Coronavirus: What To Do When You Can't Go Ghost Hunting

Are you missing out on the chance to go ghost hunting this weekend due to cancelled events? The government's advice on social gatherings currently means ghost hunts are out of the question as they are far from "essential" contact, but if you are sensible, you can still get your fix of the paranormal this weekend, without the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Below are our recommendations of how to continue your obsession with the paranormal and make the most out of your time in lockdown.

You may well be working from home during the lockdown, so it's not realistic to sit and watch television shows and movies all day long, but most people will find they have a little more free time due to not having to travel to and from work each day. This makes it a great time to catch up on boxsets and movies on streaming platforms, so why not share this activity with friends?

It's against the government's current advice to make "non-essential" visits to friends' houses or to invite friends over, but there's no reason why you can't gather together a bunch of mates on Skype or Google Hangouts. Then decide on a paranormal show or movie to watch and all hit play at the same time.

There's plenty to choose from on Netflix alone, including supernatural shows like 'Stranger Things', 'The Haunting Of Hill House', 'Locke & Key' and 'Haunted', plus dozens of paranormal-themed movies including all of the 'Insidious' movies, 'It', 'Sinister', 'Ouija', 'Orphan', and 'Ghost Stories'.

There's also countless paranormal shows on YouTube and Amazon Prime, you can find our recommendations here:

So you've got a whole kit bag of ghost hunting gadgets that you've tried many times in allegedly haunted locations, but have you ever given them a proper test in a controlled environment to see how they perform without the potential of ghosts being near by?

Now is the perfect time to give this a try since you're likely to be trapped indoors anyway. This experiment will give you a better idea of what might cause your devices to trigger due to false positives. If the devices do trigger in your non-haunted home, then it must be due to a non-paranormal reason.

Set aside two or three hours for this investigation, and try to make this a fair comparison to a real ghost hunt, by turning off all the lights and the heating. Put your phone in to flight mode so that it won't interfere with any of the gadgets - this is something you'd normally do on an investigation.

If you're missing the chance to explore haunted locations at the weekends due to the restrictions on movement we've been asked to follow due to the coronavirus outbreak, then the next best thing might be to take a virtual walking tour of some of the UK's most interesting paranormal hotspots.

We've handpicked a few video tours to help get you through the lockdown, including a ghost tour of York, spooky strolls through London, a two-hour wander through Drakelow Tunnels, and a look inside the Cage in Essex.

If you're anything like us, then you'll have a pile of books about the paranormal stacked up on your desk that you've been meaning to read for months. Now's your chance. Use your extra free time to hideaway in a good book about the subject you love.

You could also use the time to research the history and reports of hauntings of a specific location or case that interests you. If you put some uninterrupted time into reading reports, blog posts and online encyclopaedia pages, you may be surprised by just how much information you can collate.

Books we've read in the last year include, Zak Bagans' 'Ghost-Hunting For Dummies', Usborne's 'The World Of The Unknown: Ghosts', and Yvette Fielding's 'Archie The Ghost Hunter And The Rising'.

We also recommend Richard Steep and Bil Bungay's 'The Black Monk of Pontefract', which was released at the end of last year, and S. D. Tucker's 'Forgotten Science: Strange Ideas from the Scrapheap of History'.

You might also want to check out some of these must-read paranormal books:

Online Courses
You might also consider taking an online course to learn a little more about the paranormal.

Jayne Harris, who starred alongside Barri Ghai and Chris Fleming in the recent series of 'Help! My House Is Haunted' runs and tutors her own 'Applied Paranormal Research Study Course' course.

We also recommend Paralearning, who offer courses in paranormal investigation, demonology, and the science of the paranormal.

You'll find everything from comedy podcasts about the supernatural, through to podcasts detailing paranormal investigations, plus shows that offer the haunted histories of famous paranormal hotspots, and even dramatisations of true ghostly encounters.

