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The Ditchling Beacon Walker

Ogdred Weary said:
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.
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It wasn't this picture that sprang to mind, was it?

IMG_20210216_175346~2.jpg
 
Spookdaddy said:
Maybe I was being a bit uncharitable. At least it's not....

...

...well, just in case you haven't reached that story in the Rackham book yet, let's just say - at least it's not a certain lady seen in a cellar in The Lanes.

That would put a reader right of their dinner.

Possibly for several days.
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Heh, haven't read that bit yet... I think I shall wait until after dinner before going any further!
 
Quercus said:
Delighted to receive in this morning's post a copy of John Rackham's Brighton Ghosts, Hove Hauntings - True Ghost Stories from Brighton, Hove and Neighbouring Villages (Latimer Publications, Brighton, 2001), as quoted by @Spookdaddy upthread . It arrived from a bookseller in Portslade, quite near to where I used to live, which was a nice touch.

It's a whopping big hardback thing, over 350 pages in length, and even from a quick flick through it's clearly packed with well chosen and informative content, clearly indexed. I'm very suprised I didn't encounter it in all the years I was living locally, around the time it was published, since I was frequently in and out of bookshops in Brighton and Lewes and it would have very much been my thing.

As it was, I picked up a few softback 'Sussex Ghosts' type books by Peter Underwood and Judy Middleton, plus an odd little home-made pamphlet on 'Haunted Portslade', but didn't find them all that compelling and passed them on to a charity shop a number of years back (when I was done with the paranormal - or so I thought).

I'll enjoy reading through it properly soon enough - but I did flip quickly on to p.315 of Chapter 26, concerning Ditchling and Wivelsfield, to read with my own eyes the account from 1991 about the disappearing 'figure in brown' with a concealed face seen walking up the same road leading to the Beacon.

It's a fairly brief account, and doesn't contain any more detail than what's outlined way back on the first page of this thread, but it does feel curiously cathartic to discover that I'm not the only person to report a strange figure walking up that steep stretch of road. Of course, there are a number of differences between the description given by David Moore and the figure I believe I encountered, and so more questions are raised than answered by this discovery... but still.

I know it proves nothing paranormal - and the helpful and incisive responses on this thread have tipped me into feeling that, on balance, I most likely experienced some sort of a singular mental episode that night - but even so, it then poses the question of whether there's something about Ditchling Beacon which causes motorists to believe they've encountered such a figure?


While searching online for a copy of the Rackham book, I also turned up Haunted Brighton by Alan Murdie (The History Press, Stroud, 2006/ reprint 2011). I know that every urban centre across the British Isles seems to have their own entry in this series, all with the same cover - I have Haunted Belfast by Joe Baker and Haunted Edinburgh by Alan Murdie (him again) upstairs - and while they can sometimes come across as a bit sensationalist or prone to digression, they're often an entertaining starting point to exploring the lore of a given area. There were plenty of second-hand copies available at fairly reasonable prices, so a copy duly arrived.

I haven't progressed beyond the first couple of chapters, but a quick flick suggests there's no specific ghost stories set in the DitchIing area, let alone one with parallels to my experience (though the nearby Clayton rail tunnel and the section of the A23 at Whitegates get a look-in).

I was however interested to read in Chapter 1, concerning The Lanes, about the Grey Nun of Meeting House Lane, because witnesses have reported that "in the dark cavity of her hood there is no face". Similarly, a figure of a 'phantom monk in dark robes' has been reported multiple times in cellars and shops around The Lanes, with one account from a shopworker in the early 1950s recording "the disturbing detail that there was no head within the hood, only darkness".

Indeed, Murdie goes on to comment that "this seeming shyness of apparitions about displaying clear facial detail is a recurring feature in stories in Brighton and elsewhere" - which is an interesting point, and I'll be making a note of any other 'faceless ghosts' I find mentioned elsewhere in the book as I read through it.

I appreciate there may have been reasons of space to consider, but I'm mildly surprised that Murdie didn't include either of these tales in his FT385 article on faceless ghosts - the exclusion of Japanese faceless spirits I can understand, but this was something from one of his own books!

Edited for typo
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You should have gone for Paranormal Edinburgh rather than Haunted Edinburgh :)

9CC22CFB-42AE-44AE-BE00-657D2A6956E3.jpeg
 
Aurora Newman said:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031062/Faceless-aliens-spotted-crowd-Wimbledon.html
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Yikes, that's a bit odd... wonder if anyone ever worked out who was dressing up like that? Definitely on the creepy side, that's for sure.

Bit different to my fella, though - not only no facial features, but no discernible head at all. In fact, all that was visible were the clothes...

