A veiled woman burst screaming from an elevator. The small crowd gathered in a basement corridor of New Zealand ’s parliament drew back nervously.
Their guide, wearing a trailing, white gown, smiled sweetly.
“You’re welcome to take the elevator,” she said.
Photo: AP
Nobody did.
Mysterious deaths, unexplained noises and late-night apparitions are not the usual fodder of daily tours offered at the parliament buildings in Wellington. However, after hours on Thursday, guides donned Victorian-era garb to regale visitors with the precinct’s less savory history — “mostly factual” tales of real-world tragedy and paranormal lore that have grown established among political staffers through decades of colorful retelling.
The history of parliament’s stately gothic library is particularly rich in woe. Constructed in the late 19th century and feared by some of parliament’s night shift security guards and cleaners, it has survived two fires, a flood and being overrun by feral cats.
Photo: AP
“This is your last chance to back out,” Lisa Brand, her face dripping with fake blood, told the group on Thursday’s tour — a recent initiative and one embraced by the visitors’ center staff with gusto.
Walking through a cavernous parliamentary atrium, the guide let out a hair-raising scream that echoed up to the open windows of lawmakers’ offices. It explained why the so-called spooky tours are reserved for weeks when parliament is not in session.
The Parliamentary Library is a gloomy and ornate building where stained-glass windows and crystal chandeliers dimly reveal wrought iron bannisters and Venetian decor. Designed by Thomas Turnbull and completed in 1899, it remains in use by staff seeking information or some slightly eerie peace and quiet.
When the visitors arrived, they were greeted by spectral figures who shrieked as they glided down staircases beneath the portraits of former head librarians and New Zealand prime ministers. Tour guides told a hushed audience that the library was imperiled by a savage storm that struck Wellington in 1968 — sinking a passenger ferry in the harbor with the deaths of 53 people.
The tempest lashed parliament, too, tearing out skylights and prompting librarians to climb onto the roof as they tried to protect the books, said a guide, who sported Victorian garb and dark shadows under her eyes.
“For mysterious and unknown reasons they did this in their underwear,” she told the visitors. “There seems to be a history of people losing their pants here in this parliament.”
“I haven’t even started on the politicians,” the guide added, with relish.
Eventually the tour turned to lawmakers. Well-known in New Zealand is the story of William Larnach, a politician who in 1898 was found dead in a room at parliament with a revolver in his hand while experiencing financial and family strife.
Some claim that Larnach’s ghost remains in the building. However, his skull was stolen — and in 1972 was rediscovered in a college student’s bedroom.
Another spirit reported to linger is that of the first full-time librarian, Ewen McColl, whose death was partly attributed by some official sources to overwork.
As the tour descended to the building’s basement, the ceilings grew low and the corridors narrow. Frantic banging resounded from an apparently locked room.
The subterranean floors are home to an archive containing the historical and esoteric.
It is also the site of some of the building’s strangest reported occurrences, tour guides said.
Urban legends passed down by staff include stories of hands reaching out from the stacks, songs emanating from empty bathrooms, the apparition of a ghostly woman in a mirror, and locked doors swinging open. More earthly horrors included a cat, and subsequent flea, infestation in 1977.
After one last fright, visitors emerged slightly shaken into parliament’s near-empty lobby as darkness fell.
The tour was “a bit spookier than I expected,” said Holly Masters, who had last visited parliament as a child. “There was quite a few deaths here that I did not expect to find out about.”
Another visitor, Sally Giles, said she was fascinated to learn the stories of those who worked and died in the precinct “and what they’ve left behind and how that surfaces every now and then.”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS