Instead, I chose to lean against the wall and try not to think about the fact that this house we were living in was over 130 years old.
130 years old? You call that an old house? ;DCut me some slack; in my home country most of the houses are newly developed. :P
As soon as I turned away from my door and started walking I immediately felt a presence behind me. You know that sensation you feel when someone is standing right behind you? It was exactly like that. I knew it was ridiculous as there was no physical way a person could be behind me, so I ignored it and carried on walking. But the presence didn't go away and instead got heavier and heavier. I told myself I was being stupid but couldn't bring myself to look round. By the time I reached the fire doors it felt like something was literally looming over me, and my walk had turned into a very fast power walk! When I passed through the doors the presence vanished in an instant. At that point I finally turned and looked round...and the corridor was empty. Nothing was there.Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhhhhh
Uhh...come to think of it, all of my "creepy stuff" involves fire. :PSparky.... and fire? :P And baby vultures! What were they like? :D
Most ghosts look human and visitors need it pointed out, though they only believe when they can't explain something for example when three kids enter a room and only two leave and the room is then empty. He liked playing toy cars and we often left him to continue when we were done. If you looked in a minute later he would still be there though another five and he'd be gone. The only way in or out the play room was through the living room, It was actually one big room divided with furniture. He got the whole visitors knocking on the door bit though he would knock on the door to the room you were in every time and wait to be let in. The toy room was always left tidy at night and always the toy cars would be found scattered on the floor in the morning.Whoa. Did the ghosts interact with each other? Did any of the other ghosts interact with you? :o
I'd post a lot of ghost stuff here from my childhood and our old house except its not believed by anyone. One of my best friends was a ghost. That house was full of them.
Cut me some slack; in my home country most of the houses are newly developed. :P
That said, when I was to move out of the 130+ year old house, I went to look at a room in a 300+ year old house. It was even a Tier 2 listed building, and the room I was looking at was at the time being rented by an opera singer, with an antique four-poster bed and a built-in closet. (I chose not to stay there because it was late summer and ALREADY the place was dark and somewhat forbidding.)
Share some stories with us! Although most ghostly encounters have innocent explanations, it's the ones that don't that are the most intriguing. I'd love to hear some tales from your childhood :)Would love to read about it, too! I had an invisible friend but he doesn't count for a ghost.
Wasn't haunted though, but I did have a suspicion that the fae paid occasional visits to my previous abode on account of all the items that kept teleporting around...
Okay guys, we are having a creepy situation right now. There are sounds in our kitchen. Sometimes from below the stairs at other times it sounds like our oven wants to throw things at us. We looked under the stairs (ok, we really should clean the floor down their) but no sign of mice or large superhero-frightning spiders. Half an hour ago we just heard another bunch of rumbling. We sneaked into the kichen but it turned silent immediatly. We tried to distract the soundmaking something buy playing the guitar. But nothing. The last two days after going to bed the sounds came back. Tomorrow we will start for taking a close look at our attic. Hopefully we have not caught a bird or something above there, poor little thing. Until we have not found a reason for those noises this is a really creepy situation.Racoons? There's responsible for all kinds of mischief...
Racoons? There's responsible for all kinds of mischief...
Genetically modified mice...Muahahahahh you are doooooomed !
I used to live in North Eastern Oregon (pacific side of the U.S. for anyone that doesn't know), however my parents live in California, the fastest route is for me to go out towards Boise Idaho and down through Reno to visit them, so it's a lot of open road out in the desert at night for me. Anyway I was driving down highway 95 and was off south of the reservation at the Oregon Nevada border when I saw something on a turnoff for an overpass.
Thought it was roadkill at first, but when I slowed down a little and moved my truck out of the way it was in fact two small dogs, one on the ground lying down like it was injured, the other standing nearby making eye contact with me/my truck looking concerned.
Initially I of course blew past them since I was doing almost 80 when I first saw them, about a quarter mile away I get turned around and make my way back to where I saw them, dogs are gone, I figure I might've scared them off up the offramp so I creep my truck up keeping an eye out for the two dogs, the ramp leads to a small cul'desac where truckers normally park for the night, no lamps or anything just nevada desert when my headlights light up a Pug standing defiantly in the middle of the road.
I stop my truck and open my window partway before stopping as movement catches my eyes, it's the two dogs from before coming out of some of the bushes at the edge of the cul'desac, then more dogs. It doesn't take long before my truck is all but surrounded by tiny dogs that crawled out from the bushes all over the place, that appear to want more than kibble and a scratch behind the ears.
