story. There isn’t even a full sized version offered alongside it. I have looked at this photo for such a long time and I am completely at a loss. Can... does Melanie know what Kenneth Williams looked like? Is she familiar with the general shape of humans? The paper quotes Melanie:

“A few people I’ve shown it to think it looks like a spirit too and suggested it could have been a lady who drowned in the river. I can see a face – the eyes and the cheekbones, nose and chin. It has an open, pouting mouth and looks like Kenneth Williams from the Carry on Films, it’s uncanny.”

It’s not in the slightest but uncanny. It is my professional opinion that Melanie should take her ghost photo and make like a tree and... leaf.

So there you have it - the worst ghosts of 2023. I’m sorry.

Have a lovely new year ✨

#5 The Lady That Was A Flag, Actually

This isn’t the only story to feature on this list which includes an alleged ghost caught on a camera at a hotel that brags to be the “most haunted”, where the headline references The Shining.

Anyway, I digress... this story features here firstly because it’s a bit of a naff ghost photo but also because I wanted to include details of the brilliant investigation into the photo conducted by Kenny Biddle. Kenny writes for Skeptical Inquirer and is one of those investigators who just digs into the detail and extracts the facts. You can read his analysis of this apparition here.

I almost didn’t include the flag lady apparition on this list because it is a pretty unusual photo, but I decided to include it in the end because Kenny’s analysis shows how easily people will jump to spooky conclusions when the truth is literally fluttering right above their heads.

#4 Man Wears Chinos

Imagine the scene...

You’re a man. You’re in Liverpool. You’ve been and done a bit of shopping. You’re sitting in the passenger seat of a car. The car drives past the Anglican Cathedral. You take some photos out of the car window of the Cathedral. Then, when you get home, you look at the photos and there is a man in one of them. Wearing chinos.

A man, in a cathedral grounds wearing chinos can only be one thing and that thing is A GHOST. Yes, that’s right. An actual ghost. We know this because Darren Eaton, who found himself in the exact scenario I described above said of his ghostly encounter:

‘one of the photographs shows the back of a man stood staring at the cathedral. He appears to be wearing a navy sports jacket and tan coloured jeans or chinos ... people don’t really dress like that in Liverpool anymore. He appeared to be a bit out of time or out of place in some way...’

Oh, Darren.

#3 Some Fire Extinguishers

Anyone not familiar with The Steers, skip to #3 so that you can hold onto that magical ignorance. Those who like to punish themselves, read on.

This couple are ghost hunters who broadcast their ghost hunts live online to their fanbase. It’s really bad, and not even in a villainous way. It’s just... naff? You are reading my award-winning blog and I’m sorry but I literally do not have the words to eloquently describe what they do and what’s wrong with it.

Luckily, this news item reported by the Manchester Evening News can do that on my behalf. Behold... a spooky photo of some fire extinguishers!

Remember, kids... if you’re thinking of becoming livestream ghost hunters who literally rip off the Most Haunted concept, remember that Most Haunted episodes were about 30 minutes long and there’s a reason for that.

#2 A Ghostly Peen

Yes. You read that right.

A penis that is a ghost... or is that a ghost that is a penis? I don’t know! The Daily Star are putting in an appearance at the number 2 position on the Worst Ghosts list this year with this report of a ghost penis caught on camera at a bar in New Orleans. Not the rest of the ghost, mind, just this part of it. My professional opinion is that this ghost is a *cough* piss poor apparition.

#1 Your Flowers Are Too Heavy For That Vase!

The thing I like about gravity is firstly that I’m not floating off into the atmosphere (huge fan of that) but also that it scares people who don’t really understand basic physics. Take for example the staff at The Red Lion pub in Shirley (not a woman), who caught on their CCTV system the moment that a vase fell off of a shelf. The vase ended up on the floor, which isn’t unheard of (had it ended up on the ceiling then I might have found that of interest, not going to lie.)

The Coventry Telegraph reports that ‘staff at the Red Lion are convinced it was pushed by a poltergeist and it is not the first time it has happened, though it is the first time such an incident has been captured on film.’

An object moving does not a Poltergeist make. Regular ghosts are said to be able to make things move, disappear and reappear and so on, but I think that paranormal movies have just used the idea of a malevolent Poltergeist entity for the scare factor and now people seem to automatically link kinetic activity in a haunting to a Poltergeist.

The boring fact is that kinetic energy is proportional to mass which means that big, heavy items can fall with quite some force. Factors like the impact point, the angle of the object, and the height of the fall can cause an item to move in a manner that suggests it was purposefully “thrown” when this was not the case. This has all gotten a bit too serious for a The Worst Ghosts summary, so to round out the post I have written a poem...

YOUR FLOWERS ARE TOO HEAVY FOR YOUR VASE

Your flowers are too heavy for your vase, my friend,
this is how upon the floor that bouquet did end.
You think this was caused by some spooky little force,
and it was... one that’s called Gravity, of course!

Every object’s gravity is relative to it’s mass,
so, it’s lucky that your vase was not made out of glass!
It’s the weight of the flowers that affected the ‘curvature’,
and now, as a consequence, there’s water on your furniture.

I hope you have enjoyed this Worst Ghosts summary for 2021! Have a wonderful New Year ✨

So without further ado, get ready because we’re going in...

#5 The Darlington Railway Museum Ghost Conductor

The Northern Echo reports that just before the second UK Lockdown in response to Coronavirus, an anonymous visitor to the Darlington Railway Museum took a photo of the ticket booth exhibit and believes the photo shows the apparition of a ghost that is said to haunt the site. The only thing the photo contains for certain is someone taking a photo of a reflective surface WITH THE FLASH TURNED ON. WHAT KIND OF BARBARIC ANIMAL-

If you zoom in on the image, in the noise in the photo (it’s quite grainy!) is something which sort of looks a bit like a head and face, but in no great detail. Luckily, the ‘Head of Steam’ museum in Darlington has a 3D tour on their website which allows you to move through the exhibits from the comfort of home. So, I did exactly that and found the exact spot from which the photo was taken. Positioned behind the photographer is a through-way with a lot of exhibits, so it’s likely that the ghost is either a person walking through that area or simply something on display reflected in the glass.

#4 The MacKenzie Poltergeist Livestream Apparition

Edinburgh Live reported in September that ghost hunters Lee and Linzi Steer had potentially caught the infamous MacKenzie Poltergeist on camera during a Livestream they hosted from Greyfriars Kirkyard. Regular readers may roll their eyes and wonder if I’ll ever stop writing about the MacKenzie Poltergeist and the answer is...

I once researched the case right back to it’s very roots and discovered it’s all likely to be blown out of proportion by enthusiastic ghost tour guides. So, when the Steers’ made their claims, I was quite eager to see what they’d caught. This is what they presented:

It’s disappointing, to say the least.

#3 The Brockelsby Wood Bicycle Ghost

The GrimbsyLive website reported that ‘Martin Sullivan recorded an unusual sighting in Brocklesby Woods on a late night investigation. Martin says he didn’t notice the ghostly figure until reviewing the footage after his exploration. He said: “You can see a figure on a bike shoot straight past me – they’re going at some speed.”

That, my friends, is debatable. See for yourself:

Martin managed to capture this sighting on a live social media stream and says “I didn’t notice the person on the bike at the time, somebody brought it to my attention by saying something shoots by at five minutes and so many seconds. I thought it was amazing. I have been quite lucky with what I’ve been able to capture.”

What Martin has actually caught on camera appears to be some spiders web. It looks as though it is moving because the camera is, in fact, moving. This isn’t all that uncommon, to be honest. An episode of the TV show - Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files - even once dedicated an episode to a video of a supposed ghost train which had been caught on camera.

It seems obvious upon watching both pieces of footage once you know what they are, but what you have to remember is that in both cases, the people supposed to be investigating had primed themselves to believe that the oddity could be paranormal.

#2 The Birmingham Building Site Apparition

The spectral lady captured on a CCTV camera in a Birmingham building site earlier this year really caught a lot of people’s attention because, at first glance, it was such a curious mystery. There is no denying that something was caught on camera which genuinely looks quite spooky and ghostly.

In fact, it’s such a good example of a ghost mystery that I almost didn’t list it here at all. However, thanks to a second CCTV camera in the same spot that had just been installed by electrician Stewart Chapman, it quickly became apparent that this was just a woman in a long dress walking through the site.

Although the photo itself isn’t a ‘Worst Ghost’ contender, the story that was created in parallel to the photo is. Enter #2 spot winner and MD of ‘3000 Security Services’, Darrell Coghlan. Coghlan, as I reported in an article for The Skeptic Magazine, tried to promote his security services off of the back of an already-solved ghost mystery by enlisting the help of a media agency. When I called him out on this he said:

No comment.

Nice one, Darrell. Nice one.

