Latest Paranormal News, Sightings & Supernatural Stories
With Halloween falling this weekend and the nights drawing in fast, this week's stories come from the places where fear and explanation have always fought for ground. At a 17th Century manor near Keighley, stripping old paint from a windowsill has revealed a daisy wheel carved to trap evil spirits, though the hall's own collections officer says its ghost stories were invented in the 1990s. Nearly eight miles above Ohio, two pilots watched a polished silver pill slide past their jet while the radar saw nothing. On Pendle Hill, where accused witches were sent to the gallows in 1612, ghost hunters say the old activity is stirring again ahead of 31st October. And beneath the A1 in North Yorkshire, archaeologists have found Roman dead buried with coins for the ferryman, heads at their feet and faces turned to the earth. Welcome to this week's Haunted Headlines — where the unexplained is never far away.
Witch Marks Still Turning Up at 17th Century East Riddlesden Hall: ‘We Do Keep Finding More and More’
Historians at East Riddlesden Hall, a 17th Century manor near Keighley in West Yorkshire, say they are still uncovering the protective ‘witch marks’ that past residents left to keep evil spirits out. The hall was built in the 1640s by Halifax wool merchant James Murgatroyd for his eldest son, John, and is now cared for by the National Trust. “These are things that have been around for many centuries and were what people who were building the house put in there to protect themselves from evil or witches or bad spirits entering the home,” said Amy Gregory, collections and house officer at East Riddlesden. “They are things we’ve known about for quite a while, although we do keep finding more and more, which is quite exciting.” One came to light about two years ago, when a furniture conservator stripped thick brown paint from an upstairs bedroom windowsill and found a daisy wheel, or hexafoil, carved into the wood with a needle or compass. The unbroken loop was believed to trap wandering or malevolent spirits in an infinite maze. “It’s meant to protect the inhabitants inside from any evil spirits trying to come in, so they put them on their thresholds,” Gregory explained.
The daisy wheel is not the hall’s only defence. Three carved ‘archaic heads’ above the fireplace in the Great Hall, a type found on walls, bridges and houses across West Yorkshire, were thought to guard against bad luck, deliberate burns along the wood panelling are thought to have been made to protect against fire, and graffiti in the medieval tithe barn known as Marion marks invoked the Virgin Mary. A ground-floor windowsill is still covered in paint and may hide more. “Maybe at a future point we’d quite like to remove that to see if there are any more daisy wheels inside the house,” Gregory said. As for the hall’s haunted reputation, she is unconvinced: “There are ghost stories of the house, but they were all invented in the 1990s, so we think that at the time the house steward was quite interested in ghost stories. But I’m in the house quite a lot and I don’t see anything.”
Pill-Shaped UFO Passes Private Jet at 41,000ft Over Ohio: ‘Like Pure Polished Metal’
Two pilots flying a private charter jet near Tiffin, Ohio, on 16th August say a silver, pill-shaped object appeared ahead of them as they threaded a gap between towering thunderstorm clouds at around 41,000 feet, according to a report published by the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) on 26th October. “The surface was silver and highly reflective, like pure polished metal,” reads the report by NUFORC investigator Ben Hansen, who interviewed the captain, identified only as ‘J’. The crew estimated that the object was at least 30 feet tall and that it passed within two or three miles of their aircraft during an encounter lasting about two minutes, with J taking a single iPhone photograph after it had gone by.
When the crew asked Cleveland Center air traffic controllers whether any aircraft or weather balloons were nearby, they were told nothing was showing on radar, and the jet’s own collision-warning system picked up nothing either. NUFORC admits it cannot definitively rule out a balloon, but says it found no database matches for planned balloon launches. “Coupled with the witness’s estimate that the object was at least 30 feet in height and uniformly shaped without tapering at the top or bottom, it presents some challenges to the balloon theory,” Hansen said. The air traffic control recording also captures one controller’s rather less reverent take on the sighting: “Make sure you include what color the alien was.”
Source: Daily Mail – “Mysterious pill-shaped UFO caught on camera by pilots flying above Middle America”
Pendle Hill Braces for a Haunted Halloween: ‘The Witches Could Be Back’
Ghost hunters say Pendle Hill in Lancashire, where nine of the 12 people accused in the notorious 1612 witch trials were found guilty and hanged, is already seeing a rise in reported activity in the run-up to Halloween night. “We have seen more reports of activity but this is always a very popular hotspot at Halloween,” said professional ghost hunter Robert Pulme. “Halloween increases the activity and I am sure judging by what we have seen in recent weeks, the witches could be back this Halloween night.” According to local legend, those who climb the 557m summit often feel “uneasy”, “terrified for no reason” and sometimes lose their breath out of nowhere.
Lancashire historian and tour guide Stephen Oldfield says the hill’s reputation runs far deeper than a single night of the year. “There are rumours of ghostly and phantom monks, while people have reportedly experienced breathing difficulties there,” he said. “There’s always been this atmosphere and spooky presence in Pendle Hill.” The trials themselves turned on the testimony of nine-year-old Jennet Device, whose evidence helped seal the fate of her own family, and more than four centuries on Pulme describes the area as “a place of extreme pain and fury - a deadly mix in terms of ghostly goings on.” Whether this weekend brings anything more than a hillside full of hopeful ghost hunters remains to be seen.
Source: Daily Star – “Notorious murder site ‘will be bombarded with paranormal activity’ this weekend”
Roman Dead Beneath the A1: Nine Coins for the Ferryman and Heads Laid at the Feet
Archaeologists working along the A1 near Catterick in North Yorkshire have revealed a series of unusual Roman burials, including a man laid to rest with a stack of nine coins in his mouth, dating the burial to shortly after AD325. The coins, known as Charon’s obol, were payment for the ferryman who carried souls across the river separating the land of the living from the land of the dead, but a single coin was the more common fare, and archaeologists from Cura Terrae suggest the generous nine may have been an overpayment or an attempt to guarantee passage. The burials are part of an excavation of 308 human remains across 14 locations, spanning the Early Bronze Age to the Anglo-Saxon period.
Two other individuals had been decapitated and buried with their skulls placed beyond their feet, while two more were laid face-down, alongside finds of pierced coins, pendants and a pierced dog tooth that may once have formed part of a protective amulet. “The burial of decapitated individuals may have served to prevent vengeful spirits from returning, and a prone burial may have been a sign of disrespect,” said Stuart Ross, post-excavation manager at Cura Terrae. “Halloween is usually associated with ghost stories, supernatural tales and stories of the dead coming back to life, but these discoveries give a window into the deeply personal beliefs of people thousands of years ago about death, burial, and the afterlife.” The precise meaning of the face-down burials remains unknown, and the finds are now held by the Yorkshire Museums Trust.
From a daisy wheel carved into a Yorkshire windowsill to a Roman with nine coins clenched in his mouth, this Halloween weekend is a reminder that the dead, and the unexplained, are rarely as quiet as we would like.
Haunted Headlines — your weekly paranormal report by Paranormal Portal UK.
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