"Now I advise you to let go of hunting this thing. For your own good."
My adventure into the now famous "Grey Lady" phantom at the local town park.
QUICK RECAP:
In 2002, I was working part-time as an art teacher for a local art college. I gave my class a project based on the word "UNKNOWN". This led to students creating "fake" ghost pictures as a kind of new art form and as a way of learning Photoshop. The pictures turned out to be so unusual that it lead to an art exhibition as well as an accompanying website Ghouls-on-film.com. The exhibition was sponsored by the town council and it was an overwhelming success with it being the first of its kind in the country. (The UK)
On the final night of the exhibition I was just about to close the door when a man came in informing me that he and his wife had been witnesses to a "real" ghostly sighting in a local park, known as Taylor Park, in 1986.
They were a young couple engaged to be married at the time.
The couple did not want money or fame but basically wanted someone to be able to give them some explanation as to what it was they saw. For some reason they came to me for help due to a certain reputation I had in the town that I do not even know I had.
After the couple had had finished telling of their phantom experience I said I would think it over and would be in contact in a day or so. The names of the couple were John & Patricia.
The next day I went to the park, to have a look around. I took some photos and using one of them I created a reconstruction image of their encounter using Photoshop. See above.
( Anyone new to the story can just look at my blog for the first two posts)
And so now we are up to date.
THE STORY CONTINUES:-
After deciding that the couple were genuine I decided to visit them at their home and interview them individually as well as record it.
It just so happened that I had recently been given a new digital recorder for my birthday and this was a perfect opportunity to try it out.
And so in the autumn of 2002 I drove to the home of John & Patricia - eye witnesses to the now famous "Grey Lady of Taylor Park"
Their house was in a well-to-do middle class area, which told me they were definitely not in need of money. Their brand new Mercedes Benz in the driveway confirmed this.
I was greeted at the door by their two charming children. A boy and a girl aged 10 and 12 and it was immediately apparent that they were well mannered and very intelligent. Again, more proof that I was dealing with genuine folk.
As agreed, I interviewed the couple separately.
This turned to be a good move for it uncovered further details that had not previously been spoken of.
I showed the nice couple my Photoshop reconstruction of their sighting and their reaction to it was not what I expected. Both, more or less simultaneously said: "She is too detailed. It was much more blurred and more see thru. Her face was more pale, almost a greenish color and her eyes were more darker, like holes. But you still got the sensation she was looking at you"
From this further description I made an updated version of the image - see below
When I showed Patricia and John this version and they pretty much agreed this was very close to what they saw.
The next stage was to do a real life reconstruction at the actual location of the sighting.
On the next weekend I arranged to meet at the park with the whole family so I could gather specific details of the encounter.
It was a wonderful sunny Sunday and we met up at the main entrance of the park.
Together we walked the exact route they took that night, stopping at the specific locations and at the approximate speed they walked.
What came out from this was that the strange eerie noises had begun much earlier than I had previously thought.
Eventually we arrived at the location of the sighting.
It was clear that it this day Patricia still felt uncomfortable there. I should imagine that a nurse was used to drama but perhaps not so much of this kind.
As I have stated, although my profession is that of an artist, I have somewhat of a scientific brain. In both of these areas, having an eye and an interest in detail can be very helpful.
FIRST STAGE OF THE INVESTIGATION:-
I was only interested in gathering factual evidence.
Fact No 1; To determine the distance the couple were from the actual apparition.
Fact No 2; To determine the length of time of the actual sighting.
Fact No 3; To determine the exact point where the apparition "dissipated".
Fact No 4; To determine the direction the couple ran after the ghost had vanished
Fact No 5; To determine the exact date ad time of the night in question and what the weather was like.
My daughter, aged 16 at the time, acted as the "Grey Lady" ghost, and from the memory of the witness couple, we determined the exact spot the ghost was stood and the spot on which the witnesses were stood.
I measured the distance to around 6 meters.
I then had my daughter walk backwards and forwards acting as the ghost in order to determine how long (in time) the actual sighting was.
What was interesting here, is that the couple were often in disagreement on the speed of the "walking/gliding" of the apparition. It took almost half an hour to come to an agreement on this. Finally, using a stop watch, I got my daughter to re-enact the scene to as close as possible to what the witnesses said they saw.
We did this several times so as to get an average time, which was 45 seconds.
Now you might think that 45 seconds is not a long time but you would be wrong.
Try it now. Look at an object and start counting, or use your watch. If you do that you will soon realize that 45 seconds is a hell of a long time to witness something and as such you can take in much detail.
This soon put out of my mind any idea that this was an hallucination.
Any normal person can experience an hallucination but usually only under certain specific conditions. The most common being withdrawal from high intake of alcohol or drugs.
Or a serious infection of the blood, eg: blood poisoning which then affects the brain.
All other hallucinations are only seen by people who have a severe mental disorder, such as Schizophrenia.
Using a photo I took on the day I made a visual, again on Photoshop to sum up the findings. See below.
With regards to the last question; determining the exact time and day of the sighting proved to me rather more difficult.
Getting a fairly accurate time was easy enough as the couple always left the pub pretty much the same time every week due to Patrica´s barmaid hours.
We had timed the walk from the park entrance to the actual sighting location and included approximate times for their "cuddles".
From that the approximate time was between 12.10am and 12.20am.
Neither of the couple could remember the actual date and this was somewhat frustrating to me. I guess they wanted to forget the whole thing and never made a note.
However I had a couple of things to go on:
One, the couple were certain it was a full moon that night.
And two, John remembered exactly where he was working the very day after the sighting.
John had been working on a roof at a house near the park and, at the time, employed by a small building firm. This firm had long since closed down but using public records I managed to track down the original owner.
I literally went and just knocked on this man´s door and, well it is an entire story here to tell of his reaction when I explained why I wanted to speak with him. Lets just say he was quite a character, and luckily for me he had kept his old records.
From this I obtained that there were only two possible dates:
Either the 20th February or 27th February 1986.
Using this information I contacted the local weather station whom I knew had kept records for more than 30 years.
With their help I discovered that was a full moon on the 27th February 1986. BINGO!
2nd STAGE OF THE INVESTIGATION:- History of the "Grey Lady"
Now at this stage I wanted to know more about how John came to know about the "Grey Lady of Taylor Park".
Where had this legend come from and how did it all start?
The first thing I did was to visit the town library archives. And what an experience that was.
I spent two days looking through old newspaper reels on a special TV type screen.
(No digital archives at that time although they were planning on doing it)
Anyways, I found two articles articles that had been published in the local newspaper, including the story of John and Patricia´s sighting, which was published in 1990.
From reading this story I realized why John had decided to contact the newspaper in the first place.
It seems that there had been another strong sighting in that year, (1990), but this time it had been during the day.
Again by a credible witness, a local retired teacher who again wished to remain anonymous.
Here is the original 1990 article below.
Story in brief; This retired teacher had been walking in Taylor Park with her daughter,
(the daughter had just graduated with a degree in Chemistry).
They had a dog with them and it was a wonderful sunny day. They sat down on a bench and began chatting.
Suddenly their dog jumped upon the knee of the the teacher and began barking towards a certain direction. However, the pair could not see anything at all.
All was deserted.
Suddenly:- "a young looking woman with shoulder-length hair, of pale color, dressed in a blue-ish Victorian style dress, came walking out of the rhododendron bushes."
Again, the ghostly lady looked at the pair, stopped, turned back in the direction it had come, and then "vanished" into the bushes.
When John and Patricia saw this article John decided to contact the newspaper to tell of their own experience.
Here is their original article below
My next move was to contact the local newspaper in order to speak to the journalist who had actually interviewed the retired teacher.
My intention was to interview this lady myself.
The journalist turned out to be someone I had met before.
(I mentioned him in a previous post telling of my adventure with my "Trolley Rescue Campaign" - see my blog)
This was a lucky break because, if you had read that Trolley Rescue story of mine, you will know that he owed me a favor. And another bonus, he actually was friends with this retired teacher and had known her for many years.
However, he told me that his teacher friend had sworn him to secrecy never to reveal her name. But, he did say that he would try to persuade her to see me but it would take time.
He also told that her reputation was impeccable.
In fact, from what he told, I reckon if this lady had been on Steemit today, she would pronanly have a reputation of at least 73.
However, from this grew a friendship with this journalist that I still have today.
He is retired himself now.
He was so pleased that I was brave enough to take up the case and would do all to help.
Over the next few weeks I researched on how to go about detecting the paranormal.
