Expert probes 2 hauntings.
A “haunted flats” claim by two terrified women is to be investigated by a university lecturer. Dr John Belloff, lecturer in the psychology department of Edinburgh University, wants to find out more about reports of strange noises, shattering glasses and moving objects, which have brought daily fear to the lives of two families over the past three weeks.
He is making arrangements for a Darlington schoolteacher, who is a member of the Society for Psychic Research, to visit the homes of Mrs Jackie Sawyer and Mrs Selena Green, of Aberdare Road, Farringdon Estate, Sunderland. If he is satisfied with the preliminary report, Dr Belloff will carry out a personal investigation to try to get to the bottom of the weird events. Dr Belloff, who has a special interest in extra sensory perception, said yesterday that he had looked into a number of cases of alleged poltergeists in the Edinburgh area, but had never come up with any findings and had just put them down to “local hysteria.”
“Cases are liable to sound much more dramatic when they are first reported, so this is why I want a preliminary report. I also want to know the frequency of the phenomena, because I would not want to take days off to come to Sunderland on the off chance of hearing mysterious footsteps, which migh tnot be heard again for several weeks,” he said. Dr Belloff described himself as one of the few people in the academic world with an interest in such phenomena. “Of course, I have to be open minded and I look at it as a piece of scientific research. I can’t seay we have have ever had strong evidence to draw positive conclusions from,” he said.
What puzzles him about the Farringdon case is that as well as the unexplained noises and movements, Mrs Green has reported seeing a “dark shadowy figure with cold, evil eyes.” Dr Belloff said the typical poltergeist situation didn’t involve apparitions. “This leads me to suspect the figure is a bit of imagination resulting from fear.”
Mrs Green, aged 27, and 32 year old Mrs Sawyer say the sequence of events began when two ashtrays suddenly shattered into small pieces three weeks ago while they were having a chat. Both their flats have since had a cold atmosphere, they say. There have been clicking and squeaking noises, doors open and close, lights and gas fires are switched on and off, objects have been moving around and ornaments rattling all without obvious reason.
Newcastle Journal, 13th November 1976.
A young mother last night described a horrifying seance in which her neighbour nearly attacked her while in a trance which was like something from the film “The Exorcist.” The seance was held in the flat of Mrs Salena Green, of Aberdare Road, Sunderland, and involved members of the Lancashire Society for Psychical Research. The research team, including three mediums, spent the weekend in the second floor flats of Mrs Green and her neighbour, Mrs Jackie Sawyer, to investigate reports of ghostly happenings over the past six weeks. Just after midnight yesterday the seance started and Mrs Sawyer, who is 32 and has two children, appeared to go into a trance. Mrs Green, aged 27, also a mother of two, said: “Jackie started breathing heavily, then began shaking. Suddenly her left leg became paralysed, and she was rubbing it. We tried to massage it, but she could not move it. Then her face seemed to change shape, becoming very long, and her voice sounded different. She pointed her finger at me and said: ‘You, you, you.’ I was so upset by this, I went into the bedroom. While I was there, she became really hysterical and I heard the voice coming from her, shouting how I was an evil woman.”
But Mrs Sawyer said she knew nothing about this. “All I remember was dozing off, and the next thing I knew people were telling me what had happened. I found it hard to believe that I could have behaved like this,” she said.
Mr Bill Parker, president of the research society, said that while Mrs Sawyer was struggling in the trance she had violently twisted the wrist of one of the girls in the group. She had knocked him to the ground, although he had been off balance at the time. “She was gritting her teeth and snarling. It was certainly very strange. I have seen plenty of seances, but have never come across anyone so taken,” he said. “It was like something from the film ‘The Exorcist.'” Mr Parker, a clinical teacher in psychiatry for Salford Health Authority, stressed that he had an open mind about spirits, but the mediums with them felt Mrs Sawyer had been genuinely in a trance. “One of the mediums became quite worried. At one stage he thought he was losing control of her,” he added.
The research group will not know the full findings until they have processed all their film tape-recordings and equipment readings over the next fortnight. “But there is soemthing strange there – something we just haven’t got to the bottom of,” said Mr Parker. He said he felt, however, that at least some of the noises that have been heard in the flats over recent weeks could be put down to acoustics. “With our high-frequency microphones, we could hear what people were saying in the other flats – and even from outside we could pick up conversations in Mrs Green’s flat. The walls and floors seem very thin.” Mrs Sawyer and Mrs Green said they would welcome further investigations if the society wished to visit. “Mrs Green’s flat seems to have been cleared of whatever was bothering her,” said Mrs Sawyer. “But there is still an atmosphere in mine, and I am hoping to organise a seance in here in the next few days.”
Mrs Jackie Sawyer (left) and Mrs Salena Green yesterday after their disturbing experience.
Newcastle Journal, 6th December 1976.