Séance Cures Paranormal Curiosity

It was the most frightening experience of my life. It cured my curiosity with the supernatural forever.

That was the response I received from Cameron Humphries – breakfast announcer with radio station 2GO – when I asked him if he’d ever encountered anything paranormal.

Several decades ago, a young Cameron Humphries laughed and joked with his friends as they sat around a table in a dimly lit room.

Childish smiles played on the faces of the young men as they placed their fingers on an upturned glass. A candle spat eerie shadows at the walls and ceiling … seconds passed, the glass moved, the candle flickered – the young men stopped smiling.

‘It was in the seventies,’ the popular morning announcer explained. ‘I was working as a draughtsman when a few friends suggested a séance. I didn’t believe any of that supernatural stuff but I thought it might be a bit of fun, so I went along and joined the guys in a small room beneath a friend’s house.

‘We laid the letters of the alphabet around the table, a candle was placed in the centre and we turned the lights out. We were laughing and joking as we placed our fingers on the upturned glass – none of us really believed anything would happen, but then…’

The glass moved. The young men looked at each other, and then their attention was drawn back to the glass as Cameron asked, ‘Is there anyone here unknown to us?’

‘The glass spelt out g-r-a-n-d-f-a-t-h-e-r. We then asked if this was one of our grandfather’s and the glass spelt out … y-e-s,’ Cameron recalled.

‘We asked the spirit to indicate which person at the table was his grandson and the glass immediately moved across to my friend Steve.

‘At this point Steve left the table. He was freaked out. He went and stood in the corner of the room and refused to be part of what was happening,’ Cameron said.

The moment Steve left the table, the door to the room - which had been locked from the inside - flew open and a huge gust of wind poured in. The long hair worn by the young men sprayed their faces, curtains danced wildly on the windows, but the candle never flickered, and the letters around the table remained fixed.

‘We were terrified at this point,’ Cameron said. ‘Someone at the table asked the spirit to spell out its name. The wind was still howling around the room. Our hair was blowing all over the place. The glass crept to the letters … b-r-i-a - then stopped.

‘Suddenly, all the letters on the table flew in the air, the door slammed shut, the wind ceased and everything became deathly quiet. Then before we knew what was happening, the candle went out and we were left in total darkness.’

In the grip of fear, the group of teenagers scrambled for the door in the inky blackness. Pushing and shoving, they fell out into the nerve-settling security of sunlight. In the safety of daylight they began to recount their terrifying ordeal.

‘We were shaken,’ Cameron said. ‘But our friend Steve was really affected by what occurred. His face was deathly white. He looked like a ghost.

‘We began to talk about what happened and I said the spirit must have been trying to spell the name Brian, before everything stopped.

‘Our friend Steve shook his head in disagreement. In a very shaky voice he said … No, not Brian! My grandfather’s name was Briar.’