I put together an investigating team from and invested in certain specialist equipment.
The first team members were some of my students and those who had an interested in the paranormal. See below
I am the guy in red sweater - this picture was used in a magazine article -which I tell of now.
A week later the newspaper journalist, Alan Whalley, contacted me saying that a local Town Magazine called Limited Edition, wanted him to feature me telling of my investigation into the Grey Lady. See below
I was against the idea as I was not interest in having publicity. I told that I was an artist by profession and I was basically doing this as a favor to the witness couple.
However, he gave me a carrot promising to introduce me to the retired teacher, and also that he would later do a feature of my life as a local artist showing my real art work.
That kind of publicity is always good for an artist. So I agreed. See below
OK, so what next ?
Now the thing that bothered me about this whole case was one thing in particular, and I just couldnt get it out of my head.
On both sightings the witnesses had told that the "Grey Lady" had; "looked directly at them".
This was significant for me because it meant that this entity was "self-aware".
I mean it was not like a film of an event that was playing itself out over and over again.
Say for example a person had been murdered and their "ghost" was repeatedly replaying their own murder. This is what is known as a "Haunting".
This was different. The ghost was actually responding/reacting to people when "it" saw them or they saw "it".
Quite honestly, the thought of this chilled me to the bone.
To my scientific brain, this meant only one of two possibilities.
1) That consciousness somehow continued on after death.
And that led to:- What kind of existence was that?
2) That it was a time warp, or some other dimension. This was more plausible to me.
As I stated, I was an ardent atheist back then.
I decided to approach the investigation from a purely scientific perspective.
And this is how I saw it.
The second apparition was "glowing".
Light means energy and energy has to come from somewhere.
Einsteins theory says:
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
Therefore, this entity must be getting energy from somewhere in order to exist.
We exist because our beating heart creates this energy.
So where could this energy be coming from?
After many theories I eventually came to the conclusion that the energy could be from some kind of friction.
For example: When we rub a balloon on a woolen cardigan it forms static electricity and can even cause sparks to fly.
My theory was that perhaps we were witnessing two different time zones crossing paths.
This would certainly cause friction and would also explain the glowing effect.
To explain what I mean. Try to imagine the "Grey Lady" was actually NOT a ghost but a living person but in the past. Somehow "our" time gets crossed with "her" time and temporarily creates a "now" time for both time zones exist at the same time. Jeez I hope that makes sense?
If this were true, then it would mean that, from the perspective of the "Grey Lady" she was also seeing our witness couple, John and Patricia as "ghosts" too.
And what if in the time period of the Grey Lady, just happened to during the day. Thus when the two time zones crossed paths, the "day-light" from her time zone would seep into our couple´s time zone (which was at night) and this perhaps would also cause a glowing affect.
I really hope I am making sense?
This conclusion I came to entirely on my own but then later I discovered that there was a scientific bases for it in the field of Quantum physics theory.
It is called "Baby universes" See below.
I must admit I was a little proud of myself for coming up with this theory all on my own back then in 2002.
Purely as a shot in the dark, I wondered if these "baby universes" happened only in certain specific locations.
And perhaps Taylor Park was one of these locations.
Purely as an experiment, I decided that during the coming winter of 2003 I would do the very same walk though the park at the same time as John and Patricia.
And of course it had to be 27th February.
Well it is amazing how these things get out and before I knew it I was inundated with people who wanted to take part in the "vigil".
I mean what was I to do, Say NO?
And so the Ghouls On Film investigation team grew a little bigger. See below
And so the special evening was arranged and everyone in the team was excited.
However, a thought came into my head.
I must go and speak to my local priest about the matter.
I do not know why I felt I should do this. As I say, I was an atheist. But strange as it may seem I was actually friends with the guy. He was a well know figure in the town and highly respected for his wisdom and it was his wisdom I now sought after. I actually lived within a stones throw of his house and so on night after my meal I knocked on his door. After a lecture on, not seeing me in church anymore he welcomed me in.
I told him of my current passion, meaning this investigation and of the plans for the vigil and his response was no what I expected at all.
"Arthur, we have known each other for years. And over the years I have seen you embarking on some wild, what do you call them, "projects". Some of them I have approved of and some I have not.
