Have you seen this house?

ALERT

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS HOUSE?

Age: uncertain, possibly Georgian (app. 160 - 280 years old)

General appearance: large; brickwork

Distinguishing marks: variable

Area of sighting: variable, general area of Rougham, Kingshall St, Bradfield St George (Suffolk), UK

Location of last sighting: Kingshall Street (unconfirmed)

Date of last sighting reported: October 2007 (unconfirmed)

Present whereabouts: unknown

The house is not known to be dangerous, but due to its highly unpredictable nature approach is discouraged.

If you happen to see it, immediately contact this blog's mistress or your nearest time slip investigator.

***

Have you ever owned, or stayed in, a "mobile home"?

It's fun. Not for very long, but it is fun. Especially if somebody else is driving.

Especially if somebody else is driving.

In England, however - as well as in some other places - there are a few homes that are mobile in a very special way. They take off on their own - brick, mortar and all. And nobody knows what, ahem, drives them to do so.

Furthermore, they appear in places far removed from their original location, wherever that is or was.

And most interesting of all: there seem to be places, i.e. geographical spaces, with special attraction to such wayward houses.

The most famous such place appears to be the area around Rougham, in Suffolk (England). According to Betty Puttick's book Ghosts of Suffolk, there have been sightings of a house - possibly just one, the same house in all cases (but there is no way to ascertain it without a doubt) - all over the place.

Its rise to fame started in 1934, when Edward Bennett was compiling his book Apparitions And Haunted Houses. At that time, he received a letter from a teacher, Miss Wynne, telling him of an extraordinary incident that happened in the autumn (possibly October) of 1926:

I came to live at Rougham, four miles from Bury St. Edmunds, in 1926. The district was then entirely new to me, and I and my pupil, a girl of 10, spent our afternoon walks exploring it. 

One dull, damp afternoon, I think in October 1926, we walked off through the fields to look at the church of the neighbouring village, Bradfield St. George. In order to reach the church, which we could see plainly ahead of us to the right, we had to pass through a farmyard, whence we came out on to a road.

We had never previously taken this particular walk, nor did we know anything about the topography of the hamlet of Bradfield St. George. Exactly opposite us on the further side of the road and flanking it, we saw a high wall of greenish-yellow bricks. The road ran past us for a few yards, then curved away from us to the left. We walked along the road, following the brick wall round the bend, where we came upon tall, wrought-iron gates set in the wall. I think the gates were shut, or one side may have been open.

 The wall continued on from the gates and disappeared round the curve. Behind the wall, and towering above it, was a cluster of tall trees. From the gates a drive led away among these trees to what was evidently a large house. We could just see a corner of the roof above a stucco front, in which I remember noticing some windows of Georgian design. The rest of the house was hidden by the branches of the trees. We stood by the gates for a moment, speculating as to who lived in this large house, and I was rather surprised that I had not already heard of the owner amongst the many people who had called on my mother since our arrival in the district....

My pupil and I did not take the same walk again until the following spring. It was, as far as I can remember, a dull afternoon, with good visibility, in February or March. We walked up through the farmyard as before, and out on to the road, where, suddenly, we both stopped dead of one accord and gasped. "Where's the wall" we queried simultaneously. It was not there. The road was flanked by nothing but a ditch, and beyond the ditch lay a wilderness of tumbled earth, weeds, mounds, all overgrown with the trees which we had seen on our first visit. We followed the road on round the bend, but there were no gates, no drive, no corner of a house to be seen. We were both very puzzled.

At first we thought that our house and wall had been pulled down since our last visit, but closer inspection showed a pond and other small pools amongst the mounds where the house had been visible. It was obvious that they had been there a long time.

View Larger Map
A pond in Bradfield St. George, 
looking across the fields towards Rougham Green. 
If you look around the map and compare it to the description, 
it seems to correspond to the location described.
(EDIT: For some colour photographs of various points in the two women's itinerary - as well as a detailed examination of the route they took - see Carl Grove's excellent e-book mentioned elsewhere in this post and available at the URL specified in the comments section.)

