A Haunted Kentish Farm Youth’s Experience.
Appeal to psychic experts.
Father’s remarkable narrative.
There have been incredible stories of occurrences in this corner of Kent, and the inhabitants are mystified by an alleged outbreak of ghostly phenomena (says the “Daily Chronicle” correspondent at Bethersden).
The central figure is Wilfred Batt, the 18-year-old son of Mr. E Batt, farmer, of Wissenden Lodge Farm. A happier, healthier, saner, better-looking boy you will not find in the hop fields of Kent. Yet during the past ten days, according to his relatives and neighbours, he has been possessed by some supernatural power that has resulted in –
Coal flying all over the house, breaking panes of glass, furniture moving about, a heavy crowbar wrenched from his hands and piercing the galvanised iron roof of the coalhouse, a gong sounding of its own accord.
Every evening villagers to the number of 20 or 30 walk from miles around to Wissenden Lodge and claim to have seen and heard something.
Dr. Maclaren, of Tenterden, was at the farm when I called on Thursday. “I don’t know what to make of it” he said. “Science admits there is no such thing as poltergeist, but cannot explain it.”
here is the story as related to me by Mr. Batt, father of the lad – “Last week my boy complained of stones and coal being thrown at him in the house and farmyard, and of strange noises in his room at night, but we thought nothing of it. But on Saturday night pieces of coal flew after him from the scuttle in the kitchen to the front door, where we picked them up. This happened in presence of ourselves and some friends, and there was no fake about it.
“On Sunday night while the three of us were sitting in the dining-room, the gong began to sound itself, swaying by some unseen force against one of the supports. Vibration does not explain it, because I tried jumping beside it without moving it at all. Sunday was a night of amazing events. Wilfred went to bed at 10.30. Almost immediately a piece of coal as large as my fist fell down his chimney, then the light went out, and when I ran upstairs to him, the furniture, including a chest and a wardrobe, was moving about in his room. My wife and I decided to have Wilfred to sleep in our room. Just as he was entering our bedroom door a picture fell in his own room and simultaneously a teddy bear jumped – that’s the only word to use – from our chest of drawers to the middle of the floor.
“We had a light in our room, so both my wife and I saw what happened after Wilfred had lain down on our bed. At the side of the bed was a stool, with a jug of water, cup and saucer, tea infuser, and a box of matches, in readiness for an early morning cup of tea. Before our very eyes these things, one after the other, slid to the floor, with the exception of the matches, which flew up on to the bed. Finally the cloth cover of the stool was suddenly whisked through the air across the bed and fell beside my wife. Then the stool itself began to shuffle about the floor, as though it were possessed. We had no peace till Wilfred fell asleep about 1 o’clock in the morning.
Fred Jarvis, Vick Millen of Hamden, and several electricians from Ashford were witnesses of another mysterious affair. Frequently, if Wilfred tried to carry a heavy crowbar about the garden and farm, he found himself being pulled towards the ground as though something underneath him were exerting a strong attraction.
On Tuesday night he was in company with several other people in the coalhouse, and at their request prodded a pile of coal with the crowbar. Immediately an unseen force thrust the bar upwards from his arms with sufficient force to pierce the galvanised iron roof. The force of the impact may be gauged from the fact that many people have tried to put the crowbar through the roof, and no one has succeeded. In their bewilderment the baffled villagers are appealing to psychic experts, like Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Belfast Telegraph, Friday 3rd February 1928.
Not for many years has such excitement been created in Kent as during the last few days, when it was discovered that mysterious happenings were going on at a farmhouse known as Wissenden, in the parish of Bethersden. We have frequently heard of the movement of objects in houses, and I confess to having been very sceptic as to their genuineness, but after personally investigating the occurrences at Wissenden I am positive that the youth, Wilfred Batt, possesses extraordinary powers not possessed by many people.
In another column are recorded his experiences, which will probably be attributed by many people to spiritual effects, but I am convinced that there is some scientific explanation. Whether the installation of a new wireless set is instrumental in producing these phenomena or not, it is a matter of fact that since this installation the young fellow’s strange experiences started, and that when it was taken away temporarily they were suspended. It was installed again and there was a renewal of the weird happenings at Wissenden. Is he a conductor or non-conducter of electricity? I hope that some scientist will take the whole matter in hand and be able to make reliable tests.
Kentish Express, 4th February 1928.
A young Kentish wizard.
Weird happenings at Wissenden.
Uncanny occurrences by night and day.
