17th November 2006

The Luton Paranormal Society braved a cold November night for its last investigation of 2006. Three locations were decided upon for the night, some of which LPS had visited before with excellent results (Datchworth and Mardleybury Pond) and a new site at St Paul’s Walden.

On this occasion LPS was pleased to welcome two guest investigators, Michael Langdon and Ferdie Langdon. The trainee journalists from Bournemouth University contacted LPS to assist their project on the paranormal by joining us and documenting the investigation.

The evening started off with a meet up in the Strathmore Arms pub in St Paul’s Walden. Member Bill King was interviewed on camera by Michael and Ferdie and various aspects and experiences of the paranormal were discussed with the members.

St Paul's Walden, All Saints: All Saints Church in St Paul’s Walden is recorded as being haunted by a woman who drowned in a nearby pond. Members chose their own paths through the churchyard to investigate.

Members Bill and Leana walked to the east side of the church where a tree lined path runs down to the end of the graveyard. As she passed the top end of the path Leana felt drawn to go down the path. As they stepped past the hedgerows on to the path, Leana burst into tears and felt apprehensive but compelled at the same time to carry on walking down the path. She could find no reason for becoming so emotional. They carried on down the path. About two thirds of the way down Leana felt like she had something stuck in her throat. As they reached the end of the path the experiences seemed to have passed and Leana felt fine. They returned up the path to the church but the feelings did not return.

Elaine, Stephanie and Ron walked over to the west side of the church. Stephanie felt drawn to an area at the rear left between a line of the gravestones. Here she stood in the quiet and picked up the feeling of a presence that moves in the area. Elaine joined her at the area and Stephanie said she felt drawn to the area and Elaine revealed that she saw something move along the area earlier. Stephanie had also heard church bells ringing faintly as if they were in the distance. She asked Elaine if she could hear them but Elaine said she could not. Andy came over to join them and said he had captured something dark moving along the floor by a grave and he saw a white light. On investigating his movements with his camera this is thought to have been a reflection off a nearby urn.

Member Bill then approached Andy, Elaine, Ron and Stephanie to go in to the tree-lined path area to see if they could pick anything in the area where Leana had had her emotional experience. About a third of the way down Elaine reported to the rest of the group that there looked like someone standing down the walkway. Stephanie agreed this is what it looked like to her, a silhouette of a dark figure. Upon walking further the same shape seemed to still be visible. Stephanie suggested that this might have been the shape of the tree branches causing the effect. No one was found when the team reached the end of the path.

Nothing showed up on the photographs taken at the time but a later, daylight visit to the cgurch resulted in one interesting photograph being taken looking towards the top of the tree-lined avenue where Leana had her starange feelings. The relevant part of this photograph is reproduced below.

Strange Orb

Close-up of Orb

After debriefing of the locations events outside St Paul’s Walden Church, LPS headed off to Datchworth.

Datchworth, All Saints: LPS first visited Datchworth on 26th November 2004, which proved to be an eventful night with cold spots, intense atmospheres and figures seen in the graveyard. Hopefully the night’s vigils would be just as eventful. Members were split in to two teams to cover the churchyard and a nearby Rectory Lane.

Team A: All Saints

Bill, Leana and Stephanie decided to do a vigil in the churchyard in view of where the figures were seen on the last investigation. Cameras were set up to record the specific locations while members sat in the quiet to wait for any activity. After an hour nothing at all had happened and they were left disappointed and extremely cold!

Team A: Rectory Lane

The vigil in Rectory Lane did not provide any paranormal activity although a shooting star did give the team something to observe.

Team B: Rectory Lane

21:40 Ellen smells cigar smoke

22:50 Andy observes two shorting stars one of which appears to hit the ground at terrific speed (shooting past Earth).

Team B: All Saints

22:35 Both team members have a feeling of uneasiness and of being watched at the back of the church.

22:45 Andy reports this feeling is getting worse

22:50 Elaine picks up spike activity in the same area and when the experiment is reported nothing happens.

23:00 Andy reports camera power drain

Sounds on Dictaphone of a crying noise however this is more likely to be a wild animal than paranormal

23:10 Large shooting star observed that is in two parts and this is followed by the sound of voices nearby. Leana is seen walking past the cemetery gate and Andy goes to check but does not see her.

23:13 Church bells ring but it is not 23.15 just yet.

23:15 Elaine feels something is moving in the graves but upon investigation nothing is found.

Our guests Michael and Ferdie had temporarily retired to their car to warm up during the vigils and Michael had an interesting experience to relate to the group. When sitting in the car he observed a small dark figure rush past the back of the car towards the church gate. When investigating further, there was no one to be seen in the area. He described the figure as being like a small boy whose head would just have been visible above the rear windscreen.

Mardleybury Pond: The last location was Mardleybury Pond where a woman is said to have been thrown from her horse and coach into the pond and drowned. The pond can only be observed from the road so members stood at the fenced areas and recorded footage and photographs. Andy also took a Dictaphone recording along the road beside the pond.

LPS would like to say a special thank you to Michael and Ferdie Langdon for joining us for the night’s investigation.

Update: Andy’s Dictaphone recording at Mardleybury Pond produced an EVP, which is though to be saying ‘Send Me’.

Upon a daytime investigation of local churches, King’s Walden Church was discovered to have had it’s bell ringing practice on the night of the investigation which is what Stephanie could hear at St Paul’s Walden.

During our investigations Michael and Ferdie Langdon interviewed members of LPS and did numerous recordings during the evening. Some of these recordings were incorporated into a 10 minute video about the paranormal which can be viewed below. The sound level on this recording is quite low so you will have to turn your volume level up.

Report by Stephanie Lawn