Haunted Magazine Issue 23 with Greg and Dana Newkirk

CONTENTS ISSUE 23 EDI TO R IA L HERE’S ANOTHER FINE MESS OF AN ISSUE WE’VE GOT OURSELVES INTO… Never have I seen an issue of Haunted Magazine be SO different and yet in sync at the same time. ‘Weird’, you may think, ‘impossible’, you may shout but it’s true. When we sit down and plan an issue, truth is is that we don’t actually sit down and plan an issue, we have a thinly veiled vein idea of what we want and who we want in it, but we allow the writers, old and new to send us their ideas on what they want to write about, all we say is “in the style of Haunted Magazine, you understand us, get what we are about, as long as there’s some paranormal linkage”. None of the writers know what the others are writing about so it’s a joy when we receive features that are to quote Stan Laurel; “same but different”. Features that agree with each other, features that disagree with each other and features that are just so perfect for Haunted Magazine you’d think that the ghosts, the spooks, the magic and the mystery are on our side. Speaking of “laurels” we never rest on them and continually strive to better Haunted Magazine, issue after issue after issue, we’d be fool(Oliver)Hardy not to do so.

Enjoy the issue.

Paul

#DontBeNormal BE PARANORMAL!!

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THE “SCARE” ROOT OF ALL EVIL: HAVE WE GOTTEN TOO GREEDY WITH THE EVIDENCE WE ARE FINDING?

THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL: LESSON UP!!

RICHARD ESTEP GOES BACK TO SCHOOL

THE GHOSTS OF BUTTON HALL: WE CHAT TO SOME REAL GHOSTS; A CAVEMAN, A DISGRACED MP, A POET & A SCOUT MASTER

MOURNING HAS BROKEN: JAMES PYKETT TRIES HIS HAND AT GHOST HUNTING IN THE DAY, DID IT SIMPLY DAWN ON HIM?

IS PARANORMAL EVIDENCE A BONE OF CONTENTION? IF ALL EVIDENCE IS EQUAL, WHY IS SOME MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS?

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GUIDE AND SEEK: IS IT NOW TIME FOR THE SPIRIT WORLD TO HELP US

MORE?

WEIRD UP: TELL YOUR BROTHER, YOUR SISTER, YOUR MAMA TOO. * EXCLUSIVE * INTERVIEW WITH GREG & DANA NEWKIRK THE LIFE OF BARRIE: NUDGE, NUDGE, WINK, WINK, SAY NO MORE! MEDIUM BARRIE JOHN TELLS US IT’S NOT ALL LOVE & LIGHT ATTACK OF THE SCARESHIPS: WHEN IS A U.F.O NOT A U.F.O? WHEN IT’S A SCARESHIP, OF COURSE. MIKE COVELL EXPLAINS WHY? NOT SO ‘ORRIBLE HISTORIES: FEE FI FOO FIGHTER FUM, WE SMELL THE FEATURE OF OUR FEMALE HISTORIAN, PENNY GRIFFITHS-MORGAN WHAT HAPPENED WHEN #HAUNTEDLIVE WENT CLUBBING: MURDER ON THE DANCEFLOOR? THEY BETTER NOT KILL THE GROOVE

SEA, SHELLS, SEASHORE: HUBERT HUBOX GOES COAST TO COAST, HUNTING FOR GHOST TO GHOST

LUCE WOMAN: LUCY AND HER PRIVATE PERSONAL GHOST HUNT AT BODMIN JAIL

MILLENNIALS MEDDLING IN THE MYSTICAL: INTERVIEW WITH A

TEENAGE GHOST HUNTER

EXORCISING: IS IT HEALTHY FOR THE PARANORMAL? SAM BENNETTS ON POSSESSIONS AND EXORCISMS

A DAY IN THE LIFE: NICKY ALAN REVISITS AN OLD CASE, THE BEGINNING, THE MIDDLE & THE END TRIVIAL PURSUITS: GHOST HUNTING WITH GADGETS IS IT JUST ANOTHER WEDGE IN THE PARANORMAL?

ASYLUM SEEKERS: NOT ALL OWNERS OF ALLEGED “HAUNTED LOCATIONS ARE WELCOMING GHOST HUNTERS PARANORMAL CAPTURED: WE CHAT TO THREE CREDIBLE PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT A NEW TV SHOW PARTICULAR PERSONAL PARANORMAL POINT OF VIEW: #PARAUNITY – AN ISSUE? AN ISSUE? WE ALL FALL DOWN

SOME LIKE IT HOT: IS THE ACTIVITY AT MOIRA FURNACE WARMING UP? VICKY GRANT INVESTIGATES

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PARANORMAL INSUFFICIENCY THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL? FLAWED? THE ROOT OF ALL HAPPINESS?

BY MORGAN KNUDSEN Assisted by Patricia Latham

Insufficiency. The word hits most people as the equivalent of one word: lack. Lack of money, lack of food, lack of material goods, lack of respect, and at the core of all of it: a lack of self-love. Insufficient. Most of us can look back on our lives and resonate with this word on some level.

In regard to the paranormal, insufficient is a word that often abounds: insufficient “evidence”, insufficient resources, and insufficient solutions, experiments, or answers. Both sides have made the argument.

“The skeptical complain that there is insufficient evidence (which is factually not accurate), where the parapsychologists often complain of insufficient resources or funding” So, what if, WHAT IF, insufficient meant something different?

What if the root of the feeling of insufficiency is flawed? What if, culturally, we have been conditioned by our addiction to ‘lack-based thinking’ to believe that “insufficient” is wrong? Now I offer a possible new definition: What if “insufficiency” was actually the root of happiness? The root and beginning of the creative process. What if insufficiency breeds the beginning of molding the creative energy that brings us the most joy?

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We live in a society that demands immediate results.

Moulding the energetic clay, so to speak, and fine-tuning a creation is not something most people take pleasure in. They want it yesterday, and when they don’t see it, they observe the lack, which sends them back to square one, debilitating the passion needed for the creative endeavor. But without insufficiency, would the creative endeavor have been started to begin with? Would the thought have been received or curated?

Probably not. The insufficiency, or contrast, in our experience may indeed be the catalyst for happiness. “I am insufficient” is flawed as a negative because it means “I no longer have the ability for expansion.”

Professor Joseph Campbell invested heavily in this very concept. To explain his argument, the mythologist spoke of these same terms in the Sanskrit language. For Campbell, it remains humankind’s most important spiritual language; Sat (the immutable being or essence of an entity), chit (total consciousness) and Ananda, (ecstasy or outburst). These three concepts form the basis from which we may begin a true spiritual path. Ultimately, that path begins from insufficiency: A need for expansion, a need for more.

In the world of parapsychology, “more” and “expansion” is nearly the definition of the work itself. The study of consciousness, the ever-expanding mind, is the very foundation of psi research. It is about asking the hard questions about what is referred to as “The Hard Problem”: What is consciousness? Parapsychology could not exist without insufficiency and is, perhaps, one of the best examples of the happiness in insufficiency. As much as many complain about the pitfalls and constantly moving bar, as well as often unreasonable scientific standards (Dr Jessica Utts, president of the American Statistical Association, once demonstrated that had Advil been put to the same standards as many parapsychological tests, it would have failed miserably, yet we all still accept it will cure a headache), insufficiency leads us to the joy and fun we all have in pursuing those answers. They are ever expanding and often bring up far more questions than solutions, but as a paranormal researcher myself, I realized early on that “we never get it done”. And that is, indeed, a good chunk of the fun.

Unfortunately, we have built a western society fuelled on insufficiency and it has bled over into identity. Our identity, our spirit, and our personal accomplishments tend to be judged based on a faulty polarity: Insufficient to sufficient. We even tend to believe that having enough material goods or, in extreme cases, believing you must be “perfect” must mean that you, yourself, must be then sufficient. Narcissists and sociopathic personalities often believe they are indeed perfectly sufficient and infallible, yet if you have ever met one, they are, perhaps, the most miserable people you will ever meet. Bitter, angry, and hollow in their existence, they tend to despise any sense of happiness that their prey may feel unless it is directly related to their actions. So, how does the absence of insufficient in the belief system make you miserable? Perhaps because the absence of the ability or willingness to expand and grow is what indeed makes one miserable. Without the contrast needed for expansion, without the catalyst that insufficiency presents us, can we be happy in a finite universe?

Loss aversion is a concept in psychology that may be relevant here. Loss aversion, in cognitive psychology and decision theory, refers to people’s tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it is better to not lose $50 than to find $50. The principle is very prominent in the domain of economics and politics. It is something that served us in the early days of survival where the day’s hunt was not guaranteed, but it is an extremely lack-based mind frame and in order to “plug in” to abundance, this egodriven thought process may indeed be a way for the ego to protect it self from perceived loss and fear of insufficiency.

However, in the context of happiness, is it more fun to have the $50 in your pocket, or to find the $50? Though one may argue that having the $50 may feel more secure, the journey from not having the $50 to finding the bill randomly, may point to the idea that the catalyst of insufficiency may indeed make finding the $50 much happier. The probability and realization of finding (or manifesting) the $50, especially through focused attention, is usually agreed upon as the more rewarding experience.

A possible new definition of insufficiency is “Probabilities that have not yet manifested”, as it is, indeed, the catalyst for the journey.

The decision comes after that altered definition: Will the journey be a good one? That is a decision that belongs only to the adventurer. Our experiences are based on data, and our perceptions of that data are based on the story we tell ourselves about said data. Things are neither good nor bad, they only take on the probability or vibration of the story being told about them.

The current definition of insufficient permits people to be the victim, which is extremely addictive to the ego.

However, it explains why the negative definition of insufficiency is so popular in personal relationships, politics, and even global issues. It is, perhaps, the best definition humanity has created to keep itself victimized because it keeps people in a state of lack. If things are insufficient, based on the old definition, it gives people the reason and excuse to not be responsible for their manifestations, and if it changed to the concept that it is the catalyst for

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expansion, a lot of politicians would be out of work.

We live in a universe of probabilities.

It does not know lack. When you walk into a room, there is no ‘dark switch’, only a switch to illuminate. My python can enter the same dark room, and with his ability to see into the UV and infrared ends of the light spectrum, does not observe the room as dark at all. There is no insufficiency of light, we just cannot see the level of light available. Insufficiency is similar: It is the beginning of probability. Just because we can’t see them, does not mean the probabilities of creation are not present. And when we have already told ourselves that insufficient means “ending”, we have closed the door to those probabilities and therefore, the happiness of new expansion they offer.

Pushing against the expansion that is truly the nature of our universe not only creates resistance but also emotional pain. Whenever we buck against the flow of events by way of denial, failing to heal wounds, or in non-acceptance, we create an emotional injury that bleeds. Fail to stop the bleeding and it will get messy quickly. Here is where acknowledging insufficiency as the entry point to joy can begin to shape this new definition, and it comes back to one thing: A decision.

Do we live in a friendly universe, or a vicious one? How you answer this question will ultimately determine how you view the word “insufficient”.

Will you choose it to be the catalyst to expansion, or is it the bringer of war and greed? You cannot answer for another. You can only answer for yourself. The decision is yours.

Morgan x

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.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE

The Shadow Principal

Investigating the haunted Farrar School

By Richard Estep

“It’s easy to understand why some places are haunted.”

Prisons. Hospitals. Mental health facilities.

Battlefields. All these types of locations have one thing in common: they are prone to the build-up of large quantities of negative, often violent, emotion...and where we find strong emotion, we also often find ghosts.

When we look at other kinds of places, however, it can be difficult to understand just why they might be haunted. A great example of this is the Farrar School. Situated in the middle of rural Iowa, with little other than a handful of houses and a highway surrounding it for miles around, this three-story building has a richly deserved reputation for being one of America’s most haunted schools...if not the most haunted.

“This three-story building has a richly deserved reputation for being one of America’s most haunted schools...if not the most haunted. Yet the question remains: why?”

Yet the question remains: why? After first opening its doors in the 1920s, Farrar was a place of learning for close to one hundred years. Generation after generation of children came through its doors. Although school can be a difficult experience for some (if you’re a bullied kid, as I was, then your schooldays were most definitely NOT the happiest days of your life) there is little in the way of tragedy and death in the school’s history, as far as I can tell. Although there are rumors of classroom conditions having sometimes been harsh, there is little to set it apart from any other school in the country.

Having said that, there is something different about Farrar. Something unique.

It hits you from the very first moment you walk through the double doors of the main entrance. The place has an atmosphere and an energy that just must be experienced to be believed.

I first heard about the place from the TV show Ghost Stalkers. Produced by Nick Groff, it teamed up paranormal investigator John E.L. Tenney with actor Chad Lindberg (The Fast and the Furious, Supernatural) and over the course of the series, placed them into a series of supposedly haunted locations... alone.

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PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP The Farrar episode was a fascinating one.

I found myself particularly intrigued with the mysterious shadow figure known as ‘the Principal.’ Whether this tall apparition, sometimes reported by eyewitnesses to have glowing red eyes, was truly a former principal of the school is difficult to say. However,

those who encounter this spirit sometimes find him to be angry and aggressive.

After asking around, I was fortunate enough to discover that two of my friends had already been to Farrar, and would be only too happy to join me on a paranormal road trip later that summer, the centerpiece of which would be

spending 72 hours at the school, trying to uncover some of its mysteries.

“It was to be an experience that none of us would ever forget.”

Erik is not only a skilled paranormal investigator, but also a respected author in his own right (check out his book ‘Supposedly Haunted,’ it’s a great read). Our companion, Stephen, is Catholic priest with a passionate interest in all things ghostly.

The three of us worked well together, had the same juvenile sense of humor, and were all stupid enough to spend our hard-earned holiday time skulking around in old and haunted buildings, instead of soaking up the sun somewhere exotic, as most people like to do.

It takes about nine hours to drive from my adopted state of Colorado to the Iowa border. Over the space of the next few days, we spent evenings investigating the Squirrel Cage prison and the notorious Villisca Axe Murder House, before finally turning our attention to the Farrar School.

My first thought when we drove up the long driveway that led to the imposing edifice was that we really were in the middle of nowhere. Other than a scattering of houses and one of the smallest graveyards I have ever seen, the only thing around us seemed to be fields and open space.

The owners, Jim and Nancy, were friendly and gracious hosts. They left us in the capable hands of Will, the caretaker, who gave us a guided tour of the place.

We started with the expansive grounds, which included a big, old tree that evoked childhood memories of the film Poltergeist.

As he spoke of the tree, the land on which the school had been built, and the Native American connections that this region of the country had, it became very obvious to us just how passionate Will was about Farrar. In fact, as we went inside and climbed the stairs to the third floor — which has a reputation for being the most haunted part of the building — he casually mentioned that he and his wife had gotten married in the auditorium, the largest room up there, which was fitted with a stage for performances and so forth.

At the end of the third-floor hallway was the principal’s office, a small, cramped little room that was slightly elevated, so that it was possible to sit at the desk and look down upon the whole length of the corridor.

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.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE It was also the place in which, according to a few psychic mediums who had visited the school, a portal was supposed to be located, allowing spirit entities to travel back and forth between our plane of existence and their own.

(To this day, I maintain a healthy skepticism toward the concept of portals but am definitely open to the possibility that they might be real).

“The chalk boards had long since been wiped clean of mathematic equations and English lessons; now, they were filled with the signatures of the countless paranormal investigators who had come to Farrar before us, including John Tenney, Elizabeth Saint, Johnny Houser, and many other names that I recognized and respected.”

We wandered in and out of the various classrooms. The chalk boards had long since been wiped clean of mathematic equations and English lessons; now, they were filled with the signatures of the countless paranormal investigators who had come to Farrar before us, including John Tenney, Elizabeth Saint, Johnny Houser, and many other names that I recognized and respected. I knew that Johnny, who is caretaker of the Villisca Axe Murder House, had suffered a violent encounter with one of the spirits of Farrar, when some kind of invisible force had suddenly slammed his head backwards into one of the coat hooks that were screwed into the wall. He was very fortunate indeed not to have sustained a serious injury.

Much of the ground floor is taken up by the old gymnasium. In addition to the countless sports games that have taken place there over the years (including the Harlem Globetrotters, at one point in time), this big, empty space was also used to host dances and social functions. A lot of positive energy would have filled the gym as a consequence of that, and as I wandered from one basketball net to the other, I wondered whether that went some way toward explaining the haunting...after all, positive emotional energy can lead to paranormal phenomena every bit as much as the darker, negative stuff can.

But as we were led into the boiler room by Will, the atmosphere seemed to shift, becoming distinctly less pleasant. Months later, when I interviewed filmmaker Seth Alne, he would tell me that something dark had taken up residence in there. As he was

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telling us about the shadow figures that had been sighted in this part of the school, I got the shock of my life. From the corner of my eye, I caught something moving on top of one of the water tanks.

“IT’SAF*****GSNAKE!” I yelped as if those few words were joined together, all semblance of professionalism gone in a splitsecond. The snake uncoiled itself slowly, opening its jaws and hissing in our general direction. Erik and Stephen barely batted an eyelid.

I, on the other hand, practically jumped into the air like Scooby Doo. “Bull snake.” Will sounded bored.

“Just a six-footer. Not too bad.

I mean, they bite, but they ain’t poisonous.”

Sod that for a lark, I thought to myself, backing slowly away. Now, when it came to ghosts, I wasn’t frightened of much, but snakes were an entirely different story.

Indiana Jones had the right idea when it came to the slithery little buggers, if you asked me. There was no way I’d be spending much time down in the boiler room, if I had any say in the matter.

Not long afterward, it began to grow dark outside. Will headed home, leaving just the three of us to explore the grand old schoolhouse all by ourselves.

We learned over the course of the next three days and nights that Farrar had one thing in common with so many other haunted locations we had investigated: when it came to paranormal activity, things were very much ‘feast or famine.’

Sometimes, things would happen so thick and fast that it was almost impossible to keep up with them; at others, long stretches would go by — hours in length — without anything noteworthy happening at all.

We spent a lot of time in the auditorium, sitting on the stage in comfortable armchairs that had been left out there. The only source of illumination was a little moonlight coming in through the windows. It wasn’t long before we began to hear what sounded like

PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL.....THE STEP BY ESTEP footsteps, walking around behind us in the darkness at the back of the stage. There were also a number of dull thuds. We knew that it couldn’t possibly be a flesh-andblood person, as we were locked inside the school. Nor was it the sound of the boards naturally contracting, as it never happened again after that first night. This had sounded like the definite tread of footsteps, walking back and forth in the shadows. When we went back there to investigate, the footsteps promptly stopped. Could it perhaps have been a raccoon, or some other type of nocturnal critter? If so, the bloody thing had to have been wearing Doc Martens.

Apparently-random flashes of white light splashing across the back wall of the classroom were easy enough to debunk — they were down to the headlights of cars cresting a rise that lay behind the school — but we never could figure out what caused the multicolored lights that appeared to dart from place to place. We all saw them at one time or another, and a satisfactory explanation eluded us.

One thing that surprised me about the school, especially given its impressive reputation, was the distinct lack of EVPs that we obtained there. I had been warned by none other than John Tenney himself that sometimes, the building itself seemed to have an almost perverse sense of humor.

One case in point: John had spent several hours in a fruitless attempt to record EVPs at Farrar, only to come out with a whole bunch of nothing. Giving up in disgust, he made his way to the main doors and decided to call it a day.

As he closed the doors behind him, John didn’t know that he had forgotten to switch his voice recorder off. With a muttered, “This f****** place...” he went back to his car and left.

It was only when he got home and listened to the final section of audio that he heard a voice answer him very distinctly with the words, “F*** you, Tenney.”

The spirits of Farrar have quite a sense of timing, as we were to learn as we left the building at the end of

a very long night. We were all tired, running on caffeine and adrenaline.

Stepping out of the break room, Stephen, Erik, and I stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs. All three of us heard the clear sound of footsteps moving around up there, coming from the third floor.

“Hello?” I called out, craning my head to look up into the darkness. I wasn’t expecting a response — you never do, in such cases — which made it even more surprising that I got one.

“HELLO.” The voice was that of a woman. It had sounded lighthearted, almost singsong. My jaw dropped. All three of us stood frozen to the spot for a moment, hardly able to believe what we had just heard.

Stephen finally broke the deadlock, taking the stairs as fast as he could.

Erik and I were right on his heels.

We split up and searched high and low for the source of the voice.

Nothing. We checked the doors and exterior windows. Everything was locked up tight as a drum.

There was no way that anybody had broken in from outside, and so unless this was one of the very few people who were in possession of a key, we had no rational explanation for how it was that a woman’s voice had called back to me.

As I look back on it now, with the benefit of hindsight, I believe that this was a rare instance of direct voice — in other words, a spirit entity calling out an intelligent response.

The people I had talked to had been right: the Farrar School had not disappointed us. I eagerly anticipate my next investigation at the school, because when it comes to uncovering the mysteries surrounding this grand old place of learning, we have barely begun to scratch the surface.

“One thing that surprised me about the school, especially given its impressive reputation, was the distinct lack of EVPs that we obtained there.”

For those readers who would like to learn more about this case, the book written by my co-author, E.E. Bensen, and I (“A Haunting at Farrar”) will be released in June of 2019.

Richard

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Dead Funny!

An interview with some ghosts! NB - no gadgets were used

W

e’ve often wondered why there are not many comedies about the Paranormal, some say Most Haunted is the Most Comedic of them that are out there, but that’s for another discussion (and lawsuit), I am sure.

Is it because that the paranormal simply aint funny, what’s funny about talking to people in the dark that may or may not exist using gadgets that may or not work in locations that may or may not be haunted, what’s funny about grown men carrying around a haunted doll and what’s funny about hearing your name called out on an array of modern ghost hunting gadgets?

I tell you what’s funny about Ghost Hunting, every-fricking-thing, the fact that adults visit locations that may or may not be haunted, using gadgets that may or may not work and trying to contact the spirits of dead people that may or may not be listening. COME ON! It’s hilarious. The fact that gadgets divide the paranormal world and the #ParaUnity hashtag divides it even more. COME ON! I am pretending to piss myself laughing here, whilst rolling of the floor.

BUT put that aside, we’ve always wondered what would happen if the writer-stars of the classic CBBC show Horrible Histories and Sky One’s Yonderland reunited for a comedy about a group of ghosts who haunt a country mansion.

AND as if by some whiff of paranormal magic and spookiness, they have, and personally speaking they’ve hit the 10

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ghostly nail on the head with a big spooky hammer for it is how I view the paranormal (and hope that it is really like that), from the POV of the ghosts, all together, no matter what century they’re from, all being scared by the scary little girl and all in awe as one of the ghosts attempts to move a cup, it’s perfect, just perfect, it’s a full on ghost fest, full of ghosts and even better, they’ve called it

GHOSTS

“The writer-stars of Horrible Histories and Yonderland reunite for a comedy about a group of ghosts who haunt a country mansion”

So, here’s the synopsis, (if you’re already watching it, then you know the score, but for them that aren’t you need to catch up on BBC iPlayer before it disappears like a ghostly mist tumbleweeding over an old brewery floor).

Alison and Mike, a cash-strapped young couple struggling to buy their first home, think their prayers are answered when a distant relative bequeaths them a sprawling country estate. The catch? The old house is haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants. The restless spirits, horrified that the new owners plan to turn the peaceful pile into a bustling hotel, make plans to oust the troublesome newcomers. But their bungled efforts have unintended consequences…

How did Ghosts come about? What’s the story behind it?

Mathew Baynton (pictured): Initially we just wanted to do something together. We knew Horrible Histories was finishing and it was before series three of Yonderland, which we suspected would feel like enough. We wanted to come up with another thing to do together so we hired out a room in town and threw some ideas around. I think the Haunted House thing was one of the first…

Laurence Rickard: And then we rejected it, because all first ideas are terrible, so we thought there must be something else!

Mathew: We all got really excited about the idea of us playing loads of ghosts!

