Paranormal record / 1864
January 1864. Whitechapel, London. Several people walking past a church saw something they could not explain. The ghostly figure of an old man, floating past the railings nearby. His countenance was stern. People screamed. A crowd gathered, hoping to see him. He was soon spotted again. Over the following days the old man was seen numerous times, and the sightseers grew so many that horse-drawn carriages were unable to pass. The police were called to disperse the throng. It was to no avail. One newspaper gave the ghost half a paragraph and spent the rest scolding the authorities. Nobody ever learned who he had been.
London, the winter of 1863 into 1864. Ghosts were in fashion. Pepper's Ghost, the stage illusion first shown by John Henry Pepper on Christmas Eve 1862, was touring Britain. In the East End, the dead were already on people's minds. In 1863 coffins and the remains of children had been found hidden in the roof and belfry of St Mary Matfelon, the parish church that gave Whitechapel its name. The discovery caused "intense excitement in the neighbourhood."