Bundoora Park, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia

Saturday night we joined the Australian Paranormal Society (APS) to investigate Bundoora Park Farm. The site is set up with a number of different activities, but for the investigation we were focused on the twentieth century heritage village, which comprises of a number of relocatable structures. 

Let's begin the night at the very start. We entered the grounds of Bundoora Park Farm to be immediately confronted with locked gates. It was pitch black with only the headlights from the car illuminating the road which was fully surrounded by bushland. It was eerie and cold.

A four wheel drive pulled over on the other side of the gate and a tall, heavily built man disembarked his vehicle and walked slowly towards our car. He was dressed all in black and was holding a torch which dimly lit his face. I was not sure if this was the right place, so I wound down my window. He questioned "investigation?" I said "yes". He then stated in a monotone deep voice "I'll unlock the gates, pull up over there and I'll lead you in". It was like I was entering a highly secured, secret underground bunker.

We drove through the gates and waited for him to lead us up the dark winding path to the village. That in itself set the scene for the night's investigation. I was excited!

After a very brief five minute introduction and history talk, we began the investigation part of the evening by splitting into two groups. All guests had been on ghost tours or investigations previously, so with no newbies in tow, the guides hustled everyone to their first destination.  My group was led by a member of APS and a medium as we followed them into the villa. This was a cottage style dwelling with a long hallway down the middle. The main part of the dwelling had four main rooms. Lounge and dining rooms to the left and the main bedroom and child's room to the right. The back of the house had an open space and a kitchen off to the right.

We congregated in the dining room, where the guide had previously set up an EMF pump, K2's, spirit box and EVP recorder with speaker. He began by explaining the equipment and then moved onto the EVP. He asked each member to ask a question and then wait about ten seconds in between questions, to give the spirit time to respond. At the end of the questioning, he played the recording back through the speaker to see if we could decipher any audible responses. Nothing.

He then moved onto the spirit box. This swept through a number of frequencies, a number of times. There were no clear responses heard over the white noise.

The medium then alleged to pick up on the spirit of a young boy about 3 or 4 years of age. She claimed he was playing and hiding under the table. This interaction lasted a number of minutes and it appeared the boy was communicating using the K2 meter. The medium and a number of guests claimed to feel a cool breeze. I felt nothing.

It was at this time that I sensed a female spirit with the name Mary, Maree or Maria. The spirit kept telling me she needed to speak with John. I thought this was odd as the original owner of the homestead was John. I thought nothing of it as I believed I had been influenced by the brief history we received on arrival.

As the group interacted with the alleged child spirit and the K2, this nagging in my head was getting stronger. "I need to talk to John. It's Maria, tell him I am here". This was going over and over in my head to the point where I developed a headache. I interrupted the group and said that what I was about to say may be irrelevant, but I am sensing a female spirit (fiftyish) that is nagging me to speak to an older gentleman named John. So I asked the guide if they have had any experiences with what I just said. It was at this point that the older gentleman to my right said that his name was John and his younger sister's name was Maria. I gasped and instantaneously my headache was gone. I said, I don't know what is going on, but she wants to talk to you. He then directed his questioning to the spirit and asked out loud "what are you trying to tell me?".....nothing. This was very odd and rather confronting. The story deepens later...…..

We then did a shout out, where the group yelled "HELLO" three times. The EVP recorded this session and we listened back to the recording to see if Maria had communicated, but nothing.

We then had five minutes to walk around the house to see the other rooms. It wasn't enough time to do any investigative work, it was just enough time to see what was in the other rooms.

Our group then moved over to the school house, where the guide had set up an EMF doll. They also had a K2 meter, EVP recorder, a laser grid and an ovilus. The guide explained each piece of equipment and handed them to guests to hold. The ovilus was given to John and was constantly giving out words, but I do not know what they were and I did not check the log. At one point, the guide asked the spirit his name and it did respond accurately with "Jim".

There was an occasional hit on the EMF doll and no hits on the K2.

This is where the John, Maria situation comes back. The nagging spirit was back in my head asking me to ask them about the migraines and the old lady who died of the heart, breathing issue. I felt like the spirit was saying if you ask them that - they will believe. This is what was going on in my head. It was so frustrating....getting louder and louder to the point where I couldn't think about anything else. So again, I say, look I am just going to say this as it is.

Someone has an issue with really bad migraines - John's wife (who was sitting next to him) says, I have debilitating migraines. Ok.

And there is an older lady who died of a heart issue, but it was more the breathing - John says, my mother.

Now this is getting freaky. I also stated that John was there with his two daughters and a niece.....don't know how I knew that - but it was correct. I guess it was all validation.

I then concluded with, Maria needs to talk to you. End of story......weird huh?

We then participated in an old school technique called the human pendulum. A group of guests stood up and formed a circle holding hands. We welcomed any spirit into the space and asked them to make it known who they wanted to communicate with. One lady then stated she was swaying and had felt cold around her legs.

She then moved into the centre of the circle and relaxed. The group then asked yes no questions of the spirit and the guest would rock forward for a yes and backwards for a no. I know this sounds staged, but when you see it in reality and see the movement that the guest does and how distinct it is, you do find it hard to debunk. Naturally it raised questions of authenticity and I could not help but reflect on the unconscious muscle force theory. I did find myself questioning whether it was genuine.

The responses were related to the young spirit boy whom was alleged to have followed us from the house. He stated he was cold, was an only child, was four years old and was happy living there.

I am rather intrigued with this old school method and will definitely trial this so I can validate genuine non control or influence.

After this, the entire group moved into the chapel where we experimented with a ghost box. This did not produce any results, so we moved the ghost box into the house and set up in the lounge room. There were a number of responses, but nothing that seemed to make sense at the time.

