Poltergeists in Bangor.
Weird Experiences of a local businessman.
Locked doors open – footfalls on the stairs.
This week I met a Bangor business man who lives in a house whose locked doors open by some mysterious agency, where strange noises occur almost nightly. And this house is not a stone’s throw from the town centre. For obvious reasons, the location of the house cannot be given nor the tenant’s name disclosed, but there is no shadow of doubt that poltergeists do exist in Bangor. A “Herald” representative investigated the occurrences and is convinced that some mysterious agency is giving almost nightly manifestations in the house.
For many years the gentleman concerned has lived with the weird sounds and eerie occurrences and although the early happenings alarmed him a little, today he pays no attention. His only feeling is annoyance when the sounds become so loud that they disturb his sleep. These poltergeist manifestations take the form of – Locked doors opening noiselessly. Noises on the stairs like people running up and down. Mysterious creakings all over the room. Objects moving of their own volition.
Latest happening occurred last week when there was a constant pattering up and down the stairs. The noise was so persistent and loud on this occasion that he got out of bed and opening the door looked on to the stairs. The noise continued but nothing visible appeared to be making them. There were no mice or rats, no animals about and the night was perfectly still with no wind. The noises continued for some time like bare feet pattering up and down and then ceased as suddenly as they had commenced.
“Were you frightened?” “No, I was not frightened,” said Mr X to a “Herald” representative. “It was a bit of a nuisance and I lost some sleep over it.”
“Do you always investigate the sounds?” Mr X laughed. “No. Why should I? There’s nothing to see. When I first heard the sounds about ten years ago I was puzzled and spent a lot of time investigating but all I gained by this was the realization that no earthly agency could account for them. Since then I haven’t bothered. They have become so usual I scarcely notice them. When the doors open mysteriously I just close them again. They don’t open too often, otherwise it would be very annoying. Often when I’m reading late at night and everything is quiet I hear a creak and looking over my book I watched the door slowly open. That’s all there is to it.”
“Do objects fly through the house as if thrown by invisible hands?” “Very rarely, but sometimes they do. Last week, for instance, a brush leaning against the wall shot over the room across my feet and came to rest at the opposite wall. No one touched it. It just slid across.”
“Do you believe that a spirit agency is behind these mysterious happenings?” “Well, I have an open mind. They happen. I know they happen. I have heard the sounds and I don’t bother very much about what is behind them. They don’t worry me at all and cause me very little inconvenience.”
Mr X is a well-known business man in the town, practical, hard headed and not at all sentimental. He gave our representative details in a matter-of-fact way.
There are many well authenticated cases of poltergeist phenomena in Ulster. There is a slate cottage near Milligan, Co. Derry, where a coast guard used to live. This young man fell in love with Mary Corelli, the world-famed novelist, when she spent her holidays there but flickered out. That, however, is beside the point. The house where he lived contains a mysterious presence which throws stones about and drops pebbles on the kitchen table.
[The article then goes on to talk about the Tillymoan, Mountfield and Cookstown poltergeist cases.]
The Bangor poltergeist seems a mild example of the species compared to the other Ulster occurrences, but there is no telling what forms it will take. The sounds in the Bangor house occur at varying intervals during the week but sometimes are louder and of longer duration. Whatever this strange phenomena is there appears to be no doubt that the happenings are actual but so far no explanation has ever been found.
The Northern Herald (North Down Herald and County Down Independent) 18th October 1952.