York Dungeon investigates ‘poltergeist’ after tumblers fall from shelves

York Dungeon has launched an investigation after CCTV footage appeared to show tumblers flying off shelves with no clear cause.

Staff first reported unusual activity in January, when tumblers fell from a shelf in the gift shop on two separate occasions.

Last week, paranormal investigators Project:Entity and Haunted Happenings visited the attraction to look into the incidents.

During their visit, they explored multiple rooms within the attraction and say they experienced unexplained activity throughout the building. Shortly after their investigation, the incident occurred again for the first time in months, with a single tumbler falling from the same shelf in the early hours of the morning.

‘We went in looking to find an explanation’

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The footage has gained significant attention online, with many attempting to explain the movement through more conventional causes.

Speaking on TikTok, Jack and Kailum from Project:Entity said they approached the investigation with the same mindset, focusing on ruling out logical explanations before considering anything else.

Jack explained: “We didn’t go in looking to find ghosts. We went in looking to find an explanation, and if that just so happened to be paranormal or not paranormal, that is what it is.”

Common theories included vibrations from a nearby slushy machine or activity from neighbouring businesses. However, the team said these explanations did not hold up under investigation.

Jack said: “The first thing I did was go and check what the vibration of the slushy machine was like and if there were any vibrations going through the walls and in fact onto the shelves.”

He added that even when the machine was running at full capacity, there was “absolutely nothing” to suggest it could have caused the tumblers to fall.

The idea of external vibrations was also dismissed, with the team noting that the wall behind the display was part of the original structure of the building and not connected to neighbouring businesses in a way that would cause movement.

‘We couldn’t find a normal reason for it’

Despite testing multiple explanations, the investigators said they were unable to identify a clear cause for the incidents.

Jack said: “We didn’t find a paranormal reason for it whatsoever, we also couldn’t find a normal reason for it, a more general logical reason.”

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Kailum added that they are cautious about labelling activity as paranormal without evidence, saying: “We’re also not those kind of TikTok paranormal investigators that hear a sound and instantly think it’s paranormal, we like to debunk things first.”

However, they maintained that the specific way the tumblers fell, and the fact that only certain cups moved despite others being closer to potential sources of vibration, made the incident difficult to explain.

“There is no reason that those cups fell off that shelf in the way they did that we can explain,” Jack said.

‘We did experience paranormal activity’

While the gift shop incident remains unexplained, Project:Entity said their investigation of the wider building produced what they described as “activity” in multiple locations.

They spent around an hour inside the attraction and said the level of response they recorded during that time was unexpected.

Jack said: “We were there for an hour, we had no time whatsoever, and we got so much in that one hour. It was unexpected, and to be quite honest, I went in there expecting nothing.”

Kailum also noted that some of their findings aligned with accounts from staff, despite not being told any background information beforehand.

“When we went in, we didn’t ask for any of the stories, we asked for the rooms that had the most activity, that staff believed were most active. We didn’t hear any of the ghost stories, anything like that, and we came up with some very interesting stuff that actually corroborated a lot of the stories we heard after we did our investigation,” he said.

‘It’s all about belief’

The investigation has caused mixed reactions online, with some viewers attempting to debunk the footage and others suggesting a paranormal explanation.

Project:Entity acknowledged the scepticism, but said that without a clear explanation, the incident remains open to interpretation.

Kailum said: “It’s always funny to me how you always find experts on TikTok that believe they know everything. I think it’s ignorant to believe that anything couldn’t be paranormal. There’s a lot of comments also saying that ghosts aren’t real – it’s like, can you prove that? You can’t prove they are, but you also can’t prove they aren’t. It’s all about belief.”

The group has confirmed they are in talks to return to the York Dungeon for a longer investigation, which they hope could provide clarity on what is happening inside the building.

For now, the cause of the falling tumblers remains unexplained.

Featured image via Instagram @yorkdungeon