A Yorkshire daily newspaper secured a timely front-page splash after an FoI request revealed its patch as a hot-spot for supernatural activity.
As the country marked Hallowe’en, the Halifax Courier revealed that in the last five years, 142 calls were made to local police detailing alleged paranormal events.
They included an attack by vampire sheep, hauntings by ghosts, reports of witches and visitations by zombies.
According to West Yorkshire Police, all have been the subject of 999 calls in the past half-decade.
The horrifying truth came to light after the FoI request by Reporter Ruth Mosalski.
She asked how many 999 calls contained the words zombie, witch, ghost, vampire and UFO over the past five years.
What came back was astonishing – a huge list of more than 140 crazy calls to the emergency services asking for help dealing with visitations and possessions.
The list, plus a look back at weird Yorkshire stories, formed the basis of a series of articles for the Courier over two days, timed just right for Halloween.
The calls included:
• June 2010, Leeds: Caller reporting vampire sheep outside her front door.
• September 2006, Huddersfield: Caller believes ghosts are responsible for turning on the taps while he is out of the house.
• April 2008, Bradford: Caller believes that all people will turn into werewolves.
• December 2008, Sowerby Bridge: Caller believes there are ghosts of little boys playing cricket at the end of his garden.
• March 2011, Halifax: Caller believes she has a Russian witch inside her.
• December 2009, Castleford: Caller reports visit from two police officers he believes are ghosts – due to the fact they can put their heads through his walls.
Courier editor Tim Robinson said: “This was a great example of creative thinking by Ruth – using an FOI request to get some material for an amazing feature.
“We are now making sure the office is 100 per cent impenetrable to vampire sheep attacks.”
The full list of emergency 999 calls can be read on the Courier website here.
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It’s a decent back-of-the-book filler but it’s not really much more than a variation on the ubiquitous hoax calls FOI request.
In my experience, tabloid-esque splashes like this in the regional press just don’t go down well with readers. They want the news.
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Is that the voice of the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge I can hear?
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Cranks and mad people call police. It’s not actually news is it.
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What I’m interested in is how the police respond to these calls…
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I don’t think that’s true – local people LOVE these stories – and it’s Halloween, God can’t the paper have a bit of fun?
News is what people are interested in – I reckon most people find that interesting.
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I think it’s a good story.
Typical of the way things are today that they had to twist the cops’ arms with an FOI request to get at the stats.
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Disagree with the above I’m afraid. I can almost hear the ailing elderly folk who read the paper religiously muttering “load of rubbish…”
Incidents and news shift papers. They’re not supposed to be funny.
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What a grumpy lot, I agree with Lisa, why does it have to be straight down the line hard news every time? News sells, blah blah blah – tell that to the tabloid readers who love this kind of thing. Maybe elderly folk will think it’s a load of rubbish, or maybe not, I hope I’ve still got a sense of humour when I’m retired.
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Thanks Newt – I was a news editor for six years and we constantly were told the paper didn’t have a sense of humour or enough light hearted news.
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I agree with Lisa. It’s a bit of a laugh, isn’t it?
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Newt, I’m not retired. If people want a tabloid they buy one.
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