Beechworth Lunatic Asylum, Victoria, Australia

Located in the beautiful town of Beechworth, just a few hours from Melbourne is the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum. One of the most seen ghosts is that of Matron Sharpe, her apparition has been seen in several different parts of the hospital.


The Asylum was later renamed the Mayday Hills Hospital, it is the second oldest asylum in Victoria, dating back to 1867. When the asylum opened it stretched half a kilometer from one end to the other. The Beechworth Lunatic Asylum held a total of 1200 patients when full 600 men and 600 women. Over 3000 patients died within its walls in the 128 years the hospital operated. Its doors closed in 1995, and since then has operated as a campus of La Trobe University, run as a hotel and conference center.

In one of the day rooms, the signature of a J. Kelly is scratched in the glass. J Kelly was Ned Kelly's (the famous outlaw) uncle James Kelly. After burning down his sister in laws house in Greta, in which a young Ned was in at the time, Jim was sentenced to 15 years hard. As part of his sentence he was sent to Mayday Hills to help build the hospital. After serving his time, it's said his mind "was broken" and as such spent the rest of his days housed in the hospital until his death in 1903.

The Ghost Tours run at Beechworth Lunatic Asylum have become the most popular ghost tours on mainland Australia. Only the Ghost Tours offered in Port Arthur, in Tasmania, attract more visitors. Tours are offered every evening; on some evenings, as many as twelve tours are conducted. The Beechworth Asylum is now considered to be one of the most haunted buildings in Australia.

One of the ghosts most often seen at Beechworth is that of Matron Sharpe her apparition has been seen in several different parts of the hospital. Matron Sharpe's ghost has been seen in the former dormitory area, which is now part of Latrobe University's computer rooms. Witnesses have seen her walking down the granite staircase and into one of the classrooms. Matron Sharpe was apparently very compassionate toward the patients, which is uncharacteristic of the era.

One patient whose ghost is thought to haunt Beechworth is Tommy Kennedy. Tommy was well liked at the hospital and was given a job as a kitchen hand. Tommy actually died in the kitchen which is now part of the Bijou theatre, it is here that people have said they have felt the sensation of someone tugging at their clothes or poking their ribs.

The Reaction Hall was an area where patients could sing, play music or perform in plays, on Sundays the hall doubled as the chapel. In 1939 the hall became a cinema, where inmates could come in to watch movies. There are two common sightings in the hall, one is of a young girl, who approaches women and desperately tries to communicate with them. The other ghost has been seen in a window that was once part of the Bell Tower; the apparition of an elderly man facing away from the window is often seen.

The Grevillia wing was the section of the hospital all patients feared, it has been closed for 13 years, and now in a derelict state. As medication wasn't introduced until the 1950s, restraints such as straightjackets and even shackles were commonly used as well as electro-shock treatment. Electro shock treatment was widely used in the hospitals early days and there are stories of mass treatments in which almost the entire patient population was shocked in one session. When the shocks were administered the patient's bodies either splayed out backwards with force or contracted inward into a fetal position, which ever position ligaments would snap, bones were often broken and teeth shattered.

There are two common sightings in Grevillia, one is thought to be that of an unknown male doctor, his apparition has been seen wandering the corridors at night. The other is Matron Sharpe whose ghost was often seen in this area by the nurses who worked at Mayday Hills. They would report seeing the Matron sitting with patients who were due to have electro-shock treatment. Those who say they've witnessed this say the room was icy cold, but her presence was comforting, and seemed to bring a sense of reassurance to the patients.

Workmen at the hospital have reported hearing the sound of children laughing and playing; when they investigate the sound they are unable to trace there source. Several years ago on a ghost tour a parent noticed their 10 year old son talking to himself when asked who he was talking to the boy said he was talking to a boy called James who lived there.

A patient, a woman who was a big chain smoker was thrown out of a window to her death by another patient who wanted her cigarettes. Because the woman was Jewish her body was not allowed to be moved until a Rabbi had seen it, so her body was left lying out the front of the hospital dead for 2 days whilst the Rabbi made the trip up from Melbourne. Her ghost has been seen on the spot where she fell, by several witnesses over the last decade. The photo on the right was taken of the window from which she was thrown, an orb is clearly visable in the photo.

