Nick Smith
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2016
- Messages
- 123
I'll get right to it.
I wonder if any of you forteans can connect with this.
Over the years I have always enjoyed woods and forests whether it be walks, mucking around with my kids or just being in nature as a change from city life.
But not all woods have the same feel. I lived near the famous Clapham woods in West Sussex and, straight after I read of its weird Hecate worshipping and vicar snatching properties in the long, defunct but ground breaking mag " The Unexplained" (yes, with the very spooky floppy disc of EVP mutterings that gave the teenage me nightmares) , I elected to spend the night there walking around with a torch and a camera to catch the culprit, I regret, nothing happened.
That was not the case when I lived in Brighton and would walk the dogs in Stamner Park great woods. This in an ancient place full of earthworks and Sarcen stones and those woods, or parts thereof, were very strange. Whilst walking just North of the woods near the Iron Age settlement and Roman graveyard at Rocky Clump, we saw a fleet of UAP emerging in the sky ( which was clear) one at a time and flying in a straight line to the North the lights were a bright orange with a strange glittering halo and, as they passed overhead and you looked up they were, in fact, a brilliant white diamond shape surrounded with orange light. There were fifteen that we counted processing equidistant and in total silent low enough to illuminate the treetops. They were moving at a steady pace and peacefully heading away towards Haywards Heath. As they grew smaller, however they climbed steeply upward and ended up as tiny dots followed by (bear with me) with comet fails behind them which were white but sparkling like tiny Christmas lights. Most odd.
The Forest itself is haunted. I can say this with certainty because my wife and I were both witness to it, and our two dogs,
We were walking ooh the wide path in October 1997 in the early twilight on a wet and windy autumn. Typically our German pointer, Tess, and Manchester terrier,Daisy, were ahead of us foraging around. Suddenly the dogs came hurtling back, tails down and ruffs up, both whimpering and cringing behind us. I thought they had been spooked by something so looked ahead. About 30 yards ahead, standing on the path six a man.He was stock still. I could make out that he was dressed in dark clothes which looked black in the gloom, a long coat of cloak to mid calf his hair was dark and looked long, he sported a sideburns and moustache (think Lemmy) and as I took some more steps in his direction I felt like I'd hit a wall of fear. Freezing cold and instantly I felt that I was literally going to shit myself. I could walk no further as my legs were shaking . My wife shouted that we needed to turn back as she too was terrified of this guy. Then something so weird happened. He "blinked" out he went from the centre of the path to the trees to his left in an instant. His arms looked odd as he sort of waves them to th side, all disjointed and most strange. He was not a physical person or a hallucination but we both knew that he was terrible in some way. We literally turned tail and legged it.
This is said to be the spirit of a clergy who was from Ditchling and was murdered in the forest due to his connection with smuggling brandy from Brighton to London back in the 17th century. I found this out later when I looked into it. I would say though that this was not a clergyman. No way. Whatever he represents it is something dark and physically dangerous.
Some time after this event I discovered a witches / Paganist circle in the woods adjacent to this. A huge pentagram made of beeche branches with a firepit at its centre and at the end of the points of the star enclosed in a circle of logs. It was a bit of hard work to make this thing. It was deep among the trees, out of sight of the path. Connected? I doubt it.
It has also been the site of a grisly sexual rape and strangling of a local woman called Margaret Frame in the 1970s. She was killed, stripped and buried in the great wood near the coldean Carpark on her way home from her cleaning job at Sussex Uni. Her murderer waited for police to search a certain part of the forest, then returned to her shallow grave, tried to behead her and then moved her corpse to the area already searched and reburied her there.
Some of the behaviour of her killer, the attack from behind the brutal rape and strangulation as well as the removal of trophies points towards the serial killer Peter Tobin who lived nearby at the time. Unfortunately this case remains unsolved though.
I will add that a close friend claims he was an ABC, something like a mountain lion running from the trees ahead of him in broad daylight. I also posted a short summary of the ghost element in a Brighton F.C. forum one Halloween and read an account from an expat in Australia of an incident at Stamner His story was high strangeness too. It want in the Forest but outside Stamner House as he walked across the cricket pitch. He was suddenly aware of a man next to him who had approached without him seeing him. The man appeared distressed, was sweating as if he had been running hard and he was gasping from breath. The asked the time and my correspondent. Looked down at his watch to reply.As he looked up the man had gone. Once again be was standing alone on a cricket pitch with nobody within his near distance. He looked all around but the breathless runner had just gone.
anyway. Over to you. Any Fortean Forests near you? Thanks for reading this long post.
