The Real Terrifying Implications of Ghostwatch - A Nation Traumatized
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- Today, we bring you a story that relates to true crime, even if a crime wasn't committed. Ghostwatch was a BBC broadcast, that was supposed to show a live investigation of a truly haunted house, and what the family living there has to go through. They portrayed everything that happened as "true events", and the nation was shocked at what was happening on their television screens. What followed in real life is the shocking part.
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We're a true crime channel that started as a podcast, and now mainly focuses on UA-cam. We cover serial killers, murderers, and all around general psychopaths. We also want to cover more cult, and obscure stuff as well. Let us know in the comments what you like! We don't do ASMR ;)
Would they be any less responsible if it was real? Can the UA-camrs who cover true crime stories be responsible for someone freaking out over a truly horrific crime? Holding Ghostwatch responsible is ridiculous!
Stupid living in a world where the tv is somehow accountable for our children?
I would have thought having Craig Charles as a reporter would have been a good clue that it wasn't real - by 1992 he was pretty famous in the UK for Red Dwarf, and as a comedian ?? I also recognised a few other well-known UK actors in the cast playing families and a doctor ...
But that's kind of the point - his attitude in the programme is that it's all just a bit of a laugh (see the prank near the start when he jumps out of a cupboard wearing a mask), which totally matches his persona, and therefore this lulls the viewers into a false sense of security - it's that lively, hyper, comedian bloke from Red Dwarf, so this can't be all that bad.
Ironically, I think that Craig Charles, Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene - the non-actors - do a pretty good, believable job - what lets the show down are the real actors, as you say playing the family and the parapsychologist. They are just so wooden, and are clearly acting out a script - for the nature of what the film is, they are nowhere near believable or spontaneous enough, and this for me is where the show falls down (excellent though it is).
Alright. So while I understand this is one of the first of its kind, I fail to see how the BBC has ANY culpability in that young man killing hisself. It’s tragic but has nothing to do with the network, and I fail to see why the screenwriter or network should have to do anything.
It’s supposed to be scary. Do people want them to have a warning every 5 minutes on horror films saying it’s not real
I mean...I kinda would 😕
That is the tragedy of small minds and large fears. IMO.
Really I blame the parents of Martin not the show. They knew he had learning difficulties and knew he was obsessed with the supernatural and easily influenced. Why let him watch a. Show when they had to have known it would have a effect on him
Sorry for the parents loss, but its not the TV's fault. They want someone to blame. Just like ozzy and judas Priest didn't make teenagers off themselves.
The news is worse. People just want to blame someone. Awful the kid killed himself but he probably would have anyway. The show didn’t do it. The parents didn’t want the blame on them.
If it scared him, just turn the TV off
I really like the episodes like this. More "strange land" than just true crime. Nice change of pace or something like that. You know what I mean.
Also I liked the ending. Just finish, say bye and hang up. F it. But you may receive fewer shares to step moms. Just a FYI.
😂😂😂 Stephan forgot his stepmom comment. I didn’t realize that.
Remember me and my mate staying up to watch this, we was both 11 years old. The only thing that got us scared was the sound of the cat noises, that was made in the program.
Did you catch Pipes in the curtains? That scared the shit out of me lol. And the tape of that lady suddenly distorting
@@choptop81 yeah but didn't didn't faze me, as watched the exorcist when i was 10 🤣🤣
I think much of the pain supposedly caused by this broadcast can be chalked up to bad parenting, moronic adults and exaggeration. There were warnings put in place before this show aired but naturally not to destroy the mood of the story they didn't keep repeating the warning that this was fiction. Also, this was broadcast after the 9:00 PM watershed which is when more adult-themed shows could be aired. I own this program on DVD, think it's brilliant and kind of wish I could see more programs like it nowadays. Also see "Without Warning" where American news would pull a similar incident in the 90s about incoming killer asteroids!
I used to watch this every Halloween the few years I heard about this, it is pretty good and something about it happening in England makes it somehow better. I think the whole kid killing himself wasn't really the programs fault, he killed himself AFTER he found out it wasn't real. It could have been him studying about ghosts or heck, if a show that wasn't real set him off what about real horror movies like The Exorcist?!? What movies did he watch around this time? Putting all the blame on this one show is really unfair.
“Hello? Is this the BBC? You lot ought to be ashamed - my Nigel just pooped in his trousers.”
??? The program was called 'Ghost Watch', were viewers expecting a comedy?
Aren't parents supposed to be accountable for what their children watch on tv? If it's not appropriate, turn it off! It really peeves me when parents choose to put their responsibility of filtering media onto others or society as a whole... I'm not saying it doesn't take a village. I'm saying it's a very important role and NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILD BUT YOU!
