The D-Day Tour with Brian J Cano
This exclusive tour of three amazing haunted locations was put together by Sage Paranormal who worked extremely hard to book these locations and also manage to get Brian J Cano from across the pond into the UK. I think what’s also really important to note here is that given the locations, the presence of Brian J Cano and that there were limited numbers; for the price this was excellent value. Often with events such as these the numbers can be upwards of thirty guests attending and this in my opinion can simply ruin a good ghost hunt. Too many numbers equals too much location contamination and not enough of the hosts and special guests to go around.
Virtual hat tip to MJ Dickson and the Sage Paranormal team for putting together such a good package for a reasonable price.
Also, big thank you to Brian J Cano for coming over to the UK and making this such a unique event.
As you can see from the Sage Paranormal advert, the tour hit three amazing locations from the 3rd March to 8th March. Starting with Fort Horsted in Kent, then one of my favourites The Explosions Museum in Gosport and finishing up at Fort Widley in Portsmouth. Now that I have been to all three locations I can happily state that they are each well worth a visit, from a historical point of view and not just because they are all pretty cool. The Explosions Museum has also been a location I’ve returned to and never come away disappointed. The other two were equally interesting and I would certainly return at some point.
Fort Horsted Tour
I actually missed the first part of the night at Fort Horsted as I was stuck on the old M25 motorway, the joys of travelling. During this time I believe the guys at the Fort and Sage Paranormal kicked off with the standard Health and Safety talks, which is always good to know. It’s always good to protect yourself at these old locations and I am not talking about demons (Elizabeth), there’s plenty of hazards to be wary of. Suffice to say good job for covering this off.
Next up was a brief tour of the Fort, I say brief that’s a slight understatement given the size of the place.
The tour took us out of the HQ room for the night, which is room 52 on the map. We headed up the ramp towards S3 and Zone 3 to look at room 10 along the far tunnel. Without a light on these rooms were pretty much pitch black. We then headed back towards the HQ then along the main tunnel towards Zone 4 of the Fort where we explored a few of the rooms along that tunnel. In particular being room 14 on the map I think. Then we headed back down the same tunnel towards Zone 5 and room 36 at the far end. As the rest of the group headed back to HQ, six of us made the climb down and up the stairs to room 35. Within this room were some interesting pieces of graffiti, some of which date back to the war. I think it’s also important to note that there were obviously some quite talented artists back then too.
Following this the small group, feeling a little like we had been to the gym for a full on work out (yes that many stairs) headed back to our HQ and the rest of the group.
Full Team EVP Session in the HQ
Once we had recovered from the tour and warmed up a little thanks to (Grandma) the hot water machine, we sat around the table to attempt an EVP session. What I found interesting was that Brian first took us through a kind of back story, explaining the common approach to EVP’s and how as investigators we often become a little too clinical in our approach. We ask questions, leave pauses and hope for responses. However we often forget to approach from the human perspective, which in this instance was the lesson for the group. So, throw out what you, poor yourself a drink and have a relaxed chat with the probable spirits. Well sort of anyways. Oddly I do see the value in this approach too, as I have noticed that emotional connection can often increase activity.
As the group was relatively large the simplest approach to this EVP session would be to go around the table and ask one question each, leave a brief pause before the next. However rather than the clinical and morbid questions usually heard we would try to connect a little more on a one to one level.
It took a little while to get around the group, but as we did so we did become aware of a few odd noises we couldn’t place to begin with. Then as we got further around the table those at MJ’s and Elizabeth’s end of the table believed they saw movement outside the rooms door. Brian and Elizabeth setup REMPod on a chair which would be in Elizabeth’s line of sight. Once this was setup Brian continued with the questions.
Once this had been completed Brian used a loud-speaker to run through the EVP session and listen for any anomalies. Interestingly there were a few that we noted, but nothing that I would class as a crystal clear (Class A) EVP, but certainly interesting enough to mention. These ranged from some obvious sounds that seemed to fit when questions were asked to some possible responses that some of the group recognised as words.
Psychic Projection EVP Experiment
Next up Brian decided to give a psychic projection EVP experiment a go in our HQ room before we headed out into the rest of the Fort.
So, the basics for this experiment was to utilise the collective psychic ability of the group to project a key word onto a digital voice recorder, in this case Brian J Cano’s which was on the table in front of him. In order to do this we first picked a key word. Now as Brian, MJ, Liz and Elizabeth had been chatting about the Lord of the Rings for the last few days a good choice seemed to be the word ‘Gollum’. Just for the record, check out Liz’s impression of Gollum.
With the word picked, Brian set the time limit for sixty seconds and reminded us on this occasion we were not going to tag anything just focus on projecting the word ‘Gollum’ onto Brian’s digital voice recorder.
As we began the sixty seconds, MJ listened live on her device and we all sat in silence for sixty seconds. This seems like a great time to mention relativity, mainly as the sixty seconds seemed like a lifetime. It was an interesting sixty seconds that’s for sure. Also towards the end of it I noticed MJ smile as listened live to her device, which gave me a great feeling about this experiment.
