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Oct. 7, 2022 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
44:33
Edition 670 - "Ghost Special"
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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Thank you very much for your communications, whether they've come in via my website, theunexplained.tv, or whether they've come in as things that you posted on my Facebook page, the official Facebook page of The Unexplained with Howard Hughes, I'm very grateful.
Please let me know, certainly if you email who you are, where you are, and how you've made use of this show, whether you're new to the show, as some people are, or whether you've been listening to the show since it was on AM radio, and that's an awful long time ago now, that's 18 years.
Pretty much this month.
Whatever way that you've discovered this show and how recently, I'm keen to know your story.
It's just curiosity on my part, not that I'm keeping a database or anything sinister like that.
It's just, you know, I'm interested, I guess.
Thank you to Adam, my webmaster, for his continued work on this.
And just a word, of course, about The Unexplained Live, the cruise featuring some of your favorite guests from The Unexplained, including Nick Pope, who will be flying in specially from the United States to join the cruise.
And Dr. David Whitehouse, of course, famous ex-BBC Space and Science editor, author of many books, specifically on the subject of space recently, including Space 2069 and his recent book that is doing incredibly well, The Alien Perspective.
So an awful lot of common sense and interest from Dr. David Whitehouse.
An awful lot of fascination from Nick Pope.
We'll have Claire Broad, the medium there, who is one of my favorite people in the entire unexplained world.
Very down-to-earth approach.
And we will also have Dr. Melvin Willen talking about the Enfield-Poltergeist case and more.
So that's The Unexplained Live.
It's a beautiful cruise.
The whole thing is being staged by Tui, Tui Mirella, and I'm there to host front the events connected with The Unexplained on board.
But some beautiful places in the Mediterranean, all the way from Corfu and Malta and Spain and the Canary Islands, and a great experience, I think.
So still time to check that out at theunexplainedlive.com, the special website that will explain it all to you better than I'm doing now.
Okay, let's get to the content of this edition.
You might, if you'd seen the TV show, know that I did a ghost special hour recently, and I thought I would put it on here and just edit it for podcast use.
So, what you're going to hear are the Cornish Ghost Whisperers, including Candice, based on a story that I saw in the Daily Mirror.
The ghost of a child has been captured in an abandoned cottage by supernatural investigators.
A member of Cornish Ghost Whisperers made the eerie revelation after exploring images taken from an old cottage in Boss Castle in Cornwall.
Beautiful location, amazing story, and you can see the image on the Daily Mirror website.
If you put in Cornish Ghost Whisperers, you'll see the actual story we were talking about.
And then another story from the Hull Daily Mail.
Paranormal investigators have shared details of what they say was their most terrifying discovery in a church near Hornsey.
Vic Harbord, Christine Towne, and reveal details of a particular investigation they did in Hull that turned out to be the most terrifying discovery that they'd had.
In fact, so terrifying that according to another newspaper, and I explore this with them, they decided to get ordained as a result of it.
But we'll hear about that.
And then after we've heard from the Cornish Ghost Whisperers and Vic Harbourd and Christine Townend, we'll hear from our friend Liz Cormel, medium and ghost investigator, about what's up with her at the moment, what she's been doing.
Fascinating material from her as ever and a great guest.
So this is the Ghost Special, edited for podcast use.
Let's start with the Cornish Ghost Whisperers.
All right, ghost this hour.
Daily Mirror.
Did you hear that creak, by the way?
listen to that now that's my chair but that's perfect for the It's never done that before.
I think they're with me here.
It could be the ghost of Mike Dicken.
For those of you who are aware of talk broadcasting in its finest days, might be him here.
A great van again.
Daily Mirror, the ghost of a child, has been captured in an abandoned cottage by supernatural investigators.
I'm getting really close to the mic here.
A member of Cornish Ghost Whisperers made the eerie revelation.
After exploring images taken from an old cottage at Boscastle, Candice, partner Nick Pierce and mum Suzanne make up the group with Candice previously sharing sightings of ghost dogs, demons and the spirit of a tin miner.
Her latest finding came after reviewing some footage captured last winter.
Well, we're not just going to show you pictures.
