Sidney Kidman Hotel Investigation

Main Street, Kapunda SA

14th June, 2008

 

In Attendance:                                                                 

Jane /   Margie /   Annie / Mandy                                    

Giny / Jessie / Ellie / Hunnah                                            

                                                                                          

 Equipment Used      

 1 X Nikon DX40 Digital SLR 

 2 X Digital Camera’s

 2 X Digital Camcorders 

 2 X EMF Meter

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We arrived into Kapunda at 4pm and went directly to the Sidney Kidman Hotel to let Heather know of our arrival. She was busy upstairs, so we decided to explore the town before it got dark.

 

Our first destination was the St Johns reformatory and cemetery. After getting some sketchy directions from a local we got into the cars and headed towards Truro. It took us a while as we took the wrong turn, but we eventually found the place, which was approx. 4 – 5kms out of Kapunda, on the way to Truro.

 

“Johnstown” – St Johns Cemetery, Presbytery & Reformatory

St Johns Rd, St Johns via Kapunda, SA

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Taking a dirt track right of the main road we travelled for about a kilometer before we came across the St Johns Cemetery, which was on our right. It was now approx. 5.pm.

 

All of us walked around the cemetery taking photos and reading gravestones. Ginny and Mandy’s camera batteries died almost immediately. The rest of us had no battery problems.

 

Opposite the cemetery was where the St Johns Reformatory used to stand, it was demolished by the land owner in 2002, because of unwanted attention and visitors to the site. We could clearly see the ruins of the building while there was light. By the time we finished in the cemetery it was about 6pm and dark, by this time the ruins were not visible.

 

We tried a dirt road hoping it would lead us to the ruins, but it was fenced off. We drove back to the cemetery and took photos of the ruins from there. Deciding it was too dark and because we hadn’t had a good look at the layout of the land we decided not to go up to the ruins, but to leave it for another day. There were no anomalies in any of the photos taken in this area. Though we did learn a lot about the area.  The history of Johnstown and the St Johns Reformatory & Cemetery is attached to this report.

 

The Old Police Station & Courthouse

We headed back to Kapunda to the Old Police Station and Court house, where we photographed the buildings. We were able to capture a few anomalies including an impressive light ribbon and orbs in some photos, and decided this site required further investigation on our next trip.

 

The Sidney Kidman Hotel -Main Street, Kapunda SA

We arrived back at the Sidney Kidman Hotel at 7.pm and were greeted by the owner Heather, who is a lovely and extremely accommodating woman. Having spoken to her earlier during the week, we had gained her permission to stay in the hotel after hours to hold a séance. The Hotel sits on a corner block in the main street and is of a colonial style. Until seven years ago it was named the Kapunda North Hotel but was changed to the Sidney Kidman Hotel by the previous owners. Heather intends to change the name of the pub back to its original name, as she feels that Sidney Kidman, who was a hard and cruel man, did not deserve to have a hotel named after him.

 

It didn’t take long for us to realise that half the town were aware that we had come back to Kapunda and what our interest in the place was. Obviously, people had had their own experiences as they approached us freely and almost immediately told us of their own experiences. I have to say here that the locals of Kapunda are a friendly, warm and very interesting group of people, who made us feel welcome from the get-go.  We ate in the dining room then moved out to the back court yard. We were approached by many of the locals there and had some interesting conversations with them.  At around 9pm we all headed into the cellar pool room for a few games of pool, a few chats with the locals and of course to photograph the area. It didn’t take long for some strange things to occur.

 

The Pool Room

A few of the girls decided to play pool while the rest of us watched on and took photos of the room.

We had a sense that there was a mother and child with us and began speaking to them urging them to show themselves to us.

 

At approx. 9pm we all heard a noise come from the jukebox, which sounded like a page being flipped over. The jukebox was not being used at the time, as we prefer no music in this situation. We all turned to look at the jukebox and saw two more pages flip over on their own accord. I was sitting against the opposite wall and pulled my camera out. I started to talk to the “energy” asking it to do something else, taking photos while I did. I kept asking, almost taunting it to do something that I could photograph, some of the other girls heard me, so they too began asking the energy ‘to do something else".

 

It was then that we got a photo with a bright orb, near the girls playing pool. We urged the energies to do more if they could. Suddenly I saw on my camera screen an image that was full of light, resulting with a photo with two large rays of light pouring into the room from the TV and fireplace. We had got what we asked for, suggesting that this energy had a consciousness and an intentionality. 

 

Once home and looking at the images, I noticed the photo before this had not one but two Orbs in it, one large and one small. The next photo looks as if the Orbs almost exploded, filling a large part of the image on the right, and coming out of the ‘turned off’ Television. 

I had felt and mentioned to the group that I sensed two energies, a mother and child. 

(We later discovered that in the late 1800’s that an Aboriginal woman and child were murdered in this room.)

Could the two Orbs have been them? And did they respond to our requests for a reason? Was there something they wanted from us?

 

Not long after that incident I began to have problems with my camera, which is a new Nikon DX40 digital SLR.  Suddenly my camera would not take a photo, and I found looking through the lens that the zoom was moving in and out as well as going in and out of focus. Hannah who was sitting next to me during this, noticed that the lens of my camera was moving, as if my hand was on it. I lowered my camera and saw that when I half pressed the button the lens zoom and focus rings were moving on their own. I called out loudly to the room “let go of my camera.. Let go now and let me take a photo of you”. Suddenly my camera went back to normal.  This continued throughout the rest of the night, where I would find my camera was inoperable, (just as it had been in Greensborough, Vic and Bendigo), the camera would only work after I demanded they let go of it and let me take a photo.

