Haunting.  An often taboo subject people won't discuss from fear of ridicule or embarrassment. Yet many people have experienced lights flickering, doors slamming, or creaking floorboards in the early hours, for no apparent reason

Leading Sydney Paranormal expert and ghost tour guide Daniel Phillips said many people worried their homes were haunted.

“Believing a house is haunted can cause all kinds of stress, not to mention decreasing your property’s value” said Mr Phillips

 “Many people, laying in their beds often suspect ghostly activity, as these experiences can be so creepy. Every sound, shadow, creak and groan can feel like a ghost is haunting your house” He said

 “But most Ghosts are simply people without bodies”

These are some of the things that can indicate that your home might be haunted:

• Unexplained noises - .
• Doors, cabinets and cupboards opening and closing - 
• Lights turning off and on - s.
• Items disappearing and reappearing - .
• Unexplained shadows - the sighting of fleeting shapes and shadows, usually seen out of the corner of the eye. 
• Strange animal behavior - a dog, cat or other pet starts to behave strangely. Dogs may bark at something unseen, cower without apparent reason, or refuse to enter a room . Cats may seem to be "watching" something cross a room. Animals have sharper senses than humans, and some believe their psychic abilities are more refined / less filtered by the opinions of others, than humans.
• Feelings of being watched -
• Mild psychokinetic phenomena - hearing a door open or close is one thing. Actually seeing it happen is quite another. Doors and windows are locked or unlocked. Some people report that when they are in bed they can feel and/or hear something sitting on the bed.
• Feelings of being touched - the feeling of being watched is one thing.  Actually feeling like you are being touched is quite another. Some people report feeling something brush past them, touching their hair or "a hand" on the shoulder. Some feel a gentle poke, push or nudge.
• Cries and whispers - sometimes muffled voices, whispering and crying can be heard. Hearing music from some unknown source. People hear their names being said. This phenomenon, as is true for being touched, gains more credibility if more than one person experiences the same thing at the same time.
• Cold or hot spots - cold spots are classic haunting symptoms. Any instance of a noticeable variance in temperature without an identifiable cause, could be evidence.
• Unexplained smells - the distinct fragrance of a perfume or cologne that you do not have in your house. This phenomenon comes and goes without any apparent cause and may accompany other phenomena, such as shadows, voices or psychokinetic phenomena. Foul odors can happen in the same way. Tarella, the mansion on our Lower North Shore Ghost tour, is famous for the smells of expensive cigars, and very elaborate french cooking coming out of the building in the early hours of the morning, when no one is on the premises and the alarm is turned on...
• Moving or levitating objects (severe psychokinetic phenomena) -  objects moving without apparent reason.
• Physical assault - scratches, slaps and hard shoves.
• Other physical evidence - unexplained writing on paper or walls; handprints and footprints.
• Apparitions - physical manifestation of a spirit or entity. These phenomena are also very rare and can take many forms: human-shaped mists or forming mists of some indistinguishable shape; transparent human forms that disappear quickly; and most rarely, human forms that look as real and solid as any living person, but that disappear into a room or even while being viewed.

Mr Phillips said if you suspect your home has a resident ghost, you should do the following

1.       “Start ruling out all of the logical things first”. In many inner suburbs of places like Sydney Australia, electrical wiring in some houses, can be over 100 years old. Drafts could be moving windows and doors. Floorboards and stairs can creak, when the temperature and humidity change. “Most of the time, something like a family of possums taking residence in the roof will be the culprit” he said. " A haunting is a very rare thing, so don't be in a hurry to assume that is the case, without some serious checking first." 

2.       “If something strange keeps happening in your home that defies rational explaination, keep a diary and record what, when and where it happens. Something that on its own does not seem to make sense may become obvious if a time pattern takes place”.  Like when your next neighbour’s tom cat is put out at night, and he is taking a short cut to visit his girlfriend, for example. “  These two steps alone should rule out about 98% of any potential concerns,” 

3.       After ruling out all of the logical, rational explanations, it is time to do some research. Talk to the previous owners or long term neighbours. Check the internet and make a date in the local history section of your library. There may be a history associated with your home, which the real estate agent selling it to you, may have conveniently forgotten to mention.

