All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 5, 2023 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
59:52
Edition 698 - Guest Catchups

Three guests from a recent tv show -US Congressman Tim Burchett on why we don't get "disclosure", Canadian astronaut and medic Dave Williams on surviving space... And stage veteran Nick Bromley on the ghosts of UK theatres...

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
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.
Hoping that everything is good with you wherever you happen to be.
If you're here in the Northern Hemisphere, then it may well have been cold for you again.
I'm sitting here recording this.
It's evening time as I'm speaking these words, and I've still got ice-cold fingers.
I'm wearing an extra layer.
I've got the heating on.
I've decided to risk the bank balance and turn the heating on for a bit.
And it's still cold.
So I'm looking forward to February when they tell us that the temperatures might get a little bit better.
That's the weather report.
Thank you very much for all of your emails, your communications, and the suggestions that you've got.
Always looking for guest ideas for the unexplained.
So if there are good people that you're aware of, maybe we haven't had them on the show or we haven't had them recently on the show, give me a reminder or let me know.
You can go to the website designed and created by Adam, theunexplained.tv.
Follow the link and you can send me an email from there.
This edition of the show, three more guests from my TV show recently, just to make sure that they're here for posterity's sake.
Number one, U.S. Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican, talking about, well, he was in the newspapers here, and I think in America too, almost certainly.
A story that I found from the Daily Star newspaper where he is saying that he believes, and he said this before on my show and on others, that the U.S. government is effectively covering up the truth in inverted commas about UFOs.
So you'll hear Tim Burchett, who's been on the show before, first.
After that, we're going to hear from a very, very interesting guy who I first heard on Canadian radio, on the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, their Radio 1 station, and a program that they have there called Quirks and Quarks.
This is Dave Williams, Canadian physician, author, and retired astronaut, talking about the effects of space travel on the human frame.
He also has some very great things to say about what it's like to be in space because he's actually walked there.
So Dave Williams, the second guest from my TV show, and the third item, something completely different.
And we will have this man on to talk at greater length at one point.
Nick Bromley, author and theatre company manager.
He's been a stage manager in his time and many, many other things.
Man absolutely steeped in the theater.
We're going to talk about the UK's theatrical ghosts, the ghosts that haunt theaters in various and different ways.
Great guest, and there's not nearly enough of him here, so we'll have some more from him.
I'm going to book him in for a podcast.
Please remind me to do that.
So Nick Bromley, guest number three.
That's the way that it's looking.
If you get in touch with me, please tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use this show.
Guest number one then, Republican Congressman Tim Burchett and why he believes that the truth about UFOs is being covered up.
I'm great, Howard.
Thank you for having me on, brother.
I really appreciate it.
Well, you're in the headlines again, including in the United Kingdom, Tim.
The quote that I've got from one of the many newspapers that covered the story this week, and it's said to be from you, is that authorities have been, quotes, hiding the existence of extraterrestrials for centuries.
You are campaigning for all U.S. government files or reported sightings to be declassified because you're convinced that America is ready for the truth.
Aren't we heading in that direction already?
I would hope so, but I don't trust.
I mean, I am in government.
I don't trust it one bit.
You know, since 1947, probably 45, but 47, since Roswell, you know, they've said that they just don't exist.
And then now all of a sudden, this latest report, they in fact say it does exist.
And so what has happened between now and then?
Why are they not releasing these files then?
I can handle it.
Let's get it out there.
I just think it's a cover-up.
I think there's greed.
There's arrogance involved.
I think you've got recovered materials, possibly recovered, of course, have to be a recovered craft of some sort somewhere that's being reverse engineered.
And I suspect that some of these multinational corporations that kind of have their tentacles all wrapped around governments all over the world are at the base of it.
And I suspect that they have this information but are refusing to release it.
Now, of course, this has been part of the almost folklore of ufology, hasn't it, for decades, that they've got the bodies in a freezer somewhere.
They've got the reverse engineered technology.
They're working on it at the moment.
It's not easy for us here on Earth to understand it.
So it takes years and years to work it back into our technology here.
That's why we've made such advances seemingly from nowhere, like the transistor for one thing.
Has anybody ever told you, because you're in a, as you say, you're in government, you will get to hear things that I don't get to hear and most people don't.
Has anybody told you anything that would indicate that anything that we've just said about the bodies, about the exotic materials, about the back engineer technology, have people told you, Tim Burchett, you're on the right track here.
This stuff is there.
We do have it.
And this is the time to tell it?
Yes, sir.
Yes, I've been told that by some very informed people, but I'm also very much aware of people that will give me false information.
So I'll come out forward with something and discredit, you know, and discredit me and set us back away.
So I'm very cautious about that.
And how are you able to tell the difference between the stuff that is being fed to you that you think might be so and stuff that you doubt?
I mean, how'd you check it out?
I don't know.
I have a pretty good sense of it.
I have some acquaintances I can just tell you that I run things by that have a little more knowledge, have been involved in this for quite some time on the inside.
And, you know, and we discuss this stuff frequently.
The problem you get into is just so much, you know, and what is good and what is bad.
But my point on this all along is that the government, these files that the government has, this information the government has, they need to release.
And it's just a, you know, the previous man that was on there was talking about going before the UN.
I wouldn't trust them anymore either.
