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The Scariest Fortean Thing Ever To Happen To You

I was reading this thread and trying to think of my scariest moment, when a grasshopper-type insect, bright green about the size of a 10pence coin walked right in front of me on my desk. I jumped, but to be fair I think I scared it more ;)

I have to say that practically all of my fortean moments have been wrapped in a bit of an Oz factor and I tend to be docile or happy and curious. Very rarely do I become frightened.

A typical 'encounter' is when I was walking a friend to my house for dinner and I told her that 'wierd stuff happens in this part of London' (e.g. I live close to Hackney Marshes where the "bear" was spotted by children in '76).
'Yeah, right' she replied whereupon a midget asian in full morning suit for a posh wedding with glasses and a natty top hat, obviously drunk, struggled to ride a bicycle, passed us. 'Maybe you are right' she said half-jokingly as he passed. However, strangely, all I could feel was embarrassment. It was like the cosmic joker had responded to my fortean yearnings but decided to cloud the issue ;) It was only later that I rationally thought about it and decided that although a posh wedding could be occurring in deepest Hackney, everything smelt too wierd...

I have heard from a friend of poltergiest activity in a house, which scared me when I heard it, although at the time it was stopping him sleep so it just annoyed him. I can recount that if anyone is interested...
 
DeeDeeTee said:
I have heard from a friend of poltergiest activity in a house, which scared me when I heard it, although at the time it was stopping him sleep so it just annoyed him. I can recount that if anyone is interested...
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Need you ask?
 
Need you ask?
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I had been writing a lot so I was trying to make the original post relatively short!

My friend. lets call him M, used to live close to the US Embassy in Mayfair. He's now divorced but at the time was living with his wife and two children in a relatively spacious flat, something like the third floor of six. I don't know the history of the place, but from the room arrangments and architecture they must be reasonably old buildings.

I would describe M as pragmatic but more on the sceptical side of the fence than a believer so the events that he had experienced and recounted to me have more weight for me.

A number of ghostly encounters did take place in the flat itself: On one occasion M and a friend had come back late at night after the pub to continue their dicussion over a few night caps. They were talking about strange happenings, when his friend said that he saw a man in 'old-fashioned clothes, but with a smiling face' at the far side of the room. He jokingly told M that perhaps one of the previous inhabitants was here. When M turned to look, there was no one there. On another occasion, M's wife stated that she saw one of their children being supported and held up by 'invisible hands'

But to the main part: There was a lot of negtative tension in the air, as the marriage was slowly but surely failing and this was not helping M's health or sleeping patterns. Added to this was the behaviour of the people in the flat above him. At first he became aware of a television or radio being played very loud and very early in the morning. Then more and more came the constant shifting of heavy furniture, crashing sounds and doors slamming. At first he didn't do anything - sleeping patterns were disrupted already I suppose and like a lot of us I think he assumed that if he left it alone they might stop doing all this noisy stuff.

But it didn't stop. Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore and on a particuarly bad early morning, both him and his wife experienced the full cacophony. He had to do something about this. He found that the owner was renting the flat out, but when he contact the estate agent that controlled the rental he was told that what he was telling him was impossible as the flat had been standing empty for over a year now

M didn't believe this and on the pretext that there therefore might be squatters in the place he went with the agent to check it out. What did they find? As you'd expect :) : No sign of anyone breaking into the place, no disorder with the furniture and no mess. On top of this the agent swore that the electricity had been disconnected (it was) and of course to crown it all, there was no television/radio/audio system in the flat.

Reasonably soon after M split up from his wife and they both moved out of the flat so we can't really know if anything more is happening there. But the story freaks me out (didn't help he told it to me late at night in a dark and quiet pub, but hey it's a nice set of ghost stories!) As I stated at the start I trust what he tells me - he's not one for spinning tall tales - and his ex-wife did confirm that she did indeed see the invisibile person holding the baby and the sound of furniture moving when they were living there.

Now it is a old set of flats, so perhaps there is a strange acoutiscal effect, perhaps a television in another flat is somehow attached so that when it runs the building amplifies it and it makes it appear as if it is coming from above - but M was so sure that it came from above that he did go a long way to try and complain and check it out - the sound of doors slamming and other movements is a bit harder to argue that way. That also including the other ghostly events seems in my mind to suggest a very interesting case.

