Why I imagine there’s ghosts in my home and in yours too…

Many times, I have been genuinely frightened by what I’ve experienced. I remember in 2002 when we were filming an episode of Most Haunted, three of us saw a pair of legs, in over-the-knee leather boots, walking — on their own — up the main staircase at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the West End of London.

We all stopped, took a huge intake of breath, and ran the other way! That was the first time I thought there is something much bigger out there than we can comprehend. Now, I’m as certain as I can be that there are two planes — the one we live on and the one we go to.

Some of the biggest clues we have when investigating the afterlife are knocking and tapping phenomena — the sounds that come from the walls, or the ripple of energy you feel beneath your feet.

To find out who or what is making these noises, I ask the spirit to tap through the letters of the alphabet — to identify their name, date of birth and date of death. I write the alphabet out on a piece of paper with a number beneath each letter, and as I point to each one, the spirit will knock the corresponding number of times.

This process, along with what’s called Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), gives us information we can research and verify with historians. We record EVP on a laptop using a digital audio recording app, which allows us to isolate different frequencies and pick up ‘spirit voices’. Sometimes, you can hear names — first names and surnames — and even whole sentences.

I might ask, where are you? Where are you sitting? And from the EVP we will hear they have responded: ‘I’m behind you’. You can imagine how that makes me feel.

Often, when we then research the name and the dates we’ve been given, we find that the spirit with whom we have communicated did indeed once live in the house.

I don’t understand why scientists are not taking this more seriously, because we absolutely can communicate with the other side.

Of course, I know all this sounds like I’m round the bend. That’s why we started doing the Most Haunted Experience (where you can join the show’s crew for live ghost hunting) so we could say, ‘If you don’t believe us, and you think we’re crazy, come along and see for yourself’. The reality is that often people don’t believe… until it happens to them.

Many people experience something at home that feels beyond their control. They might secretly suspect the work of a spirit, but feel embarrassed to admit it. Well, I’m here to say, their instincts are probably right. So here’s how to spot, and banish, an unwanted visitor.

1. Always start by assuming nothing

Do not assume brand-new houses on new housing estates can’t possibly be haunted. It’s about what may have happened on the land before the house was built, or even where the stone came from that the house has been built with.

‘Stone tape theory’ is the idea that a building itself acts like a tape recorder for vision and sound from the past, which can play back at any moment. It’s a different type of haunting to a ghost floating around. Emotions can get sucked into the fabric of the building.

Ghosts and spirits can attach themselves to people — and move with them. I was once called into a semi in Manchester where a mother and daughter lived. They were terrified because pans were being thrown around the kitchen. They could hear strange coughing noises, too.

As soon as we entered the house, we heard banging along the walls. It turned out to be a man who had followed the daughter from their old house because she reminded him of his granddaughter. We had to explain to him that she wasn’t his granddaughter and it wasn’t fair to her, but he still didn’t want to go.

We persuaded him to leave by explaining it was time to move on. He was scared to go because he loved his ‘granddaughter’ so much, but we reassured him, and the woman and her daughter spoke to him, too. He left while we were there, and they reported later that everything remained calm afterwards.

2. Look for early warning signs

When you first move into a property, any spirits will let you know if they are active. If they don’t like you, they will certainly make their feelings known. When my husband and I first moved into our house in Cheshire, they were very enthusiastic. Furniture would move all on its own. I would come downstairs and find all our wooden chairs in a pyramid on top of the table.

The first week we were there, my husband was watching TV and a man dressed as a Cavalier soldier passed the window. My husband ran outside with his air rifle and there was no one there! Some years later, when we met the lady who sold us the house, she confirmed she had seen him too, and had also seen a lady on the stairs and a man in one of the bedrooms who ‘watches over you while you’re sleeping’.

I’ve never seen the lady on the stairs, but friends have and say she wears a white Victorian dress. I’ve not seen the man in the bedroom she referred to either, but friends who’ve slept in there report that he wears a dark hood that hides his face. When they wake, he’s standing over them, and then he’s gone. They’ll often hear footsteps running up and down the stairs, too. None of them want to stay in there now.

3. Ask if you’re encouraging spirits

There will be ghosts in your house you cannot see and cannot sense, but they can see you and they see their house as it was when they lived in it.

