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The Scariest Fortean Thing Ever To Happen To You

SHAYBARSABE said:
gncxx said:
Who are these entities who like to put the wind up people by saying their name right in their ear? What purpose could it possibly serve except an "I've got my eye on you!" reminder? Assuming it's not some illusionary quirk of the brain.
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The "others" -- some of them are jokesters. ;)
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I think it was Colin Wilson who commented re poltergeists that they are "entities of relatively low intelligence with the same sort of sense of humour you'll find in an adolescent boy"

Given some of the "pranks" they get up to maybe this is not far off the mark?
 
Growl by the Window

Long-time reader, first-time poster.

This is not only the scariest but possibly the only Fortean thing I can remember happening to me. (I once thought I saw a nonexistent person descending the stairs at another house, out of the corner of my eye, but I think that was more likely an optical illusion.)

Several years ago, I was sitting in front of my computer midmorning on a late-winter day. The computer was located in the basement of the house I shared. It is an older house (by local standards; maybe 90 to 100 years old). There was a high window to my left, about 10 feet away.

As I worked on my computer, I heard a distinct low, guttural growl sound that came from the general direction of the window. I have never heard anything like it in my regular life. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. If I recall correctly, there was only one growl... My cat also seemed to notice the sound, though he didn't "puff up," growl, or flatten his ears. He did, however, look intently and somewhat wide-eyed in the direction of the window whence the sound had come.

After I recovered from my fright, I went upstairs and looked near the window to see if by some chance there were dog pawprints there. There was some snow on the ground, and there were no prints, dog or otherwise, near the window.

To this day I don't know what it might have been. The teenage son of the person I lived with at the time slept in that same room on the weekends, and he claimed that he had seen a ghost there. But I certainly never saw anything of the sort, and the chilling growl was the only possibly paranormal experience I had while living in that house.
 
Hi, I'm new here and very much enjoying reading all your experiences. Thought I'd add mine into the mix too... It's pretty mundane I suppose, but as it's the only weird ghosty thing that's happened to me it really sticks in my mind.
In 2002 my tehn boyfriend and I hired a cottage for a week near Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire. It was a narrow terraced place, probably about 200 years old. All in all, it was a really nice cottage and felt nice and homely. It didn't feel spooky at all at first, other than the bedroom on the top floor, but that was probably because we didn't use it and I've never liked "spare rooms" very much.
So one day I am stood at the top of the steep stone stairs looking at some framed cross-stitch things on the wall with my back to the rest of the landing, when I suddenly feel that someone's behind me. It was like I knew someone was going to pounce on my back (like when you sneak up on a friend to freak them out for a laugh and plonk your hands down on their shoulders, except this didn't feel very friendly). I hurried down the stairs and promptly forgot about it. The next time was when I was having a shower. The bathroom door is the first one you come to at the top of the stairs and I had left it open. So there I was, showering and minding my own business, when I felt that I was being watched from the doorway (it wasn't my boyfriend, he was walking the dog). It wasn't a particularly scary feeling, but it was weird and I got dried and dressed pretty quickly as the feeling carried on. Again, when I got downstairs I thought no more of it.
This happened a lot of times when I was in the bathroom or loitering on the landing directly at the top of the stairs - this feeling of someone being there. The odd thing is, is that at no point did I think about not wanting to go upstairs, or to the bathroom; I didn't think anything of it at all until the very moment the feeling came over me, and then as soon as I was out of the area, all was fine again. Even the bedroom we stayed in which was by the bathroom felt fine. I didn't mention it to my boyfriend because I just didn't think about it at all.
Now, I hate telling people the next bit as it sounds so cliched, but this is how it went... On the way home in the car we talked about the holiday generally and the stuff we did. I mentioned that I really liked the cottage and would love to go back. My boyf' said he liked it but wasn't keen on the ghost. He didn't like the landing or the bathroom because it made him feel weird. I'm not sure what I said to this, but it was probably something profound like, "urrrgh! That's what I felt too! Freaky"
I have no idea if this really was caused by a ghost, or if it was just plain old physics to do with the electrics or whatever. My mum thinks that I've blown it out of all proportion to make a good story, but what I've described really did happen.
Anyway, there's my experience!
 
