Introduction

Filmed during December, 2006 this episode allows us an opportunity to compare the results of the shows investigation conducted over a 24 hour period with that of the Para.Science investigation which has taken more than 900 hours to date.

Our own investigation was perhaps one of the most comprehensive ever conducted in recent years and included in-depth measurements of a wide range of environmental factors including Temperature, Humidity, Electromagnetic Fields (EMF's), Electrostatic fields and Infrasound. Psychological factors were also extensively studied both within the staff members and the investigation team. Both the environment and the psychology of the witnesses are known from pre-existing research to be key factors in understanding and determining why people may report having anomalous experiences. The investigation also made use of a Psychic Medium in order to consider objectively all possible options.

Although we had been granted exclusive access to this location over the 3 years of the investigation we were permitted by the management company to cooperate with others interested in portraying either our own investigation or the experiences of the staff and former shipyard workers. This included a BBC crew and in 2006 the Discovery Channel used the location to film our infrasound experiments - this was broadcast on February 11th 2007 entitled "Tigers Attack". At our suggestion the location was used by Yvette Fielding and Dr. Ciaran O'Keeffe as an investigation location for their joint book 'Ghosthunters' which entailed them spending several hours at the site accompanied by members of the Para.Science team. Ciaran had also visited the location as part of the Discovery Channel programme as well on a number of other occasions prior to the Most Haunted visit. During the research for the show Para.Science had assisted with the location research and had supplied information to the Most Haunted researchers. This had included providing a tour of the location and information from our own investigation and research notes.

Clearly, no direct comparisons can be drawn between our own extensive investigation and that of the Most Haunted team who spent considerably less time carrying out their own investigation but from our point of view it did represent the chance to compare the two investigations and of course we were very interested to learn what respected Medium David Wells might uncover.

Let The Show Begin

After the usual opening sequence where we are introduced to the various ghostly phenomena that have been reported we arrived at Ciaran and Yvette's interview. Ciaran is surprised, given the history of the land on which the buildings now stand that some of the reported apparitions are not Monks as the site formed part of monastic land in the past. This is maybe a good time to point out the lack of a dedicated historian on the show these days as in actual fact the land upon which the two buildings are located was reclaimed from the sea in the 19 th Century as the shipyard expanded. The Monastic land and Birkenhead Priory are located almost half a mile north of the offices and shipbuilding hall although part of the monastic lands do underlie the earliest parts of the shipyard where in fact a ghostly Monk is still regularly reported by workers. But this is well away from the part the team are in, so it would have been a surprise if ghostly Monks had been encountered here.

Onto David's walk around and in the ground floor boardroom he tells us he is aware of two figures - the first is a female who is outside and walks up and down the corridor but no further information is offered before he describes the second character. David describes him as being Portly, well dressed and quite dominant and maybe dating from the early 19 th Century although he is not certain on this date. He suggests that this is from something that pre-dates the modern building. Although our own research has not definitively been able to determine the sequence of land usage we are confident that in the early 19 th century this land as mentioned previously was part a tidal mudflat prior to its reclamation to permit the shipyard to expand. The female sensed by David may correspond to the apparition reported by staff members. Described as wearing green clothes or overalls 'she' was seen by at least one staff member in the corridor outside the boardroom. To date we have never been able to ascertain the possible identity of this figure and sadly David offered no additional information.

Moving up onto the first floor in the empty and deserted drawing offices David senses someone who moves very quickly around. The figure is definitely male. The name is 'Graham' and he was apparently killed in a hit & run accident in the 1970's when he was only 35 or 36 years old. He is in the building because he is trying to tell someone what happened or who the driver was as they may not have been caught at the time but the impression is that it was someone whom Graham knew. Calling out to Graham brings a small flurry of raps in response seeming to confirm David's impressions. This information is new to our investigation and we are unable to confirm its validity at this stage but given the recent date and nature of the incident i.e. a hit & run we are sure that this information will be available in local archives and can be easily checked. This we plan to do at the earliest opportunity.
The fleeting shadows seen in this room have been a feature of many investigations by us and have been reported by staff members too. Many of these reported sightings were plausibly explained at the time due to large amounts of external glazing and glass panels inside this room and the fact that it lined up directly with the Mersey Tunnel access road causing car headlights to frequently shine through creating rapidly moving shadows of both people and furniture. There was a much smaller number of reports where we felt unable to offer this explanation and currently these remain classified as unexplained.

