Fortean Times: It Happened to Me vol.1

by Times, Fortean

  Many years later, as a student in Germany, I made a long Wanderung with a friend through the immense forests of Hessia, where we went for days without seeing anyone and, apart from the humming of the insects, I was aware of a kind of deep, background hum, that was not silence. My friend decided at one point to trick me by hiding in some trees, and this feeling returned, that what I was looking at, all the trees and bushes, was an illusion behind which lay something terribly powerful and hostile, that was somehow waiting for something, which seemed to be the elimination of man.

  This powerful background awareness and this feeling of intense claustrophobia continued for half an hour, until I took to the expedient of throwing stones into the trees in an effort to make my friend reveal himself, which he did, when I hit the right spot. But that feeling of something deep, omnipresent, hostile and above all waiting remained with me, modified only by the return of his human presence and our reaching a remote and fairly undeveloped village, where we spent the night. I begged him never to do that again and, like my parents, he had no idea what I meant when I tried to explain this peculiar phenomenon.

  I found this sinister feeling perfectly captured many years ago in a BBC TV Christmas broadcast of the MR James story ‘The Three Crowns of Anglia’, although there it was personalised and specific.

  John Robinson, Ipswich, Suffolk, 2001

  SOMEONE BEHIND YOU

  In the spring of 1964, when I was 16, I was staying in a village in South Wales, at the home of Peter, a friend I had made the previous year. One evening, Peter suggested we try a wine glass séance. I was uneasy about this, having heard of potentially harmful side-effects, but was not confident enough to say so.

  I would telephone my parents periodically when I was away from home, and I decided to make a call that evening. While Peter was setting the table for the séance, I walked the quarter mile alone to the telephone box in the village centre, as there was no phone in the house.

  It was quite dark and the street lighting barely adequate, but I set off happily enough, rehearsing what I would say. After about 100 yards, I got that ‘someone is behind you’ feeling. I was slightly annoyed with myself for succumbing, but I couldn’t resist turning round and looking. As expected, there was no one there and the feeling disappeared. I continued on my way. The sensation, when it almost immediately returned, was stronger, and it felt as though the mysterious entity was walking with its toes actually touching my heels and never losing contact as we walked. Again I turned, again the sensation disappeared, again it returned, almost immediately, as I continued.

  This time, the impression had taken on another dimension. I felt it was head-and-shoulders taller than myself and was walking on tip-toe! What on earth was going on? Was this the Devil? Had all this talk of séances conjured some entity? I looked again, turning full circle this time. Nothing! I felt decidedly uncomfortable as I continued walking. I was getting near the village centre by this time; surely if this was a creature of darkness it would be disturbed by the brighter light of the shopping area, and would leave me alone.

  As I neared the friendly neon of the shops, my perception of the entity increased as it seemed to manifest ever more strongly. It was towering over me, even though I was already near my adult height of over six feet. It was, as before, walking on tip-toe and literally on my heels and I became aware that it was laughing at me - not a malicious laugh, but a teasing, playful, mischevious laugh. I knew then that whatever or whoever it was meant me no harm.

  I tried something I had read about in a book on the paranormal. I turned around and, while concentrating on trying to project caring, loving thoughts, said quietly and carefully: “Are you a troubled spirit, can I help you?” I hadn’t the faintest idea what I would do if it said “Yes”, but the problem didn’t arise. As I finished speaking, I got the impression of absolute amazement, followed by the sensation of the entity moving away from me at enormous speed somewhere to my right front. The feeling was exactly like that cartoon image of Wile E. Coyote falling into a canyon and becoming, within a second or so, a vanishing pinpoint. When I continued on my way, the sensation had gone, and never returned.

  I made my telephone call and returned to tell my tale, but nobody was particularly interested. During the séance, we apparently contacted a Roman centurion. Peter asked him how he died and the glass moved rapidly and apparently randomly, whereupon I broke contact by removing my finger. I felt we had gone far enough.

