Sunday, 4 January 2009

All in all, its just another brick in the...

Apropos nothing in particular, can anyone recall a story in the news a few years back, about a building in Wales where one of the walls emitted sounds which were very like a human voice?

It was a marvellous urban myth, and the diverse responses from the public ranged from ancient Celtic verse, to the strangled sounds of someone being murdered...

I don't really know why I'm posting this, there's no need for a result, but Google doesn't understand the keywords, and it is now a challenge which has to be taken up!

28 comments:

  1. Scrobs, I tried googling this story and got quite carried away... no celtic verse...perhaps we should all have little lie down...

    I just hate it when I can't find stuff I have read about on the net. Like the american soldier who was a baseball player who was shot by his own side as he was intending to go home and protest against the Iraq invasion/occupation.

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  2. okay i feel haunted now and am hearing sounds in my house...oh wait...that's the dog enjoying the couch too much...

    this was the best i could do...
    http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/wales/wales.htm

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  3. Lils, there was even a bit on the BBC about it, and also a 'recording' of the sounds!

    I think it was an old pub, but from there on in I'm lost ... bereft... unable to concentrate...

    Your story now needs some attention; probably has the US version of a 'D' notice on it.

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  4. Daisers - to think you went to so much trouble, I think the world of you!

    The mention of Aberystwyth is a bit poignant too. I was out on exeat from school with my Dad, and we were sitting in a hotel having dinner, when the news of the Innsbruck plane crash came over a news bulletin.

    Dad just said that one of his oldest friends from work was flying out to ski...

    So it was. Sad loss of a lovely guy too.

    The only bit we ever discussed was seeing a lone magpie earlier!

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  5. scroblene...you are definitely worth any bit of trouble...but it was no such thing...it was a pleasure trying to find something for you...just sorry i couldn't locate the one you were looking for...i did start looking crosseyed after a while...lol...

    that story about your dad and his friend was interesting...do you thing the magpie...well...was sending a message?

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  6. Was it Sandy Toksvig(sp?) I think I might have heard it. The unmistakable rasping sound "I died" turned up on the recording? Creepy. I think it was a manor house or a castle.

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  7. Daisers,

    Magpie stories are old wives tales, as you probably know!

    I think Lils may be on the track though see below!

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  8. Lils,

    I think you're on to something there...

    The recording was of a growling voice and some wag said he thought it was ancient language being played back through interaction in the silicates embedded in the plaster.

    I'm still intrigued though...

    Does Sandy Toksvig have a growling voice still...

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  9. The programme I heard was freaky Scrobs. I heard the original, when they were talking about ghosts and various hauntings in this place. Then the following week she plays a recording of their chat (from the previous week) which seems to have this growly voice saying "I died" on it...it was really crrreeeepy.

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  10. Lils, I'm glad I'm not going mad anyway; thanks for confirming what I seem to recall!

    Wonder if we should email the lady and ask her to bare all...er maybe not...

    BTW, the WV here is 'Skingly', 'The shudden (qv) one feels in one's left ear when listening to walls in old pubs in Powys'.

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  11. "Whatever the nature of the phenomenon, it continues to take people by surprise. A recent BBC Radio 4 programme, Speak Spirit, Speak, recalled how, last February, listeners reported hearing a "ghostly voice" 23 minutes into a live broadcast of the travel show Excess Baggage from Leap Castle - reputedly the most haunted castle in Ireland. Presenter Sandi Toksvig and company were unaware of the interloper until they played recordings later. "Lie down," the unsettling, sinister-sounding whisperer seemed to say - at least according to some listeners, "You liar," suggested others, while to this writer it sounded more like "hide out" or perhaps "wipe out"."

    I definitely heard "i died".

    http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2592156

    wv. magic !!

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  12. It's Wales for heaven's sake! All to shit in Wales. I was at prep school there for five years, and can confirm that. They do things differently there.

    In the mean time, utterly off topic. but you might care...

    We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign due to gross financial incompetence in running the British economy.

    Submitted by Alex Wallace – Deadline to sign up by: 15 January 2009 – Signatures: 592

    http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Fianance

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  13. As the word verification is 'things it' I had to pop in to say that my house here is seriously haunted. The hauntings are consistent, over many generations. Last event was a couple of years ago.

    There is indistinct speech, sound effects like rattling and footsteps, sense of presence, and actual sightings of people, and movement through now stopped-up doorways and up flights of cut off stairs.

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  14. Scrobs- very interesting. I enjoyed the comments from the other bloggers on the subject.

    We had a bunch of professors from Dal Uni. come over to next door a Few years ago. They all looked like thy came out of the movie "Men In Black" and they spent a hour trying to locate a ghost at the Macdonald House at 95 King street in Dartmouth NS.

    It was on the discovery channel and cbc.

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  15. O/T - Hope you don't mind but I'm circulating this around Kent based blogs.

    http://mardenforum.blogspot.com/

    A new 'unofficial' Village Forum for Marden.

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  16. Elbs!

    Prep school Wales!

    I reckon we have some contemporaries...

    Apart from that, I can recall the slag heaps reaching the kerbs near Abertillery on a trip to the coast...

    Have sent email as requested - how many yet?

    Hope you're up on your hind legs for a bit longer each day - keep going Friend!

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  17. Hats!

    I'll be over the water as soon as possible!

    What language pray?

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  18. Tarfers - I reckon anyone with that amount of imagination is worth much, much more, than the average press-scrabbling-idiot that we have to endure on Local TV...

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  19. Some years ago a colleague from the office attended residential course being held in some ancient manor way out in the sticks.

    She relates that after dinner one evening three of the course participants were making their way up the grand staircase to the first floor when a rather large lump of coal went whizzing past their ears and came to rest on the landing above them.

    As there was nobody else around, they put it down to the local poltergeist having a bit of fun. The house does have a reputation for being haunted.

    Very odd....

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  20. Interesting Reevers!

    A chum told me that once, when he was trying to sell/alter a very old building, lots of goings-on occurred; the main one being a bloody great sword which was hung on the wall over the stairs, suddenly dropping off the wall and spearing the floor about six inches in front of him...

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  21. My in laws had a ghost. Charming he was, if a little chilly. He hung out in the nursery.

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  22. Nothing on Google ? Maybe it IS a load of crap then.

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  23. Err - just how big is HG's house ???

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  24. I thought it was just such a strange story, there had to be something worth following up Elecs!

    I really was fascinated by the 'technical' aspects of resonance, chemical matrices etc etc...

    Anyone got Sandi's fax number?

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  25. Fascinating. I have a recollection of hearing about this on the wireless 25+ years ago, that the vibrations of screams would live on in walls for years afterwards. Until 5 minutes ago, I still wondered if it was the case, rather embarrassingly!

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  26. Scroblene, your story reminded me of this
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Tape

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  27. Fusciers - Blimey! Deep or what...?

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