Historical Hauntings | History Fix

I love a good ghost story, who doesn’t? But whenever I hear a ghost story or read one or watch paranormal investigators hunting for ghosts on tv or whatever, I’m usually left with a single burning question. Okay, you got a weird cold sensation, you saw a white spectral figure, a face in the mirror, your EMF meter was buzzing, something went bump in the night, that’s all very interesting but what I really want to know is, who was it? Who did you see? Who’s ghost? Right, who died and then came back as a ghost? Who was it? What’s their story? When did they die? How did they die? This detail is so often left out of these ghost stories and the history lover in me struggles with that. I don’t really care about ghosts. I care about humans, their stories, their histories. I want to know who that was. Let’s fix that.

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. It’s Spooktober and I want to talk about ghosts but my kind of ghost story is a ghost story where you get to find out who the supposed ghost was. Without that crucial detail, it’s like stopping at a cliffhanger. Who cares about the rest of it, who was it? So today, I’m bringing you historical hauntings and a lot of these ghosts have actually made appearances in past History Fix episodes. So this is fun, I’m excited. But first, I launched a new Mini Fix on the Patreon looking into the theory that Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish, only posing as Catholic in the wake of Ferdinand and Isabella kicking all the Jewish people out of Spain. That’s a bit of a fringe, conspiracy-esque theory with some compelling evidence for you to delve into. You can listen to that at Patreon.com/historyfixpodcast. It’s just $5 a month to subscribe to get all the bonus content plus the regular weekly episodes early and ad free. And, actually, Patreon just started a thing where you can purchase an individual episode instead of having to subscribe. So for all those anti-subscription folks out there, you can still listen to these mini fixes for a small one time fee of a few bucks if any of them ever pique your interest. Or you can buy the whole collection of mini fixes for just $10. The patreon link is always in the description.

Now let’s get into some ghost stories. A History.com article on the History of Ghost Stories explains quote “The concept of a ghost, also known as a specter, is based on the ancient idea that a person’s spirit exists separately from his or her body, and may continue to exist after that person dies. Because of this idea, many societies began to use funeral rituals as a way of ensuring that the dead person’s spirit would not return to “haunt” the living. Places that are haunted are usually believed to be associated with some occurrence or emotion in the ghost’s past; they are often a former home or the place where he or she died. Aside from actual ghostly apparitions, traditional signs of haunting range from strange noises, lights, odors or breezes to the displacement of objects, bells that ring spontaneously or musical instruments that seem to play on their own,” end quote. So that’s what we’re looking at here, accounts of people experiencing these sorts of things.

As usual, I like to start by taking it all the way back. So what’s the oldest ghost story? Well, the oldest known ghost story because I’m sure these sorts of tales were told word of mouth for a very long time before they were actually written down. We know people believed in ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia. Livia Gershon interviews museum curator Irving Finkel in an article for Smithsonian Magazine about a curious artifact housed at the British Museum’s Middle Eastern department. This carved tablet dates back 3,500 years to ancient Babylon. In the interview, Finkel talks about an image carved into the tablet that’s only visible when viewed from above under a light. Gershon writes quote “The tablet is small enough to fit in a person’s hand [and] at least half of it is missing. But the object still holds carefully detailed instructions on getting rid of pesky ghosts. The directions call for the exorcist to make figurines of a man and woman; prepare two vessels of beer; and, at sunrise, speak ritual words calling on the Mesopotamian god Shamash, who was responsible for bringing ghosts to the underworld. Finkel says the idea was to transfer the ghost into one of the figurines. The text’s final line urges readers to “not look behind you!” This warning is probably intended as an instruction aimed at the figurines entering the underworld, but it’s possible it’s directed at the exorcist,” end quote. So it’s obvious from this tablet that ancient Babylonians believed that ghosts, spirits of the dead, could return to the world of the living and sometimes needed help getting back to the land of the dead.

