Creepy woods

[demographic]

Nope, if it's there you can see it, solid.
If its not then its made up by someone and most likely doesn't exist.

I suspect that some people are slightly more open to suggestion though

But then I have never believed in new age tat/religeon either as when asked to show some proof of a higher beings existance people seem to resort to saying you need faith

Regards Scott (burning in hell later, but at least I will be with the sinners so it's not all bad).

 

[nobby]

I very occasionally 'hear' my name called. When I do, I phone my mother who lives a couple of hundred miles away and she has been thinking about me. My father has always said that she isn't 'normal' :0)

 

[Spacemonkey]

Interesting thread. A few examples.

There is a wood near my old village of Harefield that neither me or my dog were keen on walking in. It's one of those funny little woods that has no noise. No birds, no scampering wildlife, you know- that kind of place. Always cold too. The first time my brother or my mum went through it, they felt the same without me ever saying anything. My whole family is 'sensitive' to these kind of things though. On quite a few occasions I have felt like i was being watched and stalked in the fields around there, if that makes sense, and so did the dog who was very spooked. Again, total silence at the time and no wildlife present. Didn't think much of it until I saw a big cat ( and i know what I saw...) there a little while later, and over the time i lived there I found much evidence of the cat that it had left behind. That would certainly have explained the situations.

In Christchurch, New Forest ish, there is a three arched railway bridge near the Royalty Fisheries in the meadows that I used to frequent as a sprog. Underneath was a black pool where the stream ran through that was very deep and dark. Nothing ever stirred and it was spooky as hell. Every time you went there you got the eeby jeebies. It wasn't just me, my dad had felt like it when he was a sprog, and so did my brother. My mate who now lives in my dads old house went there recently and told me how spooky and forboding the place is and he has never heard our descriptions of it before and is very sceptical of the supernatural. Back in the 30's there was a controversy about an older woman who used her young toy boy to knock off her husband, who was later sentanced to hang. She was seen stabbing herself 3 times and leaped off the bridge into the pool, but couldn't be found for days.....

There is a place on the Somme called Mametz woods, near the Welsh memorial (where that Sassoon chap went amok with a bag full of grenades in the German trenches) which has not been touched and left to revert back to the woods it was before. Inside, every shell hole is still visible as is the odd trench, and many shells themselves (as on the whole Somme). A few years ago my dad went on a guided tour of the area and a few of them went in the woods but felt a very oppresssive feeling and quickly left. While they were sat nearby at the memorial, one of the bloke's 4 year old son asked his dad why the soldiers wouldn't come out of the woods. Everyone fell silent and they decided to move on...

 

[BOD]

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 am not a sceptic and will act on a feeling that something is not right but I seldom if ever feel that way at night in the jungle (and I have been in the heart of Borneo) or in the Australian bush.

However, I have sometimes had a bad feeling on a country lane in Britain and a very very bad feeling walking one night on Exmoor.

I wonder whether it is that childhood stories were of places like that while I only heard scary jungle and bush stories when I was older

 

[Nigel Harper]

yes i know what you mean. there was a place in wales in a forest where i got very scared, we were walking and it was dark. but we were in the middle and had to carry on. but i've been there since in the dark and was okay so i think it was just the way i was feeling at the time. my friend got scared too but i think that was my fault.

 

[Dunelm]

Nope, if it's there you can see it, solid.
If its not then its made up by someone and most likely doesn't exist.

With respect, you couldn't be more wrong. Have you ever seen the wind? No, but you've seen it's effects. Open all your senses.

 

[Saskia]

For my study, I had to do fieldwork in an oak forest. I worked together with another student. We'd selected some locations but there weren't many suitable ones. One of the selected locations didn't feel right to me. When we finished fieldwork, I said to my fellow that I was happy we did not have to go there anymore. Then he said he had felt the same. Later, we heard from a forester that there had been a burial mound at that location, but it could not be seen anymore.

 

[demographic]

With respect, you couldn't be more wrong. Have you ever seen the wind? No, but you've seen it's effects. Open all your senses.

At least the wind can be measured in a scientific manner and yes I can see it's effects.

Its just a bit less solid that's all

It's provable, not like some things.

