Cold Cases: Case 1: The Black Monk of Pontefract

0:00Je být pící podcasta, dôvícíhaný třech zíme. Neckýtechačná, když se se zjímar a ozdravím, potřebujete informace, kterým be umůžete věřit. Takové, které vzníkají sprak se a se skutečným poječí. Protov ozdravím ozdravím prevenci a životním stilu. Na všdyf tě, a s ozdravím se na azdravím. V podělajíme jisu, a vzpokožnost, vysokitejí kamity do teke věrku oraz do věrku. Elektrůj bych je si nestěje, by můle mi, že akud se pě��í, ke mě jsi byl jsi, jsizhlo to, zami, který je zpělí. A já zavít se metá se na vým sližky. byl mali to věrku byl, a věrku byl, který je vým sližky. Lestvov, nejaké ajteď jsi, zamběříce, a šého. Ož to je, kávlí, Hello, Uncanny is back. This is the first episode of Uncanny Cold Cases,

1:03a brand new Uncanny series, digging into some of the most scary, the most famous, the most shocking cases in paranormal history. We've got quite a story to kick us off. It's one of the most notorious, poltergeist hauntings in British history. It takes place in Pontifract, West Yorkshire, a terrified family experience years of seeming paranormal activity, flying objects, moving furniture and a seconding feeling that something is watching. Get ready to be freaked the heck out. Is this truly terrifying haunting genuinely paranormal? Let's see, shall we? Because I'm Danny Robbins, and this is Uncanny Cold Cases. What has passed comes again in the cold where we lay? Secret stories, secrets, secrets, secrets, secrets, secrets, still remain.

2:10Uncanny Cold Cases How are you? Welcome to our brand new series, Uncanny Cold Cases. It's good to be here with you. We've got an absolute cracker of a case to kick us off. Britain's most violent, ever-pult-to-guys haunting. To discuss it with me, I'm joined by the dream team of paranormal experts, a team skeptic, forensic psychologist, Dr. Kirin Akief, and a team believer, writer and parapsychologist Evelyn Hollow. Good to have you both here. This is quite a case to kick us off, isn't it? It might not be quite as famous as the Enfield Pult-to-guys, but it is up there in terms of the kind of phenomena we're going to see. Yeah, I think for us in our line of work, this is the one that's got the biggest cult following. And part of that is not just the length of the case, the number of people involved, how many witnesses were seen simultaneously, but also the variety in the type of phenomena and how nasty it gets. Oh my god, absolutely. This is the box set of Pult-to-guys' activity. Kirin, are you ready to be pushed to your skeptic limits?

3:11Yeah, wow. I rarely, if ever, get pushed to my limits, but you know what? This is a case that might do it, and I just say, bring it on. I love it. You are talking like a wrestler. Look, let's dive straight into this. Now, with all of our cases on this series, we are going to be bringing these stories to life as we dive into the evidence and try and work out what actually happened as scary as that may be. So, it is bank holiday weekend, August 1966. We're in the small market town of Pontifract, Yorkshire, in the north of England. Joe and Jean Pritchard have just moved into 30 East Drive, a semi-detached house sitting in the middle of a 1950s estate. Jean arranged a house swap with the previous tenants with two teenagers, the Pritchards needed a bit more space. And oddly, the former occupants seem like they couldn't wait to leave. Tonight, only the Pritchard's eldest slightly introspective 15-year-old son, Philip, is home, along with his grandmother, Sarah. Philip heads to the kitchen to make coffee.

4:12When he returns to the lounge, he freezes a thick drift of gray white powder hangs suspended in the air. Is it ash, chalk, dust, something in between? And it wasn't there moments ago. A little spooked, he and his grandmother go across the road and fetch Philip's Aunt Marie. Aunt Marie is baffled too, but she's a practical person, and so she heads to the kitchen to grab the dustpan. And she slips. There's a puddle of water on the kitchen floor. It's appeared from nowhere. She mops it up, but it forms again instantly and again. Marie thinks there must be a leaking pipe. She turns off the water at the main, but it still keeps coming. She contacts the water bottle, sends someone over immediately, but he can't find anything wrong either. And hour after he leaves, the water simply stops appearing. Marie goes home and Philip and Sarah are alone again. Around seven o'clock, Philip calls out in a panic. Grandma, it's happening again. Is grandma for finding in the kitchen staring at tea and sugar scattered across the counters?

