Western Australia has the dubious honour of having what many Aussies believe is the most haunted building in Australia, the Fremantle Museum and Arts Centre. There are no less than three ghosts said to stalk the building. And the history of hauntings here is so real and ominous, there is even a ghost tour for those visitors interested in the Supernatural goings on within the building. But to understand the spooky business within this infamous brick building, it is first necessary to understand the building's history. And what a history it has had. You see, the building was built with the sweat and toil of convict labour way back in 1865. When completed, the huge, solid brick building was used to keep away from society some of the most dangerous people. It housed the criminally insane. By 1909 it was used to put up another batch of struggling, despairing segment of society homeless women. But when the Second World War broke, it was used as the headquarters of American forces stationed in Fremantle. It was only after the war that the building was used for more routine purposes, it became a technical school. But as the years went by, they took a toll on the building. Rot had set into the tired, old structure and its garden had become neglected and overgrown. As a result, only the dead beats of the city hung out there and vandalised the place, pulling apart rotten timber and breaking glass windows.
The old building was a sight for sore eyes. So much so by the early 1960's the authorities made the decision to pull the sorry, old building down; they wanted to convert it into a public park. But the efforts of a dedicated group of conservationists reversed the decision. Instead, the building was renovated and restored with much pains taking effort. At the end of this exercise, the building cleaned up so well it was decided it would be used as the city's Museum and Arts Centre and that's how it stands till today. But the history of the past cannot be erased. Not least of all, as many claim, because spirits from the past continue to walk the corridors of that old, grey brick building. And the most visible evidence of these hauntings appears in the Museum's Recherche Gallery. The atmosphere here is positively chilling because this is said to be the 'centre' of the most aggressive ghost. Those that have worked for many years in this part of the building are convinced there is at least one spirit residing here. And their encounters with it vary from person to person. Those who come in early have often heard footsteps in this part of the Museum and an eerie, tuneful whistling that makes their blood turn cold. But when they check the area, there is not a living soul to be seen. Yet as soon as they leave, they hear furious rattling of locks and bolts coming from the Gallery. There has also been a high turnover of cleaners, especially from the early morning shift. Many of these cleaners have quit after experiencing incidents that left them completely stunned. Their feather dusters have been snatched from them by unseen hands.
On one recent occasion, documents were rudely knocked out of the hands of a visiting gentleman and scattered on the floor by an unseen force. The poor man did not know what hit him. He left completely flustered and frightened. But most of those who work there had dismissed the spirit as a mischievous but harmless soul, and they were quite prepared to put up with it. but an incident that took place not long ago has forced them to rethink that theory. The whole event started out as a harmless prank, pulled off by a handful of female students visiting the Gallery for the first time. one particular staff member, EJ, who has worked there for several years recalls what happened. 'I remember clearly it was a Monday afternoon. A very balmy, breezy summer's afternoon. The Museum was almost empty, with most of the public enjoying the outdoors and the majority of our staff on their lunch break. We were opening with what we call skeletal staff, the fewest possible number of staff to keep the place going. It was about then that three young teenage schoolgirls wandered in, looking rather bored. At that point I was at the opposite end of the Recherhce Gallery. But I recognised their school uniforms as that of one of the private schools nearby where my niece was also schooling. I did keep an eye on them and I noticed them wandering listlessly from room to room. When they reached one of the rooms at the end of the Gallery, they did something completely unexpected. Two of the girls suddenly pushed the third girl into the room, slammed the door shut, turned the key in the lock and bolted away from the room in a fit of giggles. But what followed was no joke. Infact, the next few minutes took a terrifying turn.
Every door and window in the Gallery started to rattle furiously. I still remember the cold terror I felt on seeing that sudden change. In a split second, the pleasant atmosphere in the gallery had changed. It had become menacing. It seemed as if the whole building was in an uproar. For awhile we were so frightened, we did not know what to do. the only other staff member in sight stood to my far right, and she just kept crossing herself over and over again. We were both too frightened to move. But the girl in the locked room was screaming for help. The sound of her screams were horrific and I can still hear them in my head. Infact that was what forced me into action. As terrified as I was, I found myself walking towards the room on my trembling, unsteady legs. All along I felt as if an unseen force was pushing me back. It was like a huge, angry wind right in front of me. But I started to pray under my breath and that gave me the courage to continue to go forward everytime I was pushed back. Somehow I finally got to the room with the screaming, terrified girl. I wasted no time in turning the key and unlocking the door. Not knowing what to expect, I took a deep breath and pushed open the door. The girl rushed out of the room. And everything went back to normal, as if nothing had happened. no more rattling of doors and windows, not a trace of wind. Everything was warm and cosy once again. But the girl trapped in the room for those frightening few minutes was unconsolable.
