Unexplained: Helen Duncan The Blitz Witch (Paranormal Investigation Documentary) | Timeline

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[Music] whenever we look at the past there always has to be a logical sensible reason why everything happened but sometimes you come across an event where however hard you try you can't find a normal sensible reason for it which is why we call those events the paranormal and I'll go look at these phenomena in a really open-minded way to see if I can find out what the truth actually is I'm working with Becky McCall she's a science journalist she's also very skeptical which may help because we're investigating the case of Helen Duncan and I was fairly accurate wartime medium could begin the last person to be jailed under the witchcraft act of I worried would have claims taken so seriously that mi Holly got involved really a threat to national security or the ghosts of dead servicemen telling a secret they should never have known [Music] when do you think the last time was that someone in the UK was put in prison for being of which military were involved the secret services they were all paranoid the whole country is on a war footing and it has the be a taking time out to try this woman Helen Duncan from witchcraft of the old Baker we're talking 1944 so it's getting there Dido she was some kind of medium some kind of psychic apparently is she going to some sort of psychic trance seances and she'd come out with stuff that she couldn't possibly have known and that was state secrets it was correct away I know maybe she really was a witch in the 1930s and 40s spiritualism was huge to mediums all over the place but this meant Duncan appears to have been such a threat to national security that they locked her up military intelligence really believed she was communicating with the dead Helens granddaughter lives here in Edinburgh she knew Helen actually went to her seances sort of woman washing black almost larger than life would you walked into verbs you just seem to dominate that all room do you remember the first time that you realized that she'd got some sort of special powers it six seven years old the time I went to sleep name talking esteemed voices was it 16 I was allowed to go to propose EOG's and sit in what do you see I saw this coming up from from eyes nose and their mouth and it gradually just break down over her chest what was it it was just wait and dazzling wait material hope she arrested for she was arrested as a spy and the traitor but they had to change it in the broadness Walter it's a fact from 1735 the question is giving her information about ships once it would mean something it was part of a convoy and the German sub torpedoed it and they weighed down with all hands it sticked me file [Music] miksa well I thought some nice stuff and quite shocking actually a physical manifestation real things appearing in teachers living rooms and what better ship or the father yeah well I mean that mimic legwork investigating it certainly does sound a Social Security was involved in some right if we really want to find out what happened to Helen Duncan then I'm going to need to get much closer to the evidence on my way to Portsmouth where she conducted a seance where the facts about hms Barham came out and which ultimately led to her being condemned this is where Helen Duncan it is a census when she came down support circles LC yes this was a spiritualist Church in fact over a cash shop this is where she came to do or her physical sciences here in Portsmouth and the room fees were held in is in here yeah and amazingly there would be 30 people crammed in here in blackout conditions hoping to see their loved ones and speak to their loved ones through her mediumship she would sit on a chair over in that corner with a curtain recess which should spiritualist call a cabinet here's mrs. Duncan and the cavaletti next strawberries just like a nice cozy little room there's left absolutely it was a wartime here in Portsmouth so many people have lost loved ones and for them it was an opportunity possibly to see them again so how would she actually have conducted the sales she would have gone into a trance very quickly and then the voice of Albert her spirit guide usually he acted as the master of ceremonies and would speak to the sitter's and then spirits would begin coming out of the cabinet now you have to remember the lighting was very dim as a red light above the cabinet and those that were at the back and go back oh I didn't get good view but people that were close-up said that they could recognize their loved ones and that's how they communicated what happened on the night that she announced at the bar Ahmad so as I understand it what happened was a spirit came out of the cabinet okay out of there he gave his name as Sid and he spoke to his mother and I understand that he was wearing a hat with hms borne upon it over 60 years ago there were maybe 35 people in this room when suddenly a spirit announces that this major British ship has been sunk and no one could know that that had happened and it was top secret it was until that moment [Music] was come on Duncan mad revealing a state secret in the middle of a world war because apparently at that moment in 1941 the only people who knew the ship had gone down with those who saw it and those people in that funny little upstairs room in Portsmouth did this Sid who was apparently burnt to death on the Barham really exists look I've been hunting through some old dungarees from 1941 and found some interesting facts apparently mi5 sent you officers to Portsmouth to investigate this sirens sale but did it really happen like that did the Barham sales really take place before the authorities released news of it really good for us there's a socket here which lifts the naval gains and losses