Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McClain Smith.

For the weeks in between episodes, we'd look at the stories that for one reason or

other didn't make it into the show.

In this week's episode, where darkness plays, we touched briefly on the supernatural

theories of the eminent Sir William Barrett.

Sir William passed away in 1925.

Roughly 40 years previously, however, he had been a founding member of a fascinating

collective known as the Society for Psychical Research.

Counting among its early members such luminary figures as Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred

Lord Tennyson and John Ruskin, the society had been established in an attempt to legitimise

the investigation of paranormal phenomena.

Rather than dismiss reports of strange occurrences that might not tally with conventional wisdom,

the society made it their mission to approach each case impartially, adopting a strict scientific

method with each investigation.

You might say they were nothing less than the original Ghostbusters.

The Society for Psychical Research had been established in response to a peculiar

craze that was sweeping the Western world, a craze that had its origins in a small wooden

house in the hamlet of Hyde'sville, New York.

In 1848, two sisters named Kater Margaret Foxx claimed to have made contact with the spirit

of a dead man.

The sisters alleged that the spirit had communicated with them through a series of knocks and bangs.

In short, they professed to have made contact with a poltergeist, and in so doing inadvertently

...