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=  Haunting of 45 Pipitea Street  = Note: This article does not attempt to take a position as to whether the haunting is genuine or simply a perception held by many of the occupants of the building. This article is based on the author's own experiences in the building and interviews with 13 direct witnesses to events that they have subjectively interpreted as evidence of paranormal activity.

Note that this article was originally published on Wikipedia in April 2019 but was removed due to a lack of formally published supporting documents. As these events are recent there is no formal published research as yet. Therefore it has been re posted here. This article is not satirical and is here for information purposes.

The Location
Situated in Thorndon, Wellington, the infamous 45 Pipitea Street building is reputedly home to more than just the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). Local belief has it that the building is haunted.

The building underwent extensive renovations prior to DIA taking up residence there in December 2017. DIA applied a traditional Maori blessing to the building before officially moving in. However, if this was intended to provide protection against other worldly forces, it may have been unsuccessful as a number of events of potential paranormal nature have been reported since.

Workers in the building have made a number of claims of paranormal activity. These include (but are not limited to):


 * Unexplained moving lights in stairwells and the underground parking area
 * Cold patches that occur suddenly and dissipate quickly
 * Feelings of being watched
 * A sensation of the air growing heavy and then returning to its normal state after several minutes
 * Disembodied footsteps
 * Workers being touched and (in at least two reported cases) scratched by an invisible actor
 * A ghostly black dog sighted on at least two occasions (on the fifth floor and in the stairwell between the fourth and fifth floors)
 * Shadows moving without any identifiable cause
 * Objects (most commonly chairs) moving on their own
 * Disembodied laughter and indistinct voices

Although reports of unusual occurrences take place throughout the building, most appear concentrated on the fifth floor and in the underground car parking area.

Eye Witness Accounts
A selection of accounts of purported eye witnesses has been included for clarity. Note that their names have been withheld for reasons of privacy as some of these people are still employed by DIA and continue to work in the affected building.

"My colleague and I were heading down to the fourth floor for a meeting. It was about 11 O'Clock in the morning. As we entered the stairwell, we felt a sudden chill. We started down the stairs but stopped as we heard a clicking sound. A large black dog faded into sight in front of us. It looked to us as if the air darkened and reformed into the image. It was a dark mat [sic] black. Its face was indistinct but for two much darker round patches where its eyes would have been. It stood facing us on the stairs for several seconds and then quickly faded into nothing again. We were terrified. We ran back up to the fifth floor. I was crying and my colleague was shaking. Several other colleagues asked if were alright. We said we were. We resolved not to tell anyone about it. No one would have believed us. Neither of us will take the stairs at all anymore. Just the elevator" -March 2019

"On Wednesday I was the last one on the floor. I was working late as I had a deadline to meet and had fallen behind. I heard a clunk like something falling over around the corner and then heard a deep laugh. It didn't sound right. I went around the corner to check but there was no one there and  I couldn't find anything that had fallen down. I walked around the entire floor and there was definitely no one there. I was a bit nervous but went back to my desk to continue working.  It would have been a few minutes later that I felt a hand stroke my shoulder. It was a definite feeling of pressure and a slow, firm stroking motion. I jumped up but saw no one. So I took off. Called in sick the rest of the week. I never work late now and make sure I am never the last one to leave" -February 2019

"I was having morning tea at my desk when my friend next to me suddenly shouted like he was shocked. He was holding his arm. He pulled up his sleeve and there were three long scratches running down the length of his forearm like he had been scratched by an animal. The scratches were clearly fresh and were bleeding slightly. There was nothing he could have caught his arm on to cause them and he had been typing an emal [sic] at the time. There was nothing around that could have done it" -February 2019

"I was sitting at my desk in the early afternoon just after lunch. We have an open plan office with a hot desking policy so we sit at different desks every  day. The desk next to me was vacant. I felt a prickly sensation on the back of my neck like someone was staring at me. I turned to the vacant desk expecting to see someone but there was no one there. As I watched, the chair next to me slowly rotated to face me and then rolled forward several inches straight towards me. I got out and didn't come back inside for over an hour. I told my manager what had happened and she told me to keep quiet about it. She said she didn't want to scare the other staff as someone else had told her about other strange stuff happening too" -January 2019

