Historical ghost evidence: Ruickbie excerpt #3

Psychologist Leo Ruickbie writes in “The Ghost in the Time Machine,” his 2021 prize winning essay in a competition sponsored by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies:

“Only one thing is certain about apparitions,” wrote Andrew Lang in 1894, “namely this, that they do appear. They really are perceived.” But ‘apparitions,’ originally from Latin apparere ‘appear,’ are only appearances, and, as we know, appearances can be deceptive. When I saw my first ‘apparition,’ I was not looking for one, and, Scrooge-like, certainly did not ‘believe’ in it, but when I went looking for ghosts?

I had good odds, about 1 in 10, of finding one. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), especially founded to investigate claims of the paranormal, launched its “Census of Hallucinations,” asking 17,000 people by postal survey:  

Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?

This had happened to 1,684 people (9.9%) at least once, with 1,112 reporting visual hallucinations, including realistic human apparitions (830 cases) of the living (352 cases), the deceased (163 cases), and unrecognized (315 cases) – the rest being incomplete (143), or “other” (139).

The odds are better for those who purposely set out to find them. In 2012, I surveyed self- professed paranormal investigators (‘ghost hunters’). The data showed that the average ghost hunter was a white male in his early forties, who had spent nine years investigating almost a hundred cases. Collectively, the people I surveyed had spent 490 years investigating 4,861 cases. One individual claimed over a thousand investigations during thirty-four years. It was an astonishing amount of time and dedication, but had they found anything?

When asked “have you ever experienced what you would call a ‘ghost,’” 89% said “yes.” In total, 238 separate events were reported. These experiences were visual (40%), non-visual (45%), and anomalous encounters of an indeterminate nature (15%). The reported phenomena were not always independent events, sometimes taking place concurrently or simultaneously. When I joined a group of ghost hunters to investigate 30 East Drive, Pontefract, today’s top contender for the “most haunted house” title, I saw the process of such investigations firsthand, but Scrooged my own experiences as psychological and coincidental.

We must conclude, that if you go ghost hunting, you will most likely experience something that you might think of as a ‘ghost.’ It may take several investigations over many years, but the probability is high that you will at least convince yourself. But what would constitute the case most likely to convince others? And more particularly, where in time are apparitions?

“They Were Coming Out of the Wall”

Eighteen-year-old plumber’s apprentice, Harry Martindale, was in the cellars of the Treasurer’s House, an historic house in York, UK, working on the central-heating system, when he heard the distant “blaring of a note,” in his words. Perched on a ladder, Martindale continued his work as the sound grew louder. Looking down, he saw a figure wearing a plumed helmet and holding a trumpet- like instrument come through the wall followed by a horse and rider, and a column of Roman soldiers. Martindale fell off his ladder with fright and watched as about twenty soldiers marched across the cellar. Martindale described the scene:

[...] They were coming out of the wall, the wall didn’t exist as far as they were concerned. The only other Roman soldier I’d seen prior to this, is what we call, or I call, the Charlton Heston type – riding a beautiful horse, very smart. These were the complete opposite. The first thing that struck me was how small they were, they were very small indeed. Another remarkable thing when they first came out of the wall – I couldn’t see them from the knees down, until they came to where the Roman road had been excavated – then I could see them from their sandals up. [...] I wouldn’t say they were all that smart, although they did all [have] the same uniform on. [...] On the top on the material were strands of leather all the way round, and the only thing I can say they had on was a green-coloured skirt. All of them carried a short sword on the right had side, the side nearest to me, and it was a short sword like an oversized dagger. [...] One was carrying a long, like a lance affair, and one of the soldiers I saw walking out the wall carried a shield. Now in the centre of the shield it was like a raised bulb.

As the last soldier passed through the opposite wall, Martindale made his escape. He was found by the museum’s curator, who said “By the look of you, you’ve seen the Roman soldiers.” Martindale went home and called his doctor, telling him what he had seen, and was signed off work with shock. Years later, when Martindale gave his first interview about the incident, he could not remember when it had taken place, but the doctor was able to provide the date from Martindale’s medical records. When asked “Are there such things as ghosts?”, Martindale’s unequivocal answer was “Yes.” 

Leo Ruickbie, “The Ghost in the Time Machine,” 2021 prize winning essay in a competition sponsored by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. Ruickbie teaches psychology at Kings College and the University of Northamptom in the United Kingdom. Footnotes have been deleted from these online excerpts from his essay. The entire essay may be downloaded at the Bigelow site, https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.