Pendle Witches
In 1612 all these people were captured for doing witchcraft . Jane Bulcock and her son were hanged for witch craft .

Alison Devise daughter of Elizabeth Device was tried and later released for witch craft Elizabeth Device they use to call her squintin lizzie she was tried and hanged for witch craft James Device son of Elizabeth tried and hanged. Katherine Hewitt they use to call her old mouldheels she was hanged Alice Nutter she was called of roughleeshe was hanged .She minght have just been a catholic caught up in it all.

Janet Preston she was hanged for the death of Thomas Lister of Westby Hall. Elizabeth Southerness she was called old ma Demdike she confessed to doing witchcraft and dired in prison. Anne Whittle she was called old Chatterbox she was tried and later released.

The Pendle Witches are said to haunt the buildings, landscapes and historic villages in the shadow of Pendle Hill such as Newchurch, home of St. Mary's Church, from where Demdike was thought to have stolen human bones. A sinister feeling and anger is often felt by visitors and many local refuse to discuss the goings on for fear of their own safety.

The ghost of Mary Lane Learn about the ghost of Mary Lane who haunts the Swan Hotel in Whalley...

The ghost of Mary Lane

Learn about the ghost of Mary Lane who haunts the Swan Hotel in Whalley...

Whalley is undoubtedly one of the most picturesque villages within the Ribble Valley. The village boasts some truly haunted places one of them being the Swan Hotel, haunted by the ghost of Mary Lane.
The Hotel was built in the year 1781 and the first landlord was a chap called Cunningham, who employed Mary as a scullery maid. Mary through no fault of her own suffered from learning difficulties. When the poor girl became pregnant to an unknown guest Cunningham told her that he did not think her fit to be a mother, and informed her that when she gave birth the baby would be fostered outside the Ribble Valley.
Mary gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl and Cunningham kept his promise - the baby was adopted . Mary pined and pined for her baby girl. She became so desperately depressed that she decided to terminate her life in the hotel. They say that Cunningham could not stand the guilt of Mary's death and left the premises soon after.
Mary's ghost has been seen on many occasions, one of the most famously talked about stories relating to her took place in 1967, when a family from Ipswich Suffolk were travelling through the village, and decided to break up the journey by staying the night in Whalley. They choose the Swan Hotel, but this family were not the average family, the mother was a medium. As soon as she entered the hotel she stopped in her tracks.
She went upstairs and placed her suitcase on the bed, Mary's ghost came to her and apparently they had quite a conversation, relating to Mary's death and her hatred for Cunningham. This lady from Suffolk who had only been in the building for some 15 minutes knew all about the poor girl's past. She went downstairs and had a word with the landlord, he was drying some glasses when she informed him of her ghostly encounter. The glass slipped through his hands smashing on the floor. He asked her if she had ever been to Whalley before, "No" she said "I have never been to Lancashire in my life."
Every December the village stages a truly fantastic event called the Pickwick Night, it has proved so successful that they have a park and ride from the railway station, the village comes alive with street entertainment, and everyone is encouraged to wear Dickensian clothing. All the shops and pubs are open to the public with thousands of visitors from far and wide. A couple from Manchester went in to the Swan and made their way to the restaurant area, and noticed a mirror on the wall, one of them quickly combed their hair and looked in to the mirror, but the face that looked out of the mirror was not their's. There was a scream and everyone in the bar turned round and a hush filled the room. The face in the mirror was non other than Mary Lane. The pair quickly made their way back to Manchester - no doubt with a story they would tell their grandchildren!

BLACK SWAN HOTEL

The Black Swan hotel in Devizes, Wiltshire is a traditional Coaching Inn; it was built back in 1732. The Black Swans cellars date back to the 1600s, when a previous pub known as the Nags Head stood on this site. It was owned by a notorious horse dealer and suspected highwayman, Ambrose Saintsbury.
The Black Swan hotel is set in the town square in front of where the town's gallows once stood. It is thought the present-day function room was once a court of judgement, and a meeting place for local freemasons and traders.
Room Four at the Black Swan Hotel is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most haunted bedrooms in the country. In 2004 Living TV's Most Haunted visited the hotel their findings suggested that the hotel is haunted by several different ghosts.
In room 4, guests and staff members have witnessed the ghost of a young woman wearing a long flowing dress. Her ghost is said to appear through the walls of the room, she then sits down for a second or two and stares out of the window, before leaving the room again through the opposite wall! Several sightings have forced the guests to vacate the room in sheer fright at what they had witnessed.
Before taking over the Black Swan Hotel in March 2010 new owners Mike and Yvonne Wright were sceptical about ghosts and the paranormal, but now they are not so sure after a series of strange events at the pub.
Yvonne had an experience at the Black Swan even before the family moved in. While staying at the hotel one night Mrs Wright woke up to find herself trying to get out of a non-existent door in the wall of room 12. Initially she did not think too much of it until she watched a YouTube clip of Most Haunted and saw medium Derek Acorah filming at the Black Swan in room 12 and saying that he could feel a door there, that had been sealed up.
During an organised ghost hunt at the Black Swan one of the girls in the group said she could feel a presence next to her whilst in room 4. When she reached out her hand to the spot, she had the sensation of it feeling very hot. The girl became distressed when the lights were turned on her hand was dripping with sweat. A thermometer was placed in the spot and the temperature was seen to rise up from 17 to 27.6 degrees Celsius as the group watched.
Room 4's reputation has not discouraged others from staying there; Mr and Mrs Wright are now inundated with requests for bookings for it.
Several ghosts have been reported in and around the cellar area. The cellars have five chambers which lead off from a central passage. The rear of the cellar has been bricked up, blocking access to what is believed some extra 100 feet or so of underground tunnel, which runs under the Black Swans yard. In 1999, John Girven removed some bricks whilst investigating the suspected tunnel. This act allegedly marked the start of the severe haunting of the cellar area.
Ambrose Saintsbury a suspected highwayman was reputed to keep his horses stabled in the cellar tunnels along with a change of clothing. During a recent investigation, a man in a three cornered hat was seen in the basement. Reported paranormal activity includes hot and cold spots, people being tickled, shadowy figures and outlines, light anomalies, and tapping noises heard.

