I visited Borley maybe a dozen times during the 1980s, invariably with at least one other person but, sometimes, with more. I’ve read Harry Price’s books about the place and, also, relevant material by Peter Underwood, Paul Tabori, and others.
My visits ceased after reading in Great Hauntings (ISBN 0-7481-0146-2) that a group visiting Borley was approached by “something huge and dark, like an animal”. Ghosts and the paranormal I can cope with, but I take no chances when there’s the possibility of meeting something evil (as might be suggested by this encounter with whatever it was).
Like many of the other correspondents on this website, I have had some curious experiences at Borley. I use the word “curious” advisedly, as I cannot say for certain that they were paranormal experiences. On one occasion my camera refused to work when pointed in the direction of the church (so did my friend’s camera too) and there have been problems starting cars when trying to leave. For this reason, we got into the habit of parking on the grass verge in front of some of the bungalows built in the garden of the former rectory, facing downhill and away from the church, so that the car could be allowed to roll away if we couldn’t get the engine started!
Some of my night-time photographs, when developed, have revealed white, almost-transparent shapes and I noted similar shapes in some of the photographs kindly provided by other correspondents here. Their pictures, like mine, were snapped when it was cold and I wonder if it’s moisture in the air that’s being illuminated by the camera’s flash? That moisture would, of course, be invisible to the naked eye but would be caught on film if lit up. It’s just a theory.
During another visit, our group of four was returning to the car at about 3 a.m., walking down the road, passing the bungalows, when there was a strong and distinctive smell of bacon cooking. The smell seemed perfectly normal, as if someone was making their breakfast and, initially, we thought nothing of it (other than “is there enough for all of us if we knock on your door?”). However, when we sought to establish which residence the aroma was emanating from, we could see no lights on; no smoke rising from a chimney; and no open window for the smell to drift out of. In fact, there was no sign of life at all. It wasn’t until I re-read one of the Borley books that I noticed the place’s original name - Borlea - was Anglo-Saxon for “Boar’s Pasture”.
In my opinion, this is typical of the sort of experience many people seem to have at Borley, in that what may seem to be a perfectly natural event just might be a supernatural one. After all, when some people saw the nun, they thought it was perfectly natural for her to be near a rectory but, in fact, what they were seeing was supernatural.
Another natural/supernatural instance happened during a daytime visit when we heard a large number of dogs barking. The sound seemed to be coming from inside a hut or shed towards the end of the row of bungalows. But who would keep such a large number of dogs (it sounded like a dozen or more) in a shed during daylight? On another occasion, a group of us were standing in the road between the church and the rectory cottage when we heard sounds like heavy furniture being dragged across a wooden floor. The noise seemed to be coming from the direction of the “old” rectory, adjacent to the church but, again, there was no visible sign of life in the building.
As I’ve already said, all of the above experiences were “curious”. I could not say for sure that any of them were supernatural. They could have had perfectly normal origins. However, one experience does defy any logical explanation: A group of six of us were, again, standing in the road between the rectory cottage and the church when a column of what looked like mist started to rise slowly from the edge of the road in front of the cottage. We all saw it and watched it for possibly a minute or more as it continued to rise. By this stage, it seemed to have a kind of shape. If you can imagine a glass test tube about six feet high and just over one foot wide with mist swirling around inside it, that’s what we were looking at. Eventually, these swirling mists seemed to be forming into a shape and (we all later agreed) it was the shape of a person. I was nearest to whatever it was we were looking at and decided - in a moment of bravado - to take a closer look, so I took a few steps towards it. At this point my friends called me, almost shouting my name, and the spell was broken - both for me and for the mist. I went back to the group and we watched as the mist started to vanish. I noted that the process of its disappearance was almost the reverse of its appearance but much quicker, maybe only 15 seconds. My group disappeared too (home to north London) soon afterwards! The following day, I returned with one of the group and we had a good look round for a drain from which the mist (or steam?) could have been rising. We found none.
I reported most of the above information to ghost hunter Peter Underwood in a letter that I sent to him via his publisher, though whether he ever received it I do not know.
Even without Harry Price's (dubious?) contribution to the subject of Borley, there is a substantial body of evidence to support the claim that paranormal activity takes place there. Much of that evidence comes from people who have no interest in ghosts and from people who had no previous knowledge of Borley's reputation (until they experienced the paranormal there). Of course there is no hard evidence of ghosts at Borley, or at any other location for that matter, but there is no evidence of God either, although millions of people believe in him (or is it her?). Equally, many people throughout the world believe, to a lesser or greater extent, in the paranormal. In the eyes of the Law, circumstantial evidence can be proof enough to convict a person of a crime, so why is it not proof enough of the paranormal?
Part of the reason is because we are complacent. We think of ourselves as having climbed the heights of knowledge and ploughed the depths of discovery. The Victorians thought the same of their generation, as did the Greeks, the Romans, the Ancient Egyptians, etc. However, it is thanks to a relatively small number of inquiring minds in each generation that the boundaries of knowledge and understanding are expanded. During the process of this expansion there are status-quo stalwarts (who refuse to accept anything new) and fakes (who jump on the bandwagon in the hope of making a quick buck and/or getting publicity for themselves). These people only delay and disrupt the discovery process but they are perhaps necessary, because they help to ensure that the "discoverers" themselves are not fake and that, ultimately, they provide enough evidence in support of their "new" claims.
As with almost all matters in life, it's the uncertainty - that period between not knowing something and, later, knowing something - that causes the most conflict in peoples' minds. A great many people have contributed, in one way or another, to researching the paranormal and, together, they are putting together a vast jigsaw. At present, its completion is not in sight and we are still in that period of uncertainty, debate, and argument.
However, little more than a century ago, people would not have believed that images could be captured on chemically-treated plates or that sound could be stored on magnetic tape (and as for digital storage. that's mind-blowing even to some of us today). Nevertheless, film and sound recording are now part of everyday life. That being the case, is it not conceivable that images (ghosts?) and sounds can be re-played by the Earth's atmosphere - which is full of chemicals and magnetism - given the right circumstances? This is, of course, a hypothesis, but it's one that's easily understandable and within the boundaries of our current knowledge. Anyone who won't even accept this as a possibility fulfills the old adage: "there are none so blind as those who will not see".
Only a few hundred years ago, people believed that the Sun orbited the Earth. Now we know differently and we probably think of those people as primitive and uninformed, maybe even stupid. However, in a few more centuries - when, perhaps, our successors on this planet understand the mechanisms by which the paranormal operate - we, too, may be thought of as primitive and stupid!
I do not see why the advent of the new millennium should be a reason to "put aside our petty superstitions", as has suggested on these pages. It is only by thinking the unthinkable and by pursuing the seemingly unattainable that the boundaries of our knowledge are expanded. Science has come on in gigantic leaps during the last few hundred years but, even so, most scientists would agree there is more that "we do not know about" than "we do know about".
(A number of scientists, particularly astronomers, are starting to suggest that other universes - being parallel with our own - may exist, with each universe having its own laws of physics. Since those laws may be different to the ones in our universe, a whole new realm of possibilities for explaining the paranormal may be opened up.)
Happy ghost hunting at Borley, everyone, but please respect the feelings of the locals.
Stephen D. Smith
London, U.K.