This episode is adapted from a live episode that I presented at the London Podcast Festival in twenty sixteen and later released on this stream, so may be familiar to some listeners. The town of Runcorn, located on the banks of the River Mersey, fifteen miles east of Liverpool in the northwest of England, was once a beating heart of the British Industrial Revolution. Back then, the chemistry of soap
and alkali production were its most prominent industries. By the mid twentieth century, however, it was the chemistry of societal change that seemed to be working hardest on the town.
With much of its past industrial glory having dissolved or moved on, it was only the dark and pungent tanneries that still clung on the last remnant of a different age in nineteen fifty two, despite the Second World War having ended seven years previously, its shadow continued to linger deep within the fabric of British society, and the communities
of Rumhorn were no different. Among the many from the town who went off to fight one hundred and nineteen did not return, and the ones that did were not the same anymore. It caused significant upheaval to a great many families, families like the Glenn and Joneses of Number one Byron Street, Like most typical working families of the region, they had little choice but to keep calm and carry on regardless, to just somehow find a way through it all.
But there was nothing that could prepare them for the extraordinary events that were soon to engulf their lives. What exactly happened to the family in that most peculiar year has never truly been accounted for. You're listening to Unexplained,
and I'm Richard McClean smith. In nineteen fifty two, Number one Byron Street, a two story end of terrace house in the north of Runcorn, was home to sixty eight year old widower Sam Jones, as well as his widowed sister in law Lucy Jones, his eight year old granddaughter Eileen Glynn, and his seventeen year old grandson John Glynn. Fifty nine year old Ellen Whittle, who'd been lodging with the Glynn and Joneses since nineteen thirty seven, completed this
unusual quintet of occupants. The house was divided into three bedrooms, with Lucy and Eileen sharing one room and Sam and John sharing another, while the third, which led off from Sam and John's room, was occupied by Miss Whittle. Things became a little more crowded On Sunday, seventeenth of August, however, when Sam, John, Lucy, and Eileen were forced to share a bedroom together to accommodate Lucy's son and daughter in law, who were visiting that weekend. It was by no means
a new arrangement. Yet for some reason that night Lucy was having trouble sleeping. Lying in the dark, she was convinced she could hear a strange noise that seemed to be emanating from the dresser, like something gently clawing at the wood. Did you hear that? She whispered. Irritated, Sam got up and turned on the light, then whipped open the drawers. Inside he found nothing but the usual odds
and ends of pencils, notepaper, and shaving implements. Pushing the drawers back in with a huff, he switched off the light and went back to bed. Moments later, the noise returned, except this time it began steadily to get louder and the clawing faster, until it started to sound as though something were trying to get out of the dressing table, staring aghast in the dark toward the sound. The family hurriedly jumped up together and rushed from the room in
a collective terror. Suddenly finding themselves standing together in their nightclothes in the cold of the hallway, they looked sheepishly toward each other, feeling a little silly about the whole episode,
Laughing it off. One by one, they returned to the bedroom to find the strange noise had now stopped, But as they each slipped back under their respective sheets, they soon found that something of the event had remained with them, and no matter how hard each of them tried, neither of them quite managed to reach the land of sleep. The next night, Lucy and Eileen returned to their usual bedroom,
leaving Sam and John alone to sleep in theirs. No sooner had their lights gone out, the scratching began again, followed moments later by a terrific series of bangs as the dresser draws were repeatedly slammed open and shut. Sam hurriedly switched on the light and gasped the dressing table was now standing well over a foot away from the wall, thinking that perhaps some kind of practical joker had invaded
their home. Sam immediately called the police. A short time later, two local officers and a sergeant arrived to find the family in deep distress. As the police listened patiently to Sam detailing the strange events, how they only happened in the dark and stopped as soon as the light was turned on, it was hard not to suspect that one
of Sam's own family was in fact responsible. Nonetheless, after making a thorough search of the property, the police set a series of traps to rule out human involvement, including placing a tumbler on the dressing table and applying adhesive tape over the drawers. Sam and John sat together on the bed as the police kept watch. Then one of
