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Panic! Or, How I Ran and Hid Like a Girl...

E

EggSucker

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I'm sure there was a thread about unexplained moments of panic somewhere,but for the life of me I can't find it. If the mods want to shift this to the right place, then please do.

Anyway, my story is this:

About twelve years ago, when I was in my late teens, I and a few mates had been reading up on witchcraft, wicca and the like, as one does when one's a teenager desperate for something out of the ordinary.

One of my friends lived in a big house on the edge of town, behind which was a large cow field, apparently containing the remains of a stone circle. Being a bit daft, we decided to hold a "good luck" ritual up there one evening, just to test out some of the stuff we'd been reading.

There were four of us, myself, Dan, Ben and his brother Simon (who lived by the field) and we decided to head up there just as it was getting to twilight, as apparently that's a magical time.

To get to this "circle", we had to cross Ben and Simon's garden, climb a barbed wire fence, cross a ditch and trudge accross the field for about ten minutes. On the right hand side of the field is a very old stretch of woodland. We found the circle, a rough outline of stones no bigger than breezeblocks and mostly half hidden in the ground, not very impressive.

Dan was appointed our priest or head wizard or whatever, and read out a short incantation from a book, asking for a blessing from the Goddess or something. This didn't take long, and we made an offering of spilled beer (I forget why beer exactly, but apparently we had to) to show our faith.

As we got through this, it was getting steadily darker, and someone, I think it was Simon, said "Can anyone else hear that?" We all paused what we were doing, and listened. Without a doubt, we all heard the same thing. From the direction of the woods came the unmistakeable sounds of someone playing pipes. I know you're all going to laugh, but I swear to whatever god you like, we heard someone playing panpipes.

The most bizarre thing of all is, as soon as we all registered what we had heard, we instantly turned tail and ran. No-one said "let's get out of here" or anything like that, we all as one person just legged it back accross the field towards the house.

We must have been in a state, because when we got inside, we slammed the back door and drew all the curtains so "It" couldn't get us. :shock: To further illustrate how irrational it was, in coming back over the barbed wire fence at high speed, Dan had ripped the crotch out of his trousers, narrowly avoiding losing a nut in the process, and didn't even notice until we were all sat down and calm again.

I remember us all being a little on edge for the rest of the night after that, and the walk home, past the bottom edge of the woods, wasn't particularly pleasant for me. I would also stress that we had not been drinking before the incident, although we did afterwards.

So, that's my tale. Anybody got any ideas why we should all simultaneously freak like that? I'm quite prepared to believe that the noise we heard was an auditory halucination, or was caused by the wind in the trees or something, but I can't explain why we all just shat ourselves and did one at the same moment. Youthful susceptibility may have something to do with it.

Or maybe the Goddess was insulted by our offering of cheap filthy Trent Bitter! :D
 
I've heard music in the woods before too. Only a couple times in all my life but it certainly defies anythign normal, and thust you panic. Especially if its dark out, like all the monsters show up then. I dont know who would play music in the dark in the forest like that, but its happened to me too.
 
I used to experience this uinexplicable panic regularly, but only at night on deserted roads in town. Always the same spot. The one that particularly sticks in my mind was by a school - I'd find myself legging past it if I was passing in the wee small hours.
 
I've never heard anything else about a stone circle up there, either before or since the event. I have a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't a real ancient monument at all, just some conveniently shaped rubble that we mistook for something a bit more special. It had evidently been there for a while because it was well grown into the ground in places, but is that ten years or ten thousand? No idea.

That said, I haven't exactly been looking for any data either. For all I know it could show up on OS maps as a designated monument, and I just haven't seen it.

Similarly, I don't know of any stories concerning the woods, except that they are very old and connect the old manor house (which ishaunted) to the farm that used to belong to the lords of the area. Not heard anything spooky about that place either, and it is still a working farm.
 
Abraxas said:
Hi Jack
Can you tell us the location where this event took place?
Click to expand...

Hello to you too Abraxas.

