When the villagers reach for their pitchforks and torches, you know there will be trouble ahead.
An angry mob gripped by mass hysteria strikes fear into even the bravest.
So imagine the terror of residents of Dalkeith Road, Dundee, when a mob of 5,000 descended on their quiet street in 1927.
The peace of a late September Tuesday evening was shattered by the crowd armed with torches and a searchlight, determined to dish out justice to a ghost.
One or two ringleaders fired up the crowd with tales of the spook.
It had been seen riding a white pony in a field by a youth returning from church one evening.
Others had spotted it legging it through Craigie Quarries and down Dalkeith Road. The crowd raked around the quarries, streets and fields for about five hours but failed to catch the ghost.
Throughout the evening some left the crowd and others joined, so the total number chasing the ghost could have been closer to 10,000.
The Craigie ghost bore similarities to Dundee’s gliding spectre of 1869.
This thin figure with horrifying features was chased down Hilltown by police in dawn’s cold light. They tracked it along Murraygate, High Street and Reform Street but it disappeared in the Howff in a blue flash.
In Lochee in 1906 residents were afraid to leave their homes because of a ghost.
A girl of 20 came across the awful vision on Perrie Street. It was dressed in white and its hat was ablaze with light. As the breeze blew the folds in its garments aside, it disclosed vestments of flaming red.
Across in Downfield that same week residents called a council of war when a phosphorescent ghost got up to high jinx near the tennis courts.
It showed up just as they were getting ready for bed but they quickly formed a task force armed with sticks and bludgeons.
They tracked the ghost down to a field but as they closed in the ghost slipped into Camperdown Woods.