PM 087: Investigating the Paranormal with Malcolm Robinson

I met with Malcolm Robinson, of Strange Phenomena Investigations, to discuss and explore some of the mysteriously strange events and jaw-dropping phenomena that he has witnessed as a paranormal investigator.

Transcript

Ann

Hello everyone, my name is Ann Théato and welcome to the Psychic Matters podcast, episode number 87. 

This week’s news is [NEWS SFX] YOUTUBE – Psychic Matters now has its very own YouTube Channel [huzzah] – sound a bit more enthusiastic [huzzah!] – that’s better! Go take a look – youtube/@psychicmatters.  I’ve been working very hard behind the scenes, studying for hours on yet another course, learning how this new & mysterious YouTube platform works.  So that we, as a community of psychics, mediums, healers, lightworkers, paranormal investigators, psychical researchers, scientists, and experts in the field, can present our work to a greater global audience, as our beautiful community works together, to push forward & explore further the boundaries of human consciousness.  

And it is with real trepidation I can tell you, that, I enter this great YouTube Arena and begin to step onto this tightrope in the spotlight, all alone in my little lycra leggings, hushed crowd below (that’s you) as I inch my precarious way out, step by step, into the very centre of the YouTube Universe, clutching only a mic boom for balance.  

Will I be able to create view-worthy videos?  Will I be able to hold viewers attention with my wonderful story telling whilst holding a camera at arm’s length?  Will I be a trusted ambassador for my community - in this world and the next?

I’m just at the beginning of this new journey, so there’s not much to see on youtube at the moment but there will be and I’m inviting you to come with me dear listener, come on over and join me on YouTube, I need your support – this is a little scarey for me!

Join me on Youtube @psychicmatters and if you choose to subscribe there, it’s like you’ll be holding my hand and supporting me all the way, as I step out into this unknown world and for that, I am so truly grateful to you.

Meanwhile, it’s back, to this week’s episode, where I met with Malcolm Robinson to discuss and explore some of the mysteriously strange events and jaw-dropping phenomena that he has witnessed as a paranormal investigator.  

I know you are going to love this episode!

Ann: My incredible guest today is an author and founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations. Malcolm Robinson, welcome to Psychic Matters. 

Malcolm: A very good day to you. It's nice to be on your show. 

Ann: Ah, thanks so much for making time for us. I know you are one busy gentleman. So, Malcolm, let's start right where you are at right now. What is your current passion and what are you working on at this moment in time? 

Malcolm: well, my current passion basically has always been to do with the paranormal, although I'm probably best known for my work in UFOs, ufology, etc., and probably Nessi as well, ‘cause I've been down in a submarine in Loch Ness. But if truth be told that my heart lies with the paranormal ghostly investigations, spending nights in haunted houses and, effectively just, you know, enjoying the vibrancy that the, the psychic world brings to us. So, I really enjoy that. At the moment I'm working on my 12th book, which is a combination of the paranormal series that I've already done, and that's entitled Paranormal Case Files of Great Britain, Volume Four. And if truth be told, I've just put the finishing touches to that, looking at the photographs, that’s got to go in the book and then getting that sent off to the publisher. So yeah, that's what I'm working on just now. And we have a big conference coming up at Glasgow University in June.That's the Scottish UFO and Paranormal Conference, of which myself and a number of other guest speakers will be there, purely just to educate the audience about all spooky matters and things relating to the wonderful world, which is the paranormal. 

Ann: Oh, that sounds fantastic, and congratulations on your 12th book. That is a huge achievement. Well done. 

Malcolm: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day you know, the reason why I write my books is because I received so much information from people all over the world and of course, during my own investigations that there's no purpose to put all these wonderful stories in a filing cabinet, it doesn't work.

These stories have got to go out to Joe Public and somewhere in the world, somebody will come up and say, you know what, I can relate to that. I've saw that as well. And it's like a big jigsaw. Everybody's got a story to tell. And it's funny because , when I give my lectures, it's always the way, people come up to me and say, Malcolm, I've never told anybody about this, but I'm going to tell you. And they proceed to unload their paranormal stories. And, and that's the beauty of it as well. You know, you meet some wonderful, wonderful people with crazy stories. And they all just want to get that told. 

Ann: Yeah. I mean, people do think they are going out of their mind when they have some of these very strange paranormal experiences. What sort of things have you been investigating or, or things that really stick in your mind? 

Malcolm: Yeah, there's so many , so many. Obviously, I'd like to tell you probably what is the best thing I've ever seen in my life as far as the paranormal goes. It has been told before. But maybe your listeners have not heard this.

When I lived in London, we used to put on lectures in London and I invited various guest speakers, etc., and at the close of one particular meeting a lady came up to me and says, Malcolm, would you like to see ghosts? And of course, I said, absolutely. You know a long story short, it was a house, on the outskirts of London and just a normal council house.

And she says that there was a, a psychic who was going to be turning up later going into trance and strange things would happen. So, she took me upstairs and she took me into an adjacent bedroom, and she showed me this little wooden cabinet. With glass shelves, and on this was rings and medals and coins with little tags on it.

And I said, what's this? Oh, this is all apports, Malcolm. These, these fall into a seance room, and when you pick them up, they're very, very hot. And as you can see, Malcolm, it's all labelled when it's fell into the seance room. From there, she took us into another bedroom. Which basically was devoid of much furniture.

