Colchester Town Hall Ghost Hunt 2nd August 2014
Colchester, Essex
As with many of the venues that we investigate for the first time, we never know what to expect, nor how to find our way around the building to remember which staircase led to a room that we liked. Colchester Town Hall is a large building, with many spooky or even ghastly statues watching over, with several staircases and a warren of corridors, we loved it!
I had visited the building before, to meet with the staff and to assess whether I thought the building was worth investigating, so I had a vague recollection of the rooms and had all but decided to use the Mayor’s Parlour for my sessions. After being shown around the building again by the security guard I changed my mind and chose a small room in the sub-basement. That was a good choice!
The first group to this room I explained that we were going to hold a séance and ask the spirit to move people. After a little while we were joined by Michael, a burly and muscular Policeman, well actually a Bobby as he came from a time when the modern police force that we know today was in its infancy as he gave the year as 1866. Michael was aged in his late 40s or early 50s.
When I asked him to move people he started to move Kat (who was standing on my right) and gradually he lifted the arms of the majority with just Jack being left out (he was standing on my left). Many of the arm movements were on command and Michael moved people exactly as they asked, assuming they asked in a polite manner! Kat was also pushed and bent over in some very uncomfortable positions and a few times, she was pushed to the floor. Michael was able to pull people backwards and push them forwards and several time pull people down to the floor and tangle people’s arms once we were on the floor. Many times the people who were on the floor we unable to get up.
The second group to this room, the activity started even before I had said anything, with people on both sides of me being pulled backwards and after I asked for people hands and arms to be moved, in an instant half of the circle (my side) started to be moved, it took a while before the other half of the circle were moved, but eventually everyone was being moved in some way. Several times Alan and I were pulled to the floor several times neither of us could actually get up. Stavros was also being pulled backwards, unfortunately for him he had a wheelie bin behind him but that did not stop Michael (the same spirit from the first group).
Once everyone had been moved in some way I asked for Michael to move us all in the same way, I didn’t ask this out loud as I did not want what I said to influence anyone, but one by one everyone’s hands met in the middle of the circle and then when I asked out loud for the spirit to finish it, all our hands at the same time rose above all our heads. This is a typical symbol that I have asked spirit to move people in this way before as it is a symbol from the fictional Three Musketeers, known as the salute.
When asking for spirit to copy or repeat noises we heard some noises but could not be sure where in the room the noise emanated from or whether the noises was created from something outside.
Since this was the first investigation that we have held here we decided that instead of just letting the guests to wander around the venue freely, we would carry on with more controlled sessions but using different parts of the building and doing different activities. I chose the rooms above the Moot Hall, which were a warren of small rooms, some though had alcoves or cupboards.
In one of the room I switched on my Spirit Box and asked the guests to start to ask questions and generally keep asking questions. In my experience it takes about 15 minutes for any spirit to answer our questions via this method. I could sense a young boy in the room and I told the guests to encourage him to answer.
After a while we could hear sensible responses to questions, so when someone asked “Where are we?” We all heard Colchester very clearly, then a few minutes later “High Street” and along with other names and when asking for the spirit to say one of our names, apart from my name we all heard “Jack” who was a sceptical guest and was hoping for some evidence, hopefully this will convince him a little.
I joined some of the group who had broken off from everyone else and joined them in another room where I asked for taps/knocks to be repeated. Since one of the guests was wearing a hearing enhancer she could easily hear the responses, whereas the rest of us hear something but could not say whether it was correct.
The second group of people to these rooms we concentrated on a couple of the rooms where the spirit box worked well and after a little wait the spirit started to answer our questions. I left the guests to experience this as the spirit in question asked that I leave the room. Whilst I was gone the guests had cupboard doors moving on command, being poked in the back and some very clear answers via the spirit box including people’s names.
In the shortened free time session, many of the guests continued with the activity that they were doing as the activity at this part of the night was impressive with just about anything that we asked the spirits to do, they achieved.
This was an exceptionally active night with lots of spirit activity; all the guests witnessed lots of physical paranormal activity and Ouija board sessions which were very interesting. Our six hour investigation flew by and we did not want to finish. We didn’t film this investigation which is a shame because it would have been interesting to watch, but this may have been a good thing as we often find that the events that we don’t film are more interesting than those that we do. We will be returning to this venue for another investigation and to use some of the rooms that we didn’t use this time around.
Steve
Psychic Medium
Ghost Hunt Events
http://www.ghosthuntevents.co.uk/
