|
Ghostwatch (1992)
The programme
you're about to watch is a unique live investigation of the supernatural. It contains material which some viewers may find to be disturbing. No creaking gates, no Gothic towers, no shutter windows, yet, for the past 10 months, this house has been the focus of an astonishing barrage of supernatural activity. This footage was shot by parapsychologists investigating the case. Now, you're about to see one of the incidents that have earned this house its reputation. -Let's see what you think. -I can't sleep. Turn the light off. Mum said if you don't... All right. All right. (BANGING) Mum. Mum. Mum! Mummy, it's back! It's back! -Mum! -Mum. Mum. Mum. -Help me. -(SCREAMING) -Help me. -Don't touch me! -(HIT ON THE DOOR) -Don't touch me. (SCREAMING) -Don't.. -(BOTH SCREAM) -Quickly! -Mum! Mum! -Mum. -Mum. (SCREAMING) (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) MICHAEL: So welcome live this Halloween night to the first ever TV Ghostwatch. That's the scene in Foxhill Drive in Northolt. They are outside broadcasting this and there, that's the house where it might all happen tonight or it might not. We shall see. We're going to investigate one of the most baffling and fascinating areas of human experience, the supernatural. Tonight, television is going ghost-hunting in an unprecedented scientific experiment, where we hope to show you for the first time irrefutable proof that ghosts really do exist. I'm joined in the studio by Dr Lin Pascoe to give her expert technical advice. Throughout the programme, I'll be taking other expert opinion about the supernatural from both here and America. You'll be telling us your ghost stories. And as our tale unfolds, we'll be taking your calls about just what you're seeing. Well, let's go to the main location of our programme, the house in Foxhill Drive. Craig Charles, a well-known ghost hunter, is our reporter. Craig, how are you? Hi, Michael. Yeah, I'm fine. I've taken the Valium, man. Later on, we're gonna be interviewing the medium who tried unsuccessfully to exorcise the house behind me. I wonder if he's heard from Elvis lately. All right, there. With me is Pam Early, the mum of the house. -Hello, Pam. -Hello. And she's gonna be taking us through the whole spine-tingling story. (HUMMING THE TWILIGHT ZONE THEME) And after that, you can share with us your own supernatural experience on our very own Halloween witch-board. I mean, switchboard. -Over to you Smithy. -MIKE: Thanks, Craig. We'll come back to you later on. All right, this part of the studio is your part of the studio this evening, because this is the phone number we'd like you to call us on. You can now see our Ghostwatch team are here ready to take your calls. We particularly want to hear from you if you've had any personal experiences of ghosts or the supernatural. Call us now. As a matter of fact, of course, Mike Smith has a very particular reason for keeping a beady eye on the proceedings tonight. -Michael. -Well, so would you, if your wife had just told you she was gonna spend the best part of her night in the most haunted house in Britain. Of course we're taking about Sarah Greene. And Sarah is our reporter who'll be spending the night, actually, inside our haunted house. She was very keen to do it, I understand, Mike. Oh, yeah, jumped at the chance. Actually, so did I, because we've both been interested in ghosts and that weird sort of stuff. And to be honest, I could never have sat at home tonight on my own and watched this programme. I'm safer here. MICHAEL: All right, Mike, thanks a lot. Now, confrontations, of course, with the supernatural, can be devastatingly real. Let's find out what effect they've had on Mrs Early and her family. So, how destructive has the haunting actually been? Mum kept on blaming us for breaking stuff. We weren't doing anything. I've lost track, really, I have. Plates, teapots, cups, a broken tap, we got this thick smell, so disgusting, from the tap. And stains got on clothes from nowhere, out of thin air. -And in the central heating vent. -The man came, and... He couldn't understand it, he said it was impossible. Everybody said it was impossible. I said, "Great. You come and live with 'impossible'." So many things have happened... You start thinking... I don't know... Maybe you've done something wrong. It's wrecked my... My house, my home, my family... CRAIG: It's okay. Over to you, Michael. Dr Lin Pascoe, it's a disturbing interview, that, isn't it? You investigated the Northolt poltergeist for eight months, wasn't it? What can be done for people like Mrs Early? According to the evidence on that film, clearly she's shattered. Well, the first thing we can all do for a start is believe them. Well, it's not always that easy, is it? Yes, but you can see, it's obvious these people are desperate for help. Makes me so angry when you still get people out there denying that these things even happen. All right, Dr Pascoe, for the moment, thank you very much indeed. Lin Pascoe will be giving her expert commentary right throughout the programme. And by the way, for those night owls amongst you, we'll be here with updates roughly every hour, right through the night. Well, now it's high time we met our intrepid ghost-watcher, Sarah Greene. First hospital watch, Sarah, now a ghost watch, big difference. Well, I suppose the truth is I love a mystery, and who knows, we may get to the bottom of this one. Actually, my own experience with things ghostly, albeit very brief, was so intriguing, I thought I might get the chance to learn a bit more tonight. Well, perhaps, we might get a chance to hear more of your story later on. Yeah, if we get an opportunity, I'd love to. Actually, Smithy was there when I had my encounter with what I think was a ghost. -But he wasn't quite as struck as me, there, were you... -Well, no. Well, yes. I mean, I think, this is the right environment so study these things. Yeah, that's why I get sent out here to the frontline and you stay all cosy and safe and sound in the studio, isn't it? Well, good luck, and I'll see you later. Now, before we go into the lion's den, I'd like to introduce you to Alan Demescu. He is an electronics engineer, and a member of the Society for Psychical Research. Now, Alan, we have a whole array of technology here with us. What are you hoping to discover tonight? Well, the paranormal covers a wide range of aspects, but tonight, we're concentrating on what we call, "Spontaneous cases." What are they exactly? Well, anything from inexplicable noises, footsteps, knocking, irrefutive voices, presences, the feeling of being watched, er, electrical interference, say, you know, your TV, lights, telephone... Right along at the far end of the spectrum to actual, full-blown visual apparitions. Now, we've got our own BBC scanner here but what are you using it for exactly? Well, we've got a remote video camera mounted in every room. Erm... We have our image analysis equipment linked in, the tape is timecoded. And atmospheric condition and temperature are logged onscreen by sensors. Those are like the little burglar alarms -with the red lights. -Right. Except, they're triggered by cold instead of heat. Erm, intense cold spots are a secondary phenomenon. We also want to detect low and high frequencies. Basically, any aberration at all could be a signal or a clue. Well, we hope you get lots of both of those. -We'll leave you to it, Alan. -Okay. And, we'll go back outside where I'm going to be able to introduce you to two of the very important people who are at the frontline of this vigil, as psychical researchers call it. Now, the first person is actually standing right behind the camera, and if he hands over to me, you'll notice two things. First of all, that his hand is a lot steadier than mine, and secondly, that he bears a remarkable resemblance to Mike Gatting. Yes, you do. (LAUGHS) -Chris Miller. -Hi. SARAH: Now, Chris, does this camera differ in any way from the sort of camera you'd normally use on an outside broadcast? Well, it's a normal lightweight mobile camera, but in this case, it's been adapted so we can use infrared as well. -SARAH: Can we see how that works, Chris... -Yeah, sure. ...if I hand this back to you? SARAH: What's the best way to demonstrate it? CHRIS: Well, if we can kill the lights... SARAH: Okay, Clive, can we pop the lights down now? CHRIS: There you go. SARAH: Wow. How's that? -CHRIS: I can see you quite clearly now. -Oh, look. Yeah, so can I, on a monitor. I'm quite close to you though. I mean, what about the people down here? If we move down here... How fast can you move with that thing on your shoulder, actually? -Quite fast. -It's not bad. Who needs a Steadicam when you got Chris Miller? That's what I say. Oh, yes, there they are. CHRIS: There they all are. (SARAH LAUGHING) CHRIS: Somebody wants to get in the frame. SARAH: Funny, they can see what they look like. I'll tell you what though, this means for us, doesn't it, that nothing can lurk in the shadows. CHRIS: That's right, there's no hiding place. Absolutely. Erm, right, let's have the lights back up again then. Okay, now, we've got our vision back. I think it's time to meet sound. Man of sound mind here, Mike Aiton. Not only can this gentleman hear an ant scratching its back legs at 50 yards, he's also the unofficial chairman of the Adrian Edmonson Lookalike Society. Right on. SARAH: So, if you're not scared of ghosts, you're scared of that. How are you feeling about tonight? Are you a bit nervous at all? We will see. Erm, how about you, Chris? I'm okay. -Are you ready to go in then? -Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll see you later. And... (CHUCKLES) (ALL CLAPPING) It's time to go once more into the breach. -Do I have to go first? -CHRIS: After you. Yeah, typical. Come on then, chaps. Hello? Here we are. Hi, Pam. Now, oh, look here we are. This is the burglar alarm that Alan Demescu was talking about. Can we make ourselves at