The G.O.A.T

Whether you've seen it in travel guides or on social media*, there's no denying that the Gävlebocken, or Gävle Goat, is pretty impressive. 

So, what's the purpose of this giant straw goat, and why are people so desperate to set it on fire?

Photo by Wordshore, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Simply put, the Gävlebocken is a giant Swedish Yule Goat. You might be familiar with these straw goats, as they've now started popping up alongside the usual Christmas decorations for sale, only a lot smaller than the big guy.**

While its origins are unclear and often speculated on, it's most likely that the Gävlebocken has links to the Vikings, with many believing it to be a representation of Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnir. These goats pull Thor's chariot.

Standing at 13 meters in height, this festive straw beast has been an official yearly tradition in the town of Gävel since 1966 and was intended to bring more tourists and trade to the area. There's no denying that it's been a success. If you want to visit, you can find the Goat in Castle Square, erected four weeks before Christmas.

The unofficial tradition of burning the Gävlebocken to the ground has been around for as long as it has, with the first incident taking place in 1966. The Goat isn't meant to be burnt; it's meant to be stored and reused. Setting the Goat on fire, or vandalising it in any way, is classed as a crime which will result in jail time and/or a heavy fine. The torching of the Gävlebocken has been linked to drunken dares, misunderstandings, general vandalism and some people mistakenly believing that burning it will bring luck in the coming new year. Sadly, while many arsonists are caught and charged, more have gotten away with it. If the damage isn't too bad then the Goat can be repaired, though in some cases replacements have had to be made. I'd say that, on the bright side, some years the Goat hasn't been burnt down, but in the chaotic timeline of the Gävlebocken, that still doesn't mean it survived.

The Gävlebocken Timeline: from past to present.

1966 The Gävlebocken is erected for the first time and also burnt for the first time

1967 Survives.

1968 Survives.

1969 Burnt.

1970 The Goat survives six hours before being burnt down.

1971 The Goat is smashed up, and the culprits were never caught.

1972 The Goat collapses due to sabotage.

1973 The Goat is stolen. However, it's a bit difficult to hide a giant straw goat, and it was eventually found.

1974 Burnt.

1975 Presumably, due to some flaw in its construction, the Goat collapses under its own weight.

1976 Someone rams their car into the Goat, causing it to collapse.

1977 Burnt.

1978 The Goat is kicked to bits. Sad, but still an impressive feat of strength. That's a sturdy-looking goat!

1979 Burnt before construction was even finished.

1980 Burnt.

1981 Survives.

1982 Burnt.

1983 Attempts were made to burn the Goat, but luckily only the legs were damaged.

1984 Burnt.

1985 Thanks to tightened security, this Goat had a group of armed soldiers guarding it. That didn't stop it from being burnt down.

1986 Burnt.

1987 Attempts were made to fireproof the Goat. It didn't work.

1988 Survives.

1989 The first Goat doesn't even reach completion before being found and burnt. A replacement is made but doesn't fare any better than the first.

1990 Survives.

1991 Burnt.

1992 Only survives 8 days before being burnt, so a replacement goat is built. And burnt.

1993 Survives.

1994 Survives.

1995 Burnt.

1996 Survives.

1997 Fireworks are fired at the Goat, but it survives with minimal damage.

1998 It survived a terrible blizzard, but determined arsonists still managed to burn it down.

1999 The Goat survives a record two hours before being burnt.

2000 Burnt.

2001 The Goat is set alight by an unfortunate American tourist, who thought they were participating in a Swedish tradition, not realising it was illegal.

2002 Survives.

2003 Burnt.

2004 Burnt.

2005 Two people dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man fired burning arrows at the Goat.

2006 Survives.

2007 Survives.

2008 Burnt.

2009 There are multiple attempts made to burn the Goat. The last one is a success thanks to hackers taking out the webcams being used to watch the Goat, giving the culprits time to get in there and set it alight.

2010 An attempt to steal the Goat via helicopter was prevented when the culprits were caught trying to bribe the security crew to turn a blind eye.

2011 The people building the Goat attempt to fireproof it by soaking it with water. This failed, and the Goat burnt.

2012 Burnt.

2013 Burnt.

2014 Survives.

2015 Burnt.

2016 The Goat is burnt. And then, to add insult to injury, it gets hit by a car. Again.

2017 Survives.

2018 Survives.

2019 Survives.

2020 Survives.

2021 Burnt.

2022 ???

These days the Gävle Goat is well guarded, with a fence, security cameras and a dedicated security team. Still, this hasn't deterred the would-be arsonists, and neither has the prospect of jail time or a hefty fine if caught.  

At the time of writing this post, the Gävlebocken was still standing and unburnt.

*It even has its own Twitter page!

