Rye Castle Ypres Tower ghost hunt 20th July 2013
Rye, East Sussex
This was the first ghost hunt that we held at Rye Castle since the building work has been completed. The location has always been one of our favourites since activity has often been strange and unexplainable but this ghost hunt was exceptionally active.
My group started on the first floor of the Keep and within a matter of minutes after everyone had settled down we were joined by a male spirit energy called Marquis de Rocforte, who was French and aged in his mid-50s wearing a purple jacket (three quarter length) with brass buttons, white shirt, white stockings and black shoes with buckles, he also wore a hat similar to an Admiral Bicorn Hat. He looked to be an important person. We have since found out that this uniform would have been worn in the Napoleonic era by “Payeur Général de la Garde”.
There were also two children aged about 10 years old playing noughts and crosses in one of the cells.
Levels of KII (EMF – Electro Magnetic Fields) were also very high with sporadic spikes.
One of the guests (Audrey) was French so she started to ask questions in French and I relayed his answers, after several questions Marquis de Rocforte tipped his hat in a very Royal fashion. Audrey noted that her arm felt as if it was being held and many of the guests also noted that she was standing in an awkward way. Audrey also felt as if something was being pressed into her hand, like a coin.
Many guests could smell cannabis and near to Audrey the smell of stale alcohol could be smelt by some. The more we talked about the spirit energy the more the KII meter showed high levels of EMF. Another guest Michelle felt a touch on her shoulder whilst she was standing in one of the cells.
I decided to finish the session with a séance to try to get some of the other guests to feel the spirit energies, however the only person who seemed to be affected in a painful way was me, as my arms were moved into some very painful positions, other guests were gently swayed and pushed.
The second session, we would normally swap groups so that all the guests spend time with all of the team, but because the first group to the Woman’s Tower had experienced something unusual we decided not to swap the groups to see if my group felt the same sensations as the first. That way both groups were going into a new location “blind”.
As soon as we entered the Woman’s Tower it had a strange oppressive feeling, we have visited this location several times before but this was the first time I have felt this heavy feeling. Within a matter of minutes everyone in the group was either swaying or rocking gently. It didn’t seem to matter where people stood the feelings were the same. This has never happened here before. Some of the guests who were standing in front of the window (with their backs to the window) were pulled backwards towards the window, those guests who had a wall behind them were pulled backwards into the wall. It was a very strange sensation as this is the area that had recently undergone building work and the floor was perfectly level. I was standing near the door and on more than one occasion I was pushed into the door.
Quite early on in the session we all heard a “Whooo” sound, which because of the way the place is orientated this noise could not have come from outside the Ypres Tower grounds, it had to come from within the courtyard and no-one was in the courtyard.
I was describing a female spirit energy to the group who had just “popped her head in” her name was Daisy, approximately 40 years old who had piercing eyes although the left hand side of her face was disfigured (either by a stroke or a scar). Whilst I was describing her Carl (GHE team) suddenly exclaimed he had just seen a face, below is his account of what he saw.
I started to feel very strange, all the hairs on my arms and neck started to stand up and I had goose bumps on my arms. Then something caught my eye and my attention was drawn to the door. This is when the following event happened;
The room was nearly in total darkness with only a little light coming in through the window from the moon. As I looked in the direction of the doorway a women appeared at the doorway and took three steps in to the room and looked straight at me for a moment and then stepped back out of the doorway out of view. I was taken a little by surprise and couldn’t really talk for a moment and I was trying to get Steve’s attention and when I finally did, I stuttered that I had just seen a women walk into the room. After a moment I started to calm down and explained in more detail what I had seen.
The woman was about 5ft6 to 5ft8 in height and had very wild looking white hair. She had very gaunt face and you could clearly see her cheek bones sticking out, she had dark eyes which were set back in to her face, her expression on her face was very strange which scared me a little. She was wearing a white smock which was very dirty. The sleeves were short and it came down to her knees, it was all ripped and in tatters. The women had nothing on her feet and her skin was pale and dirty, her nails on both her fingers and feet were dirty and long. When she moved she did not make any sound. No one heard anyone or anything come up or down the stairs, which are normal so noisy is anyone moves on them. It was like looking at someone in daylight and she was so clear and solid.