home? Kim, Suzanne. Can I join you for a bit of apple bobbing, do you think? Well, we'll let Sarah and her jolly team settle down there for the night. I wonder if they'll remain as jolly as that all evening. We shall find out. Er, Dr Pascoe, let me ask you, why did you first of all... Why did you choose that particular house? Well, it was a decision we made over many weeks really. What happened is that we ran a computer programme of all the haunted locations in the UK, and then we did a census of all the various investigators, and they were all unanimous that Foxhill had more tangible phenomena on record than... I was gonna say any place in the world, but certainly any place in the UK. We'll see evidence of that, of course, later on in the programme. What's the chance, do you think, of us seeing anything tonight? I don't honestly know. Sometimes we saw nothing for weeks, and then, other times things were coming through thick and fast, I mean, so much so that we had difficulty logging it all. I mean, some nights it was like, er... (EXHALES) Being in a circus or a war zone or something. -"A war zone"? -It was that bad. What about Halloween? Will that make any difference, do you think? Yeah, I think it will. Certainly, there were more reports on Halloween than almost any other night of the year. But maybe that's because people expect to see things. -I'm taking out no bets. I'm hopeful. -(CHUCKLES) All right. Yes, we're all hopeful. Let's take a phone call. Mike Smith, what you got for us? This is Emma Stableford, and she's from Slough. Thank you. Emma? Emma, hello. -EMMA: (ON PHONE) Hello? -Yeah. EMMA: (ON PHONE) I did have a story, but there's actually something else I'd like to say to Dr Pascoe. -MICHAEL: Go on. -EMMA: (ON PHONE) But I feel a bit foolish. Oh, don't worry about that, Emma. Never worries me. EMMA: (ON PHONE) Well, you know, at the beginning when you showed the real footage of that haunted bedroom? Well, I know it was dark, but I was sure I could see a figure standing behind against the wall, just by the curtain. Very, very faint, but definitely a figure there. A woman. A person's body, at least. Standing there in a black dress. Emma, I've examined that particular piece of film many times and so I'm not sure... MICHAEL: I'll tell you what to do, Emma, if you can actually spot up the specific point on that tape where you saw this figure... Tell one of our operators, we'll actually spool it back to the point where you tell us, and then I'll get Dr Pascoe here to have a good look at it. Okay? -Great. -EMMA: (ON PHONE) Yeah. All right. Thanks for calling. Before you go, Emma, could you give a full description of what you thought you saw to somebody manning the phones please? Can you do that? -EMMA: (ON PHONE) Yeah, I will. -Great. -MICHAEL: Okay, Emma, thanks a lot. -Thank you. -Bye-bye. Bye-bye. -EMMA: (ON PHONE) Bye. I tell you what we'll do. While we search for that piece of tape, let's find out what Sarah's up to. MIKE: Sarah, did you hear that? Somebody thinks they've seen a presence in the house. -Today? -MIKE: You've not noticed anything this evening, -have you? -No, nothing to report from here yet, except how absolutely useless I am at apple-bobbing. Come on, girls. Yes, you've done it, I can see. (KNOCKING) -Who's that? -(KNOCKING) Can you hear that? Can you hear this? Are you hearing... (KNOCKING) It's coming from in... -(GROWLING) -(SCREAMING) You... (ALL LAUGHING) You are a complete and utter beast. "Beast"? I got it! Look at that. It's worse than Mike Smith, isn't it? I don't know though. Is it your idea, this, Smithy? You set this up? Well, I had a bet with your husband, I could get a four-letter-word uttered on television, I nearly did, as well. It was "beast". B-E-A-S-T. Beast. You're a class act. I think that is such a cheap shot, I have to say. I mean, you know, I can take a joke with the best of them, but we're all holed up in here... Well, I'm sorry if I'm being insensitive, but it is my brief. They said, "Craig, come along, be insensitive." Can you just get out of the way a minute? -You're in the middle of my close-up. -Oh, with pleasure. They were in on it. They were in on it. -Give me an apple. Give me an apple. -You were? Sorry, chaps, I love you all, if there's any ghosts, keep them to yourselves. -SARAH: Love us and leave us, go on. -I love you. You needn't smirk, Mike Smith, you were in on this. I think you're in a certain amount of trouble with her indoors for that little situation. I'm sorry there, Doctor. Our producer, in fact, created a happening in the house just in case we were on a wild ghost hunt, so to speak. -DR PASCOE: We aren't, I promise you. -All right. Well, let's go back to Sarah now. Sarah, when you're ready let's hear the real story, the strange happenings at Foxhill Drive. And by the way, have you got over your shock yet? Yes, I have recovered now, thank you, Michael. Let me fill you in on what's been happening here so far. Let's face it, there's violence at some time or another in every part of London, and this estate is no exception. But there are some days, and certainly nights when Mrs Early and her two daughters would rather be out on the street than right here, within their own four walls. Let's go upstairs for a moment. It all began in here on December the 28th, 1991. Who was the first person to experience something? Suzanne. We had a bit of an argument because Suzanne wanted to stay up and watch some film and I wouldn't let her. -Go on, Suze, you say what happened. -No, you say. She went to bed about, -Erm... -I was in bed. Mum came in to tuck me in, instead she just stood by the bed, looking at me. At least I thought it was her. And then she just turned and went. The thing is, I didn't tuck them in that night. I always do, but that night I fell asleep in front of the television. I told her she must have been dreaming. Then a few days later, it was my room. SARAH: Should we go and have a look? A few days later, these terrible noises woke me coming from the walls like a bat, like a thudding. All around you? Yes, like the whole room was going to come apart. Did anybody else hear it? Yes, Suzanne and Kim heard it. Kimmy, if you heard it too, what sort of a noise was it? (HITTING THE FLOOR) We were screaming, I was shouting, "What is it? What is it?" Well, I didn't know what to say, they were that terrified. So, I said it was pipes. You know, the central heating. So, afterwards, whenever Kim heard something she'd say, "It's Pipes. Pipes is here." SARAH: So by this time, Kim, you could actually feel something as well, could you? Whereabouts was it coming from? There. SARAH: What is it that's over there? Pipes, that's where he hides. SARAH: Does he live there? Where does he live then? Anywhere? On the stairs. SARAH: Kim, how do you know he lives down there? Because I saw him through the crack. He was there. He was staring at me. SARAH: What happened after you saw him? I drew a picture of him. -SARAH: Have you kept it? -Yeah. -SARAH: Can we have a look? -Yeah. Let's have a look. Was that exactly how he looked when you saw him? KIM: Yeah, he was disgusting. Really disgusting. It's a good picture. Yeah. No. (WHISPERING) Keep it. It's a present. Oh, thank you very much. I'll tell you what, why don't we put it up somewhere where everyone can see it? -Yeah. -Where's a good place? On the fridge in the kitchen. -On the fridge? -KIM: Yeah. SARAH: There we go. Will it be all right putting him up there, do you think? Yeah, because he likes everything freezing and really cold. Pam, there was something else, wasn't there? Yes, there's also this. Once I looked in Suzie's exercise book from school. SARAH: Oh. PAMELA: I was so shocked, I said to her, "Did you write this?" I was going to hit her, I was so mad. But it wasn't me. I don't even write like that. Then I said to her, "Who was it, then? -"Who was it?" -SARAH: Yeah. Who or what? Michael. Lots of questions there that need answering, perhaps we'll have a chance to answer some of them tonight. Just actually hearing in my earpiece that Mike Smith has some news. Mike, what's happening? Thanks very much. Thank you. I've got eight or nine phone calls here which are like Emma Stableford's we had earlier on. They too have seen a mysterious dark figure in the background of that shot in the children's bedroom. Michael? "Dark, mysterious figure," Doctor. Have we got that sequence ready yet? -Yes. -Can we see that tape? Yeah, I think we can. I think we can see it right now. Let's roll the tape. There you are, up there on the screen, that's the tape you wanted, isn't it? I can't sleep. Turn the light off. Mum said if you don't... All right. All right. MICHAEL: Now, this is the point where Emma Stableford, our caller, said she could identify that dark mysterious figure in the corner of the room. I don't see anything myself, do you? DR PASCOE: Can we rewind it? MICHAEL: Sure. -Let's rewind it. -Can we play it again? Can we play it back, BTL? There you are. Back a bit more. -Yeah. Is that all right? -Yeah. -Can we go forward slowly? -Sure, sure. MICHAEL: All right. I'm doing that now. -That's slow enough? -Uh-huh. I can't see anything now myself. False alarm? Yeah, I think I can see what's happened. Do you see the shadow cast by the curtain there? -See on the curtain, on the left-hand side. -MICHAEL: Not really. I tell you what we'll do. We've got a piece of, I don't know... Wheel that piece of sophisticated technology in here. You can actually use a light pencil on the screen there just to identify exactly the area that you're talking about. -Is this it? -Yes, that's right. Just draw on it as you would a normal pencil. DR PASCOE: All right, I think... There's a sort of shape there a face maybe, and a human form I think the shadow's caused. I wonder if it's that thing, you know, where you put your... Your dressing gown on the back of the bedroom door. At a certain light, you look at it in the middle of the night and it looks like a human form or face. I mean, it's