At the time, the idea was that we would play loads of characters each, as we’ve always done. We came up with loads of funny images and characters, but then when it came to writing the stories, we realised they don’t need jobs, they don’t fear death… they’re already dead!

It suddenly felt like there was no jeopardy that we could write into it, so we abandoned it and went to work on an alien, sci-fi idea, which is still in progress, but then something clicked and we realised the boredom of eternity and the existential aspects of the ghosts idea was unique. The stories could be really petty! We realised it was a house-share sitcom - and as soon as you stop thinking about those kind of major drama stakes, you unlock a story that is really domestic and petty.

We had the pleasure of catching up with the “ghosts” and guess what there were no Ouija boards, no spirit boxes, no gadgets, no nothing. We just sat down and chewed the paranormal fat with them.

We meet the multi-awarding winning original cast of Horrible Histories below: Mathew Baynton, who plays Thomas, Simon Farnaby, who plays Julian, Martha Howe-Douglas, who plays Fanny, Jim Howick, who plays Pat, Laurence Rickard, who plays Robin & Humphreys head, and Ben Willbond, who plays the Captain.

Laurence: All those house-share sitcoms contain people that are in a situation they are stuck in. Ghosts is the ultimate version of that, they are stuck together for hundreds of years and none of them can leave.

Then we realised by having the Mike and Alison characters that they then bring the stakes, the worries about money, life and everything you need for a story.

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What’s it like when you’re all in a room, writing and discussing ideas? Is someone doing the talking and someone else writing?

Ben Willbond: We have round-table meetings. Sometimes it’s quite hard because there’s a lot to get through, but I think we’re in a really good place now - it’s delightful to sit around a table and come up with stories and characters.

Laurence: We’d always done that with Yonderland.

Everything starts around the table and we’d get to a point of developing characters and individual jokes. Then we’d work out who had particularly latched on to a specific story and they would go away and write that up - some would write solo; some would write in duos. Then when we’d drafted it up, we’d take it back to the table and read it together and everyone would discuss ideas and comments.

Mathew: It’s a writers’ room to some extent, it’s almost arbitrary who’s name ends up on which episode. As Laurence said, before we even go away to write it, we’d have whole chunks of dialogue already. You’re armed with a bag of tricks already - and then it comes back to everyone at the end and there are rewrites. There’s so much cross-pollination. You sort of forget who came up with what really.

Laurence: We have so many views of the script that by the time we send them off we’re certain we’ve done our homework, that it’s all rigid. But that means that you can play around with it on the day. It’s always dangerous to rely on improvisation to save something that’s not quite there - we never do that, but we do allow ourselves some looseness.

Pictured: Lady Button (Martha Howe-Douglas)

Is one of the ghosts the leader?

Ben Willbond: The captain thinks that he is the leader because he’s a military man. But he’s absolutely not in charge. He thinks he is but he’s not.

Mathew: One of the themes of the show is that it’s all about antagonism. You don’t want just one high-status character; you want two or three to clash. Lady Button is also a leader in a way, she’s a guardian of the high-status family line.

Jim: And then you have Robin, who is the joker of the pack. He has been there the longest, so it gives him a sort of status over everyone, but then sometimes he just doesn’t care.

Laurence: He’s realised that nothing matters. We did think it was funny that whenever you see a ghost, they’re from the 1500s up to World War Two. They are never any later and never any earlier. Why do you never see a caveman? So, we thought we’d have a caveman. If ghosts are a thing, why does it always start around 1490? We thought we’d have one that’s been knocking around for thousands of years.

Pictured: The Captain (Ben Willbond)

Can you talk us through the different ghosts and how you decided who would be best suited to whom?

out who’s best to play them. Or sometimes when there’s three characters there and they all feel like Simon, for example, so you have to give one of them to someone else and work out how that will work.

Simon Farnaby: That’s quite an easy one - I’ve got the best legs, so I get to go in pants!

Mathew: We were thinking along the lines of classic, archetypal ghost figures, but also what was coming very easily was lots of more surprising ones, modern ones, like Jim’s and Simon’s. But it felt good to have the real classic ones in there, like Martha’s - the Edwardian matriarch. In the same way, having the headless one: it felt like we had to have enough of those clear archetypes to allow for the others.

Jim Howick: I suppose there’s a part of each ghost within us, subconsciously.

Mathew: Who’s that most offensive to?

Simon: Martha!

Laurence: Probably me! I think that’s a thing we’ve found in everything we’ve done to a degree. You start writing a character and within a few lines you kind of have an idea in your head of who it might be for. Normally when we compare notes, we’ve all reached the same conclusion.

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As Jim said, there’s a bit of us in all of them, mine’s a bit of a prick! The failed songwriter in me is very much there as Thomas the failed poet.

Pictured: Julian (Simon Farnaby)

How the caveman speaks is interesting…

Laurence: The rationale we have for it, is over the years the caveman has seen so many things that he’s actually incredibly knowledgeable, but the speech section of his brain has never fully developed. He sees a lot but has trouble articulating himself so he’s like an old wise sage, but almost put through the filter of a dog!

He can’t quite articulate what he wants to say, which he finds frustrating - that informs his character as well. In some ways he’s very wise and thoughtful, but then he’ll attack! You can take the boy out of the cave, but…

Pictured: Robin the Caveman (Laurence Rickard) Laurence: There’s very physical comedy in the episode where you see how Jim met his demise. There’s some great stuff there.

Jim: My character was shot through the neck by one of the boys in his adventure group. He was shot by one of the boys through the neck. He has to struggle and get to the minivan, but he doesn’t make it and dies on the grounds.

Mathew: It is a comedy, we promise!

Jim: It’s the only flashback we see of one of the ghosts’ demise, but we do learn about others. With Martha’s character, we learn about her death in the first episode. We learn about Mary’s death as well. Mary is played by Katy Wix and she was burnt at the stake.

Simon: With the physical stuff there is a different dimension as well, because we can go through walls and look into rooms that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to.

Mathew: One of the most fun things was discovering a language that’s really unique to this show that we could play with. That involved cutting between the perspectives of seeing and hearing the ghosts in the room, and the physical plane in which they don’t exist, and you can’t hear them. You can play with that language. You’d have scenes where Alison is dealing with having a couple of ghosts behind her and she physically responds to that – and then you see it from the perspective of a living person who can’t see who she’s talking to, she’s just shouted at empty space! She then has to find a way to make herself seem remotely sane and cover those moments and that language begins in episode one.

Simon: You can invade people’s space if you are a ghost, there’s no reason why you can’t get in somebody’s face.

They can’t see it!

Laurence: It’s a real trial for some of the actors!

Mathew: The guy playing Toby Nightingale (Rory Fleck Byrne) – he had to try and do that scene again and again with me shouting in his face.

Martha: Sophie (Thompson) was asking, “Martha can I see you?” “No, no I can’t see you!” They’re all written into the script, but the reality is that you can play the scenes entirely with the ghosts in the room and entirely without – and then there’s freedom in the edit to play with that.

Mathew: Charlotte’s been incredible. She’s held in her head everything that she’s done when we’re around… and then we all clear off she has to retain everything we’ve done and play it again.

Laurence: It’s brilliant. It’s also so weird to watch. She pauses in the middle of sentences and looks at things that aren’t there.

Ben: She’s brilliant.

What’s happening across the whole series? Is Alison trying to help them to escape?

Laurence: Yep that’s the logic - if your house is haunted, you either need to get rid of the ghosts or you need to get out of the house.

But it quickly becomes apparent that neither of those things are options and it’s making the best of a bad situation. There are two things pulling on her: one of them is this house that she’s now stuck with, she’s trying to make a success of it, but also trying to come to terms with the fact that she’s got to share her house with some really difficult idiots that only she can see and her husband can’t.

She’s put in an impossible situation and the series is about her trying to muddle her way through that new reality.

Is it a family show?

Jim: I think so.

Laurence: We were talking about the things we loved when we were growing up and often, they were things like Blackadder and things that were around before the division between kids and grown-up content existed.

I watched Blackadder and so did my parents.

Sometime in the 90s comedy became something that adults watched at 10pm and there were children’s shows that children watched. It was a split - and it never really came back together again.

Or it was things that were slightly cheeky but… I’ve got a vivid image of watching the Life of Brian though the rippled glass of my parents’ 1980s living room door. I wasn’t supposed to be watching it! There’s a little bit of that.

Simon: I wasn’t supposed to watch it either!

Mathew: I’d love to think it’s the sort of show that people will let their kids stay up a bit later for. I’d like for it to feel like it’s a bit of a treat to allow them to watch it.

Laurence: The fact that we’re doing something for BBC One - we don’t feel like we’ve been pushed into a corner, this is the tone of what we’re doing, and this is what we want to be doing.

Mathew: There’s been lots of times filming this when we’ve been saying to each other, BBC One actually want this! We don’t feel at any point that there’s been any pressure to make it any less distinctive.

I’d say that it takes up some of the tone of Yonderland possibly more than Horrible Histories. It has a kind of clash of surrealism as well as the broader, more accessible sense of adventure.

Pictured: Mary (Katy Wix)

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How many of the ghosts are products of their time and do they jar against each other?

Jim: The pop culture of my character, for example, who died in the 80s… it gives you a nice window into the time. It allows him to introduce things like pop music.

Ben: He probably had an early Walkman, but now he sees they’ve got iPhones. The internet blows all their minds!

Laurence: They say leopards don’t change their spots, and to an extent that’s true. Your moral compass and everything are set in the time you’re growing up and the time in which you’re born. It’s been so fun to write because you’ve got people with completely different ideas of what is and what isn’t acceptable.

Jim: For some of them, life is cheap. The idea that you can solve a problem by killing someone, for some of them, is perfectly acceptable.

Laurence: The caveman’s first suggestion to most problems is to kill them.

Do you have a lot of Ghosts that you had to discard?

Simon: There are interesting clashes.

Mathew: Some of them were folded into characters that we’ve got. There was an idea early on that the wisest ghost in the house would be a six-year-old child, because she’d been there for centuries, and they’d all find it really creepy going to ask her for advice - and for a number of reasons, that’s unpractical.

Mathew: Ghosts can pass on, but they don’t know how or why. They also don’t know why they are stuck there. It’s a metaphor for life really. We’re stuck here, we don’t know why, and what do I do to fill my time? Instead of thinking, well it could be centuries, so I could learn every language and read every great work of literature, they still approach it day by day.

Jim: It allows us to have a jeopardy too.

Mathew: We’re all aware that we could die tomorrow, but does that mean that I live every day as if it could be my last? No. None of us do.

Ben: I do! I’ve just bought a sports car.

Martha: That’s a mid-life crisis.

Simon: Martha and I played a couple where I had killed her and then killed myself. Then of course, in that scenario you both end up as ghosts and then you think, great - now I’m stuck with her.

All: She killed you!

Mathew: The whole thing was, they were a couple that hated each other and to escape the marriage she killed him but then immediately died by accident and therefore ended up stuck with him for eternity.

Simon: So that went, for obvious reasons.

What would you say is so funny/ interesting about exploring the Afterlife?

Mathew: I’ve really enjoyed it in a metaphorical sense, it’s actually a way to talk about existing.

Laurence: We’re almost the antithesis of that in the show. Rather than saying there’s an afterlife - a place you go on to - we’re saying there’s not, and you’re stuck! You end up doing exactly what you had to do again, in the last place you were when you were alive. You’re back there and now you’re stuck with it. It’s more like a purgatory than an afterlife.

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We’ve got these white-light moments when the ghosts pass over, and the feeling from the other ghosts is just real petty jealousy. In the same way we do, when someone dies you mourn them and to a certain degree you think about where they are and what they’re doing, if there is anything. In the show, that big bright light is that annoying thing and that lucky get-out. It just makes the ghosts angrier.

Simon: My favourite scenes are the ones where they’re arguing over really tiny things that become so important because that’s all they’ve got.

Jim: Julian can just about touch stuff, Laurence’s character Robin can affect the lights and Mary can omit a smell. So, we do have a very very small practical effect on the world, but we try to use the skills in a haunting in the first episode which doesn’t work.

Will you take the Ghosts outside the house or would that destroy them?

Mathew: That’s against the rules.

Jim: We can go as far as the drive, because my character didn’t die in the house, he died on the grounds, and Mat’s character died on the grounds as well.

Laurence: In the very early stages of developing we sat down and went, okay what are Ghosts and how do they work in terms of stories? It’s saying, this place is haunted because someone died here and for some reason there’s this geographical link which means people stay where they die.

Do any of you believe in the paranormal?

Martha: I definitely believe that there’s something else out there. Too much has been written about with things being reported from beyond the grave – information that only the people involved would know about, so I am a believer, yes!

Laurence: I’d say I don’t, but if someone said ‘sir, we’ve booked you into the haunted room’ I’d be asking to swap. I was obsessed with ghosts as a kid and I think some of that fear and fascination never leaves you, even though your rational mind dismisses it.

Jim: I have never had a paranormal experience, but I know plenty of people who believe they have, and I believe them. Lots of my friends tried Ouija boards in their teens and I never did. I was way too afraid of summoning something sinister. So maybe, deep down, I do?

Have any of you had a “paranormal experience”, seen a ghost? If so, please do tell us.

Martha: I’ve never seen one, but I know people who say they have. I always think it would be nice to see the ghosts of family members who have passed but I’d probably totally freak out. When we were filming Ghosts, we’d play a game where you’d name your price for staying alone for the night at West Horsley Place, the house where the show is set. No chance!

Laurence: I’ve had a couple of experiences that are ‘unusual’. When I was about 11, I was reading a book in bed, when I sensed movement and looked up to see the dressing gown on the back of my bedroom door turn and point at me. Like it was being filled by an invisible figure. I was terrified, and did the classic duvet dive, but when I re-emerged it was hung up on the back of the door again. I just put it down to an optical illusion or some sort of waking dream, as I lived in that house for nearly 20 years and that was the only weird experience. So, if it was a ghost, it was a very, very lazy one.

Harder to explain is one about ten years ago.

I was leaving some luggage at a (modern) hotel in Bristol and popped to the toilets by reception before heading into town. I was washing my hands, when it felt like someone grabbed the rucksack I was wearing and pulled me backwards. My legs buckled, but I just about managed to stay upright, so I whipped round to say, ‘what the hell?!’ to whoever had done it. But there was no one there. No one in the room at all and nowhere for anyone to hide. As I headed out, a bit shaken, I asked the receptionist something

along the lines of ‘is there anything… ‘weird’ about that toilet?’. She immediately replied, ‘no sir’, so I just shrugged it off and left. It was only later I realised what a strangely sober answer that was to such a bizarre question. There was no ‘what do you mean?’ or ‘weird how?’. Just an immediate ‘no’. So, yeah – make of that what you will.

Did you do any research into the paranormal for Ghosts?

Martha: Not really, no. We talked collectively about horror tropes and how we could mix those in with the comedy. Our Director, Tom Kingsley and DOP, Will Hanke, did an incredible job of setting that tone, particularly with the introduction of the cellar ghosts. I’m not actually a great horror lover – I’m that saddo that watches scary stuff from behind my hands, so it doesn’t take much to spook me!

Laurence: I had a good memory of the stories that had stuck with me since childhood (especially Borley Rectory), so we quickly developed a roster of classic ghost types we were keen to feature. We wanted a grey lady, a headless ghost, one from the war and so forth. But we also wanted to confound expectation. For some reason most hauntings seem to focus on figures from quite a distinct chunk of history – roughly speaking, Tudor up to WWII. No one ever says they’ve seen a caveman ghost, or a guy from 1993, which felt hugely unfair on both your long-term spectres and your plucky newcomers. So, we’ve tried to be more representative of the wider dead community Jim: No, not really. Apart from watching horror films. Lovingly nodding to certain tropes and twisting the more common ones. The idea was to create something that would eventually push back against the paranormal normal.

The ghosts in the basements are genius, what was the thinking behind that? Their knowledge of boilers is immense.

Laurence: The conclusion we reached with ghosts overall, was that they’re greatest enemy would be boredom – stuck somewhere they can’t leave and able to touch anything.

So, we started musing on how the gang in the basement would fill their time. All they have down there is that old boiler and the labels on a few dusty wine bottles, so they have become experts in both. Basically, all they’ve learnt in the last few hundred years is how to equalise the filling loop works and what wine goes best with pork (it’s probably a Pinot Gris).

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Jim: Originally, we wanted to populate the whole house with us lot playing lots of different ghosts, but it presented us with a problem. Our core ghosts need to be stuck with each other. If there were ghosts everywhere then it would be as if our core group have decided to hang out together and, given their differences, that just wouldn’t have work. Because the basement ghosts stay downstairs and are, essentially, a chorus of one voice, we kept hold of them. They’re great fun.

Experts of their environment - Boilers, Gas pipes and Wine. They allow us to focus on our principles and retain our multi character brand.

There are some genuine stand out laugh out loud moments in Ghosts, when I write I always laugh at the funny stuff, do you? Is that normally a good sign?

Martha: Oh, all the time! We start the script process with the six of us sitting round a table, throwing ideas around. Those days can get quite out of hand! We share the same sense of humour and tend to find each other hilarious most of the time. It’s such a fun way to work, and those are some of my favourite days.

Laurence: Oh, I often chuckle to myself when I’m writing solo, which probably weirds out the guys in the office above me. But the biggest laughs for us are when the six of us all writing together. All our scripts start with all of us around a table and end the same way, and those days are always packed with laughter. It’s a very generous mood – everyone just chucking ideas into the hat to try and mine those extra laughs – and I usually leave those meetings with my face aching.

Jim: Thank you. Yes, we do! We like to entertain each other and tend to hold on to the stuff that has made us laugh.

Thanks to: Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Julian, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix,Lolly Adefobe, Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and all other cast and crew who have made the paranormal just that little bit more enjoyable.

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JAMES PYKETT’S GUIDE TO HAUNTED NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

twenty-four seven, three six five* JAMES PYKETT BUCKS THE TREND AND GOES GHOST HUNTING – IN THE DAY!

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et’s take ourselves back, before we’d ever stepped foot in a haunted location, before we’d purchased our first K2 and started a frenzy of impulse driven purchases for the latest equipment. The thought of ghost hunting was exciting, and for many I’m sure it still is. All you did was count down the days until your next investigation, dreaming of what might happen, who you will meet and the memories that you’ll make. It was raw, you weren’t aware of certain theories, you didn’t get involved in the politics of our crazy world, you just enjoyed it.

Well, that’s what I wanted to do, take a step back to when I first started and see if that buzz was still there in its rawest form.

I won’t try and hide the fact that we normally investigate at night for several reasons, the main one being that there is a lot less in terms of contamination. As the ‘normal’ people of this world sleep, we have less noise, we have fewer car lights passing windows and so on. Many of our techniques for capturing evidence therefore become less reliable in the day. Take EVP

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for example, of course you can conduct EVP sessions in the daytime, but it will always be location/condition dependant.

I’m not trying to start a trend here, night time will always be the best time for paranormal investigating, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it in daylight hours too!

So, you’ve decided to go out, you have your basic equipment to hand, but where do you go? You don’t have access to the most haunted house in the UK, or the most disturbed and active dolls/ items known to man – so what?!

Where I live in Nottingham, I am within 10 minutes of an abandoned church, historical graveyards and grand estate grounds. If spirit/ghosts are real, then please don’t get dragged into the hype that they just reside in a certain place or within a particular item. They are everywhere, it would take an idiot to believe that they exist and then go on to say that they only inhabit a certain location. I know that in this beautifully haunted country of ours there’s history scattered all over, pockets of the past waiting to be explored, so be different and find them!

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One other reason I love going out in the daytime is down to my love of photographing locations. The gallery page on Haunted Insight is growing, but there was an old friend missing that I needed to reacquaint myself with.

After a break of four years, I decided that it was time to go back to Colwick Old Church and see an old friend. It was perfect, I’d have great light for the photos but at the same time it’s quiet, and I just knew I could squeeze a little bit of investigating in too! With my camera bag on my back, containing my EMF meter and Alice, I set off on a little daytime adventure.

It is only a local story, but I’ve heard that the area around this stone is easily the most active and there have been other investigators taking great interest in it. This was going to be my focus, as it has been on many occasions before.

Photos completed and camera away, it was time to attempt to communicate with Elizabeth.

Although extremely old, the condition of the stone is extremely good. The date shown for her death is –

27 Feb MDCCLXXVII th

From my research I have concluded that she died in the year 1777, but I’m open to

St Johns Church, or locally ‘Colwick Old Church’ is a controlled ruin owned and maintained by Nottingham City Council. The main body of the structure dates to the 16th Century, although there are parts that date back to the 14th Century which are believed to be remnants of an earlier church. There is full access to the external parts of the church and its graveyard, but all windows and doors have been gated off due to unsafe conditions and damage being caused. Many of the items that were once held here are now residing in Newstead and Annesley, and the connections to Newstead don’t end there.

The famous Byron family

being wrong as this certainly isn’t my area!

(Editor – YES, MDCCLXXVII is indeed 1777) I decided to take two pieces of equipment as stated above. The first being my EMF meter, mainly because there shouldn’t be any form of electricity running through the graveyard. Although the hall is nearby, and I can’t rule out any contamination, I can still look for spikes or responses when asking questions. My other piece of equipment would be Alice, a word generator that we ask spirit to manipulate and push words to us through changes in the atmosphere around it. I placed Alice at the HAUNTED

that once owned Newstead Abbey also owned Colwick Hall that stands next to this beautiful church, the history held here is mind blowing and can easily be overlooked.

The local Council have done a good job in making it a quiet place to sit, so quiet in fact that when I arrived there was a man asleep on the bench next to the ruin (He soon left when I got my camera out of my bag) As you will see from the images, many of the headstones are lined up against the far wall that backs onto the woods. This wouldn’t have originally been where they stood, instead they were relocated by the council for safety reasons, and it’s this small detail that may well

bottom of the headstone, the tablet used has no internet connection and never has, I then placed the EMF meter on top of the headstone just to separate them so that I could be reasonably confident that the two aren’t interfering with each other. And that was it, simple, I’m at a location that has history dating back to 1086, investigating an alleged haunting of a disgruntled spirit… and I loved every minute of it!

After setting up my equipment I began by saying hello, I apologised for my long absence from my last visit, to which the Alice Box replied ‘Thank You’ This coincided

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have fuelled some of the activity in the yard itself.

As you walk along the back wall, you’ll see headstones that date back hundreds of years. If you’re like me and you’re a little bit nosey, you’ll read them and remember certain names and sometimes even stories. Yet, still, there is one that stands out above all the rest. A very plain looking stone, very tall and weathered, but one which visually is different. About a quarter of the way down you can see where it has been repaired. At some point, it had been completely snapped in two, I can’t confirm when this was, but my guess would be when it was moved.

with a surge of 5.2 milligauss on my EMF meter, so this could well have been a genuine response, or at least a burst of energy had just passed through that the equipment registered. I continued asking questions, and the Alice Box seemed very quiet. I like it when that happens, if I continually witnessed patterns on my equipment then I’d be worried, but different locations certainly seem to impact it in certain ways. The questions continued, but the responses seemed to stop.

At this point I took a short video around the grounds and sent it to someone that had never visited – now a joint investigation is on the cards!

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After returning to the stone, the high reading of 5.2 milligauss was still showing, telling me that there had been no change in the atmosphere since I’d left. I again began by saying hello and that I was back. It was at this point I got numerous responses on the Alice Box. About 4/5 words were simultaneously pushed onto the screen without a break in between, I could see that something was attempting to use/manipulate the device. After it settled, I directly asked Elizabeth how she was currently feeling, to my amazement a reply was registered on the Alice Box which read ‘Miserable’. Now, I’ll admit, I hadn’t looked up at the EMF for a good 30 seconds, but as that word appeared, I glanced up to see a spike of 12.2 milligauss which is high!

I cannot be 100% sure that the hit coincided with the word displaying on Alice, although it certainly shows that something manipulated it in that frenzy of responses.

