Summary of an Investigation at
Pengegon Institute
Saturday 8th April 2006
Hidden away not far from the main town of Camborne, and steeped
in local mining history, Pengegon Institute is a unique building
with a known history of tragedy due to various mining accidents.
This seems to have left its mark on the surroundings manifesting
itself in some peculiar ways. The experience of phenomenon
isn’t always present when expected, but that’s
the exciting part of ghost hunting……you just don’t
know when something is going to happen!. On previous visits
investigating this wonderful place, many people have come
away feeling that during their stay there… they were
not alone… the feeling of being watched… unexplained
sounds… and even full apparition sightings around the
place.
What would our guests experience during their vigil here and
more importantly would any of our guests have the nerve to
carry out a lone vigil in what was once used as a morgue for
the ill fated miners who unfortunately met a tragic end while
working underground? After the Introduction we set about investigating
this atmospheric building and its grounds, which took on a
completely different feeling when ‘the lights went out’!
Here follows the main occurrences from each
area:
Main Hall
Group 1 (Stuart’s Group):
After dividing into three teams to investigate each of the
three main areas, this team spread out to cover the largest
area of the building, the Hall. Almost immediately night shot
camcorders were picking up a multitude of light anomalies
or ‘Orbs’ following guests around. Some of these
have turned out to make very interesting viewing on playing
back the tapes! These persisted throughout this group’s
time in here.
There was a large number of little things
occurring, which although maybe easy to discount or ignore
individually, adding them all together makes this much more
difficult. Several of the team saw flashes of light towards
the main door, one actually seeing a shadow walk past. This
would have been impossible for a person to be mistaken, as
there was a further locked external door behind it and nowhere
to hide! A motion sensor also went off for no apparent reason
in this area, which was the only time during the night a sensor
was set off which could not be explained.
Strange noises were heard coming from upstairs, but at this
time there were none that could not realistically be attributed
to others walking around or building settlement etc. However
this gave the invaluable opportunity to be fully familiarised
with the normal sounds to be heard here over the course of
a night and to rule these out later. At one point there was
a sound of something bouncing along the floor, which we later
explained as a drawing pin; but we can’t explain how
it was propelled along what sounded like nearly the whole
length of the hall. No one was moving around at the time and
Stuart was focused on the area where this was heard, so he
does not see how this could have been thrown by anyone present
without him knowing about it.
Cold spots were detected and felt
by many, again a lot of these in the vicinity of the main
door. No draughts were present, and the cold spots came and
went throughout the night. They would be there, then gone
in a few seconds or minutes, only to re-manifest themselves
to both others and the same people later.
Group 2 (Ian & Kevin’s Group):
For this session, on the group’s request,
glass divination and table tipping were also carried out,
with some interesting results.
Glass Divination
Through glass divination the glass moved very strongly at
times and we could almost certainly rule out andy obvious
individual manipulation. The group picked up on the presence
of a young girl.
She was called Emma and passed in 1844 aged between 14-16
years.
Emma was connected to the mine and is apparently buried at
the local church.
She is grounded and is aware of other presences around the
building.
The group asked Emma if she could point the glass in the direction
of a presence she knew or recognised and the glass moved strongly
in one direction, which we later found out that the presence
she had pointed to was her brother, he too was connected to
the mine and is grounded.
During the glass divination one of the group felt as if she
couldn’t catch her breath.
Table Tipping
Whilst carrying out table tipping we once
again apparently made contact with Emma and her brother.
The table only moved very slightly but this was felt and seen
by the whole group.
One of the females in the séance looked down at her
arm at one point and she stated that it did not look like
her arm at all.
Various orbs / light anomalies were caught on night vision
camera whilst calling out.
At one stage everyone heard a loud
bang from upstairs and assumed it was another group. However
it later transpired that nobody was up there!
Group 3 (Will’s Group)
After a refreshment break a different team
arrived here to conduct a vigil and with some very intriguing
results. As with all investigations we thoroughly look for
natural causes that may account for said paranormal occurrences,
but on this occasion we truly were left puzzled with what
was experienced during our vigil here. Very little dowsing
was done here due to our time conducting glass divination.
Very rarely has this worked during investigations and while
sure that no one who was involved during this was physically
pushing the glass results obtained seemed incredible. The
spirit that we communicated with was that of a male who gave
the name Charles. Many of us felt icy cold draughts pass by
us and a couple of people saw a bright flash of light (a circle
of light) to the right of Will. To add to this an interesting
photo taken here showed an orb in exactly the same place to
where it had been seen with the naked eye. Again night vision
picked up on moving anomalies and pictures of orbs were caught
on camera. Others had the feeling of being watched which was
quickly followed by an icy cold breeze passing over one person’s
face and then for some unknown reason he felt very angry.
