Paranormal Thread

[Solokov]

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 laying 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 partyway 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.



Another story I have,  this one from one of my trips up into the sierra Nevada mountains (mountain range that spans the entire eastern side of California).

About two years ago I was making a late night drive up to shaver lake in California, I was taking my time since I had the four lane highway to myself. The moon was out but it was still stupidly dark because of cloudcover, I'm not far from where the fourlane grade turns into winding two lane, when something small darts across the highway, I swerve avoiding it, as I drive on I replay the event in my head, and curiosity gets the better of me and I turn around to go check it out, can see it out at the edge of the road. It's some kind of toy, I get out to investigate it. It's a toy train, I pick it up and mess with it a bit, there's a knob on it, I give it a twist. It's a wind up train. At this point my truck's suspension creaked and the headlights bobbed like something had tugged on the door, I felt a cold chill across my spine as I turned around having dropped the train and pulled a knife from my belt.

I saw nothing but I could hear the sound of something padding up the grade like it was some kind of four legged beast. I immediately returned to my truck and got the hell out of there. Didn't see anything in the roadway and the grade has a cliff face on one side, and a sheer drop on the other.


I'd have to pull out one of my notebooks for anything else. I also have a few stories about one of the trickster gods of the American southwest if anyone's interested, but that's not so much creepy as just some old lore.

[Paul Ferris]

Great story Solokov, I don't have anything myself. But I DO have a bunch of creepypasta (good creepypasta, not crummy stuff from the website).e.g (reply if you want more)http://imgur.com/T3aci8L

[Sunflower]

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!)

[Piney]

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...

[Solokov]

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.

[Sunflower]

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.

If my SSSS Secret Santa is out there and hasn't gotten my present yet  I want a picture of Solokov's pug-ambush.    If not for Christmas, then for my birthday (I'm an Aquarius, for future reference).  Extra points if it shows not just the scary little doggies but a terrified (but really tough) Solokov at the wheel of his truck. 

[JoB]

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. ???

[Deirdre]

I have some ghost stories from my everyday life, though normally I try not to bother much. The latest one I really was scared of happened two months ago. I was casually going back home, and it was dark already. I spotted an elderly lady in the middle of a wide, well-lighted alley. After a second I realised there was something not right with her, and looked once again.
She had no face. Like... There was nothing but skin in the place where face usually is.
I stopped, blinked, and the next second she vanished. Apart from the missing face, she was exactly similar to my grandmother, who passed away when I was six.

And a fresher story from my father, who has just solely moved into a new apartment. A week ago he claimed to have heard knocking to the front door in the middle of the night. The third time it happened he decided to open it, as he was suddenly convinced it was me (?). There was obviously nothing outside but silence and darkness. He went to bed, and after a minoute something shaked his arm and whispered "Are you awake?" He was still phisically totally alone in there, he checked it.

And the pug story is just hilarious to read, though taking part in it was probably no fun at all.

[Solokov]

And the pug story is just hilarious to read, though taking part in it was probably no fun at all.

Weird stuff happens out in the american southwest (well it can be argued everywhere really), especially out in the deserts. It's one of the reasons I carry a shotgun in my truck when travelling long distances where there's no one around within an hour or two's drive, or the only people nearby might be the kind to try to feed you to an elder god.

I know of a guy who lived in poland and after the USSR collapsed he went exploring with his friends onto some old base that had been closed down in the 70s or 80s. Everything was overgrown and whatnot and they found a set of bunkers with power running too them. Not much since they had been more or less filled with concrete except a few rooms, one of which was bolted shut. Being the adventurous kids they were they came back with boltcutters, and opened up the door that led to a command room with mostly bay windows that looked like they'd been knocked into the room looking into an inky black chasm. Across the chasm was a second set of windows though they were still intact. The place felt weird, so they booked it and left and he said that it felt like something was following them on the way out of the base perimeter. At the edge of the overgrowth he looked back and said he saw a silver fox about the size of a horse smiling at him with a big cheshire catlike grin before it slinked off into the woods.

He said a couple days later the polish government went into the town, redid the fence along the old soviet base, patrolled it with guys carrying "big american guns" and didn't allow any of the locals into the area anymore. Which kinda pissed them off since the soviet base took a lot of the forest they used for camping and the town was so dull the only good entertainment was for the kids to ride their bikes out to the water tower and throw lawnmowers off the top.

