Sauchie, Clackmannanshire (1960)

Strange case of haunted child…

Dozens of would-be helpers were turned away yesterday from the home of Scotland’s “haunted” schoolgirl, Virginia Campbell. Virginia, 11, the girl whose life is said to have become a nightmare of furniture moving of its own accord, of strange, persistent rapping noises.

But the family want nothing to do with spiritualists or faith healers. They are leaving Virginia’s strange case in the hands of the Church of Scotland and their family doctor.

The strange happenings are said to have taken place in the new council house at 19 Park Terrace, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire.

Virginia, who came from Ireland six weeks ago to live with her elder brother, Thomas Campbell and his family, is sick with worry. She has been kept off school. Because of reports that desks moved and that the mysterious rappings had been heard, the other children made life a misery for the pretty little girl with the Irish accent.

Absurd rumours swept through the small town. And yesterday the family doctor in Tillicoultry angrily condemned the inaccurate stories. He said: “All this has done the child very great harm. It is an absolute lie that a trunk floated and a desk drifted out of a window. It is absurd to say that there was a shape near her. I have knowledge of what manifestations there have been, and while I agree they need explaining, they have been grossly exaggerated. Virginia is a sensitive child. The proper treatment is a change of environment and a course of sedatives. We welcome the help offered by the church.”

Local minister, the Rev. Thomas Lund, and Virginia’s teacher, Miss Margaret Stewart, both know about the “ghostly activities.” But neither will discuss what happened. Virginia’s head teacher, Mr Hill, dismissed the stories as exaggerated and said the children had been told to stop discussing them.

What really went on in the upstairs bedroom where Virginia’s torment reduced her to hysterics? A family friend said last night: “Worst of all were the knocks and thumps. Certain articles of furniture did move. A wicker linen basket was affected. Virginia seems to sense something nearby. Several times the bedclothes and pillows have been disturbed. You could see them move, but there was nothing there when they were lifted.”

Virginia is the youngest of a large family. Her father is still in Ireland, but her mother works as a home help in a boarding-house near Dollar Academy. She lives there and Virginia cannot be with her. But yesterday was her day off, and greying Mrs Annie Campbell spent it comforting her distraught daughter in the home of a friend. For Virginia is no longer staying with her brother, Thomas. His wife, Isabella, said yesterday: “We only want to be left alone. We shall not discuss the matter. It is very distressing.”

Daily Record, 1st December 1960.

Doctor is studying poltergeist report.

Girl of 11 involved.

A doctor in Clackmannanshire last night refused to comment on reports that a girl of 11 from Sauchie is being haunted by a poltergeist. For the past few days he has been studying reports, and last night said that the manifestations were comparable with those reported in other poltergeist cases. He refused to elaborate on what they were. He said: “There is no necessity for being removed to hospital. She is not ill in the generally accepted sense. We are helping her as much as we can.”

The head master of Sauchie Junior Secondary School, where the girl is a pupil, said that her attendance over the past ten days had been erratic. “There seems to be something unusual or abnormal at the home. I have no first-hand information at all. I have just heard rumours of what has happened.” He added that the rumours had upset the other children.

The Scotsman, 2nd December 1960.

The strange case of little Virginia.

A spokesman for the Home Board of the Church of Scotland said yesterday the strange case of 11-year-old Virginia Campbell was being considered, but no decision had been taken on a course of action. Strange things began to happen to Virginia about a week ago. Until the beginning of October she had lived in a lonely house in County Donegal. She is the youngest of a large grown-up family. Her mother, Mrs Annie Campbell, brought her to live with one of her married sons at 19 Park Crescent, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire. Before leaving Ireland, Virginia lost a pet dog of which she was extremely fond, and a little friend also died.

The distressing incidents began to happen to her in her brother’s house in Park Crescent, and in the classroom of Sauchie School, which she attended with her niece, Margaret. Heavy articles of furniture were seen to move without any one touching them when she was in the room. Doors opened of their own accord for her to pass through, and were later found to be difficult to shut.

One evening while sitting on the edge of Virginia’s bed, her mother was pushed roughly to the floor. When she stood up, she saw the sheets and the electric blanket which covered her daughter rising and falling in a puzzling fashion. Virginia was moaning. Worried and anxious, her mother and brother asked the Rev. T.W. Lund, minister of Sauchie Parish Church, to call and see the girl. They also brought in Dr H.W. Nisbet, of Tillicoultry. Both men have been very seriously impressed by what they have seen.

