Once again, we have a case of a “haunting” or anomalous event being staged for a TV show. Our helpful tipster from the U.K., David James, has clued us in that the Whitstable drug shop was a staged hoax. We knew that but now more details are out.

It was clear that there were some questionable figures around the small store. It turns out it was wise to pay attention to these folks, they were the hoaxers.

Last night, the show The Happenings episode “Haunted Town” ran in the U.K. Here is the website but the trailer is not viewable in all locations due to content restrictions.

David watched the episode after catching the trailer purely by chance! He writes:

[...] two of the writers of Derran Brown attempt, via trickery and fakery, to convince a town that it’s haunted. I immediately noted the CCTV footage from the first few seconds [as the Whitstable shop] [The activity was] all preformed by a pair of magicians called Barry and Stuart.

They don’t explain how they did any of their tricks but they do admit that it was them in the black outfits loitering at the back of the shop. The episode was actually fairly good!

He goes on to say that the new show did not have the best ratings and was not viewed by a lot of people. That is, more saw the You Tube video of the hoax without ever knowing the truth behind it! It’s troubling that the trend is to create these urban myths purely for the purposes of a TV show, especially if the viral hoax gets far more views than the reveal.