This Paranormal Life - The Scole Experiments - Proof of Life After Death?

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Between 1993 and 1998, a group of researchers and mediums conducted a series of séances in a dark basement in the village of Scole, Norfolk, what they didn’t realise was that were were just about to open up a portal of communication to another world - and for possibly the first time in history, they were about to get REAL physical evidence of life after death. LONDON LIVE SHOW⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cheerfulearful/2084541 Become a commune member to get access to bonus episodes: ⁠https://thisparanormallife.com⁠ Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between 1993 and 1998, a group of researchers and mediums conducted a series of seances in a dark basement in the village of Skoll in Norfolk. What they didn't realize was they were just about to open up a portal of communication to another world. And for possibly the first time in history, they were about to get real physical evidence that proved in life after death. But what were these experiments? If the dead could talk, what would they tell us? And what happens if you love the heat? Does that mean hell for you is actually really cold? All of these questions you can find the answer to

on this paranormal life. Hello everybody and welcome back to this paranormal life, the comedy paranormal podcast hosted by myself, Roy Powers, and my associate Kit Greer Malvenna. Every week, we investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion to decide whether or not it is paranormal. For some of you, this will be your 400th episode. For others, this might be your first.

To those who are joining us, go f*** yourself. No, come on, there. Where were you when we needed you? Huh? Years ago, when we were in the dirt, when we were in the filth, when we were doing anything that we could do just for a crumb of listeners, and now you come while we're riding high,

while we're in our prime? I think the idea is that we want, people to discover the show and like, you know, they might, they might listen for 400 more episodes like if they like it, but not if you berate them. We basically got pretty woman kit. What? We were, I don't remember the exact plot of that film, but I believe somebody is turned into a pretty woman. Maybe by a wizard or a witch, I'm not entirely sure. But we now are the pretty women. Right. And now we get to go back to all the people that didn't listen and be like, You work on commission, don't you?

So have you or haven't you seen the movie? I haven't seen the film. I cannot stress how little I know about the plot. But I think it's something like... So the rings of power were created by Sauron. So one or... No, it's seven of the pretty women that need to go destroy it at Mount Doom.

Can I tell you you're being ugly inside? You might have become the pretty woman. You're still bad on the innards. What's under that? Ugly man. All right, I see. I'm kidding, of course, guys. If this is your first episode, welcome.

If this is your second, third, fourth, welcome, welcome, welcome. And if your family's been listening for a very long time, extra special welcome. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us today. Investigating the paranormal. Guys, I have an incredible case to talk about today because one thing that we don't have on this podcast a lot when we're talking about spooky stories like this is ever. evidence.

Mm-hmm. Yep. It's usually where we fall flat. We love to tell tall tales, and then when it comes to show me the photos, there's nothing to show. Yeah. Today is in exception. We have lots of photos, videos, witness testimonies to prove that there is life after death.

Before we dive into the story, though, a reminder to sign up over on thisparanormallife.com to get a bunch of extra cool bonuses and support the podcast. Kit and I are also doing one live show this year, which is taking place in October on the date. Sunday 11th of October. Sunday 11th. So you should buy your tickets and come see us live because we bought a time machine and we're going to debut it on stage. And there's an after party. And it is, even though there's a time machine, the after party is after the show.

So you're going to want it as an official after party. You're going to want to come to. Even though because we have the machine, we could go to the after party before the party, before the show. But then we'd ruin the show because we'd be drunk. Ah, yeah, damn it. I always forget about that. See, that's why you can't cheat. I think that was one of Einstein's like things and relativity.

Yeah. He was like, you can't cheat time. Because if you tried to go to an after party before, it wouldn't work, you'd be drunk. What if you woke up hung over and went back in time to stop yourself from drinking? That would work. Then, yeah, you would, the paradox would solve itself and you'd no longer be hung over. Interesting. Yeah.

We have much work. to do. Much calculus to do. We missed the show. We slept through all of our alarms because we were trying to undo our hangovers. Let's get into today's story. Our story today begins in the village of Skull in Norfolk, England. It's a quiet, rural village, not the kind of place you would expect to become the center of one of the biggest paranormal investigations in history. It's the early 1990s, and we're in a farmhouse in Norfolk, where a small gang that refers to

to themselves as the Skoll Group began meeting regularly to conduct paranormal experiments. So, who are they? The group was made up of two couples, Alan and Diane Bennett, who were both professional mediums slash paranormal enthusiasts, and Robin and Sandra Foy, who owned a basement. They were also interested in making contact with individuals on the other side, but let's just say they had less of maybe a formal education into this world. According to the group, their goal was simple. They believed that it was possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead and have that communication manifest itself in a very real physical way.

So the gang began conducting experiments in the cellar of Robin and Sandra's farmhouse, a space they would affectionately go on to refer to as the skull hole. We're straight off the bat, you're only getting demons. If you're trying to contact the dead and you're like, oh, where are we doing it? The skull hole. It's like, all right, well, you're only talking to the guys downstairs then. This is so British already, isn't it? Yeah.

Pop down in a skull hole for a quick saun and a pint of beer. What are we drinking? Obgoblin, obviously. Down the Skowowowowow. The what the Skowowowowow? Yeah, do you want to Obgoblin? No, I'm not thirsty. No, that's the guy we summoned.

