The history of Beaumanor Hall is not as old as you might think. It was classic for the Victorians to design architecture to follow older designs. Beaumanor Hall began its build in 1845 and took a few years to complete. The hall’s history indeed becomes interesting in the Second World War requisitioned by the military. The military built Y stations on the grounds of Beaumanor Hall to intercept enemy radio messages. The only problem was the Germans’ Enigma Machine encrypted any messages intercepted. As soon as the Y stations tapped an enemy radio frequency, a motorbike took the recorded message directly to Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing worked relentlessly to build a computer capable of searching through millions of settings in a few minutes to break the enigma code. Alan Turing succeeded, shortening the war by up to two years, maybe even more, so it’s said.
Now to the investigation, we began with a quick history tour of the building. In the attic, I had headaches in every single room I entered. The moment I exited the rooms, these headaches were gone. Nowhere else in the hall did I feel this. The cellar in spots had a nauseating feeling. We remained in the basement for the first vigil. As one large group, we lined the room’s perimeter, focusing on a watch-and-wait trigger object experiment. It was one I hadn’t seen before. However, it proved to be insignificant this time. Some people claimed to be hearing whispered voices in the bottom corner of the basement, but I think I can debunk that; there were a lot of people whispering all around the room, and in a vast cellar, the sound will resonate and bounce around the walls and passages disorientating the source of resonance. What I can’t debunk is the cat ball in the centre of the room flashing when it hadn’t moved the slightest bit and the music box going off in the doorway. That, I would say, is undeniably a spirit. We didn’t receive much more activity in this room until it came to leave, where I felt a cold blast of air rush up behind me and then a sharp prod in the shoulder by an unseen force. Nic can confirm the cold blast of air as she felt it too. I can only guess why the spirit chose me to make its presence known because I listen and talk to them with respect to learn about them and help them. Do spirits gravitate towards sensitives? I believe they do. It is to do with the different energy planes of the afterlife, and if you are sensitive/psychic, you are closer to those higher vibrational energy levels, creating a link like a bridge between this world and the next. Simply put, the higher your vibrational energy, the more interaction you will have with spirits.
After a quick break, we headed off in small groups. My group found ourselves at the far end of the basement to where we had just been. We staked the room out with equipment and then commenced with table tipping. It didn’t take me long to get the spirit/s to rock the table, and then with a little more encouragement, the table was spinning on one leg. I also wanted to learn from the spirit/s by asking them to walk the table to a room or item significant to them, but the table didn’t move. It only wanted to spin. Soon the table stopped spinning and sat still. You could feel the energy had changed. Unfortunately, we never found out who it was interacting with us. Then I felt a cold blast of air pass up my back. I don’t know if anyone else felt it. I decided to take some pictures. As I looked towards the doorway with my camera adjusting to take the picture, I saw a giant white orb float straight toward me. At the time, I thought my camera had missed what I saw, but on later review, a massive orb was just to the left of the doorway. I believe this to be the same orb; this must be a spirit because of the sheer size of the orb, and also, in no other photo I took that night are any orbs which makes it very unlikely to be a dust orb.
I came back to the table, and as a group, we tried the copper square on the table to try and make contact with any spirits. It moved instantly on command and intelligently following our instructions of go right for no and go left for yes. While the copper square glided across the table, we had set up an Alice box that then said, “Jean.” We asked if this was the spirit’s name, and the copper square moved to yes. It then said “Jean” again. As we tried to discover how old Jean was, the Alice box spoke again, saying, “Walter.” We asked if Walter was her husband, and she said no. We wondered if it was her brother, and she said yes. We found out they were both around the table talking to us. We learnt they lived on a farm that had been here before Beaumanor Hall in the late 1600s to 1700s.
