 When the 2006 movie Night at the Museum hit our screens, it opened up our imaginations in a child-friendly way of exploring the mystery of the past. Magical Goings On took place at Night in New York's iconic Natural History Museum and it seems that for a group of security guards guarding the British Museum that these happenings are actually commonplace and spooky goings on have been reported by one group of guards for almost 30 years now, predating a children's book that the movie was based on and asking the question if there is in fact a sinister truth behind the fantasy. Wait, do you hear this? It has now come to light during the time of lockdown that the security for the British Museum have been complaining about a whole host of goings on, taking place during the night including crying amongst the incredible array of eight million artifacts housed at the famous London attraction that seemed to come to life at night time. Reporting in the Economist 1843 magazine with the headline, Argos Haunting the British Museum, Kylian Fox begins his report by describing the after-hour events that take place within the walls of the museum, describing a palpable change that is extremely similar to the plot of the movie. The museum is the most popular tourist attraction in Britain with more than 6.2 million people visiting in 2019 and over 17,000 new visitors every day before lockdown. Without these visitors, the relentless thromb of activity beneath the glass and steel lattice roof of the Great Court fades to a whisper. A thick silence fills the cavernous galleries that surround it, each one loaded with artifacts that encompass the far-reaching arc of human history and the anomalous understanding of the past. By the time the night shift begins, most of the lights in the museum have been switched off or dimmed, and the security staff who patrol the length and breadth of the 14-acre complex until early morning carry out many of their duties by torchlight. By torchlight here, they are using the British interpretation of the flashlight for all of us here in North America. Scouring the premises for anomalies such as water leaks or the smell of gas, they cast their beams into dark corners. The shadows melting back to reveal a warlike Roman bust of an Aztec mask with shiny eyes and teeth. They may even confront a real human being like the body of an Egyptian king or queen 5,500 years dead recreated inside a sandy grave. Even without visitors, the museum is never completely silent and the main building which dates back to the 1820s and has been expanded and reconfigured ever since is alive with creeks as old buildings are prone to be. The guards are accustomed to such disturbances, but ever so often a patrol encounters a noise, a flash of movement, or simply a sudden lurch in the pit of the stomach that stops even hardened veterans in their tracks. Sometimes it's the doors, but to complete a full circuit of the museum, more than 3,000 doors need to be opened and closed and some of these, particularly ones that seal off the major galleries, are cumbersome to shut, but when bolted they won't open again without a tussle except when they do. Take the Sutton Hoo Gallery for example, the so-called greatest ever archaeological discovery which houses treasures from an Anglo-Saxon ship. Among them is a ferocious looking helmet believed to have been worn by the king of the East Angles in the 7th century. On one occasion a guard bolted the double doors and moved on to the next room, only to be informed by a CCTV operator that the doors stood wide open again and video footage of the gallery showed them moving spontaneously. Sometimes it's a sudden drop in temperature like the unnerving patches of cold air that linger next to the winged, human had a bull of Nimrud at the entrance of the Assyrian galleries. Sometimes it's the sound of footsteps or music or a crime where no obvious source can be found. And sometimes it might be the objects themselves like this one night when a security guard was passing through the African galleries in the basement and paused for a moment before the figure of the two headed dog. The guard believed this 19th century wooden Congolese fetish bristling with rough iron nails possessed some mysterious power. On this particular night he felt an irresistible compulsion to point his finger at it and as he did so the fire alarms in the gallery went off. A few days later the guard returned to the gallery with his brother who also pointed to the two headed dog again and alarms sounded. These stories were all told directly or indirectly to Noah Engel an American artist and storyteller who has been researching haunting at the British Museum since 2016 but there are many other tales too of spectacular figures cropping up in visitors' photographs. Right around 3am on this one occasion an alarm went off in one of the restrooms and a pair of guards rushed over to check what was going on. However, nothing seemed amiss until a guard received a call from a CCTV operator who said that large balls of white light were hovering above a staircase in the Great Court and chasing each other through the air. We can't see anything the security guards responded. They're all around you the CCTV operator replied. The appearance of the orbs coincided with an exhibition called Germany Memories of a Nation which ran from October 2014 to January 2015. The guard who stood among the balls of light wondered if they might be connected to one of the exhibits a white wrought iron gate from the concentration camp at Buhenwald that bore the motto Jedim das Zani to each what he deserves. You get objects that hold energy the guard explained. Nothing else in that exhibition was anything that will have caused something like that. I'm really not surprised if someone attached to that object was to come with it. You couldn't blame them to be quite honest. I'm happy to have them here. The orbs appeared at the same time each night until the exhibition ended. When Germany went the security guard said they went. By the turn of the 19th century antiquities were flooding into the museum from overseas at an extraordinary rate. Few people seem to mind or notice the oddity of calling a museum British when it contained objects that were anything but. By 1801 when the British army seized the Rosetta Stone from the French in Egypt Lord Elgin had already begun stripping marble statues and panels from the Parthenon. Much of the current debate around restitution has its roots in that period. European powers roamed the globe divided it between them and sent the treasures home. Not everything was acquired illegally. Some items were bought, exchanged or received as gifts though there's a question as to how freely a gift is given. If it's handed over to a man at the head of a platoon of bayonets for example but what do you guys think of these strange little goings on? Are the artifacts crying to return to their native place of origin or is something else going on? Comments below and as always thank you for watching. Hi, thank you. I'm Larry Daly from Natural History in New York. They let you travel? Well this is kind of unusual. Well they let me travel you know where? No. Home, here, home, back here, off to the two, five minute maximum. Save that must be like what wicked being a security guard in America. With your gun, with the silencer, with your ninja swords. That's not even a little bit true.