Omblin. Bob Goblin is a popular eel brewed in Britain For those who don't know The little asterisk's beside that joke Yeah It's like Do I need to spell this out to you

S-C-O-L-E-H-O-L-E Sco-O Sco-O The gang got together And just like that The journey had begun Alan and Diana Led the sessions

As they were the professional mediums But it wasn't long before all four members of the group began experiencing a lot of strange phenomenon. Today's case is known as the Skoll Experiments. And believe it or not, it is regarded by many as the most definitive proof of life after death. There is a lot to get through on today's episode, so I figured that we could work through this adventure chronologically, talking about all the evidence that this group gathered from small to absolutely mind-blowing,

eventually concluding in a double yes. Ooh, okay, okay. It started pretty much the same way that all seances do, inside a very dark room. Darkness is gonna be a big thing today, and that's because the group believed that darkness was necessary and that the seance could be disrupted

by ordinary light. A little coincidental, for sure, that the only way that this can happen is in a very, very, very dark room where no one can see what's happening, but I think we can all suspend our disbelief for now. Alan and Diana were the mediums, and the voices of the ghosts or spirits would channel through them during these early seances. Now, this wasn't Alan and Diana's first rodeo. They knew

the channeling voices wasn't enough to impress people. They needed physical evidence, but they had no idea how to get it. Luckily, they soon discovered how, because the spirits told them. That's right. The Skull Group began referring to their collection of spirits as the Spirit Team. Nice. And this group of spirits started telling the Skull Group how to get physical evidence from a seance. Interesting. Yeah.

I don't think we've ever seen anything like this before. So they're in such communication. Their borderline like, all right, guys, 10 a.m. tomorrow. I think we'll do lunch. about 1215, what do you guys even eat? Ghosts, right? Do you eat energy or something? They're like talking through logistics strategies. Yeah.

Normally you're stuck in the world with seances of like, please, for the love of God, move the thing on the Ouija board, move it around so we can spell a single word. They're at the point where they're like, oh, don't bother with a Ouija board. That thing takes ages. It's so boring. We can just chat if you turn a candle upside down and take a photo of it in a camera with no film.

Yeah. that's the magic combination where we can just have a conversation. They've got a borderline chat GPT level interaction going on. The ghosts are like, all right, seance sounds like a lot of fun. Sounds like a fun idea. A little bit of research mixed in with just enough kind of spooky danger. I'm on board. Ask me whatever you want. I want to raise my grandmother from the dead. All right. That sounds like a great idea. Like, I get it. Having your grandmother pass away can be such It was such a devastating experience And it's only natural to want to talk to her again

Anyway, I can be of help Let's do it It's like yeah, she actually How do I say this? She fought for the bad side of the war Can we still find her? That is totally fine Absolutely acceptable

The war was a complicated time People were fighting on both sides I'll start looking for her in the depths of hell Near Satan's grabs Absolutely A lot of people didn't even have a choice of who they fought for. She did. She actually defected, to be honest.

Interrupting your chat, GFT seance. A lot of people didn't have a choice. She did. That's totally fine. Yeah, we've never had this in a story before, where someone has made a connection strong enough with the other side, where the mystery is being solved by the spirits. It's a collaborative group.

It's like when you go up to the International Space Station and America and Russia are working together to do experiments. It's like, look, we can just, if we just forget that one of us is alive, one of us is dead, we can just find a way to communicate with each other. You just know they ain't actually working together when they get up there. They tell everyone to get the funding and to make sure the shit happens, they tell everyone, and then they get up there. And then it's just like, listen here, comrade. That was all a bunch of bullshit PR for the camera. us down there. I don't like you. You don't like me. Okay. Don't fucking look at me. Don't eat my f*** pickled fish. I brought this very precious to me. He's just, he's like stealing his

pens anytime he gets a chance. He's like, you know, the American turns away for two seconds. He's breaking his beakers in half. Unfortunately, it's, it's hard to stand your ground and look intimidating in zero gravity. When you're just like, it's floating away. Because he's like, hey, hey, buddy. You guys stay on your side of the ship and we'll stay on our side of the ship, okay? I'm watching you. Okay, so I'm watching you. I'm watching you. Oh, I'm going too far the other way now. He takes a swing at him like he's just spitting around the ship. Listen here, motherfucker. You eat my dessert last night? You had my dessert. My dessert was missing. It was missing from the fridge. Yeah, you can't stand on business and zero gravity.

So as I said, the spirits started telling the group how to get evidence. And this is how we actually got our first. bit of physical evidence, photographs. What? It started with the group putting a roll of film inside of a camera and setting it on the table and turning off the lights. The camera would then allegedly begin moving by itself and taking photos around the room. Pissed off. No, no. All right, well, I'm just going to go ahead and say, I don't need the photos from the camera then.

I need the photos of the camera taking the photos. the photos. I need video footage of the floating camera. That's so much weirder. It's like here's a picture of Alan, the ghost took. Don't f*** care. Don't care about that. Get me a photo that Alan took back.

The other way. The camera's walking around like Beauty and the Beast. A live piece of furniture running around the room, snapping photos of people. To the group's surprise, when they got the film footage developed, the photos were weren't even of people in the room. I have a clip from the documentary that shows some of the photos that they received. War time pictures of St. Paul's of a bus that was blown apart in the Blitz. Quite amazing stuff. It was never explained to us exactly why we got these particular pictures, other

than the fact that we had a separate photographic spirit team working with us at that stage, who were practicing their art and seeing what they could achieve. Why were the pictures of a bunch of completely random fucking shit? One of them was of like Teddy Roosevelt or some shit. What are we looking at? It was... Don't gloss over that. So what are we saying?

The ghosts just traveled through time. The ghosts are making like magic happen. They're like, we can create images on film. And it's like all these other people that have passed away. And it's things that have happened throughout history. That's mental. That's mental. Hey, if you want to see something really crazy, look at this photo.

The appearance on another skull film of this blurry profile. Communicators, through the mediums, informed them that it belonged to a man named Kingsley Fairbridge, who had died in 1924. We were put in touch in a very obscure way with his daughter, who was happy to agree that that was a picture of her father. Wow. So what they... Yes. They originally showed us a photo that appeared on some of the film that was given to the spirits and it's quite a blurry side profile of a man.