But it’s not just Babylon. According to the article quote “All major ancient civilizations held beliefs involving the survival of souls after bodily death…Ghost stories with similar themes can be found in ancient China, Mesoamerica, Egypt, India, Greece, Ireland, Scotland and Rome,” end quote. Let’s go to a couple of those places. We’ll start in Greece, specifically the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. Pausanias was a beloved Spartan war general who died in 470 BC, and then became one of the most famous ghosts of the ancient world. He defeated the Persians in the sea battle of Plataea in 479, but then was accused of treasonous dealings with the Persian Emperor, Xerxes. Bit of a double agent, possibly, I mean who knows if he was actually guilty. But he was accused and that was enough back then. Apparently he was bricked up in the Temple of Athena in Sparta. So they just built like a brick wall around him and left him there, alive, until he died, I assume of dehydration. After that, ancient ghost stories about Pausanias began. According to legends, his ghost haunted the temple after his death, wandering around and making shrieking and moaning noises until eventually a magician persuaded the spirit to leave the temple.

Next let’s go to ancient Rome cause we’ve got our guy Pliny over there writing everything down for us. I’ve mentioned Pliny the Elder on several occasions. He was an ancient Roman chronicler who recorded all sorts of things, thank you Pliny. But Pliny died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and his nephew who went by Pliny the younger took over as recorder of all the things. This ghost story is one of those things that Pliny the Younger recorded in a letter in the first century. Pliny relays a story that was told to him about the ghost of an old man with a long beard rattling chains like Jacob Marley in a Christmas Carol who was haunting a house in Athens. Sorry, you don’t actually get to find out who the old man ghost was but it’s still an interesting story. Here’s what Pliny wrote quote “There was at Athens a large and spacious, but illreputed and pestilential house. In the dead of the night a noise, resembling the clashing of iron, was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like the rattling of fetters; at first it seemed at a distance, but approached nearer by degrees; immediately afterward a phantom appeared in the form of an old man, extremely meagre and squalid, with a long beard and bristling hair; rattling the gyves on his feet and hands. The poor inhabitants consequently passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. This, as it broke their rest, threw them into distempers, which, as their horrors of mind increased, proved in the end fatal to their lives. For even in the daytime, though the spectre did not appear, yet the remembrance of it made such a strong impression on their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes, and their terror remained when the cause of it was gone. By this means the house was at last deserted, as being judged by everybody to be absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this great calamity which attended it, a bill was put up, giving notice that it was either to be let or sold. It happened that Athenodorus the philosopher came to Athens at this time, and reading the bill ascertained the price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion; nevertheless, when he heard the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged, that he was more strongly inclined to [rent] it, and, in short, actually did so. When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the forepart of the house, and after calling for a light, together with his pen and tablets, he directed all his people to retire within. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he applied himself to writing with all his faculties. The first part of the night passed with usual silence, then began the clanking of iron fetters; however, he neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pen, but closed his ears by concentrating his attention. The noise increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him: it stood before him, beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and bent again to his writing, (the nerve of this guy!) but the ghost rattled its chains over his head as he wrote, he looked round and saw it beckoning as before. Upon this he immediately took up his lamp and followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains; and having turned into the courtyard of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus being thus deserted, marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he went to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. There they found bones commingled and intertwined with chains; for the body had mouldered away by long Iying in the ground, leaving them bare, and corroded by the fetters. The bones were collected, and buried at the public expense; and after the ghost was thus duly laid the house was haunted no more,” end quote. But who was he??? Right? Who was the old man with the beard? Why was he buried in chains in the courtyard of that house? That’s all I want to know Pliny!

The first reports of a poltergeist come from Germany in the year 856 AD. Actually, the whole concept of a poltergeist, a mischievous ghost that can move things around, bang on things, pinch people, etc. comes from German folktales. The word poltergeist is a mix of German words polter which means rumble, roll or bluster, and geist which means ghost. This report came from the Annales Fuldenses which was written in the 800s in Fulda, Germany. It tells of a poltergeist terrorizing a farmer in the Rhine Valley near Bingen that would start fires in the crops and farm buildings, throw stones, shake the farmhouse, and shout at the farmer, accusing him of having affairs with young women. This poltergeist apparently followed the man around until he was eventually shunned by his neighbors. Very Peeves-like. But, sorry, once again, I don’t know who this rude guy was supposed to be but he’s the first documented poltergeist so I felt like I needed to include him.