A thing that made me jump last year was while visiting this Mind counsellor. I was on the bus going to the place and while looking out of the window i thought how odd it would be to see some people crowded round a body, only to see that the body was mine. I put it to the back of my mind until during the meeting the woman said one man she had counselled had told her he'd had a breakdown after driving along one day and seeing his own body in the middle of what had been a car crash. It was most odd, but I didn't mention it to her in case she thought I was taking the mickey.
 
I'm not sure if there is some way of cold reading someone's thoughts but last year my GF visited a woman, not sure what to term her, psychic maybe, and oddly she mentioned several things - can't remember what exactly - that me and my GF had been discussing earlier in the day, as if she had somehow picked up on things we were talking and thinking about before visiting.

I'm fairly sceptical about it but over the year since several things she said have developed in one way or another. Coincidence I presume but makes you wonder...

Is there a known phenomena of people somehow being able to pick up on a persons recent thoughts?
 
Re: Growl by the Window

Curiosities said:
Long-time reader, first-time poster.

This is not only the scariest but possibly the only Fortean thing I can remember happening to me. (I once thought I saw a nonexistent person descending the stairs at another house, out of the corner of my eye, but I think that was more likely an optical illusion.)

Several years ago, I was sitting in front of my computer midmorning on a late-winter day. The computer was located in the basement of the house I shared. It is an older house (by local standards; maybe 90 to 100 years old). There was a high window to my left, about 10 feet away.

As I worked on my computer, I heard a distinct low, guttural growl sound that came from the general direction of the window. I have never heard anything like it in my regular life. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. If I recall correctly, there was only one growl... My cat also seemed to notice the sound, though he didn't "puff up," growl, or flatten his ears. He did, however, look intently and somewhat wide-eyed in the direction of the window whence the sound had come.

After I recovered from my fright, I went upstairs and looked near the window to see if by some chance there were dog pawprints there. There was some snow on the ground, and there were no prints, dog or otherwise, near the window.

To this day I don't know what it might have been. The teenage son of the person I lived with at the time slept in that same room on the weekends, and he claimed that he had seen a ghost there. But I certainly never saw anything of the sort, and the chilling growl was the only possibly paranormal experience I had while living in that house.
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A few years back I was in bed dropping off when I noticed a steady and constant sound that I could only describe as something breathing. Outside my bedroom window is the roof of our outside shed so feasibly something could stand on it and peer in. This noise continued for a good ten minutes, at first I was rational that it was something explainable but the longer it went on - a slow and repetitive faint noise like something breathing out - the more I got freaked out.

I described it recently to my cousin and GF - to much hilarity on their part - as being like there was a dragon outside my window breathing in and out. Eventually I got up and after going to the back bedroom I realised that what the noise was was actually a deer barking in the distance. The noise was faintly audible in my room and thus sounding like a quiet breathing noise, out the back it was louder and clearly a deer.

Scared the heck out of me though for a good ten minutes!
 
McAvennie_ said:
I'm not sure if there is some way of cold reading someone's thoughts but last year my GF visited a woman, not sure what to term her, psychic maybe, and oddly she mentioned several things - can't remember what exactly - that me and my GF had been discussing earlier in the day, as if she had somehow picked up on things we were talking and thinking about before visiting.

I'm fairly sceptical about it but over the year since several things she said have developed in one way or another. Coincidence I presume but makes you wonder...

Is there a known phenomena of people somehow being able to pick up on a persons recent thoughts?
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Had you discussed getting engaged. Could result in sub-conscious rubbing of finger.
 
ramonmercado said:
McAvennie_ said:
I'm not sure if there is some way of cold reading someone's thoughts but last year my GF visited a woman, not sure what to term her, psychic maybe, and oddly she mentioned several things - can't remember what exactly - that me and my GF had been discussing earlier in the day, as if she had somehow picked up on things we were talking and thinking about before visiting.

I'm fairly sceptical about it but over the year since several things she said have developed in one way or another. Coincidence I presume but makes you wonder...

Is there a known phenomena of people somehow being able to pick up on a persons recent thoughts?
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Had you discussed getting engaged. Could result in sub-conscious rubbing of finger.
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Strangely one of the things that she had said to my GF was how it was a big deal that we get engaged! Tho I suspect she could well have been pushing that agenda herself... The other was my work taking me overseas, which at the time was a possibility but not to the extent that that has developed since. Both things that could be fairly good guesses to make about a couple in their late 20s/early 30s I guess.
 
