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Creepiest Fortean Story?

I think my present favorite story for sheer creepiness is the murderous ghost of Carl Pruitt
http://www.prairieghosts.com/pruitt.html
MrRing left a post in the Killer Ghosts subforum about it.

Now most people who see ghosts get completely creeped out about them, and fair enough. They shouldn't be there, and you get the whole skin crawl and adrenaline shiver which is your body saying "Wrongness! Run!" The difference with the Pruitt grave issue is that his ghost seems to have been unusually active in killing people who disturbed his headstone with his signature weapon, a length of chain. This is full-on horror movie material imo, except it is supposedly all true. Has anyone heard differently? I have looked for a debunking, but there doesn't seem to have been one.
 
I think my present favorite story for sheer creepiness is the murderous ghost of Carl Pruitt

How on earth have I missed this? Thank you for the pointer sir!
 
How on earth have I missed this? Thank you for the pointer sir!

It slipped under my radar for years too, but its a gem, a horrible paranormal gem, and if it is half true its scary. There is a YouTube Channel called Bedtime Stories that did a show on it for those who want to listen:
 
Ahhhhh, after vaguely searching on and off for (literally) years, I found it! And managed to get almost every detail wrong.

It is post #40 on the "anyone seen a ghost?" Thread, by Jonnyboy1968. He worked in a youth hostel, said see you on Saturday, and the voice said no. Still creepy though. All the way back in 2002. I cannot tell you how much finding this has cheered me, it's one that I often thought of :hapdan:

Can I link to it?

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/anyone-seen-a-ghost.621/post-28243
Thanks for linking to that. Fabulous story and got to be one of the 'freshest' accounts we have, here, having been written up straight after. Love that one.
 
I think my present favorite story for sheer creepiness is the murderous ghost of Carl Pruitt
http://www.prairieghosts.com/pruitt.html
MrRing left a post in the Killer Ghosts subforum about it.

Now most people who see ghosts get completely creeped out about them, and fair enough. They shouldn't be there, and you get the whole skin crawl and adrenaline shiver which is your body saying "Wrongness! Run!" The difference with the Pruitt grave issue is that his ghost seems to have been unusually active in killing people who disturbed his headstone with his signature weapon, a length of chain. This is full-on horror movie material imo, except it is supposedly all true. Has anyone heard differently? I have looked for a debunking, but there doesn't seem to have been one.

It's a good story. Sadly it appears to be fiction. I mean originally written as fiction rather than an attempt to describe actual mysterious happenings.

https://www.cvltnation.com/anatomy-ghost-story-search-carl-pruitt/
 
TGS is the gift that keeps on giving, with board members irregularly undertaking elongated trips through backwoods mjolby etc ... in the hope of coming across a burnt out gas station, or even a square of scorched earth where one might have stood ... theres no greater exemplar of the depth and illusiveness of the ihtm, always just out of reach ... ive even considered a trip out there myself, in a man-without-a-past kind of way

This sounds like the premise for a give-me-the-Oscar-now, looking-to-solve-a-mystery-but-finding-yourself kind of picture with an immersive method actor in the title role. Renamed from Transdimensional Gas Station to something bland and Matthew McConaughey-ish, such as "The Wanderer" or "Looking for Gas".
 
On topic: I don't think this was a story so much as a post/thread. There was a video that I never watched but was spooked enough by the comments. It was something to do with horses and a woman in Victorian dress stepping out from the bushes. I've tried Googling it, to no avail.

Does anyone else find things terrifying in memory alone - and perhaps to see it at last would somehow be less scary?
 
On topic: I don't think this was a story so much as a post/thread. There was a video that I never watched but was spooked enough by the comments. It was something to do with horses and a woman in Victorian dress stepping out from the bushes. I've tried Googling it, to no avail.

Does anyone else find things terrifying in memory alone - and perhaps to see it at last would somehow be less scary?

Do you mean Emily Davison, who stepped in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby to promote the suffragette movement and was struck down and killed? It's a famous clip, from 1913.
 
Do you mean Emily Davison, who stepped in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby to promote the suffragette movement and was struck down and killed? It's a famous clip, from 1913.

I almost made reference to that, in order to say - haunting as it is in its own way - that wasn't what I was thinking of.

I didn't actually watch the video, I just remember other people discussing it. Perhaps I'm conflating the two...
 
I'm with Shady, in that I often remember things with that tingle of horror down the neck...stories half remembered, scenes from TV imperfectly understood. And then see the thing in its entirety in real life and feel let down by how banal and explicable it is.

Sometimes the true horror is in the head.
 
I'm with Shady, in that I often remember things with that tingle of horror down the neck...stories half remembered, scenes from TV imperfectly understood. And then see the thing in its entirety in real life and feel let down by how banal and explicable it is.

Sometimes the true horror is in the head.

Yes - the best "horror" is psychological. What's unseen. What's unsaid.

We have a mini-mystery at work this week and, although I'm very much intrigued, I almost don't want to know the outcome for fear it's too mundane.
 
I'm with Shady, in that I often remember things with that tingle of horror down the neck...stories half remembered, scenes from TV imperfectly understood. And then see the thing in its entirety in real life and feel let down by how banal and explicable it is.

