The Sauchie Poltergeist Haunting With Malcolm Robinson

Michelle: Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past one ghostly tale at a time. I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this eerie journey through the pages of history. Picture a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes. That's the realm we invite you to explore with us. Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics from ancient legends to more recent enigmas. We're delving deep into locations and accounts all around the globe, with guests joining me along the way. But this podcast is also about building a community of curious minds like you. Join the podcast on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share your own ghostly encounters, theories, and historical curiosities. Feel free to share with friends and family. The links are conveniently placed in the description for easy access. So whether you're a history buff with a taste for the supernatural or a paranormal enthusiast with a thirst for knowledge, haunted history chronicles is your passport to the other side. Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge, because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history. And now let's introduce today's podcast or guest. Welcome to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles, where we delve into the shadows of the past to uncover the eerie and the unexplained. Today, we're stepping into the heart of Scotland's most haunting mystery, one that has bewildered and fascinated investigators for decades. Get ready as we explore the infamous Sorkie Poltergeist case, a supernatural event that not only terrorized a family, but also disrupted an entire community, leaving witnesses in a state of disbelief. Joining me is none other than Malcolm Robinson, a renowned public speaker, scriptwriter, and international author, including the saucy poltergeist and other scottish paranormal accounts. His book on the subject is a must read for anyone intrigued by the supernatural. In today's episode, we'll dive deep into the 1960 case that shocked Scotland, as Malcolm Robinson guides us through the bizarre and unsettling events that unfolded in the Campbell household. Well hear about the disturbing occurrences that followed the young girl Virginia, to her school, where even her classmates and teacher became reluctant witnesses. Malcolm will reveal the gripping testimonies of credible witnesses, including two local doctors, a minister, and several church of Scotland figures, all of whom were left astounded by the eerie phenomena they observed. Virginias local doctor expressed his conviction about the mysterious forces at play, while Doctor Owen, a mathematician and psychical researcher, affirmed the reality of these phenomena beyond reasonable doubt. And then theres the Reverend Lund, who described the experience as a brush with the unknown, a glimpse into an uncharted realm. Prepare yourselves for a haunting exploration into one of Scotland's most significant poltergeist outbreaks. As we piece together the fragments of this unsettling tale with Malcolm Robinson, so dim the lights. Settle in and join us as we unravel the chilling mystery of the saucy poltergeist.

Michelle: Hi, Malcolm, thank you so much for.

Michelle: Joining me this evening.

Malcolm Robinson: Hi, it's a pleasure to be on your show.

Michelle: Michelle, do you want to just start by sharing a little bit about yourself, Malcolm, and your background and what initially sparked your interest in the paranormal?

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, I mean, I've always been interested in strange phenomena ever since I was a small boy. Growing up in Scotland, I had this deep held fascination for all things weird and wonderful. And my parents used to take us to the ghost train in Blackpool when I was a wee boy. I always headed for that at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I absolutely loved it. But as I grew older, I started to read books on ghosts and UFO's. I read the books of Charles Portfort, Eric van Daniken, Jenny Randalls, and of course, like any kids of the late sixties, early seventies, and I watched shows like the Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, got involved in the movies of the day, there stood still worry, the world's forbidden Planet. And then of course, we had the, the lovely Star Trek came on the screen. So all this was like fuel to the fire, my passion of these wonderful, wonderful subjects. But Michelle, I must state very, very clearly, at that time I was an ardent skeptic. I honestly felt that there were no validity to claims pertaining to ghosts, poltergeists, UFO's, etcetera. And I set out on a one man mission in 1979 to disprove these subjects. However, however, there's no smoke without fire. I soon came to learn, as I travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles, interviewing many, many people, that there was reality. There were things that people were clearly perturbed and upset by, disturbances in the family home, etcetera. And as the years progressed, I just shook off that mantle of the skepticism. And I now firmly believe in life after death, that we're being visited by who knows what. But just to finish this little bit, I can clearly say to your lovely self and your listeners that we're still very skeptical. So even though I believe in all these things. Any case that we go into, I'm still skeptical. Oh, my God, I'm so skeptical. And I guess that's the way it should be for not just myself, but my colleagues worldwide.

Michelle: And, you know, you've written extensively about paranormal cases, UFO cases. Do you want to just give a brief overview of. Of some of your books and what people listening could expect from them?

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, I've written, at the moment, twelve books. It's a combination of books relating to scottish UFO sightings. And I've also written books on ghosts, poltergeist, an irish book to do with some terrible demonic presences in a home in Ireland. I've also written about Nessie, obviously, being scottish. I love the mysteries of the Loch Ness monsters, and I wrote a book about that. In point of fact, I'm one of the few people in the world to have gone down on a submarine in Loch Ness back in 1994, which is another story. And also Steven Spielberg, the movie mogul, was going to help me find Nessie by, you know, giving us a lot of money to do so. So the book's on those as well. And currently I'm working on a book on the Bonnybridge UFO sightings. I've got another book planned. It's probably going to be called. Oh, God, what's the name of it again? Testimonies of the supernatural. That's it. So a lot of irons in the.

Michelle: Fire, Michelle, again, just keeping you very busy, by the sounds of it.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah. I mean, I'm retired now, Michelle. You know, I've worked all my life, and I now have got the time to really enjoy my retirement. And that comprises of giving lectures, radio, tv, sky watches, and, of course, these books. Now, it's important for me as a writer and a researcher, to get these stories out in books. There absolutely no point in having all these wonderful stories that's been shared. Shared by people for what? To put them in a filing cabinet? We can't do that. We got to get them out in the books. And somebody somewhere, maybe a little lady in Cardiff, will read my book and go, hey, that's exactly what happened to me. So it's all about providing the wealth of information and knowledge to the people of the British Isles.

Michelle: And we're going to be focusing on one particular book that you've written and a particular poltergeist case. Do you want to just tell us, first of all, what. What got you interested in writing this particular book and really sharing the story of this poltergeist case?

Malcolm Robinson: Well, as I was growing up, I stayed in a small village called Tillibuddy in Clackmanshire in central Scotland. It's about 40 odd miles from Glasgow. And as I was growing up as a child, I heard these stories about this incredible poltergeist case, which technically was only a few miles from where I lived in tullibody, you know, a few miles, couple of miles. And it was detailing the dramatic events that occurred to a young irish girl who came over with her family from Donegal and mobile and Donegal in Ireland and back in 1960. And as soon as she arrived in Scotland, strange paranormal events transpired. And it was a fascination to me, but it was, you know, growing up. And I decided when I run about late teens, you know, early twenties, I've got to do something about this. I've got to try and find the witnesses. And which I did. Do you know, I managed to track down a number of classmates of Virginia Campbell, spoke to one of the doctors involved with the case, and we managed to comprise a lot of good information to put into this book because there have not been a singular book on this case. It's been written about in other people's books, but not one, you know, one particular book. So I just knew that I had to do that. And going into Allowa library, Allawa is a small town near Sauke, and go through all the microfiche newspaper reports from November December 1960 and early January 1961. So it was quite a paper trail of trying to, you know, speak to people who were obviously a lot older. But we managed to track down a lot of witnesses. Unfortunately, not Virginia herself, but we'll come to that later on.