When the lights went back on and the vigil came to a close
we checked for what might have caused the icy cold draughts
but with no windows present and with the doors shut tightly
none could be found.
Kitchen, Store Rooms and Patio
Group 1:
This proved to be a relatively quiet session, despite splitting
the team up. Guests went alone or in pairs to be shut in the
storerooms. Séances were also held but the only result
was a seemingly impossible number of rattles to the kitchen
door occurring in response to questions. This was very loud
at times, and whilst this could be recreated by causing a
large back draft, an obvious explanation for why it mostly
occurred in response to questions is not forthcoming. It was
suggested that others walking around upstairs might be causing
vibrations, however after extensive use of walkie-talkies
and co-operation with the upstairs groups this did not occur
at the same time when people were walking or jumping upstairs.
There were strange noises heard from upstairs over the course
of the night by a lot of those present, which again through
use of walkie-talkies was confirmed as not being due to those
upstairs………….this became even more
interesting at the end of the night…
Group 2:
.
Through dowsing various team members picked up on 2 male and
1 female presences.
Female presence passed in 1846.
Male presence 1 passed in 1844 aged 35, through dowsing Liz
(a group member) was also able to find out his name, which
was Charles.
Male presence 2 passed in 1835 age 45, once again Liz was
able to get his name, which was Claude.
He had no family and was a store man when alive here.
Both male presences were aware of each other.
We carried out a séance; during this time a noise was
heard behind the group on the kitchen worktops it was clearly
the sound of the Dowsing rods being moved even though no one
was standing close enough to move them.
One of the group also felt a strange sensation as if he wanted
to flare his nostrils and stiffen up his upper lip, he also
felt as if he was wearing a hat.
Out side Patio Area
Male presence picked up through dowsing passed in 1664.
Female presence picked up again through dowsing passed in
1830’s.
These two presences were picked up through dowsing by 2 separate
team members at different times.
Liz was also able to dowse for the presences names which were
Anna for the female and Dennis for the male.
Group 3
We all entered this area in high spirits,
having a good old laugh and joke, but this quickly changed
as our vigil came to a close here! One lady started dowsing
here and picked up on a female who gave her known name as
Jane. She passed over in her 20’s and claimed to have
been murdered locally in the early 1900’s. Another presence
picked up was that of a male of late 40’s. We all proceeded
to turn the lights off and conduct a séance and this
was one of the most interesting and dare we say it scary events
of the night. While asking for Jane to give us a sign that
she could hear us, the door mysteriously started to shudder,
no one was on the other side, no one was in the room above
at the time and more importantly no natural draughts were
present. We continued and some of us began seeing orbs with
the naked eye, some of us felt that we had been touched on
the leg and on the back of our arms. Suddenly Will saw a flash
of light (again this was just a circle of light, not a flash
of light that lit up the whole room). He asked Graham who
was speaking to a presence to ask again for a light…
again it happened; everyone within the room saw this and on
every account of asking for a flash of light one was seen.
The light moved approximately a foot from one corner to the
centre of the room, which ranged from a white light changing
to an orange glow. Suddenly it seemed to take shape and Will
(not prone to such psychic experiences) saw a tall dark figure
standing behind one of the ladies in the room. Just as he
said the words.. “I don’t want to worry you…”
the said lady looked around and saw the figure too and obviously
felt a little un-nerved. At this point the group decided to
stop as while they were amazed at what they had experienced,
the nerves were running quite high for some people. Now bearing
in mind this was a very dark room with no light source coming
from anywhere, the lady couldn’t of had any idea that
Will had been speaking to her. On inspecting the room the
light which all the group had seen (which had no pattern to
it) was completely unexplainable, nothing natural could have
caused this, no machinery was active, no reflections, not
a thing. On turning the lights off once more without doing
the séance nothing was seen. We also tried glass divination,
but nothing really was witnessed apart from a large bang in
the room above us, which at the time we thought was the other
group. However we were wrong, as the team was not in the room
at all when we heard the bang. Concluding this vigil we were
absolutely baffled, excited and at times a little freaked
out by what had happened here during our stay.
Upstairs in the former Morgue
Group 1:
This was the part many were looking
forward to the most. Unfortunately for this particular group,
very little was encountered during our time up here, with
most of the team feeling fine and not really apprehensive
even. We left the building for a walk around the nearby engine
house to see if activity would pick up if we gave the room
a break, sadly this did not really produce any results.
A brave couple of guests
did their own stint up here and also reported the same. Things
did start to get more interesting for the next guests who
braved it as a pair, but still nothing really exciting besides
unusual noises, which could be perhaps put down to settlement
or caused by others. 
