Reputed Hauntings Abound In Brisbane Queensland

Brisbane Times:

Unexplained whooshes of air rushing down corridors, a seemingly-possessed elevator and a judge's chair that mysteriously spins in the night.

If you ask staff at Brisbane's Supreme and District Court building - the place is haunted.

Security officers who patrol the court building's corridors after hours say dozens of "spooky and freaky" incidents within the walls of the 40-year-old building have them believing in ghosts.

Even burly tradesmen called to do maintenance have high-tailed out of the place after what they believed was a supernatural incident in the basement.

And Brisbane historian Jack Sim says it's not just nonsense: ghosts are attracted to gruesome places such as courts.

Speaking to brisbanetimes.com.au, a female security guard at the court complex said she was certain ghosts roamed the building.

During night shift she often sees the chair in Court 21 slowly spinning as if someone was sitting in it.

"There's no draught in there, no way that any breeze is causing that," she said.

Other court sources say Court 21 used to be the court used by an old judge who died from a heart attack and the spinning chair is his spirit haunting his old workplace.

Another worker says in Court 21 and next door in Court 22, the duress alarm repeatedly goes off and when the room is unlocked and checked out, there's not a soul around.

One guard tells how two years ago two painters were in a sealed-off room in the building's basement doing maintenance work when, they claimed, a gust of icy cold wind "whooshed" past them.

"They were quick out of there and never came back," said a court source.

"They were convinced there was something freaky going on down there."

One night as one security officer manned the front desk, he heard a nearby elevator 'ding' and then the doors open as if someone was about to get out on to the ground floor.

No one was in the lift, but moments later heard the hand dryer go off in the nearby public bathroom. Again, no one there.

"Then about a minute after that the exit doors just started to rattle rattle rattle, as if someone had grabbed the handles and was desperately trying to get out," he said.

"It got me worked up all right. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen."

The worker said he often felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up while he was walking around the building on night shift.

"You get the feeling someone's right behind you and when you turn around of course there's nothing there," he said.

"But I do think there are ghosts around here, for sure."

Another court staffer often in the building after hours said portraits of old judges on the walls and plastic dummies dressed in 1800s clothes as part of an historical display on the second floor certainly did not help him to forget the haunted rumours.

"A few times those faces have given me a scare," he said.

"Also one of the elevators, the one which goes to the basement, seems to be possessed with all its door slamming and doors staying jammed open, that sort of thing."

Horror historian Jack Sim said he had heard many stories about the Supreme and District Court building being haunted.

A stop at the building, on the corner of George and Adelaide streets, is included in Ghost Tours he conducts in the city.

"The court building is such a dark place with so much drama and so much of our most gruesome criminal history has been played out there," he said.

"It's a place where stories of violence and horror have been heard and ghosts are often drawn to these sort of places. Their spirits get trapped there."

Mr Sim, author of the book Haunted Brisbane, has interviewed several staffers who claimed to have witnessed ghost activity in the building, particularly in the basement.

He said the workers believed the ghosts belonged to prisoners who died in the cells of the original court building built in 1876.

The structure was burnt down by an arsonist in 1968 but some of the original basement cells were kept and form part of today's court building, he said.

"It's an amazing place in the history of Queensland," he said.

Originally posted 10/8/07

Brisbane Has It's Share Of Paranormal Activity

Brisbane has been called many things in its time, but haunted is probably not a common classification. Yet one paranormal enthusiast believes our sleepy little town is a hotbed of ghostly activity.

Strange noises, chilling wails, unexplained lights captured on film and bumps in the night are apparently common occurrences at dozens of locations across South-East Queensland.

Historic buildings like Old Government House and City Hall send a shiver up the spine of Lianna Turner, who researches and documents paranormal oddities.

- Old Government House
- Queensland University of Technology
- Gardens Point Campus

This impressive mansion, located inside the grounds of the Queensland University of Technology in the city, was built to accommodate the state's first Governor.