November in December 1941 gains and losses of larger ships do not take into account the loss of HMS foreign tactics and the announcement officially according to newspaper the time with in February casualties in HMS Barham so that three months after the navy knew that is South before it appeared and the time and then the mi5 officer died little yeah and he actually makes some mention of this look here the barroom case had come up once more the medium produced a drowned sailor course it which is the name that Roy told me this morning so it was recognized by several people present at the sounds I said he was one of the crew with Sydney that apparently appeared was the officer so we have his name if it took me we know he's a petty officer when I was on the bottom we know is on the bottom so I went to the bar and website and this lists all the petty officers so we've got submit fryer submit class kid and Sydney brew tea which of the three is likely to be our DRAM salient I looked at the details of their addresses where they came from and one actually came from cotton all it was cotton a road where the sounds took place is that just a coincidence or could this man be our dead sailor okay here flyer sa Sydney 9041 stoke a petty lobster so any names yeah 800 800 800 died it's good what you don't die well coming together Bailey [Music] what do we do now well as far as I'm concerned I'd like to know why specially people believed and intoxicated while if she wasn't talking to the dead then what other explanation is that I have to say sales is themselves that completely out of my comfort zone I'm going to get this place [Music] it now seems pretty clear that the announcement mark medium Helen Duncan but major miss Barham and sulk during the Second World War was the myth we know a seance took place and we think that the actual spirit that gave the announcement blow to chapel's Sydney fryer who was a petty officer who died on the Barham mostly took place ourselves himself we're much less clear about which is why now going to a spiritualist Church and haven't there Portsmouth as I would find it you don't often see seances anymore like Helen Duncan's in 1941 but there are still places like spiritualist churches where people try to communicate with the dead my communication happened is because there is a connection of love that exists between you and that person is passed to the spirit world and so what I would say to its night range is just a remain open and also remember to use your voice okay they can restart the experiment I can hear in my mind hear what sounds like metal crunching I know that there was some kind of a collision here I feel like I'm in the middle area with our native igloo I just get this gross from emotion from this gentleman and I know that I've talked about him that they were touching stronger but it's just that mean he couldn't tell him okay it's just that I can say control just control of the column went into a Rowling's and abruptly and sing with really darling I just can hear metal crashing at least and laughter he came very close to me and I've smoked drumming to humidor I know there is a link that you have if you guys because it makes me wanting to talk to you and taking you play told of the dream was real so there's something here about a dream that you had but if I cleanse your question is authenticity engine respectfully claiming the dream was real it's standing now just let's assume Darlene okay and I know this father's chest wasn't the issue and I know it was studies in having or feel like again a lung disease on am senior to the center in feeding like it London filled with fluid he other motels to you he's making a very conscious against that first time around he didn't pay much attention is just there okay in ever be a god-loving okay it's got me confused one minute he seems to know everything you're next he's clutching at straws the largest anybody at all okay Tom shouted you seems to now can he make stunts I can't anymore oh there we go okay Tamara come on funny to me belong to I need to talk to a lady loses a hairdresser she wants to talk to the hairdresser and I feel that there lady I want to talk to us you would have done this lady's hand would you understand things you Mary Fox would have been my love he doesn't feel right and I would thank you many I just normally get appalled enshrined I was drawn across here but I'm not sure I'm hearing at an Irish accent an Irish gentleman's voice and I feel at fault to talk about some his dad who's Irish that's my product that's your line lovely okay Pat feed you because I'm just very worried man without being unkind truth if they can't guard it if you didn't get listen to it just get louder yeah there's no make sense to you because these look like as I'm talking to you madam please you have no man it's absorbing the sprigle here as well that won't either so now don't tell me how are you avoid it here and I don't a boys here very clearly and I'm very conscious to say to you that is with your dad it's been you know okay and I want you not to worry about either the moves that take care of each other I need to go bananas very important you understand that had your boy physical if he would have needed a not a lot more care then you would be able to provide alone but they make sense to do and I'm very aware to say to you that your boy acts that he's grown up with you in the spirit world no no be worried about him okay I also can hear him say that you release the balloon yes yes okay solid a little Hatton happened on a Tuesday evening and it's full of people convinced they're hearing from their dead relatives is it for real some of the things that made him sold a little specific details can you really be faking all of them but if what is speaking to the dead business isn't for real why would Helen