Phantom spirits, eerie voices and mystery visitors in Bundy

PEOPLE in the Bundaberg region have shared their tales of all things that go bump in the night.

BUNDABERG man Darryl Brown was living in a house in Bargara when his children saw a strange man in the house.

The children described him as a thick-set 60-year-old wearing a flannelette jacket and denim jeans.

But this was no flesh and blood visitor to the Holland St home - even though he was seen on more than one occasion.

Mr Brown is an ordinary bloke with two extraordinary tales of the supernatural, the first of which he said was quite a friendly haunting.

"I had a house at Bargara and a couple of housemates realised there was something going on when I was overseas," he said.

Strange noises, appliances switching themselves on, unexplainable slamming doors and the occasional sighting soon became par for the course while Mr Brown lived at the home, which he guessed was about 60 years old.
"My kids saw him and said he was about 60, big set and wearing jeans and a flanny," he said.

"He used to hang around the back of the house."

GHOST HUNTER: Darryl Brown has had two hunted house experiences in Bundy. Photo: Zach Hogg / NewsMail. Picture: Zach Hogg BUN020713BOO1

Mr Brown said after a while he came to realise the ghostly resident's moods seemed to match the emotions being expressed in the home.

"If we had an argument he'd start slamming doors and windows, but if we were getting on, nice things would happen - like music would start playing," he said.

"It was bordering on creepy."

But Mr Brown said as strange as the activity was, he never felt uncomfortable living in the weatherboard home.

"I never had a drama myself personally," he said.

"He was a cool dude, that fella."

Mr Brown said sightings of the ghostly man were limited to his children and a friend who was very spiritual, who "picked up" on the man's appearance.

"It was pretty much my kids and the spiritual lady," he said.

"Us adults couldn't see him."

But another ghostly experience at a different address was not so pleasant for Mr Brown, who was left terrified by a strange male voice.

Mr Brown had moved into a simple workers' cottage near the hospital and had returned from a hard day's work to a relaxing candle-lit bath set up for him by his partner.

But his peace was soon shattered by a wavering voice in the darkness.

"I was just sitting in the bath enjoying the peace and quiet and I heard this voice say 'get out of the bath now'," he said.

"It was just so deep and grumpy.

"I moved out the very next day."

The real man behind "Luke the spook"

IN OCTOBER of 1931, Victor Thomas Hunt Graham eagerly set upon Childers to gain employment with CSR as the sugar harvest got under way.

But the married 34-year-old father of one would not leave town alive.

On the night of the 17th, Mr Graham fell to his death from the Grand Hotel at Childers.

At the time of the incident, the manager of the Childers branch of the Commercial Bank, Claude Macrossan, had witnessed the struggle from Macrossan St as he played a round of tennis.

Earlier in the night, it is believed Mr Graham was at a billiard room in the the Federal Hotel when it was raided for illegal gambling.

Legend has it that Mr Graham threatened him for "snitching" on the forbidden operations.

Whether Mr Graham had alerted the authorities or not, he had been placed in grave danger.

After a fight, Mr Graham escaped to the Grand Hotel where he tried to get away by climbing down a landing on the outside of the building.

Some people say a woman with a gun was seen threatening Mr Graham, who fell to the ground and died of brain injuries.

After the incident, strange things started happening at the Grand Hotel that still persist to this day.

The Grand Hotel in Childers in 1915. Picture: John Oxley Library, State Librar

Grand Hotel staff and visitors are all too familiar with supernatural events at the friendly pub, which has become the target of a number of paranormal investigations.

Owners Dennis and Pam Corliss have seen shadows and heard footsteps in their 17 years of ownership, and heard plenty of stories with more than one room said to be haunted.

"Room two is apparently where a lady hanged herself," Mrs Corliss said.

"Room six is also where people have felt things happening."

A man's voice has also apparently been heard in room 12.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the pub's eerie streak lies in the architecture of the building.

Mrs Corliss said two of the rooms looked like they had once been linked by a secret passageway.

"There's like a secret doorway between room 12 and room 11," she said.