easily done, isn't it? I think that's it. Exactly. -"Faces in the fire." -Yes. Human perception is such that the first thing you attempt to create in any abstract shape is a human face or form. Okay. All right, then, well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'll tell you what we'll do, let's go back over to Foxhill Drive and learn about the toll that living there has taken on the children's mother, Pamela Early. SARAH: Pam, I know this has all been a nightmare for you. But what's been the worst moment so far, do you think? I'll show you. I've got to get this done properly. My husband... My ex-husband used to develop his own photos in a darkroom under the stairs. A "glory hole", as we used to call it when I was a kid. Why have you boarded it up like this then? PAMELA: Well... (SIGHS) One night last January I got it into my head to try and find one of my letter... The solicitor's letters about my divorce. Erm, all of a sudden, the door stuck. Like somebody was trying and pushing it from outside. SARAH: You were inside by this time? Yeah. I shoved, I tried to get out, and then I started to panic. It was like a coffin, I couldn't breathe. I started screaming for Kimmy and Suzie, but all I could hear was my banging. And all I could hear was Kimmy shouting, "It's Pipes, Mum, Pipes. Pipes is here." SARAH: That's awful. The girls got you out eventually. The thing is, when I was in there I swear, as God is my witness, I heard, I... Felt this man in there, with me, breathing right up against my face. Like strong, like rotten cabbage. I nearly died. And... And when I got out, my head went, my knees went. Pam, let's go sit down. Come on. Tell us what happened next. Well, after glory hole, erm, I wrote to the Council to try and get us moved. SARAH: Mmm-hmm. But they wouldn't take it seriously. You know, like I was lying. Just don't want to know really. We saw a social worker, and they said we should all see a psychiatrist. Tell me what happened when the newspapers got their teeth into the story. That was a disaster. -Look at these. You got a lot of coverage. -Yeah. "'I believe in the Devil,' says Spook House Mother." Did you say that? PAMELA: (CHUCKLES) No, I didn't, no. SARAH: Here's "Power of Evil." PAMELA: Everyone was very friendly, but in the end, they all made us look even more like idiots. So I went to the local TV. -Can we have a look at that, actually? -Yeah. Here we are. (INDISTINCT CHATTERING) I told her it was the central heating. So ever since then, she calls the noises "Pipes". So, Kim, aren't you a little bit afraid? Sometimes. MAN: (ON TV) Why? Do you think Mr Pipes has come to hurt you? I think he's come to hurt everybody. I think he wants to do nasty things. MAN: (ON TV) Okay. Thank you very much. Now... Pam, thanks for letting us see that. They're ready for you now in the other studio. -All right. -Yeah. Pamela's just going to make her way outside now to our mini-studio. She'll be there waiting to take your calls. In the meantime, let's go back to our main studio. And, Sarah, thank you very much indeed. Dr Pascoe, what was your introduction to the Early family? DR PASCOE: Well, I saw that programme that we've just seen an extract from and I offered to help if I could. MICHAEL: When you met Mrs Early then, was she then at the end of her tether? Yes, I'd had some experience of a fairly violent poltergeist case in Heidelberg, Germany. So, I knew what it could do to a family, emotionally. I see. Well, I believe that Mrs Early has joined us now. Pamela, hello. Thanks for joining us. -Hello. -MICHAEL: Yeah. And thanks also for allowing our cameras into your home. That can't have been an easy decision to have taken. Well, Suzanne was getting fed up with the jibes she was getting at school. Erm, with the papers calling us liars and everything. And she said, "Mum, Dr Pascoe wants us to do this BBC thing. "So, let's do it. And let's show everyone, "and then, they'll have to believe us." Erm, Pamela, I understand that you're quite keen to share your experience with our callers. Yes. And I want to tell everyone that, erm, they're not going mad like I thought I was sometimes. -That's right. -All right. Well, we've got some callers on the line now. Let's take our first caller. Mike Smith, who is it? This is Sandra Hughes from Sussex. Right. Let's pick up the phones, Dr Pascoe. Sandra, hello. SANDRA: (ON PHONE) Oh, he... Hello. This is just that when I was a girl, I was brought up in a house in Brighton, and we had a ghost. And we'd often find things broken and, you know, those sorts of things. You're not alone, Sandra, honestly. SANDRA: (ON PHONE) And it's sort of coming out about this boy who died there, and how it's affected me. Because at the time, I didn't realise how much it affected me. That's... That's all I wanted to say, really. Thank you, Sandra, for your call. Thanks a lot. Thank you too, Mrs Early, for joining us. Well, if you'd stay in the studio, then we'll come back to you in just a moment. There are one or two other things to talk about first of all. Thanks a lot. Now, what I want to talk about now, Dr Pascoe, is this book of yours, which I'll show to the camera there. This is called Angels of the Odd. And it's a book that you wrote, your account of your investigation into this case. And you also made a film at the same time. We've got an extract from the film. Perhaps you could talk us through what's happening here. -MAN: All right? -Yeah. DR PASCOE: Well, we did extensive interviews. And we also used the Ganzfeld technique. MICHAEL: That's what we're seeing now. And that's where all the senses... Sensory inputs are blocked off. DR PASCOE: Deprived, yeah. MICHAEL: Deprived, yes. And you just feed in the white sound... DR PASCOE: Yeah. MICHAEL: White noise, through the headphones there. DR PASCOE: Bright light. MICHAEL: Yeah. DR PASCOE: Now, that's when we would hear the voice. "The voice"? Well, we should hear the voice actually. Let's hear it now. Because this is intriguing. Across here. I should say that this tape is completely undoctored. There's no edit on it whatsoever. All right. We should also warn our viewers of a nervous disposition that there are things on this tape that they might find a little bit distressing. At one point, we filled Suzanne's mouth with coloured liquid, and we sealed her lips with tape, and the voice continued with absolutely no change in quality whatsoever. Let's hear it. (PLATES CRASHING) WOMAN: The window above the sink's just been shattered now. There's no... Oh, my God! Look, the chair has gone. (GIRL SCREAMING) GIRL: She's coming towards me, Mum! WOMAN: It's coming across the kitchen floor. GIRL: Oh, my God! Mum! (PANTING) WOMAN: It stopped. It's suddenly stopped moving. And everything seems to have gone quiet now. (GHOST GRUNTING) WOMAN: A grunt or something like that. If you can grunt, can you speak? GHOST: Round and round the garden... WOMAN: Oh, dear God, save us. GHOST: ...goes the teddy bear. One stone, two stone, take her... WOMAN: Who are you? What's your name? -(GHOST TALKING INDISTINCTLY) -WOMAN: Jesus Christ! Are you joking? GHOST: (BREATHING HEAVILY) Very funny. WOMAN: Are you dead? Are you in heaven? GHOST: All good children go to bed. (GHOST CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY) Bizarre. And chilling too. Well, forensic scientists at Cambridge examined the voice recording, and compared it to Suzanne's normal speech pattern. And they defined it as the voices of two separate people. Two people, yeah. -And, erm, we asked Suzanne to see, if she could... -Oh, my God! DR PASCOE: ...imitate the voice recording. And she was unable to do so for more than a few seconds. MICHAEL: That's her, trying it there. DR PASCOE: Yeah. -Try it again. -(IMITATING GHOST) Round and round the garden like a teddy... Oh, my God. -MICHAEL: She can't do it. -No. Even under hypnosis, we tried that. -Really? And the same result? -Still the... What other evidence do we have, Doctor? Well, over the months, Alan Demescu, my partner, and I heard numerous noises... Thuds, bangs, scratching on the walls, knocking. The sort of normal noises you associate with poltergeist activity? What about this here, though? Ah, well, this is... This is my favourite, I think. This pillow moved diagonally to within about a foot of my face. Now, it's impossible to fake that. How do you fake that? MICHAEL: (CHUCKLING) I don't know really at all. Let's have a look at some more evidence over here. This is the wreckage evidence, if you like. This is an extraordinary assembly of... -There is this cup here for instance. -Yeah. Right? Let me show that in the camera there. Now, how did these breakages occur? -Were they dropped? -DR PASCOE: Well, no... -The army did some analysis of this for us. -Yeah. And they said it'd been caused by intense temperature change. Not by impact or shock. MICHAEL: Really? -This temperature... There you are. -DR PASCOE: Yeah. MICHAEL: Look, the headless lady. And lots more guys here, and crockery. -Look at that. -DR PASCOE: Yeah. And clocks or watches just stop when they're in the house. I mean, I just gave up wearing one. There's no point. MICHAEL: And the favourites in situations like this... God, the spoons that are bent. Quite remarkable. Couple of regular little Uri Gellers, those sisters. Yes, they weren't even in the room sometimes. You'd just open the drawer and they are there. -And you saw all this happen? -Yeah, many times. Many, many times. Extraordinary. Let's now look at another piece of evidence, Doctor. And that's the situation where Suzanne's face at times is covered with marks, with lesions. Before I talk to you about that, I'd like to talk to Suzanne. And I think that... Yeah, there they are. -We're on. Yeah. Here we are. -We're going live over there. So I'd like to talk to Suzanne. Suzanne, when did you first get these marks on your face? When did they first show? About July, the first one was. It was horrible. Well, I'd just wake up and it would feel