Welsh UFO sightings from 1893. For sightings from other years please click HERE.
PRESS
1893
Llwynypia
A woman reported being physically abducted by a ghost wearing a white sheet... The story as told by the newspapers doesn't sound particularly convincing, but the witness was adamant enough to write up her own account.
The South Wales Daily News of October 28th reported:
STRANGE STORY FROM THE RHONDDA
A HAUNTED COTTAGE. LANDLADY CARRIED OFF BY A GHOST. INTERVIEW WITH THE ABDUCTED WOMAN. A SPECTRE IN MOLESKIN TROUSERS. GREAT EXCITEMENT AT LLWYNYPIA. BRAVE FOOTBALLERS FRIGHTENED. EXTRAORDINARY SCENES.
Great excitement has prevailed during the past few days at Llwynypia and the adjacent districts in consequence of startling allegations by Mr John Dunn and his wife, who reside at 9, Amelia-terrace, Llwynypia, and also by several neighbours. These persons state that for several nights past hideous apparitions have been witnessed, and unaccountable peculiar noises heard, in the bedrooms and other parts of the cottage. The premises have been visited by hundreds of persons during the past two or three days, and watched by Sergeant Hayle, P.C. Pearce, and the other constables for hours in the evening, but nothing unusual has been discovered by them. On Thursday evening a well-known quoiter and a number of footballers stood for some time in front of the cottage, eagerly waiting the appearance of the ghost, and it is stated that the bravest of the football men was suddenly startled by an alleged supernatural visitant.
Our representative, accompanied by Mr Tom John, schoolmaster, called upon Mrs Dunn yesterday afternoon to receive her own version of the affair. The house is a four-roomed one with a pantry adjoining one of the rooms near the back door. As we paced along the terrace (writes our representative), consisting of about 20 houses, situated on the mountain side, men and women were standing on the thresholds discussing the matter. We entered the cottage and found Mrs Dunn standing by a tub upon a chair washing some wearing apparel.
"Is this the house where the ghost has been causing disturbance?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; take a chair, gentlemen, if you please."
Mr John, who is the Welsh representative on the executive committee of the National Union of Teachers, and myself seated ourselves immediately at her request, and then she unfolded her strange story.
"On Wednesday evening, about nine o' clock," she broke forth, in a somewhat low voice, "I was standing near the pantry door, and suddenly the back door opened, and a tall apparition robed in white appeared close by me right before my eyes. I shrieked, and instantly it stretched forth both arms and clutched me tightly. There was no one in the house beside myself at the time. I lost my sense, and found myself shortly afterwards in an outhouse. The ghost told me there that he was going to take me away with him. I was dumb, could not utter a word for some time. There he kept me, holding me upon the wooden seat, and telling me in Welsh to raise a brick for him. I could not do so. The scones and the few bricks moved, and a rattle was heard by me. Then I was lifted up bodily and taken out and raised up into the air, and I lost my senses again. Afterwards, when I came to myself I found myself by the brink of a pond lower down on the hill-side, and he threatened to chuck me into the water and drown me. In taking me there the ghost had to lift me over a fence seven feet high."
"Was the ghost still talking in Welsh?"
"Oh, yes; and he also talked to me in English, but I spoke to him in Welsh."
"What were the words in Welsh?"
"Mae rhaid i ti ddyfod gyda mi."
At this stage of our conversation, two or three of the neighbours entered the kitchen where we were seated, and they enlivened the proceedings by narrating what they had heard and seen in and about the premises. Mrs Dunn, resuming her tale, said, "This house has been troubled by the ghost for nearly seven months off and on, but it is during the past few days that we have been greatly disturbed."
"How was he attired?"
One of the neighbours standing close by Mr John and myself interjected excitedly "He had a pair of moleskin trousers on, I think, and a white sheet over his shoulders."
"It was not a man, was it?"
"No, because he vanished into air all at once, and then appeared before our very eyes and went off again. Here, this little girl has seen him many times" (pointing to a girl about 16 years of age standing near). "She can tell more than we can."
Mrs Dunn looked quite pale, but did not appear to be suffering from any sort of mental aberration. Proceeding with her account of the strange affair, she said, "Men living in this locality have been sleeping in turns upstairs for days past for the purpose of getting to the bottom of the matter. They hear the latch rattling and rapping on the doors and noises like the shuffling of feet and the clatter of crockery, and other noises, and they can't see anything."