This week Wissenden Farm, Bethersden, close to the borders of Smarden, and standing not far from Romden Castle, has become famous. Suddenly the son of Mr E Batt, aged eighteen, found that when he was present in certain rooms articles of furniture, ornaments, pictures and many other things started to move. Subsequently when he was in the downstairs rooms pictures altered their position, pieces of wood and coal flew about, and even when he was outdoors stones would leave the ground. Equally mysterious were other happenings which are described by several of our representatives who have visited Wissenden during this week.
Wilfred Batt is the name of the lad who possesses this strange power, but it is gratifying to know that, although he is naturally embarrassed and perhaps worried by the things that happen, he is taking the whole affair in a philosophical way with a feeling that eventually they will abate altogether. Fortunately his health appears to be suffering in no way at all, but it has been difficult to spend quiet nights owing to the movements that go on in his room. These happenings have never been continuous. Of course there will be a good deal of scepticism displayed on the part of the general public, but his parents have been with him when these strange phenomena have occurred.
The evidence of these weird happenings is to be found everywhere, including a hole in a corrugated iron roof of a coal shed through which a crow-bar forced itself, and the shattered panes of a glass house through which stones flew. One feature worth noticing is that most articles fly away from Wilfred, although others come towards him, but he has never been hit, and scientists say that in similar instances the person possessing this strange power of attraction is never hit by a missile. That, at least, must be one consolation to him.
The incidents can be traced from the time that a new wireless set was installed, while they stopped when the apparatus was removed. It has now been reinstalled, and as recently as last Thursday, while eating his mid-day meal, Wilfred suddenly found the fork that he was using twisting in his hand, the points almost meeting the end of the handle.
Such is the strange history of Wissenden, and the following reports by members of the Kentish Express staff merely give the facts, but the explanation we must leave to the scientific world.
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There have been strange happenings lately at Wissenden Lodge. The house, tree-fringed, and built about fifty years ago as a shooting lodge, but now used as a farm dwelling, lies in the bed of a peaceful lane not far from Bethersden. Its occupants are Mr and Mrs Ebenezer Batt, their children – Wilfred, Barbara and Joy – and a maid.
It was a fine, fresh afternoon when I approached the lodge to learn something of the extraordinary events alleged to be taking place in and around it. Mr and Mrs Batt greeted me cheerfully and, although naturally puzzled by the curious things that are disturbing the atmosphere of their home, they seemed almost resigned to them. Mrs Batt said that the trouble began on the evening of Saturday, January 23rd, when she and her husband visited friends, and left behind the children, Wilfred – who is eighteen – and the maid. At ten o’clock the two latter heard a noise of stone-throwing against the roof of the wood-lodge near the kitchen door. They went to investigate. Other missiles at once fell into the rain-water tank, whilst two ornamental knobs tumbled from the front gate, to which they had hurried in the hope of catching the mischievous boy, or boys, whom they thought might be enjoying a practical joke. No one was seen.
On the following Saturday night, when Mr and Mrs Batt again were absent, the stone-throwing started outside at nine o’clock and continued until midnight. Since then other phenomenal happenings have been experienced inside the house by the rest of the household. They occur most frequently if Wilfred is present, but he cannot understand it at all. Indeed, he gives one the impression of being thoroughly embarrassed by the whole business. There comes a vigorous rattling at the window, stones patter on the panes, there are knockings on the roof, the lights go out suddenly and the furniture moves.
At ten o’clock on Sunday night, when Wilfred went to bed, a large piece of coal rattled down his chimney and fell into the fireplace. Ten minutes afterward a chair jumped and crashed to the ground, an unused bedstead leaning against the bedroom wall shook convulsively and the light faded. Wilfred was persuaded to go into his parents’ room, where his presence apparently caused a stuffed toy rabbit and a picture to fall from high positions and a matchbox to leap off the table. A water jug crashed into the grate and broke, to be followed by an American cloth mat which rose in the air and then half-draped itself on the shoulders of Mr and Mrs Batt, who were in bed. A heavy bedside table rocked and twisted, and in the morning it had turned completely, so that its cupboard door faced the wall.
On Monday a clock doubled over three times and a great lump of coal fell through the conservatory roof. A metal candlestick tumbled from the mantelpiece and a chair climbed upon Wilfred’s bed, the bedclothes of which flung themselves partly across it. At the same instant two other chairs overturned and the dressing-table mirror described a somersault.
An electro-plated tray in the hall rolls when Wilfred passes it, and the gong on the dinner wagon sounds – exactly as though struck by an invisible hand. Even the saucepans fall from their places at his approach.
I saw with my own eyes a candlestick and a picture dance downstairs, while a piece of coal flew from nowhere into the middle of the room in which I stood.
