Episode 247: In January of 1922, the first of a series of fires broke out on a farm in the small rural community of Caledonia Mills in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. The family who lived at the farm, Alexander, 70, and sixty-nine-year-old Janet MacDonald, 69, and their 15-year-old adopted daughter Mary-Ellen, claimed the unexplained blazes, 30 in all, had begun in rapid succession in places not close to either wood stove. The fires and other terrifying occurrences that drove them out of the home, they believed, were caused by a malicious poltergeist bent on their destruction and focused around Mary-Ellen. News of the events brought renowned international investigators of things paranormal, even catching the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.
Sources:
Caledonia Mills: The Mary Ellen Spook Farm Case
Fire Spook by Monica Graham – Ebook | Scribd
Ghost Stories of Canada by John Robert Colombo, Jillian Hulme Gilliland – Ebook | Scribd
Folklore of Nova Scotia by Mary L. Fraser
Antigonish Heritage Museum – The Old Train Station News – Newsletter 8, Oct 2009
Black Shuck: The Legendary Devil Dog Of The English Countryside
Investigating the Antigonish Fire Spook Haunting
PSICAN – Paranormal Studies and Inquiry Canada – Caledonia Mills Fire Spook
American Society for Psychical Research
A look back at the mysterious haunting of an Antigonish County farm, 100 years later | CBC News
The Mysterious Fire Spook of Caledonia Hills
Phantoms and Monsters – Real Cryptid Encounter Reports – Fortean Researcher Lon Strickler
Seeks Ghosts: Poltergeist: Fire Spook, Part l
Dark Visions: Personal Accounts of the Mysterious in Canada – John Robert Colombo – Google Books
Le cas curieux de la ferme Mary Ellen Spook – PREUVES DU PARANORMAL
poltergeist | Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained – Credo Reference
Lexscien: Library of Exploratory Science
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