the officers switched off the light. Moments later, the dressing table was heard rocking wild back and forth, followed by a furious rattling of the drawers and an almighty crash, like the sound of a window being smashed in. When the light was turned on. Seconds later, the smashed remains of the tumbler could be seen on the floor, and the dresser had once again been seemingly pulled from the wall. Strangely, however, the tape remained intact over the drawers, and neither Sam
nor John had been seen to leave their bed. One lesser known fact about Unexplained is that it actually started life as a website built through square Space, which I heard about from an advert on one of my favorite podcasts. Having no idea where to even begin with publishing my own, it was only when I realized how easy it would be with square Space that I finally went ahead and did it. Whether you're a dreamer, a maker, or simply a square Space can provide you with all the tools
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you need it. Go to squarespace dot com Forward slash unexplained for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code unexplained to save ten percent of your first purchase of a website or domain with no vidence of criminal activity. After a second fruitless night of tests, the police withdrew from the property and later filed a
report detailing the unexplained activity at the house. As the sergeant would go on to note, we tried every method known to us, and believe me, the family and not doing it. After four sleepless nights, seventeen year old John was fast becoming a nervous wreck, not least because of the growing sense among those in the house that the disturbances were beginning to center on him. As word of the events began to spread, a local self styled medium
named Phil France volunteered to help the family. Believing the house to be haunted, France, together with fellows self described medium and friend of the family, Missus Bousfield, offered to conduct a seance to rid the property of any ghosts that were located there. On the evening of Thursday, twenty first of August, France and Bousfield gathered with John and Sam in their bedroom. Then after asking for the light to be switched off. France called out into the darkness
and asked for a sign. Just then, two bibles that France had brought with him were flung from the dresser, followed by a small clock that clattered to the ground as the family shrieked in fear. In haste, the light was switched back on. Sam gasped at the sight of Bousfield, who, with a strange look on her face, was staring directly to the side of the dresser. There's someone there, she said,
a man. As she began to describe him, It quickly became clear to John that the man she was detailing was his dead father, Michael, who died of cancer only four months previously. Then France spoke suddenly and appeared to double over in pain. It was a spirit guide coming through, he said, with the message for John to pass on to his mother Norah. A pained and tight voice came from France's lips, saying that Michael's spirit had remained earth
bound after inadvertently becoming attached to an evil poltergeist. Once John had delivered this message to his mother, it said, Michael would be free to pass over. The following night, with John having spoken to his mother. Just as France predicted, not a sound was heard, and the family finally bedded down for their first uninterrupted sleep in five nights. The disturbances appeared to be over. With news of the events at Byron Street spreading fast, the family became inundated with
interview requests from local press. Having first resisted them all, when a series of unflattering rumors began to circulate about the family, Sam decided to set the record straight. The resultant article appeared in the Runcorn Guardian on August twenty ninth, by which point there had been no sign of activity in over a week. But any hope that going public would settle the story once and for all proved to
be wildly naive. Certainly, for a town eager to be distracted from the drudgery of the shipyards and tanneries, an article proclaiming the existence of an evil poltergeist at the home of one of their own was too much to ignore. For one reader, especially, the story would prove to be
of particular interest. On the afternoon of the twenty ninth, on the other side of the River Mersey, in the town of Widness, Reverend William Stephens was settling down for his tea when he came across the story of the Byron Street poltergeist, now being referred to as the Runcorn Thing. As a Methodist minister, it was perhaps unsurprising that Stephens would take an interest in such speculative talk of evil spirits. However, it was in a somewhat different capacity that his interest
had been piqued. In addition to his position as a minister, Stevens had also for a number of years been a member of the Society for Psychical Research, with a particular interest in the paranormal and mediumship. Despite all his years of interest, however, never before had Stephens had a case land on his own doorstep, and it was too good an opportunity to turn down. Meanwhile, back at the Glyn