I think what's going to have to happen is that because all this is, this arrogant crowd that tends to always be in power, no matter who's, you know, in the White House or in Parliament or wherever, it's always the same people, the same corporations that seem to be calling all the shots.
And you think those corporations are corporations through which some of this alien technology is being filtered, which is, again, it's part of the folklore, it's part of the landscape of ufology.
You think that they're helping the cover-up?
Now, the only thing that would work against this, Tim, and I wonder what you think about this, is that we had yet another report, didn't we?
What is it, two weeks ago now, three weeks ago, that said we are aware of a number of, was it 400?
I forget now, but 170 of these, there might be something in them, but we're more concerned about these being a security risk, in other words, technology that another power has got, and they ain't telling us about this, than this being from somewhere, you know, up there and away.
So they are talking about it, aren't they?
But do you think that that is part, all of this, I'm not going to use the word disclosure because that has a specific meaning in the field that we're talking about here, but all of this information that's coming out, do you think that that is part of the obfuscation?
Yes, sir.
The only reason they're talking about it is because we forced their hand at it.
You know, the Tic Tac video that was on the United States 60 Minutes.
I don't know if you can pull that up or whatever.
It's on YouTube, but Tic Tac video is really what I think is if you Google it, you can find it that way.
The only reason that we're talking about this now is because that was out there, and that was out there because that was leaked.
They said it didn't exist.
It was leaked, and they claimed it was fake.
And then they had the actual pilots that did it, that were in flight following these craft.
That's how it got out.
That's the only reason it got out.
And they still wouldn't, you know, America, we won't even tell you, they won't even release the Kennedy assassination files.
Heck, we have Apollo astronauts.
One of them claimed to have seen a craft land.
It hovered, landing gear came out.
And they filmed it and they took the footage and sent it somewhere.
And they claimed they never got it and no one ever took the footage.
And this astronaut said clearly he was there.
He saw it.
Have you talked to any of the astronauts, those who are still with us?
No, I have not.
But I've talked to several pilots who've been in the air when these things are out there.
And it is unbelievable.
It was almost a daily occurrence for quite some time.
And they were basically told just to keep their mouths shut.
And that's just not acceptable.
It's not acceptable.
And now we've got the whistleblower protection, but still you worry about the stigma.
And are these brave men and women going to be ostracized?
If we get this information out there, Tim, if this information is there to be got out, and I personally, my gut says that it probably is, but then what do I know?
I'm not connected in the way that you are.
If we get this information out there, have you given any thought to how your colleagues in government in the U.S. will handle that?
Because literally to quote a movie title, it is the greatest story ever told, if that comes out.
Yes, sir.
I suspect there's a great deal of denial, but at some point, I hate being a conspiracy theorist, but the reality is the industrial war complex, if we realize that there is other life out there and they don't want to destroy us because clearly it could turn us into a charcoal briquette if they wanted to with that kind of technology from the stuff I've seen.
They could wipe us off the, we would be gone.
From the stuff that you've seen, they can turn us into a charcoal briquette.
What have you seen?
Well, just their technology.
Their technology is so advanced that they could stop us instantaneously.
There's no question with their technology.
And I would just think that we would say, hey, maybe our problems aren't that bad.
Maybe we could put down some of these weapons of war and try to find some answers.
Very quickly, if you were made president ever, if you were to be president, just, you know, fantasy, as we say here, fantasy football, if they put you in the White House, what would be the first thing you would do about this?
I would release it.
I would turn loose all the files.
I'm a big disclosure person, but people like Tim Burchett don't ever get on the intelligence committee.
You know, I was on the intelligence committee when they had that hearing, if you remember, the one that was open to the public, I was told I was going to get to ask a question.
And I was preparing, I was getting ready to ask my question.
And I received a text.
They said, no, in fact, you're not going to be allowed to ask a question.
And they couldn't even slow the video down of what they proposed to be some speck in the sky.
Adam Schiff said, what exactly am I looking at?
And they couldn't even say, most technologically advanced country in the world.
We couldn't stop a video.
I saw some of that coverage.
Tim Burchett.
Very frustrating.
Nice to speak with you.
Thank you very much indeed.
Let's watch what happens about this.
Let's see how much closer, if there is such a thing as disclosure, we get to it in this year of 2023.
Tim Burchett and the truth about UFOs and why he believes that we're not hearing it yet.
More on that subject, I'm sure, is going to be coming in this year of 2023.
I would say you don't have to be a betting man to say that.
All right, next guest from my TV show recently, the remarkable and charming Dave Williams, Canadian physician, author and retired astronaut, about, among other things, the effects of space travel on the human frame.
Let's talk about something that I wouldn't have been talking about had I not been doing something that I love to do at night when I'm alone in bed.
Listening to CBC Radio 1 from Canada.
I love the range of guests that they have.
And if you ever want to hear, you know, I strongly suggest that you mostly Listen to talk radio or certainly watch talk TV, but if you ever want something slightly different, try the CBC from Canada.
It's absolutely cool.
And I think if the BBC wanted to pick up some pointers, maybe they could try watching and listening to the CBC.
But that's by the bye.
Person I heard on the CBC on CBC Radio 1 recently is Dave Rhys-Williams, a Canadian astronaut, medical doctor, cardiac and nerve, rather neurosurgeon, and pioneer of telemedicine.
He has flown twice on the space shuttle.
