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Southern Paranormal - Investigations

Private House – Southampton Investigation

Saturday 24th January 2009

Attending Investigators – Julie Harwood, Maria Street, Di Moore, Alison Crocker, Mark Wright.

Time of Investigation – 8pm – 1.30am

Hosts – Pete & Craig

Location of Property – Urban, residential area of the city. Close to main road & Localised facilities.

Property Type – Semi-detached, brick built property (early 1900’s)

Phenomena reported in and around the home includes –

  • loud thumps and footsteps from empty rooms (when this is investigated by owner the noise occurs in a different room to the one he is in)
  • A lady seen by the owners daughter (at the rear of the garden)
  • The owners young daughter complains about a little boy that pushes her out of bed
  • Localised cold spots to very particular area’s that come and go
  • Ominous banging on the windows (as if being hit from outside) but on all downstairs windows in the house.
  • An occasional feeling of uneasiness in a normally comfortable and pleasant house
  • Doors opening and shutting seemingly on their own
  • Knocking on walls (internal & external)
  • Letterbox opening and closing rapidly
  • Patio furniture (in the garden) is moved and sometimes when the owner goes and looks it has all been turned upside down.

Important notes –

  • Nothing about the paranormal or “ghosts” has ever been mentioned around the owners young daughter
  • At first the owner put experiences down to tricks of the mind etc but realised that this could not explain most of the phenomena
  • The owner and his guest are very sensible and logical thinking young men (they have to be for the jobs they do) so are not prone to exaggeration and being fanciful.
  • The owner has noticed that activity seems to increase after he has been away from home for prolonged periods of time (when he is working away) and also after guests have left after visiting.
  • Whilst he has observed a slightly aggressive and frightening atmosphere occasionally he stresses that this is very uncharacteristic of how he normally feels in the house.
  • Prior to the investigation the owner and his guest were asked to report to the team what phenomena they had experienced in the house but they were asked to refrain from telling the group about any particular sightings i.e. the woman in the garden, the little boy upstairs etc.

The Investigation

When we arrived at the property we were warmly greeted with a hot drink by the owner and his guest (who often stayed in the property when the owner was away so had experienced some of the phenomena). We sat and chatted for an hour with our hosts explaining what we did, what our equipment was used for etc and we were grateful for their interest in what the group did.

We then divided the team in to two groups. Di & Alison who are more spiritually led) went with Peter and Craig and we (Julie, Maria and Mark) decided to stick together to deal with the more technical side of the investigation.

After a quick look around the ground floor of the property we went outside in to the garden and Pete arranged the garden patio furniture in a particular way that he liked it. We then took pictures of the set and prepared to start out investigation.

Personal Reports

Julie Harwood

Private house investigations are always a special source of interest to me. They are more sensitive than other larger (and sometimes commercial) locations. This is why I hand pick the teams to attend private investigations, taking in to special consideration not necessarily their time with the team but their area’s of expertise or their sensitivities. I was happy that I had picked the correct team for this particular location.

After a welcoming warm drink from our hosts Pete and Craig we chatted about what they had experienced in the house. All the team noticed what a warm and welcoming house it was (not only in terms of heat but atmosphere as well). It was clean and tidy and smelt fresh. We decided to go in to the garden. Alison was almost immediately able to point out the exact place where a woman is seen and this was confirmed by the owner. She also felt she wanted to go underground. She felt something was connected to the land from long before the houses were built. She sensed the land was reclaimed and Pete was again able to confirm that some land around this area of Southampton was in fact reclaimed land. Alison was also drawn to the top floor of the house and had in fact been looking at it from the front while she was waiting for the rest of us to arrive earlier in the evening. Pete then set up the garden furniture as he liked it. We took a few pictures and returned inside to start the investigation.

My clear aim for this investigation was to have a team of sensitive minded people and a team of more technical minded people and so I put Alison and Di in a team with Pete and Craig. They headed upstairs for their first vigil. Mark, Maria and I remained downstairs and before settling in to our vigil set up some locked off camcorders, one recording in the lounge looking towards the kitchen and the other one in the kitchen looking towards the conservatory and the rear garden.

