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S1 E30 Emma Heard Lover of the weird, unusual and strange! Blogger and professional copywriter.
0 Playsin 5 days
Emma joined me this week to talk all about Wiltshire UK, or more precise, the mystery and legends of Stonehenge.
We discussed the many theories of what Stonehenge is, Is it a clock? Was it built for Human Sacrifice, or just a burial area.
We talked about the possibility of Elementals, and the animal protectors of the stones.
Emma told me stories about Levitating soldiers, strange noises and perhaps residual conversations from WW1.
We finished off discussing the Warminster thing, UFO’s and audio phenomena, and the creation of the Wiltshire Ghost Directory
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introducing SIPA Paranormal Chronicles and Emma Hurd
00:00:12
Lee Hatfield
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the latest episode of SIPA Paranormal Chronicles. Today, I'm delighted to have Emma Hurd with me. Emma is a blogger and professional writer, and we'll talk more about what she writes about in a minute.
00:00:28
Lee Hatfield
Emma, welcome.
00:00:30
Emma
Hello, thank you for inviting me on. It's an honor as always to be invited on podcasts to talk about strange stuff.
Emma's Paranormal Adventures in Wiltshire
00:00:40
Lee Hatfield
And one thing that the listeners will know, Emma and I have been talking for three or four months, if not longer.
00:00:49
Emma
Yes.
00:00:50
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. And to put it into context, to try and nail Emma down is like catching fog with your bare hands. You're a busy lady.
00:01:01
Emma
I am, yeah. yeah i and I've sort of apologised for this. I am difficult to nail down. I'm too busy. There's so much going on in Wiltshire, you see, with all these weird, strange, unusual things going on that I'm off busy doing lots of that.
00:01:17
Emma
So at least we're not going to run out things to talk about.
00:01:18
Lee Hatfield
Which is cool. That's very true. And the last time I was in Wiltshire, i the wife and I came to the UK just prior to COVID.
00:01:31
Emma
Right.
00:01:31
Lee Hatfield
And we stayed we stay just outside Stonehenge, which we're going to talk about in a minute.
00:01:31
Emma
Okay.
00:01:37
Lee Hatfield
And then we we spent a couple of days around Wiltshire visiting the chalk horses and stuff like that. So i you're born and bred in Wiltshire, correct?
00:01:46
Emma
No, I'm not. I'm actually from London originally. the story is I, I went off, I packed my bags and went off traveling around the world when I was 19, much to my mum's disgust.
00:01:57
Emma
And, um, Came back year and a half later with a boyfriend in tow who was from Salisbury. And I didn't want to go home. So I went down to Salisbury and it was a lovely spring day.
00:02:10
Emma
We sat, we looked, sat and had a beer by the river looking at the cathedral. And I had still had my rucksack packed. So I was like, I'll just come down here and
Stonehenge: Memories and Mysteries
00:02:18
Emma
work. And then I've never left. I've tried.
00:02:21
Emma
it was sort of, there's this theory with Wiltshire that it's, people end up here and it's like a piece of elastic. You try and leave and it just sort of pulls you back again. And that's happened to me. And now many years later, I've got a life here, a mortgage, family, dogs.
00:02:40
Emma
but I'm not going anywhere. a house. Yeah. So that's I'm I'm as Wiltshire as they come these days, I guess.
00:02:49
Lee Hatfield
So is it's really interesting because when I was a kid living in Lincolnshire, we used to go to Cornwall for holiday and we used to drive past Stonehenge.
00:02:57
Emma
Yeah.
00:03:00
Emma
Yeah.
00:03:00
Lee Hatfield
And I remember it being closer to the road than what it is now. But that that road that goes past it is relatively new. it's not it's now It's not brand new, but it's been there a few years.
00:03:11
Lee Hatfield
But I remember before that before that road was there, we're talking like mid-70s or something.
00:03:14
Emma
Yeah.
00:03:18
Emma
That's it.
00:03:18
Emma
And that's back when you could actually get in and touch the stones as well.
00:03:18
Lee Hatfield
And I remember actually, go on.
00:03:23
Lee Hatfield
Yes, yes, because I remember stopping there, either on the way there or on the way back. And I do remember as ah ah as a kid walking through of the stones of Stonehenge. But now you've got that big rope, and if you go over it, one of those nice volunteers will jump on you.
00:03:40
Emma
Yeah, you're in big trouble. I mean, actually, I should just flag up to anyone that comes to visit Wilshire. If you happen to come here for the and it coincides with the solstices or the equinoxes, then because it's seen as a sort of spiritual and religious place, you can go up and you are in within the stones and you can give them a hug and everything. it' so And I think you can as well, if you've got a bit of cash there, you can do like an early morning tour and go into the stones. But yeah, as a general rule, it's too busy there now. If everyone was allowed in them at all times, there'd be nothing left of them.
00:04:18
Emma
So.
00:04:19
Lee Hatfield
That's true. Yeah. And you'd have all the, all the grass would be destroyed and you'd, yeah, it'd be like soil path through the stones and it wouldn't be half as is appealing.
00:04:24
Emma
Yeah.
00:04:30
Lee Hatfield
don't think.
00:04:31
Emma
That's it. I think it needs to be admired from afar, mainly. But I have been lucky enough to go to... I've been to the summer solstice, but prefer the winter one, actually.
00:04:42
Emma
you go up there and you can really get up close, and that's a ah really nice event to go to. Although they get busier every year, so you have to get up even earlier to get there for the sunrise.
00:04:54
Emma
yeah
00:04:54
Lee Hatfield
yeah i Yeah, that wouldn't be me.
00:04:56
Lee Hatfield
it'd be like, oh, I've missed OK, oh, is the bar open?
00:04:59
Emma
I have done that before.
00:05:00
Lee Hatfield
you yeah
00:05:01
Emma
I've literally been running along the road to the stones as the sun's light. I've heard all the music. I'm like, because you get stuck in traffic at like six in the morning trying to get there.
00:05:13
Emma
So.