But this one, I certainly do not. I do NOT Arthur"
But Father, I think I have uncovered a time-slip. It is quite scientific, they are called "baby universes and...".
"Enough Arthur!. Listen to me now. I advise you NOT to go further down this road for you will not like what you find at the end of it".
Well, I loved the old goat you know, but this time I figured he was just a bit too religious for my liking and I was hell bent on going to that park on the 127th of that month. Nothing could have deterred me really.
And so came the night of the vigil:
We all met up at the the entrance of the park at around 11pm.
See below
Actually, John himself came that night, but Patricia just could not bring herself to go through with it.
It was a long night and it was rather fun actually. Some people were just playing around but others took the case very seriously. We took along flasks of hot tea and sandwiches and began the long slow walk though the dark pathway that would eventually lead us to the location of the original sighting.
John really came out of himself on the night trying to describe the strange noises that he heard that night.
The whole event was filmed and is now surely become part of the Grey Lady legend.
Eventually we arrived at the very spot dead on time (forgive the pun).
We all waited. And waited. And waited. And things became very quite. People settled down sitting on the floor using their coats to sit on. And then....
a loud screaeeeeeeam
One of the group had seen something...
in the bushes behind us.
I turned around quickly and caught a glimpse of a strange light flickering among the trees.
I began taking pictures randomly until the strange light faded.
There was no sound. But there was a terrible eerie sensation in the air.
But I just put it down to imagination.
I handed my camera to one of the team and I went into the bushes with a torch.
Nothing!
But then...
"Arthur. I think you have caught something on your camera. Come and see"
Well. To this day I do not know what to make of it.
Another anomaly I guess. See for yourself below
I even had a digital expert look at it and all he said was that he can confirm that the pixels were unaltered and the digital file itself is time dated.
Well time passed by and the legend has continued to grow.
The pressure to do more investigations began to bother me.
This was not what I was interest in and so I had to distance myself from the case for a while.
Then one night...once again, a knock came on my studio door.
It was another strange man who had a tale to tell about his encounter with the "Grey Lady" that he had experienced ten years before.
He had been working at a near by gas station when three boys came running in late at night. One boy was in tears saying that some "giant woman" dressed in purple had "eaten" his dog.
One boy ran off with fear written all over his face and the other boy was comforting his friend and asking this man to come and help get their dog back.
This strange looking man now standing in my gallery, who refused to give his name, told that he went along with the boys into Taylor park carrying a large torch. It was about 11.3opm and from his description it was more or less exactly the same place as John an Patricia´s sighting.
Anyways, he starts looking in the bushes and there it is. Only it was no lady, but some kind of "creature" an "evil thing wearing a purple Victorian style dress".
Upon seeing the man, the creature seemed to grow taller and taller until it was cowering over him and raising its arms as though it was about to pounce like a cat.
Both the man and the boy ran for their lives.
"Now I advise you to let go of hunting this thing. For your own good. I know you are a good man and you have a family, so please take this as a warning."
The man left and I never saw him again.
After that, enough was enough. I was through with it.
And this is why I have a guilty conscience.
I abandoned John and Patrica and emigrated to Norway.
To this day it haunts me.
And so the story more or less ends there. Except one last thing that I have never spoken of or revealed to this day.
About six years ago I received a letter forwarded to me here in Norway.
The letter was written by hand but gave no name.
It told of a teacher who worked at a local school near to Taylor Park during Victorian times. Around 1803. And this teacher often took her class for "outings" in the park especially on sunny days. Apparently this teacher began secretly seeing the original owner of the park, a Mr Samuel Taylor who was, well a millionaire land owner I guess.
Mr Taylor was already married and so in those days this would have been a big social scandal.
According to this letter the young teacher became pregnant but Mr Taylor refused to have any part of it.
Two eye witnesses saw saw this young girl teacher throw herself into the lake.
The police searched the lake as best they could but the body was never found.
There are no records of any name of this teacher.
Such as it was in those days that only the wealthy were worthy of having their names recorded.
Well, once again my curiosity was awakened.
The next time time I went to England to visit friends, I once again went to visit the town library archive. I went every day for five days and finally I found a picture of a school teacher that taught at that very school and at the right time. 1803.
See below.
Is this the Grey Lady of Taylor Park?
I have plans to one day raise funds to make a film of the whole case but in the mean time I made a short animation of the famous sight below.