After that I decided to start packing away, I had just started putting my camera away and said out loud “I’m going now Elizabeth” to which an

instant response of ‘Mean’ appeared on Alice – Day made! Who knows if that was a direct response to me?

But with 10,000 random words at her disposal I’ll certainly like to think so!

It’s trips like this that can reignite a dwindling flame. This is how I started, day trips out on my own to historic sites where you can just lose yourself for hours on end. There really are endless possibilities, going back to basics and enjoying it, no politics, no craziness, just good old investigating in its rawest form. I know most won’t agree with it, many will even turn their noses up at it, but guess what… I loved it and that’s all that matters!

Make sure that you visit the Colwick Old Church Gallery on www.hauntedinsight.com for more images of this stunning piece of history! *twenty-four seven, three six six on a leap year ….

James

You know the drill by now, you catch something on your digital recorder, or you catch a picture on your camera and you decide to share it on social media, because you believe (as we do at Haunted Magazine), that the paranormal or the unexplained needs to be shared AND then you’re met with a backlash or a tirade of words from people (some of which are so called paranormal experts) shouting out “faked” or “photoshopped” or some other baloney without the slightest bit of remorse or even the slightest interest in finding out more about where you were, how you felt, what was the atmosphere like etc etc. Some of these people ONLY believe in what they capture, anyone else’s paranormal experiences are just some fairy tale nonsense to them so when the SPR (Society for Psychical Research) published their latest guidelines last year they said this in the introduction:

“TO IGNORE OR DISMISS THESE ACCOUNTS WOULD BE FOOLISH” We were over the paranormal moon, those nine words were in relation to paranormal activity / ghostly phenomena captured by countless witnesses (yes it also went on to say that more research and study into what was captured would be required, and rightly so BUT THOSE NINE WORDS were a kind of two fingered salute, whether they were intended to be so or not, to those “experts” who feel that they have to poo-poo EVERY piece of potential paranormal evidence on social media. Don’t get us wrong, we’ve seen thousands of images and head hundreds of EVP capture and some are either easily explained or a tad over the top, but we’d never be so foolish as to dismiss EVERY account of the paranormal … sadly, some would though.

No matter, whether you’re part of a group, team, or a solo investigator or just fricking love the paranormal, we are all on our very own personal paranormal pilgrimage and long may it continue.

When writer and blogger, David A Bone sent us his feature, we knew it was perfect for the magazine. Take it away David.

IS THE PARANORMAL A BONE OF CONTENTION TO YOU?

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By David A Bone o you believe in ghosts? Poltergeists? The preternatural? The supernatural? Powers beyond the natural? The demi-monde?

Life after death? Aliens? Big cats? Alien big cats? Bigfoot?

Mothman? Slenderman? Owlman? Mantisman? Black eyed children? Indigo children?

If you are of a more sceptical (not necessarily more inquiring) mind you may reply in the negative to all the beings and phenomena listed above. You might just dismiss all such things as the mere fabrication of individuals who have yet to put aside childish things and grow up.

Alternatively, they are merely the overactive imaginings of a feverish mind, and if you’re feeling rather unkind; a deluded one as well.

As Ebenezer Scrooge replied to his spectral former partner, Jacob Marley, when Jacob asked, ‘Why do you doubt your senses?’, ‘A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheat. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.

There’s more gravy than grave about you, whatever you are!’ ‘Bah humbug’ is your mantra when it comes to such unexplained phenomena. Of course, Scrooge had been visited by the haggard and benighted countenance of his long-deceased partner for decades and in particular on that fateful Christmas Eve, even before he had ingested a morsel of ‘underdone potato’. He had just chosen to push aside Jacobs’ visitations and explain them rationally.

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A lack of belief in forces just beyond the limit of human comprehension does not necessarily mean that events beyond rational explanation have not occurred to you either. You may have ignored them, rationally explained, or dismissed them in order to fit your own intellectual and spiritual paradigm, as is your right to do so.

Now, personally, unlike Dana Scully, I want to believe. I have had an interest in the paranormal since my mid-teens, so there may be an internal bias already present in my own thinking. Although, no person is without their own biases clouding their judgment and this is as true for the professed believer, as it is for the ardent skeptic. We can only view events through the prism of our own lived experiences. What else can we do after all?

If you are of a more skeptical persuasion, try talking to your family, friends and colleagues about their own experiences with events that they just couldn’t explain in any rational terms.

Last year, in a pre-Christmas lull at work, my colleague said that areas of his house are bitterly cold, even during the summer. Another told me that she had a deep sense of Deja vu onboard a fishing vessel at the Scottish Maritime Museum. A senior member of staff told me about her young daughter informing her that an old man was living in their new house after they had just moved in to it. It later transpired that the previous occupant had passed away in the same house only a few months before. The CEO of the last company I worked for once told me that when he was younger, he watched a man wearing period dress approach him along a country road. Thinking this was odd, after he passed, he turned around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him again. Apparently, the man had disappeared in the short interim between first viewing him and glancing backwards. I would vouch for all these people. None are prone to flights of fancy or to random notions of the ridiculous. They are all rational human beings. I believe and respect what they have witnessed and experienced. They couldn’t explain what had happened to them and neither could I. When I look at my own life, I have a similar set of tales to tell. I have smelt engine oil on two random unrelated occasions. My deceased father was an amateur mechanic and could often be found tinkering in the garage. I was 20

vigorously shaken awaken from a postschool nap when I was thirteen years old and lying on my side in bed. As you can imagine I was rather frightened to have my reverie disturbed in such a manner. I have seen, what I could only describe as ‘shadow people’ on two occasions, ephemeral and fleeting shapes on the periphery of my vision.

I have saw an apparition in the mirror, if only for a fraction of a second, at a bed and breakfast in Bishop Auckland, near Durham. I have felt the very strong presence of a friend who has passed away. I believe I have witnessed the ghost of a beloved family pet, scurrying about in the kitchen. I have felt a deep sense of unease at Carlisle Castle in a dungeon where they kept prisoners from the Jacobite rebellion in the 1740s. So uneasy, that me and my companion felt the urge to flee the dungeon immediately.

Frankly, I’m just a bit of pleb. Don’t take my word for it. There are far more illustrious and learned men than me who have had direct experience of the supernatural. Churchill famously saw the ghost of Abraham Lincoln at the White House. Possibly after a late night ‘fireside chat’ with President Roosevelt. President Carter purportedly witnessed a UFO in 1969.

I would love to ask Queen Elizabeth the II if she has ever been witness to anything strange at one of her many royal residences. After all, her grandfather, the future George V, supposedly witnessed the Flying Dutchman in 1881, while traveling on HMS Bacchante, so who knows.

If some bold researcher was ever able to collate and catalog the collective and generational evidence that humanity has had of the paranormal / supernatural / unexplained / downright odd, the collection would be multiple volumes in length and would never truly be completed to satisfaction.

Skeptic or not, the sheer weight of these collective experiences cannot easily be dismissed as mere hokum when they occur to everyone. Charles Fort himself, the American researcher of paranormal phenomena was an early proponent of the use of anecdotal evidence to support claims of the unexplained. Indeed, if something is just beyond our senses then it could just as well be outside the range of our devices as well.

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Phenomena surely account for something, even if they can’t be scientifically proven beyond any shadow of a doubt (very few scientific theories ever are are as well). Events are occurring to us.

We can’t all be wrong. Even if a large percentage could be dismissed as little known and explainable phenomena, pranks, pareidolia or internal delusion, then the result would still be similar to the situation in the UFO community, where 90% of eye witness testimony can be dismissed as identified flying objects, weather patterns or atmospheric mirages, but a sizable minority of sightings cannot be explained and are thus truly unidentified.

We can’t constantly live in the materialistic, capitalist world, that we have constructed, at least in the West. To an economist, you are just the ‘homo economicus’, a rational being with a narrowly defined self-interest that involves money and conspicuous consumption. To a chemist, you are just a collection of animated organic compounds.

To a behaviorist, all your emotions and feelings are just a reaction to a number of external stimuli. You are a mere animal.

However, such theories don’t satiate the yearning for the unknown and the strange. The ephemeral mystery intrigues us, and it should, because we’re human beings with emotions, needs and desires that can’t always be articulated by a shopping trip or the belief that we are a more advanced version of a protozoa.

We want to believe in these phenomena. They make our lives far richer, more interesting and add a degree of mystery, and more importantly, they provide us with mystery’s other half: danger.

Something that is now mercifully deficient in our lives, but that we still require in small doses on occasion.

Since the Victorians, we have firmly banished the darkness and unknown from our lives (my theory on why the Victorians wrote some of the greatest Gothic fiction is that they were one of the last epochs to live with the dark). We have, also, almost entirely rid ourselves of the real demons that only nature could provide to humans before the modern era.

But we can only banish our need to live in the rational world so far.

We can still see the creatures and phenomena from our not so distant past, still lurking at the edge of our imagination, unblinking, where they often have the ability to unnerve us, no matter their causation.

The American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, summed it up best:

All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro.

So, question, argue, but don’t always dismiss what you see, smell and feel. Something is happening, whether you choose to believe or not.

David A Bone, Writer & Blogger HAUNTED

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That's The Spirit...

I s i t t i m e f o r s p i r i t t o s h o w u s t h e way ?

In February 2018, I was invited

by Neil Packer to join his new venture at his newly opened Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre, As the Team’s Medium, I was very excited to have the opportunity to work in this new paranormal base. I had known Neil for about 5 years and we had worked in several venue groups together previously so it was a real pleasure to join the Team.

Having been there just over a year now, we have done a lot of work in the building, conducting experiments, trying out different equipment, and working with Spirit in many different ways. The centre is full of different items which have interesting energies attached to them. Having the time and space, and no limitations or restrictions on what we can do, I feel we have really reached a whole new level of working within the Paranormal field.

The centre has provided a unique base where we can work with spirit and really push the boundaries and explore the many different avenues across the paranormal. It has enabled us to conduct experiments and progress with new ideas.

BY JANE BLAND ROWLEY s Paranormal Investigators we endeavour to capture evidence and to experience some sort of Paranormal experience. So how far can we go with this? In my experience, it always seemed that previously, when I was on investigations with guests and Teams that there seemed to be a ‘limit’ on what people could experience in a ‘ghost’ night. Feeling the energies, seeing the K2’s working and listening out for bangs and taps, etc, etc. Having a timeslot of several hours at a venue, never seemed to be long enough to be able to advance when working with Spirit. It seemed like every investigation always started at the same point, with the same equipment and progress could only get so far before the evening ended and we all went home.

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In doing this, we have been exposed to many different things we had not previously encountered. Some of it has been surprising, some of it has generated many new theories, which has generated more experiments, which has then changed our conclusions on what we thought we knew.

Over the past year it has really changed the way we think about some of the myths and legends

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surrounding the Paranormal.

So, who is steering us in this direction? Who is inspiring us with the ideas and experiments to try? Who is pushing us to do more and more and opening up this path in front of us?

“I firmly believe we are being guided by spirit.

I believe we have been guided to this unique place and we are being allowed exposure to a whole new level of the paranormal. So, are we ready to accept what Spirit can show us?”

I do believe that everyone’s path is unique and everyone has the ability to access the Spirit World - whether we chose to accept the invitation and work with it, is up to us. We all have the choice and free will to develop our ‘journey’ as much as we want to, or not.

Spirit will never show us more than we can cope with and if we are alright accepting the first steps then they will go on the show us more. First experiences are things like spirit visiting us in our dreams or us sensing a presence around us. Spirit will only allow us to progress one step at a time and its only with our acceptance (consent) will we move on. Working with Spirit takes time and patience. It is something that is not achieved overnight and with is comes a responsibility.

Many people in day to day life will simple just shut it out and not see the signs or the messages. Missed

communication. It is only when we seek it out and ask for it will the Spirit World open up to us.

I tried for a long time to shut it out and dismiss it but when the time was right, I was almost compelled to do it and I began my journey and started to work with Spirit as it was the path I was meant to be on. I am so grateful I finally listened and let myself be guided. I am now where I am supposed to be - working in a different paranormal ‘environment’ which I believe will only advance and expose us to more avenues and experiences not yet encountered in the normal paranormal field.

I believe we have made a significant commitment to work with Spirit at the Centre and our intention has been acknowledged. As we ask to see more and more, I feel we are watched and judged by Spirit all of the time as if we are being assessed. We have to earn the respect from the Spirit World too and in order to be shown greater evidence, have better paranormal experiences and to be exposed to new things not yet seen in the field, we have to demonstrate to Spirit that we are trustworthy and respectful of what they are giving us. I also believe that we must also have the belief and integrity to stand by what they show us. What is the point is sharing something special with us if it is going to be ridiculed and not believed? And why should they use all that energy if we are not going to use that information wisely and use it to progress and bring that evidence to others around us, who also share a

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like-mindedness to push the boundaries further? ..and we all know Spirit never waste any energy.

I feel we are still only scratching at the surface of the Paranormal and there is so much more for us to learn and observe from Spirit. We are conditioned so much as we grow up that we are not encouraged to fully open our minds and work outside the confines of ‘normal’ thinking. What can our minds (and thoughts) really do if we push it beyond what we only think we can do? Can we break new ground in the paranormal, spiritually??

As each new item finds it way to the centre, we are constantly challenged to work with it and to experience what we can, constantly sending up the thoughts and being grateful for what we receive, however subtle the response. Not every item is supercharged with paranormal activity. We have to keep it humble, but as we all progress as a Team we are rewarded for our commitment and patience, and this also has a knock-on effect to the Groups and Teams who investigate the Centre too.

We also have to think of it as an ‘investment’. Not necessarily in a monetary way, but investing our time, effort, gratitude and integrity in the work we do at the centre. Sharing our knowledge and findings with people who visit the centre. Helping young, vulnerable people understand that everything is not Demonic or is going to ‘possess’ or ‘overshadow’ them.

Helping with ‘attachments’ and

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helping people interpret their experiences, all add value to our investment. We are only going to get out of this what we put in and the Spirit World is certainly rewarding us in many ways.

Opening the Centre on a Saturday and providing an opportunity for the general public to share ‘unusual’ experiences and ‘ghost stories’ over a cup to tea with likeminded people is a great way of collecting information and recording paranormal material which is clearly showing us ‘a bigger picture’. I believe people and objects are guided to the centre, and I strongly believe that everything and everyone arrives precisely when they are meant to, in the right order, at the right time, with the right amount of opportunity and potential for a new experience/ level to be reached. It is not a random jumble of events but a careful plan set out by Spirit. So, how far down the rabbit hole can we go? How much more is there for us to learn and experience and how much further can we push the boundaries? I am sure in time….. we will find out.

Jane x

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TO HELLIER AND BACK! EXCLUSIVE

GREG

&

INTERVIEW

DANA

WITH

NEWKIRK

For anyone familiar with paranormal TV shows like Paranormal Lockdown and Kindred Spirits, you’ll already be aware of Greg and Dana Newkirk. Founders of the “Travelling Museum of the Paranormal” and arguably the most knowledgeable people in the business, Haunted managed to grab a coffee and a Danish with the paranormal power couple.

Greg / Dana thanks so much for agreeing to speak to Haunted Magazine. Reading your website bio Greg reminded me so much of how we at the magazine first became interested in the paranormal - a magazine called “The Unexplained” and particularly the pictures of the now famously debunked ‘Cottingley Fairies’. How important do you think these publications shaped your entry into the paranormal world?

Greg: “Hugely! One of my favourite things to do as a kid was pick up old issues of FATE Magazine or the Fortean Times. I still have a huge magazine rack in my living room full of paranormal magazines - they played a huge part in who I am today.”

You were both involved with paranormal groups in your teens.

What would happen in one of these investigations? What equipment did you use and what evidence did you find?

Greg: “I always joke that the first five years of my paranormal career don’t count, as I was 12 years old when I 24

‘started’ and honestly had no idea what I was doing. That said, I realize how important those years were now. I couldn’t afford an EMF meter, so I just used a compass, and we used to record our ghost hunts over tapes of my friend’s high school basketball games.

His mom was not happy about that. To this day, though, some of the best EVP evidence I’ve ever captured was from back in those days. Learning from trial and error instead of watching other people was massively important in hindsight.”

Dana: The story is pretty much the same for me. My friends and I just kind of figured it out as we went, because back in 2001 the paranormal tv explosion hadn’t happened yet. We used more metaphysical tools though, things like tarot cards, dowsing rods, pendulums, that kind of stuff. We had a lot of success with them, and I still use tarot on every investigation these days.

but the more we investigate strange claims of all kinds - whether UFOs or cryptids or ghosts - the more we realize it’s all just different spokes on the same wheel.”

Why do you think there are so many accounts of both hauntings and UFO sightings in the US? Greg: “I think a lot of that comes down to the collective psyche of Americans and how we process and promote belief. We’re a very new country by most standards, and while the UK just accepts their ghosts and their fairies and all the wonderful folklore that exists because it has always been there, we’re still figuring out how we feel about it all. Christianity has made a lot of this stuff very taboo in weird ways - my grandparents used to tell me UFOs were demonic - so like most taboos, they’re very exciting and salacious to us. I don’t think it’s that we have any more or less weird stuff than anywhere else, we just process it in really extreme ways.

In the UK we have The Rendlesham Forest incident in the mid-1980s which has come under recent scrutiny. Weather balloon or crashed UFO, what’s your view on the Roswell Incident?

Do you have a preferred field for investigation? Ghosts and hauntings, hunting Bigfoot or ufology?

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Greg: “Like Mulder always says, I *want* to believe. In reality, though, I’m not a very big fan of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I just don’t think it shakes out properly and I don’t think these things are physical, at least not totally. Something happened in Roswell, but I don’t think it was aliens.

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Greg: “So, fun fact: Week in Weird used to be called “Who Forted?”, which was an homage to Charles Fort, arguably the first modern paranormal researcher. The joke didn’t always land - people, mostly forteans funny enough, forgot that Fort was a humourist first - so we changed the name.

Week in Weird is one of THE go to places for the paranormal such an excellent source up to date information. What made you set it up and who are your main sources?

Dana: We started it out of frustration of not having a voice in the paranormal community, at least not one that spoke for us.

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” right? We didn’t like the way people were writing about the paranormal, so we just decided to start our own outlet for us and our friends, for people who needed a stronger voice in the community.

Aside from the many appearances on such shows as Paranormal Lockdown (gutted to not see it renewed), Kindred Spirits et al you are director of the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal. How did this happen? What artefacts have you recovered for it and are there any items that you believe are too dangerous to be in the public domain?

Greg: We never set out to start a museum, it just kind of built itself. We’ve been investigating strange stuff for over two decades at this point, and between our own cases and our colleagues’, we had started to amass a collection of weird artefacts that we realized more people should have access to.

The day that we officially started the museum, the floodgates just opened up, and now we receive a dozen or more artefacts a month from people all over the world.

Dana: We told a friend of ours how strange it was that the museum is growing as fast as it is and he just kind of laughed he’s a fairly prolific ritual magician - and said, “that’s because the museum is building itself.” These things come to us for a reason, I think. We just care for them.

“REAL PROGRESS IN THE PARANORMAL COMES FROM CURIOSITY AND UNDERSTANDING, NOT THROUGH FEARING WHAT WE CAN’T EXPLAIN.”

Greg: There’s a lot of items that we don’t put on display for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes people give us things that are full of trauma - forensic dolls used in child abuse cases or books that have allegedly caused miscarriages - and those are best locked up and left alone rather than gawked at. Some things we’ve even returned from the places they’ve been stolen from.

A big part of actually caring for artefacts like this is doing what they need done, not what will look the coolest or creepiest in a glass case.

To have two people so driven and focused in the paranormal as an actual Bonafide couple is amazing. How did you meet?

Do you disagree on each other’s theories? What is an average day in the life of the Newkirks?

Greg: We met because we ran rival ghost hunting website as kids.

Dana: We actually hated one another(!)

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Greg: I was like 15 and Dana had a boyfriend, so obviously I was very distraught. The last straw was when she and her team - the first all-female paranormal team, in fact - got a television show, me and my friends got all jealous and recreated their website, but the photos were all of us in drag.

We were jerks.

Dana: Yeah, we didn’t talk for like seven years after that.

Greg: And look at us now!

Dana: We don’t really argue much, honestly. We each have our own beliefs and opinions about paranormal phenomena, but we can always meet in the middle. I think we keep each other grounded which is nice, especially in a field where it’s so easy to float away and become out of touch.

“I THINK WE KEEP EACH OTHER GROUNDED WHICH IS NICE, ESPECIALLY IN A FIELD WHERE IT’S SO EASY TO FLOAT AWAY AND BECOME OUT OF TOUCH.” DANA NEWKIRK

Greg: An average day? Well we’re usually on the road with the museum or for a case two weeks or so out of each month, and when we’re not, we’re working on developing new research equipment, picking up new artefacts, or just answering people’s calls for help or assistance. We’re rarely ever not working these days.

Let’s talk ‘Hellier’. Firstly, may we say what an absolute triumph it is. Right from the beginning we were hooked.

Seeing how passionate you all are about the project is infectious. For those who haven’t seen it, tell us what it’s all about?

Greg: I’m really thrilled to hear that - there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears put into the project, mostly from our director Karl Pfeiffer, who spent a solid year editing it. Hellier centres around one of the strangest cases we’ve ever investigated, based in a tiny coal town in Kentucky where a man claimed that small, alien-like creatures were emerging from old mines and terrorizing his family. Once we got there, the whole thing just unravelled into a much, much bigger case with pretty wide-reaching implications.

We loved the way that you touch upon all elements of the paranormal. The goblins, the paranormal experiments...

What starts out as a mystery really evolves into a mindblowing road trip / investigation. Did you ever argue / disagree with the course of events or was it a harmonious encounter?

Dana: Of course, we argued! Everyone involved in Hellier has their own reasons for pursuing the case, and everyone feels very drawn to it for personal reasons. It’s hard not to internalize it, which I think is a side effect of the phenomena, and we all felt like we were losing our minds, so there were a few moments where we had to kind of take stock of the situation and not let paranoia get the best of us. Of course, when you’re dealing with anonymous figures sending you strange GPS coordinates and giving you goblin-hunting instructions that’s easier said than done.

It’s noticeable that not all the locals seemed entirely happy with your presence. Were you ever threatened in your time there and would you have any hesitation returning? Any experiences of any ‘G-Men’?

Greg: I think as outsiders; the locals had an automatic distrust of us. We clearly weren’t from the area, and we had all these cameras and were asking questions about UFOs and goblins, so I don’t blame them. People from these areas are often exploited and made to look foolish by people with cameras.

That, coupled with the fact that a lot of people choose to live in these areas because they don’t want people like us sniffing around, I understand their initial hesitance to talk with us.

Dana: We’re not really afraid to go back. Since Hellier released we’ve received hundreds of reports from people in the area that line up with our investigation. I think they just needed to 26

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see that we were sincere about what we were doing and weren’t there to exploit them - that it wasn’t just another monster hunting tv show, you know?

Greg: As for the G-Men.. well... wait and see. The investigation is so much stranger now. Season two is going to take everyone for a weird ride.

There are several similarities with the Mothman case. Did you go into this investigation with an element of that in mind or is this something that emerged later?

Greg: We really had no idea that there would be crossover with the Mothman case when we made our way to Hellier. We honestly thought we were going to be posted up in some guy’s backyard waiting for goblins to show up, and instead we found ourselves immersed in fringe UFO lore, magic rituals, and synchronicity. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.

Personally, we loved the experiment with the PSB-11, blindfold and noise isolating headphones which proves to be a turning point in the investigation. How did you arrive at this method and is this something that you do on a regular basis?

Dana: The experiment was developed by Karl Pfeiffer and Connor Randall during their time at the famously haunted Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. They named it the Estes Method and it’s been one of the coolest things we’ve seen come out of paranormal research in a while.

Greg: The idea is a new take on the old parapsychology experiments of the 70s, like the Ganzfeld Experiment, in that it adds sensory deprivation and a double-blind element to modern ghost-hunting tools. It’s brilliant, really.

