The 'MITCH'. First Investigation of 2009

Our first investigation of the new year will be held at the MITCHEL MEMORIAL THEATRE, Hanley, S-O-T in February. The Mich (as it is know locally) was built after the second world war as a tribute to Reginald Mitchel (photo far left, above), the designer of the Spitfire fighter plane. Unfortunately he never saw it fly as he died of cancer shortly before its maiden flight. It was considered that the best memorial which could be given to him, was one that would benefit the youth of the area. Building plans for the Mitchel Memorial Youth Centre were drawn up in 1947 and the foundation stone laid in 1955. It was officially opened in 1957 by Group Captian Douglas Bader, who can be seen in the photo above far right.

Its wonderful that this building has stayed in use and not (like many post war buildings of its type) been demolished.

Out team are looking forward to this investigation, and feel very privileged to have the theatre entirely at our disposal. Lots of unusual activity has been experienced by the staff and many of the performers, and another group investigated the Theatre back in 2004, so it will be intriguing to see what evidence we can uncover and compare.

Welcome Sarah and Shula

We have taken on two new rookies into the fold, Sarah and Shula. They are both extremely keen to get started and had been looking to get more involved with a local group for some time. They will be in training for 6 months after which if they pass our stringent tests (you know the usual, lone vigils in dark dank cellars, grave yard shift ect [only joking]) you will be hearing much more from them when they are given their own blog page. So without further a do, we will be throwing them into the deep end at our next event which will be at The Mitchel Memorial Theatre, Hanley, S-O-T in February. I'm sure there will be a lot of 'Behind you' being shouted out on this particular investigation. More info will be uploaded nearer the date.

MOST HAUNTED LIVE Nights 5-7

NIGHT 5 IN SEARCH OF DARK PHANTOMS, Location Sarnsbury Hall

We were promised a terrifying night ahead (oh yeah I have struggled to stay awake after the 2nd one). 2 experiment had been set for this evening night of terror. (1) Infra Sound and (2) Mirror Scrying.

Apparently this very impressive half timberd 13C mansion was set close to (drum role please) PENDLE HILL. They were trying to drum up witches, phantoms and evil spirits. Kath saw the disembodied spirit of a man (legs only) so how did she know it was a man??? All the team had the jitters but whne the suggestion of DARK PHANTOMS has been repeated a few times then this give the suggestion of fear.

Scrying experiment: Carl Stuart and sound guy all were strapped into the executioners chair to have ago. They all experiences something strange. Now I have done this experiment and its a very creepy experience but I don't for one minute believe its paranormal. If you stare long enough at an object you would sware blind it move. There were lots of supposed sightings of faces and shadows. Carl someone looking over the balcony. A man had hung himself off of the same balcony many many years before.

Infra-Sound Experiment: KO commented that IS could be responsible for many haunted experiences such as feeling sick, nervousness, corner of the eye ect, so I was interested to see what happened here. He switched on the IS at 9.30pm, 10pm and 10.30pm it was at this time Kath and Stuart both say a shadowy man. Interestingly when KO switched it off they still had experiences....spooky. Yvette kicked off her usual stunts of having a tantrum or two. Overall I feel that most of the angst and fear was created by themselves not by the supernatural.

Poor Kath got chosen to spend the night in tomorrow nights locations haunted bedroom, she was sooooooo terrified that her good m8 EF said she would do it with her, yeah some m8 to have Kath.

NIGHT 6 IN SEARCH OF NIGHT TERRORS, Location Bidstone Lodge/Hall
Classic hunting lodge on the Wirral peninsula.

Again a huge inference on sinister, threatening undercurrents swimming around the crew tonight oh, and JAKE has took real shine to Yvette (Jake being a demon), sounds a nice fella!!

Flitting quickly back to the previous night when poor Kath got chosen to spend the night in the hauted bedroom, the report from that eve is the guess what...Ms Fielding was not present with her...thanks m8. Generally nowt happened at all, just Kath getting jumpy over nothing.

