It was during my day job as the editor of the Sun's Showbiz column Bizarre that I first became fascinated by ghosts and the supernatural.
Two stories really triggered it - Firstly when the
cyborg singing senstation C.H.E.R. contacted me with a story about a
haunted photo-me machine, which when she used it, not the expected picture of
a beautiful young hippy, but rather a picture of a white
haired old witch came out. "I have to speak to you, Mohan", she said
sounding terrified, "My minders won't let me near a mirror or a photo
machine usually, and because of that, I expect this thing runs deeper
than we could possibly know. They're protecting me, Babs and Celine from
something big, I just know it."
Secondly, a scoop on the phenomenon of EVP (Sounds of the dead
just appearing on tape). Apparently, via EVP, 2 new Eva Cassidy and
37 Tupac Shakur albums are ready to go, including the haunting duet between
the two "Transparency See No Color" (recorded twice, also as the
identical sounding "Transparency See No Colour" for the UK market), which samples
Mike Oldfield's 'moonlight shadow' and sees Tupac
appologises for all the things he has previously shown off
about in the hope of
getting into heaven. Also recorded
are Eva's
take on all the other songs on the Wizard of Oz soundtrack, which the
record label still haven't released as they don't think it would touch
such a nerve to have 'Over the Rainbow' played in context of being
followed by "We are the lollipop kids".
Roger Taylor from Queen thinks that this is a brilliant
advancement,
as up to that point, they have had to cut and paste Freddie's syllables from old
tracks to make new words like some sonic form of magnetic poetry, and this will save a lot of time in which he
can sit thinking about what he can do with his life now, rocking backwards and
forwards in the rhythmic way that only a drummer can.
Anyway, this is a website to serve as a document of my ghostly hobby. Enjoy.
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Cyber-heaven?
CYBERSPACE could perhaps be housing many spirits lost on their way to heaven / nothing / eternal damnation for not
sacraficing a duckling every Quacktide / being reborn as a pea - finally reunited with the rest of their dead relatives in the family pod (delete as religiously applicable to you).
An incident of such a haunting was captured by the team
filming 'My Dear Media' - a TV show which takes a sideways at how the
internet looks at the way television looks at newspapers.
The team were filming the website 'Nineteen Eighty Fur' - spin off
site from the successful 'Animal Farm' and 'Homage to Catatonia'
(in which a Cerys Matthews lookalike appears to give a piggy back to
a hybernating bear on a dodgy infra-red webcam), when the following footage was captured.
Is this website haunted or hacked?
Further research would suggest that this haunting isn't just limited to this one website, as a Christian Film review site which 'warns' of sexual content was seen being awarded a 'clean web gold award' by the same mystery figure.
Could this mean that many incidents simply written off as hacking in fact be the work of a haunting?
Indeed, could hacking really explain the time when Mary Kent was dragged all the way to the shop to buy a car by a banner advert that appeared outside of her monitor in the middle of her living room?
The website hosting that banner ad - www.arbg.tk had previously been owned by a virtual Ancient Roman Burial Ground. Coincidence?
Let us know of any cyber hauntings you have spotted..
A cursed film?
In 1987, many people going to see the film 'Strobe' by Derek Jarmen actually believed it to be cursed, as up to 90% of the audience reported coming out of the movie feeling sickly. Some people were even reported to have had fits in the auditorium.
The film - 5 hours of flashing lights soundtracked by an interview with
Oliver Reed talking through a flange filter about mucking out time on his farm was believed to have been plagued by misfortune from the outset. This includes one incident when Oliver announced that after 13 hours of drinking, he'd lost all feeling in his chap and
another involving Derek writing all of the pages relating to this film in his post-humously to be published diaries in invisable ink after a prank by Erasure's Andy Bell, who hadn't forgiven him for not letting him appear in his previous film 'Sebastian' dressed as a sequined Gladiators that fights with a net.
It's back!
LOOK OUT for the return of my TV series - 'Mohan's Stately Hauntings'.
The new series is presented by Clare Sweeney instead of me.
She doesn't know much about ghosts but she is lovely
and people would like to watch her do anything which should get the viewing figures up.
Sweeney meets a ghostly orb
This week Clare looks at the case of 'the real poltergeist' which happened five years after the movie, when the Marvin family's trailer home was the scene of the exact same events as in the film.
The show sees the family talk at a thousand pound per word about the
events which happened there and discuss how their son has recently
seen dead people in their new ten million pound mansion in the room they
want to convert into a pool.
Clare also sees the best ever captured footage of a ghost orb, but is
disappointed that it isn't frightening, Victorian and with teeth "like wha'
ghosts should be like".
Next week features video clips of ghosts appearing and startling old people
into falling over revealing bloomers. The emphasis is on the old people
falling over, not the ghosts appearing.
The week after that sees Clare visiting a newly built house on a newly
discovered never populated island - and the live show features us watching
her for half an hour sharing in her enjoyment 'ghost hunting' horizontally on
the beach. A ghost might appear, but it's rather unlikely.
Ghost Writer
Rico Monkeon has drawn a cartoon of my adventures. If you would like
to see it click here.
I think it is a bloody terrible cartoon, and looking at it, what a
weirdo to make something like that. Ugly weirdo, for that matter. It's
no wonder he can't get anyone to love him.
Whereas I, I've met the
Backstreet Boys, would you like to meet them too?
Or, if you are an over 50s blonde, I could introduce you to the ghost of Elvis...