  Many years later, during the 1970s, I came upon a book about the Findhorn Foundation containing a lucid account of a meeting with Pan on Edinburgh’s Princes Street. The description of Pan, whom I’d always thought to be quite small, was intriguing. Half man, half goat, some seven and a half feet tall, and walking with apparent ease on the tips of his hooves, he has a wonderfully warm, jovial, bubbling personality that constantly bursts out in shouts of laughter. No one but the narrator saw him, and they walked up and down Princes Street with Pan’s arm round the shoulders of his human companion. For myself, I was left wondering about that night in Wales.

  After seeing Michael Bentine’s one-man show, ‘From the Ridiculous to the Paranormal’ in September 1992, I wrote him an account of my strange experience, and he phoned me to talk about it. He said I had encountered a Pan archetype. Such meetings, he said, are a rare event and not always pleasant. People who had been cruel to animals, in particular, meet a fearsome and vengeful entity. He then, unprompted, endorsed my own belief that I would have another visit. I await that meeting with interest!

  John D Ritchie, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, 1993

  THE NOONDAY DEVIL

  At about the age of 50, I was walking alone in the open countryside near Fiesole, north of Florence, around noon, when I was seized with utter panic. I had been thinking how this scene was the result of thousands of years of cultivation. It was not particularly wild, indeed very close to the small town. Yet I had the strongest sensation of not being wanted by some local force, half-god, half-human, and this intense disquiet persisted until I had got some distance away from the spot.

  Years later, I read how EM Foster had had an identical experience at very much the same place. I am a surgeon and well aware that one must be careful about such experiences. If they occur at midday, before lunch, it may be due to a low blood-sugar. It may be the accidie, or noonday devil, of depression and isolation described by the ancients. One may just be neurotic. But this was none of these, it was an experience of place, and I have never had it again or anywhere else.

  David Le Vay, Burwash, East Sussex, 2001

  THE FACE OF PAN

  I’ve followed the accounts of various panic attacks with huge interest. A similar thing happened to me in the lower Rhondda Fawr valley, in what was then Glamorgan, now Rhondda Cynon Taff. A steep lane starts opposite and slightly south of the entrance to Dinas Mines Rescue Station. It has deteriorated and is no longer driveable. Follow this uphill for about 200 yards. At the end of the lane - beware ferocious geese - look left and you will see the remains of a small quarry, long abandoned.

  About 1961, when I was about nine, I looked at the quarry, which was much less overgrown with ivy than it is now. Within seconds it had turned into a face, with a long, straight nose, a ‘Judge Dredd’ style chin, and an evil, knowing grin. Its forehead was tall and rather square. It was wearing a sort of small crown or coronet. The face didn’t move, but the eyes, small and bright blue, swivelled around to look at me. I was absolutely certain that the look from the eyes was intended to kill me. I ran home, a distance of about one mile, spun my mother some yarn about being chased by a wasp, and huddled in bed for the rest of the day in a state of terror. I’ve never told the truth of the matter to anyone until now.

  I recovered after a few weeks, and together with my best friends of the time, a pair of identical twins, I often revisited the site. Nothing like an appearance of Pan ever happened to me again, but strange things turned up there, for instance: a pile of ampoules, most shattered, but some containin
g a clear liquid. Next, hundreds, possibly thousands, of primitive, crudely moulded tin soldiers, all printed with four eyes. Then a large pile of soot. We found numerous other odd things there, but after 40 years I can’t remember them. Whenever we found anything new, we always noticed that the previous stuff had been cleared away, with not the slightest trace remaining.

  Tragically, about two years later, a boy aged about 14 was found there, dead. I knew him: we were in school together. I don’t think any credible cause of death was ever found. Could he have been frightened to death?

