1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Hugh Burnett meets some people who have dedicated their lives to trying to track down ghosts, and interviews some people who claim to have seen them.
At a wiltshire pub, he finds parapsychologist Benson Herbert and his two assistants, who are investigating the building for poltergeists, using a negative-ion pistol, an infrared detector and an electrostatic polarity indicator.
In Sussex, Hugh speaks to Andrew Green, who admits to being on the wrong track, most of the time. Mr Green suspects that ghost sightings are telepathic contact with magnetic rays, caused by emotional events of the past. Mr Green has been investigating ghost sightings for 30 years, and though he believes in ghosts, he can't see any connection between ghosts and life after death.
In Hampstead, retired Naval Commander John Cutton - a member of the Society of Psychical Research - has spent years trying to photograph ghosts using bespoke equipment that triggers cameras if the air moves or the temperature drops. Thus far, he has had no success.
In Bath, Hugh speaks to Mrs Royal and her husband Ken. Mrs Royal is a ghost enthusiast who runs tours of Bath's most haunted places, while Ken has no particular interest in the subject - but has something of a knack for seeing ghosts.
In Yorkshire, Reverend Griffiths - the rector of Bolton Abbey - has seen the spirit of an Augustine priest that is said to haunt the abbey. Reverend Griffiths sees a difference between ghosts and spirits, he believes that spirits are heavenly bodies who still have work to do on Earth. Hugh quizzes him on some of the inconsistencies in this line of thinking - if these are heavenly bodies, why do they appear wearing clothes?
Finally, Hugh visits Peter Underwood - the president of the Ghost Club in England - at the site of Borley rectory, which from 1863 to 1935 was considered to be the most haunted place in the UK. Mr Underwood recounts some of the testimony of eyewitnesses, including several of the former rectors. Since the rectory burned down, sightings of ghosts have been reported in the nearby church.
Mr Croom-Hollingsworth is a construction worker, who saw the famous nun in the grounds of Borley Church, and was inspired to investigate the church. He and a small team have since made recordings in the church. Hugh and Peter Underwood explore the church, and listen to the recordings.
The Ghost Hunters was originally broadcast on BBC One, Thursday 4 December, 1975.
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PLEASE, keep the classic (pre-1980s) paranormal documentaries coming. Fantastic!
British eccentricity at its finest. I was fascinated by ghosts as a child in that era. The world was still full of mystery and wonder.
There were some really spooky collections of ghost stories (I think) printed by Pan or Penguin books.
The only things I would bother with in my middle school library circa 1979.
That comb over is terrifying. If I was a poltergeist, I would see lifting it as a challenge.
😂
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 20.11.24 0847AM looks like robert robinson - arch irate chap who is probably responsible for the poltergeist activity his lookalike is investigating. a case of the man who haunted himself...
"Part my comb over to the right for yes, to the left for no."
@@mmmdananananone Comments on ‘1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive’ 0724am 7.12.24 is your comb a euphemism for more earthly matters? i dont believe in this kindda guff, either. taking advantage of gullible plebs who should be buying me drinks in stead of wasting it on your bastions of the afterlife. they'll find out when they get there.. p.s it i interesting, though why folk should think there is a beyond...
My roommate thinks my house is haunted, but I haven’t seen anything unusual in the 275 years that I’ve been here…
That's brilliant 😅😂😅😂x
That was good.
😂😂😂😂
@@dogstar5927 😜
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Good to see this again nearly fifty years on, those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies were lucky to live in a more mysterious world thanks to programmes like this.
I'm not generally a big believer in anything but I did have one experience that I absolutely can't explain away. And there are at least 3 other people who experienced it with me. It was absolutely the creepiest thing I've ever experienced and it has a really strange sequel and addendum.
@@FrithonaHrududu02127
You don't believe in anything?
@davidmccann9811 all I meant was that I'm not a person that necessarily believes in the afterlife. I haven't been waiting my whole life to see a ghost
@davidmccann9811 why do you ask? I do believe in God. Belief in God makes mathematical sense
Pretty sure there's an abundance of this bogus ghost hunting media on tap in this day and age if you really want it.
These are gold, well done BBC Archive.
less than a minute in and I was amused to see the cameraman change his position to get a clearer look....of Vicky! lol. Don't blame him lol.
Marvellous green 70's eyeshadow!
Not many bras in those days - feminism and all that!
@@lucyw.7597 I think everyone had a friend whose mum looked EXACTLY liked her!
I think you should make a special 50 anniversary of the documentary and revisit all these places with modern day ghost hunters and the occupants without telling them about the original documentary and see if they have the same answers to the same questions 50 years on.
Great idea 💡
Yeah, I'm sure the spirits of the 1970s ghost hunters would be happy to show up to prove themselves right!
i think you miss read comment.
