Fort Borstal ghost hunt 16th November 2013
Rochester, Kent
Fort Borstal is one of my favourite ghost hunting locations, not least because we have access to the majority of the Fort; two counterscarp galleries, the caponier, the officer’s mess, the front casements, the second world war command post, all the tunnels and an underground magazine room but also because the level of activity never ceases to amaze us as a team. Paranormal occurrences seem to happen more or less on command throughout this fort.
As always I chose the double counterscarp gallery for my sessions, the reason why I choose this is because of a number of factors, but the main one is that time and time again the same paranormal phenomena happens to the guests and it is always of a physical nature.
The first group that I took to the gallery were quite nervous to start with, probably because it was complete darkness apart from my red cap light. The red light is used so that it doesn’t affect anyone’s night vision yet people are able to see what is happening to each other.
We were joined quite quickly by a spirit that I have seen within these galleries before, his name was Bernard and he was aged in his early 30s, quite muscular and tall at 6’5”, certainly not someone who you would argue with. He seems to be a spirit from the 1880s and talks of his time when the place was being constructed.
Upon asking for Bernard to move the hands and arms of the guests as well as sway or move people unusually he started by swaying people and making some of the guests fall into other guests, usually without any warning whatsoever. Normally most spirits no matter where we are start by gently lifting or moving arms of the guests. Bernard was different, first he pushed and pulled some people in all directions and then he moved on to lifting peoples arms.
He was very quickly able to push and drag people down to the floor and drag my hands on the floor, then without much warning he pushed and pulled the guests in all directions but his focus seemed to be just two female guests. For some reason he moved both of them towards a wall, but not the same wall, he chose the two walls that were at the back of the room. People had the simple of choice of allow the spirit to pull or push them to a wall or fall over.
Bernard quite happily pushed all of the guests in some way and he was later joined by another spirit friend; Justin who was slightly older at 38 years old and of a smaller build. Justin however didn’t really participate in the moving of the guests, he just stood nearby and laughed a lot. I got the feeling that both of these spirit would have been fun characters in life and slightly mischievous.
On asking for us all to be moved firstly Jason (GHE camera) heard a breathing sound behind him and then without any warning whatsoever all the guests were swayed or pushed backwards and then very quickly pushed and twisted around each other so that most of us had our backs to another person.
Some guests also felt very cold spots within the room as they were being moved around although we know this is not due to any environmental reason as the whole gallery is sealed from the outside elements and there is only one door (which was closed) into the area.
On many occasions various people were pushed to the floor and not only were they pulled down, but once kneeling down on the floor they were then pulled by their hands and arms further onto the floor so that their whole body was in contact with the floor. Even though many guests tried to resist this sensation no-one was able to stop the overbearing force and once on the floor those guests could not get back up no matter how hard they tried. The majority of the guests said that it felt like a great weight was holding their legs down.
At one point Bernard pushed and pulled us all out of the room (this has happened before in this room) as many guests felt like they were being watched. Once out of the room the sensations and the movements increased because there was a bigger space to fill and the two spirit energies had no trouble dragging us out of the room.
Toward the end of the session Bernard was moving the guests in such a way that it could have become dangerous as people were being moved very quickly and with such force that other guests could not anticipate which way someone was about to move. I ended the session because it could have been very painful if someone was pushed over or pushed/pulled into a wall.
The second group to this area started much the same, with some guests being moved and manipulated in much the same way, but this session started more slowly although Bernard was responsible for some of the movement, Justin was the main spirit who was touching and pushing people. Whenever someone asked for their hands or arms to be moved in some way Justin obliged and it did get a bit weird with various peoples’ hands touching the shoulders and stomachs of others.
When I asked for either spirit to start to push or rock people the resulting movements were much gentler and everyone at one point had their arms raised or pulled backwards which was rather uncomfortable for some.
Once again though, the majority of people were pulled downwards to the floor from their arms and the guests once realising that they were not in control of their movements, let the spirit move them however they wished.
Although the force was not the same of the first group, there was still a lot of arms and hands being dragged down to the floor, many of the guests were unable to restrict or control their movement and once again those guests that were pulled down were also pushed and moved whilst on the floor, although the energy was not as powerful.
As soon as I started to ask the spirit to move us all in a different direction, I heard a faint whistle which sounded like it came from the other end of the tunnel complex, although no-one else heard anything at the time.
Jason also felt and thought that he saw shadows behind some of the guests. Considering that Jason was filming in IR (Infra-Red) light the only light source was my red light (which doesn’t really show up on the recorded footage because I point it at the floor) but he could see the shadows behind some guests and he commented that the shadows moved around the circle behind certain people. These were also the guests that were moving more frequently.
One of the guests also felt his left leg was being raised as it had lifted about 4 inches off the ground. When I asked that the spirit lift it higher the only thing that moved upwards was my arms with another guest. Although the guest that had their leg in the air was unable to put their foot back on the floor.
This was a very enjoyable, and for my sessions a, physical ghost hunt with every guest being eventually moved in some way that they could not explain as the spirit seemed to be playing a game with us. We would call this twister but the guests had called for the spirit to move us like the okey cokey which they dutifully accepted and accomplished.
Steve
Psychic Medium
Ghost Hunt Events
http://www.ghosthuntevents.co.uk/
Tags: arm movement, energy, fort, fort borstal, ghost, ghost hunt, ghost hunt events, ghost voice, investigation, kent, noise, paranormal, paranormal investigation, psychic medium, pushing, rochester, seance, spirit, swaying