and Jones's household, something was stirring. After two weeks of peace, John and Sam had just settled down to sleep when those familiar scratches darted up again in the darkness. Sam had just enough time to duck as something large and bulky flew through the air before clattering to the floor at the far side of the room. Switching on the light, Sam and John gasped at the sight of the chair, now lying on its side against the wall, a large dent in the plaster where it had hit the thing,
it seemed was back. The following day, Sam turned up for work at near by Pool Farm, completely shattered. Seeing the state of his employee, His boss, Harold Crowther, couldn't help but ask if Sam was okay. Sam took a moment as he tried to answer. Then a wave came over him, and despite his best efforts to stop it, he burst into a flood of tears. He couldn't take it anymore, he said, all the sleepless and endless nights
of terror. As he wiped away at his eyes. He begged Crowther to come and see for himself if anything could be done. Back home, John was also struggling to cope. Equally terrified and afraid for his life, He divided his good friend, nineteen year old John Berry to stay with him in the house. Happy to help, Berry promptly moved into John's bedroom with Sam, by then preferring to sleep
downstairs on the sofa. On Monday, twenty second of September, having been informed of a sick our barrage of violent activity, occurring at Byron Street the night before, Reverend Stevens resolved
to go immediately to the property. That evening, he and two associates, Reverend Stafford and Leicester, made their way to the Glynn and Jones's home, only to find roughly three hundred people gathered outside and the house crammed with visitors, the result of an open invitation from Sam for anyone who doubted his family's story to come and witness the
phenomenon for themselves. At eleven thirty pm, with the crowd largely dispersed, the ministers were joined in the bedroom by Sam's boss, Harold Crowther and one other of his associates. With things only seeming to happen under cover of darkness, the men had brought torches with them in the hope of catching the phantom out. John Glynn and John Berry got into the bed and the light was once again
switched off. The five men stood watch in the dark, waiting patiently with their fingers poised over the switch of their torches, ready to catch a ghost. Before long, the dresser cracked and creaked into life and started rocking viciously against the wall. The torches were hurriedly switched on, and all activity instantly ceased. Stevens pushed the dresser back into
the corner, and again the light was turned out. If you can hear my voice, knock three times, shouted Stevens, as if in response, the dresser began again to shake violently, but this time, when Stevens shone his torch at it, all in the room reeled back in horror as the dresser continued to rock on its own accord for over three seconds. What followed was another night of violent bombardment,
with everything in sight dislodged. A chest at the foot of the bed was repeatedly banged against it, moving four men who were sat on it at the time, and the bed itself across the room. At one point, something even grabbed hold of John Berry and threw him to the floor. Another time, Stephen's positioned a jigsaw puzzle box behind him, making sure it was beyond any one's reach. At the sound of a rattle coming from inside the box, Stephens shone his torch on the two boys, but both
were lying completely still under the bed sheets. Moments later, the box flew through the air, caught by the beam of Stephen's torch and for a moment, it seemed almost suspended in mid air, as if, as one of the witnesses described it, it were being carried with directional intent. With the violence of the incidents intensifying, a second seance was hastily arranged, led once again by Phil France. On the evening of September twenty sixth, in a house on
Greenway Road, overlooking Runcorn Cemetery. John Glynn and his mother Norah arrived to find a small crowd waiting for them inside. In the center of the living room stood a cone shaped trumpet coated at both ends with luminous paint. The participants, including Reverend Stephens, two Methodist ministers, and a journalist, gathered in a circle around the trumpet, and the lights were extinguished. After a short prayer, came the soft hum of voices
breaking gently into song hymns to awaken the spirits. As the singing grew louder, eyes glanced anxiously around the room and back to the cone, but it remained fixed to the floor. Suddenly, the calm was punctured by strange, garbled voices emanating from the mouth of one of the mediums. It was Phil France again. The words were unintelligible, but was said by one journalist a little vaguely, and no doubt stereotypically to resemble the tones of a native of Africa.
