Beagles Lighting, Grimsby
Ever had one of those nights where you think it's going to be the same old nothing happening and then everything happens? This night was one of those.
We'd heard about this place through word of mouth and then saw a lot of media interest in the place so were naturally wary about it. We went in very sceptical, not expecting anything to happen...blimey were we wrong!! We decided not to read any of the press reports that had been done on the place beforehand so we weren't influenced in any way. We also took along a 'sensitive' called Michael.
A lot seemed to happen throughout our time there so I will place the individual reports up here.
Sarahs view
We arrived at the lighting shop at around 9pm and began setting up the equipment as usual. Then the owner of the shop took us on a guided tour of the building, showing us the different areas, and pointing out which places had been paranormally active. She didn't give any details away however, as she said she wanted to see what we came up with.
As soon as we arrived in the top floor front room, ( a large space used for storage with particularly big windows overlooking the street) Michael immediately picked up on the fact that two people, a man and a woman, had been seen looking out of the windows and staring across the street. The owner told him that was correct, and Michael went on to say that he felt they were looking across at the opposite road which had been bombed in the second world war, and that they were shocked/upset/disorientated.
We decided to set up the IR alarms either side of the left hand window and to leave a locked off camera on it. We then moved on to look around at the rest of the building.
After setting up the rest of the equipment, we then decided to try a small séance in the front upstairs room. Michael decided not to join in as he didn't want to 'influence' anyone's thoughts/senses. The séance passed without any real evidence as such, but some people did feel a column of cold air in the middle of the circle, (as if someone was standing there,) and Jeff felt as if someone was standing behind him and making the floorboards bounce. Garry also felt light-headed and had a craving for a pint of Tetleys, which was interesting as the owner said that one of the spirits seen was that of a man who used to frequent the pub across the road quite a lot.
I felt as if there was a child running around and I had some nursery rhymes 'pop' into my head for no reason. 'Ring a ring of roses' and 'Sing a song of sixpence'. The shop owner said I was correct as there had been a child seen/sensed by other people before.
We then split up slightly and I was advised by the shop owner to go and sit on the sofa in the back room upstairs to see what I felt. I did so and filmed a little bit, but caught nothing of interest. I felt quite lonely sitting looking out of the window and had a sense of being deflated/anticlimatic but I put this down to the fact that nothing out of the ordinary happened. I left the room and went downstairs to join the rest of the group.
Later on we all went back to that room and the owner said that whenever they sit on that sofa they get a fit of the giggles. Clare had also sat alone there and had a very strong feeling of sadness and despair so interesting that it was two entirely different feelings from each group. We all held a seance in the room, and Michael picked up on a woman who was extremely depressed, who sits and cries and looks out of the window. He felt he was getting answers from the woman to each of my questions during the seance, and interestingly, Clare was getting exactly the same information. The woman was very depressed and wanted to be left alone. We didn't capture any evidence on camera or tape however.
After we left the room I was standing talking to Michael and Garry when I saw someone move in the doorway to the room. It looked like they were peering round the frame to look at us and then when I caught their eye, they moved around the door and out of sight. I couldn't see them very clearly because it was dim in the room, but it was definitely an adult. I immediately went to check and there was no one there at all.
The rest of the evening passed without incident for me personally, although other members of the team had interesting experiences. The main thing that has stuck in my mind is the quiet. For a building filled with wooden floorboards and cabinets that almost certainly should have creaked as they expanded/shrunk it was deathly silent the whole night. We usually experience some noises as the building settles but this was absolutely silent.
Clares view
Investigation started normally, we all had a look around and Michael came out with a lot of stuff about the place and what it was before that was right, and about other spirits which were said to be in the place.
The main point of interest in my case would be in the upstairs room about half way through the night, I went and sat on the 2 seater sofa in the back upstairs room and sat looking out the window getting the feel of the room for a while, gradually without me even noticing I found myself feeling completely depressed and that life was completely hopeless and that I couldn?t even be bothered to do anything but sit there staring out the window ( I was feeling fine before this, so they were completely strange feelings). I also found myself disliking Michael for no real reason, other than I didn?t trust him and didn?t want him near me (before this I had nothing against the bloke at all!)
I eventually moved myself to join the others, but the feeling was still there very strong and all I wanted to do was go home.
Not long after this we did a séance in this back room, where Michael said there was a very unhappy woman who would look out the window who was now sat on a bed in the corner.
Everyone attempted to contact the woman, during this I kept feeling more and more annoyed that she was being disturbed, and angry that she should be left alone and stop annoying her, trying to make her do stupid things like bang on a wall, with all that she was going through, and how could people be so thoughtless.
