Category: Weird

It’s an unusual career for someone who trained as an electrician.

But when Harvey More fell into a ghost-related TikTok hole during lockdown, he realised he was closer to the spirit world than he had originally thought.

Long before he began investigating haunted locations, he says he repeatedly saw a mysterious figure walking across the upstairs landing of his parents’ West Midlands home.

‘When I went upstairs onto the upstairs landing, I would see a man dressed all in black, walking from one bedroom door to another. It happened a few times, and I could hear unexplained footsteps outside my bedroom,’ the 23-year-old said.

It was Harvey’s first spiritual experience. When he told his parents, they told him that vicars used to live at the address, and that it was likely to be their spirits.

‘I thought, there is definitely another world out there that we don’t know about,’ he said.

‘That experience was just crazy. From there I have believed there is something out there, that there’s an afterlife.’

Harvey started watching paranormal live streams on TikTok during a boring lockdown and became intrigued.

He decided he wanted to find out more and immersed himself in learning about crystals, spiritualism and what he describes as alternative realities.

Today, the content creator spends his time investigating locations believed to be haunted, searching for evidence that spirits are still present.

Harvey believes he has witnessed things that cannot be explained.

‘I have seen apparitions, from white mists to black figures in the corner of the eye. But when you look, they vanish,’ he said.

‘And I’ve experienced random smells and scents coming up out of nowhere.’

After filming footage, he often notices noises on the edits that he didn’t originally hear.

‘You often hear taps and bangs that you didn’t hear at the time. You might hear a lady humming or a droning sound,’ Harvey added.

‘Once I heard a girl laughing when none of the team heard it. But when I edited I picked it up again. It is amazing the things you pick up.’

During investigations, Harvey and his team ask what they believe are spirits to make their presence known.

‘When they go on a hunt, they ask the spirit world to affirm their presence with a noise,’ Harvey, who hosts the Unexplained Mysteries Paranormal podcast,’ said.

‘Often we get unexplainable footsteps and knocks. You can tell when it is something paranormal. The majority of what we catch is supernatural.’

One location that continues to draw him back is a former 17th century burial ground near his home which has since become a public park where families picnic and children play.

‘I have always felt that there is an energy there that has called me to investigate. Every time you go there, you pick up new information, evidence of the spiritual world.’

Harvey says one investigation there produced what he considers some of his strongest evidence. Using a paranormal voice box, a handheld electronic device that paranormal investigators believe spirits use to manipulate radio signals, he started picking up words to do with crime, justice, water and pipes.

‘When I got back and started researching who I was connecting with. It emerged that Richard Jesson, who is buried there, was a well-known attorney. And he was one of the founders of South Staffs Waters, a water work company,’ Harvey said.

‘I couldn’t believe it. I always go to a location with an empty head with no background. Any information I get I then go back and research it. Nearly every time it links to historical records.’

He also visited the site of Jesson’s grave, where the temperature dropped ‘significantly’ and his team detected ‘a really strong, musky scent, almost like incense, even though nobody was around us’.

Harvey said investigations rarely end when the team decides to leave, as often spirits will try to pull them back.

‘There are some spirits that are reluctant to come forward and communicate, whether they’ve got low energy or they just don’t want to talk to us,’ he says.

‘But when we’re leaving the location, when we’ve turned our backs, things get thrown at us. I’ve had twigs, stones and other debris thrown as I tried to leave. That is the point of an investigation where we have to set up a boundary and say “no more”, because it takes our energy.’

His most frightening experience was at Cannock Chase, a Staffordshire beauty spot known for ghost stories and alleged sightings, where his car was unlocked while he was investigating.

‘I saw a light in the corner of my eye. And I saw my car unlocked itself. That frightened me. I thought, it’s messing with the car. If it wants your attention it can go to your property.

‘Thankfully the battery hadn’t gone flat. It was completely dark and we contemplated abandoning the investigation and going home. That will stay with me for the rest of my life because it was so bizarre.’

Despite the unsettling moments, Harvey says paranormal investigation has brought him comfort rather than fear, particularly after the death of someone close to him.

‘Paranormal investigation brings me so much peace. It’s not all scary and spooky. I have been able to contact spirits who have left a legacy. Being able to connect with roots of where I am from is comforting,’ he said.

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It’s the event where being boring is the whole point.

Every year thousands of fans travel from across the world for the Festival of the Unexceptional (FOTU) at Grimsthorpe Castle, in Lincolnshire.

Created to champion the most basic cars you can imagine, the grounds are packed with around 2,500 much-loved but largely forgotten family vehicles now rarely seen on Britain’s roads.

The event this weekend was in its 12th year and entries must have been manufacturedbetween 25 and 50 years ago to qualify.

Fifty are selected to compete for top prize, with this year’s judges having included editor-in-chief at Autocar Steve Cropley, content creator Steph Hoy, motoring journalists Richard Bremner, Jesse Billington, Antony Ingram and Gary Axon, as well as TV presenter Jon Bentley.

First place went to Gordon McNeill and his 2001 Volkswagen Polo E, which has been owned and loved for 20 years. It was Gordon’s first car and – despite having battle-scarred paintwork – is still the only car he has ever owned, racking up 176,000 miles.