[Laufey]

Now that the comic is really getting creepy I thought it would be interesting to share some superstitions or beliefs of the scary kind, or ghost stories. I mean I'm really interested in hearing them! To begin with here's a few.

:finland:

The Olavi Castle in Finland supposedly has a water spirit living in the lake where the castle is located. Hearing this spirit play music means a calamity is at hand, or someone in the castle is going to die.

Another belief from the area where my summer cottage is: if you hear a woman laugh but there's no one around a death will soon happen at the site where you heard it. It's considered to be a local spirit or väki (a kind of a generic life force of a particular thing) looking forward to attacking someone.

Same area, there's an inky black pool called Näkki-pool or Mill-pool near an old mill, which supposedly has a Näkki living in it. Approaching it alone is a bad idea, staring into it is a worse idea, disturbing the water in any way is the worst idea.

Never curse or speak loudly when you're on a lake, you'll upset the väki of the water. Preferably don't talk at all.

Likewise never curse in sauna or stay in until it cools down, the sauna spirit is the strongest and most violent of the house spirits and likes to get revenge if s/he's not respected or given some warm bath time after the humans are done.

:iceland:

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.

Hearing an invisible baby cry was a sign of a storm to come. The source was believed to be a baby that died before it was baptized.



Sometimes ghosts keep living in their old house long after their death, in which case damaging the house is not smart. The picture above is of a little cabin that a local farmer built for his dead father according to his wishes and it supposedly is his ghost's home now. It was right next to a summer cabin we rented for a weekend, but we didn't bother him and he didn't bother us.

[Aierdome]

Ah, those are fascinating! I find the sauna and knocking on the door especially interesting.
For something from my place (Poland):

According to popular tradition, witches always meet on sabbaths on "bald mountains", the most famous one of those being appropriately-named Łysa Góra (lit. Bald Mountain). The witches would meet there, light fires, dance and burn various weeds, jumping on their brooms and flying off with the first rooster's call. The sabbath of Łysa Góra is apparently a pretty well-known process, which begs a question of how our God-obeying ancestors got to know it so well.   Apart from fires and dances, they'd have a dinner, using skulls, eggshells and horse hooves as crockery. After that, there'd be a parade dance, with the leading witch dancing with the Devil himself. After that, there'd be workshops, info-share and other learning activities between the witches.

Two similar spirits from old paganic religion, not really believed in today, are rusałki and południce (rusaw-kee and powood-nee-tseh, for the sake of those interested). Rusałki were your regular water spirits who could take on appearance of young and enticing women, luring men into the waters to eat them. Południce, on the other hand, prayed on farmers who slept on their fields at noon (their name could be translated as noon-wraiths).

More of tradition than superstition, but on Christmas Eve, you should always leave a free spot by the table for any unannounced guest. You can never know when Jesus himself pays you a visit, and you may not recognize him as such, so implication is that you should let in a stranger knocking on your door on Christmas Eve.

Under the Giewont mountain in the south there's said to be awaiting an ancient army of sleeping knights, to awake when country's greatest need comes. Those who stumble upon the entrance to their cave by accident are sworn to secrecy of place's location by the knights' watchman and leader.

The mines are said to be haunted by a spirit called Skarbnik, the Treasurer, which while rather grumpy, is actually hepful and protective, warning the miners of cave-ins, floods and methane pockets. He usually appears as an old beared man, although sometimes he takes on a shape of an animal, or choses to remain invisible and signal his presence by knocking.

Not sure if this technically counts, but under the castle hill in Cracow there's a cavern where a dragon is said to have resided once. The beast was pretty classical one - kidnapping fair maidens, eating sheep, terrorizing the populace, that sort of things. In the legend, it was beaten by a heroic shoemaker, Dratewka (w is read as v). He killed it by sewing a whole lot of either explosive or really spicy (depending whom you ask) substances into a sheep corpse that was left to the dragon as an offering. According to the which version of the story you listen to, the dragon's fiery breath detonated the explosive package in his stomach, or the dragon got so thirsty, it drunk too much and died of it. Now the reminder of the story is a statue in Cracow:

Yes, it breathes fire. It's cool. O0

For the last thing, in my home city there are more disturbing stories. For one, the medieval prison (which doubled as city gate - weren't we inviting and welcoming people!) was also the execution place, and for years nobody wanted to do anything in the building, due to alleged ghosts of executed prisoners roaming the halls - it's now an amber museum, BTW. For other, back during World War Two Gdańsk was pretty heavily "invested" in by the Nazi regime, so there's an astonishing number of buildings which are now said to be haunted by strange lights and screams.

