Youth Hostel Intruder (Early 90s)

[FJ0304061013]

Came here to relate an incident which occurred circa '93 when myself and three friends were around 16 or 17 years old. I've long since lost touch with those involved, so have never really had a chance to discuss it in subsequent years.


We had a weekend away taking advantage of one member's newly acquired driving licence, visiting a festival in Brighton, UK and hanging out doing other stuff around Sussex.


After the festival we stayed in a Youth Hostel quite near the city. All four of us shared a single room that night with two bunks in parallel, about five feet apart, roughly in the centre of the room. I was up top on one bunk with a guy called James below me. Opposite was Andrew on the lower bed and Richard above. 


We were talking idly about the lastest Sonic Youth album or something mundane and Andy turned off his bedside light whilst we were all still chatting. It was sort of dark-ish but due to hall lights and possibly moonshine there was enough light to see and make out objects. Quite shortly after the light went out, James below me was talking but very suddenly went quiet. I was almost instantly aware why; the silhouette of a person was in the room, standing near the head of Andrew's bed. There was a few moments of silence before they hurried past us between the two bunks. I distinctly remember Andrew shouting out at this point. The intruder was about head height with my top bunk but it was too dim to ID them as anything other than a person of average height and build, probably male. No remarkable features to speak of. Next thing I know the light comes back on, there's no one there and we all look around exchanging various expletives.


We searched the room but there was no sign of an entry/ exit point for the intruder. No windows were open and the only exit was the thick set fire safety door in the corner near to the heads of the bunks which would have made a lot of noise and involved the perpetrator somehow getting back past us undetected. We just couldn't understand how someone got in and out undetected and we became really freaked out, to the point of arguing with one another. It felt like we were losing our minds. Looking back, I think we just individually felt paranoid that the other three were excluding them from a carefully planned prank, but the more we cast accusations about the more we realised it didn't make any sense and the atmosphere turned oddly hostile in the group. We left the light on all night and never really spoke about it the next day, which in hindsight seems a little odd in itself.


One other probably unrelated detail is that the next day there was a very depressed, paranoid feeling between us traveling home. This was accompanied by my feeling a strange form of guilt or shame which I've never experienced since - it wasn't the exact emotion of shame but that's the closest comparison. It was this sort of retched, empty regret about the whole trip, almost remorse, despite having nothing to feel responsible for. I'd also compare it to a sad, loss-of-innocence sort of feeling, accompanied by a sort of physical thirst and a sense of something unforgivable (?!?) Sounds odd when I try to describe it but it was overwhelming. I'll always remember that awful feeling hanging over me as we were waiting for a train and killing time in a shopping mall the next day.


I don't think I believe in ghosts per se but an explanation for this freaky event has eluded me for over twenty years now. 


Thanks for reading and allowing me to indulge a very old and strange memory!

 

[Yithian]

Thank you for the troubling tale. Immediate thoughts:

The obvious solution to the sealed room conundrum is that the intruder was already concealed inside. To make a unsettling story worse, the most obvious location might have been under one of the bunk beds. Did you check there after the lights went on?

Second, and this is only pop psychology, your feelings of guilt sound to an utter layman as if memories have been suppressed. Assuming you were not yourself responsible for something traumatic (you seem like such a decent poster), my natural supposition would be that you felt guilty as you were powerless to prevent something unpleasant (I'll let imaginations run wild here) happening to one of your friends.

All speculation of the loosest kind, of course.

 

[Mythopoeika]

We left the light on all night and never really spoke about it the next day, which in hindsight seems a little odd in itself.

This kind of thing - an unwillingness to discuss after the event - is quite a common aspect of a Fortean experience. Other people have noted this before on other threads.
Members of my own family have also displayed this unwillingness, when I've asked them to repeat something they'd told me before about some Fortean event. In their case, it might be the fact that they are religious and have their own fixed ideas about how the universe works - anything that doesn't fit that frame gets rejected.
In the case of other people, a certain amount of mental shock may be in play, causing them to reject what they have experienced.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Any chance you can remember more detail about the hostel?

