The MacKenzie Poltergeist

Went on The City Of The Dead tour late last night to visit what is purported to be one of Edinburgh's most haunted sites. The Greyfriars Graveyard and the Mackepnzie Poltergeist.

The City Of The Dead tour operators say that they have had 150 people blackout and another 400 people leave the tour with scratches bites and welts due to the activity of the poltergeist.

MacKenzie was the man who oversaw the imprisonment of the convenants in the convenants prison inside the Greyfriars cematary.

The convenants were the Scottish who fought the king to keep him from changing their religious practices to be more “English”.

So once inside the cemetary we visit the black masoleum the site of the poltergeist. We were led into the a small
room behind locked iron gates. I admitedly felt some cold spots, but I'm afraid I didn't experience any activity. Apart from the guy who was paid to jump out on the tour in a cheap mask.

I'm going on the Mary Kings Close underground tour at 5pm (hold good hopes for this tour, when I was buying tickets for the tour I saw a woman led out crying) and then at 11.30pm through to one the mercat tour of of the Vaults.

More later.

Comments

[anne k]

what a disappointment!! no poltergeist ,only the "jumperooter" to scare those who weren;t expecting him. the tour was informative but i didn;t like the way everyone just tramped over gravestones, showing no respect. the tour of mary kings close was very good,i felt icy cold in the room where little annie was,i wish i had taken a little doll to leave for her.

[alex m]

i went on this tour in august- i was shocked when two of my friends passed out. long before the masked jumper, by the way. more than one of my friends (we went in a large group) came out with scratches, including me. i can only imagine how hooky this would look if an incident didnt occur, but ive never been more scared in m;y life

[Cecilia Wagner]

Why do they even have the tours if ppl have been affected by poltergeist it is dangerous i mean bloody hell ppl you could get posessed by the devil

[Jaz]

i went on the mackenzie walk and it was so good! you could feel it watching you and it was all misty and it totally freaked me out. I recommend this to anyone.

[Louise]

I'd be interested to know if other tours actually went inside the black mausoleum - we were grouped into another tomb inside the covenanter's prison belonging to a chap called James. We were shown where Mackenzie's domed mausoleum was, but weren't taken into or even near it.

By the time the jumper-ooter appeared, any feelings of uneasiness or dread in the group had completely evaporated. Not at all scary.

But it was entertaining!

[lecy]

i went on this tour just yesterday, i was scared absolutely out of my brain. while nothing out of the ordinary happened, i was still pretty darn scared, and i am a born and bred skeptic, so i would fully reccomend this to anyone.

[Chris Horsfall]

I went to the Graveyard and Mary Kings Close in the same day...---- Can anyone explain how i ended up with a bruise the size of a tennis ball above my right leg. And warm water inthe hotel that soaked my suitcase and the hotel floor ??? P.S No silly remarks - it wasnt Urine .. Cheers Chris.. Oh and why now do i still get bruises nearly a year later when i know damn well i havent banged myself.!!!

[Shelly Z]

My husband and I went on the tour on July 15th 2005. One woman on our tour was fine until she went in what they told us was the "black" mausoleum. The woman came out in a fast flash almost vomited and was white as a ghost. I myself didn't go in the mausoleum because I actually thought the tour was going to go "down" into a crypt. I felt pretty stupid when I didn't infact go in the room where they put the tour. I was able to look into Mackenzie's tomb and that alone was spooky. It smelt of death.

We also did Mary King's Close tour and nothing out of the ordinary happened.

[Vinny]

Did the tour Saturday 20th August 2005 with my partner and my 10 year old son. I didn't feel scared or apprehensive at all, although my partner was. There was an odd cold spot in the mausoleum, which you could put your hand through. The cold was similar to the odd coldness which descends from a freezer when the door is opened.

I felt what felt like a spider's web over my face when I left the doorway of the mausoleum but that could very well be a spider's web!

However, my partner now has a deep dark bruise at the top of her right thigh, which she did not have when we travelled through to Edinburgh. Now, that could be put down to an accidental bump somewhere. More odd than that is what my son now has. On the underside of his left forearm he has a perfect circle, slightly smaller than a five pence piece, which is raised and slightly red. The skin on the inside of the circle is normal, not discoloured and not raised. He most certainly did not have this before the tour and neither my son nor I can explain how this "injury" could have occurred.

Strangely enough, I had a perfect, peaceful, undisturbed and utterly refreshing night's sleep, something I've not had for months on end.

[scott raitt]

i have visited the greyfriars kirkyard and had experiences with sir george mackenzie,such as cold spots and others passing out in front of me, a bbc team investigated this place and found it to be haunted by several ghosts and poltergeists if you have a story that has happened to you then please email me thank you scott.r....

