On Saturday night, the team headed back to one of our favourite ongoing research locations, the fascinating Puhinui Homestead located at the lush Howick Historical Village. A very special night indeed, as we haven’t investigated this location in a few years, and feel privileged to be back. This weekend, we also celebrated the yearly Proud to be Paranormal Day early, as the actual day falls on a Tuesday. Being in New Zealand, we were one of the first teams in the world to experience this!
Likewise to Mark & Sam, I am no stranger to the area and have often visited the village throughout both my childhood and now in recent years. One of my trips was a history class school outing with Pakuranga College. I’ve always had a wandering eye for Puhinui Homestead in particular, but had only experienced it during daylight hours until now. I will admit I was familiar with some of the reported activity in the house over the years through reading public comments posted online, reading Mark’s books (Haunted Auckland & Haunted New Zealand Roadtrip), as well as watching videos posted to YouTube by the team from past experiences. The most intriguing activity was the torch thrown from the chair at the top of the staircase at such a force down the stairs, during an overnight solo vigil held by Mark. I also know that furniture has been heard getting dragged around upstairs, and the sound that appears to be drawers opening and closing. I did my best to put these experiences from other team members aside and really tune into the house with my own eyes, for my first time being in the house after daylight hours.
It was a pretty chilly and quiet night. Some drone footage was taken when we arrived before it got dark, and about 6 pm, we headed inside for the night. Temperatures, humidity and EMF checks were taken in each room at about 6:15 pm, and we noted some rooms felt a lot colder than others, especially upstairs as the night progressed. The first communication session for the night started in the kitchen, where we had some fluctuations with the EMF reader. This was pretty random and not in line with any questions asked. We then moved into the lounge, where Amanda started a game of dice throwing to see if ”anyone” might want to have a go and try to beat the team. Two dice would be thrown at the same time in the hopes that they would both land on the same number of dots. Each member had a go at this with Barb getting it first go and Mark & me taking a good 6 tries to master this. We then spent some time in the main bedroom upstairs to try and communicate with Sarita McLaughlin, who once lived in the house with her family. It’s believed she may still reside in the homestead. Trigger objects were placed throughout the house in the hopes that something would move from where it was placed. There were stones on the staircase window sill, little toys placed on the ground and on the chair upstairs, some cards on a bedside table & of course Mr Smiley joined us on the staircase!
As this investigation wasn’t an overnighter, I feel more time is definitely needed for me to draw my conclusions. However, I strongly feel drawn to this location and feel it’s worthy of many more trips in the future if the opportunity arises again. More repeat visits mean more chances at gathering any possible information that can be linked, eg, the same sound heard at the exact same time each night. This can help us identify patterns and offer confirmation on what we saw or heard a previous time. The more team members, the more possibility of noise contamination that can trick us into thinking there was activity, when there may not have been any. If we create any noises ourselves we try and note this on an audio recorder or notebook, with the time it happened and where the sound came from. This is because different cameras can change the way how something may sound just by being in a different location.
Another fun long awaited night catching up with some of the team.
Team in attendance for this one was Mark, Sam, Sean, Amanda, Barb and Bella.