OK back to night 6. Bill came up with some pretty impressive info.

The Cellar. Now I have a question here. All the references through the night were to 'a dark menacing figure, 'How do you know if you see a dark figure that its a menacing one??? There wasn't much going in in here so they left sound man there on his own....come on guys stop getting bullied by Yvette, be men, fight for your right to leave her down there for a change, preferably bricked up (bit of an Edgar Alone Poe twist to it there I think). I thought Carl was great, his little horns are starting to get bigger, he was winding EF up something terrible, he he. Hey I just thought maybe Carl is Jake?

The Haunted Bedroom: Yvette chose one person to stay in the haunted bedroom (as Kath did the night before) while Carl and herself went to the haunted well. Kath's entrusted friend and confident Yvette chose..... Kath again. We had the water works again, and then Kath like a lamb to the slaughter got back into the haunted bed.

The Haunted Well: The loving couple were lowered 60ft (more like 30) into an evil pit of dark dank horror. For once she didn't kick off. They replaced the grill at the top of the well and left the happy couple to their terrifying ordeal (help I'm sounding like Paul Ross). It didn't last long probably cos nowt happened. There was a lot of water falling in the well that could have made slight tapping noises. NOW There must have been a lot of people out there last night that thought the same thing as myself when EF shouted out 'OK guys you can get us out now please'. Did you shout at the TV? Did you? something like "Noooooooo, leave them down there" , well you bad, bad, people.

Now, back to bed. KO noted that the magnetic field was high on the bed and this could have caused the feeling of someone touching Kath's hair.

To finish they did a seance. Which spelt out 'father of Jake' surely not old Lucifer himself, its becoming quite a 'devils' family outing.

Finally to round the terrifying nights events Mr Ross announced that the Devil himself and his allegiance are after EF... 'Am I bovered'.

NIGHT 7 THE FINLE, Location, St George's Hall

This was it the final night, the culmination of all 6 previous night would bring together all those manifestations on one place. So that means were gonna get a lot of tapping, whistling and heavy breathing? I mean, Jakes not shown his bad side yet has he? Considering daddy is the most negative, evil, nasty power in the universe?

Tonight's experiment was 'White Noise' ( I love that film, don't you?).

They cracked off with a seance in the main hall, which spelt out 'son of Saturn' who was in fact a major Roman god of fertility, agriculture and harvest...hang on, is the most haunted or the harvest festival? I could not find anything on the net about Saturn's son ?

The audience could see a dark crouched shape on the organ area.

Next The Cellar: The team were left all on their little owny, no medium, or Keriann. Here they had a very impressive new Ouija board, there were loud knocks but I have to say it sounded as if someone was doing it with their foot (probably Carl). Yvette asked the spirit if hed been to heavan...'NO' he replied, hell by any chance 'YEP' hes probably even been to Sainsburys on his travels too. It was in fact master Jake, back on the tail of Ms Fielding, you got to give it to the poor devil hes been chasing her allllllll week.

But tonight's show had to go to Carl and Stuart finally being let of their leads to venture off on their own again, the best entertainment since them being nailed up into their coffins. Carl was wanting to do the military two step with Jake along with a duel too. Yvette was cacking her panties (please Yvette, too much info). Brian was hiking the fear factor up from the studio yet AGAIN. So Carl and Stuart finally mutinied and went off on their own only to run back, terrified that they had seen a crouched figure on all fours crawling towards them, Brian please have some dignity!!

So, after all the hype of the past nights of demons and dark terrifying shadows at the of the evening nothing really transpired except a few knocks and bangs. I have to say though I really enjoyed all the experiments, without them the show would have been hard to watch.

