December 28, 2022 1:00 AM ‐ Paranormal • Long Reads
Paranormal Review Of 2022
This article is more than one year old and was last updated in February 2024.
From trending podcasts, to sell-out events, plus plenty of supernatural movies and loads of ghost hunting on television, 2022 has been a busy year in the paranormal world. There were plenty of spooky news stories, strange happenings, ghostly sightings, and great paranormal entertainment for us to sink our teeth into.
Tracy-Ann Oberman Opens Up About Her Uncanny Supernatural Experience
The year started with the return of Barri Ghai, Jayne Harris and Ian Lawman in a six-part celeb spin-off of their paranormal reality show. 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted' saw the team investigate the homes of six celebrities including Alex Best, Frankie Essex and Toyah Willcox.
While all that was going, on a pub in York was on the hunt for a stolen skull. The macabre artefact was stolen from the Golden Fleece, resulting in the pub issuing an urgent appeal asking anyone who has any information on the object's whereabouts to get in touch. Within a few days the skull, known as Elizabeth, was returned to the historic inn.
But the big news in January was British actress, Tracy-Ann Oberman talking about her supernatural encounter with "utter pure evil". The actress, known for her appearances in 'Friday Night Dinner', 'Toast Of London' and 'Doctor Who', told her story in an episode of Danny Robins' paranormal podcast series, 'Uncanny'.
The terrifying moment took place in 2010 when she was "taken out of the world" in the stunning Lincoln cathedral, but the building's beauty soon faded for Tracy-Ann as something dark took over her. She told the podcast host, "I walked down one of the corridors and I had a really odd sensation, it was like everything else zoomed out. All the noise, all the other people, it was like I was totally on my own."
The actress described the terrifying sensation, "there wasn't anything else around, no sound, no light. It was like I had been totally taken out of the world and I was being drawn down this corridor towards something that was utterly terrifying, and it was just pulling me, pulling me, pulling me toward it."
Haunted Doll That Weeps & Sets Itself On Fire Appears On 'This Morning'
In February, news came that Netflix had snapped up the rights to a horror film based on a story of real-life haunted house that was made famous by 'Ghost Adventures' star, Zak Bagans, who dubbed the sinister property in Gary, Indiana the "Demon House" in his 2018 documentary of the same name.
The controversial spiritual retreat, Camp Chesterfield in Indiana, was put back into the spotlight by a BBC docudrama called 'Fake Psychic' that aired in February. The six-part podcast series, which is available to listen to in full now on BBC Sounds, is based on the 1976 book 'The Psychic Mafia' by Lamar Keene as told to Allen Spraggett.
Also in February, ITV midmorning presenters Holly Willoughby and Alison Hammond were freaked out by a terrifying cursed doll that is said to cry acid and set itself on fire. According to the doll's owner, Annie likes nothing more than scratching people, pinching them and pulling their hair. She's also been blamed for starting fires and even cries tears of acid.
Japanese "Killing Stone" Splits In Two Unleashing Ancient Evil
Photo: © Σ64
Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman teamed up again for an all-new season of 'Portals To Hell' that premiered on Discovery+ in March. Meanwhile the paranormal world was discussing a claim that the construction of the UK's new high-speed railway line between London and the Midlands could be causing a rise in ghostly activity after it was revealed that the teams working on the new HS2 line have already disturbed Romans skeletal remains during excavation at more than 100 sites along the route.
The big story in March broke on social media when there were claims that an evil spirit trapped within a stone near Tokyo had been released after the stone was found split in to two roughly equal parts. The famous lump of lava rock, known as the Sessho-seki stone, sits in an area known for its hot sulphurous springs. It's said that the stone constantly spews poisonous gases and will kill anyone who comes into contact with it.
According to legend, an ancient evil vixen named Tamamo-no-Mae has been trapped inside of the volcanic rock for over a thousand years. This demon spirit takes the form of a nine-tailed fox who embedded itself in the stone after a reign of terror that resulted in a rebellion that ended the Shang dynasty and the beheading of a thousand men.