And what they're implying there is they found the daughter of the man and she saw this blurry picture that appeared in the film and was like, look at this photo, that is my dad when he was alive. Yes. Even though he's been dead for at that point almost 50 years. Why he's there, why it's him, I have no idea. They don't explain. I don't think the spirits explained it. I think they were like, maybe they finally got an opportunity to show off their powers. And they were like, check this out.

Here's like a bust that exploded in Berlin. They're like, Dr. Strange. You're like, you're like, who's this old guy with a beard? Brother, that's Jesus Christ. Right. Like, we can throw, we can do anything. Yeah. You know?

And it's okay to be skeptical. It's absolutely fine. Who said that? Who said I was skeptical? I'd appreciate if you don't call my evidence a pile of shit. Did I say that? That slipped out. But sure.

But look, it's early, guys. Listen, I was skeptical. Kit's skeptical. I'm sure some of you are skeptical. It's my job to put out that fire. And that's what we're going to do. Hey, you got to pay the troll toll if you want to research the skull hole. But just like Kit and probably most of our listeners, the skeptics weren't convinced.

What if the group was loading the camera with film that had already been used, or developing it in some way that they could load it with their own images? So the group were basically like, Alright, give us one second, we're going to converse with the spirit team, and we're going to figure this out. So they did. And the spirits basically said, Oh, you want to convince people that we're real?

How about this? Don't even put the film inside a camera. lock sealed camera film inside of a box during the seance and we will leave our marks on it. As I said, the school group did. They put the film in the box. They began the seance. And when they looked at the film inside of the box, they didn't just get back images on the film. They got symbols, writings, poems, mysterious emblems.

I have photos of this marked film. Right here, Kip, you to take a look at. Okay. Check this out. This is some of the film footage that was recovered from the box after the seance. Yeah. They've kind of, for people listening, to give you an idea, they've basically used the film footage,

like film you put inside of a disposable camera, almost as like a scroll. Yeah, it is like a few meters of just a single piece of celluloid. So, yeah, it can be used like a scroll. Yeah. Yeah, and it looks as if they've essentially written on it. Yeah, there's, so we've got two here. Oh, I didn't even notice the one at the top.

Yeah, yeah. It's three different ones. One of them is handwriting, one of them's handwriting and then like a little outline. Then the other one is just like... What's the other one, Kit? Well, yeah, symbolic drawings for sure. Yeah. It looks alien.

It doesn't even look old human. Yeah. It looks kind of otherworldly. very strange symbols and like emblems and things. Yeah, it does. It's a bit weird. What does the middle one say? It almost looks like can you see the...

See him. Can you see them? Moon? Where's moon? At the end, that big M and then... Oh, moon. Oh, can you see him the moon? What?

Behind the moon. Behind the moon, good job. Oh, that's scary as hell. Oh my God, that's kind of horrible. That's like something you'd find written in a wall in the back rooms or something. That's really scary stuff. It is quite a beautiful script. But what does the top lines say?

Oh, I don't know. This is, I mean, they're like, we got dozens of these things, like scribbles. There's poems. Represents the something. Dream or demeanor? Demander. B and C coils of the. This could help something considerably.

Considerably. I do think some of this is basically instructions on better ways to communicate with the spirits. Got it. So they're kind of like they found a way for living humans and dead humans to talk. And the dead humans are like, here's how we make this better. Here's like essentially the blueprints for a machine or a formula we can use to talk to each other. For sure. It's kind of crazy stuff.

Now around this time, as you can imagine, word of mouth was spreading. The Skoll group were the real deal. But whatever they were doing down in that basement, it still didn't have the official paranormal investigator stamp of approval. That was, until they received a visit from the Society for I can never pronounce this right. Psychical. Psychical. The Society for Psychical Research.

One of the oldest organizations in the world dedicated to studying paranormal and psychic claims. Ah. Fun fact. It was founded in 1882. It's filled with researchers, psychologists, scientists, writers, believers and skeptics, and their headquarters are located right here in London. That's true. Just out in Hammersmith, which is, the building still exists, you can visit it.

In the mid-1990s, senior SPR members arrived in Skoll and began attending sessions in the Skollhole to figure out if this group had managed to do the impossible. During their time with the group, they attended over 20 sessions and what they witnessed. Listeners, you're not ready for this. It seems like the Skull Group and the Spirit team knew that they had to bring out the big guns to impress the SPR. And that's why, during one of the seances, the entire group began seeing flashing lights inside the cellar.

And I'm not talking about little flashes. I'm talking about 4th of July down there. We're talking daft punk in the O2 arena. Inside the Las Vegas orb. Yeah. According to the witnesses, small points of light would appear in the room and begin jumping around. What makes this even weirder is that according to the witnesses, the light seemed like they were alive. Whoa. They would respond to requests, which is insane. Imagine they just sort of f*** the light just like went in your mouth.

You're like, oh, get out. Or like going in one ear coming out the other. Brother, it goes through people. Oh, geez. That did happen. It went through people's bodies, came out the other side. It was like going through tables and like hopping about, like dancing in front of them. Yeah.

That's not okay. I want out. I want out of the room that's happening. Yeah, I would be very scary. Is it appropriate to let a orb go in and out of your body? Whoa. What's what he said? No, wait.

Pause. What? He said, let the horn come in your mouth. No, I said let the orb go in and out of your body. I didn't say let the orb in your mouth. I didn't say it. There's going to be a little ectoplasm, sure, because it's a seance.

Beep all of this. Beep all of this. There's got to be a little lectoblasm. Listen, I have video of the lights. It's really hard because this is one of those documentaries where they're like... Is this cope? They keep cutting between like footage and then like recreated footage. Great.

So it's like it's super helpful. It's really hard to tell. This footage I'm about to show you is labeled as like a real. Got it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just going to show you the footage. All right.