It was used right up until the construction of the current Government House in Bardon.

While exploring Old Government House, Ms Turner explained that the mansion was one of her "main haunts" (no pun intended) because of its active paranormal atmosphere.

Over several years she has amassed a vast collection of photoghraphs documenting her exploration of the house.

Many contain strange lights and "orbs" that Ms Turner believes represent ghostly beings and spirits.

The term "orb" is the popular name given to anomalies that appear in photographs or video, and are thought by some to be paranormal phenomenon.

Others believe orbs are little more than flash reflection from dust particles.

On the second floor of Old Government House, just to the right of the top of the staircase, is an anonymous-looking door with a glass feature panel. Inside is a steep, wooden staircase that leads to the attic.

A member of staff from QUT, who accompanied us on the tour, said that the door was frequently found to be locked from the inside.

Staff had to remove a panel of glass so the door could be unlocked.

On the day of our visit the door had again been locked from the inside. There is no secondary access to this room.

Just around the corner is a large room that was once the home's day nursery. As we rounded a dark and musky corridor, the door to the room blew open.

Inside, the three doors that led out onto the balcony were open and blowing wildly in the wind.

"These are supposed to be locked," our guide remarked. She bolted them closed before we moved on to the next room.

A few minutes later, I returned to the room to take some more photographs. Despite being locked a moment earlier, the three doors to the balcony were again open and blowing in the wind.

The echo of slamming doors throughout the house was common as we made our way from room to room although it must be said that it was a particularly windy day.

Yet Ms Turner said she could often feel a "presence" in what is thought to be the Governor's bedroom and the day nursery.

She believes the spirit of a young girl named Wendy inhabits the house. Historical records detailing the house's early residents are largely unavailable, so it may never be known if a little girl named Wendy once lived here.

- City Hall
- King George Sqaure
- Brisbane

Several stories of deaths at City Hall circulate, spanning the eras before and after construction of the impressive structure.

During the building's construction workmen were said to have died while placing the foundations, which were on top of a former swamp.

It is also said that the area was once a significant Aboriginal site - either a meeting place or camp ground.

There was a story told of a little girl who fell to her death near the entrance to the elevator that takes current visitors to the top of the bell tower.

Another story claims an American soldier was stabbed to death during the war after a fight over an Australian girl turned ugly.

Staff are said to have reported the sounds of an argument from the Red Cross Tea Room.

A caretaker is also said to have taken his life in room 203 on the third floor sometime during the 1940s.

While visiting, Ms Turner asked staff in the concert hall if they had ever experienced anything out of the ordinary.

One man said that a colleague was working in the spot light box at the top of the hall one evening when he heard a knock at the door.

He went to greet the visitor, only to find no one there. He returned to his work when the knock came again a short time later.

He again found no one at the door. Suspecting a group of children were to blame, he waited by the closed door for the knock to come again.

When it did, he flung the door open and charged out, only to find an empty hallway.

Ms Turner took a number of photographs of the concert hall during out visit and later noticed an orb on the photograph.

She showed me another she had taken months earlier that showed a similar-sized orb floating in the air of the hall.

- Nudgee Cemetery
- Bora Ring
- Nudgee

It's hardly surprising that a paranormal enthusiast would find a cemetery interesting, but Ms Turner describes Nudgee's resting place as "cold, dark and uninviting".

She has taken a number of photographs that show strange streaks of light and orbs in the dead of night.

The section of the cemetery where a priest and nuns are buried even holds a level of eeriness, especially at night, she said.

Just down the road at the back of a sports field is Nudgee's very own bora ring.

Bora is the name given both to an Aboriginal initiation ceremony and the land on which it was performed.

It is here that young boys were transformed into men, with ceremonies varying from culture to culture.

Bora rings are circles of hardened earth surrounded by raised embankments, and are generally found in pairs.

Ms Turner finds the ring to be relaxing and peaceful, and captured a strange white light at the bottom of a photograph.

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