Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky.

Listener discretion is advised.

In 1972, an often cited parapsychology experiment took place.

The experiment conducted by Toronto parapsychologist Dr. A.R. George Owen

and psychologist Dr. Joel Witten was called the Philip Experiment,

and it sought to create a fictional character, a ghost, through a deliberate methodology,

and in turn communicate with this ghost through a series of sayances.

The research team consisted of Dr. Owen's wife Iris, an industrial designer and his wife,

a heating engineer, an accountant, a bookkeeper, and a sociology student.

The research collective settled on a character named Philip Ailsford,

referred to as Philip throughout the bulk of the experiment.

His fictional history was a smorgasbord of real history and complete fabrications.

Per the experiment, Philip was born in England in 1624, served in the military throughout

young adulthood and was subsequently knighted at 16. Philip was serving in the English Civil War,

where the parliamentarians and royalists went to war over issues of England's governance

and record on religious freedom. When he met and later became a close ally for Charles II,

King of Scotland, England, and Ireland until his deposition in 1651,

and later King from the 1660 restoration until his death in 1685.

Philip, though, never had a chance to see much of Charles's rule,

having fallen in love with the Romani girl. She was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake,

despondent, Philip died by suicide in 1654. He would have been 30 years old.

The group worked tirelessly to contact their invention, their fictional Philip,

...