Mitchell Toy reveals how Victoria’s supernatural investigators hunt down ghosts

WHEN strange phenomena are happening in your home and you suspect you might be haunted, who you gonna call? This is how Victorian supernatural investigators hunt down ghosts.

The secret of how Victorian supernatural investigators hunt down ghosts has been revealed.

THE clientele of Australian Ghost Investigators usually make contact for the same reason.

Something is happening in their home, business or another building that bothers them. And it’s something they can’t explain.

Some say they hear noises or voices, others say it’s a feeling of dread or coldness.

MITCHELL TOY: VICTORIA’S BEST CONSPIRACY THEORIES

MITCHELL TOY ON THE ASTOUNDING LIFE OF BUSHRANGER CAPTAIN MOONLITE

GOLD COINS FROM SHIP ROBBERY COULD BE HIDDEN IN INVERLOCH

MELBOURNE’S CREEPIEST GHOST STORIES REVEALED

And some say their children are perceiving other people in the house, or acting strangely around certain rooms.

That’s when Steve Ford and his team of investigators move in.

Steve has more than ten years’ experience in paranormal investigation and combines logic with psychic testing and hi-tech equipment to get to the bottom of spooks and spine-tinglers across Victoria.

Acting on a not-for-profit basis, the Geelong-based team tries to eliminate every possible cause of the strange occurrences before attempting to deal with it as a supernatural phenomenon.

Steve Ford’s experience of a ghost child jumping on a bed changed his perspective on the supernatural. Digital image.

MOVING FROM SCEPTIC TO BELIEVER

There was one moment more than any other that won Steve over to belief in the supernatural.

Supernatural investigator Steve Ford.

As a junior ghost investigator he went with a team for a psychic session in a room at Barwon Park Mansion, a 42-room house built in 1871, in Winchelsea south west of Melbourne.

They had been told stories about the ghost of a young girl who sometimes appeared in a certain room, which contained a bed that was neatly made up with sheets.

The group used old items thought to be appealing to the young girl, dimmed the lights and began the session.

A psychic then indicated that the young girl was present in the room, was happy and was jumping on the bed.

Steve, who was still sceptical of the psychic practice, kept his eyes partially open and watched the others in the circle — but he could see no child and nobody in the group was moving.

But when the session was over the group discovered the footprints of a small child indented on the top of the bed, where previously there had been none.

That, said Steve, changed his view.

“I had no explanation for that. It was certainly a turning point for me,” he said.

“I left Barwon Park Mansion feeling physically sick — I just couldn’t explain it.”

Barwon Park Mansion has been the subject of supernatural investigation. Picture: State Library of Victoria

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU THINK IT’S A GHOST

There are two categories when it comes to investigating the supernatural: the explained and the unexplained.

When a team of spirit hunters is called to a house, the first move is to eliminate as many logical explanations for the phenomenon as possible and see which parts remain mysterious.

That means, for example, checking for wind draughts if the resident has been feeling an unexplained gush of cold air, or making sure the electrical wiring is in order if flashes or buzzing has occurred.

“We check how much power is flowing into the house, we check every power point and make sure every possibility of an electrical abnormality is crossed off,” Steve said.

With a CFA background, Steve meticulously checks to ensure the perceived ghost isn’t just a fixable structure fault.

But if there is nothing physically wrong with the home, supernatural testing can begin.

BRINGING IN THE PSYCHIC

When investigators first arrive at the home without the team’s psychic, they ask for a run-down of the building’s history and what is known about its previous occupants to guide their strategy.

But when the psychic is called, they are told nothing of the property’s history including who had lived there, and minimal details about the phenomena that has been taken place.

That gives them a clean slate to engage in their mystical craft — connecting with spirits.

The Australian Ghost Investigators team includes award-winning psychic Sherry Van’t Hag who claims to ability to connect with the other side, detect and communicate with spirits and provide insight into their circumstance and motivation.

When conducting a session, some psychics call on everyone present to visualise an orb of light above their heads that moves down into their shoulders and acts as protection against the spirit with whom the group is connecting.

Although the science of psychic testing is unknown, the group boasts results that are placed firmly in the ‘unexplained’ category, including psychics reporting contact with people who had previously lived in houses.

An Electromagnetic Field monitoring device can assist with ghost hunting. Digital image

EMF TESTING AND OTHER GEAR

In addition to psychic observations, the investigators use state-of-the-art atmospheric monitoring gear to show up any anomalies in the suspected haunted area.

This often involves Electromagnetic Field testing, or EMF, that detects the energy omitted by electrically charged objects, which can include people and other equipment such as smartphones.

For that reason, investigators involved in EMF testing are told to leave their phones behind.

In the absence of electrical connection, telecommunications or other external energy, the EMF sensor detects changes in the electro magnetic field that could be related to spirit activity.

But, as Steve explained, the measurements are themselves no concrete proof of ghosts; they fall into the unexplained category.

“When you get rid of every other possibility, the EMF device can give you data that can’t be explained. But that’s just it — it’s not proof of something supernatural, it just can’t be explained by everything else that’s happening,” he said.

Another method of electronic investigation is sensing Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP.

On one outing to a cemetery in 2016 two testings using EVP showed nothing, but a third near the grave of a tester’s departed relative revealed mutterings that could be interpreted as attempted spirit communication.

GETTING RID OF SPIRITS

Once a suspected spiritual presence is certified as unexplained, the tricky part remains — getting the activity to stop.

Although spirit connection through psychics can sometimes lead to resolution, getting spirits to vacate a premises or change their behaviour can be less straightforward than it seems, Steve explained.

“We don’t advertise that we are able to remove spirits from homes,” he said.

“There is no known, concrete science around the supernatural. If there were, there would be nothing left unexplained. So getting spirits to move from a home or a property is sometimes an unknown challenge.”