NEXT time you go for a jar at the Newport Hotel, watch out, because there could be a ghost sipping a frostie behind you.

Recently the Newport owners called in TNT Professional Paranormal Investigations—Perth’s version of Ghostbusters—because staff were getting too spooked out.

TNT investigator Dave Sheriff says it was an ectoplasmic goldmine: “We were at the hotel for about two and a half hours, where we captured the most evidence we have ever caught,” he says.

Colleague Tiger-Lily says they were setting up their equipment when they spotted a spirit peering over the hotel balcony.

• Lily-Tiger and Dave Sheriff from TNT Professional Paranormal Investigations. Photo by Anna Hay

“There was a young guy that stood up there,” Tiger-Lily says, pointing up to the second floor, “who would have been between 23 to 24 years old, a spirit, he just stood over the balcony watching. He was curious, wondering what we were doing”.

Tiger-Lily claims she asked the spirits to tell them the name of the hotel and their audio devices picked up “Newcastle” in a sing-song voice.

She later discovered from Newport staff that when the hotel first opened in 1897 it was called the Newcastle Club Hotel.

“We kept coming across this name Murphy, but it is a common name, so we pushed it to one side,” says Tiger-Lily.

“But this Murphy kept coming through. Sheriff asked if there was a Murphy here, and he spoke back to us.

“When we did our research we saw that Martin Murphy was the first hotel keeper.”

• “Moondyne”, the lead singer of Genrefonix, who will be performing at Ghosts of Fremantle Past. Photo supplied

The Newport Hotel will embrace its spookiness on Thursday when it hosts The Ghosts of Fremantle Past, a mix of spine-chilling rock music and photographs/videos of some of WA’S most haunted buildings, taken by Freo residents and artists.

The man behind the eerie multimedia show, Will Axten, says their first two GOFP shows at Fremantle Prison were sell outs.

“After the enormous response, we put a lot of effort into it,” he says.

“We gathered contributions from the community such as photos and films.

“Horror is massively popular. I knew it was, but have been impressed to see it first hand on a micro and macro level.”

But watch out, Sheriff thinks the undead could make an appearance at the Newport show: “It depends, they could be curious…it will be interesting as there might be some sensitive people here,” he says.

The Ghosts of Fremantle is at The Newport Hotel on Thursday, June 8, with tickets at http://www.thenewport.oztix.com.au.

by ANNA HAY