His first mission was called NeuroLab, which studied the effects of microgravity on the brain and the nervous system.
And that's what he talks about.
The effects of going into and traveling within space on us.
Because there are people who say that the final frontier in space travel might be within us.
In other words, it might be our own human limitations that stop us going to the furthest places and staying there longest.
Let's get Dave Williams on that.
Dave, thank you very much for coming on and doing this.
I'm so pleased that I found you on the CBC.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
I'm thrilled that you enjoy the programming.
It was great being on that show as well.
Were you on a program that I recommend called Quirks and Quarks?
Were you on that one?
You were on one of their programs anyway.
Yes, it was on Quirks and Quarks.
And with some of my previous books, I've been on there as well.
So I really enjoy chatting with the host, Bob McDonald.
Well, I think from conversations that I've had with space experts from the United Kingdom and America here, it's something that we need to talk about because we tend to think that all of this is proceeding at a massively fast pace.
And that before we know it, we're going to be setting boots on Mars, the moon before that, and it's all going to be easy.
Of course, as I said, and I put in a very clumsy way because I'm no scientist or medical person, one of the difficulties is the effect of space travel on us.
There was a guy, wasn't there, who I think he broke a record for longevity on the International Space Station.
There was certainly somebody who spent a very long time on the International Space Station.
And what isn't talked about very much is the fact that this person, when he came back to Earth, had some serious effects.
So it's not as easy a thing to do.
It's not like being on Earth.
Yes, there's no question.
In fact, that person was Scott Kelly, my commander on my last spaceflight, STS-118.
And Scott spent a year on board the International Space Station trying to understand how the body adapts to microgravity.
But remember, in the future, when we go back to the moon and on to Mars, the moon and Mars do have gravity.
So we're going to be going from the 1G or Earth's gravity to microgravity, 0G.
And in the case of the Moon, it's roughly one-sixth of the gravity that we have here on Earth.
So you can jump higher and jump a little bit farther, but there will be gravity to help our bones and muscles.
I heard somebody say once that it pays to be older when you travel into space.
And that's why you sometimes find that some of the astronauts who go up there, you would think they'd all be 25 or 23.
They're not, because you have to have fully formed bones to be able to withstand some of the effects of being up there, if I put that right.
Yes, in fact, we talk about flying in space in a manner that's similar to reversible aging.
So when we go to space, we lose muscle strength, we lose bone density, similar to the osteoporosis we see as we get older.
And yet when we come back to Earth, we regain our muscle strength and we regain our bone density.
So part of the research we're doing in space, we're hoping will actually help us here on Earth to try and understand some of these conditions that take place as we normally age.
Some of those people who I have spoken with on this show from time to time who say that we've never been into space really.
We've never traveled any great distance.
We certainly never got to the moon.
Some of those people say that we couldn't have got to the moon because of the effects of radiation.
Now radiation is a serious inhibitor, isn't it?
Well there's no question one of the biggest issues we're going to face is radiation.
And of course we have gone to the moon.
I used to be the director of life sciences at Johnson Space Center in Houston and the lunar specimens were part of my responsibility.
So on one of those days when things aren't going as well as you hope I used to go down and spend some time with the lunar specimens and be able to think about the amazing things that we achieved.
But radiation for the future, we're looking to try and build spacecraft that have different types of shielding.
Of course, if we can go there faster in the next generation of spacecraft, we reduce our exposure to the radiation.
And then living on lunar habitats or habitats on the surface of Mars, we need to develop the shielding materials similar to those we have on the space station that we'll use in the habitats to keep astronauts safe.
I think one of the things that they were trying, weren't they, for extended space travel was the idea of perhaps circulating water around the spacecraft exterior, or rather, you know, the bit that is closest to the exterior.
Was that a viable proposition or is it?
Well, you know, water, we need water to drink as humans.
And of course, on the space station, we produce water, but we store water as well.
And a lot of the astronauts will take the water containers and put them around their sleep stations to decrease the overall radiation that they're being exposed to.
So water is a really effective shield.
And there's lots of different proposals for new ideas that we can use for shielding in habitats in the future.
And in terms of going long distances, which is the ultimate plan, isn't it, to go as far as we can and see what we can see and maybe find alternative habitats for ourselves, though.
We have to conquer these or we have to study, certainly, and then conquer these limitations, don't we?
Otherwise, we're never going to be able to do it.
That idea of living on Mars, it's not as easy as the film The Martian, the movie The Martian portrayed it.
There are real issues that we as frail human beings will have to confront.
Oh, there are very real issues.
And we like to, I talk about that in this book that I published a couple of months ago called Why Am I Taller?
But when you go to space, these are the real changes that take place that could be limiting.
Personally, I believe the human species is a space-faring species.
And in the next 100 years, we're going to see humans traveling farther into space.
But imagine where will we be in 500 years?
And that's something that's a really interesting Challenge to start thinking about, but we will develop the technologies to enable us to go farther and travel and stay longer.
Things like boredom are a big issue when you go to Mars.
We think about all the changes in our body, yet the mental changes and the psychology of adapting to living in space are just as important.
Yeah, because I would imagine, I mean, for me, as I indicated at the top of this, I love to listen to what is happening on the world's broadcast outlets.
I love to monitor what's happening.
But if you're that far away from Earth, you ain't going to be able to do that so easily because a communication takes, what is it, 20 minutes, maybe more to reach you?
