Fort Borstal ghost hunt 6th July 2013
Rochester, Kent
Fort Borstal is always an interesting ghost hunt for us as something that has never happened before usually happens to the guests however no one could have predicted what happened on this particular evening. As a team with a combined experience of over 100 years none of us have ever seen or witnessed anything that even comes close to what one particular guest experienced in the Caponier, however that will be covered in the second report by the paranormal investigators. However that doesn’t mean nothing of interest happened to the people with me on the contrary I too had a very unusual experience in the Counterscarp galleries…
The first group to the Counterscarp galleries we formed a séance circle in one of my favourite parts, it is actually the furthest room, not particularly big but usually the séance held here have a common theme, which I am very aware of and hence why I bring people to this area every time.
We were joined by a familiar spirit energy to this area; Captain Daniel Bedford who is a strict man however he also likes to make guests aware of his presence and he started by moving various peoples arms, sometimes on command other times of his own free will. He was also able to physically push some people. Using some people arms and hands he was able to rub the chins of some of the male guests, this is a common occurrence. He also tapped one particular guest three times on his head, very similar to the phrase “is anybody home”. Daniel was also able to slow punch two of the guests under the chin, as if to tell them to stand up straight. I and another guest were also pulled down so that our hands were touching the floor and our hands were dragged on the floor. Many guests heard the sound of “chatter” as well as breathing and whispering sounds, this is anomalous because the dry moat ground level outside the counterscarp galleries is about 15 feet below where we were stood inside and there are no animals wild or domestic in the moat. Several guests also saw something pass the windows since it was still light outside and other guests saw lights at the other end of the tunnel, no explanation could be established for either occurrence.
At the end of this séance I conducted an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena a.k.a. ghost voice) experiment. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of noise from the guests shuffling which when the files were analysed by our experts drowned out any spirit response because the echo in these tunnels is a lot longer than in a normal room. However the only good EVP can be heard at:-
The second group to the Counterscarp galleries I formed a séance circle in exactly the same room, hopeful that the same spirit energy would be present for the guests to experience his energy. Unfortunately he wasn’t but there was another male spirit called Bernard or Biffa to his friends present. He was from a time when the Fort was being built, about 1880, as he was a prisoner. Once I asked Biffa to move the guests in some way, lots of people arms were simultaneously moved and everyone felt a physical force push them down towards the floor. One particular guest (Chris) was pushed down with such a reasonable force that he couldn’t get up and whilst he thought it was safer to stay on the floor the spirit had other ideas. Biffa then managed to push and pull us all across the floor until Chris was pushed against a wall. I have no idea how we managed to be moved in this way and I have never seen a spirit manage to do this to people before. Once we were all against the wall Biffa then decided to twist people and bend them into what looked like impossible positions, yet we all managed to stay linked and the séance ended with us rubbing Chris’ chin which looked like a thinking man’s pose.
Just as we were about to end the séance everyone heard the sound of a whistle request that I had made earlier, they were two very distinct repeats of a whistle that I asked spirit to repeat about 20 minutes earlier.
The third group to the Counterscarps were not eager for more spiritual movement as they were the group that had the amazing activity in the Caponier, however during the séance in exactly the same room both Biffa and Captain Daniel were present and they continued moving people’s arms and pushing them. Once again we all heard the now familiar “chatter” and whisper sounds, although we still have no idea where these noises could have come from. Some odd noises were also heard coming from the moat, one of these sounded like a man groaning or cursing, however having walked the whole of the dry moat (in daylight) I know that this is very unlikely that anyone would have been in the moat as it is more or less impossible to get out especially at night where the hazards cannot be seen.
Using a spirit box (a device that scans the FM radio band in reverse at 100ms) we heard the words “Ann” “Hi” and eventually “Go”. None of the questions asked had any intelligible answer.
Moving to the other end of the Counterscarp gallery there were two Second World War soldiers present, one was Welsh and the other from Lincolnshire, neither did very much to affect the guests although Jason felt a poke in his stomach.
This was an exceptionally active ghost hunt with all guests getting some truly exciting paranormal evidence that they could not explain but nevertheless enjoyed.
The video of what happened that amazed us can be seen at http://youtu.be/b6FYM23wgJM although the report from this group is published under the Paranormal Investigators section.
Steve
Spiritualist Medium
Ghost Hunt Events
www.ghosthuntevents.co.uk
