SX Magazine – London, U.K.
Katya Holloway waited until the dark hours to step into the tomb of one of the best-documented poltergeists in history. It was an experience she will never forget.
It was 11 p.m. on a moonless evening and a single torch was the only source of light guiding our small group through the pitch black cemetery.
Shadows were lurking menacingly in all directions, but that was the least of my worries. We were approaching the mausoleum of Bloody McKenize, home to one of the best-documented cases of poltergeist activity in history, and I was about to offer myself as its latest victim by crawling into his very tomb.
“Now this is a serious warning,” says our guide, pausing to grimly reiterate his foreboding words. “Before you decide to join us, I have to warn you the McKenzie Poltergeist is known to interact with people on tours. Fifty people have been struck unconscious, we have had people taken away on stretchers, and one man dropped dead from a heart attack. It has been very unpleasant.”
Hemmed by high stone walls and overlooked by the brooding presence of Edinburgh Castle, the Greyfriars Kirkyard dates back to the early 1600s, which was a time of great turmoil within Scotland. A group of Covenanters who rejected King Charles I of England rose into the limelight during the 17th century’s anti-covenanter Bishop Wars, which proved financially disastrous for the king.
Following the English Civil war, it wasn’t until 1660 that the monarchy was restored and Charles II took the crown, hungry for revenge. He declared the covenant illegal and appointed Sir George McKenzie as Lord Advocate to carry out the persecutions.
Some 1,200 people were rounded up and locked in a cell at Greyfriars churchyard, where they were badly mistreated, tortured, and, in many cases, left to rot. It is also here where Bloody McKenzie came to rest in 1691.
Standing at the padlocked gates of this ominous entrance, I felt my legs shudder, and nervously clutched the arm of a stranger lingering closely nearby.
“Before we go inside,” the guide began, “have any of you had bad experiences with poltergeists in the past? We don’t know why it is that Bloody McKenzie attacks certain people, but he seems to pick on just one individual on a tour. We suspect that some people act as a ‘conductor’ for spiritual activity.”
He continued to say that Bloody McKenzie has been haunting this section of the graveyard since his death. However, it was until three years ago that the Poltergeist became restless and started attacking passers-by.
The story goes that in 1999, a drunk homeless man was looking for shelter in the kirkyard when he broke into McKenzie’s mausoleum. After managing to lift a metal grating, he descended into the vault, where he fell into a dark hole filled with human bones and long decaying human flesh.
Hearing a crash, a caretaker passed by and noticed the door to the tomb was open. At this moment, the deranged man, caked in green slime and screaming like a madman, pounced out of the vault. Paranormal investigators theorize that it was this incident which awakened the McKenzie Poltergeist.
Since this time, there have been more than 150 instances of attacks, including people being shoved or scratched, and dozens collapsing at the door of the mausoleum. Some people report feeling a sudden drop in temperature, dizziness or feeling nauseous, while others claim to smell the fetid stench of rotting meat.
And it was time for us to go inside. I felt sick.
The guide unlocked the padlock and led us into the danger area, which was a long strip of land bordered with stone cells on either side. He then pointed the way through a small door leading to the tomb of the Poltergeist, where we were told to step inside.
Cautiously making my way over the raised stone entrance, I followed the group into the dingy dwelling bleakly lit by the seemingly fading light of our bargain-bin torch. Dizziness swelled and a sudden worry came over me that I may be the ‘lucky one’ to be selected as the spiritual ‘conductor’ for the evening.
We stood nervously near each other, dreading the thought that McKenzie might be eyeing us up like a child selecting his favourite individually filled chocolate from a box of Quality Street. Meanwhile, a couple of macho men straggled around the fringes of our compact circle, wearing the same awkwardly brave faces as skydivers just before they take the plunge.
I wanted out.
But the guide kept talking, working us into a nervous sweat, until it was finally time to leave the tense confines of the tomb and step into the fresh air. Never have I felt so relieved.
And yet, our guide warned us that all was not over yet. While some people leave the tours feeling unharmed, many wake up the next morning to find mysterious scratches and bruising all over their body.
Elaine Weyman, a 34-year-old administrator for a Scottish insurance company, is just one of the many people who believes she was attacked by the Poltergeist. She told the Edinburgh Evening News on Nov. 6, 1999, that she only felt ‘chilly’ in the tomb, but when she wok up the next day, she had bruising all over her neck, as though something had grabbed her from behind.
Following a spate of attacks and extensive press coverage, psychic investigator Bill Allan decided to head down to the graveyard armed with a frequency field meter and a couple of psychic mediums to see for himself whether any paranormal activity could be detected.
His PSI (Strange Phenomena Investigations) report from March 5, 2000 reads: “I quickly became aware of feelings of nausea sweeping all over me; I felt dizzy almost as if I was outside my body… I left the group in the tomb and went outside into the bright sunshine; the nausea continued. A few moments later the rest of the group joined me. The mediums looked pale and particularly ill with ease. I did not have to be told, there was clearly something ‘not quite right’ about the tomb.”
This much is obvious. And to make things even more eerie, bones from the graveyard, which is the burial ground to a suspected 250,000 bodies, have been known to poke their way up through the marshy soil – like toast popping out of a toaster.
Creepy? Yes. Would I go back? Not even if Brad Pitt himself took me by the hand and chauffeured me through the entire 90-minute tour. No way.
City of the Dead is the only tour company in Edinburgh that has the exclusive rights to take tourist groups into the Black Mausoleum.