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The Unexplaned Banging In Waikumete Cemetery

By Kosti_Ghostgirl
Date: 2011-08-29
Country: New Zealand
Paranormal Category: Apparitions / Voices / Touches

I go for walks in the cemetery often and would hear voices of people talking and when I try to look around to see anyone or find someone there is no one to be found. I never get scared in the cemetery, to be honest it's quite peaceful, but this day about a year ago it was different...

Me and my cousin where in the cemetery trying to track down my great Grandmothers grave, as it is unmarked it was extremely hard to identify exactly where it was. We found the area where we believed it to be and all was going well until we started to hear banging nearby, I assumed it was just some caretakers fixing something but there was nobody around where we were. The sound seemed to be getting louder I started to freak out and chills ran down my spine, the sound seemed to be coming from under the ground! Me and my cousin panicked and ran out of that area pretty quick.

Later on I suddenly thought, oh my god what if somebody had been buried alive in there, with this thought on my mind I told my mum she was pretty freaked out too and then gave me the realization that it would be impossible for anyone to be buried alive in that area as the last time anyone was buried there was in about the 1900s! Knowing that I thought maybe it was my great Grandmother trying to tell me that she was near? But we later on discovered that she wasn't buried in that area at all!

I have been to that area of the cemetery again since the incident happened but have never heard any banging or anything at all like that again. So who knows what it was?

Anybody out there experienced anything similar in a cemetery? Please tell.

Thank you for reading.

PS, I am new.

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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, Kosti_Ghostgirl, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will participate in the discussion and I need help with what I have experienced.

Lkm12e (1 posts)

8 years ago (2016-10-29)

Hey I was walking through waikumete yesterday at sunset we got near the military section we could hear bagpipes playing it was playing a song common with memorials its all we could hear the moment we left that section it stopped. I also was walking through mariners rd took two photos in one was this white face with black holes for eyes and mouth black hair with a perfect part looking right at me. Another time I was walking through murderers grove and I could hear talking and a woman crying I walked through the other rnd of the grove to see what it was and there was this woman in white with brown hair just looking at me it made me rather uneasy I went to walk away and she was gone the crying stopped waikumete is a very busy place indeed

DarkestStar (1 posts)

10 years ago (2014-06-01)

Hello,

I just joined this forum, I hope that you are still using this site since the post is from 2011.

The other day I went to a cemetery and exactly the same thing happened to me and a friend, that is the reason I came across your story, because I was looking for people who had a similar experience.

We work nearby this cemetery and were walking through it at night so I was pretty dark. At first I heard some voices talking but there really was no one there.

If I could create a picture in my mind the voices sounded like they were coming from a echoing room, something similar to a hall way, it sounded like two women having a brief conversation and faded.

Then after walking for what must have been about 5 minutes we entered a clearing and left the row of graves behind us.

Just then I heard this thumping, it happened in a succession of threes and stopped but it shook the ground. My friend was in front of me and I asked if he heard it, We both stopped and it started again and it just got louder and louder until the whole place behind us began thumping, we both heard it and it really sounded like something was banging underground, dare I say it, on the coffin lids and it definitely wasn't drainage.

We started to run to the entrance it was getting worse so I turned and said I'm sorry, it went silent.

What I wanted to ask you was if you wouldn't mind could I speak to you in pm about this? I just have a few questions in relation to your experience.

Thanks

Indigo (263 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-07)

Drainage...drainage pipes mean wet soil, like here. The lower lying cemeteries here (or otherwise placed in 'reclaimed wetlands' tend to fill with water again eventually, causing coffins to float inside their vaults, bobbing against the top lid of the vaults... Fairly common here unfortunately. Cemeteries are now being sued locally for this.

zzsgranny (18 stories) (3329 posts) mod

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

Nysa: Even more frightening is that Burke and Hare were real grave robbers...

Http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders

old_dude (16 stories) (112 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

It is possible that you could have services running through an easment in the graveyard. It is not very common but sometimes it is the only way to bring water or serwers to new development. IT could be the pipes banging. Do you have a subway or underpass in the area? Air vents can run underground to these places and they can easily transmit sound.

The Windsor Salt mines stretch all over lower Ontario and a log time ago they dug an emergancy ventilation shaft. (as per code) and they dug un into an unmarked cemetery and several coffins fell through the ceiling. Lol I bet that is not your case but underground work sound can travel through the ground expecially if it is rocky.

I think the drainage idea is probally the most likely. THey can run mechanical snakes for almost a mile to clear out blockages. Those things make a lot of noise. Could have been that.