Brian reviewed the sixty seconds of the experiment straight away using the speaker. As we listened, some of the group believed they heard the key word around the half way mark. There were a couple of noises, but unfortunately I couldn’t hear the word ‘Gollum’. However as we hit the fifty-second something mark pretty much the whole group agreed that the word could be heard.
This poses a very interesting question; when we conduct EVP experiments, are we actually picking up spiritual communication or could we be projecting information onto the device ourselves?
Whilst we pondered this philosophical (#paralosophical) question over a cuppa thanks to Grandma we also prepared for the first vigil.
A Little ITC App Time with Brian
My first vigil was with Brian J Cano in room 36 (map above) where we decided to give some of the ITC App’s on his iPad a go. In fairness Smart phone or tablet Apps aren’t really something that I have really looked in to, but not entirely ruled out. I have a bit of a personal conflict with the Apps because I work in IT. App’s are programmed and run using clever algorithms in order to provide results, so from my perspective I don’t know enough about them to fully understand them. That said it was interesting to see a couple in use.
On this occasion we started of by using an App called iOvilus, which was pretty much an app version of the popular ghost hunting gadget. Although it used an ’80’s robot voice’, I was sure that Johnny Number 5 was in the room with us, it was an interesting app.
Brian advised that he often likes to use a password to see if the probable spirits can communicate it through the app, as this could in a way provide better evidence of intelligent communication. In this particular case I believe we used the word ‘apple’ and I don’t think it was said. Although there were a few interesting things that came through.
We moved onto the EchoVox app next still using the same password and looking for further communication. This was slightly different from the iOvilus as it takes a sample and mixes it up a little before giving out sounds that make words rather than whole words.
I’m not going to go into detail about these Apps her as to be honest I don’t feel I truly know enough about them just yet and prefer to do a little research before giving you a better outline. A post for another time perhaps.
Suffice to say as our vigil came to a close I had certainly had an interesting and informative time looking at another aspect of tech that we could use. Certainly something I would like to look into in order to understand more about.
So, a little colder we decided to head back to our HQ room and grab a drink.
Live Listening to EVP with MJ
For our next vigil we headed it to room 14 with MJ to see what we might pick up, both on the gadgets and psychically. After the steep climb to the cold room we began to attempt communication. It wasn’t long before what I believe to be two distinct characters were picked up by the group.
The first was a military man, a little stocky perhaps and possibly a seargent. At least a similar rank. With this was also picked up a pain in the kidneys type area. In relation to this MJ captured a few little pieces of audio too, nothing crystal clear, but interesting. A possible story around the character was forming.
The second was a woman who was in great distress and possibly linked to an attack of some kind. There was an understanding that she may have fled through the Fort. Again the rough outline of a story regarding the character was there.
What was equally interesting was that those that could receive this information psychically seemed to be empathic to it too, feeling it as well as knowing it. This included feeling particularly rough whilst stood in a certain spot. Something which appeared to cross all groups with differing individuals.
An interesting vigil from a psychical point of view I think.
Pitch Black in Room 10 with Liz
For our final vigil we headed off towards Room 10, pausing at the top of the ramp to perform a brief vigil there too whilst exposed to the elements.
However it was during this time that we returned to the story of the woman picked up previously, it seemed odd and yet fitting. Liz and the others believed that she had fled through that way down the ramp.
Although the stories were similar I knew that we had recorded a brief piece of information on how this young lady looked at our previous location, so I tasked Liz with describing her. Admittedly Liz was honest to the point explaining she was moving fast so description was difficult. However as she ‘gave it a go’ one of the groups voice recorder began to play in their pocket, what was particularly odd was that this was the very description of the woman given in the previous room. It literally started at that point as Liz was about to try, that wasn’t the beginning of the recording either.
After this slightly strange sequence of events we decided to move onto Room 10 and try a little investigating there.
Once in room 10 with all our torches off it was literally pitch black. We attempted a little EVP took a few measurements of EMF and Temp, but nothing out of the ordinary really occurred. Although at one point I did think my wrist had been touched, but this could have equally been my coat. It was just too light and inconclusive to work with.
A little more colder and certainly tired, we headed back to the HQ room.
Round Up
All in all the Fort Horsted investigation with Brian J Cano and Sage Paranormal was a fantastic night enjoyed by all that attended. We had some interesting little pieces of activity throughout the Fort and I think we all learnt a little too. Brian and the Sage team ran a really good investigation, which was well structured, busy and also fun. At the end of the day if your going to freeze in a Fort you may as well have fun doing it.
This was a fantastic opener to the D-Day Tour and well received by those attending.
Good job guys..
I would just like to say thank you all; Brian, MJ, Liz, Elizabeth and everyone that attended as it was a great team too. Most of which would move onto Gosport with the tour and investigate the Explosions Museum, but unfortunately I couldn’t make that one. I hear they hit it hard and had a great time though.
Don’t forget to visit Brian J Cano’s website – http://www.neverstopsearching.com
And also Sage Paranormal’s website – http://www.sageparanormal.co.uk