In second was a very rare 1992 Toyota Previa, owned by Matt Swinn, who uses it to haul his band and their equipment all over the country.

Despite its heavy use, Matt has kept it meticulously maintained. He is so dedicated that he even framed the 1990s sweet wrappers, receipts and other period rubbish found under the seats when he bought it.

Third place went to a 2001 Ford Focus owned by Jake Seddon. The car originally belonged to his grandad and was restored by his father.

It was displayed alongside many family photos, and the judges commended the condition of the car and its family connection.

Other special mentions went to a 1991 Ford P100 TD owned by Jack Duxbury, a 2000 Kia Clarus Wagon owned by Marwin Jansen, a 1986 Citroen Axel owned by Rick Martens, a 1982 Fiat 127 owned by Maia Egan and a 1994 Honda Civic Bali owned by Emma Rowe.

Away from the cars on the main stage was live music and interviews.

The festival is hosted by insurance provider Hagerty. Mark Roper, the company’s managing director, said: ‘Wow. Just when we think the Festival of the Unexceptional can’t get any bigger, it grows again and is more spectacular than ever.

‘What a delight to see the lawns of Grimsthorpe Castle covered with thousands of FOTU cars, being enjoyed by 4,500 people from all around the world.

‘Thanks to each and every person who came for their dedication, passion and support of all things FOTU.’

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If you were to go down to the beach today you may find a wobbly surprise.

Thousands of bright electric blue creatures, thought to be Velella Velella, have washed ashore after a scorching heatwave this summer.

The creatures dubbed ‘alien jellyfish’ are normally found in exotic climes like Portugal or the Caribbean but over the weekend it was St Bees beach in Cumbria that was overrun.

Louise Nicholson nearly mistook one of the strange creatures for a mound of seaweed.

Speaking to BBC Cumbria, she said: ‘There were hundreds of them and there were lots of visitors to the area taking photos.

‘They are absolutely beautiful, only about 2ins in size. It was a great find on a beautiful day.’

The organisms have a ‘sail’ which they use to travel across oceans, and normally roll into strange territories in the wake of a storm.

They are harmless to humans – but beachcombers have been warned to be aware.

Velella velella, known as By-the-wind Sailors, haven’t been swept here in such huge numbers in more than a decade.

But although the two-inch creatures are related to the deadly Portugese man ‘o war, the worst they offer people is a mild sting.

The electric blue creatures are ‘colonial hydroids’ – meaning they’re not jellyfish but a colony of tiny individual animals.

They live partly in and partly out of the water with a sail held in the wind and tentacles dangling in the water to catch plankton.

Conservationist Steve Trewhella said: ‘They only wash up after prolonged gales and storms.

‘Because they travel in the same way, in theory Portugese man o’ wars could come in as well, and that would be something to worry about. They pose a real threat and can kill people in the water.

‘We are noticing a trend in these unusual marine animals coming into our shores on a more regular basis recently. It’s because our weather appears to be changing.

‘Velella velella are deep blue or purple in colour and often cause confusion if they wash in, in vast numbers, creating a blue beach.’

Marine specialist Frankie Hobro, owner of Anglesey Sea Zoo in Bynsiencyn, said their sting is ‘mild’ in comparison to their cousins – the deadly Portuguese man o’ war.

‘If you touched your lips, face or another sensitive area, it could be quite painful and cause a tingling sensation,’ she said.

‘What is slightly worrying is that Portuguese Man o’ War are arriving earlier in the year and more frequently, overlapping with marine creatures like By-the-wind-sailors. It shows how climate change is affecting ocean currents.’

Temperatures could reach 35C in the South East on Monday, according to the Met Office, higher than forecasts for the islands of Mykonos, Rhodes and Santorini.

Much of central and southern England is set to see highs in the upper 20s to low 30s before temperatures ease slightly later in the week.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued amber heat-health alerts for the East Midlands, East of England, South East and London from Monday until Wednesday morning.

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Built as an imposing Victorian home, Clifton Hall was repurposed as a masonic hall by the 1920s.

But the historic home has since garnered a reputation for supernatural occurrences, with workers claiming to have noticed unexplained events while maintaining the 180-year-old property.

Caretaker Jeff Forshaw, who joined the team working at the Grade II-Listed building as a volunteer in 2023, said he heard unusual sounds while preparing the property for a visit with his daughter.

Incidentally, the pair were getting the home ready for a live ‘paranormal investigation’ on Halloween by Haunted Scouse, a group which scans haunted locations for signs of supernatural activity.

He explained they had arrived to open up the hall before the group was due to arrive when they heard a loud noise like running water.

‘It was loud, as if someone was filling a bath’, he said.

Things became even eerier when, after he yelled out ‘hello’, the sound suddenly stopped.

Another unexplained event occurred as they were preparing the basement when the fire exit door refused to open, as if it had been blocked from the other side.

Mr Forshaw explained: ‘It genuinely felt like someone had planted their foot behind it.

‘My daughter thought I was messing around, so she squeezed past me and tried it herself.’

