Fortean Times: It Happened to Me vol.1

by Times, Fortean

  Eventually he asked me what had happened. I mumbled something but it probably wasn’t coherent. He was in his mid-forties, with greying hair and a grey beard. When I had finished my rambling explanation he nodded his head but made no comment. He asked me if I would be alright and I assured him I would as I was almost home anyway. Then - and this is what disturbs me the most - the man rode off towards Wincobank, the direction he had come from.

  I cannot shake my conviction that the man on the moped expected to find me there. Not only that, but I believe his sole purpose was to see that I was okay. What is difficult to convey in words is how bloody strange the whole scenario felt, right from the moment I first saw the car.

  Darren R Scothern, Sheffield, 1998

  WARRINGTON’S WEIRD ROUNDABOUT

  I think this odd event happened in 1990 or 1991; I can’t give a precise date.

  Three of us who lived in the Warrington area had been to see a midnight movie at the UCI complex. I was driving and had agreed to give the other two a lift back to Latchford and Grappenhall. It was around 2am and raining heavily. We passed through Warrington centre and headed to Latchford. The area is only a few minutes from the centre of Warrington and is still urban - in no way remote.

  We approached a roundabout and I noticed something unusual - a white Toyota saloon was parked up right in the middle of the roundabout, actually on the grass centre. I thought it had been stolen and abandoned, as it had no obvious accident damage. We then noticed that there were two strange-looking occupants. This will sound stupid, but both of them had huge heads, one which looked like a giant upright raisin, no obvious features, and one whose head in profile was shaped like the African continent, with a protruding dome to the back of the head. Both seemed to have dark glasses on and were looking directly ahead. Both heads seemed to be very dark and leathery in texture.

  As it was late, dark and raining heavily, we were unsure about what we had seen, so I circled the roundabout twice more to get a better look. Yep, they did have two massive, misshapen heads and seemed to be wearing dark glasses.

  They didn’t look like they were in trouble, and as it was lashing down and I had to drive back to Widnes after dropping the other two blokes off, we just looked at each other, said wtf? and carried on.

  James xxx, by email, 2002

  CUT-OUT MAN

  Some years ago, after a night of general chat, a friend and I were walking from another friend’s house to my own in the leafy suburb of Brockley in south-east London. I had drunk only tea or soft drinks all night and had consumed no drugs whatsoever. It was around 6am and dawn was breaking when we saw a figure walking up the street towards us. The word we coined later to describe its movement was ‘lolloping’ - a kind of up and down bouncy walk. It took a few seconds for the two of us to realise this was no human being. “See that man?” I asked. “Yes.” “It’s not a man, though, is it?” I found myself saying. “No,’ said my friend, sounding scared. “It isn’t.”

  The creature was entirely black and like a cardboard cutout, flat and one-dimensional. It had no features at all, and arms that hung down to its knees. It seemed to be ignoring us, then seemed to realise we could see it and began to ‘lollop’ faster towards us. We ran to my front door and hid in the hallway as quiet and unmoving as possible when we saw the thing - we felt it was male - approach the front door and appear to look through the glass from the way its head moved up and down and around. It then turned away.

  We didn’t sleep for some time after that, discussing what we saw. It was shaped like many descriptions of ‘greys’, but both of us came away with the impression that what we saw was not of this world but from a parallel dimension. We instinctively felt it was not a creature to try and communicate with, and not something that it was good to be near. We felt that if this creature had somehow got hold of us, we would not be around today to tell the tale.

  Andy Hinkinson-Hodnett, by email, 2005

  MIDSUMMER MONSTER

  There was nothing much for teenagers to do in Ballynahinch, our small village in County Down, so we used to pile into each other’s cars and go driving in the evenings. Sometimes we played hide-and-seek: one car had a 10-minute head start to ‘hide’ and we timed how long it took the other car to find us. This was no mean task, as the network of little roads and lanes leading up to farmland is endless in this part of the world.

  On Midsummer’s Eve 1998, it had been our turn to hide. There were five of us in the car altogether and I was in the front passenger seat. We had found a brilliant hiding place by reversing up a long, winding track, wide enough for only one vehicle. With the lights turned off we were undetectable from the road. Once our eyes became accustomed, we could easily see our surroundings in the moonlight. After about two minutes listening to the dulcet tones of The Cure, an almost overwhelming feeling of ‘eeriness’ seemed to take over everyone at once, accompanied by a thumping sound and vibrations of heavy footfalls coming from behind us. The driver needed little persuading to get out of there fast.

  As soon as the car was moving, my friends in the back seat started yelling that they could see something following us in the field beyond the hedge on the passenger side, and I could feel its footfalls. We frantically rolled up all the open windows. It then overtook the passenger window and was level with the bonnet. It must have been running at 30mph (48km/h) at least to keep up with us.