 

One may be wrong regarding the age of a pond - nature can work very fast! - but this detail seems irrelevant anyway, because, apparently, nobody in the area ever heard of a house like the one she described standing where she said she and her pupil had seen it.

Or had they?

Further investigation, undertaken in the 1970s by a Mr. Leonard Aves, a skeptic local researcher, uncovered reports - and even a witness - of earlier sightings in the area.
 

In an issue of the Amateur Gardening magazine (December 20th, 1975), a Mr. James Cobbold (writing under a pseudonym) told of a "phantom house" that he said he saw with his own eyes when he was very young, in June of 1911 or 1912.


EDIT: See the scan of the original article, The Disappearing Garden, in the extraordinary work offered here by Carl Grove. (See the comments section on how to access it.)
 

According to him, on that day he was riding with a Mr Waylett, a local butcher, on his cart. They were driving along Kingshall Street, when "the air suddenly filled with a peculiar swishing sound" and the temperature seemed to drop considerably. The horse was startled out of its wits; Mr Waylett was thrown off the cart, while young Cobbold tried to control the animal.

As he was struggling with the horse, he said, he suddenly saw a three-storey, double-fronted, red brick, Georgian-style house, standing where there had been no house before; not only that but it came with a well appointed garden, "with six flower beds in full bloom".

And there was more: "a kind of mist seemed to envelop the house, which I could still see, and the whole thing simply disappeared, it just went'."

View Larger Map

Kingshall Street, Rougham

Young Mr Cobbold may have been amazed; not so Mr Waylett. Apparently, he had seen the house a number of times before. And, as it turned out, there had been sightings of the house in Cobbold's own family.
In June 1860 or thereabouts, his own grandfather (great-grandfather, according to other sources), Robert Palfrey, was stacking hay, or something like that. As he lifted his eyes, there was suddenly a house where there was none just seconds - and, presumably, centuries (if not millenia) - before. He described it as an ornate red brick house, "standing" around the area of Gypsy Lane, close to a wooded area known as Colville's Grove - not too far from the location where Miss Wynne later reported having seen it.

Such erratic behaviour earned the house a name: "the Rougham mirage".

But is it a mirage?
Not in Mr. Aves's opinion:

I considered that it might have been a mirage, but I have some experience of mirages and I believe this apparition to be too large to be encompassed in one. At least I have never heard of a mirage that large in this country. Furthermore, for it to have been a mirage would mean that there would have to have been such a house not too far away and we cannot find any traces of one within a reasonable radius.

And if it were a mirage, why does it appear - or so it seems - only in the relatively small area in and around Rougham?
(There are other such "mirages", not only in England but in other places, too - but more on that some other time.)

In later years, the house seemed to have more or less settled down somewhere, but recently it seems to have started reappearing again - unless it's only due to the fact that people are simply more willing to talk about it now. A year ago, it even made the headlines:

Ghostly mansion spotted in Suffolk

EDIT: For details on this case - including the photograph of the experiencer, Mrs Jean Batram - see Carl Grove's interview with Mrs Batram in his extensive published investigation. (See the comments section on how to obtain it.)

 
And - this is news - according to a local historian, Mr. Sage, there is evidence that a house once stood in the area of Kingshall (it might explain the name), but nothing is known about its appearance.

(Speaking of appearances... "Georgian", of course, means from a period between, roughly, 1720 and 1840. That's not very long ago, especially not in a place like Britain, where people occasionally have slippers older than that. A "Georgian" house would certainly be not only remembered but would have been properly recorded by local historians. That would lead to the - perhaps premature - conclusion that IF there had been a house in the area, as Mr Sage claims, it would almost certainly not correspond to the descriptions people gave of this fugitive house. 

You may be thinking: "But these people are not architecture historians. What do they know?" No, they are not historians. But this style is well known - and well loved - in Britain, so even non-specialists are familiar with it.)


ADDENDUM (25. III. 2011): 
Here's another version of the story, by Chris Jensen Romer, with a very important update of sorts. If you're interested in this case, this is mandatory (not to mention delightful) reading.

That's not all.

Recently, and quite unsurprisingly, the "Rougham mirage" even worm(hol)ed its way onto YouTube. (But of course... Gotta keep with the times.)

"The contents of the video have never been explained."

