The Ghost Geek’s Friday Files #1
Strange links, spooky stories, and skeptical side-eye...
Hello dear reader 👋
It’s been almost a month since I launched The Ghost Geek, and I really appreciate all of the support that people have shown since then - thank you!
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Every so often on a Friday, I’ll put together The Ghost Geek’s Friday Files - a round-up of the odd and interesting things that have crossed my screen or brain lately: hauntings, folklore, weird headlines, documentaries, podcasts, and so on.
Think of this as sort of part scrapbook, part dispatch from the ghost-nerd trenches - written on a semi-regular basis.
Adjusting to the Era of Big Ghost
This year saw the completion of the National Folklore Survey For England, and around Halloween, stats on supernatural beliefs were published that surprised some people - especially the finding that younger generations are increasingly embracing supernatural beliefs. A real cultural shift!
I really enjoyed this piece by Sean Morley who spoke to folklorist Dr David Clarke about the survey and how ‘supernatural beliefs are flourishing in an era of isolation and mistrust’. Highly recommended!
My Review of NightWatch
I recently watched NightWatch on the BBC - starring Daisy May and Charlie Cooper - and was pleasantly surprised by how refreshingly it approached the genre, ditching the usual ghost hunting tropes. I wrote up my thoughts for The Skeptic: The BBC’s NightWatch is a control group for Ghost Hunting TV.
Nationwide Archival Reports
This week I’ve been mostly watching vintage clips of the BBCs Nationwide (1960s-70s) via the BBC Archives YouTube Channel - such as this one about the Enfield Poltergeist, featuring Maurice Grosse very much in his element.
They’ve curated a spooky watchlist on their channel that you can access here. My personal highlights include the 1976 Hexham Heads Werewolf report, the 1973 report on Exorcising the Loch Ness Monster (obviously), and this 1973 report on the Warminster UFO Phenomena, which I thought was absolutely delightful.
Monster Talk: Haunted Drawers
Spookily (some might say), just as the BBC Archive videos began popping up on my homepage, the always-wonderful MonsterTalk podcast released the episode below discussing some of the reports - including this episode about a haunted chest of drawers investigated by none other than Tony Cornell, Dr Alan Gauld, and David Berglas.
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That concludes The Ghost Geek Friday Files #1 - have a lovely weekend! ✨