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No Ghost at Borley Rectory

A newspaper article titled "No Ghost at Borley Rectory, Psychical Society Reports." LONDON, Dec. 24. -- The famous ghost that haunts the Borley Rectory, in Essex, doesn't have any real substance, the Society for Psychical Research decided today. What's more, the society's report said, the nun who was supposed to have been the source of the ghost was never murdered 300 years ago. Further, the society insisted, the nun who wasn't murdered never existed at all. This finding by a body which sometimes does find ghosts should stir some controversy in a land where ghosts are rather prevalent. The society's findings were the result of its inquiry into a case set down in detail by Harry Price, ghost-hunter, who died six years ago. Mr. Price said the murdered nun of Borley Rectory was Marie Lairre, but the society insists Mr. Price's studies don't bear up under close scrutiny. More than 200 persons have supported Mr. Price's beliefs with additional reports of poltergeist activity at the church. They may not like the society's report.

This article, “No Ghost at Borley Rectory, Psychical Society Reports,” was published in the New York Herald Tribune on December 24, 1954.

“No Ghost at Borley Rectory, Psychical Society Reports,” in New York Herald Tribune, December 24, 1954, in “Borley 48” scrapbook, pg. 104, Box 2, Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation collection, Collection 331, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD).

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