I've been there a few times, but my experiece of forteana does not seem to extend to ghosts and poltergiests so I didn't notice anything strange. Perhaps the copious amounts of alcohol helped blank them out!
 
Many years ago when I was 19 I lived in an apartment that had been converted from a doctors surgery, it was joined to a large grand doctors house, the family had been there for generations.
I had a flatmate to help with the rent but he was a diaster and turned out to be a bit unhinged.
We were young and stupid with a lot of young stupid friends and we would play with the ouija board there, I won't bore you with all the details but things did happen and I was 100% sure they were all caused by my crazy flatmate rather than anything supernatual. The place did have a spooky atmosphere and a strange smell but it was old.
Then something happened that had no rational explanation and makes me wonder what we stirred up with that ouija board. My sister who was still at school and who had no knowledge of the things we got up to let herself in when no one was home and was pushed back against the door frame by something. She said it was a shadow and cold and she thought it was desparate to get out. She saw our father shortly after who said she was white and had she had seen a ghost? little did he know.
 
I was in East London, in West Ham visiting a friend whose flat has now been demolished as the Jubilee Line extension was built on the land. it was about 10 at night and two men walked past us carrying a coffin. It wasn't a shiny new one, but one that was quite battered and dirty, and I've always supposed it must have been a stage prop or something. Naturally neither my friend nor I mentioned it to each other, but it still bothers me sometimes
 
The only time I've got anywhere close to being 'freaked out' by anything fortean I've experienced rather than having an 'oh that's interesting' reaction was when I was going round the 'UFO trail' in Rendelsham forest earlier this year. As we made our way back to the car I looked at my phone to see what time it was so I'd have an idea when I'd get home.

Instead of the usual display it had the words...."update time to match new time zone" which seemed to imply that the phone believed it had been on a journey smewhere.

As I've never had that message come up before or since I still don't know why it appeared when I was in a location associated with strange events. I took a photo of the phone with that message then as soon as we got to the car we checked our time against sources such as the clock and radio in the car 'just in case'.

It was something of a relief to find they matched so whatever had happened didn't seem to involve any missing time for us. I know there are electronic blind spots in the area as I've used various methods to find them but that only gives a 'no signal' rather than a suggestion of leaving the country.
 
This happened in front of me but didn't scare me, although it terrified the other person present.

A builder, Nick, was doing some work for me. The day before, something spooky had happened which had unnerved him. (My house didn't like him!)

Nick was screwing a hinge onto a door. He leaned it against the wall, at about a 30 degrees angle, turned his back to it and announced that if anything else scary happened he'd walk out.

Just then, I saw the door lift off the wall, hit him in the back and knock him into the new bath which I'd just had delivered. :D
 
escargot1 said:
This happened in front of me but didn't scare me, although it terrified the other person present.

A builder, Nick, was doing some work for me. The day before, something spooky had happened which had unnerved him. (My house didn't like him!)

Nick was screwing a hinge onto a door. He leaned it against the wall, at about a 30 degrees angle, turned his back to it and announced that if anything else scary happened he'd walk out.

Just then, I saw the door lift off the wall, hit him in the back and knock him into the new bath which I'd just had delivered. :D
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:shock:

And that didn't scare you. I think I would have needed the loo soon after witnessing something like that. Did he walk out?
 
The scariest thing that has happened to me occured back in the mid 90's. In one night i had two dreams that i feel nearly killed me. And though its hard to explain, i felt like i was under attack. Usually when I have nightmares i know they are from me, and usually know what is causing them. These felt foreign to me.
The first one i had, i was driving along the coast of california, (never been there in my life) on that long winding highway that is shown in alot of movies and such. Like a bad action movie, along side of my car pulls up a truck that begins to force me into the oncoming traffic in the other lane. I hit a big 18 wheeler head on, and i did die in my dream. When i woke up, instead of my heart racing in fear, i found myself hardly able to breathe, my heart thudding slowly , and i was cold and sweaty. I have never died in a dream before, so i don't know if this reaction is normal? maybe someone can tell me.
After a while i managed to go back to sleep, telling myself it could not get any worse than that, so why fear sleep? LOL big mistake, i again started dreaming and had another nightmare, this one i ended up being tricked to come to a certain building in the town i live by, which when i went inside ended up being a long tunnel. I went in pretty far, but started to feel fear and knew something was in there. I started running out and this thing, i never saw it, but felt it, started chasing me. As it was chasing me it was saying awful things to me, and i knew it was going to happen again, that i would die if it caught me. Luckily this time i woke up before i died.
I have to say i was quite the insomiac for awhile after this night :shock: I know most people would say its just nightmares, and maybe it is, but to me i felt like i was under attack, they didn't feel like they were from me. At that time life was good, nothing bad going on.
 