Those of you who are familiar with my writings of living in my mother's haunted house, know that I have had many creepy experiences, but the ones that scared me the most were ( in no particular order):

1. "something" pacing back and forth outside my closed bedroom door late one evening, every step creaking on the old floor. This went on for about 20 minutes, until I got up enough courage to ask it to stop, which it did. Makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

2. The nightlight dislodging itself from the socket in my young son's bedroom (same house) long after he had fallen asleep. Each time I would find the room in total darkness and the nightlight sitting upon his dresser. After many nights of this, I asked that to stop, too, which it did. Hey, at least they listen.

3. I woke up one morning to find orange colored stains all over my hands. My hands were definitely clean when I went to bed and I do not sleep walk so it's not like I got up in the night varnishing furniture or something. I had not touched anything that would produce such a result and didn't even have anything in the house that would look like that stain. I couldn't wash it off. Eventually, it wore off.
 
Lance_Boyle said:
Funny you should ask, I just moved out of a house that had a poltergiest,
it , among other things, flung and hit me on the head with a CD jewel case and all, and hurled a tin breadbox at my wife.
Its antics were seen at various times by at least five of my friends.
It spooked them so badly that they would not return to the house.
The house became infested with brown recluse spiders which only targeted me and I was bitten 7 times in all , and got gangrene from a couple of the bites and was in danger of losing a leg and possibly dying. :shock:
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Holy crap!!!!
 
MsQkxyz said:
Not the scariest thing thats ever happened to me and not the strangest thing either. However, it is the most recent.

Last week whilst getting re-dressed (not sure what word to use there lol) in a work toilet cubicle I felt someone poke me quite hard on the side of my shoulder. As it took me so much by surprise I instantly jumped / turned around to see who it was. Then of course I realised I was alone in a toilet cubicle with the door closed :oops:
I dont know what could have caused the sensation. It felt like a bony finger with a sharpish nail jabbing me just once, very strange.
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This sounds like a classic forerunner.

A very short time before my father died unexpectedly, my oldest brother felt a hand rest firmly upon his leg as he sat watching tv one night.
 
I know this sounds daft but last year my son's oldest gerbil died and on the night of the day he went I went to bed (I was on my own, wife away at work) and instantly heard this sound he'd once made when he'd escaped from his cage into our room, right under the bed. It was a little series of taps - those foot-kicking things they do. It was the most clear sound, and persisted after my fear of it grew (and fear it was - I actually shouted out at it to stop). I was not half asleep and had just lain down, the light still on. It was incredibly odd, and I haven't heard it since. It might sound stupid but I think it's been my most convincing spooky encounter ever.
 
I was putting a t shirt on, as the shirt was over my head (a split second) I was shoved hard on my right shoulder, nobody else in the house, put it down to some sort of muscle spasm, that evening as my wife and I were watching tv, her exercise ball (them big blue ones) rolled slowly from the corner of the room to the centre (carpeted floor)

any ideas?

The day we moved in to our new house (same one as the 'shoving' and ball incident) I was alone and just checking the view from the bedroom window when I started to smell a strong perfume smell, I thought "that's odd" then a had a feeling of total joy followed by a feeling of a gentle hug.

any ideas?

thanks for reading.
 
Lived here for 6 years now, not a lot 'odd' goes on, there are times when things go missing (wallet, phone etc) I keep these in one place for easy location and now and again they are missing, after a short while they appear again in a different place in the house, usually it's in a place where I will easily come across them too (this only happens when I'm alone) I think I'm going senile or some comedy prankster spirit is having a laugh!

I have a large collection of electric guitars and basses too,and on many occasion they will be detuned, no kids and my wife wouldn't have done it.
(I'm talking wildly detuned too, not just temperature induced detuning)

My cat 'sees' things a lot, just put that down to him being a cat and therfore mental!
 