Mr Spagooter said:
This thread is the exact reason I keep my eyes firmly on the road at night and do not EVER look in my rear view mirror.
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You've probably got the right idea - there's a certain stretch of rural hill road not far from me (between a reservoir and the site of an Iron Age fort, now forestery land) where, when driving alone at night, I not infrequently had a horrid prickling sensation that there was suddenly someone behind me in the back seat. I often made sure I wasn't tempted to glance in the rear view mirror by tipping it up before joining that stretch.

I always put it down to an overactive imagination, until one night I was travelling with a passenger along that same piece of road. The sensation came on very strongly, although I didn't say anything about it and tried to continue behaving in a normal manner. When we reached the main road and the feeling lifted, my passenger burst into tears because they were so sure there had been something malevolent in the back of the car. I'd never once mentioned it to them.

Again, not saying it's proof of anything paranormal, but it's interesting that a particular area can seemingly influence such feelings of dread to arise in different people simultaneously.

Nowadays I have a strict 'don't stop' policy in operation...

gordonrutter said:
You should have gone for Paranormal Edinburgh rather than Haunted Edinburgh :)

View attachment 35448
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Heh, must have been all sold out of that one round the tourist hotspots; they only had the Murdie book left on the shelves...

I'll draw my own inferences - and will keep an eye out for yours, naturally!

Last time I was in Edinburgh I also picked up that book about the MacKenzie Poltergeist, and another about the history of the South Vaults; bit patchy in places but some good info all the same.

I went on the Greyfriars tour in about 2004 around the MacKenzie Mausoleum and Covenantors Prison, and can't say I felt anything untoward; ditto Mary King's Close (both interesting though).
 
Morning peeps first time I’ve seen QS i I think the outfit will catch on with all the serious gym users pretty quickly
 
Ogdred Weary said:
No, I am remembering, or possibly imagining, a normal "live" looking guy who is gaunt and in Puritan type clobber.
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Hmm, I've had a good look through my copy of the book and can't see an illustration that matches the description - sorry!

Back in the 1980s my local library held a variety of books along the lines of the Nigel Blundell World's Greatest Mysteries series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and other illustrated books on ghosts and general Forteana topics, which scared and intrigued me simultaneously... there are a few creepy images I can recall seeing which are burned into my mind permanently, but I now couldn't say where they're from...
 
Quercus said:
Hmm, I've had a good look through my copy of the book and can't see an illustration that matches the description - sorry!

Back in the 1980s my local library held a variety of books along the lines of the Nigel Blundell World's Greatest Mysteries series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and other illustrated books on ghosts and general Forteana topics, which scared and intrigued me simultaneously... there are a few creepy images I can recall seeing which are burned into my mind permanently, but I now couldn't say where they're from...
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Thanks. I think in that book there's the ghost of a drowned man on a beach, called " the tall man/tall ghost", though he doesn't have a hat and is not in the same sort of costume. I think I may have conflated that with a 17thC garbed person. It's more likely a constructed false memory than an image in another book.

Interestingly when I googled "tall man Usbourne ghost book" this is on the first page of images, different costume and gender but similar and nicely creepy. I can remember the image from reading it as a kid:

faceless.jpg
 
Have a look at Strange Folks thread Post 4
Quercus said:
Well then, first thread... and I thought I'd start with the tale that brought me back to this forum, in a roundabout way.

Story first - and then what came after, in separate posts in case anyone wishes to quote certain sections back at me. Apologies for the length, future posts shouldn't be so episodic!


One night, in either December 2004 or January 2005, I was driving back towards Brighton from my workplace near Lindfield in Sussex, around 11pm.

I worked in a care home, and the hours were unsociable. It was a very cold night, the temperature hovering a little over freezing point – I’d had to use de-icer and scrape the frost from the windscreen after finishing my shift – and there was a stiff wind blowing. The journey was a familiar one, along the B2112 from Wivelsfield through the village of Ditchling, before a left turn onto Beacon Road took me up the very steep, winding road which topped out at Ditchling Beacon, the tallest peak on the Sussex Downs.

I'd dropped off some other staff members in Haywards Heath, Wivelsfield and Burgess Hill, so I was alone by the time I passed through the quiet village of Ditchling and onto Beacon Road. As the streetlights came to an end, I flicked on my main beams and shifted into low gear to negotiate the tight bends which snaked their way up the hillside, trees reaching in from either side of the road to meet in the middle. There was no other traffic. The car was nice and warm after half an hour with the heater on, though.

As I made my way around the fourth turn on the ascent, about two-thirds of the way up the incline, my headlamps illuminated the back of a tall male figure, striding up the right hand side of the road and travelling in the same direction as me. High leather boots, a long, dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat were clearly picked out in the Ford Escort’s halogen main beams. My immediate impulse was to avoid hitting the unexpected walker, who I assumed to be a farmer, perhaps making his way home from one of the pubs in the village. High earthen banks and dense trees lined both sides of the road, and there was nowhere for a pedestrian to move out of the way of traffic.