The stone was found split in two in March and a length of rope that normally stops people getting too close was lying on the ground. This has lead some to believe that Tamamo-no-Mae might have left the stone and could bring on more dark times, pain and suffering.
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Britain's Most Haunted Hotel Opened Its Doors To Ghost Hunters
In April, ghost hunters investigating the iconic Gloucestershire haunted hotspot, the Ancient Ram Inn, captured what they believed to be a "demonic entity" on a thermal-imaging camera.
But April was also the month that the 17th century Ye Olde Kings Head in Chester dubbed Britain's "most haunted hotel" opened its doors to ghost hunters who are brave enough to spend the night. 'My Haunted Hotel' gives the daring the chance to search for spooks in the iconic haunted building on the ultimate overnight ghost hunting adventure. The nightlong supernatural stakeout is captured on 16 static cameras, giving guests the chance to appear in weekly episodes made up of the highlights of the ghost hunts.
The 'My Haunted Hotel' experience is designed to give guests the chance to explore the location's paranormal activity for themselves. Attendees are encouraged to venture out into the hotel's haunted rooms and corridors in search of spooks on their own, with free-run of the hotel all night long and an array of ghost hunting equipment to try out.
Since the launch of 'My Haunted Hotel' the inn's guest have captured some spectacular paranormal activity, from furniture moving, to unexplained noises, and even a full apparition. Rooms at the hotel are still available at various dates over the coming months and new episodes of the web series premiere weekly.
'Most Haunted' Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary
May was extra spooky due to the fact the 13th fell on a Friday, but this didn't stop Katrina Weidman teaming up with Heather Taddy to kick off their new web series, 'Travel The Dead', with a visit to White Hill Mansion in Fieldsboro, New Jersey.
Meanwhile, here in the UK a new British show premiered on the Really Channel. In 'Spooked Scotland', renowned American medium Chris Fleming and his partner in crime Scotland's Gail Porter lead an expert paranormal team to investigate the chilling crimes, supernatural sightings and terrifying stories across one of the most haunted countries on Earth.
But the big event in paranormal television in May was a landmark anniversary of the show that inspired them all. In May 2002 the first ever episode of 'Most Haunted' aired, a show that defined a genre and still has a huge fanbase two decades later. It's notched up 24 series, over 250 episodes and countless hours of live broadcasts, all of which has seen Yvette Fielding and her team visit more than 400 different haunted locations across the UK.
Later in the year, Yvette took her team to Delapré Abbey in Northamptonshire for a mammoth three-hour live investigation on Halloween night. The live special racked up almost a quarter of a million views and saw the show grab a number one trending hashtag on Twitter as fans shared their thoughts on the show using the hashtag #MostHaunted.
Steve Gonsalves Returned To 'The House In Between'
June was a weird and unpredictable month with Kate Bush's 1985 track 'Running Up That Hill' going to No. 1 in the UK charts after being featured in the fourth season of Netflix's hit supernatural series 'Stranger Things'.
Meanwhile, Danny Robins was hosting a live special of his hugely successful paranormal podcast, 'Uncanny', from the Hay Festival in Wales. The episode included a case that revolved around comedian, Jason Manford and an unsettling encounter while he was part of the cast of Sweeney Todd in London's Adelphi Theatre back in 2012.
But it was a documentary that got everyone in the paranormal community talking the most in June 2022. 'The House In Between: Part Two', the follow up to Steve Gonsalves, and Kendall Whelpton's 2020 paranormal documentary, premiered and saw Steve resume his investigation of the haunting of an unassuming house in Florence, Mississippi.
This time around, Steve, who is best known for his appearances in 'Ghost Hunters' and 'Ghost Nation', attempted to help the homeowner confront her fears. Steve said, "if we can get Alice Jackson to a point that she feels comfortable staying in the home overnight again, we have made real progress here."