This is. Listeners, you will be able to hear the genuine recorded audience. from the group when they were experiencing the lights. I know for certain that the audio was legit. Critics saw this insistence on darkness as an excuse to hide fraud.

But participants to the skull experiment were not always in total darkness. Whoa. Okay. It's like a damn kid's birthday party. They're really trying to sell. aren't they? Wow! Wow! It's like watching a fireworks show.

It's like that gif of that guy. Oh my god, wow! It's kind of hard to describe. The lights look like they're painted, like a mat painting, onto the footage. And then some of them look kind of like lens flares. But anyway, let's hear what the group have to say in the rest of the play. There were various shapes, generally like a pea-sized light. And he had substance. They had substance.

would come and sit on your hand, you could feel them. They were intelligently... Oh, that's the simulation. Thank God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And would be responsive to our wishes, whether expressed or silent. The gyrations were sometimes so rapid that it almost left like a circle of light going over here and over there. Sometimes two lights would...

I'm sorry. So, for anyone just listening, I don't know, I don't know. I don't love that this guy we just heard from is listed as a skull investigator slash professional magician. We're going to get onto that later. You weren't supposed to see that right now. So it's like, oh, so the guy whose job it is to fake things. It might as well have said paranormal investigator slash con man. Professional liar.

It's literally his job is to deceive people to believing magic. Forget that, cut that, that never happened. Kit didn't see that. I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to crock the video. I'm just laughing because they're like showing videos of the lights and the lights are like, woo, sometimes they're dancing, sometimes they're doing this. And then he's like, by the end, they're just going nuts in there, like swinging around like a lasso. Great. Right, let's finish the clip. I thought at first that the lights must be a small light emitting diode suspended. Pause it. That's who I was trying to remember earlier. Sheldrick. Oh, that's not good for me.

No, but you know what? This is good for your case, Rory, because I love Rupert Sheldrick. Okay. So if he's on board... He's my favorite magician. Yeah. So if he's on board... It doesn't mean it's real, but it means I'll give it 10% more attention.

Okay. Because Sheldrick, he spent a lot of the last 30 years researching magic. No, but research in like mad stuff. But he, his background was being an extremely celebrated biologist, and he discovered lots of brilliant things. And then he just got more interested in the paranormal side of things. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you're on his side.

We're going to hear some pretty wild claims from him today. Great. So that's great that at least you're familiar with his work. I might be asking Phil to delete that kind of big gassing upshel right there. I thought at first that the lights must be a small light emitting diodes suspended on the end of nylon fishing line. Then suddenly a light would start to do a tap dance on the table, bouncing up and down on the table, and you could hear it click as it rebounded from the table. And suddenly...

When pop, went through the table and came out the other side. Now, no nylon fishing line explanation would account for it going through an apparently solid... Well, it was a solid object to table. Wow. Okay. The simulations are really funny. They're really wild. I mean, as you can tell today, guys, we're breaking down each part of this journey into the new experiment and the evidence they got from it.

So we've had the mediums talking. We've had the photographs. And this is our next big one is the lights. Yeah. The lights that started appearing when the SPR came up to do their investigations. which I get it. Like if the big dogs are going to come down and it's like, you know,

if there's like a food critic coming to your restaurant, you're like, okay, guys, this is a real deal. I need everyone on their best performance today. Spirits! Spirits, like I need you guys working your magic. Throwing some lights out here, communicating, talking. This is the show, guys. It turns into an episode of The Bear.

I need hands. I need everybody. Brother, you're going to get hands. Don't worry. All right. Look at it. one of the clips I'm about to play later, the name of it. It just says the hand. Oh. There we go. At this point...

Because one of those say face? Yeah, we're not there. Don't look at that. We're worried. I'm worried. Can we skip hands and go to face? Yes, yeah. All my files, head, shoulders, knees, toes. At this point, whatever you could possibly have on a seance checklist was getting ticked. Flashing lights, voices, phantoms floating around the room, forgot to tell you about that one. And to top it all off, random shit was appearing out of nowhere, like broaches, charms and jewelry. I believe the name for this in the context of a seance is apports. I don't know if you've heard of this before, but it's the paranormal term for an object that materializes or is transported into the room during a seance.

Okay. And apparently that is a thing like during a silence when you're communicating with spirit, you'll just hear like, like a thud. And if you turn the lights on, they'll be like a piece of jewelry or a book or a pen or something that in this link, in this communication, an item has managed to break into the real world. Yes. Which is a very cool idea, something that we haven't seen happen a lot in our saunce cases. Yeah. Which my only concern as someone who is, let's face it, going to die any day now, are you allowed to choose what you drop as a spirit? Because then I want to make sure that it's like something cool,

like a pack of smokes or like a video game or something, you know? Okay. You drop the pack of Marlboroughs. Yeah, yeah. You're like, drop those. It's like, I should have known that I would have manifested the thing that killed me. So cool like that. But for you, it would be more like, I don't know,

a Rani or something. It's like because you had like heartburn or... It'd be really embarrassing if you got callback during a seance then halfway through like a butt plug lens on the table. And you're like, that was from a different ghost. That's not... I've never seen that before my life. It says Rory on the bottom.

No, it doesn't. It's like vibrating on the table. I don't know what that is. That's definitely not the thing that killed me in the end. Oh, it's used. Oh, gross. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

Now, the SPR have gone on record and said in interviews that all three members that attended the seances had literally no idea how the lights were possible. That includes your friend, Kit, or you were vouching for earlier. And we have that on record. But still, they remained skeptical. That's part of their job, obviously.

