It was time for the Phantom Echoes team to undertake another investigation, and for this one, we had chosen a fantastic little location built in 1886 called The Lock-Up on Steelhouse Lane in Birmingham. The lock-up was never used as a prison; its purpose was to be a holding cell for those from all over Birmingham awaiting trial in court. It operated from 1891 till 2016, housing 70 cells. Most of those convicted of crimes spent no more than twenty-four hours in a cell before being taken before the magistrate. Every morning, a custody van would arrive with new inmates awaiting court. With such a high volume of people passing through the system, a tunnel was built under Coleridge Passage to the courthouse so the inmates could be moved and kept out of the public eye.
On a few rare occasions, short sentences were served at the lock-up. These prisoners were named Home Office Prisoners. This was not normal practice, but kept in reserve for high peaks of crime in the city to help overfilling of the prisons; the Strangeways Prison Riots in 1990 were probably one of the worst times in modern policing in the West Midlands.
Over the years, the lock-up saw its claim to fame with notorious gangs such as the real Peaky Blinders (1800s-1920s) being locked up there and The Birmingham Six. The Birmingham Six were Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerald Hunter, Richard Mcllkenny, William Power, and John Walker. Unfortunately for the Birmingham Six, they were innocent of the crimes they were charged with. In 1975, they were sentenced to life imprisonment for the Birmingham pub bombings on the 21st of November 1974. They served their sentence until the 14th of March 1991, when the court of appeal quashed their sentence due to missed evidence at the scene of the crime. They were immediately released and met with much press and financial compensation.
With its long, turbulent history, I am not surprised there are reports of regular activity in the cells and on the gangways. It has been witnessed by staff and the general public numerous times cell doors slamming, shadow figures, disembodied voices, footsteps, and an intense feeling of being watched when nobody else has been there. Armed with my kit, I was eager to see what my team would document.
The investigation began with a walk of all accessible areas with the lights still switched on. On the very top floor, we gathered at the far end of the cell block on the gangways and listened intently to the natural sounds of the building to see if we heard anything moving. There was nothing for a while until we started to call out. We asked for the spirits to knock and make their presence known. That was met with silence, but when we whistled, asking the spirits to copy, we heard from the far end of the cell block on the third floor a distinct whistle exactly the same as ours. We were speechless by the clarity and volume of the whistle. As it was such a strong response, we asked the spirit to copy the same whistle. There was less than a minute’s lapse before we heard the astonishing whistle again. We asked again, feeling gobsmacked, and again heard the same whistle. We quietly moved along the gangway to where we thought the whistling was coming from, but unfortunately, we heard no more whistling.
While walking around on the top floors, our K2 meters detected a strong, consistent EMF reading. I also saw a flash of light, but later on the first break, I went back up to the third floor and was able to debunk it as a security camera flash. I first thought the strong EMF readings would be likely connected to all the security equipment still in operation, but as Sheree pointed out, by standing right next to the equipment, there were no EMF spikes. I backed this up, checking the floors, walls, and ceilings as best I could, finding no increasing spikes of EMF; placing a K2 near or next to an electrical item would cause a spike of EMF if that was the source.
We continued with the walk around. Frequent EMF spikes were detected over the entire building with our K2 metres, as well as my body, which is quite sensitive to changing energies. I walked along the gangway, passing each cell as I went, and as I did so, I felt strong headaches localized right by a cell. Inside the shower block was where I had felt the strongest energy. It seemed quite compelling, as I had thought this was where the whistling had come from.
We went straight into the first vigil after the walk around, turning all the lights off. On the ground floor, we conducted a watch-and-wait vigil as a large group. With cat balls, a music box, EDIs, and K2 metres placed around the ground floor, we began to call out for any responses. Having just had some of the most amazing evidence on the third floor, we asked the spirits to repeat the whistling to try and record it with our EVP recorders. We didn’t receive any whistling, but the EDIs we had placed on both tables were detecting very high pulses of EMF, backed up by one of the K2s detecting frequent pulses of EMF. At this point, I thought it was mostly a high amount of residual energy causing the activity on our equipment, but then we had a cat ball trigger, which had been sitting still for a while with no activity. As I have explained in previous reports, cat balls are touch-activated, meaning they can only flash if touched. After this, the activity dropped off.
