Explosion Museum – The Museum of Naval Firepower

On the 21st August 2010, the Team had the privilege of investigating the Explosion Museum in Gosport! The Museum is an award winning museum of naval warfare which has been created within 18th century buildings at the Royal Navy's former armaments depot of Priddy's Hard, in Gosport, Hampshire.

This amazing museum is a group of listed buildings which centre around the original powder magazine of 1771. The site sits on the edge of a camber basin on the western shore of Portsmouth Harbour, with views across to Port Chester Castle, Whale Island and the Naval Base.

As we arrived, I was feeling very excited about this investigation. The team consisted of me and Dave from Phoenix and Maria, Loretta, Matt, Melanie and a dozen other guests made up Twilight Paranormal. We all met up in the Museums cafeteria area and our host for the evening Greg kept us all in coffee whilst we waited for everyone to arrive.

The evening started off with a tour around the site. We were shown around some of the outside buildings and were also given access to some buildings that previous paranormal teams had not been to before. Once we had been around and got our bearings, we all grouped back into the cafeteria, we had something to eat which was kindly provided by Greg and then split into 2 groups.

Our team started off in an outside building which housed missiles etc. that the Navy used for demonstration purposes and teaching cadets to understand the internal workings of missiles and their guidance systems. On the tour around, I had felt that there was a presence in this building and was eager to explore this a bit more. At first the building felt very quiet and still. I, Dave, Maria, Loretta and Sharon moved up to the top far corner of this building and started to call out. I almost immediately captured a group of impressive travelling orbs on my infra-red video camera which travelled from Maria’s direction (who was calling out at the time) towards where I was standing. Each time Maria called out I could see the light anomalies on the camera and they seemed to come from her direction. We noticed that there was a canvas covered area that housed models of ships etc. and we decided to go in there and call out. Almost immediately again I could see lots of light anomalies and also we started to hear tapping which seemed to respond to our questions. We also heard footsteps and Dave stepped out to see if another team was around but they were not.

After roughly half an hour in this building we decided to go to go to C mag. This building stood on the outskirts of the site and was one of the oldest magazines. It had been pointed out on the tour that in the entrance way to this building there were hundreds of spiders and because of this Sharon could not bring herself to step into the building. As Loretta was also not keen this left Dave, Maria and myself to venture inside. The inside of C mag was completely black. Even with our torches on the blackness did not seem to lift. I felt very threatened in here and stayed very close to Dave. We walked down towards the end of the building and marvelled at an emergency exit that is practically 5 foot in the air (with no steps to get to it) and bolted shut!!! Not much good in an emergency but then we figured that if there was going to be a fire in a Magazine full of gun powder there wouldn’t be much call for an emergency exit! We walked back to the centre of the building and started to call out. As I went to walk towards Dave we heard a stone scuttle across the floor as if it had been thrown at us. I looked to see if I had kicked something but could not find any stones. We called out again for a few minutes but by then our nerves had well and truly gone so we decided to investigate another area.

Our next building was a big hanger full of missiles of various sizes and cannons off of ships. This building felt very interesting and we spent quite a while in here but we did not capture any paranormal activity.

