Creepy woods

[Daniel Edwards]

I was in the woods the other day (Stratfield Brake for anyone who knows the Oxford area) and I felt really uncomfortable. I was walking through this small piece of woodland and it felt as if something was watching and following me, I'm sure you know the felling.
I find this strange because there is woodland and meddows down the other end of my village (StMary's fileds) and I'm not bothered one bit by this place, nor by any other woodland I remember being in.

I was wondering if anyone else found specific places 'creepy' like this, because I find it interesting that only this place makes me feel like this.

 

[ArkAngel]

I can walk round any part of the farm i live on and fell comfortable.

There is one part however walking along an old railway line where i cross under a viaduct (Crimple Viaduct for anyone who knows the area) where i can't exactly say i feel uncomfortable i just don't want to hang around near it in the dark!

This is quite a popular spot for people with serious or mental issues to go bungee jumping minus a rope (i think 4 or 5 in total) so draw your own conclusions. Residual misery from some very unhappy people or have i just watched too many Hellraiser movies?

You decide.........i can't

 

[Razorstrop]

Always wondered when this would come up.
It all depends on what you believe really. I've been plenty of places outdoors and in and have known I have had company despite there being no-one else around. And theres plenty of places I wouldnt stay over night despite carrying a small arsenal with me.
Personally I feel I have been enough places and seen enough things to know that there is something to it, more than a conventional explanation, although I can tell you a tale or two about how something perfectly normal scared the crap out of me.

As bushcrafters some of us are a little more tuned into our surroundings and whats going on around us, it would make sense that we are 'open' to the idea that there are other forces at play, some good and some not so good. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there are a few thousand strange tales to be told just from the membership here.

So next time you go for a walk on your own, its always worth a wonder if you really are...........


Strop

 

[Abbe Osram]

I was in the woods the other day (Stratfield Brake for anyone who knows the Oxford area) and I felt really uncomfortable. I was walking through this small piece of woodland and it felt as if something was watching and following me, I'm sure you know the felling.
I find this strange because there is woodland and meddows down the other end of my village (StMary's fileds) and I'm not bothered one bit by this place, nor by any other woodland I remember being in.

I was wondering if anyone else found specific places 'creepy' like this, because I find it interesting that only this place makes me feel like this.

yep, I do and respect my intuitions, I am not going there where it feels fishy.
Simple as that, I camp and stay where it feels good and the right place for me.
Somehow I believe that we have a sense which is more than the normal senses we are running around with. If more people would listen to their intuitions maybe they would get in less troubble.

cheers
Abbe

 

[mjk3k]

I can walk round any part of the farm i live on and fell comfortable.

There is one part however walking along an old railway line where i cross under a viaduct (Crimple Viaduct for anyone who knows the area) where i can't exactly say i feel uncomfortable i just don't want to hang around near it in the dark!

This is quite a popular spot for people with serious or mental issues to go bungee jumping minus a rope (i think 4 or 5 in total) so draw your own conclusions. Residual misery from some very unhappy people or have i just watched too many Hellraiser movies?

You decide.........i can't

This is my first post ... i have a few places i wouldnt like to be by my self, i dont know if it is just i have seen some thing or my subconsious knows some thing is wrong

 

[RHGraham]

yep, I do and respect my intuitions, I am not going there where it feels fishy.
Simple as that, I camp and stay where it feels good and the right place for me.
Somehow I believe that we have a sense which is more than the normal senses we are running around with. If more people would listen to their intuitions maybe they would get in less troubble.

cheers
Abbe

I'm with you 100% Abbe.
That pre-programmed gut instinct has been with all of us long before the damn tele got into our heads and makes closer to being stupid every hour we allow it in our day. I believe it's something well worth paying attention too.

There was an alder swamp on the farm i grew up that bisected our farmland, had to go by it or through it to get to the woodland we had, myself and every kid I knew and grew up with were totally creeped-out by that bog, day or night.
It just had a heavy "you don't need to be messin round in here" feeling about it.

 

[bilko]

I know exactly what you mean. it is a sensation that i have felt many times. Sometimes in woods although more than not it has been along country lanes. To put it into words i would use accute apprehension and moderate fear to best describe it. A feeling of dread and panick also, enough to bring about the flight instinct definately.
I have had several experiences of this abroad also. In Spain where my mum lives. These particular instances are more invited by my receptiveness to paranormal/spiritual though and stem from ghost stories told to me by my grandparents. I believe they are imprinted memories of violence on a place or extreme woe experienced on mass at a certain place. I put the Spanish incidences down to old soldiers who perished in some way, they are more to do with spirituality i think. Whereas the Bad Feeling one experiences are more nature and Folk related.
It's suprising, the chill a whisp of wind can send through you as it swirls up a pile of leaves or a cold damp silence down a lonely country lane. I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with ley lines.
Infact there is an ancient myth about hounds and horses with soldiers and if you see them you die or something. I think it's a norse myth.
Even now, just thinking of such a lane sends shivers down me......Black stalion with red eyes etc :aargh4: :aargh4:
What is telling though is that such a grip can be broken. If you are stout of heart and have plenty of company with a hearty fire you can break the mood. it is only when we look inwards or out from the fire that panick returns.