#1 The Gettysburg Battlefield Ghost

Coming in at number one is this truly bad apparition caught on camera by a guy called Greg Yuelling. Greg visited the Gettysburg battlefield earlier this year and, as he was driving through at nighttime, caught what he believes is an apparition on camera as it walks through a cannon.

He told journalists that he and his Uncle started hearing noises:

I heard things to the left and my uncle heard things to the right, and there was a fog, but the fog was weird, it was only in one patch not dispersed. Then we saw these shapes moving in the darkness, they were the size of humans, one of them ran right through the cannon.

Greg went on to note that the experience was so weird that his uncle got scared and rolled up the car window because, as we all know, a ghost that can walk through a cannon will not be able to also walk through a car window.

Anyway, the footage of what Greg and his uncle caught on camera is available to watch below. Brace yourselves...

It’s just dirt on the car window that we’re seeing overlaid on the scenery outside of the car. You might note that there’s a little black spec of dirt in the bottom of the camera frame the whole time, and this “moves” in sync with the supposed ghost, and because of how mundane the explanation is, this window dirt ghost gets the #1 spot!

So there we have it. The worst ghosts of 2020 all rounded up in one place! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year ✨

Now, without further ado...

#5 The Caernarfon Curtain Ghost

I’m sure I don’t have to point out the ghost in the above photo to you, right? Right? Well, it isn’t the dude stood in the foreground smiling at the camera - he is, in fact, a living human. His name is Jason Parry and he is a town Councillor in Caernarfon and he shared this photo with locals on Facebook after putting up a sign warning about dog fouling fines. People reported back to him that they could see a ghostly apparition in the window of the house behind him. The one by his left shoulder.

The Daily Post reports that ‘Cllr Parry decided to enlist the help of a friend who works as a TV editor to help shed some light on the mystery. It was only when the photos were enhanced that in Cllr Parry’s own words “it became obvious there was something there.”

Here is the enhanced photo:

That’s right. The enhancement involved turning the photo sepia and adjusting the brightness and contrast. Wow. There’s no disputing this evidence whatsoever when it has been actually enhanced to such a level. In the industry we call the ol’ sepia enhancement - only, we don’t, because it isn’t an enhancement. It’s just adjusting the existing colour levels of the photo. It doesn’t really provide any clarity at all. Sure, there’s something which could resemble a figure in the window, but it’s a bit too circle-y to be a person, and it could just as easily be a reflection or condensation on the glass. Who knows? One thing I do know is that I bloody love a Sepia’d ghost photo, me.

#4 THAT Dobby the House Elf Video

This is technically not a ghost so I’ve probably broken a rule somewhere (sue me), but a woman called Vivian Gomez went viral earlier this year when she shared a video of something odd walking down her driveway. The short clip shows a figure walking oddly and flapping its arms - you’ve probably seen it already, but here it is below:

This is cursed footage and I know this for sure because when I view it, I go all tense. This could be because watching the video reminds me of the dozens of people who sent it to me when it first made the headlines.

We don’t see the full video as it cuts off part way through leaving us without a conclusion - where does the figure go? What happens next? Why haven’t we been shown this?

The story behind the video also doesn’t make any sense, and the woman who originally posted the video on her Facebook account used misdirection in her answers to questions about it. If it was truly an oddity caught on CCTV as presented, you would expect to see right until the end of the clip, rather than footage which cuts off when the figure is half way down the driveway.

To me, this suggested that whatever came next gave away that this was a child. I think it was a joke that got way out of hand rather than an outright hoax. Or it’s a house elf. Or the ghost of a house elf. Or...

#3 The Idlewild Plantation Apparition

I’m not overly familiar with the TV show ‘Ghosts of Morgan City’ simply because there are so many ghost hunting TV shows now that it’s hard to keep up. However, in October an episode aired during which it is claimed that the investigators captured a full-bodied apparition on camera. The investigators claim that it is the transparent figure of a woman walking past a doorway, but the issue is that it doesn’t look transparent when you watch it properly and closely.

2020 update: the original video has been taken down from Youtube. The footage can be seen here in a detailed FaceBook analysis of the video.

Now, I didn’t see this video when it first caught everybody’s attention at the time of broadcast, but over at Skeptical Inquirer, Kenny Biddle has provided a full, detailed breakdown of why this is possibly one of the Worst Ghosts of 2019. Biddle states that

‘[t]he analysis presented by the Ghosts of Morgan City crew is heavily skewed toward the idea this is really a ghost, and the “evidence” presented to the viewer appears to be cherry-picked to push that idea. More to the point, the investigation was simply incompetent; with the technology and resources available to the crew, it should not be difficult to get better quality images and/or identify the mysterious visitor.’

Fair criticism, I think. Interestingly, in an article on the HiggyPop website, a lot of ghost hunter media personalities from ghost hunting TV shows shared opinions that this was real and most likely not faked. This certainly calls into question their judgement skills. I debated including this “ghost” on the list because on the surface it’s a pretty standard, interesting ghost video... until the surface was scratched. However, I don’t create a ‘Worst Ghost Researchers of 2019’ list so this apparition and those who presented it as paranormal belong here.

#2 The Falmouth Cemetery Ghost Face

Firstly, why is it that alleged ghost evidence always sees to be the ‘Best Ghost Evidence Ever’? Isn’t it a bit... well... arrogant to suggest that your evidence is the best? Can’t evidence just be good? Or interesting?

Anyway, I digress. The video below was posted on Youtube by Mark Davies who claims to have captured a ghostly face peering around a gravestone during a ghost hunt in a Cemetery.

“Probably the best capture in the world of spirits showing themselves from beyond the grave” brags Davies. The video (which is far too long, in my opinion) shows something out-of-focus at the side of a gravestone and we’re told it is a face. In the video, a ghost hunter (presumably Davies) is filming the gravestone during the day - but we don’t get to see behind it. We then go to the nighttime footage.

The footage has several issues. Firstly, it’s massively out-of-focus - even for something filmed in IR Night Vision! At one point we see something shapeless appear in the background and then disappear within seconds. This, we are told, is an apparition. Then there is the alleged “face” which appears around the edge of the gravestone. Neither of these things is in focus and neither has enough definition to it to suggest it is a figure or a face. If they were not presented as such by Davies, I don’t think the viewer would consider them to resemble these things at all.

A word of caution: the audio of this video is loud.

It is more likely that that these anomalies on the footage are caused by the camera trying to focus on things in the background without having much to focus on. Filming in Night Vision also means that anything out of focus is presented as a sort of white blob or abstract shape.

Not only this, but when using Infrared cameras you have to be mindful of what you are filming and how you are filming it to reduce glare, reflection, and even obstruction which can cause the IR light to bounce off of objects that are too close to the camera and cause a weird looking glare or haze effect.

It would also be interesting to find out if the camera has a ‘smart IR’ setting. This setting will adjust the intensity of the IR feedback into the lens from objects which are closer to the camera which means that the IR will reach objects which are further away from the camera in a dark setting. Cameras that don’t have smart IR will often saturate objects which are close to the camera and cause a “white out” effect with little-to-no detail present. This can still occur even if your camera has smart IR if you position the camera too closely to a reflective object.

Like, oh... I don’t know... a gravestone?

Now, at one point during the video, we are shown the footage with just the edges defined as black lines which I guess is meant to make it easier for us to see the “face” and the “figure”. However this is just a video effect that you can find in even the most basic video editing software. It doesn’t enhance the original footage, so if the original footage is blurry, dark, or out-of-focus (which it is in this case) then the effect can only use that footage to create the desired outcome. It doesn’t enhance it at all.

In another video following the one above, Davies states that he’d like an expert to “try to debunk this” which he claims is impossible. He’s right, of course because his footage is such bad quality that you couldn’t even begin to properly investigate it, let alone try to explain it.

#1 Most Haunted at HMP Shrewsbury

This year, Most Haunted moved away from television and onto Youtube and offered up their show as pre-recorded videos as well as live-streamed events from their channel. One format of video presented by them are ‘Most Haunted Shorts’ which are roughly half an hour long and featured a small number of the cast members exploring allegedly haunted locations. These ‘shorts’ tend to not follow the traditional format of the television show. One such short was filmed at HMP Shrewsbury - a prison that was in use up until 2013.

In the video Stuart Torevell, Karl Beattie and Yvette Fielding are walking around the prison during the day (yet still use Night Vision cameras.) Yvette goes off alone and Karl and Stuart are running around the cell block area where they claim to hear footsteps and doors opening and so on. At about 12 minutes into the ‘short’, Stuart appears to be assaulted by a ghost. Watch as he carefully avoids saying “I was hit in the stomach with a truncheon” while hinting at exactly that. The video below starts at the 11 minute mark, so watch on...