Dana: We’re all split on how it actually works - Greg and I think there’s a psychic element to its use - but regardless of how, it works. We use it all the time, and Karl and Connor are always tweaking it. We came up with a really cool variation on it in season two that is going to blow people’s minds.

In the last couple of episodes, the subject of synchronicity becomes ever more apparent. Are you still finding this to be an ongoing occurrence or is it solely a phenomena from your time in Hellier?

Greg: It ebbs and flows, but ever since we stepped foot in Hellier its been far more noticeable and much more impactful when it does happen.

Dana: What’s most interesting to me is how the synchronicities find people who watch Hellier. Once they watch it, it’s like something is activated, like they become part of it. We get so many emails from people who are like, “I watched Hellier and now something really strange is happening...”

“THERE’S MORE TO HELLIER THAN ANY OF US REALIZE, I THINK. THE PHENOMENA IS CALLING THE SHOTS HERE, WE’RE JUST THE MEDIUM FOR THE MESSAGE.” GREG NEWKIRK

Greg: There’s more to Hellier than any of us realize, I think. The phenomena is calling the shots here, we’re just the medium for the message.

What’s next for you both - straight into Hellier 2 or other projects? It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you both today. Thanks for your time.

Dana: We started filming the second season of Hellier in December, so that’s a big focus for us this year, but we’ve also just started production on a documentary that centres around one of the artefacts in the museum.

Greg: It’s going to scare the hell out of people, but it’ll also change their perspectives on haunted objects for the better, I think. That’s always our goal with every project - make people think about why they believe what they do.

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ALWAYS DARK SIDE A

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elcome to ghost hunting and if you’ve never done it before, trust me its not always the good spirits that come with ‘Love and Light’.

fter my many years of ghost hunting, which is now some 30 years, I have to say that events can be very mixed and this also goes for those pesky spirits, some want to chat to us but others want to make us feel so unwelcome that we instantly want to leave.

I believe that all spirits will come back with the same mannerisms as they used to have on this earth plane. So trust me, if they were miserable here they are still miserable over the other side, including your loved ones too.

I often get asked about ‘dark spirits or dark energies’. Yes, I do believe that they exist and that they also want to come and visit us, why wouldn’t they?

I’ve seen it at events were spirits want to connect that come from a lower source of a dark side, just like positive spirits they want to connect with us to prove that life still exists.

Many years ago, I remember working at Pleasley Vale Mills, Mansfield and decided to walk around to get the night ready for an event. Spirit wanted to play that night as I walked around the top floor every so often they would make themselves well known and they would stop me in my tracks by walking through me… YES… actually walking through me. Almost as if they wanted to tease me or play a game or maybe they wanted me to leave ASAP! A friend of mine was walking around with me at the time and would notice it every time I was ‘walked through’ as I would stop conversation and she put it ‘I would stop dead in my tracks’, until the spirit has gone again.

The Galleries of Justice, Nottingham is another well known haunted venue and often when I was left to clear out my guests at the end of the night, I would feel this overwhelming

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presence of a ‘dark energy’ following me around. Simply letting me know who was in charge and trust me, it definitely wasn’t me! Those pesky spirits did their best to get me out the way as quick as possible and often then would follow me home and in doing this they would set off my electrical appliances in the kitchen, mainly my kettle and off it would go to boiling stage and then it would turn off as soon as I came back into the room, until I sent them packing to where they belonged.

Woodchester Mansion, Stroud has really shown me its true colours before with me being pushed about and railroaded around the cellar area, along with a sulphur smell following the sensation of being pushed, as if spirit were trying to breath on me with a vile smell.

The Skirrid Mountain Inn, Abergavenny surprised me one night as I thought the night was pretty flat in terms of energy but what was about to happen I would never forget in the bedroom I was sat in a vigil with the guest, the room suddenly went icy cold with blasts of air from around the room. Unexpectedly the wash paper bin from our of the bathroom started to rattle on the floor and then suddenly slid its way across the floor for about eight foot until it really stumped us and yes at this point we really did believe that someone wanted to connect to us.

I suppose what I am trying to say, is that spirit will come through to us no matter what. They will always find a way to let us know what’s going on and whether we are welcome in locations or not. Those icy blasts or those moments of warm breezes that are followed by an element of paranormal activity.

LOOK ON THE OF LIFE (WELL SOMETIMES…)

On any event the level of paranormal activity can be very small and easily missed, we must accept that even small amounts of activity must take them spirits a long time to build up the energy to make them happen. Energy can often be confused with orbs, but this form of materialisation is needed at times for them to perform physical appearances or formations.

They all seem to want to connect to us no matter what the backgrounds of the individuals were. What I have become to realise is that energies such as demonic monks do not exist, but that characters can often portray themselves in what ever aspect they want too, maybe to scare us and frighten us away. I always envisage the 80’s programme of ‘Rent-a-Ghost’, were spirits would work together to keep people away from their domains. You can imagine them upstairs plotting against us and wondering what would scare us next time, maybe a missing head or a loud bang.

When we look at our lives its no different, we accept some people in our lives and then at other times we want them to run away from us because of the mood that we are in at that very moment. I imagine that we all feel like this often, and that when we pass to spirit, I would certainly want to frighten a few of my past and present connections, whether these be good or bad is another story. Maybe I’ll just sing an annoying song all night long or even keep poking them as they are falling asleep, all I can say is that I will be back one way or another.

How would you scare people if you were over the other side? Lets be honest, I am sure that every day would be like Halloween once we’ve passed over, so how about we join forces and lets do a new version of modern day ghost hunting when we all pass over.

The art of ghost hunting has changed so much over years, I remember starting out with silent vigils to see and feel the energy of a room and to get the initial impact, but now we are so governed by machines and equipment that we miss so much. I do not believe that App’s on phones or some of the latest tools are the way to go, they are most clearly pre-programme with information and its not reliable, as its only as good as the information that is programmed into it.

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My rules of ghost hunting: 1.

Go into the room and feel the energy.

2.

Give the room time to build up.

3.

Respect the room and spirit.

4.

Ask Spirit to do ‘sensible things’.

5.

Set up trigger objects in rooms that are closed

off or locked off.

6.

Use any tools as an addition to the vigil.

7.

Go with your gut feeling.

8.

If activity happens, ask for it to be done again.

9.

Record any activity with times/location and EVP. 10.

Got back to the same location on the night and see if

you get the same activity.

11.

Remember that spirits move around, they are not stationary.

12.

Spirit will follow you.

13.

Respect any activity and talk to them with dignity and decency.

14.

Getting activity is massive thing, do not dismiss it or

rule it out.

15.

Always look for an explain of any activity and if it

cannot be explained them trust its paranormal.

16.

On completion of the night compare any notes with

other groups and see if they got the same activity and

at what times.

17.

Being sceptical isn’t a bad thing.

18.

Don’t not fear the dark, activity happens in the

daytimes too.

19.

Remember that you are here for activity!

20.

And if you are on a ghost hunt with me and any

activity happens, move out the way as I am coming

through the door… RUN RUN RUN… Enjoy your next ghost hunt and be prepared for the unexpected and the unexplained as that’s why you are there. Just be grateful of any activity as its takes a long time for it happen and its consistent then question it.

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ATTACK OF THE SCARESHIPS MIKE COVELL written exclusively for HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Mike Covell is a local historian and author based in Kingston upon Hull. He has previously appeared in Most Haunted, Paranormal Lockdown, Prime Suspect Jack the Ripper, and advised on the hit BBC 2 show The Bombs that Changed Britain.

Mike writes for Hull Daily Mail, Hull Hub, and various magazines and newspapers, and teaches, lectures, and runs walking tours covering all aspects of Hull’s history. He is the author of the popular Mike Covell Investigates book series and has recently released his UFO volume entitled Mike Covell Investigates the UFO Files.

the Government was aware of their existence and that the airships were genuine phenomena. [5]

On the same day Hull newspaper The Eastern Morning News featured the following interesting snippet, [6]

STRANGE STORY FROM GRIMSBY. INQUIRING FOREIGNERS ON THE HUMBER BANK.

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hen asked about the modern UFO phenomena, most people will state that the June 24th 1947 sighting by pilot Kenneth Arnold, over Mount Rainier, Washington State, was the beginning of the era. This was shortly followed by the Roswell Incident, which took place a month later in July 1947; however, much earlier than these incidents was a series of sightings that became known as “Scareships.”

Between the years of 1896 and 1897 America was plagued by sightings of strange craft in the skies. The craft that had been witnessed were described as Airships and often carrying lights, propellers, and able to maneuver at speeds that were unknown at this point in time. What was so odd about the sightings was the number of witnesses and locations at which they appeared and the date, predating the German experiments with dirigibles by some 3 years, and the American attempts by 8 years. [1] Still as soon as these strange craft appeared they seemed to stop and no more were recorded until 1909. On the 23rd of March in the year 1909 two police officers were 30

on duty in Peterborough, England, in different locations in the city at 5:10am when a long oblong body with a light attached flew overhead at speed making a buzzing sound.

The Peterborough Police launched an investigation and after 6 weeks decided that the two police officers had seen nothing more than an illuminated kite. It wasn’t until May when the sightings really took off with reports coming in from Belfast, Ipswich, Northampton, and Southend. [2] The sightings in Hull were the furthest northerly position that any craft were recorded. In the run up to the Hull sighting the Hull press featured reports of the German High Seas Fleet carrying out maneuvers in the North Sea. It appears as though these maneuvers were too close for comfort and regular articles and correspondence from readers filled the pages. [3] The following day, May 12th 1909, the issue was raised that the Humber Estuary was not secure from possible German invasion and thus began the 1909 Airship Scare in Hull. [4] The first report in the Hull press occurred on May 19th 1909 when The Hull Daily Mail report that claimed HAUNTED

A strange story was last night told to our Grimsby correspondent by workmen returning from Killingholme, near Immingham new dock works.

They declared they were seated at noon on the roadside at Killingholme, when a large motor car drove up, stopped round the corner, opposite the foreman of the manure works house, and two coats and motor caps, alighted. These men walked to the road bank on which the men were seated, and, speaking in a thick guttural tones scarcely understandable, inquired if any airships had recently been seen near. The workmen replied “No”; whereupon the motorists asked the distance between Killingholme and Spurn and whether any mines were laid in the Humber between the two places. The workmen referred their interrogators to “the man in the white cap on the river bank,” indicating the coastguard, saying “he would be able to tell them.” “It does not matter,” replied the motorists, and, after inquiring the way to the nearest refreshment house, they jumped into their car and drove quickly away. The workmen are convinced that the men were genuine foreigners and were not hoaxing them.

Who were the mysterious foreign men and what was their interest in the airships and the Humber? Were they German spies? An early example of Men in Black or hoaxers?

Sadly we can only speculate as to who they were and what they were after. The following day on May 20th both The Hull Daily Mail and The Eastern Morning News featured reports on the airships.

The Eastern Morning News featured a report on an airship over Cardiff and another, possibly the same, landing on a mountain in Wales!

The report goes on to claim that material from the airship was left on the mountain! [7] This is similar to the much later Roswell Incident, in which it was claimed that material was found at the crash site.

The Hull Daily Mail article, of the same date, added more information to the Cardiff and Welsh sightings and claimed that the items left be-

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hind by the airship were French, but that several papers left behind were German. [8] The main body of the article referred to the Hull sighting, it read,

Another report published in The Hull Daily Mail on that date claims that the airships have been seen over London and at Southend. The report also chases up the alleged landing of an airship on Caerphilly Mountain.

ALLEGED AIRSHIP. “A PATCH OF LIGHT.” INTERVIEWS IN HULL. An aerial visitor has been alleged to have been seen on two successive nights over the city and the Humber. Both occasions were last week. It was only on Wednesday night that it was reported an airship had been seen passing over Coltman-street on Thursday night of last week. Those then noticing it were a Mr. A. Walker, of 31 Coltman-street, and his father and mother. At the time they didn’t attach more than a passing interest to the phenomenon; and it was not until reading accounts of the airships visits in Tuesdays papers that they suspected that what they observed must have been an airship. Interviewed by the “Mail,” Mr. A. Walker said: “At about eleven o’clock on Thursday night I was coming out of the greenhouse. I had just put out the light, when something flashed across my eyes – something startled me like a flash of lightning. “I looked up, and there was a patch of light in the sky. It looked like a street gas lamp seen in a fog. It was working to the west, and seemed to be tacking a little as if going against the wind which was forcing it back. It was like a luminous body seen through the clouds – arc shape. I heard also a peculiar whirring noise. The light was high up – about a mile up I should think. It was dark and cloudy at the time; but I had the light under my observation for about two minutes. I immediately called my father and my mother who were in the house, and they also both saw the light as it traveled westwards.”

Mr. Walker, Sen, said when he first saw the light it looked like a “light suspended in the air.” Two other Hull persons are reported to have seen the airship on the following night at about 10 o’clock – not very far from the Boulevard; and these two aver that the object seemed over the Humber, and that from the clouds they also saw, for a very brief space, a piercing search light directed on to the Humber. A lady reader of the “Mail” in West Hull also states she saw a strange light in the sky one night last week, but then thought no more about it. The light then appeared to hover not far from the Humber.

If the Walker family saw their object on the Thursday before publication this would mean that the sightings occurred in Hull as early as Thursday the 13th of May, the article being published on Thursday the 20th of May. Luckily the Walker family can be traced via the 1911 Census of Hull, residing at 31 Coltman Street, Hull, [Class RG14, P28790,]

A further report published in The Hull Daily Mail comes from a London based correspondent of the newspaper and features more details on the London sighting, and reports of a sighting at Pontypool. Also on that day came a short letter from a The Hull Daily Mail reader based in Hull. The letter stated, A Regent-street resident writes that he saw the “light” referred to in Thursday’s “Mail” as having appeared over Hull last week. He says its position was such that it would be impossible to be regulated from any airship. “It may have been from a land apparatus. The noise of the machinery heard may have been a vehicle rattling over Saner-lane settings.

again. [9] The following day, May 21st 1909, featured several reports in The Hull Daily Mail. [10] The first of these was a report on a gentleman named Percival Spencer. Mr. Spencer claimed that the recent sightings were nothing more than models made by his company. The problem is of course that Mr. Spencer’s model airships are a mere 25ft in length and nowhere near the sizes reported by eyewitnesses.

Natural explanation or not, the phenomena ceased in the local press but nationally the story continued with sightings across Wales and southern counties. One such report, from a regional newspaper, claimed that Belgian fishermen from Ostend observed an airship over the North Sea ten miles from Hull. [11] It was the last sighting in the region, at least for the next four years. The strange airship sightings caused a sensation around the globe, with news reports flooding in from as far away as Australia.

A thorough search of the Hull Watch

John W W Walker (54) Head Tea Blender

Charlotte Maria Walker (54) Wife

Committee Meeting minutes failed to turn up any mention of a sighting over Hull during this period, but was there a more down to earth explanation?

As the events of 1909 are often ignored no one has ever really looked at an explanation for the events that transpired over the skies of Hull, there are, however, other explanations other than the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

August 4th 1914 is a day that will live on in infamy, it was the day that the First World War started, and it was from this day that the British expected an attack from the Germans at any point. Luckily the range of German planes at this moment in time meant that an air attack by planes was highly unlikely, but, airships could fly this distance. The residents of Hull, however, were ready for war. A small recruitment office was set up at 22 Pryme-street, and eventually demand was so great that the Hull Corporation set up rooms in the City Hall. At the end of January 1915 more than 22,000 Hull men had enlisted. In Hull the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13, Battalions of the East Yorkshire Regiment were created. Each battalion comprised of around 1,050 men and all where ready to do their duty.

On Christmas Day 1915 the air raid from German airplanes came in Kent, and it wasn’t long before the bigger Zeppelins would launch their attacks. These giants of the sky could carry a higher payload, and where therefore much deadlier than the airplanes. They could also travel greater distances.

It is unknown why it took so long for the sighting to appear in the press, given that national sightings were published within 24 hours of them occurring and that the Hull Daily Mail at that time was published 6 days a week, Monday to Saturday, and usually each day multiple editions would be published.

On Sunday June 6th 1915 Kapitanleutnant Mathy of the German airforce flew towards London in his L9 Zeppelin. As he flew over the English coast he realized he was heading for Bridlington, so decided to follow the railway lines to Hull and drop his payload there. He arrived in Hull a little before midnight and was tracked by the searchlights over Paull.

A later edition of The Hull Daily Mail, also released on May 20th 1909, featured a follow on report claiming that the airship had been reported over the Cardiff Docks

At the time there was no air defence in Hull so the craft met with little resistance and from 3,000 feet it began to drop its cargo of 13 high explosives and 50 incendiary

Arthur Walker (25) Son Grocer

Colman Street in 1909 at the time of the sighting

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bombs. Waller-street and Craven-street were hit first, Clarence Street and Church Street followed, with Queen Street and High Street in the Old Town suffering too.

Edwin Davis and Co, situated on the corner of South Church Side and Market Place, was hit and completely destroyed.

The Zeppelin continued west across the city and next on the list of targets was Campbell Street, Walker Street and Porter Streets.

A great number of people died in this, and other Zeppelin raids on the city, and across the country.

Punch, Wednesday May 26th 1909, replacing the stories of Sea Serpents with stories of Scareships

With this in mind could the earlier over-flights of these “scareships” be something more mundane such as exercises by the German military over the British Isles?

Coltman Street in the early 1900’s The Hull Airship Scare of 1909: 1 UFO The Complete Sightings Catalogue, Peter Brookesmith, Cassell PLC, 1995, PP. 22-23 2 Ibid, PP. 25-27 3 The Hull Daily Mail, May 12th 1909 4 The Hull Daily Mail, May 13th 1909 5 The Hull Daily Mail, May 19th 1909 6 Eastern Morning News, May 19th 1909 7 Eastern Morning News, May 20th 1909 8 The Hull Daily Mail, May 20th 1909 9 The Hull Daily Mail, May 20th 1909 10 The Hull Daily Mail, May 21st 1909 11 Norfolk News, May 22nd 1909

NOT

SO

‘ORRIBLE

HISTORIES

GOODNESS GRACIOUS GREAT BALLS OF FIRE BY

PENNY

GRIFFITHS

MORGAN

I bet you’ve just sung tha t haven’t you? Either that or you have read the title of this art icle and decided that Penny has wel l and truly lost it and thinks she’s writing for Rolling Stone magazine. Well, here’s anothe r one to confuse you yet furthe r, Foo Fighters….and no I don ’t mean the awesome band fronted

by Dave Grohl, I am actually tal king about the paranormal phe nom that reached notoriety dur enon ing World War 2 There are many strange and baff ling supernatural curiosities associat ed with war, last months article on The Gho st Cavalry highlighted that, but this is one that seems to be particular to aviation whic h is love of mine, therefore I saw it fitting to mention it.

The first sighting of the Foo Figh ter mystery seems to have been at 10pm November rd 23 1944 by a U.S. pilot in the area of northern Strasbourg, three nights later another U.S. pilot repo rted the same visual anomaly and yet again on the night of the 22nd December by yet another U.S. pilo t flying a mission over exactly the same part of Alsa ce Lorraine.

Here is a description of the expe rience written by the co pilot of a Boeing B29 Super fort ress whilst flying over the Indian Ocean

“A strange object was pac ing us about 500 yards (475 m) off the starboard wing. At that dis it appeared as a spherical tance ject, probably five or six obin diameter, of a very bri feet ght and intense red or orange ... it seemed to have a halo eff ect.”

“My gunner reported it coming in from about a 5 o’clock position (right rear) at our level. It seemed to throb or vibr ate constantly. Assuming it was som e kind of radio-controlled object sent to pace us, I went into evasive action, chan ging direction constantly, as much as 90 degrees and altitude of about 2,00 0 feet (600 m).

It followed our every manoeuvre for about eight minutes, always holding a position about 500 yards (475m) out and about 2 o’clock in relation to the plane.

When it left, it made an abrupt 90 degree turn, accelerating rapidly, and disappe ared into the overcast.”

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But what was this weird sight that became a legend in its own right?

They were blazing balls of light in the sky which seemed to travel unfeasibly fast and also seemed to change colour from orange to red to white and back to orange again. The Allied forces felt that these weird apparitions had to be experimental technology developed by the axis powers, but upon capturing the secret laboratories belonging to the Germans, they discovered no evidence relating to any study or undertaking that was developing some secretive weapon of this kind.

As you would probably expect from a world at war, the Japanese also saw these unexplained illuminations in the sky and decided they must be secret and and intimidating aerial weapons of the Americans or Russians But where did the term “Foo Fighter” come from as they were also known occasionally as Kraut Fireballs.

There was at the time, a comic strip known as Smokey Stover who always said “if there’s foo, there’s fire”, hence the term foo fighter, although this perhaps a misnomer as the balls of light never fired or did anything antagonistic to any of the witnesses to them and whilst occasionally picked up via radar would quickly accelerate beyond anything that 1940’s radar could track and disappear as fast as they appeared.

What were they? After the war a former Major in the German army, Rudolf Lusar published a book on

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secret German weapons of WW2 and whilst he is reputed to have covered many of the well known inventions such as the V1 and V2 rockets, he also included a section on “wonder weapons” and in this he claimed that his fellow countrymen had invented small automated aircraft reminiscent of our idea of a UFO which were called Feuerball and Kugelblitz and were supposed to use some kind of electrostatic charge to interfere with the allied bombers engines It may have been possible; however there were no reports from any of these sightings that damage occurred to any of these aircraft so this account does not seem plausible.

Another theory was that it was something to do with a delayed version of sight, literally, the reflection of the flashes from the flak and anti-aircraft fire that was being thrown at these ships of the sky on a regular basis causing a kind of aviators’ vertigo or was it something really simple like the imagination of terrified young men?

I think assuming it was just their minds playing tricks on them is doing their bravery a disservice, but we shall continue One of the most plausible theories is that it was a form of St Elmo’s Fire (also known as St Elmo’s Light) which is a natural phenomena where a kind of luminous plasma is created by the discharge of electricity when

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the fluid around the conductor ionises, also known as a coronal (corona) discharge. The nitrogen and oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere cause the fire to burn blue or violet light.

So were the wingtips of the aircraft the conductor and the weather perfect for this to take place? Possibly as we do not have meteorological reports from the time but the eye witness reports all state red, white or orange orbs of light, not the typical blue or violet that is seen when all the factors align together to produce St Elmo’s Fire.

Which leads us to the million dollar question, if not military innovation, if not a natural phenomenon like St Elmo’s fire and if not battle fatigue causing hallucinations what on earth were these weird shapes in the sky that seemed to move at inhuman speed and followed and watched the aircraft and seemed to want to play with them thousands of feet above land.

That conclusion is entirely up to you, but personally for what it’s worth? I don’t think a term like “on earth” applies here and goodness gracious great balls of fire is probably the most tame exclamation to describe this supernatural oddity, don’t you?

You can catch other investigations by HauntedLIVE on VIDISpace

“WHAT HAPPENED WHEN #HauntedLIVE went nightclubbing…”

By Jason Wall #HauntedLIVE - who are they? Well, we are five great mates who love the paranormal and approach it with a hint of humour and a twist of sarcasm(!) although we do take our investigations seriously.

We love investigating the new and different places we are invited to, regurgitating the same old place in the same old town holds little interest to us.

S

o, when the #HauntedLIVE team were asked to investigate a local Nottinghamshire nightclub, we ‘Jumped Around’ at the chance. (Well, more of a gentle saunter - at least 4 of us hadn’t ventured into a nightclub for nearly 20 years!)

