I saw a ghost when I was 16. I was in my friend’s house that had been a hospital in the First World War (although we didn’t find that out until after the shit had gone down, swearsies). We were on the top floor and he was smoking cigarettes out of the window while I sat on a bed in this room at the end of a corridor (this house is massive). We heard all these footsteps and thought it was his parents coming to yell at us, so he threw the cigarette out the window and we looked out the room, but no one was there.
We carried on hanging out, then the footsteps came back, and sounded like they were standing right outside the open door, but no one was standing there. We both sort of looked at each other all ‘wtf’, but were totally calm cos the whole thing didn’t compute. Then we got up and started to leave.
This was at about 9pm in the summer so it was sort of twilight, and as we were walking out the room we both saw this kind of shadow about ten foot in front of us. It could have been nothing but it kind of grew a red haze around it as we looked at it, and then it came towards us as we walked towards it (still totally calm cos our brains didn’t get it) and it passed through us and sort of gave us its thoughts – it was a soldier who had died there and he was annoyed we were misbehaving by being up on the top floor and smoking and stuff.
Like I said, we didn’t freak out right then but when we made it down the stairs we both found we had tears streaming down our faces. The whole thing was super weird and I have nothing to say about it other than I think ghosts exist.
Three years before that at a provincial boarding school a bunch of us watched out of our dormitory window as three lights darted around the sky for a few minutes and flew off really fast, they were going way faster than airplanes and helicopters and it was cool!
Stephen Hawking is sure aliens exist, but he thinks if they come it’ll be like when the Europeans made it to North America and murdered all the Indians for their land. Stephen reckons we should find them so we can hide from them, as they’ll fly over, see all our cool stuff, fancy it for themselves and slaughter everything with diseases or death rays.
Other people are more optimistic than that, they reckon aliens are gonna save the world from global warming, legalize pot and expand our minds, they think it’ll be great if we made friends with them and they wait on hilltops at dusk to see them.
More other people think that there’s a whole bunch of monsters that scientists haven’t found, like the sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster. They go on expeditions and film these things from an incredible distance, so far in fact, that occasionally what you see on the film may as well be a man in a suit. BUT IT MIGHT NOT BE!!!!! And that’s the joy of this stuff.
Laura Wolf is into all that stuff, she plays in the band Internet Forever (who are responsible for adorable little numbers like this) and she also spends a lot of time on the internet learning about UFOs and cryptozoology. It’s disappointing she’s not more into ghosts, which is what I’m most into, but she knows a lot about UFO stuff. Also, she puts out tapes, and her latest tape is a live set from the coolest band she could possibly put a tape out by: the mighty Cerebral Ballzy.
You should definitely get it, as there’s only a hundred and they’re only 4 quid, which is nothing. Get it here. To celebrate the release of her tape, Laura put together a Paranormal Mixtape for us, which was good of her.
DOWNLOAD - Platform Paranormal Mixtape (right click, save as. You should know this by now dummies)
Here’s the tracklist, (The Carpenters song has been on in our office for two days now, it’s our new favourite song here) and when you download it there’s a Mars Attacks style album cover that Mark knocked up in Photoshop.
Atlas Sound - A Ghost Story
Rockwell (ft Michael Jackson) - Somebody’s Watching Me
Pretty Thigh - It’s Tourist Season At Monster Valley
ESG - UFO
Graffiti Island - Wolf Guy
I.U.D. - Glo Balls
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Howling At The Moon
Blackblack - Ogre Mountain
The Carpenters - Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
I also had an email conversation with her about aliens and stuff, which you can read here.
How did you get into the paranormal?
I can’t remember how exactly I got into this stuff but when I was a kid I was really into doomsday scenarios, particularly super volcanoes and alien invasion. When I was about 9 I had to stop myself from thinking about geomagnetic reversal because it scared me so much. I wouldn’t say I was particularly into the paranormal, I’m more into space, conspiracy and disaster!
Do you think it takes a special type of person to be into that stuff?
Most people I know aren’t into this stuff so that suggests it’s a pretty niche subject. I think it’s a pretty dorky and macabre thing to be into, if nothing else.
Have you ever seen an alien or a ghost?
I haven’t seen either. I don’t know if I really believe in ghosts, but I definitely believe in aliens. I’ve read so much about alien visitation that I almost think that I’ve ruined the possibility of it happening to me. It only ever seems to happen to people unexpectedly… Can’t really imagine them coming to my flat in the middle of London either. Maybe I should move to the country? I would really like to see an alien spacecraft. Though the prospect of a War Of The Worlds esque event is terrifying, I secretly want it to happen in my lifetime. It’d be better if the aliens were friendly of course, but not anywhere near as exciting.
What’s your favourite UFO story?
It is seriously hard to choose. I like ones that involve mass sightings (like the Tinley Park Lights) and the military the best, because it’s a lot harder to blame it on a crackpot individual imagining stuff (Although sometimes those ones are fun). The wiki list of UFO sightings is a great read. I really believe that UFO’s have been sighted and interpreted as various different things as long as humans have existed. You can see things that look like aliens and spacecraft in ancient hieroglyphics and all kinds of art from different ages!
What do you think UFOs actually are/where do they come from?
There seems to be a variety of phenomena and explanations and I don’t think I know enough to make an educated guess. People think I’m joking when I say I actually believe that some UFOs are alien crafts and some alien encounters are real, but I do actually believe that. I think there is also a strong likelihood that some UFO sightings are experimental human military aircraft.
What’s cryptozoology?
Cryptozoology is the “study of hidden animals”. It basically involves people studying animals that regular scientists think don’t exist.
Which are your 5 fave crypto creatures?
Chupacabra
Mothman
Black Shuck
Alien Big Cats
Bukit Timah Monkey Man
Which one do you want to see most?
I’m gonna go find Justin Hawkins and hunt down Black Shuck.
How do you reconcile rock n roll with being a conspiracy nut?
At first music and conspiracies were totally separate for me but in recent stuff that I’ve being doing I’ve got a lot of lyrical ideas from conspiracy sites. I recently wrote a song where the lyrics were mostly taken from things I read about Masonic conspiracies. Me and my friend Arran keep a tumblr that is up to date with the latest 2012 related conspiracies that we find on the internet, it’s called Roswell That Ends Well.
Which is your favourite X-Files episode?
The first one that popped into my head is Eve from the first series. I think I’ve watched that one the most, because I’m fascinated by the dark side of eugenics. The one about the alien baseball player is pretty awesome too. It’s actually really hard to choose a favourite. I was obsessed with the mytharc episodes for a while, but when you think about them too much they stop making sense.
Are there any other paranormal shows you like?
Eerie Indiana and Twin Peaks are my favourite shows ever (apart from the X-Files).
Do you think there’s a government coverup?
I don’t go all the way with total nuts who think the American Government are all lizards and that there are alien settlements under the sea and stuff but I think there are a lot of unexplained things that have happened and quite a lot of evidence to suggest that something is happening. They’d be stupid not to be investigating it in some way, wouldn’t they?
How did you end up doing the Cerebral Ballzy tape?
My friend saw them play in Brooklyn and told me they were amazing, and then another friend got to know them and suggested I put out a tape for them. They were totally up for it and sent me a live recording of a show they did in Toronto, which is incredible. The between song banter is the best. After months of me being lame and trying to get the money together to put it out you can finally get it here.