Has Stuart been taking acting lessons? If so, he should ask for a refund because his pretending to be winded actually winded me. Now, this isn’t the first time that Stuart has been attacked by a ghost, but what makes this remarkable is just how much Most Haunted have jumped the shark when it comes to the stuff they’re presenting as undoctored and unstaged ghost research now that they’re no longer on TV and are in complete control of their output, and that’s why Stuart Torevell being attacked by nothing at HMP Shrewsbury gets the #1 spot on my Worst Ghosts of 2019 list.

So, there we have it. The worst ghosts of 2019!

Wishing you all a happy new year ✨

Each year, I do a round up of the 5 ghost-related stories from the past year that made me face palm the most. So, without further ado...

#5 Amanda Sparrow’s Love Life

I was devastated when it was reported that Amanda Sparrow was getting divorced from her ghost husband after just months of marriage. For those not in the know, Sparrow is the Irish woman who married a ghost pirate back in 2017.

Do I think she is telling the truth? No. Do I think she’s mentally unwell? Not my place to say or speculate, but I do have a suspicion that it’s a hoax. Having been a teenage girl who was obsessed with the Pirates of the Carribbean films when they were released, I feel as though I am more than qualified to make a judgement on this.

Amanda Sparrow married a pirate ghost called Jack Teague whose story closely resembles the fictional story of the fictional Disney pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow. Amanda claims her husband was hanged for helping slaves to escape - the same crime which the fictional Jack Sparrow committed too, leading to him and Lord Cutler Beckett becoming sworn enemies in the Pirates of the Caribbean universe.

Oh, and did I mention that Amanda Sparrow is a frickin’ Jack Sparrow impersonator? At the time of the marriage in 2017, Sparrow also claimed that her friend was also in a relationship with the ghost friend of her ghost husband who was called William...

#4 Man Sees Ghost Very Convincingly

In this story reported by the Daily Star, the twist is that the man- a security guard - who saw the ghost was caught on CCTV as he saw the ghost... which was also caught on CCTV. However, when you actually watch the footage, it’s safe to say that the headline could just have been ‘man sees something‘. There does appear to be something being seen and reacted to in the footage, but it’s so vague that it’s hardly compelling evidence of anything at all.

Not only that, but we only have secondary footage to view here, and secondary footage is a good way to cover up shenanigans. Filming footage on a screen like this reduces the quality of the original footage... and call me skeptical, but does the dudes reaction seem like the normal reaction of someone who is seeing a ghost? Something doesn’t sit right for me with this story.

#3 Ghost Touches Man

No, this isn’t a progression from the previous story in which the security guard and ghost overcome their differences and form a bond. This is a different man and (presumably) a different ghost in what the Daily Star (yes, again) claim is a HORRIFYING ENCOUNTER.

HORRIFYING, dear reader, because this time the ghost TOUCHES the man and the whole thing is CAUGHT ON CCTV. However, allow me to break it down like the party-pooper I am. We watch as an employee is pointing out products to man. The man then shudders and flinches away as though something has touched his neck, and the employee also flinches away at the same time.

My little grey cells tell me that this was likely a drop of water or perhaps an insect. The floor is covered in water and the people are wearing coats. It had likely been raining. There is a mysterious light which seems to travel across the screen towards the man around the same time of his reaction, but light flares are a common artifact found on CCTV cameras all of the time. This light would have been there regardless of whether or not there had been people in frame. Some say the orb is faked, but I can’t be sure.

#2 The MacKenzie Poltergeist

The infamous MacKenzie Poltergiest is possibly my favourite ghost story. I have visited the tomb this allegedly violent spectre is said to haunt at least twice now in an attempt to get punched in the face by it. I am therefor very sad to include the Poltergeist in my Worst Ghost summary for 2018.

However, in reality, it isn’t the ghost which belongs here, but the marketing tactics of the City of the Dead tours Twitter account. City of the Dead run ‘Award winning tours of the world’s most haunted locations’. This year, I have watched on in bemusement as my Twitter stream has occasionally displayed photos of scratched, damaged and bleeding skin said to belong to ghost tour attendees who have been attacked by the MacKenzie Poltergeists during ghost tours of Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Those who are familiar with the story of the MacKenzie poltergeist will know that this malevolent spook is said to attack people who wander too closely to the mausoleum of George MacKenzie. The haunting is said to have started after the mausoleum was broken into by a homeless person seeking shelter, who inadvertently disturbed something which has been active ever since.

However, Blake Smith and Karen Stollznow, who co-host the fabulous MonsterTalk podcast, dedicated an episode to the Poltergeist this year and it inspired some behind-the-scenes investigation into the origin of the story which you can read here.

Every time I have visited the Kirkyard, I have found it to be a beautiful, sombre, peaceful place - even during the chaos that is the Edinburgh Fringe. The ghost lore attached to it is marvellous and spooky, and doesn’t need to be cheapened by shabby stunts. I’m not suggesting that these photos are staged as I have no evidence to support this, but do I think the scratches are paranormal in origin? No. I don’t.

#1 The Human Bone Hoax

When I write these ‘Worst Ghosts’ posts I keep most of the list lighthearted, fun and silly, and then I always include a story that is full of people so infuriating that you just wonder what the point is. Enter the Proving Demons Youtube channel who uploaded a video in which it is claimed human remains were found during a ghost-slash-demon hunt of a derelict cottage earlier this year.

The group of four friends use unscientific devices to contact spirits in the house which it is claimed tell them that there is a body in the wall. As reported over at higgypop.com, the device apparently relays the message to them from a ghost claiming “I was murdered,” followed by “he wedged up in the wall”.

Anyway, the Youtubers decide to demolish an internal wall over the course of 3 nights and discover what looks to be a human bone inside. They then contact Cheshire Police about discovering human remains. However, it turns out that they planted the bone in the first place as a sort of underwhelming hoax, resulting in warnings all round for wasting police time... and that, dear readers, is why we don’t talk to the Paranormal Youtubers.

So that’s a wrap on the worst ghosts of 2018. Happy New Year! ✨

So, grab a cup of coffee, put your cosy winter socks on and settle in...

#5 The Gresley Old Hall Ghost

Stu Williamson has a... unique approach to photographing ghosts which involves filling a room with smoke and then taking photos of the smoke.

‘I believe that ghosts are invisible but if you throw something at that ghost, like smoke, it sticks to the ghost.’ - Stu Williamson, 2017

His theory was that the ghosts could use the smoke to somehow form themselves. Indeed, Williamson claimed that while on a ghost hunt at Gresley Old Hall he used this technique and successfully photographed the ghost of a beautiful French woman.

I’m sure I don’t have to point out that this is likely just an illusion caused by the movement of the smoke and how it is illuminated by the light source beneath.

#4 The Black Monk of Pontefract

This is a ghost that- ironically -won’t die. The Black Monk of Pontefract is in the. press. all. the. time? NO. REALLY... ALL. THE. TIME!

The fact is that when the alleged haunting of 30 East Drive by the Black Monk was made famous by Colin Wilson in 1981, the activity at the centre of the story had already stopped and had been largely forgotten. Then the book dragged it back up, inspired a horror film, and then became the haunt of ghost hunters who pay upwards of £40 to spend a few hours there getting scared by shadows.

This is just one of many haunting across the UK that make a pretty penny for companies like Haunted Happenings and all the press coverage is simply free publicity for ghost tour companies.

#3 Paul Toole’s Ghostly Burn at HMP Shepton Mallet

Speaking of Haunted Happenings...

Return visitors to my blog may recall that earlier this year, I joined Danny Robins at HMP Shepton Mallet for his podcast, Haunted. During our time there we met Paul Toole - a tour guide for the prison. Toole claims that during a tour earlier this year, he was burned by the ghost of an American serviceman who was executed at the prison.

In all likelihood, Toole was actually just burned by a cigarette being smoked by an alive human. The burn was featured in the press as proof that ghosts haunt the prison and that if you partake on a tour or a ghost hunting event (run by Haunted Happenings) you might bump into one. Hmm…

#2 The Stanley Hotel Ghosts

Oh look. Someone caught a ghost in a (yawn) photograph taken at (yawn again) The Stanley (yawn) hotel. The Stanley Hotel plays host to ghost hunting events and Halloween events every year. There’s a pretty penny to be made for those who own allegedly haunted buildings, you know.

Which is why it’s in their best interests to keep up the illusion that spooky stuff is occurring. The photographer claims that the latest photograph shows two ghostly figures on the staircase among guests about to take part in a ghost tour.

Would it shock you to discover that the ghosts are just people moving up the stairs who are blurred because of the shutter speed of the camera?

Especially relevant is that fact that you can see that other people are blurry in the photo. For example. the lady stood up in a white top, the person sitting down to her right, and the person in the bottom right of the photo. Not only this, but some journalists have added red circles to the photo in a way that gives a false impression of the size of one of the “ghosts”. I’ve outlined their head in green below for comparison:

#1 Dear David

I am loathe to even write those two words because this blog is all about my work as a real-life paranormal researcher who deals with people who have real-life strange experiences. For those not in the know, I use scientific skepticism to solve mysteries (which sounds much cooler than it actually is). Dear David doesn’t fit into this at all because it’s a fictional story.