Yes, if you're on Mars, it's going to be roughly 20 minutes.
So there's a store and forward model where we record everything and they send it as a package, and then we listen to it 20 minutes later on Mars.
But the distances are mind-boggling.
You know, we've had rovers exploring the surface of Mars for many years, and there's some great photographs taken from Mars that show the Earth in the night sky of Mars.
And it's just this thin, bright dot.
Looks like a small star in the distance.
And when we get that far away from our home planet, everything will be different.
You talked about the psychology of this, and I'm personally fascinated by the psychology because I've often, in those we small hours of contemplation, I've often thought about, okay, you're among the first colonists on Mars.
You've tried to terraform the place maybe, but you're trying to make a life there.
And it may be that you don't come back to Earth for a long time.
It may be that the plan is you never come back to Earth.
Psychologically, are we as human beings able to withstand that kind of mental pressure?
The idea that you're out there, you might not like it.
You signed up for the mission.
In theory, you knew what it meant.
But when you get there, it's a different thing.
Yes, there's no question.
It's a tough situation to look at.
But personally, I believe if we look back in history and we think about all of the exploration that took place hundreds of years ago, arguably those explorers were facing the same daunting challenge psychologically.
And we will go to Mars.
It'll take roughly six months to be able to get to Mars.
As a professional astronaut, I would suggest take the return trip.
And you're going to spend roughly a year on the surface of Mars, which of course is two Earth years, and then you're going to come back.
So it'll be roughly a three-year journey.
But that journey, imagine being in a spacecraft for six months with somebody that says, are we there yet every day?
Oh my goodness gracious.
You know, that would be terrible.
So we're looking at things like hibernation.
And we talk about that in the book.
Would it be possible for humans to be able to hibernate their way to Mars and other planets in our solar system?
As indeed they did on Alien, didn't they?
Segone Weaver and the others were in a kind of stasis and they came out of the pond.
Yeah.
So those are the technologies that today we might think of them as science fiction, but one of the things that's amazing about the space programs throughout the world is that they turn science fiction into science fact.
And if you think back to some of what we saw in movies in the 1960s, 2001, a space odyssey, much of what we saw there with space stations has become a reality.
We don't rotate the space station, the International Space Station.
It's technically possible, but for many reasons, we've just left it in orbit around the Earth.
But those technologies will enable exploration in the future.
Dave, you've been into space.
What effect did it have on you?
I've been twice.
Very, very fortunate to have had a chance to fly in space a total of roughly 29 days.
And I did three spacewalks on my last spaceflight helping build the space station.
Probably the most important effect is something we might call the planetary perspective, where you see this four and a half billion-year-old planet upon which the entire history of the human species has taken place, this beautiful blue oasis cast against the infinite void of space.
And you realize when we orbit the planet every 90 minutes, it's actually a small planet.
We might even call it the global village, where what happens in one part of the world affects all of us throughout the entire planet.
And that's one of the things that I think every astronaut is struck with, this planetary perspective where there's no borders separating countries we can see from space, that we're all in this together.
Now, that's the rational romantic view of it all.
You look at it and you think, well, we're all one planet.
This is our blue ball and we need to be looking after it.
The other thing is, when you're doing, I've often thought about spacewalks.
I don't think I would ever have the guts, not that they'd ever ask me, but to do that, to step outside.
Because even though you have all of that technology supporting you and I'm sure you're perfectly safe and you can breathe and all the rest of it, and you know what to do if there are any issues because you're trained to handle those things.
But when you're floating out there and you're looking back at this blue ball and you're looking out at the stars way beyond in the inky blackness, as I presume it is, how does that feel?
It's an amazing sensation doing a spacewalk.
I ride a Ducati motorcycle and my metaphor is being in the space station is like driving a bus through the Alps or something in Switzerland.
It's incredibly beautiful and you're looking out the window and it's just amazingly panoramic.
Doing a spacewalk is like passing the bus on the Ducati.
You know, a motorcycle is a very immersive environment and when you're outside in a spacewalk, you're totally immersed, realizing that you're working in this vacuum of space.
And of course, astronaut humor being what it is, we say, if you have a problem while you're spacewalking, you may have the rest of your life to solve the problem.
Yes, that's a great saying.
What happens if you're doing a spacewalk?
And some of those spacewalks because you have various tasks to perform outside, you know, in space itself.
What happens if you are, as we say here in the United Kingdom, because we have a euphemism for everything here, as you will know.
What happens if you're caught shot, if you have that same phrase in Canada, which I suspect you might?
In other words, what happens if you desperately want to relieve yourself?
Well, fortunately, we have a diaper that we wear underneath the cooling garments and the long underwear and everything.
So we prepare for that because there's really no opportunity.
There's no other way that you could relieve yourself in space.
Now, interestingly, when we go to a spacewalk, They're roughly about seven hours long.
Some are longer, some are a little bit shorter, but roughly around seven hours.
We have 32 ounces of water to drink.
And every time I did a spacewalk, I drank the full 32 ounces.
I never had to go to the bathroom.
And it's because you're working so hard, you're actually dehydrated when you come out of the suit.
And you know, you get out of your spacesuit back in the space station, time to go to the restroom.
And you actually, if you were to look at the urine, it's a really, really dark concentrated color simply because you're so hedride.
Yeah, you're working so hard in the suit.