But luckily, the SPR experienced more than just lights. They heard voices, saw shadowy figures, and at one point, one of the men from the SPR was touched by a floating severed hand. Mm-hmm. In the dark still? He... So he didn't get a good look out of there, right? buddy this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life is this clip from a documentary which look I admit this is not going to help my case but I cried a little the first time

that I watched this and I think it is important that we watch it right now in the podcast yes out of fear witnessing something so otherworldly so this might actually even be the guy that you were vouching for earlier Dr. Rupert might be Dr. Rupert it is it's it's Dr. Rupert. Another thing that happened was that a hand materialized and sort of glowed. And there was this disembodied hand floating around. When I told some of my friends about it, they said it sounded just like the Adams family. And I commented to the medium. I said, oh, I can see a disembodied hand. And she said, it's not disembodied. This was Mrs. Bradshaw, who was speaking through one of the mediums. And I said, you mean there's an invisible body

attached and she said precisely and then she said would you like it to touch you and I said yes so she said well ask it so I said hand will you touch me and so the hand went round behind me and it tapped me on the shoulder but could these hands have been hoaxed this visitor who felt the truncated length of a disembodied arm didn't think so and i was so startled i moved my hand and it traveled right up a sleeve there was a sleeve like a cotton sleeve very much like this right up to the shoulder and then it just stopped there was nothing beyond the where the shoulder would have been it was a really amazing experience this is actual audio from the recording sometimes we would be touched by these hands sometimes we would

invite them to touch us sometimes they would touch us on our knees let's say or on our feet as it was a fraud-proof table were inaccessible to the meetings themselves so what's it like to touch one of these spirit hands? It felt cool, not cold. It didn't feel clammy. It didn't feel slimy. It felt like a normal human hand. Right.

I'm sorry. Right, though. I just love that little slip-up where it's like, sometimes the hands touch us. Sometimes we ask the hands to touch us. Sometimes they touched our, let's say, knees. Yeah, let's say that. Let's say that.

That's better for the cameras. I gotta hear that again. Than what I was thinking. Oh, it's so good. Sometimes we would be touched by these hands. Sometimes we would invite them to touch us. Sometimes they would touch us on our knees, let's say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Our, um, knees, let's say. It felt, um, cool. Actually felt really cool. Cool is very funny. So cool. Like, so just to be completely clear, the disembodied hand

not disembodied. And the, they're getting up in the dark. Several people. Several people confirm, not disembodied. Fully attached to a body. Let's leave that there.

Then he's like, what did it feel like? A bit like a regular hand, to be completely honest. He's like, did it feel cold? No, not. Climmy, no. Actually, just like a human hand. Completely normal. I mean, I do love the idea that they were just inviting the most hardcore skeptics down into the skull hole, turning off the lights, fucking them off. And then when they got up, they were like, yeah, it's real.

They're like, yeah, it's real. And like, even the woman, she's like, she's like, it's quite an amazing exterior. And Rupert can't wipe the grin off his face where he's talking about it. He is smiling ear to ear. when he's talking. The river's like, he was like, would you like the hand to touch you? And I said, very much so. Let's get that all the time.

He's delighted with himself. And then she said, would you like it to touch you? And I said, yes. So she said, well, ask it. So I said, hand, will you touch me? And so the hand went around

behind me and it tapped me on the shoulder. I mean, that's pretty cool. I feel like I'd go a lot further in life if I sounded like him. Yeah, it's a great voice. His voice is really something. Hand, will you touch me. Because you can talk about the maddest shit and you just sound respectable.

Yeah, they are getting a lot, getting away with a lot with those accents. Now, the Skull Group ran from 1993 to 1998, and according to the official archive, they conducted around 500 experiments. The group's own materials describe photographs, audio, video, voices, light phenomena, and other manifestations observed by dozens. of witnesses. Now, I know that we have some pretty strong evidence in today's case kit. I mean, we just saw hands. We saw lights flashing. We saw photographs. They described hands. But there's a bit of an elephant in the room right now. And that is the fact that we've investigated a lot of seances on this podcast before. And a lot of them have involved con men. People using trickery to create ectoplasm to fake voices and messages from the other side. A lot of trickery being deployed

to, unfortunately, a lot of the times take advantage of people who are trying to make contact with deceased loved ones, taking advantage of vulnerable people. And that's something that I think we always have to be careful of when we're talking about seances, is what is the agenda of the people who are conducting these seances? And especially when we talk about the school group, because even though we have all these testimonies and we have the SPR investigating it and all these witnesses, we haven't actually seen any video evidence of this taking place. Even the hands, even the lights, a lot of it is recreated.

Now, it's important to note that I do have video evidence. I have video evidence that they managed to capture of a seance that they claim proves in life after death. Wow. You see, as humans, as we know, we have no knowledge of how to film the other side. It's a problem that we have on the podcast a lot.

How can you get physical evidence of a spiritual being? But it turns out it is possible, and the Skoll Group discovered how because they were given instructions by the spirits themselves. It's quite a complicated setup to be able to achieve this footage. But when the Skull Group placed the cameras in the correct way and started

filming, they couldn't believe what they captured. It's time for some of our final evidence. Spurred on by the photographic experiments, the Skoll Group began a series of video experiments called Project Alice, after Alice through the looking glass. Their ambition was nothing less than to try and capture moving images sent from the Spirit world. The Skull Group insists that instructions on how to position the camera and mirrors came from their spirit communicators. They were told to set up a video camera in the dark cellar. Aim it at a pair of mirrors so that it could only film its own viewfinder. Does that make sense so far?

Yeah. Okay. Just want to double check. Because it's quite a complicated setup. None of this makes sense. But the logic of how they're shooting it, sure. Yeah. A camera pointed at a mirror that reflects it.

to another mirror that is reflecting the camera's viewfinder. So it's kind of seeing what the camera sees, but through this bouncing kind of layers. While it was recording, nothing unusual was seen. But when the tape was played back, these remarkable pictures appeared. We had images on the video, sometimes of what looked like a tunnel of light.

