3 minute read
Frequency builds trust
Bumps in the night Sam Collier looks pensive during an investigation.
Photo supplied
By JIM BIRCHALL W e all love a good ghost story, but what does it take to turn curiosity into a hobby?
Thirty-seven-year old Pakuranga native Sam Collier looks outside the realms of possibility and takes an openminded holistic approach to investigating the paranormal. The self-proclaimed huge Ghostbusters fan who grew up watching the X Files is not someone who blindly follows the hype promoted by ghosthunting TV shows, where participants have been known to fake poltergeist activities and are encouraged to ham things up for the cameras.
Sam, who has a life-long interest in getting to the bottom of claims of paranormal phenomena, joined investigative group Haunted Auckland in 2013.
The team has been around since 2006 founded by respected ghost researcher Mark Wallbank.
The group has conducted more than 200 site visits to allegedly haunted locations including Puhinui House located within the Howick Historical Village. In a 2016 solo investigation by Wallbank, a torch that was mounted on a chair atop the stairs from the ground level inexplicably fell under its own volition. The footage is available to view on hauntedauckland.com
Collier is well-versed in the use of the tools of the trade. Investigators kit themselves up with video cameras, EMF detectors, EDI meters and a good deal of common sense.
When asked for his theory on what he thinks ghosts could be, he favours the idea that people are witnessing “what’s left over of what was once living”, where the events, people and their associated energies are left imprinted on the environment.
For the sceptics who question this theory and ask Collier questions like “why there are no Ghost dinosaurs?”, he answers that he believes the ‘ghost’ returns to a “particular time and place due to an emotional attachment”.
For now, Sam and the team at hauntedauckland.com will keep putting in the late shifts at a haunted location near you.
The truth is out theremaybe.
A local woman has persuaded a group of alleged cockle poachers, to return the molluscs to the ocean after confronting them on Cockle Bay beach.
The beach is currently in closed season for collection. A 50-cockle seasonal limit is in place at the beach between May and September.
Howick Ratepayer and Residents chair Matthew Brajkovich received a call from a woman who had recently witnessed a group taking cockles during closed season. He advised her to firstly stay safe, then advised her to call the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) poacher line, followed by her asking the poachers to put them back.
Brajkovich believed the cockles were returned “after a very long walk out”.
In another recent case, Brajkovich says he found three people with two large bags full of cockles and asked them to return them.
“What was really concerning was when I told them to put them back, they dumped all the cockles in the beach rubbish bin,” he says. In another case from December 2019, an honorary fishing officer approached a party who had poached 1800 cockles. The cockles were all returned to the sea.
Botany MP Jami-Lee Ross has been championing his case to convince the Minister of Fisheries to close Cockle Bay to all shellfish harvesting for at least five years, to allow the beach to recover’, and delivered a petition to fisheries Minister Stuart Nash recently.
Nash has ordered a new survey of the beach to take place in February, something Ross hopes will “likely see a rahui or ban placed on the collecting of all shellfish”. Honorary fishing officer returned 1800 cockles collected outside of harvest season. Photo supplied
Show apartments open to view
Information presentation at 11am Thursday 20 February, 11am - 1pm
You are invited to view our beautiful show apartment and discover what Bruce McLaren Retirement Village has to off er. Our information presentation at 11am will cover our Ryman Peace Of Mind Guarantees, the full range of living and care options available, and we will be very happy to answer any of your questions. Come along and learn what sets a Ryman village apart from the rest. You will be impressed!
