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Invisible Smoker

C

ChesterTheVestDetector

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
4
Hi. I have never posted anything here before but my gf loves to read the message board and I've read a fair bit myself. After speaking to her about what happened to me, she persuaded me to sign up to an account here so I could post about it. So I did actually sign up on the very night it happened but for some reason, I couldn't post anything immmediately on the site. Anyway, when I went back to work the next day, I tried to tell my workmates what had happened and I spent the entire shift having the p*ss ripped out of me and feeling like a total eejit - not a pleasant experience. So I just kind of left it. Truth is I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not a great writer but I'll try and do my best.

I finished my shift at about 1:50am on May 25. To get from my work to home, I have to walk down a deserted footpath with nothing on both sides but thick undergrowth and a solid corrugated metal fence which is about 10 ft tall. On the right side over the fence is nothing but woodland after leaving our warehouse, until near the end of the walk when our housing estate comes up behind the fence. On the left side there's nothing but a few miles of woodland the whole way. It's a fairly longish path and takes about 10 minutes to walk down. It's probably about 12ft wide, there is the occasional street lamp but for the most part, it's large stretches of nothing but night. I'm a big guy so I have never felt jittery about walking up and down there. There's always 4 of us on shift and none of my workmates walks to and from work, I'm the only one because I live so close.

So I was walking down the path about 1:50am and just a couple of minutes after leaving the back of the warehouse behind, I hear a noise. It sounded like when my own work boots get a bit of grit underneath them on the path and it scuffs a bit, but it wasn't my feet. I looked around in case one of my workmates was coming after me for some reason and there was nobody there. I didn't think much of it because there's all sorts of wildlife in the woods at night and I don't take much notice of the sounds anymore.

Then right there beside me and I really do mean right beside me, there was, well, a lighted cigarette. I know how much BS that sounds but there was. Just about my shoulder height and how it would be if someone was walking with me, was a lighted cigarette floating. It moved beside me the whole time, no smell, no sound, but you could see the lighted end would get more deeply red periodically, just like someone was dragging on it. I could not smell any smoke and I could not see or hear any person but I clearly see the lighted end and the white cigarette. I was bricking it and I nearly jumped sky high when my phone went off. It was a text from my gf and being grateful for something to do and telling myself that I was being a tit, I texted her back. But the cigarette was still there beside me. It stayed there with me until just before I got to the outskirts of our estate, it seemed to fade and then it was gone. I walked really quickly, I almost jogged if I'm being honest, for the couple of minutes after that it took to get to the turn off to our houses.

Like I said, my gf likes this kind of stuff and I have always been a bit sort of jokey about it. But I don't know how to take what happened that night. I'm not getting the p*ss ripped out of me in work now because they've moved on to a young guy we work with who got caught getting close to his gf in our car parking area last weekend. But when it is occasionally mentioned about what I saw, I just laugh along with them and move the conversation on. But I'm not going to lie, it has scared me. I still have to walk that way to and from work and the guys don't know it but I started to take a torch along with me. That made it worse for me though as it just made the whole surrounding area look even darker. Now I just get the hell out of there as quickly as I can. I have been walking this way for the last 6 years and nothing like that has happened before or since. I don't know what to make of it but I know a lighted cigarette when I see one.
 
Whoa. :shock:
 
Interesting ...

Just so we're clear about what you saw:

- You saw a white object that glowed red at one end - right?
- The red glow at one end could vary in brightness - right?

Did you consistently see the white part with the red glow attached throughout this experience? Or did you sometimes see only the red part?

You mentioned the height of this observed object, but you didn't mention how far away (laterally; horizontally) it appeared to be. How far to your side did it seem to be?

You mentioned you never smelled any smoke. Did you ever *see* any smoke?

Please describe the course of this footpath. Is it relatively straight, or are there turns? Does it vary in elevation, or is it relatively flat?

Finally - do you wear eyeglasses?
 
