Kent Boasts the Most Ghosts, Yorkshire the Most UFOs

One day I’d like to Haunt Jaunt across the pond to the UK. Yesterday I came across an article that would help me focus my jaunts when I do.

Nigel Bunyan of the Telegraph wrote an article “More ghosts appear in Kent than elsewhere in UK, finds research.” It was about Lionel Fanthorpe, a researcher who reminds me of a blogger I know a lot of us are familiar with: Autumnforest of Ghost Hunting Theories. (She’s much younger than Fanthorpe, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if one day her Haunting Formula theory –or one of her other theories– is published much like Fanthorpe’s theories recently were.)

Fanthorpe, 74, has spent 25 years studying “supernatural phenomena.” He’s investigated everything from werewolf sightings (21 of them in fact) and roadside phantoms (17 of those) to crop circles and UFO phenomena.

The findings were published in the UK’s Fringe Weird Report (and coincided with the release of Fringe Season 1 on DVD).

However, I found an interesting post by Isaac Koi on AboveTopSecret.com about Fanthorpe’s “study.” He looked into the numbers more, because he felt that only 250 spooky sightings and reports over the last 25 years in the UK sounded too low. (I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn’t as motivated to look into it more. Turns out Koi did it for me!)

Koi searched figures compiled by the British Ministry of Defence with regard to UFO sightings and found that, yep, as he suspected, the number was way too low. In some cases there are hundreds of reports made each year. So the numbers in Fanthorpe’s report are just the incidents reported to him.

I still don’t know if it’s just a media gimmick to help sell more DVDs, but I did find it interesting. I guess this Fanthorpe fellow is pretty well known in the UK’s paranormal circles. (Maybe he’s even a name over here. This was my first time hearing of him, though.)

But here’s some things I found interesting in general from his findings besides Kent’s where you’re most likely to encounter a ghost and Yorkshire’s the most likely place to see a UFO :

• Dorset had the highest number of railway ghosts
• London’s Heathrow turned up the sole haunted airport story
• Staffordshire had the most renowned werewolf sighting

Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.