I'm local, I might be able to find out more about the history of the place.

 

[Heckler]

Any chance you can remember more detail about the hostel?

I'm local, I might be able to find out more about the history of the place.

There's two in Brighton, one down by the Old Steine and one up on Truleigh Hill.

 

[FJ0304061013]

I honestly can't remember specifically checking under the bunks, but if there was sufficient space for someone to hide I imagine we must have done as we were very thorough if I recall correctly. Certainly an unsettling possibility though!

The hostel was close to Brighton but outside the city inland a bit I think. This was a fair time ago so not sure it would even still be a Youth Hostel. All I remember was a big building with a large fireplace in a community lounge/ reception area. Sorry to be vague.

 

[Human_84]

have you considered alien abduction? i realize that the humanoid form you saw didn't much resemble a grey, but neither do a great deal of the abduction reports. the phenomena is only cut and dry in pop culture, the rest of the time experiencers often relate seeing shadows, balls of plasma, dimensional shifts, and more. you might consider hypnotic regression to help dust off the lost memories, and maybe even connect the dots and get some answers about what you were feeling the next day.

 

[McAvennie]

The first thing that sprung to mind for me after hearing 'south coast', 'early 90s', 'festival' and 'intruder' was Peter Tobin. Specifically the Dinah McNicol case.

As you explained there was no way of the individual exiting your room then I guess that would rule out an actual physical being in the room. However, as someone suggested, a person already hidden in the room somewhere lying in wait only to discover four teenage males in the room rather than a vulnerable young woman would logically have decided to cut losses and try to sneak out of the room...?

Tobin was certainly active in the area around that period and had attacked two teenaged girls in Havant in August of 1993

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

He lived in Brighton & Hove for a period as well......his gardens of his ex-addresses have been searched.....

 

[CuriousIdent]

That's a really unnerving thought.

 

[dannyagger]

That's a really unnerving thought.

Quite terrifying.

I read this thread at 4AM with the lights off. Won't be doing that again in a hurry! :shock:

 

[FJ0304061013]

Any chance you can remember more detail about the hostel?

I'm local, I might be able to find out more about the history of the place.

It was called Patcham Place. A belated confirmation, but I spent a couple of days working with a Brighton local recently and he recognised my description of the place. Google images confirms for me this was definitely the hostel we stayed at. He didn't mention any strangness in relation to the place but to be honest I didn't relate to him my tale, just that we'd stayed there and found it a bit eerie.

 

[Yithian]

That's interesting - there are ghost stories relating to a Civil War era figure named Anthony Stapley, a regicide of Charles I, no less. Apparently, the restaurant is the main site of the bad atmosphere.

We all know about Brighton’s restless dead; the woman in white at Preston Manor, the haunted house in Prestonville Road, the famous grey nun in The Lanes, ghoulish monks, martyrs and drowned sailors. The World Horror Convention went so far as to declare Brighton the UK’s ghost capital. There is, however, one haunting, said to have occurred at Patcham Place, that seems to attract less attention.

Patcham Place is a Grade II listed mansion that stands on its own on the west side of London Road opposite the village of Patcham. It was originally built in 1558 for Sir William West, 1st Baron De La Warr; but the estate soon passed to Richard Shelley, (ancestor of the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelly). Richard Shelley was an important figure in Brighton’s early history, as one of three commissioners to record and regulate the “ancient customs” of Brighthelmston’s villagers and to mediate between the often conflicting needs of the fishermen and farmers.

Around 1620, the Shelleys sold the estate to Anthony Stapley who made it his home for the next 35 years. During this time, Stapley was MP for New Shoreham and Lewes and also the Governor of Chichester. More radically, he emerged as one of the leading Puritans in Sussex and, at the outbreak of the First Civil War, was commissioned colonel in the Parliamentarian Army. In 1649 Stapley was one of the 59 commissioners who sat in judgement on Charles I during his trial for high treason. Stapley was present at Westminster Hall on 27 January when sentence was pronounced, and on 29 January, sitting in the great hall at Patcham Place, he signed the death warrant of Charles I.

Stapley went on to have a full and distinguished career in Cromwell’s Commonwealth. He died in January 1655, and was buried in Patcham and it is his ghost that John Rackham, in Brighton Ghosts, Hove Hauntings (2001), claims once wandered Patcham Place, creating “a feeling of malevolence”, especially after dark.

Perhaps Stapley could not rest because of his part in Charles I’s death - regicide is no small matter and it turned out to have fatal consequences for many of the 59 signatories at the Restoration in 1660. In some cases those found guilty of regicide had their estates confiscated, but others faced exile, life imprisonment or execution by being, hanged, drawn and quartered! Or perhaps Stapley could not rest because his son, John, joined the Royalists against Cromwell’s Protectorate and, in trying to expiate his father’s crime, plotted for the return of Charles II. Stapley’s ghost must surely have groaned and rattled his chains around Patcham Place on the day John Stapley was knighted by Charles II and created Baronet Stapley of Patcham

http://www.prestonpages.com/history_GhostStories_PrestonManor.php

 

[FJ0304061013]

That's an unsettling thought, but v interesting to be finding out more backstory to my strange experience over twenty years later (God bless the internet!)

It did seem male, but not an appirition in the traditional sense (apart from the whole inexplicable disappearing act thing...)

Hmmm, thanks... I think! [Shudder]

 

[OneWingedBird]

I don't have anything useful to contribute but just want to say that I do love this thread.

It's got a really nice balance between something spooky and something terrifying and all too real.

 

[Frideswide]

Grue!

that's all I have to say

 

[Afton Sinclaret]

Same year, for what it's worth: 1993, not a hostel but a shared flat in Prague during the time when that was the place to be. Three sleeping in the lone bedroom (I was on the floor; a long-visiting couple from California shared the bed) and another semi-permanent roommate in the other bed we had cramped into the living/kitchen area. I woke in terror and could not seem to move, although my eyes were open. Doors of a big wardrobe were just a few inches from me, and I thought they were slowly moving although I couldn't reach out to close them tightly. This drags on for some time as I wake fully and see flashing lights (like police cars?) in the enclosed courtyard and what seems to be three men in the corner. Just dark shapes really, but like any drab middle-aged man you'd see in Prague at the time, hats and coats. And the lights flick on, as the couple has just awoken and both believe someone's in the room. With the small room illuminated, we quickly look around—there's under the bed, the wardrobe, and really nowhere else in the small room that's not wall or floor or the one double-window, with both parts dusty and closed tight and locked as they would be for all of the freezing winter. Then a knock on the bedroom door: The young woman sleeping in the living/kitchen room says "Are you guys awake?" and we say come in and she's crying. Well then we check out the rest of the place but she doesn't even know what she's upset about. No one was there, the one door into the small building's hallway was locked tight with the usual Prague series of ancient and modern locks and bolts. In the morning I did take a better look at the courtyard: it had no outside access, nothing there but the laundry lines with literal icicles hanging off the rope. I suppose someone could have rappelled into the courtyard and shined some lights? But the inside situation was never explained and, as seems to be protocol with such things, after discussing the weirdness for a half hour or so, everyone managed to go back to sleep for another couple hours until it was fully daylight.

 

[Coastaljames]

Same year, for what it's worth: 1993, not a hostel but a shared flat in Prague during the time when that was the place to be. Three sleeping in the lone bedroom (I was on the floor; a long-visiting couple from California shared the bed) and another semi-permanent roommate in the other bed we had cramped into the living/kitchen area. I woke in terror and could not seem to move, although my eyes were open. Doors of a big wardrobe were just a few inches from me, and I thought they were slowly moving although I couldn't reach out to close them tightly. This drags on for some time as I wake fully and see flashing lights (like police cars?) in the enclosed courtyard and what seems to be three men in the corner. Just dark shapes really, but like any drab middle-aged man you'd see in Prague at the time, hats and coats. And the lights flick on, as the couple has just awoken and both believe someone's in the room. With the small room illuminated, we quickly look around—there's under the bed, the wardrobe, and really nowhere else in the small room that's not wall or floor or the one double-window, with both parts dusty and closed tight and locked as they would be for all of the freezing winter. Then a knock on the bedroom door: The young woman sleeping in the living/kitchen room says "Are you guys awake?" and we say come in and she's crying. Well then we check out the rest of the place but she doesn't even know what she's upset about. No one was there, the one door into the small building's hallway was locked tight with the usual Prague series of ancient and modern locks and bolts. In the morning I did take a better look at the courtyard: it had no outside access, nothing there but the laundry lines with literal icicles hanging off the rope. I suppose someone could have rappelled into the courtyard and shined some lights? But the inside situation was never explained and, as seems to be protocol with such things, after discussing the weirdness for a half hour or so, everyone managed to go back to sleep for another couple hours until it was fully daylight.

Chilling, thank you so much for sharing.

The original post has stuck with me for a long time as well. Something about the extreme and horrible feeling of regret and remorse. Awful.


Both are genuinely spine-tingling for me.

 

[IbisNibs]

Same year, for what it's worth: 1993, not a hostel but a shared flat in Prague during the time when that was the place to be. Three sleeping in the lone bedroom. . . . I woke in terror and could not seem to move, although my eyes were open. Doors of a big wardrobe were just a few inches from me, and I thought they were slowly moving . . .

I was thinking "sleep paralysis" until you got to the point where the couple woke up and thought someone was in the room who wasn't supposed to be there . . .

(The worst time I had in a hostel was in New Orleans: one of the others who slept in the room had the loudest, most persistent snore I've ever had to endure. It was something of a Fortean phenomenon that she didn't wake herself up. After one night I was a wreck.)

 

[Krepostnoi]

I wake fully and see flashing lights (like police cars?) in the enclosed courtyard and what seems to be three men in the corner. Just dark shapes really, but like any drab middle-aged man you'd see in Prague at the time, hats and coats.

Thank you for sharing that. The immediate set of associations that spring to my mind, given that you were in Prague, were of an earlier era: secret police and the midnight knock on the door, which wouldn't have presaged anything at all good for the hapless resident or his/her family. If there is anything at all to the stone tape theory or its equivalents, I could easily believe that an episode like that would generate sufficiently strong emotions for the event to be replayed now and again.

 

[Sogna]

Came here to relate an incident which occurred circa '93 when myself and three friends were around 16 or 17 years old. I've long since lost touch with those involved, so have never really had a chance to discuss it in subsequent years.


We had a weekend away taking advantage of one member's newly acquired driving licence, visiting a festival in Brighton, UK and hanging out doing other stuff around Sussex.


After the festival we stayed in a Youth Hostel quite near the city. All four of us shared a single room that night with two bunks in parallel, about five feet apart, roughly in the centre of the room. I was up top on one bunk with a guy called James below me. Opposite was Andrew on the lower bed and Richard above.


We were talking idly about the lastest Sonic Youth album or something mundane and Andy turned off his bedside light whilst we were all still chatting. It was sort of dark-ish but due to hall lights and possibly moonshine there was enough light to see and make out objects. Quite shortly after the light went out, James below me was talking but very suddenly went quiet. I was almost instantly aware why; the silhouette of a person was in the room, standing near the head of Andrew's bed. There was a few moments of silence before they hurried past us between the two bunks. I distinctly remember Andrew shouting out at this point. The intruder was about head height with my top bunk but it was too dim to ID them as anything other than a person of average height and build, probably male. No remarkable features to speak of. Next thing I know the light comes back on, there's no one there and we all look around exchanging various expletives.


We searched the room but there was no sign of an entry/ exit point for the intruder. No windows were open and the only exit was the thick set fire safety door in the corner near to the heads of the bunks which would have made a lot of noise and involved the perpetrator somehow getting back past us undetected. We just couldn't understand how someone got in and out undetected and we became really freaked out, to the point of arguing with one another. It felt like we were losing our minds. Looking back, I think we just individually felt paranoid that the other three were excluding them from a carefully planned prank, but the more we cast accusations about the more we realised it didn't make any sense and the atmosphere turned oddly hostile in the group. We left the light on all night and never really spoke about it the next day, which in hindsight seems a little odd in itself.


One other probably unrelated detail is that the next day there was a very depressed, paranoid feeling between us traveling home. This was accompanied by my feeling a strange form of guilt or shame which I've never experienced since - it wasn't the exact emotion of shame but that's the closest comparison. It was this sort of retched, empty regret about the whole trip, almost remorse, despite having nothing to feel responsible for. I'd also compare it to a sad, loss-of-innocence sort of feeling, accompanied by a sort of physical thirst and a sense of something unforgivable (?!?) Sounds odd when I try to describe it but it was overwhelming. I'll always remember that awful feeling hanging over me as we were waiting for a train and killing time in a shopping mall the next day.


I don't think I believe in ghosts per se but an explanation for this freaky event has eluded me for over twenty years now.


Thanks for reading and allowing me to indulge a very old and strange memory!

I don't know if the OP still visits the forum - but I have a question about this story if he does. You say that you visited Brighton because one of your friends had a driving licence, but at the end you talk about waiting for a train - can you just clarify what you mean by that

 

[cpm82]

Maybe the OP fell out with the friend driving?

 

[Frideswide]

or they enjoyed the license around teh local area and then te OP went home.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I seem to remember another good youth hostel associated story from way back in the days of the old IHTM - from...would it have been Johnnyboy...something like that; chap with a very disconcerting avatar, if my memory serves me.

I'm pretty sure when PM was still around he re-upped the story on another thread at a later date (I have a feeling he may have been a real world acquaintance of the OP).

Anyone have any idea if that's still accessible - I've had a quick look myself but can't find it?

 

[escargot]

Johnnyboy, didn't he run youth hostels? Wasn't his avatar like a flag with a scary face on?
Reckoned that after reading one of my scarier yarns he was going to bed. To read. Alone. With the Devil.

 

[Yithian]

Johnnyboy, didn't he run youth hostels? Wasn't his avatar like a flag with a scary face on?
Reckoned that after reading one of my scarier yarns he was going to bed. To read. Alone. With the Devil.

Yes to the hostels, recall a scary face but can't recall a flag. Wasn't his initial avatar some kind of cartoon ghost?

Entertaining poster regardless.

Edit: eight years ago on another thread I wrote: "I seem to recall he used to have a blue ghost as an avatar but changed it to a horrible piece of talking flesh with red lips that I used to dislike looking like..."

Profile here:
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?members/johnnyboy1968.397/

 

[dannyagger]

Chilling, thank you so much for sharing.

The original post has stuck with me for a long time as well. Something about the extreme and horrible feeling of regret and remorse. Awful.


Both are genuinely spine-tingling for me.

Likewise. This is the first thread I read when I initially joined the forum, and it still gives me the creeps.

 

[Coastaljames]

...and it still gives me the creeps.

Something about it...

 

[FJ0304061013]

Three years after posting this, I have a slight update.

The strange, "shameful" feeling I experienced at the time was something I'd very occasionally experienced in the years since the incident. Part of me worried there was even a suppressed memory connected to the event.

However I now believe something quite un-Fortean accounts for this part of the story. Speaking to a doctor friend it came up and apparently it is common to feel an unpromtped empty, shamed feeling due a hormonal imbalance caused by high levels of prolactin. I don't fit the typical health profile for this, but even small imbalances can cause this feeling in some. To be fair this hack diagnosis works for me as I always tend toward the scientific, so I'm no longer under the belief that this feeling was connected to the events of the night prior.

Still no explanation for the figure though... maybe it was that Anthony fella?!?

 

[Frideswide]

Thank you! really appreciate the update