Quercus
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2021
- Messages
- 180
- Location
- Back of beyond
One evening around October 2001, I’d stayed late visiting some friends in the Donegall Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. I’d let time get away from me, and had half-forgotten that I’d promised to phone my girlfriend, who was at university in England. It was well after midnight - and probably nearer one o’clock in the morning - when I finished my coffee, left my friends’ house, and got into my little blue Ford Fiesta to drive the twelve miles or so home to Bangor.
As I made to start the car, my mobile phone beeped, and I realised a number of unread text messages from my girlfriend had just come through. Back in the early 2000s, mobile networks weren’t great and Belfast had a number of areas where phone reception could be patchy. This part of South Belfast was one of them. The messages began cheerfully enough by asking when I was going to call, and became more annoyed and finally despondent as the hours had passed without any reply from me.
Angry with myself at being so slack, I quickly rang my girlfriend’s number – and, having now woken her up, my garbled apologies and feeble excuses didn’t go down too well. She was having a tough time adjusting to university life, and I’d really hurt her by breaking my promise to call. We ended up getting into an argument, and by the time I hung up I felt wretched and consumed with self-loathing. I fired up my car, alone on the dark street, and began the drive home.
I was a mess of emotions, and as I hammered along the empty dual carriageway towards Bangor I realised I didn’t want to go straight home. On an impulse, I pulled off the main road and headed towards Helen’s Bay, a small coastal village where the two of us had often gone together to walk along the beach. I had happy feelings about the place; right then I felt like I needed to recapture some positive emotions.
Because it was late and there was no-one around, I parked up on double yellow lines on the Grey Point Road, right beside a cut-through path that led down to the beach. It was a calm night, overcast but dry, and not too cold for mid-autumn. The path down to the beach was lit by a sodium arc streetlight, so it wasn’t that hard to see. I kicked moodily across the dark sand, stood for a while by the water’s edge glaring at the lights on the loughshore opposite, and ended up slumped on a wooden bench about halfway around the bay, still eaten up with guilt and remorse.
I’d probably sat there for around half an hour, reading through the texts from earlier, my thoughts becoming darker and darker. Suddenly I became aware of a peculiar buzzing noise coming from further along the beach path, towards the woods. It was soft, and the pitch oscillated slightly – more like an insect in flight than something mechanical like a motor. But it was growing louder, like it was coming closer.
I peered along the path, into the darkness. It was long past two o’clock in the morning, very quiet, and I’d seen no-one at all since parking the car. The odd noise jolted me out of my thoughts, making me alert but not yet alarmed.
Then, as the buzzing noise intensified, I made out what appeared to be a small, white cloud, maybe two feet across, coming out of the darkness. It was drifting slowly at head height along the path towards me, and appeared to be the source of the buzzing noise.
I stood up, becoming rather more alarmed at this point. I had never seen anything like this before, and although I didn’t exactly feel in any immediate danger, I wasn’t sure what might happen next.
I began to walk quickly back towards the car, looking over my shoulder as I did so. The white cloud was still visible, coming closer to the bench where I’d just been sitting, while the buzzing, pulsing noise seemed to be getting louder.
I broke into a run, feeling ridiculous as I did so but the rising panic in my chest spurred me on. I glanced backwards, now unable to see the cloud but still hearing the buzzing noise, which now seemed to be coming from all around me. A weird phrase kept repeating through my mind, over and over again – ‘it’s not human and it never was’.
At the top of the path, just beside my car, I stopped at a pair of bollards and wheeled round, to face the direction I’d just come. The buzzing noise had faded into the distance as I ran, but now was building in intensity again.
I’d never done this before, but as I stood there at the top of the path, I made the sign of the cross with my two index fingers and aimed it down the path towards the buzzing noise. At the time, I was attending a Pentecostal-style church; while the existence of things like demons and spirits were not emphasized, they were however acknowledged. Tonight, I felt that calling on the Divine might somehow help to stop whatever-this-was.