Indeed... like, why exactly was the girl videorecording her dog in the first place?

Of course it's a hoax - what did you think? ;)
But at least it may keep people on the lookout for the real thing... or whatever it is.

ADDENDUM (4. V. 2015):

A reader, Carl Grove, has kindly provided us - meaning the readers, too - with a huge and incredibly thorough, 87 pages long compilation of data on this story (including pictures, scans, transcripts of relevant historic documents plus meticulous reference notes) which also includes many, many original findings and thoughts. It is a veritable monograph on this case - and it is being offered to us for free.
If you are interested in this particular story, Carl's PDF is an absolute must-have.
See the last comments below for the URL.

Thank you very much, Carl!

DO NOT MISS: For another story featuring a "mirage" and startled horses, have a look here.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

Moving House

Another vanished house


 
* The photo at the top of the page shows a road in the actual area of Rougham.

The hills are alive

There's nothing quite like a trip with a twist: an unexpected sight, an unplanned detour, maybe even getting lost... for a little while.
(I adore getting "lost" on a trip, although I rarely succeed, much to my chagrin; and unless you are in the Amazonian jungle, or the Sahara, or something like that, it's not really dangerous.)

Only, it's usually the sightseers who stray - not the sights themselves.

And yet, just that apparently happened to an English couple, Mr and Mrs Allan (the names are not real), in the 1950s. 
(EDIT: About their identity see the update here.)

This story - for some reason, one of my favourite time slip stories - is described in H. Brennan's book Time Travel: A New Perspective (p. 63), and he got it from Colin Wilson (Beyond the Occult, 1989).

Please note that, at this time, I do not have direct access to Wilson's work, so I will have to rely on Brennan's account. I am also drawing on a very lucid little article, written by Alan Murdie (scroll down to the section called "Time slips").

According to these sources, in 1954 - in the days of yore when not everyone had a car - Mr and Mrs Allan went on a day trip to the countryside.

I don't know where they were originally headed to, but apparently they missed their bus stop and found themselves in the village of Wotton instead. (N.B. Brennan calls the village "Wotton Hatch". But according to the holy internet - which is not always right, I know -, there is only a pub by that name in Britain; the village itself is called simply Wotton.)

As any true traveller, they decided to seize the day and make the most of this unexpected detour. So they headed for the family church of John Evelyn, to do some sightseeing.

Church of St John the Evangelist, Wotton (Surrey)
Copyright Hugh C.
Taken from here.

When they came out of the church and crossed the churchyard, they saw an overgrown path leading onto a hill nearby. The Allans let themselves be lured by it and followed the path, which led them to a clearing, with a simple wooden bench on it. From there, Brennan reports, there was "an excellent view of the valley".

What better place to eat the sandwiches they had brought with them?
So they sat, ate and watched, ate some more, watched some more.

At some point during this improvised lunch al fresco, something extraordinarily odd is said to have happened to them.

A sudden silence descended upon the place, and, according to Brennan, Mrs Allan "became utterly convinced that three men had entered the clearing behind them. She could see them so clearly in her mind's eye that she was able to note one was wearing clerical garb. But when she tried to turn around, she found she was paralyzed." (N.B. A later mention in Brennan's book also tells of a reported "drop in temperature" they both felt.)
After a few moments "the feeling passed and the Allans left the clearing in a thoroughly disoriented state". (For more details, be sure to consult Murdie's article.)

The account of the first visit ends here.
But two years later, in 1956, Mrs Allan returned to Wotton. She revisited the church, but she couldn't find the path that had led them up the hill during their first visit.

Even more extraordinarily, the hill itself was not there anymore.

I can easily imagine the animated conversation that ensued when Mrs Allan returned home and told her husband about it... Unsurprisingly, Mr Allan decided to revisit the area himself - only to find that his wife had been telling the truth. The path, the hill, the bench were nowhere to be seen; furthermore, he was told that there was no "wooden seat" anywhere on church grounds.

Twenty years later the Allans, or somebody on their behalf, must have reported this oddity to the Society for Psychical Research, because it apparently investigated the case (in 1974).

It turned out - so the book reports - there never had been a hill there.