Much allong the lines of spirits and I am not buying it till it's (very unlikely to happen) proven in a scientific manner by someone that can remain objective.

 

[Dunelm]

At least the wind can be measured in a scientific manner and yes I can see it's effects.

Its just a bit less solid that's all

It's provable, not like some things.

Much allong the lines of spirits and I am not buying it till it's (very unlikely to happen) proven in a scientific manner by someone that can remain objective.

I think you are placing too much faith in science and those who practice it. Would you "buy it" if it happened to you?

 

[East Scout]

I believe that the more time you spend in the woods and away from the "civilized world" the more your senses grow akin to being where they are sappose to be..One time, long ago, after a week long trip we drove town to get something (cant remember what it was) and I smelled a Cigar. YUK!! No one in the car was smoking anything or had been. Well we went up the road through a few stop lites and low and behold there was a man standing on the corner smoking a cigar...This was probably a good 800 yards from where I first smelled it...We were well in town bt i was able to gather that smell..My point is that being away in the woods sharpened my sense of smell to a natural level and I believe that the more time you spend in your natural enviroment the better your sense become..No reason why there isnt senses we have, but dont identify w/, wont become hightened as well w/ time..So sure there is something to it all..

ES

 

[jason01]

I believe that the more time you spend in the woods and away from the "civilized world" the more your senses grow akin to being where they are sappose to be..One time, long ago, after a week long trip we drove town to get something (cant remember what it was) and I smelled a Cigar. YUK!! No one in the car was smoking anything or had been. Well we went up the road through a few stop lites and low and behold there was a man standing on the corner smoking a cigar...This was probably a good 800 yards from where I first smelled it...We were well in town bt i was able to gather that smell..My point is that being away in the woods sharpened my sense of smell to a natural level and I believe that the more time you spend in your natural enviroment the better your sense become..No reason why there isnt senses we have, but dont identify w/, wont become hightened as well w/ time..So sure there is something to it all..

ES

LOL man cigars do stink, I swear Ive picked up the smell of others cigar smoke in my car while driving down the motorway before now, and I probably wasnt driving very slowly

Not exactly a subtle smell, and Im a city dwelling fag smoker so theoretically I shouldnt have any sense of smell or tastebuds left

Ive camped on top of mountains and in forests many times on my own, sometimes I spook myself, once the paranoia starts it doesnt take much for it to start running riot, the imagniation is a powerful thing. Some places that have really spooked me have other associations that I was already aware of, throw in some sudden menacing or unusual weather and hey presto! But theres no doubt for whatever reason some places just feel plain wierd.

I like to keep an open mind on it, naturally very cynical and skeptical of others experiences but would actively seek any possible weird and wonderful experiences myself!

Having said that.....the places where I have felt most "spooked" have generally been empty/derelict/abandoned buildings, I can think of one or two that I just had to get out of, in particular theres a gothic mansion with history on the site going back 4 or 500 years, in a vast (by city standards) overgorwn woodland, the site was used as a mental hospital at one time and there are burned out buildings all over the place, in the tumbledown mansion itself Ive come across padded rooms, old x rays, and a mortuary with stone autopsy slab and other old discarded medical supplies, I couldnt stay in there on my own, and the woodlands around the site also make me uneasy. Not saying there are ghosts or any such, the background of the place and the artefacts there are food for the imagination enough, but much as I can reconcile what I feel in that place with logic I just dont like it there

Now being converted into 450 executive homes ROFLMAO thanks to John fat ***&& Prescotts office granting planning prmission against the advice of the local planning department and the local people who wanted it to be a park. Hope the damned builders have corpses popping out of the ground!

No that Ive started waffling I might as well carry on.....

Another interesting phenomonom (to me at least) are the hallucinations experienced by solitary endurance athletes, especially climbers at altitude where hallucinations are an accepted side effect of altitude sickness, Reinhold Messner describes quite touchingly walking with his brother and having a full on conversation with him while ascending everest solo, of course his brother was long dead in an accident on Nanga Parbat SP? if memory serves, fascinating stuff.

I like going to the Solstice at Stone Henge too, first year I went I was blown away by the aura coming from the crowded inner circle of stones, the drums in the centre are amplified by the stones, powerful stuff, a primeval beat all acoustic, ancient and right!