5:12The button on their tea dispenser clicks and slams down firing, steaming tea across all of this mess. Again, again, even after the tea runs dry, the button keeps hammering. And then a colossal crash erupts from the hallway. They edged the door open nervously, but the hall is empty. Then the hall lights snapped on by itself, revealing the source of this noise. A potted plant has been hurled up the stairs. The broken pot sits on the landing. The plant lies halfway down then behind them. The crockery cupboard doors begin to rattle violently as if something inside is trying to escape. Banging echoes through the house the temperature drops. They're both overwhelmed now with the same feeling. They have got to get out of this house. Bloody hell, what is going on on 30-east drive? Evelyn puddles of water. Tea potted plants, crockery cupboards, these things should not be scary.

6:13They bloody are. Yeah, I think when people hear the word poltergeist, they think of horror movies, so they think of, you know, I will kill again, written and blood on the wall or nice being thrown through the air. But these are everyday objects that are behaving in ways that defy the laws of physics. They behave in ways that they shouldn't. And more importantly, it feels like the house that you live in is turning against you. It feels like having someone having broken into the house and is smashing up the place except it's an unseen force. Absolutely, sort of almost putting them under siege. Kiran Pontifract, it's a really historic town. You know, it's got a big castle there. There's lots of old buildings. You kind of expect those to be full of ghost stories. You wouldn't necessarily expect it to happen in a modern new-build councilhouse. No, you wouldn't. I mean, stereotypically, we think of older buildings as being the perfect environment for ghost stories and even from a psychological point of view, they're perfect for that sort of thing. So to have this phenomena happen in a modern building is unusual. Don't get me wrong. There are cases that I've investigated and there are famous cases like the Enfield Poltergeist

7:15where they are in contemporary houses and sometimes council houses, but it's unusual. It's not expected at all. One detail that we should probably look at is that the Pritchard family have just moved into this house. They've only been there about a month when this happens. But they are not the first ones to experience activity at this address, are they? No, they are not. So unbeknownst to the Pritchard family, the previous tenants actually had to move out because they had experienced phenomena too. So I actually have the report here. Bill and Barbara Ferrar, who lived in the house before them, had said that they had experienced objects moving, voices heard in empty rooms, that their city was found ripped and torn to shreds. The hood of a toy pram was also shredded. Jane, their two-year-old daughter, was found with scratches and blood marks on her face. Now, assuming that she'd done it to herself, that she'd scratched herself, they put cotton mittens on her hands, but despite this, the marks continued to appear. And eventually the family decided to move out because Mrs. Farrah could no longer bear to live there any longer. Oh my God, and as we move forward in this case, I think some of those details are going to feel quite crucial.

8:17Yeah, I think they are. I don't think this is going to stop. I think it's going to keep going. Karen, we have a teenager at the heart of this in Philip. And actually, that's something that we've seen a lot of poltergeist cases, isn't it? There's a teenager who is seemingly the focus for the activity. Yeah, absolutely. In parapsychology, there's this theory, RSPK, four letters that stand for recurrence, spontaneous psychokinesis. And psychokinesis is this idea that we can move objects with our mind. Like in role-dulls, Matilda, or, you know, there's characters in X-Men, Stranger Things, aren't they? Who can look at an object and then move it across? Exactly that. And the theory in parapsychology is that an individual at the center of the case, rather than it being a ghost, it's an individual that subconsciously causing this phenomena through psychokinesis. But they have to be going through some sort of turbulence or turmoil and what better period in your life to be experiencing that than when you're a teenager. And that turbulence is pouring out and making objects move as the theory, isn't it? And this genuine jeopardy here, after we've got scolding tea firing out across the room,

9:17are you surprised at how quickly this escalates? Yeah, I am actually. So normally it begins with people heating sort of weird noises that the chalk up is being insects or rats and mice and then it starts to get a, you know, a bit extreme after that. And then we would move up to objects, moving things, repeating, disappearing seemingly out of thin air. And but it tends to progress in that exact manner. This seems to go from zero to 100 within a 24-hour period, which is really unusual for poltergeist cases. Pumping out scolding tea, chucking a pop plant down the stairs. This is getting dangerous already. It is, no matter how you look at it, whether you're a skeptic or believer, it is incredibly violent. And for that reason, it's really worrying for the family living there. And it's going to get even worse than a fretspot or alert. Let me know your theories. Are you team believer or team skeptic? Having heard all this evidence so far. But let's roll forward now to summer 1968, two years later. Nothing more happened after that spectacular explosion of seeming paranormal activity at 30 East Drive.