It only had a tall, slender sideboard, in the corner of the room. And in the other corner of the room was a small chest of drawers, but also there was a, a black curtain from one corner of the room to the other, just where the corner goes. And behind that was a small plastic chair. And I says, well, what's going on here?

Oh, the psychic will be along in about half an hour. You sit in this chair and he'll go into trance and, you know, strange things will happen. Yeah. Sounds good. So, this gentleman finally made an appearance. I patted him down to ensure that there were no, he wasn't secreting any telescopic rods or anything that could, you know, give rise to false paranormal effects.

He was clean, absolutely fine, so, he sat on the chair and we tied him to the arms of the chair with heavy Velcro straps. In a sense, it was just like back to the old Victorian days where they did it in big, tall cabinets, only, he was sitting in the corner of the room behind this black drape, this curtain.

So, we tied him there. He took his shoes off and his feet were sticking out of the bottom of this curtain. You could plainly see the white socks. And there were small little bells attached to the, the walls of this room, which will become apparent in a moment, and then knocked on the floorboards to see if there were any hidden cavities.

You know, knocked on the walls to see if there were any false cavities in the walls. Because even though I firmly, firmly, firmly believe in life after death, as a researcher, we have to ensure that nobody's out to pull the wool over your eyes and deceive you. The room looked fine. There were no traps, trap doors or anything, you know what I mean?

Nothing was there. And then I sat in front of this this curtain along with three other people facing the curtain. Then the lady of the house says, right Malcolm, we're ready to extinguish the lights. The room will go in darkness. There is a small red light on this big, tall unit behind us, and you won't be able to see people in the room.

Which was correct, we did. So, she extinguished the, the electric light, and she started to play old kind of Victorian, dance hall, songs like Rollout the Barrel, all these kind of songs. And I says, why are you doing this? Oh, it's just to create the atmosphere, Malcolm, you know, just to create that ambience.

Yep, that's fine. So, within seconds, these little silver bells, that was tacked into the walls, into the, the wallpaper started to tinkle. And I went, oh, yes, that's strange. And then suddenly voices, voices appeared in the air all around us, top of my head, bottom of my head, next to my ear, below the chair. And I initially thought somebody's throwing their voice, but I could clearly see the people sitting next to me in silhouette, I could see them. They were , they were ex, you know, going crazy as well. What's, what's this? There were male voices, female voices, young, old nattering away, and then suddenly this black curtain boost! Boost out about a foot or so into the middle of the room, and this moulded black face moulded, the contours of a face appeared in this cloth.

Then it receded and it was just a flat cloth again. And then what happened next was there was a small chest of drawers, which was sitting next to this black curtain in the corner apex of this room. It started to wobble. Then it slowly, slowly rose up into the air to ceiling height, traversed across the ceiling, and came down gently and rested on my toes.

And I was astonished at this. Absolutely incredible. You know, and then I said to myself, this thing is not going anywhere. Now, I did what is one of the most cardinal sins. As you, as you, as you know, you should never, ever interrupt psychic phenomena from happening. We know what happened to Helen Duncan, the famous Scottish medium, when the police raided her, her room, when she was in trance, the ectoplasmic things went back into her body, hurting her. Anyway, what I did was I hooked my finger under the top of the small chest of drawers and said to myself, you are not going anywhere. And then suddenly this voice, I know it sounds crazy, but I can only tell you the truth.

The spirit voice boomed out into the room. Was Mr. Robinson impressed by this? And I said to this voice into the room. I'd be more impressed if you took it back. So, this voice said, I know it sounds comical, but this is what happened. Then this voice said, we shall see what we can do. Like I said, I've got my finger trying to hold this thing back and I says, you've got nowhere. You're going nowhere. And try, as I might, this, this thing started, this chest, of drawers started to shudder and I was pulling it back and pulling it back. I could not stop it. It just released from my finger and rose silently up into the air and moved across to the other side of the room and went back to where it once was.

And at that point, a terrific burst of cold wind pervaded that room. And I've often said to people, if you can imagine you're lying in a beach in Jamaica, you're lying in your swimwear. You're sweltering hot. And some suddenly somebody throws you into a big freezer van with these hooks of meat.

That's how cold it got. You could see your, your breath freezing up in front of you. It was an incredible experience. The downside of that is I have no proof. The lady of the house refused to have any photographic cameras or recording equipment. And even if I had that recording equipment, and you know, I could show that to the sceptics, people would say, well Malcolm, you just made it up on computer.

Good job, sir. You made up on computer. So sometimes, you know, you can't win. Sometimes you have to be there yourself to see these things happening. Lovely story, though it is completely true. I'll never forget it. 

Ann: That is an incredible story. And like you say, it's a shame that you can't get proof. Obviously, that's what you are investigating. You are trying to provide evidence of these things. But can I just ask Malcolm, why the black curtain? Why does somebody have to sit behind a curtain, why can't they not be fully seen? 

Malcolm: Well, this is entirely correct. I mean, this is something that you know, I've pondered over over the years. If psychic phenomena can happen in that environment, why not just take the curtain away? Why do we need to have that? We know that in Victorian England, the curtain was back. You could see the physical medium sitting there in the chair. It just, yes, it does anger me their degree that they can't do that. And it always seems to happen in, in, in darkness. Well, I say that not all the time. Some things happen, you know, in electric light or in the daytime.