turn up here in the middle of the war when Portsmouth was being bombed night after night well she certainly have known she'd find people desperate for news about their men's folk this big star arrives the lights are dimmed everyone's waiting with bated breath a sign a message anything [Music] but what she revealed was too closely guarded secret the Baron of himself so is this proof that she was talking to the dead Darrin who's the medium from last night is giving me a private reading I'm probably a bit more skeptical than the people in haven't so can he convinced me he's in communication with my dead relatives can I just take the hand for a second just to make a connection with you and just as I'm doing this I'm asking your loved ones to come close and to give you what it is they feel that you need thank you very much just so I'm connecting that I want to just say that I'm very conscious of a gentleman stepping for the very tall diets a six foot six foot one quiets limit is built here I'm aware that as I talk about it I'm getting palpitations and I know that he remembers having some kind of heart condition that I feel before the spirit world took him very very quickly but there was like a heart condition or heart disease did does that make sense to you I most of the men in my time we were actually quite little okay only one I could think of those tall was my paternal grandfather okay now can I say that there's a link to this man either owning or working in a pub because he keeps taking me into a public house as there he's got a great memory of propping up the bar in this public house there was a pub right over the road from where he looked a just opposite the shop why would he talk about somebody called Mary doing a good job she's talking about a lady called mode I feel it in this world actually not passed over now I've got to say this to you that I've seen two children here as well that there's a born as a girl I can sense here that link to Mary and I get a very strong link that Mary lives away to me that there's a good distance now quietly quite a distance here as absolutely so saying Mary I'm sorry I'm on a flow okay and there's also a linkage to the name of Shepherd that's very significant because I'm hearing in calling the name Shepherd is that relevant Mary Shepherd is the mother of my two children okay but one boy and one well there was something about the rating that didn't sit right with me when you came up with a name Mary I thought oh wow yes that's the mum of my kids but then when he came up with a surname as well it just felt to me like he'd googled some site okay I hear you thank you your lady here is making me very conscious of the month of August and she keeps asking me to talk about the 16th of August so that there's a significant anniversary around that date my birthday the 15th of long that I will do ok so actually things when I said no I don't have any knowledge of what you're talking about that in retrospect I did I will find thank you even standing some floors because he's talking about floors being sanded here I get this sense of the floor that's been sanded to know why I didn't think of it the moment I've been waiting to get my floor sanded for months she does something here about the fact that we've not been able to find a headstone not going to find a grave or not be able to find a resting place for a member of your family uh who and please and this is a name I'm hearing from the spirit world rather than this world I'm completely split down the middle because the part of me that was skeptical before I had that reading thinks yeah and it's not very silly but there's been an issue with what are your ceilings where you live yes because he's laughing about this issue with the ceiling the other part of me thinks wow if it's true he's just found things that are so accurate to the person to her I wonder how I would have felt back in 1941 in Portsmouth if I'd heard Helen duncan saying the bar had been soaked that have confused me too I'm sure there's another explanation for what people experienced that night I want to end up the psychology of a thing see what we're doing today we've got a number of volunteers they've all given an object in and they think they're going to get a psychic reading based on that objects what we're going to see in their response to the reading is something called the Barnum effect I hand out the readings now depending on them it's the psychic study so can you try and keep them to yourself don't definitely getting certain later on go ahead take a look there are certain kinds of statement that are either can a very general or vague or ambiguous but virtually all of us accept them has been descriptive of our own unique personalities you want to reach her again when you're answering the questions please feel free it's scaled ones with a seventh at times your extroverted affable and sociable while at other times you're introverted weary and reserved so when you put a whole bunch of these statements together that sounds like a really accurate reading to people but in fact pretty much anybody would actually accept that reading as being accurate and very specific they're marking it out of seven of course what they don't know is they've all got the same readings how it was the reading as a description of your unique personality so for you six six six six yeah five or six six I said circular so she's relaxed and I can't believe it they actually pickle things like this absolutely I mean I've seen this so many times is it really reliable effect okay just reading out a couple then clicking person dot you have a great need for other people to like and admire you you have a tendency to be critical with yourselves you have a great deal of unused capacity which you've not used to your advantage and while you have some personality