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Saturday 29 March 2014

A night of activity, take your Picquet!

by Jason Higgs

Torrential rain earlier in the afternoon was thought to dampen any evening of ghostly activity but as the night's charity investigation began, the moonlight sky cleared and the stars came out to watch!

With sixteen people in attendance and amassing £235 for charity, it was great to hear a total of £1095 had been raised for St Luke's Hospice! Each of these of great  individuals were ready and willing to throw themselves headlong into the unknown to raise funds for a great charity.

The unknown is exactly what they got as the evening got weirder and more active. It is not unfair to say that everyone had their own personal experience including a particular member who actually spoke to a passed family member for the first time in over 40 years! Other experiences included the feeling of being grabbed and held back from behind and random feelings of dread. Various coloured lights and shadows were witnessed by different teams in certain areas and lowfi sounds were experienced by all! Thuds, bangs, footsteps and mumbling were all a par for the course!

Tech wise it was amazing to see the widely criticised 'ghost radar' compelling users with its themed selection of words! With various devices running the app, one thing was apparent - they liked the name "Johnny". I have never seen so many different devices running different variations of the same app, all saying the same word in the same area! Surely that cannot be coincidence? What was also amazing was that out of all the words the app contains, a persons name appears no more than once or twice in a whole evening of investigation; however, every time we investigate a certain area at Picquet, people's names are regularly voiced from the ovilus type devices.  Six names were plucked from obscurity the first time we investigated this particular area in a 45 minute period and again last night, the same area produced another six or seven names in 45 minutes. As before some names were the same as the previous vigil. Certainly a correlation can be viewed there and surely is worthy of further research!

As the night drew to a close at 1.30am we discussed our findings and the majority of the members left bewildered by what they had experienced. But was that it? Apparently not!

As the location was being locked down some team members who were still with us noticed a type of torchlight emanating from the main building. Surely further investigation was required and without a second thought the remaining six of us stepped intrepidly into the unknown once again.

That final investigation was tech free and what was meant to be a 10 minute brief walk around turned into 2 hours of constant intensive investigation as activity seemed to peak and envelop us! What did we find? In summary we all experienced footsteps above us when we were downstairs, and when we went upstairs to see what was causing them, we were then treated to slamming doors and noises from downstairs. Various voices were heard around the room and we all felt as though there was hundreds of busying people surrounding us! 

I think the highlight for me, that evening, was that final session when we went to investigate the disembodied torchlight from the upstairs window. On approaching the area we realised that the light would have emanated from one of the offices on the top floor.  We tried all the doors on the top floor but they were all locked! I shall reiterate that we ALL tried ALL of the doors on the top floor and they were ALL locked. I could see the computer monitors were on in one of the offices and I concluded that the light may have been a bright monitor screen reflection, and we went downstairs! After hearing sounds from upstairs we ventured back up! What did we find? ALL the locked doors were now UNLOCKED and could be opened. The room where the monitors were on, were now off! 

I know the skeptics in you will say that someone else was in that building with us; and trust me; I fully believed that too, which is why we ended up splitting into two teams and walking around the building cyclically (in opposite directions) to trap anyone who may have been there! We checked every room, nook and cranny and yet found nothing! The main building was locked as soon as we got in, so nothing could have got out, certainly not without us hearing and the main entrance gates was fully locked. Did  someone else have a master key? All the doors on the second floor have different keys and so no single key would open them! What caused this? We could find no rational rhyme or reason! Was it paranormal? Maybe, although time may deliver a favoured explanation.

It was certainly a new experience for me and I always like an investigation where I leave with more questions than answers!

With regards to what is important - Over £1000 was raised for a great cause!

It is certainty a venue to be explored again!

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