Guests have seen apparitions of a man wearing black, felt phantom arms being draped across their shoulders and heard heavy footsteps which are said to be commonplace in the pub.

Dogs are said to have attacked invisible things at the hotel, with more than a fair share of guests leaving the premesis after having less than comfortable encounters during a stay.

Lightning struck the hotel twice in October 1997 and October 2004 - exactly seven years apart.

Perhaps the spirit of Victor Graham, better known as Luke the spook, was drawing attention to the month in which he died so many years ago.

Online readers share ghostly encounters 

A NUMBER of ghostly accounts have been shared with the NewsMail.

Website reader Model52 of Kepnock, recalls seeing a man in a hat at the end of their bed
About 15 years ago we lived in a two-bedroom unit that had the bedrooms at the end of a short hallway with doors facing each other.

Mine was an ordinary door but the second bedroom had a sliding door that was hard to slide and quite noisy.

This night something woke me and I saw a man with a hat standing at the end of my bed, smoking.

I thought it was my Dad, but my Dad didn't smoke.

As I rose out of bed the man went out through the door.

The second bedroom door was closed I knew and as I reached down and picked my dressing gown off the floor and stood up again, the sliding door was wide open.

No noise was heard at all.

I raced into the second bedroom just in time to see the man disappear through the wall.

I didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night.

A woman recalls pub haunting

My Mother worked at the old Bundy Tavern 17 years ago had always had a ghostly story to tell about the place.

As she worked away doing her catering duties for a wedding in the upstairs area, she was working alone and said that she felt a very strong presence beside her and heard doors opening and closing, only to find no other person up there.

As she went back downstairs she asked other staff if anyone went up there. They all said no.

Mum told the other staff of what she had experienced and a couple of the staff said according to rumours of the early 1900s apparently two female staff members had died in their rooms in the upstairs area of the hotel.

To this day do the ghosts still walk the floors of the Old Bundy Tavern?

Nicole Rae recalls an eerie noise that caused her family to move house

We bought a house about five or six years ago and took off the house to build units.

The story goes that in the house out the back a man hung himself.

Where the kitchen lay in the design of one of the units (which we lived in), was in the same spot the man hung himself.

Every night at about the same time in that spot in the kitchen we would hear all these "clicking" sounds, like a light switch.

At first we thought it was a joke but it was the same time every night and we tried leaving lights on, lights off... everything!

When we sold and moved into the unit next door we could not hear it.

We did not believe in ghosts or the like before this incident however that changed our belief.

Willow 'Malamute' Simons recalls a Bundaberg urban legend.

Isn't there a tree out at Smiths Crossing where you supposedly gets dents in your roof if you park under it at night?

Isn't it where someone supposedly hung themselves?

There was an abandoned "haunted house" at Elliott heads but it has been demolished.

Shelley McDonald saw a spirit in broad daylight.

I saw a spirit during broad daylight in a house at Grevillea St, Windermere (now Innes Park North).

When I told my boyfriend and his friend, they laughed at my story.

Then about six weeks later, my boyfriend saw the ghost of a man in the same house.

He certainly believed me after that.

I didn't believe. But… after that experience I now do.

Jodie Webb says her children have seen a mysterious man dressed in black

My son and daughter have told me that when they slept in my bedroom they saw a man dressed in black standing in my bedroom doorway just looking at us.

They told me this at separate times.

My son came running outside and screaming one night from his bedroom, he was shaking and would not go back inside.

We also hear footsteps (we wait for the kids to come running out, but no one is there).

I can't explain why, but at night watching TV I am always drawn to where the front door is.

I don't see anything, but I feel something is making me look that way… strange.

Adam Hewerdine says that while working at the former Bert Hinkler Motor Inn, strange things happened

I was night manager at the Bert Hinkler Motor Inn.

I was sitting upstairs in the lounge room and my door that led downstairs opened on its own.

And many times I'd come downstairs to do late night check-ins and it sounded like conversations were going on in the dining room.

Amanda Harden has heard her name called and had eerie visions in her bathroom

Pretty sure there are spirits in my house.