We then settled down for our vigil. Mark was sat on the sofa opposite the window and he was noticeably not happy about sitting here so he swapped with Maria. I sat on the end of the other sofa, close to the window. I was interested (due to what happened later on in the vigil) that even though I was fairly close to the window, I could not feel any draught. The windows looked like they had been sealed well and were double glazed.

Very clearly after a short while we heard loud footsteps from upstairs. We had to presume it was the team upstairs moving around. We decided that even though the location was small we would use walkie talkies but we could not get them to work properly. We kept hearing a lot of noise from upstairs, in particular directly above us and found it hard to believe it was the team as we had all discussed keeping as still as possible due to the nature of the phenomena that had been experienced in the house.

We called out and it was amazing as at the exact same time, with out looking at each other both Maria and I stated “ooh cold draught”. This was a strong draught and Mark could also feel it sat at the other end of the sofa. I say draught but it was a cold spot as it seemed static and when I moved my arm out of the area, I could not feel it. We carefully took temperature readings (especially by the windows and doors) and no where in the room did it fluctuate to anything below 19 apart from in the cold spots where it dropped to 15.5/16. This proving the effectiveness of the draught excluding / double glazing, but not explaining what was causing two static cold spots that we could all feel. Not long after this we called out again and very clearly I heard a “Hhhmmmm” in my right ear. This made me jump as it was so close and was immediately after Maria asked if something “wanted to play”. I was especially relieved when Mark also said he had heard it too as it was the side of me he was sat. It always makes me feel better to know I am not going mad.

We could still hear thumping and banging from upstairs and at one point it sounded like they were dragging boxes across the floor. Also while we were talking Mark suddenly got the name Mike pop into his head. I also got the name Anne pop into my mind for no apparent reason. When the team came rushing downstairs we checked with them that they had been still as possible and they had been. The odd thing was if it was not them, who was it and why did Di and her team not hear what we heard so clearly.

For our next vigil we went upstairs and straight in to the room directly above the lounge. I hated this room from the minute I walked in. We put the K2 EMF meter on the floor between the mirrored wardrobe and the bed and settled down to be as quiet as we could. I sat on the bed against the wall, facing the door. My heart was racing and it made me feel slightly light headed. I don’t know why, but I suddenly announced to my team that someone had died in this room. We could all see a black intense shadowy mist in the corner of the room behind the door to the landing area and this seemed to be getting darker and darker the more we called out. I started getting very angry and was very agitated by something. I felt trapped and like someone was pushing on top of my shoulders. I was calling out and even though I could hear myself getting more and more cross I could not control it. I asked after a while that Maria and Mark took over calling out but even then I took over calling out again (sorry Maria and Mark) as I felt I could not shut up. As I said “whatever is here is going to be dealt with so that Pete and his daughter can live in peace. Alison will give Pete the means to do this!” Maria and Mark reported that the EMF meter on the floor (which is calibrated to read above household electric levels) spike and rose to orange and red before dropping back down. I carried on calling out and I believe it did it once more.

We decided then to move in to Pete’s daughter’s room as the other team had reported phenomena in there. They said that when they called out and Di played a tune on the toy piano, that the piano played back to them. This had the potential to be belief changing phenomena and so we settled in and Mark pressed a key on the piano. Shortly later it did indeed play a tune. It certainly made Mark and I jump however Maria suggested we try it again. This time she held the camcorder pointing at the toy. Mark pressed the keyboard and again shortly later it played a tune back to us, the same tune as before. Maria noted the time from when the key was pressed to when the tune played and I believe it was 3 minutes. This happened every time we tested it and we came to the decision that in our opinion it was the toy going into battery saving mode/standby/power saving mode. After this the room was quiet for us. At one point I did feel like something touched my right leg but as it was right up against the head rails of the bed, I put it down to brushing these.