Dont have nightmares - dream of me,girls
STARE INTO RASPUTIN'S FOGLIGHTS FOR 25 MINUTES TO QUIT SMOKING (LEFT) OR
SPEAK FLUENT FRENCH (RIGHT)
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Stage Fright
On Thursday I was called out to the Bellingam Grande Theatre over in the birthplace of Hunter from Gladiators - York.
Theatre manager Richard Pooley told me how many of his audience had
reported seeing an apparition in the vicinity. Staff had christened
it Belinda after Belinda their prop designer's daughter whom they hoped
to frighten into growing up problematic. Belinda would always appear during the matinee's interval and would be dressed as an ice cream vendor. Not even realising that she is but a spirit, many of the audience would buy an ice cream off her, and it wouldn't be until they got back to their seat that they'd realise that it was made entirely out of dust, with a cobweb cone, by which time she had always vanished, leaving the 'ice cream'
to disintegrate in their hands.
Sadly I didn't get to see Belinda whilst I was over there, but whilst I was researching into the case, I found out two amazing things. One. In 1910, suffragette Nelly DeLangino was crushed to death by the pantomime horse whilst trying to protest about the Dame being played by a man.
And Two. The theatre is the venue referred to in Alanis Morrissette's 1995 crude masterpiece "You Oughta Know" in which she ponders "Is She Perverted like me? Would she go down on you in a theatre?"
Since ghosts are often the manifestation of repressed energy, perhaps it was Alanis' inner turmoil in going down on her boyfriend during 'The Death of a Salesman' in this very theatre that was the trigger to release this fellow sister from her eternal slumber. The investigation continues.
Polka Geist
The strangest case I have ever come across was the Hull Barclays haunting.
The ancient bank would appear to be the home of the ghost of a million year old amoeba. The tiny spirit wanders cluelessly around without even a second cell for company, unable to be exorcised until it has evolved into man and can understand the priest's words. It was only discovered recently when a crazed genius held the bank up with a microscope and the world's smallest gun saying "Look into that - I've got a micropistol"
That isn't my hand
Always great to hear your feedback - especially if
you've just ripped the address off my web site and decided to use it to
send me an advert for a DVD copier or a chance to buy a fake scholorship
in medicine so that I can get that highly paid job at the hospital
without all the study.
Recruitment Agent Diana Lewis contacted me to tell of a strange event at her office recently. When Billy Fathemshore died of boredom in the middle of an excel spreadsheet, the very next day his ghost came back, sat at his desk and continued to work as if nothing had happened. "Over the last 40 years
working here he'd forgotten how to live, and so
coming here obviously just came naturally in death" thinks Diana.
Lance Fisher emailed to tell me about a poltergeist at Lance's DIY, Cambridge. Apparently, bargains have been flying off the shelves since the sales began and everyone is welcome to come and see for themselves. He asked if I could email all my mailing list to tell them about this. Consider it done, mate. Sounds fascinating.
On a lighter note, Nad Menz contacted me to say "If Brian Harvey
hadn't survived his axe attack, I wish he'd haunt me. He's lovely."
Fun Spot
Wilson Picket was driven out of his home by a priest who thought he was a ghost, when he simply is a man with transparent skin. "It's a pigment thing like what Michael Jackson's got - except I started out white so it effects me different"!!
Serial Killer Robin Beck met the returning spirit of victim number 3 -
but he had killed so many times since that he simply didn't recogise her
and thus when she spoke - he felt more embarrissed and awkward than fearfull. And
tried to kill her again!!!
Sir Andrew McCluskey OMD sent me a clipping from his local Gazette telling how Father Howard Johnladder from Kent, believing his church to be haunted, acidentally exorcised the holy spirit!!!!!
Shake it all about
IN - Slapstick Apparitions - eg one which might be destined to forever relive it's death when it stood on the wrong end of a rake, slipped on a banana, got hit twice over the head by their friend turing round holding a plank in the middle, or fell down a manhole.
OUT - Making the bath water turn into blood. That's so 1987. Try something more creative, such as making the bubble bath rise into the shape of a ten foot high sword of Damacles
Gardener's Manifestation Time
Last year Mr Harry Thorpe from Grimsby contacted me with
an unusual sighting. He was working in his garden when he
saw what appeared to be a fat man's laughing head
poking out of the top of his compost heap (or, at least, what
he called his 'compost heap', being as it was made of 90%
non biodegradable waste).
In order to investigate, we dug away the compost to ground level and
waited.
That evening, the presence
appeared again, laughing as always - but this time, we could see the
rest of his body up to his ankles. How surprised we were to see
around his legs was a faint image of a
child tickling him with a brightly coloured peacock feather.
Digging deeper to where his feet should be, we discovered two skeletons.
One - A small child and t'other a big boned adult.
From the remains, it
would appear that the man had been tickled to heart attack, whereupon he
had collapsed crushing the child under his sheer weight.
As a tribute to these lost souls, Mr Thorpe planted an apple tree in
the spot of the compost. It had the
most wonderful blossom, and then in the summertime, an apple grew from
a branch which was the
exact size and shape of the laughing man's head. Sadly, it got too
heavy and fell, bruised and was left to be eaten by the wasps.
However, when pest controllers were called in to get rid of the wasps,
they were shocked to discover that instead of a queen wasp, there was
a 3cm high child giving out the orders by swiping a feather in a rhythm
to create air disturbances that the wasps could understand and act out her
demands from.
It would appear that the ghost child had died too young to invent herself a sensible
religion, and so was reborn into this idea of an afterlife that she had
believed in.
