De Haar, a 13th-century castle, is one of the most beautiful, luxurious in all of Europe. It’s also the largest in Holland, and allegedly, one of the most haunted. I have what I think is compelling photographic proof that it is, in fact, haunted! I’ll share the evidence with you in this post.
This post contains compelling paranormal evidence I captured on camera!
(Video of De Haar Castle coming soon to my YouTube Channel-don’t miss it.)
Driving to the castle was easy and there was plenty of parking. We were late, so the castle was only open for a couple of hours. We thought it would be enough time, but we had to reassess that when we got there and discovered the place was approximately the size of a small village. Our first view gave us the impression that we had arrived in a fairytale. It was really quite stunning.
Above is a photo of my wife, Joan, looking on at the castle in awe.
There are impressive buildings, a church on the grounds, moats, towers, drawbridges, ramparts, and over 200 rooms inside the main castle! It sits on a 135-acre estate with luxurious gardens, charming ponds, and canals, even a hedge maze, and free-roaming local wildlife. Yeah, 2 hours could never be enough time. Heck, a week might not be enough time to explore it all.
It wasn’t until I recently started going through our photographs of the castle that I discovered–not just in one of them–as clear as day, an apparition! They’re the most compelling photos of the paranormal I have ever personally taken in my life.
It’s not the only anomaly, in another photo from our visit to De Haar, there’s what appears to be a phantom’s face and it’s absolutely spine-chilling! Also, I captured a strange orb. I’ll present all of them in this post for you to consider.
Mind you, we weren’t ghost hunting or attempting to capture photos of the paranormal, because when we first visited De Haar a few years ago, this paranormal travel blog wasn’t even an idea yet.
Warning before reading/viewing this post:
The photos presented can be terrifying to view for some readers, please do not view the photos if you are prone to nightmares or are especially afraid of ghosts. By scrolling further, you agree to view the photos at your own risk.
When we visited De Haar we were not prepared for the size and majesty of it, nor the fact that this was also one of the most jet-set party places in Europe for the rich and famous, where the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Coco Chanel, Maria Callas, Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Yves Saint Laurent, Joan Collins, and Brigitte Bardot, and many, many others, enjoyed a stay, played cards, mingled and just had a good time. After all, the castle is only a short 30-minute drive from Amsterdam.
In the below photo is the actual table where the celebrities played cards. Even Brigitte Bardot and Roger Moore played at the table, from what we were told. Now, look above the chair to the right, see the orb? I wonder if that could be a spirit of one of the deceased card players, or one of the ghost knights still roaming the castle?
Photo with the orb circled:
There’s an interesting story about a knight and the moat that surrounds much of the castle. Sometime in the fifteenth century, a knight became upset with a beggar on the property and when he spurred his horse in anger, his horse misstepped and the knight fell off and into the moat. Due to the weight of his armor, the knight drowned.
It’s claimed that the ghost of the drowned knight still roams the castle’s grounds.
GHOST SPIKES!
The castle even has what at one time was considered legitimate ‘ghost spikes’ installed in the ceiling of the rooms.
Apparently, the knights who lived in the castle worried that if they died in bed their ghosts would wander the rooms forever, so they had the ghost spikes installed to capture their ghosts in flight so when the sun would come up during the day it would turn them to dust. It’s the belief they had at the time.
However, others believe the spikes were installed to capture witches. So, there is some debate about their actual use, but there is no debate that they were installed due to paranormal concerns they had at the time because, as one of the room guides explained to me, the castle was, and still is, extremely haunted.
The room guides in the castle are similar to museum guides, who are always around, available to provide information and history to visitors.
If you look at the ceiling just to the left, above the edge of the bed, in the photo above, you’ll see one of the spikes shooting down. The fear of the paranormal was so prevalent in the castle that you will find the ghost/witch spikes in nearly all the rooms. In the second photo, you can see how frequent they were. Look at the ceiling to the right and left of the portrait.
Not only that, but according to another room guide, there are also crosses strategically placed throughout the rooms for similar purposes.
If you look at the picture below with the pair of pink chairs, look above the chair to the right and next to the lamp on the nightstand and you’ll see one of the crucifixes on the wall.