00:05:13
Lee Hatfield
That's crazy. So let's talk about Stonehenge.
00:05:17
Emma
Yeah.
00:05:18
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, it's a tourist trap that anybody that comes to the UK is kind of on their bucket list.
00:05:26
Emma
Yeah. I mean, yeah, sorry.
00:05:27
Lee Hatfield
So
00:05:29
Emma
Go on. Yeah.
00:05:31
Lee Hatfield
I'm always being interrupted by women. Don't worry about it. The wife does it all the time.
00:05:35
Emma
Okay.
00:05:35
Lee Hatfield
So that's OK. So, yeah, that was one of the things that she wanted to to go and visit. So it's quite funny how we we arrived in London early on the Tuesday or Wednesday morning about 7 a.m., m threw our suitcases into the storage, jumped onto the tube to go to London and did a walking day around London and then drove to Wiltshire at night and then did Stonehenge the next day.
00:06:03
Lee Hatfield
So it's completely shrouded in mystery.
00:06:03
Emma
okay
00:06:06
Lee Hatfield
Nobody really knows how it got constructed, what it's for. So can you enlighten us a little bit of what we do know about Stonehenge?
00:06:17
Emma
Well, I'm no historian. And so when I sort of relate the story, at the the history side of Stonehenge, it's difficult for us to say truly what what it is there for. I mean, it's been there, they say built between 2000 and 3000 So very, very long time.
00:06:38
Emma
so very very long time The stones, that's, again, the research changes, but the blue stones came from a very long way away.
00:06:50
Emma
the stones that are nearer came from a place called Marlborough. That's still probably 30 miles away. and bear in mind, this was a time when, well, how did you move stones that were like four five tonnes in size?
00:07:07
Emma
Yeah. So there's always, i think that's basically in in the middle of this open sort of plains as well. There's this big structure with these huge stones that have come from Wales.
00:07:20
Emma
Other people have said recently Scotland. So what were the people of that time doing?
00:07:24
Lee Hatfield
wow
00:07:28
Emma
wanting this for? And I've heard all sorts of theories over time. so was this was it astrout ah ah stroli astrological? And well, it is because obviously it aligns with different patterns in the sky, of the moon and the stars and the sun.
00:07:50
Emma
Was it a clock, I s suppose, or a calendar in a way it would tell you the time of year because as the sun comes through and hits the heel stone, that would tell you that it's either one of the, yeah, sort of mid-summer or mid-winter.
00:08:06
Emma
Other wilder theories are it's a landing site for aliens. I'm not sure about that. Someone else said it's to do with human sacrifice. So it's a place where people will have been bought for sacrificial reasons. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I asked my friend who's a professor, Professor Jasper, what he thought the last time we were up there.
00:08:32
Emma
And don't. do tend to believe with him that it's it's actually a huge, massive funeral site. Because you've got within two miles, you've got seven archaeological features.
00:08:44
Emma
And that's not just sort stones. They're the barrows. So they're the burial mounds. You've got cursises.
00:08:53
Emma
Sorry, there's one of those pauses that's hopefully going to get edited out. i Various things that are there. And people obviously used it as a big meeting place.
00:09:06
Emma
But because of all the burials around, it does make me think, was it somewhere that they came to for funerals? And just up the road from Stonehenge, probably about a mile away, is its lesser known Woodhenge partner.
00:09:19
Emma
which has only really been uncovered and discussed in the last few decades. But they think now that actually maybe that was the place where the summer and the spring solstices were celebrated.
00:09:35
Emma
But Stonehenge was for autumn and winter. So... The light versus the dark, maybe. Yeah, that's why Stonehenge is related to this.
00:09:43
Lee Hatfield
Bye.
00:09:46
Emma
So that's basically where we're at with Stonehenge. But there's other stuff going on there, like the energies, ley lines, lots of weird lights in the sky.
00:09:58
Emma
lots of strange experiences. And there's a lot of people in Wiltshire and World Beyond that believe that there is something going on that we don't understand yet that is creating it as some sort of centre for weird activity.
00:10:13
Emma
and could these stone circles be at the heart of that?
00:10:17
Lee Hatfield
And that's really cool to know because yeah anybody that's born in England or grew up in England knows Stonehenge. Everybody knows that yeah the summer solstice and the winter solstice, all these people come and celebrate the summer or the winter.
00:10:38
Emma
Yeah.
00:10:38
Lee Hatfield
But you mentioned some of the strange occurrences that have been happening.
Paranormal Phenomena at Stonehenge
00:10:43
Lee Hatfield
Can you kind of like... point to a few of them and explain what kind of things happen.
00:10:49
Emma
Yeah, I mean, so we need to split it up into sort of ghostly stuff and um um UFO and lights in the sky. Now, one thing to point out to people that don't know of it is it sits just on the edge of Salisbury Plain, which is 25 miles long, 10 miles wide. And it's probably one of the biggest sort of military areas in the UK.
00:11:14
Emma
There's a lot of army bases up there. And so there are lots of strange lights in the sky that occur. And quite often, it's not unusual if you're up on the planes to see flares, which could be mistaken. If you didn't know otherwise, you'd think it was something weird going on.
00:11:34
Emma
And obviously, there's lots of other activities that go on up there that that could explain a lot of the strangeness at Stonehenge.
00:11:43
Emma
That being said, the army haven't been there forever. In fact, not that long at all. And so these strange reports have been going on many years. And obviously Stonehenge itself and the other stone circles in Wiltshire have been there for many thousands of years. So it doesn't really explain all of it, but it does explain possibly some of the UFO sightings.
00:12:05
Emma
But speaking to one of the guides up there, he's called Neolithic One, he's on TikTok, does lots of videos on Stonehenge, you might have come across him.
00:12:17
Emma
he was telling me his story, and this was just after COVID. And it was all very quiet up there because there were no visitors allowed. And there was two security guards up there one night.
00:12:29
Emma
And they managed to film. i think it was actually more night. It was early morning. So the sun was starting. And they said whenever they'd witnessed anything going on up there, there's always this sort of electrical buzz in the air.
