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The Buzzing Misty Entity At Helen's Bay Beach

I've never seen anything like that in the UK.

No, the sandfly link was just to illustrate that other types of insect are out there, and the video to show that some are louder than midges/mosquitos.
But @Quercus has ruled this option out so I'm now guessing it was a floating, amorphous, alien brain come to share it's vast knowledge of the universe with us puny Earthlings, but he spoiled everything by showing how we're still bogged down by superstition and religious dogma. :D
 
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Gosh darn it, you've rumbled me...

No, as I said, it's worth ruling nothing out - just that I'd never encountered anything of that nature in the area, before or since.

But it's a possibility I hadn't considered, and for that I'm grateful.

The strangest part of the story, for me, remains the re-emergence of the noise (but nothing to be seen) inside the car a couple of miles down the road- which seems to stretch the insect or aerial drone theory.

If it weren't for that part - and the physicality of standing in the middle of the village with the doors and bootlid wide open, feeling embarassed and weirdly scared - then I'd be more likely to agree that the beach experience was some misperception of a natural phenomena, or outworking of my psychological distress..

Of course, as a purely subjective personal experience I can't discount that as an explanation for the entire episode.

But it's only in recent years that I've become aware of a number of strange tales emerging from neighbouring Crawfordsburn Country Park, including reported hauntings, supposed timeslips, and even malevolent little people seen by dog walkers.

So, I thought it was worth adding my own tuppen'orth regarding an odd experience in the area.
 
Linky link to other Crawfordsburn strangeness:

http://northernirelandghoststories.com/ghost-stories/crawfordsburn/

http://northernirelandghoststories.com/ghost-stories/crawfordsburn-ghost/

Obviously I can't provide any other further detail on these stories, which are admittedly a bit patchy.

Full disclosure: I did send a message to the fella who runs this site with an edited version of my account, but other than a read receipt, heard nothing more back. The site doesn't appear to have been updated for nearly five years now.
 
Of course, if the buzzing noise wasn't strictly external, but was a product of your brain (doing what, who knows, but if buzzing is one of the precursors to OBEs then it's reasonable to suppose it to be some kind of internally derived activity), then its following you into the car is not surprising.
 
That's a fair reading of the situation, and entirely plausible. It could indeed have been all in my head.

It would be anomalous to me, as I've never had any other episodes similar to this (and I don't believe I've ever had any OBEs).

It disturbed me quite a lot at the time. Whether an external reality or a psychological fracture, it remains a one-off - and I'm quite glad about that.
 
That's a fair reading of the situation, and entirely plausible. It could indeed have been all in my head.

It would be anomalous to me, as I've never had any other episodes similar to this (and I don't believe I've ever had any OBEs).

It disturbed me quite a lot at the time. Whether an external reality or a psychological fracture, it remains a one-off - and I'm quite glad about that.
The degree to which any paranormal event is in someone's head is still up for debate!
 
It is, and that's kinda why I'm here!

It's the events where two or more people were involved, and both agree they shared the same experience, or there's additional physical evidence - those are even more interesting.
...and much, much rarer!
 
Quercus - three points/queries spring to mind:

1) Your emotional reaction to having a bit of a tiff following a few unreturned text calls (in an area with a bad connection) seems to me to be a tad excessive. I raise this not to be either cheeky or dimissive of your feelings - but to raise the possibiity that, instead of the `entity` (whatever) feeding off your emotions as you suggest, but that perhaps, rather, it was your emotions which were being enhamced and magnified by the phenomena.

2) Reading your excellently written account I was struck by the depopulated feel it had about it. Once you had left your friend's place it seems as if you were entirely alone. (This is what gives your story its creepy ambience). Okay, it was late at night...but were there no other cars on the roads? No lit windows in houses? Nobody else around at all?

Again, there's method in my madness: I raise this because it puts me in mind of the `Oz effect` - a phenomena which has been noted - I think J.Randles coined the term - when paranormal events occur (such as a UFO encounter),in which the landscape goes suddenly eerily quiet prior to the event - no birdsong and so on, and no passers-by who could corroborate the event.

3) Has anyone mentioned ball lightning? I understand that this rare and little understood natural phenomna can take different forms - sometimes appearing to be translucent and other times solid. Also it is accompanied by a buzzing sound. I note further that `Anomalous Zones` often have a history of such atmospheric stuff being seen in the area - Jack O Lanterns, Will O wisps and Balls of Light and so on.
 
2) Reading your excellently written account I was struck by the depopulated feel it had about it. Once you had left your friend's place it seems as if you were entirely alone. (This is what gives your story its creepy ambience). Okay, it was late at night...but were there no other cars on the roads? No lit windows in houses? Nobody else around at all?

Again, there's method in my madness: I raise this because it puts me in mind of the `Oz effect` - a phenomena which has been noted - I think J.Randles coined the term - when paranormal events occur (such as a UFO encounter),in which the landscape goes suddenly eerily quiet prior to the event - no birdsong and so on, and no passers-by who could corroborate the event.

“Further clues kept popping up the more that I tabulated these cases. For instance, there were claims that at the onset of the episode all ambient sounds faded away c bird song, the wind in the trees, distant train noises, et cetera. All of these clues pointed towards an isolation factor at work, as if the witness were being singled out and put into a cocoon whereby he or she could experience the UFO, whereas anyone outside of it could not. As I started to work out the statistics for the cases I had gathered, this sense of isolation became very obvious. What I call “medium definition cases” (where a clear object with structured shape was seen) there were about 2.6 witnesses per case on average, and they rarely relied on just the testimony of one person; and if you canvassed the area, backup witnesses would frequently appear.


When the case was a close encounter (which I defined not by distance, but by the presence of physical or physiological effects such as car stops, burns marks et cetera) then the witness average was less than half of the previous figure (approximately 1.2); and it was often impossible to find anyone else who saw anything, even if there were people in a position where they should have. Because this all suggested that the close encounter was somehow a witness-focused incident, I wanted a term to define this set of symptoms that kept cropping up. I used “Oz Factor” because what these people were describing was just like being taken out of our reality and put into a new dimension where magical things happened, rather like the Land of Oz.”

Jenny Randles

http://www.alienjigsaw.com/et-contact/Randles-The-Oz-Factor.html

maximus otter
 
ALL midges are satanic. There you are, walking along at dusk by the most beautiful stretch of water, taking in the scenery - the next minute you can't see, they are in your hair, down your neck, in your ears, and biting!

Next day is almost worse, when you can't brush your hair for the sore lumps, and you're minus several pints of blood. Nothing good could ever have that effect...
There have been studies that show some people are more attractive to mosquitos, i can imagine the same is true with midges, i myself rarely get bitten
Some people produce more of certainchemicals in their skin,” he explains. “And a few of those chemicals, like lactic acid, attractmosquitoes.” There's also evidence that one blood type (O) attracts mosquitoes more thanothers (A or B). ... Mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets, Day says.
 
There have been studies that show some people are more attractive to mosquitos, i can imagine the same is true with midges, i myself rarely get bitten
Some people produce more of certainchemicals in their skin,” he explains. “And a few of those chemicals, like lactic acid, attractmosquitoes.” There's also evidence that one blood type (O) attracts mosquitoes more thanothers (A or B). ... Mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets, Day says.
I think it's the same with any blood sucking insect, even fleas from other animals (which can't, therefore, derive nourishment from human blood). Some people get bitten all the time, others don't.

But there has to be more to it than blood type. I am group O- as are all my kids. I, and one of my sons, used to get eaten alive by midges, mosquitoes, fleas anything. The others rarely got bitten. Now I am old and wizened, I very very rarely get bitten by anything, even though my blood group is the same, yet my middle daughter has started being badly bitten (or maybe just reacting badly) to mosquito bites.

But I will go with the CO2 attractant. I stood, one evening on the shores of Loch Katrine. Not a midge in sight. I thought maybe the weather was unsuitable...until I saw the veritable cloud of them coming at me around the loch edge. They were on me in seconds - barely escaped with my life (well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but at first there were none and then there were millions). They'd sensed me there, breathing....
 
