The Rifles Museum

January 2016

The Rifles Museum

To kick off our paranormal Diary for 2016, we returned to the brilliant and very haunted Rifles Museum in Salisbury.

This is one of my favourite venues to investigate. The Rifles museum, like Woodchester mansion, never fails to deliver when it comes to paranormal activity. It is here, back in 2012, while on a paid event with Haunted Happenings, I witnessed my first and only full bodied manifestation.

After we had settled in and caught up with everyone, we split into 2 teams. Lesley took her team downstairs to begin their investigation and the team I was in went upstairs to the attic. I decided to hang back and sit on the back staircase on my own. I could hear what the team in the attic where witnessing and I could also hear movement on the stairs below where I was sat. However, every time I went to investigate, the sounds would cease. The team upstairs were getting a few audible responses but not a huge amount. Pete our medium had already began to sense that a lady was witnessed on the stairwell where I was sat and often seen out of the window which was just over from where I was also. He also felt a link with a baby. He kept hearing her say, “my baby, my baby!”

Dave and Pete, (getting worried about me) came down and found me sat on the stairs. I was touched by their concern and explained I had heard some movement on the stairwell and could sense an energy building here so decided to be brave and do a lone vigil. After chatting for a few minutes, a few of us decided to move to the library.

We all sat around the table in the library and placed our hands on the table. I started to call out, inviting any spirit people to come and join us. It wasn’t very long before we started to feel the atmosphere changing in the room and the all familiar taps and creaks started to come from the table. Now, during this vigil I witnessed a few things that still amaze me when I think about them now. I was sat on one side of the table, opposite Andrew (who was filming with his new video camera). Pete had started to pick up on a few different energies. One was a male, military, possibly linked with the Wiltshire and Berkshire regiment. The other was something different. What Pete calls a watcher? He explained it as darker entity, or a lower demon. It was just after Pete had said that when I saw a shadow figure move from behind Andrew and walk away from him towards the window. Where it had previously been dark behind Andrew, I could all of a sudden see the books that were on the bookshelf behind him. I had not noticed until this happened that I could not see them before! Just after this happened, Maria and the rest of our team joined us. With more people in the room, we soon got more responses in the form of knocks and taps and loud bangs to questions we were asking out. Sarah said she was feeling very cold. Not just cold but chilled to the bone. I had sensed that this darker entity had taken a particular interest to her and asked her if she would like to swap with me. She said she would. We swapped places and I asked her if she felt better. She did. I explained what I had sensed but I also felt that it would follow her around to where she was now sitting. Sure enough, she started to feel very cold again. She kept feeling her chair being tugged as well. I always find that this room is the most paranormally active area of the museum. We continued in this room and experienced more rapping on the table and we even had the drummer pay us a visit who communicated with us on a previous visit. This spirit likes to drum out various beats which we imagine must have been used to signal during battles.

After about an hour in the library, we had a break and then moved down stairs and swapped with the other team.

We started in the cellar. Andrew used his new device which is like a computerised ghost box. We had a few phrases said through it, however, to me; they did not seem to be of any significance, apart to one reference which said to the ladder down. Just over from where Hannah and Emma were stood, was a ladder mounted on the wall which was in a downward position. I found that interesting. We then moved into the exhibits room. It is in an area in the exhibits room where I witnessed the full bodied manifestation back in 2012. Maria and I stood where we saw the manifestation and attempted to invoke the spirit to appear again. Unfortunately, it did not. Apart from feeling a little uncomfortable in this area, not much happened. Andrews’s computerised device did come out with a few phrases which may have been referring to battle and angels coming to collect the fallen soldiers. Apart from that, nothing else was experienced. We moved back toward the cellar and went to the medals room. It was just as I was crossing the corridor by the stairs to go into the medals room, that I saw in my peripheral vision what looked like a female just stood back from the bottom of the stairwell but in my mind she looked almost pixelated. It is so hard to explain. I am aware that a lady is seen on the stairs, but to my knowledge she is very beautifully dressed and not dark and unformed as this lady was.

We stood in the medals room for a while. It was while we were in here that Alistair (the museum curator) came in and asked if any of us had knocked on his office door. We had not. Alistair (who is very used to and comfortable with the spirits of the museum) was not surprised and went back to his office.

Lesley’s team had not been lucky enough to experience anything as yet. So, we decided to all join together and go back into the library. It wasn’t long before we started to get knocking responses on the table and the table even lifted and banged back down on the ground a few times (which really shook some of the team up). Again, I saw a figure moving around us and others of the team also saw or sensed this.

At the end of the investigation, we invited Alistair to come in and listen as each team shared what we had witnessed. Pete shared what he had picked up on this investigation which Alistair was able to confirm. Some of what Pete had picked up was also personal to Alistair and would not have been common knowledge at all.

As it was getting late, we decided that this was a good time to wrap up the evening.

Jacky Wicheard ©