As I steered around the walking figure, who didn’t turn round or acknowledge my presence in any way, it then occurred to me that maybe something was wrong. Maybe his car had broken down in the village, and he could use a lift up such a punishingly steep hill on such a cold, wild night. I eased off the throttle, coming to a halt halfway between the two bends with my foot on the brake pedal, and lowered the driver’s window. The chill night air rushed into the cabin. I could clearly see the figure reflected in my door mirror, still striding up the side of the road towards me, and brightly lit by the Escort's brake lights. As he drew closer I cleared my throat and prepared to ask him if he needed a lift up the hill – and then I noticed one tiny detail.

The figure walking towards me, reflected in the mirror, had no face.

The hat, the coat, and even a scarf knotted at the throat were plain to see in the bright red brakelights - but where the face should have been was nothing but darkness. It wasn't in shadow from the hat, as the brakes were low down and lit the figure completely. It wasn’t a balaclava or any other face covering, as that would at least have shown an outline. Above the scarf and below the hat, there was simply nothing at all. Only a void.

My brain scrabbled to process what I was seeing, and everything seemed to slow down. I knew what I saw, reflected there before me, and equally I knew I couldn't really be seeing it. My mind seemed to be locked in a loop, unable to work out what was unfolding and hence unable to take action. And all the while the figure was drawing closer, step by step by step.

Suddenly, as if surfacing from beneath water, a jolt of adrenaline hit me and I grabbed at the gearstick, stomped on the accelerator and pulled away, fast.

With a primeval fear prickling at me, I ragged the car around the next bend and onward towards the top of the peak, leaving the walker behind in the darkness beneath the clusters of bare branches. I wound the driver's window back up, trying as I did so to rationalise what I'd seen, and attempting to second-guess whatever optical illusion had made me think that the long-coated traveller was faceless.

But I couldn't come up with anything. The image of the figure, with every crease of the coat and twist of the scarf picked out by the high-intensity brakelights, was burned into my memory – and the awful, indisputable nothingness up top.

Cresting the top of the hill, I hammered along the open road, twisting across the open moorland towards Brighton and home, my mind still churning. Then it struck me that there was nowhere up here for anyone to be walking to - there were no houses, or barns, or anything at all up here. Just miles and miles of wind-blasted heathland and stunted trees across the Downs, until the road met up with the A27 near Coldean. I saw no other cars, either moving or parked, all the way along. And, even with the heater turned up full blast, the inside of my car felt like an industrial freezer all the way home to Hove.

I didn't sleep well that night, even with several hot water bottles in the bed with me. I just couldn't seem to get that chill out of me.

After that, I started going the long way home, along the main A23. There may have been a perfectly plausible explanation for what I saw, or thought I saw – but I didn’t fancy trying my luck with the walker on the Beacon Road again.



So, that's what happened to me.
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Just been leafing through my copy of Ruth Roper Wylde's The Roadmap Of British Ghosts (Independently published, 2018), and found this on p.52, in the chapter on Cambridgeshire:
Longstanton - B1050

There is one source (that I could find) which claims that someone driving home to Longstanton along the B1050 once saw a shadowy figure standing at the side of the narrow road. He swung his car slightly wide to give plenty of room, but as he passed the figure, he suddenly realised that where its face should have been was just blank. Horrified - he looked in his mirror as he swept on past, only to realise the figure had disappeared completely.

Unfortunately there is neither a date, nor an accurate location, and I have not been able to find any corroboration.
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Mmm, quite similar to the Minnesota tale from the podcast, except that the figure here seems to have been stationary, not walking. But both vanished after being driven past.

With the 1991 Ditchling account, the figure disappeared right in front of the driver. With me, nothing disappeared - but then I didn't stick around long enough to check what happened after I drove off...

I'm not sure exactly what the methodology was in compiling this book, but it seems to be made up of stories about ghosts seen on roads as gathered by the author from other local publications and from websites on the paranormal.

As a result, some accounts are rather more detailed than others - though there does seem to have been efforts made to visit some locations personally, and interview those involved. There are also some thoughts from the author about non-paranormal explanations for some of the phenomena recounted, which seems like a fair approach.

If I find any more stories of a similar nature, I'll post them up here...
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Creepy tale that gave me a flashback to an experience me and my son had whilst driving home late at night. This is my account posted here in 2015.