00:12:45
Emma
And other security personnel have also said about this weird electrical current and things that go on. Anyway, they were up there early one morning and they saw this shape-shifting balloon with sort of blobs and spikes come across towards the stones and They filmed a bit of it and it was moving. And they felt the first they thought was some sort of weird balloon. is it a weather balloon? Something like that. And it shifted around and then it shot off in a different direction and then disappeared. And they used to, again, they used to being up there.
00:13:19
Emma
So i always think when you've got security guards or army personnel, policemen, people like that, farmers as well, who are telling tales, they tend to be more pragmatic and not as,
00:13:30
Emma
perhaps using their imagination I might if I saw something.
00:13:34
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:13:35
Emma
And they said that was totally unexplained. They sat on the video for a long time because they feared getting fired from English Heritage. it has since come out.
00:13:44
Emma
I did show it at a conference because I was a bit on on the shelf with it. i Some people said, yeah, no, it looks like some sort of contortion of a weather balloon. But it was an awful lot bigger than that because they saw it with their own eyes. So...
00:14:00
Emma
I don't think that's just one of the most late latest stories up there. But that's, like say, not the only one. There's, if we jump back to the 70s, we can talk a bit about maybe combining, so we're going into the energies of the stones.
00:14:18
Emma
So ah ah friend of mine believes there's elementals up at Stonehenge. Do you kind of get what I'm...
00:14:28
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
00:14:30
Emma
Talking about if say elementals. Yeah, so the earth energies.
00:14:33
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:14:34
Emma
She says she finds them very strong. She says when she goes up there, and she's a Wiccan and a witch and ah psychic artist. She says she goes up there with groups of women and they sit. And she said there's always the hares running around, which there would be because it's open countryside.
00:14:52
Emma
She said one of them and in particular always hops over to her a lot higher than the others. she feels the animals up there are the protectors of the stones.
00:15:03
Emma
So you've got all the corvids, the crows and the jackdaws and the rooks. You must have seen them when you visited.
00:15:10
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, I did, yeah.
00:15:11
Emma
and They're all very friendly and they've all got names like George and little George and Albie. They sit on the... Anyone that's working up there, they get to know them. They'll sit on their shoulders and on their arms chat.
00:15:26
Emma
But there is this feeling like they come over. I've watched them. They come and check the visitors out. And I'm not saying they're not coming over hoping to get like some food thrown in their way. But the idea, a lot of people say that they actually are there to look after the stones, which I think is really cool. And it's, again, this connection to the earth.
00:15:46
Emma
So heading back, like I promised at the start of this sentence, and we go back to 1971. I'm going to tell you about the happy campers that were up there.
00:15:59
Emma
So this is a bit of an unverified story, therefore an urban myth, possibly. There was a group of hippie campers, and this was back in the times when there were no ropes around the stones, you could just walk up.
00:16:11
Emma
And they decided to pitch their tents within the stone circle. An intense thunderstorm blew across Salisbury Plain that night and lightning struck local trees and even the sarsen stones themselves.
00:16:26
Emma
There was a policeman and a farmer up there who happened to be having a chat. So I'm imagining it's in the evening. And they said an eerie blue knot light began to illuminate the stone circle so intense that they had to look away. They heard a massive crack.
00:16:45
Emma
The group of hippies started screaming and the policeman and the farmer ran to their assistance. But as they got there, all that was left was this smouldering campfire and some sort of smoking tent pegs.
00:16:59
Emma
Even the tents were gone and the group of campers were never seen ever again. so Sounds a bit far-fetched. Surely it would have been in the news. I think so.
00:17:11
Emma
But then again, it lends this idea that if there's a lot of energy up there in the land and then you get some intense weather coming along, can it create some sort of strange vortex? i'm
00:17:26
Lee Hatfield
That's a good point.
00:17:27
Emma
I'm always on the fence with these theories because we have got no proof that such a thing exists, but we've also got no proof that it doesn't. but
00:17:35
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Totally agree.
00:17:38
Emma
Yeah, so so that was one of the events back then. And it also ties in with another weather event, which I'm just going to find.
00:17:50
Emma
Just bear with me.
00:17:52
Emma
So, yes, it was Brian Davidson. He was the inspector of ancient monuments at Stonehenge, 1987.
00:18:00
Emma
He was up there, so it's a few years after the tent story. He took a group of, i I think it was University of Bristol students, and they were studying petrological work on the blue stones.
00:18:13
Emma
And they knew the story of the campers. There was all this, the stones are seen as sacred. So they were joking about their apprehension, about taking little bits of them away.
00:18:26
Emma
And they apparently were joking. So even if people don't see us, God will. And he will strike us down just like that group of hippies.
00:18:35
Emma
Anyway, they finished about nine in the evening and and nothing had happened. Few or see it's all a load of rubbish. Anyway, that was the night. ah ah your You'll remember this.
00:18:46
Emma
That was the night of the great hurricane of 1987 that the weather service didn't predict.
00:18:50
Lee Hatfield
Oh, yes. Michael Fish. Yeah.
00:18:52
Emma
LAUGHTER
00:18:53
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:18:53
Emma
ah ah So oh Brian Davidson thinks that that was caused by this group of students stealing bits of Stonehenge. but
00:19:05
Lee Hatfield
OK, yeah. Let's go with that. Yeah, sure.
00:19:07
Emma
OK, so we'll go with that again. You know, it's all like little stories, little tidbits.
00:19:09
Lee Hatfield
but
00:19:14
Emma
i'm If I go back to the earth energy again, um this is back to the lady Nixie, I was telling you about who takes the groups up there.
00:19:24
Emma
Now, she had a weird experience. It was the summer solstice and she was up there with a friend of hers and they were just sitting looking, enjoying the atmosphere and the party going on and watching quietly things going around.
00:19:40
Emma
And she said... She got this feeling that someone was around there and she looked up and through the crowd she saw this little elf-like figure.
