Michelem priory  27/05/05

Weather: warm & muggy

duration: 19.00-05.15

Members : 6

Guests: 2

This was the first meeting of the group in its new unified format, so excitement and expectations were high, and we were not to be disappointed!

After teas and coffees as well as the odd cigarette, and setups complete it was time to get to work! Three of the four Sceptics set off to set up their trigger objects while the rest of the group had a more detailed look around with the remaining sceptic. A Wooden Cross was set up in the dining Room in the corner near the fireplace. A smaller cross was set up in the corner of the Priors Chamber in the opposite corner to the door. A Teddy Bear was placed in the Child's Room with five glass marbles. Five Coins were then placed on a table on the second floor of the Gatehouse. All items except the Teddy Bear were placed on a paper sheet and drawn around to enable movement to be identified. So, lights off, here we go! The objects were then checked by the sceptics from the team in that area at various times throughout the night.

An audio recorder attached to a multidirectional microphone was left in the Music room to see what might be picked up, more about this later on. The team then split into two groups each team comprising of two sceptics, a believer and a sensitive. Each team was equipped with and array of Digital cameras, Night Vision Video Cameras, Digital Thermometers, Sound Recorders and EMF Meters, oh and stern nerves too!

One of our sensitives made contact with a man called John early on, who later described himself as John of John. To summarise the exchanges of question and answer, John said that he lived here at one time, and that he had stolen something which he needed, which he was very ashamed of doing. When he was found out he was dragged out by the hair and humiliated and things were thrown at him, before he was eventually hung. Our sensitive believes he may have been a labourer due his comment that he had to work physically hard. He also made it known that he liked to wander and had a strong link to straw, further questions to pinpoint a precise job did not come through. Our sensitive picked up that John was "a ladies man", but did not marry. He died aged 30 in the 1720's again further questions failed to provide a more exact date.

It wasn't long before Clint S caught a phenomenal orb on tape, prob our best yet. The anomaly took the form of a strand, also known as a string of pearls, which twisted around in flight. People in the room at this point walked around and noticed it was getting colder by the minute, remember this was a warm muggy evening in May! Despite the efforts of the crew, no drafts were found! So what had we caught on tape here? Cobwebs are sometimes an explanation and were considered at the time, but a careful search of the rooms upper areas revealed no cobwebs anywhere, not even small ones. This room also had been checked only a few moments before the sighting for airflow, the still shot of this really doesn't do it justice. We will inform you when we manage to stream a video of it. In the meantime here's the image.

The exchanges with "John" were tape recorded, but it took nearly half an hour in total to get meaningful answers, so we will not be reproducing the full text of the recording on our website. The video meanwhile is being subjected to our usual fine toothed comb. After all that excitement it was decided to terminate stop vigils and let people calm down over refreshments. After our refreshments we were set for another vigil to be staged in the Gatehouse. After forty minutes nothing stirred on floor 1 so the entire team moved to floor 2, again no contact was made. It was during this vigil one of our sensitive's picked up something, but could not bring anyone or anything close. However we were rewarded by a second "string of pearls" orb, much fainter, but a lot bigger that the one in the Gatehouse, unfortunately this one was very short lived, less that three seconds. It was noticed in the early hours that one of the trigger objects had moved, whilst the apparent movement is interesting, the result cannot be said to be reliable, due to the presence of team members in the room at various times during the night, one of whom could have easily accidentally knocked the object that the paper was on. Video footage of this, maybe in an isolated room, would have been interesting. However we have to take these points into consideration as not to get our hopes up.

After we had got some much needed rest, dawn was breaking and it was time to pack up our things and head home. It was a good investigation, all in all although we were also a tad disappointed that the Childs Room was so unusually quiet, our sensitive's feeling was that the Children were hiding from us because they were scared, at times they weren't the only ones I can tell you.

At this point we would like to express our grateful thanks and appreciation to Chris Tucket and all of the people at Michelham who made our very enjoyable visit possible. We are very grateful for the hospitality and assistance given to us and the trust of all concerned in giving us the the run of the place.

Many Thanks from all of the SPRG Team Members and Guests. Until next time.

sprg 2007