Spooky encounters

[Yohny]

Hi - new member here, but a lifelong enthusiast of wild places & living with nature. Probably get a lot of stick for bringing this up, but have any of you been spooked while sleeping out alone or had any experience that was unnerving (other than the voice in the middle of the night - "oi! Get off moi land!"). Just wondering as over the years I've had a few spooky experiences & when you're out there alone at night in a forest or moorland the old mind does wander!
Cheers!

 

[Tekeeler]

Not really although a squirrel did run into the guy of my hootchi just after dawn when I was out not so long ago. Should have put my hat on the lil blighter but hey that would have involved far more thinking than i was capable of at that time in the morning. And I was once rendered unable to walk by a badger but thats another story.

One of the guys at work has bought some wood for a clay shoot in a village called Pluckley in Kent. (Setting of the Darling Buds of May if anyone remembers that). It is supposed to be the most haunted village in Kent. He wanted me to come out for a night to show them a few things with wood and camp craft. While we were there a film crew turned up to shoot an episode of 'Most Haunted' cos some character was meant to have hanged himself in the woods. I must confess i slept soundly but a couple of the others were a bit frit.


If its not an odd question where are the moors and wildernesses in Thanet? I must have missed them looking at cabbages last time I was that way. Far too many cabbages. Smelt a bit like my grandpa's house.

 

[bushbasher]

One of the locations we use for our courses is less than 200 metres from a Neolithic (6.000yrs old) burial chamber in which the bodies of at least 40 people were discovered. Nearby, there is also a cave called Cat hole cave where evidence of Paleolithic (26-30.000 years ago) have been found including Flint tools and the bones of Mammoth, Bears, Hyena, Sabre tooth Tigers etc... The Cave was also used during the middle ages by bandits who would hide in the cave and rob passers by. To cut a long story short this is one scary place to spend a night alone in the woods.

I was always fairly sceptical about ghosts and spooks until one dark night in May this year.

I was sitting next to the fire looking into the flames with a mug of Tea in my hand when I felt a force pulling downwards on my mug of tea, the feeling was much like that of a small child trying to take the mug away . It didn't feel threatening so I was not unduly alarmed. Figment of my imagination? probably.

Anyone got any more spook stories?

 

[outdoorgirl]

Nah - closest I got was in deepest West Wales 10 years ago. Camping in a large group, we all thought we were entirely alone on our bit of moorland, and were pretty scared when we thought we heard muffled coughing - turned out it was sheep!

 

[TAHAWK]

Well -- one night sleeping on the ground in California, Mom Skunk walked right over me, followed by four little 'uns. She woke me up as she went over, and I started to reach for my flashlight. Fortunately, there was the better part of a full moon and I saw the marking on "kitty" and held very VERY still as she gave me the Tail Up salute and hop-around dance.

Not supernatural but a close encounter of a kind.

 

[BlueTrain]

Well, I have had no supernatural experiences in the woods or anywhere else but I have had a couple of frightening moments.

This isn't one of them but I was had a very bad fall while in the backwoods of West Virginia. I didn't smash anything but the thought has bothered me for a long time. But my worst experience has to do with weather.

Most of the places I have camped are fairly deep in the woods, meaning well under the trees. That is about the only place you are allowed to camp in the parks and forests I frequent but it is also the only place there is. There are no clearings or meadows where you may pitch your tent. But usually everything is fine. On one visit, however, I had set up camp in a relatively familiar spot, one where I had camped three or four times before over the years. Along about dark the wind picked up. Now rain doesn't bother me and in fact makes for a pleasant night since it drowns out all those other noises. But this wind became stronger and I began hearing falling tree branches. Nothing fell on me but the possibility was there and the wind blew most of the night. Easily the most difficult night I have spent in the woods.

It was cold and breezy the next morning up on the ridge.

 

[george]

There is a place called Boreraig on Loch Eishort on Skye, south of Suardal on the Elgol/Broadford road. It was lived in from Neolithic times until the 19th century when it was cleared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_clearances



It is one of the most stunning places on Skye - without the rugged tops of the Cuillin hills but with a much more gentle feel about it. The remains of houses are scattered everywhere and if somewhere could embody the sadness that is still felt about the clearances, then for me, this is it.

I often camp there - especially in autumn when the chance of meeting anyone else is remote and you can watch the rainclouds rolling in from the atlantic.

It is one of the most haunted and haunting places I've ever been.

You can lie there at night and feel the life that has been in the place. When the people were cleared after thousands of years, they left something behind and if you listen in the quiet you can still hear it.

There are people up here who won't go near the place, but there are others like me who feel no badness about it - just a real sadness and a sense of loss.

Spooky experiences? Go sleep there for a couple of nights.

George

 

[ghubca]

i once found the footprints of a large cat about 10 mins walk from my camp, about the size of a fist....when i got hame i looked on the internet and found that there had been reports of a large black cat in the area....scary...

