LOCKED in a dark dungeon, a table defies gravity and shuffles up a wall, as unexplained haunting sounds echo through the cold and empty corridors that encase it.
The alleged incident draws piercing screams and a barrage of profanities from a seasoned team of paranormal investigators who have bunkered down in hope of experiencing this very moment.
For many people, it’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
But for Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators (APPI) boss Peta Banks, 40, ghost encounters are just another day on the job.
Leading a “core team” of five paranormal investigators and about 20 volunteers, Ms Banks said the purpose of her work was to “prove or disprove” the existence of spirits in buildings suspected to be haunted.
“The paranormal also encompasses UFOs but we focus predominantly on ghosts and hauntings,” Ms Banks told news.com.au
“We go out to report haunted locations and try and prove and disprove if each particular venue might have ghosts in it.”
APPI investigative teams typically consist of “a professional photographer, equipment guys who look after the cameras and audio to make sure they’re working and in the places we want” and several paranormal investigators who conduct experiments.
“We use a whole range of scientific equipment; electromagnetic field readers, infra-red cameras that show light in complete darkness, digital voice recorders, thermometers and a ghost box — it’s a digital radio and it continually scans through frequencies and the theory is you pick up spirits in white noise,” Ms Banks said.
“Sometimes we even use an Xbox connector because it has a sensor that shows when someone is standing there and then a figure will appear next to it, as well as everyday equipment tradies and other people use to see if there is electricity in walls and things like that.”
Ms Banks said her team no longer investigated private homes because she was constantly contacted by people filing false reports, often because of suspected “mental health” issues.
Her work, across the country — which she says started as a hobby when she was a little girl and her Irish grandmother would tell her ghost stories — includes ghost tours to some of the most haunted sites in Australia.
Ms Banks said Liverpool Tafe — formerly a “poor house, benevolent society, an asylum, convict hospital and a state hospital and asylum” — was her favourite place to hunt ghosts.
The spirit of a young girl is said to often be seen lurking around the K Block wearing white at night.
Inside Liverpool TAFE, which was once a convict hospital, and asylum, a poor house, a benevolent society, an army barracks (for the red coats) and a state hospital and asylum. There are reports a girl at night can bee seen lurking around K block wearing white.Source:News Corp Australia
“Man, I’ve had some experiences there,” Ms Banks told news.com.au
“It was built in 1825 as a convict hospital and it’s had such a progressive life.
“There’s been so much tragedy and death there, and walking through the halls you feel the history and misery in that place.”
Ms Banks said two of the most spine-tingling paranormal experiences she has ever had, took place at Liverpool Tafe.
“There were four of us, all investigators, there in the dungeons where they used to lock up troublemakers and convicts,” she said.
“We had the lights off and were chatting among ourselves when all of a sudden there were loud bangs on top of the table, but it was obvious it wasn’t one of us.
“We were all blown away, it was the loudest ‘bang, bang, bang’.
Ms Banks claims to have witnessed plenty of paranormal activity.
“On another occasion a table that was a light, round kind of lamp table, starting moving like crazy, on its own, it ended up inching its way up a wall,” she said.
“Every time we tried to record it or turn a light on, it would stop.
“It absolutely blew my mind.”
Liverpool Tafe, which was once a convict hospital, and asylum, a poor house, a benevolent society, an army barracks (for the red coats) and a state hospital and asylum. Paranormal investigator Peta Banks claims the building is haunted.Source:News Corp Australia
But she said she felt “most scared” when she allegedly witnessed one of her investigators become possessed while she conducted a ghost tour at the Casula Power House in NSW.
“He was a very quiet guy who worked with us, he was always in the background and never wanted to be in the spotlight,” Ms Banks said.
“We were showing a video to [the group] and I glanced over and I saw him standing rocking from side to side.
“I called someone over to say ‘check on Glen, they went over and tried to talk to him but he wasn’t reacting, just staring into space, rocking.
“I was conscious I had a room full of people and didn’t want anything to happen so told the person helping to take him out of the theatre.
“They grabbed him as he wouldn’t go and then he suddenly screamed and charged, and it took two strong men to hold him back.