We then closed with a grounding ceremony.

The investigation was different to other public tours I had been on. This one was very well structured and moved through three spaces with about 45 minutes in each space. It felt really short, sharp and directed. It was suited to people who had an understanding of investigations as it exposed them to a new level of equipment that the amateur ghost hunter may not own or have used. Equipment such as an ovilus and a ghost box, given that they are relatively expensive pieces of equipment to purchase. It was not an investigation where you go off and do your own thing or sit around and wait and listen. With about 45 minutes in each space, which includes a talk about the equipment, a shout out, an EVP recording and a listen back, there is not much time left to explore.

Although there was not a lot of activity on this investigation, it was very interesting to learn two new strategies in the shout out and the pendulum. I will definitely try both of these at upcoming investigations and would highly recommend this investigation to others who want to see this equipment in action.

Oh by the way - the image is of the Chapel and those two graves are horse graves......yes horse graves!

All in all ….. a great way to spend a Saturday evening.

Private residential home, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

There are many people who think their home is haunted. They may see, hear or feel things that they themselves could not explain. Other times, their imagination works overtime and many of the so called experiences could be explained or debunked.

The house which I was asked to investigate, has been owned and lived in by the same sceptic owner for near on forty years. Children have been raised there, friends and family have lived there, but one unexplained common phenomena, that has been bantered around over the years, is the sighting of a lady apparition in the front bedroom. Residents and guests have claimed to see her shadow move through the hallway and in and out of the front bedroom. There have been cold chills and unexplained noises.

So Saturday day and evening, I, along with the owner, her daughter and a family friend prepared to investigation the allegations. We sat in the kitchen where I explained what we were going to do for the night. I showed them the equipment I had brought along - it was like a Tupperware party but with paranormal goodies instead (business idea right there). The equipment including dousing rods, K2s, laser grid, spirit box, EVR, ghost meter, parascope, old-school trigger items, a camera and video equipment. For everyone, except me, this was new to them.

In the late afternoon, we walked around the 100 year old home to get a feel for its energy. The front room was definitely at least 5 - 6 degrees colder than every other room in the home. Within moments I felt the denseness of the air and the K2 meter was activated. We set up trigger items which included balls and dolls, along with a video camera. We decided to stay in the room for about 45 minutes and just sit and listen. Interestingly, the daughter felt a cool breeze move from the window to the door numerous times. The owner played with the K2 meter and the daughter and friend began to dabble with the dousing rods. There was definitely some credible crossing of the rods which responded to similar questions in the same way. We did capture a mist like image on one of the cameras.

After a bit of an introduction, we retreated to the kitchen to talk about the experience. The catball was left in the hallway about 10 cm from the door, on the floor boards. After about 10 minutes, and out of the corner of our eyes, we saw that the catball had been activated. It only happened the once. We had a K2 meter on the kitchen table which was heavily active, responding to questions and appeared to be attempting to communicate with us. What was interesting, is the daughter and mother had stated that the spirit had never gone past the hallway, ever. It moved in and out of the room and to the entrance of the next room, but never the whole length of the hallway or into the kitchen. Was this a different spirit who was activating the K2 on the table? I would say yes!

After dinner we moved back down the hallway to find the catball on the carpet runner. Yes it had moved. MOVED.....about 10 cm and up onto the runner.  Realistically, someone may have kicked it when walking out of the room earlier, but it had not activated then and no one recalled kicking it. It only lit up that one time for the whole night, when we were at dinner - had the spirit come out of the room to see what we were doing? Possibly.

We continued with our investigation in the bedroom using the K2 meters and the dousing rods. The responses we received alleged the spirit was a female lady who had lived there and that she enjoyed living there. She liked looking out the large bay window to the busyness of the world. She liked the fire place and felt that the room was too cold now that it was not in use. I personally had numerous tingles and did sense only the one spirit in the room. We attempted to use the spirit box and laser grid, but with no success. The owner validated at the conclusion of the investigation that she had bought the property as a deceased estate from a German lady and that the owner had closed up the fireplace in that bedroom. She was unaware whether she had any children, although we did have numerous hits stating that the spirit did in fact have children.

From here, we moved into the formal reception room which was opposite the bedroom. The feeling was different. Not sure how, just different. The owners said that they have never sensed her in this space, but we thought we would investigate all the same.

About 15 minutes in, we had hits on the K2 and the parascope. The daughter and friend were still using the dousing rods. Then all of a sudden the daughter was overcome with intense emotion and after some questioning and interaction, it was concluded that the spirit was that of her male friend whom had taking his own life late last year. The daughter had been carrying around considerable guilt and I believe he was there to help her heal and for closure. The interactions were very emotional and I believe genuine. He was answering questions which only she would know and they were accurate. At the end of the investigation, the owner told us that he had lived there for a number of years and this room was his bedroom! Was this the spirit that had been attempting to communicate with us in the kitchen?

We have some interesting video footage of the K2 meter in the reception room. In the footage, the green light, which was always on, can be seen going on and off in the video. From where I was sitting, I could see it was green (or orange or red) all the time, but the camera had it going on and off regularly. I believe the spirit was moving between the camera and the meter, with his shadow stopping the light being seen by the camera. It was intense.

Due to the high level of emotion, we retreated to the kitchen to gather ourselves and have some dessert (carrot cake to be exact). We talked about our experience before closing our investigations with a quick good bye in each of the rooms.

The owner who was a very strong sceptic stated that she believed something was captured there that night. She said that due to me not knowing the history or the stories, the equipment responded with accurate answers. She has asked us to return again.