Scottish spiritualists are very interested in Virginia. They see in her a potential medium. Mr James McNee, Scottish secretary of the Spiritualist National Church, said yesterday such happenings were not unusual. “Children are much more alive psychically than are adults. Many children are actually, though unconsciously, real mediums.”

Virginia has gone to live in a cousin’s house in Dollar. Yesterday her condition was slightly improved, and she is much quieter. There is, however, a possibility that a Church of Scotland minister from Edinburgh, who has had considerable experience in these matters, will visit Virginia this weekend.

Dundee Courier, 2nd December 1960.

Haunted world of little Virginia.

Express Staff Reporter.

A ghost hunt started last night in an attempt to soothe the troubled mind of an 11-year-old haunted girl. Two doctors and three church ministers are investigating the strange world of Virginia Campbell, who has lived in torment for two months from a poltergeist that pursues her even to school. The haunting started soon after Virginia and her mother, Mrs Annie Campbell, arrived in the village of Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, to stay with Virginia’s married brother, Tom.

In a letter to her husband, James, at home in Moville, Co. Donegal, Mrs Campbell describes how a noise like a bouncing ball was heard under Virginia’s bed at night. Virginia was moved to other beds – and other houses – and each time the noise followed. The lid of a linen box beside one bed jumped up and slammed shut twice. Virginia’s bedclothes were twitched off, and the pillow was pulled from under her head.

Dr W.H. Nisbet, leading the ghost hunt, said some of the events were “quite inexplicable.” But he added: “We intend to carry out the most thorough investigations, and I think we will be able to find a cure.”

Daily Express, 2nd December 1960.

Ordeal of haunted girl may soon end.

The ordeal of an eleven-year-old Irish girl who has been haunted by abnormal phenomena may soon be over – that was the verdict of two doctors and a priest who signed a statement issued in Edinburgh last night by the Church of Scotland. They have been investigating the strange things which have happened to Virginia Campbell since she and her mother arrived at the village of Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, from Moville, Co. Donegal, two months ago.

During two weeks in November the three men and other observers – taking as elaborate precautions as could be devised in the circumstances – kept watch on Virginia at night. They heard knocking and scraping. They saw pillows moving, bedclothes rippling and the violent opening and shutting of a linen basket which moved.

“We concluded that the happenings could not be accounted for in the normal sense of cause and effect,” they said. “When the observances did not quickly disappear we attempted to help the child by changing her environment and to deal by means of sedatives with her hysteria, which we all agreed was a secondary emotional effect. We realised the need not only for medical care for the child, but also to spiritual help for the whole family, and we consulted certain ministers who have had experience of abnormal phenomena of a similar nature. All along we have recognised the possible importance of restoring the child to her previous environment in Ireland. In our opinon the phenomena are rapidly diminishing and it is our belief that they may soon disappear altogether. We believe that the method of treatment adopted has been justified, and that the child will soon find her life to be as normal as any other girl of her age.”

The statement was signed by Dr. W. H. Nisbet, the family’s doctor, the Rev. T.W. Lund, the parish minister, and Dr. W. Logan.

Liverpool Daily Post, 3rd December 1960.

Virginia and the bumps…

Report on ‘haunting’ of a child.

The phenomena terrifying and tormenting Virginia Campbell, 11, may soon disappear. That was the verdict, last night, of a minister and two doctors who have been investigating the strange happenings at the girl’s home in Park Crescent, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire. The minister, the Rev. T.W. Lund and Doctors W.H. Nisbet and W. Logan, issued the following statement:

“During the last two weeks of November on various nights along with other observers, we saw a young girl about whom certain curious phenomena have been reported. In view of the rather sensational accounts and inaccurate reporting in some newspapers, we would like to state the following facts: After repeated attendances, separately and together – and after as elaborate precautions as could be devised in the circumstances, we concluded that the happenings could not be accounted for in the normal sense of cause and effect.

