The Kingsland ghost

​John Wainhouse wasn’t put off by the idea of ghosts.
As a police constable in Kingsland, Auckland, he had likely heard quite a few weird things, but in 1912 he was tasked with investigating a ghost scare.
Not being a paranormal investigator he took a pragmatic approach to the rumours that were swirling around the suburb.
One young woman had been woken late at night by a light outside her window. On going to look outside she saw a spectacle in white that scared her so she hid in bed under the covers in terror.
She later told a newspaper she hadn’t told anyone initially because she thought they would laugh at her.
Shortly after two young women, Misses Yates and Foster, were scared by a figure in white as they walked home about 6pm at night. Both were shop girls not normally prone to flights of fancy.
They said they had seen something that had made horrible noises and sent them fleeing to a nearby house they knew while it chased them.
It might have been left as the imagination of young ladies except that the following evening several residents heard terrifying screams that sounded like a woman although no one could be found.
Nevertheless the papers still thought it was someone under a sheet.
But as Wainhouse began asking about the suburb he couldn’t actually find the young woman who had hidden in her bed or anyone who knew who that was. However there had been a couple of Fijian men in the area out for a stroll wearing white at the same time.
As for the second sighting he found a white taxi whose driver was wearing a white coat while trying to relight his lamps in the rain.
As he got them lit, suddenly making himself visible, two young women screamed and ran off.
Wainhouse reported that nothing in the shape of a ghost had been found and that police had been patrolling the area without success.
And after that nothing was heard or seen of the Kingsland ghost again.
John Robert Wainhouse died in 1943 in Whanganui and is buried, along with his wife Eliza, in the Aramoho Cemetery.
Happy Halloween and watch out for ghosts!!
Pic by Tandem X Visuals.