like someone was all over me. And in fact, we've got there, Dr Pascoe, we've got some of the pictures that were taken there of the face of that girl with these extraordinary marks on them. DR PASCOE: Alan and I watched them appear on her face, quite literally in front of our eyes. MICHAEL: There's another shot there. Look. Remarkable. Now we've seen, Dr Pascoe... We've seen the evidence that you've collected so far. I'd like your theory. From what we've seen, do you think that the poltergeist activity, such that it is, is now centred on Suzanne? Well, certainly as a female approaching puberty, she does conform to the classic typical poltergeist focus. -Yeah. -Broken family background, she's introverted. She tends maybe to direct her stress and anxiety inwards until it has nowhere to go, and then... Bam. I see. I think we've still got Mrs Early there, in our outside broadcast studio. If she's... Yes. There you are. Mrs Early, I don't know quite if you heard that, what Dr Pascoe was saying. Well, she said that Suzanne was the classic typical poltergeist focus. She was the person that all this energy was focusing on. What do you think about that? Well, there's nothing wrong with my Suzie. I know that. If my Suzie's funny, well, how does that explain the other things like, erm, like the glory hole? It doesn't and it can't. So you disagree with Dr Pascoe's theory that Suzanne's psychological problems are the cause of these disturbances. I think what you're saying really is, in fact, that you believe it's a natural ghost. Don't you, Lin? Pam, I'm not disagreeing with you. Please believe me. I'm on your side. I know that there's something there. I'm just trying to understand what it is. A poltergeist can be location-based or person-based. I mean, who knows? Maybe this is both. I mean, of course a lot of people would have it that there's nothing there at all. Yeah, well, a lot of people would have it at one time that you couldn't walk on the moon. All right. Well, in order to avoid any accusations of bias, I'd like to bring in physicist Emilio Sylvestri. A former member of the sceptic society, CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation for Claims of the Paranormal. He's in New York. Good evening, Dr Sylvestri. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. You've looked at the evidence in this case. I'd like to hear your conclusions. What are they? Well, I think it's pretty obvious there's nothing in the tape that couldn't be faked. The bedroom footage is totally inconclusive. It could all be done with wires, for all we know. DR PASCOE: And the legions on Suzanne's face? Scratched by her fingernails. DR PASCOE: She's not lying. Believe her. I'd love to. The same as I'd love to believe I'm going to heaven, but... Doesn't make it a scientific fact. DR PASCOE: But if people do believe in something, surely, we shouldn't discount it. I mean, it's all part of human experience and that's what we're studying. Well... Fine, fine. But is it measurable? Is it provable? No... For years, parapsychologists have been trying to prove their loony theories in laboratory conditions, and they can't. Yeah, that's right. We can't. That's where we went wrong. There are some things you can't demonstrate in a lab. Show me falling in love in a lab. Show me poetic inspiration in a lab. You can't. You've got to get out of the lab and into real life, and that's what we're trying to do tonight. These people are not deceiving us or themselves. Look at them. They're in trauma for God's sake. Why would they do it to themselves? The Early family are suffering just like people who've had murder bereavements, or plane crashes. The only difference is that nobody says that they don't believe in plane crashes. But most of us don't believe that people come back from them. See, that's... What you're always forgetting, Emilio, is that you have a belief system, too. Your belief system is blanket denial. You joke about it because you're afraid to face it. (SCOFFS) That old chestnut. Look, Lin, you ought to be selling crystals on Venice Beach, or palm reading, or a counsellor, a confidant, a guide maybe. But a scientist? I don't think so. MICHAEL: Dr Sylvestri, for the moment, thank you very much indeed. I hope you'll stay with us in our studio in New York, and keep an eye on what's happening here, and from time to time, give us a comment on proceedings. Thanks for joining us. Well, there you are, Lin. What do you think about that? CSICOP people have nothing to do with parapsychology. They're just a sign of the times. In what way? They're the last of the materialists. Like the last of the dinosaurs. The world's changing. Good doctor made you cross, didn't he? No. Right. Do or do now. Let's go straight over to Sarah in Foxhill Drive. Hang on. Sarah, what's happening there? It's quite quiet, actually. A bit too quiet. Though, I must say, earlier on, Suze turned off Dr Sylvestri. I don't think she was that enamoured. What does he know? He's not here. MICHAEL: Well, in the moment we've got here now, Sarah, perhaps you could tell us that ghost story you told us about earlier on. Oh, yes, all right. Well, it was sort of a ghost story. -It happened... -I can start another one. A couple of months ago now. We were staying at some friends of ours' home. They live in the Cotswolds. Beautiful 15th, 16th century house. And one night, I was woken up by the sound of this harpsichord music. It was like chamber music. But, you know, when a noise comes into your dream, and you're not quite sure it's in the dream, or whether it's actually happening. It was that kind of effect. But it woke me up nonetheless. And when I tried to get back to sleep again, I could still hear it. But all I could see was this Indian woman's face. And she had her hair sort of pulled across her forehead and then tightly back. And kohl around her eyes. And her eyes were going from side to side. You know, like in Indian dancing. And slowly, the eyes lifted up and rolled right back until they were white, and then the face went. The next morning, I couldn't wait to tell everybody about this. And the people whose house it is... They told me that the house had once belonged to the viceroy of India. And he had had two Indian concubines living in the house with him. And when they died, he couldn't bury them in consecrated ground. He wasn't allowed to. So he buried them out in his garden. And there had been talk in the village of actually digging up the grave to see what else was down there. And it became very clear to me that this was a sort of message to say, "No, don't. They mustn't do it." And so, when I found out that they weren't in fact planning to do anything with the grave, they wouldn't dream of it, I went back up to the bedroom, and I just sort of said, "Don't worry. Nothing's going to happen." And it was as though the atmosphere changed straightaway. I have to say Smithy was a bit scared the next night. He wouldn't admit it, but he was. But nothing happened. And it was as though everything had gone calm again. But the important thing here, it wasn't scary. At all. I mean, the music and the vision was very beautiful. But... That's why I wanted to do this programme. 'Cause it's intriguing. -You all right? -(WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY) Okay, yeah. Kim just wants to go to bed now. It's a bit late. What time do you normally go to bed? -8:00. -8:00. Come on then. You must be a bit tired. KIM: Say hi to Mum. SARAH: You want to just say hi to Mum? Okay. Well, tell you what? If you look up to that camera there... -Yeah. Little thing there. -That? And you'll be speaking to her, Kim. Say good night to her. -Good night, Mum. -Good night, love. Sweet dreams. Good night, Kim. DR PASCOE: Remember, there's nothing to be scared of. To bed. You really think there's nothing to be scared of? SARAH: There we are. Well, one says, the paranormal's no more scary than the weather or the tides. I mean, all those things can harm us. But we can also understand them. All right? Can I leave that light on? -Yeah. Good night. -All right. Good night. -Keep warm. -Yep. MICHAEL: So, Sarah, got anything to report at all? No. Nothing. Just the cold. It's typical, isn't it? A house full of technology, and nobody's bothered to find out whether central heating switch is on. You okay, Suzanne? -Yes, I am. -Got your crisps? -Yeah. -Yeah? Good. All right. Now, guys, I think we've earned ourselves a cup of coffee, don't you? MAN: Yeah. Pam told me where everything was, so... It's just there. Mike, how do you take the coffee? MIKE A: Black, one sugar please. SARAH: Okay. What about you, Chris? CHRIS: Milk, one sugar please. There we are. You know what? I think I'd almost feel happier if something was happening. It's sort of eerier just waiting, really, don't you find? MIKE A: Well, I think, I might've heard something earlier. Sort of... Just like an animal scratching its feet, but they don't record in this camera at all. -Really? -MIKE A: Yeah. CHRIS: And I noticed earlier my watch had stopped. -Really? -CHRIS: Yeah. What time? When? CHRIS: Er, just before we went on air. DR PASCOE: I said watches have a hard time. Par for the course I'm afraid. I'm fine. Just as long as we all know, eh? MICHAEL: Don't spook yourself. No, it's all right. That's what we're being paid for. We're okay, anyway. Look. We've got an old hand to help us over here. Now I just put the kettle on. Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? -No, thanks. I'm having orange juice, okay? -All right. Can you get me a glass please? -SARAH: Where? They're just up here in the cupboard. -Yeah, that's right. While you're in the fridge, just pass me some milk. Yeah. Sure. Whoo. A balancing act. There we are. -Mum! -Hello, love. Are you all right? Yeah, I'm fine. Are you all right? Yes. MICHAEL: Well, there we are. So far, so good. Now as you know, we asked you to join our exploration of the supernatural by telling us your ghost story. Well, here's someone with a tale to tell, who wants to conceal his identity. We had this dreadful day, er, that first evening. with duvets being tugged off me. Except for being quite amusing, we'd been laughing about it. It wasn't at all malevolent or nasty. But this particular day, it certainly was. One of the first incidents that day... We were eating lunch and... I think it was mackerel or something like that. We both looked down, this is my half-sister and me, and saw what looked like saliva all over the mackerel. Of course we couldn't eat it. And shortly after that, I found again what looked like saliva on the front doorstep. Erm... I start... I lost my temper with it. For the first time, I say "it." This presence, whatever it was... And I started shouting and swearing. And immediately, again, spit... What looked like spit appeared on my shoes. As if in retaliation. And either shortly before or shortly after this... Literally was disgusting. (STAMMERING) We found excrement smeared on a cupboard door in the bathroom. We had already, in fact found, er, such things in various parts of the flat. This was the first time we actually found anything smeared like that on the door. So it had to be cleared up. It was really horrible. And from someone who believes in ghosts to someone who's not quite sure. Let's join Craig Charles. Boo! I bet that scared you, didn't it? No, this is not a mask. This is Craig Charles, live, you lucky people. And here we have the thrill-seekers. Pillars of the community. All waiting to see if the ghost is going to arrive. Welcome to Fright Night. Now I'm gonna give you a little guided tour of the community. And we're gonna meet some people who are pretty upset about some weird goings-on. And we're gonna go to a pretty sinister place. Let's break into a little bit of a jog, lads. Gets me fit, this jog. That's why I told Michael, I hate Halloween. I hate apples. I hate dud apples. I hate little kids all dressed up in... Like the devil. I'm going to meet this woman, Yvonne Etherly. And she's on this piece of waste ground here, I think. And then she's gonna tell us some pretty peculiar things. Erm, Yvonne Etherly. Yvonne? Which one... You're Yvonne. Okay. Yvonne, can you... Can you tell me about some of the things that've been going on around here? Well, we live opposite Pam at number 43, and one night, ages ago now, we heard all this banging. So we went to the front door, and it was obvious it was coming from Pam's house. CRAIG: So what did you see? Well, the top window was smashed, and Pam and Kimmy were in the garden crying. So, we made them a cup of tea. And they just come in into ours whenever they need to, basically. CRAIG: It all sounds a little bit weird. What's it like living in England's Amityville? Well, it's no joke. I mean, it's not very funny. I mean, some really weird and horrible things happen around here. CRAIG: Well, what kind of weird things? Well, there was that wee girl that went missing. -Judy Weiland. -Judy Weiland. It was in all the papers. What happened to her? We don't know. She just disappeared and then... Well, I know you're always reading about people that were knifed and that sort of thing. But somebody was knifed around here that was five years old. CRAIG: Five years old? Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about this playground? Yeah. Shall I go in? Yeah, yeah. Come on. Well, it was this summer. My... My youngest son, Gary, came running into the house in a real state. So, when I calmed him down, it seemed that they'd been playing in here, and they'd found this dead black Labrador. Where did they find it? It was about here. And how had it died? Well, it'd been cut open, like something in a butcher's shop. Can you imagine the kind of person that would do something like that? Is that all that happened? Well, it was pregnant. There were foetuses scattered all over. The kids wouldn't play for weeks. I should imagine not. So as you can see, this is a pretty sinister place. Now I'm gonna try and find the guy who tried unsuccessfully to exorcise Foxhill Drive. A Mr Arthur Lacey. Arthur Lacey? Arthur Lacey. Come with me, Arthur. You got involved in your professional capacity, I believe. ARTHUR: Well, not exactly. By profession, I'm a British Royal Guard. CRAIG: Ah. But in your spare time, you're a medium? ARTHUR: Well, I'm a spiritualist. CRAIG: A spiritualist. ARTHUR: Yes, and through God, I've been given the task, when I can, to help spirits that may have lost their way. So, you, erm... You exorcised Foxhill Drive. Well, it wasn't the Ruituale Romanum, bell, book and candle. No, I simply went and prayed with the family. And offered a guiding light to whatever poor soul might need it. And can you tell us what happened? You know how they say that pigs can sense it before they get to the slaughterhouse? Well, I had this overwhelming sense of evil, of spiritual decay, is the only way I can describe it as. Yeah, I was physically sick for a week. I smelt blood on my hands. Something didn't want me near it. Didn't believe it was dead. So do you believe there is such a thing as... I don't know, an evil place? Well, there are degrees, yes, shades in all places. I mean, anyone who buys a house finds themselves weighing up these vibrations subconsciously. You see, I think that just as we are the product of our mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers, I think that places somehow inherit the genes in their past too, somehow. Yeah? Hey, trick-or-treaters I think. -Hey, what's your name? -Katie. -And your name? -Billy. Billy and Katie. Sounds a little bit like a... MICHAEL: Craig. Craig. I'm sorry to have to cut you off there. In fact, I've just heard that we've got to go back to Sarah. Sarah's got something important for us. Sarah? Yes, what is it? What have you got? Yeah, we definitely got something here. Just look at this. Now, can you see this? MICHAEL: I certainly can, clearly. SARAH: Well, there's no way it could've gotten there. I thought maybe an old tomcat had got in or something. DR PASCOE: Sarah, when did you see this? Well, I took Suzanne up to bed... In fact, all of us went upstairs. Erm, nobody was down here at all. Ten minutes ago, it wasn't here. DR PASCOE: Sarah, have you got a handkerchief? Can you see if the light fitting is working? Thanks. That's great. Yeah, we'll do that for you. Better turn the light off first, hadn't I? All right. Okay. Here we go. I'll put this. This is strong enough to hold me. There we are. (EXHALES) -DR PASCOE: Anything? -Er... There's nothing dripped off here, first of all. DR PASCOE: No stains on the ceiling? Just see, if there's anything? DR PASCOE: No? -Forced concrete. -SARAH: No, this is all completely dry. DR PASCOE: So, it couldn't come from below. Is there any smell, Sarah? SARAH: No, nothing. DR PASCOE: Can you smell the hanky, maybe? See if there's anything on that now. Any odour? The hanky? (SNIFFS) No, no, can't smell anything at all. DR PASCOE: No. Can you take a sample for us? Have you got anything that you could... Yeah, er, what can we use for a sample? Something to swipe it up. CHRIS: I got a lens duster. DR PASCOE: All right, that would do. Yeah, we're gonna use this to... Can I give you this hanky? Great. There. See if we can suck some of whatever it is up with this. Here we are. DR PASCOE: You see, look, it's typical. It's typical poltergeist. If you pour water from a jug, it's almost impossible to... To avoid getting an erratic outline. Now these pools are perfectly oval, they're unbroken. -SARAH: Good. -(SUZANNE COUGHS) SARAH: Oh, Suzanne. MICHAEL: Is she all right? SARAH: You okay? Yeah, I've just got a bit of a nippy tummy. SARAH: Oh, let me get you some Eno or something, hang on. Doctor, when they've got those samples that we saw them taking there, er, what do you do with them when you get the sample? Well, we'll test it to see if the calcium and the magnesium salts match the hardness of the local tap water. And where does it come from? Don't know. Can't get any water out. (BANGING) (SCREAMS) (LAUGHS) (SIGHS) Can't get it off now. There we are, soaked. There you are, Suzanne. Sorry I'm all wet. Let's go upstairs, shall we? Can I ask you now, Dr Pascoe... We've had a look at what's been happening there in the house. What, in fact, do you make of what we see? Well, poltergeist activity has a pattern... A menu if you like, erm... First, there are the noises, the sounds and then water. And then the third stage is physical phenomenon, moving objects. And did you think that in fact what we're seeing there is something starting to happen in Foxhill Drive? Well, who knows. MICHAEL: Well, we shall all find out. No doubt. Things have been happening in our phone rooms. We've got another caller on the line now. He's Kevin Trip, from Neath. Pick up your phone there, please, Doctor, let's talk to Kevin. -Hello, Kevin. -KEVIN: Hello. MICHAEL: Yeah, hello. KEVIN: Hello. MICHAEL: Do you have a story for us? KEVIN: Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, yes. I can hear you fine. KEVIN: Yeah, I was just sitting here and stuff, er... You ain't gonna believe this, I'm telling you. Well, you try us, Kevin. KEVIN: Well, my mates were round to watch the videos and we put on the programmes about ten minutes ago. Erm, I had this sandwich, cheese and pickle sandwich it was. -Oh, yes. -KEVIN: And it frightened me to buggery, it did. I was minding my own business and this dirty grey plate sitting on the arm of my chair -just dived off. -MICHAEL: Sure, Kevin. None of us nowhere near it or nothing, mind. It just leapt off with a mind of its bloody own, it did. Kevin, erm... How close were you to the plate? KEVIN: Miles away. My mates, er, they went white, they went. Yes, yes. All right, Kevin, I think I get the picture, certainly. Thank you very much, indeed for calling. I suppose in fact we should have been prepared for that. I mean, it's Halloween night, home brew time and all that. I can see you're not as sceptical as I