We moved to the King Richard room. The room once contained the bed of King Richard the Third, which is what gives the room its name. Just outside the room, we conducted an Ouija board. We had set up REM PODS, K2s, laser pen, cat balls, and Alice box around the table, covering as much of the corridor as possible. After a quick charge of energy, it didn’t take long for the planchette on the board to start to move with a clear response. After showing the spirit how to use the Ouija board, we asked the spirit to spell their name. It responded with the letters H.K. This wasn’t an actual name, so I questioned if it was their initials, and it said yes. I then asked if it could spell its first name, and it spelt, “Heineg.” We were confused by this, which then had us all wondering how old they were. When we asked, the answer we got was five years old; it certainly explains the odd spelling. With spelling seeming out of the question, our next plan was to discover some dates to see if we could get a historical time to research. We asked when the spirit was born, and the planchette moved very quickly to 1587. But then we asked when the spirit died, and it responded that it was the 1400s. At this point, we knew we wouldn’t get any facts from this young spirit.
With some persuasion, another spirit came through and boldly told us they were forty-five years old. They were attached to the building and used to live at Beaumanor Hall, but not as a family member, as a servant. It was 1957 when they were here. I asked him to spell his name. He spelt, “Arcs.” “Is this a nickname?” I asked. He responded with yes. Then we asked if he could spell his actual name, and he spelt Arthur.
While we had been speaking to Arthur, the Alice Box had repeatedly been saying, “Car,” and “I want you to leave!” With how frequently it had said I want you to leave, we challenged the spirit saying that to find out why. I had asked for it to walk in front of the green dots of my laser pen or slam on the table to make us leave. Another had asked for it to scream its name at us. While none of this happened, we had not noticed until a few minutes later that something had drained my laser torch entirely. Was this the same spirit that was also telling us to leave? Did it drain the power from my laser pen to give itself enough energy to tell us to go? I want to add that part of my equipment checks before any investigation to ensure that all batteries and equipment are charged fully and working correctly. While talking about all this activity that had just happened, we heard the strangest sound that no one could honestly explain. The best description I can give you is a guttural cry of pain, like someone crying a heavily grievous loss. Ever since I heard it a week ago, I still think about what I heard as I write this. I concluded that we heard a female voice: the notes were too high-pitched to be that of a male.
Back to the Ouija board, we asked how many spirits were here out of curiosity. We got the answer four. Two spirits had already spoken to us, so who were the other two? A sudden cold blast of air rushed up my back, and another spirit came through on the board. However, it turned out to be Arthur again. No sooner than we asked if there was something he needed to tell us, the Alice box spoke the name Austin very clearly. I asked Arthur if Austin was what he needed to notify us, and he said yes. Then, surprisingly, he began to slowly spell something using the letters on the board, “R…I…V…A…L…S.” That got us all curious. Were Arthur and Austin rivals? That was our next question. The answer was yes. Then the Alice box shouted again I want you to leave. It was Nic who then had the thought that perhaps it was not us they were telling to go but Arthur telling Austin to leave. We didn’t get a direct answer to this other than the Alice box repeating I want you to leave immediately. At long last, it seemed the information was starting to become apparent. We continued to talk to Arthur, who told us they thought over a girl in the early 1900s. The girl’s name was Sarah, and she was here in 1925. She passed away in world war two. Secretly, Sarah had chosen Arthur to be with, but she also enjoyed the attention of both, so she played with Austin a little, which made him think she had chosen him. In secret, she and Arthur had a baby called Nathan, who died when he was five. Could this be a connection to the five-year-old child we spoke to a short while ago? Arthur told us there was a bribe involving money at some point which I believe was related to their death. The Alice Box saying car repeatedly started to make sense of what it was trying to tell us: Arthur, Sarah, and their child had died in a car crash in the Second World War.