  Viv Hobbs, Blackwood, Gwent, 2001

  The living daylights

  ST PAUL’S REVENGE

  My husband Alan and I lived in Istanbul for a time and because we had our own transport we managed some wonderful touring holidays. One very hot day at the ruined city of Ephesus, we climbed up the theatre terraces. Half way up we sat down to view the ancient surroundings. After a while Alan said he would like to walk up to the top of the theatre to take some photographs. I was left sitting there just looking around. I was thinking what a lovely splash of colour the T-shirts on a group of tourists made against the grey stone architecture when suddenly I was filled with so much fear and panic I could hardly breathe. I rushed up to my husband at the top of the theatre.

  “Whatever is the matter?” Alan asked, showing great concern. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m just very, very frightened.” The next question he asked was: “Where is my wallet and your bag?” I had left them where I had been sitting. He collected them as I didn’t want to return anywhere near that place.

  What had caused that extreme fear? Some of our friends laughed when we told them, and said, “Well, you have often argued strongly about some of St Paul’s teachings, perhaps he was getting his own back.” The thing is, I actually hadn’t thought about St Paul when I was at Ephesus. We have a photograph Alan took of me rushing up the theatre, before he knew I was so frightened. I never had such an attack before or since.

  Joy Ferguson, Derby, 2001

  FEAR IN THE FURS

  About 40 years ago, when I was eight, I went blackberrying with my mother and our dog Rachel at a place called the Furs, between Chieveley and Peasemore in Berkshire. Suddenly I said to my mother, “Let’s go home,” and she said, “Yes child, let’s hurry.” Half a mile down the road, I noticed that Rachel wasn’t with us, but my mother said she would make her own way back.

  When we got home, my grandmother asked what we had done to Rachel. The dog had arrived home 15 minutes before us in an agitated state and hid for several hours behind a curtain under the sink. Neither I nor my mother had seen or heard anything at the Furs, although others had reported humming and nearby there was supposed to be a Viking burial ground. We didn’t talk about it outside the family, and to think of it now makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  Mary Behrens, Layton, Utah, 2001

  NAMELESS DREAD

  The following occurred in 1977 in an area of the countryside over which, in July 1644, the battle of Marston Moor was fought. I was then a postgraduate student working on my D.Phil thesis, and as a form of light relief from the work, had begun in 1974 a secondary research project on the battlefield, intending by study of the terrain to try and interpret the conflicting documentary evidence. I had liberty to wander wherever I wished, and in all seasons of the year and all weathers, over a large tract of land in which it was rare to encounter anyone else. I was usually alone, and quite content.

  It was a summer afternoon, a little overcast, and I was walking (for the thousandth time) up what is known as Sugar Hill Lane away from a place called Four Lanes Meet, quite some distance from any roads. Sugar Hill Lane was, and still is, a wide drove road fringed with tall oaks, with a particular peaceful charm. In a field to my left, a number of bullocks were grazing. I became aware quite suddenly of their agitation, which showed itself in a desperate milling around, those on the outside of what was effectively a circle of beasts, striving to get inside and making a fearful racket about it. As suddenly as it began, it stopped, and I walked on for a little way only to be overcome by a powerful desire to go no further.

  This was not a panic, yet: merely a sense of change in the atmosphere of the lane. I turned, and walked back, frequently glancing behind and to the side of me, until within 50 yards of Four Lanes Meet, I very reluctantly broke into a spurt, and only stopped running when I had passed into a wide, hedgeless field of standing wheat. I was annoyed with myself, and stayed a long time looking back along the lane. A day or so later I made myself walk its length again, but experienced nothing unusual.

  This episode has been unique in my life, and I am a great favourer of remote, unpeopled places. It remains vivid to me all these years on; it was as if something had intruded into the landscape with which I merely happened to coincide.

  Dr P Young, York, 2001

  SPOOKED IN THE HIGHLANDS

  In the early 1980s, a friend and I, on holiday in Scotland near Aviemore, decided to take her small dog for an hour’s walk in a forested area near the guesthouse where we were staying. It was a late afternoon or early evening at the end of June, fine weather, so the light was still very good.

