Blog

Great building. Interesting art and photographs. Still could not make me feel comfortable in the Ilott rooms. Thanks it was fun.

A fun night, with a fantastic building to investigate. For me, there was nothing that stood out as a paranormal experience. I did however feel that there may have been something present on the main stage, or looking down from the balcony. A great experience, thanks to everyone involved! Helen.

Pleased to find that in the wee small hours, when the need for sleep got really strong, I didn’t start to imagine things. Nothing conclusively paranormal occurred, in my opinion, but an interesting investigation nonetheless. Jo.

More video footage from the investigation.

Pat’s photo in Town hall auditorium, looking to gallery. We’re about to go check out that area. Jo and Helen have just come from there, Tweeting a ‘feeling of panic’. Time for the boys to take a look…

Pat getting arty by accident. Beautiful effect, probably caused by camera in night scene mode, maybe up to 2 secs exposure causing light trails from the lighted Exit signs. There’s also a fat juicy dust orb in the middle to complete the composition. Nothing supernatural about any of this, but it is in one of the areas we’re mainly interested in.

Funny thing, the creepiest, most hidden, claustrophobic, dusty & dirty spaces we’ve found are actually the least scary to be in. It’s the big empty open voluminous rooms that are behaving the strangest.

The Ilott Theatre has certainly been a place of interest for ghost hunting. We’ve heard a number of stories about unexplained occurrences there. A number of trigger objects were left in the theatre for a couple of hours, but on returning there was no sign of movement or activity.

Three of the ghost hunters then remained in the theatre for a period of time. We sat with the lights dimmed. There were 4 or 5 instances where we heard what seemed like the sound of the door into the Ilott opening and closing, and then what could have been the sound of footsteps (heels on a tiled surface) in the corridor leading into the theatre. Each time we thought it was one of the other team returning, but no one entered. My impression was that the sounds were of the settling of a building, but they certainly did sound like steps. An additional point to note is that the area leading to the theatre is all carpeted – generally the sound of footsteps doesn’t carry.

The rest of team returned and we all sat in the dark theatre for 30 minutes. There were lights showing under the main door and under the exit door at the bottom of the theatre. They both turned off after around 10 minutes, behaviour consistent with a timing switch. However, after a further 10 minutes, both lights came on again. And a further 5 minutes later, the top light went off. We don’t have a view yet on what may have caused this, but it certainly seemed a little strange.

Some new photos up of a walk around the auditorium and basement spaces earlier in the evening. Check them out on the FullCodeGhost Flickr site.

Almost five hours into the investigation. Here’s a slice of the action so far.

While sitting with Jo and Helen on the stage in the main auditorium, we heard rustling, so I took a photograph in that direction. I imagined I could see a shadowy figure coming up the side stairs of the stage. Very exciting on the small screen, but up large could be explained by shapes of the door behind the plastic. But it still looks good!

The team uses non-contact thermometers to take temperature readings at a distance, looking for possible cold spots in a room. The theory is that any entity would draw energy from the atmosphere and a cold spot may appear which could be felt physically.

The team would take readings of the room temperature initially before the investigation for comparison. During an investigation, if there is a cold spot in a room that is not easily explained another reading will be taken.

The readings from instruments such as the thermometer help to provide scientific evidence to back up any other observations. The thermometer readings provide objective evidence that the space is indeed colder.

Helen with a non-contact thermometer

We set up trigger objects in the Ilott chamber and added video to watch them. If anything has been moved the evidence will be viewable. The objects are items that may be attractive to a “spirit” , the objects are relatively light and therefore may be moved easily.

Mark setting up the cameras for the trigger objects