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Stairs / Staircases In The Forest

H

Hogarth999

Ephemeral Spectre
Joined
Jul 18, 2005
Messages
345
The following MAY be true, but do keep an open mind.

A Search and Rescue Officer (SAR) in the US has been writing a number of long and detailed posts about strange and unexplainable occurrences while doing his job. One of them involves sets of stairs found in forested areas. The stairs are just there, not connected to anything and not performing any apparentt function. Some reports say that they are akin to Slenderman, ie just a bit of creepypasta. But make up your own mind.

Here's his first account (five in total so far) although the lonely stairs aren't mentioned much in the first one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

but it's well worth a read for the other strangeness ..... (the stairs are mentioned more in his other posts) - some of the accounts are very disturbing and often heart-breaking.
 
Perhaps metal or concrete stairs left behind after a wooden house has rotted away or been blown away in a storm?
 
I don't think I could resist climbing up the stairs to see what happened. Is he hinting that that's what happens to all the people who disappear without trace each year in US National Parks? (See David Paulides - he crops up on loads of podcasts and seems credible enough.)

That man with no face would give me the creeps, though.
 
graylien said:
I don't think I could resist climbing up the stairs to see what happened. Is he hinting that that's what happens to all the people who disappear without trace each year in US National Parks?
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Not necessarily, but he gives more information about the stairs in his other Reddit posts. Fascinating reading whether it's fictional or not (I'm assuming the latter, ie it's not your usual /nosleep Reddit post, most of which ARE fictional).
 
Mythopoeika said:
Perhaps metal or concrete stairs left behind after a wooden house has rotted away or been blown away in a storm?
Click to expand...

Could be, BUT some are apparently carpeted with no plant debris on them ..... there's more info in his other Reddit posts.
 
Hogarth999 said:
A Search and Rescue Officer (SAR) in the US has been writing a number of long and detailed posts about strange and unexplainable occurrences while doing his job. One of them involves sets of stairs found in forested areas. The stairs are just there, not connected to anything and not performing any apparentt function. Some reports say that they are akin to Slenderman, ie just a bit of creepypasta. But make up your own mind.

Here's his first account (five in total so far) although the lonely stairs aren't mentioned much in the first one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

but it's well worth a read for the other strangeness ..... (the stairs are mentioned more in his other posts) - some of the accounts are very disturbing and often heart-breaking.
Click to expand...
If nothing else, those stories reinforce my dislike for wooded areas. I feel they smother me, trap me... I posted here once about how I got feeling so trapped in some woodland that I felt forced to escape by trespassing though someone's garden. Oh, the relief at reaching an open road in open country!

But I've never met 'men' who meow, or who have no faces, and certainly not stairs in a wood. :eek:
 
That trapped feeling is presumably down to claustropobia - do you suffer from it in other environments (enclosed spaces)?
 
Hogarth999 said:
That trapped feeling is presumably down to claustropobia - do you suffer from it in other environments (enclosed spaces)?
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Not in buildings, no. I've not been in many caves recently, but they don't usually bother me either.

Just woods, then.
 
rynner2 said:
Not in buildings, no. I've not been in many caves recently, but they don't usually bother me either.

Just woods, then.
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Very interesting that it's only woods (and presumably forests).


Those stories though in the Reddit threads - they really are fascinating. Horrific too, particularly the last one documenting the dead boy high in the tree with his intestines hanging out of his mouth ........
 
That story is a brilliant find. I am wondering whether it is only a phenomenon you'd find in a huge country with vast forests, like the US. In the UK, apart from parts of Northern Scotland, surely nowhere would be remote enough for that kind of thing to happen or be a credible 'urban myth' (not that urban is the right word for it)? And these days, wouldn't people take a shot on their mobile if they stumbled on something like that? It is a brilliant, and haunting image, though.
 
Yeah, as fiction, fun stuff. Thanks for sharing :)
 
GhostInTheMachine said:
That story is a brilliant find. I am wondering whether it is only a phenomenon you'd find in a huge country with vast forests, like the US. In the UK, apart from parts of Northern Scotland, surely nowhere would be remote enough for that kind of thing to happen or be a credible 'urban myth' (not that urban is the right word for it)? ...
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There's no need for 'vast forests' - there's a story (fact/fiction?) about a body found in a tree in UK...

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/who-put-bella-in-the-wych-elm.11915/#post-1310080
 
If you do a Google picture search for 'staircases in the woods', you'll get back a few pictures like this:
zDZzX.jpg

Rather odd, don't you think?
 
Yes, very odd.

According to the SAR officer's reports, some of the staircases are pristine - carpeted and clean with no dead leaves, twigs or dirt on them.

Also some have been found which are upside down ........
 
rynner2 said:
If nothing else, those stories reinforce my dislike for wooded areas. I feel they smother me, trap me... I posted here once about how I got feeling so trapped in some woodland that I felt forced to escape by trespassing though someone's garden. Oh, the relief at reaching an open road in open country!
:eek:
Click to expand...

This does sound like real panic - as in Pan-ic. I get it on wide open flat spaces, but then we all carry our own demons and deities! :kiss:
 
I must admit, though I know that these stories are probably largely made up, some of them ring true to the "forest people" stories that many many indigenous cultures have around the world.