We're going to bring you the people themselves.
And there they are.
You look like the Bee Gees.
Oh, hello.
All right.
I mean, you could be singing Staying Alive.
How appropriate would that be?
College Ghost Whisperers.
So hang on.
We're going, and we've got Nick on the left.
Yep.
Candice in the middle.
And Suzanne.
And mum.
So it's all in the family, isn't it?
It is.
Digging the beard, Nick.
Superb.
Absolutely.
Now, listen, I'm very impressed by College Ghost Whispers because I noticed today you have got 10,000 followers on Facebook.
21,000.
Holy moly.
How long have you been doing it for?
About two years.
Doing the lives, yeah, and just doing some investigations before that.
And you live stream some of these.
I haven't seen those.
Yeah, yeah, we've been doing live streams.
Okay, and how do you...
It is full of history.
Obviously, it is.
You've got pirates and tin mines.
You explore one of those.
But there's, you know, castles, Merlin, and all sorts of stuff around Cornwall.
So I can understand that there's a lot of stuff to investigate, but how do you identify the places that you want to go?
Just the feeling, really.
Just the feeling we get.
Just drawn to places.
Right, okay.
And the place that we're talking about here, the one that got you in the papers, not just the Daily Mirror, but other papers, this was the ghost of a child in an abandoned cottage, a Boscastle.
And, you know, I can quite understand why the papers pick this up because look at that.
I mean, there's a thing called pareidolia where your brain makes an image where there isn't one, really.
But if that's not the face of a person, I don't know what it is.
No, that was crazy.
So talk to me about, I know you didn't see the image at the time.
You had to go back and review the footage that you took there.
Talk to me about the location.
Talk to me about how you got this image and where exactly you got it.
We basically went down there.
We were going to go and film down at the graveyard first of all, Minster's Church, which has got a witch buried there.
And it's just loads of witches have been seen in the woods around there.
Anyway, we drove our car a little bit further up and we come across this like little stone house, like a little cottage, and the door was open.
Wow.
So it was.
Abandoned.
Yeah, abandoned, yeah.
Yeah, nothing there.
But there was a wooden pentagram in there made of sticks on the floor near the fireplace in there.
An old fireplace.
Hang on, this sounds like something from the horror movie channel.
That kind of suggests, doesn't it, if it's a wooden pentagram that somebody's doing witchcraft?
Yeah, it was on the floor when we arrived.
Yeah, when we arrived.
And it was all dark in there.
There's no windows.
There's a fireplace.
Okay.
Loads of spiders.
And I think we've got the picture.
Can we just stick the picture up there just to see that again?
Now, you took what, video footage while you were there?
Yes, we did a live, actually.
We did a live investigation, but we didn't go around taking photos before.
Right.
And this didn't appear on the live?
No.
No, this was taken on a photograph.
I mean, yeah, I'm looking at it now, and my viewer can probably see it more clearly than I can, but I'm seeing it on a small screen.
And what I'm seeing is somebody with dark eyes, a fairly prominent nose, a less prominent mouth, average, nicely defined chin.
I'm assuming that this person is young because of the long hair there, but the face looks young and a neck.
That's what I'm seeing.
Yes.
So does that tie into anything that you've been able to find out about anybody who might have lived there?
No, we don't really know what the place is about.
We only just found it.
We know more about the graveyard, which when we were down there, we had some more activity.
We use a paranormal music box and it lights up.
It's like a trigger object and it actually moved by itself and we have that on camera as well in the graveyard where the witch is buried.
And you're sure of the history of the witch?
You checked that out?
Yes, I've seen some things about it, but we weren't quite sure, were we, when we first got there, but we just sort of, yeah...
Have you had any comeback from people, any feedback from people about, I know who that might have been?
No, I mean, a lot of people just say it's a child, really.
Nobody really knows.
We get a lot of children, don't we?
Yeah, we have a lot of children's spirits.
We have a lot of everything.
And you're absolutely sure that that is not an artifact or something that's been captured on the, what do they call those things, the receptor of the, you know, the video device, the camera, that it's not something that was there before?
No, I didn't see anything there.
Nothing visible like that.
No, just the fireplace and the building.
