Grimsby Ghostbusters

The Grimsby Ghostbusters were a Lincolnshire-based team of psychic investigators founded and led by psychologist and parapsychology lecturer Robin Furman, active from around 1984.

(Note: sourcing for this article rests substantially on a single detailed retrospective source, corroborated by book-listing pages for the team's own published casebook; independent contemporary press coverage beyond the BBC Radio feature mentioned below has not been located.)

Formation and approach

The team was assembled around 1984, coinciding with the release of the film Ghostbusters, from which the group's popular name derived. Furman deliberately built the team around technical and scientific expertise alongside his own psychological background, recruiting a microbiologist, a computer consultant, and an electronics engineer. The group's stated aim was to bridge scepticism and belief, applying scientific rigour to reported paranormal claims rather than approaching investigations from a purely spiritual or anecdotal standpoint.

The team investigated hauntings and reported paranormal activity across Lincolnshire and further afield in the UK, and gained a degree of national media attention, including a BBC Radio feature in 1992 that followed the team on an overnight investigation. Locally, the group was well regarded, with the Grimsby community broadly supportive of a team that had brought the town a measure of national attention.

Notable cases

Cases documented by the team, later recorded in Furman's book, included:

• The haunting of Grange Farm, associated with a series of sudden deaths and unexplained accidents.
• A churchyard investigation involving reported mist rising from tombstones and sightings of cloaked figures.
• A "ghost train" case featuring what witnesses described as an unusually realistic apparent corpse.
• A case involving a woman reportedly describing possession by an entity she identified as Pazuzu.

Ghostbusters UK (1991)

The team's investigations were documented in Ghostbusters UK, written by Furman with journalist Moira Martingale and published in 1991, illustrated by Uri Geller.

ORGANISATION ASSESSMENT

SCOPE

Primarily Lincolnshire, with investigations conducted further afield in the UK

METHODOLOGY

On-site investigation combining psychological insight with technical/scientific expertise from team members in unrelated professional fields; documented casebook publication

KEY MEMBERS

Robin Furman (founder and leader)

NOTABLE CASE

The Grange Farm haunting; a reported case of possession by an entity identified as Pazuzu

SUCCEEDED BY

N/A

CURRENT STATUS

Defunct; active roughly from 1984 into the early-to-mid 1990s based on available sourcing

LEGACY

The Grimsby Ghostbusters are a notable example of 1980s British paranormal investigation explicitly organised around a stated scientific methodology rather than purely spiritual or anecdotal grounds, and their casebook remains a documented regional record of Lincolnshire paranormal claims from the period. The group's geographic base connects it directly to other Lincolnshire-based investigation teams documented elsewhere in the Vault, including Spirit Searchers and Paranormal Lincs, though the three groups are not otherwise connected.

See also

• Robin Furman
• Spirit Searchers
• Paranormal Lincs
• Grimsby
• Uri Geller

External links

• Retroculturati — The Grimsby Ghostbusters
• Goodreads — Ghostbusters UK