I have never ever felt like this before during a séance.
Michael then asked us to leave and told us he had sent her to wherever he sends them.. though I felt this was not the case, that she was still there, just moved away from us for a while, and she would soon be back in her usual place.
These feelings took most of the night to disappear, but didn?t go completely until we left and were in the car.
Other interesting things, As I was looking at the back door downstairs, I saw the latch lift up half an inch, then go back down again.. I then tried to recreate this, but the latch is quite stiff, and cant be moved up and down that easily.
Later while at the same door with Garry, we both clearly saw the whole door rattle like someone was pushing and shaking it.
While me and Garry were upstairs seated on the sofa, we both clearly heard what sounded to me like a woman?s high heels on the metal floor in the other room, walking across it.
(also noted the feelings I'd had before on this sofa didn?t seem to really come back with someone else there)
Normally I would have loved every minute of this investigation, but I couldn?t seem to shake the feeling of depression and wanting to get out.
Garrys view
We got to Grimsby and started unpacking all the gear, I went around doing the baseline tests and strong readings from the EMF came as no surprise due to the amount of lighting in the place downstairs (well, it IS a lighting shop after all!). Upstairs there were only readings from close up to the small amount of lighting as you would expect. Unusually for a place with so many wooden floorboards, they didn't creak much at all underfoot.
Pretty early in the night Michael was telling us all what the shop used to be before, going back years and years and apparently the info he was giving was right. It used to be two houses at one point but has been used for a lot of things over the years.
We held a quick 'séance' upstairs and at one point I was 'miles away', I didn't feel as if I was with the rest of the group at all sitting there, I felt light headed and thought it was all amusing for some reason. A bit later on I felt the strong need for a pint of bitter - we never drink before or during investigations - maybe this was because there was a pub just over the road?
Sarah had spotted someone 'peering' round the door a bit later on but when we checked, there was no-one in the room at all, Sarah was pleased to have seen something!
Clare started to feel depressed later on and said she didn't know why.
We had a break for cups of tea and I was left on my own in the downstairs part of the shop, I heard the laptop make a noise to my left so I looked round at it...just then a big heavy sliding door that's inbetween the shop and the storeroom started to rattle violently as if someone was pushing and pulling it. I grabbed my camera and it stopped. At first I thought the back door was open and wind was causing it to shake that way but on walking over to the door I noticed that the back door was closed and latched and there wasn't any wind either at that point. I checked how hard the door would have to be shaken that way and I really had to grapple with it to do it. I went back and finished my cuppa before telling everyone else about it...feeling pretty pleased that something had happened. I also noticed that at the time of the door shaking, one of the temperature sensors we use for our data logging system had shut down for around 4 minutes - this was right in front of me near the till in the shop, so there was no reason for it turning off, it was around 7 feet from the receiver. (This goes into a laptop and no other sensors had malfunctioned at all)
Later on, Clare told me that she'd seen the back door do something similar but the latch had also lifted up. We tried to recreate it but it had to be pushed quite hard to do this and the latch was fairly stiff to lift gently. We were about to walk away from it when it started to shake on its own - there still wasn't any noticeable wind outside at the time. I started to record with my camcorder but it had stopped as soon as I did. (typical!)
Even later on, Jeff decided to go down some blocked off stairs to see what would happen, if anything. I joined everyone else downstairs and was talking when I thought I saw Jeff coming down the main staircase into the shop (open wooden ones) I could clearly see a pair of legs coming down at least 4 of the stairs but I stopped mid sentence and looked up at where they had been as they had just vanished! A shop worker who had stayed with us and was sitting on the bottom of the stairs said "I just heard that", I asked her what she'd heard and she said "Someone coming down the stairs". I told her I'd seen the legs and if they'd carried on walking down I'd maybe have seen the rest of their body as well.
I caught up with Jeff later (who hadn't moved from his position down the other stairs) and he said he'd caught something interesting on his camcorder. We watched it back and are still trying to work out what it is on there (it will be available here very soon)
I sat on the sofa in the upstairs back room and all felt calm. I was joined by Clare later on and we heard what sounded like someone walking in the other room, I went to check this and no-one was in the area at all.
A bit later on we wrapped up what was probably the best investigation we've done to date. There was nothing 'spooky' about the night at all but there was always a sense of something going on - remember that we went into this one completely sceptical about it all. I thoroughly enjoyed this night and it was a privilege to see things.
Do I believe that it was the dead? I'm still not sure, but whatever was causing these things to happen was very interesting.
Here's hoping for more eventful nights like this.