The stuff of nightmares: Is Toowoomba Australia’s most haunted town?

You are alone in a room of a stranger’s home, and you feel chilly fingers wrapping themselves around your leg. For most of us, this is the stuff of nightmares. But for Toowoomba’s Kylie Samuels it’s just part of her investigation of the city’s paranormal activity.

Toowoomba has been dubbed Australia’s most haunted town, and Samuels agrees. As part of Toowoomba Ghost Chasers, she receives regular requests to investigate hauntings.

The equipment the chasers use to document evidence of paranormal activity includes cameras, voice recorders, and devices that detect electromagnetic energy such as the K2 Meter. “We also use a spirit box as a way to communicate with spirits,” Samuels says.

Samuels’ interest in the spirit realm began when she was young, and intensified after her sister died in an accident: “I became obsessed with trying to prove [her] spirit was still around,” she says. While many are sceptical about the findings of the Toowoomba Ghost Chasers, Samuels is unperturbed. “I know what I’ve seen and felt and heard,” she says. “We always try and find other explanations for ghostly photos or videos, but sometimes they’re just unexplainable.”

Things that are difficult to explain have been happening in Toowoomba for a long time, according to Don Talbot, a local historian and author who has written 40 books including the best-selling Ghostly Tales of Toowoomba, which was first published in 2004 and has been reprinted eight times.

The first recorded ghost sighting occurred at the Royal Bull’s Head Inn, and was documented in a newspaper article in 1909. Talbot says at least 50 ghosts have been sighted In Toowoomba, including a colourful cast of characters.

One famous character is the Lady in Grey, who is said to frequent St Vincent’s Hospital. She may have been a member of the Sisters of Charity, who established the hospital in 1922. “She was first seen in the medical ward in the late 1970s and assists patients when staff are not around. Her presence has been recorded by nursing staff and patients,” Talbot says.

Another notable is the young girl who haunts the Toowoomba Repertory Theatre. “Actors going down to the dressing rooms are warned to ‘watch the third step’,” Talbot says. “A number claim to have found their passage marred by thin, invisible hands clasping their ankles.” She is believed to have hanged herself while she was imprisoned in the local reformatory.

Others include the ghost of Maggie Hume, the 23-year-old maid from Ascot House who was unmarried and pregnant, and who poisoned herself in 1891; and Mrs Perkins, the wife of a brewery manager who was killed by a steam train when her shoe became trapped in the line at a level crossing. She haunts the Toowoomba railway station.

While Talbot doesn’t describe himself as a believer, he doesn’t disbelieve in ghosts either. “There are always strange occurrences and presences for which there is no logical explanation,” he says.

However, some Toowoomba residents are sceptical about the supposed supernatural happenings. Member of the Toowoomba Historical Society Beris Broderick is one critic. “Of course there are a scant number of believers of the paranormal, however the vast majority of sensible people are sceptics,” Broderick says.

Broderick has been a volunteer at the Royal Bull’s Head Inn, reputedly home to a ghost, since 1973, and denies any hauntings. According to Broderick, the only unusual incidents are “opossums in the ceiling of the old kitchen or occasional mice, all swiftly dispatched”.

Shirley Rylance, who lived in Toowoomba between 1939 and 1974, remembers unusual encounters of a different kind. When she started primary school, the older children would leave cryptic markings on blackboards to frighten the younger ones. The teachers put an end to it. “We were told very strongly that there was no such thing [as ghosts],” Rylance says. “And they jumped on the older children for trying to scare the younger ones.”

Another sceptic is Peter Cullen, a teacher and historical society member. In his role conducting “Tombstone Tours”, he has wandered alone at night through Drayton and Toowoomba cemeteries without experiencing anything supernatural. “I don’t think Toowoomba is any more haunted than any other town,” he says. “It is just that some have preyed upon the gullibility of certain people to promote this for mercenary reasons.”

Regardless of personal opinions about the paranormal, Toowoomba’s reputation for hauntings has been good for business. Talbot says groups are spending nights visiting haunted venues and staying at the Royal Bull’s Head Inn.

If you want to find out for yourself, pay a visit to the beautiful historic city. Just look out for those freezing fingers.