For anyone out there who is a bit shocked by this proclamation, allow me to explain. Illustrator, Adam Ellis, has been tweeting out a merry little saga about a deformed baby that’s meant to be haunting his house. Photos were shared, along with videos, tales cats being cats, mysterious items found and much more. The story is freaking some people out! It has been rightly pointed out by some that there ethical questions to be asked about this relatively-new form of storytelling where the reader isn’t sure of the authenticity of the tale.

This can be an effective way of telling a good, scary story, but that’s exactly why Dear David is at the top of my list. The story is mediocre and has dragged on for too long. In the words of my Spooktator co-host, Paul, “spooky baby with a malformed head? Whatever!”

Suffice to say, the stories featured have one thing in common: they each generate free publicity for someone claiming to have paranormal evidence when they don’t.

So there we have it - the worst ghosts of 2016. Happy New Year! ✨

So, without further ado - here are the worst 5 ghosts of 2016:

#5 The Bronllys Hospital Ghost

The photo was taken by someone called Adam Smith at a former psychiatric hospital in Bronllys, Wales. The Mirror reported that ‘the creepy snap seems to show a ghoulish face in shadows on the first-floor window of the former psychiatric hospital - despite it being closed for 15 years.’

Some research discovered that it was a Halloween mask placed there by pranksters. Awkward...

#4 Witch on a Stretcher at The Cage

Some paranormal researchers seem to take the claims coming from The Cage in Essex seriously and I can’t quite get my head around it. I’ve written about The Cage before in a post titled ‘The Problem With Britain’s Most Haunted House‘, but to summarise, the building once briefly housed women accused of witchcraft and the current owner claims that it is actively haunted and charges ghost hunters for the chance to investigate it. The previous owners state that nothing ever happened while they lived there and the activity and evidence produced is disappointing. Also, a lot of ghost hunters who visit the building come away disappointed with their experience.

Earlier this year, the photograph above was taken by Chris Halton who claims it shows the body of a witch being carried away by other ghosts on a stretcher. You can see what he claims are the figures outlined in the photo to the right. The Sun quotes Halton:

‘“I just took a couple of pictures with the flash on just to document it like I had throughout the house. As soon as I looked at one of them I saw there was some light distortion on it but I just thought it was something wrong on the picture.”

It was when Chris got home and examined the picture closely he saw a “clear shape of a hooded figure wearing Elizabethan clothing and carrying a stretcher”.

Chris, mate... it literally is light distortion because you moved the camera while taking the photo, and I think you know that. In fact, you even stated it yourself, and that - coupled with the unconvincing nature of the haunting at The Cage - lands this photo in the #4 spot on this list.

#3 The Haunted House of Abbey Wood

Where to begin?

Earlier this year, alleged ghost activity was caught on camera at a home in Abbey Wood while the investigation was being broadcast live on Facebook. As the livestream commenced plates were sent crashing to the ground as the ghost was egged on by those present.

The homeowner, Ian Hawke, called in Danny Taylor to investigate the weird things happening in the house and what took place was a typical ghost hunt. Danny Taylor, who claims to be a paranormal investigator, actually works for a paranormal events company called Ghost Hosts Events UK (archived here). On their website he is listed as the “tech guy” but I can’t find any suggestion that these guys are legit investigators.

While broadcasting live on Facebook, some crockery was thrown to the floor. The men in the video who I believe are Ian Hawke and Danny Taylor seemed shocked by what has happened, but I’m not entirely convinced that they’re not acting. What is seen in the video (at the top of this listing) appears to me to be the result of fishing wire or “invisible thread” being used to pull the crockery by somebody off of camera.

In conclusion, the haunting of Hawke’s house in Abbey Wood isn’t very compelling and the evidence presented leaves a lot to be desired...

#2 The Soldier’s Ghost at Gettysburg

The Daily Star reported that these two US-based ghost hunters visited a Gettysberg battlefield to see if they could capture anything ghostly on camera and, low and behold, they did indeed film the figure of a soldier walking across a field and stopping next to some old cannons. This was filmed in 2013 and yet started to go viral this year with 53% of people who answered a poll on the Star website claiming they believe in ghosts.

I decided to include this ghost in the #2 spot on this list because it’s pretty terrible. As Kenny Biddle reported though, the whole thing felt very staged and is something that can be created very easily using free video editing software. In fact, Kenny was able to recreate the video which can be watched here:

#1 Tom Buckmaster’s “Black Eyed Kids”

I’m not overly familiar with Buckmaster or his work, but he has apparently been “investigating” the ‘Black Eyed Kids’ said to haunt the Staffordshire area and below is the photo of an alleged “Black Eyed Kid” that he presents as evidence.

Compelling stuff, right? Those red, blue and green pixels just speak for themselves. The Daily Star went with the headline ‘Return of black-eyed ghost child’ when reporting this but the problem with this is that thanks to Zak Bagans wannabes like Buckmaster, the idea of these ghosts never went away in the first place.

Buckmaster made the paper again with a video that apparently shows him witnessing a BEK up close.

“We haven’t, like we usually do, been able to check out the area in the daytime” reports Buckmaster, letting you know just how rigorous his investigative methodology is. Why try to establish the facts when you can just run around in the woods in the dark, right?

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Did you hear that? Did you just not hear that, John?” Buckmaster exclaims dramatically on the video in which nothing remotely weird can be heard. “Something went “wuuuuuuurgh” to my left-hand side. oh my god.”

Sure it did, Tom. You’re in the middle of some woodland in the dark. It’d be weird if you didn’t hear a strange noise, you Muppet. Buckmaster takes the #1 spot on this list simply because his over-dramatic, attention-seeking ghost hunting nonsense got on my nerves when I first encountered it and is exactly what’s wrong with ghost hunting culture.

Anyway, those are the worst ghosts of 2016. Happy new year! ✨

#5 The Ohio Ghost That Was Literally Crap

In May, Examiner reported that a woman called Tonya Nester was taking photos of the closed down Randall Park Mall in Ohio and a friend noticed something odd in one of the photos that was quickly concluded to be a ghost.

‘What exactly is the angelic figure in the photo?’ asked Examiner reporter John Albrecht. Well, John, bird crap is what it is. The photo was taken through a car window, dirt tracks left from rain visible, and the white smudge being called a ghost or angelic is bird poo.

#4 That Photobombing Samurai Ghost

In April some people lost their composure over a photo that it is claimed shows a pair of ghostly legs behind a little girl who was on holiday with her family. Taken on a smart phone, the child’s father claimed nobody was standing behind her at the time the photo was taken. This, it turns out, is not true.

Don Cake worked out that it was a guard standing a slight distance away from the child and emailed the Fortean Times (FT332, p. 76) to tell them that the beach in the photograph is a short distance from the Summer palace of the Emperor of Japan, which is well guarded by officers who wear the uniform (pictured), which resembles the legs of the so-called ghost. If you look carefully you can even see part of the light blue shirt beneath the childs left elbow.

#3 The Grey Lady of Hampton Court

Many people claimed that this photo taken by 12-year-old Holly Hampshire in February shows the ghost of Dame Sybil Penn (aka the gray lady of Hampton Court) and that the apparition is wearing period clothing, which is interesting because it totally isn’t.

It is, in fact, a panoramic photo that went wrong and what we’re seeing are the distorted features of an alive human. This is explained by Mick West in more detail here, where he also replicated the photo. West said ‘it’s just the result of taking a panoramic photo in low light on the iPhone. Panoramic photos are done by holding the camera up, and panning from left to right. The camera takes lots of photos and then stitches them together … but because it takes a while to take all the images, if something moves while you are taking the panorama, then it will get distorted.’

#2 That Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost 

Although this photo technically dates back to pre-Christmas 2014 it wasn’t until 2015 that it came to the attention of the media which is why it has been included here. It was taken by teacher Debbie Monteforte and a family friend said “The family insists there was no one standing behind them and there was no place to hang a coat. Even if there was someone standing there, they would have to be 8ft tall to appear like that. It’s beyond spooky.”

However, a quick look around on Google Image Search revealed another photograph taken in the same area of the pub that showed that perhaps a person standing in that position wouldn’t have been 8-foot-tall after all.

#1  Slenderman. Obviously.

It feels right that we finish with the story I opened with. I am awarding the #1 spot on this list to two people: Lee Brickley and Christine Hamlett.

In January 2015 Brickley (who has previously made the #1 spot on this list) generated bizarre headlines by claiming that Slenderman had been seen by many people in the Cannock Chase area. He also made the observation that throughout history people have reported seeing tall creatures and spirits which led him to declare that Slenderman wasn’t created online.