It's quite dark.
We just flash, you know, take those pictures.
We go through millions of pictures all the time.
But that is, I mean, look, we're seeing it again now.
I'm trying to not see a face, but I'm seeing a face because it is so well defined.
And that doesn't look like anybody you know and nobody that you've been taking pictures of?
No, nobody we've caught.
So what are you going to do about this now?
Because what you've done by getting this into the papers is you've set up a mystery, haven't you?
And the thing about a mystery is that everybody wants to solve it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what happens now?
I think we go back.
We definitely go back.
Definitely go back.
And, you know, I think maybe move her on to the light.
Right.
So you're going to try what?
Exorcism?
No, just a removal, you know, just to follow the light.
Right.
So just gently saying, I mean, they say you can do this, don't they?
That you gently suggest that, you know, you're trapped here.
And sometimes you have to acquaint whatever it is, if you believe in these things.
You have to acquaint whatever it is with the fact that it's dead, that she is not here anymore, and gently lead her to where, you know, wherever she needs to be.
She needs to go.
Wow.
When are you going to do that?
We're hoping to get up there in a couple of months' time.
I've got a little one now, so it's taken up a lot of my time.
Well, listen, I'm going to follow you now.
I'm going to become one of the 21,000.
I think you're great.
But, you know, I love the way that you've set up your video too, because, you know, you look so professional there.
And I just, I wanted you to sing in harmony.
It would have worked so well.
But we'll leave that for next time.
Thank you so much for Cornish Ghost Whisperers.
That's Candice and Nick and Suzanne, who had an experience of Boscastle and they're hoping to have some more.
Now another strange story, because this is a ghost hour, right?
So ghost hours are always full of ghost stories.
And this one, Daily Mirror, and also Hull Live did this story too.
Paranormal investigators became so spooked, They became ordained.
Paranormal investigators have shared details of what they say was their most terrifying discovery in a church near Hornsey, Vic Harbourd and Christine Townend, revealed details of a particular investigation they did in Hull that turned out to be their most terrifying discovery.
It happened one night at St. Lawrence Church in Atwick, near Hornsey.
It's about eight years ago now, but it was so spooky, apparently, that they decided to become ordained after that.
And they're both online to us now, Vic Harbourd, Christine Tarden.
Thank you very much for coming on.
Good evening.
Good evening.
So talk to me about this experience that was so profound that you decided to become, well, effectively get ordained in the church.
Well, it all started.
We actually run the East Yorkshire Psychic Research Group and there's over 60 members.
We written and went to this well in Hattig where there's all these legends of hobgoblings and different things.
So went down there to investigate it.
We didn't intend to go to the church and we took photographs with all the rest of the team.
We ended up going to the church and we had a spirit box with us, you know, like a Ouija board, electric Ouija board.
Right.
Is that one of those things that tunes up and down FM radio stations?
That's right.
It stops at a word.
And, you know, people who do these things, if you go to the right location, they say that it will make sometimes logical statements and sentences.
That's true.
Okay.
So we took one of those there.
We took them, went to this churchyard, eventually as we walked down the lane.
And once we arrived in the churchyard, we set it up and I said, if there's anyone there, we don't mean you any harm.
Would you like to come and talk to us?
And I let Christine take over the next bit.
Yeah, we actually stood near this tree.
And the reason being, this tree, when I walked past it, it gave me this eerie feeling.
I felt the creeps, you know, it gave me the creeps.
So I said to Vic, we'll stand here.
This tree is giving me the creeps.
So basically, he had the spirit box.
I had the dictaphone.
We began the investigation.
And must have been about 10 minutes into the investigation, Vic said, is anyone here?
Come forward.
Come forward to the tree.
Make a noise on this box.
If you speak, it'll pick your voice.
I heard something drop then.
Was that something paranormal, do you think?
No.
You just dropped your pen.
That's a cup of tea being made in the back.
By a ghost, hopefully.
Anyway, sorry.
You were saying.
Yeah, so obviously Vic was saying, come forward to the tree.
And about 10 minutes into it, I heard a growl.
And I looked.
It seemed to come from the ground.
A growl.
A growl, yes.