Parents are responsible for EVERYTHING..I’m sorry but it’s true. I’m a parent and anything my daughter does is my responsibility. When parents say things “come out of the clear blue”...they are in denial.
Yeah, I said that in the episode at some point because it didn’t make any sense to me.
Orson Welles was a genius ,,all 4 of my grandparents remembered and talked about that,some of them were angry, but in time appreciated the brilliance behind that broadcast. I don't think as many people truly believed it. My grandparents didn't, it was Halloween night. This real story however is awful. And very sad.. I'm 53,I don't remember this at all. I'm in the states,so I guess it was covered up pretty well. Thank you for the video 😊
Yeah, I have known about it for a few years but only because I typically go down rabbit holes about weird things. Which is how we get cases for the channel lol
They also did say it was a story MORE than once.
TV stations also ran a story that pasta grew on trees and showed people in Italy harvesting strands of spaghetti off the trees...and people believed it, lol!🍝🌲😊
Yeah it was a April fool's prank lol
I remember that it was Alan Wicker on Wicker's World.
Thats funny as hell lol
My brain when I hear any reference to War of the Worlds: THE CHANCES OF ANYTHING COMING FROM MARS
ARE A MILLION TO ONE, HE SAID!
It's important to remember that, just like WOTW, we are looking at this event through the lens of media coverage - and British print media have a long history of tabloid 'journalism' & twisting the narrative for the sake of better newspaper sales.
For some context, this was around the same time as the 'video game panic' in the US, where the media gave a handful of parents a platform to blame any undesirable behaviour by kids on first-person-shooter games & Schwarzenegger movies. Because sadly, then as now, the media would readily take advantage of a family's tragedy to profit -and it's much easier to give the public a big target to attack than do the right thing by shining a light on society, poor parenting & the issues of mental health.
So I'd take any media coverage with many grains of salt - this wasn't a 'thing' outside the UK, and just like the non-existent 'mass panic' of WOTW (the broadcast audience barely cracked the 1,000's) you'll find the outrage at BBC1 was mostly tabloid spin. And the revolting practice of manipulating a family tragedy without any respect for the young man, his memory, the real reasons he took his life or the people left behind.
It's not that the BBC & producers were being insensitive or ignoring the situation - there just wasn't a situation like the media reports would try to make you believe.
A TV show can't be to blame for someone taking their own life. Just like video games or rock music can't be responsible for suicides or school shootings. You alone are responsible for your own actions and reactions, period. If you're so easily influenced then there's already a problem going on with you before you saw the media. If the kid killed himself then it was the parents' blame, far more than the influence of the show, for not seeing a major problem with their kid. They were negligent. The TV show didn't prompt anyone to take their own life; so what if it made people think ghosts might be real? That's not a reason to kill one's self. The kid's suicide note didn't say "I'm killing myself because of that tv show," he simply said IF there are ghosts, I'll be one. Whether the BBC acted appropriately or not after the incident is unimportant.
I remember watching this on TV and the only thing that scared me was the deep voice that was supposed to be the ghost or something? And that Sarah wouldn't be able to present anymore of my favourite kid's TV shows!
here’s my thoughts: everyone battles their own darkness to some extent, right? some more than others, some not really at all. but the VERY THING this show was crafted to do is *deceive* which i would argue is the defense. that realization or belief /witnessing something like this show which is allowed to break rules since there’s a hidden lie between the viewer and the action, i personally believe that could be enough to push someone who is battling darkness to act/react to it. sad story no matter what, and i have no details outside of this video lol but fascinating indeed. i just feel that the deception concept is what this whole thing hinges on - it was intended to deceive and that alone isn’t fair for a public access broadcast. my two cents, internet. internet, my two cents.
great vid, boiis!
Strangeland let me tell you, something like this very much so possible, just look at the mob mentality of tiktok anything goes there
I watched this as it was broadcast on BBC and I found it very clear it was a drama. We all knew it was a drama it was never ambiguous to me. I think the poor man had severe mental issues that were impacted by the programme maybe but I also think that he may have found the path he took still without watching ghostwatch. I think the BBC should have addressed the people who complained quicker but as I said it was not vague to me at all.
I'm interested to know if you guys have seen it? I had just turned 12 when this aired. It was on too late for me to watch live but because I was absolutely obsessed with the paranormal I begged my mum to record it for me to watch the next day - she had no real idea what it was about. Within 30 minutes I was in tears, frightened to death and being talked down by my mum who turned it off immediately. I saw it again aged 14, and I admit I was nervous to see it again but more worried about losing face with my friends. It wasn't very good and the ending was poor but to this day just the thought of this thing makes me nervous.
