February 21st, 2022Creaks and groans lead to paranormal career
AROUND 18 months ago Dolly Adamson and her family moved into a century-old house in Kyneton. Not long after that the weirdness commenced, the shadows flickering in the corners, the creaks, the groans. All those little things that suggest that your new home harbours something more than you may expect or even wish for.
“When we moved in I had doors slamming on me and some strange things happen,” says Dolly. “I didn’t feel like we were welcome in the house and I never felt like that before. But I do think the house started me on my spooky little path.”
That spooky little path was the development of Kyneton Paranormal and her new career as a paranormal investigator. She connected up with Psychic Bec, a medium from the area and began with three gatherings at the Kyneton Museum last May. Psychic Bec led a group seance and Dolly occupied another room with equipment designed to detect the presence of any disembodied entities that may arise.
As any person intrigued by Fortean phenomena (the strange and mysterious) would know, ghost and spirit experiences are shaped and formed by their cultural context. For example, in many parts of Asia, spirits are often dismembered soul-sucking beings dragging their entrails about. In European cultures they can manifest as pale shapes, descending stairs, occupying hallways and walking through the walls where they once lived and died. Modern Australia tends to follow that tradition, but when our weak anglo-descended phantom entities try to engage with the living, often they can only manage a tap on the shoulder, a chilly breeze or some scratching in the walls (think Patrick Swayze in the movie Ghost). They need all the help they can get to remind us mortals they are still there.
To assist their efforts in talking with us and documenting them if they appear, Dolly uses some indispensable equipment. These include cameras, several EMF (electro-magnetic field) meters, a Flux 2 response device (for detecting clear answers from visiting spirits) and a radiating EM antenna (for detecting temperature variations and other features). Other items are: one BooBuddy (a trigger object, such as a cuddly toy, which may be familiar and attractive to an entity thus enticing them to interact), and a EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recorder for documenting various unexplained speech and/or noises. Equipped with this array of electronics, the results and interactions have been intriguing.
“We captured the spirit of a little boy peek-a-booing on camera at one site (inset image) but didn’t realise until we looked at the photos later. At Odessa’s in Creswick we obtained voice recordings including the words ‘pushed’ and ‘justice’. And at Blackwood a spatula was thrown in the kitchen when we were talking about spirits.”
Since creating her ghost-hunting business, Kyneton Paranormal has been drawing in interest from around the state including the Rochester Hotel, the Victoria Hotel in Woodend, the Blackwood Hotel and Odessa at Leavers Hotel in Creswick.
“Our tours always bring out the sceptics and the firm believers, but they are a lot of fun and are all about seeing what we can discover. In England or America paranormal tours or investigations are hugely popular and help draw attention to sites and ultimately preserve them. And while there is a lot of history in our region it can often get neglected. By doing these events we can help generate more interest in the buildings – in other words, it keeps the lights on.”
Regardless of what people think about spectres, phantoms, apparitions, shades and other such vapours that may or may not inhabit your local bar, there is no doubt it helps maintain a community’s interest in their past. The National Trust certainly thinks so. They have approached Dolly to do a paranormal investigation at Barwon Park Mansion at Barwon Heads.
“We also have an event coming up at Clunes RSL in a couple of weeks’ time,” says Dolly. “I have been in contact with fellow paranormal investigator Leslie Scott and it seems that just about every place in Clunes is haunted and full of ghosts.”
Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Contributed