Unfortunately I feel its becoming more commercial by the year, full of tourists and sightseers, just a pre Glastonbury **** up, feels less spiritual each time I go.

 

[locum76]

i'm getting hairs standing on the back of my neck just reading this thread.

in the Balcaskie Estate near St Monans in fife there is an old wrecked churchyard which i used to walk through as a teenager to get to my friends house on a night out.

on the way back (admittedly usually in the wee small hours and massively worse for wear) i could not bring myself to go through the church yard. i'd walk an extra mile by the road just to avoid it.

 

[jason01]

When I was young enough to get away with this kind of thing we regularly used to sleep out in grave yards it all started as a dare, few pints down the pub in some mountaineering destination someone bet that I wouldnt sleep in the grave yard so I did.

Then on backpacking trips, if we were in the vacinity of a small town or village with no likely looking place to camp we would seek out the graveyard. Quiet peaceful pleasant and nobody would bother us and nobody ever seemed offended, in fact dog walkers often chatted to us if they stumbled over us at dawn. Now Im a little older and with the social climate somewhat different (even though it wasnt really all that long ago) I guess theyd probably call the police!

Just to add, while I personally am on the whole very anti mainstream religion (I see it as little more than a social/political control device) we were never disrespectful of the dead, quite the contrary. We used to joke that they probably enjoyed the company, and they certainly never bothered us

 

[demographic]

I think you are placing too much faith in science and those who practice it. Would you "buy it" if it happened to you?

As opposed to placing "faith" in something untangable and superstition?
IMO it's got nothing to do with being "tuned in" to the wilds, more to do with eating the wrong type of mushroom or sleep deprivation perhaps.

Placing faith in those who practice science? Errrr, don't we all practice science to some extent? Even everyday life we all have something to do with it, you can't escape its influence, even using a computer is putting faith in science to some extent isn't it?

Sticking with the provable things myself and don't think I will ever slip into Yvette Fielding mode

Early man tried to explain the things around him with the information avaliable (not much) at the time so I actually have some respect for those early people and their faiths, nowadays most of the time there are almost always better explanations avaliable so to me anyway, superstition can be banished from the mind.

Just my take on it and I am sure that many others think different.

Regards Scott.

 

[Spacemonkey]

When I was young enough to get away with this kind of thing we regularly used to sleep out in grave yards...we were never disrespectful of the dead, quite the contrary. We used to joke that they probably enjoyed the company, and they certainly never bothered us

Quite, cemeteries are lovely quiet places where you are very unlikely to be disturbed. Don't worry about the dead, what's left of them is 6 feet under, and you are unlikely to find ghosts there as nobody dies in cemeteries! It also makes me laugh when people won't go in a hearse... do they not realise how many people actually die in ambulances, yet they don't bat an eyelid at them!


For what it's worth I live in a funeral home, and it's the 7th or so that i have lived in and none of our customers downstairs have ever bothered me in anyway. At least I never get burglars or salespeople calling.....

 

[belto]

I used to be a sceptic about these types of things. However, after a few experiences i do think that it is possible to be influenced by things that you cannot see or touch.
Not long ago i was at my sisters house on my own and the atmopshere seemed really tense. I spoke to her about this after being spooked myself and she mentioned that her little girl had not been able to sleep and that she had heard a few strange noises. A couple of days later the atmosphere had gone.
My explanation is that it must have been someone passing over, or someone that was reluctant to pass over to the other side.
In my house i am sure we have the ghost of my grandma or my aunt (or both). It is a feeling that you have but in this case it is not threatning.
I was once told that spirits try to contact you through your dreams but they can only succeed when you are receptive and open minded about the whole issue.

 

[laurens ch]

I felt like I was being watched at a particular area, the dog didn’t like it either barking at thin air. Later I found out that the area was the site of a old village that was abandoned after a water borne disease stuck (typhoid if I remember rightly) .Not much left now just walls here and there I’m not the first to comment on the feeling of being watched I mentioned it to my father and he said he had a similar feeling.