But yes, we need to, to convince the sceptics we need to draw back that curtain, as it were, and really look at the, the person sitting behind them. I mean, I've seen transfiguration, I've seen people's face change, etc., and it is quite incredible. Now, either the face did, did change or alternatively, as a, as my sceptical mind would say, when you stare at somebody's face in not, not electric light, but in a dark illuminated light, maybe a small light, and you're staring at their face, your eyes begin to water and the lines on their face may change, and you think you're looking at a, face, when all of a sudden you're not, your eyes are trying to make sense of them watering and looking at this face. Now, I remember when I stayed in London, this chap says, Malcolm, you know, you've gotta come up and see this. I can make my face change. And I went, oh, here we go, so anyway, I took my good self up there to his house. And I sat in front of him and long story short, as I was staring at his face, he suddenly lost his hair. He was a completely bald head. Now he did have hair. Then suddenly he sprouted a big beard like Rasputin, you know, and I got a fright at this.

And again, I'm with my sceptical mind, I'm saying, well, I know my eyes are watering. I'm staring and staring at his face, what's going on here? And that footage, I actually took video footage of that as well. And that was used on a, a BBC daytime program and which they put out to the viewer. So again, while psychic phenomena is clearly true for me as a researcher, you know, having been involved in the subject for over 40 years, we've got to look at the other side of the coin.

There are hoaxers out there, there are psychic mediums out to take the money out your pocket and give you falsehoods. They're body reading, etc., etc., but we know this, we know this. But get rid of all that. It's like a big sieve. Once you sieve all the nonsense away, you are left with these beautiful, wonderful gems of truth which won't go through that grill.

And it's to those bits of truth that I've dedicated the rest of my life to.

Ann: Yeah, I mean it's fantastic work as well ‘cause we'd all love to get to the bottom of it and we'd all love to have some proof. What in your experience is a ghost? 

Malcolm: Well, a ghost effectively, well, people would tend to say that someone who's passed on and they've left this earth plane or possibly not.

They're in an earthbound, it's an earthbound spirit. They remain on the earth plane and there may be lost souls. It sounds Hollywood, but you know, we can only say what, what's been told. And but they're not all clear cut. You have ghosts that's transparent. You, you know, your, your traditional ghosts, you have ghosts that's solid.

People have passed them in the street. In fact, I was speaking to a lady not so long ago, she said that she saw this gentleman on the other side of the street walking as you were just calmly down the street. And then she went, wait a minute. George has been dead for about three weeks and it was him, she said.

Then you have anniversary ghosts, ghosts that will only be seen on, we'll say for instance, the 21st of July, and they'll be walking down this, this stately, this corridor. In a stately home, you have Crisis Ghost that will appear on certain anniversaries as well. You have the Stone Tape ghosts, which is another facet, I'd be here all day talking about that. So, it's, it's definitely different from a spirit. A spirit is clearly more your deceased person. You know, it's like a, a ghost, you could say, is like an old VHS videotape of a recording. the more it's played, that video recording is getting lesser and lesser and weaker and weaker. The colours are diminishing, and eventually that ghost will just disappear.

You won't see it anymore. Whereas a true spirit, someone who is looking to get in touch with Joe public or family or relations, will tend to be hanging around more than normal. 

Ann: That's a brilliant explanation. Thank you. And I hadn't really considered all the different types of ghosts you could have, I suppose. And yet in your experience, you can interact with a ghost, therefore, surely that can't just be a replay of events that happened in a space once upon a time. There's something else happening. What's your explanation? 

Malcolm: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there, there are ghosts that are aware of you, there are ghosts that appear to talk to you, and yet on the other hand, you've ghosts that are not aware of you whatsoever.

You've even, now, this is crazy, you've even got ghosts who would go by a piece of furniture. Now they could go walk through that furniture, but they tend not to. So, we'll have to be careful on what we, you know, when we're looking at these ghostly phenomena that there are indeed other alternatives as to what these are.

Ann: Yeah. Thanks Malcolm. it just fascinates me. And I know that you say that you've been touched by a ghost, slapped by a ghost . 

Malcolm: Well, that's the thing. I mean, I give a lot of talks and lectures and stuff, and always, always, always, somebody puts their hand up, Mr. Robinson, can you be harmed by a ghost? And the answer to that is clearly yes, I'm afraid you can, that's not what people want to hear. Okay? Maybe the, the more stay of that is your poltergeist etc. But having said that, yes, I have indeed encountered ghosts that have gonna slap me. I was in a haunted house and well, let me tell you a few more stories.

I was in a haunted house in Sterling, and this lady said that she was getting a lot of paranormal phenomena occurring in her home, things disappearing, etc. And we were in this room and we had the, the light subdued. There was only a small ambient light in the room. And her psychic, who we were working with, she says, Malcolm, can't you feel spirit in this room? I went, no, sorry, Helen. I can't, I'm, I'm hopeless. You know, I'm, I'm not psychic really, although maybe to a small degree. Sorry, Helen. Nope. Can't feel anything. Oh, come on there. Clearly there's something in this room. She says, look, stand over there. Put your arm out and ask spirit to touch you. What? Just do, do it.

So, I, I felt a bit foolish. So, I stood at the other end of the room, this bedroom, and I put my arm out. I says, okay, if there's any spirit here, please kindly touch the back of my hand. One minute went by. Nothing. Two minutes went by. Nothing. Oh, this is stupid. Three minutes, bang. It was like a heavy man had pushed very forcibly my hand out and it actually hit my thigh.