The gardens of Beechworth have long been subdivided into allotments; those who live nearby have seen the ghost of a man, wearing a green woolen jacket. The ghost is thought to be of a gardener named Arthur who worked the gardens for many years earning ten shillings a week. He wore his green jacket in winter and summer and no one could persuade him to remove it. After Arthur died, it was discovered why Arthur had been secretly storing his wages in the seam of his jacket. When the nurses opened it, they found 140 pounds, over four years of his wages, hidden inside.

There's one final and grizzly tale of a patient who disappeared, despite efforts by staff to locate him. Several weeks later his location was discovered when the resident dog Max, was found chewing a leg near the gate house at the grounds entry. A second search found the body up in a tree; the body had decomposed so badly that his leg had come off. The ghost of the patient has been seen near the entrance to the Asylum, the sightings have often been in the early hours of the morning.

Bermuda Triangle: Where Facts Disappear

Also sinisterly known as the Devil's Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle consists of a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is defined by points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. It stretches across less than a thousand miles on any one side.

The Bermuda Triangle (also known as the Devil's Triangle) is an area bounded by points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico where ships and planes are said to mysteriously vanish into thin air — or deep water.

Recently, some people have wondered if there is a Bermuda Triangle connection in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, even though the jet went missing halfway around the world.

The term "Bermuda Triangle" was coined in 1964 by writer Vincent Gaddis in the men's pulp magazine Argosy. Though Gaddis first came up with the phrase, a much more famous name propelled it into international popularity a decade later. Charles Berlitz, whose family created the popular series of language instruction courses, also had a strong interest in the paranormal. He believed not only that Atlantis was real, but also that it was connected to the triangle in some way, a theory he proposed in his bestselling 1974 book "The Bermuda Triangle." The mystery has since been promoted in thousands of books, magazines, television shows, and websites.

Still others believe that the explanation lies in some sort of extremely rare and little–known — yet perfectly natural — geological or hydrological explanation. For example, perhaps ships and planes are destroyed by pockets of flammable methane gas known to exist in large quantities under the sea — maybe lightning or an electrical spark ignited a huge bubble of methane that came to the surface right next to a ship or plane, causing them to sink without a trace. There are a few obvious logical problems with this theory, including that methane exists naturally around the world and such an incident has never been known to happen. 

Others suggest sudden rogue tidal waves. Or maybe some mysterious geomagnetic anomaly that creates navigational problems confusing pilots and somehow causing them to plunge into the ocean; then again, pilots are trained to fly even with a loss of electronic navigation, and that theory doesn't explain ship disappearances. In fact, the Navy has a web page debunking this idea: "It has been inaccurately claimed that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the two places on earth at which a magnetic compass points towards true north. Normally a compass will point toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. ... Although in the past this compass variation did affect the Bermuda Triangle region, due to fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field this has apparently not been the case since the nineteenth century."

Mystery of the disappearing facts

A journalist named Larry Kusche asked exactly that question, and came to a surprising answer: there is no mystery about strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. Kusche exhaustively re-examined the "mysterious disappearances" and found that the story was basically created by mistakes, mystery mongering, and in some cases outright fabrication — all being passed along as fact-checked truth.

In his definitive book "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery — Solved," Kusche notes that few writers on the topic bothered to do any real investigation — they mostly collected and repeated other, earlier writers who did the same. Unfortunately, Charles Berlitz's facility with language did not carry over into credible research or scholarship. His books on the paranormal — and on the Bermuda Triangle, specifically — were riddled with errors, mistakes, and unscientific crank theories. In a way, the Bermuda Triangle is largely a creation of Charles Berlitz's mistakes. Kusche would later note that Berlitz's research was so sloppy that "If Berlitz were to report that a boat were red, the chance of it being some other color is almost a certainty."

In some cases there's no record of the ships and planes claimed to have been lost in the aquatic triangular graveyard; they never existed outside of a writer's imagination. In other cases, the ships and planes were real enough — but Berlitz and others neglected to mention that they "mysteriously disappeared" during bad storms. Other times the vessels sank far outside the Bermuda Triangle.

