A FORMER resident of a Belfast tower block that housed students from Queen's University has told of his experience of the "haunted" building three decades on.
The events at Alanbrooke Hall and the claims of people who lived in room 611 were the topic of discussion during Danny Robins’ latest BBC podcast 'Uncanny', in which witnesses shared their paranormal experiences and recollections.
Speaking about his time living in the now demolished building, Professor Gary Foster said he once almost fell out a window after he felt he was being pulled towards it.
"At the time I thought was just a close call," the former student warden said.
"That now gives me absolute shivers thinking about it."
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A 10-storey tower block, Alanbrooke Hall was located on the Malone Road in Belfast and opened to students in 1968.
It was one of a group of purpose-built halls of residence in a development called Queen's Elms.
Alanbrooke Hall and the other blocks were demolished in 2004 to make way for the construction of Elms Village.
During the 'Uncanny' podcast episode, which also featured another former student identified only as ‘Ken’, Professor Foster recalled hearing banging at his door after he caught paramilitaries stealing a beer keg from the student bar.
But when he opened the door, there was no-one there.
“All the stories I told in the podcast, I just turned them into pub stories and after-dinner stories, and none of them gave me any fear whatsoever,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
“It was after two incidents (that I became frightened).
“One, where I nearly fell out the window, at the time I thought was just a close call. That now gives me absolute shivers thinking about it.
Thank you all for your patience this week. The #UncannyCommunity support means a lot to all of us on the team. Case 4 is out now. It's not the episode we had planned but I hope you'll enjoy it. Normal service will be resumed next week...https://t.co/YZdWsaf3b5#Uncanny
— Danny Robins (@danny_robins) April 28, 2023
“The second one — at the time I was more relieved, but now I know more — was when I had banging on my flat door.
"It was like a hundred feet and fists. I thought it was the chaps coming back because I’d seen their faces.
“When I opened the door and there was no one there and no one in the hall, I was relieved it wasn’t terrorists.
"Ghosts never came into it.
"But now that I’ve met Danny and Ken, I can’t get that idea out of my head.”
'Ken' appeared on a previous episode of the podcast after contacting broadcaster Danny Robins. He said he was "surprised by the interest in the story because I thought it was just quite trivial, so I’m just overwhelmed".
He told of how he felt an evil presence in the room at Alanbrooke Hall and saw "a large, black silhouette (with) the impression of a man".
“The first thing that struck me, because I was analysing this, was that I’d never seen anything so black," he said.
"It was the blackest black I’d ever seen.
“At the same moment, two things happened: one, was that I could hear in my ears what I could only describe as very, very loud white noise, and also there was a strong sense of distilled evil coming from this figure.”
