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joined the Lincs Paranormal Research Team for an investigation at
the County Assembly Rooms in Bailgate, Lincoln.
The Lincs Paranormal Research Team was founded in 2003 by Garry Ross.
The group is made up of a variety of different people, some believe
in the paranormal while others are more sceptical. The team's aim
is to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts, haunting or paranormal
activity. They carry out investigations around Lincoln two or three
times a month using state of the art equipment.
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| Katy
spent the night at the Assembly Rooms |
I went
on the investigation with an open mind but I was quite sceptical about
the whole experience and was looking for firm evidence to change my
mind. However, I didn't know what I would do if I actually experienced
anything.
County Assembly Rooms was built in 1745 and is used for a lot of different
functions and also houses the local Freemasons lodge. There have been
a number of stories concerning the Assembly Rooms told by the staff.
One waitress spoke of seeing a Cavalier man in the doorway to the
ballroom and then he just vanished. Other waitresses are too scared
to enter the basement on their own as noises can be heard down there.
One of the Dining Rooms also used to be a card room where a lot of
murders occurred.
The Lincs Paranormal Research Team last visited the Assembly Rooms
in August and experienced strange occurrences such as a crate moving
in the corridor during a séance and one member of the team
felt something or someone touch her. I was hoping I would experience
paranormal activity like this during the investigation.
I met the group at 12am outside the Assembly rooms and by this point
I was feeling very apprehensive as didn't know what to expect. It
took a while to set up the equipment which included digital cameras,
dictaphones, thermometers and trigger objects, a cross and an eye
of Oris. These were drawn around and placed in different locations
with a camera fixed on them to see if they moved.
At 2.53am I took part in the first séance in the ballroom.
I have never been involved in a séance before so was very nervous.
It lasted about 25 minutes and four members of the group tried to
get in contact with any spirits in the room by asking them to move
objects or touch one of us, I was just hoping it wouldn't be me that
they touched. It was very dark in the ballroom and I found that my
eyes kept playing tricks on me and I thought I was seeing blurry shapes
that weren't there. I think this was due to the fact that I was half
expecting to see something but I wasn't quite sure what.
We did hear murmuring noises and the sound of what we believed to
be furniture being moved on wooden floor. I also got a cold shiver
along with some of the group at one point which was strange. When
we checked the equipment we found that some of the thermometers had
gone off. I was told that this only happens when a very strong draft
occurs, but there were no windows or doors open.
The door to one of the upstairs rooms was closed but when we opened
it to enter the room it felt like an ice block. The team seemed to
be very excited about this finding but I wasn't sure what to think,
maybe there was an opening in the room somewhere letting a draft in?
The outside light had also gone off.
At this point I was, however, starting to think that we could be sharing
the building with some sort of spirit and this scared me a little
and I was very wary about walking around the building on my own. We
carried out the second séance in that cold upstairs room at
3.45am but we only stayed for 15 minutes as nothing appeared to be
happening, maybe we had scared the spirit away if there was one.
Our last séance was at 4am in one of the corridors. Again we
tried to contact spirits and I even decided to try and speak to them,
this did feel strange and I felt a bit silly talking to something
that I couldn't see. In the next room we heard a noise, when we went
to investigate we found that the hot tap had been turned on. This
tap was very stiff and would have had to be turned with some force
to start dripping. The group believed this to be the biggest sign
of a spirit so far. A light by the doorway also turned on which startled
me.
At the end the group checked all of the equipment and found that no
triggers had been moved. However, there seemed to be noises on the
dictaphone. This could possibly be paranormal activity or a more rational
reason could be members of the group moving around.
Garry, however found that the camcorder wasn't in night vision mode
during the séance in the ballroom. He had put the camera on
night vision, then had it on standby to move it forward but it turned
off for some reason, which is weird because you have to switch it
out of night vision so maybe something didn't want us to see them.
Another camera in the corridor did the same thing and this uses a
touch screen through the menu to turn it on and off. The investigation
was extremely interesting and I did feel like there possibly was something
else in the building at some points, but it hasn't really changed
my mind about the whole paranormal debate as I need firmer evidence.
If anyone is interested in the paranormal then you can contact the
Lincs Paranormal Research Team and experience it for yourself on one
of their investigations. Their website is www.lincsprt.com.*
Good luck searching for the paranormal, I know I will still be looking.
(The
team are made up of: Loz Brough, Jeff Dewolf, Sarah Greenway, Clare
Jackson, and Garry Ross.)
*The
BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites
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