We are a team of Paranormal Investigators based in the city of Dundee, Scotland. The team was formed in 2006 and was the result of two separate Scottish teams joining forces in their search for paranormal phenomena. Purely a voluntary, non-profit making organisation, the team carries out investigations into alleged haunted locations in and around Dundee and sometimes further afield. There are 6 investigators in total, Katrina, our team organiser, and her sister, Natalie, co-organiser, who were once both very sceptical, preferring to look for rational explanations for things. The team was formed so that they could pusue their interest in the paranormal and meet others with similar interests. Then there is the rest of the team, Bozzie (Gordon, camera man extraordinaire), Mike ("wouldn't it be freaky if . . . "), his partner, Tori, the team sensitive/psychic ("I see dead people") and Steve (knows a lot about everything).
Tori had always had strange things happen to her. Being sensitive and seeing spirits had become just a way of life. Mike and her had a poltergeist at home, which would open cupboard doors, move things and make loud noises. Often they would feel a breeze as if someonehad walked past and turn only to find nobody there. Soon afterwards, Mike and Tori had bought a new house but it was not long before strange things started to happen again. One night they were sitting in the living room when something caught Tori's attention. She looked round only to see a man wearing a suit and hat (he looked like a character from an old gangster movie) walk past the doorway into the kitchen. Another spirit also made herself known. She was dressed in a tattered Victorian style dress which faded to nothing at the wrists so no hands were visible. She had longish hair and wore a head covering similar to a nun's habit except that the material was transparent. Scariest of all was the fact that she had no face! As she drifted through the house a long sighing noise could be heard.
Mike and Tori began to search for some answers as to what was happening. Numerous photographs were taken several of which showed anomalies which only posed more questions. Soon after discussing this with 2 friends, Gordon and Laura, the 4 decided to try to capture photographic evidence and video footage of the strange phenomena happening at home. This fuelled their interest further and one half of the future Paranormal Discovery team was formed.
Meanwhile, 2 sisiters, Katrina and Natalie, who had always had a fascination with the paranormal and who had been looking into what other groups had been doing with regards to paranormal research, decided to set up their own group. Their shared aim was to take things slowly, to learn and develop the relevant skills for investigation together and for all members to have an active role in the running of the team. After a slow start and very little interest they perservered with planning meetings. Most people who came along wanted a ready-made group where they could go out on investigations without having to put too much effort into the organisation themselves. And, of course, there were many time-wasters and hoaxes too. The organisers managed to carry on despite obstacles being put in their way, team members joining and leaving for various reasons, and have become stronger and more determined as a result. Finally in November 07, due to chance, the team met up with a nother team of four from Fife.
Laura, one of our former investigators, had been surfing the web and found an advert looking for people to assist in establishing a paranormal investigation team. The first meeting was arranged and it soon became clear that we all had similar interests, ideas and goals, although our paranormal experiences were vastly different. We all seemed to get on from the first time we met and it has been all go sice then !
A month later we were on our first investigation together at Balmerino Abbey, Fife. Little did we all know as we sat in that dark, frosty ruin what strange experiences awaited us on our journey over the next year and a half. Looking back it has been quite a journey. We have been to many different locations, which have ranged from the grand and stunning Castle Menzies to the piles of rubble and ruined cottages at Lawers deserted village on the banks of Loch Tay.
There is no shortage of alleged haunted locations in the local area. However, we only invetsigate places which are open to the general public and/or if we have permisison from the site owner to be there. It takes a lot of time and effort to find a suitable investigation location. Not all alleged haunted places are suitable as some are just too dangerous. We only investiagte places that we know to be safe and following a pre-investigation visit to carry out a risk assessment. For this reason all of our investigations are planned well in advance and not spur of the moment affairs. We also receive frequent requests from property owners to investigate their premises. However, due to the fact that we operate in our spare time and because some of the venues involve travelling time and may take several hours to investigate, we have to prioritise and actually have a 'waiting list ' at the moment.