Michelle: I just think the book is so comprehensive, it's so well done. And I think for anybody who has an interest in poltergeist cases, just unusual accounts of hauntings, poltergeists, anything of that kind of nature is certainly a must read just because it is so thorough and gives you some of that first hand experience of being able to converse with those who witnessed it, to be able to add that to the book itself, it's so brilliant in terms of just bringing all those threads together to really give a very comprehensive understanding of what the case is about.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, thank you for your kind words there. I mean, yes, it was. It was a. It was a joy to do, to track down all these people. And, you know, I gave a lecture on the anniversary. I think it was about the 40th anniversary of the case, and it was packed to the gunwales in Saucy. And in point of fact, I've just moved to Saki from England. I was living in England for 23 years, latterly in Hastings at the foot of the UK, and came back to Scotland in 2021. So I'm now living in saucy and I'm not that far away, I'm not that far away from the actual poltergeist house itself. So, yes, it's great to be here.

Michelle: So, before we kind of start to tease apart some of the details and think about the case for particular points or observances, etcetera, do you want to just provide the people listening with an understanding of the case itself? Who was involved, what happened, the kind of the timeline, etcetera? Do you want to just kind of elaborate on what exactly happened?

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, of course. I'd be happy to. Well, it happened. The story centers around a small eleven year old girl by the name of Virginia Campbell, who stayed with her parents, James and Annie, and they moved over from Maville in County Done, Nagaland, Ireland. I think it was right about November 1960, and they moved to the town of Saucy. Now, she didn't really want to go, Michelle. You know, she was happy in Ireland, a young girl. She had friends, she had school friends, etc. But, you know, like anything else in life, if your parents are moving, that's what you had to do. So she came over and they stayed with them, mum and dad's brothers, Thomas Campbell and his wife, Isabella Campbell, in this house in Saucy in central Scotland. She was also sharing the house with her cousin Margaret, who was nine years of age, and cousin Derek, who was six years of age. But it happened, as I say, in November 1960, they came over and Virginia was in a single bed in a room and her cousin was in, Margaret was in another single bede. And then they heard scratching noises, then walking as if people were walking along the linoleum floor in the bedroom. And they were away with her tub with that. They thought, is it mice? Is it rats? What is this? You know? And Margaret says, well, this, this has never happened before. So they really were quite frightened. So they jumped out of bed, started running down the stairs, and as they did so sound, sound like a heavy medicine ball. Now, back in gymnasiums in 1960, across the United Kingdom, you had these really big heavy balls and it was like, thud, thud, thud, coming down behind them. They rushed into the living room and they explained to, you know, to our mother, etc. That the strange noise of scratching noises of footsteps and of course, her mother just felt that it's just been kids, kids trying to get an extra 510 minutes downstairs. Come on. Back up. Come on, now. Get up. Took the mother, took them back up to the room, and she heard the footsteps herself. She also saw the bed, the headboard of the bed vibrating of its own accord. It was absolutely stunning. There were knockings. There were bangings coming in. It was absolutely shocking. Now, things got so bad that they had to call in the local Reverend, the Reverend T. W. Lund. He's a man of the cloth, and he himself heard these sounds and knockings and bangings. And at one point, Virginia was in the living room, and there was a sideboard came from the wall. It moved several inches across from the wall into the living room and moved back again. And there was also, as I say, apart from the footsteps, there was a heavy linen chest. Now, back in 1960, at the foot of the beds or against the wall, you had a long linen chest which contained bed covers, pillows, throws, duvets, etcetera. Now, that was against the wall. Now, one of the doctors who was attending the family home was astonished to see this living chest just rise up and move across the linoleum floor. And then the lid of the chest was rising up and down, up and down, of its own volition. So that was quite scary.

Michelle: It's incredible as an account, because what you have is lots of other witnesses involved, lots of other people who were brought in who saw particular things. And so, again, what you have is this very much this large case that involves multiple people who seem to validate the experience, who share the experience, and who contribute to the eyewitness testimonies of what they saw, what they heard, etcetera, in this concentrated period of time for when the activity was being reported. And I don't know if you want to just kind of elaborate on the length of time for which these experiences were being observed by the family in terms of a timeline, if you like, of when it began up to where we kind of saw it starting to tail off.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, effectively, they started on Tuesday in November, the 22nd. Tuesday, November 22, 1960. They went through to March, 1961. Now, this doctor and this minister also saw the bed covers on Virginia rippling as if you had a stone. And you threw a stone into a quiet mill pond. The concentric circles that a stone would make as you threw it into water, her bed covers are rippling like that. Now, underneath her head was obviously a pillow that swiveled round 90 degrees under Virginia Campbell's head. There was a secondary pillow next to Virginia, and that, depressed down like an invisible head, had just rested on the pillow, but nobody was there. There was also a china vase that moved by itself. There was an apple that rose up of its own volition out of a bowl. And also a sewing machine started by itself. And it wasn't even plugged in. So there was all these strange things going on. Not only that, Margaret and also Virginia were poked and prodded by an invisible agency. And also some visitors who attended the family dwelling. They were also poked and nipped as well. Now, they thought that, how can. What do we do, you know, apart from the minister and the doctor, what. What can we do? So they decided to take Virginia from the house in saucy to about 3 miles away. There was a small town called Dollar in Clackmanshire. To a family friend, hoping, thinking that perhaps by moving the child from one house to another, everything will stop. Well, it didn't. It didn't. These strange events happened again in this house in dollar. So, I mean, it was just crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Michelle: So would you say there were any factors, maybe, that contributed to the context of the disturbances that were seen here in this case?

Malcolm Robinson: Well, people speculate, Michelle. People speculate. And as do I. Why? Why? Why are these things happening? Why do people see ghosts? Why is books falling off bookshelves of their own volition? We, as researchers, need to get an answer. You first of all, look at the people concerned, and you say, okay, are they making it up? Are they looking for notoriety? Are they looking for their names in the newspapers, etcetera? What is behind this? There's other researchers who would say that porter Grace phenomena, which generally, not always, but generally contains itself around young children, boys and girls going through puberty, that, in other words, it's some form of sexual energy exudes from the very bodies of these children and somehow externalizes to push furniture and objects over. For me, not. Definitely not. If that was the case, if poet activity is due to sexual energy from young kids going through puberty, then surely we would have a poltergeist in nearly every house in the British Isles with kids going through puberty and problems. But we don't have that. So I don't think it's that for me, personally, I think, and I've not even really went into the story as yet, but for me, with Virginia, I believe that something followed her, some evil presence followed her from Ireland over to Scotland. Because once we get into the story again, Michelle, it didn't just stop. When young Virginia left Scotland to move to England, it followed her back to England. And so clearly, there's some external agency, not very nice happening to various people throughout the world.

