I’m now retired but I used to be a policeman, at one stage I worked in the East side of Newcastle upon Tyne. I was on night duty (10pm till 6 am) one summer night in 1991, when about 3am my partner and I got a radio call to attend an alarm being activated at a local social club, the radio operator said he’d telephoned the key holder who would meet us at the scene. This happened, and he opened the locked up building, on entering he looked at the alarm panel and reported the alarm was activated in the downstairs gents toilet (bathroom or restroom) we entered the main hallway, the gents toilet door was facing us, just then it went VERY cold, this was midsummer and we’re in shirtsleeves, at that point a man, about 5’ 6” in height ( my wife is 5’6” ), he was dressed in a black tuxedo with a black bow tie, his hairstyle reminded me of the 1940s - 1950s, he was looking straight in front of him, we were standing to his right side, he never looked at us, not once, just walked forward about three paces, I suddenly remembered why we were there and I quickly moved forward to apprehend him, as I put my hand on his right shoulder, he just faded away, he completely disappeared in front of the three of us.
We were left standing there, shocked, and confused, we couldn’t explain what we’d just witnessed. The key holder finally said “That was a ghost, we’ve just seen a fucking ghost haven’t we?”
We quickly looked around and finding nothing else we locked up again. We reported it as a fault on the system, we knew that we’d be totally ridiculed by our colleagues on the shift.
We didn’t even record it in our pocket note books as we were supposed to.
My partner and I have not spoken about it ever. The key holder, who by day worked as a barman in that club, resigned the next day and never returned. The building was demolished in 1996, it no longer exists. But I can’t help but wonder if that spirit still walks that area. Three grown, sober, and serious men, two of us professional police officers saw and felt this, it’s a perfectly true story, I swear by all that’s holy. I later reported the story in a force magazine that was looking for stories from past officers, I was later contacted by another retired policeman who retired years before me. He told me that the MC at that club always wore a tuxedo back in the day and one of them died of a heart attack in the gents toilet, he actually did the sudden death (coroner’s) report. This is all true. I forgot to mention that this ’figure’ we saw looked perfectly real and solid when seen by us, he wasn’t transparent or shimmering, nothing like that. I did get a name from the old sergeant that dealt with the sudden death, I will not mention it, I believe there are still living relatives in the area, and the past is the past, let sleeping dogs lie.