PRYZM nightclub is situated in the heart of Nottingham, at the corner of what is now

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Lower Parliament Street and Glasshouse Street. It seamlessly blends in to the city landscape alongside the other historic buildings and landmarks for which Nottingham is renowned. I know we are biased (we are all Nottinghamshire boys), but we absolutely love our city although we were all unaware that the nightclub hid such a dark and chequered history…

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The nightclub became the focus of the paranormal world in the run up to Halloween 2018. CCTV footage had captured alleged paranormal activity in one of the bars which went viral, hitting social media outlets and the national press. The footage shows a cash register apparently opening and closing by itself followed by a heavy icebox top sliding open.

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A Brief History of the Location The original building first recorded on the site was a hospital dedicated to the name of St. John the Baptist, which later was to become the Nottingham Town house of Correction in 1791. These facilities became prominent in towns and cities throughout England in the 1700s after the passing of the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), where vagrants and beggars stayed and forced to work as prisoners. From 1846, the former house of correction closed, becoming the town gaol following the closure of the Nottingham Town Gaol. Following that, and after the 1877 Prison Act (which centralised the running of these establishments) it became the new county gaol after the closure of the former site, formerly adjoined to the Shire Hall on High Pavement. We later found that prior to all this history it had connections with the Knights Hospitallers, which for want of a better phrase were the medicinal side of the Templars…

Photo by James Pykett, Haunted Insight

Paul (editor of this magazine) made initial contact with the club’s assistant manager Tom Dodd, to ask if they were interested in allowing us to film for one of our Facebook LIVE investigations and after some negotiations with head office, permission was granted.

The nightclub itself is a maze of bars and relaxation areas; mirrors adorn the walls providing opportunities for reflections to be mistaken for shadows; dark corners lurk throughout the entire building. Who knows what spirits lie in wait to shock or surprise the staff during the quiet times when the club is closed and silent?

Lighting was clearly evident in all the dance floor areas, which we had to take into account in the case of artificially high EMF spikes. It was important that during the first walk-through to establish these hotspots were taken into consideration during the broadcast. During our baseline tests we met with Tom who described the various parts of the building he believed we should focus on and where the staff had experienced the most activity.

This was in four main areas: -

On April 24th 1925, following the demolition of the old jail, the first entry into the site as a nightclub opened - the ‘Palais de Danse’. Designed by architects Alfred John Thraves and Henry Hardwick Dawson, it featured a globe and frieze of dancers above the entrance. It was designed with enough space inside to allow up to 1,000 people (easily enough to accommodate 5 paranormal dad dancers with a distinct lack of rhythm!). Over the years, the name of changed several times; from Ritzy back to The Palais to Oceana and finally Pryzm.

With so many different layers of history, would there be any energies or spirits from the souls that died here?

The Investigation: October 24th 2018 Donned in our best clubbing gear (the #HauntedLIVE branded t-shirts and hoodies that was), the investigation began where all the activity had been recorded.

The Bar Area The bar in question was one of the smaller ones in the club, although it could still easy occupy over 200 people; the décor was dark and without any lighting other than the camera phone used for the broadcast, the room felt oppressive although there was no obvious feeling of anything paranormal.

The Bar Area - Focus of the poltergeist type activity captured in the CCTV coverage

The Boudoir Room – A room used 2-3 times a year, beautifully dressed in a 1920s style with tables and long flowing curtains. There was an energy to the room, often staff reported feelings of being watched.

Balcony/Dance floor Area – The balcony surrounded the main dance floor, allowing a great view of the whole room. Staff have told stories of footsteps and shadows all around the upper floor.

Downstairs Cloakroom – A small former cloakroom below ground level. Staff feel like they have been watched and are not alone; some staff (including Tom) are extremely reluctant to go down there alone.

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Tom Dodd, Assistant Manager

Our investigation initially focused on the bar, using an Afterlife box (ITC communication device), motion sensors and the SLS camera all targeting the cash register. Tom accompanied the team throughout the whole investigation with two friends, to ensure that we did not get lost (and keep an eye on Simon as he cast a few envious glances at the whisky selection!) It was important to try to establish why the cash register and icebox opened as they did. Tom explained to the viewers that although the cash register could be opened remotely, due to MAGA Z I NE

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the built-in spring mechanism, the till could not close unless it was physically pushed shut. This made the CCTV footage seem all the more credible. In addition, Tom demonstrated how difficult it was for the icebox lid to slide open. The top sliding panel is not attached to the main fridge and when trying to open the top it takes considerable effort to move due to the resistance. Unfortunately, no discernible activity was captured in or around the cash register and bar, other than a number of random EMF fluctuations on the K2 (we do know the arguments of using these meters on a live investigation through a phone, everything is done to ensure that the any devices to not affect the readings). We encountered a noticeable blast of cold air that appeared to move around everyone standing in a circle in the room but to be fair, it had been a quiet start.

The Boudoir Room Such an impressive room, highly decorated and stylised to fit the 1920’s when the building was originally opened, you could easily be mistaken for thinking you had gone back in time. This lavish looking area impressed from the start, with an instant energy from the moment we entered. In this room we had

positioned motion detector lights around the floor, EDI+ on the bar and the Afterlight box.

The motion detector light on the floor near the bar began to light up almost immediately. Although we were near to the light, the closest person was around 6 feet away and not close enough to trigger the light. We did check to see if the motion sensor was reacting to shadows being cast by our camera light as the team moved around (debunking is also a large part of what we do as well as attempting to prove evidence of the paranormal). We recreated specific movements when the sensor lit up, but the results were inconsistent with what had been experienced. Was this a presence making the light come on? There was a sense that the team were being observed and during the calling out, a clear knock was heard from behind the bar. This seemed to be the catalyst for more movement; a light anomaly first followed by a shadow just outside the entrance to the room. It seemed as though the shadow headed towards to the gent’s toilets, which had a door just at the bottom of the steps leading to the Boudoir room. Through the toilets at the far end is another doorway which lead through to our next location, the balcony.

In this case, Andy and I followed our instincts, heading for a (very) short vigil in a gent’s toilet. An uncomfortable feeling hit us (not because we were in there together!), but as Andy began to call out, there was a loud bang from the aluminium backsplash of the communal urinal! The area felt eerie, especially around the far end of the toilet where the bang came from which led directly out to the balcony. Everyone felt HAUNTED

the same, whatever was interacting was gaining the attention of everyone and wanted to lead us to another place, namely the balcony and dance-floor.

As most of the team headed for the balcony to setup, Andy headed back to the Boudoir Room (as everybody has followed the shadow and left the equipment behind). As a considerate team mate (take note Simon, James and Paul) I headed off to help and heard Andy speaking out loud to someone. I walked up the steps and entered the room and Andy stopped in his tracks to let out a stream of expletives (he may well be the quietly spoken one of the team, but Andy has the mouth of a sailor! A bar of soap for that man to wash it out was what we got him for Christmas!). He believed that he had been speaking to me and I had been with following him into the room the entire time! Whatever or whoever he had felt next to him then walked across the far end of the room, as we both clearly heard footsteps!

Balcony/Dance floor The balcony surrounds the largest main dance floor in the club with VIP boxes situated in and around the main dance floor itself with a DJ booth to one end. To make matters more difficult during the live, (bearing in mind how dark it was without the lights on) the club was building up to Halloween so there were large decorations scattered around. There were also metal flooring panels stood balanced on one side of the DJ box waiting to be put in place.

Within moments of starting our vigil on the balcony, everyone heard what sounded like a female’s maniacal scream coming from the far corner of the upper level. This happened four times during our time there, clear and loud enough to carry over on the live broadcast as viewers confirmed hearing it too. The second time we heard the scream was most distinct, similar to a bird screeching - a parrot squawk even! As with all our Facebook live investigations, the team interact with whoever is watching, reading comments from viewers as we go. They are like an extra set of eyes and ears and very often see / hear more than we do! A viewer commented in the early days of the dance hall, a parrot used to signal the end of the night by squawking loudly.

Subsequently, since the live, there is evidence that the original decoration for the dance hall was tropically themed, which would match the story of the parrot being in the building (although we cannot find corroborative evidence of this online).

Left to Right: Jason, Paul and James

In between the audible activity, the team experienced movements around the balcony in the shadows, footsteps on the main floor and voices in the background, (which started in the Boudoir Room). With the team stretched out all over the balcony and activity seemingly moving, we relocated to the main floor.

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It felt like the focus of the energy was around the DJ booth, although footsteps could be heard all around the floor when on the balcony.

Several times both Paul and I caught the light metal flooring with our feet (remember it was dark!), causing a metallic banging noise as the steel rocked back into place back to where it had begun. It did trigger many gasps and shouts from Tom and the rest of the team followed by laughter but unfortunately, nothing paranormal (still, it makes a change from grumbling pizza-filled stomachs being mistaken for demonic growls!)

During the vigil on the dance floor, James saw a full shadow figure walk to the balcony edge, lean over and watch the team which was corroborated by one of Tom’s guests. Both described seeing the same black shape and movement. Unfortunately, this was not caught on camera (we use just the one for the live), which can be frustrating! In an attempt to recreate what had been seen, Simon went to where the figure had appeared, so the viewers had a sense of where it was in relation to the team on the floor, but despite calling out and trying to respectfully ask for more activity the ‘apparition’ did not show itself again.

The activity seemed to die down, maybe gathering strength for what was to come and with time running out, the team relocated downstairs to the former cloakroom, an area where many of the nightclub staff refused to go by themselves.

Downstairs Cloakroom Set below ground level, this small room has a metal shelving frame in the centre making movement difficult. A smaller annex room off the entrance had a stockpile of papers and a grill from the building’s former life as a prison (so we were reliably informed), the papers making the room inaccessible, allowing only a view into it from the doorway.

Left to Right: Simon and James

During our initial base line tests the week before, the K2 meters recorded some unusual energy in the middle of the main room.

From waist height to shoulder level, a constant reading of three lights (2.5-10 milligauss). Above and below this general area, nothing was shown on the meters. The same readings were present again during this vigil.

Whenever anyone carries out an investigation, you hope for some type of activity that will defy reason. A figure, an EVP, anything.

The vigil in the cloakroom was quiet despite the closeness felt in the room; no obvious feeling or atmosphere until what can only be described as a huge crashing sound from somewhere else within the building, not in the cloakroom but back at the dance floor! Although when replayed, the sound was not picked up as clearly as hoped on the live feed, it was still captured.

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Our jaws hit the floor in cartoon style – see Simon on the video (classic!), which is great for the viewers, and us! Audible evidence to share and so loud! Although shocked, we called out and asked for whoever it was to repeat the noise. Not only was it repeated, it happened a further two times!! There were just the eight people in this cloakroom throughout the entire building.

We had so many questions at this point. How had this noise been made and more importantly, who had made it? Was this an angry spirit? How could it hear the request to repeat the noise through different floor levels? How was it strong enough to make this type of noise too?

Simon and James headed back towards the dance floor to see if they could find the source of the noise and recreate it, leaving the rest of us, Tom and his guests in the cloakroom to try to confirm whether what the two of them were doing matched what we had heard. They systematically checked and slammed doors, banged against walls as they went along but nothing could replicate the heavy boom that had previously echoed through the cloakroom. The sound had come from directly above, near where the DJ booth and dance floor were situated. When they got to the dance floor, they tried slightly tipping the light metal flooring and letting it drop back into place. As it dropped, the sound was the loud metallic bang! Through the floor into the cloakroom, it matched the one we had heard perfectly, the impact, type of noise and the volume of it in every way! Moving steel decking, however light it was is still not an easy thing to do even for a grown man (especially James and Simon!) If this were paranormal, it must have used a lot of energy to do this once, let alone multiple times! I think everyone was a little unnerved by this point. Worried that something had been disturbed from its rest!

Summary This building and its former occupants (both avian and human) had not disappointed.

The building had responded and exceeded all our expectations.

Although the investigation went beyond the usual two hours, it did feel like most of the energy had left after what had been experienced earlier. The Alice and the Afterlife box apps had given us several names during the night on the different vigils, but there were no direct responses to any of them when they were used.

PRYZM Nightclub delivered in so many ways. The historical background and site was fascinating to explore. There are so many questions regarding whom or what resides in that building that caused the poltergeist type activity around the bar area and the massive bangs that were heard from the dance floor. It is slightly worrying that something paranormal could have the capacity to make that happen, and to the many staff who work at the club who watched the live unfold on their phones, tablets or computers, MAGA Z I NE

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we hope we did not put you off working there!

With audible sounds, shadow figures, footsteps, poltergeist activity we can only guess that this is from the layers of pain and suffering previously experienced by the living on the site. The location is worthy of further investigation to determine who or what from its dark past still roams there. #HauntedLIVE would like to thank Tom Dodd and all the management of PRYZM for their kindness in allowing the team to investigate. We would also like to thank everyone who watches LIKES and interacts with us during the investigations. At the end of the day we really are just five great friends who love the paranormal and just want everyone else to love it too.

WE’RE NOT SURE IF THERE WAS A MURDER ON THE DANCEFLOOR… BUT ONE THING IS FOR SURE...

WE DID NOT KILL THE GROOVE…

#DontBeNormal BE PARANORMAL!!

B y

H u b e r t

H o b u x

Bringing a vivid imagination to a paranormal investigation can blow your mind sometimes... especially if names and coincidental circumstance crop up, coherent with the narrative of that scant bit of historical knowledge you might have gleaned about a place. Or as in the first case recorded here.... no prior knowledge at all of the tale.

Here are two coastal investigations I have been on, months apart, where a couple of eye-opening revelations worthy of a Susan Hill ghost novella have manifested from the ether...

Blackpool’s Raikes Hall: Winter 2019 (remember folks it wasn’t Spring until March, just in case you’re wondering, cos I was at first – Editor) Raikes Hall has been a house, Convent, pleasure gardens and sporting paradise for folk on the Fylde since 1760. The grounds of this now semi palatial public house were also a site of executions and suicides, back in the day of such seemingly frequent consequences.

Those grisly historic events seem to have left a legacy of shadowy spectres darting about the Raikes annexed crown bowling green during the dead of night.

It’s well recorded that a Nun drowned herself in the ornamental lake during the eleven years or so of it being a Convent, she is said to be the apparition floating that people have witnessed, (not literally as the lake is now gone) about the fenced off grounds and people on our investigation that night actually saw her misty form, (they thought). I didn’t but I did communicate with her! Or at least I did via one of the nice ladies on the event.

“It transpired that the Nun doesn’t like blokes and she wouldn’t speak directly with me, even though I had my trusty pendulum out in hand” However, together me and the nice Scots lady assisting got her name, which annoyingly was the same name as another guest’s late mother, so for a while we thought we may be being plagued by an emotionally related spirit, but then a series of yes / no questions soon threw up the truth though, (or so

we believed), that this was indeed.... The Nun!!

And in a few poignant responses, transmitted through the pendulum, we got the cause of her suicide “suggested” to us, plus the very understandable reason why she has been so reticent to ‘move on’, to wherever it is suicidal Nuns who had so naughtily lapsed move on to!

We weren’t finished with those stupefying revelations neither! Down in the tunnels that are now employed as the hostelry’s beer cellars, lurks a male energy. Some name him as a previous owner of the Raikes who peers from the dark corners, but I had the feeling this was someone who in life had been a little humbler. The nice Scots lady assisting also sensed this was someone who had come to a sad, sudden demise and a name came into my head strong and clear. Recently I have become slightly more open to having names “placed into my imagination’ and I do believe that the spirits are willing to place them there HAUNTED

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if you are receptive, whether that later affected an involuntary response on the Ouija board or not.

I was cock-a-hoop that that same name came up during the board seance at the end of the night, and yes, just like a final chapter from a Catherine Cookson costume drama novel this “murdered” male spirit revealed he played a pretty big role in the denouement in the Nun’s final act of fate I’m reluctant to go into too much detail of the result as the marvellous “Supernatural Events”, up on the Lancashire Coast, host events at Raikes Hall often, BUT you should go if you can, it’s a very haunted place, would be interesting to see if the same story we turfed and surfed up can be corroborated by others, after all, isn’t that what we are trying to prove? after all.... irrefutable evidence... all the more eerily impressive if the story might actually come from the spirits thought manipulation themselves...!!

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Scarborough Grand Hotel: Summer 2018 We had already had an active night in this sprawling, once grandiose now slightly jaded, Victorian built hotel. Quite late into the investigation we moved into the large dining hall just as all our energies were starting to dip... I was in great company as a couple of Medium friends from old, Jean and Paul, had booked on the event unbeknownst to me and wandering between the regimented tables in the vast, dark hall, something drew me toward the rain splattered large ‘picture’ windows high above the beach promenade below.....

I was using a “spirit” box app at the time, a good one, (one of Brian Holloway’s actually), chillingly, the high-pitched scream of a woman wafted over the sound banks!! Just at the same moment Paul jerked as he felt “an energy” push him aside as if something was running full pelt towards those windows....

Again, that same scream pierced the clammy air, followed by a man’s voice bellowing some unintelligible remark down the distant depths of time, presumably at the screaming female. Jean immediately asked the spirit lady if she required help. The spirit man aggressively stated “No”, then the poor distressed lady screeched again, followed by more berating from the male! Each time we implored the lady to respond the male insisted “No!” Confounding any reaction from her.

We had the horrible feeling we were witnessing a long past scenario which involved some unfortunate woman being bundled out of one those windows, not voluntarily either and the alarming event seemed to be playing on some kind of residual loop. It left us all feeling pretty futile and drained, Jean, a strong Medium felt the young woman victim was probably a lady of the night, meeting a grisly end at the hands of a client who decided to launch her out of one of the windows to certain death on the paved walkway ninety feet or so below! Paul sensed the murderer may have got away with the crime as well...

So, was a little slice of dark Scarborough history revealed to us? The woman’s screams were very harrowing, the man quite callously responsive (for a residual spirit). It was a scene of ghostly drama that has stayed with us three ever since and whether a brutal event really happened historically in that hotel or not, we don’t really know, but something otherworldly in that location planted a picture of horror into our minds on that eerie summer night!

VISIT www.supernaturalevents.co.uk for Blackpool ghost chasing!!

Hubert Hobux

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LUCE AT THE LOCKUP B Y LU CY WIL LGR ESS

HANGING IN THE BALANCE This is a great start, I thought as I sprinted down the insanely steep hill towards the entrance to Bodmin Jail. The booking email for the historical and paranormal tour suggested a carpark which turned out to be all the way across the other side of town. I was – literally – running late.

Flustered and red in the face, I headed for the bar.

If I thought turning up late may be a problem, my jaw dropped when a friendly barman told me that there was no tour scheduled for that evening. By now, I was beginning to wonder if some higher power simply didn’t want me there. Nothing could be found on their system and the tour guide had gone home.

Assuming I’d accidentally booked the wrong date – I fully admit I’m a scatterbrain when it comes to technology – the only thing to do was to adopt a cest la vie attitude, because getting upset rarely solves anything. By this time, the barman felt bad for me and kindly gave me a Diet

Photo: Bodmin Jail

Coke on the house. By this time, his lovely colleague Petra turned up. She checked my email ticket and lo and behold – the booking was correct! A short time later, Kirsten (who is without doubt the best and most knowledgeable tour guide I’ve ever met, as well as possessing the kind of energies I’ve rarely come across in other people) turned up. As the only person booked onto the tour that evening, I had her full attention. She certainly had mine.

A CHEQUERED HISTORY Whenever I go somewhere with a paranormal reputation, I never look up details, witness accounts or footage from an authenticity point of view. However, as a former Landscape Historian that specialised in architecture, I can’t help but often have an idea of some of the history, based on what was happening around the country in social, economic and political terms. The grandeur XX

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of the façade from the courtyard tells a million stories, but none of those more fascinating than those brought to life by Kirsten.

Built by prisoners for prisoners, this building was considered progressive and exceptional when it opened in 1779. It was the first prison to house inmates in individual cells and became the prototype for every single jail built thereafter. From the moment the doors swung open to its closure in 1927, it held a debtor’s prison which later became a naval prison following the Debtor’s Act of 1869, and was later home to several nightclubs, casinos and strip joints.

Then some unlucky businessmen tried to demolish it in order to reclaim the profitable granite that comprise the walls, only for it to remaining standing after numerous rounds of explosives failed to make much of a dent.

Then of course, it was put to use as the tourist attraction that remains today.

With so much death and suffering forming a tangible undercurrent throughout the building, it’s little wonder that misery emanates from every pore. I knew we were in for some serious activity.

THE SPIRIT OF INDUSTRIOUSNESS The gift shop and café area, now devoid of tourists and chatter, seemed calm, yet expectant. After being led through a door at the far end, I found myself in a stone-paved corridor. My guts tensed instantly. The sense of anxiety that hung in the air was quite shocking – until I discovered that this area was where the new arrivals came into the prison to await admission. In an era when you could be sentenced for three years for getting into debt, not knowing what awaited behind the doors must have been terrifying.

The doors opened into a kind of industrial area, where coal pits fuelled the underfloor heating system, which was revolutionary for its time. The Prison Reform Act of 1823 ensured all inmates had access to warmth, medication, education and spiritual requirements. In essence, they were encouraged to go back into the world and pay back some of the goodness that they’d taken out of society to atone for wrongful acts.

DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD Considering that fifty public hangings and three private executions happened within its walls, it made sense to begin the tour at the execution pit in the courtyard, which still retains all its original features and has the only original, fully functional drop lever in the country. The phrase ‘hung out to dry’ comes directly from bodies left hanging in the pit until all bodily fluids drained out, allowing a somewhat less messy transfer from rope to coffin. Before the ‘long drop’ was invented – meaning instantaneous death – these poor souls were executed by the longer, more drawn out method of swinging for up to twenty minutes. With friends and relatives pulling on their legs to try and speed up the process, it wasn’t uncommon for the head to detach from the body. However, I was determined not to lose my own head over the course of the night.

I felt compelled to keep looking towards a room to my right. I didn’t say anything, but when Kirsten told me that a figure is often spotted there, it confirmed that my senses were on form that night.

I was also told that a demonic entity that presents as a little girl is seen down in this area. Weirdly, I could picture her with far more clarity than I’d have liked.

THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY HA HA! Up on the first floor, I was shown the doorway through which the condemned were led to their death, prior to the invention of the ‘the long drop’ lever pit. The old Women’s wing that leads off from it is currently being renovated, so access was impossible, but I’d already seen the service entrance arch that deliveries came through earlier in the evening. It was from atop the arch that those about to die had their last view of the world.

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As Kirsten was talking, I could clearly see the figure of a man against the door of the far cell. This time, I spoke up. She confirmed that an apparition just as I described is seen regularly. Without warning, we both saw (and I physically felt) a man right next to me. Kirsten told him that I wasn’t waiting to be led out to die, only visiting. What was especially mindblowing about this manifestation is that at the end of the tour, we looked at the dates of hangings, and that particular night was the anniversary of an execution.

Yet even more was in store. As we headed back up the corridor to climb the wroughtiron stairs again, the loudest bang I’ve ever heard in my life made us both jump. By her own admission, not much makes Kirsten jump these days, and after ten years of delving into the paranormal world, I’m not easily fazed either.

Since regular closing hours had long been and gone, and I was the only person on the tour, it was impossible to explain. It sounded like the slamming of the heavy metal doors that once stood there. I can only assume the spirit of the condemned man that swung centuries ago was reliving the memory once more.

Up on the second floor, the feeling of being watched was instantaneous.

Kirsten showed me pictures of the former executioners. Immediately drawn to the one on the upper far right, I was about to say ‘He looks like he enjoyed his job a bit too much’, when she told me how this evil, narcissistic bully liked to torture prisoners.

I could see it in his eyes, just from his photo. Thankfully, he didn’t show up that evening, although his spirit is known to torment guests.

FATE AND CIRCUMSTANCE Moving on to the central corridor, I felt eyes on the back of my head from a cell just behind me. It was here that I learned the fate of two prisoners that were the first to be hung in private rather than in front of a crowd. I made a real emotional connection with one of them with so much that I could sense her just behind the door I mentioned, but she was too scared and ashamed to come out.

Selina Wadge was a 26-year-old unmarried mother of two. Her youngest, Harry, aged two, was disabled and couldn’t walk. Her eldest, John, was six. Selina was destitute.