And boy did I get a fright at that, you know? It was really unbelievable. And then we were in a, a case in 1995 in Kirkintilloch, it was a, an ex-police officer's house. And boy did we know we had a case on there because as soon as we went in there, every wall had a photo stack copy of the Lord's Prayer. Every door in this house had a crucifix hanging from it.

And we knew straight away that there was something going on here. So, again, long story short, because all these stories could go on for days, we went upstairs and we went into this child's bedroom, and suddenly it was like fingers brushing through my hair and I said to my colleague, Billy Devlin, Billy, Billy, put the light on because you know, again, we're always working these subdued lights.

Put the light on. What is it, Malcolm? Did you, did you touch my hair? No, of course I didn't. And honest to, God, it was like fingers brushing through to my scalp and along the, the, the cushion, the top of my head. Quite bizarre it was. And yes, I've also been slapped by a ghost in a house as well. That was quite bizarre as well.

But there's a, a lovely story when when I worked for United Glass, it's a bottle manufacturing company in Alawar and I worked here for 21 years. Anyway, I was there probably my first or second year there, and people began to realize that I was into spooky stuff and ghosts and UFOs, and they were okay.

You know, they brought up newspaper cuttings. Oh, have you seen this, Malcolm? Apart from one guy, Bobby Smith. And he says, Malcolm, there's no such things as ghosts, mate. You should you get a better career, do something else. You know, I mean, there's, you're talking rubbish. You're talking absolute rubbish.

There's not such a thing as life after death or ghosts. And I went, really? He says, yeah. He says, Malcolm, I'll tell you what I'll do. See, when I die and God, for forbid it's old, many, many, many years from now, if there is such a thing about life after death, I'll come back. Oh, thank you Bobby. And so, years went by.

Years went by and I got up for a day shift. We started at six in the morning. So, I went down to the kitchen about five o'clock in the morning. My wife was sleeping upstairs. The, the whole house was quiet, everything was subdued and quiet. And I went to the kettle to put water in the kettle, and he suddenly, I got that, I got that feeling that somebody is standing right behind you. And I slowly turned around and I saw. Nothing. Nothing at all. I went, God, Almighty, that's weird. Anyway, I went to my work and I went into the men's mess room before we started our shift and everybody was hanging their heads and they were all solemn. So I went, guys, come on, cheer up, what's the matter of you lot. Oh, oh. Have you not heard? Have I not heard what? Wee Bobby Smith died last night. Now, that was a man who years ago said that if there is such a thing as a life after death, he would come back and prove it. Now, I never saw him, but by God did I feel something. It was really crazy.

Ann: Hmm, very, very interesting. So, from a scientific point of view and an investigative point of view, how do you explain these things? How can you explain what is happening? Say for instance, the fingers through your hair? We are frightened because we don't understand the phenomena, but what I, what can you explain of it so far in your experience?

Malcolm: Well, the only way I could explain it is by giving you my honest felt opinion, and that was spirit reacting with me to let me know they were there. You know, when that, when my, you know, my hand got pushed down, when I felt fingers through my hair, that was spirit clearly there. Now, we all know that that's hard to prove.

You know, the, the scientific community need more evidence than that. But again, what constitutes evidence, and I've said this many times before and in other shows, what constitutes evidence? We can have the best photographic evidence in the world, but that could have been manipulated on computer. But by the same token, a ghost photograph could be proved or disproved by the same technology Pixel separation, edge enhancement, colour contouring. Was it just a, a, a piece of paper stuck on a glass pane and photographed through that. So, technology can prove, and it, thankfully it has done, some wonderful ghostly photographs. But again, the bottom line, what constitutes proof? What gives the scientific fraternity that overall feeling that, yeah, hey, there is a life after death.

Because technically, apart from people like myself and my colleagues overseas and the world over, we don't have that God to honest truth. When people go to spiritualist mediums, yes, they'll get some wonderful proof. The sceptics will say, well, that's just cold reading. Maybe she, she, she knew in advance of that lady, et cetera.

That's possible. But having said that, I've attended many psychic events, and by golly, I have seen some wonderful evidence being portrayed to people with tears in their eyes and saying, how could you have known that? Even my own husband doesn't know that. And yet, you know that. So, either they're, they're gaining this information through reading body language or through their own mind.

You know, they're the subconscious mind, which in itself, if that's the case, then even that's extraordinary. But no, for me personally, it is the people who has passed on relaying this wonderful accounts, they're letting their loved ones know that they're still around. Now, listeners of your show may say, well, I've lost people and they've not came to see me.

Yes. You know, I agree with that. And the only thing I can say there is perhaps there's some form of mechanism which doesn't allow every person to come back and, and say, or trying to relay that they're still alive, they're still here. And I've often said you can have six people in a haunted room on a, maybe on a ghost investigation.

Say for instance, six people, three will say, oh my God, do you see that? And the other three will go, what? I can't see anything. So, it's my contention that the more psychically aware you are, the more psychically attuned you are, then the more you'll be aware of psychic phenomenon happening. Now it's like an old radio before you know you've got the DAB radios.

When you turn the dial from BBC radio one to BBC radio two, you are turning the dial, changing the frequency until you hit that beautiful frequency of, for instance, Radio One. Well, that's the same with psychic individuals. They are already tuned in. We know about our animals, our animals are very, very psychic as well.