There was no visible cloud to be seen, under the streetlight’s glow, but the weird oscillating buzz remained. I felt that the entity was still there, and close by. I was muttering under my breath at it, saying stuff along the lines of “You just stay there,” and “Don’t come any closer, in Jesus’ name.”
I still couldn’t see anything, but I had the feeling that the entity had stopped about ten yards away from me. I could still hear the buzzing, but it seemed to be getting softer – not further away, just softer.
My nerve broke, and I rushed round to the driver’s side of my car and leapt in. I fired up the little Ford, and tore off at speed back along the road towards Helen’s Bay village, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
I passed through the quiet of the village, under a railway bridge, and past a country park before turning left into Crawfordsburn village, another settlement outside Bangor. As I drove past a darkened filling station, I suddenly heard the same low buzz start up again, quieter now – but this time, inside the car with me.
Without taking time to think, I pulled over in the main street and jumped out, leaving the door wide open. I lifted the tailgate and pulled open the passenger door, then commanded whatever-it-was to get out of the car and leave me alone. After a few moments, the buzzing noise gradually faded out. I stood there in the empty village street, feeling pretty stupid but unsure of whether or not it had actually gone. Eventually, as a couple more minutes passed, I got a ‘lifting’ sense that the entity had now fully departed. Still feeling a bit shocked, I closed up the car doors, and drove on home without any further incident.
Although this wasn’t the only experience I’ve ever had, it was the only one quite like this. I have no explanation for what I heard and saw; my rational mind says that it couldn’t have happened like that, but I recall the whole incident very clearly. Maybe it was all in my head, but if so it involved a number of phases over a span of about ten minutes.
If I had to throw out a theory, ignoring the fact it goes against all rational thought, I’d say that somehow my very negative feelings as I sat there in that lonely spot seemed to attract something from the woods that wanted… well, I don’t know what it wanted. To feed on these negative emotions? To attach itself on to me? Worse? I don’t know.
In recent years, I’ve heard a few stories about strange occurrences reported in the adjoining Crawfordsburn Country Park, but nothing like what I experienced. Despite everything, I didn’t feel that the entity was actively evil, just out and about doing its thing. But I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was enough to frighten me quite a lot.
Regardless, after that night I stopped hanging around isolated spots by myself late on. I have no particular desire for such an experience again.
As I made to start the car, my mobile phone beeped, and I realised a number of unread text messages from my girlfriend had just come through. Back in the early 2000s, mobile networks weren’t great and Belfast had a number of areas where phone reception could be patchy. This part of South Belfast was one of them. The messages began cheerfully enough by asking when I was going to call, and became more annoyed and finally despondent as the hours had passed without any reply from me.
Angry with myself at being so slack, I quickly rang my girlfriend’s number – and, having now woken her up, my garbled apologies and feeble excuses didn’t go down too well. She was having a tough time adjusting to university life, and I’d really hurt her by breaking my promise to call. We ended up getting into an argument, and by the time I hung up I felt wretched and consumed with self-loathing. I fired up my car, alone on the dark street, and began the drive home.
I was a mess of emotions, and as I hammered along the empty dual carriageway towards Bangor I realised I didn’t want to go straight home. On an impulse, I pulled off the main road and headed towards Helen’s Bay, a small coastal village where the two of us had often gone together to walk along the beach. I had happy feelings about the place; right then I felt like I needed to recapture some positive emotions.
Because it was late and there was no-one around, I parked up on double yellow lines on the Grey Point Road, right beside a cut-through path that led down to the beach. It was a calm night, overcast but dry, and not too cold for mid-autumn. The path down to the beach was lit by a sodium arc streetlight, so it wasn’t that hard to see. I kicked moodily across the dark sand, stood for a while by the water’s edge glaring at the lights on the loughshore opposite, and ended up slumped on a wooden bench about halfway around the bay, still eaten up with guilt and remorse.
I’d probably sat there for around half an hour, reading through the texts from earlier, my thoughts becoming darker and darker. Suddenly I became aware of a peculiar buzzing noise coming from further along the beach path, towards the woods. It was soft, and the pitch oscillated slightly – more like an insect in flight than something mechanical like a motor. But it was growing louder, like it was coming closer.
