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The Ditchling Beacon Walker

Quercus said:
Finally, to bring this to a close, my wife and I often attended 'Tenx9' storytelling events where nine people each speak for ten minutes in front of an audience about a true experience that happened to them. One event in February 2018, titled 'Ghosts', had a speaker pull out just a few hours before the show. Following a social media appeal from the organisers I offered to step in.

I read out my story pretty much as supplied to the Guardian, since I happened to have it handy - though it was the only story of the night that took a prosaic approach to the topic. Others were rather more meditative, metaphorical affairs on persistence of memory and the past.

I did try to make it a little bit humorous, which was maybe accentuated because the previous speaker had offered up a rather harrrowing account of her thoughts while visiting the deathbed of her abusive father. Although the performance was recorded for podcast, I don't think mine made the cut. It was my first time speaking at an event, and I don't think people knew if I was being serious or not.


So! Well done if you've made it this far... I know there's a lot here, but I thought it was maybe worth touching on all aspects of this story, since it's already kind of in the public domain and may be slightly familiar to some Fortean scholars.

I've mentioned a few other experiences in passing further up too, and I hope to be in a position to go into them in greater detail soon.

But to sum up – I’m still not entirely convinced that what I encountered on the road that night was a ghost, or even anything paranormal. But I’m at a loss to work out what it actually was, based on what my eyes and brain were telling me. All these years later, I’m still no clearer.

Over to you.
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Looking forward to hearing about your other experiences, Quercus.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Thank you for this story @Quercus deeply spooky and clearly and thoroughly told. Some thoughts:

By coincidence last night I watched The Nun, which was not very good but does have a gang of faceless ghost/demon nuns at one point.

My immediate mental image upon reading the description of the walker was that of someone in 17thC Mathew Hopkins-esque garb, I think this is partially because of the picture of "the tall ghost" or similar generic name in an old book- I think this might be in Usbourne's Book of the Unknown: Ghosts. It's also because I worked at a historical building which had reports of a man in similar clothing along the roadside outside, he was also supposedly seen by a member of staff once, no reports of facelessness though. As a student a guy tried to create an "urban myth" for an art project and got another tall thin friend to walk through trees near a road in similar getup, neither where anywhere near your sighting.

I was told a story, coincidentally by the tall thin friend mentioned above. Another guy we were at uni with who I was friendly with but not close to, apparently, as a teen on the Isle of Wight was walking to his girlfriend's house down various country lanes, he was walking down one when he spotted an old lady stood a short distance away in the middle of the road with her back to him - very quiet road, middle of nowhere with no traffic. He shouted to see if she was OK, no response, so knocked on the door of one of the two or three houses on the lane, he asked if the woman lived there, the man who answered said no but came out to take a look. He also got no response on calling over so walked around to face her, his face crumpled in horror and he screamed "she's got no face!" and ran away. The guy in question, ran back home in the other direction, needless to say, terrified.
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My first thought on reading your last paragraph was to wonder why the guy from uni didn't just approach the lady rather than knock on the door of the house?
 
Marshdweller said:
My first thought on reading your last paragraph was to wonder why the guy from uni didn't just approach the lady rather than knock on the door of the house?
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He was young and afraid, it's not normal for someone to stand frozen in the middle of a road (no pavement) in the dark, she also didn't respond to him shouting to ask if she was OK.
 
Marshdweller said:
Ah, I hadn't registered that it was in the dark.
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Ah but all the same. I think I'm with you Marshdweller. If you cared that much (ie enough to stop and ask if anyone had lost a confused old relative) then you'd think your first port of call would be to ask the old dear where they lived. If you were that scared of them (for whatever reason) you'd probably just keep walking? (God I'm getting so cynical I will have to hand in my FT pass).
 