Most Haunted Live - Search for Evi, Nights 1 - 4

Well here we go again, batten down the hatches for another 7 nights of Most Haunted Live .We are being promised a show that over 6 nights will conjure up 6 types of ghosts ending, on the 7th night with the ultimate entity (mmm I wonder who THAT could be?). I shall as usual be making my beguiled comments on the individual nightly events. Will they finally find the 'Evil' they have been searching for for soooooooooo long? Will Brain Shepard actually come up with something concrete? Will Torvell and Beattie perform a rendition of Spooky accompanied by the ever lovely Screaming Banshees (now there's and idea)? Who knows? I really Hope Billy's back on the books again.

NIGHT 1 -IN SEARCH OF THE POLTERGEIST - St George's Hall, Liverpool

The first of the 7 nights in search of 7 types of ghost, tonight's was in search of the Poltergeist.
Good to see Billy was back on board as the visiting medium and was finally given a lengthy part towards the end of the show, in fact hes really taking the shine of Brian's credibility (if he has any). Brian did not come up with anything tangible, Mr Ross was having to feed him lines at the end of the show. Billy came up with a lot of information, most which can be found easily on the net. Never the less hes far better than Brian.

OK Ive had me winging session now, so back to the nights events. I was very happy to see the inclusion of more scientific experiments which Keriann took the helm off. The PK experiment was very interesting and we shall see how this evolves over the next 6 nights. I did like his explanation of the power of suggestion too, nice one. We will know doubt find out the results of the pendulum experiment tonight.

All in all I thought a very quiet night, a few things being thrown but I am sure very disappointing to the crew. Will be interesting to see what happened after the show finished!!!!

NIGHT 2 -IN SEARCH OF APPARITIONS - The Empire Theatre, Liverpool

A most entertaining evening. From the off KO picked up something strange on the thermal imaging camera, and Billy at last was included in the whole evenings investigation.

The main point of the show was set in a reconstructed Victorian seance, on the main stage in the auditorium. A series of cameras were arranged in a semi circle in front of the table, KO would then take still photos sequentially on EF command. I was quit impressed with this set up, the only thing was that you never saw a distance shot off everyone in the stage ie from one of the remote cameras, so we had to take their word for it that there was know one else with them.
Audibles inthe form of whispers, whistles, sighs and actual words were heard. As KO commented, theatres are built to amplify sound from the stage area, so some of these sounds could have emanated naturally from the building.

The Snug Bar - again the audibles heard here was 'yes' the crew felt very uneasy.

Billy came up with the names Georgy Wood, William Fish (who murdered the young girl called Emily) he also came up Henry Walls who was also a murderer , so which one actually killed The little girl????? bit confusing. He said that Spirit have no voice box's so cant speak easily, EF commented 'well how Can they say the word YES then' good comment, he replied that 'they can' so very confusing there Billy. So can they, or are cant they speak and how and what with???.

Brian put in his usually hammed up performance (apologies I am a little biased here), suggesting that the crew are being stalked and that 'He will kill again' who??? Henry of course. So that planted a bit if the old fear factor in peoples minds.

Poor Kath was summonsed by EF to be strapped in the 'execution' chair (as i would like to call it). And didn't she do well.

Carl was the next victim in the chair and he commented on not being able to breath very well and passed out for a couple o minutes. He also felt as if there was something around his throat and as if something was being held over his face, temporally. Again this could all be psychosomatic due to the suggestions made through the evening.

Once very interesting thing that happened under the stage in the corridor is that all the lights came on...when Stuart said they had been shut off at the main control switch. SPOOKY.

Once funny incident that crops up frequently is when MS Fielding gets left on her own. This time it was Carl doing the dirty work. Carl and EF were in the balcony together she threw a wobbler when Carl walked off and lefter her for a few minutes. Well Ms Fielding 'if you can stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen' LOL.

I enjoyed the evenings events, it was good entertainment (as always) but its refreshing to see them taking an interest in techniques used in a certain time frame ie the Victorian seance, and the Tessler machine used at Denbigh. The audibles were very convincing but we never got a birds eye view of all those present so we have to trust that they are not setting these things up... which is hard to do.