They can pick up these frequencies and vibrations. They can see colours, they can hear things way above the human mind, etc. So, there's a lot going on for sure. Yes. 

Ann: Yeah, it's, it's fascinating, isn't it? So, in terms of evidence and proof - do you have any? 

Malcolm: We have photographic proof, but again the sceptics will say that it's just it's just been manufactured on computer. We have loads of stories. Is that proof? Probably not. And I think proof, like I said before, proof probably only comes when you are in a haunted location or you've experienced ghostly phenomena that that is your proof.

Nobody'll change that for you. You know, you can go or I've got your a psychic spiritualist event. Nobody will change up for you. I remember my father, when he saw me growing up getting interested in this, he pulled me aside and he said, son, your Granny, my Mother, as you know, she passed away a few weeks ago. I says, yes, Dad, I remember, yes. He says, well, I haven't told you this. A week or so after she passed away, I was lying in my bed and the, the light was out. I wasn't sleeping son. He, he, he clearly said that son, I wasn't sleeping. And he suddenly, I heard my name being called Robert. Robert, look at me. Look at me. And he knew that that was his mother who had died a week or so prior to this.

He decided, in his terrified, yet excited state, to pull down the covers and look. And there in the corner of the room was this beautiful aqua marine light, beautiful light. And there standing in the midst of that was his mother. Now, the thing was, she didn't look 80 odd when she passed. She looked about 30 odd, 35.

She looked younger, she looked radiant. And people have said that when they have single loved ones again coming back to them, they don't always look as when they passed on. They look younger now, she said, she said, son, I have passed on. I'm moving on to better place. Now, again, that sounds Hollywood, but you gotta be truthful on these podcasts.

You gotta tell it as it is. I'm moving on to a better place. Now. Here's the, here's the rub. She disappeared eventually, like a dimmer switch. Now, my father said that his Brothers, my Uncles, also saw their Mother that same night in this beautiful radiant light saying goodbye and moving on. Now, is that, to answer your question, is that evidence again, it's not, it's only a wonderful story, true story, but wonderful.

Ann: But something is obviously going on, something, because we have hundreds of thousands, millions probably, of people across the world, from every culture, every country, who are having these strange and inexplicable paranormal experiences. And I know that you are continuously on the lookout for new equipment and paranormal research techniques. What sort of things do you wish were invented? Or what are you working with at the moment in terms of equipment and stuff? 

Malcolm: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because obviously in today's technology we have K2 meters, we have this meter, that meter. We have so many different things to entice psychic phenomena to, to appear or interact with.

And yes, you watch any television show and you'll see these K2 meters going off crazily, these red lights, the green lights, etc. So clearly the people say, well, this is spirits interacting with this type of equipment. We had Spiricom back in the day, we had Konstantīns Raudive, if with these spirit voices where they recorded these voices.

We have electronic voice phenomena, which allegedly captures these disembodied spirit voices, etc. But the strange thing for me is its only ever usually snatches of conversation. You know, it might be "get out" or it could be. "This is not for you". Little short sentences. We don't appear to interact with this.

And then of course, we have the Frank's Box and other devices, the Frank's Box, for those who don't know, it's like a big radio. It's, it's, it's never tuned into any particular frequencies. It can, it roams around frequencies and allegedly, if you speak and want to contact a, a deceased relative or whoever, you'll say their name and you'll hear what appears to be confirmation.

That to me, I'm not enamoured by that at all. I'm not enamoured by all these gadgets and gizmos and gadgets. For me personally I don't believe in any of that. That, yes, it's a good tool. We, we, we should have tools to go into any given investigation, but for me personally, I've always worked with psychics, people who I would stake my life on, people who, I mean the psychics we have used over the years, I remember we walked into one particular alleged haunted house, and I always, always, always watch our psychic as she goes into it. And you can see her face, she'll nod her head and go, oh, yes, yes, I've got something here. Or she'll shake her head and say, she's getting nothing. So, for us personally, we have that. We, I mean, when you look at the Scole experiment as well, they sat in a seance for a number of weeks before phenomena started to happen, but they were demanding that spirit happened.

They got spirit lights; they got spirit hands. They even got a, a small blue, not grey, but a blue alien's face, the Scole experiment, S C O L E, if anybody wants to look that up on Google. So, when we look back to evidence, we've had all this, you know, we've had all this in the seance room, we have all these gadgets, etc.

But again, I can only go back to what I say is it comes from within. It comes from yourself, admittedly, yes, of course, we'd love to have dynamic evidence to show Joe Public and say, look here. You know, you can't, you can't get around this, you know, and maybe this is why we need this is now take taking it to a different level.

Maybe this is why we need some of the big wigs, the big wigs of the BBC or the ITN networks or scientific people to come on a ghost bust with people like myself or my colleagues, either in the UK or America. Get these big guys who think it's all a load of rubbish. Join us and let them enjoy and let them see.

Fingers crossed that paranormal phenomena will happen. It would be interesting to see what they say. These guys who, you know, don't believe in the subject, would that be evidence? Because these guys are, you know, these are an analytical thinkers. Would, would that convince Joe Public? We could go on, but it's, it's, it's an individual thing.

Ann: Yeah, I mean I, I'd love that to happen, but I'd love it to be made with plenty of time because a lot of paranormal programs are made for, you know, to reach a crescendo for the viewer. And it's not necessarily paranormal activity, let's put it that way. So, it would be good to have proper investigations scientifically done by, as you say, the big wigs that can follow a team of investigators for some time, like a documentary that would be very, very interesting.