"Was driving back from a concert with my son last night around 22:30. Kept the speed down, because I was very low on petrol (warning light was blinking) and the garage I was hoping to use on the A30 had just closed. Were within a few miles of home, driving through some woods, when we noticed a figure dressed in dark clothing on our side of the road. All we could really see were the man's hands and face reflecting in my headlights and he appeared to be walking with a strange, jerky gait. I did a double-take, as we got closer, because he seemed to have no facial features ..... then my son and I both said in unison "he's walking backwards". Maybe he had just turned around so as not to be dazzled by my headlights, but it still felt weird and I definitely felt a frisson of creepiness as we passed."
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There's that word again, one for the Jerky Ghosts thread which we had not long ago.
 
What do jerky ghosts taste like...sorry I'll shut the door on my way out. Please continue as before.
 
I've posted this before on these boards but, given how much the image scared me as a kid, it's worth another appearance. From "Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain":

1614853387725.png


Although, she isn't entirely lacking a head. :chuckle:
 
CALGACUS03 said:
I've posted this before on these boards but, given how much the image scared me as a kid, it's worth another appearance. From "Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain":
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Is that a Robin Jacques illustration? I loved his illustrations in Devils and Demons and Ghosts and Goblins, by Ruth Manning-Sanders.
 
Quercus said:
There was a darkness above the clothing and below the hat. But there was no edge to the darkness. At some point, of course, the darkness must have faded out so I could see the clothing, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly where that happened. That was part of the strangeness. I would have expected someone out walking on a cold winter night to have a scarf pulled up over their nose and chin (I often do); but while there was a narrow scarf knotted overhand at the throat area and tucked in to the coat collar (a bit like a cravat, not a thick woolly scarf), above it was an absence of any form whatsoever.

Maybe the nothingness is easier to visualise if I describe it as 'black vapour'. That's not quite what it was - again, there seemed to be a depth that went way, way back beyond the hat, and why it seems wrong to describe it as vapour, which is a 'something' - because to my perception, it was a total absence of anything. But that's probably the best I can manage. No sharply defined edges, just an area surrounding where the head should have been, that seemed to transition fuzzily between visible and invisible light (anti-light?).

Of course, I can't rule out that the red brake lights weren't doing something weird to the scene. But everything else about the figure was lit very, very clearly - every fold and wrinkle in the coat was picked out as the figure walked towards me. Just the area between the collar and the hat still defies description for me.
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I have no idea what you saw, Quercus, but some questions to help me visualise it:

Quercus said:
A total face covering/balaclava/morph suit would still have shown edges to the head, even if the features themselves were completely covered.
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Did the figure's head block anything your lights should have lit up (foliage, or the road or whatever)? In other words would the shape/edges of the 'nothingness', where the face/head should be, have been apparent from what it was standing in front of being lit up? Or were the surroundings dark enough to be indistinguishable from the figure's face so that it (the darkness) all seemed to merge together?

And, as a follow-up, did the same hold true for the parts of the figure itself that the head area should be blocking? Could you see the part of the scarf that would have been against the back of its neck, or the inside of the coat, for instance?

You mention you don't remember seeing hands on the figure, but do you remember what it was doing with its arms? Moving backwards and forwards in time with its stride? In its pockets? Something else?

Apologies if you've covered any of this - I have been through the thread but may have missed it.
 
captain_bats said:
I have no idea what you saw, Quercus, but some questions to help me visualise it:

Apologies if you've covered any of this - I have been through the thread but may have missed it.
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Hey, no worries - happy to try to describe the figure in further detail. It's not an easy thing to visualise, admittedly.

Did the figure's head block anything your lights should have lit up (foliage, or the road or whatever)? In other words would the shape/edges of the 'nothingness', where the face/head should be, have been apparent from what it was standing in front of being lit up? Or were the surroundings dark enough to be indistinguishable from the figure's face so that it (the darkness) all seemed to merge together?
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No, it wasn't so much the head itself blocking the view behind, as the hat - I could clearly see the underside of the hat brim lit by the brake lights, along with the rest of the clothing.

From my viewing angle in the car's door mirror, the background to the figure was the foliage further down the road, at the corner I'd just rounded. But this was quite distant, and with the figure so close and so brightly lit, the background was mostly just darkness, with very little else for the brake lights to illuminate.

The absence of a face (or indeed any discernible head, although curiously I always think of the figure as 'faceless' rather than 'headless') relates to the darkness above the collar and under the hat, which I recall as being roughly head-shaped but with no clearly defined edge.

I think I've previously tried to describe it as being a dark nothingness, rather than something black like a mask or morph suit type thing. I could of course be mistaken, but the overriding feeling was that I was staring into a total absence - negative matter, if you will - rather than the presence of something that just happened to be dark in colour.

It really is remarkably difficult to describe the encounter in a coherent way; which I suppose is why it's stuck with me so strongly all these years. But also why it's so maddening when trying to relate what occurred.