Moving to the 2nd building - the massive former shipbuilding hall. David senses an older man - a worker in dirty blue overalls and boots. He apparently died on the site in the 1980's perhaps following a fall which left one side of his head shattered. The name George is provided and also the additional information that he started as an apprentice at the yard in the 1950's or 1960's. He is of medium height and losing a bit of his hair. The description provided is a good match, except for descriptions of his attire, for a figure that has been reported several times over the years by staff who had long ago christened him 'George'. This choice of name has been commonly encountered at a number of cases over the years when people almost affectionately give a name to their ghost. The name George is very common in the records of the shipyard but we have no knowledge of an incident matching the described fall and severe head injuries. Admittedly the records for the shipyard are incomplete but the period of the 1980's toward the end of shipbuilding is well covered and there is nothing we are aware of that substantiates this claimed account. Most accounts of the figure in blue overalls also differ on the suggested date too. Workers frequently describe a figure wearing 1930's style trousers and jacket and a big cloth cap.

As they enter the elevated Portakabin offices George is more strongly sensed by David. George is a heavy smoker. After some discussion about an apparent figure seen next to David on the Thermal Imager and a claim by Stuart of having seen a shadow move past a window in an adjacent office, the team head back to the main offices to hold a séance in the 1st floor drawing office.

As the séance commences, Jon Gilbert claims to have seen something moving across the office which is confirmed by Karl. The table apparently begins to shake slightly and Karl experiences the sensation of being touched on the shoulder by something icy cold. David is then able to provide further information about the alleged hit & run. The car we are told was a brown Cortina and as the table continues to move (unseen by the camera) David says the driver was someone senior in the offices who returned to work knowing that they had hit and killed someone. David is drawn by the spirit to a nearby office in which the driver worked. As the team head toward the office a filing cabinet is heard to fall amongst much exclaiming - we know of many episodes during our time in this location were individuals have collided and fallen over and into items of furniture. In fact, in the same sequence Karl apologises for having fallen over another desk! Furniture spontaneously falling has never been encountered during any previous investigation or reported by any staff member so this represents a first time event for this location. Karl offers the idea that the cabinet had been pushed over to prevent the team entering the office by the spirit of the deceased car driver. Asked by David, Graham confirms with a rap that it was not him who toppled the cabinet. This seemingly confirms Karl's idea that there was now a second spirit that up till this point had gone unnoticed by David. Two taps from this new spirit further confirms Karl's spirit conspiracy hypothesis. This may be strong evidence that Karl is also a budding psychic able to fill in those gaps left by David......or maybe someone just bumped the cabinet causing it to fall - we certainly banged into them in the dark on more than one occasion!

Disgusted by the actions of the hit & run driver and feeling deeply for his victim Yvette notes that Graham "So needs our help". Anxious to make further contact the team split into smaller groups and begins a series of vigils around the location.

Down on the 1 st floor Yvette and Ciaran are having a quiet time of things which was very typically for Cammell Lairds. Yvette asks for the spirit to do something - with camera pointing at the staff tea trolley she asks for a cup to be rattled or thrown. Upstairs after goading 'Cortina Man' Jon Gilbert and Wigan are shocked as a mug is seemingly thrown towards them. As the vigil session draws to an end the two teams meet up and to their amazement discover that this was precisely the event that Yvette had called for and although the mug took flight on the 1st floor much was made of this event being more than a simple coincidence. The time of the calling out and the mug being thrown could have been quickly determined however by simple reference to either the time codes of the video cameras or on Jon's sound recorder. It is normal practise for any TV production to synchronise the cameras and sound recording equipment prior to a recording session being made and we are surprised that this simple check was not apparently made. If it had been then it could have been quickly shown if the mug being thrown occurred before or after Yvette asked for such an event. This is a serious omission. Such information could have helped immensely with trying to understand what really transpired during this vigil session.

Meanwhile during all this excitement Karl and Stuart had returned to the shipbuilding hall and were now underneath the launch ramp in the stores and workshop area.
They too were having an interesting time of things, after hearing footsteps they then had an object thrown near to them in the rear access walkway. Exiting the stores Karl believed that he had just seen David walking past the large side entrance to the hall but upon hurrying back to the main offices they found David seated in a chair where he claimed to have been for at least 10 minutes. The stores and workshops under the launch ramps are perhaps some of the darkest parts of the entire site - when the lights are off! There are no windows and the walls and roof are massively reinforced concrete as they had to support the enormous weight of ships being built directly overhead. Many hours have been spent in this part of the building and it's probably true that most of the investigation team were never exactly happy being allocated this position but not for any paranormal reasons. It is a dark, cold and cheerless place and one that has never produced anything scarier than the odd sighting of one of the buildings resident feral cat population. There is however a large quantity of loose metal objects and industrial detritus lying about in this area and it would have been no surprise if any of was accidentally kicked across the floor or knocked off its resting place as Stuart or Karl wandered about in the dark.
The figure of David being seen near to the entrance door is in an area where figures have been seen moving in the past, although never as clearly as this during any of our investigations. A figure was seen entering the hall by this doorway during the night several years ago and was subsequently followed into the hall by security staff who failed to locate anyone at the time. The description of this figure closely matched the 1930's attired figure previously reported by workers. Anecdotally, this 1930's figure has sometimes been associated by the staff with a known murder than took place outside the shipbuilding hall in the past. The murder was a real incident, the link to the figure is a lot less certain but we were hoping that perhaps David might have picked up on this more lurid event from the shipyard's past or indeed one of the several other murders we know have taken place on the site.