“They dragged him out, he started dry retching. He didn’t vomit, he was heaving on the ground. The second he got out he came back to himself. He has no memory of the incident happening. That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”
In a separate incident at the Power House, a cameraman saw a ghost on the monitor which appeared “as an old man standing there in old working clothes and looking curious”, Ms Banks claimed.
“I’d never seen (the cameraman) so shaken in my life, his eyes were like saucers,” she said.
Ms Banks named Parramatta Gaol as one of the most haunted buildings she has visited in Australia.
“A lot of people get touched, have their hair stroked and will get their back pockets grabbed (by ghosts) there,” she said.
“We’re not sure if they’re going for the guys’ wallets or their bums.
“One time at the jail I felt someone grab my arm, it was very distinct and I assumed it was a guy next to me so I turned my torch on and he was three feet away with his arms crossed. I said ‘did you just grab me?’ And he said ‘I haven’t moved’. I looked behind me and no one was there.”
Ms Banks said paranormal activity was often detected and recorded by the team’s equipment at the Gaol.
She said some of her team’s paranormal encounters had been caught on camera or other recording devices but that many moments had been missed because spirits “drained batteries” or “turned equipment off”.
“One thing that sets our detectors off is electricity, you can often get false readings if you put the device against a wall because you can assume there is power behind it, but at the jail there’s no power in the wall, so it’s interesting because something is always setting (the detector) off,” she said.
The jail has a dark history, including the discovery of human remains in an underground escape tunnel.
Ms Banks said the possible connection between history and paranormal activity was unclear.
“We don’t know what or who the (spirits) are or what they want,” she said.
Human remains found in an escape tunnel underneath Parramatta Gaol.Source:Supplied
But according to Ms Banks, there is an exception, with the jail’s resident ghosts proving to be big fans of cigarettes.
“We put a piece of paper on the ground with a coin as a trigger object and draw a circle around the coin to wait and see if moves,” she said.
“We do the same with cigarettes in places like jails where they were a currency.
“We’ll say out loud ‘you want a smoke? There’s a smoke here if you want, just come and grab it’.
“We’ll put the cigarette on a (testing device), and often it will start emitting noise and lights start flashing, meaning its getting electromagnetic energy; the theory is that spirits are made up of electromagnetic energy. ”
The investigators often role play to entice the spirits and encourage communication.
“We’ll put a girl in strong perfume, a very feminine thing in male orientated places like jails, and we’ll send the girl in with a camera to monitor and she basically flirts with the (ghosts),” Ms Banks said.
“There have been instances where the camera picks up footsteps (while the girl is standing still) that she didn’t hear at the time but we could hear on camera.”
The investigation team adopts several methods of testing, including the ‘Ganzfeld experiment’, to detect paranormal activity.
“It’s sensory deprivation where you are seated with a blindfold on and static electricity played into your ears and a camera monitoring you at all times,” Ms Banks said.
“It takes away sight and sound and replaces it with monotonous noise; the idea of the experiment is to see if you pick up on more things while your senses are taken away.
“A lot of people react strongly to that one.
“When I did it to myself, I thought I could hear people having loud conversations around me and walking around, loud furniture shuffling, but afterwards discovered no one (in my team) had been saying anything or moving, they had just been quietly watching me.”
If the team’s equipment detects paranormal activity, the investigators don’t seek to remove the source or “cleanse” the site, as often seen in horror movies.
“We actually don’t do anything if it’s determined the place is haunted, we aren’t the kind of people who want to move spirits on or anything like that, we just want to prove or disprove their existence,” Ms Banks said.
There are “two different kinds of hauntings”, according to Ms Banks.
“There are the residual hauntings where, say, at 10pm every night a doorbell rings for no reason. It’s almost like a tape recording playing over and over again,” she said.
“Then there are active spirits that interact with you and talk back to you but I don’t know why they’re still here.
“I’ve listened to the ghost box and heard things like ‘help me, help me’ and you’ve got to wonder what’s going on to make that come through.
“One time we had the ghost box on scanning through frequencies, we were just talking, and I heard a woman say ‘go to bed’ then I heard a young boy say ‘mum’ then I heard the mum yell ‘go!’.
“That was really interesting. I believe it’s some kind of unfinished business or related to sudden or tragic deaths, maybe.”