I saw a cigarette, that's what it was, there was no question at all. This was literally next to me, like someone slightly shorter than me (I'm 6' 2") was walking right next to me, smoking. I'd say it was no more than 3ft to my right and stayed there for around 5 minutes, maybe a little longer. The path is about 12ft wide in total but once you take into account the grass and the brambles on either side, there is probably an area of about 6ft wide where the grass is worn down and where the path proper is.

I did turn to look quite a few times but I spent most of the time just looking dead ahead. I was really bricking it, just wanted to get home and there's no way off the path between the back of the warehouse where I work and the first turning into our housing estate. When I looked directly at it, I could clearly see a cigarette. When I looked dead ahead, I could see the glow of the end of the cigarette clearly at the side of my vision. It wasn't just floating there straight, it was sort of bobbing, like it's smoker was walking slighty out of step with me. Many of my mates smoke, I used to smoke myself until 4 years ago. I don't know what else to say, it was without a shred of doubt a cigarette though I didn't see any smoke at all.

It's a straight path for the entire length between my work and home. It eventually bends to the left and through the woods but not until a good 5 minutes further on from where I leave the path. It used to be a wagon track for goods from a brickworks that used to be in the woods way back.

I don't wear any glasses or contacts. I'm fit, healthy and I've been using this path to go to and from work for just over 6 years. I don't think I put it across very well. Sorry.
 
No - you did a good job of filling in the details ...

The reason I asked about eyeglasses was because of a similar sort of incident that happened to a friend and myself long ago. We were hanging out at night in a wooded area, and we both saw what we thought was the glow of a cigarette nearby. After several attempts to approach it or make out who it was, we realized that a distant light from a house was somehow reflecting (refracting? whatever ...) in the lenses of our glasses. The relative distance and orientation of the light source gave the consistent impression the illusion was stationary a few yards away from where we were standing.

It wasn't until we each moved quite a bit in different directions (as if to flank it) that we realized the mystery light was shifting position differently for each of us, and this was the key to our realizing it was an optical effect rather than an object. As long as we stayed close together any movement on our part seemed to result in a similar movement by the phantom light, as if someone were moving along with us.
 
Enola - Yes I can see why you asked. No definitely not a reflection/refraction. It was light enough to see (I don't mean it was light but I mean I could still see enough in the natural light of the night) and it was a cigarette, for sure. I think I'm here for the wrong reasons. My gf wanted me to come here and post because she likes all that stuff and has always wanted to have an 'experience'. I think I would really like someone to give me a straight forward and simple explanation. I know there isn't one and I totally know what I saw. All the same...you know.

I would have been extremely happy with your well thought out explanation for what happened with you and your friend. This is all a bit new to me and I don't know what to think. Seeing what I saw is a bit different from tolerating your gf reading this message board in bed for the past few years and having the odd curious read over her shoulder. This is real. I'm not a psychic, I'm just a warehouse monkey.
 
Tales of ghostly smells of cigarettes, pipes or cigars are quite common, but I think this is the first story I've heard about a visible, lit, cigarette with no smell!

Did it occur to you to speak to the smoker? And would you consider trying that, if the experience should happen again?
 
Phantom ciggie - love it!

I don't think you need to be afraid of it - saying that I'd have shat myself too if it happened to me!

If it happens again, try and nick it :lol:
 
Hmmm, thinking about it, did you notice if the cigarette appeared to be getting shorter as it was smoked?
 
You just said the exact same thing I was thinking of. No, not shorter as I recall. Didn't look too much as I was getting closer to home but no, thinking about it, it didn't get shorter or even go out.

No, I hope I never see it again but I want nothing to do with it if I do.
 
Now that's interesting - and bizarre!

If it'd got shorter - as a ciggie normally does - it may have been (sort of) explicable as a 'recording' of a past event (or at least a small part of a past event).

These things seem to rarely (if ever) be dangerous - just freaky. I'd be seriously tempted to touch it if it happened again - if I didn't leg it like the hordes of hell were on my tail!

It might also be interesting to just stop and see if it also stopped or carried on, although if it did stop I'd again probably be legging it pronto!
 
