06 - Into The Shadows - Paranormal Insights with Claire

In today’s episode, I sat down with Claire from Into the Shadows Paranormal Investigation to talk all things spooky, strange, and surprising. We pulled back the curtain on what really happens during a paranormal investigation—debunking some of the myths and dramatic moments seen on TV.

Claire shares some of the team’s wildest experiences, from hilarious encounters to a guest fainting mid-tour! We also dive into some of the most haunted places they’ve explored—and what made those locations unforgettable.

Whether you’re a believer or just curious, this episode is packed with real stories, eerie insights, and a good dose of laughter.

Edited and produced by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Hi Claire, thank you very much for joining me today. How are you feeling? I'm all right, thank you. Are you? Yes, very well, thank you.

Claire, I'm going to jump straight in because when I met you at the Royal Arcade, you were doing the paranormal investigations underneath. Now, I've never been underneath before. I was doing the readings. 

So when we went down there, the atmosphere under there is massively different to upstairs, isn't it? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You can feel it. As soon as you walk through that door and get to the top of those stairs, the energy just, it changes completely.

It changes. I felt a little bit sick. I must admit, all of a sudden, I was like, oh no, now that's different. 

So getting speaking to this house. You know, the first time I actually went there, I was actually really sick all night. I ended up going home after the first hour, yeah.

Did you really? Yeah. What's the energy? Because I don't know. Yeah, I think probably the energy. 

It's the first time I've been in there. And yeah, just as soon as I walked through, I just started being sick. It was, yeah.

Did you? And do you go there a lot? Do you do your investigation there a lot? But we've done there about nine or 10 times now. And I'd like to get it as more of a regular venue because it's fantastic. We always have really good activity down there. 

It's just, it's like, it's like walking back in time, isn't it? You just. It really is. Yeah. 

Yeah. So you just want to know more about the history when you go down, you start finding bits out and then you just, you want to know more, you know. That must be the same when you go to lots of different places. 

Once you get that, like that feel of the energy there, it must be like, I need to know more about this. Absolutely. And you find that when you work in the paranormal, the more that happens, the more you want to happen. 

So, you know, you want that full apparition, you want the cat balls going off, you want the EVPs or the voices, the direct voice phenomenon behind you. You want, you want more every time you go, you want more. It's like, we call it a bug, you know, it's like an addiction. 

You want more of it. Yeah. Yeah. 

So where, which place, how long have you been doing Paranormal Activity? So we've been doing Into the Shadows now for almost three years. I did a few ghost hunts before that, really enjoyed it and then got the opportunity to set up a business with my business partner, Lindsay. And yeah, we just went for it and it's just been amazing. 

It's been a real journey so far. It's, yeah. So which place that you've been to, would you say is like the most haunted? Oh gosh. 

I'm going to say Bronagarth, which is an old hospital down in sort of North Wales. We've done that three times now and the activity there is, it's off the scale. It's absolutely fantastic. 

We've had shadow figures, we've had sort of direct voices behind us, growls, grunts, moans, cat balls going off. And while that was going off, one of our other team members was using a thermal imaging camera and it was showing like a mist above it and everything. So it's, it's one of my favourite places to go. 

Yeah. But it's also one of the probably worst places. So do you work with spirit? Do I work with spirit? Worst.

You what? Sorry. Sorry, I didn't. So did you say then one of the worst places as well? Oh yeah. 

It's one of the ones where I've had probably one of the worst experiences that I've had doing this. Tell me, tell me, tell me. So one of the worst things anybody can do when they come into a paranormal event is to turn around and say, I don't believe in any of this, you know, come and do something to me.

Yeah. You know, that's, yeah, yeah. So then you know, it's not going to end well.

And we had a guest on and as soon as we took her down sort of into, we call it Annie's room and it was a social worker's room. So the emotion, you can feel the emotions in there of the things that have, you know, the conversations that have gone on and the things that have happened in that room, you can feel that emotion. It's really heavy.