weaknesses you're generally able to compensate for them does anybody just kind of recognize that that all of you okay I'm not saying that all psychics are deliberate fraud there is a technique called cold reading go cold reading because you just met this person from cold never met them before and you do a reading for them and they're blown away about it so wow that's incredible how do you know all those things you can season amazing now part of cold reading relies on the Barnum effect relies on these kind of statements beyond that I would also make use of any body language cues I could pick up on if you were showing interest if you were leaning forward then okay this is something that means something to you this is significant but a lot of cold reading is about the use of line language so very often when you watch psychics in action you realize ask an awful lot of questions rather than making statements now the way they ask the questions is interesting like what were they a happy person and if you answer yes I think yes I thought so I haven't seen they're now smiling always enjoyed a good joke you know researching out it's got views but now I think known I sense a deep sadness there you know and which however you answer a person I already knew that you just could already knew how could that fit into what went on on the barroom knife one possibility in the barroom case was Helen said that she saw sail all this sailor materialized in the ship from down and some woman in the audience recognized all this around the bell with her and she sort of stood up to said yes my father failure I think it's the barroom that's gone down so she was primed if you like in the course Helen and confirmed that in which case it would have been Helen Duncan who was aware that the bottom of souls of his other woman yes in that case that was cold reading now and other alternative is hot reading this is in hot meeting it's simply a case that the medium has done her homework she's done the research she knows the fact but they're looking but that couldn't have happened in this case now could it because my varam sunk in 1941 it wasn't until 1942 that it was announced Wow that's where you might be wrong nice for students especially announced publicly but I have some left the pair now these letters are written from the Admiralty to parents or some of the funds that died yes and these letters were dated December 41 and in the letters here you'll see that they tell them that their son died and they've asked them to be quiet about it you should not communicate this sad news to any but your immediate relatives so people knew about it now we don't know if the sales occurred after the fifth of December for the six December but there the possibility here that this is where the information came from and if Helen had known that then she could have fed it to the audience too down-to-earth explanation to possibilities but it's not either/or is it it could be heart reading it could have been cold reading but it could have been spirit it doesn't take us that much further there's a bit of a bombshell it seems that there were people who knew about the singing at the bar and before the sales and if that's true then maybe Helen knew about it herself it's not conclusive whether it's plausible explanation big doesn't tell us much about Helen herself or the ghosts that seem to surround us [Music] I must have done this journey fifty times before I always thought there was a dead end I didn't realize but there was a little road beyond it secret mystery road lies ahead of routine moving just like an explosion moving down to a college comedians what exactly is it that you do here it's a college it was the training for mediumship mental mediumship for communication with the school or feeling mediumship were the spiritual social human is what we do mediumship is a core practice our religion so that we can provide evidence to support a beliefs but life is continuous this place looks a bit like a grown up Hogwarts but it's a place where they use science to try to prove psychic phenomena actually exist these are plastic half of materialized handmade delicate not it yeah I've been assured because we can't reproduce them at the moment what would happen the spirit person would materialize the hands you see the way they're interlinked fingers yeah they'd have a bucket of paraffin wax liquid passing and keep dipping the hands in and out forming a mold around them and then the hands would D materialize once the wax of sex so the clasp would still we learn that's right pour in plaster Paris you've then got a model of a dead person's hands it is hard to see how if someone's hand had been inside that yeah it wouldn't have broken the castle when he was trying to get out there is a great suspicion that some of the work that Helen did was there's a great suspicion on all of this and all of the mediums not just had them seem to be cursed anyone who has not seen it it's too fantastic to be true so it must be fraud seeing is believing are you saying that you don't think that any of the things that Helen produced were fake no I'm not saying that but I spoke to a line D some years ago who was at the last heaven Duncan scions she was a nurse and she did the body search a full cavity search prior to the silence you look at the volumes of ectoplasm that are produced and people say she used to swallow it and regurgitate it every other tried swallowing hankerchief are bringing it back let alone material the size of the bedsheets was ectoplasm it's a substance that's extruded from out of the mediums body quite common is the mouth the nose eyes even under the fingernails it can appear as very thin wispy smoke it can condense into clouds and even then condense into the human form all the mediums that I've talked to agree that fraud has been known to