Pete the Poltergeist

This week, we discuss one of the most popular poltergeist encounters in the UK.

In Cardiff, Wales, in the 1980s, for almost 15 years, a lawn mower repair shop experienced excessive and consistent paranormal activity. Stones were thrown, wrenches swung on their own, and objects appeared out of nowhere.

But, is this haunting believable? Listen now!

The Playful Poltergeist of Cardiff: The Curious Case of Pete 

Did a mischievous poltergeist named Pete haunt a Welsh lawnmower shop for over a decade?

What is up, Bizarros?! This week we dive into one of the most well known poltergeist stories…Pete the Poltergeist.

Where Is Pete The Poltergeist?

This story takes place in Cardiff, Wales, in the 1980s.

It involves a gentleman named John Matthews, who owned a lawn mower repair center called Mower Services.

Their business has a workshop and a small yard in the Cathays area of Cardiff, and their connecting garden accessories shop opens onto the street.

John never had any issues, hauntings, or strange occurrences at his place of business until one random afternoon.

Pete’s Playful Pranks

John, his brother-in-law Fred, and his friend Ian were working on a mower.

In the midst of the repair, both men heard a loud bang, which they claimed sounded like a rock hitting the garage’s metal roof.

They paused what they were doing and just kind of looked at each other, wondering what that was.

A few moments later, they heard another bang. And then another one.

John grew frustrated, thinking that maybe some kids were messing around with their stuff or vandalizing it, so he ran outside to find out what was going on.

When he got out there, he was surprised to see that no one was there.

There were no kids fooling around or anything. The street was quiet and empty—eerily quiet, especially after hearing all the banging.

Naturally, he thought the whole thing was pretty odd. For instance, even if the kids or whoever did it were scrambling away, he assumed that he’d see them.

But, he shrugged it off and just assumed they got lucky and he had just missed them.

He figured that would be the last he’d think of this moment, but really it was just the beginning of the strange activity.

The next day, Ian was in the workshop when he noticed some spanners (wrenches) on the wall starting to swing.

Ian saw this wrench swinging. He glanced around for a moment, trying to make sense of why this would be the case.

He was completely alone in there. No one else had come by, and there was no wind inside the shop.

Regardless, Ian reached over to the wrench to stop it from swinging.

He shook it off and started continuing his work, only for the wrench to begin swinging even more intensely a few moments later.

This time it wasn’t one wrench, but multiple wrenches were swinging. Ian was shocked.

A few seconds later, a wrench flew off the shelf on its own.

As he turned to watch the wrench catapult itself away, he was hit in the chest by something.

He heard a small sound and looked down at his feet and saw a small stone.

Not sure how to react, feeling anxious, freaked out, and a little frustrated, he bent over, grabbed the stone, and chucked it into the corner of the repair shop.

What happened next was the last thing he’d expected.

The stone came hurling back toward him. Seemingly from nowhere.

He threw the stone again, and again, and again. Each time the stone returned.

At this point, he realized something incredibly strange was happening. Beyond the realm of things, he could easily explain away.

Deciding it was best to have a witness in situations like this, he called for John to come in and see what was happening.

Here is a quote from John:

“One day, Ian called me in, and he was standing at the bench, and something hit him on the chest if I remember right, and it dropped on the floor.

He picked it up and just threw it back into one of the corners of the room. And immediately, a rock of some sort, I think it was the same thing, came straight back at him, and hit the wall behind his head.

So he looked at me, and I looked at him. He picked up another rock and threw it back again. And instantly, it came back again.

And this became a regular – he played with it then for ten minutes, fifteen minutes.”

Because all of these strange activities began at the same time, John once wondered if the activity could just be the result of a staff member pranking him.

So, one evening after hours, he conducted a test.

They went through into the shop and locked the doors, they then placed their hands on the counter so hat they knew their hands were all accounted for.

Even in this state, the sound of stones flying around continued.

While this was an absolutely wild experience, and they couldn’t believe its consistency, they decided to keep it hush-hush.

After all, they didn’t want it to freak out customers and hurt business.

John and the guys decided to keep this on the down-low, but they let the loose lips fly with their friends.

One by one, their friends lined up to see the rock-throwing occur and test it out for themselves.

Similar to Ian’s experience, some of their friends also witnessed swinging and moving objects.

Here is a quote from one of their friends, Pat:

“Well, John said to me, “You let me know if you see anything odd or strange.” So I said, “Right.”

Well, the next thing, as he said that, I heard “ping… ping.” John looked at me and said, “That’s the start of it.”

Well, I said, “What is it?” and he said, “Believe it or not, it’s stoned.” And I said, “Well, where is it coming from?” and he said, “Well, come into the workshop, and I’ll show you.”

We went to the workshop, and he pointed out a certain part of it, which was up in the corner, and he said, “Pick up a stone and throw it.”

Well, I picked up the stone, and as I threw it, one came hurling straight back at me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said, “I say”.