My art skills are fairly low, otherwise I would have tried to sketch it out by now...

And, as a follow-up, did the same hold true for the parts of the figure itself that the head area should be blocking? Could you see the part of the scarf that would have been against the back of its neck, or the inside of the coat, for instance?
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That's a good question, and if the figure had been actually invisible, then that's exactly what I would have seen - all parts of the clothing, including the inside of the hat's crown. But I can't recall that, so I'm going to have to say no on that one as well. The back/inside of the clothing was obscured by the same peculiar darkness above the collar and below the hat.

You mention you don't remember seeing hands on the figure, but do you remember what it was doing with its arms? Moving backwards and forwards in time with its stride? In its pockets? Something else?
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The arms were definitely moving in time with the stride as I rounded the corner - not as exaggerated as military marching, but I could see the shoulders move and the arms correspondingly moving forward and back.

It's a steep hill, and the movements of the figure were consistent with the gradient and effort required to walk up such a hill.

But yes, I don't remember seeing any hands, so either the hands were in pockets (and the coat was moving along with the arms), or there were no hands and I just assumed they were in the pockets - I really can't say for sure.

Hope this helps with the visualisation - and any theories gratefully received...
 
What an interesting encounter... Very well described Quercus.

I'm just listening to one of my fave YouTube channels back catalogue of paranormal vids. This is termed "mannequin people" , faceless entities. Made me think of this thread and your terrifying encounter. Your not alone according to this vid, however most of these entities are not clothed.

Ps - is your username after the men's scent by Penhaligons .? Querqcus.?

 
FunkyTT said:
What an interesting encounter... Very well described Quercus.

I'm just listening to one of my fave YouTube channels back catalogue of paranormal vids. This is termed "mannequin people" , faceless entities. Made me think of this thread and your terrifying encounter. Your not alone according to this vid, however most of these entities are not clothed.

Ps - is your username after the men's scent by Penhaligons .? Querqcus.?

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Hey, glad you enjoyed - and thanks for the video link, very interesting!

I can see where you're coming from now on the way the figure moved, and what could/couldn't be seen of the body parts - and while I don't think what I saw matches exactly with the 'Mannequin People', it's been instructional to learn over the past few weeks just how many different varieties of figures with no discernable face have been reported over the years. The fact that many reports seem to involve these figures driving, or appearing as passengers in cars, is also worthy of note... and may have some relevance to another deeply strange thing that happened to me in the summer of 1999, which I haven't yet written down.

I think I'll be watching a few more of those Beyond Creepy videos - looks to be some very interesting accounts highlighted in them, covering a wide range of Fortean topics. Duly bookmarked.

Oh, and my userame just comes from the Latin work for 'oak tree' - there's something about it as a word that I just like!
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Yes that nothingness is exactly what my husband says if you try to press some sort of description out of him. He can't find the words for it, either. Yet he felt sure it wasn't in the shadow of the hood it was wearing. And I think he felt it was somehow malevolent (will ask him again but of all hs weird experiences, this is one he doesn't even like talking about). But maybe only because he felt sure it was looking right at him. I will ask him how far he was from it.
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faceless-man-in-fedora-scaled.jpeg
 
Quercus said:
If this story rings a bell or two amongst dedicated Forteans, it may be because it's now popped up in a few publications.


Just before Hallowe'en in 2016, I noticed The Guardian online asking for reader stories, under an article 'Have You Ever Seen A Ghost?'

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-seen-a-ghost-share-your-story-this-halloween


On an otherwise slow day in work, I quickly polished an account I’d written a number of years earlier over lunchtime and sent it in without thinking too much about it. I had long since sworn off acknowledging the odd experiences of my younger days, so I'm not quite sure what moved me to do this.

Now, the Graun didn't just ask for a story, they asked a number of questions. Here's what was sent (redacted slightly here for personal details):


Submission to the Guardian, 31/10/2016:

Name: [Quercus]

Where do you live? Living in Hove, East Sussex at the time

Age, job, other info? [Never-you-mind]

When and where did your experience take place?

One night in December 2004 I was driving back to Brighton from my workplace near Lindfield in Sussex, a little after 11pm. I worked in a care home, and the hours were unsociable. It was a very cold night, the temperature hovering a little over freezing point – I’d had to use de-icer and scrape the frost from the windscreen after finishing my shift – and there was a stiff wind blowing. The journey took me along the B2112 from Wivelsfield through the village of Ditchling, and then a left turn onto Beacon Road before ascending the very steep, winding road known as Ditchling Bostall leading up to Ditchling Beacon, the tallest peak on the Sussex Downs.

I passed through the quiet village and, as the streetlights came to an end, flicked on my main beams and shifted into low gear to negotiate the tight bends which snaked their way up the hillside, trees reaching in from either side of the road to meet in the middle.