4.       “If you have not yet solved the puzzle yet, it is time to record what is going on with cameras and sound equipment”.  Having a record of what is happening will help you or an expert get to the bottom of it in the light of day. If you need to go to this length, you may want to check out this page on paranormal investigations, as there are tips on what equipment you will need, and how to use them effectively. Look also at our page "What is a ghost?" for more information

5.       If you still have not found an earthly explaination yet, and still suspect a ghostly presence, now based on experience and evidence – make friends with it!“  Ghosts are just people without bodies. If you treat them that way with a positive attitude, they cannot and will not hurt you. More importantly, though, by accepting that you have a really interesting home, this will allow you to have peace of mind.”

Ghosts, with thousands of reports of the paranormal, from all over the world, leave little doubt that haunting experiences are quite real. Yet, what causes them and why?

Like our photo to the left here, you may have seen them depicted in movies, read stories , and seen TV shows and documentaries sensationalizing them. You could have seen the rare genuine photos of them. I'd bet you have heard of first-hand ghostly encounters from friends and relatives. I get at least 8-10 people who come on my ghost tours every month telling me about these experiences.  You may have even seen a ghost yourself.

But what are ghosts? I'll give you the best answer I have: No one really knows for certain.There are, however, many more theories on this subject than you can poke a stick at. People have an over-riding need, to explain the many thousands of documented experiences, that many around the world have had since the beginning of recorded history. Ghosts and hauntings are common part of the human experience. 

There are at least several types of ghosts or hauntings, so it may take more than one theory to explain them all.

"I SEE DEAD PEOPLE"

The traditional view of ghosts is of them being the spirits of dead people.  For some reason, they are "stuck" between our world and the next world of spirit. This is usually because of some tragedy or trauma - or that there is some kind of issue that needs resolving before "passing over". If some TV shows, ghost hunters and psychics are to be believed, normally these earth-bound spirits don't know they are dead.  Hans Holzer, a US based ghost hunter wrote, "A ghost is a human being who has passed out of the physical body, usually in a traumatic state and is not aware usually of his true condition. We are all spirits encased in a physical body. At the time of passing, our spirit body continues into the next dimension. A ghost, on the other hand, due to trauma, is stuck in our physical world and needs to be released to go on."

Known as "intelligent hauntings," it is believed that ghosts exist in a state in which they haunt the scenes of their deaths or locations that were important to them in life. These types of ghosts are able to interact with the living. They are aware of the living, and react to being seen on the occasions that they materialize. Psychics and Mediums claim to be able to communicate with them. When they do, they will typically try to help these spirits to understand that they are dead,  and to move on to the next part of their journey.There have been a number encounters of this kind reported at Tarella, the haunted mansion on our Lower North Shore Ghost tour, of people who died there. They appear happy to remain on the grounds, haunting this mansion over a hundred years after their passing. Similar experiences have been reported in the old St Thomas Cemetery grounds in West Street that is also on the Lower North Shore Ghost tour.

RESIDUAL HAUNTINGS 

These experiences are like spirit recordings - residual energies - that replay over and over again, like a movie film "on loop". Some ghosts appear to be recordings of parts of a person's life, that seem to replay in the environment in which they once existed.   The laughter of a dead child is heard echoing in a hallway where she often played. A world war 1 soldier appears in the window of a building where they used to stand guard. A dead nurse walks the halls of a hospital, brushing through the wards on their rounds.  Even cases of ghost trains and cars can still be heard and sometimes seen, even though they are long gone. These ghosts neither interact with, or seem to be aware of the living. Their actions and appearance are always the same. These experiences have been reported in Tarella, the haunted mansion on our Lower north Shore Ghost Tour,  in  the wards of the old sections of Royal North Shore Hospital, and in the Gore Hill memorial cemetery on our Middle North Shore Ghost Tour. 
 
"Traumatic events in time leave a strong energy imprint on the building or area," says Daniel Phillips," "replaying themselves for eternity. This could allow an observer to get a 'glimpse of the past' - a recreation of some traumatic or emotion-laden event."