She looked a mess and she was too petrified to describe what she had seen. There was no doubt in our minds she wasn't scared simply because she had been locked in. But there was no way we could restrain her long enough to calm her down and get her story. She ran from the building like the wind, and we never saw or heard from her again. No doubt what she saw, locked in that room all alone, she will carry with her for the rest of her life.' But the drama within the haunted room had by no means played itself out. On hearing about the incident, a member of the Display Staff within the Museum, a confirmed skeptic, simply refused to believe it. He pooh-poohed the idea of a ghost haunting the room and he made a big joke of the whole episode. But when started to laugh heartily at the end of the story, an eerie thing happened. He suddenly clutched at his throat and raced out of the building. He threw up violently. But no one knew what caused him to be sick. He did not return again that day. Infact, he did not return to work in that branch of the Museum for a long time. but about two months later, he rolled up at the Fremantle Museum again. He refused to speak about his experience. but he was determined to prove the whole story of a ghost was a load of rubbish. He said he was prepared to visit the dark and gloomy room himself. The big man had a determined look in his eyes and no one seemed to be able to talk him out of his dare. He even challenged any other staff member to come with him. There was a moment's silence. Finally one female staff member, E, hesitantly agreed to go along with him.
He started up the stairs of the gallery, bounding confidently ahead of E. The room was on the second floor, so they climbed the first, narrow flight of stairs before they started on the next. But when they had just started up the second flight of stairs he abruptly stopped. E wondered why he had stopped so suddenly at the foot of the stairs. She followed his gaze up the stairs, but she saw nothing. Yet she noticed he was overcome with fear. The proud, hefty six foot man was quivering with fear at the sight of something at the top of the stairs. Moments later he started to clutch desperately at his throat and move backwards. Then he turned and fled down the stairs and out of the building, almost knocking E down in the process. When he got out of the building he was once again violently ill. This time he refused to enter the building again. And he simply could not bring himself to talk about what he had seen. He resigned that very day rather than go in the building again. Very soon after this incident, something sinister happened yet again. Again, it had to do with the same, gloomy part of the gallery. This time the unsuspecting victim was a visitor. A school teacher had brought a group of students to the Museum. The group were in the Discovery Gallery with one of the Education Officers when a peculiar change came over the teacher, leaving everyone stunned. She became hysterical. She seemed to be struggling furiously with an unseen assailant.
A member pf the Museum staff eventually managed to get the hysterical teacher out of the room. As soon as she was taken out of the room, the teacher seemed to recover. But she simply could not explain what had happened. All she remembered was that for a moment, she could not speak or hear anything. She could see her students mouthing words, but she could not hear a sound. She felt a strange force trying to push her out of the room. She was so shaken by the incident, she simply refused to go into the room again. And the students too were very upset after seeing their petite and normally calm teacher suddenly go crazy. They left shortly afterwards. The Museum staff, as you can imagine, were really frightened by these incidents. Many of them started to wear holy chains and bring in Bibles with them for protection. An uneasy calm descended on the building after that. But those who continue to work there to this day, although they have not actually seen anything, confess to hearing strange noises. They freely admit they sense unearthly beings reside in the building. The disturbances seem to peak between October and January. Tape recorders have been left in that part of the building, and when played back, some strangely creepy sounds have been heard. One particular sound was enough to make another staff member quit the building. The sound was a huge lung, noisily breathing in and out. Other distinct sounds picked up by the tape recordings were of doors being open and shut and strange bumps, thuds and groans. One other sound that stood out was of a tuning fork being struck.
