Rachel Fowler 2

Rachel Fowler Centre 4th January 2014

For today’s investigation, we were very lucky to have the chance to revisit a location that turned out to be surprisingly active when we were last here.

On the first visit we experienced audible footsteps, sightings in our peripheral vision, stone apports and light anomalies on our night vision recording equipment. We also managed to capture a very intriguing picture of what looks like a male head floating just above the floorboards in the main hall which to be honest didn’t look too friendly. With this in mind we were hoping that this investigation was going to be just as active. We were not to be disappointed.

Our team for tonight included, Maria, Andrew, Loretta, Ben, Matt, Nicci, Caz, Sherri, Dave, myself, Tony and his daughter.

As it was a bitterly cold night, we decided to all start as one big group in the main hall (while we waited for the heaters to work their magic). We set up a séance in the middle of the room and Dave and Matt took their recording equipment to the upstairs gallery.

We start out by asking if there are any spirit people who would like to make contact. We didn’t really get much happening but just as I ask if they would like to throw anything you hear a tap and on the video camera you see a light anomaly move away from the table we are all sitting around. We continue to call out and you hear a strange high buzzing noise on the video camera and 2 light anomalies move towards the table. Just as I ask if any of the spirit people are around (and name some of the names we got on our last visit), you hear a stone clatter to the floor. You can see us discussing this when I mention the name Edward (which is a name given to us on our last investigation. Edward was a grumpy spirit that didn’t want us there.) When I ask if Edward is now with us, you hear a ‘ha’ on the video. I hear it and ask Dave if he heard it. While we have a small discussion about this you see a light anomaly going to the right of the screen. Nicci exclaims just after that she has seen a small light which would have been in the direction of the orb I had just captured on video. As the séance progresses, matt says he has heard movement up on the gallery in the right hand corner. Nicci also agrees that she thought she has seen movement up there in her peripheral vision.

As not much is happening (or so it seemed at the time) we decide to use the spirit board. As we are setting up we are unaware of what I had captured on camera. As we are getting things ready I can hear a male voice say Tom. At first I thought it might be Matt but after listening to it a few times I can now rule this out. Maria calls out. After a brief pause another stone clatters to the floor. We go look for it but can’t find it. We continue to call out but nothing happens for a while. After about 10 minutes we hear another stone clatter to the floor. This time Ben manages to find it. It looks like a bit of plaster, however, the ceiling is wood. We do not rule out that this maybe falling from the wall at this point. As the name Edward is mentioned again, you see a light anomaly travel passed the camera. Sherri hears a bell going off. I realise that I had not put my phone on silent and apologise. (I must have got a notification on twitter). Nicci says again that she feels there is something up on the gallery in the top right hand corner. We soon hear another stone clatter to the floor. Nicci goes to investigate and exclaims how much colder it is in that area. Buried within the building are the relics of the Reverend John Honeywill and what is presumed to be Mrs Honeywill. Maybe the bodies are buried in this corner where most of the stone apports seem to be happening. Dave goes to get the laser thermometer and confirms that it is a lot colder in that area of the room. As we are discussing this, another stone apports in this area which takes Nicci by surprise. Maria suddenly exclaims that she hears a tap on the table, at the same time Dave tells us too ssshh. We all stop what we are doing. He points above us and says I heard footsteps. Maria also has heard this. I have heard something but not realised that it was footsteps. This does not sound up on the video though which is a shame. Nothing much else happens so we decide to have a break. As we get up to leave you can see a large bright light anomaly also move towards the table going towards the foyer area as it if it is going in the same direction as a majority of us are heading. I left my camera on while we had a break and you can clearly hear another stone clatter to the floor. Again it is in the right hand corner where most of the others were. Maria, Sherri, Tony and Andrew all come back in to look for it but do not manage to find it.