Welcome ChesterTheVestDetector! What a story. I felt a real chill reading it.

Do you know much of the history of that area? Has it always been woodland? How old is the estate?

I would have run for the hills if I'd seen it!!
 
Hello.

My first thought was perhaps a light from a lazer pen, but as you have already stated that you recognised it as a cigarette it rules that out.
 
Thank you for posting this - it's the true Fortean stuff. Completely weird, completely meaningless, nothing to do but stare at it and say, "huh."

It might help you come to terms with it to read some of the weirder threads on here. Weird stuff happens all the time. The universe is not obliged to fit inside our finite brains. So in terms of the Universe, there probably is a simple, straightforward explanation - if our brains were wired differently and could perceive it, or we had one or two little bits of information which it is currently impossible to get.
 
Great story.

Forgive me for this thought, but I can't help wondering if one day it will happen again and it will be a piece of floating nicotine gum instead of the fag! :lol:
 
If there was ever proof smoking was bad for the health... I suppose once you're a ghost you've got nothing to lose in continuing the habit.
 
gncxx said:
If there was ever proof smoking was bad for the health... I suppose once you're a ghost you've got nothing to lose in continuing the habit.
Click to expand...
It did occur to me that this might be the ghost of a soldier (perhaps in WWI) who failed to cup his ciggie in his hand in the prescribed manner*, was seen by the enemy and shot. So it was the red glow of the fag that led to his death... :shock:

And now he patrols what might have been a favourite place in life, with the red glow of the ciggie as a reminder of his mistake...

* the technique of holding the ciggie with the glowing end cupped within the hand so that it couldn't be spotted by the enemy.
 
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love the story ... are you able to get the route from google maps or similar ... im a sucker for a map thanks
 
This is possibly the creepiest and most off the wall story I've read on here for a long while...thanks for posting. :)
 
Back to the floating cigarette ...

There's another aspect of the scenario I'd like to clarify, so as to further rule out some sort of lighting effect as the explanation ...

The OP mentioned solid corrugated fences and undergrowth on both sides of the pathway. I'm curious about the following:

- Did the shoulder-high phantom cigarette appear (from the OP's vantage) to float in front of the undergrowth, the corrugated fence, or both (intemittently)?

- Do the corrugations in the fences run horizontally or vertically?

And on another note ...

- Did the grit-underfoot-like sound that correlated with the appearance of the phantom ciggie seem to come from the side on which the ciggie appeared? Or ... ?
 
Chesterthevestdetector I've got to say this is one of the best posts I've ever read here. What I'd like to know is whether the cig stayed parallel to you or whether it went down and back up to where the mouth would be, as if it was being smoked. I haven't put that very well but as an ex smoker I'm sure you know what I mean.
 
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PeniG said:
Thank you for posting this - it's the true Fortean stuff. Completely weird, completely meaningless, nothing to do but stare at it and say, "huh."
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what I thought. True cosmic joker stuff of the unclassifiable variety. I want more.

*(Edit: He's 19 years older than my mum, by the way - if anyone's thinking that my chronology seems a little askew.)
 
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Great story! This is what IHTM on the messageboard should be about. I haven't read a story as good as this in a long time.

Is there any chance that you can post a map of the path (screenshot from google maps)?

I reckon it was a friendly smoking ghost. Do you know if anyone worked at the factory who smoked and has since passed away who would have walked along that path?
 
rasputin said:
I reckon it was a friendly smoking ghost. Do you know if anyone worked at the factory who smoked and has since passed away who would have walked along that path?
Click to expand...
Now there's a thought. possibly someone who died as a result of smoking.
 
Or someone whose alive and well, smoking or otherwise.

I hope we get more on this from the OP.
 
I think we freaked the OP out.

Please come back! Don't be scared. There is probably a totally logical explanation :lol:!
 
If it's any consolation there's a smoking ghost (or a ghost looking for a light, anyway) in the IHTM of the new FT.
 
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