I backed my truck out of there pretty fast and floored it down the on ramp back onto the 95. I could see them chasing my truck in the mirrors, it was one of the most surreal things I've ever encountered, a pack of toy breeds led by a googley eyed pug that set an ambush for a full sized pickup truck.
Wow, that *is* surreal. One of our Forum artists has to illustrate your experience -- I think of Piney because of the google-eyed pug! (I always thought pugs were faintly creepy. Now I KNOW they are!)Heh, I don't think I've ever drawn a pug in my life. And I agree that they're creepy; as much as I love dogs, I definitely would've floored it like Solokov. I don't understand why so many people looove pugs...
Heh, I don't think I've ever drawn a pug in my life. And I agree that they're creepy; as much as I love dogs, I definitely would've floored it like Solokov. I don't understand why so many people looove pugs...
Chinese mind-control.
Nah not really, don't get me wrong, I like dogs. I don't mind pugs, but something about a pack of small puntable dogs having the intelligence and planning to set an ambush like that is unsettling.
I want a picture of Solokov's pug-ambush. Extra points if it shows not just the scary little doggies but a terrified (but really tough) Solokov at the wheel of his truck.According to Google, "pugs chasing car" seems to be a pretty common problem - posted by their owners. ???
And the pug story is just hilarious to read, though taking part in it was probably no fun at all.
Back in the day, when the Church was at the height of its power, ghost tales began to grow common about the 'children of sin' - babies conceived outside of marriage. They were shamed, hated, looked down on by society as a whole, children with little future as they were seen as the physical embodiment of their parents lust for the pleasures of flesh. Their mothers were not better off; some were sentenced to a lifetime in monasteries, or jail and 're-education'. Perhaps it was not so strange, that so many mothers hid their pregnancies and murdered their babies, before another living soul could find out the grave sin they had committed... the ghosts of these children were called 'mylingar', or 'the murdered' in English. The mylings usually had two goals; to wreck vengeance on their mother, and be buried in sanctified soil in a Church graveyard. If they weren't given a proper burial, they would 'walk again' for as many years as they would have lived, had they only been given the chance to do so..
One night, an old man was on his way home, when he was greeted by a young boy who called out to him. "Grandfather, may I nurse now?" the child asked, repeatedly. The man didn't know this young boy, he had never seen him before, and he tried for the longest time to make him go away. But the boy was stubborn and didn't cease, and after a few hours of nagging, the man finally said "okay, if you have anyone to nurse, go nurse her already! You sure as hell ain't gonna nurse me!"
With that, the boy vanished into thin air, a wicked grin upon his little face. The man hurried home, for nothing good would come from encounters with the supernatural. As he opened the door to his home, a terrible stench washed over him; his adult daughter laid murdered on the floor, her breasts having been chewed off as if by some wild beast. Her arms were wrapped around the mummified corpse of an infant boy, who had obviously been dead for many years...
Another tale, this one from an area called Brålanda, speaks of a haunted house. One of the bedrooms stood unused, for none dared to sleep there; nightmares haunted the people who tried, and terrified screams were heard in the darkness. But one day, a traveling tailor passed by looking for work, and the owner of the estate offered him a small fortune if only he'd sit and sew in the haunted room the entire night. The tailor agreed, and dutifully went to work.
Around midnight, the screams begun. He felt the shiver travel up his spine, but the cries soon changed - from demonic and terrifying, to that of a terrified child, and then, finally, the ghosts of a little girl appeared, she couldn't have been older than five years or so. She was crying, with great big crocodile tears running down her face. At this point the tailor was at the end of his bravery, and decided he cared more about his life than he did about the money, for ghosts weren't always the nicest.. but before he could run out the door, the child spoke to him and said; "Don't be afraid, I'm just here to stretch my legs. I don't fit into my grave anymore, my legs have grown long and the container is so small..." The tailor calmed down and continued his work throughout the night, though the little ones sobbing distressed him greatly. She disappeared at daybreak, and the tailor told the lord of the manor about what he had witnessed. They begun to tear up the rooms flooring, and sure enough, buried in a milk churn was the bones of an infant.