Michelle: And I was just going to echo something that you just said that, you know, the theory of it being specific to someone of a certain age or around a certain age, I think, you know, the more cases that come to light, the more examination of these types of cases and the body of work, that means that you add to the picture of it. We can clearly see that it's not there in every single example. And like you said, if it were, we would see far more cases than we do. But there does seem to be something about the set of circumstances. You know, that this is a haunting, an experience that very much seems to target an individual or individuals within the home. And in this case, we have someone for whom, like you mentioned, this does involve then something that follows them into other locations. And again, it's one of the intriguing aspects, I think, of this case that we see very much this idea of the haunted person. This is something not specific to the home, necessarily, not something specific to other sets of criteria. Instead, we seem to have this other kind of mix going on. That means it's this kind of perfect breeding ground, if you like, for this type of phenomena around this individual.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, basically what makes this case stand head and shoulders above any case in Scotland is because of the veracity of the many witnesses forever. For instance, what happened once little Virginia came back from Dolor and back to the family home? Obviously, she had to attend a new school. And you would think it's bad enough these events transpiring in the family home. Well, it didn't just happen there. It followed the kid to the primary school. And I interviewed Margaret Stewart, who was the teacher of Virginia Campbell and other children at Sauke Primary School. And this is what she said. She said, malcolm, I had given the children an essay to do, and all the heads were bent over the tables, writing away furiously, away apart. Apart from one little girl, Virginia Campbell. She had both her four arms, left and right, pushing down, pushing down on top of the desk lid. And the teacher says, Virginia, what are you doing? Take your hands away from that desk now. And as soon as Virginia lifted her arms up off that desk, the desk lid flapped up and down of its own volition. Nobody was near it. It was flapping up and down. And then next to Virginia's desk, there was another school desk. Nobody was sitting at it. It rose up. It rose up several centimeters into there and clattered back down. On another occasion, Margaret Stewart, the teacher, says, Malcolm, look, you're not going to believe this. I mean, this is what she's saying, Michelle, she says, I didn't even know what a poltergeist was. And then on this occasion Virginia approached my desk. Now back in 1960, Michelle, the teachers desks in scottish schools are really big heavy things, you know, all these were tough big wooden desks. And Virginia approached the teacher's desk with her essay. Put it down on the desk. Now there was a cane, one of these canes that the teachers pointed to, the blackboard. That's what they did in the early sixties. It was lying flat on the desk. It started to shake and it started to vibrate and then it stood up vertically and started thud, thud, thud, down on the desk in full view of over classmates of about 30 children. And at that point the teacher's desk rose up into the air about five or 6, whereas the teacher's stomach was in the long part of the desk, the desk swiveled round 90 degrees. And now the teacher's stomach is on the narrow part of the desk. And at that point a vase which contained some daffodils smashed off the, carried off the table and smashed into the wall. Well, needless to say, michelle, obviously the kids were in a panic. They were screaming, blue, murderous. And all the children ran towards the door to get out of the classroom. And this is what the teacher says to me. She says, malcolm, I got the door handle to open the door and I couldn't, I couldn't open the door. She said it was like a heavy man on the other side of the door says, you're not getting out. I couldn't open it. She says, malcolm, I've never had a problem with this door. And I'm pulling and I'm pulling and I could not open the classroom door. And then suddenly the door just released and all these school kids, you know, tumbled out into the, into the, into the corridor and went out into the playground. Now this is a teacher, you know, and she says it was astonishing. So we have the local reverend, we have three doctors. I've only mentioned one doctor, Logan. And we also had a number of church of Scotland ministers who, who conducted an exorcism in the house. And as they did so, knockings and bangings and rapids and sounds were coming from all over the house. And this is why with all these witnesses and all these classmates who saw that. And I spoke to him, I spoke to a number of these classmates, sir. Oh, Malcolm. Oh my God. I'll never ever forget what we saw in that classroom. And these people, or some of these people are still alive, you know, some have obviously passed away. But to have all these witnesses on this one particular case, for me, that's why it stands head and shoulders above any case in Scotland, if not possibly the British Isles.

Michelle: Well, I think it's fascinating that what you have are individuals from all walks of life from, you know, a medical background, from a teaching background, and then fellow classmates from, you know, the local community in terms of those that you would turn to for religious help or religious, you know, spiritual healing of some kind. Yeah, you've got people of all ages, all demographics, different belief systems, different approaches, and yet they all seem to become involved in this case as. As witnesses to the experience. And I can't imagine what it would have been like experiencing this for them either. I mean, I'm a teacher myself, and, you know, our classrooms are places of calm. Typically. They are places of routine and structure and order. And the scenarios that you've described that you've documented in your book as well, those are anything but that. And I can't imagine what that would have elicited in terms of a response from the children. I think the description of them screaming and running in fear only scratches the surface in terms of what they really must have felt having something like that play out in front of them because it's so out of the norm. And again, this is what is so exceptional about this case. Like you mentioned, the sheer volume of people involved who stand as witness to what happened, and that it's documented that these testimonies are documented, again, something very unusual and unique that doesn't often happen, which is great, to be able to then look at them and examine them in detail to really try and understand what unfolded over the period of time involved.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was just a young boy when these events transpired in 1960. I was only about three years of age. The main researcher was a chap called Alan George Owen, and he was the principal researcher who came up from England to look into this case. I've just done a kind of reinvestigation in the 1980s, 1990s and in the two thousands. So I've looked at it after he has done that. But he was the main chap, and he was convinced that of the veracity of the witnesses, and, you know, he'd really set his stall out to find out if there were any people trying to pull the wool over his eyes, and they clearly were not. And I certainly found that myself, speaking to the witnesses, that they will never forget these events.

Michelle: And I think his involvement is quite crucial to this story because part of what he did, which, again, doesn't always happen in these types of cases. You don't get the documentation. But he spent a huge amount of time interrogating eyewitnesses to gather their testimonies, to scrutinize them, and to analyze them as a means of, like you said, trying to. Trying to understand what was happening. Yes, but also trying to understand if this was fraud or if there was something else going on. He was very, very meticulous in speaking to people, gathering that documentation to have this again, this comprehensive understanding and overview as to who was involved, what has been seen by who, what's been observed as this body of evidence surrounding what was happening in this case.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, he did a terrific job. He really set out his stall, and his work on the Saukey case, God bless him, is fantastic. You know, so basically, I was just picking up the pieces, and I just wanted to speak to those classmates who are still there, and it was great speaking to the teacher and one of the doctors. And even now, would you believe, even now, after the books came out, there are people who I didn't know at the time who's tracked me down and says, yeah, I was there as well, or I was a friend of Virginia's, and I can testify to that. And I felt like saying how I wish you had known you when I was writing the book. It would have been great to get those extra bits in there, you know, but that usually happens when you finish a book. More people make themselves known. It's just one of these things. But it's just great to get that book out because, you know, people have got to understand, Michelle, we're living in strange times. We don't know it all. Mankind is learning. We laughed at John Logie Baird, inventor of television. All of that will never work. It did. We laughed at Marconi. We laughed at the Wright brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk. Oh, that will never get off the ground. It did. People tend to poke fun at science and medicine and more so the paranormal. But we got to understand, there's no denying, absolutely no denying, that these poltergeist events do indeed occur. Yes, of course they're fakes out there. Yes, of course there are people out to pull the wool over your eyes. And it's my job and my colleague's jobs to really find out who's telling us the truth. It's like a big sieve, Michelle, if you can imagine that, a big sieve. You know, the wire mesh, and you've got lots of dirt in it, and you're shaking it and shaking it and all the rubbish falls through and you're left with larger stones that won't go through the wire mesh. In a sense, that's what the paranormal is. It's all about getting rid of the falsities, the falsehoods, and getting to the truth. And I just wish that more scientists would become involved in this. But the reason they don't, some of them do, but the reason most of them don't is the fear factor, the ridicule factor. And equally for everyone, for every five persons who sees a poltergeist or ghostly effects, who come forward, how many behind them maybe saw the same thing, but won't come forward for fear of ridicule, persecution, etcetera, you know, and it can really upset people's lives if you come forward. And I just. God bless those people who have come forward. They'll be possibly people listening to your show who have had these events and never known who to talk to. Well, please, you know, either get in touch with myself or Michelle on the show and we'll try our very, very best to help you. So it's, it's all about just perseverance, finding out what's real, what's not real. But this saukey case, by God, yes. What a case that was.

