Creepy woods

[wentworth]

A few years ago a friend and I were camped on the side of a trail and had a fire going. Suddenly we heard footsteps of something large and heavy walking in the darkness behind our camp. I know everything sounds big in the bush at night, but you could tell this thing was.
We stood up and turned on our lights to try and see what was making the noise. But everytime we did, the footsteps stopped. Once the torch was switched off, they resumed.
The steps did a semicircle of our camp, to the edge of the trail, before turning and walking the opposite way. Needless to say we were pretty scared at this point.
My friend woke up during the night and told me that he could still hear the steps going.

Now with fear of being laughed off this forum, we chatted to some locals who have had numerous "Yowie" sightings. They have done trips with infrared gear, as well as attended police stakeouts in the area. They told me that the area we had been camping is one of the crossing spots for the creatures.
I realise that this sounds absolutely ridiculous, so I don't expect anyone to believe this straight off.
Have a look at the site www.yowiehunters.com on which there are thousands of sightings, the earliest going back to the 1st settlers, all over the country. I read that Les Hiddens had written about finding "possible primate nests".

Anyway, end of my supernatural (or not) rant. Hopefully I'm not now branded as a loony

 

[benmatthews90]

EAST HILL in devon
its evil
i went up there and i got that same feeling that someone was watching me

i tell you i slept with my axe under my pillow that night
only after i found out hat there are weird people up thar if you know what i mean
(sorry if you live up there you probably arn't the spawn of satan but it certainly felt strange and not in a good way )

 

[benmatthews90]

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!

i totally agree only 10% of our senses perception we would be able to recognise i.e 90% of the stuff you see simply goes towards giving you a feeling (good or bad) therest is the stuff you actually see and could actually pick out

 

[geoff88]

This thread is starting to sound like a cross between Blair Witch and squeal like a pig.
However it has happened to me a couple of times while wild camping beside my bike in France and Spain.

 

[Ditch Monkey]

Great.

I had managed to persuade myself that the "something" that lives near my spot in the woods was nothing more than a figment of my imagination and I should ignore it when it follows me home - not that I tend to walk that way in the dark any more. Now I'm not so sure again.

Thanks guys!

The best thought I had whilst utterly convinved that something was following me was "maybe all those horror films are true stories", that thought helped a lot.

 

[bambodoggy]

I am, as I've said below, a little sceptical about things like this but I'm willing to go with the idea that some of you have had these experiences...heck just coz it hasn't happened to me I'm certainly not calling you chaps liers....so, here's a question:

Several people have felt presences, cold feelings, unwelcomeness, being watched and some have even seen apperitions right? Has anybody ever been directly attacked by any of these things? Does anybody personally know somebody that has been?
I'm not talking about feeling or followings, I mean actually attacked and hurt? I'm interested in people being chased too but if you got away then maybe the ghost was just bluffing.
Can these things actually do any harm other than to frazzle your nerves?

We have talked about these things being unfriendly and causing us to feel uncomfortable but has anybody actually stood up to these things and said "Yer, what do you want? I'm not affraid of you and there's bog all you can do to me, either come out and let chat or just naff off and leave me alone"! If you have did you get a responce? Did you get no responce but feel better...or worse?

I'm interested to see if we are interpretting these things properly....are they really scarey or are we just living the human trait of fearing the unknown? Are we assuming that they are unfriendly when really they are just mis-understood?

So, anybody been hurt by a ghost or shouted one down with noticeale results?

Cheers,

Bam.

 

[geoff88]

I think the time in Spain it was because I was stopped near a stream. I thought I could hear voices, this was miles for anywhere in central Spain, however it was probably just the noise from the stream. Probably.

 

[Floyd Soul]

I was camping with my friends in the woods last week and we were convinced something was moving outside. Its so easy to hear things in the woods though, but I still had my knife in my hand!

 

[SowthEfrikan]

Carl Sagan wrote a brilliant book called "The Demon Haunted World" which, if you are interested in this kind of thing, you really need to read.