Who was there? Just myself, in the car.

Talk us through what happened.

As I made my way around the fourth turn on the ascent, about two-thirds of the way up the incline, my headlamps illuminated the back of a tall male figure, striding up the right hand side of the road and travelling in the same direction as me. High leather boots, a long, dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat were clearly picked out in the Ford Escort’s halogen main beams. My immediate impulse was to avoid hitting the unexpected walker, who I assumed to be a farmer, perhaps making his way home from one of the village pubs. High earthen banks and dense trees lined both sides of the road, and there was nowhere for a pedestrian to move out of the way of traffic.

As I steered around the walking figure, which hadn’t turned or acknowledged my presence in any way, it then occurred to me that maybe something was wrong, like his car had broken down in the village, and he could use a lift up such a punishingly steep hill on such a cold, wild night. I eased off the throttle, coming to a halt halfway between the two bends with my foot on the brake pedal, and lowered the driver’s window. The chill night air rushed into the cabin. I could clearly see the figure reflected in my door mirror, still striding up the side of the road towards me, and brightly lit by the Escort's brake lights. As he drew closer I cleared my throat and prepared to ask him if he needed a lift up the hill – and then I noticed one tiny detail.

The figure walking towards me, reflected in the mirror, had no face.

The hat, the coat, and even a scarf knotted at the throat were plain to see in the bright red brakelights - but where the face should have been was nothing but darkness. It wasn't in shadow from the hat, as the brakes were low down and lit the figure completely. It wasn’t a balaclava or any other face covering, as that would at least have shown an outline. Above the scarf and below the hat, there was simply nothing at all. Only a void.

How did it make you feel? And how do you feel, writing about it now?

My breath caught in my throat as a jolt of adrenaline hit me, and I grabbed at the gearstick, stomped on the accelerator and pulled away, fast. A primeval fear prickled at me as I hauled the car around the next bend and onwards, upwards towards the top of the peak, leaving my companion to the darkness and the clusters of bare branches.

I wound the window up, trying as I did so to rationalise what I'd seen, and attempting to guess whatever optical illusion had made me think that the long-coated traveller was faceless. But I couldn't come up with anything. The image of the figure, with every crease of the coat and twist of the scarf picked out by the high-intensity brakelights, was burned into my memory – and the awful, indisputable nothingness up top.

Cresting the top of the hill, I hammered along the open road, twisting across the open moorland towards Brighton and home, my mind still churning. Then it struck me that there was nowhere up here for anyone to be walking to - there were no houses, or barns, or anything at all up here. Just miles and miles of wind-blasted heathland and stunted trees, until the road met up with the A27 near Coldean. I saw no other cars, either moving or parked, all the way along. And, even with the heater turned up full blast, the inside of my car felt like an industrial freezer all the way home to Hove.

I didn't sleep well that night, even with several hot water bottles in the bed with me. I just couldn't seem to get the chill out of me. After that, I started going the long way home, along the A23. There may have been a perfectly plausible explanation for what I saw, or thought I saw – but I didn’t fancy trying my luck again.

Even now, nearly twelve years on, the rising feeling of horror as I recall the steady footsteps of the figure with no face coming toward me hasn't evaporated.

How do other people react when you tell them? Why do you think they react like that?

Well, I don't really tell anyone. Those I have mentioned it to - family and close friends - tend to be curious, but mostly incredulous. Most people try, as I did, to rationalise it - to tell me that I was mistaken; it was a trick of the light; I was tired after a long shift; that it was someone playing a prank. I accept that all these might be reasonable explanations, but none of them square with what I saw - and the feelings it caused in me, of intense fear and a chill that would not leave me.

I don't expect to be believed whenever I choose to share this story, and I accept that there is always a high level of ridicule levelled at people who claim they've had a brush with something inexplicable - especially below the line at the Guardian website, where any admission of an 'odd occurrence' is generally met with accusations of downright untruthfulness, undiagnosed mental illness, or extreme gullibility.

I'm not really a sensationalist nor a publicity-seeker, and I do feel that television 'ghost hunters' have done much harm in the public opinion through outright deception and gross exaggeration. I do think that the possibility of the human spirit continuing outside of death is a conversation worth having, but so often the dominant 'sceptical' line shuts down all discussion of the matter, reducing it to a classical scientific view which denies all possibility of such a thing - even while science is facing up to many gaps in its knowledge.

I do have other friends with their own 'ghost stories' of inexplicable events - and these are educated people in high-profile careers, many of them scientists and engineers. It seems that the credibility of the individual is the key to belief, not the facts of the story as presented. But because members of the public are merely members of the public, their credibility cannot be verified and is much more easy to dismiss in sneering tones. I would never claim indisputable proof of the paranormal based on my experiences, but they have been numerous enough to give me pause for thought.

