Your True Tales
November 2006 - Page 25
Phantom Stone-Throwers
by Jerry
The paranormal incident I witnessed, an unexplained stone-throwing event, took place in the early 1960s in Wellington, New Zealand, when I was a boy. I have been checking the Internet to try and find any information on it, and the only reference I found was on your Paranormal Phenomena website. I knew the incident occurred in 1963 and I was 100 percent certain that it happened during the period of Lent. Your website report proved me right because your story says it took place on March 24, 1963. (The forty-day period of Lent runs from late February to early April). Your account fits very closely with what I remember of the incident.
It took place in the suburb of Brooklyn, in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, and lasted three or four nights. I was aged nine at the time and witnessed it on the third or fourth evening with my sister, who was 10, and my mother. We had read in the Wellington daily newspaper, the Evening Post, that on two consecutive nights stones and coins had been thrown at a guest house at the top of Brookyln Hill, a long, winding road which led down to the Wellington city centre. It was baffling the police because there was no sign of anyone doing the throwing. Quite large crowds had gathered to line the street opposite the guest house on the first two nights. Police had kept them well back, so they could keep an eye on them and be sure that none of the coins and stones were coming from the onlookers. The closest any members of the public could have been to the house was 25 to 30 yards.
We decided to have a look on the third night. We walked there from our house in Ohiro Road. The guest house under attack was only about 15 mintes from where we lived. When we got there it was dark and I'd estimate several hundred people had gathered to watch. The fun had already started by the time we arrived. We could hear stones and coins clattering on the roof and verandah of the guest house regularly. The clatter of the bombardment was non-stop - something was raining down every second or so. We could hear it clearly from across the street. I seem to recall hearing windows being hit, but cannot recall whether any shattered, at least while we were there.
At one stage we saw Mr Jensen, the local Brooklyn policeman (in those days we called the police bobbies, as they do in England), crawling along the verandah. Presumably, Mr Jensen, who lived just a few doors from the guest house, was picking up the objects that had been thrown or else was just trying to keep a low profile. Whatever, a stone or a coin sent the helmet flying from his head, causing a murmer and the odd snigger to run through the crowd.
Had it been the work of pranksters, there would have needed to be a bunch of them to keep the missiles coming with such frequency and they would have had to be amazingly good shots to be so consistently on target. They would also have needed an inexhaustible supply of objects to throw and be quite fit to keep it up for such a long time. How anyone could do all that, while keeping hidden from the view of the police, the crowd and the other people watching from homes overlooking the action is beyond me. Frankly, it would not have been possible.
We watched for at least two hours and the salvo was still continuing when we decided we'd had enough and headed home as it was school the next day. The incident ended a day or so later, as abruptly as it has started. I remember that it stopped after the owners of the guest house chopped down or cut back a number of big trees on the property. They did so after the newspaper said a Maori spiritualist had visited the guest house and expressed disquiet about the look of the trees. The Maori said that, to his eyes, one of the trees resembled the shape of a mother holding a monkey (rather than a child) and that this went against the nature of things and had upset the spirit world. He suggested that if the trees were cut back or cut down, the stone throwing would stop. Work was done on the trees and, whether it had anything to do with it or not, the barrage ceased.
The only other things I can remember about the matter is the newspaper reporting that radar might be used to find who was doing the throwing (that might sound strange but that's what the report said) and that a young girl was among those living/staying at the guest house at the time. I cannot be certain but seem to recall it said a total of 11 people were staying at the guest house at the time. Other than the newspaper subsequently reporting that the stones had stopped, I had never heard another word about the incident in the intervening 40-plus years until I saw your report on the Internet.
By the way, here's the reason I was so certain that the incident took place during Lent: It was a warm autumn night and on our way back from watching the stone throwing, my mother bought us all ice-cream cones. This was despite it being Lent, when Catholics like us were supposed to give up such treats for the 40-day period. As we were wending our way home, who should we pass coming in the opposite direction, wheeling his cycle? None other than the local St Bernard's Parish priest, Father Leo Tooman. My mother was horrified that he had seen us munching ice creams during Lent and never, ever got over that embarrassment!
Personally, I tend to be extremely skeptical about paranormal happenings, spirits, UFOs and things of that ilk. My feeling is that there is always, or almost always, a logical explanation behind such happenings. But I have to admit that having seen the above with my own eyes I am convinced there is no earthly explanation for it. Today I am in my early 50s and reside in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. I visited my home town, Wellington, several years ago and saw that an apartment block now sits where the guest house once did. All the trees were gone.
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