WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

We all know the answer to that one, and none better than The Paranormal Finding Hauntings group. Jaq Bayles gets ghosted in the nicest possible way, introducing the theme for this month’s issue

There’s an LGBTQ+ group for everyone, right? Sports, history, literature, music, dancing… but what of those whose interests are more otherworldly? Well, there’s a group for that too.

The Paranormal Finding Hauntings (TPFH) was originally established in 2010 by Hovebased Robert Murphy-Smith and is now an eight-strong team – very inclusive with the majority identifying as LGBTQ+ and several who are registered disabled – which investigates all things ghostly all around the UK.

From castles to prisons, bunkers to pubs, woods to private homes, Robert and his team haul out their voice recorders, structured light scanner (SLS), cameras, infra-red lights and electromagnetic field meter (EMF)– often in the dead of night – seeking proof of life beyond the grave. And they have recorded evidence of their findings, which they offer up on their own YouTube channel.

So how did it all begin?

Robert has always had an interest in the paranormal, having heard tales from his mother – herself having Wiccan ancestry – about his own childhood home having been haunted, and decided to set up a ghost hunting group.

His first foray into the practice was at Bramber Castle, where apparently there have been sightings of children begging for food. He and his sister, Nikki, armed only with notepads and torches, went to investigate the phenomenon.

“The ghosts were supposed the be the children of an old lord who had upset the king and the king starved the kids and the wife to death, and I think he executed the lord.”

That first trip didn’t go so well as his sister got scared and ran away. “I thought, ‘I can’t just go out with my sister’ and got in touch with a few old schoolmates because I’d heard they were into the paranormal.”

Among them was Lisa Walker, who is the unique team’s longest-standing member and lead investigator and coordinator. She too has had her own paranormal experiences in childhood, and also appears to get the brunt on investigations. While mostly the team don’t find things until they begin reviewing their recordings, Lisa says: “Every time we go out on investigations it seems like it’s me who gets the raw deal. One castle we visited we were looking at this piece of wall and a block of it was chucked into my face. It was quite a big stone and it smacked me on my eye. That scared me and I don’t usually get scared.

“And when we went to the Screaming Woods (Dering Wood in Kent), one minute I was all right then the next minute I felt sick. Then I was literally puking and I lost all my energy to the point where Dave had to practically carry me back to the car.”

Robert and Lisa have since been joined by Robert’s husband and demonologist Richard Murphy-Smith; angel card reader and crystal healer, Saffron Hodges; team sceptic, David Walsh; paranormal investigator, Owen ‘OJ’ Luxford; cameraman and analyst, Noah Green; and psychic, Ben Alexander.

Soon after setting up as a paranormal investigator, Robert went to a medium night where the medium singled him out among the crowd and told him: “You are covered by a lot of light, and from the darkness the light can be found. You also have started in the paranormal world, you must keep doing it because you are gifted.” This drove his determination to “know if there’s something out there, is there life after death. Why do people see these things?”

Robert continues: “There are so many people who see ghosts and things like that and other people that don’t. So I wanted to try to investigate if there was something or if they were just seeing things.

“We’ve been to Bramber a few times and got evidence. We’ve got an apparition of a girl stood in a bushy area you can see in one of the pictures. Also a random mist we saw that just appeared from nowhere. We get a lot of orbs but some are dust.” (Orbs are often the spirit of a loved one.)

Why does Robert think so many LGBTQ+ people have experiences of the paranormal?

“I assume it’s because in the LGBTQ+ community they are more susceptible to things because of the hardships they go through growing up, having to learn to stand on their own two feet, being pushed out by their families. Usually spirits are attracted to troubled souls; that’s probably why a lot of LGBTQ+ people see spirits and get involved in the spiritual side of things.”

The team does invite people to join them on some of their investigations, and this has proved popular. Robert, who suffers from fibromyalgia, says: “Having it as an LGBTQ+ group and with disabled people makes people feel more comfortable – it’s a safe haven, somewhere for them to go.

“I had a couple last year ringing up in lockdown and saying they don’t go out anywhere, don’t go to pubs and clubs, don’t make any friends, don’t like to go out on the scene. So it’s nice that people can come with us on events, feel comfortable and can get stuck in. We’ve done quite a few events – the old Brighton Prison Cells, Lewes Priory, Dering Woods in Kent, which is also known as the Screaming Woods.

“A lot of people struggle to talk about their experiences because others usually say, ‘Shut up, you’re imagining it’ and it gets brushed off. So coming to our events, it’s a place for them to share their experiences of the paranormal world.”

