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| THAT EUREKA! MOMENT - from Frances Mills to Jacob Hills | ||||
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At the The Holly Bush pub, Watling Street, Elstree, on Saturday 7th May 2005, Yvette Fielding
made the following on-air statement:
Everything that you see and you hear is real. It's not made up; it's
not acted."
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All clips are copyright LivingTV and are shown for the express purpose of criticism
and review in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright
Act. |
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This statement by Yvette Fielding was born of desperation. Desperation at the constant criticism surrounding the shows, and desperation that the Antix company was leakier than the proverbial sieve.
Elstree Most Haunted Live came only six weeks after the Bodmin Gaol episode had been aired, and heated discussions regarding Acorah's honesty versus faking possessions were still raging across the internet.
For many people Bodnin's Kreed Kafer (anagram of Derek faker), to be closely followed by Prideaux Place's Rick Eedles (anagram of Derek lies) was their Eureka! moment - that moment when they realised that they had been conned by a fraud.
For others the Eureka! moment came at different points, and what follows are just some of those requested by viewers.
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FRANCIS MILLS MHL Witchfinder General
This clip is copyright LivingTV and is shown for the express purpose of criticism and review in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act |
Not for the first time - and certainly not the last - Antix researchers got their facts so wrong that the programme was shown from the wrong location! Canewdon, a small Essex village, was obviously chosen because of the legend that the 70-foot church tower would fall unless six [or nine!] witches remain in the village.
Canewdon certainly features in online articles about the Essex witch trials, and given its location in the same county as Manningtree, home of Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, it seems an assumption was made that he probably went there!
However, no evidence of Hopkins ever being in the vicinity of Canewdon exists. To go even further, it is extremely unlikely that Hopkins was ever there.
Why? For a village supposedly so steeped in witchcraft to have been ignored by Hopkins, had he been in the area, is incomprehensible. For him to have gone to the village and found no witches is inconceivable, for he found some man, woman or child to fit the bill wherever he went.
Yet 'witches' from Canewdon were tried, so can we be sure that Matthew Hopkins was not involved? Yes, because they were executed forty years or so before he was born!
Rose Pye was tried in 1580 and was acquitted. Cicely Makyn was tried in 1585, acquitted, then re-arrested in 1590 under the name Goodwyfe Makins
Over 700 Essex people are recorded as being tried for witchcraft during a period that covers Hopkins' reign of terror. Rose Pye and Cicely Makyn are the only two from Canewdon.
This poses the question 'Why did Acorah pick up on the presence of Matthew Hopkins when he was at Canowden?'. To all thinking sceptics the answer is simple. He was making it up, as usual, based on flawed research.
But what about Hopkins male 'cohort', the gruff-voiced Francis Mills who was more interested in Yvette's breasts than in answering her questions?
Alas 'he' apparently turned out to be a 'she' - Frances Mills.
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'ONE-ARMED MAC' MHL Maes Artro
This clip is copyright LivingTV and is shown for the express purpose of criticism and review in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act |
While 'possessed' by the 'spirit' of Squadron Leader James MacLachlan, Acorah provides the following pieces of information.
He was thirty-nine years old
FACT: James Archibald Findlay MacLachlan , was born in Styal, Cheshire, in 1919. When he died in 1943 he was twenty-four. Acorah made the error of assuming that seniority of rank implied many years of service.
He invited Yvette to 'call me Macca'
FACT: James MacLachlan was known as 'Jay' to his family, 'Mac' to his friends, and ‘One-Armed Mac’ by the press. Those who have lived in pre-Beatles Britain will know that the common nickname given to anyone whose name commences with Mc or Mac is 'Mac'. The possible exception to this would be among Liverpool dockers, although it is still unlikely.
He also was proud to show her his artificial right arm made of metal.
FACT: James MacLachlan lost his left arm when shot down over Malta in 1940. Sixteen days later he was back flying a Magister. When he returned to Britain he was fitted with his artificial arm and returned to service. In November 1941 he took command of No.1 Squadron at Tangmere, equipped with Hurricanes for night intruder operations
James MacLachlan is buried at Pont-L' Eveque Communal Cemetery, Calvados, France His favourite aircraft to fly was the Spitfire
FACTS: While this may possibly be the case, there is no evidence that he ever flew a Spitfire. James MacLachlan was certainly never with a squadron equipped with Spitfires. According to his biography 'One-armed Mac' flew the Fairey Battle, Magisterg, Hurricane, Typhoon and Mustang.
He returned to Maes Artro because he 'sortied from here'
FACTS: There is no evidence to suggest that James MacLachlan was ever at Maes Artro. None of the squadrons he served with are recorded as being based at Llanbedr.
