The church and cemetery in the west of Bohemia near Velhartice is one of those places that is shrouded in mysterious stories. It is no wonder that Karel Jaromír Erben chose one of these stories for his inspiration when he was preparing a poetic ballad: The Wedding Shirt.

Two centuries after the visit of the famous poet and writer, two paranormal research teams arrive at the site. V.T.P.J. of the founders Miroslav and Milan Pribyl and the Paranormal team of the founder Ondřej Bezouška.

Before the deployment of the equipment and sunset we meet the Velharttian parish priest, Mr. Vendelin Zboron. It is through his narrative that we get deeper into the past to the moving stories connected to this place.

The Story of the Burnt Merchants

The original church in Velhartitsa was not made of stone, but of wood. It stood in a busy place, close to the trade route that ran through it. It just so happened that local traders were attacked now and then by bands of brigands. And one such ambush was one of the black marks on the hallowed ground of this place.

In the distant past, traders passing by the church were ambushed. To save themselves and their property, they decided to take refuge in it. They expected the robbers to give up their robbery and leave. But the attackers did not abandon their efforts. On the contrary, they turned into arsonists and murderers. They barricaded the church from the outside and then set fire to the wooden structure. None of the people inside survived the ensuing inferno.

This event was supposed to have occurred around 1375.

Subsequent new construction of the church was already underway from stone to a form very similar to the present one.

The story that inspired K. J. Erben

The second and more famous story has roots even deeper than the Christian ones. Once upon a time, a Celtic sacrificial site stood on the site where the Velhart Church is yet to be built. The story is specific in that it combines Christian and Celtic traditions. Both play an important role in the story.

First we have a settlement and in it a beautiful girl - an orphan. Around the settlement are soldiers who are apparently camping there temporarily. A love affair develops between one of the soldiers and this beautiful girl. When the soldiers then move on through the Bohemian Forest, the girl promises her lover that she will wait for him.

Some time passes and another soldier returns from the fighting, claiming to be a friend of the one to whom the girl has pledged her allegiance. He informs the girl that the one she is waiting for has fallen and will never return. However, in order not to grieve for him, he is willing to marry her.

The girl, however, remains faithful to her lover. She has given her heart to him and no one else will ever win her heart. This offends the man who is interested in her and so he decides to bring her lover to her. But not in a good way.

A Celtic psychic comes into the picture and is said to summon the dead soldier's soul. Whether she actually summons the soul is not said, but in any case the girl soon becomes possessed, which almost costs her her life.

According to the vicar's account, they had to perform several exorcisms to help her. This subsequently succeeds, but the evil from her moves into the walls of the church. A human face appears on the front of the building.

The locals want to demolish the place and rebuild it, but the church won't let them. So instead they strip the wall of plaster and rebuild it. But after a while, the face reappears. So they repeat the process, but it's no use. And so the face in question can still be seen at the time of our investigation.

Deployment Techniques (9:30 pm)

After the parish priest leaves, Pavel Charvát (V.T.P.J.) and other members of the research team deploy the equipment around the building. A short meeting is held, which clarifies that one piece of equipment (IR camera recording also sound) should be on the harder to reach ground.

Another IR camera is set up near the altar, occupying the front (original) entrance of the church. All the electronics are secured by charged car batteries, which, in addition to the cameras, provide power to the laser network and two laptops.

Once the equipment is deployed and wired, the first problems appear. The original video streaming over the internet is not possible as the computer is unable to pick up the signal.

But the bigger mystery is around the radios. The ones around the Velhartitsa church work without any problems, but inside the church neither of them is able (even if both radios are inside the church) to pick up the other one's signal.

Start of paranormal research (23:00) - cemetery research

In the first part of the research, we all leave the church and settle among the graves in the cemetery.

Jája Dusková and Jana Charvátová try to establish communication with the other side through the Ghostbox. Its regular, intermittent noise fills the space between the graves. This part lasts about fifteen minutes. Everything is recorded on a night vision camera and dictaphone.

Since no phenomenon occurs, we decide to split the group into two smaller ones. The women's part is dedicated to the Ghostbox (Jaja, Lenka, Jana) and the purely men's part (Pavel, Milan and Ondřej) is heading towards the front of the church.