Michelle: Yeah. And I echoes exactly what you just said. I mean, I had the opportunity to speak to somebody who is, who is in basically the thick of a poltergeist infestation. Their case has been reviewed. It's been under the kind of the care of the Society for Psychical Research for the last 20 months. But it took them years to be able to find the SPR, to gain the kind of support they needed to help them in what they were experiencing. And they went through so many individuals who promised help and who only made things worse, who didn't step in and give good advice. And they were living through this in all this time period, just totally in the dark as to what to do and who to turn to for help. And it's so hard because you don't necessarily know who to speak to. It's not a subject matter that is so readily out there in the public domain, and it shouldn't be something that has that ridicule attached to it, because precisely that situation then can occur whereby someone who is experiencing something don't speak out, or don't know who to speak out to. And there's something very wrong in that. If someone's experiencing something that is impacting their life the way that it can, we should be open and free. To be able to discuss it and have support around us. And I think that only begins to change as we open the subject up, talk about it more freely, and do so with honesty and integrity, but also understanding whereby we can just be a little bit more open and receptive to discussing the possibility of these things.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, I totally agree with you, Michelle. I mean, what we do as a research society is once we go into any given either poltergeist house or haunted house, we'll try and find out. We'll speak to the people concerned. We'll do the research of the background of the house and what stood on the house prior to, you know, the house being there. And if we determine that, yes, there is indeed spirit activity in a given house, then what we will try and do, not me personally, but our psychics will do, and we'll try and find out who is behind it and ask them to move on. Now, it may sound Hollywood, but I. We'll ask them to go towards the light. There is a better place for them to go to. And in the mean, you know, nine times ten, it works. Only a few occasions do we have to come back. And then we call these spirits, earthbound spirits, people who have passed on and just don't really understand it. They're passed on. So they tend to hang around the earth plane, you know, they tend to hang around places where they loved, they cherished, and they still believe it's their house. And suddenly, if these strangers are occupying the house and maybe they knock down a wall to, to change things. And generally, when modernization happens in any given house, old or new, believe it or not, that does sometimes not always enhance paranormal phenomena to occur. So we've got to really find out what's behind it and move them on. And it's just part of the work we do. And, you know, I'm pleased to say we've been very successful with it.

Michelle: And again, I think there's not necessarily a deep understanding of the type of anomalous disturbances that can occur. I mean, just thinking about some of the things that you raised in regard to what was happening to Virginia and to her family and those in the community who observed these things. If we think about just those phenomena, the range and the scale of what was experienced by this family and the community, it covers so many different kind of areas in terms of auditory phenomena, in terms of physical phenomena, things being moved. PK experience pokes, pushes. I mean, we're talking about a whole range of different things, a veracity that's different. So some things being very small, very minor, other things being much more physical, much more forceful. And again, when you're dealing with that uncertainty of not knowing what could happen next, what is the next thing you're going to experience, not knowing what phenomena is going to happen around you next. Again, it just adds that sense of not being certain, of feeling real dread, of just not having that equilibrium, if you like, of everything around you being ordered. It just throws your life into chaos. And again, I think that this is something that in this particular case, you see so clearly because of the range of experiences reported.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, very true. I mean, it's very sad. Nobody wants that to come into their life. Nobody at all, you know, especially young children. They think the earth, the world's all set out in stone, there's an order to it. And then suddenly this disorder is invading their lives and their parents lives and their friends lives. And it must be so frustrating, annoying, harrowing. There's so many adjectives you could use for people who have to go through and suffer the poltergeist effect. And I'm just glad that these days, you know, it's becoming a wee bit more knowledgeable. Because when I was a lad, you only had about three television stations, you know, and if you got a program on poltergeist that was balanced, one sided, which was very skeptical, and now you got all these lots of tv stations, and I've worked with many independent tv companies who do a wonderful job in portraying psychic phenomena to the masses with still a wee bit skepticism, which is fine, you know, but so we've come a long way. People are now, you know, you have so many different ghost societies, all the little gizmos, the EMF meters, and you have all that. But, yeah, I guess for me personally, whilst we do have a few pieces of equipment, sometimes it's your own eyes and ears and knowledge. And with the psychics we use, we know straight away a fasciit is Stephen Bert, who's a fantastic psychic and medium with SBI. He can determine straight away if there's something real in the house, you know? And so we look to him to see what we can do, and he'll find out what's behind it. And funnily enough, back quite a few years ago, when I started on this journey of trying to find out what was behind these ghostly and poltergeist events, there was one family who said to me, malcolm, just find out who, who's, who's behind that. Don't get rid of them. Please don't get rid of them, because they're not causing us any harm or any problems. It's quite interesting, but please don't get rid of them. So that was quite a shock, you know, and we were dealing with a castle, a castle in Perthshire, which I won't name. And the reason why is we were doing a ghost bus there. And the gentleman who the caretaker for the hotel says, please, anybody who is a psychic medium, do not get rid of our ghosts. And you can only maybe think, what is the reason for that? Because if he loses his ghosts, he won't have the revenue. And I gave a talk on a cruise ship about ghosts there last year, and I was speaking to the current owner of the conjuring house, whose name escapes me just now, but I spoke to her and I says, look, don't you want to get rid of your spirits in this house? Oh, no, no, no. And I didn't want to say the words that, yeah, it's because it's making you money, you know, so it's a bugbear of me as well, Michelle, that some people are making money or charging people to go into haunted houses and retaining the ghostly facade, because a lot of these places may not be haunted at all. I mean, obviously, when you look at United Kingdom as a whole, you have many haunted pubs, and I would say 90% probably are haunted, but 10% is just, you know, just let's make up a ghost, get the people in. So it's. But it doesn't matter to me, Michelle, because I love, love, love this subject so dearly. And I'm not an expert. The newspapers, the media will say I'm an expert. No, I'm not. I'm just a guy who's totally and fundamentally interested in this weird and wonderful subject of ghosts and Portuguese.

