The Frozen Ghost Chicken of Highgate

 The Frozen Ghost Chicken of Highgate

By Cole Herrold

Ghosts appear in a variety of forms but most appear in the stages of their last moments on earth. Interestingly a variety of these apparitions tend to be headless or feature the instruments of their death plunged into them or floating near them. Typically we see this only in cases of human ghosts which make up the majority of spectral reports. Ghost animals however do occur and they usually appear in a form one would expect and are often mistaken for living organisms until they do something such as walking through a wall or vanishing in plain sight. The manner of a ghost animal's death is never usually reflected in the apparition however with almost all rules of the paranormal there are exceptions. I recently covered the apparitions of headless animals that escape the slaughterhouses that ended their lives to haunt the cities and fields nearby. It's interesting that processed animals do make an appearance in haunted locations and that this could extend to even those processed animals that are done so on a minor scale than a slaughterhouse. In Highgate, England there is allegedly a semi-processed ghost chicken that runs around almost completely featherless, flapping its wings, shivering, and noticeably terrified.

The story of the Highgate Ghost Chicken is a surprisingly old one and allegedly intertwined with Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis Bacon was a philosopher who wrote several books on religion, and the judicial system, and is considered one of the pioneers of the scientific method. Now one might ask how a man of such esteem would be associated with a spectral chicken and the answer is experimentation. Back in the 1600s food preservation was incredibly difficult and Bacon wondered if there might be some way to preserve food through the cold and ice. It was in March of 1626 that Bacon and his friend Dr. Witherbone were driving around in Bacon’s coach in the frozen snow-covered area of Highgate which would in the future be Pond Square. During this time the area was not as urbanized and several small farms and homes darted the fields. While out in the area, Bacon saw a chicken farm and commanded his coachman to stop and purchase a chicken. Bacon seeing the frozen landscape was struck with curiosity about his theories of meat preservation and decided to conduct an experiment. The coachmen returned with a large chicken and with the sharp blade of a knife proceeded to gut the bird and pluck albeit not entirely the chicken. Bacon then began to open the bird's cavity and fill it with handfuls of snow. Seeing it perfectly stuffed he went and grabbed an old bag and proceeded to put the bird in it and fill up the bag then in snow and then went to the nearby field and buried it into a pile of snow. Upon seeing that it was entirely covered he was pleased. This unknowingly however would be his doom and Bacon would not know the outcome of his experiment. The philosopher at the beginning of the day was not feeling that well and felt nauseous and after performing this experiment he began to feel even worse. Bacon on April 9, 1626, would succumb to Pneumonia which many feel he developed while out in the snow conducting this experiment.

A little bit after this and as development overtook the area there were suddenly strange disturbances reported in the area of Pond Square in Highgate. Residents in the area soon began reporting that they would see a ghost chicken that would be noticeably terrified and cold running around ofttimes in a circle in the area. The witnesses would describe the bird as being bright white, large, and often devoid of feathers or with a few feathers clinging to its body. Sightings of this bird occurred typically during the winter months with a ton of sightings being documented that occurred in the 1940s. in 1958 reporter Leslie Thomas of the London Evening News extensively covered the ghost bird and its from this that the bird became more of a real phantasm than an urban legend which many animal ghosts tend to be. He managed to talk to some of the locals and eyewitnesses of the ghost and included them in an in-depth article on the haunting. The most prominent witness of the ghost which occurred in December of 1943 by Aircraftman Terence Long is not the most famous but one of the most reliable reports of the ghost. It was in that brutally cold winter that Terence late at night was walking across Pond Square. The area was pitch black and not a light was lit due to the fact that Britain and the rest of the world was still involved in World War II and that the surrounding homes and businesses were blacked out the point of this was to help make a potential targeted air bombing from the enemy forces more difficult. Terrance walking in the pitch black of this time was certainly familiar with the variety of city noises that occurred at night but on this particular occasion, he would hear something he was unfamiliar with. Terrance claimed that as he walked he suddenly heard “hoof beats and then the sudden pulling up of a carriage and a frightened shriek”. This strange cacophony of sounds frightened him and quickened his heart and he stopped in his tracks and peered into the darkness looking for some answer to the sound. As he looked into the darkness he soon however saw a glowing white form begin to approach him. This figure was short and was picking up speed as the man’s heart beat even harder. It was then that he saw in front of him a half-running, half-flying, shivering ghost chicken that was doing this running flying motion in circles. The bird was clucking and had hardly any feathers and the man in an attempt to calm himself down proceeded to close his eyes and take “a deep lungful of the air” whereupon once he exhaled and opened his eyes the bird was gone. The man looked around and realized that the bird was gone and that there was no place it could have vanished to except thin air. The man realizing that what he witnessed was some sort of apparition then decided to run for his life in terror. As he ran into the square Long ran almost headfirst into another figure which startled him as he thought that this too was another of London’s ghosts instead he was greeted by a caped fire-walker. Long proceeded to tell this man of what he had just witnessed and expected him to laugh at him. The fire watcher did not however and seriously said to Long that his sighting was not unique. The fire-walker explained to him that while he had never personally seen the apparition he did say that a month or two prior to his sighting the bird was seen by multiple witnesses. On this occasion a man noticed the bird strutting in the area and decided to capture it and cook it as a way to help his meat ration. The man in front of several other witnesses proceeded to chase the bird in a benny hill style fashion. The bird stayed away from the man and would engage in getting slightly airborne as chickens are able to do but realizing that it was not going to get away from the determined man decided to finish the chase by running headlong into and through a brick wall where in it disappeared altogether. Leslie Thomas in his article would also interview Mrs. John Greenhill who lived in the area of Pond Square. She would state that the ghost bird would frequently appear and perch in the lower branches of the tree opposite of her house and that many members of her family would claim that on moonless nights the bird would appear. She would describe the ghost as a large white plump apparition and that it would always appear in the boughs of the tree.

