A skeleton dressed in a fine black suit and top hat, a cigar between his teeth and a glass of rum close at hand, hardly seems the most conventional image of a sacred figure. Add a fondness for outrageous jokes, flamboyant behaviour and a distinctly …
On 12 January 1807, something terrible happened at Upper Mayfield in Staffordshire. George Allen, a local working man who appears until then to have lived a relatively settled life, murdered three of his children and attempted to murder his wife. Th…
There are cities where the dead seem carefully separated from the living. They are placed behind cemetery walls, remembered on particular days, spoken of in lowered voices and largely kept at the edges of everyday life. New Orleans has never quite…
Some figures become inseparable from the movements they help to create; others, strangely, become almost invisible within them. Maurice Barbanell belongs firmly in the latter category. Anyone who has spent time reading about twentieth-century Spirit…
Set behind its walls in the beautiful Oxfordshire town of Burford, Burford Priory has stood in one form or another for more than eight centuries. Medieval hospital, Tudor mansion, political power base, religious community and family home: generation…
Every so often a book arrives that you find yourself completely absorbed by. You start reading a few pages, perhaps intending to come back to it later, and suddenly you are somewhere else entirely. In this case, somewhere on Bodmin Moor. Jamaica…
Why do so many reports of hauntings, apparitions, possession experiences and encounters with the seemingly impossible occur while people are asleep—or in that curious threshold between sleeping and waking? It is a question that arose repeatedly dur…
There are few stories more unsettling than that of Karl Tanzler. Even among the countless tales of obsession, grave robbing and the macabre that fill the darker corners of history, his remains uniquely disturbing. In the 1930s, the German-born radio…
History isn't always found in castles, battlefields or museums. Sometimes it is waiting quietly on a bookshelf. Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with historian and author Sarah Blake about her fascinating new book, Hushed Up History: Volume…
The recent announcement that scientists have successfully produced sourdough bread using yeast strains recovered from the 5,300-year-old Alpine mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman has been presented as a striking example of “ancient microbiology made edi…
Hushed Up History: Volume 1 by Sarah Blake is not a book that seeks to overwhelm with dense academic argument or narrow itself to a single thread of historical enquiry. Instead, it occupies a space that feels both refreshing and necessary, offering …
For centuries, the werewolf has lurked at the edges of human imagination — a creature poised between civilisation and savagery, reason and instinct. Yet this is not merely the story of folklore. Across early modern Europe, belief in werewolves led t…
Great news for fellow lovers of the strange and supernatural! The Haunted History Chronicles TeePublic store will have up to 35–40% off selected items during these dates: 📅 10–15 March 📅 25–29 March A perfect time to pick up some eerie designs and…
In an age where social media can amplify a whisper into a worldwide accusation, the recent $10 million defamation verdict in Boise offers a sobering case study in how law, free speech and paranormal belief can collide. At the centre of the case was …
Gothic literature emerged as a powerful and enduring mode in the late eighteenth century, reaching particular momentum in the 1790s, when readers showed an unabated appetite for the bizarre, the macabre, and the supernatural. Although often associat…
For all our confidence in reason, progress, and science, ghosts have a curious habit of resurfacing precisely when we believe we have outgrown them. Britain, in particular, has a long and revealing history of ghost panics—moments when fear, rumour, …
“Here are fairies at the bottom of our garden,” opens a 1917 poem by Rose Fyleman. That same year, two clever young cousins managed to captivate the world with apparent proof that fairies lived beside Cottingley Beck, the gently babbling stream that…
In 2012, an unusual legal case emerged from the unassuming suburban sprawl of Toms River, New Jersey. It began, as so many stories of hauntings do, with the promise of a fresh start. Josue Chinchilla and his fiancée, Michele Callan, along with their…
In the long, shadowed history of the Tower of London, there are many ghosts who have refused to fade into obscurity. But few are as quietly tragic as that of Arabella Stuart. She was once a woman of great promise—royal by blood, favoured by some as …
For those following the continued development of the macropk.org database and research platform, significant updates have just been announced — and they mark an exciting leap forward in the way poltergeist cases can be explored, analysed, and compar…
Step into the shadowed parlours and fog-drenched corridors of Victorian England with Begotten, the gothic horror debut by Dr Kate Cherrell. Known for her work as a paranormal historian and writer behind Burials and Beyond, Cherrell brings a historia…
A bold new paranormal documentary series has just launched on YouTube, and it’s already stirring serious interest among ghost enthusiasts, investigators, and skeptics alike. The Supernatural UK, created by award-winning filmmakers John Shackleton (P…
In the village of Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire, stands a curious monument that has perplexed locals and visitors alike for generations. Known as the Devil’s Stone, this mysterious standing stone holds in its weathered surface a tale born of fol…
Deep in the quiet folds of the South Hams countryside, just beyond the ancient market town of Totnes, lies one of Devon’s most atmospheric and enigmatic ruins—Berry Pomeroy Castle. Its crumbling towers rise above a wooded valley, a shadowed relic lo…