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A tourist snapped this photo during a ghost tour of Hobart's Franklin Square. Who, or what is it?
FRANKLIN Square, in Hobart's city centre, does not look like the kind of place one might expect to see a ghost.
But ghost tour operator Adel Caridwen says that after dark, the pleasant little park takes on a much more sinister atmosphere.
There are ghosts everywhere and very few set themselves a time frame," Ms Caridwen said. "The reason people tend to usually see them at night is because that is when it is quiet enough for people to see, hear, smell all the unusual things going on around them." Her business, Ghost Tours of Hobart and Battery Point, includes Franklin Square on its evening rounds of haunted spots and Ms Caridwen said tour groups encountered something strange there almost every other night. Recently, one of the tour participants managed to snap an intriguing photo, shown here, of what appears to be a woman running past behind where the group was standing. "No matter where we stop in the park as a group, you will see the whole back row spin around because they hear someone running past behind them but they never see anything," Ms Caridwen said. "Occasionally people report feeling someone brushing past behind them on the way through but usually what we notice is the people at the back looking for the source of the footsteps." One night, about eight weeks ago, a tour group was standing near the giant chess board, facing the fountain, when those at the rear heard running footsteps behind them. One of the people in the group, a tourist from the mainland, had the presence of mind to point his mobile phone camera in the direction of the noise and take a photo. Those on the tour swear there was nobody else in the park at the time yet the grainy, motion-blurred photo appears to show the form of a woman rushing past. "Judging by the clothing, she was probably from some time in the mid-1800s, definitely female and to me it looks like she's got a basket or a baby swaddled on her hip, something like that," Ms Caridwen said. She said the photo was one of the best she had ever seen and she hoped it would eventually help unravel a little more of the mystery surrounding the running ghost so frequently heard in the area. Hobart paranormal researcher and Society of Anomalous Research Australia president Hannah Jenkins was more sceptical about the photo, saying that while it was an excellent image, there were several normal explanations that still needed to be discounted. "It must be remembered that this happened in a public square with bus stops nearby and people walking through at all hours of the day and night," Dr Jenkins said. "Even if the photographer was not consciously aware of people in the vicinity, there easily could have been someone walking past that they were not aware of." Franklin Square is the site of the original Government House in Hobart, before the current one was built at the Queen's Domain. The park's centrepiece, the statue of Sir John Franklin, was erected by the citizens of Hobart following the popular former governor and adventurer's death in 1847, during his ill-fated search for the North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. With such a long and varied history the site is, perhaps unsurprisingly, reputed to be haunted by more ghosts than just the running woman. Ms Caridwen said other unusual phenomena had been captured in photographs taken in the park. "Another person on a tour took a photo of a really distinct cloud of something but, sadly, they never sent me a copy," she said. "It was just floating above the ground, one of the best ectoplasmic shots I've seen in ages." She said many visitors to Franklin Square at night reported an "off feeling" at the Treasury Building end of the park, around the chess board and wishing well. "When you consider how many working ladies earned their dollar in here, it was a rough enough existence and occasionally they would be found dead here and nobody would know who they were," Ms Caridwen said. "It's got a pretty grim feeling in here sometimes." For all its ghost stories dating from colonial times, Franklin Square might have one from a more contemporary period. "Maybe three times, walking through here, I've seen a man hanging from one of the trees," Ms Caridwen said. "I don't normally mention it on tours because I like to see if anyone else says they can see it first but a few other people have reported seeing the man in their peripheral vision as well. "I'm a bit loath to dig into those sorts of records, but I don't think it was that long ago because the man appears to be wearing jeans and a flannelette shirt." Macabre visions aside, Ms Caridwen said she still enjoyed taking tours through the park and spending time there. "I really like it in here, it's really rich, I think there are a lot of stories yet to unfold about this spot," she said. |
