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Science and the Spook – George Owen and Victor Sims

With thanks to Mr W. R. M. Chambers, C.B.E., J.P., whom I regard as a completely factual witness, for kindly giving me permission to quote the following experience. About 12 years ago Mr Chambers was at Strawberry House (Stapleford, near Cambridge), which had been built about a century ago by his wife's grandfather, and which owed its name to the fame of its produce. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and Mrs Chambers's uncle Arthur Gumbley, then very elderly, was away in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and known to be dying. Mr Chambers was in the top of an apple-tree picking apples.

Suddenly he heard Uncle Arthur's voice calling "Rose, Rose”.

 The tone of voice was entirely natural but the voice was unmistakably Uncle Arthur's. Mr Chambers describes his reaction as being one of extreme puzzlement. He came down from the tree and went over to the house which was about sixty yards distant. In the house were his wife and her mother Mrs Rose Stallen who had been doing household chores.

Mrs Stallen was Arthur's sister of whom Mr Chambers says, "Rose and her brother Arthur were very close companions; in fact, he was very dear to all of us."

As he went in, Mr Chambers called out, "What’s happened? Is Arthur here? Have they sent him home?"

But Rose and her daughter, Mrs Chambers, were in an equal state of surprise and puzzlement, for they too had just heard “Rose, Rose” called in Arthur's voice.

At about 4.30 p.m. the hospital telephoned to say that Arthur had passed away at 4 p.m. In this case it seems we have choice of two explanations. There was a single telepathic transmission received independently by Rose, and by Mr and Mrs Chambers. Or we can argue that one of them received it and then "relayed" it to the others. Put in this way, I must admit, the hypothesis of a single transmission seems distinctly more likely and the more plausible.