Our first night on our second visit to Burton saw us investigating the Grail Court Hotel, where the team and our 17 guest investigators were hoping for
similar activity to that recorded back in August. My first vigil took a team to Room 21, where the spirit of a little girl is said to reside. I wanted to start
with a little experiment to see whether the team could connect with the impressions of this child by asking them to have a moment of quiet concentration
to link in with any feelings regarding the type of spirit that was believed to be present in this room. I had also confirmed with the group that none of them
had any prior knowledge of the supposed haunting associated to the room before we began. Interestingly enough, of the 5 team members with me, only 3 of
them felt any impressions of possible spirit presence, and each suggested that they had imagined a little girl in this room. This provided an intriguing
start to the vigil, which we followed by attempting to link in with her supposed presence by asking out for a sign of activity. Unfortunately no such response
was forthcoming, at which point we decided upon some glass divination in the hope that this would raise the energies in the room. For a time we did manage
to get the glass to move slightly, especially when singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat', but to be honest there was no movement that could not be described
as simple involuntary movements of the group, especially as they were willing for the glass to move. Besides that, very little else of any significance occurred
during our stay in Room 21.
My next vigil took another team to the Restaurant and Bar area of the hotel, where already awaiting us was an upturned wine glass on the table for us to
attempt some further glass divination (which ended up becoming a regular them for our first night of vigils). I asked the team to take their places at the table
under the watchful eyes of some of the hotel staff. It took only a little while to get some fairly significant movement from the glass in response to our
questions, and we were given the impression by some of the answers that this supposed energy we were connecting with was not entirely comfortable with
us being there. We managed to discern that it was a male energy, of around 24 years of age. I decided that simple movement of the glass was not sufficient
evidence of anything supernatural taking place, so I asked whether this energy could do something more significant, such as tipping the glass over. The
response to this was for the glass to move away from where I was standing to the edge of the table and topple off the side (thankfully to be caught by one of
the team). I had also said that if the glass could be tipped over, then we would honour this spirit's wishes and leave them in peace. Naturally I failed to
communicate that I wished for the glass to tip over 'on the table' as opposed to simply being taken off the edge, as this would help discount involuntary
movements from the team. So I asked again for the glass to be tipped over, explaining that I wanted it to happen on the surface of the table. I had
positioned myself crouched down on one side of the table, originally to monitor the finger pressures of the team members on the glass. After my second
request the glass then moved towards me and off the edge of the table and into my hands. Not convinced by this activity I repeated the request on 2 more occasions, and on
each the glass moved directly towards me and over the table edge. Of most interest however was that during these events each of the team, including myself
and the 3 hotel staff, heard what sounded like a groaning sound coming from near to where we were standing. My initial impressions were that this could
be explained as a simple stomach groan, however I was intrigued by the fact that the staff also heard this sound from their position standing well away from
the table. A few of the team also suggested seeing lights in this area of the bar, although frustratingly we didn't manage to catch anything on our
recording equipment.
My third and fourth vigils of the night took separate teams into the Camelot Function Room, to attempt some further glass divination, as this was the location
where we had has so much success with this form of experiment during our previous visit. The first team did experience some glass movement, although of
equal interest was that the dimmed lights in the chandeliers above did appear to regularly flicker throughout the session. This was important to note as during
the second session with another team the lights did not appear to flicker at all, suggesting to me that this was not a regular problem with the electrics
in the room. Unfortunately it is also not sufficient evidence for anything paranormal, intriguing though it was. The most significant movement we had from
the glass was during the final vigil where I was joined for the first time on an investigation by both of my parents. We had decided that the movement had
not been enough to convince the team, so we attempted to encourage any supposed spirit to show greater signs of their presence by slightly ridiculing and
antagonising them (which is not something we would typically do unless we felt within the team that it would create more activity). It was not surprising that
after a few carefully chosen words we managed to get the glass moving quickly in a circular motion around the table, eventually picking up such speed that
all but my father could keep their fingers on the glass, until eventually even he had to relinquish his position as the glass toppled over on the surface of the
table. Although this was interesting, it still left many unanswered questions, and certainly failed to provide any really conclusive evidence of supernatural
activity. We would have to wait until the second day of our investigation of Burton Upon Trent. where we would be joined by Phil Whyman, to see if our hopes
would be realised.
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