Команда PIGS зафиксировала голоса, тени и автографы духов на острове Гернси

The team, which goes by the acronym PIGS, the Paranormal Intelligence Gathering Service, has routinely visited the island since 2009. This year, they started their exploration at Castle Cornet, a location they were glad to be returning to in light of the fascinating findings gathered there during earlier visits. At the Underground Hospital, they were exploring until the early hours of the morning with four teams of 38 guests. ‘It was a really successful return,’ said team leader Audrey Grinsted. ‘It was all about the audible things this time. All of the teams experienced footsteps and voices. 'There was a scream at one point and also a bang so loud that we actually went down to where it was to check that the team there was okay. We were also experiencing a lot of things during set-up too before all the guests arrived. ‘It was a very good night, although a bit scary at times.’ In addition to the auditory experiences, the teams also picked up on a ‘very domineering presence’ in the mortuary, and documented multiple sightings of shadowy figures and people walking around who, upon closer investigation, were in fact not there. ‘It’s a really good site and it always gives us good results,’ said director Tim Brown. ‘The morgue is always particularly active. We consistently record shadowy figures, disembodied voices and footsteps.’ ‘It’s the place that scares us the most, but it’s also our favourite one to visit,’ added Kate Durcan-Bannister, another team leader. ‘We have nothing like it on the mainland. Nothing comes close. In fact, a lot of the places we explore on Guernsey are really different from the places we explore in the mainland. It’s so special. We always get people wanting to travel over with us to join our Guernsey events.’ Five hours at Castle Cornet, on a first visit for some years, produced some interesting resulting, particularly through auto-writing sessions, a traditional method used in paranormal investigations that works by inviting spirits to come forward to draw something to communicate with the investigators present. The team regularly uses it alongside a mix of other traditional ghost hunting techniques, as well as more modern equipment that implements thermal imaging, infra-red detection and electromagnetic field meters to generate results. ‘Usually with the auto-writing, we might just get a few squiggles here and there. But we got a bird cage. It was quite intricately drawn and there was a bird too. It was really good,’ said Ms Grinsted. ‘We got good results again with it this year,’ added Ms Durcan-Bannister. ‘We had several groups consistently drawing a triangle in one location. Each didn’t know the other groups had recorded it until then end when we shared all our findings from across the night. It’s consistency like that which is golden for us.’ Both events were open to the public at £69 a ticket. More than 30 people joined the group at Castle Cornet, seven of them from the UK, and guests at the Underground Hospital were hitting 40, with a quarter of them visitors. PIGS, which was founded 20 years ago by three former police officers with an interest in the paranormal, hope to return to the island soon to explore old and new haunts. They are particularly interested in Sausmarez Manor and Victor Hugo House.