Investigation Report: 'The Castle', Mount Eden - 5th May 2012

 

Background

 

We first read about this amazing home, when it was listed in real estate publications as being 'up for sale'.

 

Then we saw it had been purchased. Articles were written about the house and its new owner in the Sunday Herald and in online newsgroups. We tracked down the new owner who was nice enough to invite Haunted Auckland in to spend a night documenting the environment and soaking up the atmosphere of this unusual and unique character home in Auckland's Mt Eden.

 

 

 

Investigation

 

Team members attending the Mt Eden castle investigation were Mark, Kel, Kris, Barbara and Karen.

 

Also, briefly attending the first hour of the investigation, out of curiosity, were the new owner Munjula, her daughter and a couple of other interested friends. The group turned up at the castle at 9pm. Barbara and Kel arriving a little earlier to start a quick visual sweep of the interior and exterior to get a feel of the place.

 

On her arrival, sensitive Kel states;

 

"I arrived at the location and was sitting in my car under a street light. I tried communication with anyone that may have been in the property.. I asked "are you from this address, I am wanting to communicate with you as I am coming inside soon. I soon 'felt' someone there. I asked, 'Is that you who belongs with this house?', I received a 'Yes'. Suddenly above, the street light went out. I asked 'Can you turn the light on if you belong with the property address?' The light turned on, but was quite dim. I asked 'Can you make the light brighter?' The street light went brighter. Unfortunately there were no other witnesses except myself to this incident. The entity then asked me 'What do they call you?' I replied 'Kel'".

 

We began setting up our equipment in both top and bottom floors. Trigger items, static cameras and audio recorders positioned on both levels. Nightshot digital video camera and I..R torches were also set up in the outside shed. We then did a full photographic and audio walk through of the castle. Checking E.M.F readings as we went around.

 

It was decided we would do an EVP session upstairs in the main room for a couple of hours, whilst recording the atmosphere downstairs with static cameras and audio recorders. Then alternate later on.

 

Trigger tests were laid out downstairs also, in the hope of capturing movement sometime during the investigation. Standard, I.R and U.V torches, LED glow sticks, a toy ball, plastic bags, a candle and LED motion detectors were used as trigger devices.

 

 

 

UPSTAIRS

 

A few members claimed to have heard a rumbling, 'trolley wheels' type sound outside, which came and went throughout the night. It was an odd sound that didn't seem to fit the area and the time of night it was happening. It sounded like it was right outside the house window, like "someone was rolling a trolley past the window".

 

Kel states;

 

"After a while walking around, after the other people had left us, I felt a heaviness on my heart and chest." Barbara, whilst filming during an E.V.P session in a space between the sunroom and dining room in the upstairs section of the house, noticed a brief fast moving light in her viewfinder.

 

Movement was also detected by both Karen and one of the guests during the first half of the upstairs session. This incident was audio recorded. The moment the two saw the shadow move at the same time, was captured. Karen states;

 

"I saw a small shadow moving out of the room through the doorway next to me - which was also seen by the girl seated to my right. We both caught sight of the movement at the same time and turned our heads simultaneously to look - and agreed upon what we had both seen."

 

During our E.V.P session upstairs, the motion detector light set off a couple of times without anyone moving and the swinging wooden doors leading from the kitchen to the main dining room opened. There was no outside draught strong enough to cause this. This same door was later found to be closed firmly shut when it was confirmed to have been left open a little, whilst we went downstairs to do another session of EVP recording.

 

When the group were sitting upstairs in the lounge room, Kel felt a presence but as she tried to take photos, her camera did not work, it had flat batteries. Kel claims the batteries were brand new. Mark also reported a couple of incidents of battery drainage from a camera and digital video camera.

 

Kel felt a presence near her and felt quite cold, just as Karen mentioned she was cold also at that time. Kel at that time also felt "someone poked me in the ear." Mark recorded on the digital thermometer, a number of very icy cold spots around the upstairs floor that seemed to move around. Karen also commented on the cold spots;

 

"I did get very cold quite suddenly in the upstairs flat living room - despite the thermometer reading being high - I was shivering and almost at the point of my teeth chattering."

 

 

 

DOWNSTAIRS

 

We held a second E.V.P session downstairs, monitoring all aspects of the environments as we went. Atmospheric, electro-magnetic, visual and audio data were all recorded during this session.