What a genius.

He’s wrong, of course. The fictional creature called Slenderman is an internet creation that probably takes inspiration from real-like folklore. I wrote about this in more detail in a blog post called The Evolution of Ghosts and Monsters in which I point out that ‘many in the Cannock Chase area reported that they saw the so-called Slenderman entity while experiencing sleep paralysis, but if they lived in a different part of the world they might perhaps report that they saw a Grey- an alien considered synonymous with E.T. encounters -rather than a spirit or monster.’

It didn’t stop there though. Enter Christine Hamlett. Hamlett, a self-proclaimed spirit medium, claimed to have caught Slenderman on camera.

This is quite amusing because Hamlett also claimed to have caught a Black Eyed Child on camera when Brickley made the headlines in October 2014 with claims that Black Eyed Kids were prowling in Cannock Chase (you can read more about that on my blog here)

More recently Hamlett made headlines with claims that she caught the ghost of one of the Pendle Witches on camera, but her claims were shown to be historically inaccurate.

So there we have what I consider to be the 5 Worst Ghosts of 2015 - a whole range of bizarre claims that, encouragingly, were investigated and explained by rational researchers. You can check out previous years Worst Ghosts showcases here. Happy new year!

#5 The Coventry Medieval Guildhall Ghost

In April, the Coventry Telegraph were convinced that their photographer had captured a ghost on camera while taking pictures of the Irish President, Michael D Higgins during his visit to the town.

They reported that:

‘he found a ghoulish green ‘ghost’ hanging out behind Michael D Higgins when the leader was addressing the city’s Medieval Guildhall.‘

Apparently…

‘the emerald ethereal apparition seemingly goes unnoticed by the gathered great and the good - who are all listening intently to the President’s speech.’

Yeah, probably because it is the light from a projector or some other such light source and they had no reason to pay it any attention. You see, the Telegraph showed everyone the photo above first which does indeed show an odd green light behind Higgins...

...but when you look at the bigger picture (above) you can quite clearly see the light is reflected elsewhere in the picture (see fig. 2) and that the shape of the chair in front of the alleged ghost is mimicked in the shape of the ghost (fig. 1). This is because the chair is blocking whatever the light source is.

#4 The Dover Castle Ghost

This footage was filmed at Dover Castle by a security camera in 2009, uploaded to Youtube in 2011 and recently made the headlines because people were convinced that it shows a real ghost (and, I presume, it was a slow news day.) The first red flag is raised by the fact that this is bad quality footage being filmed by a secondary source which is often done to mask detail.

Personally I think this is an insect moving across the lens of the CCTV camera which is why it has hardly any distinguishable shape or colouring (and it wouldn’t be the first time an insect on a camera lens has been mistaken for a ghost), but part of my thinks that this could also be a hoax (though I’ve no evidence of this.)

The behaviour of the security guard in the footage is a bit too convenient and looks staged. Would he really have reacted so quickly to a weird thing appearing on CCTV? Hmm....

Either way, naff. NEXT!

#3 Samuel Kent’s ghost

Trowbridge resident Michelle Midwinter thought that she had captured something a bit odd on camera when taking a photo of her house. You can see the original photo here. She felt that something resembling a face could be seen in one of the windows when there was nothing in the window or nearby that could cause that effect. A self-confessed non-believer of ghosts she still claims that the photo shows what could be the face of an old man and sold it to the first News Agency that came sniffing.

Now, this is where it gets weird because the caretaker of my old school, Andrew Jones, who has an interest in local history says that the photo bears a striking resemblance to Samuel Kent, the father of Constance Kent, who brutally murdered her three-year-old brother when she was 16 in the nearby village of Rode in 1860. I’m not seeing it...

...but I do see He Who Must Not Be Named...

Or, worst yet...

#2 Ye Olde Man Ghost

The above video of a strange apparition in the Ye Olde Man & Sythe public house in Bolton started to gain a lot of attention in February this year. I initially thought that what we were seeing in this video was created by using a Peppers Ghost illusion but I was wrong and Bryan and Baxter managed to make a perfect recreation of this video using Adobe After Effects as seen below.

When the video initially made the news I was curious and had a quick dig around and discovered that the account that uploaded the video to Youtube belongs to Richard Greenwood, the current manager of the pub who took over in 2012 after it closed down briefly.

In a 2012 article about the reopening, The Bolton News quoted Greenwood as saying he wanted to capitalise on the history of the pub which dates back to 1251 and is thought to be one of the four oldest public houses in the country. Richard Greenwood is also Managing Director for Consult Greenwood Ltd, a consultancy firm supplying creative routes to market for new products and technologies...

...B-B-B-BUSTED!

#1 The Black Eyed Kids of Cannock’s Chase

Black Eyed Kids (BEKs) are dangerous apparently, and a sighting of one could be a bad omen. If you let one into your home bad things will happen, but what these bad things are nobody knows. This is quite possibly because BEKs are just urban legends that do not exist. Don’t let that get in the way of a real life ghost story though! Gosh no.

The Black Eyed Kid of Cannock’s Chase is a case that is shrouded with poor taste and not a jot of mystery. Easily impressed Lee Brickley, the so-called investigator at the centre of this story received one eye-witness report from a member of the public who sighted what has been described as a BEK in 2013. He waited until October of 2014 to go public with this in what can only be described as a publicity seeking campaign.

This resulted in front page news stories in The Daily Star and the word-of-mouth account of the odd sighting being tastelessly linked to the murder of young girls decades ago in an attempt to make the story seem more interesting. It has since made the front page of the latest Fortean Times issue.

It’s a non-story and the attention it has gained is quite baffling. The fact that most of the coverage has been uncritical is just frustrating. I just want to put the story in context:

One woman says she saw a Black Eyed Kid. There is nothing to support her story other than her word. That’s it.

Brickley has form for taking eye-witness accounts and using them as evidence that supernatural entities are real in the Cannock’s Chase area but (to my knowledge) he has never done it in such a tasteless fashion before. For that reason alone Brickley and his Black-Eyed-Kid-That-Wasn’t has made the Number One spot on my Worst Ghosts of 2014 list.

I predict that in 2015 Slenderman will be seen in Cannock’s Chase and will have a baby with the so-called PigMan hybrid monster. You heard it here first.

Without further ado, let’s look at the The 5 Worst Ghosts of 2013!

#5 The Exmouth Rugby Club Ghost

Footage captured on the CCTV system in the bar at the Exmouth Rugby Club showed the bell that is traditionally rung for ‘last orders’ ringing on its own, freaking out nearby staff members who ran to investigate. The papers jumped on this story pretty quickly, quoting staff members who claimed it could have been the ghost of an old landlord called Nigel haunting the premises.

When interviewed by The Daily Mail, manager Frank Bright said:

‘A few people have mentioned Nigel’s name. He was great man, an all-round good guy - and certainly no threat to anyone. ‘The bell ringing on its own is pretty odd, I’ll give you that and one of the girls was quite freaked out. But I’m a bit more level-headed and I’m sure there’s some way to explain it; I just can’t put my finger on it at the moment. ‘There was one time I was here on my own and I heard a whistle. I turned round and shouted “hello, hello” but there was no-one here.’

I contacted the Rugby Club to see if they really thought it could be haunted but was told pretty quickly that they didn’t really think they were haunted at all.

‘Frank’s comment was light-hearted, think we’ve got better things to be doing as a rugby club than having Most Haunted turn up! It wasn’t a staged ghost video. we favour the idea that the ringer slipped down from where it’d been hung up during cleaning’.

Case closed.

#4 The Napanock Ghost Cat

The apparent apparition of a cat in a US hotel caused quite a stir in the ghost hunting community, prompting much commentary about whether it was or was not a ghost, was or was not a cat, and was or was not genuine footage.

The footage was taken from an IR DVR camera in The Shanley Hotel in Napanoch, New York, but what we see is a low quality copy of the original that leaves a lot of questions unanswered. You can view the footage here (as part of a longer video):

When I first read the story and saw the video on the WhoForted.com site I commented that it might be the product of ghosting which can happen on some CCTV and Camcorder systems, but having watching it over it could just as easily be a piece of lint floating on a breeze or even an IR light being shone down the hallway from behind the camera.

Without further information and footage we will never know for sure. This ghost was not at all impressive.

#3 Amanda Byram’s Whitstable Ghost Photo

I thought twice about including this rubbish ghost in this list because when it first made the headlines we had no way of knowing that this hoax was part of a bigger stunt for a Channel 4 television program called The Happenings. However, even the bigger stunt was a bit rubbish so I felt that the ghost photo featuring TV presenter Amanda Byram deserved a place here.

Back in September I was sent a link to this news story featured in the Canterbury Times by the journalist who wrote it, asking for my opinion. The story is about a supposedly strange photo captured by TV presenter Amanda Byram. The photo is of Byram posing with two members of the public, and next to them is a translucent shadowy figure and was taken as she allegedly investigated the story that features later on in this list.

