Welcome to Otherworld North East

Welcome to

OWNE

Online

“Among many other things that be amiss here in your great cures, ye shall understand that in Blackburn there is a fantastical young man, which says he has spoken with one of his neighbours that died four year since or more. Divers times he says he has seen him, and talked with him, and took with him the curate, the schoolmaster, and other neighbours, which all affirm that they see him too. These things so common here, and none of authority that will gainsay it, but rather believe and confirm it, that everyone believes it. If I had known how to have examined it with authority, I would have done it.”

James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham to the Archbishop of Canterbury, c.1565

Welcome to Otherworld North East Online. Otherworld North East (OWNE) was founded in 2003 to research and investigate alleged hauntings and ghost-related activity throughout the North East of England as well as other ‘unexplained’ phenomena. We are a small association of voluntary researchers and fieldworkers who operate using the scientific method as a basic principle: we do not undertake public ghost hunts or events for entertainment.

Our main focus of interest lies in:

Alleged supernatural activity, such as ghosts/hauntings/poltergeists/communication etc;
Psychology: impact of belief systems on experience etc;
Local North East history and archaeology: sociological factors for folklore/mythology origins etc;
Cryptozoology;
Unidentified Visual Objects: with the pentagon admitting to the existence of UFOs, how could we not be?
Myths and legends.

Apparently we’ve been absent without leave for a couple of years…

The group have been on a hiatus for a while, primarily due to the change in public perception of the paranormal scene: when OWNE started in 2003, there was genuine interest in research groups of all sizes visiting and investigating sightings and alleged phenomena in many different locations. However, with the steady rise of ‘paranormal entertainment’ small research groups like OWNE have found themselves (and ourselves) without locations to investigate as we can’t (or won’t) spend in some cases fees of £500-£1000 to investigate locations where we used to be welcome for free. The last decade has also seen a steady shift from discussion websites and forums to social media. The decline of the use of discussion forums removed our core online presence, as while the OWNE Facebook page has proven popular (currently over 1.4k followers) the in-depth discussions that we used to have no longer happen due to the increased difficulty in online engagement.

So why are we back?

Unless you’ve recently been swallowed by a Black Hole (in which case please get in touch and supply video and pictures), you’ll be well aware of the pandemic coronavirus COVID-19 that began its crawl through the nation back in early 2020. With it appears to have been a rise in purported paranormal interest and sightings – and with it the usual rise of those willing to prey on peoples’ beliefs. Coupled with this period also seeing the United States release sets of alleged UFO footage, which for all intents and purposes appears to be an admission of the existence of the phenomena, it seemed like an appropriate time to get back in the proverbial saddle.