Sometimes the true horror is in the head.


100% correct. I must have been in my early-teens, and remember watching the Children’s TV show Dramarama, which always had an element of the Supernatural to it’s Episodes.

There was one episode that featured a teenage boy doing an after school detention in his Victorian built school, when he notices another pupil sitting at the back of the class that he was sure wasn’t there before.

To cut a long story short, the other boy was a sprit who had died when the school took a hit during the blitz.

What I found creepy was that the viewer knew the boy was a ghost, but the real life boy in the show didn’t, and interacted with ghost boy as if everything was normal, until he finally realized at the end of the episode.

I found this Episode on YouTube a few years back and it was nothing as I’d remembered it - it was very disappointing.
 
100% correct. I must have been in my early-teens, and remember watching the Children’s TV show Dramarama, which always had an element of the Supernatural to it’s Episodes.

Dramarama had some corkers, some of which I still think of today (It was Dramarama and Picture Box that used to regularly creep us younguns out at school).
 
100% correct. I must have been in my early-teens, and remember watching the Children’s TV show Dramarama, which always had an element of the Supernatural to it’s Episodes.

There was one episode that featured a teenage boy doing an after school detention in his Victorian built school, when he notices another pupil sitting at the back of the class that he was sure wasn’t there before.

To cut a long story short, the other boy was a sprit who had died when the school took a hit during the blitz.

What I found creepy was that the viewer knew the boy was a ghost, but the real life boy in the show didn’t, and interacted with ghost boy as if everything was normal, until he finally realized at the end of the episode.

I found this Episode on YouTube a few years back and it was nothing as I’d remembered it - it was very disappointing.

Ooh, when the audience knows but the character doesn't (yet). That's a good terror element, too.

Things you find terrifying as a child are almost never as bad (or rather, good) as an adult. If I saw ET now I doubt I'd quiver, but I still recall how petrified I was that he would turn up somewhere in the house, particularly the upstairs loo :Givingup:
 
Ooh, when the audience knows but the character doesn't (yet). That's a good terror element, too.

Things you find terrifying as a child are almost never as bad (or rather, good) as an adult. If I saw ET now I doubt I'd quiver, but I still recall how petrified I was that he would turn up somewhere in the house, particularly the upstairs loo :Givingup:

Okay, I have decided to watch the episode again. I’m half way through and it’s not what I remembered from watching it a few years ago, which is weird.

It’s quite good actually. It’s called “ war games with Caroline “ Dramarama spooky.

Give it a go.
 
I *still* remember, with a chill, the moment I walked into our deserted living room (not deserted for any sinister reasons, Dad was at work and mum was bathing young brother) and caught a glimpse of an episode of 'Crossroads' which had been left playing to itself on TV.

It was a shot of a bed. And the sheets were moving in a lump.

I ran from the room and couldn't be left alone with the TV for a considerable while (I would have been about five or six when this happened). Now my adult mind tells me that it was probably a puppy or kitten under the covers, Crossroads, let's face it, wasn't exactly notorious for its paranormal elements. But that moment has stayed with me in a subliminal way ever since.

A scene that wasn't (probably) intended to be scary, half-seen and imperfectly understood, has terrified me for the best part of half a century.
 
I *still* remember, with a chill, the moment I walked into our deserted living room (not deserted for any sinister reasons, Dad was at work and mum was bathing young brother) and caught a glimpse of an episode of 'Crossroads' which had been left playing to itself on TV.

It was a shot of a bed. And the sheets were moving in a lump.

I ran from the room and couldn't be left alone with the TV for a considerable while (I would have been about five or six when this happened). Now my adult mind tells me that it was probably a puppy or kitten under the covers, Crossroads, let's face it, wasn't exactly notorious for its paranormal elements. But that moment has stayed with me in a subliminal way ever since.

A scene that wasn't (probably) intended to be scary, half-seen and imperfectly understood, has terrified me for the best part of half a century.

That gave me a flashback to the 1968 TV ghost story "Whistle and I'll Come to You" .
 
Agreed. Whilst I'm a big John Hurt fan, his version tinkered with the story too much.
The Hordern version was minimalist, but creepy as hell.


Bless, I am literally Sir Jonny hurt’s number one fan, but I think Hordern just pipped him when it came to the close up contorted scared face scene at the end of both films.

It’s a shame that’s Sir Jon's last piece of work was in a virtually non budget and badly made film, about an Eastend bare knuckle fighter.

I met him once, and he was a very scary man – the bare knuckle fighter that is, not Sir Jonny Hurt lol
 
I'm with Shady, in that I often remember things with that tingle of horror down the neck...stories half remembered, scenes from TV imperfectly understood. And then see the thing in its entirety in real life and feel let down by how banal and explicable it is.

Sometimes the true horror is in the head.

Yup, may have mentioned this before -

When the ex & I saw Alien at t'picatures I was horrified to see a dead man's head, separated from his body, somehow wired up and made to tell all about what was afoot.

Of course I'd missed something. The dead man is actually a robot and doesn't mind a bit being decapitated and invited to spill the beans.

Not HALF as exciting.
 
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