It’s a fake made using a Smartphone app 🙄

#2 The Kelvedon Hatch Apparitions

In September, The Brentwood Gazette reported that Spooksavers (a Ghost events company) captured a spirit portal in action at an overnight event in the Secret Nuclear Bunker in Kelvedon Hatch. The photos in question show people in the room surrounded by lots of wiggly and fuzzy lights.

A little investigation showed that these photos were less than impressive. A little digging online showed that the rooms in the bunker are full of various reflective surfaces (see picture A), and it is possible that the photos may have been taken through a window (see picture B).

Both of these, coupled with a slow shutter speed and slight movement of the camera could cause the effects seen. Not only that, but if you study the blur in the first photo above, you can see ghostly forms of the shoes of the people in the photo, which suggests to me that a slow shutter speed has indeed caused this effect.

Picture A

It’s also worth pointing out that various cameras and similar devices were being used by numerous people present, as seen in the photo montage below taken from the event gallery. It’s impossible to rule out that a camera with its screen on, or perhaps a meter with an on-light illuminated in the hand of someone in the photo was moved around at the time of the photo being taken.

These apparitions were the product of wishful thinking and not a spirit portal. Doh.

#1 The Whitstable Floating Tea Ghost

Those who follow my blog regularly probably knew this particular story would feature in the #1 spot of this list. This was part one of a bigger prank, with the Amanda Byram fake photo being part two for the television show called The Happenings.

The Whistable floating tea ghost hit the news in July when a nutrition shop claimed that two boxes of teabags had been caught floating off of shelves in the store on the CCTV system, leading people to think there may be a ghost in the area. Initial speculation led people to believe the store were perpetrating a hoax for attention, but it seems that even they weren’t in the on the trick.

The Happenings is a television show for Channel 4 in which two magicians convince people that strange things are happening in their town. Episode one saw them trying to convince a town that the citizens were being tested for psychic ability, the second episode saw them trying to convince people in Whitstable that their town was being terrorised by a ghost, and the third will see them convince a town that they are in danger of a Vampire. The floating tea footage and Byram fake photo were stunts for the second show.

The shows have had mixed receptions and, although I can appreciate what they’re trying to do, I think they’ve often rubbed people up the wrong way - especially within the paranormal research community.

These are my Worst Ghosts of 2013. Let’s see what shocking spectres crawl out of the woodwork for 2014...

Why not check out previous years summaries by clicking here.

Now, sit back, relax, and be prepared to groan. Not in horror, but in despair, at the 5 Worst Ghosts of 2012!

#5 The Car Jumping Ghost

I’m not going to lie - this ghost has become one of my favourites ever.

When I first encountered the footage of a ghost baby jumping over a car in Nottingham I was reminded of the ghost said to haunt The Wolfe Pub in Little Dockray, Cumbira which made Number 3 on my ‘Worst Ghosts of 2010’ list. The blob shaped ghost was caught on CCTV dusting a table before shooting through the ceiling. It turned out to be a fly on the CCTV camera lens.

Why was I reminded of this particular ghost when watching footage of an allegedly athletic infant spook? They were both likened to Casper the Friendly Ghost, and they’re both insects. That’s why.

The Rigley’s set up a CCTV camera to monitor their driveway after a number of attacks on their car, and when a neighbour had ornaments stolen from her garden they kindly offered to go through their CCTV footage to see if they’d captured anybody around at the time of the theft. Lisa Rigley explains

I’m absolutely gobsmacked by this. I’ve got the footage here, it’s the image of a young child about four or five ... We went through the tape to see if we could see anyone walking past our gate at the time of the theft and saw this weird hoodie-ghost jumping on our car. It really was spooky. It was one of those weird feelings where you just think to yourself, ‘what on earth is it? It looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost but it was certainly leaping all over the bonnet of our Volvo Estate.

She added

It’s a ghost, it’s got to be.

Just like the ‘ghost’, Lisa is making a huge leap here. I’m not sure how she has concluded that this is a child aged 4-5, but when you watch the footage it’s easy to think the oddity is near the car, but in all reality it is actually closer to the IR night-vision CCTV camera. The close proximity to the camera is what resulted in the glowing appearance and large size, which is exactly what is seen in The Wolfe Pub ghost footage too.

There’s no shortage of videos and photos like this - that show something glowing, out of focus, and blob shaped that wasn’t seen at the time, however, I chose this athletic ghost baby as #5 for the Worst Ghosts of 2012 simply because of the build up that results in one of the weakest and funniest ghost videos I have ever seen.

#4 The Cumbria Demolition Ghost

The demolition ghost was one of the first ghosts to hit the British headlines in 2012. After taking photos of a building about the be demolished, Robert Johnson thought nothing more of the photos until he uploaded them to his computer some time later and noticed a ghostly figure in the window of one of the photos.

“It wasn’t until I got home and showed my wife that we spotted the woman, you can see the jewellery on her and everything. I’ve always been a sceptic but I’ll have to believe in ghosts now.”

This was a tricky photo because the building has been demolished so there’s nothing to compare it with (despite my best attempts on google earth and similar). However, working with what we have to hand it becomes apparent that there are several problem with the ‘ghost’ in the photo. If you compare their height to the doorways behind them ‘they’ reach about half way up. You would expect an adult to be at least a foot or two higher.

Not only that but the hair starts about half way back on the crown of their head and they have a flat face. If you focus on the empty room behind the ‘figure’ you start to notice doorways, shadows in the room and other slight details - it’s most likely that this apparition is the result of things inside the empty room creating the illusion of a person. Once you see it you can’t un-see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s there.

#3 The Ghost of Clevedon Pier

The Clevedon Pier Ghost general a lot of media coverage and attention from amateur ghost hunters from around the region. See examples here, here, here, here, and here. It was an intriguing ghost story that gathered momentum fast and caught my interest very early on, especially when student Matthew Hales took a photo that many claimed showed the ghostly figure standing out on the Pier early one morning when it was still locked up.

Other reports included figures being seen at the end of the pier that vanished when people turned around, and burnt toast being smelt occasionally in the gift shop. I contacted the Pier Mistress, Linda Strong, in February as the story gained more and more coverage in the news. I wanted to chat to her about the things that had been witnessed, the ideas being bandied around by people, and the chances of going to the pier to investigate.

I was told that there was already a very long list of paranormal teams wanting to ghost hunt on the pier and that I’d have to wait until at least May before I could get ‘a slot’ despite not being a team myself, and not wanting to access the pier at nighttime like the others.

Disappointed (but not shocked) I turned the conversation to the questions I had for Linda but was told that she was unable to talk as she had meetings all day, and that I should call back. This happened time and time again and I was getting nowhere with the case.

All the while, amateur researchers such as Bristol based Richard Case, were going out onto the Pier under the cover of darkness to hunt for ghosts using pseudo-scientific research methods and finding the usual types of “evidence” of a haunting.

Not getting anywhere with Linda, I started to think outside of the box and investigate the ghost in other ways. By digging around online, visiting the pier unannounced as a member of the public, and speaking to the anglers who use the pier for sea fishing I was able to determine that most of the stories associated with the ghost on the pier were nonsense, and that the photo of the ghost doing the rounds was actually of a fisherman called Vic at the end of the pier who was checking his car early one morning. The pier was closed but volunteers and fishermen explained to me that the pier is open 24/7 for those with a key.

Speaking to one volunteer I discovered that a lot of the longtime volunteers were fed up with the pier mistress using the silly ghost stories to general publicity for the pier because they felt the pier and the surrounding natural beauty were stronger selling points. Quite.

With this in mind, and because of the evasive behaviour of Linda Strong, I am placing the ghost of Clevedon Pier in the Top 5 Worst Ghosts on 2012. Do visit the pier, though. It’s stunning!

#2 The Ron Bowers Ghost Photos

Although these ghost photos (and the haunting they’re associated with) do not date from 2012 they’re included on this list because it was this year that they gained the most attention through the media - on Great British Ghosts hosted by Michaela Strachan, and on ITV’s This Morning.

I’ll point out now that I’m not commenting upon the experiences that Vanessa Mitchell and others may or may not have had while at The Cage in Essex, I am simply commenting upon these extremely dodgy ghost photos taken at The Cage by Ron Bowers.

After seeing the This Morning feature I searched for more information on the photographs and found loads of them on the facebook page for The Cage. It’s my opinion that these photos are the result of something being held over the camera lens, or something that had been drawn onto the photos. The body proportions for the ‘ghosts’ are off, with torsos appearing wider than they should be (a classic mistake people make when drawing figures.)