All right, got a nice ball of light. Spirited faces were coming towards us. That one's a little weird. It's a guy's head. Sometimes would appear to be a doorway, moving. A lot of like kind of blurry shapes. Skeptics claim these images were created by video feedback, occurring when a camera records its own output.

Sure. But scientists have ruled this out. Video feedback doesn't produce this kind of result. All right, pause the tape. Pass the tape. Okay. All right. All right.

For the listeners, they just, they basically showed what's possible through video feedback. They're like if you loop a camera around itself, you'll see. I love them claiming that's a video, too. It's not you to still in it?

It's like, oh, we can... Just... For anyone, they're watching this, it's the pyramids. It's the great pyramids at Giza. But like in some kind of twilight realm where the sky is completely different colors, the pyramids are red.

Blood red. It's like... It's like... It's another planet, really. It looks like... And we're seeing a live feed of that in video form. A live, like, heat vision shot of the pyramids. Which...

Yeah. is allegedly one of the... This is a den of scammers. This is the scammer Olympics. Not the skull hole. He's taking place at the skull hole. Oh, bro. I think there might be another image they managed to capture.

I'm not sure. Let's see. As to what these... They're extraordinary, all right? All right. It's slid across to another em-b-b-me. They managed to capture through the viewfinder, which is planets. Yeah.

Planets in the galaxy. I mean, the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, no less than three satellites orbiting something. Arguably nothing to do with ghosts anymore. Nah, nah, nah, no. This is just out there in the galaxy at this point. I think that's, I think that's it. I think that's the two examples. We can only guess, since their meaning was not.

Never explained to this door. I don't know what the last one is. It's like a dog or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So. Oh. So look, that started off with them being like, look at some of the things we got.

And they said, like, it's a tunnel of light. And it's like blurry shapes, which, yeah, if you pointed a camera at its own viewfinder, you're going to see blurry light and feedback and weird stuff. I'm glad they brought that up. So I didn't have to, yeah. Video feedback is a real thing. There's no conceivable way that they would have been able to film the pyramids in the year five billion. So to me, this creates, ironically, a rather clear picture that it might not even be that everyone in the room is a scammer competing in a scammer Olympics.

But there is at least one, Usain Bolt of scamming present. There's a rat. Someone is doing something crazy. The people, the school group, could be in the room agreeing to set up the camera, film it, do all that legit, do the sounds, ba-pah-pah-pah-pah-pah. Who the, who, who m'st is the f*** who gave those images of the pyramids to this documentary. Who's that guy? Or who gave that guy the images? Who produced?

Who is the first guy to go, whoa, look at this. That's the scammer. What? Find that guy and jail him. I don't even know how you get those images. Because this is the... I didn't want to come down too hard on the camera earlier with the film. Sure.

I think you did. I think you called it f*** shit. Well, I think I forgot I was on air when I said that. But I was like, right, well, I'm kind of pissed off looking at that. Because the images are like, they're like pictures of pictures of pictures. Yeah, they're like deep-fried memes that have been like screenshot resaturated over and over and over again. It's not even an original photo exposure of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

It's a photo of it. Even the man whose side profile, the photo was taken of him, it was like, yeah, look how much it looks like this other photo of him. That's the same photo. It's just this one's blurry. Yeah. So it's not even another new photo of him. It's just a photo of the photo.

So who is the scammer who took the photos? We're going to get... We're going to get on to some logical... You goddamn piece of shit. Hand it over. Scammer, scammer, scammer. We're going to get on to some logical explanations in just a second. There's a lot to talk about. There's so much in this case that even everything I'm showing you today is, I would say arguably even like 5%.

I mean, they did 500 seances in Philadelphia. all this stuff. This is just the stuff we literally have the time to talk about today. And some of it is the most believable stuff and stuff that they argue is the strongest evidence. Some of it is this video footage. Some of it is like the most insane and we would argue maybe the weakest argument for this being genuinely paranormal. I do have one final piece of evidence to show you today, kit that fits into the video evidence category. Face dot movie? What, sorry?

Face. Movie? I can see files on the computer here. It's last, it's called last face, all caps. Lastface. MP4. They did. I feel like maybe now

I'm getting the vibe that you've already possibly made up your mind on today's case. No, hey! Who said that? Okay. So there's at least one rat. What I was going to say,

if you haven't, make it up now. Okay. Make it up before I show you the last piece of evidence. Go, just play the f***ate tape. Okay. This is I'm just going to play the tape.

Later, a few video experiments were attempted in full light. Again, nothing unusual was seen during the recording. However, on playback, this unworldly figure appeared. I hate you. For our audio listeners. What? Click, sign out, for our audio listeners. What is appearing on the screen right now?

is a glow in the dark alien face. Oh yeah, like a toy or a mask or something. Like in the most basic form of existing. I mean this screen, this, where I've paused the video alone, looking at this image, we could go straight to conclusions. Like, and this is what I'm saying. So they're like, they're like, on the recording, nothing appeared. appeared. But later

when Daniel had a chance to f*** about with the video for Afan Ar, this came out of nowhere. There was a floating glow-in-the-dark alien mask. Because it's like, they're showing the room that they filmed. It's like, yep. So it's supposed to be daylight, lights on, filming a basement. And they're like,

yeah, as you can see, nothing here. And then it just swaps to a different video of pitch black. And then a glow-in-the-dark alien head floating about in it. Also, what are we doing? Aren't they talking to ghosts? Yep. What is this? Brother.

We lost that long ago when we went to the planets of Giza or whatever the f***. Oh, it makes me so mad. It makes me so mad. I think I'm taking years off of Kitt's life by hosting this case. And like, you know, isn't it funny? Isn't it funny? That in 2026, we're like, man, don't we live in such a dark time, you know, misinformation, conspiracy theories, clavicular, twitchingular, twitches.

streamers, rumble, kick nonsense. This was the 90s. Yeah. And people spent years looking at this. Actual government organizations went into the skull hole to see if they could talk to ghosts. One of the most celebrated British scientists of the last hundred years, kind of. Represchen, Drake. Spent years looking into this.

