Ghosts | Ghosts

Wiltshire

Ghosts Home >> Timeslip >> Wiltshire >> Tramp in a Long Coat

---

Tramp in a Long Coat

On a hot day in August 1966 Dr Martin Harris and his wife, Anne, were at Windmill Hill near Avebury, Wiltshire.Dr and Mrs Harris were walking back from Windmill Hill after climbing to the top. They came over a slight rise and both saw a man walking slowly up the path beside the trees, a hundred yards in front of them.

According to Mrs Harris, who wrote an account of the event to Andrew MacKenzie, she was relaxed and felt warm enough to take off her sweater. The man they saw was heavy set, of medium height and somewhat stocky. He was dressed in a long, dark, heavy-looking overcoat and had a dark hat pulled down over his face. Mrs Harris believed he was in sight for 30 60 seconds, though they were not looking at him continually.

At least part of the mystery of this case hinges on the inappropriate clothing of the figure, given the warm weather conditions. It should, however, be borne in mind that as a general rule tramps on the road’ in the English countryside will tend to wear all their belongings as the easiest way of carrying them, whatever the weather conditions. Both Dr and Mrs Harris glanced away for a short time, a few seconds, and the figure was gone. MacKenzie suggests that by looking away the witnesses might have changed their state of consciousness. This may well be the explanation; nevertheless the apparition disappeared when it was passing a cluster of trees and the Harrises’ first thought was that the figure had dived into the trees and might be laying ambush for them.

This was not a particularly paranoid thought: a few weeks earlier their car had been broken into and the risk of a criminal attack was on their minds. Mrs Harris was genuinely concerned that the figure might jump out of the trees when they passed by. However, when they got to the trees she felt they were too small to have hidden the figure and they could see no one. She acknowledged that the figure could have been hiding by lying flat in the wheatfield but thought the explanation unlikely Essex | France | Wiltshire | Cornwall | Devon | Devon | Devon | Essex | France | France | Hampshire | Indonesia | Ireland | Isle of Wight | Italy | Kent | Lancashire | London | London | London | London | Norfolk | North Yorkshire | Norway | Norway | Oxford | Oxford | Phenomena | Salop | Suffolk | Surrey | Surrey | Surrey | Unknown | Warwickshire | Wiltshire |