The McIlwraith Statements · Ghostly Thistle

Episode 1 – First Encounters

January 31, 2019·21 min·1 clip

Sarah reveals she waited fifteen years to speak because the only person who could corroborate her account — Dr Strother — died two weeks ago.

Sarah McIlwraith opens the episode by explaining she is recording because she has a story to tell — fifteen years after the events in question. She establishes that Dr Robin Strother was at the centre of a major scientific scandal, accused of forging results from a paranormal research study called the IPP (Investigations into Paranormal Phenomena). Sarah was on the research team and was not named in any of the scandal coverage. She is adamant the popular account is false. Sarah describes herself as a data analyst who, as an undergraduate student in Glasgow, was recruited to the study by Dr Kenneth Douglas, a clinical psychologist. She describes her hesitance — she had spent her university years learning to suppress the fact that she sees ghosts, and joining a study about people who see ghosts placed her at risk of exposure. She accepted partly to stay close to the eye of the storm and avoid suspicion. She describes the research setup: a secure-access building, a data office with motion-sensor lights that would switch off when she sat still, high-end equipment that struck her retrospectively as unusual for academic research, and a team comprising Ken Douglas and Dr Stephanie Pierce, a neuropsychologist. Strother himself was frequently absent and late. Sarah's first meeting with Strother is characterised by his entering the office unannounced, rifling through papers, and dismissing her security challenge before complaining to Ken about her competence. Sarah describes Strother's Yorkshire accent and physical presence, and notes that despite his personality, she came to find him decent over time. Working late one night at midnight, Sarah hears a child's laughter in the corridor outside the locked office. She tries to ignore it, but the laughter draws closer and is followed by tapping on the door. Opening the door, she sees a shadow mass that resolves into a small Victorian-dressed girl with curly brown hair, who leads her away down the corridor. In a second narrative thread, Sarah explains she has been trying to identify who funded the study. She has contacted the university, which sent a protocol document that conspicuously left the funding source blank. The university describes the funding only as private sector. Strother is dead — having died two weeks ago — and his funeral is the next day. Sarah explains that guilt over her silence has driven her to record these statements: Strother spent fifteen years ruined, and she always told herself she had time to act.

As heard by us

A slow burn confession where office clutter and old scandal turn colder.

Sarah McElwraith tells the story like a confession, and that is what gives the episode its pull. It stays with Dr Robin Strothers, the man tied to the IPP scandal, and the moment a stranger walks into the office and starts going through papers.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a haunted confession wrapped in a scientific scandal.

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