Like the original documentary, its sequel breaks from the mould of paranormal reality shows and YouTube series, which rely on the same old methods shot in monotone night vision. Instead, 'The House In Between: Part Two' is beautifully shot in full colour using cinematic 4K cameras. It's directed by Steve and Kendall and edited by Vera Whelpton, making her debut as the first full film she has edited and serving as executive producer.
The Reactivation Of The Large Hadron Collider Didn't Open A Gateway To The Infernal Realm
Photo: © Maximilien Brice (CERN)
July marked the 75th anniversary of the world's most famous UFO case, the Roswell Incident. It all started when a rancher named Mac Brazel took some mysterious debris he'd discovered on his remote farmland to the sheriff's office in Roswell, New Mexico.
There was sad news for fans of paranormal television this month when Gail Porter revealed on Twitter that she would not be returning for a second series of 'Spooked Scotland', even though she'd like to.
And everyone was talking about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), especially people within the paranormal community who were convinced that the massive science experiment was going to open a paranormal portal that rips the world apart. The resurgence in the wild conspiracy theories and scare-mongering stories about the potential dangers of the project came when CERN switched the huge particle accelerator back on after three years during which time the accelerator underwent an upgrade.
Perhaps fears are heightened due to the release of the latest season of 'Stranger Things'. The Netflix supernatural series sees a gang of kids in the town of Hawkins fight to contain the malevolent entities that exist in a dark and dangerous alternative dimension they call the Upside Down.
The particle collider was first turned on in 2008 and since then we've had a decade of perfectly safe scientific experimentation, the likes of which have massively increased our understanding of the world around us and is sure to lead to the next leaps in the advancements of humankind.
Jamaica Inn's Owner Sells Cornwall's Most Haunted Hotel To Coaching Inn Group For £8 Million
All eyes were on a seemingly ordinary residential street in Glasgow in August, when Danny Robins suggested in an episode of his podcast, 'Uncanny', that Gibson Street in the Woodside area of the city was like "the poltergeist equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle".
But the big news in the paranormal world in August was taking place at the other end of the country. Cornwall's famously haunted Jamaica Inn was sold to the Coaching Inn Group in a deal thought to be worth around £8 million. The historic former coaching inn on Bodmin Moor was sold by its previous owner, Surrey based business man Allen Jackson, who took over the historic property, ghosts-and-all, in 2014.
The inn is now a popular tourist attraction, but has had a varied history having been a hangout for smugglers and highwaymen, as well as being visited by countless people making their way across the moor. Its notoriety has lead to a murder mystery novel in its name, written by Daphne du Maurier and originally published in 1936. The book was adapted into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock.
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The UK Paranormal Community Came Together For The First Annual ParaMeet
The ghostly residents of Button House made a spirited return to BBC One in September for the fourth series of the critically acclaimed and much-loved supernatural sitcom, 'Ghosts'. They will also rematerialise this month for a Christmas special.
Meanwhile, Yvette Fielding released the second book in her children's series. 'Ghost Hunter Chronicles: The Ripper of Whitechapel' is inspired by the real-life experiences of the television ghost hunter.
The real buzz in the paranormal community in September was the 2022 ParaMeet, a weekend-long event that gave ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts from across the country the chance to come together, learn and make new friends.
The event was held at Bosworth Hall Hotel in Leicestershire and hosted by the Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre (HAPRC). The event was a huge success and was a great opportunity to network, by paranormal kit and unusual gifts, and listen to some fascinating speakers, including the paranormal expert and custodian of Derby Gaol, Richard Felix. Also on the lineup was hypnotist Paul Goddard, star of 'Haunted Homecoming' Kate Cherrell, and historian Neil Storey.
The event was such a success that its organiser, Neil Packer from HAPRC, has already announced that the event will take place again next year. Tickets are already available from the HAPRC website, hauntedresearchcentre.com.