take place even some of the most respected mediums probably committed fraud but it's tended to be when they're under pressure like Helen Duncan was but they say that this allegation that ectoplasm is phony and that mediums just secreted about their body and then eject it during a sale doesn't stack up because there's so much of the stuff then what many would put it and anyway a lot of mediums including Helen Duncan often had full cavity searches before they started their sales how long did they say but even if by some stretch of the imagination they were able to secrete it what would they do with it at the end of the sales because at the end of the sales it just kind of disappears it's in vaporizes so what are they going to do with it I want to know how she could have engineered these physical bounces how to do I need to find someone who can help me with a scientific way of looking at it while you're doing that these are the objects that we're going to use so we all seem to have the luminous strips on them darker actually good to be it's going to be extremely dark so if if we've got it right you won't get to see your hand in front of your face so I'll go and tell Tony he's going to experience Victorian seance and leave it at that reconstruction Versailles is playing the role of a stripper be perfect thank you very much for coming along today hopefully you can have a an interesting experience what we're going to do is a reconstruction of a Victorian dark room seance and try and contact the spirit of a musical singer from around the turn of the last century a woman called Marie Ambrose what we have on the table here various objects which she would have been familiar with if everyone can just hold hands that's fantastic very very good the important thing is that when we are in total darkness don't let go of the person next to you okay whatever happens hold onto their hand okay if you do become scared and I hope you do then just squeeze the hand for the person next to you and the fact they would be there for you okay excellent okay in which case if we can take the room into complete darkness very good I want everyone to do to work as a group to transform from a group of individuals into a single group is going to work together everyone I want you now to open up your minds open up your heart the spirit of Marie imagine her joining us now imagine Marie coming forward now open up your mind open up your heart excellent that's good that's good stay with it now imagine her Jaffe Nia joining us now that's good okay imagine movie with us now that's good okay stay with it as a group okay okay that's fine that's alright so imagine her spirit going back into the spirit world that's good bring the lights back up excellent that's going break contact around very good I'm now going to properly introduce you to your medium this is richard wise member of psychology hello yeah this is up in the darkness here the shadowy figure in the background is Sara who very kindly helped us out you know I was actually listening to see if there was an idea anybody and that part of psychology people think that if somebody came in like that but they'd actually notice yeah but actually most people don't so Sarah's got a very very difficult job she's got to find those objects in total darkness I call CSU Thomas yet but she can't see anything so as soon as she's got the stick under the marker she'll squeeze me on the shoulder and I know that patoot for everyone's attention onto the maraca imagine her Justinian and what you'll do is you're liquid into one of the pizzas laughs yeah weakly I've just seen that right okay it's perfectly obvious if I look hard to believe seeing that that we wouldn't be completely aware of it but we were little it was a black room it was picture dark it was absolutely quiet and the things move and the things we that's good that's good okay stay with it it's about role playing you're the role of a sitter is your job to believe this to have a good time to be open to the spirits and so on you know when we've done these experiments we know about one in five people think that the spirits were there and it was a genuine sale so it's a good reason when we read these accounts leave amazing things happening with the Hell in Buncombe of Sciences or others yet to be skeptical to think that maybe some of this stuff just didn't happen at all it's easy to be skeptical about these phenomena for people who were there at a very different view you are the only person that we've been able to find who ever went to hell and Duncan seance well she did quite a number of sittings but of course you see I was young comparatively if a pupil usually when I was 23 and Helen Duncan was already there when you arrived she was brought into the room having been physically examined they even do an internal examination sometimes because a lot can be secreted within the body and then she was brought in having been I think sewn into a loose-fitting and yet completely closed black robe and it was a red light which when you get accustomed to it you can see the features and expressions of somebody sitting five six feet across the room from you at certain stages curtains were drawn the cross which of course does that tend to give people the idea a lot of thank you pancakes ah those are quite distinguishable smell that excess me quite as left wall it's rather like bodily semen that sort of smell no not unpleasant but not one that one would expect have around the room but it's very strong and then this ectoplasm has SS next across the floor and came up really between us there appears the face of man short hair and suddenly one of you blobs as it were ever be almost thrown on for a fairly large mustache I think all the starch I did a silly thing bitterness you knew who it was I knew yes from it need immediately recognizable