And we were stood around doing a seance and as soon as we started, she started crying uncontrollably, did this lady. So I kind of took her outside and you say to her, you know, I think Annie's trying to tell you her story. Just say, thank you.

You know, I appreciate it. And just ask her to back off a little bit. So she wanted to go back in and we got halfway down the corridor and she just started crying again.

So we took her again, took her outside and she wanted to go back down a third time. We didn't even get as far as the corridor this time. So I said, right, let's try somewhere a little bit different.

We'll try a different room and see if there's a different energy. And she got really affected in the next room as well. And then further on more affected. 

So I'd sort of said that we'd take her upstairs where the energy was a little bit lighter up there. It didn't quite feel as heavy. And for some reason she ended up getting with another group and going back down into one of the worst rooms that we found for the energy and passing out clean on the floor.

It's great out cold. Yeah. So obviously it's quite worrying. 

I'm upstairs and getting the emergency call on the radio, flying down. But the weird thing was I only had to go down one set of stairs and through a door, but I ended up getting lost and just wandering around these corridors. It was, yeah, it was quite freaky at the time.

Got down to the room where she was and as a Reiki practitioner, I thought, okay, Reiki is probably the best way to get this thing away right now and off her. But as soon as the energy came down, boom, I went out. My husband got to catch me. 

I was just shaking like I was having a fit standing up. My only memory of that from getting down into that room was walking outside, barefoot grounding, even though it was the middle of December because I'd been screaming that I need my shoes and socks off. So although it's one of my favorite places and loads of activity, it was definitely probably one of the scariest.

So if you go there a few times, have you reconnected with that spirit and asked like, you know, what's the story behind it? What's that all about? No, it's not. We haven't come across that spirit again since. It's really bizarre. 

Yeah. Yeah. We've not come across anything like it in there since. 

And we've actually found that the past two times that we've been since that happened, we were just like, oh my God, we're getting the more sort of gentler spirits coming through. There was the nurses coming through more and the patients coming through and talking. So it was really, yeah, it was like it was just cleared after that. 

It just gone. It was really weird. Yeah.

Has she been back on your investigation since? No, she hasn't. But we did check in with her a few times afterwards to make sure she was okay and did give her a really good cleanse down outside before she left. Because you've obviously got a responsibility to make sure that people that are going in there are okay, aren't you? There's a lot of responsibility on you, isn't there? Yeah. 

And since then, it's one of the things that I'll say to people in the introduction now is, you know, just be careful what you do wish for, because if you're asking it to happen, they see it as a challenge. We've seen it a few times, to be fair. We had a gent in Edinburgh vaults who was, again, there used to be an active coven in Edinburgh vaults.

And we're in the coven room and it has a big stone circle in it. And one of the guys there was laughing and joking about a little bit. And then he said he needed to go and get a drink and passed out again cold, but he'd been sort of taking the mickey a little bit. 

So we do say to people, be careful what you wish for, you know? Yeah. Don't invite it. The thing with Spirit is that if you ask Spirit to work with you, they'll work with you.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So if you're asking them to visit, they'll come visit. They're not going to go, well, no, I don't fancy it this evening, thanks, but you know what I mean? So that's it.

Would you get a lot of like, sceptical people, like, oh, I'm on here to see what's going on, that sort of thing? Yeah, yeah, you do. And sometimes I quite like that when you get a sceptic on and something will happen that they just cannot explain and they're kind of walking out scratching their head. And I think, yeah, I've done my job tonight. 

We've done our jobs. Yeah. I love that. 

So how did you get into that world? So I guess like everybody that's in this world, you start off with watching all the shows that are on TV. Although, you know, and it's something else that we always make very clear. It's not like the shows, you know, they're great, but they're for entertainment purpose. 

A real ghost hunt is never like the shows. Yeah. So, yeah, I've always been into the spiritual side of things.

I'm a tarot reader myself. I do Reiki and everything. And yeah, I started doing ghost hunts with my son with a junior group to begin with. 

He was sort of 11 or 12 at the time. And we'd done a ghost hunt and then sort of you meet people in the industry. And yeah, I decided to set up a business doing it ourselves. 