@@DarrenNormalParanormal No, I just added my own interpretation. It would be interesting for modern ghost hunters to summon the spirits of their predecessors in the same locations
Everything was spooky on BBC in those days. Denholm Elliot in The Signalman, The Exorcism with Clive Swift, MR James at Christmas, Robin Redbreast, Leap Into the Dark, Menace, Louis Jordan as Dracula, Westcountry Tales, A Christmas Carol with Michael Hordern, Supernatural with Billie Whitelaw as Countess werewolf's wife, Brimstone and Treacle.
Not forgetting 'The Stone Tape'!
@@Potionette81not sure if you've seen it but Nigel kneale wrote a series called beasts which on TH-cam. Every episode deals with a different "beast" but during Barry's party is by far my favourite.
@@incredibleflameboy Watched that one only a week ago and Elizabeth Sellars was brilliant in it.
now bbc itself is creepy..as it attempts to brainwash the sheep
we still have MR James at xmas... i loved that Dracula...the only one that's ever bettered it was the most recent BBC one.
"I'm just going to tap on this wall for no reason at all to fill some time whilst you're talking"
If ghosts can flicker lights and move stuff around, they can vacuum and use a mop. My place is filthy.
I remember watching this as a child, I have thought about it on and off for years, wishing I could see it again. Thank you for putting it on your channel.
Chap’s shirt at 39mins is truly Supernatural.
Of all the paranormal video's on youtube, this is the only one - the only one - that is genuine.
i was very tiny when this was shown, it scared the life out of me !
Place is falling to bits and they blame poltergeists. Oh god, the negative ion pistol. Imagine people saying that today
The negative ion pistol has been flogged to the Vinyl LP collecting community for years.
Sort of makes 'logical' sense, but in essence is snake oil.
This is excellent. Thank you BBC Archive. Please can you upload Hugh Burnett's other paranormal BBC docs including "Out of this World" from 1977
It’s already on TH-cam my friend.
My 2nd great grandparents lived in Leeds in the 1890s/1900's, and they used to wander around the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey and frighten each other.
About 14 minutes in… These were the days when unaccompanied children could just wander over to some guy's house they've never met; knock on the door and be shown "murder weapons" and be told that their clubhouse is haunted!
Ah those simple times are long gone and nowadays we're too busy protecting our kids😂
It’s the BBC… that’s probably quite normal in their circles
@@HarryLoveTV🤭 I shouldn't laugh but it's very true -probably you're right🫣
I'm just at that part and couldn't quite believe it!
I'm with you there. I remember 1974 wandering into my nans house when she was sitting round a table with a few other family members openly playing the ouija board, never mind a 7 year old has just walked in 🤣
@@BeesWaxMinderjokes aside, it’s so lovely to see actually. I was an 80s baby but I recall people and neighbours just talking more to each other then. I remember knocking on the door of a retired couple a few doors down in the terraced street I lived in because they had the prettiest garden I’d ever seen and was curious as to what their house was like inside. So I took myself down there and asked like a little madam haha to be shown around- and they did! I was only about 6! 😅
I knew Andrew Green in his later years, occasionally meeting and corresponding during the research for my book The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill and other Road Ghosts.
I remember seeing this as a child and I have never forgotten it.
12:30 aww that's lovely to see.. his genuine smile at the inquisitiveness of those young minds! Not a screen in sight! 👌🏼
Everything in this film is wonderful: It's just so richly evocative, funny and socially interesting. I had the BBC's Ghost Train documentary on video as a kid in the 80s and watched it again and again. That also featured a small, balding and very self-assured little man going around contacting ghosts, except he didn't have a toy gun and a comely assistant.
*THANK YOU* BBC Archives - we’ve been asking for full episodes alongside the little snippets and you’ve delivered! 🙂
I was born August 1975, god I really wish we could turn the clocks back to those times the world was such a better place back then .
In the same age as you. It was absolutely terrible. So glad we're not in that era. Dirty, violent crime ridden (much, much more so than today), grey and depressing - the only thing that protected us from it was childhood naivety. I wouldn't mind being young again, but no way would I want to go back to then.
No it wasn't
@@rebeccapearson2155 I remember that most big towns and cities back them were DIRTY and full of rubbish.
London buses were a complete health hazard, and all of the buildings were grey from vehicle soot.
However, Summers seemed better!
It's the living you need to be scared of - not the dead.
Great old documentary about ghosts 👍 Thanks for uploading.
Ohh oh , when I saw those young boys appear in that house and I realised that this is a BBC production, I got the creeps.
lol 😂
I was expecting jimmy Savile to appear from behind the door. "Now then now then"
I mean, you couldn't make it up - a bunch of young boys knocking on the door, and being told about a body beneath the floor, and handing them the offending weapon!