It is my belief that the Quarantine station at North Head in Sydney,the Port Arthur Prison site in Tasmania, and places like the Dachau Nazi concentration camp in Poland have literally absorbed the emotional trauma of the people who were undergoing truly awful events in these places, leading up to their deaths. I believe that people sensitive to their surroundings in that way can pick up on that information, and feel what those people must have felt, and will sometimes get a lot more information than that.

MESSENGERS

These kinds of ghosts are the most common form of Paranormal phenomena. These are the spirits of people, that appear shortly after their deaths, to people close to them in life. Unlike traditional ghosts, and residual hauntings, these ghosts are completely aware of their deaths, and interact with the living. They will normally bring words of comfort to their loved ones. Typically, they re-appear for a last time to say that they are well and happy, and not to grieve for them.  They are usually motivated by love, and will briefly return for the express purpose of helping the living cope with their loss.

Sometimes,  these ghosts are called "crisis apparitions."  While these paranormal visits can take the form of a farewell, sometimes important and useful information is relayed - like health information, or emotional information about another family member. Though dying is the most common crisis, other life-threatening situations can also trigger this kind of ghost visit.

POLTERGEISTS

The word poltergeist comes from the  German words poltern ("to make noise") and Geist ("ghost"). The term quite literally means "noisy ghost". This type of paranormal haunting is the most feared, because it has the greatest ability to affect our physical world. Poltergeists are unique paranormal phenomena, in that they have the ability to affect physical objects.  

Poltergeists are blamed for unexplained noises, such as wall-banging, rapping, footsteps and even music. They are known for taking objects and hiding them, only to return them later. They turn on water taps and gas taps, are known to slam doors, turn lights on and off, and even flush toilets. They can, and are known for throwing things across rooms. They have even been known to pull  people's clothing or hair. Malevolent poltergeists are known to even scratch, hit or slap the living. 

It is because of these sometimes "mean-spirited" actions, that poltergeists are considered by some to be demonic in nature. 

A lot of the time, though, these activities can be more accurately described as 'mischevious'  - such as paranormal activity reported in Tarella, a haunted mansion in Cammeray, on the North shore of Sydney, Australia, (which is part of our Sydney Ghost tours - Lower North Shore Ghost tour ) where furniture gets re-arranged at night when no-one is in the building, and the alarm is on.

This is the kind of paranormal activity that typically result in a priest being called to a house to perform an exorcism . Although most churches tend to frown on this kind of ritual in the 21st century , nearly every culture on the planet has some form of ritual form of banishing "evil spirits" - which suggests that it is a very common human experience. 

Other investigators, however, believe that poltergeist activity is not caused by ghosts at all, but by certain living people under stress. They believe that certain people have the ability to unconsciously move things with their mind when under stress - a process called "psychokinesis". While this theory is the subject of on-going research, it remains to be proven. 

Talk about fantastic timing - I have been waiting for an EBay purchase to arrive for nearly a month now and had been getting anxious that it had 'gone walkabout' as Australian Aborigines would say. Just as I was about to head out the door to set up my little display for people to find William and I for the ghost tours - Australia Post has put a note in my letter box to tell me this package was waiting for me. I raced to the parcel depot like a scene from Batman leaving the Bat cave, to pick up this awesome piece of kit, and got it set up for my Valentines day Ghost tour visitors just in time...  William the Weimaraner could not stop barking at this scary new gadget for about 15 minutes! :-D

Sydney Ghost Tours made page 1 of "The Mosman Daily" for our Valentines day Ghost tours!

This was our original press release below: “Picking a bone” with Valentines Day

Valentines day is a day of stress, expense, and obligation for singles and couples – and can be boring to boot!

It can be filled with un-necessary drama for even normally romantic couples. If you are single, chances you are feeling the pressure to change that. Or want to shoot yourself to get away from all of the annoying soppiness.

“Could anything be less romantic, than having to book an over rated, overpriced, over crowded restaurant weeks in advance, being stressed out to get there, and then getting hassled by photographers and flower sellers trying to put you on the spot?” asks Daniel Phillips, Leading Sydney Paranormal Expert and founder of SydneyGhostTour.Com

Singles can find themselves surrounded, by uncomfortable, over the top reminders of their temporarily un-romantic life.  It can be a struggle to find something on Valentine’s day that isn’t going to make you feel guilty for not running around with a “+1”.   Surprisingly, not doing the ‘traditional’ valentines routine, can work whether you are single or part of a couple…It will take your mind off all of the soppiness if you are single, and many a couple has gotten closer in the dark, when they are not sure what is about to appear. The adrenaline rush of a good fun scare,has been known to make many a date ‘warm up’ into something much more memorable!