A re-occurring and rater famous tale figure of all the Scandinavian countries is the Näcken, a river spirit who would use his otherworldly skill on the violin to lure good Christian folk to their death, as he would grab them and drown them in the river.. but he had other abilities, including shape-shifting into a beautiful white horse, called the brook horse. One day, this white horse appeared on the farm of a poor, lonely man who lived all on his lonesome, and the man put the horse to work. And what a horse it was; it was able to pull the load of two horses, tirelessly and dutifully while eating almost nothing. As Sunday arrived, the man rode it to Church, for he was sure it must belong to one of the lords of the estate and there, he hoped to find the horse's rightful owner and return it. But no one recognized the animal. By this time a flock of children had gathered around the gorgeous, gentle animal, and the farmer figured it wouldn't hurt to let them ride it a bit. So one after one, he placed the children on the horses back. Mysteriously, it was as if the horse grew just a little with very child put on his back, so that there was always room for one more... but when all the children were on, they realized that they were stuck to the horses skin, as if they had been glued to it. They couldn't jump off! That very second the horse broke into a mad gallop, racing with sweat foaming from its skin, right back to the river from whence it had come, and that was the last anybody ever heard or saw of the unfortunate children.
Näcken sometimes taught his incredible violin skills to humans who wished to learn from this master of the art. But doing so was associated with great danger, because the violinist who played the music of Näcken risked ensnaring everyone who heard him into the enchanted music. One such cautionary tale tells of a violinist who could not stop playing, and the ones who heard him play could not stop dancing. They danced for days, until their feet bled and their bones broke, they danced until they stood on deaths door. And they had surely died, had it not been for a deaf beggar who traveled by. The beggar immediately knew what was happening, and he cut off the strings of the violin, freeing the crowd from the deadly spell.
But Näcken is sometimes seen as a sad, rather lonely figure, rather than just ominous and evil... one day he approached a fisherman, asking for the hand of his daughter the day she turned eighteen, in exchange for all the fish his family could eat. These were terrible times of famine and the fisherman was desperate. He reluctantly agreed, and when his daughter was eighteen she was taken down to the lake where Näcken greeted them, happy to lead his new bride to his kingdom under the river. But the fishermans daughter wasn't quite as happy with the arrangement; she said "You'll never have me alive!" and slitted her throat with a knife. Her blood ran into the river and colored the water lilies red. Näcken, grieving for his lost love, painted all the flowers in his domain red in her memory, and that's why, to this day, we may still find water lilies of such a bold and beautiful color.
Vafhudr, I wonder if the whistling thing had any connection to one belief I encountered out in the country in both Canada and Northern North America, that whistling at night will call spirits. You find it in the north of England too. In the Snowies it will attract one of the dangerous landspirits. Wonder if there is any connection to the custom of not whistling on ships unless you actively want to call up a wind?
Fauna: whoa that first one! I assume it's hinted that the child was hers? Iceland has similar ghosts - the útburður. Over here getting pregnant out of wedlock was apparently punishable by death at one point in history (if you visit Þingvellir keep an eye on the right side of the path, the drowning pool for executing women is there)(don't throw coins in that one, trust me that nothing in that pond will give you anything you wish for and besides the coins pollute the water) regardless of how the pregnancy had begun, so women would often try to conceal such illegal pregnancies, give birth in secret and leave the child to die. Sometimes these babies turned into vengeful ghosts to seek out their killer and either drive her insane or kill her... and some wouldn't even stop there but would keep on following family members for generations to come until the whole familyline would die out. You can tell an útburður by the fact that when it's crawling it only uses the leg and arm on one side.
Icelandic ghosts aren't spirits, they're zombie-like walking corpses. Some of them are harmless like the brennivín ghost (http://www.icelandicwonders.com/Default.asp?Page=321), some harass people for their own amusement (http://www.icelandicwonders.com/Default.asp?Page=311), some want revenge, some are generally malicious and will attack anyone who comes across their path, some haunt whole families just like the útburður.Oh, we have the zombies, too! :D But they were usually special cases... they're called Draugar here as well, quite similar to the ones you have over on Iceland.. they weren't necessarily the most dangerous of the undead (unless you had given them a reason to seek vengeance upon you, of course), though they certainly had potential to be rather unpleasant... usually they were the corpses of dead sailors who washed up on the shore. They could not find rest, because they had to be buried in a hallowed graveyard but couldn't travel very far on their own. So, they'd lay in ambush for the unfortunate living who'd accidentally come a bit to close, and give them a biiiiiig, snuggly zombie bear hug. They were indestructible by this point, and would not let go until the living person dragged their rotting, stinking and maggot-infested corpse to a proper graveyard... quite gross.