Did your experience change your opinion on the supernatural?

Not really. I first experienced what I can only describe as a ghost when I was four - a 'black and white lady' walked past me into a hotel room where we were staying, carrying a tin bath of laundry, and promptly disappeared. Over the years a number of strange things happened to me, from working in a shop where I would be pelted with objects in an upstairs stockroom (no other members of staff would venture in there); to items vanishing in my home only to then reappear, sometimes months later, in the middle of a room; and I was even once struck hard and shoved by an invisible presence in a public toilet, having been followed by strange footsteps for half a mile. This continued throughout my childhood and adolescence, tailing off when I was in my mid-20s. The occasion at Ditchling was probably the last time I ever saw something strange, which is why it sticks in my mind.

Why do you think you saw a ghost? Are you more open to the possibility that they exist?

I don't know why I saw this, or really what it might have been.

There was always something of a history of 'oddness' in my family - dead relations would be seen, heard talking and sighing, and their perfume and aftershave smelled in the weeks and months after their deaths. I don't know if there is such a thing as family sensitivity, but my aunt continued to experience similar sightings and objects moving, and dreams that foretold the deaths of friends and neighbours which worried her greatly as they often came true within days.

Please share any other information:

I don't know whether the Guardian is canvassing for stories to be held up for public ridicule, or whether it's genuine in a desire for unusual tales. I have reservations about sending this in, but I've decided to do so anyway.

It's not something I usually ever speak of unasked, although I have spoken to a few 'outsiders' about my experiences - journalist Will Storr contacted me and included an odd event which took place while I was conducting a school trip to Michelham Priory in his book 'Will Storr vs The Supernatural'.


So, that was the full submission. Here's what the Guardian published:


‘I don’t expect to be believed whenever I choose to share this story’ – [Quercus], Hove

One night in December 2004 I was driving back to Brighton from my workplace near Lindfield in Sussex, a little after 11pm. I worked in a care home, and the hours were unsociable. The journey took me along the B2112 from Wivelsfield through the village of Ditchling, and then a left turn onto Beacon Road before ascending the very steep, winding road known as Ditchling Bostall leading up to Ditchling Beacon, the tallest peak on the Sussex Downs.

I passed through the quiet village and, as the streetlights came to an end, flicked on my main beams and shifted into low gear to negotiate the tight bends which snaked their way up the hillside, trees reaching in from either side of the road to meet in the middle.

As I made my way around the fourth turn on the ascent, about two-thirds of the way up the incline, my headlamps illuminated the back of a tall male figure, striding up the right hand side of the road and travelling in the same direction as me. High leather boots, a long, dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat were clearly picked out in the Ford Escort’s halogen main beams. My immediate impulse was to avoid hitting the unexpected walker, who I assumed to be a farmer, perhaps making his way home from one of the village pubs. High earthen banks and dense trees lined both sides of the road, and there was nowhere for a pedestrian to move out of the way of traffic.

It occurred to me that maybe something was wrong, like his car had broken down in the village and he could use a lift up such a punishingly steep hill on such a cold night. I eased off the throttle, coming to a halt halfway between the two bends with my foot on the brake pedal, and lowered the driver’s window. I could clearly see the figure reflected in my door mirror, still striding up the side of the road towards me, and brightly lit by the brake lights. As he drew closer I cleared my throat and prepared to ask him if he needed a lift up the hill and then I noticed one tiny detail: it had no face.

The hat, the coat, and even a scarf knotted at the throat were plain to see in the bright red brake lights but where the face should have been was nothing but darkness. It wasn’t in shadow from the hat, as the brakes were low down and lit the figure completely. It wasn’t a balaclava or any other face covering, as that would at least have shown an outline. Above the scarf and below the hat, there was simply nothing at all.

I tried to rationalise what I’d seen, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I don’t expect to be believed whenever I choose to share this story, and I accept that there is always a high level of ridicule levelled at people who claim they’ve had a brush with something inexplicable.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...faceless-man-nine-ghost-stories-for-halloween



In fairness, it was presented pretty much as I'd written it, with edits for space more than anything else.

So that, it appeared, was that.

There were a few below-the-line comments from people asking what happened next, and I basically repeated the same line that I'd included in my submission; I'd got scared, driven off, and couldn't warm up for some reason.
Click to expand...

Quercus, chance in a million but but which area was the stockroom pelting ghost found?
 
oldrover said:
Quercus, chance in a million but but which area was the stockroom pelting ghost found?
Click to expand...

It wasn't anywhere in Sussex - the stockroom issues occurred in retail premises in Northern Ireland.