Now let’s move on to someone we are very familiar with, actually a trio of ladies we are very familiar with. We took a very deep dive into their world back in episodes 19 and 20, Six Wives. According to the tales, at least three of Henry VIII’s wives have appeared as ghostly apparitions. Want to guess which ones? Well the ones who died tragically, of course, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard. We’ll start with Anne, possibly the most notorious of all Henry’s wives. Anne Boleyn was Henry’s second wife. Well, she was his mistress for quite some time before he actually married her. But she was quite good at sort of leading him on. You see, she would not actually sleep with Henry without the promise at least, possibility of marriage. And he simply had to have her. He was obsessed. But the problem, of course, was that he was already married to Catherine of Aragon, had been for nearly 25 years and the Catholic Church in Rome would not grant him a divorce. Catherine was a Spanish princess after all, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs, and so the pope was firmly on her side. So, in order to divorce Catherine and marry Anne, Henry broke with the Catholic church, turning all of England into a protestant country, creating a new sect of Christianity of which he was the head and then of course he just granted himself his own divorce. He marries Anne Boleyn who gives birth to Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth the first soon after (who was ironically the greatest heir Henry ever could have hoped for. ) Henry’s delighted. Anne is clearly going to come through with an heir for him, surely an heir is coming soon. Elizabeth took no time at all, she’s healthy, she’s hearty, but she’s a girl. Surely a boy, an heir, will follow right behind her. It’s only a matter of time. But then a year goes by. Anne has a miscarriage. Two years later, in January of 1536, Henry gets in a near fatal jousting accident, sustains a major head injury, he’s unconscious for 2 hours. A few days after that, Anne has another miscarriage. The baby was a boy. Henry, his personality, his temperament possibly altered by his recent head injury, has lost faith in her, personally blames her, feels betrayed by her. A few months later he accuses her of adultery and incest with her brother, charges of which she was most likely innocent. On May 19, 1536 he has her beheaded at the Tower of London. He can’t be bothered to even show up for her execution and is, in fact, off wooing his next wife, Jane Seymour, whom he proposes to the following day. Anne Boleyn’s execution is one of the most shocking, haunting royal fates. And so it’s no wonder that many have reported witnessing the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting places she once frequented including the Tower of London, especially the Tower of London where she was imprisoned and beheaded, but also Windsor Castle, Blickling Hall, and her childhood home of Hever Castle in Kent. According to witness accounts, her spirit often appears headless which is why they assume it to be her I’m guessing. One famous account comes from a guard at the Tower of London in 1864. As he stood guard, watching the courtyard where Anne was executed, the figure of a woman appeared and began to glide towards him, her feet not touching the ground. The guard assumed this to be an actual woman and so he lunged at her with his bayonet. Which like, come on dude, let’s use words first before we murder this possibly innocent intruder. But he and the bayonet just went right through the woman and then he fainted. And when he was discovered, unconscious in the graveyard, he was charged with dereliction of duty. They were like “this guy was sleeping on the job, throw him in jail.” But he was saved by a guy named General Dundas who saw the whole thing, including the ghost of the woman they believed to be Anne Boleyn.

Jane Seymour is our next ghost. Jane was one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies in waiting until she was swooped up by Henry as his mistress and then next wife literally immediately after he had Anne beheaded. Jane gave birth to a boy, finally, in October of 1537 and Henry finally had his heir, a weak, sickly one, but whatever, he was a boy, he would do. The birth was extremely difficult. Jane was in labor for three days and three nights which I can’t even imagine, completely unmedicated of course. And sadly, she died less than two weeks after little Edward was born of complications from the birth, most likely a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot. So Jane joined the ranks of all the women who died in childbirth, a rather large group. And her death shocked the nation. They hadn’t even finished rejoicing, celebrating the birth of their future king, only to learn that their queen was now dead. It was very tragic. According to Historic Royal Palaces, Jane Seymour’s ghost is said to haunt Hampton Court Palace which is where she gave birth to Edward and then died shortly after. Henry lived with his wives in many different palaces and houses and castles throughout his lifetime. Hampton Court is only one of those but it is where Jane died. Witnesses have reported a quote “sad white wraith carrying a lighted taper,” which is thought to be the spirit of Jane Seymour. This figure supposedly appears on the Silverstick Stairs on the anniversary of Edward’s birth each year, so every October 12th, AKA yesterday, or today if you’re listening early on Patreon. I am so right on schedule. This is the stairwell that leads up to the room where Jane gave birth which is also the room she died in.