But, eerily, the Society did find a 17th century record - an entry (March 15th, 1696) in John Evelyn's diary - of three convicts having been executed on the approximate spot where the "hill" had stood - and one of them had been a clergyman.


Brennan concludes, quite endearingly, that "no spirits of the departed, no natural tape recordings can produce a hill for you to climb and a seat for you to sit on. Only a time slip can account for that".

Indeed... provided there was a hill there at any point in time.
But according to the reports, nobody knew of a hill having been there at any time.
(It is possible, of course, to remove hills. However, it seems highly unlikely that such a huge undertaking would not have been recorded.)

But was the area really as "flat" as that?

Here's how Brennan describes the findings regarding the area: "Nowhere in the area bore any resemblance to the hill, clearing and bench the Allans described."

And now consider this passage from a description of Wotton, including the church of St. John the Evangelist (Evelyn's church), and its surroundings (published in 1911):


The church of ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST /.../ is most beautifully situated on the summit of a steep ridge, its east and south sides overlooking a beautiful green valley and the hillside opposite/.../. In the hollow behind this hill, to the south east, lies Wotton House. The churchyard is surrounded by noble trees—here, again, in some cases, of Evelyn's planting. /.../

The traveller, on foot or horseback (the road is not one for wheels), passing from the chalk country sees in front of him an ascending mass of broken sand hills /.../. Leaving Wotton House on the right a bridle road /.../ leads up the valley where John Evelyn first began the ornamental planting of his brother's grounds. /.../. Passing on by another hamlet, King George's Hill, so named from a now extinct public-house, the path leads out on to the heather-covered common of Leith Hill. A view opens gradually to the west, as the ground ascends, but it is not till the traveller reaches the southern brow of the hill that the panorama bursts suddenly upon him. The summit of Leith Hill is the highest spot in the south-east of England, 967 ft. above the sea.



Being far too far from Wotton - Hatch and all - to inspect the area in person, I decided to "investigate" the surroundings of Saint John's church in Wotton by means of old photographs, drawing and prints available on the internet.

Here is a series of old prints depicting the church and the surroundings. There is no hill in sight - although rarely is the angle wide enough to really provide a good idea of the surroundings. (In other words, there might have been a hill at the time of the artist's work, but it isn't visible on any of the prints.)

However, this photo (1919) seems to have been taken from a (low) hill. (It could have been taken from a building, but I don't think there are any on this particular spot.) The church is nearby, so this could have been the hill the Allans visited, or thought they did, although it doesn't seem to offer a particularly "excellent view of the valley".


Did the Allans confuse the place with some other?
Anything is possible, of course, but it seems extremely unlikely, considering that, between the two of them, they visited Wotton and the church on at least three occasions.

Were they lying?
Again, anything is possible - but it doesn't sound like it.
(Who, pray, would invent a story like that?)
Besides, I doubt that the Society for Psychical Research, as kooky as it may appear to so called "skeptics", would neglect that possibility and fail to first investigate the credibility of the story (and of the Allans themselves, I hope).

Unless, of course, the Allans did visit Wotton Hatch, after all.
We all know what mighty spirits abide in bottles... :)
(Yes, of course I am kidding.)


For the record, I tend to believe this story really happened as the Allans told it.
I just don't know - I suspect nobody does - what exactly happened.

For a tentative explanation I will refer you once again to Murdie's article.

What do you think happened?

A room with a view

In my last post I questioned the validity of almost automatic attribution of apparent time/space anomalies to "ghosts".

The story that follows - it's very short (always a commendable virtue in my book), taken from the files of the American Society for Psychical Research - adds little or nothing towards the clarification* of this issue, but it does further illustrate my point (I hope).

If you are from Nebraska, you have probably heard it before.

Then again, I am not, and I have heard it myself. I read it, to be precise, in Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe.

On page 227-228, he speaks of "a woman identified only by the name Buterbaugh", who "looked out the window of her office at Nebraska Wesleyan University and saw the campus as it was fifty years earlier. Gone were the bustling streets and the sorority houses, and in their place was an open field and a sprinkling of trees, their leaves aflutter in the breeze of a summer long since passed".

