It's October. Halloween is coming.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I know lots and lots of ghost stories; some true, others probably not, but scary none the less. XD The ghost of 50 Berkley Square is fairly wellknown over here, tho Americans might not have heard of it at all.

The Ghost Of Berkley Square.

A malevolent spirit haunted 50 Berkley Square in London and claimed several victims. Successive owners and neighbours reported several bangs and crashes attributed to the ghost which began after the death of one time owner, British Prime Minister George Canning, in 1827.

Aristocrat Sir Robert Warboys pledged to spend a night in the most haunted room of the house, an upstairs bedroom. Armed with a pistol and a bell pull to call for help, he retired to bed at 23:45 with a quip to his friends: “My dear fellows, I am here to disprove the bunkum of a ghost, so your little alarm will be of no use. I bid you goodnight.”

Just fifteen minutes later, the bell rang wildly. Before anyone could reach him a shot rang out. The assembled gentlemen burst in to find Warboys dead on the bed, his face contorted in terror. He had apparently fired the gun at whatever had confronted him in the darkness but to no avail.

In 1878 another nobleman decided to sleep in that same disturbing room. Lord Lyttleton took with him two guns, one of which he loaded with silver sixpenny pieces which were considered a charm against evil. When a spectre approached, he fired the silver coins and it vanished. The incident prompted him to investigate the history of the troubled house and he discovered that, as well as Warboys, at least two others had died there apparently following visits from the ghost.

The final fatality came in 1887. Two sailors, Edward Blunden and Robert Martin, of HMS Penelope, found themselves in foggy London on Christmas Eve with nowhere to stay. A sign in the window of 50 Berkeley Square indicated vacancies so they went inside in search of a room for the night. By chance they happened on the very bedroom where Warboys had died. Martin slept but Blunden became increasingly nervous. He nudged Martin awake just in time to see a dark apparition enter the room. When Blunden tried to grab a weapon the ghost made a bee-line for him, enabling Martin to escape, who ran until he found a Policeman. When the pair returned to the property they found the body of Blunden at the foot of the basement stairs, his neck broken and his eyes wide open.

[Eireann]

Oh, have I heard of Number 50, Berkeley Square! It was one of the first ghost stories to keep me awake at night, along with the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. Yes, those stories do cross the Atlantic.

[fireheart]

Other than the vodka, everything sounds good....though I have to admit, I have never heard of Rekorderlig or Koppaberg. Are they any good?

They're Swedish ciders and they're actually quite nice. The "winter warmer" one is quite good. Both brands are very similar, but the Koppaberg is cheaper

[Lace Neil Singer]

Oh, have I heard of Number 50, Berkeley Square! It was one of the first ghost stories to keep me awake at night, along with the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. Yes, those stories do cross the Atlantic.

That's fantastic. I love it when that happens; cuz I know lots of American ghost stories, so it ought to work the other way round as well. XD

[Pixilated]

Eireann's story reminded me of an incident a few decades ago when I was babysitting a cousin (who now has a teenaged daughter, so this will give you an idea of the time that's passed since then, LOL).

He'd been upstairs in bed for a couple of hours and I was sitting in the living room reading. I was sitting on the sofa. On the other side of the wall behind the sofa was the bathroom. I was facing the front door; there was a small lamp on a small table beside the door.

Fairly late at night (though not on the stroke of midnight, alas!) three things happened almost simultaneously: a radio upstairs came on, the light next to the front door went out and the toilet flushed.

Oh, and the book I was reading? The Exorcist.

I know that, for a couple of minutes, I gave an excellent imitation of someone turned to stone.

When I decided that I was not in fact going to drop dead from fright, I tried to figure out what had happened. Hmm ... the radio's alarm was probably set on P.M. instead of A.M., the light was probably on a timer, and the toilet ... well, I couldn't figure that one out, but I'd never heard of a ghost dropping in to use the loo, so I just wrote it off.

No, I did NOT go upstairs to shut off the radio ...