And then there’s Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife. Her ghost is also supposed to haunt Hampton Court. I know Anne Boleyn is a hard act to follow but I actually think Catherine Howard is the most tragic of all his wives. She was very very young when she married Henry, possibly as young as 17 and he was pushing 50. So, gross. Catherine had also been sexually abused by men in her life since she was a child. By this point, we’re pretty sure that Henry was impotent, that he could not perform his marital duties, so to speak. And so it’s no surprise at all that Catherine didn’t bear him any heirs. Because at this point he has Edward but he still really wants that spare heir. But of course it’s not his fault. Nothing is ever Henry’s fault. And when it comes out that Catherine had been with other men before their marriage and was actively having a (seemingly unwanted, forced) affair with Thomas Culpepper, a member of Henry’s privy chamber, a high ranking official, Henry was furious. This majorly wounded his pride. How dare she. I mean it was fine that he had taken countless mistresses, had tons of extra marital affairs forever, but how dare she? He accused her of treason and adultery and had her executed, without a trial, at the Tower of London. Now, as the story goes, as Catherine was being arrested, she broke free of the guards and ran down a hall in Hampton Court that is now called the “haunted gallery.” She was trying to get to Henry, to explain herself to him and beg for mercy but he refused to see her. Now, based on my own research, reading and listening to experts on how this all would have gone down, that probably never happened. It’s more legend than fact. But there have been many reports of people witnessing Catherine’s ghost at Hampton Court, specifically in that hallway. She is the most reported ghost at Hampton Court actually. Supposedly, her ghost repeats that final journey, running down the haunted gallery hallway screaming for mercy.

There’s even another ghost at Hampton Court Palace though, one we aren’t as familiar with. She’s usually called the Gray Lady but is believed to be the ghost of Sybil Penn. Sybil was a servant to four of the Tudor monarchs, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. She was Edward’s wetnurse, feeding and caring for him after his mother, Jane Seymour died. She took care of Elizabeth, then queen, in 1562 when she became ill with smallpox. Elizabeth recovered, thanks to Sybil. But then Sybil caught smallpox, likely from Elizabeth and died. She was buried at nearby Hampton Church. But, in 1829, that church was renovated and Sybil’s tomb was disturbed. Apparently, since then, people have been seeing a gray lady at Hampton Court specifically walking the corridors of the State Apartments and the Clock Court at the palace. Another ghost story about Sybil points to a mysterious spinning wheel noise that was coming from behind a wall in one of the apartments. According to the legend, meaning there is no actual proof of this, when that wall was removed, there was, in fact, an old well-worn spinning wheel behind it, like for spinning thread or yarn that would be woven into fabric.

In 1871, the skeletons of two men were dug up under a cloister while performing routine maintenance in the fountain court. An elderly woman living in an apartment on the grounds had been complaining of constant banging and knocking on her walls. As soon as these skeletons were discovered and properly reburied, the banging stopped. I don’t have their names for you, but they were believed to have been hastily buried there in unmarked graves during the civil wars in the mid 1600s.

All of this in Hampton Court Palace. So that’s a lot of ghosts for one building, and two of them quite high profile, two of them Henry’s queens. But I have to point out that a lot of these ghost stories first started being told in the 1800s. And ghost stories were just sort of trending at that point. Think of Mary Shelley, Byron’s think of a ghost story challenge. It was a very gothic time. They were very into the macabre. There was a lot of morbid curiosity and ghosts were very in. According to the Historic Royal Palaces website quote “Nobody knew better than the Victorians that terror sells tickets. In the early 20th century, these darker episodes of palace history were retold for enjoyable chills, and ghostly legends grew until visitors expected an ectoplasmic encounter around every corner,” end quote. They even sold postcards of photographs supposedly taken in the palace that captured these ghosts but these photos were definitely faked, just double exposures, something people at this point, in the early days of photography didn’t really know anything about or think to look out for. It’s like AI with the older generation today. I can spot an AI image from a mile away but for them it’s like, they have no idea. The cover image for this episode is one of these fake ghost, double exposed photographs. This one from 1899 and you can see the full thing over on my instagram @historyfixpodcast or my website historyfixpodcast.com. I always have lots of images for most episodes in both of those places.