Eponastill said:
Ah but all the same. I think I'm with you Marshdweller. If you cared that much (ie enough to stop and ask if anyone had lost a confused old relative) then you'd think your first port of call would be to ask the old dear where they lived. If you were that scared of them (for whatever reason) you'd probably just keep walking? (God I'm getting so cynical I will have to hand in my FT pass).
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I don't think his reaction was unreasonable, remember he was under 18 at the time, not sure exactly how old. It was odd behaviour, she didn't respond to a verbal cue, there were a small number of houses nearby it's not unreasonable that she or relatives lived in one of them and even if you get the wrong house, the neighbours will almost certainly know who she was. Given that she apparently had no face and petrified a grown man, seems he was in the right! Maybe he had already clocked something unheimlich about the situation?
 
Well he sounds like a very responsible young man. I think it would have frightened me more to knock on strangers' doors in the night than to dash quickly home.
 
Perhaps he was unconsciously sensing something amiss, but my thinking (prior to learning it was dark) was that if he was close enough for her lack of response to his shout to seem significant rather than a product of distance or bad hearing then it would have been quicker/easier to approach her rather than knock on someone else's door.

To be honest, if I'd been the man in the house, my first question would be "Have you asked her where she lives?" and been slightly irked that this teen was expecting me to do something he hadn't/didn't want to.

That's not to say your friend was unreasonable at all, I'm just following a train of thought with time to reflect. I'm sure many of us make decisions that don't look like the most logical course of action after a little reflection.
 
Amergin said:
Would it be inopportune here to share another Quentin Smirhes classic clip?
Watch to the end to see the relevance…

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Heh, that's probably not dissimilar to what my face was like in the immediate aftermath...

Now, if only front and rear dash cams had been a thing in the early 2000s... the whole episode could have made an interesting reaction video.

Which does beg the question, rather - are sightings like these becoming more or less reported, with the rise of dash cam usage?

From a more sceptical perspective, it could be argued that an apparently sinister figure may lose its sense of spookiness when rewatching footage later on, safe at home and away from other cues - leading to the realisation that it was just someone out for a walk, after all. And many sceptics, rightly, now query a lack of tangible evidence for such accounts as mine, at a time when image recording technology is both cheap and readily available.

I've seen some pretty ropey fake footage of 'roadside ghosts' online (many of which seem to be rather influenced by The Ring, it appears) so it's hard to know whether having a dashcam recording of my encounter would have added anything, other than confirming that the whole thing wasn't a hallucination.

Again, it's not so much what I saw, but how it made me feel, that remains the most vivid part of it all.

Ghost In The Machine said:
Quercus, thanks for that - a good one, well told. Husband had a faceless ghost encounter in the 1970s which I will have mentioned numerous times here because, although he's had a few weird things happen, that one absolutely scared him the most.
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Yes, it's strange just how much a lack of face is terribly, terribly bothersome... I suppose humans are hardwired to look for faces and the emotions to be deciphered there (hence the prevalence of pareidolia), and to have nothing at all to work with, well... it's highly discomfiting.

With this one, it's hard to tell exactly what was there - there was no head that I could detect, that much I know (some accounts of faceless figures describe a head with a smooth, featureless expanse where a face ought to be), and there was no outline of a head (so, scarf, balaclava or morph suit don't come into it). But it wasn't like an 'invisible man' style of thing - I couldn't see the inside crown of the hat, or the back of a shirt, or anything of that nature.

It was almost like a vortex, or a state of complete nothingness. So strange that I can't really describe it properly, or draw it, or anything - like trying to describe a brand-new colour. I don't have the words; just the sensation. And for me, it was a state of utter fear and panic.

I sympathize with your husband!

Ogdred Weary said:
Thank you for this story @Quercus deeply spooky and clearly and thoroughly told. Some thoughts:

By coincidence last night I watched The Nun, which was not very good but does have a gang of faceless ghost/demon nuns at one point.

My immediate mental image upon reading the description of the walker was that of someone in 17thC Mathew Hopkins-esque garb, I think this is partially because of the picture of "the tall ghost" or similar generic name in an old book- I think this might be in Usbourne's Book of the Unknown: Ghosts. It's also because I worked at a historical building which had reports of a man in similar clothing along the roadside outside, he was also supposedly seen by a member of staff once, no reports of facelessness though. As a student a guy tried to create an "urban myth" for an art project and got another tall thin friend to walk through trees near a road in similar getup, neither where anywhere near your sighting.

