The Chilling Case of the Hexham Heads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexham_Heads

"The Hexham Heads were a pair of small stone heads, about 6 cm high, found in 1971 in the English town of Hexham [Northumberland] The heads became associated with alleged paranormal phenomena, and their exact origin is a point of controversy.

The heads were originally dug up by two boys, Colin and Leslie Robson, who found the heads in the garden in 1971; a number of sources incorrectly give the year as 1972. After the discovery of the heads the Robson family reported strange phenomena, with the heads allegedly being moved when no one was in the room and bottles being mysteriously thrown across rooms. The Dodd family next door also reported phenomena, with one boy's hair pulled in the night and his mother Nelly seeing a half-man, half-sheep figure leaving the house shortly afterwards.

The heads were subsequently given to Dr. Anne Ross, an expert in Celtic artefacts. According to Dr. Ross's own account, she woke up one morning and saw a part-animal, part-man figure walking out of the room; she followed it downstairs and saw it heading towards the direction of the kitchen, but then lost track of it. A few days later her daughter Berenice told her that, after returning home from school, saw a large, dark, werewolf-like figure on the stairs that jumped over the banisters and into a corridor before vanishing. Ross also reported the feeling of a cold presence, her study door bursting open with no apparent cause and another apparent sighting of a dark figure. Knowing of Nelly Dodd's experience, Dr. Ross equated all of this phenomena with the Hexham heads and the incidents allegedly stopped when she removed every Celtic head in her possession out of the house, along with the two Hexham heads.

A man named Desmond Craigie reported that he was the creator of the heads, making them in 1956 for his daughter while he was living in the house later occupied by the Robson family. Craigie, who worked for a company that dealt in concrete at the time he allegedly created the heads, made some replicas to demonstrate his claim. The original heads were analysed by Professor Dearman of the University of Newcastle, who concluded that the items had been moulded artificially rather than carved.

The original heads were later lost, their current whereabouts are unknown."


From the Fortean Times Message Board:


Posted: 28-09-2011 16:24 Post subject: The Hexham Heads

I'd just like to clarify a few points regarding the Hexham Heads. I am one of the daughters of the Robson family and it was my two younger brothers who unearthed the heads.

They actually discovered them in late May/early June of 1971. I know this as factual as I was on my honeymoon in Scotland when the boys found them an took them to Hexham Abbey to see if the priest could identify them. Initially they were thought to be Roman and ended up at the Newcastle Museum of Antiquities. It was early 1972 when we were paid a visit from someone from the Museum but I can't recall his name. We were told then that they were assumed to be of Celtic origin from about 200BC and that the human head had been worshipped by the Celts and that they would place decapitated heads bought back from battles and place them on posts around the settlement as protection. They apparently also carved heads from stone and place them on pillars in their temples.

The half man half wolf apparition had been reported from other Celtic sites and according to the guy from the Museum there apparently was a site in Germany where the locals would not go near because of similar sightings.

When the heads were in the possession of my family we placed them on a shelf and every morning we noticed that they had moved position to face the spot where they had been found. To ensure no one had tampered with them through the night I decided I would place them under my bed where no one could access them but the next morning they had moved from the top right of the bed to the bottom left - as near as possible to the spot where they had been discovered. Crazy but this is all true.

My elder brother received a call recently as he now owns the family home and it was from someone who is making a film about the heads but I don't know any further details. The last time we new the whereabouts of the heads was that some guy from the local TV news had them.

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Posted: 03-10-2011 14:04 Post subject:

No, I never actually saw any sort of apparition myself, thankfully. I think I would still be traumatised to this day if I had. I know Mrs Dodd who did see the apparition was in a bit of a state to say the least when she was telling us of the night it occurred. Unfortunately, both Mr & Mrs Dodd and my father and mother have all passed away now but it is something none of them forgot.

My mother had quite a few people contact her over the years as the story of the Heads was featured in quite a few books and local publications.

As for Mr Craigie's claim that he made the heads, I personally could not believe that anyone would make such objects for a child to play with as they were quite scary looking with sunken eyes and gaping mouths.

This story could be a great material of a horror film.

That is interesting. I wonder what caused the apparition? It seems that a collective memory or a myth of some kind gets triggered when we see unusual things.

Also, I don't think they were created as toys. They're just too weird looking.

OsricPearl wrote:That is interesting. I wonder what caused the apparition? It seems that a collective memory or a myth of some kind gets triggered when we see unusual things.

Also, I don't think they were created as toys. They're just too weird looking.

Sounds like Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.

While I accept than most cases of the supposed paranormal can be explained by mis-perception, exaggeration or hoax, this is one case where I find it hard to believe that everyone is lying. So I think that there is some level of reality that current science cannot explain. Why do the arch sceptics assume that the human brain is capable of understanding everything in the world? Is that a reasonable assumption?