One of our first investigations was of the 400 year old Lathones Inn, Fife. It was a stormy night and the noise from the wind rendered our audio equipment pretty much useless. There was very little activity and although there was one room that nobody really liked. There was nothing of interest caught on camera except the odd bright orb. But as in most cases, you don't know what you have really captured until you are home and all the footage has been viewed. This time, however, it wasn't something unexpected caught on camera which was discovered later. On this occasion Mike took home a souvenir of Lathones - 2 big scratches ! They had appeared on his forehead and neck sometime during the night' s investiagtion or on the way home. He was unaware of scratching himself or being scratched. The one on his neck was quite deep and it is not known how this could have happened without him being aware of it. The scratches were not there when the investigation started.
The actual investigation of a venue is only a small part of what we do. After finding a suitable venue, which is time consuming in itself, and gaining permission to access it, we also have to find out about what type of paranormal activity has been experienced there and Katrina will research into the history of the place. Our questionnaire approach has been invaluable in helping us achieve these goals and also by giving us an idea of the prevalence of paranormal activity in the local area. We then have to tailor the investigation to suit the location so planning is all important. For example, if there has been a history of objects moving in a particular area then we would set up "trigger objects" in the hope that if an object is moved we might be able to film it. To date we have not had any of our trigger objects move. Security measures are always put into place so that should an item move,we will be able to rule out any animal or human interference. Infrared beams are used to alert us of any warm blooded intruders. The objects are always filmed throughout the experiment and a voice recorder is simultaneously recording audio. Ultraviolet powder is sometimes used to lightly coat the objects so that any touchingof them by human fingers or animal conatct can be detected. The powder is easily transferred to hand, clothing,door handles etc and is visible under ultraviolet light. However, all of these measures can be in vain when it is not the desired object that moves as we recently found out at the Forest Hills Hotel in Auchtermuchty. Gordon, Mike and our assistant investigator, Paul, had just returned to the function room at the agreed time. Gordon approached the trigger objects on top of the bar to check for any movement. Just as he leaned forward to look, the glass door to the corridor suddenly swung shut almost hitting him in the face! This was witnessed by the other two men. What is strange is that this door had been wedged open and had slammed shut with the wedge still in place. The investigators tried to replicate this but could not without giving the door a hard push. Luckily for us, part of the door was in shot from the camera filming the trigger objects as is Gordon leaning over the bar.
The pre-investigation visit to a property is essential and another time consuming activity carried out by the team. If possible witnesses to any paranormal phenomena are questionned and the relevant areas examined. Times and dates are then booked for access to the building. Photographs will be taken at this stage and Tori will make a note of any areas she is especially drawn to or of anything else she senses at the property. She will sometimes then go home and draw a spirit person she feels is atatched to the venue or a diagram showing areas which she feels are 'active' and also worthy of investigation. This strategy proved to be very useful at the Auld Hoose in Tayport, Fife. Although activity was rumoured to have been experienced in both bars, Tori had been drawn to the back bar and drew a floor plan of the pub showing what she called "hot spots" based on her initial feelings. These areas did indeed tie in with what was experienced during the first night's investigation of the pub.
Only the women were present on this night and the investigation was eventful right from the start. The highlight, though, came afterwards when checking our audio and video footage. A loud male voice was recorded on two separate occasions and had not been heard at the time. This voice was almost dismissed as the landlord's until times were checked and we realised that he had left by the time the man's voice was recorded. A woman's voice was also recorded which was not any of the team members'. The EVPs have been scrutinised and no explanation can yet be found for them. A tuneful whistle was also recorde but this was slightly different as it was heard by the investigators who all agreed that it had come from within the room. As we have already said, we have encountered some strange things on this journey!
