Transport for London (TfL) confirmed via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that in the last two years, there has been one reported case of paranormal activity across all their stations.
This involved a distressed 15-year-old boy at King’s Cross on the Metropolitan line in December 2023, who claimed that he had seen “ghosts”.
The FOI request asked for all reports of “paranormal activity at Tube, DLR, London Overground, Elizabeth Line and Tram locations made to TfL since January 1, 2022.”
In response, officers searched their London Underground incident reports for the keywords ghost, paranormal, spirit, apparition, ghoul, phantom, poltergeist, and banshee.
However, they claim that most of the 156 results merely referred to being in “good spirits” – likely to mean having had an alcoholic drink.
TfL also searched the Customer Contact Centre database turning up over 1000 cases- but it is estimated most of these will refer to phantom or ghost Oyster card charges.
There were no reports found of paranormal activity on the Trams, Elizabeth line, DLR, or London Overground services.
Senior FOI Case Officer Gemma Jacob wrote: “We have carried out a keyword search of all London Underground incident reports over the requested timeframe using the following words: ghost, paranormal, spirit, apparition, ghoul, phantom, poltergeist, banshee.
“The search returned 156 results, but only one of them related to paranormal activity.
“This related to a distressed 15 year-old-boy at King’s Cross on the Metropolitan line in December 2023, who also mentioned that he had seen ghosts.
“We do not have any reports of paranormal activity on our Trams, Elizabeth line, DLR, or London Overground services.”
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The unnamed requester had also asked to see a copy of “any internal staff logbooks/documents for ghost sightings at the Aldgate East station.”
The reason for the particular interest in Aldgate East could be due to its close proximity to the area where the Jack the Ripper murders took place in 1888.
Ms Jacob however confirmed that TfL do not have any documents of “ghost sightings” at this station.