After another quick break and a chat with our hosts we went outside to discover one of the patio chairs had definitely moved and was pointing in a totally different direction to how it had been left. We decided to do a glass divination in the lounge and Mark, Pete and Alison did this while Maria, Di, Craig and I sat back and observed. Unfortunately there was not much movement although Di did report seeing a thick white mist in the corner of the room. During this we could hear very clearly the thumping upstairs (even though we were all downstairs). It was some of the most audible thumping I have ever heard and I can only liken it to a fist being banged on carpet. Di, Alison, Pete and Craig decided to go back upstairs and we all agreed to sit in silence to try and hear where it was coming from. We took walkie talkies this time as they were now working. Each time they radioed us to see if we had talked, we confirmed we were silent. Every time we radioed them to see if they were thumping, they confirmed they were also silent. Very very interesting!

This bought our night to a close and by now the wind and rain outside had picked up.

Thank you to Pete who opened up his entire home to us. We hope that we have helped you explore what may or may not be in your home. I also hope that you will continue to work with Alison. Craig, thank you for accompanying us and Pete on the night and thank you to both of you for showing a genuine interest in what we do. It was a pleasure.

Maria Street

I had spoken with the owner a fortnight previous to the investigation, and, after hearing of his experiences, I asked him if he would like us to investigate. He very kindly said ‘Yes’ and so it was that five of us set off on a rainy night to meet with him. I travelled all of the six miles from my house, with Julie and Di. We met up with Alison and Mark W. at the property. The owner’s friend was also present, and after the introductions, a very welcome hot drink was made for us all. We sat for around an hour just chatting and setting up and we also went out into the garden as the owner’s daughter had seen an apparition of an old lady there. Alison pinpointed exactly where she had been seen and felt she wanted to go underground almost. The owner also stated that the patio chairs moved from the position he had placed them in, so we took a picture of them so we could compare later in the evening. We soon came back inside and sat back down on the sofas when Di detected a musty smell. I had also smelt this but had put it down to the house having been unoccupied for a period of time. This was not the case however as the smell came and went at different times of the evening. I would liken it to an old man. I also have to say that the house smelt very fresh when we walked in. We finished setting up then we started. Alison and Di went with our hosts upstairs whilst, Julie, Mark and I settled ourselves down in the living room. Julie and I sat on the sofa facing the fireplace and Mark sat on the sofa facing the window. He very quickly became uncomfortable here though as his back was to the rest of the room, so I swapped places with him. The most prominent thing to happen at the start was the sound of footsteps from above. Without walkie talkies we couldn’t check with the others without shouting up the stairs, so we decided to use mine. However, one of them wouldn’t receive the other, so we decided to wait for the break to have a look at them. The other team was being very still and told us from then on whenever they moved. We called out and almost immediately Julie and I both detected a cold breeze. It has to be noted that, although I was sat next to the fireplace, it was fake and was closed in, so draughts could not be responsible for this. Mark could also see lights outside the back window. There was a main road at the back of the property but Mark stated that it wasn’t traffic. I also saw a flash of light out the back window and we ascertained that the group upstairs could not be taking pictures as they did not have a camera! The most startling thing to happen was Julie hearing somebody hum in her ear. What is impressive about this is that both Mark and I heard it as well! The loud thumps and footsteps continued from upstairs and noises were also heard from the kitchen. Mark got the name of Mike in his head, which the owner later confirmed was his brother’s name. The vigil ended slightly early as the others came back down the stairs in a great state of excitement. A child’s keyboard had played after Di had played a few notes and it had played back. This was certainly worth further investigation.