“A curious and comforting fact about it is that my children, Barbara and Joy, seem unaffected by what goes on. They sleep at night through the biggest uproar,” said Mrs Batt. She went on to say that just before these uncanny incidents begin she feels strung-up and nervy, and a sense of foreboding settles upon her, but if she goes into Barbara’s night-nursery, with its sloping ceiling and its canary singing in the window, the feeling leaves her immediately. This room, by the way, is the only one in the house not to be visited with a single queer event.
Owing to sleepless nights and a certain amount of worry caused by the affair. Mr and Mrs Batt obviously wish that they knew how to end it. They are hoping to interest Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the case.
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Another member of the “Kentish Express” staff who visited Wissenden Lodge the following day, writes: –
Asked on Wednesday morning how he was, Wilfred said that, except for tiredness due to lack of sleep and having made a lot of things occur for several visitors the previous evening he was quite fit and had a feeling that nothing abnormal would take place. A little later he held a piece of bar steel with his right hand at arm’s length and walked across a field opposite the house. After walking about twenty yards he suddenly stood still, quivered, became rigid, and his hand was jerked down, with the end of the bar pointing to the ground. This tenseness passed off in two or three seconds and he was able to walk away from the spot. This test, if it may so be called, was repeated with the same result.
Wilfred next held the steel with both hands, and after walking to the same spot his body suddenly bent from the waiast until, with his knees straight, both hands touched and were held to the ground. Again, after two or three seconds, he was able to stand erect and walk away.
It was then stated that, in addition to large pieces of stone, wood and coal performing weird tricks, a cold chisel about eight inches long suddenly flew from a bench in the barn and landed on the corrugated iron roof of a coal and wood shed about thirty feet away.
On another occasion, Wilfred went into the coal shed, picked up an iron pitcher and placed its point into a heap of coal. Immediately the pitcher flew upwards to the roof, which was penetrated by it.
Asked if he noticed anything different in the weight of the pitcher then and at other times, he showed that it was not an easy matter to hold the pitcher up to the roof, but when under this weird influence it had no weight at all.
Another remarkable thing is that if he, during one of these periods, approaches a motor car engine which is running it will immediately stop and he will be unable to restart it. When he moves away a few yards any other person will be able to start it.
Is it magnetism? Stone, metal, coal and wood are affected. Are all of these substances susceptible to magnetic influence? The three first are mineral, but wood is vegetable. The large piece, about two feet long and two and a half inches in diameter, that fell on to the glass roof had no metal in it – not even a nail.
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Another visitor to Wissenden writes as follows: – Looking at Wilfred Batt, he gives one the impression of a boy who has grown rather quickly for his age. He is eighteen and not far short of six feet, with flaxen hair and even features. There is not an atom of fear about him. He laughs at his “uncanny” experiences, and yet he knows quite well before “anything happens” that something or other will take place, and a cold shiver in the region of the back generally accompanies the forebodings.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said to me, “that these happenings only began the other night, when we had a new wireless set installed in the house, yet we had had one long before, but nothing occurred. I can operate the wireless without any ill effect, so that cannot be the cause.”
It has been put forward that perhaps Wilfred may have the powers of a water diviner, as in one part of a meadow, where there is known to be an underground spring, whenever he walks that way holding a piece of steel he receives shocks of an electrical sort. Is this particular part of Bethersden rich in mineral and can it be that young Batt has such magnetic power that minerals are attracted to him? Would it be worth while to excavate? Who knows what richness the earth contains?
I remember a case very similar to Wilfred’s, not so long since, of an Austrian girl who, wherever she went, attracted such things as metal pots and pans, steel knives, and even money. She was, I believe, brought to England, where she lost the “power” of attraction.
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On Thursday afternoon another “Kentish Express” representative visited Wissenden and was informed that during the mid-day meal Wilfred Batt’s fork twisted round his hand. At the time of the visit he was engaged in milking the cows and seemed quite well in health.
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One evening during last week a party of fifteen local residents visited the house, hoping to see strange happenings, but nothing special occurred until one of them went upstairs with Wilfred into the latter’s bedroom. Immediately the door was opened a chair rushed across the room. Perceptibly scored by the freakish chair, the visitor was quite satisfied and remained no longer. You must have a very practical mind to take these things coolly.
Kentish Express, 4th February 1928.
Electric Boy.
Freaks in a lone Kentish farm.
Wireless clue.
From our special correspondent. Bethersden, near Ashford..
