My First Investigation.......

[Baruc]

Back in the summer of 1984, when Ghostbusters was the film of the moment, my friends and I decided to do a bit of investigating ourselves.

Being the one that was known for reading books on the paranormal, my friends naturally turned to me to provide the location.

After much thought, I decided upon a country park in the locality that provided easy access for a group of six curious teens on a warm June evening.

The park had an alleged annual haunting, on Halloween, together with various, old, ruins of various descriptions and a history of suicides, including two school friends (and subsequently a work colleague).

I split the group into three.

Two would take the open area on the off-chance that the annual haunting apparition was a bit confused with dates. Another two would take the golf course area, mainly because it was next to the car park and they didn’t feel like walking far, whilst my friend and I decided to take the old witch’s cottage, which, I thought, was the prime location, despite there being no known history of hauntings to my knowledge.

The cottage consisted of a single room, the highest bit being only 4 feet above ground level and was basically a shell filled with vegetation.

The building dated back to the 16th Century and was located within a wooded valley, albeit at the perimeter, next to a small brook on one side and an old path on the other. The path was originally THE main road in the community, leading to a small port and believed to have roman origins and links to welsh royalty.

The woman who was associated with the cottage was believed to be a witch locally, but as such things were tolerated in Wales generally, she never came to a sticky end like her English counterparts.

However, the crème de la resistance in my opinion was that a plague pit had been discovered two years earlier right next to the cottage, containing a handful of victims, whilst digging out a new drain system for the new houses built at the top of the valley.

Anyway, as dusk was falling, we went to our respective positions and my friend and I decided to sit against the exterior wall, brook / plague pit side of the building, as it would offer us the most comfortable position in the circumstances rather than any other reason. I’d brought a tape recorder and turned it on.

On occasions we stood up and looked behind us and noticed flickering lights on the slope facing the opposite side of the cottage, but we dismissed these as anything paranormal, thinking that they could be firefllies, although we couldn’t observe anything similar in the surrounding area.

Being bored, after about 10 minutes we just started to chat about things in general.

Thirty minutes into the ‘investigation’, I suddenly felt an icy cold chill to the left had side of my face (bearing in mind this was early summer) and all my hair stood on end. I turned quickly to my friend only to find, to my horror, that he was running off through the trees as fast as his little legs would carry him.

What happened next amounts to comedy and the tape recording of the ‘escape’ is now legendary amongst my peers even to this day.

Basically, we both ran as fast as we could back to the car parked a mile away and hit the gas and drove out of the place.

We only stopped to collect the team from the open area, as they had seen the car lights switch on and, deciding it was too long a walk home, jumped out in front of the car as we passed, to stop the vehicle.

The next night we went back and observed the cottage from the open area. In the trees we could once again make out lights flickering by the cottage at the same spot.

Whilst I've never gone back for another investigation, I did briefly visit the location again during a visit back home, only this time taking a camcorder with me.

Although it was broad daylight and a nice warm sunny day, something of interest again occured, but that, as they say, is another story.


Kind Regards
Baruc.

[tabbyshero]

I cant wait for the next instalment..I would love to hear that tape.
Leanne

[Baruc]

Alas the tape is only good for the comedy content.

I'll have to sit down and write up properly what happend when I went back in 2007, but in a nutshell, I visited alone on a sunny afternoon and took my cam corder.

I filmed around the site, which was basically unchanged from my little adventure back in 1984, pointing out the bits that were relevant.

After a couple of minutes, I returned to the spot where I'd sat all those years ago and started to ask some questions with the hope of obtaining some EVP.

Almost straight away, the wind rose quite forceably and remained for the couple of mnutes that I continued to ask questions, fading as I packed the camera away.

Something paranormal or just coincidence? I guess that I'll never know. But this is something that has occured to me at other sites too.

As for any EVP - ziltch.

Kind Regards
Baruc.

[tabbyshero]

I have never actually been on an investigation although I would love to, I just wouldn't know where to start. As for EVP, this is also something I have pondered, any tips on how I might get started, ideal circumstances and what not? Do you think it might be worth trying in my house and what conditions do you think would be optimum?
Leanne

[Baruc]

It's possible to record EVP anywhere, but it's not as frequent as some would have you think.

As for recording, I guess the question is what do you have available and we'll work from there.

Kind Regards
Baruc.

[Baruc]

As an aside, it's just been announced in the local press that the remains of the cottage is being converted into an open air story telling area.

There's still life in the old place yet....

Kind Regards
Baruc.

[Spudrick68]

Tabbyshero

Hello, I have only just found this forum and joined today, so please be gentle with me peeps!

Anyone can try recording EVP, obviously it is best with a digital recorder. Ensure that it is not voice activated, as when you finish speaking the recording level dramatically rises to hear for noise to record. This has the efect of static interference, which can be interpreted as voices.

Try to write yourself a small script of questions that you wish to ask beforehand and keep it with you. Leave around 30 seconds of silence between questions before asking for a reply.

If you wish to analyse your recording in good detaill, there is a fantastic free piece of software called Audigy with which you can look at any anomalies in closer detail. just type Audigy in your search engine and it will come up.

Hope this helps.