All this in an empty, deserted building. The infamous haunted room has since been renovated. When it was stripped off its padding and the floor boards were lifted in the rebuilding process, nothing showed up to explain away the hauntings surrounding it. Only a few bent spoons were found under the floor boards the only utensils allowed to the insane for feeding purpose when the building was used as an asylum. But a separate haunting in the building does have a sad story behind it. It relates to a ghost that walks the corridors of the Investigator Gallery on the first floor. Many who work in this part of the building claim to have heard footsteps in the corridors when no one else is around. Others have seen doors open and shut by themselves and mysterious lights appear and disappear on that first floor. These strange phenomena have attributed to the one ghost that is most persistent in the building. Over and over, the description different witnesses have given of this apparition has been strangely similar. The apparition is of an old lady dressed in black. Some who have seen her have given more detailed descriptions of her outfit. They say her dress has a white collar with frills on the bodice. And those that have spotted her at night insist she carries a lantern with her. The ghost, many believe, is of deranged woman who was brought to the building and committed there at the turn of the century, when it was used as a mental asylum. The story goes that the woman's daughter was kidnapped and the mother simply went mad from this trauma. They say even when she was brought to the asylum, she continued to search for her daughter.
She finally ended her own life by throwing herself out of the first floor window of the asylum. But she is believed to still be on an endless search for her daughter. And she has been captured on film as recently as 1980, by an unsuspecting student. Shelley Reynolds was a student at the Mount Lawley Technical College in West Australia at that time. She had an assignment that required a photograph of an overall scene. Shelley had always been fascinated with the Fremantle Museum and Art Centre where she had spent a lot of time. When the assignment came up, she naturally chose to photograph the big, old building. When Shelley was asked why she chose to photograph that particular part of the building, She said it held a particular fascination with her because it was the part of the building least seen by the public, being at the opposite end to the popular Museum. Like most other residents in Fremantle, she was well aware of the ghostly stories that circulated around the building. But she herself had never actually witnessed any strange happenings and was skeptical of the stories. On the 19th of March 1980, Shelley arrived at the historic, old building in high spirits. It was an ideal morning for a good photographer, clear and sunny. She was determined to get a good snapshot for her assignment. She had timed her visit in the early morning when the place was deserted. it was around eight am. She wanted to capture only the building in the photograph, she did not want any human traffic in her snapshot.
When Shelley focused her camera and snapped her shot, she remembers clearly there was no one in her photo, except the stone building she intended to photograph. but when she developed the film, she was in for a huge shock. A distinct of a woman appeared, standing at the window of a room on the first floor. As you can imagine, when news of the photograph leaked out, it caused quite a stir in Fremantle. Newspaper reporters and psychic investigators besieged poor Shelley. Thorough investigations were made and it was found there were infact two other people in the building at the time Shelley took the photograph but they were in the rooms at the opposite end of the building. The rooms facing Shelley were still locked and empty at the time. And another fact made the photo all the more spooky. The window where the figure appeared in Shelley's photograph is 10 feet high. There is nothing inside that room that could have been used by anyone to stand on and the room was, of course, locked on the outside. So who was the woman at the window? People were convinced it was the ghost of a woman from long ago. The evidence sparked off a rush of people heading to the building with their cameras in hand, hoping to capture the ghostly figure on film. But none were successful. But why did the ghost appear in Shelley's photograph? An eerie coincidence may well be the answer. You see, the woman who committed suicide in the building was Irish. She died distraught, still searching for her long lost daughter, who it seems was a red haired Irish girl. Eyewitness accounts indicate the mother's spirit continues the search for her daughter till today.
Shelley, coincidentally, is Irish with flaming red hair. Could the spirit have mistaken Shelley for her long lost daughter? Sadly, we will never know the answer for sure.
A member pf the Museum staff eventually managed to get the hysterical teacher out of the room. As soon as she was taken out of the room, the teacher seemed to recover. But she simply could not explain what had happened. All she remembered was that for a moment, she could not speak or hear anything. She could see her students mouthing words, but she could not hear a sound. She felt a strange force trying to push her out of the room. She was so shaken by the incident, she simply refused to go into the room again. And the students too were very upset after seeing their petite and normally calm teacher suddenly go crazy. They left shortly afterwards. The Museum staff, as you can imagine, were really frightened by these incidents. Many of them started to wear holy chains and bring in Bibles with them for protection. An uneasy calm descended on the building after that. But those who continue to work there to this day, although they have not actually seen anything, confess to hearing strange noises. They freely admit they sense unearthly beings reside in the building. The disturbances seem to peak between October and January. Tape recorders have been left in that part of the building, and when played back, some strangely creepy sounds have been heard. One particular sound was enough to make another staff member quit the building. The sound was a huge lung, noisily breathing in and out. Other distinct sounds picked up by the tape recordings were of doors being open and shut and strange bumps, thuds and groans. One other sound that stood out was of a tuning fork being struck.