Yeah, for adults. And yeah, I've never looked back. I'll submit. 

So is it busy? Is there a lot of, I mean, I must admit, I have, I mean, I told you a tale, but I'll tell you that a lady I knew, she used to go ghost hunting all the time. She used to go ghost hunting, she'd do it all the time. And she said, oh, you should try it, it's fantastic.

And I said, oh, I said, I've never really tried it. And I'd been open to it. But then she said, oh, she said, the blog that we go with, I can't, I don't know what it is, I can't remember his name.

And she said, he's right good at getting spirits riled up. He'll be like, go on, you cowards and all that stuff. And I went, oh, absolutely not. 

And I said, that's disrespectful. I would never, ever go to do anything like that where we're trying to rile the spirit to come and, I said, absolutely not. So I've never looked at it because I always thought it's disrespectful, I would never. 

Yeah, yeah, no, you can't, you're going into their home, you know. So it's all, you've got to be respectful. And we find them, they respond more to you being respectful than they do to you being disrespectful. 

I suppose like anybody, if somebody's throwing abuse at you, you're going to be thinking, well, I'm walking away. Yeah, I'm not going to bother with you, you know, you're being abusive. So yeah, we do find that, yeah, you need to be respectful.

Absolutely. Yeah. So absolutely. 

It doesn't, it doesn't encourage them to do anything more, I don't think. I don't think it would. No. 

No, that's why I've always stayed away from it. So I'll tell you what, I might run it past my Wednesday group. We have a Wednesday development group. 

I think a lot of them would like it. We'll have to do a session. Yeah, bring them down. 

A load of mediums and a load of investigators together, that'll be all right, don't you? Oh, absolutely. It'd be fantastic. It would be really good. 

I mean, we have, we sort of, I do tarot. I need to do the spiritual development side of it. But yeah, we find that on events, we tend to stay really quiet about what's happening because you want the guests to experience it, not yourself. 

And we also go in blind as well. I don't like to research venues before we go. I like to go. 

Oh, do you not? Oh, no. I think if, I think if you're looking at information about places and, you know, you look at the haunted history of it, you're going to be expecting those things. And I think you're more, you know, more inclined for it to be happening.

So what we like to do is we like to go in blind as we call it, and then get the information through and then go and research it afterwards. Right. I think it's a more exciting way of doing it. 

Yeah. Yeah. I must admit, if you know knowledge beforehand, it's sort of, well, I'm looking for this one person or this one event or this one room. 

It's not really working, is it? Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, if everyone says you're going to experience a touch or, you know, people have experienced, I think you might be kind of, you might feel that anyway, you know, do you know what I mean? It's like preconception, isn't it, of what's going to happen. 

That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we do like to go in without a lot of knowledge of the venues.

So it's quite a lot of you that go in a team. So have you got quite a lot in your team? Yeah, we have about 13 or 14 team members that work alongside us. And yeah, they sort of come along and then we like to run small groups. 

There are companies out there that will run up to 100 people in a venue. Oh, you can't do that, can you? You can't. You don't get the experience. 

So, you know, the maximum we take, even in places like Shrewsbury Prison and Newisham Park Hospital, which are absolutely massive venues, is sort of 30. So you can break people down into smaller groups. I think their experience is a lot better that way.

For us, it's not about the money. It's about giving people that experience of, yeah, going into these buildings and hopefully something paranormal. And I suppose if there's like 100 of you split off into however many, you know, you don't need to pick it up on somebody else's emotion. 

If there's that many people there, there's too much energy. Energy, noise, pollution. Yeah, it's it makes it for a hard night. 

So we prefer to run small sort of intimate groups. So do you have a medium that goes with you? Are any of the people that are on their mediums or sidekicks like that? No, no. It's a couple of things like working with Taro and things.

But yeah, we don't we don't work with them. Yeah. We don't have a medium on team as such.

Right. That's interesting. Yeah. 