And I looked and I'm thinking, I've just heard a growl.
No, I can't believe it.
Obviously, I didn't believe it.
But it seemed to be coming from the ground.
And as I looked towards the ground, I heard the growl again.
And I'm thinking, yes, I do believe it.
I've just heard a growl.
And I must have heard it another two times.
And as I looked towards the ground, I saw this translucent thing moving in the grass.
So I turned to Vic and I said, Vic, I've just heard a growl.
And basically, I just finished my sentence.
Before I could say any more, I heard the growl again.
And then Vic heard the growl.
I heard the growl and I saw the ground move myself.
And what about this translucent thing?
It was like, you always describe it.
But Vic, as soon as he said he heard the growl, he said the ground's moving.
So obviously he interpreted it a different way.
But yeah, it was how I'd describe it is, you've seen the film Predator, it's in the trees and you see this like image, but you can't really, it's clear, but it's there.
That's basically how I'll describe it.
And I did a silly thing.
I walked towards it, which was a silly thing to do.
And it shot under the ground.
And we actually took some photographs and we've got this face in the church window, which we don't know what it was.
The paper did print a few things wrong.
So we wasn't terrified.
We actually said a prayer without the other members, which hit two bangs at the same time.
And we went nud a pant.
And then we went, disgusting.
And we decided to...
No fear for you then.
Oh, well.
What was Andrew?
Yeah, we took it as a warning.
A warning.
So you think that something was trying to see you off?
Yes, yes, definitely.
Without a doubt.
And do you believe that there are, you know, we all know about ghosts.
We talk about them on this show all the time.
They are the faces and presences of people who've lived before, they say.
But there's also claims of a whole substratum, if that's the right word, of presences, of beings, of entities.
There is definitely.
As well as doing that, actually, this story is from our book.
We've written a book and it knows.
And it's one of the stories.
It's in the book.
That's how the press changes.
See, I was about to ask you, why are you talking about this after eight years?
And now you've answered the question before I've been.
To be honest, the papers got hold of it through the book.
We're trying to push our book.
It is a great story, but according to the papers, you were so terrified.
Well, you said you weren't because you went and had a pint afterwards.
But you were so impacted by this, you went and got ordained in the church.
Is that right?
Yes, not in that church.
We got ordained to an American church because we felt that it was a safety thing more than anything.
But since then, we do do mini exorcisms and blessings and we move quite a few spirits on and do you think that by being ordained things like you experienced at that place would be wary of giving you a problem would be wary of intimidating you would know you're ordained so we'd like to think so i'd like to point out at this point and all that the seven people that was with us uh i was uh on the ambulance service 15 years christine's a chief security officer
who's with one of her colleagues.
We had an ex-police officer with us.
We had also an ex-sister, maternity sister with us.
And then we had one chap that's died since, unfortunately, and a lady that worked in one of the shops.
So there wasn't all experience.
Because you said that the two of you experienced it differently.
Did those people experience it differently?
They heard bangs.
Two real people had bangs.
Yeah, they didn't hear the growls.
They didn't hear the growls.
We was the only two.
Have you been back there?
After a few years, we did go back.
But funny enough, at the same time, we actually went to see the local vicar who is also the Minister of Deliverance for the Church of England.
He wasn't.
The exorcist.
Yes.
And he wouldn't listen to us.
He wouldn't listen to us at all.
Did he think it was nonsense or was it?
He said it's probably a dog.
It's a dog.
It's a dog.
But we know different.
We know different.
We were very apprehensive when we heard it because we didn't know what we're dealing with.
Well, no, I would be fairly apprehensive myself if this translucent thing disappeared.
You were saying?
Yeah.
The picture in the window is obviously the face is looking at us from inside the church because of the stained glass.
It's behind the stained glass.
So whatever's behind the stained glass is aware of what's going on with you outside.
Yes.
God, that is an astonishing story.
After doing so well telling that story, the two of you now as we come into the final seconds of this, please publicise the book.
Go ahead.
If you can send us an email with the address, we'll send you a copy.
Okay, I'd love to see it.
You know, either a PDF or a physical book.
But what's the book called and how do people get it?