Malcolm: It would, it would indeed. And maybe that would paint a picture in regards to looking at these things seriously, because now you've not got a team of psychic investigators. You've got a team of individuals. It could be made up from all walks of life, police officers, medical people, scientific people, and get that done.

I mean, again, we talk about evidence. Here's another incident that happened when I lived in the town of Hastings in East Sussex, which I miss very dearly. By the way, I'm now, I'm now back in Scotland. Anyway, this lady came to one of our meetings in Hastings and she says, Malcolm, you know, I work for the Conquest Hospital and, Yes, yes I do yes. Well one of the leading surgeons is off due to stress. I went, well, that's not so surprising. You know, you must see a lot of things happening. Oh, no, no, no. You don't understand. Well, well pray. Tell me, and here's what she told me. She said This leading surgeon was walking down one of the corridors of this hospital, and he saw an elderly gentleman standing there alone.

And he walked up to him and he said, you, you, okay? You all right? I, I don't know. You don't know. Are you sure you're okay? And just then the leading surgeon’s pager went off. He says, excuse me a moment, sir, turned to his pager. He looked at it and it was, he was wanted in the resus room immediately.

So, he turned down to say to the gentleman, and, you know, cheerio, so to speak, and, but he wasn't there. But he never thought nothing of it because there were swing doors quite near where a gentleman was standing. So anyway, I think you know where I'm going with this story, but there is a twist. So, he walked into the resus room, this surgeon, and there on the bed of this resus room

was the very man who he'd saw in the corridor with paddles on his chest, pumping him, trying to bring him back to life. So, here's where the story gets weird. The the leading surgeon says, wait a minute. How, how can this be? I was just speaking to that guy. Let's see, the CCTV footage, again, this is getting back to your question about evidence.

So, they went to the CCTV footage, they, they rewound it back, and you could clearly, clearly see this leading surgeon walking down the corridor of the hospital. He stopped, he looked up and he spoke to nothing. Nothing at all. So, is that evidence? This is not evidence that we convinced, it certainly convinced the leading surgeon, , he was so much in shock that he had, he was off due to stress, due to that.

So again, it's all, it's all, you know, individual or who knows. 

Ann: It's all fascinating. That's such a brilliant story as well. So, Malcolm, how do you deal with your fear sometimes? Do you ever feel frightened going to some dark places, you know, dark buildings and wondering what might happen? 

Malcolm: Yeah, of course. It would be foolish, not to, you know, you always go in with trepidation.

When we're bringing a psychic along, we don't tell her anything about where it might be. It's usually a council house, etc. The least she knows the better. And we do all the background work. We try and find out what's been going on. You know, I mean, I said , for instance, I was dealing with this lady one time and I said, are you interested in ghosts and spirits? Oh, no, son. No, not me. No, no. And I look behind her near in the bookcase. The bookcase was flooded by ghostly books . So, you have to be very observant, you know? And but yeah, so I forgot where I was going with this story. Now.

Ann: It was just about your fear, you know? Do you ever feel frightened? 

Malcolm: Yes. I mean, of course you do, you have to, you've gotta be very careful when you go into any given situation. First and foremost, as I said, you have to ensure that the story that has been relayed to you is correct. It's validated. We have to check the very foundations of where that house stood. Is it on a battlefield? Are there any ley lines crossing it.

You've got to dot the I's and cross the Ts and you know, try and find out are there any other reasons that this house may be haunted? Are they looking for notoriety, this family. Are they trying to be rehoused? Maybe they've tried everything in their power to get out of this council house and they, they can't.

So, what, what's left? Oh, I know. Let's, let's make up a ghost. Maybe the council will rehouse us. So, all this is in the back of your mind. So as far as being scared, yeah, there have been several times when I have been scared. Again, we were dealing a case on the outskirts of London and my girlfriend at the time, we had went outside for a cigarette and unbeknown to us, when we were outside, the other psychic lady we were working with at that time, she was administering healing to this lady. She was so freaked out by the phenomena that was ongoing in her family home. So, we were outside, we came back in and we sat down and this lady was sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room.

And then suddenly I screamed out like a big girl, 'Oh my God'!' Now what I was looking at was hundreds of small globules of these beautiful aquamarine lights, flooding all over the lady moving around her head, moving around her face moving, moving around her body, down to the floor. And instantaneously my girlfriend shouted out, 'Yes, I can see it'.

I can see this. And the poor woman's going, what? What? She was scared, what are you looking at? What, what, what is it? And I looked at the psychic and she's just nod, she's nodding her head and I'm going, What's this? What's this? And she says, Malcolm, what you're looking at is the remnants of my psychic healing.

When you were out having a cigarette, I was I was administering psychic healing to this lady. And what you're looking at is the remnants of that, and it only lasted a few seconds now. It was a combination of being frightened and being excited at the very same time. So yeah, that's, that's one of the cases. Yeah. 

Ann: Beautiful. What a lovely thing to witness as well, that sounds wonderful. 

Malcolm: Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously it's one of these things that happens over, over the years. You know, the, you cannot be involved in a subject, not come away with some strange, bizarre tales or, or scary tales. Here's another one.

