BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY

Welcome to the second edition of the Borley Ghost Society Newsletter. Memberships have come in from all over the globe, and it is quite exciting. As we approach the holiday season, may I be among the first to wish all of you a fantastic new year. It will be exciting to count down the last days of the millennium with Society members!

Any triskaidexaphobiacs out there? Hope not. There is no established day for the release of each newsletter, but I just couldn't resist publishing this one on such an auspicious day!

Your feedback is essential to this venture, and I encourage everyone to make this a two way association. If you have a comment, or see something relevant and wish to pass it along, you can either e-mail me, OR, send a message to everyone using the "Reply To All" button on your mailer. If your mailer doesn't have this feature, let me know you want your message posted, and I will pass it along.

Not every issue of the newsletter will have a dedication, but I do want to honor those people who have helped me the most. I can't put every name first, so I will try to mention key people in chronological order as we move from issue to issue.
Nick Rowland has to be on the top of the list because without him, none of this would have happened. For a short review of how he came into my life, I refer you to the web page titled, secret. The story is fully explained in my other writings.
Nick was always there for me during those two very stressful first years, and was most gracious when I finally made it back home in September of 1997.
I can only wish Nick and his family the very best. Thanks, Nick!

The Very Scary Almanac for juvenile readers also caught my attention because of a one-page article on Borley.

Next month we will look at "An Assessment of Anomalies." One of these days, I hope all my various book chapters and essays will find their way into print. Anyone volunteer to be "ghost" editor?

Jackie Grebby from Pluckley - the most haunted village in England - has added her tale to this collection as well.

Dear Vince:
" I did have an out of body experience when I was 5 or 6 on the operating room table for a Tonsils and Adenoids operation. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned other people don't necessarily leave when an operation or other trauma is happening. My mother was told that I fought the administration of ether and "they almost lost me." I recall floating to the corner of the OR watching people scurrying around a table tying my body down with long strips of white material. Mother said they told her I had to be tied down. I remember thinking it strange that everyone was excited and in such a big hurry. :-) The only thing I think is I must have been pretty close to the end... huh? But not close enough to get out of the OR."
Patricia Galbraith
Any other associates have similar experiences?

Dear Vince:
"Well, I guess it was a first, at least for Billings. I put on an annual Halloween ghost program at the library, and this year the Billings Trolley, which does historical tours around the city, asked me if I would narrate a "Haunted Historic Billings" tour. I was foolhardy enough to say "yes," and it just grew.
The Billings Gazette printed an article I wrote on local ghosts, a radio station called to interview me, and KTVQ-TV wanted to accompany me to a haunted place. I suggested The Rex, a haunted restaurant whose owner is not averse to publicity, and the owner and I were both interviewed on TV. The program was broadcast state-wide. Then the calls started coming in from people who also wanted to tell me about their ghosts, so now we have lots of leads for next year.
We had beautiful fall weather for our trolley tours on Sat., Oct. 31. I was hoarse by the time the third and final tour ended, but everyone had a good time and thought my talks were enjoyable. In fact, there's considerable demand for more trolley tours next Halloween, also suggestions that one of the downtown "haunted" venues have an open house. I think the Rex probably would do so. They are not only seriously haunted but have an excellent restaurant/bar as well. Maybe the merchants could sponsor a Halloween costume parade or stroll, turn it into a neat event. We'll have to see.
I'm glad it's over, however. I'm not a performer by nature and this took a lot out of me. May try to involve other library staff in it next year. Part of the trolley proceeds went to the library for books, BTW.
And that's it!"
Karen Stevens