Do you know all the equipment? I mean, when I went down there, there were all sorts of equipment down there. Does that cost a fortune? Because it looks like it does. Yeah. 

Yeah. The equipment's quite expensive and it's quite hard to find over here in the UK as well. Most of it's sort of over in America. 

And then it's really expensive to get it shipped in over with the customs charges and everything. So that's one of the downsides is getting the same equipment as they have sort of in America over here. But we have so much equipment that we carry with us. 

And we use everything from sort of little cat balls that you've got. What are cat balls? I don't know what that is. They're just like a little ball that lights up, you know, that cats play with.

Yeah. Yeah. We just put those around. 

And yeah, we have them lighting up on command. We've had it before where we've had sort of balls in different areas on the room and you'll ask the spirit to light one up and the ball will start flashing and then you're asking them to light another one up and it's actually, it's done that. That's sort of the simplest piece of equipment that we use. 

Then we use sort of things like EMF meters. So I'd say the safe spirits are made of energy. So, you know, it picks up the energy. 

Again, you can get them to respond to questions. We use things like thermal imaging cameras, SLS cameras that show the stick figures. We, one of our favourite things to do is we call it, it's the SDS method. 

And that's where you've got a spirit box, which is playing white noise. It's sort of skipping through radio frequencies really fast. And the theory is the spirit can manipulate that to say out words. 

So we'll have somebody start with a blindfold and earphones on just listening to white noise while the rest of the group are asking out questions. And we've actually had some absolutely amazing responses through that. A venue called Penrhyn Old Hall down in Wales. 

And it's a really old sort of, it's like a pub at the moment, but it's got like military history and everything to it. And we had somebody who kept repeating the same numbers over and over again. So we went away and researched it and it was actually the army number of somebody who was being based there. 

So yeah. Right. So yeah, we absolutely love it.

Oh, that's amazing, isn't it? It's fantastic. That's, I mean, you go away then you're like, wow. Yeah, that's, that's, yeah. 

What more proof do you need? I have made it up, yeah. Yeah. What more do you need? Yeah. 

It's, yeah. But we do a lot of the old fashion methods as well. So seances and Ouija boards, table tipping.

Do you do table tipping? We do the table tipping. Yeah. I like a big table though. 

It's got to, it's got to be a big chunky table to impress me. I'm going to come on one of these. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sold. 

I'm coming. Absolutely. I think we're going to look at doing some more sort of intimate ones down at Keithley Underground as well.

Yeah. Because that's very interesting, that place. I remember going in one room, the one to the right as you go in.

Because that was like our little kitchen area. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. And then you go through there and all of a sudden it's like sadness, but it's like children's sadness. When I went in, I was like, there's been a man in here that's, that's done something, you know, there's been quite a bit of angry children in there. 

You can feel it immediately. But you know, it's really strange. A lot of the guests that booked onto those Taser sessions that night actually said that they didn't like that room. 

They all commented on the, you know, as you walk in there, the one that's in front of you, most of the guests commented on that wall. Yeah. How strange.

It is, isn't it? But like I said, I've never, ever been down there before, ever. So to go down, but I said at one point, I said, me and, me and Darnwell the medium had gone and looked around and I said, oh, I said, were there butchers down here? She says, oh, I don't know. I feel like they're carrying a carcass over my head. 

I could just see a carcass being carried over my head. And then when one of your investigators were down there, we were asking, he said, oh yeah, this room here were a butchers, which is where I was stood. Yeah. 

Yeah. It's brilliant. It's, yeah. 

It's one of our favourites to do. It's absolutely fantastic. It's just, like you say, it's like walking into a different area. 

You're walking downstairs and it's just like, yeah. You actually feel like you've gone back in time there. You can sort of feel like the conversation and the energy and the people, you can, you can feel them.

Yeah. You can almost set a scene in your head. Yeah. 

Of how it used. Yeah. Yeah. 

We've had it there as well, where we've been sat in a room and you're hearing like barrels rolling down the street. Oh, really? Yeah. And we've had them clear on EVPs and everything. 