It is unlikely that phil France had much experience with African dialects, either regional or ones that might somehow represent an entire continent. However, he later claimed to have been channeling the spirit of a member of the Southern African Zulu tribe who was called Duca. Although there is little credibility attached to this incident, the name Juca was often used in reference to the apparent poltergeist. No other evidence of supernatural activity was recorded at the seance, nor did
it bring an end to the disturbances. In nineteen fifty four, Richard Whittington Egan, who would later become known as a leading authority on the so called Jack the Ripper, wrote a piece for the Runcorn and Witnessed Guardian detailing the events that occurred at Byron Street. Years later, feeling that his editor had opted for hyperbole at the expense of sobriety and reason, Whittington Egan felt compelled to set the
record straight. Like everyone else from the local area, Richard had read and heard much about the Runcorn thing, Although skeptical, such was the sheer number of stories that appeared in the press, he felt compelled to take a look for himself.
On Sunday, twenty eight of September back in nineteen fifty two, he drove to Witness to meet with Reverend Stevens, who, although he found to be of a decent and agreeable character, he couldn't help but question whether he might have been too willing to believe all that he'd supposedly been seeing. At ten thirty pm, Whittington Egan arrived at one Byron Street, parking up outside as a light drizzle began to fall.
Later that night, he watched quietly as the two Johns clambered into bed in front of a group of twenty people who'd somehow squeezed into the room with them. Again, the light was clicked off, and barely a moment later, the clock was hurled across the room, followed by a colossal bang. There it is, said John. There it is all right, said Stevens. A woman sung a hymn. Others claimed to see ghostly lights appear in the room. Stevens offered up the lord's prayer while John Glynn played haunting
strains on a harmonica in the dark. To Whittington Egan, the entire thing was a ridiculous pantomime, and later on, when the familiar pattern of events was repeated, something different occurred, but the sound of one supposed knocking of a spirit. Whittington Egan switched on his torch just in time to see the arm of John Glynn rapidly withdrawing from the
direction of the chest at the end of the bed. Later, when Whittington Egan finally stepped out of the house in the early hours of the morning, with the rain falling harder, he allowed himself a rye smile at the crowd of onlookers huddled silently underneath the bedroom window, gazing up expectantly for any sign of the phantom. A few days later, a genuine tragedy would strike the house. On the evening of Thursday, October sixteenth, the family's lodger, Ellen Whittle, was
out walking with her friend James Sutton. While making their way over runcorn Hill, just above a disused quarry known as Frog's Mouth, they inexplicably slipped and fell twenty four feet to the ground. James Sutton was hospitalized for three months, but Ellen Whittle was not so fortunate. She died of her injuries the following day. By mid November, after three months of unbridled destruction, the strange activity at Number one
Byron Street seemed to be coming to an end. On November twenty third, pioneering BBC documentarian Dennis Mitchell was sent to the house in the hope of catching a glimpse of the phantom, but nothing unto ward occurred. Then a few days later, Reverend Stevens, along with three journalists, caught Sam Jones red handed launching a book against the bedroom wall.
To journalist Whittington Egan, it was the final nail in the coffin of the Runcorn thing forever and Stephens, However, like many of the other witnesses, it was proof only that Sam, like John before, had merely succumbed to the pressure of maintaining the disturbances so that people would continue to believe their original claims. By mid December, however, the press were no longer calling at Byron Street, while outside, the noise and bustle of expectant crowds had dispersed, replaced
by the more familiar quietude of small town suburbia. A short time later, the disturbances stopped altogether. But then something very peculiar came to light. At eight am on the morning of Saturday, December thirteenth, roughly the same time that the events at Byron Street were coming to an end. Down at Pool Farm, where Sam Jones worked, his boss, Harold Crowther, had just released his dogs into the courtyard when he noticed something bizarre towards the back of the yard.