I don't think films or stories fully capture the sheer terror even the mildest spooky thing evokes. I once thought I saw an action figure on a kitchen bench that hadn't been there a moment before and practically screamed the house down. I think the kids did it, but I wasn't sure, but what a response. And once, experiencing very strong deja vu (my skin was prickling with electricity) I said to my already nervous kids 'The phone's about to ring!' and then it rang! Coincidence maybe, but certainly vivid and very frightening.
 
nothing in the above two posts sounds like there is the slightest cause for concern! just enjoy! :D
 
Oh yes, great to have had those experiences (maybe not the toy, which could have been so easily explained), but at the time they were awful!
BTW how many things do we think go unnoticed? Now that's the question...
 
About twenty-odd years ago I was riding my motorscooter on a smallish road in the north Kent marshes on a misty winter morning. I came to a large and fairly old farmhouse (Georgian or maybe Queen Anne, I think). There were six or seven black plastic rubbish sacks outside the front gate and, as I drew level, one of them unfolded itself and stood up. :shock:

I didn't see it for long, it was misty and the visor of my helmet was slightly steamed up (and I wasn't going to hang about!) so I couldn't say for sure what it looked like, except that it was humanoid, glossy black, about six feet tall and thin. I looked in my rear view mirror as I accelerated out of there but it was behind the gatepost and I sure as hell wasn't going back for another look!

I've tried to write a ghost story based on the experience, but its just too fragmentary and nothing else ever happened. I've been past the house several times since and seen nothing (Except legitimate, non-animated rubbish sacks)
 
It's like that section in the back of M R James' collection, the bit where he wonders why some stories never got past the idea stage. And do i remember right, but did R Chetwynd Hayes see ghosts like this all this life? He'd see face grow out of wallpaper and duvet covers, and people made of sticks walking in the fields. I think it was him.
Great story, if it wasn't just 'the wind' or something!
 
Yup, it could've been a lot of things apart from a binbag standing up. Could someone have been bending over, separating a bag from a roll, and then stretching it upwards, in front of them so it looked like just a bag? It was dark, foggy, misty visor, a quick glance, etc... ;)

As I've mentioned more than once, when driving along a dark country lane one night I saw a huge Black Shuck-like dog trot up to a t-junction in front of me. As I approached, staring, it turned into a car.

Tiredness, stress, poor visibility, lack of concentration, whatever - but for those few moments, there was a giant dog. :lol:
 
Just last week I was driving out of my village - where there has been sightings of the Beast of Bucks - when I saw what looked to me like the back legs and tail of a jaguar walking into the woodland to the left of the road.

Pretty sure it was just a simulacra but sped up to get to the spot anyway only to see nothing in the woods, although if it was an ABC it would no doubt have been long gone and well hidden.

Was one of those 'If only I had been a few seconds sooner' moments but sometimes the mind sees what it wants to see.
 
Ah - I heard this weird thing happening last night - please let me explain...

So we had a relatively busy weekend where we went to the Rugby Leage semi finals and our team won - the next day we went to a family do on Sunday which turned into a bit of piss up - but not too bad. So I got home mighty tired and decided to watch the Singapore F1 which went to about midnight.

To give the wife a break - she's a school teacher and it was the first day of the holidays - I decided to watch the GP and sleep in the spare room.

Knowing I had to get up at 6.30 am I went to bed immediately after the GP finished.

Nice plan - didn't work out this way. As soon as I switched off the TV and the lights and was laying on the bed I heard this really weird sound. I can only describe it as a feline with emphesema snoring - totally weird. The spare room backs onto the backyard where all sorts of creatures congregrate at night and no sound from there has ever bothered me. We get bats, possums and what have you.

But this sound was totally out of my experience - really loud and really ugly. So I got up and opened and loudly slammed the backdoor really hard to scare away whatever it was. No effect - that horrible sound continued in about 10 seconds intervals - sometimes syncronized with my breathing - sometimes not.

I checked on my wife and kid and dog - all snoozing peacefully where they should.

Went back to bed and decided to ignore it - some strange critter - this country is full of them. As soon as I turned my back to the window and to the wall it became louder and seemed right next to me! :shock:

And it still didn't sound quite human, but not quite feline either - sort of in the middle but really ugly and bad.

So I thought I'd better record this on my mobile phone - recorded one minute while I could clearly hear it outside - played it back with earphones - nothing!

So I had enough by then, I put on the TV on low drowning out whatever that noise was - found a station that had a movie with Tommy Dorset playing Swing in the 40s and finally went to some sort of fitful sleep.