Who ya gonna call...not these.
😅😅
ROFL!!
(21:15)
...Ghost buses?
12:42 Bill Nighy lookalike! Even sounds and behaves like him!
28:04 “it’s extremely tame’ says the woman about the butterfly. What was she expecting, a vicious butterfly?!?
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 0849am 20.11.24 i seem to be watching this again. it would seem... as much as i pooh pooh this - i don't believe, sir. i do find people who do immensely interesting, though. the mind is an odd cove and can do amazing things - such as have you believe the otherworld exists... and ve have folk come to blows re: believing and not believing. only liberal minds need interact with this dude, sir.
A book, "The World of the Unknown: Ghosts," published by Usborne in the early 1980s, adorned most school libraries during that period. I was doing seances aged 8 with a homemade board!
Those original Usborne books go for loads of money now in eBay! Bought all of them.
"Every year... A red admiral butterfly always appears on the stage during rehearsal or during the pantomime season...Here are the photographs"
"A red admiral?"
"No - it's not a red admiral; it''s tortoise shell"
"And it's always a tortoise shell?"
"It's always one tortoise shell."
If you're going to lie, at least be consistent!
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 20.11.24 0911am how come people like the Montefury's could wander aimlessly about the place without undue hassles and now.............nowhere...gone! as if in a puff of smoke. as for the butterfly... i always wondered how long a butterfly could live without it being subject to undue predatory activity by extraneous forces. though i surmise the theatre would have been rife with spiders? strange... maybe, akin to bees, if you do not destroy them and maybe place them on flowers to feed on the nectar, they return to the place which they found an amiable watering hole...? hmmmmmm.. ok...
Excellent upload
Those mains powered vibrators are powerful & noisy things,
I remember the neighbours would always be complaining about the wife’s 🤡
16:08 ooh matron 😮
He could have a hook up with the man with the vibrating hazel stick.
The people were all very articulate with beautiful accents. What happened ? Now its all swearing with poor grammar.
*It's *what happened? (No space)
these people were brought up in post war britain by traumatised survivors. these baby boomers went on balls the world up. dont be so impressed.
When did we drop thee and thou! What’s happening to our language?! 😭😭😭😭😭
Totally underrated
This is exactly the sort of stuff i was obsessed by at 12, in 1975! Hilarious seeing it now...still fascinated by this stuff, but more by how human minds can convince us things are true that are inventions of our own brains! Love the fellow with the bizarre accent & the massive sunglasses! We used to accept the most loony looking people as sensible on tv in the 70's! He talks like some character off Vic & Bob!
11:42 mins in, Interviewer: 'What sort of places... buildings or locations have you found in your research?' Andrew: 'an oil refinery in Essex ....Bingo halls..'😂...EYES DOWN!
@ about 31 minutes…” a Priest can be identified by his special habit “ …me “i bet he could “ !
😆😅😂🤣😭
Dirty habit 😂
Yes, a habit of 'fiddling a-bight' 🤪
There was huge interest in the paranormal in the 1970s and into the 1980s. People like Uri Geller came to fame on the back of it, and Arrhur C. Clarke's programmes were regularly on TV. "Satanic Panics" were regularly in the news. Many children's TV programmes also had a real undercurrent of the supernatural. It was exploited in a range of surprising ways, including by the security services in Northern Ireland. It was said that they were concerned that kids out on the street at night in Belfast were disrupting their anti IRA operations, so they put "satanic" artifacts in a disused warehouse and tipped off the local press that a Satanic cult was operating in the area. It set off a full scale Satanic Panic in Northern Ireland and the kids were kept indoors at night.
I don’t trust people wearing tinted glasses indoors.
Some of us have to due to cataracts. Get over your prejudice.
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 0922am 20.11.24 ghostly or spirit based naturalists. form thereon in it's just degradation perversity and horror!! if you can fit it in... allegedly spirits are damn busy these days.....
the people interviewed were all so relaxed unlike many very staged self conscious interviews we see today
Looks like they’re all high on shrooms, ghosts included ! 🤦🏽♂️🤣
Vicky is nice!
Is that a Negative ion pistol in your pocket or are you just pleased to me 😂
@@Noblerot1830😂
Correction: Vicky was nice but alas probably nearly 80 today😂
Im guessing wearing sunglasses indoors makes you a proper "ghost hunter" these fools are more scary than the ghosts!
He probably found the recording lights troublesome.
As well as his permanent hangover….
Boo
It is perfectly normal to see Butterflys in winter
@14.14. Amazed that he hasn't dug up the spot to find out.
Load of bollocks. But the real question is, how did Mr Benson 'tatty' Herbert manage to get that hot assistant Vicki to work with him?
Tempted her in with some Babycham, probably!!