It's also important to note that the area within the Bermuda Triangle is heavily traveled with cruise and cargo ships; logically, just by random chance, more ships will sink there than in less-traveled areas such as the South Pacific.

Despite the fact that the Bermuda Triangle has been definitively debunked for decades, it still appears as an "unsolved mystery" in new books — mostly by authors more interested in a sensational story than the facts. In the end, there's no need to invoke time portals, Atlantis, submerged UFO bases, geomagnetic anomalies, tidal waves, or anything else. The Bermuda Triangle mystery has a much simpler explanation: sloppy research and sensational, mystery-mongering books.


Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books, including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries."

Real-life Scary True Ghost Stories (20 pics)

10 Most Frightening True Life Ghost Stories.... 

Laughter In The Middle Of The Night

When I was a child, I lived in an old Victorian house, and I would always hear laughing while I was trying to sleep. I was an only child with a single mother, and when I was about 5-6, I would wake up hearing laughter in the hallway in the middle of the night. After mentioning this to my mum, she swore it was probably just the TV being left on late.
One night, I awoke hearing the laughter in my room. I went to sit up but felt like there was someone holding my shoulders down, invisible hands gripping into my shoulders while I heard laughing. I screamed my little heart out. My mum ran into my room, flicking on the bedside lamp, convincing me it was just a dream, until I said “but my shoulders hurt.” She lifted up my t-shirt and there were two adult-sized hand prints on my shoulders.

I honestly thought I had imagined it and that it had never happened, but the other day I mentioned it in passing to my mum and she went blanket white and said “I don’t want to remember that.”

“I Was Never Outside”

This isn’t my story, so it takes away from the horror factor a bit, but it’s from a good friend that I know doesn’t make shit up.
His story happens when he was about 8. He was playing hide and seek with his friend at his house, it was late… Probably about 10ish. It’s my friends turn to find his friend. He’s looking everywhere around the house, but he can’t seem to find him anywhere. He eventually decides he must be hiding outside. So he leaves the house to find him.
He starts searching around some bushes when he hears his friends voice coming from a dark corner maybe 20 feet away. They voice calls for him to come over. He didn’t, because he was already spooked out enough being outside in the pitch black. My friend yelled back, “no! You come over here!”
That’s when he said it really started to get spooky. He told me the voice that sounded just like his friend kept insisting that he come over to the dark corner. My friend kept saying no over and over again. At this point, he said the the voice suddenly changed to a dark, horrible sounding voice demanding he come over. At this point he ran back inside, only to see his friend in the living room. When questioned how he got inside so fast, the friend said he never went outside.
Now, I know both of these 2 guys. None of them make up shit. And I doubt it’s the case of an “imagination gone wild”.

Whatever that voice was, it still spooks me just thinking about this story.


The Farmer

My mother in law was a very funny and cool woman. She and my wife were really close and sadly, she passed away when our son was about 4 months old. Flash forward a few years. We live in an old 1930’s era craftsman house in Pasadena, CA. Our son is about 3 at the time.

I was giving him a bath one night and he starts looking over my shoulder, not at random stuff, but at something. A moment passes and he asks me why Grandma calls Mommy a funny name. Long pause. I asked him what he meant thinking he was talking about MY mom. He then says why does Grandma call Mommy ****** (My mother in laws nickname for my wife). I was really set back by this. My wife and I never used the nickname, it was just what her mom called her since she was a baby. I asked him where he heard that. His reply: “The Farmer told me”.

I asked him who the farmer was and he replied “his friend” I tell my wife this story later and she’s of course reduced to tears over the whole nickname thing. We both know there is no way for him to know this and we just kinda marvel at it.
Flash forward to the next weekend and my son is playing in his room. My wife is at work (retail) and I’m home (I worked M-F). I hear him start talking like he’s having a conversation. He’s saying things like “yes” “no” “I dont know that” then some laughing. I go into his room and ask him what hes doing and he says playing. I ask with who. He says The Farmer.

At this point I’m already thinking about the fucking Exorcist movie and Captain Howdy. It’s a little unsettling. I ask him where the Farmer is. He says he left when I came in. THE FUCK. So my wife gets home and I tell her this and now she’s just as weirded out as I am. We have no idea what do and figure if it happens again we’ll do something.
A few days later in the middle of the night we both over hear our son saying the following: “Grandma says you and I can’t be friends anymore”.

