Observations placeholder
One might argue that this was a hallucination occasioned by stress during the air-raid
Identifier
025728
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Science and the Spook – George Owen and Victor Sims
A lady sent us an experience she had while a nurse in the A.R.P. service at Harrow during the Second World War. On the night in question there had been a heavy air-raid and about 12 p.m. she came off duty at the A.R.P. centre at St John's Road, and set off home on her bicycle. When she reached the junction with Hinde's Road, the police advised her to take the back way home, because the main street had been blown up just outside the cinema. She cycled quite slowly up Hinde's Road enjoying the beauty of the night which was as "bright as day". Then:
I suddenly realized there was an officer on the pavement limping with a stick. I saw the coat-a macintosh with yoke and straps at the shoulder and a belt which gathered it in at the waist. He wore a peaked cap.
I followed riding my bike slowly.
Suddenly he disappeared at the Church gate. I got off my bike, walked over to the gate and looked over. I saw nothing, and only then did I realize it was a ghost.
Second thoughts made me realize how light the coat was, too light to be used in the war, yet the pattern was of this war [i.e. of the Second World War not the First].
One might argue that this was a hallucination occasioned by stress during the air-raid. But war-time experience in Britain showed that people are quite capable of taking air-raids very calmly.