Group 2:
Two trigger objects were set up in this area (coins) with
some sufficient movement to one of them.
Presences picked up in
this area were one male one female and an "It" (negative energy).
Female presence was a young girl she was picked up by one
of the team members through dowsing, the young girl presence
was grounded and her name was Faith.
The It presence was detected and the group picked
up some very strange and high EMF readings in the area of
this presence.
Orbs / Light anomalies were also picked up on night vision
/ digital camera.
A noise was heard by the team, which sounded like a large
stone had dropped onto the floor and on investigation we did
find a pebble lying in that area.
Group 3
The team wasted no time and started dowsing, mainly picking
up on a male presence that seemed to point to that of a miner.
A female was also picked up at times but not a lot of information
was gathered. We spent most of the vigil here in darkness
where people caught some very interesting pictures of orbs,
some were easily explainable due to airborne particles but
one or two had us all baffled and after being put through
different analysis tests by our image analysis he found that
some of them were indeed of unknown origin. Night vision footage
also picked up on anomalies which ranged from flashing lights
to quite bright moving anomalies. A séance was also conducted
here with some interesting results; many of us all felt that
we had been pushed. Some of our guests also reported seeing
orbs with the naked eye and cold spots seemed to appear, though
when we later checked these areas for cold spots they had
mysteriously disappeared. All in all an interesting start
to the night ahead.
Final Session - After some tired souls had left…………….
With some of the guests departed for their beds, a few sat
down and we began a debriefing session in the hall………..at
this point in the night we expected things to feel less scary
and less active with the approach of dawn and the increase
in light.
However whilst summarising the night's events more strange
noises kept happening and at one point Stuart ran to the main
door as he swore a figure or shadow had moved past; as indeed
one guest had witnessed earlier. As before there was no one
in the area inside or outside, it would be impossible for
the external door to have been opened and shut without us
seeing and hearing it. We recreated this but the light and
noise is unmistakable, interesting that most of the phenomenon
reported by teams occurred in this area.
The final shock was when all present heard what sounded like
the door being opened or moved upstairs and someone walking
around, very loudly. Some of us rushed up there expecting
to find a security risk from the living.
We covered the area in a blanket of light
from high-powered torches, to find no one outside in the area
and both doors shut. We are confident that no one could have
come into the area and left without us seeing or hearing them,
this was confirmed by those downstairs who heard the original
bang, then footsteps; followed by us entering the room (our
voices were distinctly recognisable) but no one moving the
heavy doors to get out. As we somewhat nervously made our
way inside, we found nobody and absolutely no trace of entry
or disturbance.
|
|
Could
someone really have operated such a secure door in a hurry
unseen or even unheard? |
Conclusion
A great night was had by all, a fascinating
venue, with so much character and atmosphere.
Once again a big thank you to Graham and the Pengegon Institute
for their warm welcome and hospitality.
Well done and thank you to all who raised money for the Anthony
Nolan Trust.
Since our visit, we have learnt the level of activity has
dramatically increased, partly due to renovation work to the
kitchen. Haunting Experiences are returning on Saturday 8th
July 2006…….three months later, what waits in
store this time at The Pengegon Institute? Do not miss it!
Notes From Participants:
· Thanks for the night. It was an interesting experience.
I think as a group as a whole, it was an active night, judging
by the amount of experiences by different people.
For me, as I was sitting there during the introduction, I
could feel this coldness or breeze on my leg.
Later on, when we were doing the glass séance, the
glass moved and I hardly had my finger on it (like the rest
of the people in the group). The group felt the room go cold
- I could feel coldness creeping across my hand and from the
corner of the room I could feel cold, which went across my
neck - and there was no window from this part of the room.
The most prominent experience (I think) that happened that
night was when I was upstairs with one of the groups, headed
by Stuart Andrews. Nothing much was happening, so Stuart mentioned
we should pop outside and investigate the mine. We went outside
to the mine and I was the nearest person to the Institute
from the group, the other people were on the other side of
the mine building. All of a sudden I heard two big bangs come
from the direction of the Institute. I ran over to Stuart
to tell him to walkie-talkie the other two groups in the building
to ask them if they had just heard a noise. They replied by
mentioning they thought it was our group that had just made
the noise.
We spoke to the groups later and one group said they were
carrying out a séance and asked if they could have
a sign. They then heard those two big bangs, which they thought
was one of our group falling over upstairs. But this was not
the case, I am 100% sure there was no-one upstairs in the
room at the time to create that noise.
D
· Just thought i would drop you a line to remind you
of my experiences at the Pengegon Institute on Saturday night.
