By Tim Binnall
Authorities in England are on the hunt for a group of artifact-seeking ne'er-do-wells who caused considerable damage to the grounds of a notoriously haunted castle. The unfortunate incident reportedly occurred early Sunday morning when six individuals descended upon the Berry Pomeroy Castle in the county of Devon. The visitors proceeded to take part in the practice known as 'nighthawking,' an illegal activity akin to archaeological grave robbing wherein someone steals artifacts, usually by way of a metal detector, from a historic site while under the cloak of darkness. In this instance, the rogue excavation was revealed the following day when the sun rose and caretakers discovered what had unfolded hours earlier.
Specifically, the nighthawks had disturbed ten sizeable patches of grass that they dug up around the grounds of the castle where, presumably, their metal detector indicated something could be found. Adding proverbial insult to injury, the group also left behind a fair amount of trash. In a testament to the serious nature of the crime, an official with English Heritage lamented that "the damage caused by unskilled digging of holes on a nationally important site like this is irreversible. We shall never know how much knowledge has been lost about the history of Berry Pomeroy Castle due to this disturbance of the buried archaeology."
That said, it is uncertain if the nighthawks' pursuit was successful or if they simply gave up after finding nothing of value in the various spots that they disturbed over the course of the night. For their sake, one hopes that the latter scenario took place as stealing an artifact from a notoriously haunted castle is likely not the best thing for one's karmic health. To that end, police are investigating the incident and there would appear to be a good chance that the perpetrators will be brought to justice as at least one of them wound up being caught on camera wandering around outside the castle that night.