Bill Morris from The Smith Family once told me, when the Antiques and Collectables fair was held out the back of Old Parliament House, that the guards told him the building was haunted. And from all accounts, the ghosts/spirits/whatever would get really stirred up when the antiques went into the building. I’m a skeptic, but you’ve got to love the irony.

Built on the site of the old Institute of Anatomy? er, it IS the old Institute of Anatomy. bloody hell. Built on the site indeed. Twits.

Anyway. That old place did feel weird, but then again so did the War Memorial. Haven’t been in either for years (mainly because they give me the screaming heebie jeebies).

There was an excellent thread here a while back about local hauntings and other weird stuff. It was a corker, some amazing stuff there. The writer (writer, humf) might be interested in what it dug up.

5 Moresby place Forrest – Canberra’s original haunted house. Anyone know the history?

V8-Prius said :

5 Moresby place Forrest – Canberra’s original haunted house. Anyone know the history?

I remember driving past that place about 10-15 years ago before it was rebuilt. There were always people hanging around the place, so its mysterious status was apparently well-known. Definitely a very spooky place. Looked to be uninhabited apart from a light on in the attic. We went so far as to have a look through the front window into the living room. The decor & television looked like a time warp back to the early 70′s. As for the history of the house, the story was that three people were murdered there (a nanny + 2 kids), although I’m very skeptical as to its credibility since I’ve never seen any newspaper clippings or anything official on the matter.

Still, an apparently uninhabited house on some of Canberra’s most pricy real estate does throw up some questions that maybe some RA posters could answer.

Most haunted?

Rubbish. Try Port Arthur, that place is seriously spooky…

Plenty of spirits at my house… In all in my buffet hutch funnily enough.

I reckon LBG is haunted – if you have been there in the early hours you will understand why…. Just amy spidey sence..Others may not feel it… Seriously though… I think the whole lake is haunted…

One non haunting time I was over near rememberance place at about 2am on a tuesday morning (Flex day to take photos the previous night) and it was dead quiet except for the wind – no cars – not a soul around..then I heard on the wind someone on the other side of the lake laughing maniacally for about 5 seconds…

I hauled arse….sure it was not a ghost – I believe that – but it was still sh!t scary

Danman said :

I reckon LBG is haunted

Several people have died in it over the years, and there was that guy (an ex-Marist student several years back, the name escapes me for the moment, but there’s a photo of him up in their Hall of Fame (which is just near the toilets, strangely)) who drowned at Black Mountain Peninsula trying to save a kid from drowning who had gotten tangled in something.
The kid was rescued, but the rescuer himself got tangled in something and drowned.

If I were him I’d probably be a pissed off ghost too.

Are there are gay ghosts?

PS: It happened during the day in summer, there were other families there, so its not part of the seedier side of Black Mountain Peninsula mentioned on Johnboy’s List.

Thumper: I hear RAAF Point Cook has more than its fair share of stories, too.

air disaster memorial at the back of fairbairn – up there one night with some mates, when a strange light started heading in towards us. we didn’t move until it disappeared, but it vanished where the memorial was. I have heard of people seeing the plane hitting the site, but all we got was a light, really freaked us out. checked the area after it went out, but nothing there.

also, there was a guy from ainslie village who topped himself on mt ainslie, I saw him walking down the trail an hour after he was dead – he nodded at me, then continued down to his section of the village. The police had found his body on the mountain, we didn’t know he had died, we just thought he was out for another of his walks, as he did so often.

it wasn’t scary, just a big shock to learn that he was dead, after we had seen him on the trail.

I don’t know why he was going back to the village, maybe he wanted to be close to his belongings, sparse as they were.

Caf,

yeah, my Dad served down there for a period and it’s apparently got its share of ghostly pilots and airmen wanding around at night.

From RAAF News, no less

http://www.defence.gov.au/news/raafnews/editions/4706/features/feature01.htm

Air Disaster memorial is definetly errie – we were up there one night with about 5 cars full of friends just driving around….We all got the heebie jeebies at the same time and ended up nicking off quickly…

LBG has had many people die in it and already dead people end up in it, there was that young girl about 10 years ago (still unsolved) another girl in teh 80′s was found murdered and weighted down – several corpses from the Queanbeyan Cemtary remain unfound after the flood washed out the cemetary (in the 1950′s?) a kid drowned near the boathouse trying to get his football in high chop – the guy mentioned at the peninsula – dunno if its haunted but I have had and heard a lot of weird crap happen to me first hand when down by the lake alone at night…

Funny though – I get the feeling also at old anaminaby – but not at Lake Tuggeranong or Lake Ginnenderra. Lake Ginnenderra – I can feel teh heritage and history of the place and it gives me a warm feeling of comforting reminiscing solitude at night time, but the other 2 lakes mentioned really put me on edge… Dunno what it is – but its there and not imagination to me.

wait until you are chased by min min lights out in central australia. Nothing more scary than a min min light, except perhaps being buzzed by a big light in a control tower, in a blackout, with no reported planes.

