the Scottish Society for Psychical Research

....investigating the paranormal in Scotland

Witnessing new physical phenomena at Scole

  by Nick Kyle

Our second visit to the Scole Group in Norfolk, in February 1997, was an exciting prospect.  We had been told to expect more advanced phenomena than last time because the ‘spirit communicators’ would be more aware of our individual energies. Our hosts also said that they had made significant progress in the experiments which they had held since September ‘96.  We were astounded by what we saw.

So much depends upon the witnesses.

Doesn’t it?  Our group comprised:  a Head of computer services;  a qualified hypnotherapist;  a Training Manager for a national company;  and two teachers, one with a research degree.  More importantly, we are not new to the spiritualist scene. We have sat in various circles over the years, attended successful physical and trance demonstrations before, and one of our group has led a course on physical mediumship that was well-received.  However, our ‘traditional’ expectations of physical phenomena did little to prepare us for the ‘sustained visual objects’ we all saw  for over an hour.

  What did we witness?

As before, in the same small basement room of painted brick, which I checked out beforehand, bells rang and small pale green lights streaked around us, partially and momentarily illuminating our black-out conditions.  One difference was that some of these lights seemed hooded, directing their glow like tiny torchlights on the central table and on sitters, as they whizzed around the room.  Sometimes the lights would hover inches from our hands, feet and faces, allowing unambiguous corroboration.

Then the two mediums in trance told us that we were about to see phenomena which had not been seen before by our hosts.  They could not be sure what exactly it would be, since it was coming from a dimension to which the ‘spirit team’ did not have access.  We waited...

At this point I must  preface my description.  Despite the impressive evidence from the sittings so far, the mediums’ announcement seemed too fanciful and I still felt dubious about what might happen.  The description that I am about to give makes me a little anxious;  my integrity and reliability as a witness may vanish for some readers, but here goes...

Lights appeared, but in groups this time, linked by white-blue beams, forming a series of small 3-dimensional translucent shapes that moved around the room at varying speeds.

From one hovering triangular wedge, several tiny ‘searchlight’ beams from the underside seemed to independently ‘explore’ the central table and several sitters.  

Two other horizontal tubes seemed to ‘carry’ other hazier irregular shapes underneath.  While I could not see any lines connecting them, the objects being ‘carried’ moved with a slower wider arc as the columns turned and accelerated.

Two slightly yellow shapes were perplexing and are difficult to describe.  One appeared as if you were looking through an illuminated lens down a tiny kaleidoscope at another illuminated lens, giving a clear impression of depth.  The other larger tube pointed towards me briefly and I saw  within it a tiny outstretched hand, as if I could see from the tips of the fingers down the length of a small forearm.  My partner, Sarah, who observed it from a slightly different angle beside me, said that the hand seemed feminine and as it passed her, another hand was visible beside it in a cupping action.

  How can we explain this?

Was it a ‘next generation’ holographic light show using hidden projectors, maintained at speed under the table, as well as beside my feet, even with my hands around some lights, with no effect on the ‘image’?  Tiny model noiseless aircraft that gyrate, hover, streak around and land without error?  I don’t think so.  What do you think?