10:19It just stopped without explanation. But now, suddenly, it seems to begin all over again. The lights keep cutting out for no reason. Each time, the main electricity switch under the stairs is fan flipped off. Eventually, the family taped the switch in place, but it doesn't matter. The lights die again. And when they check, the tape they put on the switch has vanished. Jean gives what she feels is this presence in the house, a nickname. Mr. Nobody. And for a while, they treat it almost lightly blaming it for small disturbances. Bed covers, thrown downstairs, pop plants overturned. Creepy, yes, but somehow, it still feels manageable. And then Jean decides to redecorate her daughter, Diane's bedroom. Diane is nearly 15 now, quiet, waist-length hair. She's the same age Philip was when the previous activity began. The room is cluttered with wallpaper rolls, paint, brushes, paste. Maybe it's this change, maybe the disruption, but it's almost as if Mr. Nobody doesn't seem to like it.

11:21Jean hears a shell and bolts upstairs. Philip, on her heels, Diane is on the floor of her bedroom, cowering. The paint brushes that have been neatly lined up have been hurled at her along with the wallpaper-paste bucket. And then Jean can hardly believe her eyes. A strip of wallpaper unfills itself from a new rom. And rises, swaying in the air like a charm snake. Jean is trying to work out how to reach Diane when suddenly a carpet sweeper, a heavy metal mechanical broom rises into the air as if wielded by invisible hands sweeping violently between Jean and Diane. Jean and Philip retreat to the door by horrified as the wooden curtain rail tears itself from the wall and sails straight out the window. Now this is all too much for Joe Diane and Philip's dad. He's a minor. He's a sort of the earth Yorkshireman. And this entity or whatever it is, intruding into his family home is just too much to take. He drags the family out of the bedroom and slams the door shut

12:24as if he could trap inside whatever his thing is. That is enough, he shouts. But on the landing, the family stand frozen, listening, as suddenly crashes and bans continue in this empty room. Oh, emblem in Jean. Kiran, this is absolutely astonishing. It's unlike anything we have seen before in our investigations together. In the Uncanny TV series, you put me in a wind tunnel to test your theory that convection currencies breezes for a house could make objects move. There is no wind in the world that will make a heavy carpet sweeper swinging around in the air. No, there isn't. And I wish there was because that would be a simpler explanation. Here, it's very difficult to explain. Although in the moment, there's a lot of fear and panic going on and has that somehow affected kind of a misinterpretation of what they're seeing. And that together with their kind of memory of the event

13:25turns an object that they kicked over maybe and kind of looked as though it lifted up to then it's swirling around in front of them. Just to pick you up another misinterpretation. How do you misinterpret something that big floating around in front of you? Well, you don't misinterpret something that big in front of you. But what about if they knocked it? It appeared to lift, they have no recollection that they kicked it and it becomes a story that starts off with it appeared to lift slightly from the floor because they kicked it to then several feet off the floor in front of them because of the panic, the fear, and then misremembering exactly why. Right, interesting. I mean, it's a good point. Human beings do misinterpret, we do kind of embellish as we retell stories. And Evan, it's been quiet in the house for two years. Why now? Why are things suddenly kicking off again? Yeah, it's a bit of an odd moment in the case because it's not only kicked off again, it's jumped focus, it's jumped to Diane. And now we don't know why that is, but we do know that the triggering point for it is when they seem to be redeculating Diane's room. That's not unhaired of. When we did the misharad episode in fact for the telly,

