1998: Through the Wardrobe

The "Old Rectory" in Feltwell, ca. 1890-1912. [Larger version here]

In 1998, Michaela Pearson's family were staying in a flat in the "Old Rectory" in Feltwell, Norfolk, England. Pearson, aged just 7 or 8 at the time, shared a room and a bunk bed with her older sister. Usually Pearson was a sound sleeper; but she awoke one night with a feeling that somebody was in the room with them that shouldn't be there.

        She looked to her side and saw a man in pinstripe suit with messy hair just as he was walking towards a built-in wardrobe that came with the room... and he walked straight through the closed door on the left side. Pearson was too shocked to react at the moment, but then the man in the suit walked back out of the wardrobe on the right side, straight at her; though he didn't seem to notice that she or her sister were there.

        Then the man walked into Pearson's bed; not on to it... into the structure of the bed itself, his body penetrating the bed as if it wasn't there. As Pearson looked down at the top of the man's head poking through her pillow, messy hair and all, her mind snapped a little as she realized: this man was now standing inside her sister on the bed below... and so she started to scream.

        The screaming woke Pearson's older sister, who hopped up and turned on the light in the room; at which point the whole strange vision of the man disappeared. Her parents came in to comfort her and, as Pearson explained later, since her mother had often had similar experiences, she was particularly sympathetic to her young daughter's fright.

        The family moved out of the flat around a year later. In February 2016, a letter from Pearson was published in Fortean Times magazine which explained her experience, and then asked if there was anyone else who had also experienced anything strange at the Old Rectory in Feltwell.

Initial Thoughts and Digs

        These days, the Old Rectory is part private residence and part nursing home... and in my initial digging I've found nothing by way of a ghost story attached to it, despite it being one of the older rectories that are in England.

        The figure that Pearson described sounds to be distinctly 20th century since, as a 7 or 8 year old, she recognized his style of dress as a suit. When I get a chance I will do a dig through local newspapers to see if anybody from 1900 through 1998 can be associated with both the Rectory, a pinstripe suit, and some form of tragic experience... which is a pretty vague set of criteria to dig with, but you never know until you look!