Guitar Playing Ghost
In 1965 it
was reported that the ghost of an Australian Army Lieutenant was haunting the
hamlet of Kundiawa in the New Guinea Highlands. It was claimed the ghost had
been identified as Lieutenant George Charlton Tuckey.
Tuckey died in 1945 while serving with the Angua Administration of the Kundiawa
Territory and was buried in a local cemetery.
A local
police corporal known as Arambi reported that he often heard guitar music
coming from inside a police inspector's house. There were no signs of life in
the home, which was in total darkness. Armabi investigated the grounds and
house and could find no source for the music, but as he neared the grave of
Tuckey, he noted that the music ceased.
Arambi later claimed that he saw the
ghost. It was wearing a white shirt and shorts. He knew Tuckey, as they had
worked together for two years, and identified the ghost as him. Tuckey’s ghost
shuffled through the compound, and Arambi followed it into the Kundiawa
courthouse…where it disappeared.[1]
[1] 'Guitar-playing ghost now walks about', The Canberra Times, (6 May 1965), p. 22.
