The Worst Ghosts of 2020
An examination of the worst ghost evidence to hit the headlines in the last 12 months
Welcome, one and all, to the Worst Ghosts of 2020. I’ve written a list of the Worst Ghosts of the Year every year since 2010 because that’s the sort of person I am. These ghosts aren’t the worst because of their malevolence but simply because they’re... a bit rubbish.
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 ✨