7TH JUNE 2014.
35, Stonegate, York.
I arrived at the location with Sue Sharpe and soon we were with the assembled punters, most of which seemed like first timers rather than members of a similar team as we were. The walk around presented a stereotypical haunted house with dark wooden rooms and the signs of age which make for a spooky place to be. The first thing of note was the way in which the floors and walls were sloped terribly and this makes standing still leave you feeling dizzy and off balance. Naturally reports of 'feeling drunk' had occurred previously and the house itself split in to two distinct halves- warm rooms which seemed to suffocate oxygen and cold rooms which left you feeling the change of temperature strongly. It was no surprise to me that the sweat from one area made you feel clammy in the next area and made your scalp itch for example. This alone would be enough to spook the novice and no doubt delight them to a fashion thinking it was paranormal (which admittedly, it could still be).
Next was the Mirror Room, so called because the walls and ceiling was covered in a reflective material. Sadly not hard mirrors as such but more the flexible mirrors you get in a fun house Hall Of Mirrors. The desired effect was caused though as you faced the walls and saw a slightly twisted version of yourself staring back. There was a claustrophobic sense to this room due to the false sense of their being no door even though you could argue that it's intent was to make the walls seem to disappear.
Next again was the Mask Room which had it's walls adorned with wooden masks of all shapes and sizes. I had the feeling that this property had been tweaked towards the paranormal fans who paid to enter rather than just leaving it as original. The centuries old property would no doubt have some energies of its own but I gather people need a little help imagining when they pay to a enter a 'creepy house'.
We end our tour in a dark curtained room with a very large round table at its centre and on top of this table are three small ouija boards- The Seance Room. I admit I did have a head ache at this stage but put that down to a combination of little air and a lot of once burnt joss sticks. A lady spoke of having goosebumps and her heart raising which resulted in her breathing heavy. Outside this area, this would have been seen as obvious but once you're in a dark haunted location such as this, things take on a ghostly slant. But i'm the first to understand that this is what the public attendants want for their money and I was happy they were having fun.
I took some base line readings as we reached the cellar and found that they bounced around 2 to 3MG, rather high. I failed to put my equipment in a place where the reading was the normal 1MG level. There were beams over head which had lanterns hanging in the floorless loft space. It was later that Sue had a feel around on the beams and informed me that most has wires attached and so my readings would be suspect to begin with.
Soon after, in a further room we tried table tipping with a large solid table but in the short time we gave it to work there was no movement- not so much as a creak. Table tipping often requires more patients than even the ouija board for some reason.
Jenny led something i'd not witnessed before referred to as the 'Human Pendulum'. I was excited, as I do love learning new techniques. This consisted of having one person essentially replace a pendulum in someones hand and just have them close their eyes and sway naturally. In front of the pendulum participant was one person and behind was another, to catch the 'pendulum' before they toppled. Everyone else formed a circle around the middle three persons.
Many will raise an eyebrow at a glass divination due to the fact that a living person has to have contact with the glass. The same can be said of a hand holding a pendulum itself. On both those practices, the particiapants are requested to not knowingly affect the touched divination tool. Here however, the central person who was stood surrounded by a crowd, in the dark, with their eyes closed was willingly provoked into purposefully extending their swaying either forwards or backwards to signify either a YES (Forward sway) or a NO (Backwards sway). Questions were asked to the volunteers and they provided the answers in the hope of giving way to a form of communication.
I believe many would raise two eyebrows at this style but is it really anymore unlikely than having spirits affect our emotions or putting images in our heads? The participants enjoyed the test and really that's all that matters.
Hey, you've got to try what you can after all!
In the seance room i had a base line reading of 1MG. During an impromptu ouija session the K2 flashed and I got a gauss high of 2.5MG in addition to a 2 on the Tri-Field meter which Mike had. Mike was an electrician by trade who went to every GCUK investigation that he could.
Here's a little of what happened during this session.