[Ana Nymus]

Ooh, here, let me set up a campfire for a proper ghost-story-telling atmosphere!

For the US, I can offer up a series of books called Weird Travel Guides. There's one for about half of the states, as well as a few other areas.

There's a ghost story about a street connected to the one I live on. There's a one lane windy bridge over a river there, and legend has it that a woman was killed there when a truck hit her as she tried to cross. Supposedly, if you drive across the bridge at midnight, her ghost will appear and scream "Stop!". I can't say I've confirmed it myself, though!

[Purple Wyrm]

Sadly I'm not really familiar with the spiritual beliefs of the local Indigenous people here in Western Australia, but I know of some some great ghost stories. In particular the old York Hospital has a really nasty reputation.

There's an old documentary from the 80's that goes into a bunch of Australian ghost stories, which is happily available in it's entirety on YouTube. It covers the old York Hospital pretty extensively, along with a bunch of other stories from around the country.

Also on YouTube is a documentary about 'Australia's most haunted town' (apparently Kapunda in South Australia). It's big on atmosphere, less so on actual convincing fact, but is pretty entertaining - particularly the last half which consists chiefly of host Warwick Moss stumbling around in the dark grunting and swearing.

[Fauna]

Aaahh, the calling of my people.. > Here's a few from Sweden, be wary of some pretty dark and gorey stuff. Read at your own risk.

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.

[Fenris]

I know some local ones from my area.

The first is the Lord's Manor (Herregården) in town. It was built in 1677 for the count of Laurvigen and Stattholder of Norway Ulrik Gyldenløve. Over the years, quite a number of people have died there (drowned childre and the like) and there's been rapported sightings of things. Some of the typical, like a painting whose eyes seem to follow you, rooms with sudden temperature shifts and the like. The most particular sighting is that of a young seamstress who drowned in a pond by the mansion, and thereafter people have spoken of her apparition trying to lure children and youngsters down. Now, another part of this story is that the seamstress had half a medallion, the other part belonging to her brother, and once those pieces were re-united the sightings stopped and you stopped finding kids trying to play in a way too deep pond. Still, there's sightings and such, and now the manor is part of the town museum.

Another local one is the Grey Lady (den Grå Dame), whom we do know the name of. A girl named Elise was seduced by the naval hero Peter Wessel Tordenskjold (a nickname, literally thundershield) three hundred years ago at the Citadel by Stavern (a town by where I live, which had a naval fort built a few decades before this and which later became one of the largest naval bases in Norway). Thundershield left her, however, and she was found drowned by the Citadel. Its said you can hear her shout "Peter" during some nights, and the local hotel has a room where she slept and which some guests have been spooked off by.

In addition to this, you got some of the typical things. A clearing more close to where I live is... well, its a bit chilling to cross. Apparently a young couple hung themselves there a while ago, and then you got a local woodpath where a bunch of corpses from a shipwreck where hastily buried as the locals got away with the driftgoods before an investigation could be done. Not to mention the old pre-christian burial mounds and the like. These ghost stories are more generic and I do not know much details.

Being a rural man, I also grew up with a lot of beliefs and superstitions of various sorts (including those mentioned above), such as how on Christmas Eve one should remain indoors, unless one wants to be taken på Åsgardsreia (the wild hunt, basically), how one should always take care to treat animals kindly and with respect unless the farm's fjøsnisse (household gnome/goblin/spirit) gets upset and starts breaking stuff (he also demands an annual tribute of porridge on Christmas Eve), the existance of 'under-the-ground-people', spirits and so on, and some locals who claimed they could always find things (and, to be fair, they usually could. usually lost keys and the like), and the use of divining rods (which I still use, since it hasn't failed me yet for finding streams of water). There were also the typical tales of trolls, vetter (more a generic term for all these creatures), nøkken (see Fauna's description), Fossegrimen (a prettier Nøkk by waterfalls), huldra and so on.