For our next vigil we went upstairs into the front bedroom. Julie and I sat on the bed and Mark stood by the wardrobes. The K2 meter was placed in the middle of the floor. The first thing we noticed was a black mass in the corner by the door. We sat very quietly just waiting. The mass slowly grew bigger and when it was just over child height we called out. We felt this was a male energy and he was making Julie very angry. We felt he would not come out of the shadows. In the meantime the mass was so large; it was as if a pea-souper fog had taken over that side of the bedroom. Julie mentioned that we had a medium in the house that was going to give the owner tools to deal with this spirit. Soon, she was too angry to call out, so I took over. I carried on from where Julie left off and mentioned the owner would be taught protection. It was exactly at this point that the K2 meter flashed to red. I called out some more and the fog remained constant for a while. I have never seen anything like this before and I was glad that the others were seeing it also. I even took off my glasses at one point and wiped them because I thought there was something on them. It was only later on that evening that I wondered why on earth I hadn’t walked over to it. It wasn’t fear, I was totally fascinated by it, but it just didn’t occur to me, and I don’t think it occurred to Julie or Mark either as we are all very questioning people whose investigative nature kicks in on every vigil. I wonder if they are asking themselves the same question? I’m also not sure if we walked through it to our next vigil in the back bedroom or whether it had gone. It’s almost as if the fog permeated my mind as well. Very strange. We were looking forward to the vigil in the back room as this was where the child’s keyboard was located. On entry to the room, Mark pressed one of the notes and we called out. It was about three minutes later that the keyboard lit up and played a little tune. This was amazing but our questioning nature had kicked back in and Mark pressed one of the notes again. Once more, after a small amount of time, it played again. This time we were sure this was a feature of the keyboard and I felt it did this if somebody had stopped playing with it. Mark likened it to Windows going to Standby and we clicked that this was doing the exact same thing. It was conserving the battery. We tested this twice more and each time the keyboard lit up and played after three minutes. This room proved to be a lot quieter and more comfortable than the front room and it was soon time for our break. It was whilst the owner was in the back garden that he noticed that the patio furniture had moved once more. Mark compared a photo he had taken earlier of one of the chairs with it’s current the position and it had definitely moved.

For our next vigil we joined forces in the living room for a glass divination. However, the glass was reluctant to move. Di soon noticed a fog in the corner of the room, similar to the one upstairs. Unfortunately I couldn’t see this one but the owner confirmed he had seen this mist in exactly the same place. We also heard noises from upstairs once more. This was more interesting as we were all downstairs at this point.

Overall, this was an exciting investigation for us, as it threw up new experiences, and I would like to thank the owner for asking us in to his home and for making us feel so welcome. I sincerely hope things have settled down for him and he can live in peace.

Alison Crocker

Firstly, I have to say how charming and pleasant our hosts, Pete and Craig were. In can't be easy inviting complete strangers into ones personal space and talking about a subject as sensitive as spirit energies etc.

Whilst I was waiting for the team to arrive (I'd arrived very early) I took a short walk up the street and found the property and was drawn immediately to the small bedroom window at the top of the house. I felt energy would be present in that room.

When the rest of the team arrived and we exchanged pleasantries etc, I was listening to Di talk and saw a large purple light behind her on the wall in the kitchen above a window. As the hosts were in the kitchen making cups of tea, I had to rule out that this light had not been caused by kitchen equipment lighting up and casting a reflection. We ruled this out as the cause and couldn't find any logical explanation. My own belief is that this was spirit energy, being protective toward Pete.

We all went outside for a walk in the garden as activity had allegedly happened here. I felt there were remains of someone/something underground, quite literally under the patio, and this could cause the unrestful feelings both Pete and his young daughter felt. I feel that this area could well have been linked to a mass burial site, i.e., graveyard, or plague burial site. It is a long way back though... anywhere between 1400 - 1600 century! I would love to be a bit more specific but without further investigation, this isn't possible at present.

We spilt into two groups. Myself, Di, Craig and Pete took upstairs whilst the others remained downstairs. As I was really drawn to the main bedroom (the one I mentioned earlier) we started there. Di & I almost immediately sensed a presence in this room. We all sat on the bed. I picked up the name Bill and that he had died in this room after getting out of bed and suffering a fatal heart attack. I felt this was in recent history, around the late 1960's. At this point I also got a link with our host Pete, a male family member going a long way back with church/religious connections who was around him to give him comfort emotionally. Di and the others were aware of a black shape in the corner and there was quite a menacing feel to the room. It isn't somewhere you could have a restful sleep and I can understand why Pete slept on the sofa!