Charming. ;)

But Talbot's account, while succinct and enticing (certainly enticing enough for me to have remembered it), sounds a little vague. Expressions like "a woman only identified as Buterbaugh" certainly don't help building an impression of credibility.

The good news is that the story is relatively recent and that it involves people whose existence seems to present little doubt (although I should tell you that I usually try to "investigate" them anyway**) .

Furthermore, in the years since the publication of Talbot's book it has spread to other sources of information and is now to be found in versions that contain some more (and quite reassuring) details.

We now know the exact date when it's supposed to have happened: October 3, 1963.

We also know that Buterbaugh's name was Coleen and that she was a secretary at the university.

However, those extended versions feature another player, also a woman: Miss Urania Clara Mills, the former head of the university's music department. She was appointed to that position in 1912, and occupied it until her death, at age sixty, in 1940. (But the accounts - and supposed date - of her death seem to vary; see below.)

Be it as it may, it was apparently Miss Mills' room at the university where the unsuspecting Miss Buterbaugh was confronted with a vista like no other.

Here is a short version posted on a genealogy site:

"The ghost of Miss Urania Clara Mills haunted the C.C. White Memorial Building on this campus. The huge brick building, erected between 1903 and 1907, housed the Music Department, where Miss Mills taught from 1912 to 1936. On October 3, 1963, Mrs. Coleen Buterbaugh, a secretary to Dean Sam Dahl, was in the music building on an errand.

When she entered the rooms of Dr. Tom McCourt she was overcome by a strong, musty odor. Then she saw the apparition of a tall, thin woman reaching for some papers on the top shelf of an old music cabinet in a corner. Looking out the window, Coleen realized it was summertime and the sun shining and flowers blooming. Suddenly the ghostly scene disappeared and the outdoor scenery returned to a gray October day.

When she told Dean Dahl about her experience, she launched an investigation and discovered that those rooms belonged to Clara Urania Mills. She had died on October 3, 1936, in the room across from where her ghost was seen. The case has become a classic in the literature of the paranormal.

The CC White Building was torn down in 1973."

Here is another one, an excerpt from an interesting article:

"Now that is a very good question," said Roger Cognard when asked if he believes in the ghost that haunts the university.

Cognard, a professor of English at Wesleyan, was reluctant to talk about his personal beliefs about Lincoln's most notorious ghost but was willing to tell the story.

On Oct. 3, 1963, the dean of the university sent his secretary, Coleen Buterbaugh, on an errand to the C.C. White Building on campus. She entered a room in the building and saw a woman dressed in early 20th century clothing. Buterbaugh looked out the room's windows and saw that the tall trees she had walked past before entering the building had transformed into small, recently planted ones.

The area surrounding the building appeared to be underdeveloped and resembled what it would have looked like 50 years in the past. Buterbaugh turned and ran.

Upon hearing his secretary's account of the story, the dean sent Buterbaugh to a faculty member who had worked at the university the longest.

He showed her a yearbook, and she proceeded to flip through it, eventually identifying the woman she saw as Urania Clara Mills, a former music teacher at the school.

Buterbaugh was unaware that 23 years prior, Mills walked into the room Buterbaugh entered, sat in a chair and died of a heart attack.

"I came here one year after the incident and got to know the dean real well," Cognard said, "He is a credible man and he accepted his secretary's story as gospel."

But there is another version, much more extensive, where the apparent time slip, amazingly, plays only a minor role:

Nebraska's Haunted Colleges
(by Troy Taylor)

Go ahead, read it.

I'll wait...

(The C.C White Memorial building as it was cca 1906 - 1920.
Photo taken from here.)

So, how did you like it?

What I like about this version is that it questions the date of Miss Mills' death. According to them, the most probable date of death is April 12, 1940 (not even remotely close to October 3, 1936).

What I don't like about it (through no fault of the author) is the fact that there is no mention of that ancient summer's day - in October - with breeze wafting through the leaves of long-gone trees.

And yet, it is precisely that purported fleeting view from the window, into a summer long gone, which not only justifies the inclusion of this interesting incident here, but, more importantly, proves - at least in my mind - that Miss Mills, or whoever that apparition was, was not a "ghost".