00:19:44
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:19:50
Emma
She was no higher than i a child, had pointy ears, strange clothing and he just looked around and he was like wandering around the groups.
00:20:02
Emma
And she said she turned to her friend to say, do you see that? And as she turned back, he totally disappeared. And she spent the whole rest of her visit that time looking for this little elf guy.
00:20:15
Emma
and she couldn't see him. But she's a believer in the Fae. And she says sometimes they just present themselves when you least expect it. And again,
00:20:25
Lee Hatfield
Yeah,
00:20:25
Emma
Given the energy that was given off by the crowd there and the summer solstice and everything else, maybe the atmosphere was just right enough for him to like peek out and be shown for just a minute.
00:20:37
Emma
And I thought that's a really nice little story. don't hit.
00:20:40
Lee Hatfield
but yeah that's yeah that's really cool.
00:20:41
Emma
Yeah.
00:20:43
Lee Hatfield
I like that. So obviously not everybody experiences something weird with Stonehenge.
00:20:44
Emma
Yeah.
00:20:52
Lee Hatfield
But do you find or have you done research on that more things will happen for the summer solstice or the winter solstice or is it throughout the year?
00:21:06
Emma
Well, it's interesting you say that because actually before I came along and started digging into this, I've never found anyone that's actually collated all the stories of Stonehenge, be they paranormal or fae or UFO.
00:21:24
Emma
So they all seem to be scattered throughout the years and throughout time. And I suspect there are a lot more stories out there that I've yet to uncover. I don't think it's any particular time of year, but of course quite a few of them happen in the late evening or through the night, probably in the witching hour.
00:21:47
Emma
So shall I tell you, i mentioned earlier the stories of... How if you get somebody from, say, the armed forces telling you they're really practical people, they don't normally believe in ghosts and things like that, and
Ghostly Military Whispers and Phantom Planes
00:22:03
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:22:03
Emma
they are...
00:22:05
Emma
the They're made to recount things in a factual way So this was one of the
00:22:10
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:22:12
Emma
was sent to me by another writer. I'm going to read it out to you. It's MJ Weyland and she's a paranormal writer. And she hadn't used this story, but she said I could on her behalf.
00:22:24
Emma
So this is 1972. So it's only a year after the hippies and the vortex situation goes on.
00:22:32
Emma
So around that time, even though Stonehenge was open to anyone to visit, the army being nearby, they had to keep an eye on the place. So they the soldiers would go up there in turn and be on security detail at night.
00:22:49
Emma
And there was this this particular soldier and his colleague were patrolling the area one night. I'd just like to go back and say, MJ did say to me,
00:23:01
Emma
This story was told to her many years after the event by one of the soldiers. And he said... to her I'm going to tell you a story I don't want you to ever tell anyone else because I'm really still not sure what I saw.
00:23:15
Emma
i embarrassed by it. And unfortunately, he did pass away several years ago. so we have never used names, but we feel like it's OK to recount what happened to him now.
00:23:29
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:23:29
Emma
So that's that's where the story came from. This soldier and his colleague were patrolling the area and they said on this particular night they there were some hippies hanging around, but by about 2am the place was deadly quiet.
00:23:45
Emma
Both of the soldiers had heard reports earlier in the week of other soldiers on that up there on security detail having seen a white lady gliding through the stones one evening.
00:23:56
Emma
So they're obviously getting a bit wound up There's this kind of like, oh, is it happening? But I think they all laughed it off and thought it was all a bit of a wind up. But what happened on this particular night they were there was completely different.
00:24:10
Emma
So one of the soldiers decided to curl up on their landlev Land Rover, have a little sleep while the other one stayed on watch. And the sleeping soldier suddenly awoken by his colleague shouting at him. And in a sleep-filled daze, he realised that he was actually, couldn't feel there cold metal roof beneath him. He was actually levitating,
00:24:33
Emma
or floating above the Land Rover. at first he thought it was some sort of joke, and he realised it was something far stranger. was about to shout out, and when he dropped back, boom, straight onto the roof.
00:24:47
Emma
The two soldiers, like I said, they were so shocked by the whole event. I mean, how how do you explain that?
00:24:55
Lee Hatfield
Exactly. Yeah. It's unexplainable really.
00:24:58
Emma
Yeah, levitating. its
00:25:00
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:25:01
Emma
Sorry. You either are or you aren't. So, yeah, they were they were really quite shocked by it. And after some discussion, they decided to never, ever mention it again and also not to ever nap on duty again Stonehenge.
00:25:19
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, that's that's funny that punishment for you.
00:25:19
Emma
but Yeah, that's karma, I guess.
00:25:23
Lee Hatfield
right Yeah.
00:25:26
Emma
So... when So the story of the white lady floating around up there could well be true. There's been a young boy seen running through the stones.
00:25:37
Emma
go up and ask any of the night security guys, they will all tell you of whisperings and noises that come from within the stone circle. And also of this, which I mentioned earlier, this weird electrical buzz that happens.
00:25:53
Emma
And that's something I've heard about a lot in Wiltshire going off on a slight tangent. I know crop circles. I know there's lots of people raising their eyebrows here.
00:26:03
Emma
I do too. Most of them are amazing works of art, much hated by the farmers. However,
00:26:11
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:26:11
Emma
yeah I do know a couple of people that have been studying them for many years and sat for hours in the fields and a lot of them, some go on around Stonehenge but they're mainly in more towards Avebury way, more Minster way.
00:26:29
Emma
and Sorry, I've lost my tangent there. What was I saying about crop circles? Oh, yes, this electrical energy. So they they sat around waiting for these crop circles to arrive.
00:26:37
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:26:41
Emma
And they talk about this weird liminal atmosphere and this buzzing, this sort of electrical buzzing that goes on. So whether that's something that happens elsewhere, I don't know, whether it's a Wiltshire thing.
00:26:55
Emma
It just does seem to correlate.
00:26:55
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's it's funny that you mention about the whispers because the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, they had noise coming from it and it was the wind blowing through the the fences.
