Saturday, 3 August 2019

Old Gippstown Heritage Park, Moe, Victoria, Australia

Old Gippstown is an amazing park and it never fails to disappoint. In amongst the plethora of suspected activity, there were two events that happened on the weekend that I want to share with you. These two events were different to anything I have experienced there, or anywhere for that matter, and to me, so definitive in nature, that I have found them both very difficult to debunk.

The first series of events occurred in the Old Theatre on the Friday night. The team were investigating the theatre with a number of devices, including K2 meters, a ghost meter pro, spirit box, dowsing rods and a laser grid. We had the laser grid set up facing the rear of the theatre and the metres were on the floor under the screen.

We appeared to be having intelligent communication with the ghost meter when all of a sudden there was a large bang as the laser grid fell from its perch. Now to get this in context. The tripod was balanced on the back of one of the chairs. The chair had a 10 degree backward slant and the weight of the tripod was also to the back of the room. It had balanced there rather undisturbed for at least fifteen minutes.....then bang. It was so unexpected that one of the team let out a frightening scream.

The thing is, the laser grid landed to the front of the chair and to the right, at least one metre away. How on earth did the laser grid land there? From our reenactments, debunking strategies and questioning, it was virtually impossible to have it land the way it did, unless we pushed it from the back quite aggressively, or picked it up and threw it.

When we went back to our 'spirit' on the metre, the spirit claimed that he had thrown the laser grid as he did not like it on in the theatre. Totally makes sense when you think about it.

After that incident, the spirit continued to communicate. We used a spirit box to see if he could talk through it with us. I am using the pronoun 'he', as during this investigation the name 'Johnno' came through very clearly on the spirit box, when we asked 'What is your name?". No other communication was detected through the box that evening.

The spirit seemed eager to communicate using the ghost meter pro and actively responded with yes and no to many questions. The questions were asked in different contexts and worded in opposing ways, yet the spirit always communicated with the same yes or no response. Given this apparent intelligent communication we tried an experiment where we asked the spirit to go and touch one of the investigators. First David, then Celia, Alle, Jacquie and so on. Each time he would respond, yes I will touch, the ghost meter pro would go off, the dowsing rods would move in the direction towards the relevant person, stop on that person and then they would feel a touch on their leg.

Yes - you heard right......a touch!

And this happened over and over again, at least five times with different investigators. Amazing right!

The whole raw footage is uploaded on our Facebook page @paranormalvic and on the @Beyond the Veil Ghost Hunts page, so feel free to see this with your own eyes!



The second event is one that still has me questioning. We were in Calajero in the wee early hours of Sunday morning. A small log cabin to the north of the park (pictured here). Prior to this evening, we had not investigated in there at all.

I was standing in the log cabin looking out through the gaps in the back wall logs towards the main road, about 60 metres away. There was enough light outside to make out silhouettes of trees and buildings, when all of a sudden I see a shadow. A shadow with the shape of a head, but then a large humped style body mass - sort of like a semi-circle with a head. It moved from my right to my left, behind a tree, then out the other side and disappeared behind Ashdale House.

Firstly I thought it could be a person walking on the nature strip outside the park, but it did not seem to be that far away. The shadow seemed closer and bigger than that, plus the shape was all wrong.

So, as some of the team walked over to Ashdale House, I watched them through the gaps in the logs to see the shadows which were formed. The shadows were all wrong and not in the same place. So off I went to figure out the location of what I had seen. I worked out it was between a tree with a metal structure and a wagon. It moved from the back of the shearers shed and moved towards Ashdale House.

Not sure what I had just experienced, I entered Ashdale House with caution, only to feel a constant pull from outside.

I went out onto the porch and continued to feel like something or someone was out there. I walked around the verandah, down the sides of the House, out to the garden and back again. It was an eerie feeling, one that was new to me.

After the brief investigation some of the team members did in Ashdale House, we walked out the back of the House, back past Calajero and down the main street of the town towards the southern end of the park and the location of Bushy Park. The park is about two hundred metres from end to end. As I walked up the street, I felt a sense of uneasiness. Not quite fear, but definitely one with a heightened sense of anxiousness. Once at the end of the main street, where the road veers to the left for Bushy Park, or straight ahead to the old coach houses and miner's cottage, I could sense someone watching me....following me. I turned my torch on and flashed it around the various parts of the park, to see what was there. I don't know what I expected to see, but I could feel a presence.

This stayed with me as I walked through the old stables at the end of the property and around a 1900's miner's log hut and over a small bridge which led through to Bushy Park, the home of Angus McMillan, our serial killer. When I first arrived at Angus McMillan's house, I stood about twenty metres to the right of the homestead and clearly heard footsteps, followed by three distinct clicking sounds, which to me, sounded like the door latching on the homestead. I went to the entrance and tried the door handle. It was the exact same sound!

Had a spirit ….. had Angus, been following us through the park that night, seeing what we were doing, stalking us? I think maybe!

Given that he was an expert in exploration, tracking and bludgeoning his victims to death - I do think this shadow, this entity, this spirit which was following us, could be him.

But let us wind the clock back six hours and see if we can join the puzzle pieces together. That evening, the team had embarked on a number of individual challenges to different parts of the park, that we do not normally investigate. Each pair of investigators went out on a fifteen minute hunt. One team, seasoned investigators of the Beyond the Veil Ghost Hunt team, went up to the Old Miner's Cottage, their hunt was streamed live on Facebook so you can see and hear what they experienced. Footsteps circling the hut, saddle bags moving and a real sense of unrest. When they returned and shared their experience, Matt, another investigator, went up there to lay out some video and EVP equipment to see if we could capture anything. Whilst up there, he too heard footsteps and felt uneasy. He saw something, a shadow, jump out at him through the bushes and then suddenly it was gone.

To add to this story even further, when driving home after the investigation, I shared this experience with a fellow investigator Rod, who also believed something was out in the park that night. He too felt uneasy, heard the door clicking and felt a weird sense that he was being followed - interesting now isn't it?

So what was out stalking and hunting us in the park that Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday? Was it Angus? Was it the Bishop from the church who we feel is predatory in nature? Was it the boy who we heard crying out for help and bagging on the doors through the EVP in the church? The projectionist from the theatre.....or was it the frightening tentacle orb from last investigation?

Whoever, or whatever is stalking us, is getting closer and louder. It is obviously not scared of us....maybe it is just waiting for the right time to show itself and maybe ….. just maybe ….. attack!