Cold spots in an otherwise warm room, or a sudden drop in temperature, are often associated with hauntings. The question is why? We also look at Mary King’s Close.
Cold spots are usually felt in buildings believed to be haunted. Both paranormal investigators and laypeople have noticed sudden decreases in temperature, or specific cold regions in rooms that are otherwise warm or normal temperature.
Cold spots can often be debunked, e.g. the coldness can be traced to a corporeal source such as a gap in a window or chimney, or a vent.
The feeling of lower temperatures can also be caused by less humidity.
For example, in Wiseman’s study of Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh, the places that had been reported as haunted were a lot less humid than other areas.
What is Mary King’s Close?
The historic Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh, Scotland is a famous landmark and ghost-hunting spot for tourists and those interested in the uncanny.
The Close is part of Edinburgh’s Old Town, which is buried underneath the City Chambers building on the Royal Mile. The underground aspect of it makes it even more of an eerie experience. Imagine being on an antique-looking, twisting, cobbled street and looking up to a completely black, void sky with no moon or any stars in it whatsoever. That’s what it’s like.
The close is named after Mary King, a merchant burgess who lived there in the 17th century and owned a lot of properties in the area. The close was once one of Edinburgh’s most hectic trading places, but it was partly destroyed and covered by the construction of the Royal Exchange building in 1753. The top floors of some houses were knocked down but the bottom floors were incorporated into the building’s foundations.
The close was closed to the public for 250 years, and locals living above it spread ghost and crime stories about it, but there were still a few lonely souls living on the close. The last person living on Mary King’s Close was Andrew Chesney in 1897, and he was given a sum of money to move away from the area in 1902.
Ever since the 17th century, there have been stories, urban legends, and accounts of hauntings and murders in the Close. This was mostly influenced by the events of 1645, when the Black Death or Bubonic Plague broke out. At that time, there were 500 or so citizens working and living beside each other on the close, but only half of them were dead or dying of the disease.
However, the powers that be decided to lock all 500 people there into their homes, quarantining them, probably because it was a poor area or because the place was considered unlucky already. The citizens were trapped, and their houses became their final resting-places.
Archaeologists reopened the way to the deserted underground streets in the early 2000s, finding small shops and houses and artefacts.
The most famous plague-ghost on Mary King’s Close is called Annie. She is a little girl who has been seen by many different people over the centuries. Psychics and mediums have said that Annie wasn’t living on the close but happened to be passing down it in 1645 just as the guards came down and closed the street off from the rest of the world. Consequently Annie is a lonely and bereft entity. People have made attempts to ease her sadness by leaving dolls, toys, sweeties, even the odd CD down there on a special shrine in “Annie’s Room” to make her less bored!
Other phenomena noticed on Mary King’s Close have been the sound of footsteps on the empty street and the appearance of the “Black Lady”, a woman in a black dress.
To book a visit, go here: https://www.realmarykingsclose.com/
Wiseman’s Study
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman conducted an experiment in Mary King’s Close in the early 2000s.
He sent a group of 200 volunteers to four different locations, without telling them that two of the locations were strongly believed to be haunted, and compared the volunteers’ reports from the different sites.
70% of the people visiting the “haunted” areas described spooky or strange goings-on.
48% of the people visiting the “non-haunted” areas described spooky or strange goings-on.
At the site where the “Black Lady” had most often been spotted, more than 80% of the volunteers had a weird experience.
Wiseman said, “Sometimes people just felt very cold, but there were some quite extreme experiences – feelings of being watched, being touched, and having clothing pulled, apparitions of people and animals, and footsteps. I was really surprised at the extent of the experiences.”
The researchers conducted some experiments and found that the “haunted” locations had less humidity in the air than the “non-haunted” ones.
According to Wiseman, less humidity in the air can make it feel colder.
(Usually, more humidity causes more feelings of coldness, [or more feelings of heat if the temperature is hot] but this author’s theory is that it’s all relative. The space taken up by Mary King’s Close had a high humidity level because of it being underground, which would promote people’s skin to create a small amount of sweat. Then, once the volunteers moved into an area with less humidity, moisture would evaporate from their skin, leading to cold feelings and goosebumps).
He concluded that the best explanation for the hauntings was a psychological one, as he also ran a test where he showed people photos of the locations – not telling them that they were “haunted” – and those people rated the haunted locations as looking more “ghostly” and sinister than the other sites. He suggested that certain visual cues, such as lighting, the shape of objects, and the presence of doorways, could prompt a sense of unease.
Infrasound may have contributed to the volunteers’ experiences as well. In the “Black Lady” haunted site there was a continuous infrasound rumble, most likely caused by the traffic moving overhead.
Sources:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/ghost3.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_King’s_Close
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/btp/edinburgh/edinburgh_audio.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4564383.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4564383.stm
Nightwalks 
One thought on “The Coldness of Ghosts”