00:27:07
Emma
yeah
00:27:13
Emma
Okay.
00:27:13
Lee Hatfield
And it's actually like, yeah, so I'm wondering with regard to the whispers, if it's the wind blowing through extremely close stones, you know, to cause like a vibration and that potentially could explain maybe some but not all of what people are deciphering as whispers.
00:27:33
Emma
Yeah, i mean, you can hear of Yes, definitely. I totally agree with you and certainly fences. So for 30 years I had horses and that's going be another pressure of my life because it looks like I've just been offered another one to take in.
00:27:51
Emma
So, yeah, goodbye writing ghost stories and hello mucking out fields again.
00:27:52
Lee Hatfield
Great.
00:27:57
Emma
i' miss But I used to have my horse on a piece of land in Wiltshire in a field below Fotherham Downs. And that's, again, it's got a lot of history on that land. So it was, they found sort of Neolithic Bronze Age sort of stuff on this farmland.
00:28:16
Emma
But it also used to be where the encampments after World War one where the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand armed forces sort demobbed.
00:28:27
Lee Hatfield
Bye.
00:28:28
Emma
But the Spanish flu went through these camps. These poor guys, they survived World War I. They came back before they were sent home. And then the Spanish flu hit them. And apparently, because they were so weak and injured, it wiped a lot of them out.
00:28:44
Emma
And I didn't know any of this when I had my horse at this particular place, but I used to be down there and it happened three or four times and I would just hear... be down there it'd be still and i just hear this noise of it's quite distinctive of people having conversations and like in the background you know do you know what i mean if you can hear like a party going on miles away and it just carries on the wind and it always reminds me of that and it was only afterwards i was speaking to a couple of my friends and i just wondered i'd just look up and i'd be like who's that talking because there was nothing around there no one just me and the horses and dogs and
00:29:01
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:29:04
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:29:23
Emma
And always used to think that i maybe I was hearing just remains of those, perhaps the soldiers around their campsites and stuff at the end of it. And I just wonder if if a lot of people have camped at Stonehenge.
00:29:38
Emma
Maybe it's just this remanence of, well, residual energy, isn't it? I think it's...
00:29:43
Lee Hatfield
yeah Exactly, exactly, yeah.
00:29:44
Emma
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:46
Lee Hatfield
And it's, yeah, and, you know if anybody's has actually been there, the fact that it's a ah ah vast area of, you grass, trees or whatever, it wouldn't be at all surprised if during World War one and World War II that that was used as a ah ah military, like say, yeah, the military are there now, but it might go back yeah as far World War I, as an area where people could camp.
00:30:17
Emma
Well, I mean, don't know for sure if there are actually any sort of official camps right near Stonehenge. But like I say, because it's right on Salisbury Plain, yeah, they were around.
00:30:27
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:30:29
Emma
And in fact, that brings me to one of my favourite and probably the the biggest and the best ghost story of Stonehenge before we sort finish with that area.
00:30:41
Emma
And that's a mysterious phantom plane. so
00:30:46
Lee Hatfield
Oh.
00:30:47
Emma
Yes. You don't get many ghost planes, do you?
00:30:50
Lee Hatfield
No, you don't.
00:30:51
Emma
well did promise you, Wiltshire has it all.
00:30:54
Lee Hatfield
yeah, check.
00:30:55
Emma
So we ticked that one Ghost plane We haven't got a ghost ship actually But that's mainly because we're landlocked Probably the only thing Anyway so if you Do you remember when you visited Did you go past Airman's Cross Which was by the visitor centre So it was a stone Well not commemorating But about the death of the Two airmen that lost their lives Near there
00:30:58
Lee Hatfield
okay yeah check
00:31:20
Lee Hatfield
we must We must have done, because I'm ex-military as well, so I would have liked read that and go, oh, yeah, connection for the military. So, yes.
00:31:29
Emma
Right, so, okay, so you probably, if I showed you a picture of it, you'd be like, oh, yes, I remember seeing that.
00:31:34
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:31:35
Emma
So that originally didn't used to be outside the visitor centre. That was up at somewhere called Airman's Corner. And back in the 70s, which we were talking about earlier, when there was the other road...
00:31:48
Emma
it was back on It was placed next to the other road, which has now been all shut off. Because English Heritage, they will need to make money to pay for their Spanglini visitor centre. So they stopped everyone coming around the back way to see the stones for free.
00:32:03
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:32:04
Emma
Anyway, so originally it was sighted on about half a mile away, mile away, and it was the site of an early military aviation accident on the 5th of July 1912. I'll so i'll just leave that there.
00:32:20
Emma
We skip forward to World War twoi and there were soldiers based up there and they were doing instructional calls shortly before D-Day. And it was Sir Michael W.S. Bruce. He was one of the sources four soldiers.
00:32:35
Emma
And he wrote this account and sent it to the Evening Standard 1953 to tell the story. So the soldiers were all up there. They were doing their training and they were heading by jeep towards Stonehenge. And they suddenly witnessed a tiny and ah airplane fly straight above them, over them into a corpse of trees on the side of the road.
00:33:01
Emma
So they raced ahead to the scene of the crash And there was literally nothing to be seen. There was no aircraft. There was no noise as this went over. And there was no sign of any accident. And the men were obviously really miffed. Where did this come from? Where did it go?
00:33:19
Emma
They went off to look through the cops. woods And it was the warrant officer who called to his men. So he was standing and apparently he was as white as a sheet at the spot where the plane the plane appeared to disappear.
00:33:34
Emma
And that's where he came across a large stone which was commemorating the deaths of these two airmen back in 1912, the spot where the plane actually went down.
00:33:44
Lee Hatfield
Well,
00:33:48
Lee Hatfield
that's pretty cool.
00:33:49
Emma
So I was like, yeah. See, that's kind of yeah. ah They're the ones that I find quite hard to discount. If four soldiers saw a ghost plane and it landed there and it's where people, where there had been a previous accident,
00:34:05
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, that yeah like that's kind of like a jaw-dropping moment.