This Valentine’s day evening Sydney Ghost Tours will reveal the often dark, and previously secret tales of love, forbidden love. lust and illicit sex that lies buried in the leafy back yards of Sydney’s Lower North Shore. “We will talk about Sydney’s most famous first aboriginal couple -  Bennelong, and Barangaroo, who was a Cammeraigal woman. We will also talk about how a famous politician got away with killing his wife to marry the maid, at a haunted mansion– and much, much more. Reality is weirder than you could ever make up – and the photographs taken on our tours have had more than just our visitors show up in them! ” said Mr Phillips.

SydneyGhostTour.Com’s Valentines day tours start at the corner of Miller and Amherst Streets in Cammeray, opposite the Wild Sage restaurant, at 6.15pm,  8.15pm and 11.15pm, and are $40.00 per adult. Bookings can be made on 02 8197 0363, or on www.sydneyghosttour.com

Friday the 13th is THIS Friday...are you prepared?

Friday the 13th is a night when the veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is lifted.

 Leading Sydney Paranormal expert Daniel Phillips, said Friday 13th is one of the most haunted days of the year. 

“It is famous for being a time when the dead will often reach out to communicate with the living” said Mr Phillips

 “There are more photos of ghosts, floating orbs and other paranormal phenomena, are recorded on Friday 13th than at any other time”.

“Friday 13th is a time where the spirit world and the physical world get just that little bit closer together...”

Mr Phillips said that some of the most interesting legends around Friday the thirteenth include:

·         If 13 people sit down to dinner together, one will die within the year.

·         The Turks dislike the number 13 so much, that it was practically removed from their vocabulary

·         Many cities that use numbers as street names, in Europe and the U.S, do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.

·         Many buildings don't have a 13th floor.

·         If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

·         There are 13 witches in a coven.

Mr Phillips runs SydneyGhostTour.com, and said people who go on his Friday the Thirteenth tours are often amazed by what they see.

”People who came on our last Friday 13th tour took some really interesting photos, both at the haunted mansion we visit, and later in the cemetery.”

“They tell me that they will never forget it!” 

This Friday 13th of January, Daniel Phillips of SydneyGhostTour.Com is running tours of a cursed aboriginal site, a Victorian era haunted mansion, and a historic cemetery ( the oldest on the north shore)  complete with resident ghosts.

His “Friday 13th Ghost  tours start at 6.15pm for the family friendly tour, with adults only tours at 8.15pm  and 11.15pm, at the entrance of Stocklands Mall Cammeray Square, on the corner of Miller Street and Amherst Streets in Cammeray.

Numbers are limited, bookings are essential and can be made on 8197 0363, or by visiting www.sydneyghosttour.com

Will you feel the tingle of electricity running up your spine, or the chill of a spirit passing through you, this Friday night?

I saw a story on " Resomation" or " Eco- Cremation" this morning on the Channel 9 Today show. While they did not upload the segment - this is a US video of it. If you ever had the urge to have a relative digested in a big metal stomach, and flushed down the drain - this is your thing! ;-D


It all makes sense - the process of using alkaline solution and water, then boiling that with a cadaver in it,  is often used to make the skeletons you see in nature museums. It has a definite "Yuck" factor attached to it, when the biological matter goes down the drain in the consistency of oil, into a sewer pipe. 

“Mum,  I am  so bored...” – the phrase that drives parents crazy on school holidays. If you are a parent, with school term finishing today, you are probably on the look- out for something that will keep your kids entertained right now. If possible, you probably also want to do something more than just fills in time in a way that makes your life easier – not everything on offer right now does that.  Unfortunately, the phrase “ Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening!”,  is not a guide you can use to bring up kids with, as a parent.

But this does not mean that you can’t do something unusual, that is fun for them, AND for you too!