Dear Vince;
"Eleven years ago my daughter went out on a date. She had a disagreement with the young fella she had gone out with and they went their own ways. She met another friend and started crying on his shoulder about what had happened. Unfortunately he had no muffler on his vehicle and a large hole in the floorboard of the Bronco. The air was on and it pulled up the fumes into the truck. By the time they realized there was a problem it was to late.
I had been up half the night waiting for her to come home as she always was home on time. I reported her missing. The local authorities, several of her friends, her older brother and sister and the fella she had gone out with were all looking for her. At about noon I was standing in the girls bedroom watching them play in the pool when I saw Chris drive by the house in a silver car with black tinted windows. I flew out of the bedroom and down the hall to tell the others waiting in the living room. The also had seen her drive by and the car turned the corner. Her brother, sister and date started out of the house and got in their cars to follow her, but the car had disappeared when it turned the corner. We found out later that at the time we saw her drive by the house is the same time that she had been found. Later as we were moving out of the house her phone kept ringing even though it had been turned off because it was in the process of being transferred to the new place.
That was just the beginning. One night I felt a hand on my ankle and heard someone say "Mom".. I got up and checked on my two younger daughters as I thought one of them had called me, but they were both asleep. There were times when I know I turned the computer off before I left for work and when I got home it would be on . The TV would go off and I'd say "Chris, I was watching that please turn it back on" and the tv would turn back on. One evening we were in the kitchen waiting for my sister and her husband to come over for dinner when we heard the front door open. We thought they had arrived, but no one was there. Things like keys would disappear. I'd turn the house and car upside down looking for them, when I'd look again where I had left them they had reappeared. Window shades would fly up in the middle of the night.
It has been quite a while since she was here last. Maybe what is a day or two for her is year for us. I do wish she would come visit again.
Chris was 17 years old and only one week into her senior year when she died.
She was very popular at school. She was a varsity cheerleader and involved in many school activities. She wanted to be a model and eventually be in public relations. She was also taking acting lessons and had an agent. There were so many people at her funeral they had to put speakers outside for the people on the sidewalk to hear the service. The line of cars to the cemetery was at least five miles long and had to go past the high school. The halls in front of the school were lined with students and teachers. Every time I would go to the cemetery there would be messages in the sand so I started putting plexiglass and a china marker there for her friends to write their messages to her on.
Judy Horne

Trips to Great Britain allow Sue-Ellen Welfonder to indulge in her great passions: Medieval History and the paranormal. She has visited many haunted sites in the British Isles and has had several unusual experiences. Along with fellow Borley Ghost Society member Pat Cody, she is one of the co-authors of a nonfiction book about ghosts. The team is composed of Sue Ellen, Pat Cody, Karen Stevens as Lead Writer, Kathy Rehm and Dina Olsen.

"We have visited hundreds of haunted places over the years, and this trip we wanted to actually sleep in haunted hotels whenever possible. We hoped for good stories which we could use in writing travel articles, and also hoped to have some paranormal experiences ourselves. Some hotels didn't want to be associated with the paranormal and actually turned us down. The majority, however, didn't bat an eye. We were able to stay in reputedly haunted hotels in Chester, Taunton and Brighton, and discovered that our room in Nottingham, in a hotel not known to be haunted, apparently WAS.

We also visited a number of haunted castles, inns, stately manors, private houses, pubs and other historic buildings in search of ghosts. Pat had brought along an EMF meter for the first time. We found that in most cases, it verified our own psychic impressions but did not result in any increase in the number of ghostly photographs.

Our experiences this trip included ghostly scents in various places; the sound of footsteps and crying (tape-recorded); objects being moved; odd behavior of 3 clocks in the haunted room in our hotel in Nottingham; a ghostly caress (Pat, in our haunted box at the Theatre Royal, Bath); glimpses of figures which promptly vanished; sounds of a ghostly party in the antiroom to Pat's room at the Old King's Head, Chester; and the sense of presence (many times).

Nothing at all was frightening, just intriguing. In at least a couple of cases we felt the ghost's sorrow and grief so strongly that we attempted to communicate with her and help her on to the Light. Hope we succeeded.

We are looking forward to more "ghosting" both in England and Stateside this coming year.

Pat, do you want to add more?

If you dig deeply enough into Tomorrow's World Plus, you will find a brief page on Borley. I can't give you the exact coordinates because the site uses frames.

The Internet site has also been featured by Third Age. I've downloaded this page to my web site as it will not last forever.