Yeah. Jesus Christ. I think, listen, we're approaching conclusions here, folks. I think what makes this case so interesting is usually when we're talking about paranormal stories involving ghosts or spirits or poltergeist or seances, we're always upset because we don't have more evidence. And I think today we got a real monkey paw wish where we have nothing but evidence. And the more evidence we see in today's case, the worse it gets.

Because there's a version of today's case where I don't have any of these. videos or these testimonies and I just have to tell you that they saw a strange face that appeared during playback. Yeah. And then we'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Well, they're sounding pretty smart guys. Yeah. And I'm like, here's an artist interpretation and it looks really creepy and we're like, wow,

I don't know, maybe this could be something. Sometimes when you have the evidence, you wish you didn't have the evidence. It's a cautionary tale. It really is. But I think it's important because, as I said, we can't cover everything that they did because they did a hell of a lot more. And I know that there probably will be people being like, oh, you're skeptical, but you didn't bring up the fact that this newspaper

appeared in the room three days before print, even though it's, I know. There's, fuck you. F*** you, sideways, north ways, sidesways, east ways, westways. Fuck you. Your whole life, piss off. I think, okay. Basically. Kids getting a little grumpy about what I've done to him, and that's very valid.

Kit, by 1998, the skull work came to an end. Good, brilliant. The group said that the- Hopefully they all died in a fiery crash somewhere, did they? Ideally. The group said the experiments had completed their purpose. And the session stopped. The evidence, records, tapes, had diaries and images and reports

were stored away, and over the years, this case has become one of the most famous examples of physical mediumship. There was the whole thing an excuse to do. stuff in the dark. Low key. Right. It is weird that it was just started by what I assume are swingers. It seems like.

It was like two married couples were like, let's just go into the dark. Whatever happens down there happens. Yeah. Maybe we stumbled upon something truly unexplained. I mean, everyone that was interviewed in that documentary has a big smirk on their face. Yeah. They're coming out being like, oh, I saw some stuff. Then it's like every couple months, people were like, well, so what's the latest evidence?

And they're like, right. Yes. evidence, right, right, right. Let me go into the dark room and find some. Yeah, I'm just going to go back to school. They're in there. Then they just shit out whatever onto a videotape.

Listen, Kit picked up on something earlier in one of the interviews that, yes, the two mediums that were leading the seances did use to perform stage magic. which is not great I do I'll be real with you that's not honest

yeah and it's it's a weird thing because even the the SPR know that like they're fully aware of these people in their past and they still went attended 20 different seances and it's like three guys went

all with like varying degrees of expertise and skepticism or belief and over 20 seances their report that they wrote, which I think was like 80 pages, they were like, not one of us can explain what's happening

in this hole. It's like, look, the point is that these people were at some point stage magicians. You know, that's their whole shit. Yeah. This light of hand. Like, the whole thing, you shouldn't be able to go

to see a stage magic show and be able to explain what you saw afterwards. Right. That doesn't mean. that it was legitimately magic. It means you got tricked and you don't know how you got tricked. Yeah.

Which I think, look, I think it's safe to say. I don't want to speak for Kit, but I don't know. I mean, that's the weird explanation we have today. I don't know if I can explain all of this, but I do believe people are getting tricked. And I think that would make it not paranormal. Just because it's unexplainable doesn't mean it's paranormal.

It's a bunch of horseshit. It's, I don't know what you want me to say. It's just I hate the people involved. I hate, I'm so mad about the whole thing. Just like. I can't believe my goat, Rupert Sheldrick. I know. It was hoodwinked.

It's only so funny if you cut back to earlier when kids like, wait, pause the video? Because if he's in, I'm in. If Sheldrick's in, then I'm in. 100%. If anything, we can do conclusions now. Kind of makes me wonder about everything else Sheldrick is it. To be honest

All right, we ready for conclusions? You just said it's not paranormal. It's a no from me this week. Yeah, okay, double no this week. Guys, unfortunately, the skull experiments are a double no. If you're listening on Spotify, you may not even know it, but you can watch some of the videos that we talked about on your little player.

Or if you're watching on YouTube, you saw it. If you're listening on any other podcast player of choice, Maybe you're just indulging in the audio of this podcast. Then I'd recommend checking out some of these videos. They are fascinating and absolutely hilarious. It's very, very funny. But also, if you're interested in hearing more about the case and maybe finding out more about the stuff that I just didn't have time to talk about,

there's two things you can do. One thing you could do is check out the case yourself. As I said, there's an amazing documentary filmed by UFO TV that talks about the entire case. Or you could listen to Friday's After Party. And that is the extra episode of this paranormal life that we do every week, where we talk about the behind the scenes of making the show, working together, and often a lot of stuff that we just don't have time to talk about in the main episode of the podcast.

Yeah. Okay. So you're saying there's some extra adult movies we can look out over in the after party. Yeah. I'll be hosting that one with Phil because Kit, I do not think is going to want to join for Round two. Just get a protective case for your MacBook. If you don't want,

I'm going to start swanging. But check it out, guys. It's over on this paranormal life.com where you can get bonus episodes and a bunch of extra cool rewards. Also, you should come to our live show. We're getting to the point now in the year where the live show

was kind of creeping up. Yeah, it's actually getting very, very close. We're performing one live show this year in London, in October, where we buy a time machine and use it on stage in front of everyone. It's going to be mad. It's spooky season as well. And we're going to have an official after party after the show.

It is going to be one for the ages. So come check it out. It's also, I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but it's also part of cheerful, earful podcast festival. It's like a comedy podcast festival. So, you know, if you need the excuse to do a trip or something and bolster it, check out some other great pods that are there as well. But make sure you come see this paranormal life this October 11th.