Now we had a chance to go off and investigate alone. Me and Nic went back to the attic; earlier on the building tour, we had both felt a great deal of energy in the attic which was the draw to go back there. We quickly got set up, placing the REM POD in the doorway, cat balls around the room’s perimeter, torches, and other trigger objects. I started by calling out for the spirits to use all the equipment but as hard as I tried, nothing responded. We then tried the Ouija board, and we immediately communicated with a strong spirit. It just shows you that even in the afterlife, people choose how they want to communicate. Straight away, we were getting answers to our questions. He told us he was male and in the military in 1942. We got some incredible evidence with him being happy to talk to us. He spelt the letters “LEMF” when we asked his name. It was no English name I knew. I must admit I was a little on guard encase it was a Nazi. It certainly was possible with a name like that. Thankfully, he turned out to be Polish. He had died at eighty-three years of age and was still that age. Did this answer prove that you remain at the age you died in this world? Or if you choose to come back, you stay the same age? Those are questions I will aim to answer in the following investigations.
The conversation suddenly turned dark as he announced he was a P.O.W. captured by the Germans in 1942 and badly hurt by the Nazis in his four-year imprisonment. With the level of detail he provided us, we stuck with the subject of his captivity. I asked if he could spell the name of the prison camp he was held captive. He responded by telling the Nazis did not take him to a prison camp. But as we continued questioning the subject, we broke it down. He was from a wealthy family, but his family was German. When the war broke out, to avoid punishment from the Nazis, they sent him willingly by train to England, but he didn’t make it to England. On the train, the Nazis caught him and held him prisoner for four years in hiding. He then gave us the date 1957. Did this confirm secret Nazi activity after the war? After the war and his release, he escaped to Turkey.
While talking about the Germans’, I thought I would try to answer some vague areas in history about what happened to Adolf Hitler after the war. Some classified reports have only just started to come to light, and they place Hitler living in Argentina in the 1950s. There, indeed were Nazi communities in Argentina. Lemf told us very confidently that Hitler died in his bunker at the end of the war, and we asked for the proof, he spelt, “Lewamcdz.” It took a while to work out what that meant, but eventually, we got the answer of a voice record recording at the time of his death in the bunker. However, the recording doesn’t say Hitler died. Lemf also doesn’t know what happened to the body or where his burial is. So I don’t think we solved that area in history. It still feels very uncertain. I shall try to contact some more WW2 soldiers soon who may be able to give more answers. After this, we asked him if he would affect some of the equipment in the room. The moment we asked, the activity in the room completely changed. You could evidently tell he had gone.
As we called out for any other spirits from Beaumanor Hall to come through, we felt a knock underneath the Ouija board that made the board jump slightly. However, I will not say this was paranormal as the floor is wooden, creaky, and rickety; I could easily cause the board to wobble. For that reason, it wasn’t supernatural, but still essential to note. Nic and I couldn’t explain the sad feeling we could feel in the room now. It was the feeling of someone crying. Then we heard a faint whistle emanate from the corridor. I immediately went to check if anyone was close by or if I heard anything else in the passage. There was nobody there to see. I also took a few photos, and nothing appeared in the pictures. The activity was building.
My Rem Pod’s temperature sensor flashed red in the doorway, meaning the ambient temperature around it suddenly increased. That is not natural. Then there was a cold blast of air whipping around my back. The REM POD was a spirit in the doorway, and the cold blast of air was the spirit walking into the room and passing behind me. I asked for movement again on the Ouija board, and the planchette immediately began to slide across the board. I wondered who they were, and they said they were female and then spelled their name. It was Sarah who we had spoken with. She told us she had been following us. However, when I asked if it was her who we had heard whistle, she said no. So who was it in the corridor?
Not having long left, we got straight to the point with our questions. Luckily we already had quite a bit of information from earlier. Sarah confirmed that she, Arthur, and her five-year-old son Nathan had died in a car crash. It was accidental. From what it seemed, it had happened amidst an argument. Perhaps they were arguing over who Sarah loved. She liked the attention from both, so she allowed it to continue and probably played both men a bit. As I asked her quickly before we left if she had any messages for us, she spelt, “We leave.” I asked her if she was telling us to go, and she said yes. It would seem we had delved too deep into her affairs. She will remain trapped on this plane until she learns to be open and come to terms with her past.