DeeDeeTee said:
A typical 'encounter' is when I was walking a friend to my house for dinner and I told her that 'wierd stuff happens in this part of London' (e.g. I live close to Hackney Marshes where the "bear" was spotted by children in '76).
'Yeah, right' she replied whereupon a midget asian in full morning suit for a posh wedding with glasses and a natty top hat, obviously drunk, struggled to ride a bicycle, passed us. 'Maybe you are right' she said half-jokingly as he passed.
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Off topic, but I've recently moved to not a million miles from the Hackney Marshes, and I'd be really interested to hear a bit of Fortean local history. I know Iain Sinclair's got a book out, which I still haven't read, but which I'm very keen to. Maybe worth a thread?
 
Maybe your subconscious was saying 'Things're too good - something must go wrong!'

That's how I'd interpret such a dream if I had it.

And Rasputin - nah, nothing scares me.
Nick wasn't 'appy though - took a biggish tip to induce him to stay. ;)

Remember, he'd already been scared witless the day before. :lol:
 
i have died in a dream, infact i have died twice. I didnt feel scared but woke up with a feeling of sadness and my heart was pounding. In both dreams i was shot (both dreams were years apart).
 
escargot1 said:
Remember, he'd already been scared witless the day before. :lol:
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Hi, Escargot, Can you say what scared your builder the previous day? did it happen at your house too?
 
How kind of you to ask. :D

My house has a phantom drip, about which I think we have a thread hereabouts.

Something drips from the ceiling now and then. It's not water or bits of plaster - it's icy cold if it falls on you and looks like wallpaper paste.
It vanishes as it hits the floor or someone's head or, on one memorable occasion, a tray of Chinese takeaway food!

If ectoplasm existed I'd say our 'drip' fits the bill.

On that day, Nick had replastered the kitchen ceiling and we were standing admiring it when a HUGE glob of drip emerged from the ceiling, hung for a second and then dropped, splattering on the floor and immediately disappearing.

Nick assumed there was a leak from somewhere (as he was halfway through replumbing the bathroom!) but there wasn't - it was just the drip.

He did what others have done at my house - climbed up to feel the ceiling - dry - felt the floor - dry - and ran upstairs to check the taps - all off.

Nick was terrified. Took a LOT of persuasion/bribing to get him to stay. Then next day he got knocked into the bath! :lol:

Lots of people have seen and investigated the drip, including my younger son who is currently doing a PhD in particle physics. Not a gullible type of bloke!

The drip follows my elder daughter around and once appeared in Welsh campsite toilet. There's loyalty for you. ;)
I've even felt it on my head in a supermarket, then looked around and spotted her. Weird.
It has a particular appearance for her, which is described elsewhere on here.
 
Thank you, I'd absolutely love to do that. :D

We haven't seen it for a while. It tends to go away for a while and then start again so that we see it several times over a couple of weeks.

So when it starts again I'll let you know and we can do a little investigation, how does that sound?
I'm excited already. 8)
 
Wow, Escargot! :shock:

You have reminded me of something that used to happen to me when I was young. More than once felt (& heard) a huge drop of (what I presumed was water) onto the top of my head, but when I touched my hair it would be dry.

I can't remember anything else about it at the moment, though I seem to remember being inside and the drop of 'liquid' being cold.

I never saw anything drip from a ceiling though, it was just something I felt on my head(& heard - like a splat sound (!)).

It wasn't a frequent thing & I don't think it was in exactly the same place on my head each time.

I'll think about it and try and remember where I was when it happened -possibly at school, in which case I have someone I can compare notes with & report back.
 
Sounds like the exact same thing! :D

Yup, see if you can remember more. Write it all down. Scare us. ;)
 
Gosh!

I too have been "dripped" on! Only about three times in my life, that I can remember, but all of those times have been indoors. Each time, it was the sensation of a cold drop of water falling onto my head (from how it felt, I guessed the drop was rather large, and falling from quite a hight). When I went to feel around on my scalp, however, there was nothing to be found, not even a slightly damp patch.