 

Karen lit a candle and some incense and trigger objects were set up as before to try and encourage activity. Barbara personally felt more activity downstairs. "It was like a residual energy and did not feel nice"

 

Both Kris and Barbara wonder whether the building might have been a Vetinary clinic or similar at some time in its history. Barbara had a strong feeling of downstairs smelling of disinfectant and being quite sterile. Kris states;

 

"I got a feeling that the place was used for convalescents. A Doctor or Vet maybe. The downstairs felt more like a nurses quarters, whilst upstairs like patients rooms."

 

One part of the house that points heavily to the group's theory that the house was perhaps once used as some type of hospitalisation house or clinic, is the outside ramp that leads from the top level down the side of the house to the bottom floor. There is also a solid pipe railing leading the way down. This could also put some explanation to the 'trolley' sounds that were being heard outside the house on the ramp area.

 

The ramp would've been used to cart things up and down between floors, Food, medical equipment, as well as, perhaps used as a wheelchair ramp for the recovering patients. This of course is all conjecture without further evidence to support this hypothesis.

 

Karen noted;

 

"For me the downstairs flat had a completely different feel and 'vibe' about it. The room we held our vigil in felt quite strange, as did the downstairs bathroom. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what felt strange though."

 

and Kel reports;

 

"I felt a heaviness on my heart and chest as I walked around. When I was standing up I felt I was sinking down in to the ground it was a very weird sensation"

 

This feeling corresponded with a 'weird' feeling Karen experienced upstairs, where she claims to have felt an unnerving sensation of the house 'moving, shooting upwards', making her feel unstable, like she was about to fall. Before that feeling, Karen felt a 'warm, touching' sensation down her lower spine area;

 

"I had a bit of a moment up on the balcony, where the area above the window looked as if it was shooting upwards, away from me. This was something I saw with my eyes, rather than just being a sensation... although there was a very odd and unreal quality about it, as if for that moment, everything else ceased to exist and I was focused purely on the building moving rapidly upwards. I didn't feel dizzy or unwell... and it was over in the blink of an eye."

 

Karen also commented that "I had the feeling of a warm area behind me for quite some time." Kel reported "I felt a presence and saw a dark figure or shadow briefly in front of me". Barbara commented that she felt a breeze at that very moment. Mark thought it might have been smoke from the incense. However the figure was "tall and big, not like smoke"

 

 

 

BATHROOM DOWNSTAIRS

 

Barb, Kris, Karen and Kel held a short E.V.P and E.M.F monitoring session downstairs in the bathroom, as Kris had earlier had an uneasy feeling down there and felt it needed further research. Mark sat in solo vigil in the downstairs room continuing with the E.V.P recording.

 

Kel had decided to sit in the bath tub;

 

"I sat in the 'in ground' bathtub. I felt a presence, actually two presences. While sitting there I started to feel quite dizzy".

 

Kris monitored the bathrooms E.M.F levels, which he reports, "shooting up to 1900 (when there was normally an average of 350) was interesting. I tested the equipment many times to make sure it wasnt playing silly buggers. This may account for any ill feelings in that room."

 

Barbara asked "What is your name?" Kel asked the question out loud "What do they call you?" Kel found it was very hard to pick up the name. However, did eventually pick up on the name 'Edward'. Barbara (also a sensitive) asked Kel, "Are you sure you're not getting Ted?", as this was a name she was picking up on. Ted is also a shortened name for Edward.

 

Unfortunately we were unable to find any history or name of the person that was mentioned above. We will continue to validate this name with further research.

 

Kel received the 'question'. "What are you doing in my bathtub?" and answered, "Waiting and wanting to talk to you'. Kel recieved a very aggressive reply, which shocked her. The answer was "P*ss off! F**k off!".

 

We decided to end the investigation at 2.30 am.

 

 

 

 

Investigation Two - 1st June 2012

 

 

Team members attending the second investigation were Mark, Barbara, Tanya, Kel and Jay.

 

After the first investigation on May 5th, we felt we had experienced a handful of incidents, making the house worthy of a follow-up session. On this session the first incident happened within minutes of us arriving.

 

- Mark, Jay, Kel and Tanya were first to arrive. Mark opened the front door to start loading in the gear while we waited for Barbara to turn up.

- We were standing outside the front door looking into a storage shed/workshop. The open house front door was to our right.

- Kel wandered off to look around the side of the garage, to the left.

- Mark stepped back and turned away briefly to grab some gear and then turned back and went over to Tanya and Jay still standing at the shed door talking.

- Kel then came back from around the side of the garage - Left side again.