For my money try the War Memorial if you want Haunted. I was once told by the bloke that headed up the pace in the 80′s that the staff seriously avoid The Hall of Valour when the lights are turned off. One book of local ghosts (can’t recall the name – sorry) has an story from a a WWII veteran who got a bit dizzy when walking around there a few years ago. He said he was helped to a chair by one of the staff who was walking around in a WWII uniform. When he inquired with the volunteers if he could say thanks to the guy that helped him he was told they didn’t employ anybody wearing such a uniform and, on further inquiry, another member of staff said they saw the man walk over to chair under his own steam, albeit on a very strange angle as if he was being held up by somebody. Now that’s odd!

Other than that, try a small town in northern NSW called Kandos (near Mudgee). Wife and I had to sleep in the community hall one night to make sure the local ferals (enter sound of duelling banjo’s) didn’t break in and damage the hall that had been set up for the wife cousins wedding party the next day. We were both woken up at around 3am by the sound of a little girls singing and dancing INSIDE the hall. Scary bit is, we were locked in from the outside and there was no-one but us in there. Needless to say we didn’t get any more sleep that night and I haven’t been back there since.

I’ve had a dodgy experience at the air disaster memorial at the back of Fairbairn years ago as well. Me, my sister and a couple of her mates were up there to check the place out at night, and it was a really still night and we were sitting on the bonnet of the car having a smoke and we heard some whispering and then the sound of several people running on the dirt road. We all jumped in the car and shone the headlights but couldn’t see anyone. Was a real freak-out.

I recall the very sad even of the guy from Marist who died while saving another person. I won’t mention his name because I think it’s inappropriate to do so. I went to school with him, but didn’t know him all that well. When I saw him at his funeral it was shattering! Such a brave act to save someone and pay the ultimate price.

I have heard some stories about a cotter “beast”, but when i ask for details all i hear again is about a random “beast” sighting with nothing descrpitive. Anyone else heard anything? I think its codswallop myself, but canberra does have its fair share of weird stuff.

Anybody remember that double suicide (the cotter I think??) in about the summer of ’87? Some bloke and his missus in a panel van looped a noose around one of their necks, passed it out back door, around a tree, back in the door and then placed the other end (another noose) around their own neck. They then drove off decapitating them both.

Now that place would have to be haunted!

PBO,

Strange but true. I was out at Birrigai doing some archaelogical work in about 98 or 99 and saw a big black panther.

Seriously. In fact I reported it to ANPWS who told me that it was not that unusual because ACT rangers had reported the same thing on numerous ocassions.

BerraBoy68 said :

Anybody remember that double suicide (the cotter I think??) in about the summer of ’87? Some bloke and his missus in a panel van looped a noose around one of their necks, passed it out back door, around a tree, back in the door and then placed the other end (another noose) around their own neck. They then drove off decapitating them both.

Now that place would have to be haunted!

it wasn’t a noose, it was piano wire. the forest workers that found the bodies were too distraught to look for the heads. It was originally touted as a murder.

BerraBoy68 said :

Anybody remember that double suicide (the cotter I think??) in about the summer of ’87? Some bloke and his missus in a panel van looped a noose around one of their necks, passed it out back door, around a tree, back in the door and then placed the other end (another noose) around their own neck. They then drove off decapitating them both.

Now that place would have to be haunted!

I remember that. I was only a kid but there was a joke going around school along the lines of:

“where do you go when life’s getting you down? Head-off to the cotter!”

Still funny after all these years.

Thats pretty interesting Thumper, you should forward that to:

http://www.strangenation.com.au/

Quite a good site for that sort of thing. They are good friends of mine who take this stuff quite seriously, They have quite a collection of prints and photo’s of these large cats.

As for the Cotter, If all the shallow graves were marked there would be one scattered cemetery.

PBO said :

Thats pretty interesting Thumper, you should forward that to:

http://www.strangenation.com.au/

Quite a good site for that sort of thing. They are good friends of mine who take this stuff quite seriously, They have quite a collection of prints and photo’s of these large cats.

As for the Cotter, If all the shallow graves were marked there would be one scattered cemetery.

cotter caves have always been pretty spooky, but that may be because you have to break through the barriers to get into them.

As a bit of an Urbexer, i have been told about these caves but i dont know where they are. Directions anyone?

I have also been trying to find the entrance to the old Lennox Gardens caves but i have had no luck.

You drive up the hill from Cotter and there’s a turn off about a kilometre on the left. it’s a steep dirt road. Dwon the bottom near the river are the caves.

they used to be open back in the 80s but are now sadly sealed.

theyw ere pretty spooky..

Peterh, I’ve always considered it a murder suicide.

I love this stuff…

I’ve heard stories about the panther..near Camp Cottermouth and have also been told of one stalking the paddocks near Tarago. The most well known panther or mountain lion lived in the Razorbacks on the way to Sydney. Thats where the Penrith NRL team chose its name.

Canberrans have been driving around the Air Disaster Memorial since the end of the war and getting that same thrill. It’s a rite of passage for teens to hoon out there on a Saturday night at least once in their lives.

I’ve felt chills in the Hall of Memory, even in February. When was 12 I had to leave the Institute of Anatomy very quickly. I still feel the close atmosphere there and recollect the displays of various sections of bodies they had under glass.

wishuwell said :

Peterh, I’ve always considered it a murder suicide.

agreed, but at the time, they thought there was a third party.

Sorry peterh my comment should of been directed to berraboy68. My carelessness.