I was, I was working with, I think it was a ghost club when I, again, I was living down in England and we went to Woodchester Mansion. It's an old stately home. It's it, there's no furniture or fittings anymore, you know, all in the ground floor. And we were there to do an investigation. Now I'm terrible. What I mean by that is I don't always do what I'm told. And the lady who was controlling this investigation of about 12 to 15 members said, now, whenever you do come with me, don't wander off yourself and get lost. Cuz it was late at night. It was very dark. So, what did I do? I wandered off myself and there was this passageway leaning upstairs.

It was all boarded off with wooden boards going left, going right, and I pulled at them. I made sure, you know, the group was well away, further up, and I pulled at these boards and some of them came loose. And I just gingerly went into this area with my torch and it was a, a set of stairs that lead up to the small room.

So, I went up to the small room and I laid down on my back against the wall, and you could hear the cows gently mooing in the farmland. And I was asking spirit to come forward and, make themselves known. Nothing was happening. So, I stood up and I was walking backwards. I dunno why, but I was walking backwards and I said, spirit it, if you're there, come forward. Come to me. And I walked backwards. And I walked backwards. There. I stopped. And at that point what happened was I just was aware that I shouldn't go any further. And then I turned slowly, slowly around, and I looked down and it was a drop of about 30 to 40 feet. There were no more part of that room. It was just a void. Now, if I hadn't had this feeling that something was happening, I may have walked to my death. Now that was frightening. Again, getting back to your question, anything frightening happening to me that clearly was, and obviously that staircase was boarded off for for that reason. But yeah, I'm still here. 

Ann: Still here to tell the tale. Yeah, it's very, very interesting and I'm just thinking about people listening at home and I wonder if you could just give us a little exercise. And here's the thing, once upon a time this was quite a few years ago, my children were much younger. I was experimenting with EVP, electronic voice projection. I think that's what it is. Electronic voice projection. And is that right? 

Malcolm: Electronic Voice phenomena. 

Ann: Phenomena. Electronic voice phenomena. Thank you. And I had an old fashioned, remember the old-fashioned tape cassette tape, handheld cassette tapes? I had one of those and I had it on. I think you pressed play and record back in those days. 

Malcolm: Yes. 

Ann: And then I had the tap on, so I had a little bit of a water coming out to create some white noise. And then I went into my next room and I was doing some research for something, can't remember what I was doing. And then I went back after about half an hour, and I replayed the tape that was recording in the kitchen with just the white noise of the tap. And there was just one word on that tape, and it so clearly said “studying”. “Studying” and I thought, gosh. And that's what I was doing in the room next door, and I found that fantastic. So, my question is, if we wanted as listeners to try something like that for ourselves at home, we don't really have cassette tapes now. Can we do it on a mobile phone, do you think? On a recording device? How do you think we could do that? 

Malcolm: Yeah, I always say to any investigation we go to, we ask when we move away from that house, we ask the occupants of the house to do that.

And you can do that by, if you have an iPhone, you will have an audio part of that where you can do recordings and just gently go into, if, I mean, more so if you believe your house is haunted, gently go into one of the rooms, make sure everything's quiet, there are no televisions on and no traffic outside.

And just gently speak into your mobile phone on record and say, if Spirit is with me, please make yourself known and give it maybe about 15, 20 seconds, maybe ask another question, are you male? Are you female? And just diversify the questions and give it about 15, 20 second’s gap. And then replay that. And that's when, Ann, that's when you get to hear some incredible voices.

Not all the time a admittedly, but sometimes you will get a name, a voice, a sound, or etc. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to try. And again, getting back to your question on evidence is that evidence, you could play that to somebody. And , you'll always get the sceptics saying, oh, that was a friend of yours in the room saying that. So that's the problems you have. But that's an exercise for your listeners to try. And that is to take your iPhone and put it on record and then just do that and see what happens. 

Ann: Oh, thank you. I'm gonna try that When this is finished, I'm gonna straight into my dining room because I live in this 17th century cottage. Well, my, my partner does and I'm visiting him. And I think there must be lots and lots of historical things that have happened here, so I'm gonna go and try that. 

But just before you go, Malcolm, I know you also work investigating UFOs and such things. Can you tell us a little bit, perhaps a story or two of your UFO experiences?

Malcolm: Well, again, there are many, many of that, many stories you could tell. I suppose probably one of the, the better ones is the story that took me off the sceptical fence because when I started in this field Ann, I was very, very sceptical. I felt there were no validity to ghosts, poltergeists, UFOs. What a load of rubbish. But it's, like anything else in life, once you traverse through life, once you get your hands dirty, once you speak to people, once you put yourself in those environments, there's no smoke without fire.

So, the the UFO case that took me off the fence, is a well-known case. I've written a book about it. It's called the Dechmont Woods UFO Incident. And it occurred in 1979. I was probably about 22 years of age at that time. And the story goes as follows. A 61-year-old forestry worker Robert Taylor, who was actually a war veteran, you know, he liberated Bergen-Belsen with his tank regiment. He's seen the horrors of the war. And from there he went, after the war, he worked at various jobs in Scotland. Anyway, he was now employed by the Livingston Development Corporation Forestry Department. And his job was to ensure that no cattle or sheep strayed into the woods. It was a menial job.

It was a job he has done many, many times before. He had no interest, no interest in UFOs whatsoever. Like all of us. He had heard about it on the television, but he had no interest in it. All that was to change. All that changed. On the morning of November, the ninth, 1979, he was in his pickup truck, accompanied on the journey with his Irish red setter dog, Lara.

