Sceptic Mark Tilbrook confronted and abused by family of "psychic" Sally...

Why hasn't this unpleasant man been arrested for hate crimes? Anti gay, anti muslim. Where's the police when you need them?

March 14th 2013

Blimey. It's been two years since my last post and it's been pretty quiet here for the most part. So, what's new? Well,we rescued six ex-battery hens and they have bloomed into six beautiful birds who lay regularly - about four a day so far - and they are right little characters who follow us everywhere and even come into the kitchen looking for treats and trying to eat the cats' food.

Anyway, back to business.

As I said, it's been pretty quiet for the past couple of years, until the weekend when "things" started happening again.

First off, Julie's alarm clock went off at three different times without warning. I set it for 6.30 am and by the evening it had been reset to 9.30 pm.

Then items started to fly off the window sill and across the room in front of me. The windows were closed and they just literally flew off. I was quite startled actually.

Next, there was a knocking on the kitchen window and front door. When checked, there was nobody there. Now, I think I've mentioned previously that we live in the middle of nowhere with only two neighbours and both parties were out at the time. I checked around the house and even went up and down the road in case someone was playing "knock and run", but there was no-one around.

On the mantelpiece in the living room we have a clock. It hasn't been wound for a while and had stopped. Suddenly the pendulum started moving and the clock began ticking happily. I was alone in the room at the time, at least ten feet away from it. It's been working ever since.

Odd that.

13. Christmas.

Christmas Eve we were in bed after putting all the kid's gifts under the tree. Well, the tree in the hall outside our bedroom (which used to be the dining room, but we moved down to make it easier for me since the MS.) and about 2.15 - 2.30am, we were woken by a noise upstairs and footsteps on the landing. Thinking it was one of the kids, I told them to go back to bed, but the footsteps continued down the stairs. There was the sound of something being put down on the floor, then the footsteps went back up the stairs again. There was the sound of a door scraping on carpet and closing, then silence.
The following day I asked the kids if any of them had been downstairs in the night. No one owned up and we put it down to Regan (15) sleepwalking - which he has done in the past.
The odd thing was that the only room in the house which is carpeted is the smallest bedroom which we use as an office - everywhere else has laminate flooring. Not that odd, you may think, but the office door isn't on it's hinges at the moment - in fact it hasn't been on it's hinges for the past year, so how did the door scrape over the carpet and shut?
On Christmas Day, after all the presents had been given out, we found one tucked under the tree without a name on it. It was wrapped in the same paper we used so we assumed that it was one that had been left by one of the children. None of them knew anything about it. And the tape used to seal it was wider than the stuff we used.
Anyway, a couple of days later, we had to go into the attic to get something and when we opened the door in the ceiling, lying on the loft insulation, was a roll of tape the same width as that used to seal up the mystery present.

The next thing that happened was that we noticed that one of the ornaments in a display cabinet on the landing - in the corner where I saw the little boy and where the dog used to stand barking - kept moving no matter how many times we set it straight. So we made sure it was facing forwards and then locked the door. We put the key in the bottom drawer of Julie's bedside cabinet and forgot about it.
A couple of days later, Julie shouted me upstairs. The ornament - a small dragon in an egg with a sapphire birth stone - had turned about 90 degrees. The door was still locked, and the key was still in the bottom drawer where we had put it.
We've not unlocked the door since and the dragon has now moved 180 degrees around.

And finally, today, Julie went to the bathroom and found Ashley's (19) badge from when he was in the Air Cadets in the middle of the floor. She had literally gone in there straight after me yet when I was in there, yet I didn't see the badge. In fact I would swear on my oath that it wasn't in there when I was. The last time anyone had seen the badge was downstairs by the 'phone, which was where it had been kept since Ashley was awarded it.

It's been a great Christmas. I wonder what we have to look forward to in the New Year?

Happy New Year everyone.

12. Bedtime

So it's that time of year again.

Last night my wife heard a boy's voice calling out to her. As our 14 year old was in bed at the time and I was upstairs, she asked me to check up on him in case he wanted her. So I go into his room and ask him if he's okay. No answer. So I go over to check on him and he's fast asleep. I shook him gently awake and asked if he was okay. "Yes" he said with a yawn. I asked him if he called his mum. "No" he said, and went back to sleep. I went downstairs and she tells me that she's heard it again while I was in our boy's room.

Later, in bed, I was dozing gently but not yet asleep when I heard a boy's voice singing. Thinking it was our eldest watching telly, I got up to check. He was fast asleep too.
We have only two neighbours and live in the middle of the country and there were no other sounds except for the owl that lives in the tree in the front garden and I couldn't hear the singing outside.
It went on for about 8-10 minutes then faded away - as though someone had turned down the volume.

11. Coming home.

Last week (Monday 10th August) we were sorting out a few things in the house and paying several visits to the council dump to get rid of the rubbish. Anyway, I had hitched the trailer to the car and was on my way back home with my three kids in the car. We pulled up and I backed the car into the driveway to find my wife waiting for us. This is where it gets weird.

She was kinda spooked and told me a story.

She was sitting on a stool in our bedroom sorting through some stuff, when she heard a tapping on the front door - as a child would knock: the same knock as our 6 year old daughter makes.
Her first thought was "why is she knocking when the door was unlocked?" She then got up to answer it and found nobody there; but us backing into the drive with the car.

Was it the little boy telling her that we were back? We don't know.
It's just another odd thing that happens in our house.

10. Seeing the light.

Last Friday (June 26th), my wife was in the kitchen making a cup of tea. She was facing the wall with the cooker behind and to the right. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed something and turning slightly, she saw what she described as a bright white light level with the grill (which would be about 3ft from the ground) about the size and shape of a small child.

She turned to get a closer look and the light faded away.

Could this be a manifestation of the little boy?

My own theory is that it is the boy and not his mother who is our regular visitor. As I mentioned before, there is often the smell of fresias in the house - the old lady's favourite flower. Could it be that the boy is 'bringing' them in for his mother as a gift?

9. Flying glasses.

Last week I was in the kitchen with my wife making the dinner. We both had a glass of cola and she put her glass down on top of the fridge.
Now in order to picture the scene properly, I need to give you the layout of our kitchen. Its about 12 feet long and six wide - a typical galley kitchen. The fridge is near the door leading to the hall at one end which is in turn directly opposite the back door at the other end.
So, she put her glass down on top of the fridge and we went into the living room.
Minutes later we hear a smash and we go to investigate. Her glass is lying shattered on the floor by the back door twelve feet from where she put it.
Our first thought was that it was the work of one of our two cats, but it turns out that they were asleep upstairs on our eldest's bed. The kids were in the living room with the dog and the kitchen was empty. So what had caused the glass to jump from the centre of the counter top and to smash on the floor at the other end of the room?
It appears to be that time of year again.