as I would recognize you he was very cross to me if I only commenting about the mustache and tried it me is this if that's all you got to say well very military did you look dead well I suppose have you talked to it yes but while his face was animated and speaking after two or three little interchanges nothing of great import I'm bound to say he disintegrated cleft with our feet Boucherie withdrawn intermedium rat gossip or dance sound in many ways quite implausible doesn't it it does indeed I quite agree I'd sympathise with anybody who disbelieved think they had a stronger case in a way it's only when you had personal experience you have to reconsider and realise that such odd things can happen I was 100% satisfied then 100% satisfied now that's what we for that evening was genuine what Annie's witness wasn't anything like those tricks in the lab producing ectoplasm an entire people it's an entirely different lead how scientists ignore that kind of evidence what about Helen Duncan was sheer fraud my fingers use fraudulent what she didn't we doing this morning well kind of if the sitters are doing a lot of the work you know that's seeing an eerie Shay for a little bit of movement than amplifying that and their mind and it's becoming this incredible spiritual adventure for them and they weren't just seeing apparitions though they were they were seeing ectoplasm were they this mysterious half spirit half natural world stuff in which these variants express themselves they're also got Michael Carey Price who was an effective investigator at the time crisis it's fantastic all my heroes actually know that whole field is all these kind of colorful investigations if we check the nose the ears here we checked obviously the the throat the mouth because your toe and uncle he would check up before she had a monkey is full of the sales and after sales just to check if she was harboring anything that could have been to be Garrett a still produced during the session but a bit of a mystery I mean he Helen coming ecologist and someone who looks up and bottoms there that was pricey theory that somehow she's bringing this stuff up during the other sales we sort of backed away from that in later years how much of it would there be for some large materializations kind of roughly the size we're looking at so look at the time a lot less than that doctor yeah but when she was materializing people it would have had to be around about five how does yes honey all of that on your person if you've been searched by a gynecologist I mean no she was a big woman she might be knows it yeah hot bits of it away and roly-poly this but yeah the fact is he had suits as far as Harry price we got see so with her into a suit after the search so she couldn't actually store anything else well I think you need to look very closely records because often when it's very well controlled it's only small strips that are airing and that that come in all sorts of places all the price also talks about nosebleeds and then so on during séances where this size though you're talking about you know it going somewhere inside her body or they're being these for conferences that may be passed into her so on that all gets down to what were the controls you know what the who the eyewitnesses and they were they really reliable nevertheless this Harry price used scientific methods your kind of stuff in order to scrutinize what was going on he took photos he made records he did body searches he sold her into a suit and even if it was only cheap on he still had no idea how it actually was produced take a look at these safeties I can and Dunson I kind of forgot me that we were talking about a woman she's been reduced to a specialist dude the woman she had 20 janitor six children she had an invalid husband it's all very real very sensitive all right hmm but as far as you're concerned a complete fraud well I mean look at the fact we've examined the Barham case we looked at the whole idea mental mediumship physical mediumship perhaps it was the hot and cold readings I showed you how you can move objects around a room in the dark and make it look like it's real yeah I don't doubt that she used dodgy tricks you don't have to persuade me of that this one photo speaks volumes doesn't it I mean how could that be anything up fantastic travesty but maybe she was a mixed media maybe she used that kind of theatrical device in order to pull people in to get them into the drama of the moment and then she used maybe psychic powers maybe just psychological insights in order to give people messages it wasn't it's issues advertising yourself as a piece of theater or piece of pants man she was saying she was receiving messages from the other side she bought me just food okay Beck his mind's made up but what about Hermes would she really have been formed by a bit of cheesecloth hey Luth in a sec hello [Music] you think this investigations over I think plan training [Music] [Music] but there's another story tell me after we've nailed there no though we nailed the fact that when Helen Dalton announced the sinking of HMS farm she was using and these come Georgian devices but apparently that wasn't the only thinking that she announced and if this news story is right it would explain why both the government and the secret services were so frightened of them it's another sound earlier in 1941 Helen Duncan announces the loss of another ship this time HMS hood this surely was the moment when as far as the security services were concerned Helen became a marked woman they had a British military intelligence in Scotland Brigadier fire brace was at Versailles and we're on our way to meet the woman who worked with him for 20 years this is a magazine from January 1959 it's an interview with a brigadier fire brace yes where he says during the war I was head