So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

It's something else. Do you know when you do your investigations, have you ever done one that's an overnight one? You know where they say like these places, nobody can stay there for overnight and all that. Have you ever done any of those ones? Yeah. 

We've done East Drive a couple of times, which is the monk house in Pontefract, the black monk house. It's the one where the horror film, When the Lights Went Out was sort of started. That's the story, the house where the story was built.

Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah. So we've done that a few times and we did the ancient ramen not so long ago as well, which is One Under Edge. 

And again, that one's got demonic hauntings in it. It's in the bishop's room. Yeah. 

It's quite an asset. Yeah. It's another one where you walk in and the energy just hits you. 

Yeah. I'm so on this, you know. We do an overnighter as well. 

And we've got an overnight one at Shrewsbury prison coming up as well. They can go and sleep in the prison cells overnight if they don't want to investigate, go and sleep on their own instead. Oh, there'll be some nightmares there, won't there? Some folks screaming and carrying on half the night, won't there, surely? Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. That's another heavy venue. 

I remember going to do the site visit there so we could do a walk around first so we can plan the night. And I was walking down one of the wings and I just, as soon as it got to the end, I just felt an overwhelming sadness and just started crying and crying and crying. And when we walked through, it was actually the hanging room with the noose and everything. 

Yeah. So again, it's a really active venue. Yeah. 

So there must be a point where before you start, sorry, before you start, you must have to like protect yourself or do some sort of like grounding and what have you before and after? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 

I tend to carry a lot of sort of protection crystals with me on the night as well. And if it's been a really sort of dark, I want to say dark venue, you know where the energy is really heavy and you just sleep a lot. Yeah. 

We all have a good cleanse down afterwards and a good sage. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. So how do you come down from that then? So you've been in there, you've had all this big experience. You've like, you know, I thought passing out. 

How do you come down from that? Because actually your energy must be quite high then. Once you've been, you know, there's been quite a buzz there. There's been a lot of energy. 

What do you do to like release after that? Oh, for me, it's my horses. So yeah. Yeah. 

I'll go spend time with my horse, a groomer. Yeah. Grounds. 

Bring myself back down to nature. But yeah, usually we sort of come home. So we sort of, most events finish at sort of 2 a.m. And then depending where we are, we can sort of have a couple of hours drive home sometimes. 

So yeah. We call it the Sunday is the paranormal hangover day because you just kind of, you do feel like you've been out drinking the night before. You've got the headache because you've got the low energy really. 

That's it. You're exhausted and you just cabbage on the sofa all day in your pyjamas. So does it work same? So like, I suppose there must be cases where things are particularly sad. 

So there must be ones where, you know, involving children or, you know, there'll be some, you'll have experienced some stories where it's really, really dark stuff. Yeah. Yeah. 

How do you deal with that? I don't know, really. I think, I don't know. I guess we just, yeah, we just kind of talk about it between the team. 

Yeah. Yeah. And kind of, you thank the spirit really for telling the story and coming forward and yeah. 

And then, yeah, we go and digest it as a team and talk about it and talk about it with the guests. And I guess the most, the thing really to remember is that all the sad as it is, it's their story. It's not ours. 

So it's important to release that as you go and, you know, it's not ours to take away. It's that, you know, it's their story. Yeah. 

Sharing their story with you, it's not about you taking their story on. Yeah. It's about them just sharing their experience with you. 

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what you're going for, isn't it? You want to hear their stories. 

You want to know about their lives. Yeah. And I think we find a lot of people who come just want to know that there is something else, you know, something follows after this life. 

What's your belief on that? Definitely, there is. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 

Yeah. I mean, you could never work how you do, could you? And so we've seen this with AMF, we've seen this with thermal imaging camera, we've seen all this stuff, but actually there is no, I don't feel like there's anything out there. Yeah. 

Yeah. My husband came into this very much a sceptic. When I said I wanted to start the business, you know, he was like, I'm never going to see you on a weekend, you'll always be away. 