I wonder if any of you forteans can connect with this.
Over the years I have always enjoyed woods and forests whether it be walks, mucking around with my kids or just being in nature as a change from city life.
But not all woods have the same feel. I lived near the famous Clapham woods in West Sussex and, straight after I read of its weird Hecate worshipping and vicar snatching properties in the long, defunct but ground breaking mag " The Unexplained" (yes, with the very spooky floppy disc of EVP mutterings that gave the teenage me nightmares) , I elected to spend the night there walking around with a torch and a camera to catch the culprit, I regret, nothing happened.
That was not the case when I lived in Brighton and would walk the dogs in Stamner Park great woods. This in an ancient place full of earthworks and Sarcen stones and those woods, or parts thereof, were very strange. Whilst walking just North of the woods near the Iron Age settlement and Roman graveyard at Rocky Clump, we saw a fleet of UAP emerging in the sky ( which was clear) one at a time and flying in a straight line to the North the lights were a bright orange with a strange glittering halo and, as they passed overhead and you looked up they were, in fact, a brilliant white diamond shape surrounded with orange light. There were fifteen that we counted processing equidistant and in total silent low enough to illuminate the treetops. They were moving at a steady pace and peacefully heading away towards Haywards Heath. As they grew smaller, however they climbed steeply upward and ended up as tiny dots followed by (bear with me) with comet fails behind them which were white but sparkling like tiny Christmas lights. Most odd.
The Forest itself is haunted. I can say this with certainty because my wife and I were both witness to it, and our two dogs,
We were walking ooh the wide path in October 1997 in the early twilight on a wet and windy autumn. Typically our German pointer, Tess, and Manchester terrier,Daisy, were ahead of us foraging around. Suddenly the dogs came hurtling back, tails down and ruffs up, both whimpering and cringing behind us. I thought they had been spooked by something so looked ahead. About 30 yards ahead, standing on the path six a man.He was stock still. I could make out that he was dressed in dark clothes which looked black in the gloom, a long coat of cloak to mid calf his hair was dark and looked long, he sported a sideburns and moustache (think Lemmy) and as I took some more steps in his direction I felt like I'd hit a wall of fear. Freezing cold and instantly I felt that I was literally going to shit myself. I could walk no further as my legs were shaking . My wife shouted that we needed to turn back as she too was terrified of this guy. Then something so weird happened. He "blinked" out he went from the centre of the path to the trees to his left in an instant. His arms looked odd as he sort of waves them to th side, all disjointed and most strange. He was not a physical person or a hallucination but we both knew that he was terrible in some way. We literally turned tail and legged it.
This is said to be the spirit of a clergy who was from Ditchling and was murdered in the forest due to his connection with smuggling brandy from Brighton to London back in the 17th century. I found this out later when I looked into it. I would say though that this was not a clergyman. No way. Whatever he represents it is something dark and physically dangerous.
Some time after this event I discovered a witches / Paganist circle in the woods adjacent to this. A huge pentagram made of beeche branches with a firepit at its centre and at the end of the points of the star enclosed in a circle of logs. It was a bit of hard work to make this thing. It was deep among the trees, out of sight of the path. Connected? I doubt it.
It has also been the site of a grisly sexual rape and strangling of a local woman called Margaret Frame in the 1970s. She was killed, stripped and buried in the great wood near the coldean Carpark on her way home from her cleaning job at Sussex Uni. Her murderer waited for police to search a certain part of the forest, then returned to her shallow grave, tried to behead her and then moved her corpse to the area already searched and reburied her there.
Some of the behaviour of her killer, the attack from behind the brutal rape and strangulation as well as the removal of trophies points towards the serial killer Peter Tobin who lived nearby at the time. Unfortunately this case remains unsolved though.
I will add that a close friend claims he was an ABC, something like a mountain lion running from the trees ahead of him in broad daylight. I also posted a short summary of the ghost element in a Brighton F.C. forum one Halloween and read an account from an expat in Australia of an incident at Stamner His story was high strangeness too. It want in the Forest but outside Stamner House as he walked across the cricket pitch. He was suddenly aware of a man next to him who had approached without him seeing him. The man appeared distressed, was sweating as if he had been running hard and he was gasping from breath. The asked the time and my correspondent. Looked down at his watch to reply.As he looked up the man had gone. Once again be was standing alone on a cricket pitch with nobody within his near distance. He looked all around but the breathless runner had just gone.
anyway. Over to you. Any Fortean Forests near you? Thanks for reading this long post.
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