A small black cloud appeared to be hovering just above the ground. The dogs had seen it too, and immediately gave chase when it started to move away at a rapid pace. Before the dogs could reach it, it lifted into the air and disappeared. An odd event, no doubt, but it wasn't the first time that Crowther had seen The story of the runcorned thing was about to take one more twist. It took me a long time to realize that it isn't the bed or even the mattress
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code Unexplained. With his assessment of the events completed, Reverend Stephens submitted his report to the Society of Psychical Research in April of nineteen fifty three. A short time later, Stevens heard of a series of distressing events believed to have taken place at Pool Farm. Intrigued, he contacted the Krouthers, who eventually agreed to share their story, but only on one condition that their names and the events they were
about to divulge be kept out of the press. The Crowthers were pig farmers and had lived at the fifteenth century farmhouse at Pool Farm for a number of years without ever witnessing anything strange. On the morning of Sunday, August seventeenth, the exact same day that trouble began at Byron Street, Harold Crowther was approaching the pigstye when he
sensed that something was wrong. One of the pigs, in a fit of terror, was trying desperately to jump the fence, while a number of other pigs were fighting among themselves. As Crowther neared the pen, he then saw three pigs lying dead on the ground. It isn't uncommon for livestock to die unexpectedly from time to time, but to lose three in one night was a serious cause for alarm, and this was only the beginning. A week later, several
more pigs dropped dead under the same mysteria circumstances. By mid September, all fifty three of the Crowthers animals were dead. At a complete loss to explain the deaths, the Crowthers sent entrails and blood samples to be analyzed. Despite being assessed by five veterinary surgeons, nobody could find an answer. Rather disturbingly, the best they could do was surmised that something had frightened the animals to death. Then, as Reverend Stevens reported, one night, they found their cow in a
state of intense fear. Its eyes were bulging, the hair on its back stood on end, and it was covered in beads of sweat. While no cause for alarm could be discovered, from that night on, the cow never again gave milk. On the Wednesday, two days after the loss of the last pig, mister Crowther saw the black cloud for the first time. It was moving across the yard, an amorphous mass about seven feet high with two prongs
sticking out of its back. When he approached it, it moved off in the direction of the pigstyes, turned into an outhouse and disappeared. Crowther told nobody of his experience for fear that he would be ridiculed. So it was with great surprise when his wife told him that she too had seen it on the same Wednesday. Crowther later claimed to have seen the cloud when he visited Byron Street, but perhaps the most shocking account was from his wife.
It was Sunday, November ninth, and Missus Crowther was in the kitchen when Sam Jones called by the farm. Missus Crowther looked up in horror to see that the cloud was following Sam. As it happens, John Glynn's father, Michael, had also once been a laborer at Pool Farm, working for the Crowthers. At some point, Michael had been accused of a crime by the Crowthers, for which he was
later sent to prison. It wasn't long after Michael's release that he was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually take his life, only four months before the strange disturbances began. By the end of nineteen fifty two, the Runcorn thing was no more for many in the local area. It had provided endless hours of gossip and speculation, something of color to leaven the day, and for the residence of number one Byron Street, a moment in the spotlight orbit,
one that had come at a severe mental and physical cost. Interestingly, despite what later came to pass, everyone that came into contact with John Glynn, even Richard Whittington Egan, described him as an honest and likable boy. In January nineteen fifty three, he joined the Irish Guards to begin national service. Weeks later, he would suffer a complete nervous breakdown, and after a psychiatric evaluation, was granted an immediate discharge. He later married
and continued to live in Runcorn. Reverend Stevens remained convinced, in spite of some strong evidence to the contrary, that something inexplicable had taken place at one Byron Street, and it is worth noting that Whittington Egan's criticism that Stevens's faith had clouded his judgment was a little unfair. It was never the case that Stevens believed the activity to be the result of an otherworldly spirit communicating from beyond the grave. He believed instead that the disturbances had in
some way emanated from John Glynn. It was a fashionable idea at the time, having been posited by a number of eminent academics, such as psychologist doctor John Layard, that excessive vitality in the young, exacerbated by acute anxiety or neurosis, might in some way be the cause of apparent poltergeist activity. It was early in nineteen fifty six when Harold Crowther wrote to Reverend Stevens, finally agreeing to allow his story
to be told. He hadn't wanted his name to be published before, he said, because he was still getting over the shock. As he explained, we are very slowly getting round the corner, but things will never be the same again here. In May nineteen fifty eight, Sam Jones, who was by then seventy four, had moved in with his
daughter in law in Stenhill's Cres. On being asked about his experiences of nineteen fifty two, he replied, all I can say is that anyone who doubts the story of the way my home was haunted should have, for just one week the sort of experience that I lived through. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes, just go to patron dot com.
Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, The book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
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