Paul Weatherhead

Paul Weatherhead is a native of the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire and was brought up in Hebden Bridge. After several years teaching in Greece, Moscow and Northern Siberia, he returned to the Valley in the late 1990s.
He has a longstanding obsession with the weird history of the area leading to the first edition of Weird Calderdale in 2003 which went on to become a local best-seller. His research into Alan Godfrey’s alien encounter led to a deeper investigation into the phenomenon, which formed his Master of Arts dissertation about the philosophy of alien abduction.

Paul’s writing has been published in various magazines and journals, including Psychology Today, The Skeptic, Northern Life and Psychedelic Scene Magazine.

Paul's fascination with the Halifax Slasher and other phantom attacker panics led to him working with renowned expert on mass hysteria Dr Robert Bartholomew on Social Panics and Phantom Attackers: A Study of Imaginary Assailants, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Paul's latest book is Phantoms of Christmas Past: Festive Ghost Hoaxes, Ghost Hunts and Ghost Panics, a unique approach to true Christmas ghost stories, combining the author's fascination with weird history and hysterical panics.

As well as his research interests, Paul is a musician and songwriter, who played electric mandolin with a cult folk rock band for many years as well as composing his solo work of comic folk horror songs inspired by 60s psychedelia, 80s video nasties and the Hebden Bridge Times.

He lives on the hills above Hebden Bridge.