**Mine came from IKEA. He was not, thankfully, flat-packed.

Feline Folklore

By Day She Made Herself Into a Cat,
by Arthur Rackham.

I'm always slightly amazed when I meet people who say they don't like
cats. I suppose being a cat owner does make me a little biased though. Despite the widespread belief that they're uncaring and aloof, cats are, given a chance, some of the sweetest creatures out there. Even a snarling stray can mellow into a purring lap cat given time.

As a species, they have a mythology and folklore all of their own. They've been deified and demonised in equal measures. There are also many ghostly cats out there, a topic I've written about before and feline cryptids. I will introduce you to the folklore side of things in this post, choosing five areas to focus on. I'm leaving mythology and cryptids for a post sometime in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for those posts. 

• People often assume that only humans were affected by the witchhunts, but animals suffered alongside them. Cats were one of the animals considered to be a witches' familiar. They were thought to be inhuman spirits or demons in mortal form. In some places it was believed they had the same powers as a witch, enabling them to carry out their owners' evil deeds in their stead. It was pretty standard for them to be killed alongside those accused of witchcraft. The tragic thing is that both the human and animal victims were innocent. The real monsters were those instigating the witchhunts. It was a brutal and unfair period. When they weren't working with witches, it was thought they were working with the Devil himself, ferrying around souls and spreading pestilence. This led to the belief that they caused the bubonic plague, and even more cats were slaughtered in an attempt to stop it. The rat population grew out of control with fewer cats around, allowing the epidemic to spread more easily throughout Europe.

• Even when considered lucky, it still sucked to be a cat in medieval Europe. For some, cats were the guardians of the farmland, keeping evil spirits and pests away from the crops. But only if buried in the orchards or fields. They were also considered to guard the home against the same problems. It's common for mummified cats to be found in the walls of older houses, though it's not really known if they were walled in dead or alive. This unpleasant tradition was common during the 15th to 18th centuries. Some of these cats have been known to cause bad luck if messed with. I covered the story of one such cat and the chaos caused by upsetting it in one of my previous posts. If the cat was black it would bring even more luck, a complete turnaround from when they were considered servants of the Devil. Cats were luckier at sea than on land. Sailors liked to have a cat on board, not just because having something cute around boosted morale or that they kept pests away, but because it was considered lucky to have a cat on the ship. These days people prefer their lucky cats to be among the living. In some countries, black cats are considered bad luck, but they're considered the opposite in England. If a black cat crosses your path it's a good omen, and one old superstition suggests giving a black cat to the Bride on their wedding day for good luck. While I wouldn't recommend giving any animal as a gift, this tradition lives on with black cats often featured on wedding cards or as ornaments intended to be a keepsake. Not married? Not a problem. A black cat wandering into your home is said to bring in suitors looking for a partner. 

• It's well known that cats were worshipped in Ancient Egypt, but most people don't realise how loved they truly were. If a household's cat died, the whole family would go into mourning. It was traditional for family members to shave off their eyebrows as a sign of their grief and loss. The cats were often mummified and given proper burials with their own little grave goods. The killing of a cat was considered a terrible crime, whether accidental or not, and the sentence for such a crime was death. Hypocritically, there is historical evidence of cats being bred for the sole purpose of being sacrificed to the very Goddess that made them sacred. They would be killed, mummified and then given as offerings at temples or buried in tombs. Mummified cats are so prolific that in 1890 around 180,000 of them were actioned off in Liverpool for use as fertiliser. Awful as that is, I suppose we should be glad they didn't get eaten, like so many of their human counterparts.

• In the UK it's believed that a cat's behaviour can predict the weather. Who needs the weather report when you can just watch a cat? A cat clawing your furniture or getting the zoomies means that windy weather is coming. In Wales it was believed you could tell that it would rain if your cat was washing its ears a lot, and in other areas a cat sneezing predicted the same thing. Sailors believed that if the ship's cat fell overboard, a storm would soon follow that would sink the boat. Having a ship's cat that was black was said to guarantee fair weather. In Europe, you could keep your sea-going family members safe at sea and ensure that they'll have good weather by taking care of a black cat.

• Most cats won't ruin your Christmas unless they get at the turkey or knock over the tree, but one cat joyfully makes the festive season stressful: The Yule Cat. The oldest written records of this beast come from the 19th century, but it's believed that the Yule Cat has been around for much longer, possibly even tracing its history back to the Dark Ages. Hailing from Iceland, it's also known as Jólakötturinn and is one of the country's many terrifying Christmas spirits. Oddly, this festive feline is a little more interested in fashion than your average moggy, specifically whether or not you got new clothes before Christmas Eve. This massive moggy towers over houses and stalks the countryside, looking for people to bother. It'll leave you be if you've got a new set of clothes. If you haven't then it will pounce, and devour you. Maybe think twice about complaining next time your Granny buys you socks for Christmas?