I've heard my name called a number of times and gone in to check with mum only to find her asleep.

I've seen a male person walk pass my bedroom door and up the hallway.

One day when I was in my bathroom I had a vision instantly come over me of a male in the bathroom while another walked in behind and covered his head with a woollen sack.

It was the spirit of a little girl that haunted Patrica Anne Moras' Burnett Heads home.

We built a new house at Burnett heads (sold it in November 2012, we lived there 18 years).

We had a little girl ghost, about nine or so.

She was always around my daughter, she was seen, heard, etc.

This story was shared on aussieghosts.com by a user called Jemm

GOOBURRUM, on the outskirts of the city, was home to a spectre the locals called the White Lady.

Her haunt was a large barn and stables erected in 1911 and since demolished.

Farm workers who slept in the loft often woke to see the transparent figure of a woman dressed in white sitting on the end of their bunks.

The brave tried to touch her but found their hands passed straight through her.

No one knows what happened to the White Lady, after the barn was demolished, but there are a couple of theories about who she might once have been.

Some believe it was Johanna Rackemann, wife of a one-time owner of Gooburrum Station.

Some old-timers suggested it was the original owner, Emile Zahn, but if they had reason to believe Mr Zahn would choose to reappear in women's clothing after his death they kept it to themselves.

The Gooburrum area is also home to mysterious lights.

The Gooburrum light has been described as looking like a torch without a beam, a bicycle lamp or a very bright match.

All agree that the light only appears on moonless nights.

Some say it has followed them, and one fanciful soul claimed that he watched it run round and round a telegraph pole like a snake until it reached the top and then disappeared.

Places in Bundaberg rumoured to be haunted:

• The staircase at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery is apparently haunted by a lady in green.
• In 2010, the Queensland Paranormal Society added the Bundaberg Historical Museum to its list of the 10 most haunted places in Queensland. Apparent sightings of a little girl in early 1900s attire and strange noises have been reported.
• A cattle farm at Avondale is said to be the haunt of a ghostly jackaroo.
• Bundaberg Post Office
• Avondale Homestead Tavern
• Bundaberg Brewed Drinks
• Bundaberg Rum Distillery

John West claims this photo mysteriously appeared on his camera. Photo Contributed. Picture: Contributed

Friends' pact survives death

JOHN West says a pact he made with a friend to keep in touch through life and death was realised when a photo appeared on his camera as it sat on his bed in its case.

Mr West said the starry screen on the lower right-hand side of the photo appeared out of nowhere on the image, which was taken four days after his friend, Noel, had died.

"We made a pact that whoever died first, the one left would be contacted if the afterlife is real," Mr West said.

"The photo appeared on my camera, in its case, while I was asleep.

I was stunned to say the least."

Mr West said before the photo appeared, his friend had made contact with ihm by moving a cassette tape that had special meaning in their friendship to another part of the room.

Ghost follows home 

IN the mid-90s, a man who wishes only to be known as Mark purchased a large house for removal from 75 Quay St and moved it to Maroondan.

Mark said he wasn't sure how old the home was, but that it had existed since at least 1945.

The house was said to have been originally built by the National Bank for their manager Mr Murphy and his wife, although Mark said he had never been able to confirm the story.

The house had its roof removed to ceiling height and the house was cut in half for transport before being put back together on Mark's new patch of land.

It was only then that something strange began to happen.

"One night everybody was in bed asleep, I awoke and my bedroom was glowing with light," Mark said.

"The polished brass handles and trimmings on bedroom furniture was shinning brightly and the light was inside the room - not from any outside source.

"The room glowing without any light source from house."

Mark said the house was 160m from the street with no streetlights and thick rubber-back curtains.

"I told my wife next morning what I had seen, she told me I must have been dreaming," he said.

"After seeing same thing a few times I awoke my wife while it was happening one night - she too was seeing what I was seeing.

"My wife also told me that the mirror in the bedroom needed wiping over as it was sometimes covered in a dry haze same mornings following the room glowing."