 

[sandbender]

Sleeping by my campfire in Northern Namibia I was awoken by the roar* of several lions!

Sitting up my bedroll I contemplated hurdling the boma and making a dash for the roof of the landrover where I could dimly make out Caesar our guide sitting up and looking around.

It was at this point that one of my fellow travelers (Woody from this forum) calmy got up, walked beyond the firelight, grabbed some wood for the fire and then returned to his bedroll and sleep.
I lay down facing away from the fire and eventually drifted off myself.

The next morning we found the tracks of six lions which had circled the campsite at a distance of forty yards.

*Roar isn't actually the right word, it's more a kind of 'awollll' type sound, definitely makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

 

[Toddy]

I heard a ruckus in the middle of the night and got up and out into the nature walk that runs parallel to the side garden. The d*mned cat had gotten treed by a fox and had no intention of coming down. The fox bolted when I appeared but the cat just sat up there greetin'. I knew that 3am was so *not* a good time for this so I calmy & very quietly coaxed her down from 30' up a sycamore tree. All sounds fine, yes? Except I'm wearing a white linen chemise that I'm trying to soften by wearing it to bed and washing it everyday, and it's kind of misty down there by the burn...and our friendly neighbourhood poacher came upon this apparition in a white goonie, whispering in the mist, "Come on, come down to me; come on, you know you want to...." and he bolted with a screech that gave me a he** of a fright and chased the blasted cat back up the tree.
His demented wife told me the next day about the ghostly white lady that had her husband drink a bottle of whisky in the night to try to ease his terror of being lured away and he still only goes on that path in the dark with two dogs with him and my husband slept through the whole thing!
Moral of the story......wear pyjamas!
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Justin Time]

LOL Toddy, that's a five star story
bit of a Tam O Shanter there?

 

[TwoFourAlpha]

Not remotely connected with bushcraft, but after Toddy's, I though I'd share...

New years eve 1994. Me and a group of friends decided to go to a fancy dress as the Four Horsemen. Being tallest and skiinniest, I got Death .

So I'm dressed up in a Black cowl, face painted like a skull, huge scythe in hand walking through the local clough to the pub where the shindig occurs. The pub is called 'The Church Inn' and as you can imagine, It's next to a ( very old and eerie ) church.

So here I am, taking the quiet way round ( I don't want to scare anybody. Seriously ) when I see this old chap coming towards me. I decide to try not to scare the old guy, and stay out of sight. To achieve this, I duck into the shadows behind a buttress of the church, Pull my cowl over my face and try to make myself as inconspicuous as a 6'3" figure in black carrying a scythe in a graveyard can be.

Regrettably, the poor old guy clocks me as soon as he rounds the corner, and does what I can only describe as a 'Scooby Doo' runaway. I swear his boots skidded on the stones as he accellerated away.

Saddened by this unfortunate encounter, I proceeded to the pub, where I entered and stalked ( it's not possible to just 'walk ' whilst dressed as 'The Great Leveller' ) to the bar and ordered a beer, relating this very tale to the barmaid.

She just points to the Old Bloke, clutching a brandy, and trembling at the far end of the bar.

I paid for his drink. I still feel bad about it.

Apologies for drifting off topic.

 

[Robbie Roberson]

When I was young, I was told there was a woman and a small child who froze to death in the mountains many years ago near where I lived.

One night I was camping on the side of that very mountain, I was awakened by terrible screams that froze me in my bag until daylight.

The screams I honestly heard sounded like a woman screaming for her life, and maybe someone elses.

To this day I hear those screams in my head, makes the hair stand up on my neck every time.

Robbie Roberson

 

[redcollective]

Coyote? I've read their howl is a kind of withering yodel type noise?

US based bushcrafters have enough real creatures to worry about without imaginging spooks!

 

[Toddy]

[QUOTE=TwoFourAlpha
She just points to the Old Bloke, clutching a brandy, and trembling at the far end of the bar.

I paid for his drink. I still feel bad about it.

Apologies for drifting off topic.[/QUOTE

Sorry, I thought it was funny; I've just had to mop up my keyboard from my spraying coffee. ...I can just *see* the scooby boots skidding on the stones!
Sandbender and the lions tho', now that is scary.
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[BorderReiver]

I heard a ruckus in the middle of the night and got up and out into the nature walk that runs parallel to the side garden. The d*mned cat had gotten treed by a fox and had no intention of coming down. The fox bolted when I appeared but the cat just sat up there greetin'. I knew that 3am was so *not* a good time for this so I calmy & very quietly coaxed her down from 30' up a sycamore tree. All sounds fine, yes? Except I'm wearing a white linen chemise that I'm trying to soften by wearing it to bed and washing it everyday, and it's kind of misty down there by the burn...and our friendly neighbourhood poacher came upon this apparition in a white goonie, whispering in the mist, "Come on, come down to me; come on, you know you want to...." and he bolted with a screech that gave me a he** of a fright and chased the blasted cat back up the tree.
His demented wife told me the next day about the ghostly white lady that had her husband drink a bottle of whisky in the night to try to ease his terror of being lured away and he still only goes on that path in the dark with two dogs with him and my husband slept through the whole thing!
Moral of the story......wear pyjamas!
Cheers,
Toddy

Thanks Toddy,that little story has made my day

Now when I've stopped choking on my coffee I'll get on with the rest of the forum

 

[george]

Not spooky - just scary, but when I was working in Asia we used to camp at night with hammocks and bashas set up in a circle around the fire. I would usually set mine up a little bit outside the circle just to get a bit of space.


Of course the problem was that if someone needed to get up in the night for a pee then they would just walk out far enough from the circle that they could pee in peace, so that meant that people would sometimes walk in to my guy lines or bump my hammock lines.

one night I was sleeping when I felt the hammock being bumped, so I grunted rolled over and went back to sleep, thinking it was someone out for a pee. A little while later (don't know how long, I had fallen back to sleep) I felt a bump on the bottom of the hammock. I thought it was some lazy ****** who was trying to get back under my hammock rather than walk around the trees at the end, so I swore at them this time and called them several choice names for waking me up. I felt several bumps on the bottom of the hammock a few moments later and losing my temper (I'm normally incredibly placid - but try waking me up for no good reason!) I hit down through the hammock at whoever it was, while telling them exactly what I thought of them. I hit something satisfyingly solid and with a "that'll teach em" thought going through my head, I went back to sleep.

As day broke I was woken to the sound of our guides shouting "ada harimau" "ada harimau". the fire was lit spectacularly with a bottle of kero and people started running about. It took a little while for my sleep addled brain to translate what they were saying - but when I did I went kind of pale for a while - Harimau means tiger - and the pug marks were all round my hammock and basha!

George

 

[Madhouse]

well went on a 3 day trip to celebrate the beginning of the summer holidays and on the second night my mate was asleep and i was making a nice cup of tea before bed when i noticed the unexpected loud noise of drunken charvs (now im not nagging on at teenagers... afterall i am one myself) but what happend next was WAY out of line, so anyway i qucikly armed myself with a long straight hardwood stick which i had used that day as a walking stick of sorts. I then awoke my friend and we quickly ran to concealment (luckily i was wearing my DPM jacket and trousers at the time). The charvs went to our campfire and sat there for about 10 mins throwing their empty cans of cheap beer on it and cracking open new ones which appeared from the endless expanse inside their berghaus...s they then used my hammock as a sort of swing adn ripped down my tarp before leaving.

MIGHTY ANNOYING but it could have been worse if i was asleep when they came.

 

[Yohny]

Some good responses & glad not the ridicule I was expecting! Not much wilderness in Thanet, but I was a ghillie on a NW Highland estate for 2 years & better part of 8 years in the southern Appalachians. Quite a few years ago when I was living near Faversham, Kent I was spending the night out in local woods with the terrier I had at the time, Sooty. For most of the night he was quivering & staring beyond our fire. Never done that before or after. It was a bit unnerving, but I eventually fell asleep. I awoke some time later (the moon had shifted a ways), & said Sooty was still staring at the same spot, still shaking & I looked hard at the spot he was looking at. I didn't see anything, & I wasn't about to shine my torch in that direction! but I had the very real sense that something was there & I could actually feel the hate! It was like when you put 2 magnets together & they repel. Anyway, I was a moment from panic, about to abandon my gear when I realised that if whatever was there did mean to get me, so to speak, then I wasn't going to outrun it & it would've done something while I slept. I did manage to get back to sleep, but that same feeling of menace remained the night through. I never checked the area come daylight.

 

[Ranger Bob]

Not spooky, just plain weird! It happened couple of years ago when I was in Mongolia. My party and I were on horseback, riding across a fairly flat area of open steppe when on the horizon, there appears a small car.....fair enough we all think, and carry on. A moment later, we realize that it coming straight towards us......at this point we start to get a bit concered! So, this small, battered, rusty russian car pulls up and out step 3 burly mongolian men! Our translator approaced then and started talking.......about a minute later he returned saying..." I don't quite know how to say this,....but these men....would like to know..........if we would like to have a disco...." "what!???", we reply " they want to know if we want a disco..........or watch a film?" After the initial confusion subsided we wandered towards their car and indeed in the back was a generator, an assortment of coloured lights, a television, video player and all 3 Indiana Jones films in korean. We decided not to take up their offer......thought it might spoil the mood of adventure....plus, i'm not sure about the practicalities of having a disco in broad daylight out on the steppe! Surreal!