I am back in the same room now - but if I hear that thing again, I am buying a digital recorder and will place it outside for the night. Didn't tell the family about it.

Let's see what happens.

PS - Sorry for the poor editing - as I said - sleep as been rather hard to come by for the last few days. But that is common in my life - that sound certainly wasn't.
 
escargot1 said:
Yup, it could've been a lot of things apart from a binbag standing up. Could someone have been bending over, separating a bag from a roll, and then stretching it upwards, in front of them so it looked like just a bag? It was dark, foggy, misty visor, a quick glance, etc... ;)

As I've mentioned more than once, when driving along a dark country lane one night I saw a huge Black Shuck-like dog trot up to a t-junction in front of me. As I approached, staring, it turned into a car.

Tiredness, stress, poor visibility, lack of concentration, whatever - but for those few moments, there was a giant dog. :lol:
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Oh, I know that there are any number of non-supernatural explanations - Driving (Especially riding a motorbike) needs you to keep your eyes firmly on the road ahead (on a small bike you even have to look for potholes) and all kinds of things go on in your peripheral vision. It was the only time I've ever seen anything that I couldn't immediately explain, though. Yes, it was probably just somebody in a waxed jacket putting the rubbish out, but it could have been a ghost.........

Speaking of big black dogs, I once saw a Newfoundland retriever trotting through a Sussex wood on a misty autumn evening. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. :)
 
Boulters_Canary1 said:
About twenty-odd years ago I was riding my motorscooter on a smallish road in the north Kent marshes on a misty winter morning. I came to a large and fairly old farmhouse (Georgian or maybe Queen Anne, I think). There were six or seven black plastic rubbish sacks outside the front gate and, as I drew level, one of them unfolded itself and stood up. :shock:

I didn't see it for long, it was misty and the visor of my helmet was slightly steamed up (and I wasn't going to hang about!) so I couldn't say for sure what it looked like, except that it was humanoid, glossy black, about six feet tall and thin. I looked in my rear view mirror as I accelerated out of there but it was behind the gatepost and I sure as hell wasn't going back for another look!

I've tried to write a ghost story based on the experience, but its just too fragmentary and nothing else ever happened. I've been past the house several times since and seen nothing (Except legitimate, non-animated rubbish sacks)
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Brrr, that gave me the heebies, mostly because it reminded me of a horrible creature in (the otherwise excellent) Expiration Date by Tim Powers:
A pickup truck had been pulled in to the curb, and five men in sleeveless white undershirts had hopped out of the bed of it to corner him; but what had drived the fatigue out of his muscles was a glimpse of the bag-thing one of the men was carrying.
It was a coarse burlap sack, flopping open at the top to show the clumps of hair it was stuffed with, and a battered Raiders baseball cap had been attached to the rim and was bobbing up and down as the man carrying it stepped up the curb; but the sack was rippling as if a wind were buffeting it, and harsh laughter was shouting out of the loose flaps. As Kootie had scrambled over the wall, the bag had called to him, "Tu sabes quien trae las llaves, Chavez!" and barked out another terrible laugh.
...
"What was that?" he asked finally in a grating whisper, and even just forming the question squeezed tears of fright out of his eyes.
Even Edison's voice was unsteady. "Local witch-boys," he panted. "They tracked us with a compass, I've got to assume. I'm going to go under, clathrate, so they can't track me. Holler if you need me -"
"But what was that?"
"Ahhh." Kootie's shoulders were raised and lowered. "They... got a ghost, captured one, and had it animate the trash in that bag, apparently. It's got no legs, so it can't run away... but... well, you heard it? I was afraid you did. It can talk. Cheerful thing, hmmm?" The bravura tone of Edison's last remark was hollow.
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Zilch, do you think it could be your subconscious haunting you, telling you to switch to union?
 
oldrover said:
Zilch, do you think it could be your subconscious haunting you, telling you to switch to union?
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:lol: Definitely not - I am a League man! But nothing to report last night - yet I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I suppose I'll write it off under "whatever"...
 
Maybe it was the sound of your own breathing? I mean, sudden changes in the inner ear do occur, and they have strange acoustic effects. A sudden cessation in residual tinnitus (for whatever reason) can cause people to notice that natural sounds seem stronger.

Do you have tinnitus?
 
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