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Forest Spirit

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Anonymous

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Bryan B

This happened to me several years ago. I had decided to jog around a lake in a nearby forest preserve one cool, misty fall morning, as I'd done several times before.

The lake isn't huge, but probably running all around it, it's close to a mile. It has a crushed gravel path around it, surrounded by a main road on one side, and forest on the other three sides.

It was probably around 7 or so in the morning, the preserve had just opened, and I'd jogged once around the lake already and was midway through the second time around, when I was jogging past a small clearing where a muddy path led into the woods.


http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/casparwood.shtml

Link is dead. See post below for complete text.
 
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Can't help but wonder what would 'ave happened if you jogged

...can't say I would do that myself, but I tend to go dumb in stressfull moments...
Not panicky dumb, dumb dumb.
 
I've always found the comic-strip 'sheet over the head' ghost most unnerving. Perhaps it's an ancestral memory thing? Maybe these things are everywhere?
It does seem very similar to the 'Cloaked Beings' discussions elsewhere. There seem to be rather a lot of them...

Mind you, this story could be improved, if the entity had started going 'wooooooo'. Personally, I think we should organise a field trip (seeing as no-one wanted to explore them tunnels with the goblin things in).
 
Reminds me of the death figure in 'The Frighteners'.

I remember sitting in a wooded area one day, having a quiet fag all on my lonesome, when I saw this shadow approaching at a fairly steady pace. Quite freaky for a split second until I looked up and saw it was a cloud passing overhead. Not that I think that's what Bryan saw.
 
I had a similar experience one misty morning at a village dump thirty years ago; at least the same image came to me when the object appeared. I was in the back of a moving pickup truck, and as we gained triangulation it became clear that it was not a black ghost, but a bear emerging fom a hollow or depression in the ground. Of course I have no idea if there were bears in your area, or what the light and distance were, etc, etc.
 
I remember an experience I had when I was about 3 in my aunt’s kitchen in upstate New York. This kitchen was separated from the TV room by wall that had a window in its center. On the TV room side of this window was a fish tank that you could see clearly from the kitchen.

When this incident occurred I was laying on my back on kitchen floor. My aunt, uncle and mother were hanging around kitchen table laughing and joking about six feet from where I was laying. The TV room was dark as it was night out and the lights were out (except for the light of the fish tank).

I don’t recall exactly what I was doing at the time when I noticed, on the opposite side of the fish tank, “what can only be described as something that looked like one of those Halloween-type sheet covered ghosts” only ruddy. It seemed to be studying the fish intently and at the same time was swaying side to side like a pendulum but more swiftly. From where I was laying I could only see it from about the waist up. The creature was either unconcerned or unaware that I had spotted it. Its attention was focused squarely on the fish, swaying as if attempting to put them into a trance.

After a few seconds of shock I looked up to see what the grownups' reactions were. To my surprise (and disappointment), they didn’t seem to see the being even though their faces were turned in its direction. Instead they just continued to tell stories and such. I remember getting an intuitive sense that they were somehow "choosing" not to see it. When I looked back from my relatives to the window the entity was gone.

I should note that - being the rationale boy I was at the time - it did occur to me that it was one of my cousins in the other room dressed up to scare me and then ducking down when I turned to look away. I even got up and looked through the door into the TV room to where I had seen it by the fish tank but there was no one there. Unfortunately I don't recall anymore of this night. I wouldn’t remember that night at all if it weren’t for this incident.

Also, the creature's "sheet" seemed a little technical, almost more like a spacesuit. I vaguely recall some sort of vacuum hose-like tube extending to where its mouth would be as if to supply it with air. Since then, I have seen similar beings in a Star Wars movie only without vacuum tubes (I think). At the time, though, I just chalked it up to being a ghost since that, other than the color, is what it resembled most and because at that age I wasn’t yet familiar with the idea of intergalactic beings traveling to our planet to study its aquatic life forms.
 
The following is an excerpt from sixth story on THIS PAGE. The writer says one night while he was lying in bed...
I sensed someone was watching me. I slowly raised my eyes, and saw someone or something in the doorway to the bedroom. This "figure" was covered from head to toe in what looked liked a dirty white sheet. The shape of it filled the entire doorway. It seemed to be swaying gently from side to side. My first thought was that there was an intruder in the apartment, and I was wondering how he got in. I kept a Kabar (Marine Corps fighting knife) in the top drawer in the night stand.


