Vendors spooked by ghosts haunting the Adelaide Central Markets

There’s something spooky happening at the Adelaide Central Market — and now, we’ve got the video proof. So what has some of our vendors so scared? See for yourself.

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Fruit and veg stallholders and security guards — haunted by witching hour noises and tales of a dark, moving fog — are adding to a growing list of ghost stories at the 150-year-old Adelaide Central Market.

Mysterious sounds around 2am, including children shouting and whistling through stall aisles, are among the unexplained happenings — some as recent as last month, reported in recent days to the Sunday Mail.

The reports, along with security footage never seen before in public, come as the market celebrates history month with a series of time-travelling tours depicting the colourful past of the iconic market since its establishment in 1869.

The new footage captured last month shows an automated toilet door sliding open and closing without valid explanation — “you have to manually push a button to open that door”, says Adelaide Central Market security and maintenance manager Johnny Carbone.

It could be an electrical fault in the door, says Mr Carbone, from Salisbury.

Having patrolled the historic site for more than a decade, its not the first time he’s encountered the inexplicably bizarre.

During a 3.30am patrol of the Adelaide Central Market Plaza several years ago, he felt something brush past him.

A review of the security cameras found a human-shaped light orb repeatedly passing the entrance of the arcade.

The arcade entrance is not near road traffic, ruling out vehicle headlights, Mr Carbone says.

He says lights in the Market tower have also been found turned on a number of times after guards have repeatedly turned them off and various stall holders have heard whistling through the stall aisles as they go about preparing for their market day from as early as 1.30am.

In June last year, Mr Carbone and his team of guards reviewed security footage of a four-inch thick glass panel near the level one Gouger St lift spontaneously shattering as a grey shadow passes by (see the new footage online).

Stories of dark shadows have become folklore at the market.

Arthur Kotsanis, from Aubergines, says as a young child helping his father at the stall he would avoid an area in between stalls adjacent the central escalators.

Its here he witnessed a dark fog circling a stationery forklift as a ten-year-old child through video footage no longer available.

Now aged 26, the image still remains with him. “It did freak me out — there was no way I’d go near that area — especially at 3am in the morning.”

Adelaide Central Market security guard Peter Lagos, from Flinders Park has repeatedly heard children at play, laughing and shouting, on the level two carpark near Moonta Street during his early morning patrols.

“Every single night that I was there, I heard it, between 1.30am and 2.30am” he says.

The Lady Victoria Buxton Girls’ Club was established in nearby Bowen St from 1898 to 1903 and on Christmas Eve 1909, Moonta St was the site of a “most cowardly, foul and brutal” murder, as reported by the Adelaide Advertiser at the time.

The final History Month tours through the market will run this week. For more information visit: www.historyfestival.sa.gov.au.