We decided to visit the Grande Magazine next and this is situated in the middle of the main museum. Another group was in there but they said it was OK for us to join them. We decided to hold a séance in the middle of the hall because we had all felt that there was a presence in this area. All joined in this séance, except Dave and Loretta. We started to call out and at first nothing much happened. It felt like the glass wanted to move but the movements were very small and sluggish. After about 10 minutes of calling out the glass started to move but it did not move very easily. It seemed to rock or move towards John who was a member of the team we had joined. One of the other team had some printed cards with them and so we decided to lay these out on the table and see if the spirit could communicate a little better with these to help it. Again not much happened and this spirit did not make much sense but all of a sudden the glass got very agitated and it started to spell out obscenities. We were all a bit shocked but carried on. We managed to get out of the spirit that it was supposedly a male who worked at the site, was gay and murdered his lover. The spirit said he ended up in Winchester Jail but every time we tried to get a name it told us it was top secret and went back to swearing at us. During this Dave had nodded off while watching us, after a while Dave got up and walked out of the area and I had assumed he had gone out for a cigarette break. We carried on the séance, I had noticed Dave had been gone a while but wasn’t worried as I thought he was talking to Greg. A while later I noticed that he had re-joined us but even though it was very dark in this hall, I could sense something was not right with him. I excused myself from the circle and went to speak to Dave who was pacing around the far end of the hall. He seemed very abrupt, aloof and assertive in his manner and I could see his body language was again very aloof and assertive. He seemed agitated also. I asked him to come out with me for a cigarette break so I could talk to him. He told me that this was all nonsense and farcical. I asked him what he meant and he said that there was nothing paranormal here. I asked him if he meant at the site or in general and he laughed and said both. I asked him if he no longer believed in the afterlife and he said no. Dave seemed very agitated and didn’t want to go back into the building. I went back and told Maria that Dave was not himself and said I would stay with him. When I went back to where I had left him, he had gone. I called out and he emerged from a walkway to the left of the car park. He walked up passed me and went back into the museum. He walked straight into a room we had not been too before and started to get agitated and exclaimed that all the doors are locked. He went up to a wall and it was only then I could see there was a door way there. We had not been in this room on our tour and as far as I am aware Dave has never been to the museum before. Maria, Loretta and Sharon joined us now and we followed Dave into the locker room. Here he seemed very puzzled and mentioned a name Junna which I believe he was trying to say Gunner. We found ourselves following Dave outside and we decided to go to the office building.

Dave went straight into the building and disappeared to the left down a corridor. We wanted to go upstairs so we went up to a room which Maria had said on a previous visit had felt horrible. As we reached the room Dave followed us up. We started to call out and almost immediately we heard a stone scuttle across the floor as it had in C Mag, just like it had been thrown at us. Dave strode over to the window where I was stood and picked up a piece of paper. Maria asked what was on the paper and he said acquisitions. He put down the piece of paper and walked off. We went to look at the paper and it was blank. We called out again and heard a few taps and knocks but we came to the conclusion that it was a window that had a pain of glass out which in the wind was causing the noise.

After this, we went for another walk around. We went down to some of the smaller buildings that were open to us but nothing much happened there. We decided to go back to the main museum and finish the investigation there. As we neared the museum Dave walked off towards the carpark. I said I would follow him to make sure he stayed out of trouble. As I followed him he went through an arch way into the grounds that surround the Grande Magazine. He was also calling after a dog ? I watched him for about 5 minutes rather bemused by this. With that, a great big Badger came bombing passed him and made a beeline for me. I jumped back in fright as this big badger came running passed me only to find Dave looking at me and was obviously not impressed. I said to him “did you see that?” and he said “what?” “That small black Terrier” I said to him “That wasn’t a Terrier; It’s a Bloody big Badger! Look!” I could see the badger legging it across the car park and Dave was still insisting it was a small black Terrier.

After the Badger incident I managed to get Dave back with the team and we went to the Missile room for the last part of our investigation. During this we got quite a few taps in response to our questions. We also heard something thrown in there like a stone.

As it was now nearing 2 am, we decided this was a good time to wind the investigation down. We spoke to Greg about our findings and when it came to the subject of the swearing spirit we felt a bit uncomfortable mentioning it. To our surprise Greg confirmed they are aware of “the angry man” who is usually present in the office building and is not keen on woman. He also mentioned that he isn’t felt much in the Grande Magazine but he has been on the move lately. As we went to make a move, almost like one last show of paranormal activity, we all heard a stone thrown by a model ship in the foyer. Greg said that there isn’t usually paranormal activity in this area and I like to think this was the spirits saying goodbye.

On the way home, Dave still didn’t seem himself. He said he felt sick and had terrible neck ache. I told him some of the things he had been saying like Farcical, and profanities. He laughed and said he couldn’t remember saying that. He also said he couldn’t remember most of the evening. All he could remember was up to going into the Grande magazine and watching us start the séance. Did he take on a persona of a past worker from the site? Who knows but he felt drained for days after our visit.

I would like to thank Greg from the Explosion Museum for being such a brilliant host and keeping us in Coffee and food all evening. I would also like to thank Maria for organising this amazing paranormal investigation.