Yes, as a coffee drinker of many, many years, I can relate to that fact.
Dave, thank you so much.
There are so many other things I would love to talk with you.
I'd love to do a podcast with you one of these days if you ever get time.
Last question.
You talked about the lunar specimens.
Now, I know they came on, some of that material came on a tour of schools, I think, when I was a little boy.
Never got to see them.
But you talked about being alone with them and the feelings that you had when you did that.
What is it like to be close to that material?
It is unbelievable.
You're holding in your hand.
Now, it's not really in your hand because you're inside a bunny suit wearing special gloves and everything else.
But basically, you're holding a piece of the moon.
And I remember as a teenager watching the Apollo astronauts, certainly in Apollo 11, I was 13 at the time.
Unbelievable to see those missions and then realize as time goes by all the changes that have taken place in my life to enable me to do that.
And thinking about the future, that these are the specimens we have today.
Imagine what we're going to be able to do tomorrow as we go forward and try and understand and learn more about the moon.
Well, indeed.
And we've got the specimens ready on Mars.
We've already removed them.
We've just got to be able to transport them back.
Dave, thank you so much.
I'm so pleased that I heard you on CBC Radio 1.
And, you know, I greatly, greatly enjoyed that.
And you've got a great website.
What's that website?
Oh, it's AstroDaveMD.
If you remember AstroDave MD and Google that, then you can find the website, www.astrodavemd.com.
And all my books, etc., they're all out there.
I've got eight, well, seven books now, one more coming out in May this year.
Dave Williams and the effects of space travel on human beings and other things as well.
Amazing stories about walking in space and being in space, don't you think?
There's another guest we have to get on again.
Same goes for the next man you're about to hear.
This man is Nick Bromley, stage manager in the theater, man steeped in the United Kingdom theater.
I think he's been just about everywhere where they've got a stage in this country.
And we'll talk about his writings and research into the ghosts of the theater.
Now, if I hadn't been a broadcaster, and there are many people who over the years have wished that I never was, and a journalist, I would have loved to have been an actor.
But people who came from my background in Liverpool back in those days just didn't do that.
You know, some people got themselves to be everyman and stuff like that, but I don't think anybody from around my family ever did anything like that.
So it just wasn't a realistic expectation.
But I love acting and people who speak properly and have the great acting diction and are able to tread the boards and bestride the stage like a colossus.
I love all of that.
But just like broadcasting, all human life is in the theatre.
You know, there are triumphs and tragedies.
There are things that happen in theatres that leave a lasting impression.
And just like some radio stations in the United Kingdom and some television studios as well, some theatres are haunted.
Enter stage left, Nick Bromley.
Nick Bromley is an author and theatre company manager.
I believe he was a former West End stage manager too.
Let me tell you a little bit about him before we talk about the haunted theatres, as many of them as we can of this country.
Over a 60-year career, Nick has been collecting anecdotes, stories, and personal experiences of authentic theatrical hauntings.
In his book, he invites you to accept an all-access Phantom Pass and join him for a guided supernatural tour to meet some of the unknown and famous spectral presences from both past and present, on stage, backstage, or even front of house.
I did a speed read of the book yesterday, and it is fab.
These stories are all told from Nick's own perspective.
He's clearly spoken to the people involved in these things, and I wonder how he's had time to do that.
But he certainly has.
Nick Bromley, thank you for coming on.
Thank you, Harvard.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
Wonderful book, Nick.
A tremendous collection of anecdotes and stories, just like the blurb on it promises you deliver.
But I get the feeling that only somebody who is completely immersed in the theatre could possibly have gathered that material.
I mean, it's a remarkable collection of stories that you have got there.
Well, it's without work...
I mean, without being in the theatre, I don't think you can.
Books have been produced about theatre ghosts, but I think to work in the theatre, you get stories which a lot of those stories in the book haven't been told before.
So they are not the most famous, but they are equally as fascinating and sometimes better than the most famous stories.
Peculiar and probably not very well-phrased question, since I'm phrasing it as I say it, but as most things I do.
Theatres seem to have more of these events connected with them and cinemas too than perhaps other places.
All right, we can include hotels maybe.
But, you know, theatres and cinemas seem to be particular venues for strange and ghostly happenings.
Is that just because the kind of people who inhabit them, like yourself and like actors, are creative people and perhaps a little more attuned to those things?
Or are they really more prone to them?
Well, I'm sure some of us have spooked out lots of people ourselves without even dying.
But basically...
But basically, I think you have to think about the fact that theatres, even modern theatres, say a 2,000 or a thousand seater, they can get in if they're full every day of the year.
They can get in, you know, hundreds of thousands of people in a year.
So over the years, millions of people have probably been to a long-standing theatre.
And millions of people have seen shows, they've seen thousands of shows with over, with indeed thousands of actors, if they're big shows.
And they, somewhere amongst all those people, have been a person or persons who have become affected by their experience, or they have possibly even died in the seat.
You know, that does happen quite often.
That is not often talked about.
But, I mean, a lot of people die in the theater, and that's not only the actors on stage.
You know, you're losing audiences every night in some places.
Wow.
So it's the whole, you know, the drama's not only on the stage, the drama is with whatever those people, hundreds and thousands of them bring in with them every night.
Let's talk about the specific theatres then, because I've got a number of cases.
I don't think we'll get through all of them.