00:34:06
Emma
Yeah.
00:34:09
Lee Hatfield
It's like, OK, for you skeptics, yeah debunk that
00:34:15
Emma
yeah i will say there When I was doing research for it and I did found it find a photo of the original in 1912, it was in a field and it is quite open there. There there probably were trees, many, many, a lot more trees many years ago, but now it's all farmland.
00:34:35
Emma
And I did wonder how quickly between 1912 and 19...
00:34:41
Emma
the start of, well, just before D-Day 44, how quickly a copse of trees could grow up around that site. So that sort of has put a doubt in my mind.
00:34:52
Emma
But equally, it could have, there could have been trees there, or it could have been trees in front of the site of the field.
00:34:53
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:35:01
Emma
So it's not beyond the realms of possibility.
00:35:01
Lee Hatfield
That's it, yeah. No, no. It's just one of those other mysteries that we're never going to get to the bottom of.
00:35:10
Emma
I mean, isn't that the joy of ghost stories, though, is that you never really truly know?
00:35:13
Lee Hatfield
Absolutely.
00:35:15
Emma
but
00:35:16
Lee Hatfield
Absolutely. So I know that, you Wiltshire and Stonehenge and Wiltshire is probably the most famous.
00:35:28
Lee Hatfield
But I know Wiltshire is also famous for yeah a few other circles and a few other iconic locations, such as yeah the chalk horses and stuff like that.
00:35:43
Lee Hatfield
So I know that you haven't really specialised in some of the others, but Do you know why, for for example, the stone early the chalk horses exist?
00:35:57
Lee Hatfield
Because we we actually managed to walk to one from where we were staying, and we actually managed to walk to walk to the top of it and look at it look down at it from the hill.
00:36:01
Emma
Yeah.
00:36:07
Emma
Yeah.
00:36:07
Lee Hatfield
So, yeah, and and those those kind of fascinate people, I think, as much as what Stonehenge does. So can you enlighten us a little bit more about those?
00:36:16
Emma
Which one, queer just out of curiosity, do you remember which one it was?
00:36:20
Lee Hatfield
it It wasn't far from Stonehenge, and I'm trying to think of the location that we stayed at.
00:36:25
Emma
Westbury?
00:36:26
Lee Hatfield
It was about, yes, I think it might have been.
00:36:28
Emma
Yeah, that's the big one. Yeah.
00:36:30
Lee Hatfield
Yes, yeah, on the hillside.
00:36:33
Emma
Yeah, it's really well known. And actually, so i think there's various sort of ideas behind the stone horses. But curiously, a lot of them are not quite as old as we previously thought.
00:36:47
Emma
Like I think the Westbury one, the one that you see now, which looks more like a horse, was recarved in the time of Charles Yeah.
00:36:48
Lee Hatfield
OK.
00:36:52
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:36:56
Lee Hatfield
OK.
00:36:56
Emma
But before that, i looked it was more elongated, so maybe more of a dragon shape. I think there's... Now, i don't want to I'm not going to put facts out there, but I think there's seven in Wiltshire.
00:37:11
Emma
But maybe that they know about something like 13, but they're not all sort of still showing.
00:37:17
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:19
Emma
Why were they there? Well, Celebration... Maybe of animals as a marking point. I wouldn't really want to speculate, but I do know that I went up to have an investigation of the one at Uffington, which is right up in the north of Wiltshire. And in fact, it's kind of the Oxfordshire borders.
00:37:40
Emma
And they think that's one of the oldest ones. And it does look a bit like a dragon as well. as opposed to a horse.
00:37:46
Lee Hatfield
Okay.
00:37:47
Emma
it's been carved into the landscape. And one of the theories I did find on that was that actually the area there was known as somewhere that the families that lived there, they bred horses.
00:38:00
Lee Hatfield
Right.
00:38:00
Emma
So was it almost like a mark for what they were up to?
00:38:01
Lee Hatfield
Right.
00:38:08
Emma
And there's lots of myths.
00:38:08
Lee Hatfield
This is my farm.
00:38:09
Emma
This particular...
00:38:09
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:38:10
Emma
Yeah, by here.
00:38:11
Lee Hatfield
see yeah
00:38:13
Emma
suppose, yeah, you haven't got a massive billboards like we have now. So you have to do something special. And interestingly, that's the Uffington one looks down on something called Dragon's Hill, which is where one of the St George was supposed to have slain a dragon.
00:38:20
Lee Hatfield
so
00:38:26
Lee Hatfield
right
00:38:31
Lee Hatfield
okay
00:38:31
Emma
and it's flat and nothing grows on it and that's because the blood of the dragon seeped into the hill and poisoned it forevermore.
00:38:33
Lee Hatfield
that
00:38:42
Lee Hatfield
I have learned something today. I've learned something today. yeah because Yeah, because it's it's it's that one where, like say, there's like a track at the top where you can actually look down through it from the top of the hill.
00:38:55
Lee Hatfield
But we actually got a better but picture having left that and driving back towards Westbury where you you've got perfect views of it and on the hill.
00:38:55
Emma
Yeah.
00:39:02
Emma
Yeah.
00:39:06
Lee Hatfield
So we actually pulled into a like ah ah a pub car park and we were taking perfect pictures of it from there rather than looking down at it from from the hill.
00:39:15
Emma
Yeah, I know. I think in Wiltshire we're quite keen on carving things into hillside because when I was telling you earlier about where my horse was kept and the whispering on the wind, that's below something called the Fobham Badges.
00:39:28
Emma
And that's, did you visit that where the military badges were carved in?
00:39:29
Lee Hatfield
Yes. All the military badges. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:34
Emma
Okay, well, that's the site where those soldiers were demobbed.
00:39:34
Lee Hatfield
I saw that. Yeah.
00:39:38
Emma
And while they were there, they carved their emblems of their...
00:39:39
Lee Hatfield
Right.
00:39:42
Emma
regiment I think they're called into the hillside.