14:28we saw that that really escalated when they started knocking one building into the other. And we don't know why it is that redeculating or DIY or damaging the building essentially causes portuguese cases to begin. Why are they so angry about interior design? Kiran, what is it about these situations? We've had before building work, renovations. Why would paranormal activity, whatever we want to call it, why would it be irritated by redecoration? Well, I would be irritated if somebody walked into my house and started redecorating. You know, there's a certain logic to that. But I think there's another possible explanation. In the chaos of redecorating and building work, it's quite easy to misinterpret an object, falling or one of those tools or materials being misplaced. So, you know, you're asking, why would a ghost be bothered by this redecorating? Well, maybe they wouldn't because there is no ghost. Well, look, that is one theory. The other theory is that there absolutely is something there. The family certainly believed that. And they've given it a nickname now, Mr. Nobody. Is it a good idea to name a ghost?

15:29I think it's a human thing to name a ghost. You have an unseen force in your house. I mean, people who even experience like light and sort of pleasant, passive phenomena. I'll say, I'll never mind that. That's the ghost we've called him X. We also saw this in the Bats of Supportergeist case. And we're named it Donald. In the Enfield case, they believed it was Bill a man who used to live there. So, for me, I think it's the family trying to personify something. Because how do you fight an unseen intruder? But if you give it a name, then it means it's a being. It exists. It is something. And if it is something, then perhaps you can defeat it. But there will be people watching this right now going, maybe you are encouraging it. I mean, maybe they are. But what else are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to go to the police and say there's an unseen force ripping apart my house? If you give it a name, are people more likely to believe you? Are they more likely to take you seriously? But I think they might be encouraging it in a slightly different way. And that is, you mentioned about Donald in Bats of Poltergeist and Bill in Enfield Poltergeist. Mr. Nobody is quite a scary name when I hear the creepy thing. It is genuinely creepy to say who's responsible for that phenomena.

16:31Mr. Nobody. That is genuinely creepy. So maybe they are kind of increasing the phenomena, increasing what happens by simply adding to the psychology of the situation by giving it a creepy name. A lot of people will identify with Joe DeFarvers' reaction. He wants this thing out of his house. He reacts angrily, he slams that door. Then he hears those noises coming from inside that room that we now categorically know is empty. How do you explain it? Yeah, well, we know a lot of the tools and materials have already been dislodged because of the preceding incident. Who's to say that when he slammed the door, he didn't cause kind of further dislodging of these materials. They fall to the floor, they create a crash, and because it's behind a closed door, they think it's paranormal. Potrzebujete informace, kterým můžete věřit, takové, které vznikají spraxe a seskutečnou pečí, proto v OZP vznikl Ebonus, online magazine, ozdraví prevenci a životním stilu.

17:32Na vštivte Ebonus od OZP, pejče od to nejcenější somáte. Welcome to the interface, the show that decodes the tech that's rewiring your week and your world. On this week's episode, we'll look at the way that algorithms could change how much you're paying for your groceries, how even astronauts have issues with Microsoft Outlook, and whether the next trend in tech is less tech. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's dive right back in, because Jean Pritschard is looking for a solution here. So, one otherwise unremarkable first day, she invites the local vika, Reverend Davey, to discuss the strange goings on at 30 East Drive. The house is perfectly still throughout his visit, not a creek, not a whisper. The one time Mr. Nobody might have been useful, he stays silent.

18:32Jean is just seeing the Reverend out, when suddenly two heavy thumps echo through the hall and a candlestick falls from the mantelbys. Reverend Davey smiles politely. I think I know your problem, he says, subsidence. Now Mr. Nobody does not seem to appreciate the Reverend's explanation. Before his astonished eyes, a second candlestick rises from the mantelbys as if held aloft by invisible hands. It floats directly and deliberately in front of Reverend Davey's face, as if to say, tri-planning that on subsidence. Then, a colossal crash, a rups in the next room, when they rush in every piece of crockery has been removed from the cupboard and scattered across the floor. Yeah, not a single plate is as much as chipped. Now, the Reverend's earlier flippancy, evaporates here, whatever is in his house. He tells the family, it is pure evil. When the preachers ask what they should do, his answer is simple. Move House.