In many cases (but not all), it’s when you knock down internal walls, move doors or rip the kitchen out and add an extension that you start to experience paranormal phenomena. That might be keys disappearing or doors shutting on their own. The TV might turn itself on and off, or the kettle start to boil. That’s the spirits making it clear they are there, and they are not happy about what you’re doing to their home. Digging up the land or the garden also does something to disturb the peace — it’s a very common factor with hauntings.

4. Take life after death seriously

Hauntings are so easily laughed off, but they can cause so much harm and damage to families. If you don’t believe what you’re seeing and hearing, just consider the eminent scientists who believed in life after death: Thomas Watson and Alexander Graham Bell, who developed the telephone, were spiritualists who wanted to construct a device that would communicate with the other side. The inventor Thomas Edison believed so much in speaking to the spirit world and our deceased loved ones that he once claimed he’d created a ‘spirit phone’. If they took it seriously, why shouldn’t we too?

5. Listen to what your child says

Now that my two children have left home, the spirit activity in my house is quieter than it was. There is a link between the higher vibration of spirit energy and children. Everything about the way children walk, talk and move gives off more energy, which a spirit can use to make things happen in the house.

Many children will report seeing things or having an imaginary friend. Most of the time they’re not imaginary at all — they’re spirits. If you catch your young child having a conversation with your deceased grandmother, don’t assume it’s make believe.

Some believe that between the ages of 14 and 16, a teenager’s energy vibrations change. That when they become more argumentative, anxious and angry, they push that out into the atmosphere. If you have a particularly playful spirit in the house, it will use that whirlwind of energy — objects might suddenly start falling off a shelf and smashing on to the floor, for example. 

By harnessing teenage energy, a spirit can become very frightening or even demonic. Listen if your teenager tells you they can sense a presence.

6. Make time to talk to your ghost

If you believe you have a ghost, address them directly out loud as if you are talking to a person who has just walked into your house and you don’t know who they are. But do it with great respect. I would say something like: ‘Hello, you probably know my name. I’d like to ask you something please. I know you’re here, but with respect I would like you to leave because you’re scaring me and my family. If you could do that for me, I’d really appreciate it.’ Do it a couple of times each day for about a week or so.

7. Start gathering film evidence

If it doesn’t stop, the next step is to record what you are experiencing, such as furniture moving, the doorbell ringing or doors slamming. It can be done simply on your phone, but also document everything in a diary.

Put out a trigger object like jewellery or a toy to see if the ghost will interact with it. Attach a GoPro camera (designed for catching action shots) to the object to capture movement.

8. Call in the professionals

If you have a faith, you could go to your church and find someone who deals with exorcisms and blessings. In most cases, a blessing of the house is successful, but some spirits can be stubborn and will not budge. Then you’ll need to call in a professional who deals specifically with the paranormal. There are lots online, but be very careful. Talk to others who have used them. Or go to a spiritualist or Buddhist centre where you can learn about the protection of your soul, aura and spirit.

9. You can’t force them to leave

If a violent criminal dies, they don’t suddenly become angelic — there is still this horrendous energy, and it can be very hard to make them move on.

And if a spirit is too frightened to leave because your house is the only place in which they feel safe, that’s a big obstacle, too.

A spirit can become trapped because it is re-living something too traumatic to move on from. Those situations make me very sad and I will always try to help. I use deep meditation and I harness help from the other side. I’m not psychic, but I can connect with spirits who have already moved on, who can help me release the trapped ones.

But there are cases where spirits absolutely refuse to go and even resort to violence. In that situation, there’s nothing you can do. You are the one who must leave if it’s making you distressed. It’s not a legal requirement to admit your house is haunted, but you should always tell the truth to any future buyer.

10. How not to end up a trapped spirit

A lot of spirits will be grounded because they are frightened to move on. They may have done something as simple as steal or lie, or been horrible to a loved one. Often if they are particularly religious, they fear the judgment that awaits them, so they hang around causing disruption.

What we have learned from the other side (through the knocking and tapping) is that when people die in tragic circumstances — like a car crash — the soul leaves the body before the body dies so they don’t feel that impact of pain and trauma. That knowledge really helps people who have lost someone in awful circumstances.

In your living years, spread as much love as you can to everyone, and there should be nothing to hold you back on this Earth. The lovelier you are, even to strangers, the better. Make people happy. Start training now and, when it’s your time, you can fly away peacefully.

As told to Jade Beer