Private Residence Blackburn

Located in a school building converted into flats. Address, owners names and flat number witheld from this report.

The team were contacted by the owners of the premises. They reported whispering voices in the bedroom. The voices were calling the name of the lady of the house. Swearing was heard at different times. The couple were worried and asked us to investigate.

Stevie and I first interviewed the owners and found that the occurences were fairly recent but had not happened for a week or so prior to our visit. We took temperature and EMF readings in the room and found that while the temperature was not at variance with the rest of the house, the EMF meter was giving anomalous readings near the wall. We checked the wall for electrical wiring but it proved to be a sandstone wall around 18 inches thick and part of the original fabric of the building. Further checks showed the electrical cables had been channelled into the wall several feet from the area. Photographs show nothing on the first visit except one orb in the bedroom. We received very unusual readings in the bathroom where the meter was used to map out a sphere around two feet in diameter. The bathroom is an internal room with two walls sandstone and the other two built during the conversion using stud partitions. The owners reported nothing unusual in the lounge or kitchen and readings taken bore this out.

During the interview, the owners told us of a local story that someone had hanged himself in what is now the attic. We decided that we should put the investigation on hold while we researched the history of the building and attempted to shed some light on the story of the suicide.

We tried to find out about the building but several searches of local and national newspaper archives failed to turn anything up regarding a suicide.We contacted local historians who sadly couldn't shed any light on the subject.

We returned to the house on Thursday 16th June. The original two were augmented by Neil, Bill and Tracey.

We talked to the owners again and found that, thankfully, there had been no further episodes of voices being heard. Bill, Stevie, Neil and myself went through the house once more. Bill revealed that he had been in contact with a spirit since that morning and that the same spirit was the one causing the problems here! He asked the owners if there had been a new owner, a single female, who had moved in within the past three months. The owners confirmed that a single female had indeed moved into the flats around three months ago. Bill said that the spirit was, 'Pestering this lassie,' as well as our client. He said that the spirit was called John Souter, that he lived at the turn of the century and that he appeared to have been a minister. Bill described Souters' attire which we recognised as a particular type of ministers dress.

He said that Souter did not see anything wrong in his haunting the flats and that he had done some pretty awful things while he was alive and wanted to continue while in spirit. Bill said that he felt Souter would not go over to the other side willingly and that we shouldn't attempt to try that night. Souter appeared to have lost interest in the lady of the house and we couldn't go hunting him in a block of flats. We talked over the options with the flat owners and have decided to leave things as they are unless the problem returns.

If the haunting returns, we will possibly have to perform a clearing with several mediums present as Souter will obviously refuse to move on.

Please note. Due to the fact that this report may be read by anyone, we have restricted some of the more unsavoury aspects of the information gathered on this investigation.

Report by Ralph Kelly.