00:39:43
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:39:46
Emma
A friend of mine was apparently driving through Wiltshire just the other day and sent me a photo and he said, oh, it looks like the Warminster thing has been commemorated in chalk on one of the hillsides.
00:39:57
Emma
Warminster thing being ah ah this big UFO phenomenon that went on in the 60s and 70s that got everyone very excited. Anyway, it's not actually the Warminster thing.
00:40:09
Emma
I looked up. It's another of these sort of regimental emblems because the regiment, the army is all over the place in Wiltshire and not just the army, the ah r RAF as well.
00:40:14
Lee Hatfield
Right.
00:40:20
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:40:22
Emma
So, yeah.
00:40:23
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. So it's it's funny that you you should mention to mention the Warminster thing, because that was the car that was not that was the first article that I read from yourself that I thought, i need to get Emma on my podcast.
00:40:29
Emma
Yes.
00:40:39
Emma
ah
00:40:39
Lee Hatfield
So i know it was a year or so ago that you actually wrote the article, 2024, was it?
00:40:47
Emma
Yeah, probably, yeah, at least that.
00:40:48
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. So I hope I don't have to rack your memory too much. But can you go into a little bit more detail about the Warminster thing?
00:40:57
Emma
Yeah, so Warminster's a little, i not even sure it's really a market town, but it is. It's a little town in West Wiltshire. Really sleepy, not a lot going on. It does have army bases around it, which is interesting. I'll come to that later.
00:41:15
Emma
But in the late 60s, I think it was 67 it all started. there was It all started on Christmas Day morning and this poor lady came all out of her house and was trotting off to the morning church service and she got this audio experience. She said it sounded like someone was almost scratching up the road with a tractor but like above her head, ah ah incredibly loud sort of noise.
00:41:43
Emma
And... I think she might have had a bit of a funny turn. Anyway, she got to the church and explained all. And this this this particular event, they don't know where this noise came from. they couldn't She couldn't describe what it was.
00:41:58
Emma
But it kicked off a series of strange audio phenomenon and lights seen in the sky that eventually...
Warminster's UFO Legacy
00:42:09
Emma
when people, there was a particular journalist who started to document it.
00:42:14
Emma
And I think in the end they had over a thousand different accounts going on of this weird, these weird noises, lights appearing in the sky so on.
00:42:20
Lee Hatfield
oh
00:42:27
Emma
Now he was a local journalist and he, He decided... Well, he basically, his luck was in It was like the scoop of the century.
00:42:39
Emma
So he started writing about it and eventually hit the national news. And it... I think in the in the sort of 60s and 70s, people were moving about a bit more, cars were more readily available, and people started to flood to Wiltshire at the weekends to do something called sky watching, which I think is a phrase that ufologists still use now, but I think it really started then.
00:43:06
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:43:08
Emma
And they'd sit on these particular, Cradle Hill was the the big one, they would literally come out there for the whole weekend and there was this sort of camaraderie and this thing that we're going to find out if there is life coming from other planets.
00:43:23
Emma
And there are so many accounts from that time, including yeah strange spiralling lights in the sky, objects coming in and then doing right angles, moving other ways.
00:43:37
Emma
And we have to remember that this being near army land, a lot of them could be contributed Now, Arthur Shuttleworth, who was the journalist, he did contact the army on several occasions and say, we spotted this last night. Could it have been this? And they were like, no, we there was nothing going on at that time. And even some of the guys in the army had their own lights. They saw strange things as well.
00:44:03
Emma
Triangular shapes with lights on. But while all this was going on, there's a few local pranksters who decided they were going to like try and, I don't know, one of them, he said he was interested in human psychology. And if he made something up about a large sonic bang going and then all birds, pigeons flight falling out of the sky, would people believe it?
00:44:27
Emma
Well, with all these other stories going on, they of course did. he later admitted that part of it was made up. There's an infamous photo which really does look like your classic silver so sort of silver saucer frisbee going through the air.
00:44:43
Lee Hatfield
Bye. right
00:44:45
Emma
think it was in the Haunted magazine article. And to this day, the two guys who were there when it happened, apparently one claims he's still like, no, no, no this I didn't. This wasn't a hoax.
00:45:01
Emma
the I happened to get a photo. And the other guy was like, no, it was all made up. He just wanted the attention. So I don't know if there's some sour grapes going on. I think only one of the guys is still alive now.
00:45:14
Emma
Anyway, this carried on and literally into the 70s. There were still people up there, 1971, 72, coming for the whole weekend.
00:45:25
Emma
it got debated in national newspapers there were town hall meetings arthur shuttleworth wrote three books on it and he continued to log it but eventually over time the sighting sort of died down and so did the whole for all and it was sort of largely forgotten and then there were some groups because people are just as strangers uh things from out space aren't they arguing about certain accounts and it all got a bit toxic
00:45:58
Emma
anyway, Warminster, then it's sort of all gone quiet. The craze was over. And do you know, I was here doing Weird Wiltshire probably for two or three years before I even knew of it myself.
00:46:09
Emma
It was literally completely off the radar. And I was like, how have thousands of accounts of lights in the sky and UFO sightings not been sort of... How have they been forgotten? And they haven't by the town. They've got a great mural of its time. And my friend thought they were carving sort of chalk figures in the hills.
00:46:09
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:46:32
Emma
But like say, it wasn't. So... so And I just wanted to write that article about it to make sure it's kept alive.
00:46:44
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, I can agree with that.
00:46:44
Emma
And as a result of that, actually, I managed to get in touch with Steve Dewey. He's one of the old, he calls himself an old timer. And he's one of the original sky watchers from up there in the early 70s.
00:46:56
Lee Hatfield
Oh, wow.
00:46:57
Emma
And they still go up there on bank holiday, month like the bank holiday, August bank holiday weekend on the Saturday night. They still go up there and they take their chairs and they do a bit sky watching.
00:47:10
Emma
So last year I went and joined them. And I did see lots of lights from the army. They said they think they don't like us being up there. So they put all their floodlights on.
