Biography:Ted Thornby
Ted Thornby (born 25 May 1969) is a self acclaimed UK ghost hunter, with a large following through his website and forums, and his books on the subject of the Paranormal.
Biography
Ted Thornby was born into a wealthy family, his mother and father both arrived in the UK in the early 60's from Egypt looking to start a family. Ted was born in May 1969 as one of a set of identical twins, his brother died at birth. After Ted, his parents went on to have four more children, all of whom are girls.[1]
Thornby went to school at London's Highgate school and was given the best start to life. At the age of 12, he took an interest in the Paranormal, especially the works of Andrew Green,[2] introduced to him by a school friend.
After school Thornby attended London City College to study Science, Physics in particular, but he soon dropped out and began getting more and more into his own ghost investigations and became friends with Ghost hunting pioneer Andrew Green[3] Green went on to teach Thornby the things that he had learnt, and soon Green would become Thornby's mentor . By 1989 Thornby had written his own book, Ghosthunter UK, but he could not get a publisher to take it on, so he decided to print it himself and distribute it through small local bookshops and charity shops. He is quoted as saying, "It was never about the money, I didn't need it, it was just about getting the book out there".[4] Ghosthunter UK became something of a cult in the world of the Paranormal Enthusiasts and was soon being passed around. Thornby continued his investigations through the next two years and then came out with another book, Nocturnal Dreams, in 1992. This time, he would not give the publishers a chance to look at it, he decided to go the same route again and self-publish, delivering once again to small local bookshops and leaving them in charity shops. Nocturnal Dreams became a must own for those who knew of Thornby's work. As the years would follow, the interest in the Paranormal grew and Thornby was offered TV appearances such as Haunted City and Most Haunted, but he declined them stating: "Those shows are not what I am about".[5] In 2004, Andrew Green died, and Thornby lost his mentor. It was a sad time, and the paranormal community turned to Thornby for a new direction. He would soon appear briefly in 2005 on YouTube with his own web-series, Thornby Investigates, which went on to receive almost a million views, but after five episodes he would never return.
Controversy
Thornby has on several occasions tried to release footage of an investigation he held at the Houses of Parliament, he claims that the footage has some of the most outstanding evidence of the existence of ghosts and spirits, and that the electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) recordings he made whilst there, reveals many, many lost secrets. It was this footage that was aired on his web-series, episode five, that is said to have been the demise of the short lived series. When it was uploaded in early 2006, it received over 300,000 hits in under an hour, but was swiftly removed, YouTube has made no comments as to why.
His website has recently been taken down, in a recent interview in Fortean Times he said, "Its just time for a redesign, nothing too sinister behind it, i haven't been banned from the internet or anything. Not yet."[6]
Thornby is said to be the only Ghost hunter to have invented "Weapons" against spirits, his main achievement is said to be a small EMP grenade, which uses a small Electromagnetic Pulse to diffuse the spirit. Although there is no physical evidence of this grenade actually working against spirits, due to any electrical equipment being knocked out temporarily when the grenade goes off, many paranormal enthusiasts have spoken about this technique being unnecessary, and harmful.[7]
Books
The following are the self-published books by Ted Thornby, all available through his website.
- Ghosthunting UK - Revised 2000 edition, Ted Thornby, One Eight Five Books, 2000
- Nocturnal Dreams - Original, Ted Thornby, One Eight Five Books, 1992
- Nocturnal Dreams - Deluxe 2002 edition, Ted Thornby, One Eight Five Books, 2002
- Diary of a GhostHunter, Ted Thornby, One Eight Five Books, Rumored 2009
References
- ↑ Taken from the opening of Thornby's debut book, Ghosthunter UK
- ↑ [1], said to be Thornby's favorite book of all time
- ↑ Mystical WWW - Ghosts Today
- ↑ Writer Magazine, December 1992. p. 47, An interview with self published writers
- ↑ Interview published in Paranormal Times, issue 33 Vol,4. Pg33. An interview with Andrew Green and Ted Thornby, written by Paul Dixon.
- ↑ Fortean Time magazine, issue 234 pg 42. Article titled, An Internet hunter. Written by Nick Redfern.
- ↑ From the article, "Weapons against the undead", Fortean Times, issue 149 pg 12, Written by Andrew Harlingford.
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