of intelligence in Scotland and I had the opportunity of attending a sales with mrs. Duncan in Edinburgh tragedy HMS hood is silk and all men are sunk something their cells couldn't wait to get back to a telephone to ring the Admiralty to tell him what he'd heard that heard has gone down and they said rubbish no such thing Nana wrong he got another telephone call back from the Admiralty yes not then 22 days later and what did they say she's going right Oh always lost you don't think there is any way that either the Brigadier all Helen Duncan could have known no no the hood was about slightly impossible quite impossible the Barham story might be able to question the hoods different hundreds of miles gotta see the hood goes down without 1,400 men the authorities don't know the admiral's itself doesn't know the helenseims to learn her fate was sealed in the run-up to d-day the biggest secret of the whole war there was no way they could risk a nut revelation Helen was arrested and I witnessed a trial claiming that what happened next was less like justice and more like a show trial it was a very sensational case it was getting in headlines in the newspapers and she was being prosecuted under this witchcraft act which seemed rather extraordinary to most people who had never heard of the witchcraft there she was a challenge for pretending to conscious pills which is the wording of the Act what was it like in the courtroom the witnesses where's their extraordinary kamalii well there were a very great large number of witnesses for defense who were called one after the other and described the most extraordinary things that had happened at the sails isms Duncan which they had personally witnessed you couldn't imagine that a person who was fraudulent could have done all this I remember one particularly and nurse called Miss rust who was a midwife and who was extremely insistent that she had been confronted with her husband who was she recognized I said if it's you daddy meaning my husband and he said yes I invited him out and said come out here I needed Lee got up from my seat went right up to him and I said kiss me dear there's something terribly tender about us as soon as he appears there's that intimacy of come out give us a kiss it really does is yesterday was completely convinced herself a bit here from the Wing Commander where the QC says your mother materialized and you spoke to her I did sir how close did you get - were you satisfied it was your mother yes I was in the second row of chairs I stood up and went over to get as near as I could without disturbing people in front of me a man knows his mother all these witnesses and yet it didn't take the jury very old comfortable decision yes and I found that rather strange that they could so readily dismiss all this and I think they could only do so as I suppose what one word almost called prejudice against the whole idea and I think in the end neatly seemingly common sense assertions and police rather than the extraordinary sessions of all these spiritualist witnesses the irony of this whole case to me is that those people who saw what she did believed her those people by and large who didn't see what she did were profoundly skeptical but then when she offered to give a demonstration of her powers in front of the court she was turned down first by the judge and then by the foreman of the jury so he doesn't have any chance to prove that what she was doing was real so the authorities got Helen out of the way they put her in prison for an unprecedented nine months from which never really recovered which is the house where she lived at the end of her life number 36 when woods backdoor here's its own deed promises a convicted 1944 toe vein medium grabbed just after cabinets torn down who's ready to the game yes at 1956 there is a serious going on and halfway through a the peace bastard or vim I've handled her touched her body said buns on her body and that man was very painful very painful skin market it's November and she was dead by the 6th of December it does seem like she was treated pretty badly in her life I think so yes especially after the trial to this day I still feel very resentful not so much of a trial the actual reason for it witchcraft when I know she's anything but a rich do you feel your grandma is still looking after him my grandma's looked after her since the day she died she looks after all as far as the family are concerned it's an open-and-shut case the authorities hounded Helen Duncan to death for her wartime revelations I'm sure she used trickery sometimes but there are things she did I don't think we can explain away so easily I still don't know whether she was put in prison because she was a witch or because she was a fraud or just because she was a harmless old woman who didn't understand what state secrets were Oliver what I tend to think it's probably a bit of each really but overall I suppose she was seen as a threat to national security maybe but I wish I could have attended one of her sales I think they're not have known what I really thought you [Music] you

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Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 716,722

Rating: 4.4964976 out of 5

Keywords: stories, History, Ancient History - Topic, BBC documentary, history documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, History - Topic, Documentary, History of the world, paranormal mysteries, Documentaries, Channel 4 documentary, Knowledge - Topic, Full Documentary, real, Tony Robinson, 2017 documentary, documentary history, TV Shows - Topic, Helen Duncan, Full length Documentaries, Society - Topic

Id: As82uPOADrA

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 48min 8sec (2888 seconds)

Published: Mon May 29 2017

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