What lies beneath...
MORE than a year ago, we were invited to enter what appeared to be an unremarkable house in the centre of a Welsh town.
The house is located just off a main road in Ammanford, down an alleyway, hidden away from the hustle and bustle.
But what thrust this house into the centre of a mystery was not the sounds coming from everyday life in a town centre street, but the sounds that, according to its owners, were coming from beneath.
Screaming, crying, swearing. The voices of men, women and children, apparently coming from underneath the basement.
The owners have fled, and have not been at the property they own for more than two years.
They are too afraid to go back, convinced that a criminal gang have been running a subterranean enterprise just yards beneath their kitchen.
It all started in June 2018, when Alan and Christine Tait heard strange noises while up late one evening.
The making of a latenight coffee started a chain of events that has made national news, inspired radio discussions, and led to police officers attending the house.
Mr and Mrs Tait started to record what they could hear.
“It was like a flushing noise that I heard first,” said Mrs Tait, “then we could hear a machine running, and we started to record all over the house, picking up the sounds of chains, a motorbike starting, and people screaming.”
A year later, in June 2019, we sent a reporter to the house to investigate. The owners did not go with him, preferring instead to stay well clear. They sent us a key and our reporter made his way inside.
A recording device (an iPhone) was placed next to a small entrance to the basement and left to run for several hours. It did not pick up anything sinister, only the sounds of the reporter leaving the house to head to the shop.
However, Mr and Mrs Tait had already at that point captured recordings taken further down, or nearer to the habitat of the “serious criminal gang” who they believe reside underground. Those are the recordings that have now been listened to by thousands of people since the story was covered and subsequently picked up by national news outlets more than a year ago.
So what has happened since then to Mr and Mrs Tait?
They left the house in June 2018, and now, more than two years later, they are in the north of England, living in a mobile home.
They continue to travel around, moving from place to place, trying to raise awareness of what they believe is going on in Ammanford.
“We have a number of supporters who have been in touch with us, and one