Well, dear readers, I think we can all agree that cats have got a bit of a raw deal over the years. Sadly, many people still think ill of cats thanks to the darker parts of folklore and superstition prevailing in some way or another. Some people will even go out of their way to cause them harm. I shouldn't have to say this, but it's worth noting that HARMING A CAT OF ANY COLOUR WON'T BRING YOU GOOD LUCK, GOOD HEALTH OR WEALTH. Many superstitions or elements of folklore have their roots in a much darker time when people didn't have the knowledge we have now.

Do you have any favourite pieces of folklore relating to cats that I haven't included? Any stories you want to share about cats and the paranormal? Leave them in the comments below, or tag me in a tweet!

The Nameless Thing of 50 Berkeley Square

Photo by Myself

 

"For a man's house is his castle and each man's home is his safest refuge." - Sir Edward Coke.

As the old saying goes, home is meant to be a sanctuary, a refuge from the outside world and the troubles it may bring. Unfortunately, for a long time, for those who dwelt there, 50 Berkeley Square was anything but a safe haven.

A terraced townhouse, with four storeys and a basement, 50 Berkeley Square was built in the 1750s and is located in Mayfair, London. Due to its age, it's a Grade II listed building. It's a pretty enough building, unassuming and built in the same style as it's attached neighbours. It's the story I'm about to tell you that makes it stand out as anything other than a lovely old building, for it seems that something terrible lurks behind its well-kept exterior. Something straight out of a gothic horror novel.

The Nameless Thing of Berkeley Square

Photo by Myself

At first things were quiet in Berkeley Square. People lived seemingly happy lives and nothing seemed amiss. Then the stories started. One tells of a child brutally murdered by a servant. Another that a boy who lived there went mad and was locked in the attic by his family, fed through a hole in the door until he finally died. The most well-known story is that of the girl who flung herself to her death from the houses highest window, desperate to escape her abusive uncle and seeing no other way out. Although there was no proof that any of these things had happened, the stories spread like wildfire and the building became known as the neighbourhoods haunted house. Whichever tale was told, it always ended with the dead child, boy or girl returning as a shadowy figure or brown mist that haunted anyone who lived there.

It wasn't until 1840 that these stories became anything other than that, just stories told around the fireplace on dark, cold nights. That year Sir Robert Warboys met some of his friends at their local pub. Stories about 50 Berkely Square had been doing the rounds and the boys were fascinated by them, but Robert thought them to be little more than fairy tales. Pint followed pint, their talk about the house continued and, eventually, someone dared Sir Robert to stay the night in the house to prove that it wasn't haunted. Not one to back down from a challenge, he headed straight to the old building from the pub, more than a little worse for wear. Despite this, he still somehow managed to persuade the Landlord of the house to allow him to stay the night. It's possible that the Landlord didn't want a drunken Sir Robert making a scene on his doorstep, or that perhaps he was concerned about the young man getting hurt out on the streets while he was so vulnerable. Why he allowed it, we'll never know, but the little sleepover came with two conditions; if Robert saw anything at all he was to ring the servants bell which would summon the Landlord, and he was to keep a pistol on him at all times. Robert, no doubt, thought this was an attempt to unnerve him, but the Landlord supplied the pistol himself, to ensure that Robert would stick to their agreement. He headed to his room on the second floor, armed with the firearm and a candle. I'd like to think that the Landlord didn't have an inkling about the events to come, that he really did give Robert the pistol just to scare him. Not long past midnight, the bell began to ring. The frantic chiming stopped, only to be followed by a single gunshot. The Landlord found poor Sir Robert huddled in the corner of his room, his face twisted in fear and his lifeless hand still clutching the pistol. There was no sign of whatever had scared him to death, but there was a bullet hole in the wall where he'd fired at it.

In 1874 the house was bought by a Mr Myres. Due to get married, he intended for the house to be a family home, despite its reputation. Sadly, his fiance jilted him at the altar and all of his grand plans for the house came crashing down around his ears. Heartbroken, his behaviour became increasingly eccentric. Mr Myres became a complete recluse, seeing nobody except for a small handful of servants. He would lock himself in the attic and sleep there all day. At night he would leave his hidey-hole, to stalk the rooms of his home, shouting and wailing, with only a single candle to light his way. This erratic behaviour continued for years until his death in 1874. During this time the house began to fall into disrepair, resembling the haunted house everyone believed it to be. We don't have any personal accounts from Mr Myres, if any diaries were kept over this time period then his family most likely got rid of them. They probably considered them the ramblings of a madman. As this story continues, you'll see that there was a method behind the madness of Mr Myres. Whatever haunts 50 Berkely Square only seems to be active at night. 