19:33That night, as if galvanized by the Reverend's visit, Mr. Nobody runs a mock. Diane heads upstairs to bed. The moment her foot touches the first step, the lights go out. In the faint glow, from the street lamp outside, a huge shadow stretches across the wall. The temperature plummets. She turns and sees the solid oak horse and a massive piece of heavy wooden furniture. Glide relentlessly towards her. Before she can react, it tips forward to enter to the stairs. It takes the entire family to pull it away from her. And then, incredibly, things get worse. The second Diane gets into bed. The temperature plummets again. The bedclothes are ripped away. And the mattress shoots into the air. We've Diane on it, throwing her to the floor, before crashing down on top of her. Holy guacamole, what is going on here? Kiran, we've got Reverend Davey. He's a member of the clergy. He feels like a fairly reliable witness. He swears that he saw.

20:34A candlestick rise up off the mantle, piece of float in the air, did he? Yeah, this is actually one of my favorite parts of the whole case, because you've got somebody that's picking on a skeptical explanation. He said that initially the candlestick sliding. Oh, I know exactly what that is. That's subsidence. And it's almost then like he gets a response from whatever's there. And it's floating in front of him. But we're basing all of this on him being a reliable witness. He's just a member of the clergy with a very strong belief in the fact that there are potential evil things out there. And he even says after the fact, no, that's it. Whatever's here is something evil. So I don't count him as a reliable witness at all. All right. Interesting that Kiran uses that word response here. It does feel like it's reacting to what he's being said. The fact that Reverend Davey doubts it and then suddenly it does this thing. It's like it's performing. It's got a sense of humor almost. Well, it's either a series of unexplained scientific anomalies that we've projected human psychology onto. We've interpreted that as being funny. We've interpreted that as almost being offensive essentially.

21:37Or it was once a person. Is it a form of ghosts? Does that mean that it has agenda, personality, emotions, intention, things like that? I think the most striking bit of this moment for me is not just that it does seem to have a sense of humor. But how do you fake that? How do you fake a candlestick being lifted off the mantelpiece, being lifted towards his face and hovering in midair? Kiran is shaking his head here. Do you know how to fake that? Yeah, of course, you can fake something. Come on, Penn and tell us, shall we? Come on, let's get a glass of water. Make something float. Yeah, go on, Kiran. I can't do it. Oh, you can't do it, no, we can't do it. No, you can't do it, on, come on. But who's to say that this is not set up? We've got to remember, you said it yourself. It's a ghost with a sense of humor. For me, that almost feels too human. That we've got a ghost with a sense of humor that's reacting to people around it. Hey, you think this is a human being with a sense of humor? Yeah, we've got to potentially look at that as a possible explanation. And we start off with that theory. Is it somebody actually causing this phenomena? And I hesitate to use the F word fakery.

22:40But then as we go through the case, let's look at other phenomena and see if we can support that idea or discount it. But I think we've got to put it on the table. That's a big accusation to put out there. Let's just try and get our heads around that. We've got a situation where the reference sitting there with Jean, how could a human be doing this? How could somebody make that candlestick a pit of float in the way that would trick both of them? Well, there could be a number of different things. We weren't there. We don't have footage of it actually happening. We've got Reverend David, his interpretation that it was floating in front of him. Who's to say there wasn't misdirection, which we often talk about in magic, where his attention is taken away from the candlestick momentarily. And then somebody knocks it. It appears to fly up in front of him and that is his interpretation of it. So we've got to be very careful about how we interpret this testimony. I don't want to alarm you, but there is a microphone floating right in front of you right now. OK, no, this is very interesting. I mean, we do have to be open to this idea that if objects are moving,

23:40then yes, maybe it's potential paranormal activity, but also it's potentially a person. Absolutely. If it is a person, then they'd have to have the ability to turn invisible and also be in two places at once. Because as this candlestick has risen in the air and is floating, they hear the song mighty crash in the next room. They go through, there's a large cabinet that they held a full crockery set. All of the crockery is all over the floor, strewn across the floor, but not a single bit of it is chipped or damaged. So A, what caused the noise, first of all, and second of all, if it wasn't, someone would have to go to that cabinet, take each bit of crockery out, put it on the floor, take each bit out like this. They'd be at it for some time. So how are they in two rooms simultaneously doing both of that? Blimey, my head is already in a spin with this case. Maybe yours is two, but there is still more to come and I'm afraid. It gets so much worse. The frightening events soon settle into a grim routine for the Pritchard family. Lights turn on and off by themselves. Objects continue to fly about rooms. One day, a sandwich appears, bearing enormous teeth marks far too large