We are often aksed if we have been successful. Our usual answer is that this depends on what is meant by the word "success". Is success determined by gaining absolute proof of paranormal activity? Will we ever get that one piece of evidence that will shake the paranormal community and make us famous? We doubt it. Will we ever capture a full-bodied apparition on video backed up with audio footage and inexplicable temperature and EMF readings as well as a few witnesses ? Probably not. However,we have caughtstrange voices on audio, anomalies on video and photo, had a door shut suddenly for no reason captured on film, we have heard disembodied voices (some actually recorded) and laughter in the room with us, and we have all been touched or felt strange sensations during investigations. Would any of this be classed as evidence of the paranormal? No. It would seem that no piece of video or audio clip will be good enough. There will always be people out there who doubt the authenticity of what is presented.
Do people wrongly think that success comes from "bagging" famous locations? Does that give a paranormal team status? Well, if that is the case then we have managed to do that but all of the smaller and less well known locations we have investigated, have been equally if not more interesting and worthwhile (all reports are available to view online). We have found that a small council flat can be as equally haunted as a huge castle.
Is success measured by how famous the team becomes or by how much money they make? Paranormal Discovery does not charge for its services and our advice is given freely. We do what we do because we enjoy it. That is not to say we are not serious about what we do or that we do not do things in a professional manner. However, enjoyment has to play a part or we would not carry on. We class it as a very expensive hobby, providing all of the team's equipment and sharing expenses between the 6 of us. We are not professional paranormal investigators, although some of us are educated to degree level and higher, none of us have a formal qualification in a related subject. However, we do try to behave in a professional manner and have a team Code of Conduct. We are all dedicated to the team and try to learn as much as we can tomake the most of what we do. We have pulled together to learn and share knowledge and hope to develop and learn together too. That is what is important to us.
So how successful hae we been? We have worked well as a team and become friends. We are not simply a group of like-minded strangers coming together for investigations. We have a strong bond, mutual trust and respect which no successful team could operate without. That, in our eyes, is our biggest achievement. We could also say that our aim all along has been to do what we are doing and to make our results and reports available for the public to view free of charge. So, if that is the case, then we have been successful in reaching our goal as our website and forum prove.
We still find it difficult to believe that it was only 22 months ago that Katrina and Natalie arranged their first Meet-up with a view to starting up a paranormal group. We asked a few questions and got advice when needed from other helpful teams. After a lot of hard work, we were soon on the journey to where we are now. We simply cannot believe how much we have learnt, experienced and accomplished in that time.
The future of the team is to do more with experiments. We aim to test various theories about how EVP are formed and to carry out some practical experiments on temperature and convection this year. So far we have carried out experiments into photographic anomalies with the aim of knowing what certain substances look like when photographed or filmed using our own equipment. We can then exclude certain items when anomalies are caught on camera during an investigation. We may not be able to prove what a certain anomaly is but we can deduce what it is not. We have also resumed our experiments into Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) this year. There are theories that people can improve can improve their abilities by doing certain developmental exercises and we hope to use selected tests to monitor our own abilities in clairvoyance, precognition, remote viweing and telepathy. It is also interesting to see if recent experiences we have had will have any bearing on our own development. Our forthcoming experiments should be all the more interesting now that Steve Douglas, physicist and electronic engineer, has joined the team to help and advise us.
Paranormal Discovery may hail from Dundee, the City of Discovery and home to Captain Scott's famous polar exploration ship, RRS Discovery, but we are focused on a different type of discovery: the journey to self discovery. All of the team members may share the same goal but the actual reasons for becoming interested in the paranormal vary from person to person, depending on their own unique experiences. All of the Paranormal Discovery team members agree on one thing : the journey so far has challenged our own personal beliefs and opinions about the paranormal. Katrina and Natalie, for example, have transformed from two very logical, sceptical people into believers of paranormal phenomena in just a few months. There have been too many little events, and a couple of bigger things too, which have happened to various members of the team lately, for them to think otherwise.This has included several 'telepathic' moments which have been real eye openers!
The following quote by Gelett Burgess seems very apt and sums up the team's "raison d'etre":
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead."
Written by Katrina Boitz and Tori Bruce