Michelle: And I think you represent so many people like myself. It's just this avid interest and intrigue into something that is still so unknown, you know, it's something that we've been pursuing, trying to get to the bottom of. Is there life after death? Does consciousness survive in some way for over 100 years longer? But yet we still don't have those answers. And I think as human beings, we're fueled by wanting to have an answer to the questions that we ask, and this is just one of them. And so, yeah, I think it is something that is there for many of us on various different levels. And it's cases like this poltergeist case and others and other places around the world that just offers us a chance to examine what was happening, the experience of what was happening, the phenomena that was being displayed and theorize and come to conclusions, if we can, as to what was happening. And likewise, then being able to compare and contrast those with other cases to, again, just to keep building this picture of subject knowledge and awareness so that, again, hopefully that leads us somewhere in the future in terms of better understanding what was happening, what is happening across these cases that appear around the world.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about the future, what is the future of paranormal research? Because we could ask the question to Joe public, what constitutes proof? What constitutes proof? What for Joe Bloggs would prove fundamentally that the paranormal ghostly phenomena occurs? Is it a photograph? Photographs can be faked. We're living in AI now. We're living in, you know, we can do anything by computer. So it's very easy to fake a photograph. In fact, there are even ghost apps. You can put a flimsy ghost into a holiday photograph. So, you know, we're living in the Steven Spielberg age of DreamWorks laboratory, where anything can be manipulated onto computer to look good. I'm going to give you a quick off the off the scene case, which is not relevant to socky. But when we talk about proof, the following story is a true story. Would it constitute proof to anybody? This is what happened when I lived in Hastings in East Sussex, and I gave lectures down. There was a lady came to me who works in the local hospital in Hastings, and she says, Malcolm, one of the leading surgeons, is off his work just now through stress. I went, well, you know, it's a stressful job. Oh, no, no. It's more than stress, Malcolm. What do you mean? And this is what she said. She said, this leading surgeon was walking down this corridor in the hospital and he observed an old man standing, just looking at the ceiling, looking around him. And he went up to the man and he says, you okay? You okay, sir? And the elderly gentleman turned round and went, I think so. I'm not sure. I think so. And then, just then, this surgeon's pager went off on his hip and he says, excuse me a moment, sir. Hold on. So the surgeon looked at his pager and it says, you are wanted in the resource room. So he turned around to say goodbye to the gentleman, but the gentleman wasn't there. He must have went through some swing doors, which was nearby. So I think you know where I'm going with the story. But there is a twist, Michelle. So as this surgeon went into the recess room, who is on the bed? You guessed it, the man he had just seen in the corridor with the paddles on his chest, trying to bring him back into life. So they, they had an ace because they decided, wait a minute, let's look at the CCTV cameras. I wonder if that man's on there. So they rewound the CCTV cameras, and you could see the leading surgeon walking down the hospital corridor, stopping, looking at nothing, nothing at all. He never saw. There was no spirit on the CCTV. Is that evidence? It's certainly evidence to the surgeon, who was off work through shock. It's very difficult for me. Getting the information out through books is fine, but it would be fantastic to have some really, really good video photography, which a range of aspects from all fields could really quantify. And look at it and say, okay, there's no trickery involved here. There's no color contouring edge pixel separation. That's not, you know, it's not a model or anything. So we need to look at what constitutes evidence, because above having witness testimony, which is all well and good, we need something more as a backup. You know, people have been hung back in the days. People have been hung for less evidence to substantiate what we have with ghosts.

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Michelle: Obviously you have these experiences, you have these reports, and like we've been talking about how, you know that's all very well and good for the person who's experienced them. They need no other proof. But for the wider community who haven't been involved in this, who are, who are instead experiencing it third hand through, you know, it being reported on, or maybe their neighbour telling them about it, or it coming home from the playground and children telling their parents about it type thing. What was the reaction from the wider community? If you know that, in terms of how it was reported in the press or how it was reported within the community, what was the response like?

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, there was two newspapers in the community at the time, the Allawa Journal and the Allawa Advertiser. Only one of those newspapers survived, which is the Advertiser. And that made big press at the time, initially, obviously in the local press, and then it went national, then it went international. I've spoken to elderly people who were around at that time, and they say it was the talk of the town. You know, everybody was talking about the saucy case, to be honest with you. It was split down the middle. A lot of people who were not immersed in the subject like you and I thought it was a lot of nonsense. You know, there are no such things as ghosts. The family's just making it up. They've just come over for Ireland. They're looking for attention. It's all made up a lot of nonsense. And other people in the community who knew the family went, no, no, no. They would never make up a story like that. That's nonsense. You know, you could see the terror in the family. You could see the shock and the horror in the family. And then, of course, you had the classmates telling the stories, the ministers, the scottish ministers telling the story, the doctors and everybody else. So a lot was split. It was the talk of the town. Everybody was talking about it. And it was big, big news back then. In fact, even today, it's still spoken about today, Michelle. Anytime I'm walking down the street, somebody will come up to me and I to start talking about the Saukie Porter Geist. And it's just great that the story's remembered. It really is.

Michelle: Were they persuaded, were some of them persuaded by the fact that this was observed by professionals within the community from, like we've mentioned, doctors from the community church, from their local school, all of these professional backgrounds? Did that sway some into giving it more credibility? Because, again, of the type of eyewitnesses to this case being of that nature.

Malcolm Robinson: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And that's that. There is the rub. That was a credibility. If I had just been the family, probably 90%, 95% may not have believed them. But when you incorporate local doctors, there was three main doctors. Doctor Logan and his wife, and Doctor Nisbet. You had the Reverend Lund, you had all these church of Scotland ministers. You had the classmates, you had the people in dollar and other dollar house. When you put all that together, and when that was recognized by the local community, that it wasn't just a little family talking about this, they were back up with these high standing academic people. These people were there. These people saw it as well. And so that gave it tremendous credence, tremendous validity, and really helped people understand that. Wait a minute. Maybe there is something to this, you.

Michelle: Know, and you've touched upon already some of the kind of the firsthand specific observations of, say, for example, the classmates and the teacher. But what was observed by some of the others involved, say, for example, the doctors that were involved in terms of their observances and what they spoke about to Owen and to others about what they'd seen and experienced?

Malcolm Robinson: Well, like I said, the main criteria, the main things that Doctor Logan and Doctor Nisbett saw. Well, Doctor Logan was present when this heavy chest of drawers, sorry, this linen chest, rose up and then the lid rose up and it was flapping up and down. He saw that. He also saw the rippling on the bed covers. He saw writing, strange writing that appeared on Virginia's face. And also her lips would turn a different shade in front of his face as well. They were a diary. It was kept by the Campbell family, which, sadly, I was not able to track down. But I was told of this by one of the doctors. And so, you know, Doctor Logan saw that Doctor Nisbet also heard footsteps moving up and down the bedroom. He also heard the thumping noises coming from the walls. The next door neighbours also heard the commotion as well. I should state this to your listeners, and obviously the several Church of Scotland ministers were astonished as they were doing this exorcism of these strange bangings and rappings, etcetera. But I think probably with the classmates of Virginia, the teacher as well. Can you imagine, you're a teacher yourself, Michelle? Can you imagine sitting beside your desk and then suddenly, whoop, your desk rises up and spins round? So the validity with all these witnesses was there to be seen? Yeah.

