Investigation Report
Inveraray Jail Investigation - 4th August 2007
(a joint investigation hosted by Scottish Paranormal with WOSPR© as guest group)
In attendance were:-
The Scottish Paranormal Team (Ryan, Mary, Jim & Andie)
Ian McCallum - WOSPR Founder
Alison McCallum - WOSPR Co-Founder
Susan Cocozza - Investigator-in-training
Tommy Miller - Investigator-in-training
We arrived shortly before 18.00hrs outside the location, but finding a parking space in the small, but busy car park wasn’t easy. We had to place “magic roundabout” several times before a few spaces became available.
The Scottish Paranormal team led by their founder Ryan arrived about 18.30hrs. By this time the manager of the Jail (Robert) had invited us in to await their arrival and showed us the facilities for refreshments and also led us into the base room. The base room would be our joint HQ for the night’s investigation.
After helping SP’s team in with some of their equipment the set up began. After SP set up their equipment WOSPR proceeded to set up a locked-off camcorder in the top level of the new prison (exercise area). We also set up a trigger object experiment on one of the benches in the Court Room. A motion detector was set up in a children’s cell in the new prison along with some of SP’s trigger objects for an experiment. We then returned to the base room for the vigils to start.
Ryan, myself and Alison went to out first of the night’s locations – the Court Room. We spent approximately 30 minutes in this area were we experienced creaks and other noises. At this time I would like to explain the layout of the Court Room (which can be seen in some of the photographs below at the end of this report). There is a large amount of wood in the construction of the Court Room including the floor, benches and other furnishings. I believe that environmental factors could have caused the creaking, etc. including the heavy persistent rain outside. Even us moving about would have caused some of this too.
I thought that on several occasions that I saw a shadow moving near a doorway where the mannequin of the Sheriff sat in judgement. I didn’t see this full on, but was more the classic “corner of the eye” phenomena. This may have just been a sensor illusion as nothing was caught on video at the time whilst I was filming, as it was dark and poorly lit during this period.
We then moved onto the new prison building for our next vigil. Not long after entering the building, we got a radio call from Jim who asked if we heard a female voice outside. Ryan and I proceeded outside to find the source of the voice, but after checking the perimeter walls of the jail, we could find nothing amiss. After returning to the new prison. We moved into a room which turned out to be the doctor’s examination room for new prisoners. We were barely in here when we heard a wheezing or similar sound that was heard by both me and Ryan. We radioed through to the other team to see if they were nearby and had made the noise, there weren’t. We then left this room and went upstairs to the Warder’s room. As I stepped into the room, I thought I smelt a sulphurous smell for a few seconds, then it was gone.
Moving up to the next level brought us up to the indoor exercise facility on the top floor. We had a briefly look up here as Ryan found the solo mannequin “freaky” with it’s accompanying pet rat.
Next on the list to visit was the old prison. We moved towards the back of the ground floor, then moved down the cells one at a time, with Ryan taking the cells on the left and myself in the right hand cells. I called out for any spirit to make it’s presence known. Nothing happened. Something worth taking a note of was the constant sound of dripping water outside the building caused by the rain we had been experiencing for most of the evening. This sound was constant throughout the night in both old and new prisons. Alison remarked that she felt uncomfortable in the Wash Room. She couldn’t elaborate any further at the time. I checked the EMF reading in this room and found no perceptible reading on the meter. I could spell sulphur as if someone had just lit a match. Funnily enough, one of the trigger objects on the floor was a match and a cigarette if I remember correctly. After completing a sweep of the ground floor, we moved up to the first floor.
We were hit with the smell of dampness and fustiness that pervaded the atmosphere up here. I think I commented on that fact the damp weather probably brought this on, to which Ryan replied that it wasn’t this bad earlier on during the walk round. At the very back on the first floor on the right hand side facing from the front entrance is a cell with 2 children’s mannequins in it. Upon entering this cell, can be heard on the camcorder footage something sounding like a quiet laugh, this wasn’t heard at the time of recording. I tried unsuccessfully to debunk this sound later on as I was altering the IR illuminator at the time. The sound could not be replicated. We started to walk towards the stairs on the first floor and I think we hear a woman’s or child’s voice (if memory serves me correctly). The voice promptly stopped and could not be traced. One thing I noted was the corridors in the prison cause sound to be channelled down them, as a result I can’t eliminate the possibility that a member of the public outside the confines of the jail made the noise. We were only about 60-80 feet from the nearest house. A smell of cooking food or burning was noted at this time too.
Ryan noted that the letter “G” had been finger written on the 1st cell on the ground floor, but he allowed for the fact that someone could have done it before we arrived that evening. Shortly after this, we stopped for a refreshment break in the base room. During the rest break, I started recording using the locked off camcorder positioned up on the top floor of the new prison.
After the break we returned to the Court Room once again for another vigil. We heard creaks once more and I apply the same reasoning as before. I went to go behind the Sheriff’s position to film there and ended up walking into a barrier with a bang, at the same time Jim reported that if we heard any noises that that was just them in the new prison. Guffaws of laughter issues forth from Ryan and Alison. When calm was restored, Ryan thought he heard little clicking noises coming from one of the benches across from him. I also heard what I thought was children’s footsteps behind me. More footsteps could be heard by all three of us. At this point Ryan heard what sounded like whispering. With time moving on, we moved on also – to the next vigil.
On the ground floor in the new prison, Ryan mentioned his growing discomfort in this area. I quickly went back to the base room to retrieve a laser pointer so that we could see if any movement could be detected through the large vents in the ceiling on to the upper levels. We tried this for a time, but nothing could be seen. At certain points throughout this vigil, I thought I say movement down near to where the CCTV cameras were. We heard other thumps and what sounded like footsteps, but again nothing could be seen. I entered the Corporal Punishment cell with the whipping table and heard some dull thuds coming from the floors above. This vigil quickly came to an end and we moved onto the next area of interest.
Once again inside the old prison we talked about the feelings that Alison had about the Wash Room. We theorised that maybe someone had had their head held under the water as some type of retribution by the other prisoners, but this was conjecture on our part as we have no firm evidence of any such incidence having taken part. Shortly after this Ryan did one of his famous stunts and touched my hand in the dark. It kind of backfired as I saw his hand coming. Still, it was funny that the time. As this vigil came to a close, we made our way back to the base room and that concluded our joint investigation with Scottish Paranormal at Inveraray Jail. We wished everyone good night at left Inveraray at 00.30hrs.
WOSPR© would like to thank Robert the manager of the jail for putting up with us and for Scottish Paranormal for hosting the investigation and allowing us to investigate with them.
Investigative Results...
Baseline tests were conducted by SP. The
only EMF reading that I took was during the investigation was 0mG in the Wash
Room of the old prison, as this was the only area that Alison felt uncomfortable
in during the whole investigation.
No video anomalies detected.
We have removed the possible EVP because we've discovered a fault in the camcorder's tape system. This leads to clicks and other noises being recorded onto the audio track on the tape. We couldn't rule out the possible EVP being caused by the fault... The camcorder is now being repaired by the manufacturer.
Conclusion... With no video anomalies detected and no EVPs, there simply isn't enough evidence to say that Inveraray Jail is haunted. There maybe something paranormal going on, but only further investigation would reveal this.
Investigation Video
Investigation Photographs
Links
Scottish Paranormal's Investigation Report of Inveraray Jail
(registration required to view)
Copyright © 2007 WOSPR.