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Beachy Head (Sussex): 'Evil' Shadow Thing

BlubberDuck

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Hi,

I was told this a couple of days ago by an elderly gent I was talking to... Long story short, he was walking his dog several years ago (winter time, early afternoon, clear sky but cold) on Beachy Head near Eastbourne.

He said that he suddenly and for no reason felt like he shouldn't be there, like really shouldn't be there...

The hairs on his arms and neck were standing up and he said he felt something of 'pure evil'. his dog was stood close behind his legs whimpering and shaking. It was then he saw a very large shadow 'thing' about 50 feet away emerge from a patch of scrub. He said it resembled a person but appeared to glide with rather than walk, but with the motion of walking...if that makes sense?

He said it felt as if this thing seemed to suddenly realise he was there and the feeling of evil increased, he turned and ran (with the dog) back to his car a short distance away and has never returned.

I've tried - without my luck - to find anything similar on the internet, I've found stories of a monk trying to convince people to jump from the cliff, but nothing similar to the story this gentleman told me.

Has anyone heard anything like this?
 
Since Beachy Head is a well-known suicde spot,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beachy_Head#Suicide_spot
it's quite likely to generate ghost stories, whether genuine first-hand ones, or oft-repeated urban legends, which no doubt mutate and feed back in to any unusual experience people might then have there.

I'm not saying "it's all imagination!", just that it's almost impossible to unravel all the inputs into any particular story.

Someone with empathy for the feelings of others, and knowing about the number of suicides thereabouts, might, even subconciously, try to imagine the thoughts and feelings of someone contemplating suicide. Who can say for sure what images and feelings this might create?

I visited Beachy head several times in my childhood, but I wasn't then aware it was a suicide spot, or feel any negative vibes there. Probably there aren't any negative vibes there - it's a good suicide spot because it's an easily accessible very high cliff.

As for "a monk trying to convince people to jump from the cliff", it makes a spooky tale for the winter fireside, but how well documented are these stories? How much do they feed on each other, adding 'detail' as they go?

On the whole, Beachy Head doesn't seem to have attracted many spooky stories - I feel I would have picked up on them if it had.
 
I've spent a lot of time fishing and walking in that area, and have personally never heard of anything from there.
 
Whoooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

While reading this thread, I half remebered reading something dowser Tom Lethbridge wrote about areas like Beachy Head accumlating negative atmospheres from the thoughts of those visiting. I thought I'd check Lethbridge on google and the first thing I see is today's new google birthday artwork.... Foucault's Pendulum!!!!
 
Anyway...

The next decade of Lethbridge’s life was quite literally a detective story. He conducted a long series of experiments into the pendulum and its reactions. He discovered, for example, that it could distinguish between sling stones that had been used in battle and the same stones gathered from a beach, as well as stones that had been thrown by Mina and stones that he had thrown himself.
And the clues kept coalescing to indicate new lines of thought. If anger could impress itself on a sling stone, then surely it explained how a suicide’s misery could impress itself on the place where he died? In which case, his reaction to the place where the man committed suicide was a dowser’s reaction. If he and his mother had suspended a pendulum in the woods near Wokingham, it should have gone into violent rotation at 40 inches, the rate for death.

Source for this interesting and informative nugget - or stream of bollocks according to your viewpoint here....


http://www.cesc.net/scholarweb/lethbrid ... eworld.pdf
 
From the Eastbourne Herald:

"BEACHY HEAD
One of Sussex’s most beautiful areas is also one of the saddest. Beachy Head near Eastbourne has been the scene of numerous suicides over the years. So many deaths have occurred here that it isn’t any wonder that the place has been witness to numerous ghosts.

Records state that a mysterious black monk has been seen in the area. Most reports have him standing at the foot of the cliffs, beckoning to those at the top of the cliffs to jump to their deaths - whether this has any true bearing on the actual deaths of those who have jumped, we’ll never know.

Furthermore there have been sightings of a lonely female who walks to the edge of the cliff looks around for a short while, then just suddenly throws herself off, an action it would appear, that she seems to do on a regular basis if witness reports are to be believed.

Then there is the sighting of what is believed to be a local farmer’s wife who whilst holding a baby in her arms, walks calmly towards the edge of the cliff and then throws herself off.

What is it about this place that people want to end their lives? One thing’s for sure, even after an exorcism conducted at Beachy Head way back in 1952 which was attended by over 100 people held beneath large wooden crosses this wasn’t enough to stave off the curse of Beachy Head."

There are some other ghost stories about the local area in the article.
Read more at: https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/...colm-robinson-ghosts-of-beachy-head-1-3011863
 
"What is it about this place that people want to end their lives?"
Er it's really high up. But that's local journalism for you I guess. It's a bit tasteless really? Trying to get a ghost story out of a place that lots of desperate people kill themselves at. "Too soon" as they say.

I looked up the "exorcism" in the Eastbourne Gazette of the day, it was actually a medium and his chums from the Peacehaven Spiritualist Church having a seance. A member of the British Society of Dowsers had selected the spot "as one of 'evil influence'. I liked the other comments in the newspaper article: a local vicar said that "while he believed fully in the existence of the spirit of evil, and of the powers of exorcism, he could not accept that evil spirits at Beachy Head could 'drag a person from, say, Birmingham or Manchester, to throw himself over a cliff'. and a Catholic dismissing the seance as "absolute nonsense". and maybe the best one: "The last word on the question came from a local police officer who on several occasions has descended the sheer cliff face to recover the bodies of Beachy Head victims. Asked for his comments, he replied, in effect, that he was not impressed."
 
I visited there in 2006. I was aware of it's history as a suicide spot, so was well primed to view it as something unnerving... which was exactly what happened. It was a bright summers day, and tehre were families walking about. Down by the cliffs edge I just found it so... edgy somehow. There was that usual 'urge to jump off' which often accompanies cliffs edges and train platforms (not really an urge, but you can't help but think about it). It seemed stronger here though, and there was something about the light that made everything too 'clear' somehow - and distance seemed really messed up too. There was a building in the distance - some kind of farmhouse - and I couldn't tell what size it was. I walked down a path by the cliff-edge with a friend, and when we got to the 'bottom' of the cliff, we looked back, and were quite horrified to see just how close it was to the edge of the cliff - which we weren't aware of at the time. It looked far steeper too. In essence a lot more 'dangerous' that we realized. I was relieved to leave the area. it all felt too dangerous to me somehow. A very unsafe region. As I said though, I knew it's reputation as a suicide spot, and had read some of the ghost stories, so no doubt imagination was busy at work. I spoke to a friend the next day, and told her about our trip to Beachy Head. She said that she had been down there when she had had her first child and felt that she would 'never be happy again'. Odd place. didn't like it, but as I said, imagination...
 
Oooh, which one's that, d'you reckon?

I dunno, the only thing I can find is this:

Cliff_poster_for_web_lge_land.jpg
 
FWIW I grew up close to Beachy Head, went up there in all weathers (including overnight) and never felt anything other than cheerful. It is a suicide spot but, as others have said upthread, there are geographic reasons for that. I'm not saying other posters didn't experience the things they said they experienced. Just surprised at it being a place of "negative energy" when I have always felt it to be overwhelmingly positive. Not neutral; actively a *happy* place. Amazing views, serene sheep, etc.

EDIT: I have seen shadow people but only when I was tired and stressed; they went away once that was sorted. I posted on the forum about it :) Maybe if you are aware it's a suicide spot, and it's on your mind, that puts you in a state of mind more likely to see such a thing.
 
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