He came on an event with us and he had his first proper experience at Keithley Underground, and it was in that same room we were just talking about. And we were all doing a big seance and he just saw somebody just peep the head around the door and go. Yeah. 

But he won't say that he saw a ghost, he'll just say that he saw something. Yeah. But now he'll sort of say he's seen too much to be able to, you know, not to be able to say. 

Yeah. Yeah. So have you got, so has there been a moment apart from like that, has there been a moment where it's been like really funny or like unexpected? Yeah, you do get some really funny stuff that comes through sometimes. 

I think one of the funniest things, and again, it's, it's a piece of equipment that is, it's a phone app and they're quite frowned upon because, you know, they've got word banks in them and you're never quite sure with phone apps. So we've been trialling this one out for a while and we were at Bishton Hall in Staffordshire and we were with another paranormal group, FDL Paranormal, and one of, they go quite a bit, and one of their team members, Mick, he's got a bit of a love-hate relationship with whatever's in the basement down there. And they came through on the spirit talker, and I will swear here, sorry, it said, eat shit, Mick. 

Oh, never! And it was, it was, it was so funny. It was just hilarious because this thing, you know, it's not something to swear with, but the fact that it swore and said his name as well, you know, absolutely fantastic piece of evidence. Yeah, yeah. 

But yeah, you do, you get some really funny moments, you really do, especially, you know, it's, most people start laughing, you know, because you sort of say, you say stuff to spirit that you probably couldn't get away with anyone else, you know, like, touch the ball, stuff like that, and everyone cracks up laughing, so yeah. And I think with the laughter energy as well, we find that brings more energy in too, you know. Well, that's it, you see, when we connect with spirits, spirits have to lower their vibration, we have to higher ours, so the more you laugh, that's it, the easier it is to, to connect. 

Yeah, and you find that as well, you know, if you've got a really, there's nothing happening, so that is it with paranormal investigating, it's not like the shows, you'll walk into a venue and you can be sat there for a good few hours with absolutely nothing happening whatsoever. Oh, can you really, yeah? Absolutely, and then all of a sudden you'll just get a five-minute flurry of stuff happening, and then it goes really quiet again. Really? It's, yeah, so it's managing people's expectations on that as well, so I think a lot of people come in and expect, you know, for paranormal activity to happen straight away, and yeah, to be all the time. 

I must admit, I wouldn't have thought that you'd have to wait hours, that would have surprised me if I'd have gone up and stood about for hours. Yeah, yeah, so you've got to, you've got to, you've got to have a laugh while you stood around, you know, and sometimes if you're just chatting amongst yourselves and ignoring everything, that's when it starts kicking off a little bit, they're a little bit like, hello, you're supposed to be here looking for me and you're ignoring us, so yeah, yeah, something for you, so yeah, I think. So I know you said you do tarot readings and you do, but has, since you've been paranormal investigating, has that changed your, like, outlook on the spirit world or the afterlife or life, death, anything like that? Um, I think if anything it gives you more questions, you know, more questions, yeah, yeah, you know, I think one of the ones, the main ones, is how do they see us? Yeah, you know, do they, yeah, you know, what, how do they experience what we're experiencing? Yeah, I get that. 

Yeah, yeah, so do they see us like energy or do they see us like as our physical form? Yeah, yeah, yeah, next time in meditation we'll have to ask that because I need to know now. Yeah, yeah, so I do think it's given me more questions. It's given me a load more questions now. 

It does, doesn't it? It does. If you want to know more, you do, you want to know more. Yeah, but I must admit, any sort of spiritual work, I think once, I like when people ask questions, I love when people ask questions because I like to know a lot of stuff, I have lots of questions and I have one answered and it gives me another 10 questions because I'm like what about this now, what about that, what about other? But no, you know, I've got a dog that's very loud.

But no, I do like it when people ask questions. Are people free to ask a lot of questions while you're going round on your work and stuff? Yeah, absolutely. And what we like to do as a team as well is to let the guests lead the night. 