It happened in Workington, Cumbria, UK. The house is in a village that grew into a suburb, called Stainburn, and the woods are called either Curwendale or Schoose Woods, depending on which person you ask.

If you draw a line east from this point, you will pass very near to Castlerigg Stone Circle just outside Keswick, so there may have been a line of similar monuments at one time to serve as way markers or something, much as you get in other parts of the country.

I don't want to be any more specific than that as my friends folks still live up there, and I don't think the farmer would be too happy about hordes of circle hunters tramping through his pasture. ;)
 
Great story Jolly Jack.

I have had several moments of irrational panic the worst being at night in an old ruin.

It was a church somewhere near Stonehenge and built inside an ancient earthworks. Being 20 my friends and I visited it at midnight, as you do. My friend and I were walking inside the church ruins when she suddenly looked up at what was left of the window and said she saw something white up there.

I have no idea if there was anything there because I ran, like the big girlie I am, back to the car, screaming hysterically.

The last time I had irrational panic was at an amusement park in Devon last year. I took the children into an alien ride and a man dressed as an alien chased us. Being the ever protective mother I am, I ran away screaming :D
 
Way back when, my roomie and I were driving home across the Southwestern US desert from Los Angeles. To keep ourselves awake on the lonely highway late at night, we made up a song. Somewhere around the third or fourth repeat of our composition, we suddenly realized that someone unseen was playing pipes -- panpipes -- in accompaniment to our tune. That was scary.

:shock:
 
Elisheva said:
Way back when, my roomie and I were driving home across the Southwestern US desert from Los Angeles. To keep ourselves awake on the lonely highway late at night, we made up a song. Somewhere around the third or fourth repeat of our composition, we suddenly realized that someone unseen was playing pipes -- panpipes -- in accompaniment to our tune. That was scary.

:shock:
Click to expand...

Was your car radio on playing very low?
Or was the car haunted?
 
drum circle?

i get tgether with a few hippies (which i am not) on ceratin nights of the year in the woods for a drum circle. theres usualyl a few fluteish instrumetns and no one usualyl knows we're there so i guess a passer by could get scared. its not scary thogu, just a buch of weirdos smoking weed and playin instrumetns.
 
I think I mentioned it in the Panic in the Woods thread, but here's some more information.

While visiting a forest preserve in Central Iowa, US called Woodland Mounds, I was led on quite a merry chase. (Aerial Map Here)

I'd hiked in to examine some ancient burial mounds built on the hills above the river you can see to the Northwest. These Native American mounds are nearly lost in the woods and now resemble little hills, about 2 feet high at their peak and 20 - 40 feet in diameter.

Having found them and being unimpressed with their physical appearance, I stopped nearby to have some lunch. As I sat, I began to feel very strange. It was a sunny day but everything felt cold and gray. I hastened to leave.

As I walked the trails back to the truck, however, I found that I kept getting turned around. Mind you, I'm excellent with maps and I had a GPS receiver with me at the time. I could see on its display exactly which way to turn, as it had a sort of crumbtrail mode. But, no matter what I did, I ended up walking back toward the mounds.

I also began to see fleeting movements in the woods, like dark forms darting between the trees. These may have been wild turkeys, which inhabit the preserve, but generally they will move away from a hiker while these seemed to follow me.

In addition, I felt an overwhelming urge to go back to the mounds and lay down in the grass for a nap. (It was spring and I ordinarily do not like to take naps in the grass in any season where insects might crawl on me.)

At any rate, as I kept getting turned around, I began to panic, running this way and that. (I'm glad nobody was there to see me because I'm sure I must have looked ridiculous. Oddly, I was silent the entire time, feeling as if I was in a vacuum in which nobody could hear me anyway.)

But finally, exhausted, I stopped, sat down on the ground for a few minutes and (this is the part I left out of the original thread), after a sudden epiphany, threw some of my left over lunch into the woods and poured out some of my water onto the ground as an offering. Suddenly, I felt much more calm and lucid and was able to walk right back to the truck, recognizing all the same landmarks I'd tried to navigate, unsuccessfully, only a few minutes earlier.