I always attributed it to a kind of 'hallucination' of the skin, even though I'm sure I heard the drip splatter as well!
 
I seem to have had the opposite of the drip. Puddles without cause - no wet ceiling or drips. The water seems clean - its not heating or waste water.

Unrelated but do other people feel drips on their arms when driving their car in rain, and theres no wetness when you check the skin, or open windows to explain it?
 
We have a thread on unexplained water somewhere. I described on it how somebody kindly watered all my plants for me in a neat spiral pattern one hot summer's day. :D

I get the 'phantom raindrops' thing in the car too, but on my feet, as if water is dripping through the car bodywork. Always, without fail, I feel big blobs of 'rain' on my feet, even if I'm wearing waterproof hiking boots. :lol:
 
Could the car drips of water have come in through the air vents? I've had leaves blown in my face when turning it on?

mooks out
 
Not on my feet, in boots! :lol:

It happens just after the rain starts so there isn't enough water on the car to be running through anywhere.
Plus, I've stopped and inspected my feet for dampness and found only dryness.
The drops seem to fall on the lower front of my feet, towards and sometimes between my toes. I always think 'Oh no, the bonnet's leaking!' and then remember that it always happens in the rain.

It has to be raining, though - I don't get it as a warning of rain or anything.
 
A leak in the radiator will land on your feet, when the car's in a certain position (it happened in ours on right turns, and the water was little enough that only I felt it, because my husband doesn't wear sandals), though that shouldn't leave your feet dry, should occasionally be scalding hot, and shouldn't only happen when it's raining.
 
I sometimes have phantom drips, it feels as if a drop of water falls on my head, cold and liquid but I know that there is no water anywhere and my hair stays dry. I thought it might be a confused nerve ending, sending out the wrong message.
 
Dingo667 said:
I sometimes have phantom drips, it feels as if a drop of water falls on my head, cold and liquid but I know that there is no water anywhere and my hair stays dry. I thought it might be a confused nerve ending, sending out the wrong message.
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I've had the same thing happen too on a few occasions.

Never figured out what it was.
 
Aircon fluid? In my old bangers? :lol:

Nope, there's never any trace of water or wetness, not even on shoes or boots that'd stain easily. Had the feeling on my hands too, which I can see and feel easily when driving, no wetness there either.
 
Scariest story

The scariest thing that happened to me, well not just me but my Mum, older sister and two policemen actually, was when I was a teenager. We lived in a picturesque village in Buckinghamshire, in a cottage that was about 100 years old and had no immediate neighbours. It was a bright summer’s day and my brother, who had been studying in his bedroom, left to visit some friends. Soon after he had gone we heard a lot of noise coming from his room upstairs. Due to the layout of the building it was just possible for someone to have sneaked upstairs without us (my Mum, sister and myself) seeing, we thought that maybe a tramp had come in. I went to the bend of the stairs and called up but the noise just carried on, it sounded as though the drawers and cupboards were being opened and closed very quickly, possibly more quickly than I could have done it. That was when we ran for the garden!

My sister went to a neighbour’s house to get help while my Mum and I waited in the garden, feeling rather silly for being too scared to go back into the house. The neighbour showed up and his wife phoned the police, just in case. Luckily, the police had been parked in their car on the village green at the time so arrived shortly after my sister and neighbour. We all went into the house and the police did a search of the upstairs while I made coffee for them. Everything was still and quiet, the police started to drink their coffee when the noise started again. All credit to the law as they were up the stairs like a shot. They found nothing and left the house saying, “You’ve got a poltergeist”. I have often wondered what they put in their logbooks.

Lots of other things happened there but that was one of the scariest.
 
There's got to be something psychological to the feelings of raindrops inside a car when it's raining outside. You're concentrating on your driving; the rain probably suggests the sensation.

I also have occasionally felt something that felt like a cold water drop on my head; I think it is a nerve mis-cue. Similar to when you feel like someone tapped your arm (just once, very localized) but no one's there - almost like a muscle cramp or spasm or tic. If so many odd things go wrong with computers, which are designed from the best materials for transmitting electrical impulses of data, why not expect the same from our nervous systems, which are "made of meat" (as I heard a neuroscientist say on TV last night)!
 
Scary story SarahF! Glad to know the police were so matter-of-fact about the whole poltergeist thing!

Care to tell us what other happenings.. happened?
 
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