Michelle: And again, I think we have to really examine their professions because, you know, if we're speaking about doctors seeing some of this and physically noticing changes in Virginia in terms of the pallor of her lips, these are people trained to be observant. They are trained to be rational, to be calm and to observe. And so they're not, you know, they are going to notice these kinds of details. They would have no reason to lie. That's the other thing. Some of these individuals who are part of the testimonies, in terms of what they saw in their involvement, what reason do they have to lie? They don't. And so again, I think it just adds real weight and credibility that people who have an understanding, maybe, of how the mind works, how the body works, for example, are able to come at this with that professional background and understanding and still say, I cannot explain what I saw and what happened. I saw this, this and this, and I have no explanation of that. I think, again, just speaks volumes to how significant this case is and how credible some of the witnesses were who were involved in all aspects of the case itself.

Malcolm Robinson: We have to, you know, investigate this properly. And what I mean by that is with any given poltergeist or ghost case or even UFO cases, which we deal with as well, I have to ask the witness questions that I don't like to ask, but I've got to ask them stuff like, excuse me, madam, are you on any medication that may cause you to hallucinate, to make you see things? And then they get a wee bit uptight at that because they think I'm there to back them up. But I've got to ask these questions because if I don't, the skeptics will say, did you check to see if they're on medication. Malcolm, did you check to see if they're on drugs? So there is pertinent questions that myself have got to ask and find out what's going on. But I remember I was working with the one show a few years ago on the Sauke case, and one of the doctors said to me that prior to going to the house in Sauke, she thought it was a lot of nonsense. Her husband, who was a doctor, doctor Logan, and Sheila Logan, I was speaking to Sheila says, what a load of nonsense. And she says, but admittedly, I hadn't been at the house at the time, but my husband, Doctor Logan, William Logan, came back and told me all about it. He actually recorded the sounds of the Saukey poltergeist. And she said as soon as she went to the house, she heard and saw things herself. A qualified doctor. But we must admit, even qualified people, policemen, doctors, lawyers, can be misled. You could have six people looking at a car accident. What was the colour of the car? It was red. No, it was green. No, it was blue. People's perception, we have to quantify that and find out for sure if people are really, really seeing what they see. You know, I mean, I have a big issue with hypnosis, hypnotic recall and certain things. People can lie. There's kryptonisia, something you've read as a small girl or a small boy, and it comes through hypnosis. You think it's part of your life back in the day. So there's so many different avenues as a researcher, we have to tread down. Yeah.

Audio Recording : The phrase adolescent girl may be important here, but we'll hold it over until later. What we will not hold over any longer are actual tape recordings made in Virginia Campbell's bedroom during the course of the phenomena mentioned. Doctor Logan recorded these, and it is through his courtesy that we're now able to present them. The commentary is his, too. The first recording you're going to hear of the first part of the recording is that in which the knocking or tapping sound is heard. This knocking and tapping was quite typical of the type of sounds heard during the nights in which the phenomena were present, and they really are self explanatory. I would like to state here, here, that I satisfied myself that there was no possible outside source causing these sounds. The microphone at this stage was just beside the bed of the child, standing on the linen basket, as a matter of fact, that features so prominently in many of the phenomena. The sound appeared to come from somewhere in the region of the bed at that stage where Virginia was lying, I couldn't localize it. I looked under the bed, I stood at both ends of the bed, I stood at either side of the bed, but I couldn't definitely pinpoint an exact source for the location of the sound. I made sure there was nothing in the room, and I made sure, as far as possible, that the child was quite immobile and she had no part to play in the knocking. In fact, I'm quite convinced in that particular point, the amount of noise produced would have had to be produced by the child, by quite a great deal, I would say, of physical activity. And she was completely immobile. The next recording was made shortly after the service by the Church of Scotland ministers. Their mother and father had been with the child for a time. They had gone out of the room for an instant. When this present sequence of events took place, what actually happened there was that the lid of the linen basket had risen up its full height and remained there until after the mother and father came in the room. And I personally saw it and replaced it in its normal position. Now, I must point out at this stage, the microphone had been moved to a point on the wardrobe, on the top of the wardrobe, just behind the door. Most of the manifestations are where designed to attract the attention of people, although at this particular instance, there was no one in the room when something visible did happen. But the child's reaction was sufficient to attract the attention of everyone in the house. The microphone for this recording was placed on top of the wardrobe, just behind the door. Doctor Nisbet had just left and was going down the stairs when the following sawing noise was heard. You'll hear the clock chiming in the background. The time was 10:00 but you'll only hear the end of the chimes. Those are some knocking noises. They're different in quality from the ones previously recorded.

Malcolm Robinson: So there we have it. That's some of the sounds recorded by Doctor Logan.

Michelle: I just think it's fascinating because you can get his responses to it. I mean, he's basically narrating what was happening, what he was doing and what was being observed, where things were placed. So you're kind of getting some of that information as to the setup and in terms of the recording. But I think there's also something very visceral in being able to hear it, being able to hear the sound and the quality of the rapping and the taps. But at the same time also the jinya's cry. I mean, there's something very compelling in being able to hear it firsthand. Isn't there?

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah. I think that's what makes it, you know, there was also sunny footage taken of disturbances and the linen chest lid rising up, but so far we've been unable to trace that through the BBC and because that was given to a BBC station some years ago and we haven't been able to get that back. That would have been wonderful to get that sunny footage. But having said that, we do have some of the recordings of the actual noises made by the poltergeist, which is great. Skeptics will probably say that, you know, Virginia could have made that. There's many ways to make knockings and wrappings, but again, we refer back to Doctor Logan, who was there whilst making the recordings, viewing the room, making sure nobody was conjuring any tricks and stuff. So it lends a wee bit credence to that.

Michelle: Yeah, well, it does, because here you've got someone, again, from a scientific background who is fully aware of how to, you know, make things more fair to think, you know, to be aware of variables, to try and make it as secure and uncontaminated as possible. And again, you do have to pose the question, what reason does he have to lie? It certainly does, I think, add to the validity somewhat that he would have no reason to alter these in any way. And I suppose, going on from that, I don't know if you know this, but do you happen to know if anything came of the recordings that he took and other footage, in terms of, was it analysed by anyone else? Was it, you know, was anything done with him in terms of trying to look at and view and maybe interrogate the recordings for their quality, etcetera? Do you know if anything came with them after the fact?

Malcolm Robinson: Well, I certainly did try to find that out because it is quite important to find out a, more about these recordings and b, you know, about the cine footage I was taken as well. It would have been great to have some other people talking about that and maybe if there were any experimentation done on it, although I don't know how they would go about that then. But to answer your question, no, we don't. Other than just the recordings and the cine footage, that's great evidence. But like any evidence, you know, in a court of law, there's the defence and the prosecution will be up in arms about what does quantify it. These noises could have been made by this, by that. But no, I mean, sadly, it would have been great to just find out more about these recordings, but the fact that we have them is still good.

