Napier Paranormal Society: Hunting things that go bump in the night

Vicki Wedd from the Napier Paranormal Society. Photo / Jack Riddell

Hunters are yet to catch irrefutable evidence that ghosts exist, but some bumps in the Hawke’s Bay night simply can’t be explained, the Napier Paranormal Society says.

Founder Vicki Wedd says she and her fellow four women who make up the 13-year-old society continue to believe something mysterious is out there.

It’s not necessarily a scary, haunting presence, but the unknown often does scare people, she says.

The group help those who are scared “feel at peace about the unknown”.

Wedd became engrossed in the world of the paranormal after seeing a “shadow figure” peep behind a door at her grandparent’s home in Ongaonga when she was a child.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time and let it slip by and a few years later I started having ‘experiences’, which are hard to explain.”

Since establishing the society in 2011, Wedd and her crew of women ghostbusters - researchers, investigators and a medium - travel the entire region following reports of sightings and experiences sent in to their Facebook page.

“A client will reach out to us and say they are having intense headaches and seeing shadow figures and are obviously really scared,” Wedd said.

“We just have to figure out what’s going on.

“It could be the client’s mental health, or it could be just the house, or could be something electrical – it depends really.”

A photo taken at the Tavistock Hotel in Waipukurau potentially showing a ghost, or dust reflecting the flash on the camera in 2019. Photo / Stephen James - CHB Paranormal Society

Thus far, the group investigations have found mainly real-world solutions to the spooky happenings across the Bay.

“There was this case in Waipukurau where the tenants that were living there at the time were getting angry and yelling at everybody,” Wedd said.

“But when they went downstairs, they were fine. So, it was something to do with upstairs.

“There was a big old electrical box that was up there. So I think it was emitting electricity, and it was making them grumpy and angry and shouting at the family and things. So we sorted it.”

There is still one unexplained case on their books from 2018.

“We were at Napier Prison actually, when we were up there doing an investigation and we were standing there asking questions and I saw this like light anomaly go past me and then we heard this woman’s voice and I thought wow, that was pretty cool.

“She didn’t say anything, just sort of moaned or sighed.”

Halloween is approaching, but Wedd doesn’t believe that the supposed spooky season generates more paranormal experiences.

“I think it’s just a myth, but you never know. I’ve been doing it for a long time but I’m still learning myself.”

To be completely clear, no mainstream science suggests the supernatural exists, and there is plenty of scepticism about the group’s activities.

Wedd said she knew there were a lot of sceptics in Hawke’s Bay.

She said they may be experiencing paranormal activity, but don’t want to acknowledge it.

“I think a lot of people don’t want to talk about it. That’s what I’m finding, people don’t want to talk about Hawke’s Bay’s hauntings.”

Wedd encourages anyone having supernatural, strange, or freaky encounters in the Bay to get in touch with the society via its Facebook page.