In Sydney’s lower North Shore,  SydneyGhostTour.Com will be running “ Family Friendly” Ghost tours, (for parents with kids from 9 up,)  visiting allegedly cursed aboriginal sites, a Victorian era haunted  mansion  , and a historic cemetery ( the oldest on the north shore)  complete with resident ghosts. Will you and your kids feel the chill of electricity running up your spine,  or a shiver through your body from a spirit passing through you, this School holidays?

Daniel Phillips, local historian, Author, and owner of SydneyGhostTour.Com said “ Real life is always weirder than anything you can make up. This place has stories of Aboriginal curses by the first local residents, the Cammeraigals. There is a skull buried here, of a man eaten by cannibals, and the spirits of two little girls that haunt a playground, that is built on top of their dead bodies. That is not even scratching the surface. Give me two hours, and I guarantee you will laugh, feel chills through your body, and never look at Sydney landmarks the same way ever again!” 

SydneyGhostTour.Com will be running the “Family Friendly” Ghost  tours from 5.50pm and 8.00pm, on Tuesday’s through to Sunday nights, this school holidays. The normal “Adults only” tours will still be starting at 8.15pm,  and 11.15pm.  Ticket prices are $20 per student under 16, $25 for students over 16, and $35 per adult, with family pricing available. All tour participants under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible adult on the tour.  Tours begin at the entrance of Stocklands Mall Cammeray Square, on the corner of Miller Street and Amherst Streets in Cammeray. Numbers are limited, bookings are essential and can be made by by calling  02 8197 0363, or by visiting www.sydneyghosttour.com

It is hard to believe that in nearly three years, it will be the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The memory of these people has passed into legend, and the last of the Anzacs, Alec William Campbell, who was a 16 year old kid at the time of the landings, passed away in May 2002. All that remains of these men and women is in books, letters, on plaques in public buildings, monuments and cemeteries.

We walk past these things every day – just one more detail in an information overloaded world.  We normally ignore these things, like the other minutiae of life,  just to be able to concentrate on what is at hand. Yet, they stand as mute reminder of a time past. A time when the collective hearts of our country were broken,  by a level of tragedy that we find hard to imagine in 2011. Yet this experience is part of what we rely on as part of our national story – who we define ourselves to be.

In the rush to embrace the heroic and admirable, in the midst of all of the tragedy, there is a tendency to want to “dry-clean” the past. The details of the more complete picture get downplayed, and left out entirely over time. All too ugly and painful – who wants to think about that? Focus on the things that make us feel good – and leave all of the rest behind.  “Less-(that) we remember” seems to be the order of the day in the early twenty-first century – or at least, a very, very selective memory seems to be in operation.

It seems to forget one basic principle… in order to appreciate the candle light, you need the dark background so that the stark contrast brings it into focus.

As Aussies, we forget that it was not some kind of a prolonged cricket match, between us and Turkey alone.  In fact, even putting us and the Kiwis together as a group, we were only a fraction of a number of landings that took place on the Dardanelles peninsula that day – one beach area out of six invasion beaches, on the first real “D-Day” in World War One.  We were a part of a much bigger whole.  We were tens of thousands, when hundreds of thousands of troops from other parts of the commonwealth, and our allies like the French, with their colonial allies, were also landing further around that part of Turkey.

We also overlook that our troops, landing on those beaches were “green” troops, most of whom had never been in combat, that are prone to make stupid mistakes. There were only a few handfuls of veterans from the Boer war and the Boxer rebellion who had seen any combat before in the troops that landed. While there was a lot of youthful enthusiasm and zeal from troops who were blissfully ignorant of what war really was, this is no substitute for being able to rationally work as a team when you are being shot at, as we found out the hard way.

Those stupid mistakes early in the piece, like bunching up during the landing, and then staying put too long on the beach, gave the Turkish defenders the chance to bring in reinforcements and artillery, and to bottle up and bleed the invaders dry by a rain of gunshot and shell.  Anzac beach, or that stretch of “Z” beach at Ari Burnu, is the bottom of a kind of natural amphitheatre, where Anzac beach is the centre stage, that everyone up on the hills can see, shoot at, and kill people, from kilometers away. Nobody seems to have said:

“ Fellas, we are in the wrong place. The Beach we are supposed to be on is about 3km south, and this beach is a shooting gallery where any bastard with a Mauser rifle and ammunition sitting up on those hills is going to feel like he is practicing to win a prize at the Easter show. Lets go to where we are supposed to be!”.

It also seems to be forgotten that most of the officers and NCO’s that knew what the plan was supposed to be, were shot and killed, or injured and evacuated right at the beginning first few hours. This left those remaining troops and officers on the beach, milling around like sheep in a slaughter yard, or huddling behind whatever they could find, rather than get as far inland as fast as possible, and away from the beach, up to defendable positions before Turkish reinforcements and artillery could arrive.

In other words, We ( the Aussies and Kiwis)  got lost. The people who were supposed to be running the operation and knew the plans and orders were killed or injured and taken away in the first few hours. Then, without those instructions passed on, we flat out did not do what we were supposed to be doing. Yet, instead – it seems to be the “done thing” long after the fact, to pretend that all of the death and misery caused there was the fault of bad English management.

It is this background of the sheer blood-letting , ugliness and suffering that was the norm of fighting around Anzac cove, that makes the heroism, gallantry, good humour and gentlemanly conduct worth remembering. They were living a waking nightmare, in the most hellish of places. Something else to keep in mind, is that the men wearing the slouch hat were not all 6 feet tall plus, blue eyed blonde, “Clancy of the Overflow” type tanned bushmen and athletes. They were as diverse in their backgrounds from factory workers, to shop clerks, to tradesmen and every other kind of profession you can imagine.  Many of the first people to enlist were from the cities.  Two battalions of which signed up on the north shore of Sydney, where SydneyGhostTour.Com runs its tours, within days of war being declared.  It was their very ordinariness – the fact they were fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, spouses and sweethearts that make their super-human efforts even more remarkable. 

Yet it was because they were all of these things, that makes their loss so keenly felt. The empty place at the family dinner table,  the clothes that would remain hanging in the wardrobe in mute reminder,  and the Christmases that would never be shared again with that loved one, became a feature of many Australian households.  It isn’t an exaggeration that 1918 as a year where the whole world was in a state of shock and grief. Of all of the best and brightest who went off to war, so many did not come back. Many of those families, not knowing if their loved one would be remembered in any formal way, made memorials to them on the family plots and mausoleums in the St Thomas Cemetery in Crows Nest, and in the Gore Hill Memorial Cemetery on the Pacific Highway, right next to Royal North Shore Hospital. Lone Pine, Quinn’s Post, the Nek , Passchendaele, and many other places that they fell, are memorialized in stone in these lower North Shore Cemeteries. Surprisingly, no one has made the concentrated effort to tell their stories, up until now. 

This Anzac day 25th of April 2011, there will be two tours, the first starting at Cammeray Square at 9.45am, and the second starting at 1.45pm at The Forum Plaza @ St Leonards railway station, that will tell the stories of these men and women, to whom we owe so much. Advance bookings are essential and can be made on 02 8197 0363, or on www.sydneyghosttour.com. The cost of the tours are Adults $35.00 per person, students and concession card holders $25.00 per person. 10% of profits of SydneyGhostTour.Com are always used to restore and preserve historic sites on all of our tours, however, 10% of the profits from these two Anzac Day tours will be donated to Legacy NSW.  Please go to our tours page, or put your details into Crypt Insiders to book your tickets now!

COUNTDOWN TIME!
I am putting my thinking cap on for the "15 minutes of fame" for 95.3 Classic rock FM in Sydney where they put you on air to announce / count down your top 10 songs- and plug your work, (in this case www.SydneyGhostTour.com.) My list was:

1. I love rock & roll - Joan Jett
2. Bad to the bone - George Thoroughgood
3. Monster Mash - Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers
4. Sympathy for the devil - Guns & Roses
5. Highway to Hell - AC DC
6. When you're strange - The Doors
7. I think I'm paranoid - Garbage
8. WereWolves of London - Warren Zevon ( I had to get William the Weimaraner's favourite "sing along" song in!)
9. Time Warp - Rocky Horror
10. Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper

What do you think?  Or would you suggest other songs? What would you add?