We next headed back up to the third floor to try a different method of communication to see if the spirits would be more responsive to that method. The hardest part of any investigation is finding the right tool for the moment to document the best activity. You can investigate the same area of a building countless times and almost guarantee the spirits will respond differently each time. This time, we decided to try table tipping. We began on the gangway but received no activity. We moved the table into a cell and closed the door to make it as dark as possible. Even though I could feel the same headache as I had earlier in this cell, and the K2 detected high EMF, again, there was no activity on the table. It wasn’t until a few cells later in the shower block that we had activity with the table tipping clearly onto two legs. It only tipped the once, though, and remained hovering on two legs. The feeling of presence remained the strongest in this room; the reason why was not so clear. I could give many theories that explain it, but proofing them is hard. Whilst we remained in the shower block, a woman joining our group suddenly reacted, turning left and right and touching her head, saying she felt as if someone had just run their fingers through her hair. We received no more activity in this area, so we closed that vigil.
Me and Sheree headed off on our own to do some private investigating using our own methods of investigation with traditional methods. In the first area we investigated, we received no activity. I wanted to return to the shower block to do an Ouija board with a lot of activity focused around that area. That was the next area we investigated. In addition to the Ouija board, we placed our EVP recorders, K2 metres, laser pen, and cat balls all around the shower block in the hope that our equipment would back up any activity on the Ouija board. Luckily, it didn’t take much calling out before the planchette moved with considerable speed across the board. The spirit gave us the letter A for the answer to their first name, and then the activity stopped. We continued the Ouija board session on the floor below in another cell. This time, we had more success, but it was still limited. We received the information that their initials were E.G., and they were 32 years old. Once again, the energy dissipated from the board.
It is all well and good having lots of responses on the tools we bring, but I like a bit more; I like to discover names, dates, and factual evidence that I can further look up to try and put a name to face. That’s why I decided we should spend the next vigil in one of the cells on the third floor, where I had heard earlier that a previous investigation had revealed some quite shocking activity whilst a lady conducted an Estes method. This time, I simplified our research, only having the Ouija board to focus the spirit energy on. What resulted in the next fifteen minutes was quite the revelation that might have explained the activity for the entire investigation. Once I had shown the spirit how to use the Ouija board and opened the session, the planchette started to move quickly. I asked their first name, but the planchette didn’t move. I asked if the spirit was still there, and the planchette moved to yes. I was suddenly struck by a thought that proved pivotal in our research. Here we were in a lock-up wearing a black uniform with the same logo on, and the last time someone would have been in here in uniform was likely a uniformed prison officer. Working with this thought, I asked if the spirit was reluctant to tell us their name, and the planchette didn’t hesitate to move to the yes. I asked if they thought we were the law, and we got a yes answer. After I spoke to the spirit, telling them that we weren’t the law and just there to speak with them, the responses seemed to be much more giving. We discovered that the spirit was female and 9 years old. They had been in the lock-up in 1935 but not as a prisoner. Their mother was the prisoner who we learnt was in prison for theft. To ascertain what she had stolen, we asked the question, and the planchette spelt out FOB. Our natural thought was if they meant fob watch. The spirit confirmed our thoughts when we asked. We discovered the father had stolen too but didn’t discover what. Although we didn’t get any names, we discovered a relatable story to the building with clear responses, making it more factually compelling.
We had time for one last vigil. We joined up with the rest of the group on the ground floor for an Estes method in the hope of hearing some spirit voices. However, I first noticed how quiet and flat the energy felt, and nothing that came through on the radio seemed to correlate with our questions. The Estes method uses a specially adapted radio programmed to sweep rapidly in reverse through FM and AM frequencies. Occasionally, you may hear a bit of radio if you don’t have a Faraday cage to block the radio frequencies, but on numerous investigations, it has proven to deliver answers to questions. The theory is that spirits can speak through the white noise. As it was now fast approaching the early hours of the morning, we closed the investigation for the night.
It had been an investigation like no other. Normally, you can see the energy rise in the middle of the night and then drop off into the early hours. On this occasion, I believe the peak we caught at the beginning on the walk around with the clearest whistling responses I have ever heard. Just one brief moment like that can make for one of the most incredible investigations, delivering one hundred percent proof of intelligent spirit activity roaming the building. The K2 activity remained an unknown anomaly for the entire investigation. Now that the investigation has passed and I have pieced together all my documented evidence, I believe strongly that the high peaks of EMF on all floors were a mixture of residual energies from spirit, day-to-day tourist trade, and the electrical equipment that could be seen in volume on every floor. When I look for a spirit as the source of EMF activity, I look for a random spot that is the only source of EMF, and often, when it is the spirit, you will find that it moves. I would say this location was worthy of private investigation so that the energy is focused purely on us. Until then, we work hard to bring you exciting findings from some of the most incredible locations.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
Leave a comment