“The observed phenomena were of two kinds, auditory and visual. The former included noises such as knocking and scraping. The latter included the movements of pillows, the rippling of bedclothes, and the moving and violent opening and shutting of a linen basket. All these seemed to be closely connected with the person of an 11-year-old girl, Virginia Campbell. When the observances did not quickly disappear, we attempted to help the child by changing her environment, and deal by means of sedatives with her hysteria, which we all agreed was secondary emotional effect. We realised the need not only for medical care for the child but also for spiritual help for the whole family. We consulted certain ministers who have had experience of abnormal phenomena of similar nature.

“All along we have recognised the possible importance of restoring the child to her previous environment in Ireland. In our opinion the phenomena are rapidly diminishing and it is our belief that they may soon disappear altogether… though we are convinced that sustained publicity of a sensational nature can do nothing but harm. We believe that the method of treatment adopted has been justified, and that the child will soon find her life to be as normal as any other girl of her age.”

Reports by the Rev. Thomas Lund and a joint report from Dr. William Nisbet and Dr. William Logan were considered in Edinburgh yesterday by Church of Scotland authorities. One of the other ministers concerned in the investigations linked the reports together. Dr. Nisbet said in his home at Tillicoultry last night: “The report is a purely factual one, and I have drawn no conclusions in it. The reason is that Dr. Logan and myself might come to different conclusions although we agree on what was seen. There were several items which we listed. The most important was the rapping like someone’s knuckle on wood. I was staggered to see the pillow move around under her head. That was perhaps the most startling of them all. I would not describe what happened as supernatural in the accepted sense of the word, but I believe that a force which we cannot yet recognise nor understand has been at work.”

A mother tells of ‘my haunted little girl, Virginia’ – ‘I heart it all myself…’

Virginia Campbell, the 11-year-old schoolgirl said to be haunted by a poltergeist, played happily in her bedroom yesterday. And her mother, grey-haired Mrs Annie Campbell, 54, spoke of “strange happenings.” Happenings which, she said, were “almost driving my little daughter out of her mind.” Near tears, Mrs Campbell for the first time told of the “manifestations” that had made her daughter’s life a nightmare. She said: “It all started last week. Virginia heard strange tapping noises under her bed. We heard noises ourselves. It sounded like a ball bouncing on a linoleum-covered floor.”

She went on: “I searched under the bed and checked the whole room – but there was no possible explanation. We weren’t alarmed at first, but next day Virginia came home from school and told us there had been awful things happening in the class.” Down-to-earth and homely Mrs Campbell went on: “I have never believed in ghosts – but now I am convinced that Virginia has been haunted by something. Every time something happened we all searched the house, but found nothing. The noises came from under her bed when she was in bed, and from whatever part of the room she moved to. On several occasions a vase on the sideboard toppled over without being touched. On one occasion when Virginia was in bed the bed clothes and pillows were disturbed, though we could find nothing in the bed. Another time the lid of the linen basket rose and fell when she was in the room.”

The worried mother and her husband, James, are staying with Virginia at the home of their son Tom, at 19 Park Crescent, Sauchie. Mrs Campbell says that she has tried to stop Virginia worrying. She said: “Of course like any child in a similar situation she has been very confused and once or twice she was really scared. But now I think she accepts it, and we feel that she will get better.”

And late last night a less worried mother said: “Everything seems to be coming back to normal. We hope she will be going to school again on Monday.”

Virginia’s father, Mr James Campbell, flew over from Ireland on Thursday without even packing a case. “We come from Donegal where banshees and leprechauns are common talk I thought that Virginia had maybe let her imagination work a bit. But I have only been here one night and I’m sure that something supernatural has been happening to my girl.”

Daily Record, 3rd December 1960.

The ‘ghost’ turns up on a TV programme.

The phenomena which terrified Virginia Campbell, 11, were caused by “spirits of a mischievous character,” an Edinburgh minister said last night. Another minister who took part in the investigations at Virginia’s home in Park Crescent, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, said: “I felt we were in the presence of forces hitherto unknown.” Both ministers were taking part – with two doctors – in the Scottish Home Service radio programme “Scope.”

