NGI

We headed back to the Schooner Hotel in Alnmouth for one of our popular guest nights. The Schooner is one of those places that seems to grow on you the more you visit. We gathered together on a bit of a wet night in late November.

The Schooner Hotel – Alnmouth
Date : Saturday 22nd November
Time : 22:00 – 04:00
External Weather : Damp and wet
NGI – Jay, Claire, Dell, Carol, John
Guests – Plenty!

Pre-Investigation Musings by Claire

On the stairs to the top corridor (room 20) Claire remembered a dream she'd had about them.
 
In room 29 whilst taking photos of the bathroom doorway Claires 'camera' wouldn't focus properly, took it 3 attempts to get an unblurred picture despite all the others being fine. She put it down to the lighting being different in the bathroom and went on to room 28. John was in there 'opening up' so after checking he was happy with her taking pictures Claire continued to take 3-4 photos in here unblurred. Claire then stood opposite John in the chair to the immediate right of the door (where he was sensing something around him) and again her pictures were blurred. Claire took 5-6 photos of him there and all were blurred.No 'reason' for this could be found, the lighting conditions were the same as in the rest of the room where several unblurred photos were able to be taken and there was no 'movement'. John asked Claire to try with the camera on his phone, which Claire proceeded to do, but found his phone was off. When she asked him how to switch it on John said he had not turned his phone off at all, it had been on since the day before and he'd had no reason to turn it off and could not remember doing so, or having any need or reason to do so. All pictures taken of him by Claire using his phone were unblurred, as were the 2 Claire took immediately after of him again using her camera phone.

On the medium walkabout in room 32 Claire smelt the 'ginger' smell whilst stood in the corner next to the chest of drawers. Claire asked if other people could smell anything, most replied a 'musty' smell,3 people mentioned 'incense' and John said it reminded him of soap. There were toiletries and things in the room on the sides and on the bed.Claire said the smell she had was very specific but wouldn’t say what it was so that if someone else said they could smell ginger also Claire knew she'd not influenced them.

*Just to note, on the 2nd medium walkabout (which I didn’t do),guests in my group (who went on it) said that John had remarked that the room didn’t have any smell to it then. I never smelt anything in there at any other time, and I was in there about 4-5 other separate times apart from the walk around and vigil.
 
After putting the equipment in room 32 pre vigils Carol and Claire decided to leave the key in the door  (as the lock could not be set so the room remained unlocked when the door was shut).Claire saw Carol shut the door and they left it with the key in the lock, bright yellow plastic fob dangling.

About 15-20 minutes later Claire went to the room to take pictures and saw the key had gone, so couldn’t get in. Presuming Carol had decided to take the key (as this was her groups first location) she asked her for the key, to which Carol replied that she hadn't got it. Claire then asked all NGI members and John, but none of them had the key or had been up to the room since. Carol asked the staff if they had taken the key (this was near the Managers flat and Claire had passed staff in this area when taking pictures),but all of them said they had not touched it, and Carol was given the spare key for room 32 by them, which Claire kept on her with the other 3 room keys in her pocket and handed in together with them at the end of the night.