We then moved into his daughter’s room which is a room at the back. I immediately felt unrest in this room and picked up the energy of a woman (I feel it's the same lady Pete’s daughter has seen in the garden). She's quite elderly; I picked up a nursing and prison connection with her. Her energy was faint and I didn't get a name, again, another investigation would help me. The room desperately needed cleansing as Pete said his daughter was vomiting all the time in there... and poorly. I've given him instructions in another email.

Pete became emotional in this room and as Di played with a toy piano and asked for a response from spirit, i.e., copy her playing, the keyboard appeared to play itself. Pete was overcome with emotion and was crying. We all left the room and went outside for a breather! It was, however, later proved that the little piano had played a little tune before going on/off standby. We are sure this was responsible for the replay.

After a short break, myself, Di, Craig and Pete sat in the lounge and although at first it felt a little uncomfortable, it wasn't long before we were all sat quite happily in the dark chatting. I didn’t feel anything really, perhaps only residual emotions from Pete and where we sat is where he often sits. Pete is a very sensitive and 'tuned in' guy. As his sunsign is Scorpio he feels very things deeply and intensely. This kind of intensity can permeate things around him because it's so strong.

Apart from the odd unexplained thud upstairs the lounge was at this time quiet.

We then went upstairs for a brief seated 'ask out' in each room. The main bedroom was again the focus of some strange stuff. Myself, Craig and Pete were convinced we could hear low mumblings and led on the floor to listen as it sounded like it was coming from downstairs. It wasn't one or two voices it was like 15-20! What came to me was that it sounded like the noise a room full of guests at a wake would sound like. Talking but hushed out of respect.

We then wound up the night with glass divination with me, Pete and Mark. The glass moved a bit but nothing major.

All in all a really enjoyable and interesting night and Thank you to Craig and Pete for your open-mindedness, hospitality and for being great to work with.

Di Moore

Arriving at the location we were greeted by the owner and went inside. First impression was fine but then standing at far end in downstairs room (which had at sometime been made into one long room) I felt cold and knew there was a spirit there. I then moved to other end and sat down where I got a smell (musty smell). I asked if I could smell others in the group (they didn’t mind, we all laughed) it was not them! We did hear something walk across the room above us but we were all downstairs together.

We split into two groups and the group I was in went upstairs

We went into the front bedroom and settled in ( there was four of us in the bedroom Pete, Craig, Alison and myself ). I picked up on a spirit in the corner, a dark spirit, so, as I do, went over to the corner to see if I could feel anything, and yes I had shivers go though me. I did call out for the spirit to come out and show himself to all of us but no, he liked this corner and Craig could see the corner getting darker and darker. Someone got the name Bill; he seemed to have died in this bedroom as I was gasping for breath. As we called out to spirit we did hear a few slight taps.

We then went to the back room, this was cold but it did have a window slightly opened. Surely this would not make the room this cold as the house was very warm with the radiators on. Someone picked up on a lady. We called out to spirit to come forward and waited. After a bit I asked spirit to copy me as I tapped away on a toy piano but nothing. I waited a few more minutes and asked spirit to copy me again as I tapped on the piano again. We stood in silence which seemed like ages ( it was so quiet ) and then the piano started playing a tune. We all jumped out of our skins and had to get out (We later discovered that this may have something to do with the toy piano being on a timer/battery saving mode) but it scared us, and why didn’t it do it before? By this time we needed a break.

Now for downstairs. I walked around this large room and felt cold spots could smell old body odor ( no it was not us ). This smell was of an old man. He was stood in a corner to the front of the room but then the smell went. I sat down and settled in, not a lot happened for me after this.

We then all came to the downstairs room to do a glass divination. This only slightly moved. I was sitting on the arm of a lounger and I could see a white mist in the corner. It was not threatening just a white mist getting thicker and thicker. This went after a few minutes. Also at the corner of my eye I kept seeing movements.

I didn’t feel threatened in this house. I think Spirit just wanted the owner to know it was there.

Thank you Pete for letting us visit your house.

Mark Wright

At around 8pm we were welcomed into Peter's house by himself and his friend Craig. Initially I found the house had a cheery feel to it, no bad vibes at all. It was warm and comfortable.

As we sat and had a drink and chatted I found the atmosphere seemed to change a little, it became quite heavy and I found that I had a sick feeling, Di also commented she also had the sick feeling.

We set up our equipment and split into 2 groups, Julie, Maria and I began our first vigil in the lounge, Di, Alison, Peter & Craig went upstairs.

The room seemed to be getting increasingly dark, there were lights from outside coming through the blinds and all the lights were off, but for the first 15 minutes you could make out everything towards the back of the room, but after this time, even though our eyes should have adjusted it seemed to get even darker.

Noticeable cold spots seemed to drift through the lounge, the kitchen door was open, but there were no open windows, the kitchen was double glazed and there wasn't a constant cold, just really intense patches.

Julie heard somebody hum in her ear, this was fairly loud as all 3 of us heard it.

For some reason (and I don’t consider myself lucky enough to be at all sensitive to spiritual activity) I had the name "Mike" spring into my head mid conversation. I mentioned this to Julie and Maria and we made a note of it.

We noticed movement upstairs in the room above us which we later found out nobody was in at the time, it seemed to be either shuffling or furniture moving?

After an hour we went outside and setup the patio furniture a certain way, Peter had told us that when he sets the furniture up the way he likes it, it will be moved around in the morning. So we arranged the furniture and took a picture for reference of how it was setup, unfortunately because it was raining we couldn’t set a video camera up outside and shooting through the window was impossible due to the rebound of the camcorders night shot effectively blinding the camcorder.

Whilst we we're outside Peter's neighbour came out and said Hi, Peter said that his neighbours name was Mike... this came as a surprise and we told Peter about the name Mike coming into my head earlier, Peter then said that he has a brother Mike.

After a brief break we went upstairs to the front bedroom. This room felt very uncomfortable, a really heavy oppressive atmosphere. We placed the EMF meter (that had been calibrated as such that it wouldn’t detect household electricity) on the floor in the middle of the room; it had a solid green light to indicate that it was turned on and not picking anything up at that time.

Julie commented on a "dark area" next to the door, it looked a lot darker than the rest of the room and over the course of the next hour would grow. It wasn’t a shadow, more of a mist trying to form. We started calling out and after awhile the EMF meter did seem to respond to our questions, just after this we also heard (and felt) a deep rumbling on the front outer wall of the house in the bedroom.

We then moved into the back bedroom, the other group had reported that in this room there was a child’s toy keyboard with lights that lit up when you played a tune, they had played a tune on entering the room and after about 5 minutes the keyboard played a tune on its own.

We attempted to replicate this, when we entered the room I pressed some keys on the keyboard (I was not up to playing a tune, I'm about as musically talented as a block of cheese!) and we settled down to our vigil. Sure enough after a few minutes the keyboard sprang to life and played a tune. Again I pressed a few keys to see if we could get it to respond, again a few minutes later it did. So we timed it, every 2.5 - 3 minutes after using it, it would play a tune, So chances are what we experienced was the keyboard shutting itself down, Maria said she would check to see if this particular keyboard did have an auto shutdown feature just to clarify that was what was happening.

Later on in the evening we went downstairs to check on the patio furniture, sure enough one of the chairs had moved. It was windy, but the chair in question was located in a fairly sheltered area, there were more chairs in more open areas that hadn’t moved. If it was the wind that had moved it I would have thought the only movement the wind would be able to achieve is to have blown it over, not pivot it a good 10"?

We all gathered downstairs to chat and setup for glass divination, as we were doing this we heard a lot of commotion upstairs, again shuffling, furniture being moved etc (the furniture hadn’t moved in the slightest) yet we were all downstairs, there was nobody up there.

The glass divination proved fairly uneventful, we setup a laser line in front of the glass so it was easier to see if the glass moved, it did move... but none of us saw it, we just suddenly realised the glass was over the laser line. The EMF did flicker quite intensely at one point as well.

After this we finished the investigation.

I would like to thank Peter and Craig for their hospitality and their interest in the subject; they were extremely keen to learn more about what may be going on in the house.