Sitting in the truck, I felt as if I'd been drinking. Everything seemed choppy and I felt disconnected. Nonetheless, being out in the country, I drove off and, after only a few minutes of driving, felt perfectly normal again.

I'm still uncertain what happened...

Some kind of blood-sugar induced altered mental state?

Or annoyed spirits of the woods?

I honestly don't know but, in either case, I haven't yet returned.
 
I think it may have just been to do with the spookiness of the ritual, and with being among a group of excitable teenagers. I know the feeling well, as I'm an excitable teenager and get freaked out very easily when inhabiting ruins in the dead of night, etc.
 
Chris Yates, the celebrity angler tells a Pan type tale in one of his books (Casting at the Sun?). At a remote carp lake he is setting up for a nights fishing when he becomes aware of another angler on the opposite bank and thinks it strange at such a secluded spot. Later, for no apparent reason the other fisherman totally flips and starts screaming and running for all he's worth, leaving all his kit behind. The only exit is past Yates and he admits to hiding in a hedge his heart pounding as the guy tears past.
Eventually, long after light has returned the chap comes back for his tackle but CY hasn't the courage to ask him what the problem was. I think I'd have s*** myself.
 
Maybe the angler was rigging his tackle, his rod fell backward and he received a surprising new ear-ring. :shock:

I once saw a guy in a nearby boat get a treble hook (3 or 4 barbs) buried in his finger, thrash about shrieking for a few moments and then pitch over backward into the lake. :D

(I nearly fell out of the boat laughing at him.)

Wasn't there another thread under IHTM where a guy described some freaky weather/pan pipes/strange buzzing while sitting at a pond near sunset?

Ponds and lakes tend to harbor LOTS of life, all focused in one specific area, which, I tend to believe, results in a lot of 'nature spirit' type strangeness.
 
So, ya do magic, then get surprised when weird shit happens?

That just means it's working! Go do more!
 
James H said:
I think it may have just been to do with the spookiness of the ritual, and with being among a group of excitable teenagers. I know the feeling well, as I'm an excitable teenager and get freaked out very easily when inhabiting ruins in the dead of night, etc.
Click to expand...

A group of people conducting a ritual, even if they are n00bs, tends to raise a lot of energy in a small area. It's easy to imagine how this might create an intensely bright spot in whatever spiritual/parallel/imaginal reality constitutes 'the other side.'

Generally speaking, bright lights tend to attract things.
 
This story reminds me of something similar that happened about 6 weeks ago. The bf and I were visiting the Ring of Brodgar (stone circle) in Orkney. Casually walking round it (anti-clockwise), I had a very strong "someone just walked over my grave" sensation as we passed a particular stone. I was about to mention it to Steve when he suddenly dashed off into the ring ditch saying he was desperate for a pee. He said he got this really strong urge as he walked past the same stone that made me shudder. I'm not normally sensitive to this sort of thing at all, neither is he. Weird - it was on April 30th - is that Beltane or something? Neither of us had been drinking BTW.
 
Jolly Jack, if this happened to you during a full moon, then there could be a reasonable explanation. A coven of local witches on their monthly meeting. That could also explain the circle of stones you found, not ancient perhaps but practical enough for them to work on. I know for a fact that this has happened to quite a few other people. Sometimes they see shadowy figures, hear voices or worst: chantings, instruments, etc., you get the picture, and the unaware witness freaks out like never before. In your situation perhaps the irrational fear was even worst as you were perfoming a silly ritual of cheap beer ;)

If they were aware of your presence, they must have laugh like hell!!! :D
 
Berengaria,
The Gaelic holiday of Bealtaine (which these days is the modern Irish word for the month of May, BTW) was celebrated around the 1st of May. So you can't get much closer to than April 30th.
It being a Gaelic holiday and not a Celtic one, it was only celebrated in Ireland and Scotland (presumably after the Scots colonised Scotland from Ireland). Although, according to Wikipedia the Scots influence on the Orkney Island was short lived. I don't know if the Picts celebrated Bealtaine.