I also got a tip off from an anonymous source about a magic trick that involved the palming of small pieces of acetate with ‘ghosts’ drawn on them that would then be held over the camera lens to appear as though a ghost was in front of the camera. This meant that anyone looking over your shoulder as you took the photo would see the ghost through the view finder - something that eye witnesses had reported with the photos taken by Ron Bowers. This is done to add authenticity to the photos.

So, although I can’t say with 100% certainty that the results of such a trick are what we are seeing in the Ron Bowers photo I can say that it seems more likely than those anomalies being ghosts, and that lands the Ron Bowers ghost photos from The Cage in Essex as the Number 2 spot on my list of the Worst Ghosts on 2012. Sorry, Ron.

#5 Johnny Jr. - The Ghost Baby

The Gloucestershire Echo reported this particular spook in June after a Cheltenham resident named John Gore contacted them to say the ghost of a baby had been caught on a photo taken in his lounge. He told the paper

One of my cats kept scratching at the wall and jumping up in the area and we’re always taking pictures of the cats. When we got it through we were surprised to find the little figure just stood by the sofa.

I have never really worried or had any ghost sightings before. We have had a few strange things happen before, like the TV kept changing channels and turning itself off.

John instantly linked these two pieces of information together - the odd things and the strange photo - to create a ghost. The only problem was that the ghost in the photo was a fake ghost created using an iPhone app. I recognised it immediately as I have the same app. Normally I would have rolled my eyes and ignored the story, but this one was different. The story goes on to say

I showed it to a lady over the road who has lived here for years. She said somebody who lived in the house before us had a child who died of cot death. It is hard to tell whether it is a boy or a girl, but we have called the ghost Jonny Junior, and it looks to be about a toddlers age.

This coupled with the fact that the paper had included in the story the address at which the photo had been taken made me extremely concerned for the effect this story could have if it was read by the wrong person - namely, the woman reported to have lost a child to cot death in that house.

It was possible that she was still local and would have seen the address that John Gore lived at and realised that it was her deceased baby people thought was in the photo. It was with this in mind that I phoned the journalist that wrote the story and explained to her that the photo was a hoax and how it had been done.

She was very interested and wrote a story on the hoax, which then extracted an admittance of guilt from a friend of John Gore. Although this was a relatively lazy hoax photo it made the Number One spot on this list because of the harm it could have caused.

So there you have it, the Worst Ghosts of 2012. Happy new year!

Enjoy!

#5 The Braunstone Ghost

The Braunstone ghost haunted a family home, causing the family to live in fear as it allegedly started fires and even punched family members. This spook and it’s antics made the newspapers (update: the story is now inactive) and even saw the ghost hunting team involved, G.S.I Paranormal (update: now defunct), interviewed live on national television, so you’d probably think that is must have been quality evidence.

Wrong. This ghost and the evidence that came with it was mediocre nonsense that we’ve seen numerous times before.

The evidence they provided on This Morning (a national television show aired in the UK) consisted of videos of orbs that the investigators refused to believe could be dust or insects. There was also an alleged ‘spirit vortex’ caught on camera by the this team too which, in all honestly, appears to be a piece of wire (like a mobile phone charger wire, perhaps) hanging in front of the camera. Nothing impressive or groundbreaking.

The saddest thing about this ghost isn’t the eye-witness reports from the family in residence, or the rubbish ‘evidence’ provided by the ghost hunters, but in fact the closed-minded and outdated way in which they investigated the case. They let down the people who live in the house greatly, and that’s why their temperature changing spook made it into our ‘worst ghosts of 2011? list.

More from Don Philip further & GSI down the list…

#4 The Conventry Poltergeist

A Coventry council house played host to a ghost that allegedly pushed two pet dogs down the stairs – one of which sadly died through its injuries. This ghost story first broke on The Sun website where it was explained that the single mother and two children witnessed an array of odd occurrences ranging from chairs flying across rooms to doors being wedged shut from the other side, trapping the family.

Although unlikely to be paranormal in nature, the things witnessed by the family were interesting and worthy of research. Yet, their story was let down with the accompaniment of a rather dodgy video documenting questionable poltergeist activity.

The initial experiences may have been genuine, but the poltergeist video certainly isn’t. It’s okay though, because The Sun got Derek Acorah in to sort things out…

#3 Thorpe Park Ghost Monk

This ghost hunt took place in November 2010, but the ghost alleged to haunt Thorpe Park didn’t make headlines until February 2011. According to South West London Paranormal Group who were called in by ‘Thorpe Park bosses’, oddities witnessed by workmen building a new ride at the theme park were caused by the spirit of a headless monk, buried in the ground that the ride was being built upon.

The team report of the investigation shows a clearly biased approach to their investigations, with several members claiming to be sensitive to ghosts/spirits. Not only that but their conclusions were questionable, with team founder Jim Arnold saying:

‘We carry out these kinds of investigations quite regularly, with medium to weak results being reported on a weekly basis. ‘Thorpe Park, however, was more striking as results were picked up immediately, with orbs, ghostly images in photography and ouija reaction results being strongest around the site where they were proposing to build Storm Surge.

‘The results were so strong, we felt the only explanation could be that an ancient burial ground or settlement was being disturbed, prompting the extra paranormal activity.’

Not only was the methodology used pseudo-scientific and dodgy, but so was the evidence provided. My favourite is below:

It’s more likely that the evidence collected by SWLPG was the product of suggestion and confirmation bias, and Thorpe Park saw the chance to grab headlines off of the back of this. Readers may remember that they did something similar around the time they opened the Saw Rollercoaster. Spooky…

#2 The Walton Ghost Horse

I first discovered the Walton ghost horse one day when visiting Professor Chris French’s Facebook profile to leave a message. There was a video posted on there by Don Philip, the lead investigator for G.S.I Paranormal UK.

Of the video and recording, Don says:

its enclosed 4 walls no windows, in the middle of nowhere with no passing traffic, people or neibours[sic],that store room was a stable in the 1800s and its approx 2.45 am in the morning. The video camera caught it, the video camera then shows the digital recorder playing the evp and finally the evp from the recorder played at the end, now that would take some debunking or a hell of an alternative explanation considering the sound is obviously in the room with us and so clear and loud.

It is clear that the people present believe it to be a horse, referred to as ‘Bubbles’ by one of the women present. Apparently this is because they found a grave marker close by for a horse called ‘Bubbles’. That’s a claim that requires evidence, but all we have is this odd noise that Don and his friends are claiming IS evidence. The problem here is that there are so many possible alternative causes for such strange noises (often referred to as ‘Electronic Voice Phenomena’) that before anyone can say ‘this is supernatural’ they have to be able to cross off every possible natural cause.

The G.S.I team cannot do this, and as they’re the ones who are making the claims about this recording, the burden of proof sits squarely with them. Also, Strangely, when I asked them to elaborate what they were claiming the noise was in our conversation on Facebook they all seemed to be very evasive and vague about it. Despite the fact that they identify it as a horse in the actual video (as you have hopefully just seen or heard above).

Professor French had posted in response to the video on his Facebook wall that he was busy but would be interested to hear my opinion on the video, so I had a good listen numerous times and came to the following conclusion:

To me it sounds like nothing more than something being dragged along a rough surface, such as a floor or worktop – the sound being interpreted as a horse braying or snorting is the sound of friction between the object and the surface.

I believe the link you are making with the sound being a horse is because you’ve accidentally primed yourself with the reputed haunting of the building – you call the horse by it’s name suggesting there is rumour the place is haunted, or associated with a dead horse called Bubbles. If you were to take away that association and listen to the sound I do not believe it would be linked to a horse by anyone present.

Electronic Voice Phenomena isn’t a sturdy method of paranormal investigation due to the lack of data involved, and the influencing factors at play beyond the control of the person conducting the EVP session.

The audio clip is no longer available online but I downloaded a copy below. Please be warned that this audio is loud.

Spooky, right? I also played the recording to a friend of mine who keeps horses without telling her what the noise was thought to be. She didn’t recognise the noise, and when I suggested it was a horse she didn’t agree. The same happened when Chris French played it to his daughter who also rides horses. Take away the priming information – that it is a horse, or that a horse is buried there – and people don’t make the link.

In fact, this is something that happened time and time again. I downloaded the noise and played it at several ‘skeptics in the pub’ events that I spoke at. I played it at Edinburgh, Bristol, and Westminster and nobody was able to identify the noise as a horse. That’s hundreds of people who listened to the recording who, without being prompted that it might be a horse, were unable to identify it as such.

Verdit: Not a horse ghost.

#1 The Ghost of N****r the Dog

A team of paranormal investigators, Paranormal Lincs, claimed in November that they had made contact with the “spirit” of the dog owned by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the pilot who led the Dambusters raids during the Second World War.

Gibson led the raid in 1943 from his base at RAF Scampton, near Lincoln, just hours after his black Labrador, offensively named ‘N****r’, was run over and killed. The first sighting of the ghost dog was reported in 1952, so what, you might ask, prompted a paranormal group to undertake such an investigation?

