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Dick Turpin

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Mar 28, 2018
Messages
1,025
I’d been meaning to tap this one up for ages, but have always been put off by the length of the bloody thing. Today however some IT dude knocked out the systems at work, so the internet is all we’ve had since 2pm

Sorry, this is long, bear with though,,

Dartmoor in SW England is one of my favourite of places, and England’s last wilderness according to some travel books

It’s definitely a very fortean location, and abounds with folklore from Kitty Jay’s grave, ghostly hairy hands that steer motorists off the road, demonic dogs and the devils footprints in the snow.

However some years back, Mrs DT and, I were given the opportunity of a child free weekend, when my sister in law offered to take the kids off our hands for a few days. Of course we leapt at the chance, so I booked a double room for 4 nights in a well-known Dartmoor hotel, and planned to spend at least two days of the four hiking

On our first full day we set off for a hike with map, compass, warm clothes, flasks of tea etc and parked the car in one of those funny little car parks that are dotted over the moor.

The walk I’d chosen was a 10 mile circular route, that started and finished back at the car. Now Dartmoor can be a very unhospitable place at times, and the terrain can be quite arduous, so we started off at 11am, calculating it would take us no longer than 4 hours to complete the walk, and we should be back at the car around 3pm and long before nightfall – this was in early November, so the Sun would have set by 4.30pm.

What I didn’t calculate however, was the fact that neither of us had done anything like this in years, and just how knackering Dartmoor can be . Fatigue set in after a few miles so our pace was quite slow, however we carried on and by 3pm I reckoned we were only about a mile away from the finishing line.

We had just stopped for a quick tea break, when we heard a sound in the distance that set my mind racing and made the wife look at me open mouthed.

Mrs- Did you hear that..?
Me – Yes
Mrs- What was it..?
Me - I don’t know
Mrs- Really..?
Me – Yes really
Mrs – Okay, but what did it sound like to you..?
Me – Said nothing and shrugged my shoulders

I packed the flask of tea away in my rucksack, and we set back off, but after about 5 minutes or so we heard the sound again, but this time it was louder, so whatever it was, was closer.

Mrs –My god did you hear that noise again.?
Me – Yes I did
Mrs - what the F--- is it.?
Me – Dunno
Mrs – Okay what did it sound like to you..?
Me – Did not answer, just carried on walking

Couple of minutes later, there it was again, but louder still.

Mrs –FFS Turpin, I’m getting a scared. What on earth is it..?
Me- Lets just keep moving forward love

Two minutes later, we heard it again and louder still, that’s when the wife threw a bit of a paddy.

Mrs- Right that’s it, I’m turning back.
Me – We can’t turn back we’re in the middle on no-where. The cars is less than a mile away in this direction, and anyway there’s nowhere to turn back to
Mrs – Stop walking. I want you to tell me what you think it is
Me –I don’t know what it is
Mrs- Okay tell me what you think it sounds like then..?

I couldn’t dodge the question a third time, so stopped walking and looked at her in the eye

Me – Okay well to me, it sounds like the howl from the werewolf in the film an American werewolf in London

And it did too, you know the bit early on in the film when the 2 American lads are walking over the moor, that noise they heard in the background - It sounded exactly like that, absolutely 100%

Mrs -Yes, Yes me too, that is exactly what it sounded like. Oh my god, can we call anyone, where’s my mobile, fcuk I’ve got no signal.
Me - Right calm down love, of course it not a bloody werewolf. If we quicken our pace we’ll be back at the car in under 10 minutes.

We carried on as the quickly as we could, but every so often would hear this blood curdling noise, and even I was beginning to feel panic set in.

Well, of course it wasn’t a werewolf, in fact what was causing the noise was so mundane that we both felt genuinely embarrassed.

In our defence though, we was out alone on a cold and windy moor. It was slowly getting dark, and there was this noise in the distance, that sounded exactly like the werewolf in that film.

I can only assume that when John Landis came over to England to direct the film, and was filming on location on the north Yorkshire moors, he heard a similar strange acoustic and thought wow I’ll use that in the film.

I know how intelligent we all are on this forum, but anyone here willing to hazard a guess, as to what was causing the noise..?
 
I feel like Roy Walker. It’s a good try but it’s not that.

No, not an animal.
 
And the other day I thought I was being followed by a phantom runner, until I found that it was the sound my shoelaces made flopping about.... so I'm with you on the embarrassment of mundane noises!
 
Something mechanical creaking?

On one of our regular bike rides there's a 'humming' bridge. It actually sounds like a light aircraft flying overhead.
 
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