Nysa (4 stories) (685 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

One of my hobbies is gravestone studies so I spend a lot of time in cemeteries. I, too, find them peaceful & often return to a cemetery after I am done studying the stones just because of the atmosphere. Under the right circumstances they can be creepy, I will have to share my one frightening experience at a graveyard in here. Anyway, to offer up another practical explanation, most cemeteries have drainage systems, you do not want a graveyard to get flooded. It is possible that something was stuck in a drainage pipe & was banging the inside of the pipe due to water or rodent movement. On the paranormal side, it could have been the "echo" of a graverobbing event or worse. I can't imagine why a conscious spirit would be hanging around a graveyard making noises but you never know. Incidentally, graverobbers sometimes saved people who had been buried alive. The rush of cool air reviving them when they opened the coffin lid. Sadly, if they were looking for cadavers there was the chance that the robbers would bang the person on the head with their shovel so they would have a corpse. A movie is coming out, this weekend I think, on that subject (graverobbing for cadavers) called Burke & Hare.

MissyM (2 stories) (152 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

DeviousAngel I'm just so happy I'm not the only crazy zombie fearin person out there...lol

The term "Saved By The Ball" was not just a!AWESOME! (😆) TV show in the early 90's. (I love you Zak Morris! Slater is dreamy...lol)

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_coffin

P.G. Pessler, a German priest, suggested in 1798 that all coffins have a tube inserted from which a cord would run to the church bells. If an individual had been buried alive he could draw attention to himself by ringing the bells. This idea, while highly impractical, led to the first designs of safety coffins equipped with signalling systems. Pessler's colleague, Pastor Beck, suggested that coffins should have a small trumpet-like tube attached. Each day the local priest could check the state of putrefaction of the corpse by sniffing the odours emanating from the tube. If no odour was detected or the priest heard cries for help the coffin could be dug up and the occupant rescued.

Dr Adolf Gutsmuth was buried alive several times to demonstrate a safety coffin of his own design, and in 1822 he stayed underground for several hours and even ate a meal of soup, sausages and beer delivered to him through the coffin's feeding tube.

DeviousAngel (11 stories) (1910 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

MissM: That is AWESOME. You are like one of my favorite people in the world after that comment hahaha! I am still rolling over here. 😉 Thank you for the much-needed giggle...

Fanny/PiP: That is SO crazy! I had no idea that they actually installed devices like that. I wonder how many people just passed out or stopped breathing for a bit and were buried, only to wake up later and...

La la la la la I can't think about that anymore

Fanny (2 stories) (105 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

Way back in the day getting buried alive was a pretty common ocurrance. In order to ensure that it didn't happen anymore they attached one end of a string to a bell tied to a poll and the other end would be attahced to the "deceased" person and if the bell range they would dig them back up again. Morbid I know! Maybe that's what you heard.

"Count Karnice-Karnicki of Belgium patented a rescue device in 1897, which mechanically detected chest movement to trigger a flag, lamp, bell, and fresh air. Along similar lines, in the United Kingdom, various systems were developed to save those buried alive, including breakable glass panels in the coffin lid and pulley systems which would raise flags or ring bells on the surface. It is possible that this is the origin of the phrase "saved by the bell". Without air supply, this naturally would be useless without vigilant guards above ground. As such, undertakers were hired to stay in the graveyard at night to watch out for such signals. In 1890, a family designed and built a burial vault at the Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, with an internal hatch to allow the victim of accidental premature burial to escape. The vault had an air supply and was lined in felt to protect a panic-stricken victim from self-inflicted injury before escape. Bodies were to be removed from the casket before interment. In 1995, an Italian coffin manufacturer introduced a model with a beeper and intercom system."

Best,
Fanny ❤

PrettyInPain (3 stories) (153 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

That really makes me sad that your great grandfather's grave was unmarked. I know it used to be common, but everyone deserves to be remembered. Don't worry- I'm with D.A. On not thinking that the banging you heard was someone buried alive, but that was also common about a century ago (they even made caskets hooked up to a little device that the person buried alive could push to alert whoever might be listening that they were not dead yet; but apparantly no one knows if these were ever beneficially used). People are still getting mistakenly sent to the morgue alive, but luckily are not buried!

What you experienced sounds rather creepy and I am sorry you had to go through that. Thank you for sharing with us!

❤

Mountaineer (4 stories) (176 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

DeviousAngel's idea about the coffin giving out is a good explanation. Hopefully it's the correct one... Being buried alive... What a horrible way to die

MissyM (2 stories) (152 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

DeviousAngel,

I'm with you with the Zombies... Lol 😆 (I watch way to many horror movies.) My husband laughs at me all the time about my fear and says I'm crazy (and I know its a crazy fear) I have even told my husband that if there was ever a Zombie outbreak he better fend for himself because I'm strapping my son to my back, grabbing the metal bat (aim for the head... 😆) and taking off to the hills... Lol 😆

DeviousAngel (11 stories) (1910 posts)

13 years ago (2011-09-06)

That is really creepy... I think the worst thing in the world would be getting buried alive. I do not think that anyone got buried alive there, though. Man, I would make a mad dash out of there... One of my worst fears is zombies. I know that sounds so immature but hey, better to be prepared right? I think we have had this "that is why I will be cremated" discussion before. I have to wonder if the sound you heard might have been the aged wood of the coffin giving to the pressure of the dirt? Or maybe just settling?

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