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The Link – Matthew Manning

Another interesting occurrence befell my father on more than one occasion. Being asleep at night, he would be awakened suddenly for no -apparent -reason. He was not in a drowsy state, but perfectly alert and aware of everything going on around him. He had the feeling that a cat was moving on top of the bedclothes, up and down his legs trying to find a comfortable position in which to settle down. After it had apparently done so, he would feel a weight on his feet, although there was no cat. Having experienced this on more occasions than he cared for, he obtained some sleeping pills from the doctor, and he no longer woke up during the night.

The reaction of the family was initially one of fright, but gradually we began to joke about it, and we could see an amusing side to it all, which I think was of great help to us all. People are always frightened of happenings they cannot understand, and this was our situation.

On the other hand, people who cannot comprehend something will often reject it. But what was there to reject in our case? Such undeniable evidence of moving objects could not be rejected and dismissed as if they had been imagined. We tried to understand it but, I admit, we were not very successful. We felt isolated because we knew no one else who had any similar experience and who might have been able to help us. We were seized with a sense of always having to look over our shoulders to see if we were going to get hit, although this never happened. My mother was reluctant to stay in the house on her own at this time, and would wander aimlessly around the nearest town.

Soon after the last event with the rubber, we left for an Easter holiday, which happened to serve as a very useful break, as it took our minds off the subject. On our return three weeks later all was quiet again, as it had been before 18th February.

The following extract is taken from a letter subsequently written by Dr. Owen:

". . . thank you for your careful description of the events surrounding Matthew. In the haunting … at your previous home . . . my opinion was that the happenings were genuine, and not caused by trickery, that the house was not haunted, and that the events were P.K. (psycho-kinesis) caused by a member of the household. It was not possible at that time to ascertain which member of the family was the source of the force. Matthew was the most likely on the grounds of age, although there was no other factor to indicate this especially. His obvious intelligence, pleasant nature, and underlying seriousness were, of course, quite typical of other poltergeist people, but these characteristics were shared by the rest of your family. At one time I wondered if Mrs. Manning was the unconscious involuntary source of the force, as occasionally it is manifested by older persons, but this was only because she was the one who seemed outwardly to be the most tense. However, in these things it is obviously hard to separate cause and effect.  I think you can assume that the present occurrences are not due to your house being "haunted" at all. The force, whatever it may be, resides principally in Matthew."