Overall, the castle was brilliant, and it really was like stepping into a fairytale. The rooms were richly decorated, each in their own character, and each had its own unique feel, almost as if you could sense the history. It was just, wow!
However, there was one room that I didn’t enjoy being in and both my wife and I commented later about how creepy the room was. It was strange because the room was one of the most feminine and pleasantly decorated, in pink pastels. If anything, the room was perfectly adorned for an enchanting princess. So, at the time, we didn’t know why, but we did not enjoy visiting that room. Something seemed wrong.
When we left the room we went into a small hall and we got hit with the coldest air we had felt in that building. It was so cold that I looked up in case there was an air conditioner blowing down on us, but there were no vents.
The guide understood what I was looking for and that’s when he explained that most of the other guides believed ghosts were haunting the castle and that supposedly explained why there were such cold breezes, even though the windows and doors were closed, but he admitted that although he was still new, he thought it was all just a bunch of nonsense, which was funny because he rubbed both of his arms from the chill when he told me that.
We quickly left the freezing hall and once again soon felt the comforting warmth of the castle.
THE MOST COMPELLING EVIDENCE I HAVE EVER PHOTOGRAPHED!
Now, looking at the photos of that room and the hall beyond it, I know why we felt such intense cold. It appears there was at least one spirit there, but there may have been two!
The photos I am about to show you are amazing, but also, in a very real sense, unnerving.
Especially considering we had no idea what was there.
The photos have not been modified, other than some zooming and cropping. I am happy to make the photos available for scrutiny by professionals. However, please keep in mind I hold the copyright to these photos as they are my personal photos and any use of them needs my express, written permission.
Take a look.
Photo 1:
In the first photo in this series, you will see through the doorway, as the hall turns, is a strange anomaly. When I zoom in really close, it appears to be a face!
Cropped and zoomed in:
Pay also attention to what’s below the orange circle as that’s part of whatever is manifesting there, which the follow-up photo will clearly show.
Photo 2:
This photo is even stranger, if not as creepy as the first, it appears to be an apparition of a girl in a yellow dress. Take a good look, there’s one photo zoomed out and one zoomed in closer for you. Also, if you go back to photo one, it almost looks like the apparition was already forming. The yellow dress is more obvious in the second cropped image, see below.
Photo 3:
This one is the clincher for me because, in this final photo, there’s nothing!
As you can see, the apparition is gone and there’s nothing there at all, except an empty hall, which we walked through just a moment later and is where we felt the bitterly cold breeze of air.
I still get chills just viewing these photos!
In my opinion, there is a clear apparition in the first set of photos, and what makes this so compelling to me is that in the third and final photo, there’s absolutely nothing there! The fact that there’s not even something that could be mistaken as an apparition like perhaps a jacket hung on the wall, or a mop, or something else physically obstructing the hallway, is really fascinating (and kind of frightening).
We walked through the hall and there was nothing, absolutely nothing in it, nothing but an empty space and a very cold breeze. And we were the last visitors, so no other person was ahead of us. Keep in mind we had no clue what we had captured on camera at that time!
It just boggles my mind. Who knows what else was in the castle that we didn’t realize.
*Update, I sent this article to the castle’s caretakers and I was informed there’s a sculpture in the hall. I don’t remember the sculpture during my visit, but I’m open to the possiblity. However, there’s one problem, even if it were something explainable, like a sculpture, where did it go in the final photo?
Overall, the castle was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The staff was just as amazing, very helpful, informative, and some of the nicest people you’ll meet.
REMINDER my video of De Haar Castle is coming soon to my YouTube Channel-don’t miss it. Just subscribe to my YouTube channel so you’ll be notified.
On a side note, it’s crazy for me to realize this castle is only a short distance from where the Dutch side of my family is from, near Utrecht. I used to play every summer as a kid only about 20 minutes away from the castle. I’m surprised we never visited it.
You often hear about the Bavarian castles in Germany as being the grandest but it’s this castle in the Netherlands that really sets the bar. I’ve been to hundreds of castles in Europe and this one is especially unique. I loved it. We want to visit again.
That’s it for this post, thanks for reading and viewing these incredible shots.
I can’t say it enough, the woman in the yellow dress is my most compelling paranormal evidence to date, and as you can tell, I’m still stunned by it, and I guess I always will be. I mean, what luck to capture something like that.
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