The Malta Ghost Story Went Viral. Then the Wrong Farmhouse Threatened Legal Action

The woman heard someone calling “Mum” from another room. She assumed it was the child staying with them, but another voice followed, and she noticed a shadow beneath a bedroom door.

It was the night of September 22, 2026, in Xewkija, a village on the Maltese island of Gozo. Four adults and a child were spending their holiday in a rented farmhouse when the evening took a frightening turn.

Their dog was also behaving strangely, and before long, the rest of the house seemed to be joining in.

Something Was Moving Around the House

According to the holidaymakers, an oven door began opening and closing by itself. A fan moved across a room, and buttons on the microwave appeared to activate without anyone touching them.

The strange activity was happening in several parts of the farmhouse. Nobody could explain what was going on, and the guests were becoming increasingly frightened.

One of the most unsettling accounts came from a person who claimed to have seen a man walk straight through a closed glass door. The figure reportedly had a white face and no eyes.

Another member of the group described being grabbed from behind and thrown onto a bed. The encounter frightened him badly enough that the holidaymakers decided they weren’t spending another minute inside.

They went outside and called the police.

The Police Arrived at Two in the Morning

At around 2 a.m. on September 23, officers from the Victoria Police Station responded to the emergency call. They arrived to find all five holidaymakers waiting outside the farmhouse.

The group explained what they had experienced, including the strange voices, moving objects and the encounter with the unidentified figure. Nobody was injured, but the guests were clearly shaken.

Officers asked whether anyone else was inside the house. The holidaymakers said there wasn’t, and police carried out inquiries before staying long enough for the group to arrange their departure.

The police also brought in a priest during the night. Reverend Dr. Marcello Ghirlando later confirmed to the Times of Malta that he had been contacted to visit the residence, although he didn’t publicly describe what happened during his visit.

News of the incident spread quickly across Malta. Newspapers and local websites picked up the story, and people began sharing accounts of the supposed ghost that had driven a family out of their holiday home.

Malta Paranormal and Gozo Paranormal Investigations even offered to spend time inside the farmhouse to investigate. They proposed a full overnight investigation, provided the owner agreed to let them in.

But there was one fairly important problem. Nobody outside the investigation seemed to know exactly which farmhouse it was.

The Internet Found a Suspect

As the story spread online, people began trying to identify the property. Eventually, attention settled on a farmhouse in Xewkija called Rummiena, operated by the holiday accommodation company GozoStays.

The company’s name started appearing in discussions about the haunting. People were connecting its rental property to the frightened holidaymakers, even though the original reports hadn’t identified the address.

For GozoStays, this was becoming a serious headache. A ghost story might attract plenty of curious readers, but having a rental property associated with frightening encounters isn’t necessarily wonderful for bookings. On September 29, the company issued a public statement denying that Rummiena had anything to do with the incident.

According to GozoStays, the farmhouse had been completely empty on the night of September 22. No guests had checked in, and the company insisted that none of the events described in the news had taken place at its property.

The operator was determined to stop the rumor before it spread any further. It warned that people who continued identifying Rummiena as the haunted farmhouse could face legal action.

A Ghost Story With Two Different Problems

By this point, the story had taken an unusual turn. The police had responded to a group of people frightened enough to abandon their holiday accommodation, while a completely different property was attracting unwanted attention.

GozoStays wasn’t trying to explain the voices, the moving appliances or the strange figure. It wanted people to stop naming its farmhouse as the location.

Meanwhile, the original incident was attracting interest from religious authorities. Malta Daily reported that the police had closed their investigation and passed the case to the Curia, the administrative office of the Catholic Church.

There were also questions about whether a formal Church investigation had begun. Reverend Ghirlando’s visit was confirmed, but the wider religious inquiry was less clear.

The paranormal investigators remained interested in visiting the real house. Without an owner willing to identify the location and grant access, however, their proposed overnight investigation couldn’t get very far. And the attention surrounding the farmhouse wasn’t finished yet.

Even Parliament Got Involved

On October 6, the strange encounter reached Malta’s Parliament. Opposition MP Beppe Galea submitted questions to Home Affairs Minister Glenn Bedingfield. He wanted to know whether police had returned to the farmhouse after the initial incident and whether investigators had gathered statements, inspected the building or collected further evidence.

These were fairly straightforward questions about a police response that had attracted national attention. With the story circulating across Malta and a rental company threatening legal action, there was plenty of interest in what the authorities had done.

Bedingfield didn’t provide the requested details. Instead, he decided to have a little fun with the country’s increasingly famous ghost story.

Galea got an answer, at least.

“The requested information has disappeared!”