My Night In Building One With Ghosts
The ground on which Unitec’s Mount Albert campus stands (and in particular Building One) has a colourful history. Given that it used to be home to the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, it’s not surprising that it has been the scene for various ghost sightings and other such spookery over the years. We decided to get to the bottom of this, and called in the team from Phoen-X Paranormal to run an investigation. A cynic and a sceptic; Joseph Harper tagged along, steely nerves in tow. The following is his blow-by-blow account.
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLENE SRHOJ I’m not going to lie. The idea of ghosts and spectres and all the rest sounds like a bunch of poppycock to me - the kind of stuff that is meant for those with over-active imaginations or paranoid schizophrenia. I went in with a pretty cavalier attitude about this whole paranormal investigation, and this is the very reason why what I witnessed that night scared the hell out of me. I have decided to present my findings in the only possible way one can present information of this scaritude; a Blair Witch Project style journal. 1:08 pm – I arrive at Building One. I’m halfway to the library when I run into a man in a bright orange and black polo shirt. This is Clinton Lawson, founder of Phoen-X Paranormal.
He leads me to where the rest of the team are gathered. There are five of them. There is a definite buzz about them as they all excitedly move their various devices up and down the hallways, and take photos of everything. “This is going to be a very interesting night,” says Harley Jones, lead investigator of Phoen-X North. One of the team members, Daniel Robinson had visited the building four years earlier with a different team, where they were physically punched and scratched by an unknown force. Will it happen again? 1:40 pm – The team starts to bring in equipment. The sheer amount of walkie talkies is astounding. I am given one too. “Keep this on at all times,” says Clinton. 2:06 pm – We enter the basement for the first time.
This, along with the old chapel, is where the investigation will centre itself tonight. It is a supposed hotspot for supernatural activity. The air in the basement feels cold and heavy. It smells like damp wool. The investigators are positively brimming with excitement. Investigator Debbie Burns tells us the EMF reading is 1.6, a little higher than normal apparently. Clinton explains the theory behind EMF readings, we all give off an electro magnetic field, and supposedly, so do spirits. However unshielded wires, electrical equipment and power sources also give off high EMFs. And because of this people can get what is known as EMF sickness, a disease which increases paranoia in some individuals. Sounds like a vicious cycle to me. 2:38 pm – I sit the team down for an interview.
They explain that “they are not ghostbusters. Rather they provide help. Help to people whose problems see them laughed at.” After the interview Clinton pulls me aside to tell me that if anything happens tonight, he “won’t hesitate in pulling the plug.” He won’t risk any danger on his team. “These people are my family,” he tells me. And they are like a family. They joke around and poke fun at each other, but they seem to have a very tight bond. 2:49 pm – We go down to what was once a morgue, but is now Unitec’s security centre. The team look around inside the building, except Harley, who stays outside and records notes for himself on a dictaphone. Afterwards the team head off for a while and I am left to my own devices. 6:01 pm – I return to the team. They now have several infrared cameras set up in the basement, and two team members are doing a kind of paranormal surveillance patrol on the third floor. Apparently all is not going smoothly.
“Never had this much hassle getting equipment set up as I have on this investigation,” says Clinton. An omen? 6:23 pm – Mysterious clanging sound in the basement. 6:28 pm – Source of clanging found to be artists hanging paintings. The team is extraordinarily professional. They really are all business when they get down to it. 7:53 pm – We eat pizza for dinner. The apricot chicken is divine. 8:53 pm – I return to the basement with Clinton. The cold is more consuming this time. Nothing out of the ordinary down there though. 9:03 pm – Harley and Daniel head out on another surveillance patrol, this time to the chapel, I join them. We enter the chapel. For five minutes all is normal. What happens next happens very fast. There is a knocking on the stained glass windows. We put it down to pigeons. But it is louder than pigeons beaks. This is a genuine knock.
We radio the rest of the team at home base (the library) and ask if the painters are still nailing things up. They aren’t. There is a rustle from the windows. I go to have a look. The building is very dark by this stage and I can’t see much at all. There is a gust of wind and a mug flies into the wall opposite the stained glass window. The handle is smashed off and is spread across the floor. I don’t know what’s going on. I am genuinely scared. Harley is on the radio to the rest of the team. Yelling at them to get up to the chapel. Daniel’s camera stops working. The rest of the team arrive. My heart is beating like mad. I have never been as scared as I was in that chapel. In Unison photographer, Charlene’s camera stops working as well. Everyone is all a flurry. 9:20 pm – Clinton finds a cold patch of air in the otherwise warm chapel. Harley stands in it for a long period of time. He is talking to himself and appears unable to move. I start to feel afraid again. Suddenly he takes off. Sprinting down the halls. He is being led. Clinton and I give chase. We follow him right down to an alcove on the first floor. Harley is crying and talking to himself. But then he stops. 9:35 pm - “It was a young lady, she needed help,” says Harley. Tears still evident in his eyes. “This isn’t me crying, it’s her.”
The team doesn’t know what to make of this. Apparently it is a first. I don’t know what to think. Photos taken earlier reveal the mug that smashed was sitting on the other side of the room. I can’t find a logical explanation. But I convince myself that I’m still a sceptic. I’m still shaken though, and I eat two cupcakes as comfort. I feel afraid and fat afterwards. 10:01 pm – We debrief about what happened. No one is sure of anything. Harley is still shaken. This level of excitement is exhilarating. “I can promise you; this won’t be the last action we see tonight,” he says. I wish he was right. Unfortunately, the night climaxed in the chapel. It was a brief but intense moment of paranormal activity which has changed the way I look at things. The rest of the night was spent walking around the rest of Building One, and occasionally returning to the chapel in the hopes that lightening would strike twice. It didn’t. 1:00 am - We take one last walk down to the basement and then call it a night. I thank the team and say my goodbyes before cycling off into the night. I understand the majority of readers won’t believe my version of events.
All I can do is swear to you readers that I’m telling the honest to god truth. While Clinton says he had hoped more could have happened in the night, the chapel incidence was spooky. He thought the intention of the flying mug was to grab attention. “A ‘get out of here’ feel. It didn’t want us there,” he says. Clinton reveals that he was shown some material compiled on the chapel a few hours before the incidence which detailed a ghost some people have seen, a thin woman with blonde hair. It matched the description Harvey gave and Clinton says there is no way Harvey had a chance to read the file. The team from Phoen-X are hoping to return in a few months time. They want to bring a full team of about twenty, and “give the building the investigation it deserves,” as Clinton put it when discussing the future plans. I look forward to their return.