Sunday. Come and do it. We're going to turn off the lights and get weird. Links in the description of this video, along with the link to thisparadomalife.com. And thank you so much to everyone who does support us on Patreon. We could not make this show without you. What a joy it is to go to work every day and you get to make fun stuff with your friends. And is it an absolute pleasure and a privilege that we are so grateful for?

And we mean it. We really couldn't make this show every week without the support of people. who, you know, have been listening for years. And whether it's supporting us on Patreon or just sharing the episodes with your friends, leaving us reviews online or comments or maybe even getting engaged in the community online, whether it's Reddit or Facebook or Discord. It's great. We've got such a lovely community.

He means choosing to engage with the content by commenting or liking, not proposing to your partner. You can do that. People have done it. Yeah. can get engaged in the community if you want. Yeah, I've said it before. After our first live show in London, a couple listeners went back and had an orgy in a hotel room. Yeah, and it's a weird one because it's never happened since that we're aware of, at least no one's

told us, but it was just someone sent us an email after the first time. Yeah. Which is a great way. Well, I got invited to the orgy, and I said no. And then we got an email. being like, by the way, the orgy was awesome. I was like, oh, okay. I couldn't fit into an orgy, but it's like an opening line to like a riff-raf track or like a Danny Brown track. I got invited to an orgy butt. I said no.

Yeah. I got invited to the skull hole and I declined. Jeez, good choice. So who knows what's going to happen at our next live show? There's a lovely community out there. And we're so grateful to have you guys as a member. You listening right now. We're very grateful for you being here.

And we are so grateful that one of the things that we like to do at the end of a podcast is shout out some of the people that support us over on Patreon. And that's what we're going to do right now to end the episode. So, thank you to Alexandra Powell. Speaking of longtime listeners, Alexandra Powell's one of the day ones. Yeah. I remember when we were setting up the commune. That's back when it was like six people in a field. Yeah.

And it was like six. six people, God, that's really hard because that means we only have four working bodies. Kid and I, obviously, kings, we won't. We got a lot on. Yeah, y'all better hurry up because there's a lot to do.

Yeah, and Alexander was there. That was it day one, literally in the fields working. And we said day one, right, I've been hearing a lot about this big, mad library of Alexandria that burned down a long time ago. Alexander, you're on building the library of Alexandra, all right, get to work. Right.

I checked in recently, it's mostly manga. She's been really prioritizing manga. That's fair. Over the last few years. So that's great. Need to start diversifying a little bit, but thank you anyway. We appreciate it. Thank you also too, Joseph Pontius.

I hope that when Joseph dies, he can point us in the right direction. Just like the spirit team did. Yeah. When Joseph becomes a ghost of himself, I hope he can point us. in the right direction. Yeah, especially if he was buried with some ice, you know what I'm saying, got the rang, got the jury,

got the watches. He can be like, down here, brothers, you can loot my grave. I mean, that would be nice. I meant like if you could point us in the right direction of communicating with the spirit world.

Oh, that too. Yeah. So we could like talk to our loved ones and stuff. Introduce us, make some introductions, yeah. Yeah, it would be great. Joseph's like, hey, Rory, yeah. Got some messages from the other side. Yes, nice.

You ain't welcomed on here, dude. You ain't welcome. Everyone's waiting here to beat your ass. Oh, geez. I gotta stay alive as long as possible. Thank you also to Josh Wagstaff. Josh is one of those wizards that's always showing off, wagging his staff in your face. Yep. You know? Which isn't a metaphor for a penis. It's the tool he uses to cast spells. Yeah. Sometimes his robe pops open while he's doing it.

But he's assured me that that is just an accident. They're not wearing underwear? No, dude, it's hot under those robes. When you're casting fireball, fireball, you get hot under those robes. That's not all right. So, Josh, you do have to go to HR, because there have been some complaints filed against you for wagging your staff. The worst thing would be to, I couldn't be trusted with magic. I just couldn't.

Because humans are lazy? How are you ever going to get healthy and go to the gym and exercise if you can just go abious maximus? Give yourself an eight-pack. Yeah. Abacadabra. Yeah. And just, yeah, 100%. So what you're saying is we need Josh in the commune to keep us fit and healthy.

Looking good. Yeah, sure. And thank you finally today to Memmore. Mem more. Before you die, will you write your memoirs? And let us know where you're buried. Because Kit wants some ice. He wants to be blinged out. He's obviously not going to get it through doing this podcast.

So if you could just, if the last page of your diary could just be a kind of X marks the spot style illustration, that would really help us out. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. I think I need grills. I think that would be good. Although I did have Invisaline for a while and that ruined the podcast for about nine months. So, because I was like, yeah, great case, really enjoyed that one. Long time listeners will remember. Yeah. Because my orthodontas promised me it wouldn't impact my speech whatsoever. She lied.

She lied because she wanted to get paid. Yeah, it won't impact it at all. Just put your pin in there. It's all good. No, it's all good, man. Just, yeah, your pin number real quick. I'm like, and you're saying, it's just going to wear off the next few days? Is you sure?

Am I what? Is you sure? You're sure. I need a bib. I'm drooling so much. Yeah. It's pretty painful, too. I love that.

like, are you sure you're not going to make a difference? And she's like, um, it's down the hall into the right. He doesn't even know what you're saying. Thank you, Mem Moore, for being a Membor. To our Patreon, to This ParanormalLife.com and supporting the show. We love you guys. We couldn't make this podcast without you. Very grateful for all of your support.

Thank you for listening to this week's investigation into the skull hole. We will be back on Friday. Head on over, check out the after party to hear everything we couldn't do on today's episode. And if we won't see you then, we'll see you next Tuesday for another paranormal tale.