Paranormal NZ Case File: Rural property, Huntly – Waikato. [BizarreNZ Blog]

Recently, while going through a few old folders in the file storage boxes of my research, I found this old interview/report I did with a guy called Mathew, who contacted me via my old mid-nineties BizarreNZ blog.

This interview was a to-and-fro online conversation over about a week.

It’s interesting to me, as we’ve experienced very similar occurrences at a couple of locations we’ve spent many nights investigating. The footsteps especially.

INCIDENT INTERVIEW: UNEXPLAINED OCCURRENCE

Location: Rural property, near Huntly, Waikato
Date: August 1996
Interviewee: Matthew, age 34.

Can you describe what happened that night?

It was about half past eleven, maybe closer to midnight. I remember the time because I’d been watching the rugby earlier and was getting ready for bed. I was living on a small property outside Huntly then, not far from the river. It was an old house, probably built before the war. Nothing special about it. We’d had the usual problems with old houses. Pipes knocking, floorboards creaking, that sort of thing.
That night I was in the kitchen making a cup of tea when I heard someone walking along the hallway.

What did the footsteps sound like?

Slow. Heavy, but not really heavy boots. More like someone walking in bare feet or socks. Three or four steps from the bedroom end of the hallway towards the kitchen.
I called out, “Who’s that?”
There was no answer.
I assumed it was my brother. He was staying with me at the time, but his bedroom door was shut. I walked into the hallway and looked. There was nobody there.

Did you check the bedrooms?

Yes. My brother was asleep. I woke him up, actually, and asked if he’d been walking around. He was pretty annoyed with me and said no.
I went back to the kitchen. Maybe two minutes later, I heard the footsteps again.
This time they stopped outside the kitchen.
I could hear the floorboards creaking as if someone was standing there.

Could you see anything?

No. That’s the part that still bothers me. The kitchen doorway was maybe six metres away. There was nothing blocking my view. If someone had been standing there, I should have seen them.
But I had this very strong feeling that somebody was there.
Not a vague feeling. I mean I genuinely felt like someone was watching me.
I said, “If you’re there, come in.”
Nothing happened.
Then the kitchen chair moved.

On its own?

Yes. It was one of those old wooden chairs with a padded seat. It moved backwards about half a metre. Not violently. It just scraped across the floor and stopped.
I remember thinking there must have been some bloody explanation for it. A sloping floor, maybe. I went over and checked it. The chair was sitting normally.
Then I heard a woman’s voice saying my name.
Just my first name.
It sounded like somebody speaking from the hallway.
I froze. I didn’t answer. I didn’t even move.
Then it said my name again.
I woke my brother and told him we’d better leave the house.

Did he hear the voice?

No. He heard the footsteps, though.
We stood in the hallway together, and there were three footsteps from the kitchen towards us.
Then nothing.
My brother said, “Who’s here?”
Nobody answered.
We checked every room. We checked outside. The doors were locked, and there was no sign anybody had been around.
We ended up getting into the car and driving into Huntly. Neither of us wanted to stay there.
I spoke to an older neighbour about it. I didn’t tell her everything. I just said we’d heard someone walking around the house during the night. She went quiet.
Then she asked, “Was it a woman?”
She told me that, years earlier, an elderly woman had lived there with her husband. She’d died in the house. Apparently she’d been found in the hallway one morning after suffering some kind of medical problem.
The neighbour said people had occasionally heard footsteps inside the house after she’d died.
I didn’t tell her about the voice.

Why not?

Because once she told me that, I didn’t want to know any more.

Did you experience anything else at the property?

Yes. Once, about a week later, I was outside chopping wood in the afternoon. I heard someone walking inside the house. I assumed my brother had come home.
I went inside and called out.
Nothing.
I checked the bedrooms and then the kitchen.
That same chair was pulled away from the table.
I put it back and left the house.
I never heard the voice again, but I heard footsteps several times over the next few months.

Do you believe the house was haunted?

I wouldn’t have said that at the time. I still don’t like using the word “haunted.”
But I know what I heard. I know my brother heard the footsteps.
And I know I heard someone say my name when there was nobody there.
Maybe there was an explanation. Old houses make strange noises. People mishear things. Memory changes over twenty or thirty years. But I was there, and I’ll never forget those footsteps stopping outside the kitchen.