Is there any chance you'll upload the BBC London piece on the Highgate Vampire from late 1970 - featuring David Farrant and Sean Manchester?
Benson gives me the creeps…
Needs more choc ices...
I must be psychic because before they mentioned the ghost hunters name I guessed he'd be A Herbert ! 😂
16:05 Plugging in a what 😳
Big 'ol thing that - the mind boggles!!
Oh yes, how I remember the era of nylon shirts, comb overs and whistling dentures... Refreshing though to see a paranormal show without some smartarse with an MA in pop psychology turning up to "debunk" everything
0:34:30 Borley segment with Peter Underwood
Wouldn't it be fun if people spoke like that nowadays.
Not once did I hear 'bro', 'bruvv' or 'innit'.
"Negative Ion pistol" in reality its a vinyl record anti-static gun. They didn't work on records so I doubt it's going to work with the supernatural.
Oh yes - the 'snake oil' Negative Ion pistol.
The debate still rages on to this day, and those things are not cheap!
Hello Vicky
Ironically most of these starring in this documentary are now ghosts
Ive asked Him to show Himself to me...nothing
It was shows like Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and stuff like this on old WUNC channel 4 Chapel Hill PBS that made me have the love I have for the mysterious, paranormal and occult.
😅❤ this is hilarious 😂 😊
14:55 This fella with these contraptions would fall off his chair if he saw what kind of equipment there is available now, even a smartphone would make him faint i reckon.
Nearly 50 years later, ghost hunters are still using gadgets to try and catch a spook.
Gosh, shirts in the seventies were really ....different.
Happier times...
I was a kid at this time, and HATED flared trousers and collars - but that didn't stop parents and relatives giving those at Birthdays & Christmas!!
I think it was a form of punishment.
Bunty the ghost from the The Beehive Inn is a peeper! This would make wonderful content for the writers of This Country given the landlady's West Country accent xxx. Martin Mucklowe was a peeper!
1975 haunting of a parade of well meaning enthusiasts by a poorly dressed, obstinate reporter 🤓
Bad DIY skills seem to be responsible for %90 of poltergeist activity...
Read My Family Ghosts (and other strange happenings) Liam Katt. Lots of authentic accounts.
That bloke who found a Murder weapon in his house and telling the kids where the body was found and which way it was facing. Scotland Yard you have your man.
No self respecting ghost hunter could do without a glamourus assistant and Mr Herbert was clearly no exception. I'm guessing Vicky would be in her '70s now.....
When dreaming at night is proof of ghosts, boo!
What ever happened to the great British eccentrics?
They died, and never got replaced!
Mr Chodrington Bristleworth
There is a documentary about reincarnation, I think Rosemary Brown is on it as well as an oratorio by a reincarnated pupil of "the great master Handel", funny what you remember, is that one available, it was in the same series?
Right 'HERBERT' 😄
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 0932am 20.11.24 sounds like ray cass... only just cottoned on to that. cheers.
24:37, the husband and wife, what English accent are they speaking in?
That's a cornish accent
I had a gay ghost in my old house, he kept putting the willys up me
I'll get yer coat. 😅
Two gay ghosts....kept putting the willies up each other 😚
I had a particularly pernicious one...kept telling me to ''Get gout''...I've got me coat...
Last phrase uttered in this, sums it up best.
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 0925am 20.11.24 this skit probably gav rise to the song spectre vs rector by the fall. p.s nice to note abscesses are on their way out in this day and age...
Oh Dog (atheist) .... loving these comments. Ribs hurt now.
Sounds like Paul Daniel’s
28:35 Katie Rogers from Brookside looks really bored in the background.
👻👻👻👻😍
Well he's not weird at all is he? lol
Hi tech ghost hunters - for sure! 😆
Cool moustache
39:09 Says he saw a ghost for 11 minutes. Sounds like b o l l o c k s
1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive 0927am 20.11.24 probably saw the ghosts bollocks, also, if the nakedness scenario, as described by our erstwhile reporter, is anything to go by... ghosts taking physical form to have their wicked way with the unwary as they are sat in the bath or some such... can't wait!!!
Pssssssst we can see you playin games
Beer was far stronger back then.
I believe some strange things when I'm drunk
Pubs stank too. When someone opened the door that led to the toilets, ooof.
And don't get me started about 'bar snacks' either!!!!
What an obviously fake accent
I blame 'The Exorcist' ! What was it with people in the 70s and their willingness to go along with all that supernatural nonsense.
I find it fascinating
@@Venmaylove Too many people, all over the world, have reported ''experiences'' down the ages for it all to be just fantasies or imagination...
A regular programme about local nutcases. I hadn't realised how recent a development critical thinking was.
16:08😂😂😂😂😂😂
Those were the days when one got to see English people in England