I watched a bunch of clips on UA-cam but not the whole thing. It used to be on shudder I think but they rotate so often, it’s not now.
Good on your mum! She did the right thing...Turned it off and offered support. It's sad not everyone has this kind of support from their parents.
Kate Roylance - Aww, what a sweet mom.♥
You can't prepare for, know what to expect from or fix stupid...
I watched this. I remember it well. It was hilarious and I didn't believe any of it. I watched it with my mum and step dad. I was 13
Ha! me too, it got sillier as it went on
@9 Haunted Days yeah well I guess being 17 had something to do with my incredulity. The sad thing was I actually wanted to believe it but it totally shat the bed towards the end!
Ghostwatch is a great movie. Watching it, just ignoring all the real-life shit around it, it’s probably one of the best ghost movies ever. And incredibly ahead of its time, laying the groundwork for movies like The Blair Witch Project and Noroi.
Man I rewatched relatively recently and it’s so crap but when I was about 12 watching “live” with these familiar household names I near shit myself to death. It knew what it was doing.
Sarah Greene never really recovered her career after this.
I remember she wasn't on TV much after that. I was gutted. I think she stopped presenting Going Live with Philip Schofield and I missed her.
I can see how people could think the WOTW broadcast or any other could be mistaken for being real. The opposite happened to a lot of people on 9-11 when they woke up to planes hitting the towers. Many thought it was a movie yet it was real. I never heard of this Ghostwatch until now. I want to watch i now.
I never watched the original broadcast but I remember reading about this movie a while back. I never knew that someone committed suicide after watching it. It's very sad, but I don't the movie was at fault for that and should have been banned for it. The people making the movie are not responsible for the actions of other people.
I had a rooster named Pipes, but he's not haunting anyone that I'm aware of. Although, he might be haunting the crockpot 😁
Pipes The Rooster. Pipes is just a cute name for anything.
@@ogdencastle yeah, it's an adorable name... but the fun wears off about 4am when you realize why he has that name! 😴😮😖😒😠😵
nobody - Hilarious! That's a great name for a rooster 🐓...haunting the crockpot, LOL!!😀 ♥He's probably very cute.♥
@@isabellind1292 I dont think he's cute any more tho.
@@dianevanderlinden3480 Oh right! Rest in peace Pipes! 🐓💗😊
Oh man "reality tv" 🤢🤮
Remember high school and how you had to take turns reading? Popcorn reading? That’s what this pod feels like
This made my Monday 😁! Thank you 😊
Mine too!! 💖❤️
Did I misunderstand, or did you just suggest that "The Only Way Is Essex" was a reality show in the 90's?
I can’t remember how I worded it but I probably worded it incorrectly.
@@ogdencastle no worries. It's bad enough knowing that a TV Show like "TOWIE" even exists, I just didn't want to consider the thought of it possibly being around for so that many decades.
Loved the video btw. Very interesting.
Remember that Halloween isn’t particularly big in Britain. It was even less celebrated in 92. The BBC has “The Watershed”, the time after which ‘adult’ tv starts & no children should be watching.
11 million viewers is still pretty high…I don’t know why I hadn’t ever heard of this!! Craig Charles was the much loved hero of teens & young adults ( for comedy), I loved him… Still I never heard of this!??!
I was a partying English university student in London in 1992. I considered myself pretty knowledgeable but I have never heard of this show!! The BBC isn’t exactly the young people’s favourite 🙃
This is amazingly well presented. I have a vague memory of this event, I’m not in England, I’m in Australia so culturally whatever’s going on in the UK is big here. I would have been reacting with fear too, this was just a little while after the whole threat of nuclear war had savaged young people’s minds. I can’t emphasise enough just how much. It’s like we were primed for something to fear. Then this came along, and can so understand why people freaked out. The saddest thing is that people were actually suicidal afterwards. If only they’d put a disclaimer at the start.
We all trust Parkinson, still do, but without his presence it probably wouldn’t have been so effective. I can imagine he felt horrible in the aftermath.
Thank you for this, I’m so glad I found your excellent channel❤️
I think that the parents shouldn’t have let their children watch the program if they didn’t think they could handle it. It’s ultimately their responsibility. I just don’t get the fact that young children were supposedly suffering from PTSD from watching this program. How fragile were they and couldn’t other things possibly factor in that. Children go through horrible abuse and other truly traumatic situations that can cause them to suffer PTSD and some kids don’t even suffer from it despite all of that happening. I remember watching a movie about killer bees as a kid. I became terrified of bees but I didn’t suffer from PTSD. I actually got past my fear once I was actually stung by a bee and realized it wasn’t that bad. I had built it up in my mind that it was going to be the worst pain ever lol.