I was told a story, coincidentally by the tall thin friend mentioned above, it's from another guy we were at uni with, whom I was friendly with but not close to. Apparently, as a teen on the Isle of Wight one night was walking to his girlfriend's house down various country lanes, he was walking down one when he spotted an old lady stood a short distance away in the middle of the road with her back to him - very quiet road, middle of nowhere with no traffic. He shouted to see if she was OK, no response, so knocked on the door of one of the two or three houses on the lane, he asked if the woman lived there, the man who answered said no but came out to take a look. He also got no response on calling over so walked around to face her, his face crumpled in horror and he screamed "she's got no face!" and ran away. The guy in question, ran back home in the other direction, needless to say, terrified.
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Hey, thanks! Your friend's story is also pretty chilling, and all of these accounts are making me re-evaluate just how rare (or otherwise) these kinds of sightings may be...

I think I know which illustration you're referring to in the Usborne ghost book - and the clothes I saw are probably worth elaborating on, especially as the 1991 account of a figure walking up Ditchling also references the clothes.

As I rounded the corner, the figure walking up the hill gave me no particular cause for alarm. The clothes were quite nondescript, and hard to pigeonhole as belonging to any given era by dint of their extreme plainness.

The boots looked like knee-length utility boots, the type you might buy if you were involved in equine pursuits. They appeared to be made of matt brown leather, and styled more as a plain yard boot than a shaped and polished dress boot. A heel of about two inches, and slightly baggy and rumpled with wear around the ankle. The tops disappeared up into the hem of the coat and I don't remember seeing any buckles or zips. They weren't rubber Wellington boots, I'm fairly sure of that.

The coat was a long, plain affair, coming down to just below the knee, something in the manner of an Australian 'duster' coat worn by stockmen. There were no adornments or anything; no turned-back cuffs or adorned pockets or buttoned backpieces in best C18th fashion. Just a very plain, long, dark brown coat, which wasn't noticeably dirty but did appear to be well-used, and entirely in keeping with someone who worked the land.

The collar may have been turned up, but I can't say for sure. I don't recall seeing any hair, or ears, or anything like that as I approached from behind.

The hat was a flat-crowned item, with a reasonably wide brim but again, nothing too outlandish. It was neither particularly tall nor particularly wide, and broadly in keeping with the kind of hats I've seen farmers wear. It may also have been made of leather; there was a very slight side-to-side curve to the brim, but nothing like a Stetson style - if you'd like a point of reference, think Phil Harding off Time Team and his hat. Not a million miles off that, though I don't recall a band or any other decorative addition. Like all the other items of clothing, it seemed to be a dark tertiary colour, functional and well used.

The figure seemed neither noticeably tall nor small; and its gait was quite normal. It was a steep hill, and the figure was making progress with a stride that seemed accustomed to covering long distances. It was walking on the right hand side of the road (so facing any oncoming traffic) but several feet from the edge of the road, more towards the centre line. The figure's boots were definitely making contact with the road - nothing floating above the surface, nor vanishing beneath the surface.

I feel it important to reiterate that, at the point I made visual contact, there was absolutely nothing unusual about the figure, other than I was unaccustomed to meeting pedestrians on this road at this time of night. Nothing seemed 'off', or gave me cause for alarm.

The road from the village to the Beacon is narrow, so when driving the hairpin bends at night I tended to go wide and use all the road, to conserve momentum and avoid having to make more gearchanges than necessary. Obviously, not if I could see the headlights of another car coming the other way! So when I mentioned in my original account that I steered around the figure, that's what I'm referring to - I rounded the bend in the centre of the road, and had to quickly steer back to my own lane to pass safely, when I saw the figure walking up the downhill lane. It seemed bad enough to be slogging up a steep hill in the dark without a passing motorist smacking your backside with a door mirror...

In terms of timings, I only had about three or four seconds to observe the figure in my headlights before I was already alongside it. I was probably doing about 25 miles an hour in third gear, and had half-expected that the figure would move over a little to the side of the road a little as I drove past, but it didn't.