But despite the faked postcard photos and publicity stunts of yesteryear the Historic Royal Palaces website does report some more interesting and more modern evidence of ghostly activity there saying quote “In May 2000, the noted psychologist Richard Wiseman conducted an experiment at Hampton Court Palace to investigate whether ghosts really were ‘all in the mind.’He asked volunteers to describe themselves as either ‘believers’ or ‘non-believers’ in the paranormal and asked people in both groups to record any unusual experiences as they wandered around. As you might expect, ‘believers’ reported more spooky sensations overall, but interestingly many participants recorded more unusual incidents in the same places – the Haunted Gallery and the Georgian rooms, whether or not they knew about the legends. This suggests something is happening, but exactly what isn’t clear,” end quote. On the same day in 1999, during two separate tours, two female visitors both fainted in the exact same spot in the haunted gallery. This is remember where Catherine Howard’s ghost is thought to hang out. And then, there’s one more occurance, reported by palace officials, that actually got caught on tape. In October of 2003, they captured a video on security cameras of a quote “ghostly figure” flinging open a fire door. The website says quote “No living soul has ever come forward to admit that this was their prank. Security staff remain baffled,” end quote. Apparently this was captured on three separate days, this fire door being flung open. And on the second day is when they captured the video where you can actually see the ghost. And so of course I found this video on Youtube. It’s linked in the description if you want to watch it. You can see, okay, so it’s like double doors, exterior double door, heavy fire doors. First both doors fling open at the same time, with quite a bit of force. Then, you can see someone standing just inside the building behind the doors. And they reach out and close one door and then the other and then they open one back up and close it again. And this person, I mean it really just looks like a person, it doesn’t look like a ghost. It looks very real and solid and alive. And they are wearing what looks like a long floor length coat, or like a robe, like a wizard robe is what it looks like. And they have sort of unkempt curlyish hair that looks like it’s covering their right eye. I don’t know it really just looks like a person to me. And the people who work at Hampton Court do wear period costumes. But apparently they never were able to figure out who this could be. Check out the link in the description its like a 30 second long YouTube video, I’m dying to hear what y’all think.

Let’s go to another prominent haunted building, one a little closer to home, the White House. The White House in Washington DC has been home to American presidents since it was built in 1792. First president George Washington oversaw construction of the building but never actually lived there. So second president John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams were the first to live in the White House. And while it seems kind of stiff and boring and official, the White House, according to reports is honestly one of the most haunted houses out there. Because the wild thing about the ghost stories coming out of the White House is that they aren’t being told by people trying to sell tickets or fake postcards, they’re being told by presidents, 8 presidents actually have reported ghostly activity at the White House along with countless White House staff members. Abraham Lincoln was one of the first to report seeing ghosts there. According to a Washington Post article by Theresa Vargas, after the death of his 11 year old son Willie in the White House, Lincoln reportedly saw his ghost quite often. His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who was so grief stricken after Willie’s death that she refused to leave her room for weeks, also reported seeing his ghost standing at the foot of her bed. Apparently Abraham Lincoln also reported hearing Thomas Jefferson play the violin and Andrew Jackson swearing.

Now, what’s ironic about this, is that Abraham Lincoln, after his assassination in 1865 would go on to become the most sighted ghost in the White House. First Lady Grace Coolidge who lived in the White House in the 1920s reported in a magazine interview that she had seen the ghost of Lincoln looking out the window of the room that had been his office. In 1940, Winston Churchill stayed in Lincoln’s old bedroom while visiting the White House. According to Vargas Churchill, quote “had just stepped out of a hot bath in that same room and was wearing nothing but a cigar when he encountered Lincoln by the fireplace. “Good evening, Mr. President,” Churchill reportedly said. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage.’” end quote. Apparently Lincoln’s ghost smiled and then disappeared. When Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands visited in 1942, she stayed in Lincoln’s old bedroom as well. She reported hearing a knock on the door and opening it to find Lincoln standing outside and then she fainted. Mary Eban, who worked for Eleanor Roosevelt during this same time period, the 1940s, reported seeing Lincoln on his bed, pulling on his boots. She screamed loud enough to bring Secret Service agents running. Eleanor Roosevelt herself said in 1932 quote “I get a distinct feeling that there is somebody in the room,” end quote. White House curator Rex Scoutan told the Washington Post in 1989 that then president Ronald Reagan had commented that his dog would go into any room in the White House except for Lincoln’s bedroom. He would just stand outside the door and bark but wouldn’t go in. Reports of Lincoln’s ghost increase dramatically during times of hardship. According to Jared Broach who runs ghost tours at the white house quote “They say Lincoln always comes back whenever he feels the country is in need or in peril. They say he just strides up and down the second-floor hallways and raps on doors and stands by windows,” end quote. Aw Abe, just get some rest buddy.

