Let’s mess with the Sceptic

A few weeks back we had a private Investigation for some visiting journalists.  It was a great night, sadly no spooks but everyone was edgy enough without anything dramatic happening.  The appearance of a wee ghostie may have tipped everyone over the edge!  It got us thinking about familiarity and the difference it makes to fear levels.  Sometimes it’s hard for those of us who’ve been around Port Arthur a while to remember that when you’re new to the place these ruins and buildings can be very much on the creepy side.  For us it’s the place we spend hours in every week.  It is familiar, and comfortable (some of the time), and it’s only when the anomalous events kick it up a notch that most of us experience fear.  For visitors, this is a very big, unfamiliar and rather terrifying ex-prison full of dark and somber ruins, and potentially spooky things that want to come and say hello (we hope!).

Earlier that same week we spent many hours freezing our behinds off at the photo shoot for our brand new promotional images.  Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for the glossy and glamorous pics of the P.I.E. A big thanks has to go to all of the volunteers who turned up to model for us, both the locals and our team of Volunteer Archaeologists who’ve been working on the Penitentiary project in the last few months.  Thanks for helping, you guys were troopers!

The April Investigation took place on Saturday the 27th, and a highly successful investigation it was too (To quote Caitlin it was “Ridiculously fun”).  About the strangest thing that happened was during the Separate Prison investigation.  Caitlin heard voices outside the prison towards the end of the investigation and thought that Jenni’s group had arrived to switch locations.  So Caitlin packed up her group and moved outside to let Jenni’s group in only to find that they were halfway across the site still, and only just starting to make their way towards the prison. No one was loitering near the prison at all.  Cait claims that the Site is now messing with her for her scepticism, and I really hope that’s the case, it could surely get pretty interesting in the next few months! The same noises were heard later in the night when one of Caitlin’s group decided to forgo the last Investigation and wait in the Lunatic Asylum alone.  She too heard the noises by the Separate Prison, though she was the only person in the area at the time.  I just love the fact that the person hanging out in a 19th Century Lunatic Asylum started hearing things, it’s a bit twisted really.

We also welcomed back the Enright group from Deloraine who have now been on the Investigations with us 3 times.  They had a great night with Jenni, and since finding a passion for the Paranormal have even gone out and bought themselves some gear which they brought along and let us have a look at.  This group can commonly be found checking out cemeteries and haunted hotels around Northern Tas.  Nice work guys!

The May Investigation is on Saturday the 25th, to join us please click here to head over to our bookings site.

If you have any questions you would like to ask any of the Paranormal Team, please leave us a comment below, or send us an email to paranormal@portarthur.org.au. And don’t forget to follow this blog by email to keep up to date with all of the latest anomalous events on site!

Why sitting alone in an asylum in the wee hours of the morning is never a smart idea

Saturday 30th March was our most recent investigation, and an enjoyable evening to boot!

There was a fairly ominous start to the night as the ghost tour guides were cleaning up the lanterns from the tours.  A lantern glass propelled itself out of a lantern and on to the floor where it merrily shattered into tiny little pieces.  Needless to say, the three guides (including Cait, the biggest sceptic on site) who had been standing there discussing the merits of smart phone ghost-photo apps were a little shocked, and when they tried to re-create the phenomena were unable to trigger any more exploding lanterns (much to the relief of our manager, who was less than happy to hear about the attempt to shatter MORE glass).

So with this event in mind, there was a chill of promise in the air as we headed out the door to begin investigating.  If nothing else we were keen to snap a photo of one small and fabled bunny lugging copious amounts of chocolate eggs about the place (we jest!).

It was a fairly quiet night despite the perfectly creepy moon peeking out from behind threatening looking clouds, and in the interest of giving the group their discs as swiftly as possible I decided to forgo the third section of investigating and stick around in the Asylum alone to kick-start the data analysis process.  Not something I thought through very well!  After the group departed to check out the Basement and the Parsonage, and i settled in with a cup of tea to make fun line graphs out of some of the data, the wind picked up and started making the whole building sound alive.  Things were creaking and banging and more than once I though I’d heard the group return only to find nobody at the door!  It’s amazing how easy it is to freak yourself out in a dark and creaky ex-Lunatic Asylum in a 19th century Convict prison at 1am.  Really, what was I thinking?

In other news we were joined by James for the investigation, one of our Ghostie guides who was keen to have a look and see what we get up to so late at night.  He seemed to enjoy himself, so now we’re going to work on convincing him to become the latest addition to the P.I.E. Team!  We’ll keep you posted if we’re successful with recruitment.

Also, next week we’re having our brand new Promo photo shoot here on site, so keep an eye out for some glossy new pics depicting the glamour and glitz of late night Investigations very soon.  Here’s hoping something spooky will pop up in the background of some of the shots?

Finally, the April investigation will take place on Saturday the 27th, and there are only a few tickets left so head over to the Bookings site to get involved before we fill up!

Cheers,

Mel and the P.I.E. people