Milan Pribyl is taking pictures, Pavel Charvát is testing virgule. With these he determines interesting external places around the church. The strongest features for him are the former entrance to the church and the black cross at its back wall.

Meanwhile, the girls try to register any reaction. However, they celebrate their success - in their own words - most of all with Ghostbox, who now and then responds to their suggestions.

Paranormal research in the church

Gradually we move into the interior of the church, where we also attempt to make contact.

During the research we repeat some phrases (common addresses, requests, prayers) in different languages from German to Latin and record them on a sound amplifier. This part does not reveal anything interesting to us later. However, shortly after, an iron crash echoes through the interior of the church. At that moment, some of us are in motion, but no one is in contact with anything that could cause such a sound. We manage to record everything on an audio recording, which we later include in a documentary film that tells the story of this research.

Shortly after this blow, another, more subdued one is heard and a small stone finds the place of impact between us. We do not pay as much attention to it as we should, because we are busy explaining one of the possible causes of the sound of the metal.

The next muffled blow occurs a moment later. Here we just assume that it is a pebble, for the sound of the impact is heard, but nowhere do we find the source of the impact. We are therefore unable to say whether it was indeed a pebble, of which there were only a few on the floor of the church (there were many more at the entrance to the attic, which was separated from us by height), or whether the impact had some other cause.

At 3:23 pm, the calmer atmosphere begins to change. Several events are occurring at once. At the time mentioned, the inverter of the car battery powering the camera and laptop starts to signal that it is about to run down. After changing the car battery for a new one, these signals do not subside, but continue. The beeping appears and disappears again, until at times it resembles possible communication. The beeping always stops when Milan takes a photo with the flash and at the moment when Lenka asks, "Is anyone here?" the beeping that has stopped sounds twice at short intervals.

Of course, these interpretations may also be kind, but nowhere do we have evidence for this option. We have recorded the aforementioned event on camera and embedded it in a documentary for the appreciation of anyone interested.

The strangest event takes place shortly after 3:30 (but apparently at 3:33). I'm just taking a picture of myself with the camera. I communicate the causes of the whistling and how we are trying to solve the problem. At that moment, the loudest bang yet is heard and a smooth pebble lands between us (the investigators). Although its flight is not recorded on the camera, my colleagues notice that the pebble flew in the direction of the entrance to the loft where these pebbles are located (during the climb to the loft, of which there were several, we released them from the premises when we carelessly climbed there).

A few seconds later, our ears and the camera in the attic (again, found in the documentary) recorded a total of three steps (very interesting connection with the threes, don't you think?). We immediately react and go to the attic to take a look.

During the ascent I notice a slight draft, but this cannot explain the stone or the steps. Lenka and I ascend to the space above the church and look around the darkness there. There is nothing, not even a sign of life or the existence of an animal.

After a short consultation, I stay in the attic alone for 30 minutes. During this time nothing happens and I do not notice anything paranormal.

And nothing further happens even until 4:55 am, when we end the research in the dawn of the day.

We pack up our gear and leave.

A month-long analysis reveals a number of interesting EVPs that our senses missed. Again, the best ones can be found in the documentary at the very end.

We try to rationally explain the sounds and flying rocks that surprised us several times during the night from the material obtained, but without success. It is physically impossible for a stone to rise on its own without a force mediated by material physical effort. The place and time from where the pebbles came indicates that there was physical force exerted to throw them, but without physical matter, for none of us were in the area. This brings into consideration the reasoning that this is indeed a paranormal origin.

Conclusion

With the last sentence of the previous paragraph we can summarize the research at Velhartice cemetery (from 9th to 10th July 2014). It is a place where paranormal activity can be actively encountered. And this is not to the extent of hauntings, but rather an attempt to communicate. For that is how one can interpret the phenomena given the circumstances, situation and timing.

We didn't encounter anything aggressive like we did at the House. But it is the timing that raises questions about the residuality of paranormal activity. And certainly this will become one of the subjects of our further objective research into the paranormal.

Research verdict

paranormal acuity recorded in physical manifestations

author of the article: Ondřej Bezouška

video of the investigation

• in Czech, without English subtitles