WHY has Wakefield Museum’s poltergeist fallen silent?
It’s over a decade since the malevolent spirit gave a workman the fright of his life. And peace now reigns in its eerily-lit basement.
A happy-go-lucky worker at the Wood Street museumwas just about to shut up shop at 5pm when he beheld “The Turning of the Screw”.
No, this was not haunting fiction from the hand of master storyteller
Henry James, but literally a screw spinning unaided in mid-air. But things
took a turn for the worse
when the sharply-pointed shaft shot towards him at chest height.
ortunately
the fleet-footed worker
side-stepped the flying object and it scudded past him before falling
harmlessly on the floor.
Looking for an explanation, he laughed it off as the handiwork of a practical
joker at the museum.
So
he hurried up two flights of stairs to tell a clerical colleague how revenge
was a dish best served cold.
He said: “I’m going to get that joker. He’s been throwing
screws at me!” The man was rocked by her reply: “Well there’s
only you and me in the building.”
The admin girl was in the clear as there was no way she could have bolted down and up the stairs in time to give her co-worker a fright. A more ethereal explanation was sought for the screw-slinging scare.
Amuseum insider told the Wakefield Express how the prime suspect became a nameless poltergeist, who may have been disgruntled about changes at the museum.
The mole said: “Themuseumworker was on his own in the basement. It
isn’t creepy. It’s just one long corridor. But it was dim lighting.
“I imagine he was surprised by the admin worker’s answer.”
“The museum was sort of between curators, between bosses, when it
happened. I don’t knowif that has anything to do with it.” But
that instead of a string of unexplained events, the throwing of the screw
turned out to be the entity’s parting shot.
The insider added: “There’s been nothing since. I have been here a while, I stay late and have not seen anything. “I’m usually the last one out. I have never felt threatened. I think it would be a friendly ghost if it showed its face.”
John Whitaker, the museum’s assistant keeper of social history, said: “We don’t know what happened down there on that day. But we do keep the ghosts of Wakefield’s past alive at the museum.” Mulder and Scully types have been researchingThe X-Files style phenomenon for years. But boffins are still scratching their large foreheads as to why poltergeist activity occurs.
Wakefield’s fleeting case is by no means atypical as poltergeists usually begin and end abruptly and can vary in length from hours to years. The city’s museum is number nine in our countdown of haunted Wakefield. Do you have a ghost story which you feel may make the grade? Call our newsroom on 01924 433013.
