Alton Towers (field trip)
The Lavender Enigma
Many people have said that they would like to believe in the paranormal but they have never had any first hand experiences of activity. Other people deny paranormal activity saying that there is always a logical and rational explanation for what they or others have witnessed. From our experiences at Alton Towers however, we can quite safely say that there was one possible piece of possible paranormal activity which we have been unable to explain and the thousands of visitors would have been completely oblivious to the goings on.
After arriving at Alton Towers on the Sunday we made our way to the Great Hall and after a brief look around set up a couple of video cameras. As we knew we were operating in an open theme park where the noises from the rides could be clearly heard we were well aware that any EVP would more than likely have to be discounted because of the obvious contamination. Just in case there was the chance of picking up any sounds that could be determined to emanate from the building itself Mark placed an audio recorder on the floor at the other end of the room. We the sat quietly for the next hour in the bay window and watched as one or two people entered the room from the far end, saw the cameras in operation and left the room again. Not one of them came in to the room by more that a couple of metres and all left by the door adjacent to the one they had entered.
After an hour of recording the equipment was stopped and gathered in, but whilst we were packing away a faint floral aroma was noted by three of the team. Karl, and Mark then carried out a complete survey of the perimeter of the room using both EMF meters and Ion detectors.
With the vague aroma of pollen only just noticeable, I spotted something on the floor at the far end of the room and went to investigate. To my amazement I saw a small bunch of lavender on the floor, its aroma now starting to fill the room. However, the lavender was placed exactly where Mark had put his audio recorder and he is positive that it was not there at that time. Also, neither Mark nor Karl noticed anything whilst they checked the perimeter for readings. So for once had we just been unobservant? Mark tried to review the footage taken by his camcorder but although recorded in a fairly light room the camera had gone out of focus after about 5 minutes and despite short bursts of human activity at the other end of the room, never recovered.
We left the Great Hall for a while to investigate other areas of the building but on our return the aroma of lavender filled the room. On several other occasions we again left and returned to the Great Hall and each time on our return were greeted by the scent. I am certain that this is something we would have noticed on our first visit if the lavender had been there and close examination of photographs taken both before and after seem to back up what we all suspect: There was no lavender when we first arrived and nobody had ventured far enough into the room to have placed it there!
