It has been said that Peter Underwood, author of WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK has heard more ghost stories and spent more nights in haunted houses than any man alive. Dame Jean Conan Doyle used to introduce him to her friends as ‘the Sherlock Holmes of psychical research’.
Do you believe in ghosts? Peter Underwood reveals some of the spooky sights he visited whilst researching his new book – perhaps you could pay a visit yourself, and then make up your own mind.
This Halloween, WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK is your essential ghost-hunting companion. And it’s available as an e-book so you can download it now and start your ghost hunt straight away!
Where do ghosts walk? Now there’s a problem. That they do walk this earth seems incontestable when considering the evidence. From every part of the world, in every civilisation, since the beginning of recorded history to the present time, there is good evidence of ghostly forms being seen by observant people with objective minds and healthy bodies.
They are seen when least expected and usually to persons in a relaxed state of mind; but the fact that there are instances of a particular ghostly figure – be it a monk, a child, a nun or whatever – being seen at a specific place by different people, on different occasions by witnesses who have no previous knowledge that such a figure has been seen there previously, suggest that there is something about some areas that make it more likely that such a figure will be seen there and that there are indeed such things as ghosts that are sometimes seen by some people in some places.
There are literally hundreds of books detailing ghost sightings in theatres, pubs, castles, private houses – even fires stations, police stations and ballrooms, but in WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK I have sought to recount reliable instances of ghosts being outdoors as opposed to in buildings. We examine haunted airfields, graveyards, bridges, woods and waters, to mention just a few. Discover places frequented by ghosts and ghostly activity that can be visited by anyone at any time.
In this, my 50th published work, among the first-hand evidence I include is that of Prudence Pepper, a former ambulance driver with the London Fire Service who heard, time after time, the unmistakable sounds of planes coming in to land at deserted Davidstow in Cornwall. During visits to the airfield I heard many stories of seemingly inexplicable happenings, sounds of wartime activity, glimpses of wartime personnel, and other replays of long ago happenings.
At the Cerne Abbas giant I talked with a young couple who had both seen four ancient figures on the giant hill carving, absorbed in some sort of primitive ritual; figures that abruptly and mysteriously disappeared in a puzzling fashion.
At Honiton in Devon a haunted highway harbours a phantom soldier, thought to be one of Monmouth’s men who fled after fighting at Sedgemoor. He has been encountered by two school teachers and a party of schoolchildren, before suddenly disappearing.
Cwmdonkin Park in Wales is haunted by its most famous son, Dylan Thomas; Greenwich Park boasts several ghosts; Swanage, Brighton and Isfield are only three of the haunted railway stations included; while ruins with ghosts include Corfe Castle, Caephilly, Margam and Netley. Among the seascapes are Boscastle, Beachy Head and Sandwood Bay in Scotland; while haunted woods and trees are to be found in London, Blandford Forum, Windsor and Northampton.
All in all, the world is a strange place where, from time to time, ghosts walk.