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What to do if you have a paranormal experience:

• Check for natural causes for the phenomenon, such as reflections of car headlights, possums, rats or other animals, a person around where you don't expect anyone, or maybe someone staging a prank. If you're in an unfamiliar building, it will have its own peculiar set of noises, often to do with temperature changes causing expansion and contraction of building materials, plumbing noises, electrical hum or some wind-related noise like loose roofing material or an unfastened door or window.

• Consider safety first. Exploring on your own at night may be dangerous, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. If you suspect an intruder, your best option may be to leave the premesis immediately for somewhere safer.

• Make notes. This is very important, and you should do it before discussing your experience with anyone. Write down in detail everything relevant you can think of, including the time, date, who else was present, weather conditions and anything else about the environment, your own feelings and state of mind, and events occurring before and after the experience.

• Most cellphones can record voice notes. This is a good way of recording your immediate impressions of the occurrence, but do this alone so that your perception doesn't affect others' impressions.

• If there were any other witnesses, ask them to make notes as well, and obtain their contact details. It is vital that you don't discuss the experience before making your own notes, as each individual will perceive things slightly differently and you will affect each other's memory of events by discussing what happened.

• Try to get a photo or video during the occurrence, using your cellphone or anything you have to hand. Record sound as well if you can.

• If you can't take photos during the occurrence, take lots of them afterwards and/or shoot video of the location from all angles. (Don't wave the video camera around or zoom in and out excessively, just try to get clear, steady images.)

• If any objects were moved or altered during the occurrence, (for example, a picture falling off the wall and breaking), try to leave them as found and and make sure nobody else touches them until an investigation takes place. If you can't leave things in situ, at least photograph them and mark or measure their positions.

• Back up any data you record, photocopy any notes, upload or download digital photos or videos to another storage location or device.

• Keep your original data safe. Don't record over tapes, format data storage media or anything like that. Label everything. (This seems obvious, but...)

• Contact the Strange Occurrences team as soon as possible, or another investigation team in your area. The sooner the better, as your memory will be fresh and the site may still contain evidence of the phenomena.

If you wish to learn more about the paranormal, there are a lot of good links to websites from here. A good place to start is www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com - a site created by Kiwis.

There are also a number of great books about paranormal experiences and haunted locations in New Zealand, listed here.

Contact the Strange Occurrences team by email:

j.d.gilberd@gmail.com - James Gilberd