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Stairs / Staircases In The Forest

Peripart said:
I really HOPE it's piffle, but part of me admits to doubts. The stairs are so mundane, but also terrifyingly odd.
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This is a tried and tested formula for many horror movies/stories. Take something that is familiar to us and that is fairly innocent and then attempt to it into nightmare fuel.
Such examples, Chucky, Christine, Leprechaun, Fog.... stairs.

But yes, part of me kind of wants this weirdness to be true purely for the freaky factor. Though I think, given that this guy is now got a Tumblr account and has said that he is collecting these stories into a book that he will be selling, I guess that means that while some stories he tells may have a nugget of truth behind them, by en large they will be constructs of his imagination.

Liking that other link though as I say. I have noticed that a lot of these types of stories, and indeed folklore throughout many cultures of the world include some kind of forest spirits that like to mess with people, shadow people/stick indians etc..
 
These Reddit tales are very disturbing, but, we'd need some parallel evidence that at least a few of these missing-child-dead-in-the-wilderness type stories are true. I've a lot of doubts regarding most if not all of these 'reported' instances....if one were a once-in-a-lifetime fable, then wow, astounding. But to have a whole Vietnam vet-style back catalogue, mainly first-person accounts....credulity is being stretched. And this staircase trope....come on, how genuinely prevalent is this? Habeus staircase, I say (and no, not a Photoshop long-shot, I want actual pictures and statements on-site)

And this implicit/taboo almost Monsters Inc style inference regarding purported stair-top interlocationary portals, causing death though elevator-emulated amputations and anurisms....gripping, frightning....but, real or myth? I'm so far banking on double-step doubtful. Show me I'm wrong......
 
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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If we were talking exclusively about the kind of structure (or partial one) that inspired this thread, then this observation is a reasonable one. However, one incident that often comes to mind when thinking about this kind of thing is the case of a particular plane crash which killed pilot and passenger back in the 70's (the passenger being 'Gus' Bentine - Michael Bentine's son): An entire Piper Super Cub and two passengers remained undetected for two months not very far from Petersfield, Hampshire. The area is rural, but hardly remote - and wooded, but hardly the Black Forest; and, okay, it wasn't exactly a big plane, or - relatively speaking - a hugely long period of time. But it's all relative, and does kind of make you think.

And they are great stories, true or otherwise. You have to wonder how many producers and scriptwriters trawl the likes of Reddit looking for a great pitch - there are certainly a few in there.
 
Ermintrude said:
credulity is being stretched.
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It's the age-old problem of how you extend a spook-tale. We all get a frisson from the door-in-the-back-of-the-wardrobe; what lies beyond it is always going to be a let-down.

I suppose that is why classic ghost stories used to work as portmanteau films, allowing several fresh mornings to be overcast by the uncanny. Today's extended narratives lead all-too-quickly into laughable buckets-of-blood territory. :eek:
 
Spookdaddy said:
If we were talking exclusively about the kind of structure (or partial one) that inspired this thread, then this observation is a reasonable one. However, one incident that often comes to mind when thinking about this kind of thing is the case of a particular plane crash which killed pilot and passenger back in the 70's (the passenger being 'Gus' Bentine - Michael Bentine's son): An entire Piper Super Cub and two passengers remained undetected for two months not very far from Petersfield, Hampshire. The area is rural, but hardly remote - and wooded, but hardly the Black Forest; and, okay, it wasn't exactly a big plane, or - relatively speaking - a hugely long period of time. But it's all relative, and does kind of make you think.

And they are great stories, true or otherwise. You have to wonder how many producers and scriptwriters trawl the likes of Reddit looking for a great pitch - there are certainly a few in there.
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Yes, good point well made.

I'm old enough to remember reading about that in the papers - but I don't!

Something about staircases, too. Maybe it's Freudian or summat..? As a child I lived near a place which had a 10thC King's 'palace' in it. (Actually it would have been an almost entirely wooden structure, and just a hunting lodge). And as kids, in the middle of this cow field where everyone knew 'the castle' once stood - now not a trace of it, usually - we found what looked like a couple of steps of a stone spiral staircase... We found it fascinating and often went back to look at it again. It wasn't at all unearthly and had a credible reason to be there, in the cow field but something very spooky about it that we loved as ten year olds!
 
I should add: it was kind of below the general soil level - something must have happened and exposed it a bit... so normally, you wouldn't have known it was there. It was flush with or just beneath the surface, not above the ground level, if that makes sense. And even then, it was still exciting to see. Thinking about it now, maybe there was a later (medieval?) building on the site - that would make more sense.
 
A bit off topic, but I find staircases fascinating. They are odd places, and I think I must have read it somewhere that they are seen as one of those places where the structure of the world is a little bit thinner than in others (I hesitate to use the phrase 'between this world and the spirit world' as I don't believe such a thing exists, but ...). They are structures that take you through otherwise solid, supporting features - you are passing through between two different planes of existence, almost - albeit only different floors in a building. Still, I often find myself thinking that I'm in neither one floor or another as I actually travel through the plane of the floor, almost as if I could be bisected like something out of the Phialdelphia project :).
 
Part 7 is up for anyone interested https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3sktwj/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

I must admit, I find the idea that there are forest spirits out there trying to "lure" people to some unknown fate interest's and makes me a little uneasy at the same time.

I do think that perhaps at one time there were many different "entities" that manifested itself on this physical plane at some point in the past. Some good, some bad. Perhaps even Elves or Fairies. But I have in other threads said about how the very belief of something from enough people, could indeed cause such things to manifest.

