Ghost hunters claim to have caught on camera the moment a violent poltergeist hurled a pushchair down a staircase in one of Britain’s most haunted houses.
Steve Archibald, 36, and his wife Carrie are the founders of Pitch Black Investigations and had persuaded a group of intrepid paranormal enthusiasts to spend the night at 30 East Drive in Pontefract, West Yorkshire.
The house was the site of one of Britain’s most notorious alleged hauntings when the Pritchard family were subjected to years of torment by the so-called ‘Black Monk of Pontefract’.
And the startling footage shows a pushchair apparently being thrown by an invisible force down the same set of stairs where 14-year-old Diane Pritchard was dragged by the hair by the so-called Black Monk.
Some of the team were so scared by what they witnessed they refused to spend the night in the house and instead fled to a nearby hotel.
Steve, from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, said: “At first we didn’t know what had happened as we were in complete darkness when we heard the noise.
“I came around the corner and saw the buggy on the stairs and couldn’t believe it. Then we all re-watched the footage. No one could believe it.
“I know 100% it couldn’t have rolled. It had been there for eight hours. It doesn’t budge or move on its own.
“People will say that it rolled as for every believer there’s a skeptic. If they don’t want to believe then you can’t convince them.
“But I 100% believe something moved it. There was definitely no-one up there. Everyone was with us as we were finishing off the night at that point.”
“But there is lots of poltergeist activity there. I have seen marbles thrown through closed doors in the house before.
“I don’t think most of [the activity] is threatening but on the stairs it does feel threatening.
“It could be something playing games with us. A bit of me thinks it is childish. It felt like it wants to play. But it could be the Black Monk. I hope it is the Black Monk so that it confirms and shows there’s evidence of an afterlife.
“And it vindicates everything that the Pritchards said happened. It’s very intense what they said [they saw] and it would vindicate what they said. I hope it is [the Black Monk], for the clarification.
“If I had seen it with my own eyes I would have been scared but on CCTV it was OK.
“However three of the people who were with us were scared and wouldn’t stay the night. They had to stay in hotel instead.
“We heard bits and bobs through the night but we all stayed together. We stayed in the room downstairs and wouldn’t venture near the stairs. We even used the downstairs toilet.
“Everyone thought ‘I’m not going out there’.”
The footage joins two other recent photographs that ghost hunters claims shows the Black Monk on the same set of stairs.
In June, Pete Boulton and Rob Hughes from Ghostnspectors Paranormal Group snapped an eerie face in a black hooded robe staring out of the mirror at the bottom of the stairs.
Steve’s latest footage is from October 2, at an event due to take place from 9pm until 1am but ran over by an hour after the excitement of what was caught on camera.
The Pitch Black Investigations team is adamant that they will return very soon to investigate further.
Steve said: “I just we wish we had caught a bit more as behind the camera there was a mirror that flew off the wall – but we didn’t catch that on the camera. That’s sod’s law.
“It’s a really strange house. It’s strangely addictive. Some nights not a thing happens but it always makes you want to go back. Everyone who I speak to says the same.
“It’s as if the house has a personality and draws you in.
“It can get boring when you’re sitting for hours with nothing happening. The public are there to be scared.
“Most watch Most Haunted on TV and enjoy horror films but it doesn’t happen on command like that. So this footage is such a big deal. It’s never happened to us before, but now we have it on camera.
“I don’t know why so much activity happens around the stairs in that house. It’s where Diane claims she was dragged up the stairs by her hair.
“I don’t know if that has something to do with it. Something could have happened there.”
The haunting at 30 East Drive was the subject of the 2012 horror movie When The Lights Went Out and was investigated for the Halloween special of Most Haunted Live in 2015.
The house remains open for bookings – though Ouija boards and exorcisms are banned on the property.