Haunted WW2 wheelchair that made Phillip Schofield’s leg ‘disappear’ spooks museum workers

The Haunted Objects Museum in Rotherham, South Yorkshire has taken in a WW2 wheelchair thatmade an infamous appearance on This Morning back in 2018 – and is up to its old tricks again

Staff at a haunted museum are terrified after taking in a ‘haunted’ WW2 wheelchair that made Phillip Schofield’s leg ‘disappear’ on TV. Ghost hunters and paranormal item collectors Lee Steer and his girlfriend Sarah Carter snapped up the ex-military hospital item for £350 when it went up for auction on Facebook earlier this month.

And after moving the wheelchair into the Haunted Objects Museum in Rotherham in South Yorkshire, they carried out their own experiments to see if they could contact any spirits.

Lee, 39, claims the item is haunted by the spirit of an old man known as ‘William’ who is said to be an ex-patient at the hospital and a female nurse spirit who was known for looking after him.

He claims people are said to feel ‘changes in their body’ when taking a perch in the wheelchair. Former ITV’s This Morning presenter Schofield’s leg appeared to ‘disappear’ when sat in it on the show in October 2018 – but the presenter dismissed it as a camera ‘glitch’.

And when Lee sat in the chair to carry out his own investigations on the evening of June 15, he claims he felt so sick and dizzy he had to cut the experiment short as he felt so uncomfortable.

Unsettling footage shows Lee sitting in the wheelchair with a blindfold and headphones on, holding his head in pain while his girlfriend 34-year-old Sarah asks the spirit questions.

After only a minute-and-a-half into the investigation, Lee is seen to remove the ghost hunting devices as he says it is making him feel so ill.

The ghost hunter also claims he felt a ‘painful sensation’ in his right ankle and leg while sitting in the wheelchair, which he says intensified for five minutes and then eased off.

Looking back at the livestream investigation, Lee now believes this could have been the spirit mimicking a limb amputation on him that ‘William’ may have undergone in the hospital.

The duo are now speaking out about their experiences in the wheelchair and claim their investigation findings back-up that the chair is ‘haunted’.

However Sarah claims that since bringing the chair into the museum, there have been hearing ‘footsteps’ and ‘mumblings’ – with the venue’s ‘energy ramping up no end’.

The usually intrepid ghost hunter claims the eerie goings-on are leaving her ‘too scared to walk around it on her own’.

Lee, from Rotherham in South Yorkshire, said: “It’s a WW2 wheelchair and was used in a military hospital for wounded soldiers. The chair is considered to be haunted or cursed and people [are said to] feel changes in their body when they sit in the chair.

“They might feel sensations in their leg, arms or chest or have said to have struggled to breathe or feel like their leg is amputated when they sit in it.

“It went on ITV This Morning and Phillip Schofield sat in the chair and said he felt fine but then on the images later on of people watching the show, they realised that there was a strange camera glitch on his leg.

“I sat in the chair on a livestream. Everyone has reported that when they sit in the chair something happens with their body so I was very eager to sit in the chair and test it and see if I felt anything.

“I wasn’t expecting to feel anything. On this occasion, within a couple of minutes I started to feel a painful sensation in my right ankle and right leg. It intensified and lasted for about five minutes and then eased off.

“Thinking back to that particular moment, I think it could have been [the feeling of] an amputation of the ankle or foot. I was feeling sick and dizzy and disorientated with the blindfold on.

“I had to take it off as it was that uncomfortable. We do this experiment a lot and can do it for a long time but on this occasion, I lasted a couple of minutes.

“It’s hard to say exactly what it was but looking at reports on the chair, it’s likely that it was a spirit putting feelings on me of what they were feeling when they were alive or in the last moments of their life.

“I feel they were trying to let me know how they felt sitting in their chair. It more than likely could be William but lots of people sat in this chair, so I’ve been told. William is said to be the most dominant spirit there with the nurse that looked after him.”

Sarah was watching Lee while he conducted the experiment in the WW2 wheelchair and says she almost stopped the investigation as he looked so uncomfortable.

Sarah, from Sheffield in South Yorkshire, said: “The chair was very large and intimidating and takes you back in time. It’s very hard not to think of war casualties when you look at it. I felt quite intimidated by the chair.

“Lee started to look uncomfortable and I thought I’m going to tap him and make him come out of this but that’s when he decided to stop the investigation himself.”

The ghost hunting pair also carried out temperature and REM pod readings on the wheelchair after purchasing it and claimed to have recorded spirit activity.

They said the temperature mapper picked up ‘cold chills’ in the middle of the chair, which is said to be a sign of a spirit being present. Lee also reported hearing ‘footsteps’ and ‘a nurse humming’ when conducting other investigations on the war item.

Lee said: “I’ve never experienced someone humming like this before in the museum. It was so echoey and loud and filled the room. I think she [the haunted nurse spirit] was just minding her own business and my gut was telling me she was singing.

“Before we went live, we put a temperature mapper on the chair and it was showing a constant cold chill in the middle of the chair. That should not be displaying anything.

“Spirits are said to show themselves through cold chills and people believe this is where the spirit is standing so it suggests that there could be a spirit sitting in the chair and it could be William. After all of our experiments, [our findings] definitely support the fact that it’s a haunted chair.”

The WW2 wheelchair is the couple’s latest addition to their haunted museum and Sarah says she is now almost too scared to go into it alone.

Sarah said: “The REM pod was going off a lot which it doesn’t always. We were doing voice recordings too and we were always getting something back that was muffled and mumbling.

“It could have been an older gentleman but we couldn’t work out the words. At one point, when we moved the chair upstairs, we then heard banging in that room when we were standing in another room.

“They were thuds like footsteps as though someone was monitoring the place like a nurse was doing her rounds. I feel that the energy in the museum is ramping up no end. It’s getting to a point where I’m too scared to walk around it on my own.”