That's a fair reading of the situation, and entirely plausible. It could indeed have been all in my head.

It would be anomalous to me, as I've never had any other episodes similar to this (and I don't believe I've ever had any OBEs).

It disturbed me quite a lot at the time. Whether an external reality or a psychological fracture, it remains a one-off - and I'm quite glad about that.
Another strange tale there Quercus, very much on similar lines to Damien's friend Frank's story in that it was a lonely bizarre frightening experience which may or may not have had a rational explanation.
The column of mist reminds me of what I saw and reported here a while ago, with what looked a misty figure walking through our back yard. I put this down to a narrow cloud of steam emanating from the drain (it was cold and drizzling), rather than a super natural phenomenon and slowly drifting along before dissolving. Wouldn't explain your experience of course.
 
But I will go with the CO2 attractant. I stood, one evening on the shores of Loch Katrine. Not a midge in sight. I thought maybe the weather was unsuitable...until I saw the veritable cloud of them coming at me around the loch edge. They were on me in seconds - barely escaped with my life. They'd sensed me there, breathing....

Midge killing machines use CO2 as an attractant. They are very effective:

midge-mountain2.jpg


One week's kill (The Highland biting midge has a wingspan of just 1.4mm and weighs just an 8000th of a gram).

maximus otter
 
Midge killing machines use CO2 as an attractant. They are very effective:

midge-mountain2.jpg


One week's kill (The Highland biting midge has a wingspan of just 1.4mm and weighs just an 8000th of a gram).

maximus otter
Wow. Somewhere there's a lot of hungry bats now, flapping about disconsolately.
 
There have been studies that show some people are more attractive to mosquitos, i can imagine the same is true with midges, i myself rarely get bitten
Some people produce more of certainchemicals in their skin,” he explains. “And a few of those chemicals, like lactic acid, attractmosquitoes.” There's also evidence that one blood type (O) attracts mosquitoes more thanothers (A or B). ... Mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets, Day says.

No need to be smug. I get eaten alive by mosquitoes. Barstewards.
 
as i read it there was a disconnect between the momentarily visible cloud and the buzzing noise ... bit of stray coastal fog ? sometimes only takes a couple of insects to get a buzz on, on a quiet night, thinking of how sound of crickets/cicadas also almost seem to follow you
 
I recall travelling around the Netherlands with a mate around 1992/1993. We camped at a place called Uitdam outside of Amsterdam. It really was in the middle of nowhere.

One early evening we went for a walk along a bank beside the sea. There were no midges at all, until after a while we noticed that we had a cloud of them over our heads. If we suddenly stopped walking, they would carry on for about two metres and then come back for us.
 
I recall travelling around the Netherlands with a mate around 1992/1993. We camped at a place called Uitdam outside of Amsterdam. It really was in the middle of nowhere.

One early evening we went for a walk along a bank beside the sea. There were no midges at all, until after a while we noticed that we had a cloud of them over our heads. If we suddenly stopped walking, they would carry on for about two metres and then come back for us.

Midge attacks in Scotland, inc. a one-minute midge challenge on Skye, where l used to live:




maximus otter
 
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Quercus - three points/queries spring to mind:

1) Your emotional reaction to having a bit of a tiff following a few unreturned text calls (in an area with a bad connection) seems to me to be a tad excessive. I raise this not to be either cheeky or dimissive of your feelings - but to raise the possibiity that, instead of the `entity` (whatever) feeding off your emotions as you suggest, but that perhaps, rather, it was your emotions which were being enhamced and magnified by the phenomena.

2) Reading your excellently written account I was struck by the depopulated feel it had about it. Once you had left your friend's place it seems as if you were entirely alone. (This is what gives your story its creepy ambience). Okay, it was late at night...but were there no other cars on the roads? No lit windows in houses? Nobody else around at all?

Again, there's method in my madness: I raise this because it puts me in mind of the `Oz effect` - a phenomena which has been noted - I think J.Randles coined the term - when paranormal events occur (such as a UFO encounter),in which the landscape goes suddenly eerily quiet prior to the event - no birdsong and so on, and no passers-by who could corroborate the event.