The saddest and creepiest ghosts are the type that are "man-made", meaning that a witch who really hates someone can create such a ghost and send it to haunt their family in the aforementioned manner until the family dies out. To make one he has to either find a corpse that hasn't been blessed or to murder someone, often in a prolonged way that makes the victim realize they're about to die (drowning seems to be a theme), and then capture their soul into the corpse and make it walk again. This ghost will then do the witch's bidding but it always returns once a task is done, and if the witch doesn't immediately give it a new task it will kill him in revenge.
This one's really old fashioned but if someone knocks on your door after dark, count how many times they do, anything less or more than three means whatever's knocking is not a human. Real people would even stop at a window first and say something along the lines of "God bless you" before knocking on the door to further assure the people of the house that opening the door was ok.
Vafhudr, I wonder if the whistling thing had any connection to one belief I encountered out in the country in both Canada and Northern North America, that whistling at night will call spirits. You find it in the north of England too. In the Snowies it will attract one of the dangerous landspirits. Wonder if there is any connection to the custom of not whistling on ships unless you actively want to call up a wind?
I love the fact that the rest of the world see you as sort of this viking hippie sheep horsey country, and you're actually sitting on this enormous horror movie gold mine :l
The movie's been shown on the national television exactly one time and many people who saw it have described it as one of the most disturbing pieces of Icelandic cinematography (I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT)(I MUST FIND IT).
Super un-funny fact: Icelandic horror tradition can basically be summed up to "if you leave the house something's going to kill you and even if you're inside something might be staring at you through the window".
I know America, like Australia, has a lot of highway ghosts, and some of the native monsters like wendigo are still about.Yeah, around here most of what we've got are sasquatches/bigfeet, which are presumably co-opted Native critters. They're kinda ... pop-culture-ified, though? Like, not many people really really believe in them, even little kids, but there's merch all over, and they're like a little bit of an area symbol? Like, if you see an indie shade-grown organic coffee shop, there's a decent chance it's got one on the sign.
sasquatches/bigfeet
I know America, like Australia, has a lot of highway ghosts, and some of the native monsters like wendigo are still about.
Aw yeah, how could I forget the Old Town stories. The Old Town in Stockholm, Sweden, dates back to around the 400 A.D. or so, with plenty of political uprisings, mass executions, warfare and deadly games of politics, so we've had some time to collect stories.
When King Christian of Denmark invaded Sweden, he had all of the old kings allies executed against the agreement, family, friends and all. About 80-90 people were executed. It is said that if it rains on the 8-9:th of November, one can still see headless ghosts wander the streets of Stockholm.
During the reign of the black Plague in Europe, a great number of dead were transported by horse and carriage to be buried in mass graves. In Rackarbacken, Södermalm, there's apparently such a carriage that still travel the roads on early mornings, its bells, wheels and the sound of horse hooves heralding a black wagon full of plague-dead. Many of these raves are gone now, having been removed to make way for buildings, but some people say that there are spots all over the city where you might see the ghosts of the buried, waiting for a priest to come and hallow the ground, wailing and bemoaning their early deaths.. (... Oooor just chilling out and sunbathing in the grass, the sources are admittedly a bit diverse on the subject of what they're actually doing...)
Back in the middle ages, Stockholm, like most European cities, was a bit of a disgusting sludge-hole, filled with rats, disease, and the excrement of both people and animals. There was so much filth, the current street level is actually three meters higher than the original one! This attracted a major amount of insects, which were said to actually have grown so large in numbers, that they darkened the skies over the entire town when they swarmed. If you go down to the excavation sites, to the original street levels, rumor is that you can still hear the buzzing of insects in certain places, even though there should be none there.
Stockholm have historically been surrounded by a number of city walls, built and then taken down as the town grew, or as they were destroyed in the tides of war. Back in those days, people believed in the presence of the vättar, land spirits of sort. Some of the builders were making offerings to the vättar, claiming they helped them build the wall, but another one laughed at them. He said there was no such thing as vättar, and even if there was, they sure as hell weren't building the wall. He'd prove it by sleeping on the unfinished wall one night, and keeping an eye out for them; the plan was that the next morning, he would tell everyone that they didn't show up. Unfortunately, when his co-workers showed up the next morning, the wall was a meter higher, and his arm was poking out of the bricks. The vättar had indeed appeared to build the wall, and they had built it right on top of the arrogant brick worker, now crushed to mush and dead as could be.