- As soon as she spoke, Jay and Tanya expressed shock and confusion.

- They had both seen a dark shadow figure that was behind them go through the front door, into the house, moments earlier.

- They, both at that moment, thought it was Kel, as she was also wearing all black clothing.

- Mark was standing right next to them and witnessed the synchronized shock and confusion this caused. They both thought they had seen Kel going into the house, but it wasn't. They also commented at the time, that the shadow was taller than Kel, but without really thinking, just assumed it was her.

 

The sheer look of total disbelief of both members showed that there must have been something there to cause this reaction. The only exterior light source was the outside entrance lamp, positioned directly above the front door. We tested this and could not recreate any similar shadowing effect which might have been the cause of what was seen.

 

Jay's statement on this incident;

 

"I was in the room next to the open garage, took some pictures and turned around and walked out. Tanya was standing outside and as I approached her, I saw Kel walking into the house, there was no strange feelings or anything, just like you won't feel anything if one of the members walked past you. There was no question about it, and to describe it as a shadow is an understatement as I can still visualize the thick black jacket and pants.

 

I was constantly aware of everyone else there as I didn't want to get startled by unsuspectingly come across another member and get a fright. So my mind was quite at ease knowing all three women were present with one walking into the house and if I remember correctly, Mark was at the ramp or somewhere outside. So the moment Kel came walking up from the driveway's direction my mind suddenly became confused and the feeling that something doesn't make sense. Before I could come to the conclusion that there was a person extra Tanya said it first (to my relief as I didn't want to be the newbie who 'saw someone walking'.)

 

It was great, it was exactly like my first experience in South Africa, where I saw someone walk past and didn't wonder if I saw something or not, rather I was wondering where that person was going. With Saturday's experience it was the same, except I wasn't wondering where Kel was going, I knew she was going into the house to look around further.

 

The person walking into the house was literally about a meter away from me. I was completely convinced it was Kel and didn't think much of it."

 

Another interesting moment that was encountered by the team a little later on - Tanya and Barbara were inside the house. Jay, Mark and Kel were outside.

Jay says he was looking at photos taken previously on his phone, standing near the entrance, when Mark and Kel walked into the house. Jay states;

 

"I turned and walked inside as well when I heard something very clearly inside the room next to the garage. When I realized that everyone is inside, I thought "this is it" so when I looked into the room next to the Garage Kel was standing there looking at me. She obviously saw the look on my face, because she laughed and asked me, "What's wrong?" It's then that I realized she never actually followed Mark into the house! This time I didn't fully look at the person that followed Mark in, just saw in the corner of my eye, both he and she walking into the house."

 

The group all agreed that these incidents could possibly have been those of a residual "playback" entity. We experienced other occurrences this night that would further confirm this theory.

 
An unidentifed "mist" can be seen in the upper left-hand corner of this image and appears to be encircling the head of our investigator Karen. There is some debate within the team as to whether this is paranormal or otherwise due to the longer exposure time of the photograph.

 

Mid session, Mark went outside with the Parabolic audio dish, connected to a digital recorder, to try and replicate or re-capture the rumbling 'trolley' noises heard outside the house during an EVP session last time, traveling down the ramp leading from the top level down to the bottom floor. He sat at the bottom of the ramp and aimed the Parabolic dish up towards the top of the ramp. Mark reports the following;

 

 

"After about 5 or so minutes I did start to hear a light rumbling sound that began to incorporate 'clattering' sounds. The sound, within a 2 minute period went from quiet to loud as it got increasingly closer to me. I could hear everything very clearly through the head phones at the time. When the noise was right up to me, it suddenly faded and disappeared.

 

I waited a further 5 minutes more and the sound started again.

 

Again I listened as it got increasingly louder as it seemed to travel down the ramp towards me. Again it stopped as it reached where I was sitting.

While I managed to record these two moments of audio, the sound I captured was rather distorted on playback, as I had adjusted the sensitivity setting on the Parabolic too high, so it was feeding into the audio recorder at too high a level.

 

This meant that the 'clattering' sound that I heard so clearly was now hidden back in the audio mix amongst the distortion of the overdriven sound. The increasing volume level of the approaching sound was captured however. It can be heard getting louder and louder as it gets nearer to me, then disappearing. This was captured twice.

 

Again, I personally feel that this was a fragment of residual audio that can somehow replay itself in an ongoing loop. Very much like a recorded piece of music stuck on continual 'repeat' mode.

 

During a photographic sweep of the exterior, Jay captured a mysterious light anomaly that the group could not re-create.