So we'll ask them what they want to do. You know, we don't, we don't have a set plan or we're going to go down to this area and we're going to do a week or we're going to go to this area and we're going to use K2s and things like that. We tend to take a little bit of kit with us down to the areas and then when we get to the areas, we tend to like to let the guests decide what they want to do. 

You know, whether they want to try a Ouija board or whether they want to use them all with the tech or, you know, if they want to sit and ask out questions, guests have got a chance to go and do lone vigils if they want, so they can go off on their own and take some tech with them. Yeah. So we like to, we like to give it a good guest experience more than anything. 

Yeah. That's what it's about really, it's about the guest experience. That's it, it's about people having their own experience. 

Yeah. Yeah. We experience it all the time. 

So, you know, some people are on the first events, you want them to have that experience too. Yeah. Yeah. 

So do you know, like, how do you feel then that like, Paranormal Investigation has changed over time? Because originally it was like you say, it's like on telly that you did it for Cor and that Yvette woman, what's she called Yvette? Yvette Fielding. That's it. And it would all like, oh, every few minutes when it's like, I've not seen nobody, so we were like, what's going on? There were no nothing.

Yeah. Yeah. I suppose it must give you like a bit of a bad name, you know, when people, not a bad name, but more of like, people must come very sceptical.

Yeah, they do. And, you know, they either come very sceptical or they come, like I say, expecting everything to happen, you know, which is, we can't always guarantee it. We can't, you know, we can't put Casper to jump out the floor and rattle his chains. 

You know, it's all about trying to work with the spirit and getting them to communicate with you. I think there's a lot more technology brought into Paranormal Investigation now. Yeah. 

You know, if you look back to when it first started, it was sort of Ouija boards. It was dowsing rods. Yeah. 

Pendulums and things like that. Whereas now they've got KT meters and cameras that can, thermal imaging cameras. Yeah, images and all that. 

Infrared cameras. So I think the technology coming in has definitely changed the paranormal world. Yeah. 

Yeah. Is there something you would like to see in the paranormal world? Like, you know, if people could just see this or is there something you'd like to debunk? I mean, when I work with spirit, I want to show people, I want to teach people how to work with spirit without fear. That's one of my big things.

Yeah. Gosh, I'm not sure. I think really it's just about people having the experience. 

You know, that's the main thing for me, is for a guest to come in and have a good experience. A good time, a good experience. Yeah. 

Yeah. Because, you know, you kind of, you know it's there. You know it exists. 

You know, I've seen things, I've experienced things, and with the tarot work and everything like that, for me, I know it's there. So I want to bring that to other people, you know. Show people that's what there is. 

Yeah. That's what there is. Yeah. 

I know when I show my development group Ouija board, at the start of the night, the first time I did it, at the start of the night, there were about four or five who were like, oh no, oh no, no, you can't, oh no. Once you explain the history and what the Ouija board were about, and actually it was giving us a gift. It was giving us, everybody had one. 

It was like a housewarming gift and it was actually a game, wasn't it? Two of us wanted it as a bed up the game. And then when I said to people, you know, people give it for like Christmas presents. Everybody had it. 

They were like having a Monopoly in the house. Everybody had it. You can buy yourself a big one now, can't you? That's it. 

I don't, I don't see it as any other tool, any different to any other tool that we used to use. Yeah. It's all connecting with spirit. 

Exactly. It's when like the films get out of it and that sort of thing. It just makes a big, massive deal about it, doesn't it? Yeah. 

It's one of the things I always ask when we do our, we do a sort of a welcome talk when we, we first, when the guests first arrive, you know, just to really introduce the team and introduce some of the tech that we use and explain what they could experience on the night and everything. And one of the things I always say that is when you put up a Ouija board and you just watch people's faces and you do see a lot of people like, and I'm like, it's okay. Hollywood really has given them a bad name, you know, as long as you're using it properly and you're setting your intention properly, you know, it's just another tool. 

It's the same as using a spirit box or it's the same as using, you know, any other piece of equipment that we're using. Absolutely. So to change people's minds, I think is quite good. 