I know America, like Australia, has a lot of highway ghosts, and some of the native monsters like wendigo are still about.
I've never heard the plural of bigfoot before, so for some reason this was really funny to me. :P But I digress.I've also heard "bigfoots" but that just sounds silly.
I've also heard theories that rest stops on highways are liminal spaces.
I encountered a very sad one out on the Hay Plains, and wound up spending the night there, just sitting with him in the grass by the road. There didn't seem to be anything else I could do for him, poor man. I think he was one of the ones that didn't fully know he was dead. He was just sitting there with a little boy in his arms, muttering about it being her car and what was he going to do now. It was the sort of clear freezing moonlit winter night you get out on the plains, with hardly any wind and the grass covered in frost. I'd stopped because I saw him sitting there with the child and didn't realise they were ghosts until I tried to touch him, thinking he was in shock after an accident, and there was nothing but slightly cooler air. There was no wreck that I could see, just some angular shapes and shadows. When it started to get light they just sort of faded into the air.
O______O This is both terrifying and fascinating that people can have experiences like this. I think mostly fascinating.My thoughts exactly!
I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that some of the paths follow the route of the medieval road connecting our and one other village to the next town. This road eventually lead to the Camino de Santiago, too. I imagine a lot of people must have used it.
Our graveyard isn't far off, come to think of it.
As far as I know, though, there aren't any sightings at any of these places...
general rule with forest that makes a horse nervous is to avoid it, and only go there if I really have to*nods* What my horse and I agreed on.
Wyrm, that sounds like a Christianisation of all the Wild Hunt and Faery Rade tales that are scattered over Europe.
And all over Australia, but in Gippsland especially, we have the big cats, complete with rumours about them being dumped American puma mascots, or released pet panthers, but I've seen a few and they don't look pantherish to me: too big and heavy set, and completely unrelieved black.
OwlsGo: wait, you live in Australia?? Which state (other than confusion)?Yes I do. Deep North. The state where we're all mad as a bag of snakes.
Ah yes. The deep North. I've lived in FNQ myself, out on the gemfields at Sapphire, Rubyvale and Tomahawk creek, mining sapphire; on the Atherton Tableland out by Millaa Millaa in the deep bush on the edge of the national park, where I had a smallholding, at Townsville and T.I., though there I was mostly at sea. Also at Lilyvale and Blackwater, mining coal. My best friend lives at Mission Beach. Small world!
(Another bit of thread derailing now I realise you're a fellow antipodean - is your username after the Architecture in Helsinki song?)
OwlsGo, if you are where I think you are: have you seen the old early settler/aboriginal graveyard down by the river in Fig Tree Pocket? Don't know if it survived the last lot of bad floods, but it used to be a very peaceful-but-alive place.
(That it is. It's one of my favourite songs. I sing it so constantly my friends know the whole song without ever having heard it)
Do spooky places count for this thread? I've never been there but I've always been fascinated by Black Mountain in Queensland. It's basically just a gigantic pile of granite boulders with the gaps between them forming a massive labyrinth of tunnels. There are all kinds of stories of cattle and people vanishing there, or going into the caves and never coming out, and of giant pythons and big cats and stranger things.
Wikipedia has a sane and sensible article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mountain_(Kalkajaka)_National_Park) on it (boring!) whereas this one (http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/12/the-mysterious-black-mountain-of-queensland/) is a bit more exciting.
(AIH is amazing. Their version of Heart it Races will always be the best)
Was Black Mountain that one where all the school girls either dissappeared from or went missing on for a little while? There was a certain girl who went missing on a mountain, right? I swear this is QLD. Am I going nuts, or does anyone else have an idea what I'm blabbing about?
Excellent! I love AIH :D
OwlsGo: are you thinking of Chinaman John's Hole at Lilyvale in Queensland? Or Hanging Rock in Victoria? That one had some girls disappear there once, probably into the caves, which were also a bushranger redoubt. Had a few experiences there myself.
Hanging Rock was the place I was just talking about over on the memes/edits thread, with the mapping lady and the ridgeback dog. Weird place.