am, Doctor, that's all right. But really, serious calls, please. The lines are still open and we've got time for just one other call, I think. No, in fact, we haven't. I'm sorry, apparently we've got to go straight back to Foxhill Drive, where... Things are happening, so... ...from here wasn't it? Did you hear? Yes, this way. Are you picking this up too? Just put the light on. (BREATHING HEAVILY) You're going to have to be... Get it out here. MIKE A: Move the bed. SARAH: I'll get that. Are you all right? Listen, I'll crawl down there, all right? (SCRATCHING NOISES) Some scratching down here. (SCRATCHING STOPS) (MUFFLED FOOTSTEPS) It's moved. MIKE A: It's in the wardrobe. Let's just get this out of the way. Can you hear this? -I can't get it open. -(BANGING) (KIDS SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY) We can hear him in the kitchen! (ALL YELLING SIMULTANEOUSLY) You just go back to bed. (BANGING) Back into bed. It's downstairs. Come on. (BANGING) It stopped. I can't hear anything now. What are these? (PANTING) It's all kids' pictures. They weren't here before. -(CAT MEOWS) -(EXCLAIMS) (BREATHING HEAVILY) I didn't know they had a cat. Did you? -I don't know what to do. Should we go back upstairs... -MIKE A: Shh! Shh! (LOUD BANGING) Upstairs. Children. Come on. MICHAEL: Er, Sarah, stay where you are, please. Sarah, stay there. Please, don't go upstairs. Why? MICHAEL: Because we hear that Suzanne's got out of bed but she's not yet... Stay here? I don't know why. MICHAEL: She's not appeared on the landing. SARAH: Suzanne. Where... Where is she? (BANGING CONTINUES) DR PASCOE: It could be a piece of its usual misdirection. I just... Trust me, Sarah. Stay there. (BANGING CONTINUES) Suzanne must still be in the bedroom. MICHAEL: But where? DR PASCOE: Perhaps out of camera range, right in the corner of the room. Can we cut to the wall camera? No, sorry. Sorry, the landing camera. No, the landing on the door. -(BANGING CONTINUES) -The other landing. That's it, and zoom in. Can we pan? Can we pan left? And down. (BANGING CONTINUES) MICHAEL: Okay. -(SCREAMING) -SARAH: Kimmy! Come on. Kimmy. Suzanne, are you okay? Are you all right? Come on. -It wasn't me. -It doesn't matter. -It wasn't me! -It doesn't matter! MICHAEL: Oh, that's, that's quite extraordinary. We set out to catch a ghost and... And sadly, very sadly, what we witnessed was a remarkable exposure of a hoax. Let's not be too hasty. Oh, come on, Doctor. Please, -we've surely got to accept we saw it there. -DR PASCOE: No, I don't. Look, this is an established pan. Genuine phenomena followed by the fakery stage when the children feel obliged to come up with the goods. Doctor, really? I'm sorry, because... Well, I mean, after eight months of commitment and connected work like you've been through, I can understand you feel upset because you've been duped. I'd be the first to admit it if it was absolutely sure I had been duped. Oh, Doctor, really... Please don't be simplistic. This is one incident amongst many. Many dozens. I was there. I've seen them. I've seen inexplicable things. One-hundred percent, no question. And this? Let's not get sidetracked, please. Let... Let's not lose the scent. Maybe there's a kind of... Ritualistic reason, it's like sympathetic magic. Acting out what they want to happen. The invoking process that proceeds the genuine appearance. Doctor, before we get too involved in that kind of jargon, let's see what Suzanne has to say about this. She might... Sarah, is Suzanne able to speak to us? Suzanne needs a glass of water right now. DR PASCOE: Can I talk to her? MICHAEL: Well, I think I'd like to talk to her first of all if you don't mind. Where's my mum? MICHAEL: Suzanne, I'd like to talk to you. Did you put the writing in your schoolbook? SUZANNE: (TEARFULLY) I don't want to talk about it. MICHAEL: What about the noises in the wall? SUZANNE: I don't want to talk about it! MICHAEL: What about the scratches on your face, Suzanne? -(SOBS) Mum. -It's all right, child. Your mum's here. Doesn't matter. Can you look at me? DR PASCOE: Why, Suzie? You can tell me. SUZANNE: To show them. DR PASCOE: Well, you didn't have to show them. Not like this. Hmm? Why? Tell them you don't tell lies, Suzie. It's all a mistake. She doesn't know what... She doesn't know anything. Do you, love? I thought you'd leave us. DR PASCOE: You thought I'd leave you? All we were, were noises to you. DR PASCOE: And you lied to make us stay? Sometimes. MICHAEL: Only sometimes? It was what you wanted, wasn't it? We just gave you what you wanted! KIM: Stop it! MICHAEL: Mrs Early, you've heard your daughter. She's admitted the entire thing was a deliberate fraud. No, I'm sorry, I don't accept that. Dr Pascoe has seen in her things, same as me. -You can't just... -MICHAEL: But... Well, she's afraid, she's frightened. -She doesn't know anything. -MICHAEL: But, Suzanne herself explained, Mrs Early. My family are telling the truth. We're all telling the truth. Well, fortunately, after this turn of events, we're able to return to Dr Emilio Sylvestri. Dr Sylvestri, who's in New York, joins us again now. Dr Sylvestri, I imagine you're about to say, "I told you so." Well... (CHUCKLES) I... I don't get any vicarious thrill out of seeing parapsychology crucified in public. But it does... Validate my hypothesis. Hmm, what hypothesis? These are disturbed attention-seekers... Oh, rubbish. We... (SNICKERS). You played into their hands. Primetime TV Alice in Wonderland, couldn't take it any more, they... -End of illusion... -This is not the end, please believe me. I almost... I almost feel, whatever is in there, it's deliberately muddying the waters. Well, Dr Pascoe, thank you. And Dr Sylvestri, thank you, too, for joining us from New York. Thank you and... And good night to you. A lot of activity in our phone room. You won't be amazed to hear that after what we've just seen in Foxhill Drive. Er, Mike Smith, what's happening? What's the story? (HESITATINGLY) Well, the strange thing is that we're still getting calls about that shadowy figure, that was seen in the haunted bedroom or people think they've seen in the haunted bedroom. Now... What's really weird is that these are all tallying with the description. These are all different phone calls. They're, generally, all saying that it's an old man or a woman. Er, bald with a skull-like head, dark eyes, or some are just saying, "Holes for eyes." Wearing a black robe or a dress which is buttoned up to the neck. So, if anybody's seen this gentleman tonight... Michael, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Er, can somebody in the gallery, tell me if it's possible to access the tape interviews I've shot at the university, please. I'm sure, I'm sure it will be, yes, erm... In view of what's happened there's a sequence I need to find, urgently. Yeah, they're saying they can... They can get to it sometime further on the programme. Yes, okay. We can do that for you. Erm, in the meantime we'll have another Ghostwatch story. And then after that, I'd like to hear your opinion on what we saw, a moment ago, in Foxhill Drive. Is all of this, all of this, a hoax or as Dr Pascoe believes, are things just about beginning to happen? Well, call me after this true ghost story, coming up now. When I was about eleven or twelve, we moved to this large, old Devonshire house. And part of the house is a lot older than the other part of the house. And it had a nasty feeling. It was cold. Erm, things... Doors opened, things fell off the wall, ornaments shattered, and generally, it didn't have a nice feeling. Erm, my bedroom was in part of that house. Part of that, old part of the house. And, er... Shadows would move at the end of my bed. So, I asked for a night light. I asked a grown-up, I think it was my grandmother. Erm... Which made the situation worse in a way, because... (AUDIO SLOWING DOWN) -(TAPE REWINDING) -...in a way. Wait, wait. Can we just clear the set? (SNICKERS) Yeah, well something's gone very wrong with that ghost story, probably a poltergeist. What do you think, Dr Pascoe? Anyway, erm, we'll try to get back to that, er... Before the end of the programme. Er, meanwhile, what do we do? We go back to your calls, that's what we'll do. Erm, Mike Smith? (HESITATING) Erm, the only one I got for you at the moment, is this woman, try... Try her. She wants to remain anonymous. Wants to take part in the programme, but insists on anonymity. Try her. Okay, Mike, thanks. Doctor, pick the phone up. -Hello? -WOMAN: (ON PHONE) Hello. -Yes. -WOMAN: Hello, am I on? Yes, You're, er... You're on BBC One's Ghostwatch. Now, what do you want to tell me about? WOMAN: (SIGHS) We've got this big glass table. My husband just rested one finger on it and it exploded. Glass everywhere, his face and hands were cut. There's blood on the wallpaper. The ambulance is just gone. My children are frightened. Why are you doing this? Now look, I am sure your children are in shock. Er... Also want to say, I think, it's high time, probably, that your kids are in bed. I mean, it is past the 9:00 watershed, isn't it? WOMAN: That's it. That's just it. They won't go to bed. I can't drag them away from the TV. I tell them to look at what time it is but the clock still shows 9:30. Excuse me, have all your clocks stopped? WOMAN: I don't know what's going on. They won't take their eyes, off the set. (CRYING) And there's blood... There's blood all over the wallpaper. Look, love, it's Halloween. They're overexcited. Er, you've had a terrible accident. Now... Now, please, would you switch off the TV and please, send your kids to bed. Thanks for calling us, but we've got to move on. Thank you, love. No, don't let her... I'm sorry, she's gone. Erm, listen, please... If you're still there. Don't touch anything, and if you can, take a photograph. Now, this is very valuable evidence. I've got to say to everyone watching. Please, please, we don't want to give anybody sleepless nights. We don't want to start