Mysterious Raps in a Leeds House
Words “Spelled”
Incidents set family wondering
Strange sounds have been heard at a house in Walmsley Road, Leeds. It is a terrace house. At night when Mr and Mrs Percy Oak and their family have been about to go to bed, persistent tapping has been heard from an inside wall. Sometimes it has been heard intermittently till the early morning.
Mr Oak thought at first that a water pipe or perhaps a mouse, might be the cause of the sound, but as it continued night after night, for about a week, he decided to investigate. He found that the hot water pipes had not been built into the wall. He took down the pictures and removed the furniture to the other side of the room. But the sounds continued.
A “Yorkshire Evening Post” reporter was invited to the house to hear the tapping. Soon after midnight it began.
Mr L Allison, secretary of the Leeds Psychic Research Society, heard it too, and with a certain amount of success, it is claimed, managed to control the rapping by means of a simple code.
“The noise has got on our nerves,” Mr Oak told our reporter. “There are nine people living in the house and all have heard it. The youngest boy, aged 11, can hear it, its first stage, when the tap-tap-tap is very weak. Other members of the family have been roused in the early morning by the noise.”
“If anyone thinks that [?] may have been playing tricks, the experiences of a neighbour and a policeman rule that out. A few nights ago the rapping became so loud that our neighbour thought we must have been mending shoes in the early hours of the morning. She asked us about it, and rather than endure it any longer I called in a policeman the following night. He was baffled, too, though he managed to control the sound by knocking on the wall. This produced what some people might call a shallow echo. When the officer knocked three times the reply was three taps and when he knocked seven times seven taps were heard in return almost immediately.”
Mr Oak has lived in Walmsley Road only a few months. He has never taken any special interest in spiritualism or psychic phenomena. He attended a spiritualist meeting more than 20 years ago out of curiosity, but dismissed the matter from his mind almost at once.
Mr Allison asked the family to assemble in the living room, just after midnight. He had been told that the raps had been very loud three nights before and that they had recurred less loudly. For two minutes Mr Allison tried to “draw” the sound through the wall in the living room, but without success. The party then went upstairs, when Mr Allison’s knock was answered by a whole series of raps from the wall.
[partly illegible – Mr Allison, speaking towards the sound, said the rappings were … He did not rap the wall this time, but what was interpreted as a reply in the affirmative came from the wall. Mr Allison then … draw up a simple code, one rap for A, two for B, three for C, and so on. From the wall came knocks which were held to indicate that this was understood. For the next half hour a message came through, though at times the raps were very faint. For the greater part of the time our reporter heard them distinctly. He was standing in the middle of the room. … If there was a misunderstanding over a letter the raps were repeated. … [illegible section] Before leaving, Mr Allison, facing the wall, asked that the … be allowed to have a night’s rest free from rapping. The … to be an affirmative, and our reporter was told later that for the rest of the night there was no further knocking.]
Yorkshire Evening Post, 9th January 1936.
Mystery of Bedtime Taps.
A broken promise in Leeds.
By a “Mercury” special correspondent.
The alleged ghost of Walmsley Road, Leeds, has broken the promise it gave to Mr L Allison, secretary of the Leeds Psychic Research Society, to refrain from disturbing the household of Mr and Mrs Percy Oak, and has returned to its tapping.
The tapping is no longer the orderly affair it was, when the ghost, through an arranged code, returned sensible answers to sensible questions. According to Mr Oak, it seems as if some other “spirit” is coming through – “someone not so educated, as it were, and very erratic.”
Mrs Oak said yesterday, “It comes on just like this” – she began knocking rapidly and softly on the kitchen wall – “and it can be heard right up in the attic. It fair goes through you. At first, it’s a mumbling noise, and then it gets louder and louder. It never comes on till someone goes to bed – even if we stop up till 1 o’clock in the morning in the hopes of missing it. Last night it was reasonable, and after quarter of an hour it stopped. But last Sunday it went on for two hours. If it’s spirits that want a conversation with us, we’d be glad for them to come through by day, at a more convenient time.”
No scientific explanation of the tapping has been given. It occurs in a single brick wall dividing the front rooms from the back. The hot water pipes are all well away from the wall. The water has been run off and electricians have been in to look at the lights, with no result.
No previous tenants have been disturbed. Policemen, reporters, and neighbours can all bear witness to the fact that when they have tapped there have been answering taps in return.
Leeds Mercury, 24th January 1936.