Paranormal Investigation Weekend

The Ghost Investigators. Scouts, Explorers and Adults from 1st Bedworth

On Friday 24th July a group of 22 from 1st Bedworth visited an old Victorian School at Long Eaton near Nottingham for a Paranormal Investigation Event. The group consisted of older Scouts, Explorers and adults. We used a professional  company called Haunted Happenings to provide this experience. We arrived at the School just before 9.00pm and we were given a briefing by the events staff. The staff also took us through a procedure that allowed us to create our own ‘safety zone’ that we could go into if at any point during the night we felt uncomfortable. Luke who organised the event had already split us into three Ghost Investigation Teams (G.I.T.’s) called Old G.I.T’s , Mean G.I.T’s and Little G.I.T’s. Each team consisted of a mixture of Scouts, Explorers and Adults.. The teams were each issued with a night vision camera to record their experiences.

E.M.F. Meter known as the ‘K2’

After our initial briefing the lights were extinguished and  the whole group moved into a large room known as the Day Room. Some of the group sat around a large wooden table and other sat around the room on the comfy furniture. Here we were introduced to one of the pieces of equipment which we would be using all night. E.M.F. Meters, known as K2’s and Cat Balls .The E.M.F. Meters which detect electro magnetic variations  had a display that was a steady green light when all was normal and flashed from green, to amber, to red when they detected a spirit in their vicinity.

Whilst in the Day Room we were introduced to ‘Calling Out’ which is how you invite the Spirits to join the proceedings. Basically you introduce yourself and politely invite the Spirits to make their presence known. The staff stressed the need to be polite to the spirits at all times and that we must thank them if they communicated. Another key thing we were told was that we should try and debunk any unexplained happenings and try to come up with a rational explanation. All of us were encouraged to join in the ‘Calling Out’ It was whilst we in this room as a large group that we had our first encounters with the spirit world. On more than one occasion when we tapped on the table our signal was returned. The E.M.F meters also detected a response a few times. One of our group who was a self declared ‘non- believer’ seemed to attract to attract the most attention from the ‘other side’. He was asked to kneel in the corner of the room and place a sweet on his open hand. He then called out and invited the spirits to take the sweet. After a couple of minutes the sweet jumped out of his hand and he said it felt like it had been snatched from him. We repeated this experiment and the same thing happened again.

Ovilus – Similar to the one we used

We were in the day room for about 30 minutes. We then split into our Ghost Investigation and moved around the different rooms trying different ways to contact the spirits. We spent around thirty minutes on each activity.

One of the pieces of kit we used was called an Ovilus. Basically this is a device that converts environmental readings into words. When you ask the spirit a question the device often displays a word of answer. Usually without this device you are limited to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers.  We were all a bit sceptical about this piece of kit as many of us thought it could possibly be programmed in advance or maybe controlled remotely, but it did produce some interesting results.

an example of a group Table Tipping. We used a square table and there were only four people around the table.

We also tried Table Tipping . We stood around a table in the corridor and we all placed our finger tips lightly on the table. We called out questions and asked the spirits to answer by tipping the table one way for ‘yes’ and the opposite way for ‘no’. Again we had some interesting results. One team had the table balancing on one leg and at least one of the teams found the table violently turning ninety degrees and also the table rocking backwards and forwards. We really couldn’t explain how this was happening as it was an open legged table without any cloth or cover so we could see everyone clearly and we were resting our fingers only very lightly on the table.

Another experiment involved us sitting around a glass which was in the centre of a table. We all placed the backs of our fingers on the glass. At one end of the table was an E.M.F. Meter. We asked the spirits questions and asked them to move the glass towards or away from the light to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to our questions. We again had some interesting results with the glass moving moving quite quickly on some occasions.

During the evening we had regular refreshment breaks and the individual teams all had opportunities to carry out their own investigations. The night ended at 2.00am with us all sitting in the main corridor with our backs to both walls and facing each other. The cat balls were placed between us at regular intervals where we could all  clearly see them. Again we called out to the spirits and asked them to light up the balls if they were present. Spookily the balls lit up several times and many of us felt draughts even though there were no windows open.

The night was a very interesting experience with lots of events that we could not easily explain. The youngsters in particular behaved in a very mature way and fully participated in all of the experiments. The staff were very complimentary about our group. Here is an email we received from them.

To understand the emails below you need to know that Hazel is the owner ‘Haunted Happenings’ who was present for part of the night and Rob is one of the staff who ran the event.

From: Hazel Ford
Date: 27 July 2015 at 11:23
Subject: Friday Ghost Hunt
To: Luke Atkinson

Hi Luke,