I was a little shaky after the experience and took me several hours to recover fully. But with this in mind I can’t wait to go back and investigate again.
Just after Carl had seen this, noises could be heard on the staircase and footfalls outside on the gravel to which I stated to the group that it was so loud it must be a person. It was. It was one of the members of the other group who asked that I come with them as they had an issue with one of the guests that needed my urgent attention.
As I arrived back at the main Tower one of the guests was being carried out of the building by two people, she was totally oblivious to what was happening and erratically shaking with spasms and fits. This particular guest had something similar happen to her before at this location and on that occasion had to be manhandled out of the Tower, this time she had to be carried out. The guest was being affected by a particularly nasty spirit energy who in the past would have easily murdered women with one hand by strangling them. I decided that we need to move this guest further away from the Tower as the spirit energy was able to use the Tower as a source of energy, further away he would not be able to. The spirit gave me his name as Terry the Terrible, which obviously wasn’t his name. The guest kept repeating the name Frank, even when asked who she came with, the only name she uttered was Frank. All the time she was still shaking violently, although not as bad as when I first arrived on the scene. During this I was administering what I would call emergency healing to push the nasty energy out of the guest, which was working, but as always it takes time. Within 10 minutes the guest was fully back to normal although very shaken and dazed, probably wondering why she was outside on the grass. The guest described the sensation of what it felt like, which in her own words were “like being pushed down inside”. This is typical although thankfully not common of what it feels like when a nasty spirit energy pushes our own energies aside. This is something that I have come across before but thankfully not too often.
After this all groups had a break before we embarked on our free session, this is when we let our guests use our equipment and venture throughout the venue to hold their own ghost hunt.
I went back to the Woman’s Tower as my session was cut short and I wanted to see if the same spirit energies would do something. On entering the upper floor the now usual swaying and tipsy feeling returned and with the people present I conducted an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena a.k.a. ghost voice) experiment. All four recordings had spirit voices in them, but when this was analysed by our experts none of the words spoken could be understood, this is unusual because we can usually identify at least one word, but on this occasion we have four recordings with words, but we cannot understand any of the words. During the EVP experiment Jamie (Guest) had trouble speaking and she sounded completely out of breath, Carl felt unwell (as usual here) and had to leave. Marc (GHE team) who was downstairs heard some random noises which he thought was us, but we weren’t moving or making any noise. When asking for the spirits to make a noise everyone heard mumbling but could not decide on which direction the noise came from and then we all heard something drop, on investigating this, I found a small stone on the middle of a step of the staircase, which I am fairly sure wasn’t there before as I’m sure someone would have noticed it. I joined Marc downstairs to hear some of the noises he was hearing and those noises were odd but neither of us couldn’t decide where or what we were hearing. Jamie (Guest) & Ted (Museum staff) quickly joined us as they said it was too freaky upstairs.
A little while later I went back to the Women’s Tower and joined three guests, who had a spirit box (a device that scans the FM radio frequencies in reverse at 100ms) and were trying to get spirit to say something. As soon as I entered the room everyone clearly heard “Steve” on the spirit box.
Asking various questions some of which were answered correctly, some were not (especially the number questions e.g. how many people in room).
On asking whether the spirit energies would like leave, I requested that they say Bye or Goodbye on the spirit box, we all then heard “Good” “Bye” as two separate words, spoken in a female voice.
This ghost hunt was one of the most interesting we have had at this location as the activity seemed to be non-stop and every guest (some more than others) felt real paranormal activity or heard something that they could not explain. The sensations felt in the Women’s Tower were the same for both groups and everyone felt the same sensations and physical movements. Certainly one ghost hunt that we will remember for a long time.
Steve
Spiritualist Medium
Ghost Hunt Events
www.ghosthuntevents.co.uk