3) Has anyone mentioned ball lightning? I understand that this rare and little understood natural phenomna can take different forms - sometimes appearing to be translucent and other times solid. Also it is accompanied by a buzzing sound. I note further that `Anomalous Zones` often have a history of such atmospheric stuff being seen in the area - Jack O Lanterns, Will O wisps and Balls of Light and so on.

Hey Zeke - thanks for your thoughts on this one!

Taking them in order:

1) Yeah, I was pretty upset, but mostly angry at myself for having broken a promise and let down someone I cared about who was already having a really hard time of it. I'd allowed it to become late, and had been so busy chatting with my friends in their new place that I hadn't checked my phone to realise I'd lost reception.

Thinking back, it wasn't so much an argument as just me listening impotently to her sobbing hundreds of miles away, because she was completely alone and things were genuinely very difficult (for a number of reasons I won't go into but trust me, they were) and I'd been the one person who at least seemed vaguely reliable. She was in a state of complete hopelessness and my feeble apologies, and inability to make anything better for her, just seemed to make things worse for both of us. If I were placed in the same situation again today, I'd probably feel just as bad.

But the phone conversation and my initial feelings of self-loathing occurred in the car parked outside my friends' house in South Belfast, and it was about a 25 minute drive through the city centre to get over to Helen's Bay, 12 miles or so away. Taking into account the drive, the walk around the shore, and the time spent sitting on the bench, I'd estimate that over an hour had elapsed since hanging up the call, and while I was by no means in good form at the point at which I heard the buzzing noise begin, I wasn't quite as raw as I'd been earlier.

However, I get what you're saying that some places can seem to instigate and amplify negative feelings - had the whole episode played out in the same location, I'd say that's definitely a theory worth keeping in mind.

2) Yeah, depopulated would be an accurate description of the overall setting - I wasn't really aware of it overtly, but thinking back it was certainly very quiet in Helen's Bay that night.

Now, that's maybe not unusual for the area - it's a wealthy village with big houses, often behind security gates; there's only a single corner shop which closes at 10pm, and it's really not a place you would ever see people out walking who aren't daytrippers. Because there are no restaurants or pubs apart from the golf club, there aren't many taxis or cars circulating late on. In all the times I was there late at the beach, I may have encountered the occasional dog walker, but on the night in question I don't recollect seeing any moving vehicles or people, in either Helen's Bay or Crawfordsburn.

I've heard of the Oz Factor, and while I wouldn't say that forms part of my recall of the whole episode, it's also another factor worth bearing in mind. I hadn't felt overly creeped out or isolated until the point that the buzzing noise started; but then I was pretty absorbed in my own thoughts.

3) Again, I can't say that ball lightning didn't play some role in what happened - as a phenomenon that seems to be accepted to exist but not yet clearly defined or understood, it certainly can't be ruled out.

The cloud-like shape I saw didn't seem to be illuminated, or even luminous though - it was just like a small, opaque white cloud floating at roughly head height as it approached me on the bench. There was no sort of 'ozone smell' or electrical prickling (and I'm normally very sensitive to electricity), but that may have no bearing on whether it was or wasn't ball lightning.

My immediate take on it seemed to intuit that it had some sort of non-human intelligence directing its movements towards me, rather than a meteorological event - but I've absolutely no concrete reasoning to back that up. Just a weird feeling.

Mind you, even if ball lightning were involved rather than something more paranormal, it'd still be an experience worth recounting.

Thanks for all these additional points to consider, excellent food for thought!
 
Thinking back, it wasn't so much an argument as just me listening impotently to her sobbing hundreds of miles away, because she was completely alone and things were genuinely very difficult (for a number of reasons I won't go into but trust me, they were) and I'd been the one person who at least seemed vaguely reliable. She was in a state of complete hopelessness and my feeble apologies, and inability to make anything better for her, just seemed to make things worse for both of us. If I were placed in the same situation again today, I'd probably feel just as bad.

I think this became manifest.
 
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