Heaven only knows.
Heaven only knows.
Okay.
Would you both like to appear on my podcast?
Sorry, my producer, Mark.
I'm touting for podcast guests now.
You know, I do this podcast that was the start of all of this.
I would love to have you on.
Think about it anyway.
I'll send you an email.
Thank you very much, Judge.
Thank you very much indeed.
Terrifying.
I mean, look, I don't think I'd have been capable of going for a pint after an experience like that.
So I'm full of admiration to the two guests there, Vic Harboard and Christine Townend, along with on that specific occasion seven other people who also experienced something absolutely terrifying.
My thanks to the Cornish Ghost Whisperers.
You can check them out on Facebook, and I'm sure I will be speaking with them again.
Quite remarkable.
And also, of course, Vic Harboard and Christine Townend.
Now, to a friend of this show, discovered only comparatively recently in the history of the unexplained, and a gift that keeps on giving, Liz Cormel, medium and ghost investigator, former police force employee who worked in investigations, you'll hear how, who's turned her skills to working in ghost and paranormal investigations.
Here's the latest from Liz Cormel.
Okay, Liz Cormel is here, psychic medium, ghost investigator, friend of this show.
How are you, Liz?
I'm very good, thank you.
How are you?
Very good.
For my viewers who haven't seen you on here before, because you've been on once before, and my podcast listeners who've heard you because you were on two years ago, I think.
Talk to me about you then, Liz, because you worked for the police, didn't you?
I did, yes.
I was a CSI.
I was a forensic archaeologist and CSI for 15 years and a police trainer doing investigative training.
So I try and use those skills that I learnt with the police in my paranormal investigation.
Now, that's interesting.
And, you know, I might have asked you this question before, but we're on the telly now.
Let's ask it again.
All of the stuff that you were doing in the coppers for the police was science.
But the stuff you're doing now isn't.
You know, scientists will tell you it's not, even though some of them are investigating it.
So how did you become interested in those things, having worked in something that was nuts and bolts science?
Well, I knew from a very early age that I saw things that nobody else did.
And I guess the scientific part of me wanted to find out what it was.
If it wasn't explainable by science now, what is it?
Is it spirits?
Is it explainable by string theory?
How do we explain it?
And I guess you could look at it in a sense that anything, any discoveries within science were paranormal at one point before they were proven.
That's true.
So, okay.
When you were working for the police in that forensic capacity, did your mediumistic skills, your psychic sense, did they ever help you?
Did they ever help you catch anybody?
No.
I think because I believe that when people meet an untimely death, whether that's an accidental death or whether it's a death through activity from somebody else, whether it's murder or foul play, I think it takes an element of time for that spirit to become strong enough to make themselves known to cross the plane, to cross the veil.
So I've never actually come across a spirit of a person whose death I was investigating.
Because you're there too soon.
Yes, we're there when the body's still there.
So there are some people who say it takes three weeks.
Some other people say it takes four months.
I think it depends on the spirit personally.
It depends on the person, how strong that person was and how determined that person was.
So you're working for the police and you also have this psychic sense, you say.
And those two worlds then were completely separate for you?
One never intruded into the other?
There were certain things that I used intelligence-wise.
For instance, we had what we thought was potentially a ritual killing and I was able to use my knowledge of witchcraft to point the investigators in the direction of what possibly might have been going on and where the crime scene might be.
They'd got an idea.
It was in a clearing in some woods and I actually pinpointed exactly where in the woods they Should be looking.
It got a bit dodgy at one point because they were a bit confused as to how I knew and how I could describe the crime scene so perfectly.
And what did you tell them?
I told them that there would be four trees at each cardinal point of the compass, and the tree on the north would have a mounting plinth for some kind of statue or carving.
And the middle of the circle was where the ritual killing would have taken place.
And the crime scene investigators went back and explored the woods a bit further and found this clearing with four reasonably newly planted Christmas tree type trees.
And the larger tree on the north had a little plinth.
They looked at the bottom of the tree and there was a little statuette of CERN, the horn god.
My God, it's like something from a movie, isn't it?
It's like something, you know, you'd expect Edward Woodward to be, you know, ceremonially burned in the middle.
I mean, it's a horrible, horrible thing.
I mean, without going into details of the case and, you know, whatever subsequently transpired, were people brought to justice?
Yes, there were two people who were convicted of the murder of the poor gentleman who met his unfinished demise.
Horrible, terrifying thing.
And the fact that, when was this?
Off the top of my head, it was probably about 10 years ago.
All right, so those sorts of things still gone.
I had no idea.
Okay, so we come to the desire to explain in your mind what's happening with you.
How do I know these things?
And am I accessing some kind of other realm?
I want to know more about this.
How did you go about that?
Initially, I went about developing my skills as a psychic medium.
So that included basically going on as many investigations with as many different teams as possible and learning about investigating paranormal events, how different teams did it, what instruments they used, honing my skills as a psychic medium.
So getting more confident at believing what popped into my head in different places and being able to put that into words.
And I did that for three or four years before I then started researching into the potential explanations for the messages I was getting.
Okay.
And that's a little ways away from ghost investigation, isn't it?
I guess so, but it's still the main aim of most ghost hunters, I would say.
If you're investigating the paranormal, you want to find an explanation for what is causing the paranormal events.
I think maybe 60% of them are spirit-led.
So it is the spirit of a dead person communicating or acting in some way to make themselves visible or make others, living people aware that they're there.
I think there is other explanations for the other 40% of the experiences, whether that's time slips, whether that's the folds in time, different planes of existence, the mediumship side, I think there's a certain amount of potential, universal Google.
So some people can plug into the universal knowledge.
So if it's known the knowledge is out in the world, there is a theory that some people can plug into that knowledge.
The other theory is if there's one person in the room that knows of an event, the medium is actually getting that through ESP from the person who knows that.
So it's much more complex than people think it is.
It's not just there are spooks, they are in particular spooky locations.
There's much more to it.
Depends who's there.
I think so.
Yes.
Which brings me just before we get to commercials here.
I want to revisit this, even though we've talked about this before.
Because I came away with the thought that maybe because of what abilities you'd say that you have, there was one investigation that you did, the Draclow Tunnels in Kidderminster, which is a great location.
And we talked about the fact that it had been used, I think, for producing armaments in the war or something.
But they've always been used for something interesting.
And there's a bit of a mystique about these tunnels near Kidderminster, the Draclow Tunnels.
You and your team, and I always kind of had half a feeling that whatever it was knew you were there, were essentially hounded out of that place.
Just, you know, as we get to our break here and then we'll talk about more stuff, Liz, tell me the story.
Okay, so there was five of us, all experienced investigators.
We had the tunnels ourselves.
We were locked in.
We could get out in case of emergencies, but we effectively, nobody else could enter the tunnels.
We started exploring the tunnels using glow sticks to mark our way because there's, I think it's something like eight miles of tunnels.
It was a shadow factory in World War II for the construction industry.
And Rover was the other, the company that used it.
We started exploring and it felt to me almost instantly that something in the tunnels was trying to pull us apart, try and separate us down to individuals, to pick us off one by one, to put no finer point on it.
It got to the point where we had to take somebody out because they were overcome.
Somebody got scratched.
I kept reinforcing that we were staying together so nobody got lost.
And something would catch somebody's attention and they'd start wandering off down a tunnel.
We regrouped in the base room and while we were sat coming up with a plan of action for the next set of investigations, there was an enormous crashing noise from down one of the tunnels and it sounded to me like one of the metal blast doors had been ripped from its frame and thrown down one of the tunnels.
Unusually for the group, nobody got off up to go and investigate.
That's how spooked and unnerved we were in the location, which I was quite glad about because I would have had to have gone with them.
At which point I said, I'm not happy continuing.
There's something wrong.
It just feels too threatening.
I'm going to call time on the investigation, which again was very unusual because we had the place until seven in the morning.
And you've got such a good location, you're not going to do that lightly.
Yeah, it's the one and only time I've ever pulled an investigation early.
Gee, and this thing, whatever it was, and I guess you're still trying to work out what it was, unless since we last spoke, you've come up with a theory about it.
This thing effectively hounded you out of there, not only up to the big locking doors of this place, but into the car park.
Yes.
We'd taken five trips to get all the equipment into the tunnels.
We got it all out in one.
I went at the back to ensure that everybody got out safely.
As we reached the blast doors that were the main entrance at the time, we piled out like corks from a bottle, slammed the door behind us and something hit the inside of the door hard.
We kind of regrouped and thought, phew, that was a close escape.
What on earth was that?
Started loading cars up.
One of the team had parked on the upper car park.
So we drove her up to her car so she didn't walk up there by herself.
Then tried to get the door, the gates open, which was on a coded padlock, and the code wouldn't work.
We put it in five or six times, couldn't unlock the padlock.
Finally, having used exactly the same code, it opened no problem at all.
Then we discovered that the shooting bolt in the gate had been bent and it took the five of us manhandling the gate to actually finally get that open.
We pulled the cars through, locked the gates behind us, and then one of the guys who had a brand new months-old car, the electrics died completely.
Like you hear in the UFO stories where it just kind of goes and cuts out.
Yeah, so something was trying to keep us there.
We did get away safely, but as I was driving along the ridge that Drakelow Tunnels are inside of, underneath the Iron Age Hill Fort on Kinfer Edge, I could feel the energy kind of chasing us along inside the hill.
I have to say, Liz Cormel, we're going to take a break now, but as we come up to it, for my money and all the years of doing the unexplained, and that's more than 17, that is a candidate for the single most scary story that I've ever heard.
And I know we've told it before, but I never tire of hearing it.
So let's come up to date then, Liz.
You're doing a book on haunted roads.
Is that only in the UK or is that kind of worldwide?
It'll be haunted roads in the UK.
I think we've got enough to fill a book ourselves, to be honest.
Have you got a couple of good ones?
Well, there's one very close to me that locals around the black country will know, a place called Gibbet Wood, where the story goes there was a local landowner who was wending his way back from the pub in Kinver, fairly well healed, shall we say, had a few drinks, pocket full of change, and two local likely lads decided that they were going to take the change from him.
Unfortunately, they killed him at the same time as taking his pocket change.
They weren't the brightest sparks in the box.
They were caught spending their ill-gotten gains in the local pub.
So they were quickly run up by the Bow Street runners.
And the one, I think the one was transported off the top of my head.
Somebody may be able to correct me on that.
The one was certainly hanged in Gibbett Wood and his body was hanged in the gibbet for all to see as a sign to what happened to people who went around mugging people after dark.
Okay.
And there's a presence there then?
I've been up there.
I grew up there.
And obviously it was just 10 minutes down the road from where my parents still live.
And we used to scare each other stupid as teenagers.
We used to dare each other to see who could stay up there the longest without getting spooked.
I actually haven't managed to get an investigation up there.
That's the plan for next year.
You've got it.
It's in the book.
You've got to go and do it.
I love, and I've heard stories from America, South Africa, near Cape Town, in fact, and this country of phantom motorbikers.
Lots of stories about Phantom motorbikers and also Phantom hitchhikers to be honest, Not motorbikers.
I know of one that's a stagecoach, which is quite interesting.
Upon the, I think it's called the Devil's Back in Hampshire.
The main aid road now goes through it in a tunnel.
The old stagecoach route used to go round, it's a bowl-shaped, crescent-shaped hill.
Is that the A3?
Is that the A3 near the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, maybe?
Yes, that's the place.
Yes.
And the story goes that there was a horrendous stagecoach accident.
One dark and stormy night, the stagecoach went off the edge of the cliff edge, basically.
And walkers and obviously drivers when it was still the old main A-road would see people dressed in old clothing trying to flag cars down to make people aware that there was a stagecoach accident, people waving candle lanterns and that kind of thing.
Wow.
Wow.
And this is, I have to tell you, I haven't been down there recently, but until a couple of years ago, I used to use the A3 and go past there all the time.
I had no idea.
There is a little bit I've Always thought was a bit unusual just north of the Queen Elizabeth Country Park.
So you're coming out of Portsmouth and past the naval installations on the hill there that overlooks Portsmouth, and then you're driving up the A3.
Exactly.
And you're driving up the A3.
Eventually, it'll take you to Guildford.
But, you know, about a third of the way up, there's a sort of forested type area that's a bit kind of eerie at times.
If you're driving at the right time of year and the right time of day, if that's where we're talking about, then I can fully see that there is something, there may be something beyond what meets the eye there.
Wow.
You did an investigation recently at a nuclear bunker.
Yes, Kelfton Hatch in Essex.
I seem to be down in Essex, the southeast, a lot recently.
Essex theme show tonight, it seems.
Yeah, that's a Cold War, obviously very secret now, because there's lovely signs.
It always amuses me when you get a sign for the secret nuclear bunker.
It never saw action, but it was the main southeast headquarters if the bomb did ever go off.
So is it one of those places where important people would go to coordinate services?
Yes.
And I believe half of the cabinet was supposed to be going there.
It was a very important place.
But like I say, it never saw action.
But it was one of those watching stations and it's all still set up.
The guy who owns it has bought equipment and a lot of the equipment's still been left behind.
So it's a very atmospheric place.
But is it haunted?
Yes.
By what, do you think?
Well, the main lady that I came across was one of the ladies who ran the typing pool who was very proud of what she did, didn't like us lounging around putting our feet on the desks.
And how did she show that?
She made it very, very cold initially.
We were sat, we moved locations just in case we were in a draft and we got the same freezing cold sensation in multiple places.
We had cat balls, you know, these little cat balls that flash when they moved.
We had those on the floor and they were flashing.
They need some kind of movement on the ball itself rather than a vibration through the floor.
Right.
So a little bit more than a random draft then.
Yes.
We had voices in the canteen, which was interesting, actual auditory voices.
So yes, very haunted.
And you're doing investigations every week.
In this upcoming week, are you allowed to tell me where you're going?
You don't have to.
I'm actually at HMS Warrior.
Are you?
What's down in Portsmouth?
Yes.
I'm very excited about that.
Are you doing that?
Is that my first one on the ship?
Or are you just kind of visiting?
No, it's an official investigation overnight.
Hmm, Warrior.
Yes.
That is going to be incredible.
Please tell me.
I'll send you an email, but tell me what happens there.
Because there must be in the old dockyards there in Portsmouth, there must be a million stories.
You know, you've got Victory there and you've got Warrior there that was brought back, I think, rediscovered effectively or recreated in the 1980s, wasn't it?
Yes.
I've actually investigated unofficially, I was part of an archaeological excavation at the Haslar Naval Hospital.
That was very spooky in certain places.
I've investigated the Explosion Museum in Gosport numerous times.
I was going to mention Gosport.
I mean, that's a fantastic.
We'll have to talk again about all of this.
You are a gift that keeps on giving, Liz Cornel.
And I thank you very much.
We know that you're writing a book.
So when is the book about Haunted Roads going to be out?
I'm basically waiting for a publisher to pick it up at the moment.
We've sent proposals out, but I'm carrying on with my research and carrying out.
You never know who's watching this.
You know, Paul McCartney once sang, you never know who's going to be listening to you in one of his songs called Take It Away.
You never know who's going to be watching this.
So the book is available if a publisher wants to pick it up, and I would recommend it because Liz is a fund of stories.
I wish you well, Liz.
If people want to check you out online and, you know, take a look, a little sousa of the stuff that you've been doing, where do they go?
Have you got a website?
I don't have a website, but I'm on social media.
So I'm on Instagram quite regularly, and that's Liz.leguinis.
So that's L-E-G-W-Y-N-I-S.
Leguinis is my witch name.
I was going to say you mentioned that to me before.
That's got significance.
So it's Liz.legis.
Leguinis.
Liz Leguis.
Liz.leguinis.
And similar for Facebook, Liz Leguinis Cormel.
Liz Cormel from my TV show.
And before her, you heard Vic Harbord and Christine Townend and the Cornish Ghost Whisperers.
Three of them there.
And my thanks to all of the guests on this edition of The Unexplained for such interesting material that we've been discussing.
What do you think?
More great guests in the pipeline here at the Home of The Unexplained.
So until next we meet here, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained.
And please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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