After struggling for several minutes, the door suddenly burst open. When the pair tested it again, the door opened and closed without any issues.

In a corridor, they also noticed what sounded like a music box playing. Members of the Haunted Scouse group also reported hearing similar sounds.

Built as a private residence in 1845, Clifton Hall later became a tabernacle before being converted into its current use as a Masonic Hall.

Since 2023, the unique building has been available for hire for events, such as meetings and functions.

Strange occurrences have even convinced more skeptical members of staff.

One volunteer at the hall reported feeling something push them on the shoulder while working alone in the basement.

The hall’s kitchen manager, another skeptic, has since had several experiences, including being hit with a pan lid and losing his keys only for them fly straight at him across the room.

On another occasion, the same manager reported encountering a silhouette of a man looking through one of the windows facing the car park, Mr Forshaw said.

He returned the next day to try and find any trace of the figure or furniture which could have cast the shadow, but discovered nothing there.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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A meteorite that lit up the skies above New York City before crash-landing through someone’s roof contains evidence of how life was originally brought to Earth from alien worlds.

The space rock produced a sonic boom when it passed just south of the Statue of Liberty on July 16, 2024, before fragments began falling to Earth.

One meteorite weighing more than a kilogram later struck a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey, according to researchers writing in the journal Science Advances.

‘A forensic study of the fragments revealed that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a small primitive asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids – a process not previously known from this type of proto planet world,’ said lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

Scientists say the object, which was about the size of a large airline suitcase, entered Earth’s atmosphere at around 32,000mph (14.4km/s).

Around 60 people across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania reported seeing the meteor to the American Meteor Society, while 16 people in New York and New Jersey said they felt the resulting shockwave.

‘Our cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, as well as a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, captured the meteor, and from that we measured its trajectory,’ said American Meteor Society operations manager Mike Hankey. ‘The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt.’

The rock broke apart rapidly as it descended and was no longer visible at an altitude of about 22 miles (35km).

After the meteor disappeared, Doppler weather radar at Newark Airport briefly detected a long cloud of falling fragments stretching from Staten Island into New Jersey. Hillsborough lay at the far end of that debris trail, where the largest pieces are believed to have landed.

Only one meteorite was recovered after it smashed through the roof of a house. The homeowner described discovering extensive damage inside the property.

“I was at home at the time, heard a loud crash and found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom,” they said. “I smelled a strong sulfur-like odor and saw many black fragments along with debris and black dust that covered my bed, carpet and surrounding areas.”

The owner immediately documented the scene and carefully preserved the fragments using disposable gloves, aluminium foil and glass jars, helping to minimise contamination.

Laboratory analysis identified the meteorite as belonging to the rare CM group of carbonaceous chondrites, a class of primitive meteorites rich in carbon and water-bearing minerals.

Co-author Mike Zolensky, a meteoriticist at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center, said the Hillsborough sample showed greater alteration by water than is normally seen in CM2 meteorites.

The Hillsborough meteorite is only the 22nd observed fall of a CM-type meteorite and just the second witnessed fall of a CM1/2 specimen, after the Kolang meteorite in Indonesia in 2020. No witnessed CM1 falls have ever been recorded.

‘Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine CM1/2 meteorites we know of,’ said Jenniskens.

Scientists also identified small, salt-rich fragments that appear to have originated close to the surface of the meteorite’s parent asteroid, where liquid water is thought to have evaporated and concentrated dissolved salts.

Researchers are now working to identify the minerals within those salts and compare them with samples returned from the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu by the Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx space missions.

Scientists believe highly concentrated salty water, or brine, may have played an important role in the chemistry that preceded the emergence of life on Earth.

‘Isotope studies of carbon and nitrogen suggest that primitive carbonaceous chondrites, including CM-types, delivered organic matter to the early Earth,’ said cosmochemist Queenie Chan of Royal Holloway, University of London, and biogeochemist Nana Ogawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

‘The Hillsborough meteorite contained 1.8% by weight of carbon and 0.07% of nitrogen, and had carbon and nitrogen isotopes typical for CM-type meteorites.’

The team found a broad range of soluble organic compounds, indicating that the meteorite had undergone more extensive water-related alteration than most other CM meteorites.

‘A high fraction of compounds were the product of organic chemistry with minerals,’ said organic mass spectrometry specialist Phil Schmitt-Kopplin of the Technical University of Munich.

‘We do not know if these magnesium organic compounds were contributed by brine chemistry or were simply left over from earlier impact shock processes.’

Researchers also detected numerous amino acids, alongside carboxylic acids and other organic molecules.

Astrobiologist Danny Glavin of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues concluded that meteorites of this type may have delivered important organic compounds to the early Earth, contributing to the inventory of molecules from which life eventually emerged. Their findings suggest the complex mixture of amino acids found in the Hillsborough meteorite most likely formed within its parent asteroid, with brine chemistry playing a significant role.

Some fragments of the Hillsborough meteorite will be preserved at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

‘We are thrilled that nature delivered such a precious asteroid sample on our doorstep,’ said curator Denton Ebel.  

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