Duende, hmm? What kind of duende do you have where you are? I know about the ones that are like trooping fae, the ones that are guardians/owners of particular buildings, homes or farmsteads, (similar to the Manx Fenodyree, or the Nisse or Tomte of Scandinavia); the ones that are attached to particular human families or tribes, and the solitary ones attached to particular mountains, lakes, rocks or forests, but I've only rarely heard of them following an individual.
In my culture, when they do that it can be because of something special about that person. They seem drawn to poets, musicians, artists, mages, people with serious passions about something (especially things they approve of), and to people who can actually see or otherwise perceive them. I wonder if your sister fits any of those categories?
Oh boy I just realized because this is the paranormal thread that means it's fair game to talk about Cryptozoology. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology) It's a subject I've been pretty enthusiastic about since I was a little one.
My first Cryptid I was pretty enthusiastic about was El Chupacabra, but right now I'm mostly pretty fond of Mothman and Ningen. Actually, with currently staying by Lake Michigan, which is where just about all sightings of Michigan's local Cryptid, the Michigan Dogman occur. On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan he's been called the beast of bray road. I actually know people who claim to have had encounters with him.
Ask Purple Wyrm about cryptofauna, I believe he also has an interest in the subject.
Oh boy I just realized because this is the paranormal thread that means it's fair game to talk about Cryptozoology. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology) It's a subject I've been pretty enthusiastic about since I was a little one.
My first Cryptid I was pretty enthusiastic about was El Chupacabra, but right now I'm mostly pretty fond of Mothman and Ningen. Actually, with currently staying by Lake Michigan, which is where just about all sightings of Michigan's local Cryptid, the Michigan Dogman occur. On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan he's been called the beast of bray road. I actually know people who claim to have had encounters with him.
If one's referring to Michigan, one shouldn't forget Detroit's infamous denizen: The Nain Rouge. Detroit's made something of an icon of him, these past few years, but his history is interesting enough.
And, of course, Michigan has its share of Bigfoot sightings, and other sightings.
F'instance, what sort of cryptid, when cut, bleeds silver? To the point where silver can actually be extracted from the blood (or spoor) through chemical processing? (Don't ask me for the answer. I don't know it.)
I've recently moved (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently) to North Georgia (which is to say Southern Appalachia) in the U.S. The land here (the infamous Red Georgia Clay) feels very different from the glacier-carved geology of the North or the water-carved valleys of the Pacific Northwest, or the extinct ocean of the Mojave desert. It's old, and it's very high in iron content (and a couple of silicates.) Any road, the land hereabouts is being torn-up and "developed" without either respect or regard, and it feels furiously angry. Its anger is palpable, and it seems to be affecting the way folks behave in the local area, too, as if it bleeds over into their emotional state. (Which wouldn't be surprising if one believed in such things.)As someone from the described area, I don't know about the land, but seeing all the woodlands torn up for McMansions sure does make my blood boil. Most of them end up out of money and thus have like three houses in them and a bunch of paved roads to nowhere. In general I think I do understand what you mean about it oozing into people's emotional state, because I want to get out of here as fast as I can, and as soon as you hit the mountains a few hours north I do agree it is a much calmer and peaceful place.
As to seeing things that aren't supposed to be there, I mostly just feel the anger, although if one goes farther North, where things aren't getting torn-up, the land feels quite pleasant. My girlfriend, though, keeps seeing the same fox, carrying the same dead rabbit in its jaws, crossing a local street, and the parking lot where she works. She insists it's the exact same fox, and the exact same rabbit, and she gets the sense that the thing is smirking at her when it appears.
Blackfrost: possibly your girlfriend could tell the fox that she isn't part of the problem (unless of course she is, in which case being somewhere else might be wise). Also ask it why it is showing itself to her, is there anything she is supposed to do, or anything she needs to know about. And is she sure it is a fox and not a coyote?
Ah? What sort of shamanic training, if I may ask? My own background is a mix of Celtic, with bits of other stuff overlaid on it depending who I'm working with, and, yeah, some shamanic stuff.
Don't know that one myself, but know someone who trained in the Klamath style. We've exchanged techniques, and they have some very useful plantlore and stonelore, those being the things that are of interest to me.
... it is very strange to sit in the blazing sun between two big dunes with no sound but the wind, the sand trickling, a hawk screaming, pick up a fossil seashell and feel the coolness of ghost waves rippling over your head.
I've been in Florida, and a lot of it still seems to think it is saltmarsh and mangrove swamp.
