Assumptions about famous ghosts can mislead us — the spirits we encounter are often far more ordinary, and far more mysterious, than we expect
When a knock echoes in an empty room or a figure is glimpsed in the corner of your eye, do you automatically assume you know who it is?
Paranormal television shows have made a habit of doing exactly that. Most Haunted rarely settled for “something moved”.
Instead, it was “the ghost of Dick Turpin”, “a Victorian child”, or “a wronged servant.” The label became as important as the encounter.
But unless it’s your own grandmother, someone you’d recognise instinctively, how can you truly identify a spirit you’ve never met?
To describe a figure as “looking like Dick Turpin” may be an honest report — a tricorne hat, a long coat, a riding crop — but thousands of men of that age dressed the same way.
Turning “a generic man of the age” into a notorious highwayman is more about our assumptions than clear recognition.
Ashley Darkwood at the Ten Bells
Medium and historian Ashley Darkwood has seen how powerful — and misleading — those assumptions can be.
As a teenager, he visited the Ten Bells pub in Whitechapel, forever tied to the Jack the Ripper murders.
“I was about 16 when I went there with my mum and dad,” Ashley recalls. “It was daytime, the place was quiet. The landlord told us to have a look upstairs. My mum, who was also a medium, said something bad had happened there.
“I wasn’t paying much attention until I stood on one spot and suddenly felt overwhelming sadness — like everything and everyone I loved had just been wiped out. My mum pointed to the exact same place.”
Ashley didn’t claim he had met Jack the Ripper’s ghost.
What he felt was a deep emotional imprint — grief, despair, devastation — but not an identity.
The Ten Bells has long been a magnet for Ripper lore, but its history is much broader.
“In the Victorian period, it would have been a bar on the ground floor, an opium den on the next, and a brothel on the top,” Ashley explains.
“So there were countless people suffering there — young girls forced into prostitution, people hooked on opium, some overdosing and dying. Tens of thousands of lives touched that building in misery. Yet all anyone talks about is Jack the Ripper.”
In a building so steeped in suffering, who’s to say which soul left its mark?
Whose Face Do We See?
Ashley often reminds people that most spirits are ordinary.
“It could be someone so insignificant there’s no record of them,” he says. “The old fella who cleaned the bathrooms 50 years ago. In the spirit realm, everyone is completely equal.”
That raises the question: when we see or sense a figure, do we recognise the spirit itself — or do we reach for the nearest famous name?
A medium may honestly describe what they perceive, but unless it’s a face we already know, how can we be sure?
The Ghost You Don’t Expect
The next time someone says they saw “Jack the Ripper”, “Anne Boleyn”, or “Dick Turpin,” it’s worth pausing.
They may indeed have encountered a presence.
But whether that spirit is the historical figure they name — or just a soul dressed like any man or woman of their time — is another matter entirely.
The ghost you think you know might be nothing of the sort.
And in that uncertainty lies the true mystery of haunting.
Have you ever encountered a ghost you couldn’t identify? Share your experience in the comments below!
