THE HUNTER now has its own ghost-busting team. Scott Faulkner and Nick Potts have founded East Coast Paranormal Investigations.
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Mr Faulkner grew up in one of the first houses built in Maitland, a Bourke Street residence once owned by a former lord mayor.
Driving past the house still sends a chill up his spine.
“We would hear footsteps across the floor, pictures would be rotated on the walls,” Mr Faulkner said, explaining some of the experiences his family had in the historic home.
“Different things, objects, were moved. Occasionally you would get a pungent smell … it could last for days.”
He lived in the house from the age of two until he was 10. He was so terrified by what he saw he moved into his little sister’s bedroom.
“I would see black figures at the window, white silhouettes that you could make out was a person but didn’t have a complete form,” he said.
“A definite apparition and you would see it moving past the bedroom door at night time.
“Your blanket would get yanked while you were asleep, you would wake up and it would be down at your feet.
“It was a very odd place.”
East Coast Paranormal Investigations opened in January and provides a free paranormal activity investigation service to people with haunted houses.
The team uses an array of devices to detect unusual activities.
“We have EMF (electro-magnetic field) readers,” Mr Faulkner said.
“It’s believed spirits interfere with the electromagnetic field. You can pick up on their energy using these readers.”
Other tools of the trade are: night vision cameras, K2 meters, a hand-held device which allegedly lights up when it comes in direct contact with a ghost; epods, an electrostatic sensor; and iPhone apps such as Ghoster Hunter M2 and TX1 Spirit Box.
Mr Faulkner said he approaches each job with a sceptical attitude.
“We never go to a site looking for ghosts,” Mr Faulkner said.
“If anything we go there looking to debunk the possibility.
“Once we can’t find another explanation then we lean towards [paranormal activity].”
On one job at the criminal ward of Morisset Hospital, Mr Faulkner said he experienced physical contact with a ghost.
“I was doing a voice recording and all of a sudden the leg of my pants were getting yanked at,” he said.
Mr Faulkner said people often experienced physical symptoms when a ghost was present.
“A cold feeling, emotional draining, feeling sick and head pressure,” he said.
Paranormal hot-spots in the Hunter Valley were Wickham, Islington, Mayfield, Maitland, and King Street in Raymond Terrace, he said.
Other haunted locations, according to Mr Faulkner, were: The Civic Theatre, the bell tower at Christ Church Cathedral, Fort Scratchley, the old Lambton Theatre and Morisset Hospital.
If your house needs ghost-busting email: ecpi@outlook.com.au
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