In 1872, we got our first description of the horror that lurked within the home. It's not clear whether Mr Myres was in the property at the time, or if he chose to accept a very rare visitor. Whatever the situation, Lord George Lyttelton came to stay the night. Fascinated with the story and determined to solve this mystery, he was given the same room that Sir Robert Warboys had slept in. While tucked up in bed, he heard something shuffling about in the shadows and further inspection revealed the intruder to be what looked like a grotesque, shadowy ball with grasping tentacles. And it was heading straight for him. Fortunately, George had taken a leaf out of Lord Roberts book, although he had upgraded from a small pistol to a rifle. Before the creeping menace could get any closer to him, he opened fire on it. By all rights, he should have hit it. There was no earthly way he could have missed, but there was nothing earthly about the Nameless Thing. To his dismay, Lord George discovered that bullets don't work on ghosts. Investigating the room, all George found was bullet holes, used cartridges and little* else. What he saw that night could not be explained and only added to the buildings terrifying reputation.

Photo by Myself

You'd think with everything that had happened, people would stay away from 50 Berkeley Square and its Lovecraftian occupant. No such luck. People continued to live there, raise their children there, despite being aware of the stories. In 1879, Mayfair Magazine posted an article about another incident that had allegedly occurred at the residence, this time costing two lives. The family living in the house at that time had been preparing for a visit from their eldest daughters fiance, a man known as Captain Kentfield. Everything was going smoothly, until the maid tasked with preparing a room for the gentleman started to scream. The family hurried to her aid, but found her huddled on the floor, hysterical and repeating "Don't let it touch me! Don't let it touch me!" Unable to bring her to her senses and seeing nothing that could have caused such a breakdown, they sent her away to a hospital or asylum. She was dead by the following afternoon, presumably from shock. An attempt was made to put off Captain Kentfield's visit, but he insisted on staying anyway. If there was something dangerous lurking in the home of his beloved fiance, then he was going to find it and dispose of it. History chose to repeat itself and the Captain went the same way as Sir Warboys. Shortly after everyone had retired for the night, the household was woken by screaming and gunshots. Poor Captain Kentfield was found sprawled on the floor, his face a contorted in fear, dead as a doornail.

With this tragedy, everything seemed to go quiet until 1887. At this point the house had been empty for some time and, if any terrifying paranormal activity had occurred, there had been nobody there to witness it. Still known as the streets haunted house, it was locked up and shuttered, keeping its secrets to itself until that fateful Christmas Eve when two unsuspecting sailors broke in, looking for shelter.

Edward Blunden and Robert Martin were on shore leave and had been enjoying a good evening out at the local pubs. Such a good evening that they were more than a little tipsy and had managed to spend the money they'd put away to pay for their lodgings that night. By chance, they eventually found themselves in Berkeley Square. Number 50 had a To Let sign outside of it. It appeared to be empty. It was far from ideal, but they'd been wandering around all night. Cold, tired and desperate, Blunden and Martin broke in via a basement window. Their plan was to stay in the house and sneak out in the morning. Choosing a room on the second floor, they made themselves comfortable and drifted off to sleep. The sound of footsteps awoke them. They echoed down the hallway, approaching their room and the two men assumed they'd made a mistake, that the house wasn't empty after all. As the door creaked open, they were already scrambling to their feet with excuses at the ready. What entered the room sent them into mindless panic. Not a human, but a slimy, slithering, tentacled monstrosity. As they scrambled to escape, Blunden and Martin were separated. Martin managed to get out the door and fled into the night, seeking help. Blunden was not so lucky, as the advancing creature was between him and the door. Running screaming through the streets, it didn't take Martin long to find a policeman. Together they returned to the house, to find and rescue the man left behind. As you can guess, they were too late. Edward Blunden lay dead outside of the house, on the pavement below the broken window that he had jumped from in his terror. Some versions of this story tell of a more gruesome fate for the poor sailor. That he'd jumped from the window and landed on the iron railings instead. Or that his body was found in the damp, dark basement, torn to shreds.