Listeners heard recorded noises and Virginia’s screams as the lid of a linen basket rose and slammed shut – with no one near. Dr. W.H. Nisbet said: “I saw the lid of the linen basket rise up and then shut – although it was well away from any contact.” And the Rev. M.A. Macdonald, of St George’s West Church, Edinburgh, summed up by saying there could be two causes for the phenomena – an objective cause and a subjective one. The objective cause – to which he leaned – meant that the disturbances were caused by “spirits of a mischievous character, although not necessary evil spirits.”

Daily Record, 14th December 1960.

Poltergeist Terror.

An Eminent Scientist’s Award-winning Report On The Astonishing Case of Young Virginia Campbell.

A poltergeist? That’s the name for an invisible spirit which thumps and bumps, usually in the night. Ghosts haunt houses. But poltergeists haunt people. For example: A family at Plymouth called in a bishop when a poltergeist bombarded them with coal. A secretary, of Eltham, Kent, gets shivers down the spine when she talks about the poltergeist who uses her typewriter. Four workmen at Leamington, Warwickshire, claim that they were pelted with bricks by a spirit.

But all the reported incidents – there are about four a year in Britain – none is quite as intriguing as the haunting of Virginia Campbell, now aged 15 and living in the Midlands. A poltergeist stripped off her bedclothes, slammed doors, knocked on the wall and shifted cupboards and flower vases. It lifted her school desk in the air. It flung oranges and bananas at people around her.

Some will think that these accounts are fanciful and far-fetched. They may dismiss them as fraud, trickery, bad observation or, more probably, hallucination. They may well be forgiven. For until recently no one had delved deeply enough into the mysterious activities of these disembodied spirits to come up with cold material facts and smooth away our fears about the unknown. But for the past five years, Dr George Owen, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, the world’s foremost expert on poltergeists, has been probing scientifically into some of the most puzzling cases. He has assembled charts of spooky statistics, and carried out on-the-spot investigations into some very uncanny situations.

Now Dr Owen has disclosed his fascinating findings in a book (Can We Explain The Poltergeist?) which has won him the joint award for research at the Duke University in North Carolina. For his distinguished work in uncovering these weird happenings he has also been awarded first prize by the Parapsychology Foundation of New York. (Parapsychology is the study of ghosts, thought transference, clairvoyance, and all kinds of such phenomena).

Out of 200 “hauntings” he has examined in great detail, Dr Owen reckons that about 30 are genuine. And of these, one case – that of Virginia Campbell – is the most convincing of all. If you consider what happened to her – and the evidence of the reliable people who were witnesses – there can surely no longer be any doubt that poltergeists really do exist.

To find out how and why Virginia became a haunted girl let us first go back to a white-washed cottage perched on the wild, wind-whipped coastline of County Donegal, at Moville.In this quaint, isolated part of Eire, banshees are said to wail before death and tiny leprechauns prance at the bottom of the garden. This was the home of the Campbell family – five boys and four girls, of whom Virginia was the youngest. Today, it stands padlocked and deserted. She was a normal, happy and healthy child of eleven when, in the autumn of 1960, her father James Campbell decided to dispose of his croft holding and settle in Scotland. While he stayed behind in Donegal to complete business, Virginia moved to the home of her brother, Thomas, a coal-miner, at No. 19, Park-crescent, Sauchie, near Alloa in Clackmannanshire. Her mother got a job not far away at a boarding house attached to the well-known school, Dollar Academy, and took the bus every weekend to see her daughter.

The move from a remote spot in Eire to a bustling community is Scotland did not, at first, seem to bring any mental or emotional upset in the girl. Then, on a night soon after she arrived, Virginia went upstairs to the double bed which she shared with her nine-year-old niece, Margaret. And this is what happened: A “thunking” noise, like a bouncing ball, came from under the bed. Curious, the two girls slipped out of bed, and switched on the light. Seeing nothing, they went downstairs to report the strange incident. But the invisible bumping ball chased after them, down the stairs and into the living room. It refused to stop bouncing and hounding Virginia until she fell asleep, rather frightened, but exhausted. So strained was the little girl next morning that her aunt kept her home from school.

At tea-time she rested in an arm-chair next to a sideboard. Suddenly, the sideboard moved out five inches from the wall – then moved back again. Virginia was not touching it.

