Last night (Hallowe'en) I went to Alton Towers to take part in the Hallowe’en Ghost Hunt. Alongside Fright Nights & Derby University Psychology unit, they were hoping to stage the world’s biggest ghost hunt.
I’ve never been to Alton Towers before. We arrived in the dark as the dregs of the last day visitors were leaving and it was decidedly creepy though not in a supernatural sense. The park was dark but the piped fair music continued to ring out for invisible visitors. That made it feel like the set for a slasher-psycho movie. Or I felt that Chevy Chase may jump out – I was having flashes of National Lampoon’s Vacation.
As we were let into the closed down park the thing that really put the hairs on the back of my neck up was the thought of being their in the height of summer, marauding children and the intermingled smell of friend onions, candy floss and vomit. That made me shudder.
Thankfully I was there for the far less scary paranormal. I'll take ghosts on before children any day of the week.
Sadly it appeared a lot of people had bought tickets under the illusion it would be a party but it was organised as a proper ghost hunt. Sadly with lots of ‘punters’ running, screeching and laughing you were never going to get a truly spooky experience.
There was a psychic fair with stalls, crystals, tarots, readers and mediums. Outside was the most wonderful experience, a falconry sanctuary were present with the most beautiful rescue birds on display. One was a European Eagle Owl. She was huge, with a 6foot wing span. I was allowed to hold her, so put on the leather gauntlet and braced myself as the handler lowered the bird onto my forearm – what a shock. She was so light! She is six months old and ways just over 4lbs and will probably reach a maximum weight of 6lbs – far lighter than my moggies! A beautiful creature.
We took part in the record attempt – groups of visitors were taken into a series of three rooms which now make up the Hex ride. We had to stand in a long queue as each group went through. I don’t know exactly how long we were in the queue but it felt a bit longer than eternity as we were subjected to the utter hell of banal wittering from a group of four girls behind us. I had to live through their f*cking love lives and f*cking families and f*cking bad parties and f*cking wedding plans. Though it was almost worth it for this snippet:
Girl 1: I was dead angry with my fiancée for downloading porn on my computer
Girl 2: What did he do that for?
Girl 1: Well he does live at home and their computer is in the living room so his mum would have seen.
Going into the ‘ghost hunt’ we were all given questionnaires and after five minutes in each room had to record if we felt anything. Yes, I felt it was a reasonable publicity stunt. Between women giggling and men stomping around the room any spirits wanting to contact us would need to have employed a brass band to raise attention.
Next we vebtured into the ruins of the stately home, visitors had 'free rein' of the ruins all night. Once again a lot of people were just trampling round giggling. In some of the rooms were mediums. We listened in on one and I was distinctly unimpressed. For the record I believe in the afterlife, I believe in the supernatural, I believe in mediumship but I also believe in cold reading and charlatans. I have experienced a lot of what would be classed as paranormal, as has my mother who had one of the most impressive experiences I’ve ever heard of.
She managed a dental surgery were there were a lot of odd occurances. One day she was checking out a patient when a 3 drawer (4ft), full filing cabinet lifted up from the ground about 2 inches and then tipped over. It weighed about 5-6 stone. Mum saw it as did the patient– that patient was the local vicar, now that’s what I call a witness!
Back to last night. This one medium went into a full ‘oh this spirit was disembowelled’ spiel and asked to leave as he didn’t feel well, all a bit am-dram for my liking. When the room was then empty and pitch black just mum and I stayed in there. If anything I got the sense of laughter in there. It was the butler’s pantry, perhaps the medium was channelling a chicken before it got stuffed.
I took, my attempt, at some atmospheric shots. This one (right) of a window was taken with no flash and no-one else in the room. Some people may think the clear white marks are ‘orbs’ but I think there is light interference from outside – what do you think?
We carried on round. And then we went into one room and I was ‘hit’ with the smell of pipe smoke, as was Mum, but once again nothing unnerving about the room at all, if anything I found it quite friendly. No-one was about with a pipe and no-one else commented on it when we were there.
I then went to take another ‘atmospheric’ shot, looking out of a window, which had no glass in it, out towards the other wing. As I took the shot I didn’t notice anything peculiar. The flash went off as normal. When I looked at the viewfinder I could see a white mist over it. So I immediately took another two shots, exactly the same but they were both
clear. I don’t have a similar ‘mist’ on any other photos and after 18months of using this camera, as the point and shooter I am, I’ve never had a ‘mist’ photo before.
So what do you think – have I caught a spook?!
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If St Peter were to bump into him in the street he might say ‘Hi Jesus, oh sorry mate you look just like someone I know." I think The Killers are referring to the traditional image of Jesus through Western art and therefore I will in future allow "He doesn’t look a thing like Robert Powell"
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