Michelle: News and it's quite hard to analyse them all these years later because obviously they will be recordings of recordings of recordings of recordings, unless you have the original. It's quite hard to interrogate the sound for the unique qualities of the sound waves, etcetera. So it's quite hard to do that after the fact. But I know it's certainly something that, in terms of current investigations, it's precisely the type of thing that begins to form part of that process of analyzing what is happening. Is there anything different about the sounds in terms of how they appear alongside other sounds? And so, yeah, it's something that obviously we have the capability of being able to do now, but obviously wouldn't have been so easy to be done in the 1960s.

Malcolm Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can tidy up sounds, as we know. We did that with the last Beatles recording. After the death of John Lennon, they recorded a song and the rest of the remaining beatles tidied it up. AI technology cleared it up and it's beautiful. You know, you can hear Lennon's voice clear as a day, clear as a bell, and it's just great. So maybe if we had those original original, it probably would have been real to real tapes. I'm sure it was recordings. Maybe we could use AI technology to get rid of any hissing or background noises, just to see if, by tidying up these recordings, it would have given us any more insight as to what was recorded. So, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah.

Michelle: And, you know, coming back to the case, I know again that thinking about some of the phenomena that we've talked about, that Owen reported additional strange phenomena like floating objects and like we've mentioned, these unexplained writings and pokes and pinches and, and so on and so forth. And again, as we've spoken about, his real intention was to analyse these, to really pick them apart for their credibility. What kinds of things did he do to try and analyse the. The eyewitness accounts, to approach this with that skeptical mindset of being able to try and really tease apart the details as to what was happening here and to be able to say at the end of it that he really did believe that there was something very credible here going on. What kinds of things did he do in terms of his approach and his methodology?

Malcolm Robinson: Well, it's fair to say that, I mean, the gentleman you're talking about, Alan Owen, he played a large part in the development of radar technology during the second world War. And following the war, you know, he became a research fellow, a lecturer in mathematics and genetics. In Trinity College. So he was quite a clever man for sure. But the beauty of it, both he and his wife Iris, were totally interested in researching psychic phenomena, more so the poltergeist phenomena. So when this case came to his attention, he travelled north. Now, as far as I'm led to believe, to answer your question, Michelle, as far as I'm led to believe, he never had any superior, fantastic equipment, other than obviously an audio recording unit, etcetera. He was there. He's an intelligent man. We can see that, you know, what he did in the same world with the radar. And so he was there to document firsthand, get this down on paper, get this down on tape, these witness statements, and find out if there's any validity to that. So his work was involved not just with the primary, primarily the witnesses, but also the teacher and some of the school kids, etcetera. So his job was to document that as best as he could. And of course, while he did so, he absolutely says, I think, if memory serves me right, he said something along the lines of, it seems, this is what he said. He says, it seems evident that the psychical phenomena observed by the key witnesses are incompatible with trickery by Virginia or by other children or adults. So in other words, Michelle, he was of the opinion, this is a real deal and this should be documented. And I believe he sent these findings off to the Society for Psychical Research in London.

Michelle: And again, I think this is what is so interesting about it, because if we just take the scenario of what took place in the classroom, for example, and we posed that question in a way that he probably asked himself as well, if you were going to fake that type of scenario, how would you go about doing it? How as a school child, would you be able to do that in an environment thats not your home, that you dont have the kind of controls over where you have 30 other people in the room being able to observe what youre doing, how on earth could someone of that age pull something like that off in that manner? You know, it's the question where, when you start to think about it, it's like, how on earth could you possibly, as a child, be able to make something move in the manner that happened, that was observed by more than 30 people? More than 30 people is just astounding. And so, again, I think it, again, it just throws out that, well, what reason do they have to lie? And how, how credible is it? Because in terms of that would be very, very difficult for a child to do, for anyone to do, and it's.

Malcolm Robinson: Not just that, Michelle. You know, she's coming over to a new country from Ireland, just this eleven year old child coming over. She's trying her best to make friends and come into the community and hope everybody likes her, because you know what it's like. You move to a new place more so if you're a young child, you're hoping everything will go fine. I. That's not to say she made things up to get that attention. I don't think so at all. I totally agree with you. You know, she was just as bemused and astonished and amazed by the events that surrounded her at that time. I mean, when we know adults can conjure these things. Derren Brown, various stage magicians, mostly from America, make the statue of limited disappear, can make an elephant appear and disappear in a desert. We've all saw that on tv shows. It's all illusion, of course. No magic. No magic there. Probably a lot of magic. But for a young child to do that, approach the teacher's desk, the pointer, the blackboard pointer, vibrating and standing up on end and battering down the table, rising and spinning round, is just incomprehensible that a young child has got strings and pulleys and cohorts and all that to help her out with this phantasmagorical sideshow. So, no, for me, it's like all the kind of poetic, strange events from Europe and the rest of the world that we know has been with us since time immemorial. Because, of course, this is not a 21st century or a 20th century phenomena. Even Plato writes about it, Pliny the elder writes about it. You know, these porter guy, strange manifestations. So for me, it's something that's certainly always been with us. It always will be with us. I mean, as I said earlier at the top of the show, I'm a firm believer in life after death. Why? Simply because of the amount of research I've done. I've spoke to clinical physicians asking them, could it be just oxygen starvation in the brain, creating this big tunnel of light, etcetera? Not at all. Not at all. Could it be drugs? Could it be this? Could it be that? And whilst there is a small percent that would be of that nature, my research has conclusively shown to me that we. That each and every one of us will live after we die. We'll see our aunts and uncles and family and friends when it's our turn. Now, I don't expect that all your listeners will accept that, and that's absolutely fine. All I would ask your listeners to do is just research, really, really research. I remember one time I was interviewing a lady who had seen some ghosts in her home and she was sitting on a chair and I says, mary, are you interested in ghosts? And she went, oh, no. Oh, no, son. No, no, no. And I looked behind her, Michelle. I looked behind her and there's a bookcase full of ghostly stories, you know. And so sometimes you have to keep your wits about you, your eyes about you, b b observant look at body language, what they're trying to say to you, you know, and, but in my re investigation, as I say, alan on, he was a men chap, but in my reinvestigation of this wonderful, wonderful scottish case, the people I spoke to who are now of an obviously of an age just told it as it is. And when I gave this anniversary talk in soccer a few years ago, I gave a, to over 200 people in saucy hall when there was a lot of people couldn't get in. Big PowerPoint show, you know. Great. So anyway, as I finished my talk, I said to the audience, I says, ladies and gentlemen, don't believe a word I say. Welcome to the stage. And I gave one of the sake witnesses, one of the kids. It was in Virginia's class, don't believe our dasy. Here's a horse's mouth. And this gentleman walked up. He's older now. He says, ladies and gentlemen, everything Malcolm did say is the truth. I'm here to tell you what I saw. And it was wonderful, Michelle, to get somebody who was there, there in the class, seeing the desolates rise up to say to this large audience what it was. And if there were any skeptics in the audience, you know, I say to myself, would this information convince them? Who knows? As I say, it's all about what constitutes evidence.