That evening, when Virginia was in bed, but not asleep, loud knocks, audible all over the house, were heard by the family – even the neighbours. At midnight, a worried aunt and uncle called a local clergyman from his bed. He found the constant loud banging noises to come from the bed-head, though it was not being touched by anyone. He gripped the bed head and found it vibrating during the knocking. The clergyman also saw a large linen chest twenty-seven inches long, seventeen inches high, fourteen inches wide and full of bed linen, rock and raise itself slightly, travel eighteen inches over the linoleum, and then move back.

Next day Virginia stayed home again from school, and the clergyman called at bedtime. He watched in amazement as the pillow on which her head was resting began to rotate, slide from under her, and fall to the floor. A doctor who was called heard knockings and a sawing noise in the linen basket – then saw a peculiar rippling pass over the pillow. But he saw no way in which she could have produced this effect.

On the Friday – November 25, 1960, to be precise – the bewildered little girl stayed home again in the morning, but was taken to school in the afternoon. It was during a period of silent reading that her teacher spotted Virginia struggling to hold down the lid of her desk. Two or three times it beat her strength and forced itself steeply up on its hinges. A few minutes later, an unoccupied desk behind her was seen by the teacher, Miss Margaret Stewart, to rise slowly until it was about an inch off the floor. It then settled down gently, a little out of its original position. Hardly able to believe what she had seen, Miss Stewart went over and examined it. There were no  strings. No levers. The desk had suspended itself.

In the days that followed a situation that could have amounted to panic reigned among the 300 [sic] children at the tiny red-bricked schoolhouse in Sauchie. The teacher’s heavy wooden desk which only a strong man could carry, lifted like a helicopter and hovered before landing in a spin. While she was sketching the solution to a problem for the class, a blackboard pointer lying on top of the desk started to vibrate, then rolled off the edge. When Virginia placed a bowl of hyacinth bulbs on her teacher’s desk, it began to slide along. Almost in tears, Virginia stood in front of the teacher, hands firmly clenched behind her. “Please, Miss,” she pleaded, “I didn’t touch anything…”

Meanwhile, the poltergeist continued to persecute the little schoolgirl in her aunt’s council house. As she took off her ankle socks they floated in mid-air. An invisible hand peeled off her pyjama trousers, and when she wore a nightdress it was rolled up. Every time she tried to cover herself, the bedclothes were pulled back. Footsteps sounded plainly across the bedroom floor. An apple jumped out of a fruit bowl and was suspended aloft like a celluloid ball on a fountain, and the household was startled to see a shaving brush float around the bathroom.

As if this were not enough, the unseen spirit nipped and pinched her (as well as a visitor to the house), the stopper of her hot water bottle wouldn’t stay in, coloured writing appeared on her face, and three times her lips turned bright red.

After her initial fright, Virginia gradually became used to the tricks of her poltergeist shadow. She nicknamed him “Wee Hughie.”

But so strange – and so frequent – were the manifestations, that curiosity about the child filled the town. A stream of prominent local people began to call at the house. Was something beyond the power of understanding happening to Virginia? Could someone be playing a cruel trick? Or was she really haunted? Four callers – a headmaster, a minister, and two doctors – decided to find out for themselves. They set up a film camera and a tape-recorder, then kept all-night vigils for six weeks to record the weird things that happened. Their astonishing account will make those who scoff at the supernatural think again. You will be able to read it next Sunday.

Sunday Mirror, 13th June 1965.

A Scientist’s Verdict on the Haunted Schoolgirl

Hallucination, imagination, trickery – the activities of poltergeists have been called all these things. Yet the haunting of young Virginia Campbell could be nothing but fact. A renowned expert on psychic phenomena investigated the strange happenings that plagued the little girl. He suggests some answers to a mystery that has always baffled science.

Virginia was possessed by a wild and unknown force.

by Victor Sims.

Eleven-year-old Virginia Campbell tossed and turned in her bed, trying desperately to sleep. But repeatedly an unseen hand tugged her pillow from under her and threw it to the floor. “Why can’t you leave us alone?” her mother pleaded. But the poltergeist that was tormenting the child paid no attention. It went on shifting objects and making strange noises until everyone in the small Scottish mining town of Sauchie was talking about the haunting of Virginia. Even when the girl and her mother moved to another house, the poltergeist followed. For nearly six months, until March, 1961, the disturbances continued. Then they slackened and died out just as mysteriously as they had arrived.