Yeah. Good. I like that. 

And that's the thing is that if people can understand it properly, there's no fear, is there? That's it. That's it. But every good horror movie starts with a child, doesn't it? In a basement, playing with a Ouija board, and then it just goes wrong from there. 

And then a bouncing red ball down steps, that sort of thing. Not for me, thank you. But I do want to have a go with that spirit box, so I want to get some headphones on and listen to that. 

Yeah, yeah. It's very, very, yeah, interesting. I'm gonna have to have a go with that.

Yeah. A bit like that. Oh, for God's sake, Stace, let us go. 

You'll be sick of bloody talking to you by the time I'm finished, I'll tell you. Somebody else have a turn. Get her off of here.

I can't, I love it. I absolutely love it. You know, that's one of the experiments that will change a lot of sceptics into a believer. 

Yeah. It's that when something comes through like that and everybody's just like, oh, you know, you know that that guest who's under the Estes cannot hear a word you're saying, yet they respond perfectly to a question that you've asked. It's, yeah, it's such a, it's like an adrenaline rush, isn't it really? It's just, yeah, yeah, you want more, come on. 

Yeah, give us a bit more. Yeah, yeah. So if people are wanting to get into either like just coming on an investigation, or if they're wanting to work alongside you, do you take people on like that? Do you have like a bank of people that you choose from, or is it just that people are interested in you and you come along? So a lot of our team are guests, they convert from guests, so they've come along as guests for a few events and then sort of transitioned onto, onto team.

Right. And then occasionally if we're looking for new team, we put adverts out on Facebook as well, or our socials when we're sort of looking for new team members. Yeah. 

Right. And guests, yeah, if they want to check out our website for all the events we've got coming up this year, we're always adding new events on. And what is your website? It's www.intotheshadows.co.uk. I can send that over to you though, if you'd like. 

Yeah, do, and I'll put a link in. But what's, where are you next again, tell me? Where are we next? We're at Rewis the Abbey this weekend. Where's that? Oh gosh. 

My history's rubbish, my geography even. I'm trying to think where it is. I don't know. 

I know it's about two and a half hours from where we are. Where's Derbyshire gone? So Edinburgh's one of the further ones. And sort of Wotton-under-Edge was quite a distance that was sort of four and a half hours away.

Yeah. Yeah. We get all over really, we really do. 

So we're at Rewis the Abbey this weekend. And then where are we after that? We've got a weekend off after that again. And then we're at the Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield.

Oh. And it's all on website? It's all on the website, yeah. I will be talking to you as well about doing a booking for my Wednesday group, because I know that that's coming. 

My Tuesday group probably will be the same as well. This will be coming. So be prepared. 

Oh no, not a problem at all. Like I say, we absolutely, yeah, we love it. It's just. 

You've got me hooked on it now, you won't be getting rid of me now. That's it. I'll be a right nuisance.

Welcome any time. Absolutely. Yeah. 

So what? So you've got the website. Yeah. Do people just book through there then? Yeah. 

Yeah. Book on through the website. Yeah. 

Is it expensive to go on? No. Most of our events are around 40 to 45 pounds. Oh, right. 

Right, OK. Some of them are a little bit more, it always depends on us on the venue sort of. Yeah, absolutely.

And how many guests we can have. And yeah, like I say, we don't, we don't, we don't do this to make money. We just do it to book more venues, you know.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, we've got a Facebook page and TikTok where we will quite often go live on investigations as well. 

And come watch and see what we're up to. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, we'll get them all on. 

We'll get them all on my page and I can tell everybody. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's been amazing talking today, Claire. 

Thank you very much for joining me. You're welcome. And we will be joining again soon. 

There'll be some more coming soon, I can tell you. There'll be all sorts on my page when I've been on an investigation, I'm telling you. You'll love it. 

You'll absolutely love it. Yeah. Yeah. 

It's just. Oh, thank you very much. You're welcome. 

All right. Speak soon. Speak soon. 

Thanks. Bye. Bye.

Bye.