They drove up to the forest, they jumped out of the truck, and they started to walk down this forestry ride. There were trees to the left, trees to the right, and as he was walking down the forestry ride, they came upon a clearing, a sloping clearing in the woods and there, about 40, 50 feet above the surface of the grass, was this large dome shaped object, with a flange going around its perimeter, and parts of it disappeared, and then it would solidify, then it would de-solidify.

You could see the young trees in the background and his dog was bark, bark, barking furiously at this. And Bob, Robert Taylor, he had, he's never seen the likes of this in his life is, what the hell is this? And then suddenly as if this scene couldn't get any more stranger and bizarre it did because what resembled two second World War sea mines, if you cast your mind back into those war movies, you saw these circular mines with these prods sticking out, floating in the North Atlantic and the shipping lanes, were resembling them Ann, dropped down from beneath this object, impacted on the grass and started to slowly roll across the grass toward him. Needless to say, I mean, obviously he's, he's terrified, and then they stopped, and then they projected these rod-like projections to his person, grabbing him very forcibly at his hips and pulled him very forcibly downwards towards the grass. Now, just before he lost consciousness, he remembers a terrible burning smell, pervading the whole area.

And also, a swishing, sound and a swooshing sound, and then bang, he lost consciousness. When he regained consciousness, the larger object was gone. The smaller objects were gone. There was over 40 holes and impressions in the grass, triangular and circular impressions, track light marks. He had a nasty graze on his forehead.

He had a nasty graze under his chin. He had a terrible pounding headache. He had a terrible thirst. His trousers were torn. His jersey was all muddied and he managed to stagger back to his pickup truck and he, he tried to radio base, but he found he couldn't speak. His voice was completely dry, so he managed to stagger back to his home in a small town of Deans, which is near Livingston, and Livingston is near Edinburgh in Central Scotland.

When his wife saw him, she, she went, what the hell has happened to you? And he said, and again, I can only tell the truth to what he said. I've been attacked. You've, you're what? You've been attacked by who? By, by men? No, by a spaceship thing. So, she said to your husband, look, come in there. No such things as a spaceship.

Come on. What's going on with you? But then she realized, she had been married to her husband for years. She loved the man and she knew, she knew her husband would not make up a story of that nature. Long story short, she telephoned the local doctor, the local GP, he attended, the family dwelling. He attended to Bobby. He had an elevated heart rate, he kept complaining of a smell, but nobody else could smell it. And then he said, Luke, we've gotta ask you to go to Bangour Hospital, which was about a mile or so away from where they lived. Again. Long story short, he, he went there. He waited one hour, he waited two hours, he waited, he waited to be seen.

Nobody came near him, so he discharged himself. By that time, his forestry boss, Malcolm Drummond, had notified the police and they went up with Bob to the area. And there, yes, clear as a bell, clear as day, were these marks on the grass. The police fenced off the area and it was treated as a criminal investigation by person or persons unknown.

Clearly this was, something happened there. And this is when I became involved. I interviewed Bob several times. I interviewed police officers several times, one of which detective Sergeant Ian Wark, knew Bob from down in the local bowling club. And he says, Malcolm, he's a salt of an earth guy. He would never make up a crazy story like this. 

So, in 1993, we with the help of the Livingston Council had a big Cairn put there with a plaque. And then a few years ago with the West Lothian Council, I managed to get signage put into the woods which allowed people to find this location because people were traveling from all over the world wanting to see this area, but they couldn't find it, they didn't know where to go. So now with the help of the West Lothian Council and the signage, people can now go to that site and, and see where it happened. And he always said, he says, Malcolm, oh God, how I wish, how, I wish you had a seen what I saw that day. But getting back to your question earlier about evidence, it's one man, it's his testimony and it's individual.

Ann: Absolutely fascinating. Malcolm Robinson, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all of these incredible stories and evidence in themselves. I feel, but like you say, we, how can we prove it? It it, it's so interesting and I'm sure that everybody listening will just find this really fascinating, truly food for thought.

Where can people get hold of you if they want to get in contact, Malcolm?

Malcolm: Well, I do have a, a Facebook site and if they look for Malcolm Robinson on Facebook, the image to see is of my Sauchie Poltergeist book. So, if you see that image, that'll be me. And again, if anybody wants to read any of my books, they're available on Amazon.  That's a combination of books dealing with ghosts and poltergeists, also Nessi and also UFOs and yeah. So, it's, it's all there. People can find it there. 

Ann: Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you so much, Malcolm. I wish you all the very, very best with everything going forward. It's been fabulous talking to you today.

Malcolm: Thank you very much, Ann, and you're doing a wonderful, wonderful job yourself. You're educating people with these podcasts, so long may it continue. 

Ann: Thank you. 

Ann: Malcolm Robinson there everyone, wasn’t that just a brilliant conversation? I have so many questions, I could speak to Malcolm all day and definitely going to invite him back as a guest.  Meantime, if you want to know more about his work, you can purchase his books xxx

To get the URLs & links easily, go to my website anntheato.com and click on the podcast tab - You will find a full transcript along with show notes and there will be links there which will take you directly to Malcolm’s work.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a wonderful couple of weeks, don’t forget to support and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel @psychcimatters and I’ll leave you with these words …

My name is Ann Théato and thank you for listening to Psychic Matters.