The Security Cameras Caught a Woman in White After Closing Time

Grae Burton was at the hospital with his wife, who was about to give birth to their second son, when his phone suddenly buzzed. It was a security alert from the Lake House Arts Centre in Takapuna, New Zealand, where Burton worked as operations manager. He had recently installed cameras around the old building, and one of them had detected movement after closing time.

Curious, he opened the recording and saw a bright shape rising from the gallery floor. He immediately tried showing his wife, who wasn’t especially interested in ghost videos while she was having a baby. But Burton couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen.

The Lake House Already Had a Reputation

The Lake House was a beautiful old wooden building with a long history. Originally built in 1896 near Takapuna Beach, it had been a family home and a seaside boarding house. During the deadly influenza outbreak of 1918, it was temporarily used as a hospital.

By the 1990s, the building was threatened by development. Local supporters fought to save it, and in 1996 the entire structure was moved to Barry’s Point Reserve.

After being restored, it reopened as an arts centre in November 2000. But over the years, employees and visitors began reporting unusual experiences.

Some claimed to have seen a woman dressed in white, sometimes appearing in reflections from paintings hanging on the walls. Others described a shadowy man walking outside with two small children.

Burton had experienced a few unsettling things himself. Sometimes, when he walked out of a room, he suddenly felt dizzy, almost as though somebody had passed straight through him.

One evening, he returned to turn off some lights and heard children laughing somewhere inside the building. He couldn’t see anyone, and the experience frightened him enough that he headed straight for the exit.

The Cameras Started Sending Strange Videos

The first unusual security recording arrived on January 11, 2018, while Burton was at the hospital with his wife. Over the following months, the alerts kept coming. Sometimes he received several recordings in a single night, showing bright shapes moving through different rooms.

He began numbering the videos and sharing some online so other people could watch them. The activity continued often enough that checking his phone became part of his routine.

But one incident in April was more concerning than the others. Burton received footage showing the building’s front doors suddenly opening during the night. A bright shape also appeared to move through the area, even though the arts centre was closed.

He contacted security guards and asked them to investigate. They checked the property, made sure everything was secure, and locked the doors.

Burton was still wondering what had happened when another recording arrived a few days later. This one was from Friday, April 13, 2018, and it looked very different from the earlier videos.

A Woman in White Appeared on Camera

The recording came from a camera overlooking the gallery near the bottom of the staircase.

As Burton watched, a pale shape appeared to rise from the floor. It seemed to take the form of a woman wearing a long white dress. The figure moved through the gallery, apparently stopping near one of the artworks before continuing across the room.

Burton was stunned. He’d heard people talking about a woman in white for years, and now he believed he’d finally captured her on camera.

The footage covered roughly thirty minutes, with the figure appearing at different points. When journalist Chris Schulz later examined the recordings for Metro, he described the images as eerie. The pale shape appeared to float around the gallery, looking remarkably like a person wearing a long dress.

For Burton, it was the most exciting recording the cameras had produced. But he claimed there had been another video that he considered even more remarkable.

Another Recording Disappeared

According to Burton, one of the cameras had also captured an elderly man accompanied by two children walking along a path outside the building. The three figures reportedly appeared suddenly, moved along the walkway, disappeared, and reappeared farther along.

Burton said the video had no cuts or interruptions, making the sudden appearances difficult for him to understand. Unfortunately, when a reporter asked to see it, Burton couldn’t find the recording. He believed he’d accidentally deleted it or recorded over it while using his phone.

It was a frustrating loss, especially because employees had previously described seeing a man walking around the property with children. But the recordings Burton still had were attracting attention, and paranormal investigators wanted to spend more time inside the building.

Ghost Hunters Spent the Night Inside

Members of Haunted Auckland began making regular nighttime visits to the arts centre. They brought cameras, audio recorders, and other equipment, spending hours sitting quietly in different rooms and listening for unusual sounds. One investigator, Aimee Peterken, believed she’d communicated with the spirit of a nine-year-old girl named Patty during an earlier visit.

She said the girl had answered questions using a device that responded with lights. According to Peterken, the spirit had even taken part in a game of dominoes.

During a later investigation attended by Metro, the group set up equipment near the staircase where the pale figure had appeared on camera. For much of the evening, nothing happened. The investigators waited, listened, and checked their equipment, hoping to experience something similar to what Burton had recorded.

Then one investigator, Caroline Armstrong, noticed something downstairs. She had closed a door near the kitchenette earlier in the evening. When she returned, it was standing wide open.

Armstrong called out to the others, asking whether somebody had opened it. Nobody admitted touching the door. She explained that the door normally required some force to open, so she couldn’t understand how it had moved by itself.

The group made a note of the incident and continued investigating. Although they didn’t encounter the woman Burton believed he’d recorded, the open door gave them something new to talk about.

The Lake House Embraced Its Haunted Reputation

The Lake House remains an active arts centre, hosting exhibitions, classes, and community events inside its historic rooms. Over the years, its reputation for unusual activity has become part of the building’s identity. Paranormal groups have returned for further investigations, and visitors can learn about the reported encounters through the arts centre’s history.

The building’s archive even includes the famous April 13 security footage.

People can watch the recording and see the shape that caused so much excitement.