Suddenly, "it" rushed at me. I rolled out of bed and onto the floor, preparing to defend myself. I felt a rush of air as "it" went by me. I grabbed the Kabar out of the drawer and jumped to my feet, but whatever it was had disappeared.

Compare that Bryan's experience when he was jogging through the woods and...
I heard some dead leaves rustling, and first assumed it was the wind or a squirrel, but then, to my surprise, about 20 feet down the path, somewhat in the shadows and mist, saw what can only be described as something that looked like one of those Halloween-type sheet covered ghosts but black, swaying slightly side to side. I couldn't tell if it was standing or floating, but as I stood there in disbelief and, frankly, a bit of fear, it began to ever so slowly move in a smooth glide towards me, and that's when I decided to get the hell out of there, and turned around on the gravel path and run, not jog, back to the parking lot.

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/casparwood.shtml
:shock: Yet a another new species of spook. Halloween ghosts who sway from side to side while they stare at you and then come after you. Too bad the first writer didn't describe the way the ghost "rushed" at him; I wonder if it glided like the one in the woods did.
 
Thanks for that link, Melon. Have you seen the Cloaked Beings thread? Although none of the spooks are described as "Halloween ghosts" they are cloaked in more of a Grim Reaper type of fashion.
 
Wow. Quite interesting. I never knew that cloaked beings were a real type of haunt. All of the related stories which have been linked above appear so similar. I wonder if this being actually does kill people. Possibly the grim reaper character evolved from sightings of this being where dead people were found the next day. [shrugs]
 
Sounds very wierd but is there any corroborating testimonies?
 
Well, in my case it was just me. And the fish.
 
I was looking for Peg O'Nell for a revivied thread and came across this which is so similar to the gliding, hooded figures which we have identified as a type above!

Link

More corroboration!



(By the way, can someone tell me how to shorten this link to a 'here'?)

[Emp edit: If you click edit you can see what I've done]
 
Original full account:

FOREST SPIRIT?
Bryan B


This happened to me several years ago. I had decided to jog around a lake in a nearby forest preserve one cool, misty fall morning, as I'd done several times before.

The lake isn't huge, but probably running all around it, it's close to a mile. It has a crushed gravel path around it, surrounded by a main road on one side, and forest on the other three sides.

It was probably around 7 or so in the morning, the preserve had just opened, and I'd jogged once around the lake already and was midway through the second time around, when I was jogging past a small clearing where a muddy path led into the woods.

I was the only person around, so far as I could tell, and there weren't any other cars in the lot in front of the preserve. I heard some dead leaves rustling, and first assumed it was the wind or a squirrel, but then, to my surprise, about 20 feet down the path, somewhat in the shadows and mist, saw what can only be described as something that looked like one of those Halloween-type sheet covered ghosts but black, swaying slightly side to side. I couldn't tell if it was standing or floating, but as I stood there in disbelief and, frankly, a bit of fear, it began to ever so slowly move in a smooth glide towards me, and that's when I decided to get the hell out of there, and turned around on the gravel path and run, not jog, back to the parking lot.

I glanced over my shoulder a couple times to make sure the thing wasn't behind me, which it wasn't, but still wanted to get out of there immediately.
I still can see that thing in my mind, and have no idea what I saw, but it filled me with terror when it started towards me in silence.

I've been back to that forest preserve since then to jog, but only if I see that there are other people there in the lot first. I'd never go there alone again.
 
DanHigginbottom~ said:
I've always found the comic-strip 'sheet over the head' ghost most unnerving. Perhaps it's an ancestral memory thing? .

The traditional "sheeted" specter doesn't originally seem to have been a ghost but rather an ambulatory corpse in its winding sheet!
 
I had a kind of similar experience once. I was pretty young - maybe 10 and was lying in bed. I'd woken up and had been unable to get back to sleep so was about to turn the lamp on and grab a book. I looked up and at the foot of my bed was a typical halloween ghost, but tiny. It looked like a little white hanky hovering above my bed.
It sat there for a sec, kind of swaying in a tiny way, then it just dropped at the foot of the bed and a heard a little clatter.
I hid under the blankets until the morning and when I looked at the end of the bed the only thing there was a little sticker on the floor, about the size of my thumbnail.
I really wish I hadn't hidden now.
 
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