Very interesting thread, i'll try and find that norse story.

Edited to add
I was about ' The wild hunt', a norse legend about Odin riding an 8 legged horse so i think i was thinking of something else.

 

[Singeblister]

I was recalling my tales to a friend just last week so its strange this thread pops up.
I wont go into the details but I have also experienced what your talking about, I sometimes look into a place which creeps me out and find out about its past. One place is an old train bridge across a valley where as stated above people leaped to there death.
I think we all have a 6th sense just some are more in tune with it than others, It would be good to get round a fire and share tales at some point

 

[Seagull]

This is my first post ... i have a few places i wouldnt like to be by my self, i dont know if it is just i have seen some thing or my subconsious knows some thing is wrong

Welcome to the camp, mjk3k.

Ceeg

 

[Seagull]

Yeah, strange, isnt it?

Hands up, for me , on this one.
Have felt my back prickle many times, and I always take heed of that feeling.

On the route to one of my winter fishing spots, theres a rarely used country road . (just to give one example)
With a certain half-mile stretch, lined each side with large trees, of the stylised and deliciously frightening/animated sort , found in kids bedtime books.( before P.C.)

I love trees, large, small, minature, but, by golly, I take that particular stretch as fast as possible, day or night. Brrrrrrrrrr.

I know I aint alone. :aargh4: :aargh4: :aargh4:


Ceeg

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

yup me to!

i think there are 3 reasons for this:

1. though we may have done the trip 100's of times humans still have a "fear of the unknown" however silly it might seem afterwards.

2. we have 5 senses and when in an unusual enviroment i reakon, they are telling us stuff we just can't decipher.
i've noticed when walking i tend to notice more smells than my wife, so often i will smell a foxes scent marking, which tells me a fox has been in the area, mabey unconsiously we pick up even more indistinct, smells and sounds that we can't put our finger on so our brain translates the senses as fear?

3. mabey some of the fear or translation of it is a hand me down from neolithic times that we just need to hone?

i have had many a sence of "someone watching me" chances are it's not someone, more several "cute furry" something's!

 

[pothunter]

On a small farm where I have shot for years there is an orchard there are often mares with foals in the orchard thru the summer and its always a happy place. The horses are all used for hunting and we shoot there to allow them to get used to the noise, when the foals see that the mares are not spooked by the noise they are not worried, in fact the bigest problem is their curiosity.
About 5 years ago early September I was walking thru the orchard to get down to the river with a view to shooting an early season mallard, my old spaniel was hunting around the hedgerows when I had the stongest feeling that I was not alone, the dog came to heal without being asked and when I stopped pressed herself against me. As an involuntry action I loaded the gun, realy uncomfortable, literaly the hairs on the back of my kneck stood up like bristles. We stood silently in the orchard for about five minutes (seemed like for ever) no direction felt safe, It was almost as though we were in a vaccum.
Eventualy I made my way to the gate only about 20 paces it felt as though I was wearing lead boots, passed thru the gate and stepped over the stream, the feeling lifted instantly and I mean instantly like flicking a switch, the dog was off again hunting every tussock of grass.
I have walked thru that orchard hundreds of times since not a flicker of any discomfort day or night.
Whatever was there that evening reached something in me that I did not know existed.
Funny thing is that I miss the level of exitement/fear whatever it was that I experienced that evening. My senses were in overdrive even now I can recall an extrodinary level of detail from that experince.

Make of that what you will, I don't have an explanation.

 

[bambodoggy]

I've been to places that give me the creeps sure but not to the extent that you guys seems to have.
Sometimes i'll stop to camp in a place and it doesn't feel right and I move on to another site but it tends to be things that feel not as great as they could be rather than actually hostile.

I think half the problem is that we are from an early age filled with tales and warnings of "boggymen" in the country and I would guess that a lot of the time we are subconsiously winding ourselves up.

I have sat alone in woods at night and managed to scare the bejesus out of myself but I know it's only me doing it, I've also been spooked by other people's tails of trouble in a certain woods down in kent but that passed by the next night too.

I'm not saying you guys haven't had the exeriences you say you've had, that would be foolhardy of me as I simply don't know what others have experienced but I've never experienced anything I couldn't rationally explain in the morning or through my own mind playing tricks on me.

I've opened fire on sheep on exercise in Senny bridge when I haven't slept for a few days and my brains not with it and I've wanted to open fire on things in the jungle for the same reason but fought the urge and found it only to be other wildlife.