[John]

i visited the graveyard in Aug 2005. In the middle of our guide's explanation of the story i fell ill and passed out. I was later told that a good friend of mine passed out as well a minute after. Later my friend had another attack outside of the graveyard. This experience will always stay with me. I recomend it to those brave enough.

[Jo Loomes]

Me and my sister visited the graveyard and Mackenzies tomb on 18th November 05. The guide was really good and was very good at spooking everyone out before we went into the tomb. The tour was very uneventful but quite entertaining. Apart from the jumperooter at the end it failed to freak us out at all. The atmosphere would have been perfect for ghostie happenings as it was absolutely freezing cold and foggy, but alas, nothing untoward happened. Bit disappointing but good fun!

[Lesley Collins]

I went to the underground vaults in Edinburgh with my friend and I felt someone holding my right hand. I look over at my friend and realised it wasn't her and nobody was near me. That was went I started jumping around and waving my hand in the air like an idiot.
I also went to Greyfriars but nothing happened. It is excellent though and the book on it you can buy is even more scary!

[Cat]

I went on the MacKenzie tour the other night, and although i went a year ago and experienced nothing, and was really excited, this time i felt asolutely petrified! When we went in the tomb, my mum almost collapsed and had to sit outside - she almost ran into the "jumper-ooter"! I also was standing in the back right-corner of the tomb, and felt very cold and felt something pull at me hair. I've never been more scared in my life!

[Kel Smith]

me & my mum both went on the tour earlier this year but it was spoilt by a group of children sat on the roof of the chamber throwing stones at the guide who actually thought it was a ghost to fair it was not that scary or believe-able!

[Cazzy]

I went on the tour this year during the Edinburgh Festival--August (I did the 8 o'clock one coz I was too scared to do any later ones). They're still doing the jumperouter but I didn't see him--I'm short and I was hidden behind everyone--so I was okay though everyone else screamed. I thought it was really good but I was really scared to go in (I did though ^^)...but me and my friend (who is an adult, I'm a teen--I was 16 then and am 17 now) saw this man who wasn't there!! He wasn't on the tour with us and he wasn't the jumperouter. We spoke to him and he looked really scared and surprised! It was so creepy!! Unfortunately I wasn't injured and nobody fainted but it would have been interesting if there had!
In all it was actually a very very good tour. I'd recommend it! I'm now using my experiences for a backdrop to my A-Level English coursework.

[J. F. Varen]

We were a group of four guys from Norway visiting Edinburgh, and we realized that the "City Of The Dead" tour was something worth including in our schedule. The guide was very professional and entertaining, and she alone made the tour worth every penny, with or without ghosts. The tour into the cemetary was pretty scary, and the atmosphere could have been taken right out of a movie. Two poor people were asked to enter the 'Black Mausoleum' before the rest of us, as the guide thought they were particularly perceptive to the paranormal. The rest of us followed shortly, and were placed at the far end wall, facing the entrance. After a while the guide started shifting her feet, avoiding the cold spots that had started to "attack" her, and shortly after a man in the group had to leave the spot he was standing at, obviously getting freaked out by the same attacks. Nothing happened to me nor to any of my friends. The jumper-ooter made a good scare and a good laugh, though . All in all, the tour is well recommended, be you a believer or not.

[Empress]

I agree with Alex M, you shouldnt be messing around with poltergeists - they are always evil! I also had an experience in Edinburgh, but it was not on any tour. The poltergeist actually attacked me out on the street - a huge gust of wind came and tried to knock me over but everyone else around me was fine. This poltergeist also wrote the words 'kill' on my window, was tapping on my hotel window and also made the water in my basin in my room 'warm and cold' - sound similar to Lecy's story? Thats because that is common for poltergeists - the whole hot and cold experiences. So those of you who said that you didnt experience anything but felt icy cold in the room - that was your experience! They should get an exorcist in to get rid of that poltergeist - you shouldnt play games or make light of them - they are really evil and can physically harm people - they can kill you! Its especially worrying that this poltergeist is not just isolated in one location - it is able to come out into public and do these sorts of things. Im currently wearing a medal of St Benedict with an exorcism written on it on a chain around my neck and ever since Ive worn it the poltergeist has not been able to come near me. I suggest this for other people who are still being haunted or having problems caused by this poltergeist. Everytime I went outside my hotel room this poltergeist tried to knock me down - this is for real - they shouldnt play games with evil dead people like this - they should get in an exorcist! This is one poltergeist that is out of control - and wants to Kill people

[Richard Pace]

I went to this churchyard with a friend around midnight in October 2006, specifically to try and scare ourselves. After hearing some strange wind like noises close to the old prison, we were both physically knocked to the ground. I couldnt get up even though I wanted to and my friend Dave was out cold. I blacked out and woke up soaking wet and freezing cold a few minutes later. Dave was gone but was waiting for me outside the walls. I will never ever go there again. this is serious stuff and should NOT be bessed with.

