Chatham Wetherspoon pub Thomas Waghorn sees 'ghost rave' due to faulty lights
12:47, 21 July 2021
updated: 07:06, 22 July 2021
Eerie video shows a night time "ghost rave" kicking off inside a town centre Wetherspoon pub.
The footage captured at 3am inside the Thomas Waghorn in Chatham was shared to KentOnline by neighbours who joked it appeared as paranormal activity.
The 'ghost rave' was spotted inside the Chatham Wetherspoon pub Thomas Waghorn
Arabella Keating, who lives in a flat in Railway Street opposite the pub, was taken aback as flashing lights were going off in what looked like disco strobe lighting in the early hours last Thursday.
Her partner Linus Baker-Davies filmed the funky goings on and set it to a pumping baseline dance track.
Arabella, 20, who says she believes in the paranormal, said: "I was winding Linus up, saying that it was a ghost.
"We were just sat in our living room. It was around 3am and all, of a sudden, the lights started going mental for a good 10 or 15 minutes.
"It went off for a bit and then it stopped again. So it kept going on and off for a while.
"We have never seen it before. We have been here for five or six months now.
"I just said it was paranormal activity to wind up my other half. I believe in all of that.
"If you know the history of Chatham, you’ll know that a lot of different things have happened over the years."
But Linus, 24, who was unconvinced in the light show being paranormal and that it was "just a faulty switch" reported his concerns to pub managers worried that it could lead to a fire.
A Wetherspoon spokesman confirmed they had been aware of an "electrical problem" at the pub and it was fixed on Friday(July 16).
Chatham is not shy of a few ghost stories and spooky shenanigans.
The Historic Dockyard is known for its weird noises and tapping and reports of figures walking through the old masthouses and sail lofts.
The Ghost of Blue Bell Hill is one of Kent's most famous tales of the supernatural.
In 1972, Bob Vandepeer said he gave a lift to a girl on the hill only to later turn around and discover the hitchhiker had vanished in the back of the car.
A year earlier, James Skene reported he was driving home from work when a girl in her early 20s suddenly appeared in front of his car.
After "giving her a lift to Chatham" she disappeared having got out of the car.
Chatham-born Thomas Waghorn is one of Medway's most famous sons and best known for making marked improvements to the postal service from India.
Born in 1800, he joined the navy as a boy and passed out as a lieutenant aged 17.
He served with the British East India Company and in 1825 proposed a steamship service via the Cape route around Africa funded by increasing the cost of postage but was turned down by the government.
Instead, journeys continued across land through Egypt between the Mediterranean and Red Sea and the success of the 90-day trip made him famous.
But the success also lead to his troubles as rivals cut into the route he had pioneered which Prime Minister Lord Palmerston later described as "the world’s most important trade route".
Waghorn's vision and success arguably led to the decision to build the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869 – 19 years after Waghorn's death.
