Case Update 1: The First Wave

·27 min·2 clips

A sudden swarm of flies descends on the car at Hale-Van Og, just like in the infamous Amityville haunting.

1. 'The Witch Farm' case update episode reviews listener theories on the Hale-Van Og haunting in rural Wales, which has been called the Welsh Amityville by the British media. 2. The host presents questions submitted by named listeners and Twitter users, filtering through sceptical and paranormal explanations for each phenomenon. 3. The episode's purpose is to deepen the investigation by incorporating audience research and introduce new witnesses alongside a previously unreported phenomenon. 4. Listener Stuart Fox suggests that Welsh nationalist resentment toward English incomers Bill and Liz could explain the haunting as a deliberate hoax, citing neighbour Wynne Thomas's comment 'Say sorry a lot, you English, don't you.' 5. Listener Tracey Hopson notes that Welsh nationalist groups burned English holiday homes from the late 1970s to early 1990s and wonders if the animals were deliberately poisoned. 6. The host counters that Liz is Welsh, making them a less likely target, and notes that the reported phenomena predate Wynne Thomas telling them about the desecrated gravestones. 7. The host recounts visiting Hale-Van Og with Liz and being surrounded by a sudden swarm of flies within seconds of parking, connecting it to the Amityville haunting where a fly plague was a key reported phenomenon. 8. Marion Holborn, who lived at Hale-Van Og in the 1960s and is now identified as the old woman Liz has seen, turns out to have been married to Ian Holborn, listed on Wikipedia as one of the few survivors of the Lusitania sinking in 1915. 9. Both Marion and Ian Holborn reportedly claimed to have had prophetic dreams about the Lusitania disaster before it happened. 10. A plumber's account of ripping radiators off the wall to place crosses on them, and the phenomena stopping after that, is presented as one of the most compelling pieces of evidence so far. 11. Listeners propose ergot fungus poisoning — linked to the Salem witch trials — as a possible explanation for animal madness and hallucinations, citing an 1951 outbreak in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France where villagers ran mad in the streets. 12. Listener Michelle Pierce identifies Orzersky's disease (pseudorabies) as the cause of the animal deaths, noting that it affects every species that died at Hale-Van Og and requires close contact with infected swine for transmission. 13. The most striking detail of the Orzersky's disease theory is that the last recorded UK outbreak was 1989, the year the Hale-Van Og haunting begins. 14. Solicitor Glyn Maddox, who is known for handling the Daniel Morgan axe murder case and other national miscarriage of justice cases, was called by Bill Rich to challenge electricity board Swaylec over bills four times the expected maximum. 15. Glyn describes Bill as 'very educated, very well-spoken, very plausible' and says he had no reason to doubt that Bill genuinely believed something weird and unexplained was happening. 16. Glyn deadpans that he ultimately could not make legal progress because he could not take Swaylec to court on the grounds that their meter was being tampered with by spirits. 17. The episode format is the host reading out and responding to listener theories, interspersed with audio clips from earlier episodes and a new recorded interview; tone is engaged and slightly amused. 18. The style balances open-minded investigation with light comedy — the host describes the Postman Pat curtains that may have looked like an old woman, and closes by endorsing a child's theory that ghost energy explains UK energy bills. 19. True crime and paranormal investigation fans who enjoy audience-participation formats will find the listener theory segment particularly engaging. 20. Those who have not heard the preceding three episodes may struggle to follow the specific phenomena and characters being discussed.

As heard by us

Listener theories shift the focus from shocks to possible explanations.

The episode becomes a listener-theory roundtable, moving away from the early shocks and into the question of what might actually be going on. It passes through resentment from local Welsh neighbours, the idea that the haunting may have been planted, and more skeptical takes like…

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If you want the haunting argued from every angle, this special case update is for you.

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