The 'still thinks it is under the sea' element is especially strong in parts of Central Australia which used to be under the inland sea, not long ago geologically. I've worked in the Tanami Desert as well as wandering there on my own (I was wilderness survival person for a group making documentaries out there, back in the eighties, and have prospected there as well as being guide for several lots of Americans who wanted to see 'the real Australia' and ended up being appalled by its desolation but found it beautiful.), and it is very strange to sit in the blazing sun between two big dunes with no sound but the wind, the sand trickling, a hawk screaming, pick up a fossil seashell and feel the coolness of ghost waves rippling over your head.
You would like the Breakaways, I think. Nowadays there is an actual road out there. You stand on the edge of a cliff and look out over the old seabed, cliffs and islands and seacaves and all, and now it is desert. Magical place.
I'm delighted the conversation has gone in this direction, I have a few experiences from living by Lake Superior for the six-ish years I did, myself and a lot of people who live in the area find a lot of places and bodies of water in the area to almost have a mind and feelings of their own.
For example, in walking distance from my apartment was an island called "presque isle" (even though I know presque isle is the French word for peninsula, it was kind of inbetween a peninsula and an island because of how narrow the piece of connecting land is, most people just called it 'the island') but presque isle seemed to have enough of a mind and sense of its own that people who were from the area would even refer to presque isle with "she pronouns" and both myself and others had this sense that 'she' didn't like it if people lingered there too long at night, something would always come up if you were there for more than an hour or so forcing you to leave, like a lightning storm rolling off the lake or things like that. I'd try to be respectful and if I needed to walk to that area at night to clear my head not stay around too long. Lake Superior itself too, I just always got the sense from it that it actually had a find and sense of its own, which is why I'd actually refer to it as "mother Superior" a lot like a lot of locals do.
I'm delighted the conversation has gone in this direction, I have a few experiences from living by Lake Superior for the six-ish years I did, myself and a lot of people who live in the area find a lot of places and bodies of water in the area to almost have a mind and feelings of their own.I live by Lake Ontario. I suppose it's friendly enough, but just slightly moody, and big. It doesn't notice me much. It thinks very differently than I do. Its thoughts seem so much bigger. I agree that time seems to work differently for it!
As promised.Wow. Those are great!Spoiler: The dogpack • showSpoiler: The toy train • showSpoiler: The shadow dude, or how spooky things are afraid of cows • showSpoiler: USFS hunts spooky stuff • showSpoiler: I go rescue a dude • show
Wow. Those are great!
...
Sounds like you have an interesting life.
As promised....Never going camping, confirmed.
I'll post a couple of my stories when I run down the mountain this friday.... well provided the neighbor's batsquatch problem doesn't become the forest service's batsquatch problem and i wind up standing watch all night with a rifle and a flare gun again protecting the horses (wolves nosing around the pasture last time).
...Never going camping, confirmed.
This makes me think of gravity falls, but also enforces my pre-existing notion that the weirdest stuff happens where there's less people because that's where the weird stuff can thrive without being bothered or noticed by people.
It must have been nearly three feet long, flowing oil-on-water colours, stiff wings that spanned wider than its length (further across than the width of my swag), glittery and transparent like dragonfly wings. The eyes were large for the size of the thing, dark blues and greens, looked sort of faceted but not as much as the eyes of an insect, if that makes sense. It didn't hurt me, just barely brushed my face and whizzed off into the trees. It was certainly big enough and fast enough to have done damage if it had wanted to. Oddly, it wasn't scary, just amazing. I was just getting out of my swag when it swooped me again, then flew off and didn't come back. No sound, but I'd swear it was laughing.
Ever since, I listen for them when I am out that way, and find it comforting if I hear that noise.
Shape like a thick-bodied dragonfly. Head squarish, big in proportion to the body, eyes bigger in proportion to the head than those of a dragonfly, faceted, but chunkier facets than those of a regular insect, patchy dark blues and green. Eyes set up and forward, in a conformation that suggested predator to me, but as I said it didn't attack me and it could have done. The first time I was lying flat on my back, second time I was impeded by being half out of the swag. Some sort of short appendages around where I would expect the mouth to be, went by too fast to get a good look. Appendages, thin and fine, maybe legs, tucked in against the body - again, went by too fast to count them or get a good look.