Mr John put several questions to her, and in reply she stated that the ghost had told her she would have peace in future, and that he would not torment her again. She received that ghostly assurance, according to her statement to Mr John, on the preceding night. Another of the neighbours who had patiently listened to all this, observed that she had also seen a shadow of the ghost on the wall opposite her house, and she thought that the ghost was wearing corduroy breeches. She said that a "Christian young man," and very religious, was one of the men who were sitting up in turns all night in the house, and he had experienced the very same thing as they and Mrs Dunn had. "Jack," the husband, who was a native of Somersetshire, was also troubled be the spectre, and he sincerely believed it was a ghost. The pond has been visited by hundreds of people during the past day or two, and they all marvel at the strength of the "goblin" in lifting or conveying the landlady over the high fence.
"What's the cause of the appearance of the ghost, or why does he trouble you more than the neighbours?" asked our representative.
"Well, I don't know," replied Mrs Dunn.
"An old man was taken to the asylum from here many years ago," broke forth one of the neighbours, "and he wore ribbed trousers and moleskin trousers sometimes, and I think his spirit has returned to look for a bag of gold which, it is said, he left behind. A lot of people have been searching the place for money yesterday."
P.C. Pearce, Llwynypia, stated that the pond to the brink of which the ghost carried Mrs Dunn is about 300 yards away from the cottage. He had been telling "Jack," the husband, that the noise he heard in the house at night was not produced by a ghost, but it was no use arguing with "Jack," because it only drove him out of temper. The delusion had stuck in "Jack's" mind, and also in his wife's and neighbours' brains. A very large number of people had visited the premises, and remained outside the house until a late hour in the evening. Dr. Jennings had also visited the premises, and described the whole affair, according to P.C. Pearce, as a pack of nonsense. But the matter is, nevertheless, the topic of the day in the district, and has caused a great sensation among the residents.
On October 31st the South Wales Daily News carried a letter from Sergeant W. Hoyle at Tonypandy, disputing his involvement.
"While reading a copy of your paper this morning I came across my name in connection with the ghost story, as having watched the house which is supposed to be haunted for several hours. Now, as I only knew for the first time, through reading your paper, that there was such a thing at Llwynypia, I wish to emphatically deny the statement with regard to my watching the house in question, as neither I nor any of my men have been near the house. Hoping you will, with your usual kindness, give this letter publicity in your first issue."
Mrs Dunn wrote up her own account for the newspaper. The South Wales Daily News of November 11th wrote:
THE RHONDDA GHOST. AUTHORITATIVE VERSION OF THE MYSTERY.
We have received a long letter from the woman who alleges that she was visited in her house at Llwynypia by a spectre, which carried her bodily away and deposited her a considerable distance from her dwelling. In the course of her somewhat discursive epistle, Mrs Downe, of 8, Amelia-terrace, says: - "I am the woman who was carried away, and I am the woman who can tell you the truth about it. I have plenty of witnesses who have heard the noise, and I had plenty of company in the house when he (the ghost) took me away. They asked the constable who looks after the company's houses to stop here a night to hear and see, if he could, but he did not come.
I was sitting on a chair by the fire, with three other persons - Mrs Lewis, Mrs George, and John Samuel. The company was outside. It was at half-past eight in the evening, as near as I can say, when the ghost pulled me off the chair towards him to the passage. I was afraid, and I screamed, and jumped back to my chair. He was still there. Mrs Lewis told me to speak to him. I felt too nervous at first, but after a time I started to speak to him, when, before I could finish my words he pushed me out from the house and across the bailey and into the water closet. Here he lifted me on to the seat, standing, and he pointed to the top of the wall.
He told me in Welsh to raise the stone and take what was under it, and that I must go with him. That was all he said to me there. Then he took me down about 200 yards from the house. I cannot tell you how he took me from the closet because I lost all my control. I found myself by the brim of a pond. Here he took from he what I had in my hand, and threw it into the water. Then he told me he should never trouble me any more. So that's all the truth, and I hope you'll be so kind as to put the truth down in your paper.
I am not able to do the washing nor anything else; I am not the same woman that I was before, and I don't think I ever will be. I can give you these names and many others who can swear to what I have said - John Samuel, 9 Amelia Terrace; Mrs [Elizabeth] Lewis, 1 Amelia Terrace; and Mrs [Jane] George, 11 Amelia Terrace."
Other newspapers treated the tale with the usual seriousness... A local correspondent for the Pontypridd District Herald of November 18th reported:
"There is no news worthy of chronicling this week; we haven't even had a visit as yet from the Llwynypia 'ghost', so as I have nothing else worthy of jotting down I must say adieu to both you Mr Editor, and your readers, for at least another week."
Whatever the truth of the matter, it didn't seem to scare the Dunns away. Here they are on the 1901 census:
