• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
Even small animals can produce a deceptive amount of noise, causing fear among - er - me.

maximus otter
Absolutely they can. A few years back one October, I got caught out by the darkening skies, whilst a good 25-minute walk from home. .

Part of the walk required me to walk down dark back country single track lanes with woodland on either side, and with only my mobile phone as a light source. .

Little noises going off behind me, I’d stop and shine the torch to see what it was, only for the same noises going off to the left and right of me – I know today that it was just twigs and other bits of foliage coming off the tress etc, but I was new to rural life back then. Also, I now know the noise that the deer in the area make, when they are calling out to each other, especially during the rutting season, but at the time it terrified me.

These days though I’m quite happy walking the back country lanes at night, and regularly walk to and from the pub in the next village after dark.
 
And of course the noise that foxes shagging makes isn't at all terrifying.
That’s the thing though Trev, I’ve been living rural for quite a few years now and I’ve never even seen a blooming fox.

Plenty in the towns and cities though and yes, the sound of a male fox having a bit of how’s yer father can be unnerving to say the least lol

I think it’s because the male fox’s old chap is barbed..?
 
I did have a brief thought today whilst out running, about whether there might possibly be any link between woods at night and increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air?

Although trees photosynthesize during the day, they switch to respiration at night. Which means that a closely-planted body of trees is going to have (probably insignificant) lower levels of oxygen - maybe the human brain senses that lower level as a threat and therefore a dense stand of woodland is a place to be avoided by night (I mean, apart from the killer cats, wolves, hedgehogs and foxes that might be lurking in there).

Just one of those minor thinks one comes up with. And doesn't account for woods that are scary in the daytime, obviously.
 
I did have a brief thought today whilst out running, about whether there might possibly be any link between woods at night and increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air?

Although trees photosynthesize during the day, they switch to respiration at night. Which means that a closely-planted body of trees is going to have (probably insignificant) lower levels of oxygen - maybe the human brain senses that lower level as a threat and therefore a dense stand of woodland is a place to be avoided by night (I mean, apart from the killer cats, wolves, hedgehogs and foxes that might be lurking in there).

Just one of those minor thinks one comes up with. And doesn't account for woods that are scary in the daytime, obviously.
That's an interesting idea. Also worth remembering that the forest floor is littered with rotting vegetation, humus and the like... which emits CO2 and methane.
 
My odd experience was at a cottage in Anglesey. We were on holiday. Myself the OH and 2 dogs. There was a small piece of woodland we walked through to get to a 5 acre field the dogs could run on. On route the dog would disappear and come back after a few minutes looking pleased with themselves and spattered with either mud or cow muck from the next field which was thickly hedged and couldn't be seen into. One day afternoon and sunny no wind, I noticed a movement and froze and oddly the dogs froze with me. It appeared a long thin shadow had crossed the path in front of me. At first I thought it was a branch moving but it was a very still day. No idea what it was but it was at the point the dogs normally disappeared. I assume it might have been a tree spirit of some sort but I didn't really see it properly. I was not scared just puzzled by the incident. No explanation to this day and I was stone cold sober.
 
I’ve been living rural for quite a few years now and I’ve never even seen a blooming fox.
Yeah, our urban foxes are much braver than their country cousins.
I mostly only ever see foxes early evenings, trying to tip over the food bins.
 
Used to see foxes regularly we we lived in Bath, in gardens as wells the park and bins, now 6 miles out and surrounded by fields rarely see them. Smell them though and hearing them at night is a bit unnerving
Sounds very much like my copse. Does it give you the creeps during daytime, or only at night?
Pretty much all the time. Not really thought about it, but this is prime play space for kids, near home lots of climbable trees etc but you never see anyone there. It is accessible from a footpath behind it as well as the road.
 
I have friends who decided to move to the country for some peace and quiet - big mistake. Their house backed onto some woodland and my mate said they couldn't believe the noise at night. And they never lived down calling the police on their first night there because they heard screaming from the woods and were convinced someone was being murdered, only to be told by the cops it was foxes.
They moved back to the city to the comforting sounds of traffic etc.
 
The Stanmer estate years ago covered a large area and one corner of it was at Ditchling Beacon.

I have always found Stanmer Woods to have something odd about it that is hard to describe. I wouldn't call it creepy as such but the place never feels right.

Also during the Roman era there was an outside shrine to the Goddess Minerva between what is now the edge of Stanmer Woods and Ditchling Beacon. Years ago I got the longitude/latitude from a local archaeological society and visited the place. Obviously there's no remains there now. The site was in the middle of a clump of trees and had a very peaceful feel about it, unlike Stanmer Woods.

Over the years there have been reports of sightings of an ABC including a sighting by some dustmen early one morning at Wild Park which is virtually next door to Stanmer Park.
Stanmer woods are odd. When I lived in Brighton, I would often go there, sometimes with friends, sometimes on my own. As you say, not creepy as such - but something that never feels quite right. It always had a 'late afternoon' feel to the woods, is the only way I can describe it.
A couple of miles away from Stanmer Woods is Wild Park (another wood rather than a 'park') - just on the very edges of Brighton. A loathsome place, and it comes with a bad history of the 'babes in the wood' murder back in the 1980s. I went to Wild Park with a friend back in autumn of 2006 on a grey autumn day. Loathsome is the only word to describe the atmosphere there. The air felt toxic and rotting. Maybe we had the thoughts of the murder in our minds - but I've visited other places with bad histories but nothing that had an atmosphere of poison that Wild Park had. The atmosphere caused a bit of panic between me and my friend. We were relieved to leave it. As we walked out of the trees my friend turned to me and said - and I still remember that tone of disbelief inhis vocie 'why would anyone want to come here?'

For more about Wild Park see:
Wild Park (Brighton)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/wild-park-brighton.66207/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I did have a brief thought today whilst out running, about whether there might possibly be any link between woods at night and increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air?

Although trees photosynthesize during the day, they switch to respiration at night. Which means that a closely-planted body of trees is going to have (probably insignificant) lower levels of oxygen - maybe the human brain senses that lower level as a threat and therefore a dense stand of woodland is a place to be avoided by night (I mean, apart from the killer cats, wolves, hedgehogs and foxes that might be lurking in there).

Just one of those minor thinks one comes up with. And doesn't account for woods that are scary in the daytime, obviously.
It doesn't even have to be night time for joggers to scare me .. with their stupid outfits, scary faces and those things strapped to their arms and their delusions of immortality .. me and the Mrs sometimes shout "RUN FOREST RUN!!" at the ones with the too serious concentrating faces.
 
It doesn't even have to be night time for joggers to scare me .. with their stupid outfits, scary faces and those things strapped to their arms and their delusions of immortality .. me and the Mrs sometimes shout "RUN FOREST RUN!!" at the ones with the too serious concentrating faces.
It's the ones that are obviously doing far more harm than good to themselves that get me. Overweight, red-faced, and look like a heart attack is imminent. I don't mind young women in yoga-pants though.
 
I don't mind young women in yoga-pants though.
Are we still allowed to say that sort of thing? I thought it was frowned upon these days as being 'sexist!'
Anyways, anyone running up from behind me unexpectedly scares the bejeezus out of me, especially if it's some goon on a bike and they don't use their bell.
 
No-one ever compliments me on my running attire either.:(
1664639302801.png
 
Stanmer woods are odd. When I lived in Brighton, I would often go there, sometimes with friends, sometimes on my own. As you say, not creepy as such - but something that never feels quite right. It always had a 'late afternoon' feel to the woods, is the only way I can describe it.
A couple of miles away from Stanmer Woods is Wild Park (another wood rather than a 'park') - just on the very edges of Brighton. A loathsome place, and it comes with a bad history of the 'babes in the wood' murder back in the 1980s. I went to Wild Park with a friend back in autumn of 2006 on a grey autumn day. Loathsome is the only word to describe the atmosphere there. The air felt toxic and rotting. Maybe we had the thoughts of the murder in our minds - but I've visited other places with bad histories but nothing that had an atmosphere of poison that Wild Park had. The atmosphere caused a bit of panic between me and my friend. We were relieved to leave it. As we walked out of the trees my friend turned to me and said - and I still remember that tone of disbelief inhis vocie 'why would anyone want to come here?'
Wild Park. What a God forsaken place that is. The woods has a feel like something out of a Tolkien book.

I used to live in a part of Brighton (UK) next to Wild Park, which is on the southern edge of the South Downs, called Mouslecombe.

Named after a minor Saxon warlord called Mul. A combe is a Saxon word for a place that is enclosed on three sides by hills. Mul of the Combe. There's arguments in some circles as to the correct spelling. Mulscombe, Moulscombe, Moulsecombe, etc. Wild Park forms a combe, open at one end and enclosed by hills on three sides. Curiously enough, the Saxons would not settle in a combe that faced East, which Wild Park does.

Locally Wild Park had a reputation as a place to stay away from for no particular reason I ever heard of. The grassed flat area was fine but the woodlands surrounding it on three sides were more than just creepy, they were/are downright unfriendly and of course and as you mentioned, the 'Babes in the Woods' murders. There are now some steps leading to where the bodies of the young girls were found and even now, flowers still get placed there. God rest their souls. It's one thing to read about such grisly things but another to see the actual place.

Once I looked after a neighbours dog while him and his wife went on holiday and as Wild Park was so near, I thought to walk the dog in the woods. On the grassed area the dog, a spaniel type mongrel, would run all over the place at speed hunting down smells and scents but as soon as we went in the woods the dog stayed right next to me. I kept looking around me because I just had a constant weird feeling of 'not alone'. I never saw anyone else, which is strange in itself, or saw anything odd or untoward. The feeling of 'unease' was tangible. At the time I put it down to my mind playing tricks on me. After the third or fourth day I decided to switch to Stanmer Park for dog walking although it meant a short drive. The dog seemed happier with that as well. After my neighbours returned from their holidays, I said about Wild Park and the wife said she never goes there. I don't remember any reason being given.