Wilfred Batt, the shy 18-years-old son of a Kentish farmer, is amazing his relatives by the manifestations of an uncanny and mysterious “power.” I have just had a long talk with this remarkable boy. He lives at Wissenden Lodge, a lonely farmhouse which has been the scene of many amazing occurrences, so weird that they have baffled even those familiar with psychical phenomena.
A point which may throw light on the mystery is that the happenings did not commence until the installation of a wireless set in his home. It has been suggested that the electricity in Wilfred’s body has been intensified through the medium of wireless.
Wilfred is an intelligent-looking, perfectly normal and healthy lad, though said to be nervous and highly strung. Here are some of the strange happenings which he has told me himself:
Iron bars which he has held in his hands have suddenly bent almost double. one bar was attracted so violently towards the earth that it pulled him flat on the ground.
Going up to bed, he saw a candlestick, come jumping downstairs to meet him, and then follow him about the bedroom.
A silver tray almost leaped at him when he passed it.
Without anyone touching it a dining room gong began to sound loudly.
“I don’t understand what happens at all,” said the boy simply. “All I know is that I feel a kind of electric shock go through me, and I have the sensation that it is something inside me which causes the queer things to come about, in spite of myself.” He added that when he put on his wrist-watch it immediately stopped.
Lumps of coal and wood had “flown about” when he was near, and the furniture “danced.”
Keeping watch while he lay in bed one night, said his aunt, Mrs Dan Batt, the chairs “hurled themselves across the room,” and ornaments “jumped about the dressing table.” She declared, too, that a wire-spring mattress on which she sat suddenly began to undulate and quiver “as though a powerful current of electricity was passing through the springs.”
Mr Edgar Batt, another relative, told me that he was standing beside Wilfred in the coal shed the other day when a heavy crowbar which the boy could scarcely lift leaped from his hands when he touched it and drove through the thick galvanised-iron roof of the shed.
The family are hoping that sir Conan Doyle or some other authorities on occult and psychic subjects will study the matter and provide a solution of the mystery.
Weekly Dispatch (London), 5th February 1928.
“Haunted” Boy.
Is he in tune with the wireless set?
Inquiries made respecting the happenings at Wissenden Lodge Farm, Bethersden, Kent, where articles move and fly about on the approach of Wilfred Batt, the eighteen-years-old son of Mr. E. Batt, a local farmer, have given rise to the belief that the lad is possessed of some mysterious property or force similar to that which gives water diviners their power.
Wilfred is of a highly nervous temperament, and it is significant that the happenings at Wissenden Lodge did not commence until a wireless set was installed in the home. Wilfred has been medically advised to keep as quiet as possible and refrain from giving demonstrations of his powers. The family are hoping that Sir Conan Doyle or some other authorities on occult and psychic subjects will study the matter and provide a solution of the mystery.
The People, Sunday 5th February 1928.
Electric Boy
Radio Clue to Strange Freaks in a Kent Farmhouse
Flying Metal
Investigations regarding the strange happenings at Wiscenden Lodge, Bethersden, Kent, where articles fly about on the approach of Wilfred Batt, the eighteen-year-old son of a farmer, give rise to the belief that the lad is possessed of some mysterious force similar to that which gives water diviners their power.
Wilfred is of a highly nervous temperament, and it is significant that the happenings did not begin until a wireless set was installed in the home.
One theory is that the electricity in Wilfred’s body has been intensified through the medium of the wireless.
Wilfred has been medically advised to keep as quiet as possible and refrain from giving demonstrations of his powers. Here are some of Wilfred’s remarkable experiences, as related by himself:-
Iron bars which has held in his hand have suddenly bent almost double. Going to bed, a candlestick jumped downstairs to meet him, and then followed him about the bedroom. A silver tray leaped at him when he passed it. A dinner gong began to sound loudly without anyone touching it.
“I don’t understand what happens at all,” said Wilfred. “All I know is that I feel a kind of electric shock go through me and I have a sensation that something inside me is causing the queer things to come about.”
Daily Mirror, 6th February 1928.
The peculiar magnetic attraction of Wilfred Batt, of Bethersden, having suddenly disappeared, the sceptics are chorusing their views that the manifestations were without scientific foundation – in fact, a joke. It is, however, overlooked that similar cases have been known for many years, although their actual cause has remained undiscovered by the scientific world.
We now hear of the case of a small boy, eight years of age, who lives in Grosvenor Square, London, in whose presence chairs moved, teapots were flung across the room and doors opened and shut apparently without human agency. As in the case of Wilfred Batt, so these manifestations in connection with the London boy have now stopped, and it will be interesting to watch and wait for their recurrence in the immediate or distant future.
Kentish Express, 17th March 1928.