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* Dear mods, please feel free to move this, if this isn't where it is supposed to be! *
So, reading the Pan(ic) in The Woods thread has encouraged me submit this story, which happened a full 20 years ago now, in 1996, when I was a teenager.
I was staying with my mother, brother, and grandparents, in a holiday caravan near Pitlochry, Perthshire. It was summer time, and the weather was warm and clear. Without a car, we were reliant on public transport and walking, so did a fair amount of tramping about the woods. One evening we were walking back to the caravan park along a narrow path close to the River Garry. It was quite late, and the sky was gradually darkening though there was still enough light to see by. Not dusk, so much as gloaming. On the opposite bank, the woods sloped up steeply, with fairly thick vegetation: the two sides of the valley formed quite a deep V, with the river running along the bottom.
As we walked, the view opposite opened up slightly, and we saw lights through the trees. The lights were approximately at our own level, or even slightly higher, up the opposite slope. We couldn't hear anything, but they moved quickly and resembled a train or large vehicle hung with a great number of multicoloured lights, moving at speed parallel with the river. We stopped and waited for the lights to come directly opposite us. We expected to see the vehicle appear on what we assumed was a road, directly opposite us. It looked unusual and attractive, so we waited to get a better look. The lights never reached us though, simply tailing off among the trees. We assumed that the road (which we couldn't see) through the trees, had turned off sharply in another direction.
The next day we went for a walk, and decided to cross the River Garry and climb the slope we had walked alongside the evening before. We reasoned that as there looked to be a road running that way, it would be an easy climb. We crossed a small wooden bridge and left the footpath to climb up through the woods, in the direction that we thought the road must run. But we never hit it. We scrambled on, up the slope and through brambles and gorse, convinced that any moment we must come out onto the road which had carried the strange vehicle. Eventually we simply emerged in a clearing at the top of the hill, where we found a church and cemetery (through looking at maps, this must have been the Church of Scotland Tenandry Kirk). There was a road leading to the kirk, but this was not the one we had seen the lit vehicle on the day before: it runs behind the valley ridge, and wouldn't have been visible form our vantage point. Walked back down it, puzzled, so can be reasonably sure.
It couldn't have been any kind of vehicle that we saw, because the vegetation was so thick that it was difficult for a couple of walkers on foot to get through it. There was no way a truck or train could have zipped through without leaving a trace. So what did we see?
My questions are these: Are there any similar stories? Are there any non-supernatural explanations? Does this fit in with any existing folklore?
Here is a map link to the approximate location.
PS - I discovered recently that there is a tourist attraction called enchanted forest nearby. This is new I think, and wasn't there 20 years ago. I don't know what it is exactly though.
So, reading the Pan(ic) in The Woods thread has encouraged me submit this story, which happened a full 20 years ago now, in 1996, when I was a teenager.
I was staying with my mother, brother, and grandparents, in a holiday caravan near Pitlochry, Perthshire. It was summer time, and the weather was warm and clear. Without a car, we were reliant on public transport and walking, so did a fair amount of tramping about the woods. One evening we were walking back to the caravan park along a narrow path close to the River Garry. It was quite late, and the sky was gradually darkening though there was still enough light to see by. Not dusk, so much as gloaming. On the opposite bank, the woods sloped up steeply, with fairly thick vegetation: the two sides of the valley formed quite a deep V, with the river running along the bottom.
As we walked, the view opposite opened up slightly, and we saw lights through the trees. The lights were approximately at our own level, or even slightly higher, up the opposite slope. We couldn't hear anything, but they moved quickly and resembled a train or large vehicle hung with a great number of multicoloured lights, moving at speed parallel with the river. We stopped and waited for the lights to come directly opposite us. We expected to see the vehicle appear on what we assumed was a road, directly opposite us. It looked unusual and attractive, so we waited to get a better look. The lights never reached us though, simply tailing off among the trees. We assumed that the road (which we couldn't see) through the trees, had turned off sharply in another direction.
The next day we went for a walk, and decided to cross the River Garry and climb the slope we had walked alongside the evening before. We reasoned that as there looked to be a road running that way, it would be an easy climb. We crossed a small wooden bridge and left the footpath to climb up through the woods, in the direction that we thought the road must run. But we never hit it. We scrambled on, up the slope and through brambles and gorse, convinced that any moment we must come out onto the road which had carried the strange vehicle. Eventually we simply emerged in a clearing at the top of the hill, where we found a church and cemetery (through looking at maps, this must have been the Church of Scotland Tenandry Kirk). There was a road leading to the kirk, but this was not the one we had seen the lit vehicle on the day before: it runs behind the valley ridge, and wouldn't have been visible form our vantage point. Walked back down it, puzzled, so can be reasonably sure.
It couldn't have been any kind of vehicle that we saw, because the vegetation was so thick that it was difficult for a couple of walkers on foot to get through it. There was no way a truck or train could have zipped through without leaving a trace. So what did we see?
My questions are these: Are there any similar stories? Are there any non-supernatural explanations? Does this fit in with any existing folklore?
Here is a map link to the approximate location.
PS - I discovered recently that there is a tourist attraction called enchanted forest nearby. This is new I think, and wasn't there 20 years ago. I don't know what it is exactly though.
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