But let's start.
In London, of course, the heart of British theatre, with the Adelphi Theatre, you talk about this place being beset and inhabited by a murder, the haunting that resulted from a bloody murder.
It was indeed.
And this is a tragic story.
I mean, not many actors are killed.
Well, you know, not that many.
But this gentleman was not only an actor, he was an enormous star.
This is an actor called William Terrace.
And William Terrace was known as Breezy Bill.
He started off as a young man with Henry Irving's company.
And he was a cheeky chap, cheeky chap, went off to sea, became a rancher, came back, started acting, and joined Henry Irving's company.
He was probably the first of what we call the matinee idols.
He had a great sex appeal, I suppose.
And he, after working with Irving for some time, doing Shakespeare and things like that, he cornered the niche in melodramas, as the hero of the melodramas, and successfully, for about 10 years, put on melodramas at the Adelphi.
These were big affairs in those days, with a lot of what are called supernumeries.
And one of them was a gentleman called Richard Archer Prince.
Now, he was the complete opposite to Terrace, who was good-looking, successful, charming.
Prince was none of these things.
He was a sad individual.
I mean, in this day and age, he would have probably been sent to a psychiatrist.
But he believed himself to be a great actor and worked his way down from the northeast to London.
But the only jobs he could get were as a supernumerary in melodramas or occasional tours on the road.
He was in one with Terris at the Adelphi and at the end of the engagement wasn't re-engaged and took offence to this, a great offence.
Wow, so he was fired effectively.
He was effectively fired, yes.
And he believed that his nemesis was Terris himself.
He applied for a little grant to help him from a theatrical charity fund.
And he got one, but the second one was turned down in a letter from the secretary.
And he believed that it was Terrace himself who'd written this letter.
And so he lay in wait for Terrace outside the theatre in Maiden Lane, opposite Rules, where the stage door of the Adelphi is.
And as Terrace came to work that night, Prince jumped out from the doorway and stabbed him repeatedly in the back.
In an act of bloody revenge.
In the back.
Just as he was bending down, this is Terrace, to open the key and get inside the star's entrance.
He was carried in and passed away.
But the strange thing was that he had a girlfriend, Jessie Millard, who was his leading lady and girlfriend.
And she had had, as it were, premonitions about Teres' death.
She dreamt that he had spoken to her saying, oh, sis, sis.
And other people, an understudy, had also had this dream that Teres had been killed a few nights before, and he'd written it down in his diary.
Anyway, poor Teres passed away.
They couldn't resuscitate him, and he died.
Prince was put on trial and sent to Dartmoor eventually because he was judged to be insane.
But a few nights after, oh, two other little things, there was the belief that one of his friends,
again, the clock stopped at the exact time that Terrace was killed, and his son-in-law, Seymour Hicks, had another dream in which Terrace came to him and said, we will Meet again on the night.
A few nights later, after his death, his figure was seen entering the theatre.
And his girlfriend was in her dressing room.
I mean, the show went on as it always does.
And there was some knock on the door.
Sorry, has the camera slipped.
And it was the knock which Teres always gave, but when she opened the door, there was no one there.
So he was seen for several years intermittently at the theatre before he just faded away.
He made his point.
Made his point.
But quite a common phenomenon in haunting that ghosts don't necessarily linger for very long.
Once seen, they may not reappear or they reappear elsewhere.
Isn't that interesting?
but he didn't appear elsewhere.
He did.
But the thing was that Covent Garden Tube Station was only opened in 1906, and the murder took place in 1896.
So whether he was, you know, marking the 10th anniversary of his passing death and wanting to get back to Chisick on the tube, you know, come up.
Who knows?
What an astonishing story.
There are so many in your book.
And sadly, we are not going to have time for all of them.
I think we need to have you back every week, I'd say.
But, you know, again, the Vaudeville Theatre is not far away.
And according to your book, the Vaudeville Theatre doesn't just have a single ghost, it has a number.
The Vaudeville, yes.
Well, the one which definitely has occurred is a woman has been seen in the Vaudeville outside.
There's a very sinister alley to the right of it.
two allies on the vaudeville there's one which has the um uh maybe No, it's just a sinister alley.
Don't go down there, whatever you do.
But there's a story of a street walker who comes into the theatre on that side from the alley.
But the other story, which is most curious, because this is one which is not widely known, is that about 10 years ago, there was a show on, and the manager at the time, and the assistant manager, and I heard this from them, they were asked by the management to entertain a lady and her friend and two children.
So they got the tickets ready, and when the woman came to pick up the tickets, handed them to them, would you like a drink in the interval?
Oh, yes, please.
And for the children, ice creams, please.
But what was extraordinary was that there were three children.
And they were told only two, but they thought, well, well, never mind.
So they got them to their seats.
In they went.
And at the interval, they were waiting outside in the foyer with the ice creams and the drinks.
And the women came out and two children came out.
And they said, well, here you are, but where's the third child?
And they said, what third child?
It is just us.
And that was two people had seen the third child.
We're talking theatre ghosts.
And we've got about 16, 17 minutes to do it with Nick Bromley, author, theatre company manager, and also the man behind a new book, which is called Stage Ghosts and Haunted Theatres, which is a grabbing title if ever I heard one.
Nick, just before we get back to the theatres, one very quick question.