The last session of the night had us return to the attic to a different room. It was time to do a watch-and-wait experiment. Around the room, we set up K2s, cat balls, and REM PODS and then placed a music box just outside the door. A music box emits a laser beam; if someone walks in front of it, the laser beam breaks, and the music box will play music. The room we sat in seemed very quiet; the equipment didn’t change the slightest bit. But in the corridor, not long after we had started, we heard a whistle shortly followed by the music box triggering very quickly. We asked the spirit to enter the room, but it seemed only to want to remain outside the door. The music box continued to play music but very fleetingly. To me, it seemed as if the spirit was either pacing back and forth quickly in front of it, or the spirit wasn’t sure about it and was testing it, sticking his foot quickly in front of it and then pulling it away. My thoughts would explain why the music box would play music for less than a second each time it went off. It was doing this a couple of times a second. The more we encouraged the spirit to enter the room, the more the music book was affected. We then learnt from the Haunted Happenings team member that he had regularly experienced the same activity in the attic of spirits just walking the corridors and not coming into the rooms, and that whistling was familiar. Sure enough, we heard more faint whistling coming from the passage. None of us were ready for what happened next! The door stood ajar by a few inches, just enough to see a sliver of light from the corridor shining into the room. In the light gap, we all saw a solid black tall figure pass extremely quickly across the doorway from right to left. What an incredible sight it was. Unfortunately, it was too quick to catch on camera. But it’s when we see figures that we have one hundred percent proof the paranormal exists.
The activity trailed off after this, and not learning anything else about who was in the corridor, we joined the other groups for a large group session. We positioned cat balls, torches, K2s, and other trigger objects on the main staircase. The torch immediately started to turn on and off by itself, and a cat ball at the bottom of the stairs flashed too. We focused on these as our primary tools of communication. The cat ball stopped flashing, but the torch started to turn on and off in response to our questions, proving it wasn’t a fault with the torch and that it was an intelligent spirit who could hear us and was sitting with us responding. It is incredible how the two worlds can connect when you think of it like that. We started to hear a lot of loud creaking of someone moving around on the upper landing, and it kept getting louder and seemingly closer. Then we listened to what sounded like footsteps at the top of the stairs coming down them. At this point, we felt a cold blast of air sweep down the stairs. The building wasn’t drafty, and the weather was calm outside, so there was no natural explanation for feeling that cold solid blast of air pass suddenly down the stairs. We sat for a while, just listening to the loud bangs and creaks, trying to pinpoint their exact location. We never quite managed it before we had to finish for the night, but what an investigation it had been, with striking evidence in every session.
When concluding this investigation, the point I want to pick up on is that most of the spirits seem to be from before Beaumanor Hall exists. Don’t get me wrong, the history of Beaumanor Hall working with Bletchley Park to break Enigma is fascinating, but it doesn’t seem to be the centre of the activity. In one night, the spirits showed three hundred years of history on the land. Not to say there is more. In my observation, there are a lot of ghosts at Beaumanor Hall, but not so many directly connected to the hall. I make this statement, having investigated it several times and comparing my findings. There are a couple of moments of activity I want to pick upon. First, I want to mention the disembodied cry we all heard. Sarah’s spirit had been very dominant in this investigation, talking about her love affairs, her child Nathan, and how her lifestyle led to the car crash that killed her, Arthur, and Nathan. I firmly believe it was her crying out grievously for the loss of her son. And then learning about the spirit/s that walk the corridors of the attics but do not enter the rooms. When we were on our alone investigation in the attic, was this what we heard and then continued to hear in the final session? Was the whistling and music box caused by the spirit we saw crossing the doorway? Although I can’t say for definite it is that, I feel it is so. Once more, a fabulous investigation, and hopefully, soon, I will discover something significant about the afterlife.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
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