Kate Cherrell Took The Paranormal World By Storm
Photo: © Discovery+
It goes without saying that October was a huge month in the paranormal world. A brand-new charity organisation called the UK Paranormal Society launched with the aim of progressing research whilst promoting good ethical standards, protecting the vulnerable, and preserving our history and heritage.
It was also the month that Jack Osbourne's new Discovery+ series 'Haunted Homecoming' became a surprise hit of the year which put British paranormal investigator and blogger, Kate Cherrell, in the spot light. In fact, Kate was such big news in 2022 that a feature we ran on her in October continued to be one of our top trending pages right up until the new year.
'28 Days Haunted' Had A Huge Impact On The Paranormal World
Photo: © Netflix
Danny Robins gets another mention in our review of 2022 in October, this time for the launch of his latest podcast series, 'The Witch Farm' is based on a fascinating British haunting that started at a remote farmhouse in the Brecon Beacons in 1989 and lasted for six years. But if video is more your thing, then there was another launch which may have been of interest to you in October, a new paranormal video discovery platform called Hauntd.
There was one show that caused a storm in the paranormal world in October. Netflix made its move into the ever-growing ghost hunting genre with '28 Days Haunted'. The show followed three teams who were locked down inside of allegedly haunted location for 28 days. During this time they were totally immersed in the haunting with no contact with the outside world.
The show dropped on the streamer just before Halloween, perfect timing as this meant that the show was exposed to Netflix's approximately 200 million subscribers worldwide. This subscriber base is made up of people who wouldn't normally watch paranormal shows, perhaps they never had before. Finding '28 Days Haunted' promoted on a famous Netflix rotating carousel on their television in the run up to Halloween meant that the ghost hunting genre had found a whole new audience.
We saw a sharp rise in people seeking out information on the paranormal from the day the series premiered. According to data on global search trends from Google, many of the paranormal methods and topics mentioned specifically in '28 Days Haunted' spiked in interest from October 21 showing that '28 Days Haunted' had a huge impact on the paranormal world.
Ghostly Voice Unexpectedly Interrupts A Past-Life Regression Session
There was another new podcast series to listen out for from November. Greg and Dana Newkirk launched their new 'Haunted Objects Podcast' series that will see the ghost-hunting couple dig into the history, folklore, and anomalous activity behind some of the world's most haunted objects.
We also finally got to see Jenna Ortega as an Addams in the highly-anticipated Netflix series, 'Wednesday'. The 19-year-old began her career as a child actor, with roles in films such as 'Insidious: Chapter 2' and more recently the 'Scream' reboot.
But one of the biggest supernatural stories of November was an unexplained ghostly voice that was captured during a live stream hosted by hypnotist and master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), Paul Goddard.
The voice was heard as Paul's followers watched him conduct a past-life regression session with paranormal investigator, Kate Ray, who is known for her explorations of modern spiritualism and the realms of the fae. Neither Paul or Kate heard anything at the time, but viewers watching the live stream heard what can only be described as a whispered voice saying "tell her".
After viewers alerted Paul to the clip, he went back through the recording of the live stream and isolated the moment the voice was heard.
Psychic's Predictions For 2023 Include Food Shortages, More World Conflicts & A Major Cosmic Event
Photo: pixabay.com
The year ended with British psychic, Craig Hamilton-Parker, making a series of predictions of what he expects to come true over the next 12 months. His insights include more world conflicts and instability between nations, a global shortage of food and a cosmic event in our Solar System that could cause problems here on Earth.
He said there "is going to be food shortages," which he says will "sadly, bring about famine in the third world. but also great hardship everywhere." He also predicted, "I have a feeling of something like a very a huge solar flare, and I feel this would be significant, whether that reaches the Earth or whether it affects all of our technology or something like that."
The psychic is well-known for his annual prediction videos and last year correctly predicted the death of Queen Elizabeth. He accurately stated, "I think she will make it past her platinum jubilee, which comes up this year, but I think after that, we'll see a sudden and quick deterioration in the Queen's health."
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