The Theories

The story of 50 Berkeley Square is one of England's most infamous haunts, but, let's be honest, it would have been a lot easier to work out what was going on if it wasn't for the fact that so many of the witnesses were drunk, dead, or an awkward mixture of the two. Unable to classify the Nameless Thing as a ghost, it's now considered to be a Cryptid. Thankfully it hasn't shown its slimy face for decades. Realistically, if it were a living thing, then it's most likely dead. Despite its Cryptid status, many theories have been put forward as to what it could have been; a malevolent spirit, some demonic thing conjured through dark magic, even a rogue octopus mutated by the terrible pollution in the River Thames and ye olde London's putrid sewers. The enraged octopus theory is easily ruled out. Octopi are brilliant creatures, but you don't often find them dragging themselves onto land to terrorise us, let alone dragging themselves up three sets of stairs to target only one room of a house. They also lack the ability to dodge the amount of bullets that the Nameless Thing did, and they certainly couldn't dismember a fully grown man. The theory of some evil spirit being summoned has often been blamed on Mr Myres or some other nameless resident. However, I think we can all agree that while Myres was a troubled man, he wasn't some kind of demon summoning occultist. The possibility that it was just some evil spirit that had moved into the house, perhaps lured there by its early tragedies? Very possible. Famous paranormal investigator, Harry Price, was convinced that the haunting was caused by an extremely malevolent poltergeist. Given the right environment, a strong enough poltergeist may well be able to cause that amount of havoc.

Allegedly not much has happened in the house since Edward Blunden's unfortunate demise, however rumours persist. There are some reports that during more recent decades, certain rooms on the second floor were closed off, unusable for unnamed reasons. Sadly, I don't think there's any evidence proving these true or false, but I'd love to see it if there is. If it's just a hoax, then it's very long-lived and has fooled a lot of people that aren't easily fooled, but then so did the Cottingley Fairies. And, before you wonder, we can rule out anyone being influenced by H.P Lovecraft. His stories weren't published until 1923, so it's more likely that the story of 50 Berkeley Square could have influenced him, had he heard it.

Cryptid, spirit or rogue cephalopod; we will never really know what haunts (or haunted) the dark corners of 50 Berkeley Square. Perhaps that's for the best.

What do you think, readers? Have you heard any other stories about this haunting that I haven't covered? What do you think caused the haunting? Let me know by tagging me in a Tweet or in the comments below!

*"Lyttel" else. Hehe.

A Ghost Story for Christmas

Photo by myself.

Christmas is rapidly approaching and the nights are drawing in. Combined with the winter weather, often rain and occasionally snow, it's a very gloomy time of year indeed. We brighten our homes with a multitude decorations, Christmas trees go up and towns are festooned with glittering lights of every colour. The tradition of Christmas decorations is used not only to celebrate but to drive back the darkness. But celebrating Christmas by drawing light and warmth into our homes hasn't always been our only festive tradition, another used to be the telling of ghost stories. It's possible that this particular tradition started way back before Christmas as we know it, back when people were predominantly Pagan and this time of the year was a time when spirits could draw closer. A time of year when both light and dark, death and rebirth were honoured. Huddling by the fire with their families, telling stories to scare each other was the perfect way to while away the dark nights. While this tradition carried on through the decades, it is the Victorians that created the Christmas Ghost Stories that we are most familiar with and wrote so many great stories that it has been hard to choose only five. Sadly, at some point this tradition went out of fashion and the Christmas Ghost Story became almost as decrepit and abandoned as the houses they were often based in. It's thanks to various incarnations of Charles Dickens Christmas Carol (which will not be on this list.), television programs such as A Ghost Story for Christmas, as well as the love of a good ghost story that this tradition didn't die out completely. More recently there have been various calls for this tradition to make a come back and I don't believe it will be long before it does. Not everyone wants a saccharine sweet Christmas, after all. Some of us like a bit of sour with our sweet.
So, grab a hot drink, a warm blanket and turn those lights down low as I present to you my top five ghost stories for Christmas.

The Shadow, by E. Nesbit

Out of all the stories on this list, The Shadow feels almost like a true story. Although just a work of fiction, it reads like something you'd find on a paranormal forum or hear on a true ghost stories Youtube video. And while it might surprise you to know that E. Nesbit is best known for The Railway Children, this short story is drastically different. If read late at night you may well find yourself jumping at every shadow on your way to bed. First published in 1905, under the name of The Portent of the Shadow, the style in which it is written only adds a sence of realism to the story.
Our narrator is at a house party with her friends. Things are winding down and those who are staying the night are starting to find rooms for themselves. Well, almost everybody, as we are informed that a few of the boys have bedded down on the dinning room table for the night. The narrator and a few of her friends have set themselves up in a room connected to another, in which a girl who fainted at the party is now sleeping and is being kept watch over by our little group. Not yet ready for sleep, the girls have chosen to start telling ghost stories. Although they all claim to not believe in ghosts, they have successfully spooked themselves. Soon they are interrupted by the housekeeper, who has come to check on they girl who fainted. Bribed with the promise of a warm fire, good company and hot chocolate, the house keeper tells the girls a ghost story of her own. The tale is that of something the housekeeper experienced herself. But to both her and her listeners horror, they discover the story has yet to reach its horrific and tragic end.

A Warning to the Curious, by M. R. James

This was a difficult one to choose, as I was torn between this story and Lost Hearts. When it comes to choosing any of James' tales for a top five list, it's not an easy task as they are all wonderful. This one is based in the fictional seaside town of Seaburgh, which itself is based on the real life town of Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. First published in 1925, this a beautifully dark and bleak ghost story. M. R. James' well rounded, descriptive writing builds up the unsettling atmosphere and the growing sense of danger, as our narrator realises just how much peril his new friend is in.
Taking place during what is meant to be a relaxing holiday, our narrator and his companion make the acquaintance of a man by the name of Paxton, who is staying at the same hotel as they are. Their new companion is a gloomy and nervous fellow, one who has a terrifying secret. You see, he is an amateur treasure hunter and he has managed to find a hidden anglo-saxon crown. This treasure is one of three such crowns hidden along the English coast and the only one not yet lost. A wonderful treasure indeed, for it has been long sought-after. But it's discovery comes with a terrible price, as it's protected by a shadowy, supernatural keeper. The ominous presence of this ever following sentinel is turning poor Paxton into a nervous wreak and, if his new friends at first doubt his claims, they soon come to see that he speaks the truth.

The Signalman, by Charles Dickens

I know I said the A Christmas Carol wouldn't be on this list, but I couldn't ignore Dicken's completely. Not when he's responsible for this chilling gem of a tale. On the 9th of June, 1865, Charles Dickens was involved in a terrible train accident. The train partially derailed and most of the carriages fell from the viaduct they were traveling across and into the river below, with their passengers trapped inside. Dickens carriage was one of the only ones not to fall and he stayed at the scene, helping his fellow passengers, both alive and otherwise. While he survived, the sights he saw there left him scarred by the event. It's believed that this tragedy influenced the creation of The Signalman. This story revolves lonely signalman at a remote signal box, who is befriended by the narrator when he comes upon the location completely by chance and spots the Signalman as he goes about his duties. The Narrator enjoys the company of his slightly gloomy new friend, visiting him often, but notes he seems haunted by something and tries to get the man to open up to about his worries. And open up he does, eventually revealing that he is haunted by a sinister spirit, one who's appearance heralds disaster but gives no clues as to what it might be. Worse yet, he has seen the spirit again, several times that very week. The narrator believes his companion is suffering from hallucinations, but his comforting presence doesn't stop the supernatural happenings, which continue even though he cannot see them himself. The atmosphere is dark and foreboding, claustrophobic even, growing more and more tense as the story leads to it's inevitable and horrifying end.



The Old Nurse's Story, by Elizabeth Gaskell.
The Old Nurses Story brings to mind the image of an old Victorian parlor, lit only by a roaring fire, with the old nurse surrounded by a new generation of charges, all eager for just one more story before they go to bed. Both cosy and chilling, it's a shame there have been (to my knowledge) no TV adaptations of this tale, as it would make an amazing TV show. Imagine The Haunting of Hill House, but more claustrophobic and urgent. Charles Dickens very much admired this tale, even offering constructive advice on how Gaskell should write the ending. While she paid attention to some of that advice, she didn't end the story entirely the way Dickens suggested, resulting in this beautiful short story.
Following a young child Rosamond and our Narrator, her nurse Hesther, the story begins when the young mistress is orphaned and the two girls are sent to live with the Aunt of a Cousin at a large and crumbling old house in Northumberland. This sinister abode comes with a tragic secret that seems determined not to remain buried, and our narrator soon realises that getting to the bottom of that secret is a matter of life and death, as history is seeking to repeat itself. With the situation growing more tense by the page and time running out, this story will leave you wondering how it will end.

The Captain of the Pole-Star, by Arthur Conan Doyle

While he is most famous for his stories about Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle is also known for his tales of horror and the supernatural. Many excellent ghost stories came from the mind of this author and out of all of those tales, this one is probably helped along by Doyles own adventures. If the descriptions of the Arctic in this story seem particularly realistic and haunting to you, that would be because Arthur Conan Doyle, who studied medicine from 1876 to 1881, served as a surgeon on a whaling boat by the name of Hope during 1880. Who better to write about the Arctic than a man who, by all accounts, fell into the sea there more than once and nearly froze to death. Thankfully he did not, and we have this wonderful ghost story. First published in 1890, this is the tale of a young doctor working aboard a whaling ship. For a short story the atmosphere builds slowly. Certainly the ships captain seems a bit eccentric at first, but when the ship gets frozen in the ice he only seems to grow more unpredictable. Soon the rest of the crew are claiming to both hear and see a pale specter stalking them on the ice and at sea. But are they really seeing a spirit or is the isolation and bleakness of the environment just driving everyone insane? Will they be trapped in the ice forever with no escape? And if there is a spirit haunting the ship then what, or who, does it want?

I hope you enjoy these stories, they're all guaranteed to send a chill down your spine. Read them before? Know any good Christmas ghost stories you want to share? Let me know in the comments sections below or tag me in a Twitter post!

The Mystery of the Rendlesham Forest Incident.

Twas the night after Christmas, and all through Rendlesham Forest, not a creature was stirring, except for some mysterious lights and a lot confused American Airmen.

The 26th of December, 1980. It's the early hours of the morning, the night is still and cold. Personnel at the American Air Force operated bases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters (in Suffolk, England.) are expecting a calm, if not a little boring, night shift. They aren't expecting to see unidentified lights descending upon the nearby Rendlesham Forest. Despite the Cold War still being frosty enough to ice skate on, it was decided that it must be a downed aircraft, albeit one that hadn't called for help and was on an unannounced flight plan. The police were called and immediate aid was sent out, in the form of a three unarmed men, Burroughs, Penniston and Cabansaq. They didn't find a downed plane or helicopter. What they found was straight out of an episode of the X-Files. 

They found what can only be described as a UFO: a metallic cone shaped object, with glowing coloured lights, surrounded by a sickly yellow mist.

Penniston's sketch of the craft.

The object just sat there on three tripod like legs. It had settled down in a small clearing in the forest, seemingly unbothered by the curious humans surrounding it. It sounds like a bad 1950's B movie. I think most people would have just run, but these were soldiers and they had nerves of steel, they chose to hold their ground. Braving the fear of the unknown, these witnesses were able to get quite close to the object. Penniston even edged close enough to touch it, pulling out a notebook to draw the craft and describing the air as being full of electricity in a later interview. It was estimated to be about 10ft long and about 8ft high, with strange symbols on it's hull, not dissimilar to hieroglyphs. A short while later the unknown craft retracted it's legs and shot off into the sky. Although the men attempted to follow it, there was no earthly way they could have caught it. While this was occuring, the local police had arrived at the base. In their opinion the only lights they could see were from a lighthouse at the coast, a few miles away at Orford Ness. However the Orford Ness lighthouse is unlikely to show up on radar, which is exactly what the unknown craft that was seen that night did, when it was reported by a nearby military radar station. Sightings occurred again the following night, when a young Airman by the name of Lori Boeon spotted the craft whist on night watch. She wasn't alone in seeing it, as there were five fellow airmen with her that night. The strange lights were passed off as nothing more than fireworks.
Events seemed to come to the head the following evening. Whilst a party was happening at the base the UFO was spotted again and a team lead by Lt. Colonel Charles Halt headed back to the clearing where the the first sighting had taken place. Lt. Colonel Halt was second in command at the base, showing just how seriously this odd event was being taken. Although his initial intention may have been to debunk the incident from the previous two nights, he soon found that to be an impossible task. Searching the clearing they found clear evidence of the first nights events. Trees surrounding the clearing had been visibly singed and had broken branches from about 20ft up, in the center of the clearing were three visible indentations from the objects feet*, which measured out a perfect triangle and match Pennington's sketches. They had bought scientific equipment with them, a test with a radiation survey meter revealed that the levels of radiation in the clearing were much higher than the normal background levels of radiation found outside of the clearing. Not enough to be dangerous, but still abnormal. And if that didn't alarm Halt and his team, what happened next most certainly did. They saw IT for themselves.

UFO statue, based on Penniston's sketches. Photo by myself.

This time the craft flowed through the trees, dripping what appeared to be some kind of molten metal, traces of which were never found. Halt and his team chased after the UFO as it zipped along, causing no damage to the trees as it passed through them. It hovered through the air, firing beams of light at the air base and, at one point, it's fascinated pursuers. As Halt and his men followed it into a field outside the forest, the UFO seemed to explode into five different points of light before vanishing. Both bases reported having beams of light shone into them from above that night and, like the soldiers who first sighted it, Halt and his group had radio issues for the entire time the UFO was flying around.
During all of the incidents livestock in the area became franticly distressed and both Burrough's and Halt's groups heard what they described as a woman screaming, although it is possible that could have been a fox as they do make very similar sounds. It is also worth mentioning that the Police officers theory of the lights being from the nearest light house was debunked, since the lights of the mysterious craft and those of the lighthouse were both visible at the same time and a good space apart. What adds further credibility to the incident is that it was witnessed by Airbase personnel of all levels of command, from lowest to highest. These aren't just kids messing around, someone after a quick buck, someone stoned out of their mind or a drunk on their way home from the pub. These are sensible, down to earth people. In their line of work they have to be. Even Lt. Col. Halt was so convinced that something odd was going on that he personally got involved in the investigation. He recorded his experiences on a hand held tape recorder, which you can listen to here, and wrote an official memo on the subject to the MOD, which you can read here, a couple of weeks after the event. Someone prone to imagining little green men doesn't get that high up the chain of command and to this day he swears what he saw was a UFO.
I imagine that after reading all of that that you are asking the same question that everyone asks, the question that I've asked myself. What the hell was it? Not an easy subject to approach when there's so many conspiracy theories around the event, but at the same time so much evidence. To this day UFOlogists swear that it's the most compelling evidence of life on other planets visiting us, it's what has lead to the incident being referred to as the British Roswell. The most popular theory that I've read is that the base was either being used to secretly hold nuclear weapons or experimental jets, and that the UFO was attracted by that since it seemed more interested in the base than the humans around it. Adding fuel to these theories is that some evidence from the investigation was allegedly removed from RAF Bentwaters and was transferred to another American Airbase in Germany. This has lead some to believe that even though information on the incident was released to the public, something important is still being covered up. Further proof for these theories also comes from reports that Airmen involved in the incident have been bullied into changing their stories with threats of bodily harm or worse. Seeing that these claims come from the airmen themselves, I'd say these threats failed.

Rendlesham Forest. Photo by Myself.

More recently there have been reports that the whole thing was a prank, one played by the SAS on the terrified American airmen using a weather balloon, but even that doesn't sit right in my mind. Funny, but otherwise difficult and expensive to pull off, as well as being a PR nightmare if it turned out to be true. And, seriously, how does a weather balloon zip through trees? How does one drip molten substances, effect background radiation levels and just vanish into thin air. The simple answer is that it doesn't. I would love to tell you it was an alien space craft. I would love to be able to sit here at my computer, doing my very best Giorgio Tsoukalos impression, ALIENS! But I can't. Because I don't believe it was aliens. I'm not a big believer in them as we see them depicted in the media, little grey fellas with big, dark eyes. I do believe there's something out there, I believe we're aren't alone in this huge, crazy, magical universe. And I do believe those airmen saw something. But I don't believe this was the work of little green men from mars. What I do believe is that there is something going on there. You don't remove evidence if there's nothing going on, you don't try to silence people if there is nothing to hide. The announcement that it was a prank played by the SAS, which itself came from an anonymous source, comes across as a lame excuse. My personal opinion is that it was some sort of experimental equipment designed for observation, maybe some sort of early drone prototype, and that whoever built it was using the two bases for a test run. The sighting where the thing exploded and disappeared could have been down to a design fault or built in explosive charges. This is just my theory, it's most likely as far from the truth as any other theory out there. But when it comes down to it, theories are all we have. We will never know what the UFO was, where it came from or what it wanted.

The Rendlesham Forest UFO trail

The UFO Trail is very well marked. Photo by Myself.

Shortly before writing this blog I was lucky enough to visit the forest with my two friends, M and D. Although aware of the forest and its story, D didn't realise we were that close to it and I somehow had it in my head that it was further north. So when we stumbled upon Rendlesham by accident, it was a delightful surprise. The forest itself is dense and lush, a place of rich greens and deep shadows. With well marked trails its nearly impossible to get lost, but very easy to lose all sense of time. Not ideal if, like me, you messed up with the parking meter and only have two hours to explore**. We would have liked to have had longer time there, but we had a great time. The only UFO we found was the statue placed in a clearing, deep in the forest. We saw no odd lights and the trees are so thick, so close together that I don't see how mysterious lights drifting through them could have been mistaken for those of a light house. You'd be lucky to see lights from the coast at all. There were a few areas of the forest that seemed unnaturally quiet, which I found odd since it's breading season and birds are quite vocal when it comes to announcing their territory. However the rest of the forest was teeming with life. There's a well laid out and clearly marked UFO Trail that you can follow, compleat with information boards about what happened that night. Unlike Roswell you won't get arrested for taking photos. It even leads you past one of the bases, presumably RAF Bentwaters, which was handed back to the MoD in 1993 and is now no longer used. An interesting place, but not one accessible to the public. If you're interested in this story at all, or even just like a nice countryside walk, I would recommend a visit. It's a fascinating place.

What are your theories on the Rendlesham Forest incident? Have you an odd story of your own from the area? If so, you can tag me on Twitter using my Twitter handle or just drop a comment here on my blog. Don't be shy, I'd love to hear from you!

*The local police were called in to look at these indentations too, but claimed they were the footprints of some woodland creature. There are no creatures in Rendlesham forest that make footprints that shape or size, or are capable of burning trees.

**Oops.