Ghost Busted
One day last November, I was asked if I believed in ghosts. I answered no, but I’m kind of willing to investigate the possibility of them, so I got given a “ghost hunting” voucher for my birthday/Christmas present. I’d eventually booked the event for this Saturday night past; I’d put it off due to not wanting to freeze my arse off in some remote part of the country, no danger of that happening anywhere at the moment. Everyone I spoke to beforehand was very excited for me, those same peeps have sounded somewhat disappointed with my report back to them. Clearly I have friends who are believers. And that’s the thing about the whole phenomenon. If you are a believer, then nothing in the world is going to dissuade you from thinking that that sound was something paranormal, or a spirit is in contact with you. And likewise if you happen to be sceptical about it all. Absolutely nothing happened to change my mind, thus I’m still highly sceptical.
I don’t know what I was expecting apart from something suspicious being emitted from the mouth of the medium, which I definitely got. And as I knew about the Fox sisters, I have never bought into the whole “please knock once for yes…” thing. I’ve had to put some of experiences into context of how I was feeling: I’d only had approx three hours sleep in the last twenty-four; I had several large mugs of coffee during my waking hours proceeding events, including a very strong coffee shortly before arriving at the location which caused unnerving heart palpitations; the ambient temperature was very warm in all the rooms we went into, also, when you stuff a number of bodies into fairly small rooms it’s rises a little more, as do the carbon dioxide levels - stuffy rooms and I don’t mix. (Many years ago, I had to be helped out of chemistry lesson in which we were only sat down copying stuff off the blackboard, as I was loosing the plot and about ready to faint. If someone had opened a window I’d have been fine and wouldn’t have gotten sent home.)
There were eighteen of us in all, twelve peeps doing the thing and five “staff” members. They were all mostly believers, so anything and everything was automatically paranormal for them. A couple of those taking part could be described as “sensitives”, and there was even one guy from Gloucester! Pah! If I’d known that I could’ve gotten a lift off of him, and not from my friend who’d given me the voucher. Instead, we spent quite a while getting lost trying to found a pub that served food at five-thirty in the Oxfordshire countryside. It stated on the booking letter that I was sent, that I had to turn up by quarter to seven. At six forty, I rang the number on the ticket to inform someone that I was going to be a tad late, my friend and her friend had decide they wanted needed pudding, and I had my final coffee of the day, really wished I hadn’t later on. We found the farm at ten past seven, and lo and behold! I’m the first there! No one else turned up till at least seven thirty, so I took some pictures and made a friend of a cat. Didn’t once talk to the guy from Gloucester - when I mentioned this bloke to my friend when she picked me up in the morning (she got at five to drive from Stonehouse to Waterperry, yes, she’s a very good friend!) she made the sorta noise she usually does when she smells the possibility of a match-making opportunity, so I had to very quickly add about the non-communication.
We sat around, introduced ourselves and how we came to be there before the medium gave a physic workshop, in which we first had draw someone in the room. I haven’t done any drawing for a long, long time which was self-evident from my attempts, the face I kept trying to capture of the girl sat opposite me repeatedly starting turning into something of a alien face, so I gave up and kinda cheated by drawing the person behind her, the fact that I could only see his baseball cap, ear, top of his hoodie and nothing of his face had nothing to do with my decision. Then we meditated, with the help of the medium, to become aware of the spirits and to open up our minds. She was telling us to imagine travelling up in a lift and then walking out into place before meeting with and communicating with anyone we met. I didn’t even “travel” up. I kind of relaxed a bit and sunk into the comfy chair before abruptly stopping relaxing and letting my very concious mind question what on earth I was doing, and how tired I was feeling, if only she’d shut up I could properly relax. When we “came back”, we had to either draw the same person, or someone else, or whatever came to us, be it writing or drawing. Obviously nothing came to me, so I sat there and let my eyes unfocus on the ceiling and then the piece of paper. The paper stayed blank, as did my head. Others drew faces and doors and sensed red brick fireplaces, which just oh-so-coincidentally, were in the main house. During my zoning out, as I’ve often done when watching tele when knackered, the medium came over to me and said I “had a lot of people with me right now”. My aura was full of colour and she explained that I was possibly a good candidate for trance channelling. I nodded and said ok, and suppressed the need to laugh.
After this we got a bit of a walk around, first going upstairs to the bedroom of the cottage, then outside and up to the studio apartment, which was part of the same building. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the building, which was clever of me. Those top rooms were baking, so the walk outside over to the main house was much appreciated, but the walk out to the orchard was even more blissful, even in the dark. We stood around a supposedly haunted apple tree - there was once a priory or something built there - holdings hands, whilst someone called out. Nothing happened as far as I could tell. Some felt a “presence” whilst others saw a swirling mist in the centre of the circle. Then after this rather pointless walk around with the medium, we got have a bit of food, as laid on by the owner. As I’d already eaten that evening - a cheese and leek burger courtesy of a local Harvester that we stumbled upon and the only place to serve food to us - I only had a little mouthful of couscous. Then came the introduction to the equipment, the motion detects and emf readers and such. Then we were split up into groups of four with at least one member of staff with us in each of the three locations.
The whole setup of a strange location with strange people sat around in the dark is always going to put one on edge, in my case it was the terrifying thought of embarrassing myself. I kept my mouth shut, not for fear of swallowing one of the many flies or moths in the buildings but because I felt a twit in calling out into the dark. And I resolutely refused to join in with any singing, again so as not to embarrass myself. It’s an even longer time since I’ve sung, especially in public. I didn’t see anything that could be considered anything other than the hallucination’s of a tired brain and eyes. Course, the believers won’t believe that and I’m not going to get into a discussion with anyone about the couple of flashes I saw out of the corner of my eye, nor the image of a skull that my mind created in the dark. And as for the noises in the bathroom immediately to my left, well….