NIGHT 3 -IN SEARCH OF LOST SOULS - Stanley Docks Warehouse, Liverpool

What a hilarious eve we had. The only 'devil' to be found was in master Beattie, the look on his poor forlorn wife when he announced that he had set up a secret experiment was just gold. I was rubbing my hands with anticipation to find out what this naughty boy had schemed up. Brian was placed firmly back into the medium seat and I shamelessly add failed yet again at coming up with anything worth listening too at all.

So last night they were in search of those poor bedevilled souls who are entrapped between this world and the next, not knowing they are dead, locked between 2 worlds. Were given the impression that there were dark entities slithering around in the dirt and Meir of the basement.

Interestingly this was the first vigil/location that KO had gone into cold.

Most of the vigil was centred in the basement of the old warehouse which had been used as a morgue in the 2nd WW (well I'm assuming it was the 2nd as they didn't tell us) and lots of body snatching, this shot up the warning signals, "mmm (I thought) what do they usually do when they are in a morgue!!!!"

Lots of hamming up from Brian and suggestion to fester the fear factor for Ms fielding (it never fails does it) especially when the seance spelled out 'KILL ME' well i near lost the will to live. THEN came Pièce de résistance when Carl announced his secret experiment. Well I was jumping for joy.

CARL'S BRILLIANT SENSORY DEPRIVATION EXPERIMENT:

He gave out numbered cards face down on the seance table, and asked the 'spirit' to choose one for each member. The last one left was for KO.

He then asked them all to follow him to the morgue area (o'er), where there was a coffin for each member (laid out in a circle). Each had a camera in the top and their corresponding number. Once they managed to get Ms fielding into the coffin, the lids were NAILED shut, yeeha how good was that. The Tessler generator was back and quickly swtitched on heighten the fear.

This was a great experiment spoilt yet again my Ms Fielding throwing her dummy down, everyone else got into the spirit (excuse the pun) of the experiment, but not Yvette. Shes very quick to dish the dirt out but does not like it when she has do it.

Stuarts lid was lifted up and down and you could hear knocks and scratches on the coffin lids. The only problem was we needed a wider angled view, someone could have easily been making the noises and those in the coffins could easily have misinterpreted them as coming from their coffins. In a situation like this your mind will play unmercifull tricks on you. I am interested in what KO thinks about this experiment tonight and would like to see it done again as a controlled experiment but with KO in charge.

The most horrible occurrence of the night was (in my opinion) Yvette spitefully asking the spirits to do things to Julian, you cold clearly hear it in her voice 'Go on, go on DO something to Julian', who was chosen (sorry) ordered, by Yvette to join them and go in the coffin..... may I add... ALONE (OK i don't mean IN the coffin alone). Give the man a gold star, I thought he did extremely well indeed. Especially when they did a seance on top of his coffin... nice one, I liked that.

NIGHT 4-IN SEARCH OF VOICES FROM THE DEAD-
Central Library, Liverpool

This was a very difficult location for the crew and team to investigate due to the ecoustics of the main dome area. We all know Ms Fielding loves the sound of her own voice but this was amplified by the echo reverb within the domb.

Lots of tapping and breaths accompanied by the whistling too.

An excellent Radio Frequency experiment re-created faithfully by KO with 3 telephone extensions and a reel to reel (now that takes me back) tape recorder. EF was tryinet to telephone the dead, unfortunately know knowone was home!!!!

When the team relocated to the stacks. Book titles were chosen for the spirit to push them off the shelves, which happend very quickly indeed, the first 2 were as requested, but the remaing 3 were random, so our spirt did not want to play ball.

Not much else happend that I thought would be of interest to any reader. Apparently things kick off back at St George's Hall (but I had fallen asleep by then) when apparently 'something' followed the team back Shapes, faces, disembodied figures were are reported by teh audience and crew. KO commented that statistically 1 out 10 people int the audience saw something... shame a I fell alseep the.