As I see it, Miss Buterbaugh somehow entered a point in space/time that included that woman's presence (very real at the time - in her own real time). She entered a moment - a summer's day - that, from her perspective, had passed "long ago", but in reality, in the fullness of time, that moment still is. All moments, past and future, still are.

Miss Mills (asuming that it was her presence) may have somehow triggered an apparent "rift" in the spacetime continuum. Or maybe she didn't - maybe something, or somebody, else did.

Was it Miss Mills' memory that Coleen Buterbaugh somehow accessed?

(That's one explanation that Charlotte Moberly offered for her trip extraordinaire.)
The vision of her reaching for a book would speak against that possibility. People do not usually "remember" themselves as they are seen from outside, by another pair of eyes.

Was it somebody else's memory, then?
Who knows.

Was Miss Mills - or somebody else? - reminiscing across time about her office, her daily work?

Or was she, with all of her life, somehow "hardwired" into the apparent separate space/time of that room - eternally present, so to speak? 
And did Miss Buterbaugh simply (simply?) got the wires of her "now" somehow crossed with the wires of Miss Mills' "now"?

Be it as it may, I have little doubt that Miss Buterbaugh really experienced what she said she had.

But were the presence(s) that she sensed "ghosts"?

Not as I understand them; not unless it is a name for images and other sensory perceptions somehow retrieved from the eternal NOW into the illusion of "present" (illusion in the sense of being separate from that "eternal now", I mean).

I will say this: music being intimately connected with the numerical repartition of time/space, it should come as no surprise that this string of incidents involves a musician.

Many of the physicists and/or mathematicians I know have great talent for music. (Dear old Albert - you know Albert - was a very accomplished violinist. Did you know that? Yes, I know you did. Only the smartest people come here. ;))

And I am almost sure Miss Urania Clara is dancing to the music of the spheres as we speak... in her own former office. In her own former life.

(Honestly: what else would you expect from someone called Urania Clara, I ask you...? ;)

***

* Pun on Miss Mills' middle name not intended - but welcome. ;)

** Somewhat irritatingly, Miss Mills does not appear on this group photo, taken in 1916. Much more unsettlingly, she is not even mentioned in the official catalogue issued by the Department of Music, in April 1916 - or anywhere on that site, for that matter.

For somebody who failed to appear in any photo of the staff, she certainly has a strong presence...

I am not saying that she didn't exist (in case you haven't noticed, the author of the article above gives a precise address for her - see the note at the bottom of the article); all I am saying is that I am yet to find photographic "proof" of her presence at the university.

I anticipate further edits to this post, so do come back at some later date. ;)

EDIT (23. XI. 08):

Actually I am not sure that the photo and the catalogue (see note **) were even published by the Wesleyan university - both refer to the University of Nebraska, which was in Lincoln at the time (or so it seems).
The fact remains that her name is not mentioned on that site.
(Nor is Miss Buterbaugh's, for that matter.)

What Is (Not) a Ghost?

If it looks human but it shouldn't be there (wherever that is), the answer that immediately seems to spring to mind is: what is a GHOST!*

Entire TV series (we're not naming any names...) are based on the clay feet of this paltry concept.

I am somewhat reluctant to include these musings here, since this blog is not supposed to be about »ghosts« - and there are many, many genuine time/space displacement stories waiting for their turn to be told here. 

 
And since "ghost" stories transcend the usual perceived boundaries of every single time/space continuum – AKA the present – it is somewhat tricky to discuss them here, in this space dedicated to perceived time/space anomalies. Because once the floodgates are open, this space could soon outgrow its carefully trimmed hedges and burst into the anarchy of (yet another!) generically »paranormal« blog. (The fact that the blog mistress is para-normal should be more than enough, for the time being...)

But it occurs to me that we don't really know what so-called »ghosts« really are. And I don't think they can even be lumped together into a single category, however broad.

 

I love a good – let me emphasise that: GOOD – ghost story. Who doesn't?

But there really aren't all that many around – good ones, I mean.
(On the other hand, there are quite a few very good ones that aren't »around«, because the world has simply not heard of them yet.)