I’ve watched about every mainstream and nearly every B horror movie I could get my hands on from Nosferatu to Hereditary. I still found Ghostwatch to be pretty scary and well done. Some of the acting is hokey now by today’s standards but they did a lot of things brilliantly.
I am not without sympathy for the parents of the kid who died, but there is a reason parents are supposed to supervise what their kids watch. They had the power to send him to bed or turn off the television the moment they realized the nature of the show.
Yeah, a lot of kids today are cynical and lack the innocence but even now I am amazed at what adults let their children watch.
loved ghost watch its the only show that scared the living daylights out of me and i still think about that show till this day. cheers for making an episode on your channel about this. take care and stay safe 👍🏻😷🏴
Will be looking up that show! Superb work!!
Thanks!
@@ogdencastle My pleasure!
Having a special needs kid, I can tell you that it's difficult for them to regulate their emotions like everyone else, so when seeing a program like that, it could have affected him in a stronger way that he couldn't deal with in a reasonable manner. If he had learning disabilities and especially if they had never been addressed and treated, then he could very well have had emotional regulation problems and that program was just a catalyst for what he ultimately did.
Bout as ridiculous as blaming video games for individuals and their own decisions. If that caused the guy to kill himself, obviously there were some serious psychological issues he was dealing with that had nothing to do with a television show. If it wasn’t for that show it would have been some other thing that set him off into that direction.
Waiwaiwaiwait CRAIG CHARLES was in this!? Holy crap!
He was probably losing his sanity before in some way(breakdown maybe?) and his parents used it for an answer
Look, if all it takes to uproot your beliefs is a corny TV show, then you weren’t a stable person to begin with.
Strange Land: 12:45 - If people were watching this live, you can understand why people would start to freak out”.
Sudden cut to loud UA-cam ad for air freshener.
Me: (jumps in shock) Jesus..... 😡
Great upload all the same, guys. 👍
Lol sorry. I’ll go and see if I can find a better place for the ad. I let UA-cam choose that one because they usually do decent but
LMAO I did the same thing! Glad I'm not the only one 😋
Oh yeah also Pipes was dressed as a woman because he was possessed in turn by the ghost of a woman who murdered infants in her care. So when he possesses another person they're like a matryoshka doll of possession
The Only Way Is Essex started in 2010.
My how times have changed. When hear something on the news I assume it is false.
ESPECIALLY the BBC lol
I think that Martin may have been a victim of child moles)tation, but I really don't know. After seeing my own aunt dig hard and eventually land on the head shop herb Kratom to explain my own cousin's suicide last year, it made me realize how parents search for meaning when they bury their own children. By the way, the background of the Enfield Poltergeist in 1977 - the equivalent of happening in 2006 from this show's POV - was still in the mind of the UK.
Yeah he had ton have some issues. People do just look for anything to blame it on. Sad :(
ghostwatch isn't scary why people think it is
Ghost watch was not responsible! He was!
I miss the moody intro music. :(
People still believe in ghosts?
Conditioning maybe ?
Can you guys cover the Ricky Gray case ? I'd love to hear u guys breakdown of the case, its pretty crazy. Him and his nephew (or maybe younger cousin, not sure but they related tho) killed like 7 or 9 people all together including an entire family if I remember correctly. U guys should definitely check it out 😊 Also hope all is well with u guys 🤘🏾
I was completely reading your comment as
“Can you guys cover the Ricky Gervais case?....”
for a second but then I remembered I’m a complete moron....
@@Keyser___Soze 🤣🤣
@@Keyser___Soze 😂
Or perfecting 😉
There was a very similar show/movie called Testament also using a real journalist Pierre Salinger I think, in the early 1980s ?? Cant remember exactlly, about what seemed to be an horrendous live global event like a nuclear war i think that people also believed was real, just like this and War of the Worlds, that was designed to seem real. People were scared to death, and some went mental. I remember my aunt called us frantically and took a lot of convincing that it was fiction. I just remembered this. Different time when there was no Internet or 24/7 news to check it's veracity. It would make a great episode!
It's not Testament. That is clearly a movie. But I know the one you mean. Testament starred Jane Alexander. Kevin Costner had a small role as did Rebecca DeMornay. It is one of my favs.
It's called Special Broadcast. It is available on UA-cam if you want to watch it again.
Hey guys! Y'all are doing great. Keep at it! It crossed my mind the other day to see if y'all had a reddit page yet. Anyone know?