Wife and I go check on him, both of us a little freaked. He’s just sitting up in bed. I ask if he’s ok and he says yea, Grandma says i cant play with the Farmer anymore.

He never once mentioned the Farmer again. Not ever. He’s 13 now and doesnt remember any of it. We do though.


The Last Visit

Our elderly neighbour fell sick and had to go to hospital. Her niece asked us to take care of her dog while she was away. So after school work and dinner and all, me and my brother were sent over to make sure he was doing ok.
So it was late at night, in this weird old lady’s house, my brother was in the shed with the dog and I was in the living room looking at the creepy old photos on the mantelpiece.
What follows is true: I heard the door creak and then a woman’s voice called out the dog’s name.
I freaked out, turned around, obviously there was nobody about. I thought maybe it was the neighbour’s niece, but it had that weird “Did I hear that outside my head or inside it?” echo to it (you know what I mean?) so I also thought I was just letting the creepy house get to me.
But then I went out to my brother and Knocky and he was freaking out too because he thought he’d heard a woman’s voice inside the shed with him saying “Oh there you are”.

We both agreed the voice had that weird in-your-head sound to it and were convinced there were ghosts in the place. Left the dog in the shed, went home, and were greeted by Dad who told us the neighbour’s niece had just called to say the neighbour’d passed away in the hospital a few hours ago.

Photographic Memories

I grew up in New Mexico and was always very into the outdoors, hiking, camping, rock climbing, etc. One summer when I was 19 I went on a 4 day/3 night camping trip near my parents’ house on my own. Might sound weird but I had been to this area many times and it was quite safe. Anyway I brought my camera and took lots of pictures. When I came back and developed my film, there were 3 extra pictures that I didn’t take… of me… sleeping. One each night.

None of my stuff was missing or stolen and nothing happened, but it freaked the hell out of me.

The Uninvited Visitor

I’d like to share my story that brought about my belief in ghosts.
When I was about 15 I was home sick from school. I lived in a large house with two floors and an unfinished basement. In the basement I had set up a craft room for painting/staging war-hammer figures in what was once a photographer’s darkroom. It was noon and my step dad often came home for lunch, so when I heard the tell-tale sounds of the front door opening I figured I’d call my mother and let her know he was home and tell her I was feeling better. As I dialled the phone I listen to him close the door with a slam and walk through the foyer into the kitchen and turn on the tap directly above the craft room.
My mom picked up the phone at work and I told her that K, my step dad, was home for lunch. She told me that he wasn’t going home for lunch, that he was really busy at the office. I froze in terror as the tap was shut off and the person upstairs walked back through the foyer and up the stairs to the bedrooms. My mother told me to hide while she called K, minutes away, to come home. I crept upstairs quite as a mouse and grabbed the largest kitchen knife then back into the basement to hide.

K was home about 6 minutes later. He scoured the house and found no-one but I never heard them leave.

“I'll see you soon”

Not to me, but to my nana and it freaks me out to this day.
My nan has a very good friend she has known since her nursing days, and back when they both had their kids and had grown into women, her friends ex-husband rang up my nan. He was very depressed and needed someone to talk to, but my nan had to say that unfortunately she couldn’t go over to see him as she had just had a new born (my father), was breastfeeding and needed to feed. He said he understood and said “I’ll see you soon then.”
My grandad was on nights at work at this time, so she wasn’t expecting anyone home or to visit until the next morning. At about 9pm that night, she heard their front gate open (it was a very vocal gate, she liked it that way so that when she was alone she knew when someone walked up to the house.) She assumed that maybe grandad had been sent home or forgot something, so thought nothing of it.
That was until the family dog, Ben, began to stiffen up and growl toward the front door and nobody opened it. He began to bark. Nan insists he had never been like that. He was a dog that had been brought up around 4 youngsters. Placid, patient and kind.
She tried to get up to open the front door to see if some kids were playing around with her, but she couldn’t. She was frozen in her place on the chair. She said she felt icy cold for about 2 minutes. The fire was blaring. Nan described that after the cold began to fade, she felt very calm and serene, and heard the front gate go once more.

