Page 81 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - August/September 2017

Celebrity Hauntings: Ghosts of Rock Stars 81

Celebrity Hauntings: killed. When his surviving band mates released famous archaeological hoax in history.
a new song for the Anthology, a white peacock It consisted of fragments of a skull and
Ghosts of Rock Stars wandered into one of the photos, which the jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at

bandmates believed was a sign from Lennon. Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex.
They also claim that their deceased band The fragments were thought by many
by Wendy Lynn Staats
member’s name can be clearly heard in a experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of
backwards section of the recording they made. a hitherto unknown form of early human. The
Finally, one of our favorite concert specimin was even given the Latin name
We’re talking ghost stories! Specifically, stories
venues, First Avenue in Minneapolis, hosts Eoanthropus dawsoni “Dawson’s dawn-man”,
about rock star ghosts and celebrity hauntings.
several specters. One is a blond woman in a after the collector Charles Dawson.
Ghosts aren’t often reported of people
green jacket, who legend has it hanged herself in It was exposed in 1953 as a forgery,
who died peacefully. Many rock stars’ lives have
the bathroom, and who on occasion reportedly consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan
ended tragically and suddenly, in the type of
reveals herself hanging in the bathroom. The combined with the skull of a fully developed,
untimely ending often resulting in restless souls other one, named Slippy, makes a balloon modern man.
with unfinished business. Many witnesses appear that rises and falls in the staircase. In The identity of the Piltdown forger
purport to have seen those souls in the form of
addition to these apparitions, staff claim that the remains unknown, but suspects have included
ghosts, and when those ghosts are famous
sound and lighting equipment is susceptible to Dawson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Arthur
people, it makes for interesting ghost stories.
eery signals from beyond. [] Conan Doyle as well as numerous others.
The first celebrity ghost we discuss is the
infamous Elvis Presley. Although many people Five famous hoaxes which Alien Autopsy 1995
believe that Elvis faked his own death, many
In 1995 Ray Santilli claimed he had
also claim to have seen his ghost and/or fooled the world uncovered footage of an alien autopsy
communicated with his spirit in places as
performed by the U.S. military shortly after the
obvious as Graceland and as odd as Burger
1947 Roswell UFO incident.
King.
Santilli invited media representatives to
Next, we talk about a dead celebrity,
watch the film at the Museum of London that
Mama Cass, who visits a living celebrity, Dan
year and then released a film which allegedly
Aykroyd! He lives in her former dwelling, which
showed pictures of the crash site and interviews
he believes her spirit continues to inhabit. Did
with experts.
Cass’s ghostly visits to Aykroyd’s boudoir
However in 2006 Santilli and fellow
inspire a scene in Ghostbusters?
producer Gary Shoefield announced that their
Many recording studios host ghosts: Jim
film was only partially real and the remaining
Morrison haunts the Sunset Sound studios and
scenes had been recreated.
his band mates’ dreams. The Cave, another
According to Santilli, a set was
recording studio and former speakeasy, is
constructed in the living room of an empty flat
haunted by the ghost of Warren Zevon, singer of
in Rochester Square, Camden Town, London.
the song Werewolves of London. Axis Studios, a
John Humphreys, an artist and sculptor,
Wisconsin recording studio where Sunspot
recorded parts of their “Cynical” album, has The Cottingley Fairies 1917 was employed to construct two dummy alien
bodies over a period of three weeks, using casts
ghosts who get bored and leave if you don’t The Cottingley Fairies are a series of five
containing sheep brains set in jelly, chicken
show fear. A mysterious heartbeat was once photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances
entrails and knuckle joints.
discovered on a recording made there. Griffiths, two young cousins living in
Given the untimely/tragic nature of their Cottingley, near Bradford, England, depicting
Fiji Mermaid 1842
deaths, it’s not surprising that many members of the pair interacting with faries.
The mummified body of a creature
the 27 Club haunt us. Vibes of Kurt Cobain have Elsie was the daughter of Arthur Wright,
dubbed the Feejee Mermaid was first displayed
been uncovered by a psychic in the wood of a one of the earliest qualified electrical engineers.
by circus emprasario PT Barnum in 1882 and
park bench in Viretta Park in Seattle, She borrowed her father’s quarter plate camera
Washington. Others have reported and took photos in the beck behind the family toured around the United States.
seeing/feeling his spirit there. A woman also house. The exhibit has since been acquired by
claimed that Cobain haunted her laptop until she When Mr. Wright, upon developing the Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology and is currently
kissed it on his ghostly request, upon which it plates, saw fairies in the pictures, he considered
housed in the museum’s attic storage area.
stopped working. them fake. After the taking of the second picture,
In reality, the mermaid was the work of
Whitney Houston is another, more he banned Elsie from using the camera again.
an Indonesian craftsman using either papier-
recently departed, celebrity whose spirit visits Her mother, Polly, however was convinced of
mâché and materials from exotic fish, or the tail
her mother, Sissy Houston, by ringing her their authenticity.
of a fish and a torso of a baby orangutan,
doorbell. In the summer of 1919, the matter
Pete Doherty (co-frontman of The became public and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stitched together with the head of a monkey.
Libertines), the close friend of Amy Winehouse (author of Sherlock Holmes) wrote an article for
(who passed away in 2011), is convinced that a leading magazine claiming that they were The Cardiff Giant
she haunts his flat. He has gone so far as to flee authentic. The Cardiff Giant, one of the most
from the UK escape her ghost, which appears in However in the early 1980s the sisters famous hoaxes in American history, was a 10-
the form of images and reflects in the night. who took the photographs admitted that the first foot-tall “petrified man” uncovered on October
Musician Gram Parsons liked Joshua four pictures were fakes. 16, 1869 by workers digging a well in Cardiff,
Tree National Park in California, where he and Speaking of the first photograph in New York.
his friends would spend time UFO-sighting, so particular, Frances has said: “I don’t see how The find was put on display by Barnum
much that he wished to be cremated there after people could believe they’re real fairies. I could but was later discovered to have been created by
he died. He ended his own life with a drug see the backs of them and the hatpins when the tobacconist George Hull.
overdose at the Joshua Tree Inn, where to this photo was being taken.” It was carved out of gypsum and stained
day his apparition appears in haunted Room 8. Both of the girls claimed, right up to wtih acid to appear old and weather beaten. Hull
In a bold move of loyalty, against Parsons’ their deaths, that the fifth photo was, in fact, then bured it and arranged for it to be dug up
family’s wishes, his best friend Phil Kaufman authentic after a year.
stole his ashes from the airport and scattered On February 2, 1870 the were revealed
them in the park he so adored. Piltdown Man as fakes in court. The judge ruled that Barnum
Legendary John Lennon’s spirit has been The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most could not be sued for calling a fake giant a fake.
witnessed near the Dakota Hotel where he was