Room 2

After our short break we split into 2 groups. Our group headed to the smaller meeting room while the others stayed in the main hall. We all sat around the room to begin with and started to call out. Almost immediately the K2 meter flickered into life. (K2 meter is an emf meter which has lights to show the presence of high emf levels). I turn my camera onto the K2 meter but the lights stop flickering. Just after this you can see a light anomaly on the video camera. We decide to set up a table and just as we sit around it you see another light anomaly near Caz. We also hear a stone clatter to the floor. I ask if the spirits are with us and call out but nothing much happens for a while. We feel as if the table is pulsing and this is something that we have experienced when the energy is building up around us. I call out trying to encourage any spirit activity. We also ask for the spirit to activate the K2 again. Just as we are about to give up, the table lifts. You can see the total surprise on Sherri’s face and we ask her to try and push the table back down. (This is to prove to her that none of us are cheating. It is Sherri’s first investigation). We ask some questions and ask for the spirit to tap on the table. We do hear a tap in the corner of the room but do not get any more responses for a while. The Rachel Fowler centre is right next door to the Navy Tavern which is a very lively pub. We can hear people in the beer garden (despite it being a very cold January night.) and ask if the spirit likes to go join them in the garden. No response. We ask if the spirit is male (no response), female? Yes. We ask a few more questions and the table tips and comes down with a big thud. We ask if the spirit would like us to introduce ourselves and we get a big thud from the table. We say our names in turn. I say it is a shame that we cannot hear the spirit. Andrew suggests we use the ghost box. (A ghost box is a device that is basically a radio that is set to sweep the airwaves. It is believed that spirits can use the white noise to communicate through). We switch on the ghost box and call out. We ask what the spirits name is. We get very clearly the name Lynne. We ask a few more questions but nothing clear comes through. I ask if Lynne knows she has passed on and to tip the table in response rather than talk through the ghost box. The table tips almost straight away. I ask if she minds us asking questions like this and the table tips. I ask her to tip the table if she isn’t happy to answer questions like this just to clarify and the table lifts. We ask her what she wants to talk about and as clear as day we get the word Vodka come through the ghost box. We all laugh at this and ask a few more questions like ‘does she visit the pub next door if she likes a drink?’ We did not get a response but we ask her if there are any other spirit people in the room with us. We hear a very faint tap on the table. I ask Lynne to tap out how many other spirit people there are. The table lifts 3 times. I ask a few more questions and the table lifts instead of taps. When I ask if the spirit does not want to tap but would rather lift the table, the table lifts. We have not had a spirit yet that prefers to lift the table. We say this and say that it is usually easier to tap rather than lift the table for the response. The table slams down when I say that as if it is getting impatient with my questioning. I say I am sorry if we are getting on the spirits nerves and say that I am not psychic so cannot hear the spirit. The table slams down again as if to disagree. I am a little surprised with the force this is done but calmly repeat I am not psychic and I am sorry we cannot communicate a little easier. I ask if this is George (who we spoke to the last time we visited). The table rises and lowers very gently. We are all pleased to speak to him again. We ask if Edward is still with us and George lifts the table. We asked if Edward still wanted us to go. We got a yes. We asked if George wanted us to go and the table did not move (meaning no). We asked George if he ever goes to the pub next door and he said yes. As the conversation progresses George tells us he is there to protect us. We ask George if we can hear his footsteps and I ask him to really stomp around the room. We can hear very faint footsteps but on the video footage this is drowned out by the loud music from the pub next door. I jokingly ask George to touch Caz’s hair. Someone makes a joke about her being a red head which she shoots back “not a natural one” The table slams down as if in agreement. We all laugh. We find out that George has been following us to the ladies (which is a little creepy) but funny. The others come in as it has been very quiet in their area. They say that they did hear footsteps. We tell them that we had asked to hear footsteps and this is brilliant news. As Matt mentions the footsteps the table moves as if to confirm this. We ask George if Lynne is still with us (and tell the others about our experience with her). George confirms she has gone. Tony asks if George would like us to get the spirit board. The table thumps in response. At this point I go for a coffee break but some of the others carry on. George spells out for us to take care. Ben asks why and George spells out the name Edward. Ben asks why we have to wary of Edward and George spells out Bad. We ask will he hurt us and get the answer no. We ask how old Edward is and get 54 years old and that he is a wrongun. We find out he doesn’t like females. While the other team continue, Maria, Nicci and I are in the main hall getting stones thrown at us. We are throwing them back and they are returning to us. We realise they are the same stones we have thrown. This is amazing and continues for 15 minutes. We call this type of manifestation an apport.