In the hope of getting further information and offering help to Graham the team return to the shipbuilding hall and the under ramp area for a mass vigil. This is a bit surprising as Graham was said to be active in the drawing offices and it was George who inhabited the shipbuilding hall.
Nevertheless, the team assemble in the darkness. Cath is touched on the shoulder as David and Karl ask for one of the filing cabinets to be moved. To be a bit picky here, they are not actually filing cabinets but metal clothes lockers as the room they are standing in was a staff changing room - but maybe I am just being too picky!

As the show reaches its climax and the crew begin the leave the area they first of all experience a small metal cylinder being thrown toward them out of darkness. Jon reacts by saying "That was a door" although this suggestion is quickly shown not to be the case. The team return to examine the missile and are further disturbed by Yvette hearing a low moan which was sadly not captured by the sound equipment. As they hurry to leave for a second time there is a loud crash from inside the room. The camera turns to capture Jon saying that it came right from between him and Wigan and Karl quickly determines it came from a loose door on a 'filing cabinet' (clothes locker!) being slammed into the locker. As they review the events a series of footsteps are heard by members of the crew coming toward, past and finally heading away from them. The audio again lets this sequence down as the supporting sound does not seem to have picked up this event that was apparently heard by most of the crew.

Returning to this area did not seem to make much sense in terms of an investigation from our point of view as we have never experienced anything untoward in this part of the shipbuilding hall. The noise that Yvette heard is not really a surprise as this part of the site is close to a very busy oil dock with tankers unloading their cargoes of oil products. The oil dock and its associated large pumps and heavy equipment is responsible to a lot of noise in this part of the site and for the unsuspecting the deep low frequency sounds sometimes produced can often catch them unawares. The building hall is constructed of large sheets of metal. Close to where the team were positioned during this sequence are the enormous launch doors. Almost 40 metres high and over 100 metres wide these massive and heavy doors readily move slightly in even a light breeze causing noises that often sound like low moans and rumbles. As the wind picks up the sounds change into a series of creaks and hammer blows that make a really good impression of someone walking on the overhead walkways. This was noted by Wigan and Ciaran during their night together ahead of the main investigation and was most likely the cause of the sounds Yvette heard although with such a poor recording being made of the event we can only speculate. Karl makes the point several times in the MH Extra that the wind is very strong during the team's investigation and from our experience of such conditions it must have been quite a noisy time for the MH crew.

As the shows ends Ciaran offers an explanation of some of events that the crew has experienced - he makes one mistake that we have to correct when he notes that the location has been investigated for more than 300 hours by a local group. As that group was Para.Science we feel compelled (!) to correct this error and point out that our investigation has in fact totalled more than 900 hours. This accounting error he makes more than once in the show too.....
It's a shame that in his summing up he did not mention the possibility of using the camera tapes or the sound recording to try and time-sequence the call for a cup to be thrown and the mug apparently being thrown. This would have offered useful additional information that could possibly helped understand the context of this event much better.
However, he saves us some typing of this review in his final summing up when he notes that the experiences of the crew during their visit to Cammell Lairds did not tie-up with the previous eye-witness testimony and for that reason he treats the evidence with a great amount of scepticism.

Almost from the start of the show it was clear that much of the information the crew were using as the basis of their investigation came from the Para.Science investigation. The fact that a previous extensive investigation had taken place was mentioned a number of times in the show and in the Extra that followed it several direct references were made to events that took place only during the Para.Science investigations. From our point of view it would have been nice to have been acknowledged by name as we not only actively assisted the location research for this show but were directly responsible for introducing Yvette and Ciaran to the location, originally for their book investigation and also later for show itself. Sadly, that's not unusual for some TV and media production companies. Whilst their own works are normally heavily protected by worldwide copyrights many make free un-acknowledged use of the effort and assistance of others. Also, what a shame that in using our investigation as the basis for their own they did not choose to acknowledge that we had been able to explain the causes and mechanisms of many of the anomalies we were originally called upon the investigate. In our opinion this additional resource would have allowed them to have shown a very different type of investigation episode. One in which, like many investigators know only too well from their own experiences, the majority of the incidents can be explained and events that cannot be explained become the exception rather than the norm.