More useless information brought to you by finiteMonkeys. :)

You can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bealtaine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney
 
Same here

I had major panic on saturday day time just gone. I woke up and realised that I'd left my car in the a town near where I live ( as I'd had a couple of pints the night before) so with a heavy sigh I trudged off to go and get it. There are some woods by my flat where in if you cut through them its only a mile and a quarter to get to my car. So in I went... All of a sudden I completely crapped it and ran for my life. I was wearing flip flops and they aren't the easiest things to run in (plus I'm completely unfit so that makes it difficult too) but I didn't wanna stop (If anyone had of seen me, it would have looked psycho). It was bright HOT sunshine on that day but I couldn't stop running. I wigged out completely. When I got to the end of the woods, my feet were bleeding from the stones I'd run over but it hadn't hurt nor had I noticed it at the time. Just really really panic'd and ran for it. I felt really uneasy when I finally got to my car, but I put on XFM then felt a bit better.... Next time I'm gonna get a cab to get my car. Or not go out drinking. :shock:
 
:shock: Berengaria!Please don't walk around anything like that t'wrong way round!Ye'll be getting in trouble!Ye will!
Especially not three times...
 
m+e - I know we shouldn't have walked widdershins round the stones but it just seemed the right (comfortable) way to go for some reason. Even when I think about it now, it felt like we would have been walking "against the flow" in some way if we'd gone round clockwise. I did comment at the time to Steve that we were going the wrong way - people walking round the other way were looking at us as if we were too stupid to have read the directions on the sign. I just thought what the hell, I don't like to be the same as everyone else. Next time we go we will walk round the right way and see if we get the same reaction in the same place. We go across to Orkney quite often cos we live in Thurso which is where the ferry leaves from, so it's only about an hour and a half away.
 
:D We have a lot of them stone "Thingies" near us-Big stone on top of four other stones....
Not for fun,not for a dare would I go under or into one of them.....
Call me a wuss,you can if you wish,but....

And I've read some Joe Donnelly books,which doesn't help.



(dinnae stray frae' the paaaaaaath.....)
(Jings,crivens,help ma boab)
 
m+e - walking under the stone "thingies" wouldn't bother me - unless they looked like they were going to fall and crush me. Haven't read any Joe Donnelly books - what are they about?
Am totally bored at work just now - no fortean stuff here despite the fact that the construction site where I work (or skive as I am doing now) is on the site of an 1196 battle, and a couple of hundred yards from a burial vault supposedly erected over where Earl Harald fell in the battle. Keep expecting the diggers to turn up some interesting stuff but nowt so far (was hoping for a few bones at least). :?
 
You tak' the high,the low's mine.Whist ya scraggit

:D Joe Donnelly writes horror,set in Scotland and Ireland(The four books that I've got)
It seems the Scots can't move for leylines,ancient horrors,stones stacked in meaningful ways and threatening primal forest.

This may not be true in real life.
 
Ya know....I was really looking forward to camping in the woods behind my house for a coupld of weeks before summer ends, but after reading this thread I think I'd be a wee bit scared out there....in the dark....less than a mile from an old graveyard.....but maybe hearing panpipes wouldn't be SO bad......isn't Pan supposed to be a jolly sort of drunken fellow?

so maybe camping solo'll just be more fun now..... :heh:
 
finiteMonkeys said:
Berengaria,
The Gaelic holiday of Bealtaine (which these days is the modern Irish word for the month of May, BTW) was celebrated around the 1st of May. So you can't get much closer to than April 30th.
It being a Gaelic holiday and not a Celtic one, it was only celebrated in Ireland and Scotland (presumably after the Scots colonised Scotland from Ireland). Although, according to Wikipedia the Scots influence on the Orkney Island was short lived. I don't know if the Picts celebrated Bealtaine.
Click to expand...

Just my dumb luck to be part Irish and born on April 30th then.
 
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