Right I think it’s about time we discussed this.

My brother told me his girlfriend’s house is haunted. Once he heard a bang in the middle of the night, and went to investigate. Large hockey player like my brother would make light work of most criminals. All that had happened was all this pictures throughout the house had been turned round.

My ex used to think her house was haunted, until I pointed out it’s just my nocturnal adventures (I sleepwalk, which can range from simply wondering about, to writing huge chunks of college work, cleaning, laundry, washing up, moving thing around randomly, like once I woke up having put my chair by my bed, with my laptop on top of it, and a glass of St Clements on top of my laptop. The only snag is sometimes it takes a while to find my keys in the morning!!).

I didn’t believe in ghosts, and I was totally sceptic, until I was 19 and working in the grounds of a house that was supposedly haunted.

In the turn of the century, the house in question was resided in by a Lord. He loved his wife dearly, and she got pregnant. She died during childbirth, and he hated his daughter because of it. After that he blamed is daughter for the death of his wife, and all she wanted was her father’s love and acceptance.

He became ill, and mad. He was quarantined in his room, where he paced back and forth between the window, where he died. His daughter later hung herself.

So happy cheery stuff.

In this house, we had kids staying in it as a school holiday thing. Obviously we didn’t tell them about what had happened.

I was told the story, and I said bullshit. Every last word. There’s no such thing as ghosts.

So we went into the house, with a digital camera, and started clicking. We got orbs (glowing balls of light, showing the manifestation of a spirit), and the face of an old, bald man in a lot of the pictures. We didn’t look at the pictures until after we left the house, but there was nothing where we were taking pictures. Reflection? Trick of the light?

We went into room 110, the room where the man had died, and did a our ’guide’ said ’if you are there, show us your power’, and I got a pain in my chest. That was about it. The next day I had scratches on my chest - probably climbing ones, they were sore, so maybe that’s what gave me the pain.

After that, things got weird. I became fascinated by this ghost. Luckily, I was living by the house, and once a week I would sleep in it. We had two rooms in the house for staff who had to stay the night, one was in the house the other in the grounds (in a lovely building), but I always picked the one in the house to go ghost spotting.

The first thing I found was the incident records, dating back ten years. About once a month, children had said they had seen a man wearing riding clothes, bald head, pacing back and forth in room 110. Interesting, but could the story have reached the children?

Teachers reported seeing a crying girl wondering around the corridor in the middle of the night. Being teachers, they went to comfort the girl who ‘disappeared’.

There were reports of instructors walking into empty rooms in the house, and children’s toys would be moving, bouncy balls flying about and that sort of thing.

There were reports of teachers and staff seeing a strange light outside, by the tree where the girl died.

I thought it was interesting, but could be wrong. Could be made up for a joke, people could have heard the story and were imagining things.

Then we started having to clean the house. Brilliant, I’ll go in the haunted corridor and see what I see. This is where I met a young weirdo called Jay. I was watching him hoover one day, and his hoover cut out. The plug had just switched itself off. He walked to about a meter away from the hover, said ‘good morning’, seemingly to himself, then said ‘look it won’t hurt you’, then stepped forwards and switched it on. I asked him about it, and he said ‘they’, whoever they are, don’t like it so they switch it off. He can’t go straight up to it because he’ll feel ‘cold’ so he waits for them to leave.

Working in that corridor, I had some similar experiences. Kettles boiling, doors with a mind of their own, electrical equipment unplugging, cold feelings.

I walked into the room where he died. Beautiful room, overlooking the grounds. I muttered ’I mean you no harm, nor disrespect, I am just curious about you’.

Then things got even stranger.

One night all the doors in the building froze shut. I got a panicked radio call from upstairs, its REALLY cold and none of the doors will open. When I went it warmed up and the doors opened when I tried the handle. I went back to my room, which is basically a keep, buried in the depths of the building. I lay on my bed, and switched off the light. It didn’t go dark. In front of me there was a large orb. There is no natural light, and no artificial light in that room. Nothing for anything to reflect light. It was up near the ceiling, like a ball on sunshine. Next to it there was a smaller orb. I watched them until I fell asleep. The next morning they were gone.

Every time I walked down the corridor, or sat in the room, I felt warm. At piece.

Now I’m not saying Jay, or myself, are ‘ghost whisperers’ or anything. I’m not even saying ghosts exist. BUT there is a lot of evidence that says there is something more.

This is my theory.

As we move through the world we imprint energy upon it. In the theatre, actors talk about ‘ghosts’ being the ghost of laughter and joy ingrained into the stands, which people feel happy about when they go there.

We imprint our happiness, sadness, anger, and image in a way we haven’t yet discovered. You aren’t seeing a ‘spirit’, you’re seeing that energy, playing back like a DVD. However, we don’t always see it because we are always imprinting our own energies over the top. That’s why cameras and recording devices can pick it up. That’s why some people can see it and others can’t.

What’s your verdict guys?