While the whole site was a bit strange and had varying levels of oddness throughout, the stockroom where I was pelted was a self-contained storage space comprising three storeys above a cafe, in a building which had been formerly been a hotel.

The top (attic) floor was only accessible via a ladder, and was sealed off.

The second (middle) floor was the 'hot' floor, where a number of things happened to me, including being pelted with scrunched up bits of till roll when I was working in there alone. Figures would walk past the doorways, heading into other rooms, and I'd assume it was another staff member and call out to them - only to realise that all the rooms were empty and I was alone.

The lower floor, the one above the ground floor cafe, was ok but you could hear footsteps walking around overhead even when there was no one else in the building. There was a separate staircase that led down to street level, and was the only way into the stockrooms. I often ended up pelting down the stairs after something happened, to the bemusement of passers-by witnessing me rocket out of the doorway onto the pavement.

The main retail premises (including more stockrooms) occupied two other shopfronts next door, and also the overhead rooms of a fourth building. There was an effort to connect the storage area over the cafe to one of the retail floors by knocking a doorway through, but... let's just say that plan didn't go too well, and the owner was forced to brick it up again.

One of the reasons I haven't made much progress with drafting an account of my time there is the incredibly confusing layout of the building, which makes it difficult to describe events coherently. There were all manner of back-stairs, ladders, cut-throughs, mezzanines, bricked-up windows, boarded-up corridors, and steps up to rooms on slightly different levels, all of which connected retail floors, storerooms and offices across four levels in four separate buildings. It was like a weird version of the Winchester House, but filled with shop stock (some of it very old).

I worked there for two years, mostly as 'the Saturday Boy'. It was only after I left that I realised that my main reason for employment was because most of the other staff refused go upstairs at all! Orders and deliveries that arrived mid-week were largely left for me to retrieve/put away as needed at the weekend. The full-timers didn't want to go upstairs - for good reason, as I discovered.

I don't think there was anything malicious in there, but there was something angry, and very frustrated - that much I felt able to intuit.

Quite a number of peculiar things happened to me while I was working there, so I'll be putting together something more substantial in its own thread before long.
 
Quercus said:
It wasn't anywhere in Sussex - the stockroom issues occurred in retail premises in Northern Ireland.

While the whole site was a bit strange and had varying levels of oddness throughout, the stockroom where I was pelted was a self-contained storage space comprising three storeys above a cafe, in a building which had been formerly been a hotel.

The top (attic) floor was only accessible via a ladder, and was sealed off.

The second (middle) floor was the 'hot' floor, where a number of things happened to me, including being pelted with scrunched up bits of till roll when I was working in there alone. Figures would walk past the doorways, heading into other rooms, and I'd assume it was another staff member and call out to them - only to realise that all the rooms were empty and I was alone.

The lower floor, the one above the ground floor cafe, was ok but you could hear footsteps walking around overhead even when there was no one else in the building. There was a separate staircase that led down to street level, and was the only way into the stockrooms. I often ended up pelting down the stairs after something happened, to the bemusement of passers-by witnessing me rocket out of the doorway onto the pavement.

The main retail premises (including more stockrooms) occupied two other shopfronts next door, and also the overhead rooms of a fourth building. There was an effort to connect the storage area over the cafe to one of the retail floors by knocking a doorway through, but... let's just say that plan didn't go too well, and the owner was forced to brick it up again.

One of the reasons I haven't made much progress with drafting an account of my time there is the incredibly confusing layout of the building, which makes it difficult to describe events coherently. There were all manner of back-stairs, ladders, cut-throughs, mezzanines, bricked-up windows, boarded-up corridors, and steps up to rooms on slightly different levels, all of which connected retail floors, storerooms and offices across four levels in four separate buildings. It was like a weird version of the Winchester House, but filled with shop stock (some of it very old).

I worked there for two years, mostly as 'the Saturday Boy'. It was only after I left that I realised that my main reason for employment was because most of the other staff refused go upstairs at all! Orders and deliveries that arrived mid-week were largely left for me to retrieve/put away as needed at the weekend. The full-timers didn't want to go upstairs - for good reason, as I discovered.

I don't think there was anything malicious in there, but there was something angry, and very frustrated - that much I felt able to intuit.

Quite a number of peculiar things happened to me while I was working there, so I'll be putting together something more substantial in its own thread before long.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for that detailed and interesting reply. I sympathise by the way about the layout causing confusion in any account you write. I have similar problems with what I'm working on at the moment. A floor plan might be an idea.

The reason I asked was that I know of a strikingly similar situation in a shop near me where my mother worked briefly back in the late 80s. This was in Swansea in one of the discount shops, male staff wouldn't enter the first floor stockroom for fear of being pelted with stock from the shelves, female staff had no problem though. At least, that's how the story goes.
 
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