I don't know about you, but I've always found it somewhat irritating that so many people – even documentary film-makers and such – jump to conclusions regarding the nature and origins of apparitions and other para-physical phenomena indicating a sort of human presence.
 

Whenever the presence of such a phenomenon is established, it is followed – and, usually, preceded – by stories of somebody living and/or dying in the place that is »haunted«, often without any evidence that the apparition is in fact linked with the specific person(s) who supposedly lived and/or died in the house.

In short, among those who give any credence to the phenomenon at all, ghosts seem to be widely identified with »wandering souls«; they are thought to be ex-people, if you'll excuse the pythonesque allusion, who for some reason couldn't »rest in peace«.

And what irritates me the most is precisely the absence of questions – of questioning - regarding the actual origins of such apparitions.

And yet, some apparitions are clearly not the result of »tormented« spirits. Such is the famous case of the Roman regiment – complete with a horse – that is said to have been seen (in 1953, by one Harry Martindale) marching through a cellar of the Treasurer's House in York (England).

The soldiers were said to have a haggard, disheveled – tired? – appearance, which would be in no way unusual, considering their occupation.

More unusually, however, the lowest part of their bodies, from the knees down, seemed to have vanished.

Were they victims of a shin-worshiping tribe or something? 
Maybe the local women craved their footwear and the soldiers wouldn't part with it?

Hardly: as I said, they appeared to be marching through the cellar, only the lower part of their legs was unseen. 
And we do know there was a Roman road leading through that future cellar – and that the street level was a feet or two lower than the level of the ground today. Get it? (Or should I say, "Dig it"?)

Here is a good (if short) account of the story (from The Independent):


EDIT (March 18, 2011): The link is dead, and the Wayback Machine does not have it archived. In other words, the article is gone, gone, gone.
Serves me right for being always so ridiculously scrupulous about linking (only) to other sites. I should've snatched the article while it was there!
Anyway, here is a new link: Ciaran Brown Meets Harry Martindale.

 
(And here is an entry about Roman structures in non-haunted cellars from a wonderful history blog, with some humourous comments, one of which includes an allusion to this story: WHAT YOU CAN FIND IN CELLARS.)

However, even the most pedestrian programmes about "haunted" places can yield surprisingly productive thoughts.

I was (semi)watching a programme about »ghosts« on the TV the other day.

Semi-watching TV is they key word here; with the »corner« of your eye you can sometimes catch more than you would normally. And with the »corner« of your mind, you can sometimes catch thoughts that might not occur to you normally. (Of course, being sleep-deprived helps, too...)

There was talk coming out of the TV about a certain room in a certain hotel that is supposedly »haunted« (and there are many such hotel rooms across the world). Purportedly, people often see "shadows" or "grey" apparitions of people wandering through the room before disappearing as suddenly as they appeared.

So far, so good... But wouldn't you know it: immediately the team proceeded to investigate whether somebody died in that room.

Why?

Why would a deceased person linger around the place of their death? 

(Or around their graves, for that matter - unless they were cemetery lovers in life, I suppose.)

What IF some of the localised, i.e. space-specific, »apparitions« and other, non-visual manifestations of a human »presence« are really the effect of that person's (the ghost-to-be) mental revisiting (remembering, if you will, only with more intensity than usually) the spaces that were important to them – from within their own timeline? Or, perhaps more accurately, across time.

(Or maybe the place wasn't even all that important to them; maybe their thought - or their "astral body", as many like to call it - simply wandered into their room because of some random mental association?)

Could this explain appearances such as the one Ingmar Bergman reportedly witnessed in a theatre? Or the summery vision of a Miss Buterbaugh?

I for one have the distinct impression that all times really DO exist all at once.
(But more on that some other time. Besides, there is a wonderful collection of books listed on the right side of this page that discuss just that. You don't have to buy them - borrow them, and I am sure at least one or two of them will be worth your while.)

I hear you: it is rather thankless to offer a theory that cannot be supported by evidence and is, furthermore, based on another unsupported theory...

But thinking is fun. ;)

So... what do you think?

* For those who are not familiar with American pop culture, this unusual form of expressing an answer refers to a very popular quiz show called Jeopardy.