In 1969 and 1970 sightings of the ghost bird continued to be sighted albeit these sightings were vague at best and sighted during a time in London’s history when the Highgate area was accosted with paranormal investigators, claims, and dubious sightings. This was during the period of the infamous Highgate Vampire incident and so these Ghost chicken sightings some researchers take with a grain of salt. The first which occurred in January 1969 happened when a motorist whose car suddenly broke down on the side of the road in South Grove proceeded to abandon the vehicle and walk into Pond Square. He was searching for a home where there was evidence of someone still being awake and so that he could ask for help without disturbing some sleeping resident. He in the Square saw a house whose downstairs window was full of light and proceeded to walk towards it when his attention was caught by strange movement on the other side of the square. He looked towards a particular wall and was surprised to see a large white bird flapping its wings and running in circles. The man saw the bird and noticed that it seemed hurt and proceeded to walk towards the bird. The man’s first instinct upon seeing this bird as he also noted it was featherless was that this bird was accosted by some cruel youths or some other immoral individual and looked around for the possible perpetrators but could see no one. After looking around and turning to look back at the animal the creature completely vanished from sight.

In February of 1970, the ghost chicken was seen once more. This time the bird was reported by a couple who were returning home from a date. One of the couple had reached their home in the square and was wishing their significant other good night when suddenly they saw a large white bird suddenly drop to the ground near them. The couple watched the bird and noted that it was seemingly naked of feathers and that it proceeded to flap around in a big circle a couple of times before disappearing into the darkness. The couple watched the bird the entire time and said that it made no noise.

Sightings of the Highgate Ghost Chicken seemed to drop off after that and as far as what has been written and reported no one has since reported seeing the ghost chicken. The ghost however does live on as it is perhaps one of the most famous ghosts in the Highgate area and is still mentioned by ghost tours as they travel the area. Yet none of these tours have since claimed to of witnessed, heard, or seen the ghost since the 70s.

This is perhaps one of the best ghost stories I’ve ever heard. Its got the classic tragic and yet historical backstory of the apparition, there’s been documented accounts and interviews by witnesses, and the appearance of the ghost is both comical and unique. Yet while I have a fondness for this case what are we to make of it. The story of Bacon and the Chicken can be traced to Prickett’s History and Antiquities of Highgate and so there is a historical origin to the story. The addition of a ghost in writing first appears in the article by Thomas in 58’. With sightings primarily occurring in the 40s and 50s with witnesses. It's from this that it would seem something did occur yet just what we can only speculate.

One's first thoughts about this is that this could be a hoax or some urban legend yet interestingly if this was to be the case one has to wonder why the story of a ghost chicken would pull people during times of war or even for that matter at all. There’s no logical reason for a story of a ghost chicken to exist let alone to remember some obscure experiment Bacon did some 300 years prior unless it was done by some sort of animal activist to show the cruelties of animal processing which while not impossible is unlikely. Also if this was a hoax or urban legend why wouldn’t you use Bacon as the ghost he’s a famous historical figure that one could then confabulate some story where the ghost returns to see the results of the experiment but will never know the answer or something similar. It’s a very niche story that makes the hoax angle unlikely plus there are multiple decades of witnesses to take into account.