 

[East Scout]

I used to be a sceptic about these types of things. However, after a few experiences i do think that it is possible to be influenced by things that you cannot see or touch.
Not long ago i was at my sisters house on my own and the atmopshere seemed really tense. I spoke to her about this after being spooked myself and she mentioned that her little girl had not been able to sleep and that she had heard a few strange noises. A couple of days later the atmosphere had gone.
My explanation is that it must have been someone passing over, or someone that was reluctant to pass over to the other side.
In my house i am sure we have the ghost of my grandma or my aunt (or both). It is a feeling that you have but in this case it is not threatning.
I was once told that spirits try to contact you through your dreams but they can only succeed when you are receptive and open minded about the whole issue.

We use to live far back in the woods off the main country road..It was just our place and another down tha lane past us...From the get go when we moved in the place felt "off"..I knew the people before us that lived there and they had one bad situation after another come thier way..from starnge illness, to fires and just wierd things happening in the home and woods.......Even the house down the lane was not at rest..We could hear them having at it on a regular schedule..The place just felt evil. But the area was absolutely beaufitul........Well shortly after moving in I lost my job then my wife came down w/ a strange tumor. For no reason..She was only 20 or so at the time.......Thing really went down hill after that,,Even after she had the tumaor removed and recovered it was just one thing after another....I was talking to a mate of mine about the feeling this place gave off and he thought I was nuts..Well I learned about 6 months ago him and his new wife moved in there and indeed the strangel rythum of bad energy got to them to..She now has a tumortoo but its cancer and they have had nothing but one bad situation after another come thier way...I dont know who use to live on that land before it was settled..By the growth of the forest it had never been touched and was probably original so who knows what may have happened there.......Soon after moving from the place everything fell back into a normal state..I wont even visit my mate out that way..The place is right evil..

ES

 

[Emma]

At least the wind can be measured in a scientific manner and yes I can see it's effects.

Its just a bit less solid that's all

It's provable, not like some things.

Much allong the lines of spirits and I am not buying it till it's (very unlikely to happen) proven in a scientific manner by someone that can remain objective.

I haven't time to look up the studies, but there have been studies on the subjects of ghosts and other strange phenomenon. Sites where ghost sightings and strange feelings occur often (or usually) have interesting electromagnetic radiation readings (low wavelengths I seem to recall). Putting people in a normal place where they feel happy, safe, secure, etc etc, and then radiating these low wavelengths around them tend to cause them to feel things, physically touching them, and/or mentally affecting them much like people report from ghost sightings and feelings. When the radiation stops, the feelings stop and they're happy again.
I seem to remember that one particular 'ghost', a greyish blur that floated around in the corner of ones eye in a lab of some description was eventually traced to low frequencies emitted by a ceiling fan! Once the fan was replaced, the ghost never made another appearance.


As for my personal expereinces, nothing really. I used to be absolutely terrified of a clear night sky when I was a kid, but I learnt that so long as I didn't look up, I was fine. That fear has long since gone though, and since then the most scared I've been was in a chuchyard. When I was in 6th Form I walked through a churchyard every morning at around 6:45am, and obviously in winter it was still pitch black at that time. One morning, I saw something standing just off my path. As I got closer it looked like a person with a jumper tied around their waist. They were standing stock still. I was scared because I thought this person was waiting for me to attack me or something, because I could barely see them, and they were standing so still, much like I stand when I'm waiting for some wildlife to accept me as part of the landscape and come out. For some reason I will never fathom, I kept on walking towards this person. As I got closer, I could make out legs, but nothing above the waist. I kept walking, I'm not sure I could stop myself. When I got there, it turned out to be a brand new dog poo bin that had obviously been installed during the previous day. Did I feel silly!

 

[East Scout]

I love this thread..Im loaded w/ stories like this..


Me and a few mates were out on a weekend survival training get together...One of the guy I had been training w/ for over a year was really being a pain in the butt..So much so we almost had a scrap right there in the forest...I couldnt figure out w/ his problem was and no one else could either. I had never seen him act that way nor had any of the other lads...It was like it wasnt even the mate I knew...Well I was taking some final photos of each member just before we hiked out of the swamp..When i took them to the market to get them developed the last one I took of him had what appeared to be a face over where his face was during his pose for the picture.....THAT made my hair stand up...Everyone I showed it to said it looked right evil...

I do have the picture on my computer but I dont know how to hyperlink and all that jazz......Id love to share it...

ES