There used to be a cafe in the middle of the grassed area that would change hands almost yearly and stories of weird goings on there. I would eat there sometimes. Once, and this was during the nineties and at the time I thought it made up stories, the lady who ran the cafe said she wasn't renewing the lease when it runs out in the next few months. She said that odd things kept happening like coming in in the morning and a table would have moved several feet from where it was when she left the evening before or things just falling on the floor from a surface or shelf and stuff like that. At the time I thought it was just a reason to cover up a failing business or something like that. Now though, I'm not so sure.

At the time I didn't connect the dots. My 'Fortean moment' came in the early 2000's one evening when I saw what looked like loads of candle flames at the end of a friends rather large garden. I was sitting in his conservatory chatting away with him. I said to him about it and he said he and his wife and others see them from time to time and several times he'd walked down the garden but the lights go out and there's then nothing to see. I did the same and the lights went out and even though it was nearly pitch black apart from the lights of the house, there was nothing to see. I was convinced it was kids or something even though the wall at the end of the garden was substantial and it backed onto the South Downs and was out of town. It piqued my curiosity. It was after odd times of doing a search for similar, and I found some some similar stories, that I came across this forum although at the time I didn't post anything about it for fear of ridicule as it wasn't mainstream ghost stuff, etc.

There's also been sightings of an ABC at Wild Park. Once by a group of dustman that got local publicity. They'd parked up near where the woods start and where the land starts to go uphill and were having a fag break early in the morning at dawn. One of them said to the others something like 'what's that' and skirting around the edge of the woods was a large ABC. There have been numerous sightings over the years I've lived here including one by two park rangers in broad daylight in the woods but none in the last 5 or 10 years that I know of.

There's more about Wild Park. I think I've written too much already for one sitting.

Edit: Loads of missed out words and stuff I forgot when typing it out.
 
Last edited:
Nobody has ever complimented me on my running attire, even though I'm not red faced and sweating. I feel left out now.
It's really not worth it. You start to keep an eye out for nearby cars and that sort of thing, you can't tell who's going to just slow down and drive on or who will pull over and lead off with profanity. Although in my case it's walking attire. Doesn't happen often, doesn't keep me from walking, but, man, people are weird.
 
Having just become a member of these forums I find this particular thread fascinating. In the 70s I was a pupil at Steyning Grammar School. One of the sports we did in winter was cross country running and one of the places we frequented was Chanctonbury Ring as it provided a challenging route for runners. I remember doing this many times and it was an interesting run through the beautiful Sussex countryside. Of course we all knew about the local folk lore of running around it seven times in an anti clockwise direction to summon the devil, perhaps some of the fitter pupils may have even attempted to do it - I don't remember. What I do remember is how peaceful it was and the view of the surrounding countryside. It was sad to see the original ring of trees destroyed in the storm of '87.
 
. My 'Fortean moment' came in the early 2000's one evening when I saw what looked like loads of candle flames at the end of a friends rather large garden. I was sitting in his conservatory chatting away with him. I said to him about it and he said he and his wife and others see them from time to time and several times he'd walked down the garden but the lights go out and there's then nothing to see. I did the same and the lights went out and even though it was nearly pitch black apart from the lights of the house, there was nothing to see. I was convinced it was kids or something even though the wall at the end of the garden was substantial and it backed onto the South Downs and was out of town.
This sounds like glow worms. They are prevalent now in the southern counties.
 
This sounds like glow worms. They are prevalent now in the southern counties.
I agree.The first time I saw glow worms was in the New Forest at dusk and they stopped me in my tracks and I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing until I looked closer. I remember being astonished at their brightness
 
I agree.The first time I saw glow worms was in the New Forest at dusk and they stopped me in my tracks and I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing until I looked closer. I remember being astonished at their brightness

This. Near Cirencester for me :)
 
Had a couple in the garden over the years. They are very bright. Once I'd established they weren't the ghosts of old Brussels sprouts it was interesting to track them down. They are remarkably small, one was in a clump of perennial sweet pea and the other on a path - possibly dropped by a bird? I did try to photograph it but quite difficult and what I got could well have been an orb!
I've attached it in case anyone really has nothing better to do than look at it!
Glow in the dark.JPG
 
Had a couple in the garden over the years. They are very bright. Once I'd established they weren't the ghosts of old Brussels sprouts it was interesting to track them down. They are remarkably small, one was in a clump of perennial sweet pea and the other on a path - possibly dropped by a bird? I did try to photograph it but quite difficult and what I got could well have been an orb!
I've attached it in case anyone really has nothing better to do than look at it!
View attachment 60304
That is really cute. There don't appear to be any in our area (North Yorkshire) but I'd love to see some.
 
The first time we saw them was a couple of hours after some friends had visited. I was convinced that he had dropped a watch or something and the light was showing through the plant leaves when I went out to look.
Only seen them in June so nights are very short; all ours spotted at about 11.00 pm.
 
Back
Top