At the point I drove right alongside - with the figure only a foot or two from my door - I was slowing, shifting down to second gear, and making sure I was giving them enough room to pass without putting myself in danger. I was focusing on the road ahead and the trees to my immediate left, but I sometimes wonder what I might have seen if I'd glanced to the right. I was aware of passing the figure in my peripheral vision, but nothing more than that.

As I say, all if this occurred in the space of a few seconds, while rounding the turn. It was only when the most pressing action had been completed (passing the figure safely) that my 'driver' mind receded and my curiosity came to the fore - who are they? Are they okay? Do they need a lift? And so on.

And it was at this point that I decided to see if I could help in any way, and began to slow the car to a halt. Again, still no sense that anything was strange, or 'off' in any way. I'd played Good Samaritan to a few stricken motorists before, offering jumpleads and torches where needed, and I was genuinely concerned that this walker may meet with a mishap if another car came down the hill fast, with nowhere for a pedestrian to move out of the way. If nothing else, I felt it incumbent on me to check.

Because it had taken me another few seconds to play through this internal monologue, I was probably about ten or fifteen metres ahead of the figure before I came to a complete halt. I briefly considered rolling back until I drew level, but thought it might alarm the walker if a car suddenly started rolling downhill toward them. So I opted to wait until they drew level with me, planning my opening words as I did so - something along the lines of, "You alright mate, d'you need a lift up the hill anywhere?"

A certain amount of cold was expected when I rolled down the window, though I can't recall if the air rushing in was really as unbelievably cold as it seemed - or if it was just because the car was pleasantly toasty, and outside wasn't. So I can't comment on whether I experienced an unearthly cold, or if I'm just a bit of a wuss.

But the situation turned from unexpected to unbelievable at the point that I moved my head to look at the walker's reflection in the drivers side door mirror. Just so I could see how far away they were, and get a sense, I suppose, of the kind of person they were - my own age, older, whatever.

And that's where the problem started, because although I could see the clothes ok, but I couldn't see them. No face. But not invisible. A nothingness, but at the same time, a nothingness that was also a something. Something indescribable. The scene behind was lit red with the Escort's brake lights, but the nothingness was... infinite nothingness. It wasn't even black. It was just... nothingness. Which isn't quite the same as nothing.

It's about this point that I start to become uncomfortably self-conscious whenever I'm trying to tell someone about the episode. Because it sounds like I'm either not trying hard enough to form a description, or fear I come across as a bit nuts; as if I'm grasping at my interlocutor's sleeve, eyes rolling wildly, muttering you gotta believe me boy, there was nothing, but a nothing that was a something...

Nope, it doesn't make sense. I know it doesn't. And it was that sudden, shocked, undeniable acknowledgement that what was before me was utterly outside my frame of reference that eventually pushed the panic button, once I'd spun through all possible logical reasoning and drawn a blank each time. Only then did my lizard brain take over to remove me from the situation as fast as was practicable.

Sixteen years on, I still don't know... but I simply couldn't hang around to find out.

Ghost In The Machine said:
Looking forward to hearing about your other experiences, Quercus.
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Hey, thanks... I have a few accounts written down in full as a narrative; a few others that are in note form, and yet more that are just a line or two as an aide memoire.

Will do my best to get a few more posted up! I've alluded to another couple of odd experiences from my past further up the thread, so if anything in particular piques anyone's interest, sing out and I'll pull it together for next time.
 
You sound very lucid throughout your account, Quercus, even when trying to describe the indescribable.
 
Great account, Quercus, thank you for sharing!
Quercus said:
As I made my way around the fourth turn on the ascent, about two-thirds of the way up the incline,
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If you look at this screenshot from Google maps, which are you counting as the fourth turn? The one that follows the second iteration of the street name, or a different one?
Ditchling Bostall.png
 
@Quercus your description of "infinite nothingness" and an absence that is indescribable could suggest either something otherworldly or might suggest a temporary neurological or psychological phenomenon where your perception didn't work for the part of he visual field that was his face, which might be indistinguishable from something otherworldly/supernatural. It sounds like the fear or unease didn't begin until realising the figure had no face, was there anything else unheimlich about the encounter?