To help you pick the perfect audio to listen to, we've put together a list of recommended spooky podcasts, and you can find even more in our paranormal podcasts section.

A ley line is a completely straight line across the landscape that runs from one landmark of historic importance to another, and crosses through one or more similar landmarks along its route. It's often said that ley lines represent regions of earth energies and that it was no accident that these structures were built along the lines.

The presence of a ley line running nearby is said to cause an increase in paranormal activity and buildings on ley lines are often said to be supernatural hotspots, especially those built at the sites where two ley lines cross or meet.

There's no official map of ley lines, in fact anyone can find them. It's just a case of plotting straight lines between multiple significant or ancient sites on a map. These can be anything from a distinctively shaped high hill, a significant peak, churches, castles, or even the locations of ancient wells, sites of worship, and of course haunted locations.

So why not get hold of a copy of an old Ordnance Survey map of your local area, grab a ruler and see if you can form any straight lines connecting the prominent geological features, landmarks and buildings of interest near you. Uncovering these ley lines might help you identify potentially haunted locations or links between paranormal hotspots that you can investigate further once the pandemic blows over.

With all this free time on your hands, why not do something creative, like writing a book on the paranormal? After all, everyone has a story to tell.

If you've notched up a few year's worth of paranormal investigation experience, then writing and self publishing an eBook might not be as hard as you think. Now is the perfect time to get your experience down in words and share your paranormal tales with the world.

Obviously the world of publishing can be tough to break into and there's not big bucks to be made in a niche genre like ghost hunting books, especially if you're self publishing, but if this is something you've always thought about doing then seize the moment and turn this negative time into a creative and positive period of your life.

Your book doesn't have to be factual and based on your paranormal experiences, it could also be fictional - a supernatural thriller or horror story. There's some tips on writing fiction in the link below:

⚠️ Since publication of this article, the government have tightened their restrictions on movement. Visiting a location is now likely to fall outside of those guidelines in most cases, whether in a group or alone. Stay home, save lives.

Obviously ghost hunts are out of the question at the moment as they'd be deemed to be an unnecessary gathering, but if you are non-symptomatic and follow the government's advice on social distance, then there's no reason why you can't visit some haunted locations alone, or with your partner/family that you live with and are already in close proximity to.

You should avoid meeting friends, especially sharing a car to the location with friends, and keep a distance from other members of the public while you're out and about. You could even do your own mini ghost hunt if there's a couple of you, but it's not wise to wander around any location on your own in the dark.

As for where to go, the National Trust have announced that they're closing their houses, shops and cafes, but are opening their parks, gardens and open spaces in the countryside and coastal regions for free. There are several haunted National Trust locations that you can at least take a look at from the outside, and if nothing else, it's a great chance to relax outdoors without the normal entry cost.

There's plenty of other haunted outdoor locations you can visit too. We've mapped over 1,000 haunted locations across the British Isles and also put a few useful lists together:

⚠️ Since publication of this article, the government have tightened their restrictions on movement. Visiting a location is now likely to fall outside of those guidelines in most cases, whether in a group or alone. Stay home, save lives.

OK, so there's a travel ban in place, but being stuck in the UK isn't the end of the world. The one thing the British Isles has in a higher abundance than anywhere else in the world is ancient sites of supernatural or spiritual significance. These are locations that are steeped in the mythology and magic of British history, the paranormal and the occult.

The list includes many ancient standing stones. Obviously it's best to avoid popular stone circles at the moment like Avebury and Stonehenge, but the beauty of most of these standing stones is that they are in remote and isolated locations, they are often devoid of other people even in the peak of summer. Even if there are others there, there's enough room to spread out.

With the ever-present worry of the ongoing pandemic, a stone circle is a great place to escape the stress and anxiety by relaxing and connecting with nature at a historic site which may have been used for rituals and celebrations for more than 5,000 years.

As well as standing stones, there are plenty of other outdoor and remote mystical and magical sites dotted all across the UK, take a look at some of our suggestions below: