Perhaps it’s no surprise that residences as old as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle have their share of supernatural energy, but learning about the royal family’s haunted history still gave Us the creeps.
In the documentary The King of UFOs, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video last month, Paranormal historian Richard Felix claimed that “all” of the royals’ properties “have ghosts in them, and they know it and have witnessed it,” per Tatler magazine.
“The late Queen [Elizabeth II] saw her namesake Queen Elizabeth in the library at Windsor Castle,” Felix said. “King [Charles III] has seen the same ghost, and his grandfather George VI saw Queen Elizabeth eight times in the library before the start of the second World War.”
Even Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, seem to be comfortable with the idea of spirits. During an October 2023 episode of Hello!’s “A Right Royal Podcast,” Felix claimed that William, 42, had a cheeky reply when he was told the ghost of a Catholic priest lives in Anmer Hall, his and wife Princess Kate Middleton‘s country home.
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“Before the Waleses moved in, they were warned about the ghost and the comment was — I presume it was from Prince William — ‘No old hall would be complete without a ghost, would it?’” Felix claimed.
He added that the late priest’s ghost has been seen and heard in Anmer Hall, and noted that the priest died after being “hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason.”
Harry, 40, meanwhile, wrote in his 2023 memoir, Spare, that he once sought help from a woman who “claimed to have ‘powers’” to connect with his late mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash at age 36 in 1997. Harry was 12 at the time.
“’Your mother says that you are living the life that she couldn’t live,’” Harry recalled the woman telling him. “‘You’re living the life she wanted for you.’”
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The Duke of Sussex isn’t the only royal who has sought messages from a deceased loved one. The King of UFOs doc claimed that Queen Elizabeth II attended a seance in 1953 hoping to connect with her then-recently deceased father. The queen’s mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, sister, Princess Margaret, and husband, Prince Philip, were also reportedly in attendance.
The royal family’s interest in the paranormal is often attributed to Queen Victoria, who was Queen Elizabeth II’s great-great-grandmother. In his 2013 book Whisperers: The Secret History of the Spirit World, occult expert J.H. Brennan claimed that Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, was “fascinated by spiritualism” and would invite mediums to Buckingham Palace and “hold seances.”
Brennan also claimed that Victoria’s manservant John Brown, whom she was rumored to have a romantic relationship with, actually acted as a medium to help her channel the spirit of her beloved late husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
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Victoria died at age 81 in 1901, which meant she spent decades without Albert, who died at age 42 in 1861.
While the royal family’s history with spirits might be a little too spooky for some, Felix said in The King of UFOs that the royals “live with their ghosts because most people do.”
“Most people aren’t afraid of ghosts when they are in their houses,” he continued. “They just accept them.”
The King of UFOs is now streaming on Tube and Amazon Prime Video.