I was going to ask about the clothing, thank you, my mind went straight to The Civil War for the reasons outlined above. It does sound like there was nothing to suggest unusual clothing for the time.

Finally, the figure seemed male? You referred to thinking it was a farmer, which we tend to perceive as male. I must admit, I'd have taken your description to be that of a man whether there was anything "male" about it or whether it is my own or cultural biases, I don't know.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Great account, Quercus, thank you for sharing!

If you look at this screenshot from Google maps, which are you counting as the fourth turn? The one that follows the second iteration of the street name, or a different one?
View attachment 35077
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maximus otter said:
For the assistance of @Krepostnoi and myself, could you pinpoint the stretch on which you saw the walker?

Ditchling-Beacon-Fortean-02.jpg


maximus otter
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That's a top idea, folks - I'd been trying to attach screenshots of the stretch where I saw the figure from Google Maps Street View, but for some reason the forum software doesn't seem to like my phone and won't allow me to attach images.

I believe the section where I encountered the figure is between points/curves 5 and 6 on @maximus otter 's annotated aerial image. I saw the figure as I rounded what I called Curve 4 in my account, but appears as Curve 5 above (I suppose I didn't count Curve 1 on the picture as part of the ascent, since it's still pretty flat at that point).

Curve 7 is also a possibility, mind; it's not such a sharp left hand bend as 5, but the denser woodland either side seems to match my recollection slightly better (although it's possible any undergrowth or trees on the bank at Curve 5 has been cut back since 2004/05). However, I don't think I was that close to the summit - at the point my nerve broke and I drove on, I was aware that the next corner would bring me back round to the point above where I'd just seen the figure, and a fear flitted across my mind that it would be on the road in front of me again when I came round the corner.

Curve 3 is too near the bottom of the hill, I think, and at that point the road doesn't double back round on itself. All the other curves are right-handers, and it was definitely a left-hand bend.

If you're able to see the stretch of road on Street View, it's interesting to review the journey in clicks to get a sense of the terrain and sightlines. The camera on Google vehicles is mounted quite high up, so it's not identical to a driver's eye view, but it's not bad. I also note, from looking at the older Street View images going back as far as December 2008, that a painted centre line doesn't appear on the road until the 2011 version. The December '08 images also give a sense of how the roadway looks around that time of year.

Thanks for taking the time to help tease this one out! Greatly appreciated.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
@Quercus your description of "infinite nothingness" and an absence that is indescribable could suggest either something otherworldly or might suggest a temporary neurological or psychological phenomenon where your perception didn't work for the part of he visual field that was his face, which might be indistinguishable from something otherworldly/supernatural. It sounds like the fear or unease didn't begin until realising the figure had no face, was there anything else unheimlich about the encounter?

I was going to ask about the clothing, thank you, my mind went straight to The Civil War for the reasons outlined above. It does sound like there was nothing to suggest unusual clothing for the time.

Finally, the figure seemed male? You referred to thinking it was a farmer, which we tend to perceive as male. I must admit, I'd have taken your description to be that of a man whether there was anything "male" about it or whether it is my own or cultural biases, I don't know.
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That's right, I'd describe the figure as male in appearance, based on the style of clothes but also the walking gait and overall proportions. Funnily enough, I'd never tried out the idea 'what if it were a female figure?' as a thought exercise - maybe that's my own cultural bias showing!

I perceived the figure as male - yet, as you can see, I've shied away from describing the figure as a man, or using he/him pronouns. I think that's because I'm not really sure whether the figure - the being - was actually male, or gendered in any way. I'd had another odd encounter two or three years earlier in a lonely spot on a shoreline, and the message that kept playing through my head on a loop as I tried to extricate myself was "it's not human and it never was". I think a similar sensation seemed to strike here.