I guess the only spooky thing I have to add to this thread is that I'm scared to look out windows at night if I'm alone on the ground floor, I'm just sure some sort of bogeyman will eventually be looking at me from the other side. Doesn't really make sense, but it's a thing.
My wife is very superstitious, and her sister and I kept terrifying her with examples of the haunting if I were called to that parish. My favorite had her waking up in the middle of the night and noticing the lights on in the church. When she peeked into the church to investigate, she would see the church packed with ghosts holding their own Sunday service. >:D
Too many bad movies at an impressionable age?
As to Michigan:Why do I read this thread at night?! ó__òSpoiler: show
I've a few other stories I could tell, but I'll save them for another time. I've boxes to unpack, laundry to do, and a job to hunt.
Take care, everyone.
Aaaaaaaand now that we've arrived at the new house in Florida.... *g.*
Regarding Solokov's stories:
I've had a shadow-man encounter as well. Ex-girlfriend of mine also has had one. I'll be perfectly happy if I never have another, and I know she will, also.
In Oregon, about fifteen years ago,Spoiler: show
....I know that crossing and area well. I used to work on the Wallowa-Whitman.
Lovely area. Wish I could've spent more time in Enterprise and Joseph, when I was geeking for the OSP.
Hell I saw a UFO while taking photos of one of the blood moons while up in baker.
Really straightforeward story though. It's somewhere around 1 in the morning as I'm taking photos of the moon. About 30 minutes after one of the local cops drove by asking me what the heck I was doing out that late about 50 feet off the top of my head an orb of light about the size of a basketball zips past heading north. Absolutely silent, my estimate is it was easily doing 120mph.
At that point I decided to head in to the maverick to go get a fresh mug of coffee and a couple energy drinks and clear my mind.'
Also on a related note I've heard rumors of an "anomalous creature management" unit under the USDA.... kinda looking into that.
Take care with your research, Solokov. Though I guess you might land another job! It's fascinating how universal some of those experiences are: have seen the odd orb zipping by, mostly out in the desert very late at night. Damfino what they are! Never bothered me, though.
Did see what I guess you'd call a UFO, out in East Gippsland, more than fifty years ago. I was hermiting up near the headwaters of one of the little creeks that feeds into the Heart Morass. Black dark winter night, just on new moon. Freezing. I was up on a hill above a reed marsh, and was sitting by my fire thinking about sleeping, when something big, like really big, went by above me and crashed into the swamp below me, with enough of an impact to shake the ground, but less noise than I would have expected. My first thought was that it was a plane crashing, since the airbase near Sale wasn't too far off, nor was I far from a couple of the flight routes going into Melbourne, so I grabbed my first-aid kit and raced down the hill. {Snip.}
Blackfrost: yeah, ghost trains like that in Gippsland too. Seen a few, generally around the old Thompson River rail bridge, and around Denison and Walhalla. Including one that appeared to go across said bridge when I was standing in the river under it, and actually shook down debris from the ruined bridge onto me. I knew damned well that it couldn't have been fully material, since I was at the time helping out with restoring the old Walhalla and Thompson River steam train line, and I *knew* that bridge was too ruinous to bear weight.
* Edit: should have mentioned that I've also met those flocks of little air sparkle things, as have both my sons. They had an experience similar to yours, car that had trouble starting, general feel of terror, urge to get away. I suspect that may be how the thingies, whatever they are, protect themselves.
I've encountered them twice, both times very late at night, once over a grass field in Ireland, a rough grazing paddock among low hills, once in an East Gippsland fern forest. Both times I felt the fear, but I was on foot, and I don't care to run from things, so in one case I just kept walking until I was past, humming a tune so they knew exactly where I was, and trying to be as calm and unscary as I could. They didn't come any closer, and I was fine. With the ones in the forest I didn't want to move, because I had concealed myself so as to be able to watch a lyrebird at dawn and I doubted I would have such a chance again, so again I concentrated on being as calm and still as I could, and making a small calm musical noise so they knew where I was and that I wasn't sneaking up on them. After an hour or so they seemed to forget about me, or decided I was harmless, because they went back to drifting through the forest (mostly treeferns, Antarctic beech and sassafras just there). They spent most time around the trunks that had filmy-ferns, moss and small fungi growing on them, I've no idea why. Sometimes they dipped down into the deep leaf litter, then drifted up again. Strange and very beautiful.
Also on a related note I've heard rumors of an "anomalous creature management" unit under the USDA.... kinda looking into that.