She could no longer work due to Harry’s disability and ultimate reliance on her. They were regulars at Launceston Workhouse – you’d only willingly go there if there was literally no other option in order not to starve or die from exposure.

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by escorting her himself and giving her a handkerchief to drop when she was ready. This was simply a distraction to spare her from the terror of knowing when her death was going to happen. She was one of the first to die by the long drop system, so her death would have been instant, rather than struggling for every last breath as she feared she would.

Selina’s parents lived in Altarnun but were unsupportive and uncaring. They couldn’t or wouldn’t help with childcare for their own grandchildren, and after Selina’s death, Johnny (as he was known) was put straight into the workhouse system rather than taken in by family.

Selina met James Westwood, a former soldier, some months before in December of 1877. After meeting several times through spring, she arranged to meet with him in June. On Fri 21st June, Selina and both kids hitched a ride to Launceston.

By the time she returned to the workhouse, Harry was missing. The Workhouse Master, Mr. Downing, asked where he was. She told him he’d died at Altarnun. After further questioning, Selina said that Westwood had taken the boy and thrown him into a pit. It was only after Downing left to alert the authorities that she confessed to Mrs. Downing that she’d thrown the child into a well.

She told Downing that Westwood had promised to marry her if she did away with her disabled son. He denied all knowledge, and despite numerous petitions to spare her life, she hanged regardless.

Selina shook all the way to the execution point. The governor showed her kindness 44

Although I will never understand how anyone can kill a child, I can empathise with a woman down on her luck with little chance of a happy ending, just because single mothers of illegitimate children, let alone disabled ones, were deemed to be a disgrace to society.

Years in workhouses where conditions were rough at best may have driven her to take what she thought was her only option to give at least one son a good life.

Her pitiful tale affected me so deeply that I’m determined to tell her story in my next novel.

My gut feeling is that Westwood did convince her to drown Harry – I could feel it in the sorrow and regret that I felt all around me.

By this time, we were just about to head up to the final floor when we both heard what sounded like a drip. After scouring the area, we set off again and I felt something hit my bag before landing on the floor. It was a stone. Kirsten picked it up and dropped it to recreate the effect. It bounced several times before coming to land. It’s impossible to drop a stone without it bouncing, but this had been one single drop. Then it happened again. Lo and behold, there was second stone on the floor.

I’ve seen this happen on several famous ghost hunting programmes and always put it down to fakery. Yet there was nobody here but us. Then as we turned to leave again, footsteps padded towards us, as clear as a bell.

WE ALL HAVE OUR DEMONS The final floor is on an entirely different paranormal level. The atmosphere was oppressive, almost pungent in its thickness. I saw and felt the feelings of anger, depression and hopelessness that other inmates and HAUNTED

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guests have experienced. I felt sick to my guts. I know that only means one thing – demonic entities.

How do I know this? I once had three of them attached to me. Since having them removed, life has shifted up gears significantly, but that’s a whole other story.

Kirsten told me that at least seven guests had been possessed during ghost hunts here, and that after a particularly violent episode, it had gone dormant for a while.

I know from experience that when these dark beings expend all their energy in order to create absolute chaos, they take a few weeks to build up the energy to do so again, usually increasing the intensity of the activity each time. It had been quiet for weeks. Until now – tonight was the night it was all going to kick off again.

The energy changed and became darker, like wading through custard. After informing Kirsten that I’d recently had dark energies removed from me, she didn’t hesitate in getting me out, and fast. As she said herself as we left: ‘I can smell the necrosis coming down the stairs after us.’

Back in the safety of the gift shop, where the boundary for the spirits inside the old prison ends – she made sure I didn’t take anything home with me. She also told me about a member of my father’s family that’s always with me. Since asking my dad and relaying the details, I found out he was known as Uncle Wilhelm. He was ahead of his time and highly unconventional due to being gay, academic, and had a penchant for tea and avoiding people who talk about irrelevant rubbish. Apparently we’re quite similar, and I can’t deny that I’ve always followed my own path, whether or not others approve.

IN HINDSIGHT Some crazy stuff happened that night. In circumstances where there were loads of other guests, I’d have debunked most of what happened as people subconsciously making noise, group hysteria or even people behind the scenes causing things to happen for the sake of keeping a site’s reputation for the paranormal going.

However – there was no tour booked on the system that night. There was only me, and nobody had been expecting me.

I have no doubt that what I experienced was unequivocally real.

Sleep tight and sweet dreams!

Luce x

NEXT CENTURY GHOST HUNTER...

CONTINUING THE FAMILY LEGACY A N I N TE R V I E W WI TH B E N W O O D WAR D

L

et’s face it folks, we’re not getting any younger, are we?

Truth be told every ghost hunt we do, every gasp we exhale when we see a K2 turn to red, we are one step closer to joining them on the “other side”. My kids are 11 (twin girls) and when they’re older they’ve already said “Dad, we want to come on a ghost hunt with you”. I beam like a proud Ghost Hunting Dad before realising that when they’re 16, 17, 18 I’ll be even older.

It got me thinking about the younger generation and what amazing paranormal opportunities lie ahead for those that are interested in ghost hunting. When I was a teenager with my blonde highlights, left

ear pierced, a poor attempt at a moustache and a Sony Walkman* (parents please tell any kids reading this what a Sony Walkman was please) AND yes I was interested in the paranormal but there was nothing there other than reading ghost story compendiums from the library and a few bit and bobs on the TV. No events, no tv shows, no locations promoting their ghosts and certainly no social media to find out all about this paranormal AND certainly no award-winning magazine about all things paranormal (ahem).

When we first started the magazine, we had an inkling this were changing, indeed we had two teenage ghost hunters Jack

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Strange and Laura Dixon write for us, about their paranormal adventures, they were 14 or something but loved the paranormal. Jeez they must be what? In their middle 20s now.

Fast forward a few more years and lo and behold every paranormal loving Thomas, Richard and Harrison have the chance to investigate the paranormal more than ever before. The paranormal is no longer for a select few, it is as it should be open to all and everyone and anyone who has an interest in it.

YES, even those millennials, those born in a different century to us, those who have never had to get up off the settee to turn off Most Haunted or those

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who’ve never known life without CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, SkyTV etc and etc.

While we joke about it, we really should embrace the next NEXT generation of ghost hunters, they’ll carry on the baton, and they’ll also become old too at some point in the future. They may even make contact with the ghosts and spooks and spirits of some dearly departed ghost hunters in the future.

One such modern teen investigator is Ben, Ben Woodward, and he even has ghost hunting parents too (more on that later).

We caught up with Ben via WhatsChat or SnapApp or something.

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expected a lot more to happen, but you can go a long time without anything happening at all.

Have you watched the episodes of Most Haunted that your dad was on, go on you can admit it, they weren’t a bad show back then? I have seen a few, but not seen any recently, I watched them when I was younger.

You’re probably one of the youngest Ghost Hunters out there, do you think having youth on your side is a help or a hindrance or a mixture of both? I think that for most people it could be a hinderance as you have to be really patient, sitting for long hours in the dark, but it has helped that I have grown up with it so have more experience than most at my age that want to get into it.

Hi Ben, when did you first start to have an interest in the paranormal? I’ve always had an interest as I have grown up with it because my parents have been investigating since like… forever!

Can you remember your first investigation, if so, when was it, where, and what happened? The first investigation I attended was at Knottingley Town Hall, I would have around 10 or 11, I don’t remember an awful lot as I was so young and not allowed to partake in a lot of the stuff going on.

I went to Mary King’s Close when I was 5 with my parents on a ghost walk, all I remember really from this is the ‘Plague Doctor’ as it gave me nightmares! We also lived in haunted hall for a while where I did experience some unexplained incidents.

Is it helpful having a ghost hunting Mum & Dad? Yes, it helps a lot as it has provided me with the opportunity to be involved with ‘Are You Haunted...?’ and I also got involved on some of the overnight paranormal events which my parents used to run.

Name three locations that you’d love to investigate and why? Borley Rectory – I would love to have visited here purely because of the stories about it. Carew Castle – My parents filmed a show here called ‘Haunted Ruins’ and it looked really spooky and interesting. Alcatraz – I would love to visit as it’s so unique and renowned, being on an island it would feel really isolated.

Has your views and beliefs on the paranormal changed since you started ghost hunting, if so why and how have they? Yes, I am more sceptical now than when I was younger, its not as crazy as it’s made out to be on TV. When I first went, I

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Tell us about ‘Are You Haunted’? And who gets scared the most, you Dad, your Mum or yourself? ‘Are You Haunted...?’ is a fly on the wall type show following our team of investigators. We wanted to show the ins and outs of going on an investigation, we tend to go to locations that are unheard of to try and answer the question ‘Are You Haunted...?’ I would say that we have all had moments where we have been scared equally.

Where is the scariest place that you’ve been too, and what happened to make it so scary? For me it would be the ‘Haunted Antiques Centre’ in Hinckley as during filming this episode I had a couple of incidents involving two stuffed toys. One of them turned its head to look at me whilst I was walking through the room and the other jumped down next to me as I was sat on the floor below where it was situated on the shelves above. I also heard a scream come from that area whilst I was doing a lone vigil in a different room, at the time I thought it was fellow team member Dale but looking back at the recording we can see that it wasn’t him.

Do you like ghost hunting gadgets, if so, which ones, and why? No, because none of them are proven to work as we don’t know exactly what a ‘ghost’ is. More often than not most incidents happen whilst you are going about your normal life rather than walking round with things like emf meters in your hand. The only pieces of equipment I use are audio recorders and cameras.

Any tips for teenagers wanting to do this but not sure, how and where to start?

It’s not as scary as you think, start by watching a few different shows (Are You

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Haunted...?!) (ahem and ‘HauntedLIVE’ – editor) to familiarise yourself with the different terms and techniques used. There are lots of groups on social media to join to find out more information about it and when you are ready go along with a friend or family member.

Do you think social media plays a big and important role in the paranormal?

Yes, it is the best way for people to share their experiences and stories, you can also find different venues to go to that are supposedly haunted. You can chat with others who have similar interest and interact with people whilst doing a live video.

PARANORMAL HEROES: Do you have any, if so, who and why? My parents are probably my biggest inspiration when it comes the paranormal. (You sure they didn’t tell you to say that? – editor) You are having dinner at a swanky restaurant and you can invite SIX people, real-life, fictional, past or present, living or dead, who would they be, and why?

AND what would you serve, starters, main course, pudding etc.

PewDiePie: He is my favourite ‘youtuber’ Oliver Sykes: The singer from the band ‘Bring Me The Horizon’ Jack Sparrow: I reckon he would just be really fun to be around.

The Nun: from the movie ‘The Nun’: she is always in my dreams!

The Queen: I’d just like to find out what she would be like in person and it would just be really weird!

Ryan Reynolds: He makes me laugh we have a similar sense of humour.

Starter: Garlic Bread Main: Meat Feast Pizza Dessert: A Cornetto Ice Cream each (basically, a takeaway (but we won’t tell the guests)) It was an absolute pleasure speaking to Ben and thanks to Mum Sara and Dad Phil for hiding his Xbox away for a couple of hours so we could speak to him. Seriously, joking apart, we wish Ben all the very best for the future in his paranormal life and his non-paranormal life. We’ve championed the “yoof” since the very beginning of Haunted Magazine and long may it continue.

‘Are You Haunted...?’ Is a smashing show that deserves to be watched by more people. From the beginning to end it is watchable, entertaining, lively and shows that you don’t have to fake or stage things for things to happen. HAUNTED MAGAZINE: DOWN WITH THE KIDS!! YOLO, BFF, FOMO, LOL, BAE, LOL, PMSL, WTF, FML!

EXORCISING THE PARANORMAL PUTTING THE FIT INTO FRIGHT

BY SAM BENNETTS

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he idea of people possessed by evil spirits against their will is at least as old as the Babylonian and ancient Assyrian cultures. Often there is thought to be a special way a person has become possessed.

It might be the result of a curse cast on them by a sorcerer, or some unfortunate mishap such as stepping over a dead body.

More often, at least in recent Christian tradition, there is no initiating moment that can be identified – they just find their way in, like disease. the earliest accounts of possession by evil spirits are often just descriptions of illness that people assumed to be caused by spirits because they knew of no other cause.

The belief that demons exist and can possess people is of course the stuff of fiction and horror films — but it is also one of the most widely-held religious beliefs in the world. Most religions claim that humans can be possessed by demonic spirits (the Bible, for example, recounts six instances of Jesus casting out demons), and offer exorcisms to remedy this threat.

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The idea that invading spirits are inherently evil is largely a JudeoChristian concept; many religions and belief systems accept possession by both beneficent and malevolent entities for short periods of time as uncommon — and not especially alarming — aspects of spiritual life.

Spiritualism, a religion that flourished across America in the 1800s and is still practiced in a few places today, teaches that death is an illusion and that spirits can possess humans.

New Agers have also long embraced a form of possession called channelling, in which spirits of the dead are said to inhabit a medium’s body and communicate through them.

Hundreds of books, and even some symphonies, have been allegedly composed by spirits.

Hollywood has made many a film showing this – The Exorcist being one of the best yet and many others including: Burnt Offerings, Christine, Night of

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the Demons, The Last Exorcism, Shock, Prince of Darkness, The Conjuring, Possession (to name but eight)

Demonic or spirit possession is still a common explanation for mental health problems in some less developed areas of the world – especially where witchcraft and voodoo are still important features of the local culture such as Haiti and some areas of Western Africa While many Americans think of real exorcisms as relics of the Dark Ages, exorcisms continue to be performed, often on people who are emotionally and mentally disturbed. Whether those undergoing the exorcism are truly possessed by spirits or demons is another matter entirely. Exorcisms are done on people of strong religious faith.

To the extent that exorcisms “work,” it is due to the power of suggestion and psychology: If you believe you’re possessed (and that an exorcism will cure you), then it just might.

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The word EXORCISM derives from the Greek word for oath, “exousia.” As religious studies scholar James R. Lewis explains in his book “Satanism Today: An Encyclopaedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture,” “To exorcise thus means something along the lines of placing the possessing spirit under oath — invoking a higher authority to compel the spirit — rather than an actual ‘casting out.’” This becomes clear when the demonic entity is commanded to leave the person, not by the authority of a priest but instead, for example, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

It has come to my conclusion that Spirit possession concepts fall into broadly two varieties: one that entails the transformation or replacement of identity (executive possession) and one that envisages possessing spirits as (the cause of) illness and misfortune (pathogenic possession).

Sam x

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NICKY

ALAN'S

GOOD VIBRATIONS (and no swearing this time, we can’t f**king believe it)

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would like to share this experience that I had where I was asked to attend a home due to a paranormal problem. Jane was ver y concerned that her family members, especially her daughter, were getting many visitations from spirit.

Can I firstly point out to everyone that just because you may have visitations in your house, don’t immediately think that they are bad and that your daughter is going to get sucked into the TV! Thanks to some TV programmes, as soon as we encounter the spirit world dropping by, we get worried. From my experience, about 98% of houses that I have attended, it is loved ones popping in to say hello, all be it a little too energetically sometimes. 1% is normally a spirit person that comes in visitation as they are attached to the premises or there is residual energy left of their occupation during their earth life. You then have the other VERY RARE 1% where perhaps the energy is negative.

These energies are usually already resident at the premises before the living take up residence there, or they are drawn in by the negative energies being created by the occupants.

Remember like attracts like.

All of the names have been changed to respect the privacy of the family.

THE HOME Jane asked me to come by, as she was very concerned with what her daughter had been saying. Her daughter was only 4 and was talking about nightly visitations of silver shimmering people in her room, which she believed were aliens.

This was happening practically every night. She had also started asking a lot about death and how family members had died and where they were now.

I turned up to the Essex address on a sunny afternoon. From the outside, the modern house looked beautiful and peaceful. Not your traditional ole fashioned spooky mansion with dusty butler and an echoing doorknocker!

On entering, I was immediately aware that the activity was to the left of the building. I walked through to the kitchen and had a cup of tea. I believe that it is always best to observe your client in their home doing a simple chore such as making the tea. It gives you a chance to hone in on their energy and make sure that they aren’t the cause. Whilst idly chatting, it also gives you 48

opportunity to feel the vibes of the home, its occupants and anyone discarnate wondering about! As soon as I announce that I am starting to work the host always tenses up and that’s where the blockages begin. So in short I scan and tune in without anyone knowing.

After the tea I walked out into the garden. I immediately heard RAILWAY and saw an overhanging bridge. I then saw a quick flash in my head of a dropping sensation as a train came towards me. I knew this must be something to do with it.

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I said to Jane, “If I said to you about a railway line and a passing would you understand what I was talking about?”

She said, “Oh yes absolutely”.

I stated that I didn’t want to know anything else. I then looked around the garden and got an enormous sense of grief and a very recent passing. I said this to Jane as I walked past the shed, “Yes that would be our rabbit it passed last night, it’s in the shed!” That wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but it was still correct!

I asked her how she had passed, she showed me the word LEUKEAMIA in my mind. She then exhibited a massive surge of energy (where she shimmered silver, interesting) as I asked her why she came here with Colin. She was quite excited as she told me that she used to live next door to Colin and his family all of her life. She showed a flash of a grave that had the date 07. 09. 68 on it. She mentioned Colin’s mum’s birthday and said that Colin had showed her how to come down and visit.

I then told Jane where I felt the main activity was. She confirmed that as being correct and that that side of the house was where her daughter’s room was.

I didn’t want to walk straight in there.

I wanted a mutual area to converse. I decided to walk into her son’s room.

I could feel that visitation had taken place in this room also. I knew, however that there was absolutely nothing but family and positive visitation. So why was there so much of it? Why keep disturbing the little girl? I asked that Jane left me alone as I was going to have a chat with whoever wanted to communicate with me.

When she said this I somehow felt that she wasn’t able to visit her own house. Or indeed her family wasn’t open to it.

She went onto say that she loved Colin’s niece’s room and her energy and came down a lot to see her. She also knew that Katie could see her. She loved the colours and the glittery things in the room. AHA I had found my problem!

I sensed that she was visiting far too much and this was disturbing the little girl. I then asked her to come with me to Katie’s room. I opened my eyes and joined Jane.

THE SPIRIT VISITORS As soon as I sat down and linked up I was aware of a young man standing in front of me. I could feel his overwhelming presence on my face and arms but kept my eyes closed so that I could clearly see him in my mind. He hadn’t manifested properly for me to see him physically.

THE CLEARING In Katie’s room, I closed my eyes and linked up again.

Alison was there with me. I told her that she had to calm down her visits as she kept waking Katie up. She appeared very upset, as she had no idea that she had caused any problems. Colin then appeared next to her.

He looked concerned. I told Alison that there was no need to be upset, as it wasn’t bad what she had been doing. I linked with Colin’s energy and called on one of my guides Julianus. I told him that Alison had to make fewer visits.

Jules then opened a door (that I am familiar with, it leads to the spirit world from my meditation room). I saw an older lady come through the door, Jules stated this was a relative and I heard the name Gladys. The lady came out and took Alison’s hand. Alison said sorry again and went through the door. Colin walked in behind her smiling at me and then Ken appeared with them as they disappeared through the door.

I asked his name, “Colin” he stated “I am Jane’s brother,” he then put a flash of the railway line into my mind. He showed himself jumping and then showed me holly. This is my symbol for Christmas time. He had passed at Christmas and he was still sorry that he had brought so much pain to his family for taking himself over. A bigger man then formed behind Colin and said, “I am Ken, I am Colin’s dad,” My chest then started to tighten and I felt pain, I thought that he must have passed with a heart attack. I saw holly again and was shocked to discover that he had also passed at Christmas. They stated that they both came to visit Jane and her children. Colin said that he was concerned for Jane as there had been a lot of arguments and unrest in the home and he wanted to help her. He also stated though that it was improving. He was very protective over his sister.

All done!

THE EVIDENCE I opened my eyes and told Jane everything. She confirmed that Alison had passed with leukaemia and did live next to her family being a life-long friend. She explained that Alison’s family did not believe in anything supernatural.

That would explain why Alison loved to come to Katie’s room as she was an open recipient and could see her.

Jane also stated that Alison’s grave had been placed next to Colin’s so they were even next to each other in the cemetery. The grave that I saw was Colin’s with his date of birth on. Her mum’s birthday date was also right.

I knew that these two lovely men weren’t the problem though. They didn’t feel responsible for the over-zealous visitations.

I asked Colin in my mind if he brought anybody else to the house to visit. He then disappeared with his dad. A couple of seconds later a young lady stood before me. She looked happy but a little worried to be standing in front of me.

Jane confirmed that the two men were indeed her brother Colin and father Ken and how they had passed as well as both being at Christmas. She fully understood their descriptions that I gave. She also understood why Colin and Ken had been visiting more because of the arguments.

I told her that they would always visit but not disturb, and that her, as well as her children were very sensitive to spirit. I also stated that Alison was a bit too eager but now she would visit less and not so energetically!

“Hello darling,” I said out loud, “Who are you?”

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FINAL ACTION I recommend that this is done after a clearing.

I activated some clear quartz crystals (Just running under tap water nothing amazing!) and asked the universe to energise and bring forth the properties of the stone. I placed them around Katie’s bed along with an amethyst stone by her pillow area. Amongst other things amethyst helps to stop spirit visitation with young children.

A rock salt bag was placed by the vortex area that Alison kept coming in on. I have always used rock salt, I have it at my front door and back door, to maintain positive vibration and cleansing. I change the rock salt bags every six months and recharge my crystals every full moon.

I advised sageing the house every few weeks (lighting white sage and taking it through

every room with the windows open asking all residual human energies to be taken out on the smoke of the sage). Beware it does stink! Spirit sage is available in most good new age shops or online.

I advised that there should be no conversation in the household of the visitations for the next few weeks as this may attract that energy back.

I discussed maintaining a positive energy in the home.

Families need to keep their vibrations as positive as possible. Rose quartz is an excellent positive energy balance stone. A large piece of this in a main living area is perfect. I have a lot of respect for crystal energies. All new age shop owners will be able to assist you with whatever crystal you need for whatever occasion.

UPDATE Since my visit, there hasn’t been any problems since and they all now get a good night’s sleep!

So the moral of this story? All that roams your rooms without a physical body is not necessarily bad. This was a beautiful story of a family friend loving Katie and her room. Also never take for granted who is visiting. I had a ‘hitch hiker’ spirit who was the problem, so tune in to every

energy that you can if you are the visiting medium to get the full picture. Take your time and don’t feel pressured.

Let us keep this real people.

We always ask our spirit family to draw near and prove they are about and when they do we panic! If you encounter anything negative however, firstly speak clearly stating that whoever is there to stop causing upset and

to leave! You have to own your living territory. Never show fear.

If problems persist ask a REPUTABLE medium to come by and have a little look.

And remember all that is spirit is not scary!

Nicky xx

NICKY ALAN Psychic Medium, Author, International Columnist www.nickyalan.co.uk Twitter / Facebook / Instagram Nicky Alan Tel: 07802 271097

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Ghost Hunting with Gadgets?

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host hunting gadgets, love them or hate them, use them or don’t. they are one of the most divided/ talked about things in the paranormal world. IN FACT, the truth is if they ever brought out a Trivial Pursuits: Paranormal edition, gadgets would have

their own segment for sure. Along with Famous Ghosts, Paranormal TV, Mediums, Victoriana and Haunted Locations...

At Haunted Magazine towers, we get sent a lot of features on gadgets, some in defence, some not so, but all samey

same. We even did a gadget special (issue 19, a few print copies left (ahem)) but this one felt different, not least that it was part of the writer’s diploma in parapsychology but the fact that it actually talked about gadgets during an investigation. See what you think,

it’s sure to divide the paranormal even more.

Whether you’re a gadget lover or loather your comments and opinions are always welcome, whether our opinions differ or not.

Can technology hinder paranormal evidence?