The only mention of him occurs on the former Maes Artro website which is now closed. It reads:
In fact, at the time of his death, James MacLachlan was not resting at RAF Wittering. He was a member of the AFDU - the Air Fighting Development Unit - a division of the Air Technical Intelligence section of the RAF - working on the development of the longer-range Mustang, as was Geoffrey Page. This occurred after Page received skin grafts for serious burns, and Richard Jones was quite wrong to confirm Acorah's claims by saying Page received the burns on the same mission that MacLachlan was shot down.
So it seems that...
... just like Macavity...
MacLachlan was not there!
... and neither was Page ...
Most Haunted always claimed a rule of not naming those whose relatives may still be alive. Either their policy is a fallacy, or Acorah ignored it totally during this programme. But then, Acorah has never been one to consider the feelings of his victims, so long as he can make money out of them.
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JACOB HILLS MHL Jack the Ripper
This clip is copyright LivingTV and is shown for the express purpose of criticism and review in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act |
Day one of the unproductive three-day 'search for Jack the Ripper' dawned with the revelation in the Mirror newspaper that Ciaran O'Keeffe was the creator of the 'Kreed Kafer' and 'Rik Eeedles' anagrams that had previously trapped Acorah!
In the Commercial Tavern, Spitalfields, London, Acorah became 'possessed' by a baddun - yet another 'spirit' strangely reluctant to answer Yvette's questions after going to all the bother of getting on television.
So what information did the 'spirit' provide?
His name was Jacob Hills
This rather unlikely name could, of course, be explained easily - according to those who worship at Acorah's feet. He must have been a slave who had been given an English name by his master!
FACT: Since 1772 it had been illegal for individuals to be enslaved in Britain. The Slave Trade Act become law on 25th March, 1807, nineteen years before Hills was born, and the Abolition of Slavery Act, which prohibited slavery throughout the British Empire came into effect in 1833.
He was born in 1826, and was stabbed to death aged 47 ... or 70...
Depending on which age you choose the date of death would be 1872-4...
or 1895-7.
He was a Nigerian sailor
FACT: This is where Acorah made his fatal error!
Nigeria did not exist as a country until 1914, so no Nigerian sailors in the 19th Century.
The first British government-sponsors expedition to what is now Nigeria occurred in 1821, the second in 1830.
The first British company to make an expedition to establish whether trade would be possible was formed by a group of Liverpool merchants in 1832. Their ship, the ss Alburkah was the first ocean-going iron ship. The expedition returned in 1834, having lost several crew members to disease.
Lagos was the first kingdom to become a protectorate of Britain, in 1861,
followed by the rest of the kingdoms by 1900. What is now Nigeria is a federation of
those protectorates (Northern, Eastern and Western) and
the federal territory of Lagos, which were merged in 1914 tinto a single country
that became independent
in 1960.
So did Jacob Hills ever exist? Hmmm... yes ... but not in the way that Acorah
believed! According to Matt Roper's interview with Rick Wood, Ciaran
O'Keeffe had confirmed to him earlier in the day that Jacob
Hills / Jacobs Hill was a setup!.
As it wasn't one of the more usual anagrams, it was not an immediately obvious setup, but
something rather more subtle.
A clue to its origin may well have been found in the whispered
conversation that ensued behind closed doors at the end of this clip, when
Karl had called both Jon and Yvette into the room.
The reference was actually to
Jacobs Hill - a famous beauty spot in Massachusetts, together with
its aptly named water feature SPIRIT FALLS.
Not only had Acorah 'fallen' that day, thanks to the Mirror article,
but he had taken 'spirit' down with him.
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Two days short of one year following her 'It's all real, honest, guv' statement, Yvette Fielding made another, only this time it was definitely not intended for the ears of viewers!
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So Yvette is now perfectly happy to confide to Paul Ross that Acorah's 'possessions' are not real - in fact, he's a fake bas...
This admission presents something of a problem for Yvette - apart from the obvious one, that is! Just when was her personal Eureka! moment? Are we intended to believe that it was sometime between May 2005 and May 2006?
That in itself presents yet another problem for her, though. For Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie were totally aware of the Kreed Kafer and Rik Eedles anagrams at the time that they were designed specifically to prove that Acorah is not a genuine medium. Not only were they totally aware of them, but followed it up with one of their own - Ged Harken, the hapless pilot who fell from the window of The Golden Fleece at York. So what does Ged Harken have to tell us about their opinion of Acorah? It unscrambles to read HANG DEREK!
As always these are the facts, and my interpretation of those facts. It is for you to make up your own minds.
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©2006 Emma Gee |
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Most Haunted
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