The experience encouraged Mark to find out more about the home's history.

"Now both wife and I had seen something, and knowing where the older long-term owner lived, I went and spoke to him about what we had seen," he said.

"He told me he only rented house out, but gave me name and address of a tenant that had told him of things happen in house.

"I went and spoke to this person and he told me that when he got out of bed in the morning, lights in the house would be on, but having young children at the time he just thought kids had got up in the night and had gone back to bed without turning lights back off."

Mark said the former tenant only realised something strange was happening when his children had grown up and left home.

"He said they only realised something strange after the kids had grown up and were no longer living there but lights where still on in the mornings when he got out of bed," Mark said.

"I have lived here for around 18 years now and in that whole time while sitting in the lounge room I sometimes see, in my side vision, something flash past from one room passing the end of the hallway into the sleep-out.

Mark said he and his wife would tell their three (now grown-up) children the home was haunted, but by a friendly ghost.

"My dogs and cat then and now still sometimes stare at the walls or ceiling as if they are looking at something," Mark said, adding that he the last time he saw something flash past in his home was just last week.

Mark said it was fascinating that even though the house had been cut up and moved, the spirit within it had remained.

SPOOKY TALES: Moore Park Beach resident claims to have seen some strange things around his home. Photo: Max Fleet / NewsMail. Picture: Max Fleet

Moore Park man saw two ghosts at his house 

MOORE Park Beach man Bill Wenham has had his fair share of brushes with the supernatural.

Two ghostly encounters happened at his home about six years ago, the first involving a lady walking through his backyard - before vanishing.

"I was here alone this day, I was over the sink preparing veggies for tea," he said.

"The cat all of a sudden really frizzed up.

"I looked out the window and there was a woman walking out there."

Mr Wenham said when he went to see what the woman wanted, she was gone.

"I opened the door and couldn't see a soul in sight," he said.

Mr Wenham said the lady looked like anyone down the street, in her mid-30s with blonde hair and casually dressed in bone coloured slacks, a three-quarter sleeve top and a baseball cap.

But he said there was no way she could have escaped his sight in the time it took him to open the door.

"There was only one way in and one way out," he said.

Mr Wenham said although he had never really doubted other people's stories, it was the first time he had come face-to-face with such an incident.

"I'd never experienced anything like this before," he said.

At the time, Mr Wenham's son was serving as a soldier in the army - something which he believes may have been somehow connected to his second haunting encounter.

"There was a knock on the front door," he said.

Mr Wenham said the same cat who had been spooked by the previous encounter, had this time let out an almighty growl which it had never done before or since.

He said the knock was distinct because he could tell it was on the door itself and not the security screen over the top of it.
"I was a bit reluctant to open the door," he said.

Mr Wenham looked through the door's security peep hole only to see something - or someone - who was very out of place.

"There was this bloke in an army uniform but without the army hat, he had a baseball cap," he said.

Mr Wenham said the man was looking into his bedroom window from outside and holding out his hand.

"My bedroom window faces the front varandah," he said.

"He was kneeling on this bench seat and was holding his hand out."

Mr Wenham said he took his time watching the mystery visitor before deciding to open the door.

"After another bit of hesitation, I opened the door and there wasn't a soul in sight," he said.

Mr Wenham said his home wasn't very old, and he didn't believe the people he saw were connected to it.

"I wouldn't say it's anything to do with the house - there's no past in this house," he said.

"I don't know what the one with the lady was, the only thing with the soldier was the son was given short notice of being sent to East Timor not long after.

"It doesn't worry me, it doesn't trouble me and it doesn't scare me - but I've never forgotten it."

Mr Wenham also recalled an eerie experience from when he lived and worked in Dalby where a six-foot deep and approximately 30cm diameter round hole appeared in a secluded piece of ground.

Mr Wenham said at the time locals were left scratching their heads as to how the perfectly clean and neat hole had appeared, with no official group claiming responsibility.

Have you had a spooky encounter? Tell us about it in the comments below.
 

Originally published as Phantom spirits, eerie voices and mystery visitors in Bundy