It was the photo above.

It was taken in the 80’s and shows shows a Labrador among a school group at a memorial to the Dambusters, close to where Gibson’s dog was buried. The photographer is said to have claimed the dog appeared from nowhere just as the photo was being taken, refusing to be shooed away and, as soon as the photo was taken, the dog disappeared, never to be seen again. Of course, there is no proof that this happened – we only have the word of one person to go on, but that’s never stopped ghost hunters before.

The paranormal team conducted their investigation and are convinced they not only detected the ghost dog, but also that they spoke to Guy Gibson himself. The Daily Mail reported that the lead investigator, Paul Drake, said:

‘There is definitely paranormal activity there. One of our investigators felt a cold spot and when we measured it, it was eighteen inches, which is about the height of a dog. The curator of the museum has told us that he has felt for years that he has had a presence following him and he definitely feels that it is that of a dog.’

One investigator who stayed overnight at the base last month even claimed she heard a dog growling when she entered Gibson’s former office. After scouring the base with infra-red lights, proximity sensors and video cameras, the team say they picked up activity which suggests the pilot was trying to speak to them.

‘I do believe we spoke with Guy Gibson,’ Miss Clements, a school dinner lady from Leicester, said. ’We asked him if he was with his girlfriend Margaret and he said yes. We also played some old music from the 40s and there was a response to that as well.’

It isn’t specified what activity they picked up, but a quick look at this BBC article shows that the team used K2 meters to talk to the ‘spirits’ which doesn’t really install much hope as to the thoroughness of the reseach.

A quick look on the teams website forum sheds light on the sort of evidence we are dealing with.

‘…we got loads of orbs and one that looks like a face and an arm. The Atmosphere felt strange as if their was people in there watching us.’

‘…the K2 meters were going crazy. I played some vera lynn to get things started. it looked like he was singing along to the song which was sweet of him ... he also just wanted us women in their we found out as he didnt like the men.’

‘…about 9pm we got all the equipment set up in both guy Gibson office and the hanger ( museum ). we had alot of orbs in the hanger.’

Convincing….

To summarise once again, this investigation took place because of a ghost story associated with a photo that is decades old. The investigators used ghost hunting gadgets that don’t do as claimed, and accepted things such as orbs and cold spots as evidence that a ghost was present.

They presumed these ‘ghosts’ they were communicating with, or detecting with their gadgets were that of Guy Gibson and his dog simply because of the ghost story they were chasing.

Worst. Ghost. Ever. A fitting way to end the worst ghosts of 2011. Hayley out…

It’s fair to say that some of the ghost stories that grace the newspapers and news websites often leave some of us staring at our screens with sheer horror. Horrified, not by the latest apparitions to have been caught on camera or film, but by the fact that anyone could have thought what was caught was news worthy. With that in mind, behold…

#5 The Savannah Cemetery Ghost

This video came to my attention in November and it is claimed that a ‘ghost child’ can be seen running through the Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. The figure is seen running in the distance past some tombstones. We then see an object (which many think is the same figure), shoot up a tree and moments later drop down.

To me, this looks like a child who is obscured briefly by gravestones. As to what it going "“up” the tree - it’s too vague to tell because of the distance between the supposed ghost and the camera, as well as the fact that the person shooting the film didn’t to go towards the object to investigate. However I don’t think it is the child from the beginning of the footage.

It looks like the camera has night vision enabled, too, which drains the footage of proper colour. Suffice to say, jumping to the conclusion that something odd, or something that cannot be explained must be a ghost is a leap of logic.

#4 The Gwyrch Castle Ghost

This photo was taken by Kevin Horkin who claimed he only saw the ghostly figure when he downloaded the photo at home - not while taking it. Adding to the oddness of this tale, he claimed that the spot in which the girl is standing hon the first floor of the castle has no physical floor as it crumbled away years ago.

Weird, right?

Until you see this unrelated photo of a member of the preservation trust at the castle, which clearly shows a floor…

Hmm… interesting. Perhaps Kevin Horkin simply misremembered? However, I’m not so sure that’s the case because a little big of digging revealed Kevin Horkin is the MD of a Psychic Management company called Parallel Management [editor: no longer operating] and, according to their site, ‘[h]is wealth of experience encompasses … artist management, events management, sponsorships, public relations, media relations, marketing and artist liaison.’

It gets even spookier, dear reader, because at the time the photo was taken, Horkin and his team were intending to buy the castle to renovate it so it could be turned into a hotel for their psychic school.

The Lancashire Telegraph reports how:

RIBBLE Valley businessman is bidding to buy a huge castle to open Britain’s first ‘psychic school of excellence’. Clitheroe-based Kevin Horkin has put in an offer of £850,000 to buy the derelict Grade I-listed Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales.

Mr Horkin, who owns psychic management company Parallel, wants to spend ’several millions’ renovating the 19th century castle, installing a hotel and facilities for psychics to connect with the spiritual world.

But hey, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence…

#3 The Wolfe Pub Ghost Video

The Wolfe Pub in Little Dockray, Cumbria used to be a funeral parlour and, according to the landlord, that’s why it is haunted. Which makes sense… possibly.

The 35-second sequence recorded by a CCTV camera shows a supposed apparition that descends through the ceiling of the room. Numerous newspaper articles (like this one) claim the apparition then polishes a table before zooming upwards and going back through the ceiling – momentarily assuming the likeness of a face which is pretty spooky stuff!

Well, I’m sorry to burst your spooky bubble but this is actually a fly on the lens of the CCTV camera. It’s out of focus and bleached by the infrared “night vision” light from the camera. If you watch the video with this in mind you may be able to spot how the fly moves its wings.

There are anecdotes about other things happening in the pub and neighbouring businesses but no CCTV footage of those has been supplied to date. Sometimes though, when a building has a ghost story attached to it and people who live or work there have spooky experiences to share, it’s easy for the mind to think “ghost” when you’re looking at an odd looking fly on your CCTV…

#2 The Pint Glass Poltergeist

The New Inn, Gloucestershire, made the headlines earlier this year when an unattended pint of beer was caught on CCTV sliding off of a table all on its own, which is pretty impressive at first glance.

However, the story gets pretty weird, pretty fast. The video was featured on The BBC News website where Landlord, Mark Cooke, said:

“I’d heard all these stories before we arrived and was pretty sceptical, like most people.But the moving pint was something else. When I saw it on the CCTV it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You just can’t explain it — the table’s dead steady, the floor’s not uneven, and no-one’s near it.”

I disagree. There are several ways a glass can slide from a table on its own. Those who drink in pubs know that sometimes the pint glass in which your drink is served is wet from overspill at the pump. Sometimes different surfaces in pubs are also wet because they’ve had wet glasses on them and this can cause some movement. This can also happen at home when you’re unloading a dishwasher…

It is also not possible to completely rule out that this is staged in some way. For example, it may just be coincidence but the person sitting at the back of the room, to the right, happens to move their hand just as the glass falls.

It could be a coincidence, but a member of the Gloucester Active Paranormal Society were in the room at the time this happened. They’ve been running ghost events at the pub for a while and charge £25 for a ticket. It would certainly be good advertising for ghostly activity to be caught on camera, right? Or am I just being cynical?

#1 The Dorset County Museum Ghost

This particular ghost caught my eye when it was featured on the BBC News website which reported the ghost hunters believed ‘[t]hey have photos … of “hanging” Judge Jeffreys and local fossil collector Mary Anning in the museum’s main hall.’

Wow. Famous ghosts in the multiple!

Now, the first thing of note is the fact that the photo featured on the BBC website is heavily cropped to only show what it is claimed is an apparition. It’s almost impossible to understand the wider context of the photo. Realistically it could anything at all, from an out of focus light, to a drop of water on a sheet of glass.

However, luckily for us, the photos from the ghost hunters visit to the museum are available in a YouTube montage which provides more insight.

Please note: the video contains loud music:

The ‘ghost’ appears to be an illusion caused by light reflection – the cropped picture used in the news coverage simply didn’t show the source of the reflection – it emphasised something that shouldn’t have been emphasised at all.

The images taken that night at the Dorset County Museum are simply reflections of the camera flash on a glass fronted display case/mirrored surface. You can clearly see this display case illuminated by the flash, to the north position of the “anomaly”.

At the time of this story making headlines, The Dorest County Museum have started charging £300 for paranormal teams to enter the building to conduct ghost hunts to try to find the ghost that was in a photo that is actually just an illusion caused by a light reflection. And that’s why this is the Worst Ghost of 2010!

Every year, I write a summary of the 5 Worst Ghosts to have made the headlines in the previous 12 months. 2010 was the first installment of this series. I am slowly moving the Worst Ghosts Showcase across to The Ghost Geek in the countdown to the end of 2025. Be sure to check back for 2011-2024 as they appear here!