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'Mysterious Mitcham' is the online sequel to the original 'Strange Mitcham' , which contains stories not found on this website:
Second (2011) edition is now available.
Also available for Kindle.
'MYSTERIOUS
MITCHAM'
Contents:
Front Cover
Introduction
Receive Updates
Map
Part 1 - Mitcham:
The Phantom Cyclist
of Mitcham Common
(update to Strange
Mitcham)
A Dark Figure on
Mitcham Common
Tales from the Vestry
Hall
'Calico Jack': The
Playful Ghost of
Lacks the Drapers
The Faces on the
Walls: Hancock's
Cottages
The Haunted Cottages
in Tramway Path
The 'Haunting' of Hall
Place
The Legend of
Mitcham Fair
Remember the Grotto
The Phantom of the
'Folly'
An Apparition at
Woof & Sabine
Haunted Rooms at Fry
Metals
The Phantom Cat
Mitcham's (not so)
Haunted Mansion
The Kingston Zodiac
The 'Ghost Tree'
Ghostly Gardeners,
Medicinal Plants and
A Magical Tree
The 'Thing'
The Wrath of God
A Ghostly Experience
in Morden Road
Mitcham Clock Tower:
When Time Ran
Backwards
The Rosier Family
Legend
The 'Ball of Fire'
UFO over Mitcham
Common, 2004
UFO over Tooting
Bec Common, 1990
Part 2 - South of
Mitcham Common:
Carew Manor
The Ghosts of
Beddington Park
Beddington Parish
Church & Churchyard
The Figure in the
Alley
Under Beddington
A Spectral Cavalier
Other Information:
Author's website
The Mitcham Ghost
Ride
Strange Mitcham
(2002): Errata
Strange Mitcham
(2011)
Paperback:
Kindle:
Haunted Wandsworth
(2006)
Covers the London Borough of Wandsworth (Balham, Battersea, Putney, Tooting & Wandsworth):
Haunted London
(2007)
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The 'Thing'
It landed in 1959, in the middle of October, drifting silently down from the sky over Walton Way in full view of Mrs Doris Cox.
For several minutes she watched as a shining metallic sphere grew closer, its descent slowed by a parachute made of thick, khaki-coloured paper. Eventually the 'Thing', as the unusual object was later dubbed, came to rest on Mrs Cox's lawn where its size was estimated to be a little larger than a football. Closer examination revealed the legend 'Z000242' marked on its aluminium casing. But what was it?
The Space Age
By the end of the 1950s the world had awoken to the possibility of space travel. Just two years earlier the Russians had ushered in the Space Age by launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. The following month, a dog named Laika became the first terrestrial life-form to enter our planet's orbit. Suddenly we no longer seemed isolated from the rest of the cosmos. More disturbing for many was the idea that, if humans could send objects out into space, why couldn't someone or something out there send a probe our way?
Above: Replica of the Russian Sputnik satellite. (NASA)
Man has an innate fear of the unknown and science-fiction films playing on this fear were already big business. Indeed, the classic film The Thing from Another World, in which a hostile extraterrestrial entity is encountered in Antarctica, had been made not many years before, in 1951. Perhaps whomever christened Mitcham's mysterious visitor had this film in mind when he or she chose the name. Fortunately for Mitcham there turned out to be a more prosaic explanation.
Somebody telephoned the Meteorological Office and a spokesman there replied that the sphere was 'part of a hydrogen-filled radio-sonde balloon'. These balloons were designed to collect weather information which was recorded in a black bakelite cylinder approximately 10 inches long and 6 inches in diameter contained inside the aluminium globe. Unfortunately, however, Mitcham's 'Thing' - which had broken into two on landing - proved to be empty. The cylinder was missing and the Met spokesman stated that a 5s. reward was on offer for its return.
The newspaper report of this incident does not state whether the missing cylinder was ever recovered.
[Source: 'The Thing that came from the sky', The News, 23 Oct 1959, p.4.]
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