I did, however, trade The Exorcist for a copy of the Ladies Home Journal magazine.

And several months ago I watched a series on YouTube called Haunted Britain: Real Ghost Stories. It has dramatic recreations, and I watched the whole thing in one sitting, after which I turned on every light between my desk and my bedroom (in a 600-square-foot apartment) because otherwise I'd have ended up sleeping at my desk.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I felt that way one night when I watched a whole Youtube channel showing clips from a TV programme I used to watch called "Strange But True?" XD After watching the Dover Castle clip, I heard a thump from outside and nearly jumped out of my skin! But it was my neighbour tripping up the stairs.

[Eireann]

A YouTube member with the username of Ghostwatching has put up some excellent creepy videos. Death rites, hauntings, poltergeists, you name it.

You can also find, on YouTube, a 1973 adaptation of the M.R. James short story "Lost Hearts". It's one of the darkest, weirdest, creepiest movies I've ever seen.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I like Creepypasta, this one is fun but full of language [and more than a few mistakes that the military of the time would *never* have allowed.] With a little tweaking it would make a decent made for Syfy movie.

Goddamn am I glad you posted this.

The guy's posting more of the story on Something Awful. (His handle on those boards is "Fifty-Foot Ant.")

[Pixilated]

A YouTube member with the username of Ghostwatching has put up some excellent creepy videos. Death rites, hauntings, poltergeists, you name it.

You can also find, on YouTube, a 1973 adaptation of the M.R. James short story "Lost Hearts". It's one of the darkest, weirdest, creepiest movies I've ever seen.

I'll check out the Ghostwatching videos, thanks!

I'd forgotten about the M.R. James short stories! They are all very well done, IMO ... no thundering, crashing musical scores ... very, very understated and scary like you wouldn't believe. "Lost Hearts" is great but I think my favourite is "Whistle and I'll Come to You" (look for the 1968 black-and-white version) with "A View from a Hill" running a very close second. There's also a creepy one about a room 13 in a hotel that, officially, doesn't have a room 13 ... it's a closet ... except at night ...

[Eireann]

If I remember correctly, there is absolutely nothing that could be Number 13, no closet, nothing. The man in Number 12 discovers that his room shrinks at night; he learns later that the man in Number 14 experiences the same thing. But, yes, at night - oh, at night!

[Chromatix]

I have a copy of "Sleep No More" by L.T.C. Rolt. Unfortunately the best stories from it are far too long to reproduce here, but suffice to say they are a cut above the typical "ghost story". There's even a haunted iron smelting works in it, with the haunting worked cleverly into the operation of the works.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Resurrection Mary.

You are driving down Archer Avenue in the small suburb of Justice, Illinois just a few miles southwest of Chicago. It is late at night and you are ready to get home and go to sleep. You pass the Willowbrook Ballroom and begin to grow excited because you know you are almost home. Suddenly you see a beautiful young girl wearing a long white dress on the side of the road. Concerned for the young girl because it is so late you stop to see if there is anything wrong. She simply asks for a ride and you oblige and she gets in the back seat.

There is an awkward and uncomfortable silence between the two of you, and she evades every one of your attempts to start a conversation. She does not even tell you where she needs to be dropped off. You begin to approach a cemetery when she demands you stop. The young girl exits the car and runs into the cemetery. You wait for a moment to see if she returns but she does not. You ultimately decide to continue home baffled by the strange occurrence. You may have just giving a ride to the Chicago area’s most infamous ghost, Resurrection Mary.

According to the Chicago Tribune, since the 1930s there have been three-dozen substantiated reports of men picking up a young girl who is walking along Archer Avenue between the Willowbrook Ballroom and the Resurrection Cemetery. These are only reported witness accounts. Who knows how many others have had run-ins with this mysterious woman and not reported it. Who or what is this young girl that has been wandering this street for the last 80 years?