Many profound thinkers have tried to find how, when and why a poltergeist creates mischief, alarm and confusion. But no one has ever carried out such a thorough scientific investigation as Dr George Owen, of Trinity College, Cambridge, the world’s leading authority on poltergeists. Dr. Owen, quiet-spoken, authoritative, has delved into many  inexplicable cases to find a solution. But it was the strange case of Virginia Campbell which nagged at his inquiring mind. He visited the scene of the happenings and interrogated five responsible eye-witnesses until there was no shadow of doubt what they had seen or heard. For his detailed account and the findings published in his book, Can We Explain The Poltergeist? (Garrett Publications, New York), Dr Owen won two major US awards.

How do you begin to investigate an invisible spirit which throws oranges, lifts a desk, or takes off your clothes? Dr Owen had to make sure the eye-witnesses were sound, sensible people of high reputation. “It is just possible, ” he says, “to suppose one could be the victim of illusion or hallucination. However, it is beyond all possibility that EVERY one could be deceived over a long period.” So he was able to satisfy himself that the witnesses heard actual noises and saw action motions of real objects – and that none of this was due to trickery or deception by Virginia. “As it turns out,” says Dr Owen, “her physical and mental health are splendid. She is placid, unemotional, obedient, and has a mature outlook for her age.”

Why should a poltergeist choose Virginia Campbell as its target? “It may be of significance,” says the Cambridge don, “that Virginia had been going through a period of rapid physical development and maturation. When girls are approaching puberty, they often seem to attract poltergeist phenomena. There are many cases which suggest that such activity is more likely to arise in that age group.” If there happens to be any emotional upset during this difficult stage, he points out, there is even more likelihood of poltergeist phenomena.

Was Virginia in the throes of an emotional upheaval when curious things began to happen? Her parents were moving home from Eire to Scotland, and she was living with her brother in Sauchie. “There is good reason to suppose,” says Dr Owen, “that she was in a state of some tension at being parted from her parents and dog. These circumstances may well have triggered off a physical force around her which is not yet known to science.” If there is yet another hidden force could it come from a disembodied spirit striving to make its presence felt? Dr Owen answers: “On balance, the happenings seem to be more consistent with a force originating in Virginia’s body, rather than with an entity outside her. All the available evidence seems to suggest that as a result of a peculiar condition at the relevant times in her body or mind, certain unidentified physical forces operated on objects in the vicinity.”

In simple terms, this means that if a girl is emotionally upset during her twenty-eight-day cycle she can acquire an unexplained power strong enough to move things without touching them. Dr Owen then admits: “We are ignorant of the nature of this force, and have no idea how it is applied.” Assuming that there IS an unknown force, is it just minor energy or does it conceal a power greater than all the forces of nature? Here Dr Owen is even more than normally cautious and reserved than in his published findings: “We cannot even begin to understand its potential. But one thing seems fairly certain. The hidden force is wild and uncontrollable at the moment. There is nothing we can compare it with except perhaps a blind man stumbling around a darkened room. It may take centuries to discover what it really represents. Only then will scientists be able to say with certainty what happened to Virginia Campbell.”

What about Virginia herself? Where is she now? Has the poltergeist left its mark? She is no longer at the council house where the noise spirit came to “haunt” her. Today, aged fifteen, and untroubled by the whole affair, she lives with her parents in a small Midlands town. She works in a factory. She has a boy-friend, goes dancing, and is keen on the Kinks. And the poltergeist? “It never really worried me,” says Virginia. “But for the sake of others, I hope it never returns.”

Sunday Mirror, 27th June 1965.

Of the top three poltergeists in recent years, two have occurred in Scotland. In the first case, at Sauchie in Clackmannanshire 18 years ago, a 13-year-old Irish girl, Virginia Campbell, was not settling into her new home. She became the focus of knocking and sawing noises when she went to bed. The bedclothes rippled and in one case turned a blood red colour while under observation. The two local G.P.s and the minister, the Rev. T.W. Lund, invited the REv. Murdo Ewan McDonald to perform a blessing service. As the Bible was read, the k nockings reached such a peak that the minister could not be heard.

The phenomena followed Virginia to school where desks opened and pointers rapped. She is now married and wishes to forget the experience.

The Scotsman, 25th September 1979.