In the morning, when grandad returned home, she explained to him what happened and at what time. He told her he had some terrible news. That her friends ex-husband had commited suicide at about 8.50pm that evening. It took about ten minutes walk to my nan’s house then from his.


The Little Girl Ghost

Six years ago when I was 19, I was staying the night at my two best friend’s house. All three of us were sleeping on the bed and I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a girl, around six or seven years old standing at the foot of the bed looking at us. I was so freaked out I just kept looking back at her. I was too scared to do anything. She slowly faded away. I swear this really happened but I’m not sure if it was a ghost or if I was some how semi awake and dreamt it. Scariest thing I have ever experienced though, regardless if it was my imagination or really a ghost.
I didn’t tell my friends for a couple months because I couldn’t really believe it so I thought they definitely wouldn’t. Then a few months after I saw the girl they were telling me how one night they were in their room and they heard children laughing in the living room. They went to their bedroom door to listen better and when they got to the door there was a loud thunk on it… like someone hit it. They ran out of the room thinking someone was in their house but when they checked the house there was no one there and all the doors were still locked.

I told them about the girl I saw when they told me what happened to them.


“You Are Not Allowed To Touch Them”

When I was eight my family moved from urban south Florida to a really small town in north Florida. It was like from a Goosebumps book. A lot of weird stuff has happened in the 15 years since we moved there, but the weirdest has got to be when my sister moved back in with my parents.
My sister’s husband had been shipped off to Afghanistan so she was left alone with a newborn son. Not wanting to go through the soul crushing loneliness of raising a newborn all alone in a trailer in the woods, she moved back into my parents house for a while.
She said it started first when the headboard of her bed would slam every now and then. Then one day she woke up because somebody was tickling her.
She didn’t really think about it until one night she woke my mom up by screaming(my sister is almost 30, she’s not a little kid), and my mom went in and THE WHOLE FUCKING BED WAS ROCKING AND SHAKING LIKE. Really violently up down, to the sides, like a boat going through white water.
But, my mom and sister have been through a lot of shit, so they persevered. One night my sister was nursing her son and something grabbed her pony tail and started yanking her head around. My mom went in the room and very sternly, like talking to a bad kid, said,”I understand things are different. There’s a little baby here and there never has been before. You’re curious, I understand that. But you WILL NOT touch them anymore. You can look, you can stay. You were here before us, but I swear to god you are NOT ALLOWED TO TOUCH THEM.”

It stopped happening.



“Footprints In The Snow”

Most memorable unexplained event in my life happened while snow shoeing a few miles away from a small north eastern town in Oregon. The sun was just up and there was a fresh layer of snow about four inches worth. The forest was quiet, eerily quiet. It was one of those places that just makes your hair stand on end. I felt someone, something, was watching me. At this point I turn around to head back to my car only to find a fresh set of human size prints right behind my own. Scary part is that the snow is about two feet deep and these prints were only pressed in a couple inches, there was only a right print and it only occurred in intervals of ten feet or so. They started from no where and ended near where I had stopped to turn around. What the hell was following me?

When you realize these 13 things, you may be souls around you 

1. Bulb burning and extinction

It was fun to listen to you and psychologists believe that the spirits of the spiritual leaders have control over electricity. Sometimes you will see, you go out to find a new bulb burns awkwardly. It may be evidence of the existence of a soul.

If at that time the idea came to your mind what the hell is going on, the mind quiet for a moment, ask yourself this question, 'Who are you' and then face whatever comes in front of you. Jaiyega understanding is the root cause of your problem.

2. Moving again to stop the clock at certain times

You have to put a new battery in the watch, yet they often stops at a certain time. If the time of your life attached to any accident or other person to be reminded that the world does not keep it to tell you something that is the soul of man.

3. Strange voices and music

If you hear that voice again, as you see that someone is calling your name, then you keep it a person, who is not in this world, you are calling. Such noise is often good spirits.

Sometimes you are thinking about a song and sing at the same time she takes a walk on your TV. If that song reminds you of that person, who is not in this world, then will you know you are wrong. He is still around you.

4. The sudden change to a room temperature

If your room suddenly began to fall inexplicably cold your body temperature rises and then keep it there and someone other than you.