 

What these means I don’t know, but it seems strange and rather coincidental that this anomaly has only happened during an investigation and stops when I demand them to leave it alone or ask permission to take a photo. In other situations, I have had no camera problems

 

Can these energies take control of a camera? And is this done to get our attention?

I have had my camera checked out and there is nothing wrong with it, and as told to me by the technician it is impossible for the camera lens zoom and focus rings to turn on their own.  This brings me to the conclusion that for some reason the energies are playing with my camera but will accommodate me when asked.

 

The Cellar

At 10.30pm we headed down to the old cellars where we took photos and cam footage. There had been work done down there since our visit a month before.

Because of the noise of the bar above we didn’t stay there as long as we had originally anticipated.

 

We spent about 45 mins there before heading back to the pool room. Most of us got images with “Orbs” appearing in them. At one stage when we were in the back smaller room I felt the sensation of someone grabbing my right leg with two hands and moving them up and down my lower leg. As soon as this happened I turned around and took a photo of the area, which resulted in an image with a bright moving Orb in it.  The small Nikon Coolpix battery died so I replaced it with a new recharged battery, but the camera would not work at all.

 

We moved back to the pool room where we were joined by many of the locals and a friendly pool competition began, fortunately our girls beat the local boys.  Some of us went back to the court yard outside and spoke to some locals. It amazed all of us how open they all were.

 

Many of them telling us intimate things about themselves, their fears, their unhappiness. I had one young man of 26 talk to me for over 30 mins about his deep unhappiness, when he finished he asked for a hug, which I of course obliged, only to have him begin sobbing uncontrollably on my shoulder. This young man, along with others told me of a moving UFO, he called it, that he has seen many times in Mugg Street, he wanted to take us there, but I told him it would have to wait for another time. He described the UFO or ORB as about 8 feet long and just hovering over his head, it was a luminous green with yellowish lights inside. This large “Örb” is also alleged to be seen down at the mine shaft area, where legend says it is floating around collecting lost spirits. A local fable or truth? who knows, but this place is definitely one that needs to be investigated on our next trip.

 

Upstairs

At 11pm Heather took us upstairs to her private living area. The floor was large and rambling and the first thing to hit you was a strong aroma of must or damp. Her two sons and a couple of their friends were watching TV in their lounge room. Heather told us that in the early part of 1900’s a woman had been murdered in the lounge area and her ghost allegedly haunts the upper floor.

We then moved on to the old stable accommodation area.

 

The Stables

It was now 11.45 and we followed Heather to the back of the hotel to a room with a very small door, that looked like a wardrobe door. She pulled it opened and revealed that it was the entrance to the old stables accommodation area, which had not been used for decades and it looked like it.

 

Heather and her sons had moved into the hotel nine months before, heather told us that she had only been to this part of the hotel twice and surprisingly to us her boys had never been in the area as they thought ii was too creepy. The building was old and run down with holes in the wooden floors in some areas. Slowly we walked down the corridor in the dark.

 

Running along the left was a wall with windows that looked down onto the courtyard; these had long been boarded up. Running all the way down on the right were small rooms in total disrepair. We walked in and out of the rooms photographing them as we did. There was a strong odour of damp and mould that was hard to escape. The rooms were bare, and a lot of the windows had broken panes, though again these were all boarded up. The rooms were painted white, with a few painted with a combination of pink, green or blue. Annie was using a digital cam which also took photos, she was able to capture many orbs filling the hallway and in most of the rooms but most of these we believe to be dust. The atmosphere in this area was oppressive so after looking through each of the rooms we moved back out to the Hotels upper floor.

 

I have since learnt that for some reason the stables top and bottom floors as well as the mine tunnels that lead to the hotel had been filled in with dirt. The previous owner of the hotel spent seven years clearing the dirt from the stables accommodation section upstairs, so you could enter it. The ground floor is still largely filled with dirt and rocks.  It is said that in the early part of the century the owner wanted to rid the hotel of the “spirits” haunting the place, so decided to “Intern” them into dirt, with the hope that it would stop them roaming through the building.

 

The Séance

Just before midnight we conducted a séance using a Ouija board in the upstairs lounge room. Unfortunately, the music coming from the front bar downstairs could be loudly heard in the room. The glass moved only one time during the séance. We asked if there was energy with us to move to the yes on the board….. the glass only moved when a song ended and there was a moment of silence. Once the music started up again we had no more activity on the board. We decided to move back downstairs and wait for the hotel to close and the music to stop before trying the séance again.

Ellie, Jessie and Hannah decided to take the board into the old stable accommodation and try holding a séance there, but nothing happened while they were there.

 

Unfortunately for us the customers in the hotel did not want to leave and the music continued. When it got to 3am we decided they were going to be partying all night and we might as well head home.

 

Conclusion

There is strong evidence through images caught on photos and the feeling a few of us experienced to conclude that there is some kind of paranormal activity occurring at the Sidney Kidman Hotel.

 

The owner, Heather invited us to come again on a Sunday where they close at 8pm, which might be a better and quieter time for us to further investigate this site and to hold a séance.

 

Overall, we had a fun and interesting evening that left us with more questions and the desire to revisit this area and investigate it more fully.

 

Click on images below to see full size.

                                                                                          

                                                           

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