In this latest thread though they seem to suggest that the stairs can "call" out to people and lure them to the stairs and wherever they then go.

Fun little time sink though.
 
Wotan Mjolnir said:
one of those places where the structure of the world is a little bit thinner than in others..
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ooh yes, neither one place nor another. Rather like a solid equivalent of midnight or the solstices?!
When I was a kid I read this book - Owl at Home - and on p32 there's Owl's story about the stairs. It always stuck with me for some reason. Don't know if it influenced my feeling that the stairs were a weird place and I always used to scamper up and down them as fast as possible. Probably didn't help that my mother told me that when I was very small I'd asked her 'who the man at the top of the stairs' was. Naturally I have no recollection of that but I imagine it freaked her out quite well.
 
Because the readers of r/nosleep have been contacting David Paulides (of Missing 411 fame) and other researchers about the "stairs in the woods," the Search and Rescue writer has admitted his series is fictional:

http://searchandrescuewoods.tumblr.com/post/133369384624/urgent-announcement

Kind of a shame, because I could hardly tear my eyes from his posts when they appeared!

. . . But half the interesting tales on this Reddit thread come from the comments section! Maybe some of those are real . . .
 
amarok2005 said:
Because the readers of r/nosleep have been contacting David Paulides (of Missing 411 fame) and other researchers about the "stairs in the woods," the Search and Rescue writer has admitted his series is fictional:

http://searchandrescuewoods.tumblr.com/post/133369384624/urgent-announcement
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Well, that's a relief. There's enough depressingly real horror going on in the world - we don't need made-up stuff confusing the issue, especially at this point in history.
 
When I first read that post I thought it meant David Paulides had admitted his stuff was fictional, which would have been a bit if a revelation.

I only found out about his work a few weeks ago when catching up on some Mysterious Universe podcasts. I haven't got hold of any of his books yet (they don't seem to easy to get hold of here in the UK unless I'm being a total failure), but the premise is both fascinating and terrifying.
 
I'm a touch disappointed, but slightly relieved, to hear that those Reddit posts were fiction. I'm probably marginally less scared of dark, remote, wooded places now I know that the stories aren't true! I'll give the guy credit, though - he writes in a nice matter-of-fact conversational style which lends credence to his words.

What he was able to play on, of course, is our eagerness to believe that there is something out there that we don't know or understand. I, for one, took a slightly grim pleasure in reading his tales of batshit-insane terror in the woods...

So, David Paulides, then - what's he all about? I only know of him from this thread, and haven't looked up him or his stories. Obviously, his stories don't include weird staricases, but what sort of things does he cover? If you think I'm being lazy by asking here, by all means tell me to go and find out for myself, but I thought this was a reasonable thread in which to ask the question!
 
it is true dont ever go near them stairs dont touch them or walk up them when you see them you will fell a sense of death or you will wont be aware of the rest of your surroundings and just try to figure out why they are there the best thing to do is ignore them and try your hardest to forget them. there have been reports of people who climbed them and 1 person lost his hearing for a good couple minutes and then ran away and his friend lost consciousness and woke up 8 miles away from the stairs with cuts on her arm.
 
zuku said:
it is true dont ever go near them stairs dont touch them or walk up them when you see them you will fell a sense of death or you will wont be aware of the rest of your surroundings and just try to figure out why they are there the best thing to do is ignore them and try your hardest to forget them. there have been reports of people who climbed them and 1 person lost his hearing for a good couple minutes and then ran away and his friend lost consciousness and woke up 8 miles away from the stairs with cuts on her arm.
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The redditor admitted they were fiction.
 
rynner2 said:
Well, that's a relief. There's enough depressingly real horror going on in the world - we don't need made-up stuff confusing the issue, especially at this point in history.
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I'm totally confused...
 
graylien said:
Perhaps the Daemonic Realm is now manifesting mysterious staircases in response to growing belief in them.
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And I'm climbing a stairway to heaven...but, if Ground Floor's perfumery, stationery and leather goods...shouldn't I be headed down, to the basement?

Stair at it for long enough, and it becomes real.

Morphic resonance meets ostension on the way to gestalt embodiment. I'm reminded of classic Star Trek episodes (and other sci-fi Shakespeareana) where the Thought Becomes The Thing.

Are we cut, by a dagger of the mind? Yes, if you of mine, and I of yours....but they are still ours.

Come on @zuku ...spill the beans. Do you independantly/personally know more about this? Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
(Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality)
 
Yesterday I listened to this YouTube link where the host tells a few of stories of stairs in the woods. I have never heard of them until yesterday. That's how I found this forum... i wanted to find out more.

Check it out:


Creepy stuff.

Regards

Foxturo
 
I've been listening to that too. It's mainly about children going missing and being found much later rammed into small holes halfway up cliffs or disemboweled up trees. Campfire tales.
 
Yup, tall tales! ;)

I listen to podcasts at night on all sorts of subjects. Just the sound of a male voice seems to send me off, funny that. :D
 
I love old school phenomenology stuff. Even though it's deeply out of fashion these days. This thread made me hunt out the classic The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, because he has a great phrase about "the complex of memory and imagination" that happens in daydreams - and in how we feel some images are so resonant.

He writes brilliantly about the poetics of staircases, and about houses more generally. He also has a chapter called 'the dialectics of outside and inside' which maybe sheds some light on why we get tingles up the spine when such an inside-space as a staircase is pictured in such an outside-place as the deep woods.

Really enjoy thinking about that kind of stuff so thanks for the prompt!
 
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