All this in an empty, deserted building. The infamous haunted room has since been renovated. When it was stripped off its padding and the floor boards were lifted in the rebuilding process, nothing showed up to explain away the hauntings surrounding it. Only a few bent spoons were found under the floor boards the only utensils allowed to the insane for feeding purpose when the building was used as an asylum. But a separate haunting in the building does have a sad story behind it. It relates to a ghost that walks the corridors of the Investigator Gallery on the first floor. Many who work in this part of the building claim to have heard footsteps in the corridors when no one else is around. Others have seen doors open and shut by themselves and mysterious lights appear and disappear on that first floor. These strange phenomena have attributed to the one ghost that is most persistent in the building. Over and over, the description different witnesses have given of this apparition has been strangely similar. The apparition is of an old lady dressed in black. Some who have seen her have given more detailed descriptions of her outfit. They say her dress has a white collar with frills on the bodice. And those that have spotted her at night insist she carries a lantern with her. The ghost, many believe, is of deranged woman who was brought to the building and committed there at the turn of the century, when it was used as a mental asylum. The story goes that the woman's daughter was kidnapped and the mother simply went mad from this trauma. They say even when she was brought to the asylum, she continued to search for her daughter.
She finally ended her own life by throwing herself out of the first floor window of the asylum. But she is believed to still be on an endless search for her daughter. And she has been captured on film as recently as 1980, by an unsuspecting student. Shelley Reynolds was a student at the Mount Lawley Technical College in West Australia at that time. She had an assignment that required a photograph of an overall scene. Shelley had always been fascinated with the Fremantle Museum and Art Centre where she had spent a lot of time. When the assignment came up, she naturally chose to photograph the big, old building. When Shelley was asked why she chose to photograph that particular part of the building, She said it held a particular fascination with her because it was the part of the building least seen by the public, being at the opposite end to the popular Museum. Like most other residents in Fremantle, she was well aware of the ghostly stories that circulated around the building. But she herself had never actually witnessed any strange happenings and was skeptical of the stories. On the 19th of March 1980, Shelley arrived at the historic, old building in high spirits. It was an ideal morning for a good photographer, clear and sunny. She was determined to get a good snapshot for her assignment. She had timed her visit in the early morning when the place was deserted. it was around eight am. She wanted to capture only the building in the photograph, she did not want any human traffic in her snapshot.
When Shelley focused her camera and snapped her shot, she remembers clearly there was no one in her photo, except the stone building she intended to photograph. but when she developed the film, she was in for a huge shock. A distinct of a woman appeared, standing at the window of a room on the first floor. As you can imagine, when news of the photograph leaked out, it caused quite a stir in Fremantle. Newspaper reporters and psychic investigators besieged poor Shelley. Thorough investigations were made and it was found there were infact two other people in the building at the time Shelley took the photograph but they were in the rooms at the opposite end of the building. The rooms facing Shelley were still locked and empty at the time. And another fact made the photo all the more spooky. The window where the figure appeared in Shelley's photograph is 10 feet high. There is nothing inside that room that could have been used by anyone to stand on and the room was, of course, locked on the outside. So who was the woman at the window? People were convinced it was the ghost of a woman from long ago. The evidence sparked off a rush of people heading to the building with their cameras in hand, hoping to capture the ghostly figure on film. But none were successful. But why did the ghost appear in Shelley's photograph? An eerie coincidence may well be the answer. You see, the woman who committed suicide in the building was Irish. She died distraught, still searching for her long lost daughter, who it seems was a red haired Irish girl. Eyewitness accounts indicate the mother's spirit continues the search for her daughter till today.
Shelley, coincidentally, is Irish with flaming red hair. Could the spirit have mistaken Shelley for her long lost daughter? Sadly, we will never know the answer for sure.
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