Strange Indoors

: The Strangest and most mysterious stories from the indoors plus chilling ghost and paranormal activity stories

StrangeOutdoors.com 12/8/23 StrangeOutdoors.com 12/8/23

The Room 611 haunting at Belfast University’s Alanbrooke Hall

Ken, a man in his 60s and a genetic scientist who grew up in rural Northern Ireland, said he doesn't believe in ghosts or the paranormal but has never been able to explain what happened to him in the 1980s.

Speaking to presenter Danny Robins on the BBC Radio 4 podcast “Uncanny”, he revealed how he and other students were terrorised by something evil in the same Belfast University room 611 in Alanbrooke Hall.

The podcast episode was first broadcast on Saturday, October 23, 2021, with follow-up episodes on Saturday, November 20, 2021 and Saturday, April 29, 2023. After the first episode was released, Robins’s response to Ken’s story “Bloody Hell, Ken” went viral on social media #bloodyhellken.

Ken brought the events to national attention by contacting Danny after listening to a podcast about a poltergeist story in Battersea, London, that was featured on the BBC show. “I thought, This story is going to disappear, so I wrote to Danny, not expecting to hear anything back, and then it took off. I’m surprised by the interest in the story because I thought it was just quite trivial, so I’m just overwhelmed. It’s incredible.”

Ken, then studying for a microbiology degree, said he had felt an evil presence in room 611 at Alanbrooke Hall, adding: “I saw a large, black silhouette (with) the impression of a man. The first thing that struck me because I was analysing this was that I’d never seen anything so black. It was the blackest black I’d ever seen.” Despite all the publicity, Ken remains anonymous but has appeared in person at an Uncanny convention, albeit in disguise.

Alanbooke Hall was built on the site of a sand pit that had claimed the lives of several people. Ken learned at least three former residents of the room had died, including one who, according to some reports, had been pushed out of the window. But were these claims urban myths or reality?

This is one of the creepiest ghost stories out there, backed by solid testimony from three respected and sceptical scientists, Ken, James, University Professor Gary Foster, and other witnesses such as a commercial airline pilot. Is Alanbrooke Hall and Room 611 cursed? Are the reports of a poltergeist real, or as some sceptics claim, is it just building vibrations, “sick building syndrome”, or sleep-related hallucinations exacerbated by adolescence and the stress of a new academic life in a strange building?