And, you know, sometimes my viewers and listeners have better questions than I could ever come up with, and I should have asked this one.
Have you ever seen anything in a theatre yourself?
Well, yes, I have.
I have on more than one occasion.
Not only I have, in fact, because there are many manifestations, types of manifestations, I've seen, heard, and smelt.
Smelt.
Voila.
Right.
I mean, when you say you've smelt a ghost, are we talking about, you know, lavender, lily of the valley?
Indeed, the lavender.
The lavender.
Yeah, yeah.
The lavender is a very common occurrence, actually, with theatre ghosts.
I don't know why, but it seems to be a very common smell which comes up.
Do you want to hear the lavender story?
I would love to.
Absolutely.
Anything you want to do.
If you want to read the phone book, that's fine.
But the lavender story would be nice.
It's a bit strange.
And the joke's on me in the end, because we were at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
We were doing a play, a musical called Pirates of Penzance.
And my stage manager, who is a wonderful woman called Jo Horse, was scared stiff of the ghostly stories because Drury Lane is very haunted.
And we were in the old quick change office of Dan Leno.
It was his dressing room, and it was right on the side of the stage.
And Dan was the star of many of the pantomimes there at the turn of the century, the last century.
And he would rush in, get rid of his frock, put another one on, and rush back on.
So it was very, very close to the stage.
And there were two legends about this room.
One Was that there was a mirror on the wall which occasionally his face would appear in, and that had been seen by Lupino Lane, in fact.
He wrote it in his book.
So there was that.
And then the other legend was that you would smell the lavender because Dan used to use it as a sort of, you know, not after shave, but a refresher.
So one day I thought, I'll play a trick on Jo.
And I got a bottle and I sprayed it all over the room, but didn't say anything when she came in.
And she came in and she smelt it.
Oh my God, and, you know, freaked out.
So I didn't admit to it.
And it vanished as the day went on.
It was a matinee day.
Come the second show, completely vanished.
I went at the end of the second show, time to go home, but I had to write what we used to do as a nightly report, which you fill in all the terrible things which have happened backstage.
And having done it, I left, walked to the stage door, and there was only two people in the building by this time.
There was Charles, the stage doorkeeper, and myself.
And then I realized that I'd left the reports, which I had to post in those days because it was, you know, so long ago.
Rush back to pick them up.
And as I walked down the wing, the whole wing was soaked in the smell of lavender.
It just hit you absolutely in the nose.
And that is absolutely true.
And it was not, and no one knew that I had played the trick.
So it wasn't one of your comrades, your compatriots, getting their own back on you?
No, no one knew about it.
Gee, so something.
So what we might infer from that, were we of the mindset to invert such things, is that something had observed you having your little joke and decided to show you a point.
Indeed, because I don't know whether it was before or afterwards, because we're going back to about 1981 now.
But directly out, when you left the room, through the door, it was six paces and you were on stage.
And because it was a very busy musical, we had what we call soft blacks, legs we call them, which mask the wings from the audience.
And so you could stand by them and not be seen.
And you could also be there for your entrances, your exits, and watch what was going on from the side.
And someone had asked me to check out on what some of the actors were doing.
They were mucking around a bit in a nice way.
So I stood there.
And as I stood there, suddenly something pushed me from behind on my shoulder and made me so hard that I spun round and almost fell over.
So I told people this.
And they said, oh, come on, you're joking.
This can't be true.
I said, no, no, no, somebody, and there was no one near there.
I said, someone has done this to me.
And they said, oh, no, you know, rubbish.
Four nights later, one of the daughters in the show was standing in exactly the same place as I was standing.
And she had a wig on.
And as she stood there, the wig was pulled from behind her and pulled her head back like that.
And she, again, you know, she completely freaked.
But then we realized that what we were doing, we were standing in Dan's way to get on stage.
So he didn't care about me.
He pushed me out of the way.
But being a gentleman, he just pulled the lady's hair to make her move.
Wow.
And then on another occasion, because he was a huge star.
And sadly, you can't see a film of him or a television thing.
It was just before that period.
There's a little tiny sort of flicker film like what the butler saw.
That's the only thing of him.
Although his songs are on tape.
But on the first night of My Fair Lady, Bob Stanton was the stage manager and he was in the wing on the other side, calling the show, dinner jacket, looking very smart.
Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews.
And he was just about to queue in on the street where you live when he felt a hand in his pocket.
And he was trying to cue the lights and the scenery at the same time.
So he couldn't sort of put his hand down and pull away this hand in his pocket.
But he was really, really angry.
And he turned round at the end.
And again, there was nobody standing next to him.
And we are sure that was Leno again.
The only final story regarding, two final stories regarding Leno, is that George Hoare was the manager at that time at the Lane, wonderful, wonderful, real old theater manager, cigar, dinner jacket, you know, the lot.
And Lou Grade asked him to entertain some Americans who were coming over to see Harry Seacombe in the Four Musketeers.
And in the interval, they had drinks in the Royal Retiring Room, which is behind the Royal Box.
And one of the Americans said to George, he said, who's the little guy who keeps leaping around?
You know, he keeps coming in and going off, and he's a hoot.
And he said, well, I'm terribly sorry.
I haven't seen the show tonight, so I don't know quite who you're talking about.
End of that, end of the interval, end of the show, he had to take them round to meet Harry.
