The Explosions Museum in Gosport is one of my favourite locations, it’s definitely right up there along side Peterborough Museum that’s for sure. I first investigated the location back in 2010 and what an investigation that was too. The location had reports of strange sounds, ghostly sightings and object movement. All types of activity that I wanted to try and understand and the Explosions Museum wasn’t going to disappoint me. This is why the Explosions Museum is one of My Top Ten Most Haunted Locations in the UK list. 

A Most Haunted Museum

The Explosions Museum or Priddy’s Hard Fort as it was originally known was completed back in 1757 and manned by the Army. 

After 6 years, 1777 saw the completion of the new powder depot for the Royal Navy. Then throughout the 19th Century further buildings were added including First Royal Laboratory Complex, C Powder Magazine, Shell Filling Rooms, Twelve Cartridge Rooms, and more. 

The site was fully utilised during the Second World War with the introduction of 2,500 women workers who filled jobs vacated by men on active service. The site was last used for significant naval activity during the Falklands Conflict in 1982, and was vacated by RNAD Gosport in 1988 when it relocated to Frater further north on the Harbour.

Currently the Priddy’s site is home to a Museum which opened in March of 2001. Explosion!, The Museum of Naval Firepower.

Paranormal activity at the museum is varied and has been found in multiple locations around the site. However, the main hotspots seem to be the Grand Magazine, C Magazine, Room 309, Room 316 and the infamous Admin Block. These areas have had reports of footsteps, objects being thrown or moved, ghostly sounds have been recorded, unexplained noises, battery drain and visitors have been touched on occasion. There has also been a few reports of ghosts being seen around the site too, reports which have been made by a few investigators I know well too.

An Explosively Haunted Investigation

We started by setting up our equipment and CCTV cameras around the site, using the Café as our HQ. Given the size of the site it wasn’t easy to cover the whole site, so we split cameras between where we could cover movement around the site and a couple of the hotspots. That way we could understand where the team members are at any one time, but still hope to capture evidence. We also gathered various readings from the main areas of the site by marking a baseline reading area with tape, that way the reading could be taken from the same location throughout the night. 
Given the size of the site and number of team members we had it made sense to split into two teams and cover more ground, but head to places that were a fair distance apart to avoid contaminating each other’s investigation space. 

My team headed straight towards the now infamous Admin Block, but before we even arrived Aaron’s digital voice recorder appeared to loose power suggesting a possible battery drain. At the time we ruled this out as coincidence. 

As we arrived in the Admin Block a couple of the team, myself include thought we could hear odd whispers in the distance, but again went for a more logical possibility of the sound being distant rain. However it was around this time that Kev’s digital voice recorder also lost power, which seemed a little more odd now. Something definitely felt strange! 

After a brief walk around we settled in one of the rooms on the Ground Floor and decided to try a little communication. We placed a KII meter on a chair and proceeded to ask questions out loud to the room. To our surprise, as the KII had never really given us much, we received what seemed like a few responses to out questions. Perhaps it was a spirit attempting to contact us? However as suddenly as it had began it stopped! For those of you that have visited the Explosions Museum, this was the room with the faded pentagram on the floor. 

During our next vigil we attempted the Ganzfield Experiment in the Grand Magazine and on this occasion Aaron was the willing participant who would sit as the receiver of any information from the other team members. We set him up all alone in the massive Grand Magazine, with the half ping pong balls covering his eyes a red lamp shining on his face and lovely white noise playing in his ears. In all honesty I think Aaron thought it was some kind of weird ritual to make him a team member! There was also a CCTV camera and voice recorder monitoring Aaron whilst we left him all alone for what probably seemed like all night to him, but was actually around forty five minutes. 

The rest of the team spent the vigil in the Big Gun room attempting to send information to Aaron, hoping that he repeat it and show telepathic communication between us. There were a few loose links to the information we were sending, but it wasn’t conclusive enough. However towards the end of the session Leanne asked someone to touch Aaron’s head and shoulders and within a few seconds he touched his face. 

Next up we returned to the Admin Block for further investigation and wasn’t disappointed either. Once again there were slight reactions on the KII, but equally footsteps were heard upstairs whilst the team were downstairs and in one room one investigator felt a short pain down one side and a little sick whilst sat in a particular arm chair. 

The final vigil took us back to the Grand Magazine where we attempted the Singapore Theory Experiment by means of playing sounds and music associated with the location. Strangely enough we did believe that we may have heard footsteps either in the Grand Magazine or outside the door whilst the experiment was running. Perhaps we stirred up some spirit activity after all. 

However it wasn’t until we had packed up and gone home that we discovered the most shocking piece of audio from the night. As Aaron reviewed the footage from his handheld camera he found a piece which had the most crystal clear ghostly voice I think I have ever heard. Incidentally none of the group present have an accent like the one in this piece of audio and it’s not associated with our current conversation either. Basically it wasn’t us and of that I am sure. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of banter, but from an unseen ghost, that’s just weird! 

Abusive Ghostly Voices 

Explosions Museum is one of my favourite locations and a very interesting place, which has me happy to return and return I will. The strange atmosphere, odd ghostly noises, voices, footsteps and sighted spirits that makes Explosions Museum one of My Top Ten Most Haunted Locations in the UK.   

Click here for the Explosions Museum investigation report..

Also, if you’ve ever visited or investigated the Explosions Museum, then I would like to hear about it too? Have you ever experienced similar activity as I did with my team?

Have You Ever Been To One Of My Top Ten Most Haunted Locations In The UK? Would love to hear your comments below.

I will be posting the ghost stories, and how our investigations went in future articles on this site. So, make sure you follow me on Twitter, or like my Facebook Page to hear the latest. Better still, so you don’t miss out on any spooky haunting stories, you can sign up for me free newsletter here:

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I’m always on the lookout for new locations, if you have one that you feel may make it on to next year’s list of my favourite most haunted locations in the UK, please let me know.

Also, if you run paranormal events I am interested in checking out the experience and event that you deliver to your customers. Invite me along and perhaps your event will make my top five paranormal events for 2016.