Christmas Fun

December 21st 2013

As it was nearly Christmas, Dave and I thought we would throw a little get together for the team. Thing is, this was going to be a get together with a difference. I had hired a local hall (which we had noticed had a definite ‘feel’ to it when we had been there before for other functions). This turned out to be a smart move.

Our guests for the night included Maria, Andrew, Ben, Loretta, Matt, Caz, Nicci, Dave and I. I had laid on a few nibbles so after we had finished these we decided to see if there really was any ghosts at this mystery hall.

We decided to set up a table in the middle of the hall. Maria had the idea to leave the red candle burners going as it is believed that spirits are attracted to red light. We started to call out and as usual nothing much happens for a while. It can take a while for the energy to build up at the start of an investigation. About 20 minutes into the mini investigation you hear a strange moan that isn’t quite human sounding yet it also doesn’t sound like a car going passed or plane going over either as it stops too abruptly. Just after the moan we hear a series of taps. These increase in intensity until they are more like thuds that you could actually feel the vibrations too. Nicci suggests that maybe the door isn’t quite secure so Dave goes off to find out. The door is fine and it is not rattling in the lock. As Dave comes back to join us you hear another thud down by the door. It seems that if you go down to investigate you then hear the thud at the opposite end of the room. We ask if we can hear their footsteps walk across the wooden floor of the hall. We do hear a knock just after we ask this. As we continue to call out to try and encourage any spirit activity, Nicci feels something touch her hair as she is telling us this we hear a thud at the opposite end of the room.

We decide to take a break and set the table up on the stage area (as some of the team feel drawn to there). While some are in the kitchen, the rest of us are either sat up on the stage or in that area. You can see us talking on the video footage that we suddenly realise that we can hear lots of thudding under the floor. At first I think we all assumed was coming from the people in the kitchen. You can see all of us suddenly realising this is not so. You can clearly hear this thudding going on as we are discussing it with each other. We ask the team members in the kitchen if they are making the noises (they confirm it is not them). The kitchen is tiny and anymore than 1 person in there is not going to be able to move about freely. This really gets our attention and the rest of the team come and join us. We feel this is a good time to set up the spirit board to see if the thumping underfoot is a spirit trying to get our attention. We try with the spirit board to begin with but don’t really get much. We try the ghost box next but again we don’t get anything conclusive happen. We turn back to the spirit board. We don’t have to wait long for the spirit board to work. We get a very chatty spirit through which is eager to tell us he is nice. We do get a name and an age which has later been verified by Nicci, however, the date is slightly wrong. We are given 1773 and the evidence Nicci has is dated 1973. As this means this spirit is in living memory, out of respect for the family I will keep the identity anonymous. We are just discussing our conversation with our very chatty spirit friend when you hear a stone clatter to the ground. This turns out to be the first of many. As Ben goes to find the first one you hear another one clatter to the ground. Nicci goes to find this and about 2 minutes later another one clatters to the ground. The stones are found and they are all very similar in size. We have had this phenomenon before which is called an apport. However, this phenomenon seems to be happening to us more and more. As Ben, Nicci, Caz and Andrew are comparing the stones we hear another one clatter to the ground this is near Maria. Matt and Maria go to look for this one and we hear another one (though this turns out to be a bead falling off of Maria’s jumper). We all laugh which seems to spurn our stone throwing ghost on even more. We hear a stone clatter to the ground near the stage. We put the lights on to see if we can find the stone and to our amazement just as we find the stone we hear another one falling to the floor. This dispels any funny play from any of the team as we can all see each other. By now we have a nice little collection of stones on the table. All are the same size and roughly the same shape and they are all tiny bits of the same stone. It is a very stormy night and we realise that if this was one of us, we would have been hard pressed to of found stones that were so clean and so dry. The stones keep coming. I say this can’t be a regular occurrence as the floor would be covered by stones. Nicci goes to get a stone that has fallen by the curtain and suddenly cries out. She feels as if there was someone on the other side of the curtain that was pushing the curtain back at her. You can see this on the video clip I have on our Facebook page and you can see how visibly frightened she is by this. We get a few more stone apports and then the activity stops as abruptly as it started. We call out to see if the spirit has really finished. We get no response so after about 10 minutes we decide to try our hand at table tipping.

We move to the table we used at the beginning of the evening. On the video footage you hear another moan before the table suddenly tips up on 2 legs. Nicci is clearly surprised and you can hear her express how sceptical she was of what she has seen on TV before but actually witnessing it makes her start to wonder. The table suddenly moves over to the right. Taking us all with it (much to Ben's delight). He asks the table to go back to where it was so we can all sit down. Amazingly enough, the table does. We ask out again and the table moves over the right again. This time we all stand up and Matt busily tidies the chairs away (just in case). Over the next half hour we are scooted across the floor by the table like a giant planchett. It feels more like a party game and I am wondering to myself if this is the same spirit that was having us run around the hall following the thuds, then the stones. We also realise after a while that there is thudding going on underfoot while the table is moving (or if the table is not moving) the table is getting taps on it in answer to our questions. These thuds we are feeling you can feel the vibration that goes with it. We ask if the spirit is male. We get a thud. (We know that nearby there is a very heavy Saxon influence so I ask if he would have been from this time.) We get a thud. Maria exclaims how lovely this is. My camera has run out of tape and as we are now relying on Maria's camera we need to put the light on. We are amazed that the activity continues like it did earlier. The table is still quite happy to move us to different parts of the hall. The table comes to a standstill by Maria's camera and we continue to hear the thuds. We carry on chatting to our very friendly Saxon spirit that has definitely brought with him a lovely party atmosphere. We are all laughing and it feels as if this spirit has been having fun joining in with us. Sadly, we had to draw the investigation to a close as we had promised to be out by midnight.

Looking back I am amazed at the activity we got from an investigation which was not meant to be a serious one (but turned out to be). We had thuds, taps, audibles on camera, light anomalies and apports. We also had reasonable success with the spirit board thought sadly not with the ghost box. Most of the footage that is written in this report is available to view on our Facebook page under the title Christmas 2013

I would like to thank everyone who came to join me for our little Christmas get together and also the lovely spirits that came to join in with us on our Christmas fun.