Crieff shop staff are spooked by strange events.
By Richard Burdge.
An expert in paranormal phenomena has been called in to investigate a series of unexplained happenings in a Perthshire shop. Moving objects, strange sounds and uneasy feelings of an unnatural presence left the staff of City Prices, Church Street, Crieff, fearing that a poltergiest was at work.
Proprietor John Randalls was working late one night last week restocking his shop when he heard a loud cough close behind him. Although he knew he was alone in the shop, Mr Randalls checked to see if anyone was there. “The hairs on my neck bristled as I looked – the room was empty,” he said.
This was the latest of a series of unusual occurrences. From inside the shop he and his partner, Liz Cramb, and staff have heard the heavy front door open noisily only to find it locked tightly shut. At other times it swings wide open, then closes on its own. Perhaps most typical of poltergeist activity is that clothes and other items have been found in disarray in the morning and goods on the shelves disturbed. Voices and bangs have been heard from the empty flat upstairs and Liz felt a hand brush against her shoulder when no one was near.
A neighbouring shop-keeper has also heard unexplained noises and a fleeting figure has been spotted on the store’s video camera. The experiences have been alarming, but staff feel the presence is perfectly friendly if a little mischievous.
In an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery, David Cowan, a local author and researcher of unusual phenomena, was called in to investigate the site. He said, “If there is one place in Crieff where I would expect to find paranormal phenomena it is just here. Adjoining the back room of City Prices is the old burial ground of the parish church, which may well be a factor, especially as the burial ground has been recently landscaped with heavy machinery. A powerful ley line runs through the shop from Braefordie standing stone near Comrie, up Crieff High Street, through the town clock and stocks, then the parish burial ground to another standing stone at Aberuthven, and yet another further on at Dunning, all in a perfectly straight line – a powerful ley line in other words.”
Mr Cowan expresses some caution about believing that all the accounts stem from some unnatural presence at work. “From experience, when poltergeist activity begins, it is natural for the victim to attribute everything unusual to poltergeist behaviour.” he said. An underground stream, the Kincardine burn, which passes beneath the shop should also be taken into account, he says. It is his experience that underground streams and geological fissures encourage unusual phenomena. The energy emitted has been blamed for health problems and muscular spasms which may give people the impression that they have been touched, or even pushed, when no one is around.
Mr Cowan is unsurprised by the latest happenings as Crieff is an old town with a sometimes violent history. As the focal point of a number of ley lines it is full of unusual phenomena, he believes. His research into ley lines and paranormal phenomena, he believes. His research into ley lines and paranormal phenomena around Perthshire led to his book Ancient Energies of the Earth, while his work on earth energies and ill-health is included in Safe As Houses.
Dundee Courier, 4th December 1999.
TV May Lay the Ghost of Shop to Rest.
A spiteful poltergeist is plaguing a shop in Crieff. For the last 15 years there have been strange goings on at the general store in the town. Doors will bang by themselves, lights go on and off for no reason and goods on the shop’s shelves will suddenly jump on to the floor when there is nobody near them.
The store’s owners, who for the moment prefer to be anonymous, will also leave their shop neat and tidy at closing time only to discover in the morning that their ghostly squatter has trashed it.
But a controversial theory may be about to reveal that there is a scientific rather than supernatural explanation for the shopkeeper’s nightmare.
A Gaelic TV programme to be shown next Sunday is exploring unconventional opinions on ghosts. They consulted researchers to try to find an explanation for the apparent poltergeist activity in the Perthshire store. “One of the possibilities is that ghosts are somehow generated by environmental phenomena,” said show producer Geoff Holder, of Speakeasy Productions in Stanley. An expert will claim that the poltergeist activity is a similar phenomena to what is known as earth lights, where strange lights are seen after an earthquake. The lights are created by geological tensions within the rocks disturbed by the earthquake.
An Duthaich Dhiomhair will be broadcast on Sunday, August 24, at 7pm on Grampin and Scottish Television.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 16th August 2003.