24:43for any human being in the house. And both children, Philip and Diane, seem to suffer from stomach pains whenever this seeming poltergeist is active. Even so, Joe's no-nonsense sister, Art Mord comes to stay at 30 East Drive. Art Mord is a formidable woman. She's a devout member of the Salvation Army, incredibly religious. Mord believes that his whole affair is a colossal hoax, perpetrated by one or maybe even all after Pritchard family. But her certainty lasts only hours. She and Jean are in the kitchen making tea when the lights go out. The fridge door creaks open and in its cold glow, they see a jug of milk rise slowly from the shelf, drift towards Mord and hover, inches from her face. It then tips up emptying its entire content over a shock Mord. Shaken, she insists on sharing a room with Jean that night, but the darkness of the bedroom

25:44offers no safety, as soon as the light clicks off. Four light bulbs from their electric fire twist themselves three and begin circling around in some sort of macabre theatre show. Then Mord's third gloves that have been left lying on a chair, lift and join them swaying like puppets on unseen strings. Art Mord throws a boot and screams, you're either the gloves drift closer, reckoning at this cowering woman to follow them when she refuses one glove curls into a fist and shakes at her threateningly, terrified. She clings to the only defence she knows prayer, voice trembling, she begins singing onward Christian soldiers, but the gloves don't retreat, they mockingly conduct her before gliding out the room and vanishing out of the door. The next day, Mord picks up her gloves and takes them out into the garden and burns them. She leaves 30s drive, never to return, muttering.

26:45The devil is in that house. Kiran is onward right. I don't think so, but also I'm not surprised by her interpretation. She knows what happened to Reverend Davey, but also she has a very strong belief in religion. You know, she's somebody who potentially will be looking at something she can't explain and immediately attributed it to the devil, but there is definitely something strange going on in this house and what we've experienced so far is only the tip of the iceberg. You are so right, and excitingly, this is not the end of us talking about this case. Next time, we've got part two of the Black Monk of Pontifract and Evelyn, we've seen so much already from spooky puddles to ghostly gloves, but things are about to go off the scale, aren't they? They are. This is a poltergeist case that very nearly becomes a murder case. There is so much more to come out because we are very definitely not done with this case. This is a two-part investigation. Part two drops setting time next week. Uncanny community, let me know your thoughts.

27:47Team Believer is the devil or something bizarre in evil anyway, at number 30 East Drive and Team Skeptic. If not, what an earth is causing all of these incredible events. I would love to hear your theories and questions. Email me uncanny at BBC.co.uk or find me Danny Robbins on social media. I will see you next week and be warned. Things are going to get a lot more terrifying for the poor, pritchard family at 30 East Drive. I think regardless of what you believe this case is caused by, we've escalated to the point now of threat to life. Here we've got some tangible physical evidence that something was grabbing her and it makes it very difficult to explain. Terrifying. Join us next week until then. Sleep well. Don't have nightmares. Cold Cases was presented by me Danny Robbins with Evelyn Hollow and Kirin O'Keefe. Our theme tune is by Catherine Pretty.

28:49The story sections were written by Joel Morris and Will McLean and it was produced by Simon Barnard and Victoria Lloyd. Our editor and sound designer is Charlie Brandon King and incidental music is composed by Evelyn Sykes. This is a baffle gap and uncanny media production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. A Some events have far reaching consequences. The white noise, everything goes black and apparently I was screaming. That's the moment that my life changed forever. I'm Dr. Sean Williams and I'm meeting the people whose lives have been reshaped in unexpected ways. That brought my heart to just the thought that it's so cruel. Personal stories of loss, discovery and starting over. We do talk about it time to time and about how grateful we are to be in this country

29:51to be able to be free. Life changing from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. Welcome to the interface. The show that decodes the tech that's rewiring your week and your world. On this week's episode, we'll look at the way that algorithms could change how much you're paying for your groceries, how even astronauts have issues with Microsoft Outlook and whether the next trend in tech is less tech. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.