5. Suddenly to feel the fragrance of flowers

If you go somewhere on a deserted place suddenly began to scent cents, you know what that place is inhabited by spirits. You could lose it, so out of place in such goodness.

6. Butterflies hover

According to ancient Chinese beliefs, butterflies are symbols of those creatures who have died and to go from one body to another body are small journey. If any man after the death of the passenger, you do not see a flock of butterflies that you keep it out on the nearest person has traveled to another world.

7. Dead people's faces look

Some people appear to face their dead relatives or close friends live. This means that they want to talk to you.

8. Inexplicably appearance of shadows

You might have noticed that many times when you peek around the look, you tend to see a shadow, but as soon as you look back straight, he vanished. All this is the signal that wants to contact you.

9. Be automatically turned off the computer

Karkardooma Court in Delhi at night all of a sudden the computer is turned on automatically once the news came out. All of them have also been found on the Google search. The Court believes that the ghosts of people have camped. If you get off the computer so that mails you've ever done, or not send a picture of a man who is dead, so it is pointing to someone around you.

10. Alone of a touch to be realized

Yet you do not see this feeling that someone is touching you or is padded. Sometimes this feeling sharp pain in the foot as well as suddenly happens. It means that you are next to a close, which is not in this world now.

11. Round in circles visible in the photo of the strange

I have noticed that sometimes when clicking did not see any mist or circle. But when you see something that you print photos seem mysterious shells are. It would signal the presence of spirits.

12. Strange dreams come

Dreams come is a simple fact. But if you constantly have dreams that, for a person who was involved in your life to remind me, which is not in this world now. This means that she is in pain and want to help.

13. Telepathic Thoughts

If you hear your own voice in your ears and make them speak those thoughts come into your head, not once, so you know what someone has to say something.

These 10 people are strange habits so that you do not want them to ever adopt

Habits are always human identity. Some make you better, so you tend to waste. But today we shall interact with people whose habits you will be surprised. These are people who fulfill their passion in either millions or blown Then he became the passion of his strange habits. They also recognized that not all habits have become.

1. Real life Barbie doll

So we all know the beauty of Barbie doll. But the world is a single girl, so I'm looking for, which was to be a Barbie doll she underwent surgery cost millions. Barbie Valeria Lukyanova 29 years old, and myself to show everyone what kind of work so that their bodies are like wings.

2. Fake Justin Bieber

Toby Sheldon likes of Justin Bieber, so that they look like Bieber constantly undergoing surgery from 2008. 33-year-old Toby these surgeries have spent nearly US $ 1 million.

3. plastic eating man 

23-year-old Robert is fond of eating the plastic. His appetite is just the plastic ends. Robert started at age 7 plastic food. When doctors examined them in plastic because of Robert's body did not show any problems. The doctors themselves to science and was supposed to be a surprise.

4. Dolls made part of your life

Dave Cat Dolls' life revolves around them and they are so used to it that Dave is legally married to a doll. Why not strange hobby.

5. Brick eating man 

Pakkirappa 30-year-old man who eat brick. You read right. 10 years old, brick by brick, matching the man is eating. Pakkirappa a whole brick in a day and eat about 3 kg soil.

6. Female Bodybuilder

The American actress has such passion of the body that seem to have just that they have to forget everything. Lauren Powers spends hours in the gym every day, because of whichhis mother and her friends are worried for his health always.

7. Breast Queen

Lacey Wildd love your breast so that he underwent surgery for it are countless. A mother of 6 Lacey today are getting their breast surgery. The inclination of these women also named the plastics.

8. Giraffe Neck Woman

Americans living in Los Angeles to Sydney and it's great to have your throat is so adorable that he took to the local surgery. Now in their throats 16 times in the ring, and he is planning to raise its number.

9. Real life vampire

Vampires drink blood, you would have seen in movies, but Michelle are real-life vampire. He is fond of drinking human blood. He likes it so much blood that she got blood in your coffee drink. They drink the blood of humans, for which his friends have helped her.

10. Piss drinking woman

Carrie, a girl who is fond of drinking urine. Sure a little strange but it's true. Carrie everyday drink about 5 glasses of urine, and 8 consecutive years they have been doing so.