Basically, he argues it's all hookey, and does so very well, from ghosts and demons in the old days that have become today's aliens. He shatters the myths.

Anyway, I have lots of scarey stories, but the only one relating to backpacking happened just a few months ago. We went hiking and ran into this chap who was a little wierd and the subject of bigfoot and shapeshifters came up. Harr harr harr. Bigfoot is supposed to hang around the fringes of this area, and we actually know a guy who is convinced that bigfoot is taking food from him and leaving pebbles. He's a perfectly rational chap, except for this one thing.

So, anyway, there we are in our tarptent, happily camped in the woods right next to the lake, when we hear this howl out of hell. At first I thought it was a woman screaming - there were other campers nearby - but it turned into something like a roar and a dog bark. I asked my hubby what it was and he said a coyote. We could hear the other campers shouting and moving about, and I wondered if it had come after their dog. That dog did not make a sound.

Well, the next day my husband finally admitted he had no idea what it was and had told me coyote to make me feel comfortable - he's familiar with coyotes. He logged on to a bigfoot site just out of curiousity and the next thing I hear the coyote. Except it's supposed to be a bigfoot call.

I still don't believe in bigfoot, but it was odd.

 

[geoff88]

I miss Cars Sagen, such a terrible loss that he died so young.

 

[mercury]

I have myself been scared whitless many times, usually when its dark or I'm tired. The mind is a great trickster when it has nothing to occupy it.

However one time does stick in my cloudy memory and that was in the early eightys around the time of the Falklands war. I had been walking out on the North yorks moors around the Pickering to Goatlandss steam railway, part of my trek took me down a long re-entrant that was wooded on both side by conifers trees and etc. At the top the woods were thin but as I made my way down the light started to become more patchy as the trees grew ever higher. Soon, as the trees deadend the sound of my footfall on the forest floor strewn with dead pine needles, I became aware that I was the only creature in the forest that day....So why did I feel the need to turn and check over my teenage shoulder every so often ? Why did my pulse begin to race ? Why did I feel there was something on the rise looking down on me ?

Thankfully soon the forest ended and once again the sun smiled down on me, my thoughts were soon forgotten as I clambered my way over the fallen branches and trunks of trees that the forestry guys had felled recently. Forgotton that was until I came across one fallen stump that had the undergrowth cleared from under it, an attempt at shelter perhaps ? I'll never know.

What I do know is that inside were some trousers, some empty food wrappers and a map of the area.

I ran all the way to Levisham halt for my pickup

Later that same week an ex sas soldier went on the rampage and killed some local police officers, holed up in an old couples house and was later to end his life behind a cricket screen on Malton cricket ground. His name was ISTR Mike Ryan.

Was the hide his ? Was the map his ?

 

[dwardo]

I love the remark,

"I am sure there was something moving in the woods that night"

I even say it my self but of course there is a multitude of things moving around in the woods squirels, badgers, various birds, and you should be surprised an worried if there isny anything moving around.

A good thing for confidence is have one of your friends try to sneak up on you camp in the dark, its allmost impossible "crunch snap russle etc" especially if in a wooded area. Where you should be worried is walking through the middle of town at night or through your local estate (unfortunately)

As far as fear of the unkown goes its a perfectly reasonable human response and has kept us alive for thousands of years. This goes hand in hand with relion and the belief the power inanimate objects. There was a study recently and there was a guy with a ordinary looking old jumper and he said to a class of several people who will wear this for me ? most said yes. Then he said it was fred wests jumper who will wear it now ? most said no, this of course turned out to be false. If you scan around im sure there is an article about it. ill stop rambling on now lol

 

[trikey]

anyone got any advice on how to overcome these fears, I`m becoming a backyard bushcrafter as i get so freaked out when i`m in the woods day and night,
cheers

 

[ArkAngel]

It's a difficult thing to overcome, once your mind has decided that "there is something bad out there" it's not easy to convince it otherwise.