  I can only describe what I saw as a very tall humanoid. It ran (or rather loped) on muscular legs, which we could see through the sparse hedge. It had odd, elongated facial features from the side, almost like a buckrabbit with horns. Its chest, arms and torso were clearly visible as it was at least 3ft (90cm) taller than the hedge, which we later estimated was at least 5ft (1.5m) high. It was covered with what looked like very course, shaggy, sandy-coloured hair. I could see its nipples. As it ran level with the bonnet for about 30 seconds it turned its head as if to look directly in the car, and I got a full view of its face. It was goatlike, with two horns, a long face, and black, expressionless eyes on either side of its head. We were all mesmerised and couldn’t look away; I don’t know how my friend managed to keep driving.

  The creature then headed away from the car, across the field, and out of sight. It was definitely on two legs, not four, and the muscular hindquarters ended in slim ankles with hooves. When we finally reached the end of the track, we encountered a ram with full horns standing in the middle of the road as we turned into it. Its eyes seemed to glow malevolently in the headlights. Thoroughly unnerved, we drove straight home.

  There was definitely something ‘otherworldly’ about the creature we had seen. We still talk about it when we meet up. My friends, obviously swayed by the fact that it happened on Midsummer night, still maintain it was the god Pan or one of his variations, but I have other ideas. Could it have been an Irish ‘pookie’ or hobgoblin, or even old forky-tail himself - Lucifer? I later learned that at the time of the sighting there was a black magic circle operating in the area. Perhaps they were dabbling in invocations, unaware of what they were summoning up.

  Amanda-Jayne Clayden, Ballynahinch, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, 2005

  Hearing things

  It can be a hum sounding like thousands of insects or the rumble of untraceable machinery, the distant laughter of invisible children, the uplifting strains of heavenly choirs, or the distant sounds of a battle fought centuries before. Some will say that these letter writers have just been “hearing things”, but the explanation for many of these spooky sounds remains elusive...

  The Hummadruz

  BOTTLED NOISE

  For the past couple of years I have been aware of an intermittently audible low frequency hum in the environment for which I can find no explanation. It occurs at irregular intervals and varies in duration between one and 10 seconds. I can best describe it as similar to the sound one gets when blowing into the neck of a bottle. I particularly notice the sound during the night, or at quiet times during the day. Living in a rural part of Ayr
shire, I nevertheless associated the hum with some sort of industrial process. However, spending holidays in a remote part of the Hebrides, my husband and I occasionally hear the same sound. Having ruled out imaginary sounds, ear problems, foghorns and industrial processes, I am keen to find an explanation.

  Mazda Munn, Dalry, Ayrshire, 1997

  HI FI, LOW HUM

  Further to Mazda Munn’s letter, I am reminded of the attention paid to the unexplainable hums and buzzes back in the late 1970s. Much of it could be - and was - explained as tinnitus or low-frequency noise sensitivity, but there is more to it than that: this curious noise has been heard by non-sufferers of these conditions like myself, and Gilbert White of Selbourne was familiar with it in the 18th century. The name “hummadruz” was given to this environmental sound during the 19th century. It was primarily associated with outdoor locations on still, hot summer days.

  In August 1978, I was working with a council conservation team on restoring the footpaths that were to make up the Calderdale Way, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. One hot and sunny afternoon, after a bit of rain in the previous days, we had to clear a mass of holly trees from a trackway, and some of us also set about clearing wood, leaves and silt from a well-trough situated at a bend on the track on the wooded hillside.

  While this was going on, I became aware of a buzzing sound, which I first thought to be the hum of woodland flies. Steadily, however, the noise became more intense; I looked round to try and locate the swarm of bees that I had assumed it to be, but could find no centre or direction to the sound. The other two people working on the well were also aware of the sound, but did not find it as loud or bothersome as I did; for me, the sound at its most intense seemed to be all around and inside my head, too. In the end, I went off outside the woodland to trim some holly instead. The sound was still there when we clocked off, but not on subsequent days. The location of this phenomenon was north of Halifax, near Catharine Slack - quite near a road, although not a very busy one. It was not a place where one would expect silence or any quietness beyond our contemporary normal background noise.

  John Billingsley, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, 1997

  HUMDINGER

  During the summer of 1994 while I was living in Oxfordshire, I was taken by a friend to an old forest known as The Wychwood (parts of which are alleged to have never been seen or touched by modern man) to search for burial mounds and other sites of interest. In one particularly old and untrodden patch of forest my friend told me to stop and asked me what I could hear. Much to my amazement, I heard a sound something between the buzzing of bees, the chattering of birds or possibly the sound of lots of children playing just beyond earshot, which if you’re in the middle of The Wychwood is just not possible. The sound was accompanied by a bit of a floaty feeling. When I tried to hear the sound more clearly it faded and I found it was best heard when I just relaxed and let the sound float over me.

  By and by we carried on our walk and eventually returned home. While I relaxed, the most curious sensation came over me: once again the same strange floaty feeling, but this time accompanied by an hallucination which looked like cine film coming off the end of its spool and flapping loose in the projector. My friend insisted that this was a normal side-effect of having visited such a place and that there are other such places the world over that would give rise to similar effects.