So he kilted them round over the royal circle, and there's another staircase on the other side, which takes you past the Prince of Wales's box, which again had a retiring room behind it.
And there on the wall was a picture, and the American said, That's the guy.
Oh, Lord.
And it was a picture, a photograph of Dan Leno.
So, what a strong presence and maybe still there to this day.
Still there to this day.
You know, I sometimes wonder if any of the great impresarios of our age, you know, would make themselves, their presence felt.
Like you mentioned, Lou Graid.
He was such a big character, not only in television, as we remember him for ATV, but film producer and one of the greatest, from the greatest family of impresarios for the stage that this country's ever known.
Absolutely.
Amazing such people don't make their presence felt.
Maybe they do.
Maybe they do.
We haven't seen them.
The Aldwich Theatre.
I used to, in my early days of working in London, I used to have to walk past the Aldwich Theatre on my way to work at a place called Gough Square in London.
So I'm aware of the Aldwich Theatre.
You tell the story, Annie Hashtari is the Aldwich's house manager and started working in the front of the house in 2007.
At the end of a performance of Dirty Dancing in 2008, a customer approached her and asked whether she knew there was a male ghost, quotes, walking in the stalls near the front of the stage.
Oh my God.
And that was probably Seymour Hicks.
That's what I think it was Seymour Hicks, who also haunts the bar at the back.
Boy, I think we should...
I had a guest on here a couple of years ago who wanted me to go and visit, and it's not too far from where I live, so I should, the new Wimbledon Theatre that has a tremendous reputation for being haunted, I understand.
Indeed.
Yes, that has several ghosts.
I'm cheating now.
I'm just, because I can't remember his name.
Yes, I can.
J.B. Mulholland.
J.B. Mulholland.
If you go to the bar at Wimbledon Theatre, in the circle bar, there's a rather nice oil painting.
That's of Mr. Mulholland.
And he has been seen quite often sitting in the dress circle.
He's been seen by the late manager.
When I say late, he's still with us.
But I don't know whether he's still working there.
And also, there's also the story of a very tall man in the stalls, but dressed in a sort of, how would you put it?
In a regency or earlier costume.
Black Wimbledon.
Well, I think I'm going to have to make that visit then.
Yeah.
Mr. Marlholland is very proprietary about his theatre, I think.
I think that often happens, is that people who've enjoyed working there come back to make sure it's still being looked after.
There are so many theatre stories.
We're not going to have time because we've only got a few minutes.
I wonder if we can fit in.
Now, I've got to pick, because we've been very London-centric about this, and we need to say that there are many other places that are...
The Dulla War Pavilion in Bex Hill, Sussex.
Now, I know this place well, and my dad did, too.
You say Tony Williams was stage manager of the theater from 88 to 2009.
Over the years, he experienced several inexplicable and uncanny happenings that led him to explore the archives of the Bex Hill Museum.
It's a wonderful building.
Is it Art Deco?
I think it might be, but it's a beautiful building.
Yes.
So what sorts of things happened at the De La War Pavilion in Bex Hill?
Well, it is, as you say, it's Art Deco.
You're spot on.
In fact, it's been used in a Poirot, you know, they did the ABC murders.
They use that as the end on the pavilion.
The story is that Tony had an office there, and he would occasionally see things going past him.
there was a figure which would appear in the corridors and frighten the dressers.
Doris Stokes, who was...
Do you remember Doris Stokes?
Yes, very famous.
She's out there still somewhere.
No, I mean, when I say that, she's somewhere.
She didn't worry about what was lingering in the corridors there.
But they did discover that there was, before it had been built, we believed that there were some Coast Guard cottages, and in one of them, there'd been a murder.
I'm sorry, I'm busking this slightly without actually going back in full.
You're doing brilliant.
And they thought that possibly one of us, a spirit, again, was walking about, not realising it was a theatre.
But there was an interesting story, which is a sweet story, really, of pantomime, a Cinderella, I think it was.
And the leading lady would come off to rags to riches, Cinderella, and come off stage for a quick costume change.
So she'd come off stage and she'd put her arms up in the air.
I will demonstrate this.
And her clothes would be ripped off.
The Velcro would come, take them off.
It'd slap on the next costume and push her on again.
And she came off one night, did exactly what she was told to do while watching what was going on on stage, dressed, walked on again, and as she walked on, she saw her dresser come running towards her from the other off stage.
She hadn't done the change, but she was dressed.
Someone had done the change for her.
Oh, my lord.
Hey, listen, we're completely out of time.
Thank you so much.
You know, you are one of those guests where I just shut up and let you do the talking.
It's a beautiful experience.
Please, will you come on again, Nick Bromley?
I'd be delighted to.
Because there are stories from every corner.
Thank you very much.
There are stories in this book that you can see on your screen right now that are from every corner of the United Kingdom, and I haven't done them justice by going there, so next time we certainly will.
Excellent guest, Nick Bromley, the ghosts of the United Kingdom's theatres.
We'll talk more with him.
Ditto for Dave Williams, talking about the effects on people of traveling in space and many, many other things.
Great guest, like I said, and another great guest, Nick Bromley, talking about the ghosts of the theater.
Three items here from my television show, which is ongoing in the United Kingdom at the moment.
More great guests in the pipeline here at the Home of the Unexplained online.
So until we meet again, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been the Unexplained.
And whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, stay warm, and please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
▲
Export Selection