I peered along the path, into the darkness. It was long past two o’clock in the morning, very quiet, and I’d seen no-one at all since parking the car. The odd noise jolted me out of my thoughts, making me alert but not yet alarmed.
Then, as the buzzing noise intensified, I made out what appeared to be a small, white cloud, maybe two feet across, coming out of the darkness. It was drifting slowly at head height along the path towards me, and appeared to be the source of the buzzing noise.
I stood up, becoming rather more alarmed at this point. I had never seen anything like this before, and although I didn’t exactly feel in any immediate danger, I wasn’t sure what might happen next.
I began to walk quickly back towards the car, looking over my shoulder as I did so. The white cloud was still visible, coming closer to the bench where I’d just been sitting, while the buzzing, pulsing noise seemed to be getting louder.
I broke into a run, feeling ridiculous as I did so but the rising panic in my chest spurred me on. I glanced backwards, now unable to see the cloud but still hearing the buzzing noise, which now seemed to be coming from all around me. A weird phrase kept repeating through my mind, over and over again – ‘it’s not human and it never was’.
At the top of the path, just beside my car, I stopped at a pair of bollards and wheeled round, to face the direction I’d just come. The buzzing noise had faded into the distance as I ran, but now was building in intensity again.
I’d never done this before, but as I stood there at the top of the path, I made the sign of the cross with my two index fingers and aimed it down the path towards the buzzing noise. At the time, I was attending a Pentecostal-style church; while the existence of things like demons and spirits were not emphasized, they were however acknowledged. Tonight, I felt that calling on the Divine might somehow help to stop whatever-this-was.
There was no visible cloud to be seen, under the streetlight’s glow, but the weird oscillating buzz remained. I felt that the entity was still there, and close by. I was muttering under my breath at it, saying stuff along the lines of “You just stay there,” and “Don’t come any closer, in Jesus’ name.”
I still couldn’t see anything, but I had the feeling that the entity had stopped about ten yards away from me. I could still hear the buzzing, but it seemed to be getting softer – not further away, just softer.
My nerve broke, and I rushed round to the driver’s side of my car and leapt in. I fired up the little Ford, and tore off at speed back along the road towards Helen’s Bay village, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
I passed through the quiet of the village, under a railway bridge, and past a country park before turning left into Crawfordsburn village, another settlement outside Bangor. As I drove past a darkened filling station, I suddenly heard the same low buzz start up again, quieter now – but this time, inside the car with me.
Without taking time to think, I pulled over in the main street and jumped out, leaving the door wide open. I lifted the tailgate and pulled open the passenger door, then commanded whatever-it-was to get out of the car and leave me alone. After a few moments, the buzzing noise gradually faded out. I stood there in the empty village street, feeling pretty stupid but unsure of whether or not it had actually gone. Eventually, as a couple more minutes passed, I got a ‘lifting’ sense that the entity had now fully departed. Still feeling a bit shocked, I closed up the car doors, and drove on home without any further incident.
Although this wasn’t the only experience I’ve ever had, it was the only one quite like this. I have no explanation for what I heard and saw; my rational mind says that it couldn’t have happened like that, but I recall the whole incident very clearly. Maybe it was all in my head, but if so it involved a number of phases over a span of about ten minutes.
If I had to throw out a theory, ignoring the fact it goes against all rational thought, I’d say that somehow my very negative feelings as I sat there in that lonely spot seemed to attract something from the woods that wanted… well, I don’t know what it wanted. To feed on these negative emotions? To attach itself on to me? Worse? I don’t know.
In recent years, I’ve heard a few stories about strange occurrences reported in the adjoining Crawfordsburn Country Park, but nothing like what I experienced. Despite everything, I didn’t feel that the entity was actively evil, just out and about doing its thing. But I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was enough to frighten me quite a lot.
Regardless, after that night I stopped hanging around isolated spots by myself late on. I have no particular desire for such an experience again.