Yes, I agree with you on the clothing - nothing unusual about any of it per se, other than it seemed very 'timeless'. Caterpillar boots, jeans or a beanie hat would have firmly rooted the figure in the twenty-first century, just as anachronistic buttoned-back cuffs and brocade, or a monastic robe, might have indicated an anomaly - but there really was nothing either contemporary or anachronistic about any of it. My reading of the figure as a farmer was based on the functional and weathered nature of the clothes, plus the rural location and time of night - a best guess, if you will, about the possible identity and motivations of someone walking up the hill at that hour.

There was nothing else particularly unheimlich - at least, in the sense of an awareness of psychologically uncanny elements - about the encounter. Nothing else seemed 'off' - not the movement, not the proportions (unlike the 'walking backwards' stories mentioned). Just the lack of a visible face/head, once I noticed it in the mirror.

In terms of broader Fortean phenomena associated with my encounter, I'd say the only remarkable thing was the utter coldness that followed me for hours afterwards, making me unable to warm up at all. I'm normally quite a warm individual - my wife refers to me as her 'radiator' when it comes to warming cold hands and feet - so to be utterly chilled to the bone just from having had the window wound down for thirty seconds was unusual. I recall pulling extra blankets onto the bed, along with two hot water bottles, and still shivering violently all night even though the flat in Hove was quite warm. In some way, I got a feeling that the nothingness was something of a vortex, sucking in heat, light, everything. That's something my correspondent via the Guardian had also mentioned in 2016, when describing the faceless figure that he recalls coming into his bedroom as a child.

I agree that a temporary neurophysiological episode can't be ruled out, and that was why I'd tried to make contact with Alan Murdie following his FT385 article. It's not beyond the realms of possibility; all I can advise is that I don't believe I've experienced any such episode before, or since.

It's a completely valid theory, though - it was late, I was tired, my contact lenses were probably feeling gritty and sore. The job involved long hours, no breaks and a lot of stress (according to my diary at the time, during one period in December 2004 I worked 110 hours over ten days straight, without a day off, and the nature of the clients I worked with meant that I was not infrequently punched, kicked and slapped in the course of the day). In fact I quit the job before the end of January, mainly because I still hadn't been paid a full wage since starting the job in November. All very likely to indicate that some sort of mental rupture was imminent. So I absolutely wouldn't rule that out.

During that period in my mid-teens to mid-20s, I did feel like something of a magnet for strange happenings, many of which were also experienced by others with me, or which involved a certain degree of physicality. This is one that happened to me solo, with no impact or outworking other than my own perception and emotional fallout, which makes it very difficult to look at with the necessary objectivity - and why I'm grateful to so many here for taking the time to add their own thoughts, and prompting me to reflect and clarify my recollections.

I'm aware that, over time, events coalesce into the memory of remembering a memory, and narrative smoothing can take place. I feel that my overall mental replay of the episode is still quite clear, however. But at the time I didn't enjoy it, didn't want it to have happened, didn't even want to acknowledge it. From experience, talking about it only led to more things happening.

It may not be relevant, but the care home in which I worked was a former convent and other staff had mentioned 'the ghost' in passing. It seemed to be a common belief that the overnight room in the main building was haunted in some way (although there were agency staff awake and on duty overnight, a member of day staff was required to remain on the premises between 10pm and 7.30am in case of emergencies - they got to spend the night in a tiny attic bedroom, on a rota system). But I never saw, heard or felt anything tangible in my time there.

Obviously I have a great deal of emotional investment in this story - I wouldn't be on here if it meant nothing to me - but I'm not 100% sold on the idea that I encountered a ghost, or some other sort of spirit energy on the road up to Ditchling Beacon that night. But I believe something odd happened, whether in my head or outside of it.

With that said, finding out that a motorist in 1991 encountered a disappearing figure with an obscured face walking up the same hill has made me wonder if maybe there is something less psychological and more paranormal about the encounter.
 