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n the world of paranormal research and for the sake of this article we will be focusing on ghost hunting, both professional and amateur and the use of technology. There has been a rise in the use of these, not only due to the number of pieces of equipment available but also the relative cost making technology more accessible.

This has meant that it is now unusual not to see pieces of electronic equipment being u s e d i n t h e field.

Pieces of equipment can b e p u r c h a s e d from sites such as eBay and Amazon, making it easier to get hold of these things which were once only accessed in America.

This has led me to the question, as the ghost hunter is looking down at brightly lit screen or being distracted by pulsating lights and high pitch blips and whistles, what are they missing? Does the use of these types of technologies distract and detract from the experiences that could be monitored by the human body in terms of seeing, hearing and feeling.

A quick google search will pull up a whole gambit of self-professed scientific equipment for the professional and amateur ghost finder to purchase.

These include, but are not restricted to, small, usually hand-held devices that detect things like electromagnetic forces, vibrations (made by tapping, rapping and ghostly footsteps), atmospheric changes and electronic voice phenomena.

There is a range of products, even available to download directly to your mobile phone, that claim they can detect, capture and record apparitions, utilising laser beams, light-structuring sensors and motion activation. Digital cameras can be modified by even an electronics novice watching step–by-step YouTube videos, to be able to see and capture in full light spectrum, as it is believed that this is the spectrum in which ghostly apparitions are more visible.

Even stuffed animals are modified, so a toy bear can light up if touch by the hand of a spectre, and cat balls from China, intended to light

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up when a cat plays with them, are donning the equipment boxes. In addition, there are more complex bits of kit, such as the REM pod that flashes and buzzes from reported atmospheric changes that spooks emit, the Ovilus that flickers one-word messages, and motion detection equipment, doing their thing in the darkness. This all adds to a cacophony of lights and noise.

The ghost hunter is now in a world of bombardment, surrounded by lights and noise; on private investigations and events alike, this is the norm.

During October2018, I had the opportunity to investigate the famous Ancient Ram Inn. This place is a hugely well-known historical building in terms of its paranormal activity, with trails of investigators and events trudging through its doors on a weekly basis.

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The Ancient Ram Inn is located in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire and is said to be one of Britain’s most haunted locations. Situated within the walls of this grade 2 listed building are reports, most frequently made by its former, now deceased owner, of sex demons, with tales of ghostly cries being heard, touches from invisible hands, poltergeist activity, full bodied apparitions, light anomalies, knocks, bangs , raps - a whole plethora of paranormal activity being witnessed. These early reports were made, not by ghost hunters carrying boxes and bags of kit, but by those who lived and stayed there. They saw with their own eyes, felt and heard the phenomena first hand.

At one stage during the we had a glow in the dark Ouija board, infrared night vision cameras, an Ovilus, EDI, REM pod and EVP digital recorders going at once - the dark wasn’t so dark anymore, and all this in the pursuit of capturing that elusive prime piece of evidence.

It is widely regarded that ghost hunters “do it in the dark” because of a couple of prime theories. The first is that at night there is less light and noise contamination from the living world, fewer cars and buses on the road, and of course the light of the sun and natural diurnal sounds.

These elements can attribute themselves to the ambient noises and images of the building. A light source from outside a location could

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easily be mistaken for a paranormal incident, for example a car headlight could enter a building at an angle that could subsequently ricochet off a reflective surface at another angle and be taken as a light anomaly.

Another theory of why investigations take place in the night time hours is based in a spiritual belief that the veil between dimensions of the physical and non-physical worlds is thinned between the hours of 12 midnight and 3am, the so called witching hour.

This seemingly odd belief dates back to folklore traditions that it is at this time of night that witches, demons and ghosts are able to pass from the shadows and wreak havoc on the living. It is believed in western Christian traditions because it is at this time that there is an absence of prayer, leaving an ungodly time frame for the dark forces to exist. In terms of psychology and medical practice, this is the time the brain is more susceptible, alert and in a lucid state which leads to the brain conjuring ideas of the supernatural. “P s y ch o lo gical liter atur e s ug g es ts t ha t appar i t io na l experiences and sensed presences are most common between the hours of 2 and 4 am, corresponding with the 3am peak in the amount of melatonin in

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the body” (Wiki). Melatonin is the body’s naturally produced drug that regulates wakeful states and the cycle of sleep and waking in tune with light and dark cycles, day and night. A disturbance of the natural rhythm is said to produce some interesting effects on the brain, including hallucinations and hearing things that are deemed supernatural, sensations of being watched, changes to the human thermometer, as the brain and body struggles to make sense of the world around it. Most reports of the paranormal activity in terms of ghostly apparitions and haunting include unexplained visuals, sounds and sensations. But what if the use of electronic equipment means that these elements are superseded?

That the human bodily responses are buried by the fact that in that moment the brain is focused on a screen or flashing plastic box? Does the brain become more focused on the device so that it doesn’t enter into a meditative state that allows for spirit interaction, thereby actually thickening the veil between the worlds? It is a fact that devices do add a great deal to the contamination of a location, as well as a distraction to the moment.

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here is no scientific proof that any of the available pieces of technology work.

If they did, it would have given verifiable and repeated data on the existence of ghosts.

Builders and engineers of these gadgets make a number of intellectual assumptions about what ghosts and hauntings are. They assume that electromagnetic energy is given off by entities that enter the physical world; they assume a ghost can be seen and caught by a camera.

They assume a spirit knows and wants to interact directly with REM pods and digital voice recorders, and they assume we, as investigators, are right about this element. In our assumptions are we missing other things? Are we missing that it actually isn’t magnetic forces alone that create or are created by ghosts?

Or that ghostly voices are heard only by those who have a different hearing range?

Or that light anomalies that show up time and time again on camera are naturally occurring electric phenomena? Are we paranormally blinded by thinking we are heading in the right direction with our research so that we are missing side avenues that may hold answers? For instance, are scratches and welts attributed to demonic attacks on the same scale as psychologically induced stigmata?

It does beg so many questions.

paranormal investigators that by boosting the charge of the natural electromagnetic fields, a portal could be created to other worlds.

It is well documented in scientific terms that when the human body is exposed to high (outside the normal range) and prolonged EMF that this produces hallucinations both visually and aurally, as well as psychological changes in mood and perception.

So, without proof that the new gadgets work in terms of evidencing ghosts, are they useful in data collection?

Without established bodies of regulated researchers collating the evidence gathered, then I would say even in this way there is little point to using them.

However I understand that the above theories are not plucked from mid-air, they are grounded in historical references, taking their lead from evidence gathered over the last hundred years. You don’t need to be a parapsychologist to have stumbled across the many ghostly photographs of the dead available to view on the internet.

Historically ghost photography grew in popularity alongside the more accessible camera units. There are those photographs that still baffle both the paranormal community as well as those with knowledge of photographical processing, for example “The Brown Lady” 1936.

As well as snapping photos of the departed, talking to and the recording of the dead has a lineage from around the time when recording devices were available, circa early 19th century, with the likes of William Mumbler experimenting and supposedly capturing spirit messages. So there is historical evolution of the devices we now use. In terms of electromagnetic energy being attributed to paranormal encounters, apart from the obvious “hairs standing up on end”, scientists such as Tesla believe this to have some truth. It is felt by

We only need to look at popular television programmes on the paranormal, programmes that hunt ghosts in haunted locations, to start to comprehend the usefulness of technology. These programmes would look very different without the metal boxes of stuff. Can you imagine on a show like Ghost Adventures, Zak Bagans not being able to over-excitedly scream about how his Mel meter has just spiked? Or how about his co-hosts not being able to freak out over reported relevant words coming through an Ovilus, or class EVP’s?

When you start to examine and compare the different shows, they do show trends and patterns that are emulated back in the field. There are a few that don’t rely heavily, if at all, on devices, and there is a different feel and format to these. The Dead File is another American paranormal show that is hosted by a medium and an ex-New York detective. The medium allegedly sees and talks to the dead and the ex-detective follows up the case with interviews and historic research. In this programme the only time when any technology is employed is when situations need debunking, for instance faulty wiring in a property is explored as a means to establish whether or not flickering lights are down to faulty wires. This is one of very few programmes that

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shun the avalanche of technological devices, relying heavily on the findings of the medium. Will it be then that further investigation into the abilities of mediums, clairvoyants and psychics will provide clues to technological advances? Could it be that those who solely use their bodies and minds as ways of gathering information provide a key to the next generation of tools? Has this been overlooked because those who invent paranormal equipment, like Bill Chapel, is it that an engineering mind struggles in thinking into the realms of the possibility of mediumship, is a step too far?

This has thrown up many more questions than answers, like the validity of existing technology, the ways in which it is used and to what real end. I can’t help but feel though that we are missing something in terms of the development of the tech.

Has it really come any further than 100 years ago? Are the makers just rehashing old concepts of cameras, voice recorders and atmospheric recording devices? And where is the future? Just upgraded models of those devices that already exist, or are we ready to start taking leaps of faith into the unknown?

One thing I can be sure of is that from personal experience, the use of technology clutters the experience, enhances paranormal experiences that might not otherwise exist, and on mass can be a general irritating barrage. But for the sake of events and television shows, they are great visual props that provide an atmosphere that would otherwise not happen. I too am prone to become excited by sequential evidence, the moment when a REM-POD sounds and flashes at the same time an SLS is pointed in the same direction is a thrilling moment, and I always hope these moments are “true”; but nothing beats those technologically free personal experiences of seeing, sensing, feeling and hearing.

KATE RAY

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hen you’re a paranormal investigator, you come across a whole slew of people—both living and dead. Some are kind and funny while others are grumpy old misers who seem to suck the very life out of you. And just like how we encounter a wide variety of people, we also come face to face with a variety of locations. From abandoned orphanages and jails to private residences and even museums— some of these haunted locales are welcoming to paranormal enthusiasts while others seem to have a sign plastered across its façade, reading, “We don’t serve your kind here!”

As Spook-Eats, I’ve been traveling across America for the last year, visiting restaurants, bars, and hotels all shadowed with

The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum!

Are the Ghost Hunters at Fault?

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paranormal claims.

From famed locations such as The Stanley Hotel in Colorado and the Farnsworth House in Gettysburg to some lesser-known (but no less delicious) places such as the Roycroft Inn and the Old Canal Inn, I’ve been able to sample not only some incredible dishes and cocktails, but I’ve also been privy to a sampling of ghost stories as well. But it was a recent visit to one of 54

the most haunted places in my own hometown that made me stop and take pause.

The Richardson-Olmsted Complex was once home to the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. Opened in 1880, it was considered to be one of America’s first holistic hospitals, offering patients humane treatments while also building a sense of community. By many standards, this asylum was a bright spot in an otherwise dark patch in human history, but, still, at its very core, it was an insane asylum.

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A m a n d a R . Wo o m e r ( S p o o k - E a t s ) Complex has gotten a significant facelift. It took over a decade, but the City of Buffalo in Western New York restored the complex and reopened it as Hotel Henry, an urban resort and complex.

Bright lights, a fine dining restaurant, and modern minimalistic décor have been used to try to hide the fact that this austere building was home to an insane asylum as late as 1975.

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and Bistro in Edinburgh, and even Clarion Hotel in Sligo which was once St. Columba’s Lunatic Asylum.

With the reputation of once being the site of a hospital—any kind of hospital for that matter, not just a psychiatric hospital—one would think that places such as these would be aware of the energy left behind by the patients, visitors, and staff over the decades. Unfortunately, I’ve found that Hotel Henry is very much aware… they’re just not talking about it.

When I opened up a conversation with the restaurant 100 Acres: the Kitchens at Hotel Henry, I was

expecting a similar welcome to what I’ve received in the past: a bit of healthy scepticism, but a willingness to share the history of the building—both spooky and mundane. What I received was a bit unexpected, and unfortunately overshadowed the food I got to sample.

against those who suffer from mental illness. But I’m saddened to think of the entities wandering the halls of Hotel Henry—only looking for a chance to reach out and communicate with anyone who would listen—silenced by the hotel’s policy.

I was told that the hotel will never welcome paranormal events or investigations because such things stir up negative energy and only add to the stigma of mental illness.

This jarring conversation got me thinking about paranormal investigators and whether we do add to the stigma of mental illness, and if so, how can we fix that?

To say I was taken aback by such a claim is an understatement, to say the least.

Unfortunately, when people hear the words “insane asylum” they immediately think of the stereotypes— straight-jackets, people rocking back and forth muttering to themselves, filth and grime, and nothing but suffering. And when asylums host events such as para-cons, haunted houses, and investigations, those stereotypes can be solidified, and that’s not fair to do to the entities we all claim to love.

Throughout the last year, I’ve had the joy and pleasure of meeting restaurant owners, staff, and paranormal investigators, all yearning to reach across the gap between the living and the dead to communicate. Aside from a few rotten apples in the bunch, every investigator I’ve met has shown nothing but respect for the dead. Many are psychics and empaths, more in tune with human emotions and experiences than your average person. They are open-minded, caring, and desperate to understand.

I’m thrilled to know that Hotel Henry is working closely with the Erie County Anti-Stigma Coalition to end the stigma

Many patients who were locked away by family and friends were done so wrongfully. People who suffered from common “ailments” such as depression, anxiety, epilepsy, and bipolar disorder were sent to insane asylums. Political enemies would be institutionalized as a

way to simply get rid of them.

Children who were diagnosed with a developmental disability were sent to state-run hospitals to lessen the burden on their parents. Some women were even locked away for being opinionated or “hysterical.”

It is vital that we remember that some asylums did create those stereotypes such as Pennhurst and Bedlam. It would be dangerous to forget that such horrors ever happened. But it’s just as important that we remember that some asylums were home to ordinary people who were simply suffering from mental illnesses that no one understood at the time.

A compromise needs to be found—a way to remember the past without demonizing the victims.

Sharon Coyle, the current owner of Rolling Hills Asylum (also located near Buffalo, NY), has managed to do just this.

Since 2009, she has opened the former asylum to both historians and paranormal investigators in the hopes of not only understanding what happened within the asylum but also giving a voice to the spirits that still linger. She has a deep love for the building, and she’s extremely protective of the ghosts who haunt it. Led by experienced investigators such as Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango of Ghost Hunters fame, she’s opened Rolling Hills to the public and shared its history, so that we can remember where we came from, and take note of where we’re going… especially when it comes to how we treat those with mental illnesses.

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We, as paranormal investigators, need to find ways to communicate with the souls wandering these places, without forcing the dramatized images of straight jackets on them. If we don’t, more places like Hotel Henry will lock its doors and bar us from ever being able to contact the dead haunting these places.

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It’s easy to forget as we wander through the darkness of centuries-old buildings that these entities are human beings, just like us, desperate for love, affection, and even something as simple as having someone to talk to.

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PA R A N O R M A L : CAPTURED INVESTIGATORS: QUESTIONED QUESTIONS: ANSWERED BEHIND THE SCENES on SKY Pick TV’s New Paranormal Show

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ou wait for UK produced paranormal TV shows and just like London ghost Buses, they’re everywhere. YES, it seems that we are (finally) blessed with UK based & UK produced paranormal TV shows. There’s a few airing this year, (but more about them in future issues) this is about one that’s on your screens RIGHT NOW and is (fingers crossed) sure to be a hit with lovers of Paranormal TV shows.

Following on from last year’s Britain’s Scariest Hauntings, Woodcut Media have made, filmed, edited, produced and brought us Paranormal: Captured, and blessed be, they have cranked up the notch and listened to what paranormal TV shows fans love and want to see more of – ghost hunters doing what they do best – ‘hunting ghosts’.

We caught up with Danny Moss, Jayne Harris and MJ Dickson, three of the credible paranormal investigators who are on the show and asked them about the show, about the paranormal and all things spooky.

By the time you read this issue, the TV series will be airing on Pick TV on Monday nights at 10pm. So, if you’re not watching, you best sort out your catch-up TV settings.

What was it that first interested you about the Paranormal?

Danny Moss: Those who know me will be fully aware that I started out as a bit of a nonbeliever. It was an experience I had when I was 17 that sparked my interest as I couldn’t explain what I witnessed, and I then spent several years researching the paranormal.

I’ve witnessed incredible things since.

Jayne Harris: I had what I now call my first real paranormal experience when I as 13 and my Grandfather had not long passed away.

He had been in the RAF as a young man, and one day I was upstairs in my bedroom when I heard a loud crash downstairs followed by my Grandfathers cough. He had been a smoker and had a very distinctive cough. I was frozen to the spot, but then something urged me out of the room. As I cautiously made my way downstairs, I had no idea what I was looking for or expecting. I walked into our kitchen and there lying on the floor was my Grandfathers

old biscuit tin which contained all his RAF documents. They were scattered across the room.

There were two things I couldn’t explain in logical terms. How the tin found its way out of the dresser, hit the floor, opened and scattered his paperwork…and why I’d heard him cough.

MJ Dickson: I come from a long line of psychic mediums, or as I like to call them, my Addams family. I was raised with all things spiritual and strange being a part of my everyday life, the paranormal has always been... well... normal to me.

What has changed in the paranormal world over the last 5 to 10 years?

DM: I think people are becoming wiser in the paranormal, or at least I’d like to think so. The days of orbs, table tipping, mirror scrying etc are a thing of the past. Now it’s more about technology and new techniques and I’m a big fan of this.

JH: I think we are beginning to go full circle…in a good way! Throughout the 1970s, 80s and early 90s paranormal investigation was about gathering evidence. It wasn’t about fame, money or recognition… at least not for most people.

There was a focus born of intrigue, a desire to genuinely explain what was happening around us.

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Once ‘ghost hunting’ hit TV that changed and we began to see a shift towards making the paranormal world scary, shocking and even sexy!

Suddenly there were ‘Ghost Hunters’ popping up all over the place and I remember thinking “What’s going on!?” and “Where will this end!?”. Over the past few years people seem to have realised that in order to really grow and develop the field you can only get so far on screams… there must be a desire to understand and explain. I think more people now appreciate the science behind some of the devices that investigators use and are thinking outside of the (spirit) box (to coin a cheesy phrase!) when it comes to finding new ways of approaching investigations.

And also, something I’ve been banging on about for years is now finally grabbing people’s attention & consciousness! The bigger picture. We are more than a ghost in a shell. We are all connected and if we can work on understanding THAT better, I think we’ll all have a greater understanding of those things which we consider paranormal.

MJ: I think we see a lot more people who watch the tv shows and think they can go out there and contact the entire afterlife without learning anything about it first such as the genuine risks involved, psychic protection and how to handle a family who may be experiencing a haunting. They watch tv shows and think it’s “cool”, so they start up a team, get their tight black T-shirt’s and cool team name and they then start doing public events but none of them actually have any idea about the research side of the paranormal.

We definitely see more shows looking for the next ‘Hook’. It has become more widely acceptable to discuss all things paranormal without being frowned upon and this is partially due to paranormal pop culture. I am glad that people are more open to it all now but with that we do have other issues such as people faking evidence or the fact that every knock and bump 58

is paranormal - because they don’t learn and build a strong foundation, they don’t really know what’s paranormal or not.

What are your gadget weapons of choice? Or are you a back to basics kind of investigator?

DM: My weapons of choice are digital voice recorders, the SBOX and myself. I like to use different skills to gain evidence and I am a believer that certain calling out styles work, such as provocation. Some people think this is disrespectful, but I strongly disagree. I am not a disrespectful person but when you are dealing with negative entities, I will do whatever it takes to gain evidence and if that means provoking them then I’m not afraid to do that. I would approach things very differently if it was a child or completely innocent spirit.

JH: It’s hard to say, as it depends on the location. One thing I always do is a walk through in daylight with my trusty camera (Panasonic Lumix G7). I like to document every nook and cranny and doing this often gives me a good idea of where I want to focus my attention later.

I am a fan of sensory deprivation experiments as these mean your other senses become heightened and that can lead to amazing results! In terms of kit I usually carry a REM pod, SB-11, SB-7, Grid lighting, EMF meter and Static meter but in all honesty for me the 2 most useful pieces of kit any investigator can carry are a digital audio recorder and a camera.

MJ: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE EVP. From a single class A (audible) EVP we can tell so much more about the spirit such as their gender, age, time period, emotion and more.

I enjoy hearing their voices and having a chat so any ITC devices and a decent recorder are my weapons of choice BUT I’d be happy going gadget free, it depends on the investigation really. Sometimes I have tech everywhere and other times I think you’ll experience more by going back to basics and it can depend on the location too.

“I think people are becoming wiser in the paranormal, or at least I’d like to think so. The days of orbs, table tipping, mirror scrying etc are a thing of the past.”

DANNY MOSS

“Being famous on Facebook is just as pointless as being rich in monopoly.

It’s research and hard work that pays off in the end.”

MJ DICKSON

So, explain the premise behind Paranormal: Captured? How did you get the gig? What was it like to be involved?

DM: It’s a show that brings a lot of different opinions to the table which is great for the viewers.

As well as the investigators there are sceptics’, scientists and psychologists involved, all putting their own views across about evidence that’s presented. I was approached by the producers of the show who were keen to get me on board.

It was a pleasure to be involved and work with some great people.

JH: I received an email from the Series Producer Angie outlining the premise of the show and asking if I’d be interested in being part of it. To be honest these kind of emails come along every so often and usually I sidestep the projects, mainly because after spending 2 decades building my reputation the last thing, I want to do is be part of anything staged or overly dramatized. I had several

conversations on the phone with Angie and she assured me that this wouldn’t be a “scream-fest” but a show that genuinely wanted to document how investigators worked, and so I agreed to carry out two investigations across two episodes and I enjoyed it. It was a small production team with two crew members, and they were all lovely.

MJ: I was recommended by a few different people in the field who had spoken to the producers at Woodcut Media. I was actually really shocked and flattered to hear that a bunch of people had put me forward for it. I then got a call asking if I was interested and after a few discussions we moved forward with it. It was NERVE-WRACKING to be involved. I was so nervous about the fact that we were on our own as an investigator... I kept thinking... ‘what if nothing paranormal happens?’. I was soon put completely at ease by the Director / Producers of the show who told me that if NOTHING happens well then...

nothing happens. I have heard horror stories about other production companies who told the investigators to fake it, I’m glad what we have is genuine.

It makes me sleep easy at night knowing that nothing was faked. It was a very exciting process from start to finish.

Woodcut Media are so amazing, wonderful to work with.

Why do you think that so much ‘evidence’ is apparently now being captured?

DM: It depends what you would call ‘evidence’. I’ve seen some very questionable things being classed as ‘evidence’ which hasn’t convinced me at all. I’ve also seen some very impressive things which have been caught using the very best technology in the field. I think a lot of the equipment now being introduced to investigations is helping a lot and allowing people to capture more solid evidence.

JH: I think people with an interest in the paranormal have a real appetite for proof…more

so than ever before and with so many tools at our disposal these days investigators have the greatest possible chance of finding something. Of course, competition is high and with that comes an even hungrier community of enthusiasts. I think what we should probably all remember is that ‘evidence’ is a very personal thing. What constitutes validation for one person will be disregarded by another and so in reality we will never have that holy grail we all seek. Unquestionable proof that satisfies everyone…all we can do is go out there hoping to gather enough to satisfy ourselves.

MJ: I think that people want it to be paranormal so badly that a lot of things these days get passed off as ‘paranormal’ when clearly there is an explanation. However, I also think that we have a lot more people investigating and trying to document stuff so therefore the more investigators the more evidence will be out there in the public eye.

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What is your opinion of public events?

DM: I’m a big fan of public events if they’re done in the right way. I think it is important that the team who are hosting the event provide the guests with an honest investigation.

JH: Public events are great!

They offer people the opportunity to get a glimpse into the world of paranormal investigation and can be a great night out. Obviously, there are issues around gathering credible evidence as conditions are not controlled, but that’s not what events are about and the snobbery within certain para-academic circles around paranormal events is a personal bug bear of mine.