panic. Don't let your imaginations run riot. These things we're talking about are very, very rare, indeed. And the chance of them happening to you are exceedingly remote. Er, please, believe us. Right, now I think that Dr Pascoe, that that tape you wanted, that interview you did some months ago with Kim Early, I think that's ready now. I think we can go to it. It's coming up now. There you are. So, have ever seen him then, Kimmy? Pipes? Yeah. And what does he look like? Can you describe him to me, then? Well, he's really old. And this eye's got all blood over his eye and scratch coming out and then... -He's bald over his head. -Mmm-hmm. And then he's got a nose. And in the middle, it's got a scratch all the way down. -Hmm. -In there. -And he's got a dress on. A dress on. -Does he? Yeah. It's really long and it's black. -It's got buttons, all the way down. -Hmm. -And then lots of petticoats underneath. -DR PASCOE: Can we replay it? -MICHAEL: Sure, sure we can. -DR PASCOE: Back to the start of the description. All right, can we roll it back, BTL? Back to the start of it. (TAPE REWINDING) -There? -Well, he's really old. And this eye's got all blood over his eye and scratch coming out and then... -He's bald over his head. -Mmm-hmm. Now, do you see what I mean? Kim's description exactly matches what Mike's been getting on the phones. "Old, man, "bald, he's got a skull-like head, dark eyes, "wearing a black dress." -KIM: It's black. -She says it's black. -KIM: All the way down. -Buttoned. Well, could they have read the descriptions in a newspaper, perhaps? There's been nothing in the newspapers, not containing that description. It's not appeared in print one single time, I assure you. Then what are you saying? Well, we were drawn to assuming it was Suzanne at the centre of this because she's at puberty, but what if she isn't? What if it's Kim? -We've been looking at the wrong person. -DR PASCOE: Exactly. Fascinating. (CHUCKLES) Er, Sarah seems to be trying to get our attention, er, quite agitated. Sarah, what is it? Thank you. It's Pamela. Listen to this. Cats. It's like cats. -Can you hear it? -MICHAEL: Where, Pam? It's all... It's all around us. Like they're trapped, somewhere. Do you hear it? (CAT MEOWING) Cats running round up there on the ceiling. -MICHAEL: Can you hear anything, Sarah? -Yes. Yeah, I can hear it, now. She's right. -KIM: Mum? -PAMELA: What is it, Kimmy? (CATS MEOWING LOUDER) KIM: What's wrong with Suzie? What do you mean? What's wrong, Kimmy? -PAMELA: Suzanne? -(SUZANNE MOANING) SARAH: Suzanne, are you okay? PAMELA: It's all right, love. Don't get upset, love. Your mum's here. -(CRYING) Oh, dear God. -SARAH: Oh, God! SARAH: What do you want us to do? -MICHAEL: Sarah, Sarah? Are you all right? -What should we do? (GASPS) -Get away! Get away from... -No Mum, they have to stay. They have to see everything. DR PASCOE: Sarah, it's all right. Don't worry. It's some kind off allergenic psychosomatic reaction. MICHAEL: Could be self-mutilation. She could've done it with her own fingernails, you know? SARAH: They say that she used her own fingernails for this. "Fingernails"? What flaming fingernails? (KIM CRIES OUT) Now, what do you want us to do? DR PASCOE: Sarah, don't worry. I've seen it before. It will subside. Feel her temperature. -SARAH: She's burning up. -Get off me. Don't touch me. SARAH: It's like a meat locker in here. It's so cold. Well, we can't move her, because she is in agony and she won't even let me touch her. SARAH: What do you want me to do. PAMELA: Yeah, get a flannel and get some water. SARAH: Yeah, come on. We'll get out of here, come on. -Sorry, I didn't mean to drag you out. -CHRIS: It's okay. I just think they need a bit of time, here. -(GHOST SIGHS HEAVILY) -SARAH: Oh, God! -CHRIS: What is it? -(GASPING) SARAH: Behind the door. SARAH: I... I saw somebody standing behind the door. CHRIS: Nobody there now. Sorry. -Pam, here we are. -KIM: Pipes says she's got to be punished. She's a bad girl. It's all right. Just be quiet. MIKE: Oh, good God. Sarah, should we send someone in, now? SARAH: No, God knows how she'd react. -Just let... Let's, let everything settle down now. -(SUZANNE MUMBLING) -What, darling? -We've got to stay. Pipes says we've got to stay. Okay, okay. I should tell you, if you've joined to see the next programme that in fact we're staying with what we have here from Foxhill Drive, because the events are... Are so remarkable and dramatic that we will be staying with them for as long as we have to. SARAH: Is it worse than it was before? MICHAEL: Doctor, what about... Your theory that... In fact, Kimmy was the focus for the poltergeist activity. What does this mean, now? DR PASCOE: Well, maybe they're both involved. I mean, maybe it's like a tandem effect. Kim's creating the energy and Suzanne's directing the violence in on herself. First, Suzanne, then Kimmy, then this. You don't know, do you? No, I don't. SARAH: You know what, darling... MIKE: I've got to come in here. We've got a... A very important phone call which I think you both should take right now. Doctor. Er, hello, who am I talking to? WOMAN: (ON PHONE) Oh, hello, my name is Mary Christopher. And I just wanted to phone and tell you about this... Well... About my mother, really. We were Northolt born and bred. And, erm, and as children, if we were naughty or couldn't get to sleep, our mum used to say, "Mother Seddons will come to get you." It used to scare us rigid. I don't know why she'd... Parents do do some awful and daft things, don't they, Mary? MARY: Yeah, well, years later, I found out that she really did exist. And she was a baby farmer, like a child minder. She used to take kids in, but she used to kill them. And she'd drown them in the big coppers. And why... Why I'm ringing is, she used to live in one of the old terraces in Foxhill by the railway as it was then, and is now, Foxhill Drive, and I'm just sure it's where those poor girls live now. And really, that's all I have to say. I just wanted to make sure you knew. Thanks for your call, Mary. Thanks very much for calling in. Sarah, I wonder... Sarah, Sarah, did you hear any of that? Sarah, can you hear me? Could I talk to Sarah, please? Mike, it's all right. I can hear you. I'm fine. Erm, Suzanne's feeling a bit better now. But we still don't know how the scratches got on her face. But, we feel it's probably best to get the girls out of the house now. Er, things are still... Feeling quite strange. KIM: No, we're not! Get it off! I've got to talk to somebody. Kimmy? Who? Kim, who're you talking to? Pipes. SARAH: Where's Pipes? Here. SARAH: What does he look like, Kimmy? Like somebody's mum. MICHAEL: I'd like both of those children out of that house. -PAMELA: Kimmy, it's time to go. -No! MICHAEL: I'd like somebody to take care of Suzanne as well. Please, let's have the kids out of the house. -I want to speak to Pipes. -Leave me alone. I'm not a baby! KIM: No, you lied, you said you'd stay. SARAH: We will stay with you. -(LOUD THUDDING) -SARAH: What was that? KIM: Where're we going? SARAH: Come on. SARAH: Just outside, come on. Downstairs. Just outside. Come on. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) KIM: I don't want to go. Pipes says we've got to stay. Pipes wants to see everybody. Look, everybody wants to see him. MICHAEL: Hopefully, the children are on their way out of the house now. And once they are, I suppose that'll be the end of our program, the end of our Ghostwatch programme. I hope they... They are out shortly. Er, as we wait for them to come out, we'll go over to our phone-in studio. Mike, what's been happening? MIKE: Er, well, it's understandably fairly chaotic here. Erm, we're getting all sorts of calls. In Derby, someone was ringing to say that her clock had stopped. MICHAEL: Again, a clock stopping. A Ken and Joyce Shrivener from Telford in Shropshire, their radio has gone dead. And the microwave oven is pinging repetitively. Well, where are they happening? I mean, is there a geographical pattern? How many of these incidents are there? I don't know, I don't know how many of these to take with a pinch of salt. Mrs Pinder from Chepstow, her dog won't stop barking. Er, in fact, we have loads of instances recorded here, this evening, of pets acting up all through the programme. Mr Naro from Cheltenham, says his son is making glasses break. I'm sure we can assume that many, if not all of these calls, are jokes. I'm more interested in what's happening at the house. Are they all out yet? MIKE: No, no, wait, wait, wait. We've got one here that, erm... Just in the last few minutes, a young lady, very distressed, in response to something that we showed earlier on. And she's hung up before we'd had a chance to talk to her, so... The point is, there's someone here who could take your call now. We need to talk to you, could you call back? - Can we talk to these people? -Let's get back to Sarah. Sarah... Sarah, are you all right? Er, I'm s... I can hardly hear you. (AUDIO MUTES) ...you can hear what I'm saying. Erm, Suzanne's a lot quieter now. But, er... They... They won't move. They won't listen to me. I think Suzanne's in... In some kind of a state of shock. What do I do? I can't leave them. (LOUD FEEDBACK) Sorry, I've got to take this out. -It's a terrible noise. -(LOUD BANGING) (BANGING CONTINUES) I don't know what's going on. Can you hear this? Smithy? -Michael? -(FEEDBACK CONTINUES) Dr Pascoe? (BANGING CONTINUES) There are incredible noises coming from the walls. And from the ceiling. (SCREAMS) -Oh. -Jesus. Kimmy. Kim! -You all right? -Can't you do something? (SHRIEKS) Suzie. (IN DEMONIC VOICE) What big eyes you have. What big lips you have. PAMELA: Stop it! Stop it, Suzie! Suzanne, you're coming with me. Suzanne? You're coming... Suzanne? Listen to me, Suzie. Suzie? Can you hear me? Suzanne, do you hear me? (IN OWN VOICE) Yes. Yes. Get out. Get out if you don't want to be here. I don't care. You just mess things up. You mess everything up. I hate