I've managed to catch some interesting orbs on my digital
camera, which I will send on to you as soon as I have uploaded
them! We started upstairs where we caught some moving orbs
then we were in the kitchen where the door seemed to rattle
in response to our questions asked in our séance. This
continued after everybody had left upstairs so could not have
been caused by vibration. I also felt pressure on the top
of my head and experienced a change in air pressure. (my ears
popped) I also had tingling in my fingers like pins and needles.
After that we went into the main hall where it all seemed
to kick off. We did a séance with a glass which moved
in response to our questions. It seemed we were talking with
a young girl called Emma who had died in 1844 due to complications
brought on by childbirth. She didn't work at the institute
but played there as a child. She said that it was her who
had been seen in a white dress on several occasions. She also
said that she had long dark straight hair and that her brother
was with her. She was grounded and was not happy there. The
weirdest thing to happen to me was when we were table tipping.
I all of a sudden felt that I was on the outside looking in
and that i couldn't feel my hands. I looked down at the table
and couldn't tell which hands were mine so I moved my thumb
and although I could see it moving it was like i was looking
at somebody else’s hand and I couldn't feel it. That
was freaky. There were also two loud bangs from upstairs which
made us all look up and question what everybody was doing
up there, but when checked on the walkie-talkie it was discovered
that all upstairs were actually outside and they had heard
it too. The activity continued even after most people had
gone home and we all sat in the dark. Noises were heard from
upstairs and it was thought that somebody said Hello. All
in all a brilliant night and I have to say thank you very
much for a very interesting evening. I have been on a previous
investigation and this was so professional compared to that
one. I and my friends really enjoyed ourselves and we will
definitely be back!
Many Thanks
MS
· We had several strange occurrences at the Pengegon
Institute which are difficult to explain, including capturing
the usual orbs on camera, and flashes of light on a locked
off video camera in two separate locations, where there appears
to be no explanation as to why they have occurred.
On a personal level, “J”
had a peculiar urge to ‘screw’ his face up and
flare his nostrils during a darkness vigil, as though he was
angry about something, and had the feeling of wearing a tin
hat! Neither are usual for him! Also on arrival I felt my
hair being touched, as though fingers were tapping the top
of my head, so our first impression was that there was definitely
something unusual going on here.
This
first picture here is taken on the steps in the main hall
of the Pengegon Institute and is interesting as it is said
that a young miner sits here on the stair watching what’s
going on. There was nothing here to cause a reflection on
the camera so perhaps he was watching us on this occasion!
The second picture was taken during our
attempt at glass divination. Several people commented on being
‘watched’ and you can clearly see a light above
our heads.
In the courtyard I had success with the
dowsing rods and picked up on a male, Dennis, and a female,
Anne, who comes in visitation and confirmed she has been seen.
In the kitchen area I picked up on two males a ‘Charles’
and ‘Claude’, who both come in visitation. Interestingly
Kevin mentioned that the names and dates I got for these males
may have been picked up on a previous investigation.
Also in the kitchen Jim, Graham and myself
whilst just chatting on a break, twice caught a glimpse of
an unusual black shadow shooting across the floor, which didn’t
seem to be caused by anything obvious. It was also in here
that a flickering light is caught on locked off video camera
during the first darkness vigil in one of the storerooms.
The Glass divination proved interesting
as we managed to get the glass to move in response to questioning,
not something I have experienced before. We all felt an icy
cold breeze across our hands and the temperature fall although
the thermometer registered no fluctuation in temperature.
We caught the glass moving on video and it doesn’t appear
that anyone is obviously moving or pushing it. However the
movement was weak and communication didn’t last for
long, which was probably down to my lack of experience and
not knowing what to ask! We seemed to get our ‘yes’
and ‘no’ mixed up which didn’t help either!!
(Check out Will’s expression, not sure if he’s
been possessed!)
In this photo there are five orbs dotted
around us, with a large feint orb above mine and Will’s
head (in front of the black speaker). Could this be the spirit
trying to communicate with us?
The last locations, the morgue and the mine,
were very quiet and sadly we didn’t get any response
to calling out during the darkness vigil. Unfortunately the
locked off video camera didn’t capture the loud bang
heard during the vigil the group were having downstairs, even
though the noise was said to come from this room at the time,
there is nothing on tape to verify this. There are however
two flashes of light, like bright sparks, one pink one yellow,
which appear whilst the camera is locked off and the room
empty. Again there is no obvious explanation for this.
Pengegon is an interesting and intriguing
place and gave us some activity, which despite investigating
thoroughly, we couldn’t explain. Our thanks go to Graham
for allowing us access to the building, one which I’m
sure we haven’t heard the last of!!
· Hello!
We had a great time and it was nice to meet you all. We took
some photos which Graham has had a look at and confirms that
they are of orbs so we are forwarding those to you.
Best wishes
F and D
