short, scary Ghost Stories home | Classic Ghost Stories
WANTED short, scary ghost stories - fiction or factual - for publication on this site. If published, we will be happy to list author's biographical details and a link back to your Web site. Copyright will remain with authors. Send submissions/outlines to abracad.
ABC Cinema Paranormal Investigation
- An overview by Neil Trigger
www.magic2k.com
It began as things like this tend to - with a few spooky events disconnected with the place we were planning to visit.
A light bulb blew in my living room, which, in itself would not be too strange - light bulbs blow all the time right? In the home of Mark Williamson, one of the Managers of Magic2k and an electrician by trade, the living room lights began to flicker. The BBC cameraman in attendance, Johnny Rutherford, revealed later (without prior prompting or communication about this matter) that a light had blown in his own house, but just put it down to bad installation of the bulb. However it did set the scene nicely.
It was probably the coldest day of the year so far. 2005's first heavy snow fall, with hundreds of people in Cornwall being stranded - a fitting beginning for a paranormal investigation.
Magic2k, in conjunction with the Evening Herald set out to investigate strange goings on at Plymouth's ABC cinema, one of the oldest buildings in the South West's war-ravaged city.
The ABC Cinema stood during the Blitz, but in those days was known as "The Grand Theatre". Many great actors and actresses have played there. Since the war, the Grand became a cinema and still houses one of the original pipe organs used for silent films (though it's sadly un-playable).
Because of the longevity of the building and the multitude of people passing through the doors, we were hopeful that there would be some good activity there, but what we saw, felt and heard, when far beyond what we expected...
From an initial tour around the property with one of the three mediums, readings and impressions were beginning to come in thick and fast.
Whispering was heard on the staircase to one of the screens and 3 males were being communicated with by the use of a crystal pendulum, with the promise that they would manifest phenomenon later that night. We were not disappointed!
Later in the evening, we held a pitch-black vigil in screen 2, reportedly the more "active" screen. We were only sat for mere moments before spirit lights or orbs bagan to shoot across the curtain which hung in front of the cinema screen. These lights continued through what was to happen next.
Calling out, Loreen, one of the mediums recieved impressions of a young girl called Jessica who was scared of a more sinister man. Loreen suggested that Jessica was able to cause the icy blasts, whistling sounds, whisperings and singing that were experience by every member of the group. There were bangs in the locked projection room, though nobody was allowed access to it and some of us even felt something touch us on our arms, back, neck and hands. Even the most ardent skeptics would be hard-pushed to dismiss all of the evidence that was received by the group in this short space of time, many of us saw a small girl walking toward us, shooting off soft "sparks like glitter".
One female participant saw a "bright white light energy floating gently up the isle, she was wearing a bonnet and looked beautiful. She disappeared via the exit behind us, where people had reportedly seen orbs".
The table tipping experiment which we conducted in screen 1 was sadly unsuccessful, but this proved to me that the team was reliable enough as not to manifest anything which was not there. We were all prepared to accept that it did not work, without feeling it necessary to artificially produce some mock-evidence. We felt that this strengthened the evening.
All in all it was a very enjoyable evening. Whether ghosts exist or not, my opinion has changed and that some things which I thought could be easily explained as trickery or hallucination can, at times, prove a little harder to dismiss.