Ghost hunter tries to trace Leeds sisters after haunted encounter in a newsagent

A paranormal investigator is trying to trace a witness to a haunting 'time slip' incident in a newsagent who posted about her experiences on a US website.

The woman, who gave her name as Mandy on the forum, describes in detail the strange encounter she had in her local shop in the summer of 1998. She had been walking to work with her sister when the pair decided to call into the newsagent in an unspecified area of Leeds. The shop building dated from 1899.

She wrote:

"My sister was in front of me as we approached the shop door, and through the glass panel I saw a woman browsing at the magazine section, immediately to the left of the door entrance. It looked as though this woman would be in our way as we entered the shop but as we did my sister didn't seem to be aware of her. I told my sister, "Mind that woman," but she carried on walking and went right through her and the woman faded away. Only then did my sister stop and ask, "What woman?"

I walked ahead of my sister a little further into the shop and turned to her and told her, "I think I've just seen a spirit - you just walked through this woman." My sister was adamant she saw no one. We both looked around the shop. The lights were off, which I thought was odd; it seemed very grey and eerie. It was the kind of atmosphere you'd expect in the early hours of a winter morning -- but this was summertime during business hours. Though all the shelves were stocked like they should have been, we were the only people there. My sister mentioned it was cold, and she said she felt something funny was going on. I felt this too. I said, "We need to get out of here."

We left the shop but lingered outside the door. I described the woman, who had been in modern-day dress, to my sister, and she asserted, "There was no one there - the shop was empty." (Upon later comparison, I found that my sister saw everything I saw apart from the woman.) We were outside the shop door for all of a minute when I asked my sister to come back in with me. When we entered the shop, the lights were on and it was full of customers - school kids, people on their way to work etc. Had I looked more carefully at the people in the store the second time we entered, I feel I would have seen the woman my sister walked through.

The usual woman was behind the till, but she was staring at us with her mouth open. My sister said, "What the hell is going on? Where did all these people come from?" I was just in total shock. I walked to the till with my sister and bought some cigarettes; as the woman served us, she looked quite terrified. I'll never forget the look on her face. We left the shop and to this day still can't get our heads round it. We did go back around a month later to ask the woman if she noticed anything odd, but there was a man serving. My sister said she'd been back a few times and has never seen her again. We did ask the man if anyone had ever mentioned anything about the shop, but I think he thought we were loons."

Paranormal investigator Carl Grove is hoping that 'Mandy' will get in contact with him and provide more details about the incident.

"I have been researching the topic of time slips for several years, and I have been trying unsuccessfully to contact the witnesses in a remarkable case reported in Leeds. One of the witnesses sent an account to a US website (now defunct) several years ago," he said.

"It is an unusual case, as it appears to describe the experience both of the main two witnesses and of an observer - the shop assistant - who saw the event as an outsider. The Leeds local paranormal research group seems to hold no information about it."

If you can help Carl trace either of the sisters or name the shop in question, contact him at [email protected].