On Saturday 21st December 2013, Twilight Shadows Paranormal conducted a paranormal investigation at a village hall in Wiltshire.
We decided to start the investigation with a séance in the main hall. Jacky began by 'calling out.' After a while we heard the sound of footsteps walking across the floor. We all felt that this was too good to be true. Nicci said that she could feel the temperature dropping and Caz felt like something had brushed past her. There were more footsteps, a knocking sound and then a loud thud on the floor. Nicci jumped and said that she had heard more footsteps and then we all heard some deep thuds. Dave said that he saw a light anomaly float over the top of the table that we were sitting around. Matt heard movement behind him and Dave heard a knock right by him. There was a tap, a loud thud, more footsteps and then something was thrown.
Nicci said that she thought there were two spirits near to where Matt was standing. I saw movement in the kitchen and we heard the sound of footsteps. The footsteps were strange. One minute, they were walking around one end of the hall and the next minute, they were walking around the opposite end of the hall. Jacky said, “If you go to one end of the room, the footsteps move to the other end,” We all felt breezes around the tops of our fingers. Ben saw a small light travel across the wall. There was a loud thud. I asked if any spirits present could walk across the floor towards us and we heard two footsteps. There were continual thuds which Ben thought were getting more frequent.
I knocked loudly on the table and there was a responsive knock back. There was a mischievous feel in the atmosphere. We all felt a masculine energy close by. We heard movement on the stage so we decided to go and sit up there.
We sat around on the stage. We were asking for footsteps and bangs and we were getting responses and they seemed to be complying with our requests. I felt a bit uncomfortable on the stage and a little jumpy. We were sitting around a table and the table started shuddering. This then stopped and nothing happened for a good while.
A little later, we heard footsteps walking by Dave, followed by thumping on the floor and then the sound of running. We 'called out' and immediately heard more footsteps. We made contact with a male who said that he was Mr. H. He told us that he was dead and then said, 'Goodbye.' We wondered if this was the spirit who was making all the noise. He then left us.
After a while, the spirit seemed to return and made it clear that he only wanted to talk to the female team members.
We asked:
Did you live in this village?
Yes.
Did you work in this village?
No. Hub, I go dead.
(Nicci told us that there was lots of industry historically, in this area. She wondered if 'he' was using words that we could not place, such as 'hub.')
Mill.
Did you work at the mill?
Yes.
Did you die because of an accident?
Yes.
How old were you?
47.
What year?
1773.
Mr. H, are any of your family and friends with us?
(At this point, a voice from the spirit box said, 'Yes.')
(Nicci has since informed us that she has researched this story and can confirm that a gentleman with this name did die at the mill but the date was 1973 and not 1773.)
Ben decided to ask the spirit person if he could guess our ages.
How old is the lady on my left?
30. (Loretta is 30).
Nicci said, “None of the team know how old I am, so can you tell me how old you think I am?
46. Nicci said, “Well, I will be 46 in a couple of months.
Jacky asked, “Can you guess my age?”
39. (Jacky is 40).
Ben said, “How old am I?”
26. (Ben is 26.)
Ben asked how old I was and the answer was 54. I am almost 53.
Ben then asked, “How old am I?” The answer was, “I did.”
The Spirit Box said, 'Dave.' The energy seemed to be changing. A woman's voice from the Spirit Box called out, “Ben.” There was a biscuit on the table and Ben asked Loretta, “Do you want that?” Immediately, there was a voice from the Spirit Box which mimicked Ben saying clearly, “Do you want that?”
Jacky said, “Someone is making knocks and bangs. A voice from the Spirit Box said, “That's Norman.
Andrew asked, “Norman?” We all heard the Spirit Box reply, “Yes.”
There was a loud bang in the room with us and another one. We heard footsteps and and another really big bang. We then heard a sound like the strumming of fingers on the table. The Spirit Box called out, “Jacky.” We were amazed that the Spirit Box had now called out three of our team members names.
Jacky 'called out' and we were told, “Stop walking.” Dave had been pacing around so we assumed that the spirit was referring to him. We all heard a woman's moan.
Then:
Stop walking. No noise. Stop walking. David.
We could all feel breezes blowing around our faces. We asked who was talking to us and we were told, “Me.”
We decided to leave the stage area and went into the main hall again and 7 stones were thrown at us in quick succession. The stage curtain moved in a strange manner, as if someone was behind it. This made Nicci jump. We hadn't seen the curtain move at all before that moment and there didn't seem to be any direct draughts from the windows. The curtain movement was strange but we cannot say that it was paranormal. Lots of stones continued to be thrown and one hit the back of my neck. I could tell by the impact that it had been thrown with force. More stones were thrown and nobody was standing in the direction that the stones had been thrown. We heard a whistle.
We decided to sit around the table. The table shot across the floor and we had to quickly move the chairs that we were sitting on. The table started tapping and moving with force around the room. We couldn't keep up with it. We then realised that the floor was knocking and some of us got down to floor level and could actually feel the bumps from below the floorboards. This felt like a very different spirit. We felt like we were communicating with a much older spirit. The knocking on the floor continued and was very strong. Unfortunately, our time was finished at this location so we talked about packing up to leave. At this point the table lifted up on two legs and started whizzing around the hall. We had to run to keep up with it.