Back in the other room my tape runs out at this point, however the team say that just after this the board become unresponsive. They decide to go for a break. On the return I go back into the room to try and get the board moving again. After chatting with Matt I feel that there isn’t really a spirit called Edward and maybe we are talking to just one mischievous spirit. I decide to put this to our ghostly guest to see if I can encourage some type of response. First I challenge George with my theory. Nothing happens. We get absolutely no response. I then challenge Edward. I say that if he is this malevolent spirit all the others are warning us about, then prove it. I point out that so far he has thrown a few stones and walked about a bit but this is hardly scary stuff. Just as I am about to call it a day the K2 meter starts to react. On the video camera you can hear the interference from it as the lights have gone all the way from green to red and stayed there. I turn my camera on the K2 meter expecting it to stop. It continues. I challenge the spirit to stop affecting the lights and the K2 stops immediately. This is amazing. We hardly get an intelligent spirit that does this request. The K2 goes to red again and the table then tilts. Tony asks if the spirit is 20-25ish in age. The K2 lights respond to this question. As Tony asks another question you see a light anomaly leave the table. The K2 lights up again. As Tony asks some more questions you see an orb move away from Dave. The table starts to move again. Matt comes into the room and said that while he was in the main hall on his own, he could hear sighing. Ben suggests everyone around the table stand up rather than sit down and almost immediately the table shifts position. I challenge the table to come over to where I am standing. The table moves in my direction. We have fun with this where I move to a different part of the room and the table follows me there. Finally it comes right over to where I am standing so I ask it to go back to where the table started off from. The table moves back in a series of 4 moves. The K2 is activated during this whole experiment. We ask it to light up to red if it wants us to move back into the main hall. The K2 red light comes on.

Main hall

As we are setting up in the main hall I noticed that my hand is tingling and so is Maria’s. We both get this if the energy is building up. We settle down and start to call out and almost straight away we hear a stone in the top right hand corner again. Another stone then lands on the table. Nicci throws it and asks for the spirit to throw it back. Maria calls out to see if she can get a response. The table starts to faintly tap. Maria tries to encourage the table to move. She asks if George or Edward can step forward. She goes through some other names we have picked up on during this and the previous investigation. When she reaches Harriet’s name there is a loud tap. We ask Harriet if we can speak to the ever elusive Edward. We get no response. We ask if she can see him. Is he grumpy? Why is he grumpy? As we are asking these questions I have captured a strange noise on the video camera. I am not quite sure if it is low sigh, groan or other noise. This can be seen on the footage posted to the Facebook page. As we are talking Dave tells us to shush. He points upstairs. We all stop and listen. He has heard footsteps which Maria and Ben hear. I have heard something but didn’t interoperate them as footsteps. This is not captured on the footage though. We ask some more questions but we don’t really get any clear responses. Maria asks Harriett if she knows any Morse code. We do then witness some rhythmic tapping which Tony tries to decipher. We ask if Harriet worked in the navy and we get a tap in response. Tony asks if we can use the spirit board again and we get a tap in agreement. Nicci exclaims she can smell tobacco again and another stone clatters to the floor in the corner. Nicci says that this is the stone she threw earlier which landed on the table. We ask if it is Edward that is throwing these small stones. We get a small tap in response. Maria suddenly asks ‘who smells of tobacco?’ The board spells out William. Maria asks who William is. We get the word Layman. We have a small discussion on what a Layman might be. The definition of a Layman is someone who is part of a religious organisation but who is not paid or specially trained.

We ask if they can throw anymore stones. We get the word hit spelt out to us. Maria then says ‘hit me with a stone’. We then get the sentence ‘here it is’. We also find out William came from Bristol (or

as he spelt it) and he died aged 74. We get the surname Tardin and he goes on to spell ‘say, bevor’ (we think he means before). The next few words are a bit confused and when we say this we get a yes as if to confirm this. We ask a few more questions to William. Do you know Edward? No. Can you play the church organ? No. Can Edward? No. Can Harriet? She tries. (Oops) We laugh and say he will be in trouble for saying that. As we are talking about the church organ, on the video camera you can hear a piano key chink. No one notices this at the time.

The séance is getting a bit slow. Ben wants to try to get the table moving so they stand up like we did in the other room. After about 5 minutes the table starts to move.

My tape runs out at this point. Not long after this we decide to wrap things up as it is getting very late.

During this investigation we had some amazing experiences. We witnessed stone apports, footsteps, peripheral visual sightings, audible captures on video camera (and also heard in real time) and light anomalies. We had reasonable success with our ghost box experiment and the K2 meter was very successful. For the good old fashioned séance experiment we witnessed taps and got the table not only to tilt but to move. All of this evidence will be available to view on our Facebook page.

I would like to thank all the team who made it out tonight and for helping this to be a very successful and enjoyable evening. I would also like to say a big thank you to The Rachel Fowler Centre for allowing us permission at this fabulous location.