First ladies have also appeared as ghosts. The likeness of Abigail Adams is often seen in the East Room where she reportedly used to dry sheets. She’s usually seen walking with her arms outstretched as if she were holding clean linens. Poor lady is stuck doing laundry forever apparently. Although, is anyone else a little surprised that Abigail Adams was washing her own sheets? Wouldn’t there have been servants doing that? I don’t know. I’m just relaying the stories y’all. When Woodrow Wilson was president in the 19-teens, multiple staff members reported seeing the ghost of Dolly Madison in the rose garden. They were actually preparing to move the garden elsewhere, but after seeing Dolly, decided not to.

And then there’s Harry Truman, who was president in the late 40s, early 50s. Truman reported hearing unexplained knocking sounds while he was trying to sleep. He even wrote a letter to his wife Bess in 1946 quote “I jumped up and put on my bathrobe, opened the door, and no one there. Went out and looked up and down the hall, looked in your room and Margie’s. Still no one. Went back to bed after locking the doors and there were footsteps in your room whose door I’d left open. Jumped and looked and no one there! The damned place is haunted sure as shootin’. Secret Service said not even a watchman was up here at that hour. You and Margie had better come back and protect me before some of these ghosts carry me off,” end quote. Margie was his daughter and according to a 1986 biography she wrote about her mother, she apparently wrote him a letter back telling him you know “you’re fine, there are no ghosts. There’s no such thing as ghosts, you’re fine.” And he replied quote “I’m sure they’re here, and I’m not so much alarmed at meeting up with any of them. I am sure old [Andrew Jackson] could give me good advice and probably teach me good swear words. And I’m sure old Grover Cleveland could tell me some choice remarks to make to some political leaders. … So I won’t lock my doors or bar them either if any of the old coots in the pictures out in the hall want to come out of their frames for a friendly chat,” end quote.

Okay one more, because one character in this next story has also graced a past History Fix episode. The fifth Earl of Carnarvon. He’s from way back in episode 6 about Highclere Castle which is where the show Downton Abbey was filmed. He is the very loose real life inspiration behind the character of Lord Grantham in that show. He’s also the guy who helped discover the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankahmen’s tomb. Well, before that, he spent some time with Victor Duleep Singh in Berlin in 1893. Victor was crown prince of Punjab in India. Victor is hanging with Carnarvon when something strange happens. He reports quote “I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture; not like a portrait of him, but his real head,” end quote. So an oleograph, because I had to google it is a print that is meant to look like an oil painting. It was a lithograph, made using stones as like rubber stamps basically, where they could stamp out this print to look like an oil painting. The next morning, Victor told Lord Carnarvon what he had seen, that he had seen his father’s head in the painting and that he believed this meant his father was dead. That evening, Victor received word via telegram that his father had died of a seizure. And it was unexpected, it wasn’t like Victor was worried about his father’s health already and then he died. Even Carnarvon confirmed that they had no knowledge his father wasn’t well until they received word of his death. And I think it’s interesting that Victor was with Carnarvon when this happened because so many other strange things seemed to happen with Carnarvon. I mean there’s all the legends about the curse of King Tut and all that. And then there’s the story about when Carnarvon died in Egypt of an infected cut he got after shaving over a mosquito bite. Okay so he died in Egypt and supposedly, at that exact moment, his dog back home in England let out a mournful howl and then died. But also there was this power outage in Egypt at the time that he died. Apparently all the lights in Cairo went out for the 5 minutes leading up to his death and then came back on after he died. So, I don’t know, Carnarvon had some strange energy. I’m getting like psychic medium vibes from him.