We were sad to leave the investigation here but it was time to leave. We would love to return to this hall another time. Thank you to Jacky and Dave for arranging this investigation.
Written by: Maria Williams.
JACKY'S REPORT
As it was nearly Christmas, Dave and I thought we would throw a little get together for the team. This was going to be a get together with a difference. I had hired a local hall (which we had noticed had a definite ‘feel’ to it when we had been there before for other functions). This turned out to be a smart move.
Our guests for the night included Maria, Andrew, Ben, Loretta, Matt, Caz, Nicci, Dave and I. I had laid on a few nibbles so after we had finished these we decided to see if there really was any ghosts at this mystery hall.
We decided to set up a table in the middle of the hall. Maria had the idea to leave the red candle burners going as it is believed that spirits are attracted to red light. We started to call out and as usual nothing much happened for a while. It can take a while for the energy to build up at the start of an investigation. About 20 minutes into the mini investigation we heard a strange moan that wasn't quite human sounding yet it also didn't sound like a car going past or a plane going over either as it stopped too abruptly. Just after the moan we heard a series of taps. These increased in intensity until they were more like thuds and you could actually feel the vibrations too. Nicci suggested that maybe the door wasn't quite secure so Dave went off to find out. The door was fine and it was not rattling in the lock. As Dave came back to join us, we heard another thud down by the door. It seemed that if you went down to investigate you then heard the thud at the opposite end of the room. We asked if we could hear their footsteps walk across the wooden floor of the hall. We heard a knock just after we asked this. As we continued to call out to try and encourage any spirit activity, Nicci felt something touch her hair. As was telling us this we heard a thud at the opposite end of the room.
We decided to take a break and we set the table up on the stage area (as some of the team felt drawn there). While some of us were in the kitchen, the rest of us were either sat up on the stage or in that area. You can see us talking on the video footage that we suddenly realise that we can hear lots of thudding under the floor. At first I think we all assumed it was coming from the people in the kitchen. You can see all of us suddenly realising this is not so. You can clearly hear this thudding going on as we are discussing it with each other. We asked the team members in the kitchen if they were making the noises and they confirmed it was not them.
During our séance, we got a very chatty spirit through who was eager to tell us that he was nice. We got a name and an age which was later verified by Nicci, however, the date was slightly wrong. We were given 1773 and the evidence Nicci has is dated 1973. As this means this spirit is in living memory, out of respect for the family I will keep the identity anonymous.
We were just discussing our conversation with our very chatty spirit friend when we heard a stone clatter to the ground. This turned out to be the first of many. As Ben went to find the first one we heard another one clatter to the ground. Nicci went to find this and about 2 minutes later another one clattered to the ground. The stones we found were all very similar in size. We have had this phenomenon before which is called an apport. However, this phenomenon seemed to be happening to us more and more. As Ben, Nicci, Caz and Andrew were comparing the stones we heard another one clatter to the ground near to Maria. We heard another stone clatter to the ground near the stage. We put the lights on to see if we could find the stone and to our amazement just as we found the stone, we heard another one falling to the floor. By now we have a nice little collection of stones on the table. All were the same size and roughly the same shape and they were all tiny bits of the same stone. The stones kept coming. I say this can’t be a regular occurrence as the floor would be covered by stones. Nicci went to get a stone that had fallen by the curtain and suddenly she cried out. She felt as if there was someone on the other side of the curtain that was pushing the curtain back at her. We got a few more stone apports and then the activity stopped as abruptly as it had started. We called out to see if the spirit had really finished. We got no response so after about 10 minutes we decided to try our hand at table tipping.
We moved to the table we used at the beginning of the evening. We heard another moan before the table suddenly tipped up on 2 legs. The table suddenly moved over to the right, taking us all with it (much to Ben's delight). He asked the table to go back to where it was so we can all sit down. Amazingly enough, the table did. We asked out again and the table moved over to the right again. This time we all stood up. Over the next half hour we were scooted across the floor by the table like a giant planchette. I wondered to myself if this was the same spirit that was having us run around the hall following the thuds, then the stones. We also realised after a while that there was a thudding noise going on underfoot while the table was moving (and if the table was not moving). The table was getting taps on it in answer to our questions. We asked if the spirit was male. We got a thud. (We know that nearby there was a very heavy Saxon influence so I asked if he would have been from this time.) We get a thud. Maria exclaims how lovely this is. We were amazed that the activity continued like it did earlier. The table was still moving us to different parts of the hall. The table came to a standstill by Maria's camera and we continued to hear the thuds. We carried on chatting to our very friendly Saxon spirit that has definitely brought with him a lovely party atmosphere. We were all laughing and it felt as if this spirit had been having fun joining in with us. Sadly, we had to draw the investigation to a close as we had promised to be out by midnight.
Looking back I am amazed at the activity we got from an investigation which was not meant to be a serious one (but turned out to be). We had thuds, taps, audibles on camera, light anomalies and apports.
I would like to thank everyone who came to join me for our little Christmas get together and also the lovely spirits that came to join in with us on our Christmas fun.
Written by: Jacky Wicheard
