First Investigation
Sunday, 8th October, 2006
Location
Balmerino Abbey was founded in 1229 by Queen Ermengarde, the widow of William the Lion, as a daughter-house to the Cistercian abbey at Melrose. She chose the location on the North Fife coast because of its mild climate and twelve monks arrived from Melrose led by Abbot Alan. They were known as 'white monks' because they wore a white habit together with a black scapluar (a sleeveless, belted tunic with a hood). Queen Ermengarde died in 1233 and was buried in front of the high altar (the site of which today is marked with a large, wooden cross). Her grave was desecrated in the 1830s when her remains were discovered - her bones were removed and apparently given or sold as curiosites throughout the country, while her broken coffin of white stone was used by a farmer's wife to sand her kitchen floor. The ghost of the green lady seen around the abbey grounds is thought by some to be Queen Ermengarde.
The Abbey was attacked by the English in 1547, was quickly repaired, and was then more seriously damaged in 1559 during the Reformation after which it rapidly went into a state of decline. Mary Queen of Scots did stay here, however, shortly afterwards in 1565, and more than likely resided in the Abbot's House as a guest of Sir John Hay, the first Lay Commander of the Abbey. In 1605 the estates were granted to Sir James Elphinstone, first Lord of Balmerino. In 1936 the Abbey was handed over to the care of The National Trust of Scotland.
The main structures still standing are the walls and vaulting of the sacristy, chapter house and parlour, together with parts of the lower walls of the north transept of the abbey church - this area is fenced off and inaccessible as it is undergoing stabilisation work. Parts of the north wall of the nave of the abbey church also survive, and in the north-east corner of the site the cellar of the abbot's house remains as an ivy-covered mound. Nearby is an ancient Spanish Chestnut tree, one of the oldest in the country at over 500 years old.
The Investigation
Investigators in attendance
Katrina
Natalie
Eric
Warren
Outside conditions
Moon: full
Weather: overcast, slight drizzle, south-westerly wind
Temperature: approximately 12C - variable due to mild wind
Equipment Used
Camcorder: nightvision Sony HI-8 analogue
Digital Cameras: Sony cybershot 3.2mp & Lumicron LDC4013 4.1mp3
Digital voice recorder: Olympus VN96OPC set at high quality recording
In/out thermometer: Thermomark
Infrared thermometer: Calibeur IR101 with temperature range of -20 to 200.c
EMF meter: Electrosensor with detection range of 50-60Hz & display range of 1.334-30 milliGauss
Investigation Report
18.40 Arrive at venue. Base recordings taken.
19.00 Move on to Abbot's House. Natalie experiences headache/pressure in head and nausea. Katrina also has headache and tightness around head. No EMF detected. Temperature 11C.
19.06 Start voice recorder in Abbot's House. Group leaves Abbot's House and heads towards main ruin, the Chapter House. View outside of ruin for few minutes (east wall facing Abbot's House) then walk round northern wall to back of ruin or western side where cell is located.
19.12 Warren's camera malfunctions outside cell - focus not working. Katrina's camera also stops working - battery was fully charged before investigation.
19.25 Arrive at South Apse or Transept on right hand side of altar cross. Group sits on bench facing south side of main ruin.
19.35 Temperature 13.4C. Katrina experiences headache and tightness around back of head. Pale-coloured fox-sized animal (?dog) seen crossing from vicinity of Abbot's House to the north side of the main ruin. Stopped halfway across at another bench before moving out of sight behind ruin.
19.41 Humming recorded in Abbot's House.
19.45 Group arrives in front of stairway on west side of ruin. Temperature 11.8C. Eric gets goosebumps at cell doorway. Keeps being drawn back to doorway over the next few minutes. There is noted to be no windows visible in cell and doorway is below ground level down three steps.