So, you know, the question remains, are ghosts real? Are all of these reports throughout the ages actually based on genuine paranormal sightings? Are these actually the spirits of the dead? I think there are a lot of fake ghost stories out there. Some intentionally faked but a lot unintentionally. The human mind is so incredibly powerful. So much so that we can’t even begin to fully understand it. Your mind has the power to create your reality. And I think in a lot of these cases, specifically the ghosts we talked about today, their deaths were very tragic. Their deaths stuck with people. Their stories haunted people for centuries, made serious impacts on our minds. And so we want to believe that we need only go to Hampton Court Palace to see Catherine Howard, she’s still there, she lives on. We want to believe that Abraham Lincoln is stalking through the halls of the White House, watching over us, popping in when times get tough. We still need him. Help us Abe. And so I think the mind believes what it wants to believe.

But I’m not trying to say that ghosts aren’t real. I think if you believe in a spiritual world you have to at least consider the possibility of some crossover. There are a lot of paranormal reports that we truly cannot explain. And it’s not just like a couple of weirdos making stuff up. A lot of people have reported ghostly encounters, a lot of very sane, normal, credible people. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 32% of Americans believed in ghosts and 75% had at least one paranormal belief. That’s considerable. But I really do think, it’s the sort of thing you just have to experience. If you haven’t had a paranormal experience, you are not likely to believe that any of it’s real. I have had what I believe to be a paranormal experience and I still don’t really know what to make of it. So, I’ll end this episode with my own ghost story.

When I was in highschool, my two sisters and I each had our own bedroom on the top floor of my parent’s house. Their room was downstairs but all three of our rooms were upstairs. My little sister and I shared the bathroom in the hallway, she’s 10 years younger than I am so I’d say she was probably 6ish when this happened and I was like 16. Our older sister who is a year older than me had her own bathroom, an en suite bathroom. Okay so one night, I’m in the hall bathroom getting ready for bed. I was washing my face. I remember I was washing my face because I couldn’t see. My eyes were closed, I was washing my face. And I felt a small hand, it was a hand I could feel the palm, all the fingers, and it pushed me on my hip, on the left side of my body, hard enough to make me stumble to the right a little. I spun around immediately and looked, squinting through the soapy water streaming into my eyes because I was so sure I would see my little sister standing there and she was supposed to be asleep. And I even started to say something to her, to ask her what she was doing out of bed “what are you…?” But there was no one there. The door to the bathroom was closed and I was completely alone. She was in bed. I thought it was super weird but I just sort of wrote it off. I was tired, I had just imagined it even though it had felt so incredibly real. It had physically moved my body. But I wrote it off and went to bed. I didn’t even tell anyone about it.

This is where it gets really weird. The next evening I’m in my room, doing my homework or something and I hear my older sister call out, “ahh,” whatever, she yells. So I go to see what’s up. She’s in her bathroom which is attached to her bedroom, getting ready for bed. And so I go in there and I’m like “what?” and she looks at me and her eyes are wide, she is terrified. And she tells me “someone just pushed me.” And she puts her hand on her hip as if to show me where she got pushed and my jaw just dropped. Because I hadn’t told her. I hadn’t told anyone. And I don’t even know if she believed my story but it all came pouring out about how the same exact thing had happened to me the night before in my bathroom as I was getting ready for bed and how it felt so real I was sure it was Audrey, our little sister but it wasn’t. And we just stared at each other. It never happened again and I still don’t know what to make of it. But if it was a ghost, a spirit, it was little, child-sized like our little sister. But what did it want? Did it just want us to know it was there? Did it want attention? It felt mischievous, pushing me while I wasn’t looking. It almost felt like it was playing with me. And you know what haunts me most of all about the experience, still? If it was a ghost, a child, visiting me from beyond, who the heck was it? I need a name. Who was that child who playfully placed their little hand against my hip? What was their story? It seems I’ll forever dangle over this cliff, always wondering. But ghosts, real or imagined, are an inconceivable thing, like looking at a 3D object from directly above, a cube appears as a square. We don’t have the perspective to fully understand the experience. And so it seems we’ll likely always wonder and our brains will always race to fill in the gaps.

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.

Information used in this episode was sourced from history.com, history.co.uk, the Washington Post, Historic Royal Palaces, Smithsonian Magazine, VRoma, and Live Science. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.

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