Michelle: I think this is where something like your book is so important so that, you know, we can continue to document cases like these, these experiences. And so people who have a mindset who are firm believers or who are more skeptical can at least approach it and read it. Where you get, again, these, these firsthand experiences being documented that you can analyze and you can come away and you can form your own opinion as opposed to just not having the debate around it at all. And this is why I think it's so important to share and to document cases like these and experiences to allow people to be more open, but also to give space to examine firsthand the experiences of someone else, because like we've said, you know, you can't possibly begin to have an understanding if you just don't talk about it at all. And I think that's really something that anybody should be able to do. They should be able to pick up a book on Sorkie and be able to understand it better. As opposed to the piecemeal information that might be represented on the Internet, for example. It's about having these comprehensive analysis, drawing together of the facts so that people can do their own research, do their own due diligence to inform their decisions. As opposed to just being so. Having that closed mindset. And I think that's the importance of dialogue. And looking at these, it just allows that openness that is necessary around the topic itself.

Malcolm Robinson: You certainly know your stuff, Michelle, but it'd be great to get you to join our society. But no, I mean, of course that's the way it should be. It's all about education. Life isn't an education, you know, we've got to. We've got to just look at all things. And if something doesn't sit right, find out more about it, you know, do that. I'll tell you this, Michelle. Every time I give a lecture and I come off stage, there's always a queue of people want to speak to me. And they'll say to me, Mister Robinson, I'm going to tell you something I haven't even told my own husband. But I'm going to tell you. And this is why I get all these lovely, lovely stories that people have held tight to their chest. They didn't know who to turn to. They've found out I've been given a lecture and they come along and they just unfold, they just pour it all out. And again, like I said earlier, what am I meant to do with this? Just put it away in a filing cabinet? Absolutely not. It's got to go in the books and. But I've got to make sure, of course, that it is a true story. Be validated. But I forgot to mention that when Virginia and her mother came over, Isaukee, the father actually stayed back home in Ireland to sell the family farm. There was a farming family, you see. And he had heard about this prior to him selling the farm and coming over to Scotland. That there was some trouble, for want of a better word, in the family home in Saucy, about this ghost and all the rest of it. And he didn't believe it until we came over one day and his shaving brush. He was walking into the bathroom, his shaving brush, a man's shaving brush floated out of its little white ball in midair and dropped at his feet. And on another occasion, in front of James himself, James Campbell, he was walking into the kitchen and a Brillo padded, came out of the kitchen as if someone was holding it. An invisible person holding a Brillo pad in his hand came out of the kitchen and into the living room and fell right down at his feet. So he didn't believe it until he physically saw these things himself, you know? So it's like we keep saying, like we said earlier, until you see these things, until you see these things and question yourself, right? Wait a minute. I know I'm not on drugs. I know I'm not on medication. I've just seen a book or something fly off a shelf. How's this. How is this possible? And it surprises me that many people walking down the street to go for the shopping are not interested in these subjects. But certainly for me, as a young boy who didn't believe this at first, once you get your hands dirty, I mean, I've been slapped. I've been slapped and had my hair pulled by nothing, absolutely nothing. And when that happens to you, that's when I came off the fence. Actually, when these events transpired in my younger life, that's when I went, okay, my God. Right? Okay. This is a real deal. And I've seen some astonishing things, astonishing things in my life as a paranormal investigator. And I know that some of your listeners will be saying, that's all very well, Malcolm, but where's your proof? Do you have any video footage of that? Do you have any photographs? We do, and that is on our website, etcetera. But we need more.

Michelle: Absolutely. And again, I think, again, it's that openness to be able to look at them and examine them, because it could be something very small that is captured, that is really quite sizable in terms of what that shows. And it can also be something really big. You know, you get this scale of activity and, you know, speaking about the kind of the floating shaver, if you like, that you were just talking about, I mean, again, this case that I was referencing earlier, this active poltergeist case that's being investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, they've just done a webinar on it where they have shared what they can in terms of some of the footage without showing the family members, etcetera, for their anonymity. They have shown some of the physical captures that they've got in terms of the camera feed. And they have cameras all over the house, everywhere, from every different angle. And, you know, you've got small things like biscuit packets moving with no one in the room, but these biscuit packets moving, things moving in the kitchen, all kinds of things being captured. And again, it can be something very small like the biscuit, you know, packet ruttling and rustling about on the shelf for no explanation, all the way through to whole shelves with pans coming off and falling all over the floor with quite considerable velocity. So you get this scale in terms of activity. And again, I think this is where the sorkie case is, helps to also demonstrate that, you know, in the way that you see with other poltergeist cases that are reported, that you get something happen and then it continues to build and you get these different types of phenomena. It doesn't stick. It seems to kind of move and evolve. And again, that's what's interesting about these cases, that it doesn't stick to one particular type of experience, that you get this range. And again, this is where I think the sorkie case has such relevance, to be able to sit alongside other cases, because again, we have so few of them where they are so well documented, but this is one of them where we have physical recordings, we have documentation of eyewitness reports and statements from lots of people. And so it's a really important case. It has a really important place in history in terms of what we can learn from it and continue to learn from it. So, you know, I appreciate you giving your time to help kind of bring your knowledge and your insight to the case, to the people listening, you know, to the podcast.

Malcolm Robinson: It's been a pleasure. You know, I mean, it's a wonderful case and how I wish I was involved in a case of that nature today. It would be wonderful. Well, I mean, England as well has said it's a great Porter guys case, the South Shields Porter guys, they the Enfield Poltergeist. And so these cases, for anybody who's listening to the show, please, if you can, if you haven't already read the South Shields Poltergeist, it's by Darren Ritson and Michael Hallowell. Please get that book for me that's hands down, way better than the Enfield Poltergeist. The South Shields case for me is England's best poltergeist case, and of course, the soccer case is Scotland's at the moment. So clearly, I would ask any listener to try and get these books, if you can. They're probably available on Amazon.

Michelle: Absolutely. And I will certainly make sure to put into the description notes for the podcast as well as on the website, links to your books, links to social media pages for you, etcetera, so that they can get their hands on the saucy Poltergeist book, which also features other, you know, accounts and tales from Scotland, but also some of the other books that you've written. Because like I said, you give it such comprehensive analysis and attention, and I think it's for me personally, it's the best book that I've read on the case in terms of material out there because it just brought together all of the threads which made it just so detailed. So yeah, it's definitely one that I would recommend if people are interested in examining other poltergeist cases or just wanting that more thorough analysis of the saucy case. Yours is definitely up there in terms of the best book that I've ever read with all of that detail to hand. So like I said, I'll make sure that all those links are easily found on the website and in the podcast.

Malcolm Robinson: Description notes thank you ever so much, Michelle, for your kind comments, and it's been a pleasure. A real, real pleasure. They've been on your show, and I'll.

Michelle: Say goodbye to everybody listening. Bye everybody.

Michelle: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can follow us on social media for updates and more intriguing stories. Until next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious.