Taken from Newsletter Issue 23 - March 2005

Have I seen a ghost? My earliest recollection is when I was a teenager about fifteen years of age. I used to live in a small village in Worcestershire and had a two mile walk to school. Part of that walk was across a field used as a recreation ground and football pitch. I used to walk home across this field from one corner by a road to the opposite corner where there was a path. The road was reasonably well lit but the opposite corner was utterly black as there were only a few houses nearby then open countryside. I remember that it was the middle of winter and I was walking home in the dark. It was a dry evening with no snow on the ground and the air was clear. I had walked about a quarter of the way across the field when I saw what appeared to be a large white dog about fifty metres in front of me. It had the appearance of a German Shepherd Dog and appeared to be alone as I could see no sign of the owner though they could easily have been across the field in the darkness. At the time I thought the dog looked unusually light as there were no street lights nearby. The next second it was suddenly just not there. One second I could see it and the next second it was gone but there was no where for it to go. At the time I was a rational teenager studying for my ‘O’ levels who was very into science (so much so that I went on to get an Honours degree at university studying Astrophysics). Yet I saw something I could not explain. The ‘dog’ had vanished but it had no where to go.

Today, thirty years on, I do not see ghosts for the sake of seeing them; I do not take photographs and say that every spot of light is an orb. I try to explain everything away rationally but there are some things I can not explain. ‘I suspect that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.’ It is these things that I seek. I believe in ghosts be they recordings of past events or the spirits of the departed, I want to know what they are and this is what interests me. The quest for an explanation is a long one but a fascinating one and it is one that I will follow for as long as I can. The paranormal fascinates me and long may it do so.

I have also heard things that I can not explain, even though I try to explain them away. During a recent all night vigil with members of the Luton Paranormal Society I did two sound recordings both of which contained brief sounds which I am unable to explain. The first was a demonic laugh superimposed on the sound of two people talking and the second was a distant voice crying ‘Get out! Get out!’ This is what drives me. I am fascinated by the unknown and certainly not frightened of it (I am more inclined to go up and poke a ghost to see what it is made of than flee from it in terror, what is there to be afraid of?). Ghosts have been seen for thousands of years and one day I believe we will be able to explain what we see once we can really open our minds and avoid the narrow minded views of modern society.