In almost every culture you go there are stories about mischievous "spirits" that like to play tricks on humans and scare them. Some are more benevolent than others.
Does make you wonder though. I mean in terms of the human race as we now know it, we have been here a tiny amount of time compared to the plants and everything else.

The stairs in the forest was freaky though... I think I may just run away screaming if I ever see one in the forest.... not that I want to go into the forest anytime soon after reading those stories (and not just for the fortean side of things, you read his stories about lost/dead kids and you would never let your children go anywhere near the forest again!)
 
Apart from some of these stairs possibly being the remains of an old house, some may be built for other reasons.
Perhaps some are built as follies, and some may be put in place to allow visitors to stand and enjoy the scenery (i.e. purely ornamental). Others may be an art project.
 
If they are as they are described in the OP's link then it doesn't sound like that. I mean how would you get a staircase out in the woods with white carpet on it and keep it that way?

One thing that perplexed me a little about the stairs... usually stairs need some sort of support to stay up. I wondered how these stairs managed that without the supporting walls around it.
I mean for stone staircase that was a rememnant of a house/fort that has long since fallen down I could understand... but the ones described in the story were wooden.

I mean I don't know about you, but if I saw a staircase in the middle of nowhere that seemed to be defying gravity and physics going up it would be the last thing on my mind.
In fact taking a picture would probably be the first thing on my mind.

For me, I think that is the main reason I don't see how this could be a thing. Well, unless you count some transdimensonal shift or aliens or something.
 
kamalktk said:
It's r/nosleep. Let's see what reddit has to say about r/nosleep. "NoSleep is a community for original horror stories. Stories may be true or not (but they are usually not)."

Of course there are no pictures either, because the "supervisor gets mad at him" for taking pictures.

I don't think so...
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I think that's the traditionally expected nail-head contact. They are very creepy tales, nonetheless, and have obviously struck a chord with many readers. This is quite an odd response, on quite a number of levels.
 
Mythopoeika said:
If you do a Google picture search for 'staircases in the woods', you'll get back a few pictures like this:
zDZzX.jpg

Rather odd, don't you think?
Click to expand...

That actually is an art piece from Forest of Dean sculpture trail. Link. Doesn't explain any others - are there photos? If I came across a weird staircase in the middle of nowhere I'd certainly want to take a picture.
 
Mythopoeika said:
If you do a Google picture search for 'staircases in the woods', you'll get back a few pictures like this:
zDZzX.jpg

Rather odd, don't you think?
Click to expand...

While I realise now that that one is a UK artwork, that's how I was picturing the ones mentioned in the OP, although that's possibly wrong. Certainly, I find it easier to picture them that way than as physically-unlikely sets of step with no obvious support.
 
I concur with the idea it is a yarn but a good one. It has a nice physicality.

It stirred a memory of the cables from the sky thread.

The forbidden ascent makes me think of a bone-grinding giant* upstairs.

*Just my own thing. :D
 
JamesWhitehead said:
I concur with the idea it is a yarn but a good one. It has a nice physicality.
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I'm not sure whether to believe the tales or not. Having read through the 5 Reddit blogs, there's some really fascinating stuff that I'd love to be true, and some batshit-insane stuff which will probably make me too scared to go anywhere near a wooded areas for weeks!

Certainly, the writer has a matter-of-fact style which doesn't give the impression of embellishment or falsehood. He writes extremely well, but I'm not going to say too well, because I don't want to disbelieve him just because his writing is easy to read. Certainly, there's a touch of the Stephen King about the sense of mounting horror which I got from reading his posts back-to-back, but I don't want to assume that it's fiction.

Despite the gore in some of the stories, it's the staircases I found myself going back to in my head. Do we have any other, independent sources for their existence? Keeping the King comparison, they're like a combination of From a Buick 8 and The Black House with their mixture of mundanity and horror.
 
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Krepostnoi said:
This is quite an odd response, on quite a number of levels.
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I had a quick look through her blog, and her answer to at least half the questions posed to her seems to be "Yeah, it was aliens."

If you believe in alien abductions, then I suppose you could posit that the stairs in the forest are some kind of screen memory obscuring something more sinister.
 
paladax said:
not that I want to go into the forest anytime soon after reading those stories
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Try these for starters - I've literally wasted DAYS reading through these threads. Most of the tales seem to come from people who have actually been about a bit, so may contain the odd grain of truth, rather than your average 16yr-old Redditor writing what they think is scary stuff.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=87044 - "Weird Stuff Found In The Woods"

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=57236 - "Creepy Stories From The Outdoors"

http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=774000&s=614abec822503c06c161318e6460ca8f - "What's the strangest, most unexplainable thing you've seen in the woods?"

Try any of the Hunting and Shooting forums for similar stuff, but don't blame me when you are out in the woods and some tales seep back into your mind and won't leave you alone! It can spoil a whole day's shooting, or a perfectly pleasant hike,I can assure you...
 
The Creepy stories from the outdoors is good one.

The others are a bit tame, though as you say, seem a bit more authentic.

Don't discount the reddit no/sleep ones though. I have seen some very well written pieces jumbled up in there.

However, I don't think my boss would like you as I have already wasted his time reading those links you gave when he wasn't about! Thanks for that. :)
 
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