“Knock! Knock!” at Huddersfield.
Strange rappings in house.
An “Evening Post” Reporter Investigates.
From our own Reporter, Huddersfield, Friday.
Mysterious knockings heard on the walls and doors of a Huddersfield terrace house in the early morning have been alarming the occupants and neighbours since last Friday. With another Pressman I visited the house at midnight last night, and stayed there for three hours, during which time knockings were certainly heard. The performance however, was a mild affair compared with what is said to have happened before.
It was at the invitation of the landlord and occupier that we visited the house, the address and district of which we promised not to disclose.
This is the landlord’s story. The noises began a week ago, when an elderly aunt came to stay at the house. In all there were four occupants, the landlord and three women. As soon as the women had retired, sharp raps, similar to the noise a man’s knuckle would make on a door, were heard on the walls. The raps could be heard all over the house, but chiefly in a back bedroom.
“When they reached a door the noise was terrific,” said the landlord. “It was like a heavy fist of a man beating a most violent tattoo on the wood. The doors quivered under the force of the blows, and one bedroom door flew open and then slammed itself to. One of the women was sleeping on an improvised bed, supported by tin trunks. When the raps reached these hollow trunks there was pandemonium.”
The landlord said that in addition to the knockings, scratching and scampering sounds had been heard, and what appeared to be an electrical disturbance in the atmosphere was observed in the smaller of the two back bedrooms three nights ago. Miniature flashes of lightning are said to have streaked across the walls, on which there are now a number of dents. The dents look similar to marks that might be made by the heel of a woman’s shoe.
The first noises we heard this morning occurred at 12.15. There were two sharp raps, which seemed to come from a bedroom occupied by two women. The women shouted, and with the landlord I went upstairs as far as the landing. We did not put any lights on. In the meantime two other men in the company had slipped out of the front door, up a passage and to the back of the house, to see if anyone was playing a game. While we were on the stairs two other knocks, much louder than the first, were heard. It was hard to tell where they seemed to come from. I switched on my torch, but there was nothing to see.
Later, while we were talking with the light on, downstairs, all four of us heard more sharp raps and dull thuds, and the landlord and a colleague said he heard a two-noted whistle. We searched the house, visiting every room but the one occupied by the women, but we found nothing. In the afternoon, incidentally, we had explored the underdrawing, and the dust there was quite undisturbed.
What is the explanation of these mysterious noises, which have been clearly heard by neighbours on both sides of the house?
The women are greatly upset, and the landlord is suffering from loss of sleep. If there are more noises the landlord has arranged to get in touch with us, and a further investigation will be made.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 28th January 1938.