The First (And Most Credible) Investigation of a Haunting

The spooky story of the Cheltenham Ghost

(Public domain)

People have long had a fascination with ghosts. Ghosts, spirits, and apparitions appear in humanity’s oldest literature, including the Bible. Despite the widespread evidence, many people are skeptical of hauntings. Modern ghost hunting has devolved into a series of ridiculous claims, clickbait, and reality TV. But there was a time when ghostly hauntings were taken seriously and investigated with a sober mind, without the presence of TV cameras or ulterior motives. Many hauntings have been debunked over the years, but one continues to stand out over a century later.

A house on Pittville Circus Road in Cheltenham in England was reported to be haunted in the 1880s by the family living within. The ghost was supposedly a veiled woman that would roam the hallways at night. The haunting caught the attention of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) which is the oldest official paranormal research society in the world. The haunting was so compelling that the founder of the SPR, Frederic Myers, decided to investigate the claims himself.

Myers immediately dug into the history of the house and discovered that the previous owners were a chaotic and toxic couple. The pair, Henry and Imogen Swinhoe, were reportedly alcoholics with a…