you. SARAH: Kimmy! Kimmy, if you can hear me, just shout. Let me know where you are, so that we can help you. Kimmy! (PANTING) Kim. Just say something. Kimmy? Kimmy! Kim? (WATER RUNNING) It's her bunny. The fridge. Kimmy. Come on, darling. -Hmm? -Pipes said to do it. -Why? -Pipes says he's a bad, bad bunny. Here are his eyes. (CATS SHRIEKING) What's that noise? (SHRIEKING CONTINUES) All right, where is it coming from? MICHAEL: I'm looking. (RATTLING) MICHAEL: This looks like an earthquake. (CATS MEWLING) -SARAH: Mike... -(MEWLING CONTINUES) It's in here. It's in the glory hole. SARAH: Can you just stay back over there, darling? Stay... Stay over there. It's in there. SARAH: Okay. (CATS SHRIEKING) SARAH: Just pull it aside. (SARAH GRUNTS) (CATS MEWLING) SARAH: Shall I get them out of the kitchen drawer? (CATS SHRIEKING) (SARAH GRUNTS) Take this away. Yeah. -(CRASHING) -SARAH: Mike? Oh, my God, what's happened? Are you okay? Look. Chris, stay there. I'm gonna go and get help, all right? -CHRIS: Okay. -Just stay there with him. (SUZANNE SCREAMING) Suzanne... SUZANNE: He's touching me. Suzanne? SUZANNE: He's hurting me. He's hurting me. Get off me! Get away! Get off me! No! Go away! Mum, help me! Don't leave me, Mum! (SCREAMS) MIKE: Have we... Have we lost the link completely? MICHAEL: No, there's nothing. Hang on, yeah, we're on. MICHAEL: Please tell him. We've honestly lost the link? Well, the red light's on. We are definitely on. -Sorry, there seems to be a bit of a... -Okay, we can't get it back. Bit of a bold, in TV speak, I think we can say. MIKE: You must be able to get it back somehow. MICHAEL: Er, we're finding out. Well, nothing to report so far from the house. -Eh... -It all seems very quiet and peaceful. To tell you the truth, I'm not really bothered. I didn't really want the scoop on the Headless Horseman. I mean, like, where do you put your microphone? (LAUGHING) MICHAEL: Is somebody speaking to them? What's everybody doing up there? You're following me around, kids, aren't you? I think we're off again now. God. I wish someone would've said we were on then. You know, I'm shouting away and... Only at the BBC, loves. -DR PASCOE: Er, I think... -What's going on then? DR PASCOE: Okay, so somehow... MICHAEL: Just a minute. Sorry. MICHAEL: We're back. Back in Foxhill Drive. -Oh, fantastic. -DR PASCOE: God... MICHAEL: Still no sound, but it looks peaceful enough, doesn't it? DR PASCOE: Yes, it does. MICHAEL: Where's the soundman? I assume they've got him out, actually. Obviously. And back to... Back to normal. They look happy. Mike Smith's right. He breathes a sigh of relief, no doubt. (STAMMERS) Yeah... No, I'm delighted... I... I was ready to, erm... I don't know... Oh, panic over, hopefully. Can we see the rest of the house? I'm sure we can. I'd like to talk to Sarah as well. While we're working on trying to talk to Sarah again, perhaps there's time to take one of those many phone calls that are stacking up. Mike? Yeah, I'll be delighted to. Who is the next caller? Talk to him... -Hello. Your name is? -MAN: (OVER PHONE) I don't want to give me name. But I think I have some information for you about the history of the house. Well, what do you know about it? Well, we've been into all that. We've got the, er, the deeds and searches going back to the year it was built. And the history of the site as far the Doomsday Book, and the, erm, the lay lines. MAN: Do you know Mr and Mrs Sellers? Yes, they're on our list of tenants. They lived there in the '60s I think. MAN: Did you know they sublet a room? No, I didn't... I didn't know that. MAN: Being illegal, it wouldn't be on the official records. The lodger was their nephew, Raymond Tunstall. How do you know him? And why are you calling, sir? MAN: I worked as his social worker when he came out of psychiatric hospital. He had several convictions for molestation, aggravated abuse, abduction of minors... He should never have been let anywhere near any community. He was a very disturbed man in my opinion. MICHAEL: In what way? MAN: From the time he moved to Foxhill Drive, he developed paranoid fantasies. He used to tell me there was a woman on the inside of his body, taking over his thoughts and actions, making him do things he didn't want to do. He started to wear dresses. The delusions got so bad, there was only one way to escape them. He took his own life. That's why I called. When I heard... When I was sitting here watching the TV and... Hello? Are you still there? If you are, please go on. Hello? MAN: Tunstall hanged himself. He tied a wire around his neck to a lathe and switched it on. He did it where he kept his tools, under the stairs. His aunt and uncle were on holiday. It was twelve days before anybody found him. They heard the cats screaming. He had about a dozen cats. The cats were locked in, of course. Of course... Twelve days... They got hungry. They got to work, on... On his face. DR PASCOE: Mister... I'm sure what you say is true. We've no reason to disbelieve you. But... (SIGHS) In order to substantiate... MICHAEL: He's gone. Doctor, he's... He's hung up. Sorry, but that's how it is. He's gone. Oh, dear... I think this is the onion skin. -What is? -(SIGHS) I mean, what happened on that spot, how many terrible things have... Oh, this has got to be nonsense, Doctor. Before Turnstall, before Mother Seddons, way back... Maybe into prehistory... Oh, nonsense. There'll be no more calls, please. Also, our switchboard's jammed. We've been inundated with hoaxes... The Rosenheim poltergeist affected a telephone exchange, rang up endless bills, misdirected calls... ...poltergeist or no poltergeist. They are seeing it now, for God's sake. Don't close the lines! We need to know what's happening out there! You're the expert! What is happening out there? I don't know. -Jeez... -MICHAEL: What is it? Doctor, what's wrong? What's the matter? It's in the machine. MICHAEL: Wh... What? -Well, look at the picture. -Where? DR PASCOE: On the wall. The picture on the wall. - MICHAEL: What about the picture on the wall? -Well, it's still there. It hasn't fallen. It's not come off the wall. This picture we're seeing now isn't live. This is some earlier footage from earlier in the evening. This is just a cover. -It's a dupe. -(MICHAEL STAMMERS) DR PASCOE: This isn't happening now. MICHAEL: But what is happening? (SCREAMING) (LOUD GROANING) It's what you wanted, wasn't it? Well, we just gave you what you wanted! -DR PASCOE: They don't look very shocked any more. -KIM: Stop it! Stop it! MICHAEL: ...o f course the recorder isn't shocked any more. You're being silly. (WIND HOWLING) There's a wind. Have you ever heard of -in a studio? -How many observers do we have tonight? -I don't understand. -Jesus, Mike, we've created a seance. A massive seance. MICHAEL: Where are we now? What's this? This... (SIREN BLARING) This could be live. Is this is happening outside the house? -I think it is. -The police! The police! The police! (SIREN BLARING) MICHAEL: We've got to assume this is live, actually happening. -DR PASCOE: Is that Kimmy? Yes. -(DOGS BARKING) KIM: (SOBBING) Mum! Mum! MICHAEL: We've seen... We've seen Mike come out. We've seen Kim. We've seen... We've seen Pam. So that leaves Suzanne... And Sarah. Now... Now where are they? Where can they be? -Have you seen them? -DR PASCOE: Must be still in there. MIKE: What are these shapes? MICHAEL: Where are we? MIKE: Look, what are we seeing here? DR PASCOE: The infrared camera. DR PASCOE: Who's that? SARAH: Suzie? MIKE: It's Sarah. DR PASCOE: Is it? SARAH: Suzie, are you there? MICHAEL: Can she hear us? SARAH: Chris? CHRIS: Down here. -Where are you? -CHRIS: Here. Oh, my God, you're there. Can you see if you can see her in that room? CHRIS: Hold on. CHRIS: No, she's not down here. I know, Chris. Have you still got your lighter? CHRIS: Yeah. Got it. There we are. Oh... (CLATTERING) There we go. Is it okay for you? Is it okay? CHRIS: Yeah, hold on. SARAH: Mmm-hmm. Chris, look. (CAMERA WHIRRING) SARAH: Can you see them? CHRIS: Yeah. -(WIND HOWLING) -(SARAH GASPS) SUZANNE: Mum! -(ELECTRICITY CRACKLES) -SUZANNE: Mum, help me! Help me, Mum, please! SARAH: It's okay Suzie, we're here! Where are you? SUZANNE: Mum, help! -Help! -CHRIS: She's downstairs. In the glory hole. -(CHRIS GRUNTS) Shit. -SARAH: Chris, are you all right? CHRIS: Yeah. SARAH: Hang on. SUZANNE: Get off me! Get away! SARAH: It's all right, Suzie. SUZANNE: Get off me. Get away! SARAH: Come on. Suzie? SUZANNE: He's hurting me. I can't open the door. It's blocked. Suzie? You've got to push it from the inside. SUZANNE: He's hurting me. Come on! It's no good. SUZANNE: Get off me! -(WIND HOWLING LOUDER) -(SARAH GASPS) Suzie? -Thank God. -(CAT MEWLING) No one's gonna hurt you. You're safe here. MIKE: Sarah? Sarah! (CAT SHRIEKING) -(WOMAN GASPS) -(CATS SHRIEKING) MAN 1: Clear the studio! Get out! Get out! MAN 2: Quickly! People are leaving the studio now. -(LIGHTS BURST) -The lights are blowing all over the place. MIKE: No, I'm not going out. -I'm not going. Get the link back. -(MICHAEL TALKING) Get the link back. If somebody can get the link back... (INDISTINCT CHATTERING) Lights... I think we're losing power. MIKE: When you show me that my wife is safe, I'll go. We have got an emergency generator... -Whether or not we should bring it in, I don't know. -MIKE: I'm not going. MICHAEL: The studio's completely dark. Just... Just blackness now. All the... The lights have failed. The power's gone off. We've got some... Some lights in the studio. I don't know... This camera's... I don't know which one's working. I mean... (CHUCKLING) There are no cameramen. I mean, it's difficult to know even if anybody's still with us, but... -If they are, this is the scene in this... -(CATS MEWLING) In this studio. This totally deserted studio. Autocue's working. "Round and round the garden... "Like a teddy bear"? (CATS MEWLING) GHOST: Didn't believe those stories about Mother Seddons, did you? Fee fie foe fum... (CATS SHRIEKING) |
|