''"I arrived at work early somewhere between six and seven AM. I don't remember exactly. I cycle to work and I showered up in the chaning [sic] rooms that adjoin the carpark under the building. Afterwards I was walking to the elevator when I heard loud footsteps walking towards me. They sounded like footsteps on the carpark concrete but much louder than normal. They were coming right towards me but there was no one there. I froze and didn't know what to do. The footsteps came up so close that whoever was making them would only have been a meter or so away when they stopped but definitely no one there. The air felt like it was fizzing and I had goosebumps. I went straight for the elevator and seemed to take forever to arrive. Once I got to my office the air felt normal again but I was too freaked out to work. It didn't occur to me until later but even though the footsteps were much louder than usual they didn't echo. Normal footsteps echo in the confines of the carpark down there. It was all so weird.'' That was the first time. The second time was again in the carpark under the building. This time there were no footsteps just that fizzing feeling in the air. I saw a couple of specks of light maybe two or three dart past me and the feeling stopped. There was nothing that could have made light like that or that moved like that. I avoid the carpark whenever I can now and don't cycle to work". -July 2018 and November 2018

The above are as related by the purported eye witnesses and represent only a small sample of accounts given by staff. The earliest events identified begin in April 2018 and instances of these activities appear to have been growing in number and severity over time.

The entity or entities said to be inhabiting the building have been given several monikers locally, these include:


 * The DIA Demon
 * The Department of Infernal Affairs Devil
 * The Pipitea Poltergeist

Hypothesized Causes
Rumours of the cause of the alleged haunting are many and varied. There appear to be several commonly held beliefs:


 * That DIA's persistent lack of regard for the Treaty of Waitangi (a document entrusted to DIA's care, although not stored on the premesis) has infuriated local Maori spirits and that they are showing their displeasure.
 * That a witch was once employed by DIA but resigned due to severe mistreatment by the agency, casting a curse (or similar spell) in retribution. This account holds that the curse will not be lifted until the witch's grievances have received redress. Another iteration of this account substitutes a Kaumatua (Maori Elder) for the witch and the curse for a Makutu (a form of sorcery within Maori tradition). A third variation of this scenario holds that the employee, an experienced occultist, was a member of a Maori Iwi (adopted in despite having no Maori ancestry) and that he arranged for a kaumatua of his Iwi to cast the Makutu.
 * That the building is sited on Tapu (sacred) land and that the guardian spirits of the area are trying to drive the interlopers away.
 * That the ghosts of several people murdered in the vicinity in the early 1900's were disturbed by the renovation work and are seeking vengeance for the disruption of their dormancy.
 * That the activity relates to the old Pipitea Pa (fortified village) that was once located in the vicinity and was the site of several battles during the New Zealand Land Wars
 * That rather than being a haunting per se, the activity is the manifestation of negative energy accumulating in the building due to the hostility of the working environment and mistreatment of staff. A variation of this theory holds that the aforesaid accumulation of negative energy attracted malevolent entities to the building.

Although supporting evidence for any of these hypotheses is lacking, some have a greater logical consistency than others. As no accounts of paranormal activity have been found prior to the renovations, it is likely that if such activity is occurring it is related to the renovations or to the tenant (DIA) that moved in subsequently.

Two staff members state that they consulted psychic mediums about the problem. One medium is said to have determined that there were multiple spirits occupying the building and that they are angry with the occupants. The other purportedly said that the building was not haunted by spirits but by a Diabolic, deliberately bound to the building by a skilled practitioner of the occult.

Prognosis
The volume and significant nature of the alleged paranormal events are unusual in all but the most severe cases of purported hauntings and if other such cases are to be believed and accepted as precedent, are likely to continue to escalate unless there is intervention.