Everyone was sat around the table who were guests and the remainder were stood around the edges of the room not moving. The temperature was 21.5 C.
The gauss creaked continuously and there was an X-Box Kinnect showering the room with its laser grid which was only visible through nightvision (you may have seen this in Paranormal Activity 4).
Jenny "Can you touch one of us?"
A scratch is heard by Kath (GCUK)
The gauss is silent for a few minutes until click...click...click...click.click.click and steadily faster. Energies growing stronger. My recorder captures a bump which is heard by all and a second one follows but this one is someone at the table as it vibrates through my recorder audibly.
"Is Annie or Margaret here?" there is no response.
Jenny "We've left something in the attic, if you knock it over we'll hear it down here" The gauss starts to click afresh but no bang is heard.
Jenny starts to explain to the spirits of the house that the property has been sold and is to be turned into offices...once it has been spiritually cleansed. A silent gauss meter noticeably increases.
"Let me know if you understand that" The gauss does indeed climb and several ladies report feeling sad and some sob briefly saying "I just felt a feeling of overwhelming sadness". There is a strong boost on the gauss and it seems Jenny gets what she asked for.
Many of us don't believe a cleansing would work anyway.
All that follows of note is more gauss fluttering an Jenny reports the kinnect lasers being blocked out by a shadow as she points the camcorder at someones face.
BACK STAIRWAY OUTSIDE MASK ROOM
The group split into smaller teams and Sue and I choose to head to a back stairway which draws our attention in part due to a previous visit. It also becomes apparent that two other people have witnessed thing here in this unlikeliest area amidst mask and ouija rooms. Since the event was billed as a Tech Night I left my own ouija board at home. This left us improvising and we used a wooden chair with a deodorant cap as planchette in the hope of getting a make shift YES/NO table working. The cap simply wasn't heavy enough to eradicate our lightest of touch. Next we placed our fingers lightly on the chair as a form of table tipping but alas, no movement at all. The gauss wildly jumped here and there though. I should note that one of the walls on one side seemed to have a nightclub on the other side which and we had to become accustomed to the club pound out its awful chart music of the day as we listened for evidence.
Sue saw the K2 flash once behind me and also there was a long gauss shriek but with such large electrical machinery and mobile phones just through then wall, the readings were once again dubious. Except for the notable fact that there were long moments of zero readings too. This suggested that the club wasn't affecting our meters as much as they may have. On the opposite wall we hear a group in the Mask Room introduce themselves to any present spirits and our gauss meter rises and then falls dead. Had the spirit stepped out of their room and into our briefly?
It was here that lone investigator Mike meets us properly and he sits with us too as we ask out some more. Sue and I move to the attic and Mike lingers a little to try and catch something on his Tri-Field meter.
ATTIC.
We set equipment down in the lesser areas of milligauss remembering that this room is highly wired.
I basically chunter on to an unresponsive room and then Mike joins us as well. We set four different meters in a sort of diamond shape on the floor. I keep asking for a BLAST on the gauss and after a minute I do get it, but then it continues to be no longer definable as a blast. Sue gets goosebumps which she describes an uncommon and we manage to get a high of 4MG plus hits on both the gauss and Tri-Field at the same time.
I change tack and request that the lantern above us moves. It does not.
SEANCE ROOM.
Sue, Mike and I ask for noise or any device affecting. The gauss crackles as I ask and ask but it seems fairly random most of the time. We did achieve a high of 5MG the time Mike got a headache and we got pockets of hits on two devices but the only real winner here was tiredness.
In Conclusion...
It's a great location and the public had a blast but our group had little luck. But this game is like fishing and every time can be different. Plus you can simply just be in the wrong room when stuff happens. Really enjoyed it all the same.
I heard reports of hits on the Ghost Box as well as masks moving but I wasn't there to pass judgement.
As ever this is all written from my own personal viewpoint and isn't necessarily the final word on the matter. Go visit for yourself before it closes.
C whitehouse 2014.