Lockdown put TPFH’s events and investigations on hold, but also gave the team time to think more about what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go, which resulted in the rebranding, along with buying new and better equipment.

And this year they have also investigated and “cleansed” a couple of private homes.

Robert expands on this: “Some people are absolutely petrified of living in their homes because things are being moved, they’ve been pulled out of bed, they’re hearing bangs and voices.

“Obviously, part of our investigation is to make sure they haven’t got any mental health problems or might be hearing things because of an underlying illness or something, so we cross reference and interview them before we go and investigate in their house. When we get to their house we do a walk-through with the camera and get them to explain to us what’s gone on where so we can decide where want to set up the cameras and SLS.”

The “cleansing” begins with smudging – the burning of sage – around windows, doors and walls if there have been sightings of something moving through a wall. From there is a process of “politely” asking the spirits to “leave the home, leave these people alone”.

Robert continues: “The second stage of that would be putting salt across the front door and all the doors around the hallway, which is meant to stop the spirits being able to cross over.” (In case you’re wondering about practicalities and housekeeping, the salt only has to remain for 24-48 hours). “Then the third approach is slightly more aggressive, telling them to leave and being more forceful.”

This sees a return to the Wiccan ways Robert inherited from his mother. “I have my Wiccan book and I give a protection spell which they [the home owners] wrap in tissue or whatever they want to wrap it in, then they have to hide it around the house somewhere no one will find it. If someone finds it the spell will be undone, but if it remains hidden your home will remain protected.

“As my mum’s a Wiccan I’ve got a bit of Wiccan in me. I love all my crystals. I’ve got my drawer with all my wands and pentagram stuff so I am very much starting to get into that side. My granddad was a warlock and my mum, auntie and sisters all cast spells.”

While there’s a serious side to what the team does, there’s a real element of fun too. “We do have quite a laugh. If it’s a private investigation obviously we are really serious, but when we’re doing castles and abbeys and that we do have a laugh and giggle with the team.”

And there’s a chance that further fame is on the way as Robert has been contacted by Discovery+ channel about a potential show.

So if you’re plagued by moans and groans and things that go bump in the night – outside your normal expectations! – you know who to call.

As Robert says: “Have a Spooktacular day!”D www.findings-haunting.com

MORE ABOUT THE PARANORMAL FINDING HAUNTINGS TEAM

The Paranormal Finding Hauntings (TPFH) group tries to cover all bases in the complex world of the supernatural with the individual talents of its team members, with the newest recruit being psychic Ben Alexander, who believes the seeming ‘accident’ by which he found the group was actually meant to be.

A gay man with visual impairment, Ben was recently online seeking a new cane to assist with guiding him. He had for some time been praying to find a psychic development circle and when he put his home town and equipment requirements into his search engine, an article about TPFH from Pink UK popped up.“Obviously because I’d been praying for help to find a psychic development circle this came up. You could say it was by accident but it was meant to be.”

Praying to his higher power and the universe is a big part of Ben’s life – he is not religious but has a “very high spiritual belief” as he tries to help people less ‘sensitive’ than he navigate the spiritual world.

He has known he is psychic from a very early age, seeing shadows and apparitions and sensing discord in others. “For me it’s about having a sixth sense,” he says. “We are all psychic anyway but some people are more open than others and I’ve just been granted a gift. It can be a curse at times if I’m honest.”

By this he means that not everybody appreciates the insight his sensitivity can bring. But more often than not he has brought comfort to the people he does readings for and has surprised even the most sceptical with the accuracy of his descriptions of loved ones who have passed away, or even of existing situations about which he should have no knowledge.

Ben’s favoured method for readings is psychometry, or ‘object reading’, in which he uses a personal belonging of the person he is reading for, often keys, to get his sense of what is going on.

Of course, many are sceptical of psychics and often with good reason, as Ben admits there are more than a few imposters who take advantage of people’s longing for contact with lost loved ones.

Speaking of sceptics, TPFH’s own Dave Walsh – another recent recruit who also runs Pink UK – is the grounding force when it comes to investigations.

Robert Murphy-Smith says: “He gives us reasons for why something might have happened. For example, if there’s a spike in the EMF, he might say someone’s mobile phone was near the video. But he’s starting to believe more now after the private investigation we did a couple of weeks ago.”

Among longer-standing members of the team are Saffron Hodges, who joined in 2011 and has been reading Angel cards for many years, has crystal healing experience, and brings the team together safely with her protection prayer, opening and closing prayers.

And Robert’s husband Richard is a qualified demonologist, he watches out for signs that there could be demonic entities during the team’s investigative activities.