The next possibility is that people could be seeing an escaped chicken and that it had taken up residence in the area of the square. The fact that this bird was seen hanging out in low branches and behaving in ways very much like a traditional chicken in most cases seems to indicate that what people were seeing was nothing more than a very living animal. This can be added to when one looks at the sighting in 70’ or Long’s sighting where the bird did not vanish in front of the witnesses or was seen to do so it could be just that the animal got out of view. Now there are problems with this namely looking at images of the location there’s not much that could obscure one's view outside of the buildings themselves so it's not like the bird had bushes to hide in or deep forested areas. So again, unless the bird is hopping fences and walls or doing more Spring Heeled Jack-like maneuvers this is unlikely at least for most sightings. Another possibility though too, is a misidentified known species with some sort of mange. England is home to a variety of large birds such as the Cormont, the Canadian Goose, the common Crane, Grey Heron, Gannet, and the Whooper Swan. All of these birds are aquatic or semiaquatic in nature and while there’s no direct water source in the area of Pond Square at least that I can see on a map view of the location a visiting bird with such a disease could be mistaken for a featherless chicken at night.

Now with all that said there is the chance that what witnesses were seeing was indeed the spectral form of a ghost chicken. As at least with one specific sighting we can rule out misidentification.. at least of a living bird. This sighting while told four individuals back was claimed to have been witnessed by multiple individuals and was fresh enough at the time of Long’s sighting to at least entertain the idea of it being legitimate based on the reaction of the firewatcher in Long’s testimony. In this case, the fact that the apparition did pass through a wall to avoid being captured is something that totally puts this being a misidentified animal as an impossibility. Living organisms do not pass through solid objects and if this was a living organism with that ability it would be a Fortean phenomenon in its own right. Yet the fact that people for at least three decades reported consistently during the winter months encounters with this ghost that match in description seems to imply that this is a reoccurring haunting.

Some might point more towards a misidentification or misinterpretation of this case as the ghost seemingly stopped manifesting after 1970 if not before. Yet something that I feel needs to be re-brought up and which is something that we see over and over, especially in animal ghost cases is that over time the phenomenon seems to dispel and ultimately stops appearing. Some state that this is due to the stone tape hypothesis which basically states that ghosts are like recordings contained in the very stones and environment and that after a while they suddenly stop manifesting as though the tape is erased or worn. Sometimes apparitions will seem to lose their form becoming wispier as time goes on or people will notice that the apparitions lose their color from when they first started manifesting to how they appear now. For example, a red dress on a ghost in the 1700s is by the late 1800 to 1900s grey in color and then by the 2000s, the ghost is completely white and wispy. With animal ghosts there is a ton of examples of this occurring rather quickly or that the phenomenon suddenly just stops for no reason with no signs of slowing. Perhaps that is the case here as there is inclination to believe that the apparition of the chicken was common and existed well before the sightings of 43’ and the time between that and 70’ and only after that did the apparition suddenly dissipate. However, with as with a lot of this research, this is mere speculation.

This case has easily grown into one of my favorites as who does not love the maniacal behavior of chickens and geese. Sure there is an underlying fear of anything with wings that have been ancestrally passed down to us after our ancestors experienced the colossal titans the Teratorns and our place in the food chain because of them. The same can be said today with Harpy Eagles and their predation on children. Yet chickens have become comical jesters of their ancestors and something that rarely strikes fear outside of salmonella so for people to be terrified of an apparition that appears or is a ghost chicken it is to me at least hysterical and a fun addition to a menagerie of specters that make up the Necronomicon Ex Mortis of ghost cases.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Ghost Animal

Location: Pond Square, Highgate, London, England, United Kingdom

Sighted: Post-1626-Pre 1943, October-November 1943, December 1943, January 1969, February 1970

Works Cited:

Haunted England: The Penguin Book of Ghosts By Jennifer Westwood

Haunted Highgate By Della Farrant

Haunted London By Peter Underwood

Haunted Pet Stories: Tales Of Ghostly Cats, Spooky Dogs, And Demonic Bunnies By Mary Beth Crain 

True Ghost Facts And Hauntings Real Tales About Places And Things By Granger T Barr