Quercus said:
I perceived the figure as male - yet, as you can see, I've shied away from describing the figure as a man, or using he/him pronouns. I think that's because I'm not really sure whether the figure - the being - was actually male, or gendered in any way. I'd had another odd encounter two or three years earlier in a lonely spot on a shoreline, and the message that kept playing through my head on a loop as I tried to extricate myself was "it's not human and it never was". I think a similar sensation seemed to strike here.
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Have you posted your shoreline encounter anywhere? I'd love to read about it!
 
Amergin said:
This was fun: A vintage chrome plated Art Deco cigarette / cigarillo humidor that was up for sale on eBay last September.

Beware of reflective surfaces...!
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Where's the effin' face? Even after altering the contrast and stuff no face became visible.
And no camera is visible in the reflection... Usually you can see if a photo has been manipulated to remove face.
It is of course possible the seller covered the face in a black fabric before taking the photo.
Here it is upscaled.

1613059035299.png
 
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Vardoger said:
Where's the effin' face? Even after altering the contrast and stuff no face became visible.
And no camera is visible in the reflection... Usually you can see if a photo has been manipulated to remove face.
Here it is upscaled.

View attachment 35096
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The first split second looking at this, I saw very clear and distinct skull face in the patterns in the dark of the hood. There are two blobs a bit like eyes but this was more clear symmetrical. Momentary visual "noise" I suppose.
 
Is this in the vicinity or is it another Ditchling?
Jacob's post

Jacob's Post
North of Ditchling village on Ditchling Common, there is a post which marks the spot where Jacob Harris, a pedlar, was hanged in 1734 for the murder of Richard Miles. Apart from the site being supposedly haunted by the ghost of Jacob himself, pieces of the post are reputed to have magical curative properties, like others hanged in a similar manner. Among the many diseases curable by carrying around a fragment of the gibbet were ague, neuralgia and toothache, while touching the hand of a man swinging on the gibbet could cure barrenness. The severed hand could also be used to create the infamous "Hand of Glory". A candle was placed in the hand and when lit, a burglar was sure to be safe when entering a house at night as the residents would stay fast asleep while the candle burned.
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http://www.sussexarch.org.uk/saaf/ditchling.html
 
Vardoger said:
Where's the effin' face? Even after altering the contrast and stuff no face became visible.
And no camera is visible in the reflection... Usually you can see if a photo has been manipulated to remove face.
It is of course possible the seller covered the face in a black fabric before taking the photo.
Here it is upscaled.

View attachment 35096
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Looks like a coat as makeshift camera hood to hide the photographer. It’s probably black.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
The first split second looking at this, I saw very clear and distinct skull face in the patterns in the dark of the hood. There are two blobs a bit like eyes but this was more clear symmetrical. Momentary visual "noise" I suppose.
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I see what you mean.

1613060504934.png
 
Ogdred Weary said:
The first split second looking at this, I saw very clear and distinct skull face in the patterns in the dark of the hood. There are two blobs a bit like eyes but this was more clear symmetrical. Momentary visual "noise" I suppose.
Click to expand...
I have increased the lower and mid-range light levels in Photoshop and the only information in the image is below, not much help :oops:
 

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Analogue Boy said:
Is this in the vicinity or is it another Ditchling?
http://www.sussexarch.org.uk/saaf/ditchling.html
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Yup, that's in the area. Ditchling Common is on the other side of the village to the Beacon, a few miles to the north, although what now remains of the old Commons is now much closer to the ever-expanding commuter town of Burgess Hill.

I did go for a walk there a few times, but I don't remember seeing the post marking the gibbet! That said, the story of Jacob's Ghost sounds vaguely familiar - it might have been in the Judy Middleton book on Sussex Ghosts, or I may have turned the story up during a previous attempt to search for reports of hauntings around Ditchling.

Either way, thanks for that link!

SimonBurchell said:
Have you posted your shoreline encounter anywhere? I'd love to read about it!
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Nope, not yet... I did submit a truncated version of it to a chap who ran a Facebook group on local hauntings about two years ago, but as far as I know he never published it.

But I'll make that the my next IHTM thread, if you fancy it!
 
LOL. People see all kinds of stuff. There must be a rational explanation for the reflection, of course.
This is where I see a face. :)

1613061888565.png
 
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