Barnidge: Ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night

Say hello to another Halloween, a day famous for ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night. That makes it pretty much like any other day for Phyllis King and Loyd Auerbach.

King, a psychic who lives in San Ramon, discovered her portal to the afterlife more than three decades ago when a deceased teenage acquaintance made a startling appearance in her room. She since has helped dozens of clients communicate with dead friends and relatives.

Auerbach, a parapsychologist who lives in Martinez and teaches at HCH Institute in Lafayette, is a specialist in paranormal investigations. He's studied more than 1,000 apparitions, hauntings and poltergeists in a career spanning more than 30 years.

Neither attaches any mysticism to Oct. 31, but the occasion does provide a dandy excuse to explore a world they have embraced and most of us prefer to ignore.

Paranormal experiences run the gamut, Auerbach said, from the explainable to the otherworldly. He cites as an example of the former his first investigation, in 1979, when a Petaluma woman reported seeing household objects moving, windows opening and closing and a ghost clad in black armor.

"There were no ghosts," he concluded after extensive study. "What the woman was seeing was an unconsciously created image of physical stuff happening. It was my first poltergeist case, caused by her unconscious ability to do mind-over-matter tantrums."

A less explainable phenomenon came years later in Livermore, where four family members saw a female ghost move about their house but never discussed it among themselves until a 12-year-old in the family volunteered that he knew everyone was seeing a ghost.

"His mother asked, 'How do you know that?'" Auerbach said. "He said, 'The ghost told me.'"

When asked about the spirit who had talked to him, the boy shared details of the ghost's long-ago life, which he had no way of knowing but were later confirmed by her surviving relative.

Both Auerbach and King say spirits sometimes simply "hang around" a location for reasons unknown. King experienced such a presence in the company of six psychics during a convention in Long Beach. In a stateroom aboard the Queen Mary where cigar-puffing Winston Churchill was known to have stayed, they all heard indistinguishable chatter, on and off, accompanied by the smell of cigar smoke.

King reaches out to the dead only at the request of clients. She can sense a spirit's willingness to be contacted by a change in the "texture" of the energy or by a sudden chill that makes her "goosebumpy." Her clients mostly are women. Men tend to be disbelievers.

Auerbach, who said hauntings can involve people who are still alive, recalled one in Westchester County, just north of New York City. A couple who'd lived in their house for only a few months reported hearing noisy groaning and moaning that sounded like amorous activity in the next bedroom at 3 a.m. nearly every night.

Auerbach discovered that years before, when windows were left open on spring and fall nights, the young couple who previously owned the house often had awakened the next-door neighbors with their enthusiastic cavorting in the wee hours.

"Somehow," said Auerbach, "that young couple had left a real significant, positive imprint on that location."

It seems not every bump in the night has to be something bad.

Contact Tom Barnidge at tbarnidge@bayareanewsgroup.com

50 Berkeley Square, Most Haunted House in England

     50 Berkeley Square is a reportedly haunted townhouse on Berkeley Square in Mayfair, in Central London. In the 1900s it became known as "The Most Haunted House in London"; mostly due to Peter Underwood's description of the house in Haunted London.
Legend of 50 Berkeley Square:
Legend varies, but mostly states that the attic room of the house is haunted by a spirit of a young woman who committed suicide there. She purportedly threw herself from the top floor windows after being abused by her uncle; and is said to be capable of frightening people to death. The spirit is said to take the form of a brown mist; though sometimes it is reported as a white figure. One, rarer, version of the tale is that a young man was locked in the attic room, fed only through a hole in the door, until he eventually went mad and died.
In the Victorian era at least two deaths were said to have occurred after people spent the night in the room. However, the first ghostly happenings were reported by George Canning, who claimed to have heard strange noises and have experienced psychic phenomena whilst living there.
After George Canning's residency in 1885, the house was bought by a Mr. Myers, who had recently been jilted by his fiancée. It was said that he would lock himself in the attic room and slowly went mad over the rest of his life, During his stay at the house, it fell into gross disrepair and it is during this time that its reputation began to build.
As a bet, in 1872, Lord Lyttleton stayed a night in the building's attic, He brought his shotgun with him, and during the night fired at an apparition which had appeared. In the morning, he attempted to find what he had shot at, but could only find shotgun cartridges. The next year the local council brought a summons to the house's owners for failure to pay taxes, but due to the house's reputation as haunted they were let off.
In 1879, Mayfair reported that a maid who had stayed in the attic room had been found mad. It was later reported that she died in an asylum the day after. On the day she was found, a nobleman purportedly took up the challenge to spend a night in the room, and his was the first death recorded in the house. The coroner pronounced him dead of fright.
It is said that after one nobleman had spent the night in the attic room, he was so paralysed with fear that he couldn't speak.
In 1887, sailors from HMS Penelope stayed a night in the house. By morning one was found dead, having tripped as he ran from the house. The other reported having seen the ghost of Mr. Myers, coming at them aggressively.
No phenomena have been reported since the house was bought by the Magg's Brothers in the mid-1930s and though many contemporary media outlets reported happenings at the house, more recent investigators claim nothing untoward has ever taken place there.They remark that Lord Lytton's story The Haunted and the Haunters -- bears a remarkable resemblance to the supposed haunting at 50 Berkeley Square.
History of 50 Berkeley Square and it's Occupants:
The four-storey brick town house was constructed in the late eighteenth century. From 1770 to 1827 it was the home of British Prime Minister George Canning, commemorated by a plaque on the house today. The house was then bought by the Viscount Bearsted, who rented the property to one Mr Myers. It was later bought by BP.
Since 1937 the building has been occupied by Maggs Bros, a firm of antiquarian book dealers. In 1998 the building was thought to be the oldest unaltered building in London.

http://dorsetghostinvestigators.tv/haunted-england/50-berkeley-square-haunted-house/