He said, “Look on the wall.” So I looked on the wall, and John had all these spanners on a rack, all different sizes. He said, “Look at the spanners.”

One spanner was swinging back and forth, then another, and before I realized it, the whole lot was swinging back and forth.

So I just started laughing, and I said, “John,” I said, “We’ve got something strange in this place.” He said, “I know,” he said, “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

And it didn’t stop with the wrenches.

Small carburetor floats would often move around on their own.

One evening, John wanted to test the entity as he was leaving the shop. He decided to place a float on a flat surface and challenged the spirit to move it.

As he was locking up the garage, he felt a prick in his palm and opened his hand to find the sharp end of a float had materialized in it.

John had also reported major swings in temperature in the Mower Services garage.

One moment, the temperature would be normal, and the next, a bone-chilling cold would blow through the building.

Also, there was a smell—an overpowering stench that would hang thick in the air and then dissipate.

At this point, with the guys showing their friends and everything, it’s almost like a game to them. Kind of playful, actually.

It felt like maybe what was lurking around their shop was a child, so they affectionately decided to name this entity Pete.

It was reportedly a mischievous entity that hid people’s belongings, continued to toss things about, and played catch with friends who threw objects.

John, Ian, and Fred agreed that Pete’s favorite game was hiding people’s things around the shop. Their friends would look, and look, and look and call out to Pete, asking where he put it.

Then, when they finally yelled out that they had given up, almost immediately, their belongings appeared on the floor.

Almost as if materializing out of nowhere.

There is one instance John discussed involving Pete while was working with a colleague.

John and Richard were sitting at his desk, and mid-conversation, a paper clip fell on his desk out of nowhere.

Half-jokingly, and just to test the situation, Richard called out to Pete that he’d like a few more paper clips.

A few moments later, a whole box of paper clips fell on his desk.

Here is a quote from John:

There was an office upstairs above us, and one day a paper clip landed on the bench.

So Richard picked it up and said, “That’s a bit mean, Pete. Have you got any more?”

With that, a whole box of paper clips landed on the fire, BANG.

It never bounced; it just ‘Bang.’ So we look at one another, and Richard says, “What about some paper to go with it?”

And down behind us floats a sheet of paper. When we look at it, it’s a stationery order.

So I went and saw the chap upstairs, and I said, “Is this yours?”

He said, “It’s my stationery order; I made it out this morning.” I said, “Are these your box of clips?”

“Well,” he said, “They’re the same ones we use.” So where they came from or how they got from his office to my workshop I don’t know.

Police Officers Witness Pete’s Paranormal Activity

At one point, there was a break-in at the workshop, and the police were called.

While the officers were on sight, they are said to have witnessed Pete’s mischievous activity for themselves.

They noticed a few things swinging and heard the sound of something, like a rock, being thrown.

On another day, one witness worked in a shop two doors up the street in the early 90s.

He’d heard about the local stories of the ghost that haunted the mower shop but was skeptical. So, while walking past one day, he threw a stone, which he picked up off the ground in their yard.

To his surprise, the stone didn’t hit the metal door he threw it at. He expected to hear the metallic clang when it made contact, but it didn’t. Instead, it came back and fell at his feet without making any sound apart from when it fell to the ground.

So, it seems like Pete actually caught the stone!

Eventually, the paranormal activity shifted from just the repair garage to John’s home, which was right next door.

Objects would often appear from nowhere or be tossed from the shelves.

One detail John noticed was that Pete seemed particularly fond of playing with children’s toys, especially John’s Rubik’s cube.

Although, more often than not the items ended up being broken, in one case a head of an action figure was broke off.

Similar to the paper clip experience, an anomaly that Pete became known for was making objects seem to materialize out of thin air.

One morning, John asked his wife for a banana, and before she even had time to respond to what John had said, a banana would plop down in front of him.

The same would be the case for things like spoons, forks, or napkins.

However, apparently, Pete hated oranges.

Whenever John or his wife would try keeping them in the house they would be thrown out the window within a few hours.

This request and retrieval became pretty useful for the guys at the shop.

If they needed a tool, like a wrench or a screwdriver, it would promptly drop in front of them without having to lift a finger.

Here is a quote from Fred:

Over the years that we were there, playing—I should say playing because we used to play with it—we found that it was very intelligent.

If you wanted a plug, we would say a plug, an electric plug that you plug an iron in with or something. But he would throw you a spark plug.

In other words, he would associate ‘plug’ as being a spark plug.

And he was amazing, he’d throw you anything you asked for really. “You must make a note of this,” and he’d throw you a pen.

Silly things, like “Stop messing about, Pete. We’ve got to get this together,” and he’d throw you a staple. You know, this sort of thing he would associate with what we were speaking. It was so good, I said, “My Pete, you’re so clever. There’s one thing you can’t do or get for me,” I said, “and that’s a Rolls Royce.”

And as I said that, at my feet, and John was my witness, a Rolls Royce keyring landed at my feet, with ‘R R’ on it. You know, amazing.