  We started to walk along the forest track, and after about 10 minutes came to a clearing where the road forked. There was an old-fashioned caravan (the type that roadmen would have used before World War II) parked in the clearing, but no sign of any activity. At the edge of the clearing we both stopped and said: “Which way?” Then, together, one of us said: “I don’t want to go any further,” and the other said: “Let’s turn back.” My friend said: “It’s spooky, isn’t it?” and I thoroughly agreed. We couldn’t get away from the spot quickly enough, and on comparing notes afterwards we discovered that both of us had the hair on the back of our necks standing up.

  When we reached the road again, we were puzzled to find that the gate that we had struggled to open to gain access to the forest and had given up on and squeezed in round the side, was mysteriously lying wide open. Who had been there in that 15 minutes, miles out in the countryside, and opened the gate?

  When we arrived back at the guesthouse, we related the events to the owner, who promised to make enquiries about the forested area. My friend returned with her husband to the guesthouse the following year, and was told there was a cottage down the lane we had walked down. This had been standing derelict for many years, and had been bought and modernised, but the new owners had lived in it for only a fortnight before departing. The cottage had not been lived in again after that.

  Mrs E Knight, Norley, Cheshire, 2001

  FLEEING THE WENDIGO

  I was living in central Canada in 2000 and was off work for about two months due to a sports injury. During my rehabilitation, I did a lot of hiking and small game hunting on the outskirts of the city. One afternoon, I found myself a little deeper into the forest than I intended, and decided to head back - my leg had not fully healed, and I became aware of how lonely it was out there. As I walked, the sun seemed to go down quicker than I had expected. The calibre of rifle was only capable of killing small game, and there were native stories in the area concerning a spirit or creature called the Wendigo. I was fighting off mild panic when I heard a sound that I have never heard before or since, and it turned my blood cold. It sounded like a human growling, but with echoes of children growling or screaming in unison. The image I got in my head was of an attack of huge flies or piranhas or something. The sound emanated from the top of a forested hill off to my right, about 75ft (23m) away. I couldn’t have been more scared if someone had a gun to my head.

  I made it back to my truck about five minutes later, jumped into the cab and put my head down on the steering wheel as I exhaled deeply. Safety. I waited there for maybe a minute before I put the key in the ignition. At the same time, some dirt or sand was thrown at the side window, and something smashed into the back of the truck hard enough to knock the tools around in the back. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around to s
hake its hand. Although I have no trouble going into dense forest during the day, I still have bad dreams and slight anxiety I attribute to this incident.

  LU, by email, 2002

  Suddenly lost

  PIXIE-LED

  I have worked as a teacher in the same school for the past 12 years and commute 25 miles (40km) each way every day. In 1998 I was returning home at around 10pm after an evening commitment, along country lanes which I have travelled twice a day all year round, when I found that I didn’t recognise a single feature. I dropped my speed, opened the window and turned up the radio, and still had no idea where I was. Being an advocate of the Dirk Gently method of navigation I drove on at 30mph (48km/h) for five or six miles... and suddenly everything dropped into place. This has never happened before or since, thank goodness, but the feeling of helplessness has stayed with me very strongly.

  While watching the television programme ‘Meet the Ancestors’ I realised that the Tormarton bodies (iron age skeletons) were found yards from the road where the incident occurred, an area also rich in hill forts. Could there be some ‘sacred geometry’ at work here creating confusion for the innocent?

  Graham Hill, by email, 2001

  JAMAIS VU

  One day in mid-July 2001, I was in a pub in the Southover area of Brighton, East Sussex, waiting for a friend to appear for a drink. At 8.12pm she telephoned to say she was in Queens Park and on her way. This park is about 10 minutes away from the pub I was sitting in. At 8.29 she called again to say she was lost in the park and couldn’t find her way out, but I was to wait for her and she would arrive as soon as she could. Very distressed, she finally arrived at the pub at 8.45. The peculiar thing is that Queens Park is approximately a quarter of a mile (400m) long and an eighth of a mile (200m) wide and has at its north end a pink tower visible from most of the park. As it was still daylight we cannot account for this strange loss of bearings.