00:47:22
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:47:22
Emma
Can't see much. We did walk up in the opposite direction, hung around, had some cool conversations for a while. And then by about midnight, it was it clouded over and started raining. So I was like, you know what?
00:47:35
Emma
Thanks, guys. I'm not hardcore enough sky watcher for this.
00:47:36
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:47:39
Emma
And I headed home.
00:47:41
Emma
But it's nice to think they still go up there, you know, meet up.
00:47:41
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:47:44
Lee Hatfield
Oh, yeah. And being ex-military myself, I complete completely understand why how they like, yeah, we don't want anybody to see what we're doing, even though we're not doing much.
00:47:55
Lee Hatfield
So we're going to put all the floodlights on, all the spotlights, just to obstruct people's vision.
00:47:58
Emma
Yeah, that's it.
00:48:01
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:48:01
Emma
And the military police occasionally like cruise by slowly, like as if to say, yeah, we're keeping an eye on you. was like, the mean age of everyone here is like 70 to 80.
00:48:08
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, exactly.
00:48:11
Emma
What are we going to be doing? but actually, interesting thought...
00:48:15
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, you embed by 7pm.
00:48:17
Emma
I did say why one of them, what's your theory on why Warminster, if these visitors were coming in at this time, why was Warminster the hotspot? And it kind of tallies with a lot of other stuff at the moment is they're coming to check out what the military, they know that this is a big military area. So they're coming to see what we're up to what's going on up there.
00:48:42
Emma
And I guess there's more lights in the sky and things like that. they attracted those activities?
00:48:45
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:48:49
Lee Hatfield
That could be a good explanation.
00:48:51
Emma
It's a good theory.
00:48:53
Lee Hatfield
It is, yeah, 100%, 100%.
00:48:53
Emma
Yeah.
00:48:56
Emma
Yeah.
00:48:56
Lee Hatfield
Okay, Emma, I know that I have a ah few other subjects, but unfortunately we are coming close. So what's next on the agenda for Emma Heard?
00:49:10
Emma
I've got a couple of talks coming up in the autumn. at the moment, I think my main thing is to just keep I keep getting I always say right about Wiltshire and the world beyond i keep getting distracted by other
Emma Hurd's Future Endeavors
00:49:24
Emma
stories in other areas. So my last blog was the Bermuda Triangle, which has fascinated me since I was a kid.
00:49:31
Lee Hatfield
that's just that's just down the road from Wilshire.
00:49:31
Emma
I mustn't digress.
00:49:34
Emma
Yeah, I know.
00:49:34
Lee Hatfield
Just down the road from Wilshire.
00:49:34
Emma
It's just like pair of binoculars, you can see it, you know.
00:49:37
Lee Hatfield
yes
00:49:38
Emma
ah ah but I do, I get like, I get attracted by ah like like a magpie by like shiny stories of weirdness elsewhere and I go off on tangents.
00:49:47
Lee Hatfield
I'm not saying anything.
00:49:47
Emma
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm allowed.
00:49:51
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. yeah
00:49:53
Emma
so anyway, I've got to get my eye eye back on the game and for some more Wiltshire stories. And what am I going to cover next?
00:50:04
Emma
I don't know. I think this summer I want to go to the Rifles Museum in Salisbury, which is in the Cathedral Close. There's supposed to be a lot going on there and prepare for this talk. And I've also, at the moment I'm doing, and you heard it here first, i'm going to call it the Wiltshire Ghost Directory.
00:50:21
Emma
It's not going to be probably for publication, but I'm aiming to as my sort of life legacy, because people don't like publishing books anymore. So I'm going to leave this as the Wiltshire Museum.
00:50:32
Emma
Hopefully a directory of every single ghost story I ever come across. and my time up to now and going forwards in Wiltshire so that in the future, if there's ever another Emma comes along, she can pick this up and say, hey, look at all these stories.
00:50:49
Emma
I'm so glad someone put them all in one place. So that's what I'm doing.
00:50:53
Lee Hatfield
That is a great idea. And it's really weird how, like could say I said at the beginning, that I'm from Lincolnshire originally. Ever since I started doing what I'm doing now, I've tried to find more ghost stories or even investigation teams in Lincolnshire.
00:51:10
Lee Hatfield
And it's like you can find tidbits, but you can't find anything substantive.
00:51:10
Emma
Yeah.
00:51:13
Emma
Yeah.
00:51:16
Lee Hatfield
So if you get bored of Wiltshire, Lincolnshire is not far. Crack on and...
00:51:21
Emma
Okay.
00:51:21
Lee Hatfield
Let me know. yeah that be
00:51:22
Emma
Well, it is up the road compared to where you are now, but maybe that's a project for you to come across. Maybe there's a ghostly person in every county that should be making a directory because it's a social history, really, if nothing else.
00:51:35
Lee Hatfield
This is true. We'll do it between us. okay
00:51:38
Emma
All right.
00:51:38
Lee Hatfield
Okay.
00:51:38
Emma
Yeah.
00:51:39
Lee Hatfield
You can be my UK correspondent.
00:51:41
Emma
like Okay.
00:51:43
Lee Hatfield
Emma, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I've learned loads about Stonehenge that I didn't know before. I thank you for your time.
00:51:49
Emma
Oh, thank you.
00:51:51
Lee Hatfield
It has been an absolute pleasure trying to kind of tie you down after all this amount, but it was worth it.
00:51:56
Emma
Yeah.
00:51:57
Lee Hatfield
So...
00:51:57
Emma
yeah No, thank you.
00:51:58
Lee Hatfield
so
00:51:59
Emma
It's, it's lovely. I always really love people inviting me on to have a chat. And that's how we make new friends and we get to find out more. And it's, yeah, thanks again for having me on today.
00:52:11
Lee Hatfield
You're most welcome. You have a great rest of the day and I'm going to go out and get sunbent.
00:52:15
Emma
ah Okay, bye.
00:52:16
Lee Hatfield
Thanks very much. Take care. Bye-bye.
00:52:19
Emma
Bye.