 

We noticed that the flash was reflected off the top beam, but there was nothing on the ground or anywhere near that area that could have made it reflect upwards. It was brightest at the bottom, along the floor, so it wasn't a light bounce off the reflected beam above. Jay took many pics either side of this one and could not reproduce it. All the group took many photos to try and reproduce this effect without success.

 

Jay, the more sceptical of the group that night, admitted he was stumped;

 

"The light anomaly... well I can't think of any explanation except a camera malfunction or some freak accidental light caught by someone's torch or camera flash. Whether it is paranormal I don't know (and I always have explanations for absolutely everything in life). So my conclusion of it... I don't have one, I'm throwing my hands up and saying I really have NO idea what could have caused it. I've never seen anything like it."

 

Unexplained Light Anomaly - Click for original image.

 

 

The shadow entity, seen earlier by Jay and Tanya, again made its presence felt by appearing to both Barbara and Kel as they were standing talking outside the front door, right next to the shed doors, the very same spot as the last incident occurred.

 

Mark was walking inside the house down the hallway towards the front door where they were standing and saw them both react at exactly the same time to seeing a tall dark shadow figure flash past them at a very fast speed. Kel saw it this time and Barbara felt it. They both responded in shock and disbelief at the same time. Kel comments on the incident;

 

"Barbara was standing near me. I felt a presence come quite close to my face and then it rushed past me."

 

Barbara's statement on the incident;

 

"I jumped because I had the weird sensation that something went through me. I was standing sideways to the door and suddenly felt an energy move quickly out of the door and move through me! Not a pleasant sensation at all. It felt like it would if someone brushed along beside you, but this was through me (very hard to explain!).

 

The main actual physical experience at the time was a definite (uncomfortable but not painful) pressure, firstly in the (inner) ear that was closest to the door and then (a split second later) also felt in the other ear (furthest from the door). This sensation was very quick but my ears did not return to normal for about two hours after this happened.

 

I did think it was interesting that Kel was standing next to me (ie Hallway, Door, Me, then Kel - in a line) and she also felt the same thing at exactly the same time! We looked at each other knew we had both sensed the same thing."

 

Conclusion:

We asked each of the team to give their thoughts on the location:

 

Mark: "I didn't personally experience anything that would lead me to say it was haunted necessarily (although a few hours isn't a long time to base that decision on to be fair). I do think there's quite probably more to it than meets the eye though... and I've no doubt that it could well be the scene for unexpected occurrences for its residents."

 

Barbara: "I think it is haunted, but it is a residual haunting with maybe a 'ghost' there but who does not want to be known."

 

Kel: "In my opinion there is residual energy remaining in the house. I still feel that there was an entity there and his name is Edward."

 

Karen: "It's a beautiful building. I suspect it would be a very interesting place to spend the night & you might well have different experiences if you tried to sleep there."

 

Jay: I do believe there was a residual occurrence there, though I doubt there was any intelligent spirit there as I never felt uncomfortable. I even closed the bathroom door and sat in the bathtub with the torch off and didn't feel out of place"

 

Kris personally didn't feel the place is haunted. He felt the place had presence, but was not inhabited. However, he did get his strongest 'haunted feelings' in the shed out the back.

 

In general we felt that we may have had better results had we left video cameras and audio recorders running overnight after we had gone.

 

The team all agreed that while we didn't capture anything obvious and exceptional on a Paranormal level, we did all feel and see things that, at the time we could not explain. It is possible the house contains some remaining residual energy left behind in the house. A presence of some sort was definitely felt within the house's interior.

 

Whether these feelings are caused by something structural, electrical or 'down-to-earth' in explanation, was undetermined with this session. We all agreed that the house was definitely worthy of further investigation because of these experiences, and while no real physical and conclusive evidence was captured in the 5 hour investigation, this does not mean the house is void of paranormal activity. It seems there is still a breath of life left in the old Mt Eden Castle.

 

Our second session at the Mt Eden "Castle" has not changed our minds in any way with regards to whether or not there is a presence residing there. However, we feel it is of a residual nature. We also feel it is benevolent and not a negative or harmful energy. It was a very peaceful feeling house with a very relaxed and calming atmosphere. These incidents appeared to be re-occurring memories of the past that seem to replay themselves over and over. Why this happens, we don't know.

 

Haunted Auckland would like to extend a big thank you to Munjula for allowing us into her home.

 

 

Comments or Feedback:

 

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