Poltergeist Caught on Video - Article w Video

The Sun - By DAVID LOWE On 08/07/08 wrote:
THE spooky antics of a poltergeist which terrorised a young family for months have been caught on camera and released exclusively to The Sun.

Our crystal-clear footage shows a bottle of water mysteriously tipping to the side, as if held in place by a ghostly presence in the kitchen of the stricken home.

Click Here to view the footage

The same invisible intruder also launched a vicious attack on the man of the house, leaving his back covered in gruesome cuts and scratches.

Mind-boggling shots of the assault show wounds gradually materializing from nowhere as the petrified victim displays his reddened back to the camera.

Newcastle-based ghostbusters, Mike Hallowell, 51, and Darren Ritson, 36, were asked to deal with the malevolent spook when the couple feared for their three-year-old son’s safety.

Even a local priest’s attempt at exorcism failed to expel the spirit from the South Tyneside estate home.

‘ His back was glowing red and long, thin scratches were slowly appearing ’

From their very first visit in July 2006, Mike and Darren were confronted by inexplicable phenomena such as objects moving, coins falling from thin air and threatening texts from untraceable mobile numbers.

Up to 15 independent witnesses, including a camera crew which came to document the activity, also encountered the early ghostly goings-on.

But the haunting peaked when Mike filmed the heart-stopping scratch attack and the hovering bottle in one eventful night.

Writer and dad-of-three Mike says: “I got a call from Marianne*, who was hysterical and begged me to come over straight away.

“When I arrived, the house and its inhabitants were in turmoil.

“Upstairs a toy car flew across the room and hit Marc on the back.

“There was a hammock with lots of little toy bells on it, which were jingling on their own.

“Then Marc said he felt a burning sensation and lifted up his shirt.

“His back was glowing red and long, thin scratches were slowly appearing.

“I took out my camera, which also has a video facility, and began filming.


“You can see long, red welts materializing and some cuts oozing blood.

“I was horrified of course, and the family were severely traumatized.

“Downstairs after the attack they pleaded with me to stay over.

“Marc, Marianne and Robert slept in the living room while I kept watch in the kitchen.

“The family’s cat and dog were acting very strangely and seemed edgy.

“I had my head in a book, but glanced up to see my bottle of water tilting over.

“I poked and prodded it, but it was defying gravity and wouldn’t fall.

“When I came to my senses, I started filming again.

“It really is intriguing footage and very, very rare indeed.”

Darren, a dad-of-one who works as a civil servant in Newcastle, was first alerted to the horrific haunting by a colleague.

Aware of his interest in the paranormal, she explained her friend’s daughter was becoming increasingly concerned about bizarre occurrences at her home.
‘ It was invisible, uncontrollable, and had a cruel desire to manipulate the residents’ fear ’

Initially, Darren and Mike assured the couple the apparent poltergeist infestation would be over within weeks.

But as the months went on, they were forced to eat their words.

Darren says: “Most poltergeists visit for two to six weeks, and there was no reason to think this one would be any different.

“When the entity’s activity continued to escalate, we realised we’d been terribly naive.

“This was a premier league poltergeist and it didn’t want to stop playing tricks such as coin throwing, making objects move and the strange knocking noises.

“It was invisible, uncontrollable, and had a cruel desire to manipulate the residents’ fear.”

While the ghost physically attacked Marc, it played mind games with Marianne.

‘ Cruel, sadistic behaviour kept the family in a constant state of fear ’

Darren explains: “She was plagued with hoax calls and texts to her mobile phone.

“Usually the texts came from numbers which weren’t traceable.

“Sometimes they appeared to originate from Marc’s phone, and for a while we did wonder if he was setting us up.

“The later events would prove us wrong.

“On one occasion I felt particularly sorry for Marianne.

“She received a text saying: ‘I am sorry. I am going now.’

“The stress visibly drained from her face - little wonder after the hell she’d been put through with this thing in her house.

“Then a couple of seconds later Marc’s phone beeped.

“The message said: ‘I’m back.’

“It was this kind of cruel, sadistic behaviour that kept the family in a constant state of fear.”

Ten long months passed before Marc and Marianne’s lives returned to normal.

On the advice of the poltergeist expert and respected Sunderland University lecturer, Stephen Swales, they began turning off electrical appliances at night.

This seemed to cut the energy the poltergeist was feeding on.

‘ When stress in an afflicted household is reduced, the poltergeist normally disappears ’

Meanwhile Mike has an interesting theory about what causes poltergeists, and claims reducing stress also plays a huge part in controlling them.

He says: “It’s a manifestation of trauma in the individual, which somehow becomes externalised.

“That explains why polts wreck rooms and throw things around - they’re a physical form of inner frustration.

“Religious exorcism doesn’t work because they aren’t demonic.

“We think the South Shields entity derived from Marc.

“When stress in an afflicted household is reduced, the poltergeist will normally disappear.

“That’s what happened in this case and thankfully for Marc and his family, it hasn’t come back.”

The South Shields Poltergeist by Michael Hallowell and Darren Ritson is published by Sutton and available now priced £16.99

*The family’s names have been changed