Most Haunted Articles
Most Haunted
is a programme based on investigating purported
paranormal activity. It is produced and
presented by ANTIX Productions, owned by
Yvette Fielding and her husband
Karl Beattie.
Antix
Productions was formed in 2001, and Karl and Yvette,
developed the show, initially working from their living room. Their
commitment paid off when Living TV commissioned sixteen thirty-minute
episodes. Now on its seventh series with worldwide sales to Europe,
Canada, Australia, and the US, Most Haunted continues to go from
strength to strength.
This award
winning television sensation has sparked a rise in paranormal
investigations. Each episode is based in a property that has claims to
be haunted. In recent shows, the team has traveled further afield, to
mainland Europe and the United States. No two investigations prove the
same.
The investigators spend a night at a location, conduct
walks and record their reactions to odd sounds, movements or shadows
that occur. This includes the recording of orbs. Most Haunted considers
orbs to be the first stage of a possible ghostly manifestation.
There have been several programmes called Most Haunted Live which
are live broadcast versions of the usual show, in a large location and
lasting three hours, covering three nights. Live adds studio
presenter David Bull and second historian Richard Jones. Later
broadcasts added an interactive element with Julian Clegg in charge of
the call centre.
Yvette Fielding and Karl Beattie are accompanied by a team that goes to
supposedly haunted sites, looking for proof of life after death within
the span of twenty-four hours, hoping to capture a full blown
apparition on film. Accompanying the group is the psychic
Derek Acorah, and his spirit guide Sam.
In the second series,
Phil Whyman joined as a paranormal
investigator, a role played in the first series by
Jason Karl. Phil Whyman left the show
at the end of series four and was replaced by Ciarán
O’Keeffe. In series six, medium David
Wells joins the team as a second
psychic. A new medium, Gordon Smith,
will appear on the show from series seven, replacing Derek Acorah.
Derek Acorah has frequently claimed to
be possessed by an entity. The audience is left to decide whether or not
this is a real paranormal event, and great debate reigns about this part
of the show. Two websites are dedicated to debunking Most Haunted,
and there are many enthusiastic fan sites.
Louie Savva and Dr Matthew Smith from
the Society for Psychical Research explain how encounters need to
be properly and scientifically measured, controlled and studied.
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Born
January 27
1950, Derek Acorah (originally Johnston) spent his early life
in Liverpool, where he first discovered his psychic abilities and became
interested in Spiritualism. It was in this period that he first
contacted his spirit guide, Sam, said to be an Ethiopian from 1,500
years ago, with whom Derek was friends in a previous life. He pursued a
career as a footballer for many years, playing for Glentoran in Northern
Ireland, before emigrating to Australia.
Due to a knee injury, he was forced to retire from
football and returned to England in the early 1980s. He then became a
full time spirit medium based at his home city of Liverpool.
In the early 1990s, he appeared on Psychic Livetime,
made by the station Granada Breeze, which ceased transmission
in July 2001. He then hosted his own show, Predictions with Derek
Acorah.
In 1997, he was invited to take part in a tour of the
Middle East when he appeared at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dubai, the
Brit Club in Abu Dhabi and the Hotel Inter-Continental in the desert
location of Al Ain. In December 1998, Derek was accepted as an
investigator with the International Society for the Paranormal Research
(ISPR). In January 1999, Derek went to Los Angeles and took part in an
investigation of a haunted Hollywood mansion. He also took part in an
investigation of the famous Comedy Store. Also, whilst in Hollywood,
Derek demonstrated his skills live at the Vogue Theater on Hollywood
Boulevard. In April 1999 the ISPR team flew to the UK to undertake the
filming of several reputedly haunted sites in England. This resulted in
the production of two videos.
In 2002, Derek joined the crew of Most Haunted,
and shot to national fame. His theatre tours have resulted in sold out
shows across the UK. Derek also appeared in The Antiques Ghost Show,
and LivingTV announced in 2005 that there were going to be two new
series to feature Derek Acorah, including one named Ghost Towns.
Derek is the author of four books.
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Born on 23rd September 1968 in Stockport,
Cheshire,
Yvette Fielding presented the children's television show,
Blue Peter from
1987 to
1992. She is the youngest ever person to present Blue Peter,
being seventeen when she started. She got the job on Blue Peter after
being on the television show Seaview, when she was thirteen.
Since leaving Blue Peter in 1992, Yvette worked on shows such as
What’s Up Doc? Heaven and Earth, City
Hospital,
Practical Parenting,
Baby Baby, and Girls Talk.
She went on to win the SOS Award for the Most Popular
Woman on Television competing with Cilla Black, Victoria Wood and Kylie
Minogue.
She met her husband
Karl Beattie when working on City Hospital, and
they became a couple with Karl proposing to Yvette on TV.
They were engaged within six weeks and married within six
months.
They married and have two children together, William and
Mary.
Yvette and Karl run the production company, Antix,
which produces
Most Haunted.
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Appears in series four onwards David joined the Royal
Navy aged sixteen and left when twenty-four, when he began a career in
catering. In 1991, he returned to college as a mature student to study
leisure as a career, working as a chef and waiter to fund his studies.
While on a Christmas holiday in Scotland in 1992 he was hospitalized and
began to undergo some strange experiences. He was referred to a woman
who knew about such things and began to study Spiritualism. He is the
astrologer for NOW magazine and Metro. He first appeared
on the Most Haunted Greengate Brewery episode as a guest, and was
asked to do more shows.
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Gordon Smith is the proprietor of a barbers shop in
Glasgow called The Gentry. Gordon is a seventh son of a seventh son and
first became aware of his gift at the age of ten in Glasgow, when he saw
a drunk walking down the street who floated up and disappeared. He later
found out that the man had died two weeks previously. He continued to
see and speak to dead people throughout his childhood, but ignored this
until he was in his twenties. At this time, he saw a vision of a friend
in his bedroom the very moment he died in a fire. Gordon is the author
of two books.
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It’s important
that everyone on the team gets along. They have to spend twenty-four
hours together, in less than comfortable conditions. Many of the crew
have been together since the first series. The team needs to show a wide
range of opinion on paranormal events. They range from Derek Acorah, and
the other mediums, who have no doubt that the spirits of the dead live
on and return to visit, through to Karl, who thinks that ninety-nine per
cent of all paranormal activity has a scientific explanation.
By the time that the crew
turn up to film, researchers have already found out all they can about
the location, interviewed witnesses to sightings and studied public
records and archives. Yvette’s pieces to camera, that explain the
history and background of the building have been scripted and transport
and catering facilities have been arranged.
The day before the actual
shoot, the technical part of the team go to the location to do
preliminary filming and perform baseline tests, such as temperature and
so forth, outlined in the third section of this ebook.
Once
the tests have been completed and the set pieces to camera has been
filmed, the other members of the team will be brought to the site. The
mediums don’t know where the planned location is – they are simply told
the name and address of the hotel they’ll be based at, twenty-four hours
before the shoot. Before work begins, the mediums perform an opening up
meditation in which they ask for protection from whichever spirits await
them at the location. They arrive at the property around dusk, and this
is when things really begin.
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