'It’s a beautiful and haunting place': Jeremy Vine on 5 show gives verdict on Scarborough's Open Air Theatre 'ghost'

On Thursday, August 17, The Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5 used the story in their ‘Papers and Everything Else’ feature.

The ‘ghost’ was spotted by holidaymaker Tracey Gray during the Paul Heaton gig at Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre.

She said: “She said: “We were seated at the right hand side of the theatre and after about 30 minutes of the music starting something caught my eye over to the right in a large open field situated behind the theatre.

"I just stopped and stared at a human figure but couldn’t make it out properly so I took a picture and I stopped listening to the music as this caught my attention.

“As I was watching the figure for about seven minutes a black mist came from nowhere and the figure vanished. I can’t really explain the mist, it was like a smoke from a fire or something.”

It comes after the original story, reported by The Scarborough News, went viral on social media as people came up with their own stories as to whether it was a ghost, and coming up with Paul Heaton puns.

You can read the original story here.

The segment began with Matthew Allwright asking Whitby author and former priest Graham Taylor about the story and commented: “It’s a beautiful and haunting place and I have to say I’ve seen Paul Heaton live and I've seen The Beautiful South numerous times and I did see things afterwards but I don't think it had anything to do with the music.”

Coumnist Angela Epstein clarified that she thought the picture was “spooky, that was really spooky.”

Storm Huntley then gave her opinion on the picture, saying: “It’s a youth that wants to terrify its neighbours.

"It’s just a young girl or young boy that's come up with a plan and thought ‘we’ll dress up in white garms and a white belt and mill about in the bushes. All we need is one person to see us and we will scare everybody’.

"I think this was cooked up and there’s a rational explanation.”

Angela Epstein then retaliated with “It’s interesting isn't it because it's a bit like trying to break through the frontiers of space; trying to pin down visual proof that ghosts exist has been a perennial occupation for so many people, there are programmes devoted to it and there’s huge research into paranormal activity.

"To quote Shakespeare ‘there are more things in heaven and earth that we don't know about’.

Finally, Marvyn Harrison weighed up his opinion: “I don't believe in ghosts per say but what I do assume is that energy doesn't necessarily disappear; it gets transferred. If someone passes their energy it must exist among us somehow but this looks just like a carrier bag that’s been caught on a twig and that’s my literal interpretation of what im seeing and now we’ve created a ghost.”

If anybody else has spotted the ‘ghost’ around the Open Air Theatre, or any other ghosts in Scarborough, then get in touch by emailing [email protected]