No, but I don’t think we’re big enough for something like that lol
@@ogdencastle maybe not yet...I guess I've just listened so much lately as I finished the back log that I feel like y'all are as big as you should be. All in due time. Then I shall patiently weight to discuss some of these crazy fuckers with other listeners.
Just Jabbering - I found "Strange Land" through people's recommendations in the comments on a video recently on YT that lists various podcasts. So, this will help get the word out that it's a really good podcast.
Lol pipes
Unlikely.
🔥🔥
I wonder if there will be anything like this again.
It would be great but I can't see it really. The world is a much more cynical place than 1992 was. Also what's really important is that Ghostwatch was made before the internet/social media age, and before you could pause/rewind TV. One of the reasons Ghostwatch works so well is because it really plays on that "did I just see that?", blink-and-you-miss-it discomfort. If the show aired today, almost all of it would be instantly debunked, and would be torn apart on social media. Back then, when the show ended, that was it - no going online to check if/what was real, no playback (unless you recorded it on VHS), no discussion forums, no social media, nothing. You went to bed with your doubts and uncertainties and asked your colleagues/school friends the next day if they'd seen it. So all of these circumstances are basically why Ghostwatch worked so well and fooled so many people - it would be virtually impossible these days.
Quite honestly I've never heard of this case before but it really does sound like nonsense and it does not sound "scary" just ignorant.
I can't help but think of 'Piper', on Orange is the New Black. I think her husband called her 'Pipes'.😄
the ghost watch show was so similar to a real poltergeist case in england called the Enfield poltergeist where an entity was affecting a family especially one of the daughters called Janet.
Thanks Strange Land...I love your podcasts.😊
Some of the saddest people have seemingly everything going for them..
Been looking forward to this thanks I remember watching it lol ❤️
this was a time when mental illness wasnt really being acknowledged yet, unless it was crippling. I'm kind of guessing these people were predisposed to have such large reactions and things weren't taken seriously before viewing the program. My take as a 90s kid with a sister with severe ocd and we all acted like it was quirky or something :( especially since commenters here saw it as young teens and knew it was fake.
If you know who Parky is you would take it seriously 😂
Unless of course you understand how ridiculous the idea of ghosts is. Dinosaurs lived on earth for maybe 100 million years, humans for 100 thousand years. Yet ghosts only ever are described as human, never appear in public well-lit places, cannot be detected by even the largest most sensitive equipment in the world, appear less and less as video equipment improves, and only appear in places where humans are naturally more anxious such as dark or secluded areas which would have been genuinely dangerous places for early humans before we built towns, cities etc.
But yeah, if I somehow didn't understand all of that, I'd take it seriously because of Parky
@@keithguinan4057 I bet you’re fun at party’s
I’m a ghost.
I remember hearing this story a bit ago. Thank you for another great video!
Why do I not remember this??
This is a tough case. While I love the kind of art that is fictional but mimics reality (Blair Witch Project etc), it's not something that kids should have been exposed too and the BBC is culpable in in that sense. It could have been easily solved if the BBC had anticipated the response and maybe did a short segment afterwards which explained that it was fictional.
As far as the individuals who were affected negatively by the show, I think they were clearly unstable and probably should not have been exposed to anything that might scare them. It's their parents responsibility to filter out anything that might scare them too much. The 14 year old clearly had much bigger problems than simply watching Ghost Watch.
Ah yes, the favorite past time of the western world, blaming the terrible outcomes of childhoods on anything but the parents who raised the children.
The ending is so wholesome. 😂 Just a couple of best buds hanging out talking about ghosts.
I remember watching this as it was aired. We knew it was BS even back then but it was creepy.
They should of donated a good chuck of $ to suicide prevention and gave a better apology to the family. I remember watching all kinds of crazy stuff in the 90's... Thing's that I enjoyed and loved but also wouldn't let my own kid's watch now. Thing's are different today and a lot of behaviors aren't acceptable today as they were then.
Your audio is always to quite
Remember this well
I thought this was real to , I could not sleep for weeks.
Just goes to show how stupid people really are. If you were a young child I could see how you could think it was real, but as an adult you have no excuse. 😂 It’s like how some people actually believed the movie Paranormal Activity was all real footage because the poster said so. 🙄
I always liked universal monsters I was a kid of the 90s that grew up on are you afraid of the dark and old horror so I feel People who had experienced seeing hockey horror and scary movies this is nothing but like horror movies some people are gonna be more sensitive to that , a lot of people are afraid of the paranormal in general I believe in paranormal but this would just make me laugh cus it's fake .I found it and that's what I did personally. I'm glad you can buy the movie online still at least and I feel sorry for the people it scared .