And So We Move Onto Most Haunted Extra..........................

This opened with footage from an earlier investigation which took place during January of 2006, when together with a couple of investigators from Para.Science Yvette and Ciaran spend several hours at the shipyard for their book. The video shows Yvette and Ciaran in the shipbuilding hall listening to some pretty loud bangs and deciding that as it was not a windy night then it could not have been the giant doors banging in the breeze. They do - even on almost calm nights, they may be heavy but the scale of these doors mean they have an enormous surface area to catch the lightest of winds and they need only move a couple of centimetres to create some spectacular acoustic effects!

As the programme continues we are shown part of the walk around omitted from the main show. This takes place in another large 1 st floor room which we have always referred to as Room A during our investigation. In fact it was the electrical drawing office and lies directly above the main reception for the office building. After David describes getting the impression of playful spirit or perhaps even a gang of them! Ciaran recounts almost word perfectly our experiences in this location when accompanied by a BBC film crew who had joined us for night of investigation. It remains one of the most unusual and difficult to explain sequence of events we have ever experienced during our time at this or any location. It is fully detailed in our investigation report elsewhere on this site. This same room has also been the site of several documented sounds of footsteps being heard by people situated on the ground floor at times we can be certain the room was empty.

But perhaps the award for the biggest blunder of the night must go to the guest medium Paul Hunt who was not shown in the main episode??

As he wandered around the shipbuilding hall he described getting impressions of a ritual taking place - performed by a group of men. As he was standing on the end of one of the launch ramps at the time we thought initially he was referring to the numerous launches that had taken place on this spot over the years. We were stunned when he then said he felt it was a Monk or Monks! If this was the case then they would have been performing their little ritual all at sea as in the time of the monastery this area was in the middle of a bay and in deep water to the south of the Birch covered headland that gave both the Priory and the Town the name of Birkenhead. But when were facts ever allowed to spoil a good psychic impression!

There were plenty of events experienced by the Most Haunted crew during their 24 hours spent at Cammell Lairds, the majority we could easily have offered them an explanation for based upon our own extensive investigation and personal experiences.

We were interested in this episode because we hoped that it may have offered some additional information about this location. Sadly, we were only left bemused and bewildered and none the wiser by the MH crews visit.

One final point to end this commentary - several members of the crew suggested in their summing up speeches that this would be a good location for others to perhaps try and gain access for their own investigations. Save yourselves the effort. In January, 2007 the entire site was sold to new developers and they have decided that all future access to the site for the purposes of continuing or extending any paranormal investigations is permanently banned. After 3 years and 900 hours we have had to draw to a close the active part of our investigation and are now left only to document this location and its ghostly residents but that does still mean we have a bit more work to do yet before we sign off on this investigation.

Para.Science 2007.

Footnote

Since the programme was first shown we have been able to access local archives and local newspaper records in some depth. We were looking for any hit & run type accidents that corresponded to the information David provided i.e. the name Graham, a victim aged around 35 or 36 years of age, a brown Cortina, the 1970's. In fact, records dated between 1965 and 1985 were checked. There were 7 reported hit & run incidents in that 20 year period but none matched the details provided in the show. The closest we could find was a 1986 report of a hit & run involving a male aged 37 that took place 3 miles from the shipyard. The driver responsible was caught and prosecuted after turning himself in 2 weeks after the incident. He had been driving a white and blue Ford Transit at the time.

A week after the programme was broadcast we were able with the generous assistance of former shipyard workers to locate the worker whose office was identified in the show as belonging to the hit & run driver referred to a number of times as ''Cortina Man'. Carefully checking the office indicated on the show and comparing it to plans and photographs of the building as it is now and also as it was in the 1977 means that there could be no doubts. The man whose office this was from 1968 to 1986 is still very much alive and we have been able to speak with him and also show him the segment from the show. He was able to confirm that the office indicated in the show was his office during the 1970's. He was understandably upset and annoyed by the implications made that he could have been a hit & run driver. Mr. S. (at his request he currently requests anonymity) is considering a number of possible responses.

Pursuant to the spirit named as 'George' who was said to have suffered from a fall and massive head injuries in the 1980's. A search of the existing accident records for the 1980's did not reveal any accident or incident of this nature. The shipyard did have an excellent safety record during the period although in earlier decades falls and head injuries were commonplace.