19.55 Decide to go back to Abbot's House due to rain becoming heavier.
20.00 Arrive at Abbot's House. Katrina commences video recording (in darkness).
20.19 Mist appears in video followed by light anomaly.
20.25 Leave Abbot's House and go over to main ruin.
20.30 Katrina's camera again malfunctions at doorway of cell and Warren's camera still not working so Eric takes film of doorway on his mobile phone and captures rod of light moving from left to right of screen. Figure in doorway also appears on film.
20.45 Investigation completed
EVP
We captured an EVP with the digital voice recorder left in the Abbot's house. We left the recorder running while we did a walk round outside. It was placed on the ground behind the boulders shown in the photo below with the microphone resting on the middle boulder. We can hear what sounds like someone humming a tune. We have worked out where the team members were at the time of the recording at 19.41. The voice recorder did manage to record our voices for some of the time even though we were outside and quite a distance away. None of us can remember anyone singing or humming and do not recognise the voice as any of ours.
As far as being evidence of paranormal activity: it could be argued that a passerby had been the culprit as the location was not secured and accessible to anyone. However, at the time of the recording we were all across the grass or making our way towards the main ruin (looking for the ?dog we had seen but we never did find out where it had gone). The Abbot's house would have been in full view. The humming on the tape sounds as if the person was quite close to the machine. Any person in the vicinity would have been seen as it was very dark and a torch would have been required to get about and we would have noticed. Also, due to the wooded areas around the house we feel that we would have heard someone approaching, eg. twigs snapping, rustling etc.
Review of Findings
Video taken in the Abbot's House at the Abbey. Note the unexplained white mist that appears in the bottom right hand corner. This is followed by a small particle, perhaps a hair, that floats from right to left. As yet we have no explanation for the mist.
There was no-one to my right or behind me. We had been filming in darkness using nightshot. 5 minutes or so before the mist appearing we had asked for ny spirit present to show themselves if they wanted to. We had also been discussing the absence of animal movement/noise within the Abbot's House. The mist appears when no-one is talking and was not witnessed at the time. The camera was being held in my right hand and I was sitting on a low boulder alsmost at ground level. The mist must have come up from the floor area. We have ruled out smoke, steam, breath or dust as a source of the mist. The temperature in this area was too warm for it to have been caused by our breath. Also, earlier in the video Natalie is seen to stand up and all the dust etc dislodged by her movement flows in the opposite direction, ie. from left to right and was recorded. There were two doorways to the house, both to my left. There was one window to my right which was overgrown with trees and ivy and was situated about 6 feet up the wall. We even felt the need to return a week later to examine the area again in case we had missed something. However, we still do not have any explanation into what caused the mist.
Photos and video
Further interesting video footage has been taken by Eric on his mobile phone. As mentioned in the report, cameras had failed outside the cell doorway. On impulse, Eric took out his phone to take picture but had inadvertently recorded on video. The result was two separate rods of light plus what seems to be a figure moving across the doorway in the background.
We experimented a little to see if we could replicate the light rods and managed to create some similar, although not identical, rod shapes by walking in front of the phone with the small light on the camcorder lit. On our second visit, Eric decided to try the same again and took some video of the doorway again. Interestingly, there seems to be the figure of a woman in the doorway. Photos taken at the same time do not show up any anomalies. We are still trying to prepare the video or get a still shot of the figure to add to the site.
The photo above is a close up of an orb filmed by one of our investigators, Eric. The orb appeared in front of the altar cross and was filmed using night vision mode. It was noteworthy as it seemed to be self-luminescent and its movement was unusual. The orb appeared to be circling Eric, moving behind him, then reappearing in front of him again. Still shots of this orb show that it has a comet like tail. Please feel free to comment on this picture on our forum. We would like to know what other people see.
Entrance to cell.
Area in Abbot's House where mist is seen on the video (by smaller rock on the left at the back of the photo).
Picture showing location of Abbot's house. The mound at the back centre of the photo is the overgrown roof to the Abbot's house. The fence in the foreground is the enclosure of the main ruin. This is where the team were when the humming was recorded from the digital recorder inside the Abbot's house.
