THE HOUSE THAT FOUGHT BACK — THE SOUTH SHIELDS POLTERGEIST

THE HOUSE THAT FOUGHT BACK — THE SOUTH SHIELDS POLTERGEIST

Sometimes the most unsettling ghost stories don’t begin in castles, abandoned hospitals or centuries-old manor houses.

Sometimes they begin behind the front door of a perfectly ordinary family home.

In late 2005, a young couple known publicly as Marc and Marianne were living with Marianne’s three-year-old son, Robert, in a modest two-bedroom house in South Shields, North East England.

It was a relatively modern home. Nothing about it suggested it should be haunted.

But according to the family, something had begun to happen inside.

And whatever it was, it didn’t remain subtle for long.

At first there were the sorts of things that could perhaps be dismissed — strange noises, doors apparently opening or closing by themselves and household objects seemingly moving from where they had been left.

Then Robert’s toys became involved.

The family reported finding toys moved or arranged in disturbing ways. Objects were allegedly thrown across rooms without anyone touching them.

One night, things became considerably more frightening.

As Marc and Marianne lay in bed, children’s toys reportedly began flying towards them. As they tried to protect themselves beneath the duvet, they claimed something unseen began pulling at it from the opposite side.

Then Marc complained that his back was burning.

Marks and scratches reportedly appeared across his skin.

Whatever was happening in the house no longer seemed merely mischievous.

It appeared hostile.

THE INVESTIGATORS ARRIVE

By the summer of 2006, paranormal researchers Darren W. Ritson and Michael J. Hallowell became involved.

On 17 July, the investigators visited the house and spent several hours talking to the family and examining the property.

Then, while they were gathered in Robert’s bedroom, something happened.

A small yellow plastic piece from the child’s toy workbench reportedly flew across the room, struck a cupboard and hit Marianne.

Another toy then apparently moved from a set of drawers and landed in a metal waste bin.

The investigators believed they had witnessed the activity themselves.

And according to their subsequent accounts, it was only the beginning.

THE TOYS

The child’s bedroom became one of the focal points of the case.

Toys were reportedly thrown around rooms and objects appeared in places where nobody remembered leaving them.

But some incidents had a far darker quality.

The family described toys being positioned in disturbing arrangements, sometimes involving potentially dangerous objects.

And then something apparently began to communicate.

Robert owned a children’s magnetic doodle board.

Messages started appearing on it.

Some appeared to tell the investigators to leave.

Rather than being random disturbances, the family began to feel that whatever was inside their home was aware of them.

And angry.

THEN THE PHONES STARTED

Perhaps the strangest element of the South Shields case was something that sounds almost uniquely suited to a 21st-century haunting.

The family began receiving unexplained telephone communications.

According to investigator Darren Ritson, Marianne once answered the house telephone and heard a computer-generated voice repeatedly saying hello.

The investigators then reportedly placed the available phones in front of them.

Another call came.

More messages followed.

At one stage, Ritson claimed the battery and SIM card had even been removed from the mobile phone apparently associated with the communications.

Yet the disturbing messages allegedly continued.

Some became threatening.

For Marianne, already frightened inside her own home, it was another level of psychological torment.

THE ACTIVITY ESCALATES

The reported phenomena became increasingly dangerous.

Coins seemingly appeared and fell around witnesses.

Objects travelled across rooms.

Marc was allegedly subjected to further physical attacks.

And perhaps most frighteningly of all, kitchen knives were reported being thrown through the house.

Ritson later described entering the property on one occasion when a carving knife allegedly flew across the kitchen, struck a television and fell to the floor.

This was no longer simply a story about footsteps in an empty room.

The family believed something inside their home was deliberately frightening them.

And the investigators believed they were witnessing at least some of it themselves.

WHAT WAS IN THE HOUSE?

No one can say with certainty.

The identities of Marc, Marianne and Robert were originally changed to protect the family’s privacy, and the case has inevitably attracted both believers and sceptics.

There are questions surrounding some aspects of the evidence, as there are with virtually every famous poltergeist case.

But the South Shields case remains fascinating because it wasn’t an ancient building with centuries of ghost stories attached to it.

It was an ordinary family home.

A relatively modern house.

A young couple.

A small child.

Toys on the bedroom floor.

Mobile phones on the table.

Normal everyday life.

And then, according to those who lived there and those who investigated it, something extraordinary entered that normality.

The intense period of reported activity eventually subsided.

But years later, investigators Darren Ritson and Michael Hallowell would continue documenting and discussing what they believed they had witnessed inside that unremarkable house in South Shields.

Perhaps that is what makes this case so unsettling.

We like haunted places to look haunted.

We expect the crumbling mansion.

The abandoned asylum.

The ancient inn.

The dark cellar.

But the South Shields Poltergeist asks a rather more uncomfortable question:

What if a haunting doesn’t care how old your house is?

What if one evening you’re simply sitting in the place where you’re supposed to feel safest…

…and something else decides that it lives there too?

A LOST ENTITY STORY