One day John was thinking, hey, what if I ask Pete for money? What would happen?

Here is a quote from John:

Every day, and this went on for five years, almost every day, one period of time you could ask for money.

Just give us money, Pete! And pennies, two pence pieces, five pence pieces, and pound coins on occasions used to come.

Never fifty pence, I don’t know why.

It was mainly pennies and two pennies. In one hour, I collected sixty-eight pence, just saying, “Send me some more money, send me some more money.”

And it would appear from nowhere, just dropping around you in different parts of the workshop.

On average, we’d be getting about five pounds a month, pound coins, that’s an average mind, sometimes it could be more, sometimes it could be less.

I remember once drinking a cup of tea after washing the dishes. I looked out the window, and there was a pound coin in the cup—plop!

And the noise on the cup, my wife said, “What’s that?!” And I said, “We’re rich again!”

Pretty remarkable, right? Talk about some passive income.

So, as things kept growing, John decided to try to bring in an outside expert source.

He ended up calling David Fontana, a university professor who had an interest in the paranormal.

David Fontana came to investigate shortly after hearing from John, eager to discover what this entity might do during a true investigation.

Here is a quote from David Fontana:

Most of my visits were unannounced, so they didn’t know that I was coming at any particular time.

As I entered the workshop, a stone was thrown across the room and bounced off a piece of machinery.

John was sitting there talking to one of the sales representatives, but there was no question that either of them was involved in this.

John looked up at me and said, “There – see what I mean? He’s greeting you.”

I was very pleased, actually, because it’s so rare for investigators to be there when things actually happen. That made me take things much more seriously than perhaps I otherwise would.

You don’t see the things in midair, you hear them hit the wall and clatter to the ground, you look round and the stone is there, but you don’t actually see it in flight.

This rather strengthens the idea that nobody’s playing tricks because if they were, you would see the things in flight.”

Now that they had officially brought an outside source in who was able to make their own remarks and media comments, the news of Pete the Poltergeist started hitting the news and spreading.

While they were initially afraid of driving customers away, it was actually the opposite.

Droves of curious folks found their way to John’s garage, in hopes of catching a moment of this peculiar entity.

Pete was many things, but he was not shy. Customers left dazzled and particularly enthralled by the stone-throwing games.

Priests Investigate The Paranormal

Two priests from a nearby church heard of this Pete business and decided to check it out for themselves.

Here is a quote from one of them:

When I was there, I heard the stones or noises coming from the back of the shop.

When I asked them what it was about, I was told, “Oh, that’s Pete the Poltergeist.” I didn’t really believe him.

So I opened the door and looked through, and I could see a stone whizzing around on the floor.

There was nobody else out there.”

How Long Was Pete The Poltergeist Active?

These tricks and games with Pete went on for years.

One thing that stood out among visitors, guests, and friends was that sure, they could attribute what was occurring to some playful, mischievous entity—but why hadn’t anyone seen this entity?

Was it possible?

Who Was Pete?

That question was answered solely by John’s brother-in-law, Fred. He was the only person to ever claim to see Pete in an actual form.

Here is a quote from Fred:

“I’d never been frightened until then. I looked up and there he was sitting on a shelf. H

e was a little boy dressed in 1940s clothes. He had no figure or face; you could see the outline, and he had a sort of cub cap on his head.

And you could see the outline, of his hands, his face, and yet you couldn’t put a face to him. You can imagine he was all grey. No face, but the face was there.

It’s hard to explain, but he was sitting on a fixture where we kept spare parts for lawnmowers.

Now, he looked out of proportion to me. His body was disproportionate to his size, and his head should have been on the ceiling. It’s hard to explain, but he looked really out of proportion.

Now this happened several times, I should say four, five times I’ve seen Pete the poltergeist.”

Fred and John contacted Professor Fontana to see if he had any information that could confirm or deny what Fred claimed he saw regarding the history of the location.

According to Fontana’s research, there were rumors that a young boy was killed on a road nearby, so they got to thinking that maybe it was this boy haunting the garage.

Before long, this rumor was confirmed when the boy’s older sister came forward after reading about the case in the local paper.

Did Pete The Poltergeist Go Away?

Somehow though, Fred actually seeing Pete changed the dynamic of everything.

After this experience, Fred claimed that Pete became a bit obsessive with him, following him around everywhere.

Most of Pete’s tricks and energy at this point focused on Fred, too.

It became too overwhelming for Fred, and he ended up moving away.

Once Fred left, it seemed as though he also took Peter’s energy away. The paranormal activity faded until John and his co-workers experienced nothing at all.

This ended a 14-year run of paranormal experiences.

There have been no reported occurrences in the area since.

Theories and Lingering Questions About Pete The Poltergeist

What do you think, Bizarros? 

Was Pete really a poltergeist?

Was he the spirit of a kid who hadn’t moved on?

Let us know in the comments what you think Pete The Poltergeist was.

Sources used in this article:

Higgy Pop

Mysterious Universe

Spooky Isles