Alkimos

The Alkimos as viewed from the shore,

The Alkimos was a merchant shipping vessel which was wrecked on the coast north of Perth, Western Australia in 1963. The wreck is a diving venue, but is also of interest to ghost hunters.

History

The ship was built as part of the United States' Liberty ship program during World War II. It was launched in Baltimore in 1943 and was originally scheduled to be named George M. Shriver. The ship was instead christened Viggo Hansteen and saw war service for about 18 months. After the war it was sold to a Greek shipping company and renamed Alkimos (Greek for "strong"; also the father of Mentor).
As Alkimos, the ship plied the world's oceans for some two decades. In March 1963, the vessel was on a voyage from Jakarta to Bunbury when it struck a reef off the Western Australian coast. It was salvaged and towed to Fremantle, the port city for Perth, where it underwent repairs for two months. After settlement of a dispute concerning payment for the repairs, the Alkimos left Fremantle under tow by an ocean-going tug from Hong Kong.
Only a few hours out of port, the tow line gave way and the Alkimos was driven onto the shore. Although the ship remained intact, it could not be floated off at that time, and so it was filled with water to secure it in place and left in the charge of an on-board caretaker. Another tug returned in January 1964 and the ship was refloated, but the planned journey to Manila had hardly begun when the tug was seized at sea by authorities and the Alkimos was left anchored. In May 1964, the vessel broke anchor and was driven onto the Eglinton Rocks near present-day Yanchep. On this occasion it was more severely damaged, and all thought of salvaging it intact was abandoned. It was sold by the owners for the purposes of scrapping. However, even that outcome was thwarted when, in 1969, a salvage worker said he heard ghostly noises when he was going to sleep and salvage workers were driven off the wreck by an unexplained fire, and since that time the partly dismantled remains of the ship have been left standing in several metres of water very visible to visitors to the location.
As of April 2007 the structure was almost fully disintegrated above the water line to the point where only the engine block is visible from the beach.

A variety of events and allegations throughout the vessel's history have given rise to it being regarded as being 'jinxed', cursed or haunted, both during its working life and since it was wrecked. This aspect is the main focus of present-day interest in the ship.

Regular references are made in radio and television shows regarding the superstitions. Jack Wong Sue, who co-authored a book on the subject, has appeared on ABC television describing the hauntings.
Stories of paranormal events linked with the Alkimos (many detailed in Sue's book) include:

• During the hasty construction of the ship welders were allegedly sealed between hulls, with their ghosts haunting the vessel ever since (this story is identical to one told about the SS Great Eastern)

• Apparitions of a small dog in the engine room during the ship's service.

• A murder-suicide is alleged to have occurred on the ship.

• Horses riding along the beach are said to refuse to pass the wreck.

• An apparition of a human figure (christened "Harry") has been sighted on the ship by various people including local cray fishermen. Subsequent searchings of the wreck have never been able to locate anyone. Harry is said to appear in rubber boots and oilskins.

• A number of allegedly paranormal phenomena were reported by salvage workers occupying the wreck. Footsteps were heard on ladders when all salvage crews were accounted for, and ghostly footsteps would follow workers around the vessel at night. Cooking smells and noises would emanate from the galley, but upon investigation would cease, only to begin again when the galley door was closed. Tools were reported to be moved by unseen hands, mysteriously vanishing then reappearing later.

• At one point a married couple took over as caretakers of the ship. The wife (who was pregnant) suffered a serious fall and had to be rushed to hospital where she gave birth to a premature stillborn baby.

• Herbert Voight, a locally well known long distance swimmer vanished while attempting to swim between Cottesloe Beach and Rottnest Island in 1969. Some years later his skull was found near the wreck.

• The ship was bought and sold at least 8 times whilst stranded. It is claimed that each person or persons who purchased the ship suffered inexplicable bad luck (such as bankruptcy and life threatening illness) which mysteriously vanished once the vessel was re-sold.

• Bad luck is said to have plagued others associated with the wreck. A US Navy submariner by the name of Ted Snider was killed in a plane crash after assessing the wreck. Jack Sue was hospitalised in intensive care with an unidentified respiratory disease after researching the ship.

• Numerous other stories of near drownings, engine failures and accidents near the wreck are reported.

Legacy

There is now a locality named Alkimos near the site of the wreck and named after it.

The Belmez Faces

In 1971, in the small Spanish village of Belmez, Maria Pereira claimed a human face spontaneously appeared on her cement kitchen floor. It wasn't long before she destroyed the floor and replaced it - and a new face promptly appeared.

More and more faces continued to appear on the floor of Maria Pereira's kitchen, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Some were male, some female, some large, and some small. In time, she discovered that the house, built around 1830, stood above a graveyard used by the Romans, Spanish Muslims and then Medieval Christians.

Did Maria Pereira paint the faces herself? If so, she never benefited financially from all the attention. She lived a simple life in that same house and eventually died in 2004, after which the house was put on the market. Besides ghostly apparitions, paranormal experts suggest a second theory - that the faces were manifested on the floor by telekinesis. Apparently, the expressions on their faces used to change with the mood of Maria Pereira.

However, skeptics point out that it is possible to analyze the molecular changes in the whitewash and prove that some level of fakery was involved. Many believe that the paintings were actually created by Maria's son, Diego Pereira...