By Martin Jeffrey

The following is an introduction to our new project on Spring-heeled Jack and other related phenomena. Mark Fraser (Haunted Scotland) has sent me information on recent sightings, these I found extremely exciting. They not only tied in with what I thought was an obselete sighting (The Sheffield 1970′s sightings) but they showed that the S.H.J. phenomena was alive and well.

Mystery Magazine will now be acting as a collection base for SHJ sightings and hopefully build a database. Mystery Magazine will be the media by printing recent sightings reported.

Case 1
Ex-army officer Mr.Marshall, now works as a salesman and it was on one of his regular trips to Ayrshire that he contacted Mark Fraser regarding a strange and rather disturbing encounter. During the summer months of 1986, Mr Marshall was in South Herefordshire at the time he was riding along a quiet country road not far from the welsh border. A movement in the field to his left caught his eye and he was astounded to see a strange figure of a man physically leaping high hedgerows in great bounds, in fact it looked as if he was gliding above the ground. Suddenly, the “man” leaped onto the road and as he glided past Mr Marshall he slapped him so hard across the face that he fell to the ground, leaving a red imprint on his cheek for several hours afterwards.

As he slapped Mr Marshall, Jack, if indeed that is his name, gave out an almighty cackle of a laugh and carried on with his journey across the fields. It all happened so fast, Mr Marshall was dumbstruck, shocked with his senses haywire. He describes “Jack” as wearing a type of black shell suit and having an elongated chin. Other than that he cannot say only he seemed to defy all laws of gravity pertaining to man.

Case 2
On December 2nd 1996, residents were very surprised to see strange footprints for 200 yards over Walton Park, the prints started at the entrance gate on Daggerston Road and continued to the Centre Park.

The footprints were burned into the ground and could be seen for many days. Analysis of the soil showed no traces of lime or other corrosive chemicals which could have been trodden into the ground by some unsuspecting jogger. The prints were about the size 10 and the strides were 3ft apart. They were first discovered by a local resident who was walking his dog. Most of the area’s residents believe this was a hoax or an accident but the lack of physical evidence may prove otherwise.

The police treat the case as a hoax and don’t plan to take anymore action.

Case 3
“My sister phoned me last year (1995) she sounded serious and began talking. It seems from the past three and half to four years her children have been experiencing strange happenings at their school on a village in West Surrey. I can’t say which one as the teachers and pupils have had a hard enough time coping with this situation. As my sister said, “we are not dealing with normal things here and as they are so young they think what they see is a ghost, that is their way of dealing with it, but the parents know different and so do I.” The first school that the children of the village went to had to be closed due to the cutbacks and the children now attend a school nearby. They had a big disco when the school finally closed and it was at this event everything came to light. It was a warm summer evening and some of the children were out in the playground when suddenly they came back screaming and running into the building shouting “he’s out there”. The parents and teachers all hurried outside and found nothing, so trying to calm the situation down, they persuaded the children to explain what they had seen. It took sometime but slowly a picture formed. For almost two years a ghost man had been appearing to the children in the playground. In the children’s words “he was all black, with red eyes and had a funny all in one white suit with badges on it. He also wore black boots, a black belt and sometimes gloves.” The next time I heard anything was October last year (’95). We were going out one evening and I had my neice and nephew in the car. As we drove past their old school , they said “that school is haunted Aunty Claire”, which I asked them to explain. They said just what their mother had told me some six months before, but they went on to explain that the ghost man was at their new school now. They said that only the children seem to see him, not the teachers. Some of the parents have seen him and he seems to get closer to the children with darker hair, pointing to them and saying I want you, thus frightening them badly. Recently he has been seen up to two miles away from the school, upto Surrey Heath and he can run as fast as a car and disappear just like that. He also has what the children describe as a flute……they thought they heard funny music come out.. The above article has been edited for space reasons. Since reading this I have made calls for witnesses and tried to track down the school. Any results will be published here.