Events have their place like anything else and can only be a good thing as they shine the spotlight on what we do and give like-minded people a chance to network. I tend to run 3 or 4 events each year.

I enjoy meeting people and guiding them around haunted locations and always make the history of the locations just as big a part of the evening as the ghost hunting.

MJ: Public events are GREAT! I believe they are a good introduction to all things that go bump in the night. They are not an investigation, but they do give people with an interest in all things paranormal the chance to explore and experience what it’s like to be an investigator. If the person / team are doing a good job running the event, then I think they are a wonderful starting point for people.

Does social media play an important role in the Paranormal?

DM: A HUGE role! It allows people to promote, post evidence videos and have discussions.

JH: I think in today’s world social media plays a huge part in everything! You can’t avoid it (unless you’re my Husband Simon who has no interest whatsoever lol) so you may as well embrace it. Social media has its flaws but for me it’s enabled me to connect with people I’d have never met otherwise, and those relationships have led to incredible career opportunities and lifelong memories. We can now instantly share our evidence and experiences with people all over the world thanks to social

media so for me there is no real downside. I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid much of the drama that can sometimes flare up within the paranormal community although I will speak my mind if I feel something’s not right.

MJ: Yes! It’s the easiest way to share, collaborate and bring people together. There is the darker side... those looking for 5 seconds of fame. Lately there is also the issue of people who can’t seem to respect someone else’s findings. I have two points here: 1st - if you’re going to put evidence out there for the general public to see then expect strong opinions, they may not always agree with you.

2nd - Being famous on Facebook is just as pointless as being rich in monopoly. It’s research and hard work that pays off in the end.

What is the biggest problem with the paranormal world?

DM: Unfortunately, I think there are a few problems in the paranormal industry right now.

There is a lot of competitiveness and there are a lot of egos in this business. These are just two of the problems, but I will say no more.

JH: Probably the intense competition, but you get that in any field. It’s not something that has ever bothered me, and I love to see people I admire doing well but sadly I’ve seen the effects of unhealthy competition on some teams and investigators and it can get ugly, and there is no need for it. When social media storms flare up, I sit on the side-lines shaking my head wondering what some peoples end goal really is!

MJ: Far too much fighting and not enough people who actually learn and respect the opinions of others. New investigators have No CLUE when you start discussing people like Konstantine Raudive or Faraday, generally most lack a decent knowledge base as they want to be famous not researchers.

No one wants to put the work in anymore.

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In your honest opinion do you ever think we will capture solid proof of the afterlife.

So much so that the doubters and the non-believers will no longer doubt or disbelieve?

DM: I’ve spent a very long time trying to prove that very thing. Unfortunately, the only way to prove to a nonbeliever that ghosts/spirits exist is for them to see it for themselves.

I do think that more and more people across the world are becoming interested in the paranormal and the more people that witness real evidence then the closer we will get to our goal.

JH: In a word, No! We are all unique, with our own expectations, limitations and preferences. I may capture something tomorrow that I consider unquestionable. A colleague may not be convinced and need more and so the circle goes on. That’s what is great though as it means that paranormal research is infinite!

We will never draw a line under it.

MJ: Yes!! I sure as hell hope so! I’m trying dammit! We will always have those who disbelieve. Wouldn’t the world be a boring place if we all just believed the exact same things; it makes life more interesting.

With ghosts just being one strand of the paranormal, what are your views on aliens/ cryptozoology etc?

DM: I’m a big believer in life on other planets, however, do I think we are constantly being visited by aliens? No. I believe that 99% of UFO sightings can be explained and I also think that secret military jets are to blame for a lot of these sightings.

JH: Ooh don’t get me started on aliens! That’s a whole interview on its own! I have always said that I believe human beings are the product of intelligent design. We are too complex to be the result of a series of evolutionary accidents. Think about it.

“The Black Mausoleum in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard... I felt physically sick when I entered the place for the first time and it continues to fascinate me” JAYNE HARRIS

From the tiniest insect to the rotations of the planets.

Everything knows exactly what it needs to do, how and when and it all works in perfect synchronicity. That’s no accident and I think that one potential explanation for that is Extra-terrestrial intervention… or even creation! The universe is vast, even infinite and so it would be ignorant, even arrogant of us to assume we are the only intelligent species in existence. Even if we discount every single eyewitness account even recorded (visitations, UFO sightings etc) we’re still left with the fact that it is far more likely that we are NOT alone.

When it comes to Cryptozoology, I’m less convinced, but am open to the idea that incredible creatures exist. After all, we are still discovering new species at the bottom of the ocean. I do enjoy a good conspiracy theory but mainly because we don’t know for sure. If someone captured Bigfoot where would the fun be in that! The magic is in the mystery.

MJ: I don’t think we can be the only intelligent life in the universe so yes, I believe in aliens. I definitely believe in weird cryptids, I was one of the speakers at Cryptid Con in Kentucky last year, my lecture focused on African Cryptids.

What is the most active location you have been to?

DM: It must be Tatton Old Hall and I’m not just saying that because it’s my exclusive location, but this really is a special place. I believe that I have created the ultimate haunted house by moving my genuine haunted collection into the location. The evidence that has been captured on video on numerous occasions since November 2018 speaks for itself and I don’t believe there is currently a location in Britain right now, that is producing the evidence that Tatton Old Hall is.

JH: It’s hard to choose. My strongest experiences have been in pretty ordinary places (my parents’ house when I was a kid and a caravan in Wales in 2006 for example!) but if I had to choose, based on activity and other peoples experiences I’d say the Black Mausoleum in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh.

More recorded Poltergeist attacks than anywhere on earth, experienced by independent people and photographed. I felt physically sick when I entered the place for the first time, and it continues to fascinate me.

MJ: Oh wow! I have so many!

Explosion museum in Gosport (I don’t think they allow investigations anymore), Warwick Castle and Drakelow Tunnels, I’ll stop there.

Any advice for anyone wanting to become involved in the paranormal?

DM: Do your homework on the location, stay rational, learn the right techniques and be prepared to head into a crazy world of weirdness.

JH: Do it for the right reasons.

Do it because you are curious about the world around you and want to know if there is life after death. Don’t get involved if you see it as a way to become famous there are enough overinflated egos already! Find like-minded people and have fun. Don’t take yourself or anyone else’s opinion for that matter, too seriously. Invest in a few pieces of essential kit. A camera and audio recorder are a good start and then decide on other kit later when you know more about what your personal preferences are. Do you like hearing EVP’s? then think about getting a spirit box. If you prefer visual stuff, upgrade to a full spectrum camera. There’s no need to throw thousands of pounds at it in the early days… or ever! Speak to people! You’d be amazed at how many other people actually find the subject fascinating, people you’d never think of, and you can get some great stories out of people once you warm them up, which in turn leads to new locations to

investigate. Some of my favourite locations have been the result of my curiosity. Ask the lady behind the bar if the pubs haunted, mention what you do to the man in the bookshop, or the postman or other parents at the school gates. Don’t be embarrassed about your interest.

MJ: READ!!! Every day is a school day! Ask experienced investigators which 3 books taught them the most and then start with those. Learn about the history of paranormal investigating. Find out who the most respected and knowledgeable people are in the field and read their work.

The more you learn the better investigator you’ll become.

Attend paranormal conventions!!!!

They bring all the people you can learn from and stick them in one place... for you to learn! Don’t worry about starting a team or company in the paranormal field until you know what you’re doing.

Please! It’s not safe for so many reasons.

What is the funniest thing about the paranormal world?

DM: I think it’s best I don’t answer that... Although I do recommend Paul Stevenson’s Twitter jokes (not many do, so appreciated Danny – editor) JH: Ooh, I don’t know! For me it’s Chris, Barri and I getting fits of giggles at 4am in the morning during an investigation because we’re so sleep deprived and high on caffeine lol. True story.

MJ: Jeff Belanger and Scott Gruenwald. Ha-ha I’m kidding!

No seriously though they are hilarious.

Thanks to Danny, Jayne and MJ for their answers to our questions, we really hope people are enjoying Paranormal: Captured, let’s hope it gets the viewing figures the channel are hoping for. It’s another notch on the paranormal bed post for UK Paranormal TV, let’s hope that continues.

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JASON

WAL L’S

INT OF VIEW:

ANORMAL PO R PA L A N SO R PE R LA CU TI PAR

E H T N O S E H C N U P O N G IN L “PUL Y” E L R A P Y IT N U A R A P # L A PARANORM #PARAUNITY? There’s more chance of proving ghosts exist, isn’t there? The word “#ParaUnity”; Ironically this buzz word is meant to be used as an umbrella term to bring the whole paranormal field together but, is it as divisive as Brexit?

In recent months, we have seen the word #ParaUnity appear on mainstream social media networks. Monthly get togethers being organized and even multi team/charity investigations all under this new banner of solidarity, but can this idea to bring all aspects of the paranormal together as one harmonious utopia work or are there other agendas a foot? Let’s be honest, how many different facets to the paranormal are there? I can list several straight away without much thought, and I’m sure there are more if we really want to perform a (excuse the corporate terms) deep dive on the subject.

Perhaps I’m sceptical, from the time I have been involved in this field I have seen way too much animosity between people & teams for #ParaUnity to become a reality. Whether it’s a clash of personalities, petty squabbles about locations or investigation techniques and evidence collected.

“My own opinion is straightforward – #ParaUnity is a great idea, but its flawed in the why, who and how we are trying to make it work” How can you persuade somebody who is absolutely dead against using gadgets (and there are many) to work with a team or a person who uses these devices? I have seen the arguments about gadgets on Social Media, they can get nasty, personal and damn right vindictive! Why does the paranormal field seem to attract such venomous people? By all means have your opinion, 62

express it, but do not be blinkered in your approach to anything new. Do gadgets work? That’s a whole different discussion and we aren’t here to decipher that conundrum!

The same goes for the other side of the argument, with the spiritual side or mediumship.

Just because there are some unscrupulous people out there that have been proven to fakes, it does not mean you can taint the whole field of mediumship.

Like any industry, there will always be those out to exploit the masses. When it comes to the paranormal there seems to be a lack of diverse thinking, a willing to accept different approaches or common sense on either side of the argument.

And these two examples are the tip of the iceberg – we haven’t even touched on the personality side of the issue!

“Ego is a massive issue within the paranormal” The rush to be the next big thing on TV (personality or team) is always around the corner and for some this is the ultimate goal.

Shouldn’t the reason we are ghost hunters (or paranormal investigators, however you choose to phrase it) be to find evidence of the afterlife? This is what we love doing isn’t it?

Subterfuge is my biggest concern with the use of the word #ParaUnity. The idea of it everyone working together is great and I am all for it, but as with all these types of initiatives, are some of these organised events merely another way for people to undermine rivals, gain favour and network with influential figures merely for selfgain? To further their own careers rather than bring everyone together?

I fear that some may well be hiding behind the flag of unity, togetherness, manipulating it and exploiting genuine people to suit HAUNTED

their own agenda for selfish reasons, but maybe at my age I’ve become cynical – you tell me (he is nearing 47 folks – editor) What I can say is that as part of #HauntedLIVE, a team of five mates who would never class themselves as experts (a term I do not think should be used with a subject with no categorical proof of existence), the five of us have no ego (however, there’ll be people who disagree with that, #ParaUnity eh?). No one person dominates or has more say than any other and we are all open to different ideas. That doesn’t mean we will agree on everything, we do argue, about many things (pineapple on pizza?! No Mr. Stevenson!). As a team we have always been gadget driven (I in particular love a gadget), possibly because of the fact we do many investigations live on Facebook and a visual reaction to activity keeps the viewer engaged, but as we have moved forward we have also invited mediums to be guest investigations and with great success. We do not believe there is a right way to investigate, and in that are open to any techniques that work best in any situation.

Why wouldn’t we all embrace different ideas if we want to achieve our goals? Its common sense right? If only!

It’s quite simple to me – if we truly want #ParaUnity, then people need to remove the ego and masquerades, the undermining of other teams, the jealousy and the refusal to accept alternative approaches to investigation techniques and tools used in the field as they may find they actually work

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and enhance your own methods! Maybe then we can start to bring a fragmented group together, after all we are all after the same thing. Proof that there is an afterlife, that there are spirits/ghosts.

Is this impossible to achieve?

The only people who can bring us all together are the ones who work in the field. Over to you, paranormal friends.

I’m off to watch Most Haunted – they are great!

Jason

If you have a particular personal paranormal point of view you want to get off your scary hairy chest (or scary non-hairy chest or non-scary hairy chest or nonscary non-hairy chest), it’s time for you to speak out, then please email us at

ppppov@hauntedmagazine.co.uk (note: Your words will be not be edited) And, as always, please feel free to disagree with what has been said here, you are welcome to a right of reply, please email us

rightofreply@hauntedmagazine.co.uk

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P O LT E R G E I E C A N R U F MOIRA NT AND THE VICKY GRA

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estled on the banks of the Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal lies a hauntingly beautiful hidden gem by the name of Moira Furnace. Moira was built in 1804 and is one of the most wellpreserved furnaces in Europe (if not the world!) considering the fact it was only used as such from 1806 until 1811. The foundry remained in use until 1844 but iron was brought in from elsewhere due to remarks being made at the time which suggested a bad design.

Now a museum, Moira has been used for many purposes over the years, including living accommodation for multiple families.

Joined by my friend Chloe Stephenson, we ventured to the site in January to carry out a paranormal investigation. We arrived at the furnace at around half past seven in the evening and we were met by the manager, Tom Phillips. Before we did anything, he was kind enough to give us a tour of the museum and fill us in on a brief history of the location. He had taken us to all the different areas but one in particular had stood out to me since the first moment we had stepped foot inside of the building. The Stairs.

After doing this kind of thing for a long time, you begin to trust your gut feeling and I was certainly getting a strange vibe from the stairs. In fact, I wasn’t the only one. Chloe had also spoken up about her dislike of them as well as Tom. I wondered if it could be EMF related as sometimes high spike readings can give you an uncomfortable feeling, but after checking with the meter there was nothing of significance that should have been naturally causing our discomfort. Tom had also gone on to explain that when his wife had visited the furnace, she too had also stated that she was not fond of the stairs and had sensed a dark presence.

With this in mind, we retired to the kitchen to unpack our equipment and we began on the very top floor in the top room and Tom had also decided to join us. It was his first ever investigation and he did state at the start that he was sceptical but that he would keep an open mind. Initially it was extremely quiet to start off with.

We’d been calling out for a good twenty minutes or so and we had various devices scattered around the room but not a sound was made.

We had decided to begin a spirit box session. Chloe had powered hers up and we sat in the room and began to call out.

“I have heard many ghost stories connected to this magnificent furnace and it was something that I wanted to go and investigate for myself.”

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Again, no voices came through for a good few minutes but soon the atmosphere inside had changed. We all documented a temperature change as we began to feel small bursts of a cool breeze around us, something Tom himself even witnessed but we were not able to explain. No windows were open, and this was the first time we had begun to feel it.

We’d asked several questions by this point and not received a response, it was only when we asked how old the spirit was that it responded “Seven”.

It wasn’t particularly clear so we’d asked if the spirit could

please repeat what they had said, and it responded again. “I said Seven!” and this time the voice was very clear, although it didn’t sound like that of a child, in fact to me, it sounded like a mature man. Very odd indeed!

Tom was a little gobsmacked by this point with him being a sceptic, considering the fact we’d just received very intelligent responses to the questions we were asking, though unfortunately, we received no further responses after this on the SB7.

After a quick break we went down a floor and ventured into what could only be described as the ‘The Bathroom’ but it was

also being used for storage and was quite a big area. Again we’d spread out in the room and we were calling out when we started to hear noises from the stairs, it almost sounded like someone banging or walking around and as the exterior of Moira is open to the public at night Tom had looked out of the window to make sure that no one was around, which they weren’t.

The investigation continued and I’d felt the floor vibrate beneath my feet. Chloe had also picked up on this, so I’d moved towards the door which led out to the stairs and began to call out. That was when I felt as if something or ‘someone’ had rushed up on me. There was a massive burst of energy and a cold breeze, so much so it actually made me step back. It definitely got my heart racing, that was for sure!

As the activity seemed to be now centring around the stairs, we headed outside and decided it was time to investigate them.

We’d all sat on the steps and began an EVP session to which we didn’t receive a voice response, but we could still hear the tapping which had

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now seemed to move from the stairs and was coming from downstairs. We all sat quietly listening and even checking with Tom if this was a normal sound phenomena to which he looked rather ‘spooked’ at this point and responded no.

With us all sat in silence, I’d called out asking for a bang and within seconds we heard the loudest crash coming from downstairs. To me it sounded like something hitting wood and it was certainly close to us. I instantly jumped up on my feet and all three of us went down to check out the noise, though we couldn’t see a single thing out of place.

To this day, we still have no idea where the noise had come from or what had caused it!

It seemed like we were now chasing whatever it was around the museum. We’d hear noises coming from all different directions and it was as if it was trying to detour us away from the stairs. It was a little exhausting if I’m honest.

Whatever was there was certainly messing with us and giving us the run-around!

Now heading back to the kitchen for a break, we were all surprised to walk inside and find that the wooden table was absolutely soaked with water. It was like small puddles, you could literally put your hand into it and feel the moisture. Yet, it was only on the table. We tried to figure out if it was condensation, but no other surfaces were wet and the chairs were made from the same material as the table, yet they were bone dry.

It wasn’t until after the investigation that I began to look a little more into the random water puddles, I guess from a spiritual side and to see if anyone else had ever experienced the same thing.

Turns out, they had! It’s actually a really well-known phenomena for Poltergeist activity... random puddles of water can signify this and now everything made a lot more sense, especially after what we had witnessed in the basement!

When I go to investigate a location, I always keep an open mind and of course I am always pushing for activity. I’m an investigator, it’s what I do, I want things to happen...

But what happened at Moira Furnace was literally a paranormal investigators dream.

Myself, Chloe and the manager Tom had headed down into the basement. As mentioned above, we’d heard noises coming from all over the building but for the most part they seemed to be from the area just below the stairs. As soon as we’d walked into the basement there was a different feeling inside

which we had all picked up on, especially Tom who’d said he’d felt very uncomfortable as if something was stood close to him breathing on his neck.

I’d saw the heavy fire door as soon as we’d walked in as it was propped with a door wedge.

I’d actually moved it to see if the door would slam shut, which it did. Now going back, we re-propped the door, and all sat down. We were calling out and for some bizarre reason, I decided to focus on the door.

I really wanted it to slam shut.

I mean, what are the chances though? It was wedged and it would have been pretty spectacular if it happened.

In fact, I remember hearing a chuckle from Chloe when I’d asked for it to happen, as if to say ‘Yeah, right’.

We’d sat for a few minutes, but I kept trying.

It was then that we heard a slight creak. It honestly sounded like the wedge on the door, so I’d flicked my torch on and checked it out, but it didn’t look as if it had moved or anything. I’d asked again, a little more force in my tone of voice this time.

All I remember seeing was the top of the door closing and then hearing an ALMIGHTY crash as it slammed shut... ON COMMAND. Not gonna lie... I RAN towards the back of the room to Chloe and Tom and we were all kind of huddled in the corner. I was VERY excited and I’m pretty sure we all high fived each other whilst Tom just stood frozen in fear with his mouth wide open wondering what the hell was going on.

There was another fire door on the other-side which led to the outside and Tom had his hand pretty tightly clasped upon it and ready to make a swift exit. In fact, we’d ended up outside for a few minutes to catch our breaths and try to comprehend logically what had just happened.

Now returning and inspecting the room, our hearts racing from this amazing activity, I’d noticed that the doorstop had somehow ended up in the middle

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of the room as if it was thrown.

So, it didn’t just slide along with the door, it had been forcefully pushed away.

Taking the doorstop once more I re-propped the door and we all sat down again after a little pep talk to Tom who was ready to quit his job and never come back to the furnace (lol!) Again, you could still feel the energy in the room, it was charged up. I was calling out and we’d only been in the room for less than five minutes when I’d asked who’d slammed the door and the loudest growl came from the corridor. I kid you not! We ALL heard it, and yes, it did make me jump back but when I’d turned, I’d saw that Tom and Chloe were already outside and I was stood there on my own & when I realised, I was alone... I was also GONE. I’d stepped out and Tom was having a bit of a panic attack, in fact, he’d slammed the door shut behind us and proceeded to shout ‘NO NO NO NO’ at the door whilst pointing at it.

Honestly, as I’m writing this, I can’t stop laughing so you can imagine in the moment how funny it was. Amazing, but also hilarious. I think the fact that Tom was a sceptic and he’d now witnessed true paranormal poltergeist activity was even more priceless than the door slamming.

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It took a good twenty minutes or so before we could persuade him to go back into the building.

I personally wanted to go back to the basement, and I’d managed to get him and Chloe to follow suit. We had the spirit box running now and it was throwing out some really strange sounds. One in particular sounded extremely creepy, like a disgruntled ‘demonic’ growl. I don’t think whatever is at Moira is demonic, but it’s just the best way I can describe the noise.

Chloe was freaking out by this point and she’d turned the spirit box off. I honestly tried to push her and Tom to continue, but I could see from their faces that they’d had enough in this area for the evening and I didn’t want to force them or make them feel any more uncomfortable than they already did.

energy. That, and the place is also surrounded by water, another natural source of energy!

I still have the message I got from Tom the very next morning after the investigation, it simply read...

‘Great night tonight, thank you! I can’t decide if you’re just really brave or bloody mental!’

And in my eyes... That makes it a pretty awesome night!

Ha!

We’d taken a break and then headed to the other side of the museum. I won’t lie, the rest of the evening was very quiet indeed. The only other weird piece of activity that was witnessed was in the outside area where it felt as if someone had grabbed my arm. That was the moment we decided to wrap up our eventful night at Moira Furnace.

We all still talk about it to this day as it was an utterly amazing experience and just something you would never expect to happen.

Thankfully Tom did not quit his job, in fact, he’s been trying to communicate with the spirit of Moira since our investigation during his working days and as we never found out the spirits name, I decided to nickname him ‘Norman the doorman’ and it’s just kind of stuck at that.

I’d also like to point out that the furnace has a lot of Limestone, which could be another possible reason the activity is off the scales. Limestone is supposed to be a conduit for spiritual

Tom said he says ‘good morning’ to him and he feels like they have a kind of understanding now in the building, He’s even been getting responses back via tapping.

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Not only did we all witness something we will never forget, but also Tom had researched a little more into the history of the location, he’d actually spoken to the board of directors about the activity and it was later confirmed as a documented fact that a seven year old child had drowned in the canal outside Moira Furnace in 1857! We had the age Seven come through on the spirit box and also the strange puddles of water on the table.

Was this connected? Was the poltergeist the child?

We can only make that connection with the facts we now have!

About a month Later the HauntedLIVE team (Yay, that’s us – editor) also went to investigate the furnace, I thought it’d be an amazing idea after all of the activity that had happened with myself and Chloe, so I’d spoken to Tom and set it up. You can see what happened on their investigation on their Facebook page. Not only that, but James Pykett knew I would be writing this article for Haunted Magazine, so he was kind enough to take some professional photos for me to use, so all photo credit goes to him (Thanks James!)

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For those of you that don’t know, I’ve also teamed up with James now for our blogs and we will actually be returning to investigate Moira Furnace in September, I really can’t wait to see if we can get more answers to the questions which are now burning in my mind!

If you are a paranormal team, investigator or enthusiast I would definitely recommend you visit and investigate Moira Furnace. The museum is now open for public and private investigations and you can enquire by contacting Tom Phillips directly via the website https://www. moirafurnace.org/

It was a mind-blowing investigation.

Massive thanks to Chloe for joining me and putting up with me (ha!) and a big shout out to the now ‘not so sceptic’ Tom for allowing us to investigate this magnificent building!

But, Until next time...

Vicky x

Happy Hunting!

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SPECIAL THANKS TO: Our HauntedLIVE mates: Simon Powell, James Pykett & Jason Wall

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