[yagman]

went on the tour last week with some friends from work ,started a bit slow , went into greyfriers graveyard and we were led across peoples graves which i thought was a bit disrespectful ,then we went through the gates into the prison part, guide told a few stories the led us into a small room "black musilium " not a tomb as promised!!! i was then told off by the guide for joking with friends then she rabbited on endlessly telling funny stories about other groups she had led there , if she had shut up and put here candle out it would have been a little more scary very disapointed bit expensive !!! no activity to much candle light !!1

[Conor Dowd]

Hi.

I took the City of the Dead Tour on Mar 14th 2007. I had read a good deal about the Mackenzie poltergeist and was eager to check the Kirkyard out. The tour itself was disappointing as the guide spent (I felt) too long indulging dramatically in the bloody early history of Edinburgh and as a result we spent barely 15/20mins in the actual Covenanter's Prison itself and a supposedly particularly haunted room. I'm neither a sceptic nor a believer but have a healthy interest in such things. Maybe they will be understood by science some day? Maybe there are actual physical, scientific reasons behind all the supposed incidents there - group hysteria, the power of suggestion, concentration of magnetic/(geo)electric energy. I felt nothing unusual in the enclosed 'room' we were all crammed into. Although I did feel a cold spot on my right leg (but I was standing in a puddle of cold water at the time...) I felt the 'jumper-outer' was a bit tacky and gave the whole thing a cheesy air of make-believe and hokum. For some reason the Black Mausoleum was only pointed out (from a distance) to us. The guide didn't bring us near it or mention anything of interest about it. I hope they conduct further scientific research into the supposed goings-on at the Kirkyard.

[Scott Mills]

I went on this tour in the summer of 2002, when my brother and myself (we're from the US) went on holiday in the UK. I remember that the host was particularly engaging, and was very good at what he did, mainly entertaining.

We spent very little time in the actual area of the MacKenzie's crypt, maybe 15 minutes. We were all ushered into the back of a small room near MacKenzie's masoleum. After being told, a very believable story, about the number of people who had been "attacked" during other tours, I was pretty damned scared when my brother and myself were asked to stand at the back of the room (I'm rather tall) and had our exit blocked by everyone else on the tour.

The guide at this point told us to shout immediately if anyone felt any cold spots, had trouble breathing, or felt they were being attacked in any other way.

Needless to say, this added to the tension in the room. :) Having said that, nothing of note happened to anyone during the tour. No cold spots, no blacking out, no feelings of being touched.

After the tour we accompanied the tour guide to a local bar, where after some prompting he told us that there was nothing really special about the "crypt" we were taken too. He asserted that the masoleum of Mackenzie himself could not be entered, and he wouldn't go even if we could legally go in. The particular spot we were taken too, was chosen because it could suitably fit everyone in a given tour, and was likewise suitably "scarey."

He also admited to me that he was an actor by profession, but swore up and down that he'd quit his job as a tour guide twice, because he HAD seen people attacked, but the money was very good.

I'm not really sure what to make of the whole thing. I'm an atheist, and have a hard time believing anything that requires as its prerequisate a belief in life after death.

I will admit that I was scared as hell that night too, but then again, the guide was an admited actor who was (verbatum) "tipped more generiouslly the more scared people on the tour are."

-S

[Alice]

The Tour was good, but a bit slow at the begining and a bit of a dissapointment. But it was still awesome to be out in the graveyard. No one got hurt, or fainted.
The tour to the marykings close was much better i thought, and annies room was very strange, i felt a cold spot there. I recommend it.

-april 2007

[jamie w]

(early 20's male, ghost fanatic)

I was picked as the first one to unlock and lead the group through into greyfriars yard bit and i was fu*king shi**ing myself.
i had to "lead" everyone else up 30 yards towards these trees, trying desperately hard to look down all the way, having caught a glimpse of some strange mist i tried my best to ignore, but no one followed. to make matters worse he locked the gate behind me, although for a few secs, seemed like forever!
we then got inside a tomb, that felt like a fridge and i was rammed stuck at the back of course in pitch black getting colder. things just got worse from there..

[lauren lawson]

hey! me and my boyfriend went on one of the vault tours! i had been on one before with my friends and it was very scary and i loved it. But this one that i went on with my boyfriend last week was DISSAPOINTING!! i took him on the tour thinkin it would be the same one i had been on but this time we got taken up these stairs into a flat!!! and got told we were going underground but we go in a hill first! WHAAAAAT THEE HEEEELL!! we did not go down any stairs atall that would lead us underground! it was all in a flat and we think its fake! so everyone that wants to go on a tour ask the man/women first if its the tour that takes you into a flat. ha! nothing happened atall and did not last long! We are going to go on the greyfriers tour one night this week and cant wait to see if thats any good. cheerio!