According to the local tale, Mary was a teenage girl who had been dancing with her boyfriend at the Willowbrook Ballroom when, for unknown reason, they got into a heated argument. Emotionally distraught, Mary rushed out of the ballroom and braced the cold Chicago winter night and began walking home. While heading down Archer Avenue she was tragically struck by a car. The driver left the scene of the accident. Mary laid on the ground mortally wounded. Between the cold and her injuries Mary could not make it without medical attention, she died that night.

The next day, her parents became concerned when Mary did not return home. They contacted her boyfriend who told them about the fight and how Mary walked home. Her parents drove down Archer Avenue and discovered the mangled body of their daughter. They buried Mary at Resurrection Cemetery in her pretty white dress.

The difference between this ghost story and others is that there are several well-documented sightings of this young girl, including one of the first and most bizarre sightings in 1939. Jerry Palus claims that in 1939 he met a young blond girl in a white dress at the Liberty Grove and Hall at 47th and Mozart. Jerry claims he and the girl spent the night dancing and really hit it off. They even shared a kiss. She asked Jerry if he could give her a ride home, and Jerry obliged. They headed down Archer Avenue per her request when the women suddenly demanded that Jerry stop. Jerry stopped the car and the young girl exited the vehicle and disappeared into the cemetery.

Along with the typical sightings of Mary, several cab driver’s claim to have picked up young girl’s outside of various nightclubs only to have them exit the cab at the cemetery and disappear into the graveyard. The cabby’s main complaint is usually that she didn’t pay her cab fare. There are also reports of people’s vehicles actually running over a woman on Archer Avenue and when they stop, there is no one there.

Perhaps one of the more interesting sightings was documented in the Suburban Trip section of the Chicago Tribune. It detailed an account of a local cab driver:

“A couple miles up Archer there, she jumped with a start like a horse and said ‘Here! Here!’ I hit the brakes. I looked around and didn’t see no kind of house. ‘Where?’ I said. And then she sticks out her arm and points across the road to my left and says ‘There!’ And that’s when it happened. I looked to my left, like this, at this little shack. And when I turned she was gone. Vanished! And the car door never opened. May the good Lord strike me dead, it never opened.”

Supposed physical evidence of Mary also exists. There is a burnt section of post on the fence that surrounds Resurrection Cemetery, but officials at the cemetery claim that the burnt and bent section of the barred fence was caused by a truck and not the local ghost.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I have stories. A great many of them, all of them having happened to my own family, and all of them true. What I do not have is time... but rest assured that when I do, I shall tell them.

In the meantime, I shall leave you with a short incident.

Before my mother was born, my grandparents lived in a house that had been built on the foundations of another that had burned down years before. A woman had died in the fire. When my grandparents lived there, both of my aunts were still babies, and my grandmother had devised a way to sleep in the bed without the danger of the bedclothes bunching up and smothering them. My grandmother would sleep on her back with a baby on each side, and an arm around each one, with her hand there to keep the covers off them.

You know where this is going.

Frequently, a white arm would reach up from under the bed and run its fingers down my grandmother's arm. Also, some nights you could see what appeared to be the figure of a woman crawl out from under the bed, crawl across the room to the door, and crawl back across the room and back under the bed -- only to repeat the process later. Sometimes it would go on all night.

This -- and much more -- went on until my grandfather finished a new house next to the old one, whereupon they used the old house as a barn. The haunted bedroom was upstairs, and after everything that had happened there, no one wanted anything to do with it. They didn't even want to use it as a hayloft, and so my grandfather tore down the staircase. That had the added bonus of making sure that no one could get up to the attic either...

...But you'll have to check back later to find out what happened up there.

[AccountingDrone]

Goddamn am I glad you posted this.

The guy's posting more of the story on Something Awful. (His handle on those boards is "Fifty-Foot Ant.")

Who, Humpermonkey? Or someone claiming to be him and posting his creepypasta stuff?

[AccountingDrone]

Goddamn am I glad you posted this.

The guy's posting more of the story on Something Awful. (His handle on those boards is "Fifty-Foot Ant.")

I would check it out but it is a subscription forum.