The main, and hardest way IMO is to confront it head on. If it helps take a powerfull torch with you. I have a 1,000,000 candle power ex-traffic police torch for this purpose, there is not much to fear when you can see everything within 3/4 of a mile

It amazing how little information the brain takes in when walking round in daylight. An area i used to walk around in a lot as a kid, then later paintball in at night became a different and confusing space. I lost many a game shooting a human shaped tree stump get used to an area, walk it in early morning, during the day and in the evening. Get used to the sights sounds and smells. A familliar place is a happy place.

As bambodoggy said " how many people have been hurt by a ghost ?"

I don't know who said it but the phrase " There is nothing to fear but fear itself" rings true here i think

 

[sharp88]

Put a 12 or 20 gauge or .410 in my hand and I'l feel fine.

Its not the ghostys Im afraid of, its the mad, mongoloid, mini bike riding, pikey-council estate boys. Iv been out on several occaisions with friends and family when some n*b-end comes tearing past shredding the grass up and breaking the crust of the cow-pats. There more intimidating than dangerous though, as in: fence post + pikey's head + 35 mph = one battered pikey.

 

[scooby]

"fence post + pikey's head + 35 mph = one battered pikey."

spoken like a true pikey hater.. homage to you sir!

 

[Sickboy]

Have had a few chilling feeling's run through me over the years, strangly mostly once i've stopped and decided where i'm spending the night, totally refuse to move at that point for no real reason, still here so point proved
Only once have i felt the need to get a shift on, was in a large woods that i knew well, had taken my mothers horse out for a late evening ride after school (didnt happen often) and went a little far so by the time i was heading back through the woods it was totally dark, just a very misty moonlight to be had, i had a real strong feeling that i shouldnt be there, the mare i was riding just stopped in her tracks and just kept spinning in circles, nostrils flaring etc etc, very strange as she was pretty bombproof and new the woods as well as me.
Now i'm thinking what the hell's going on here? with all the movement from the horse i couldnt hear anything and due to the mist there wasnt much to look at either, just scrub and tree's. In the end i had to get off the thing and literally drag her to the edge of the woods with a really cold feeling running over me. strange when dragging a horse for 200m .
Anyway once out she settled a little and i hopped back on, let's jst say the pair of us were pretty eager to get back to the stables but the amount of sweat on the old girl was insane
Looking back there may have been a few reasons for this, a month or so later she was diagnosed by the vet with a eye problem causing eyemisting that eventually led to blindness (and the bullit ), also horses and all animals will pick up on your own feelings, maybe she felt me tense up and reacted, but this was a ex school horse used to new tense riders!!! As for me i've no idea, i've camped and walked through there before and since and never felt like that again, very very odd

 

[Zodiak]

I don't know who said it but the phrase " There is nothing to fear but fear itself" rings true here i think

Wasn't it Kennedy or Rosevelt?

How about "Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering" Yoda

 

[Spacemonkey]

However one time does stick in my cloudy memory and that was in the early eightys around the time of the Falklands war....What I do know is that inside were some trousers, some empty food wrappers and a map of the area.

Later that same week an ex sas soldier went on the rampage and killed some local police officers, holed up in an old couples house and was later to end his life behind a cricket screen on Malton cricket ground. His name was ISTR Mike Ryan.

Was the hide his ? Was the map his ?

Doubtful. The Falklands was about '82, and Michael Ryan went on the rampage in 1987, and in Hungerford, Wiltshire. He certainly wasn't ex SAS, but was a Walter Mitty type instead, who killed lots of civilians, but not any coppers I believe . He killed himself in his old school which he had holed up in. If you're thinking of someone else who was ex SAS going on the rampage, then I doubt the 'shelter' would have been his with all that stuff left there?

Still, sounds creepy enough though.

 

[hammy]

I remember this, the guys name was Barry Peter Prudom,
He was holed up in Dalby forrest.
I think they got ex SAS in to flush him out.