In short, I'm not saying I don't believe or that I don't get odd feelings from time to time but nothing on the scale you lads say you do! lol I'm suprised any of you go out in the woods still! lol

Sandbender told me an interesting tale from when he backpakced around eastern europe....said he wasn't happy in a certain patch of forest in transilvainia.....hardly suprising you might think but it's an interesting story from somebody whom I suspect doesn't creep easily, if he's about on here I'm sure he'll tell the rest of you.

Happy (ghost) hunting all,

Bam.

 

[falling rain]

Right................. I expect to be laughed at but I'll tell you anyway.

About 8 years ago I was walking my dog Lily in Shotover country park and on the way back I was walking down a track and an apparition glided across the track around 20 yards ahead of me. It was a very tall thin figure, I guess about 8ft tall and appeared to be wearing a long brown smock with a hood. It glided across the track and through a fence of barbed wire, but didn't 'raise up' as you would expect someone to do if they were stepping over a fence it just went straight through it. Lily stopped walking and stared at the figure too so it wasn't just me. It certainly shook me up a bit and I walked very quickly down the track and home. I've been up and down this track literally 100's of times and never seen anything before or since......................spooky!!

 

[Phil562]

Right................. I expect to be laughed at but I'll tell you anyway.

About 8 years ago I was walking my dog Lily in Shotover country park and on the way back I was walking down a track and an apparition glided across the track around 20 yards ahead of me. It was a very tall thin figure, I guess about 8ft tall and appeared to be wearing a long brown smock with a hood. It glided across the track and through a fence of barbed wire, but didn't 'raise up' as you would expect someone to do if they were stepping over a fence it just went straight through it. Lily stopped walking and stared at the figure too so it wasn't just me. It certainly shook me up a bit and I walked very quickly down the track and home

Nick - youv'e been smoking those funny cigarettes again

 

[PJMCBear]

I don't seem to get creeped out that much when on my tod in the woods. I do avoid areas where bush parties might be held though. Some people have some strange ideas about what is fun.

 

[falling rain]

Nick - youv'e been smoking those funny cigarettes again

Ahhhh..........sussed me out Phil .

 

[andyn]

I agree with Bam on the woods front, in my personal experience the only thing that has every made me think i was being watched was the deer or squirells staring at me.

However thats not to say that I don't agree with what your saying because, there are a few houses that have made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Also myself and a colleague saw a "ghost" or whatever you want to call it, when we worked in Woolworths. I won't go into the story as its best saved for campfires but its left me far more option to the suggestion that something it out there, I just don't know what or why.

 

[Dunelm]

I don't "spook easy" and I have no time for New Age quackery but I do think that people can feel things that are not immediately obvious and that these things are perhaps amplified when alone in wild places.

As a kid I spent all my time in the local woods but there was one patch that really spooked me and even now I would be hesitant to go to; it was quite boggy with a little beck/stream and very steep banks. I can vividly recall running from the place in sheer terror as a kid of about 8 or 9. The parapsychologist TC Lethbridge did a lot of work regarding the sightings of what he called "ghouls" or negative / malign feelings in wet areas.

Some 10 years back I was orienteering in a forest on the North York Moors, inland from Robin Hoods Bay and had a strange experience. I had to descend into a very deep dark gulley to check off a post and having done so I found myself in a gloomy twilight space that felt very "alien". The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got a feeling of rising panic until I had to quickly scramble back up the gulley. The ancient Greeks were aware of this phenomena and personified it as Pan, the god of the wilderness and wastes who would instill "Pan-ic" in those who encountered him.

More recently my wife got a very uneasy feeling when walking in some field between Croxdale and Durham, she felt very upset and was on the point of tears. This was the Butcher's Race where in the 13th century a raiding party of Scott's were literally butchered in a running rout by our stout (and bloodthirsty)ancestors - not that she knew that until I told her.

None of this stops me from going out into the woods at any and every opportunity.

 

[Daniel Edwards]

I'm glad I'm not alone, some of you have described the exact same thing as what I experienced.

Posted by Falling Rain
Right................. I expect to be laughed at but I'll tell you anyway.

About 8 years ago I was walking my dog Lily in Shotover country park and on the way back I was walking down a track and an apparition glided across the track around 20 yards ahead of me. It was a very tall thin figure, I guess about 8ft tall and appeared to be wearing a long brown smock with a hood. It glided across the track and through a fence of barbed wire, but didn't 'raise up' as you would expect someone to do if they were stepping over a fence it just went straight through it. Lily stopped walking and stared at the figure too so it wasn't just me. It certainly shook me up a bit and I walked very quickly down the track and home. I've been up and down this track literally 100's of times and never seen anything before or since......................spooky!!

Great, now I'm going to be looking out for this when I'm in Shotover next! And I'll probably trick myself into seeing it.