  Matt Hatton, by email, 1998

  HAUNTED WOODS

  In May 1997, I was on a walking holiday along the South Downs Way (SDW) long distance path. One afternoon on a bright and windy day, I left the SDW and walked along a path that meandered downhill through a fairly open beechwood, towards the village of Cocking. Sitting on a fallen tree trunk to consult the map, I became aware of what seemed to be the sound of children laughing and shouting, coming from the direction I had just come from, although some distance away. The best description of the sound would be the noise from a school playground when heard from a distance. Expecting a bunch of rowdy youngsters to come tearing down the path at any moment, I continued to pour over the map. After about three or four minutes, I realised that the sound had not moved; it was still just out of earshot. Also, my head was spinning slightly, as if I had just stood up too fast, although I was still sitting on the trunk. Intrigued, I retraced my steps to the top of the hill. The higher I went, the less obvious the sound became, ceasing altogether when I reached the top. I had seen no one on the path, and the SDW was deserted as far as I could see in both directions.

  I would have put this experience down to an over-active imagination, but for my experience the next day. Walking in the Charlton Forest, just south of the SDW, I was forced to take shelter from a downpour under some rhododendron bushes. As the shower passed, I emerged to be confronted by the same sound as I had heard the previous day, only this time it seemed to be coming from all directions, and appeared to be louder than before. I scanned the surrounding woodland, and it was obvious that there were no children or anyone else in the area. After about five minutes or so, the sound gradually started to fade, to be replaced by the normal woodland noises of birdsong, etc. Again I felt light-headed.

  Since then, whenever I have passed through any wooded areas, I have kept an ear open for these sounds, but without success, and I must admit to having no idea of their source. Dryads, maybe?

  Kevin Groves, Brighton, Sussex, 1999

  LOW FIDELITY

  I have experienced the hummadruz in several sites in Derbyshire. The most striking occasion that I remember was sometime in the late 1960s near Robin Hood’s Stride, near Winster, in the area the guidebooks refer to as The Dark Peak - although this name has only been coined fairly recently, presumably to differentiate between the grit stone area and the limestone area (The White Peak) where the rock is much paler. The ground was covered with short, fine twitch-like grass and bilberries, and the soil was thin. The noise worked up slowly until it became very loud indeed, and seemed to be all around rather than emanating from any specific direction. It almost felt as if the hillside itself were vibrating, yet it was not an unpleasant sensation. Slightly eerie, yes, and faintly disturbing, but actually quite a pleasant humming sound, like an orchestra tuning up, but on one note. In fact there did seem to be several notes, but blended together so that the overall effect was a single hum.

  I am wondering now if the sound might be caused by the crystalline structure of the rocks resonating. It seems to be most prevalent in limestone, gritstone and granite areas. I would be interested to know if anyone has heard it in Charnwood Forest, for example, where there are very ancient rocks, including a crystalline form of granite; and also slates, which are highly resonant. As with other reports, I have only heard the sound in hot summer weather, but naturally I’m less likely to be hanging about in the Peak District in the dead of winter. Also close to Robin Hood’s Stride are several ancient sites, including standing stones, stone circles and a carved-out hermit’s cave, all again seemingly connected with hummadruz (and popularly made from gritstone or granite).

  Brenda Ray, Mickleover, Derby, 1998

  BEEHIVE LANE

  In the late Eighties I was working as a telephone engineer and had a call to a terraced house in Ilford, Essex, to check a noisy line. The man who answered the door appeared a bit stressed, so when I went in I immediately picked up the phone to listen for the noise. “No, no!” he said, “it’s not on the line, just listen!” I could hear a low humming sound. The man explained that the noise was driving him and his family round the bend and he was trying to eliminate all possible causes. He said it seemed to permeate the whole house at night when it was quiet and they were trying to sleep. I disconnected the telephone line while he turned off the electricity mains, gas and water supply, but the noise remained. I then suggested it could be coming from next door. Luckily, he was on good terms with his neighbour and took me with him into her house which was only the thickness of a brick wall away. There was no noise at all. She obligingly turned off her services and we went back and c
hecked in his house. The hum was still there. I suggested that he contact the local council, but he had already done so and the council experts were baffled. I never did find out what happened regarding this.

  The oddest thing, I now realise, was the house’s location. It was the first house in a turning off of Beehive Lane! This lane’s title is very ancient. Perhaps the hummadruz was the original reason it was named so.

  Ken Doughty, by email, 1999

  Mysterious music and voices

  SIRENS

  One mild evening in late November, I went for a walk and stopped by the old entrance of Cardiff’s Roath dock, now disused. I smoked a cigarette and watched the full moon climbing the sky when I distinctly heard a baby’s cry, piercing the regular noise of wind and water and flotsam. I tried to pinpoint it, but the sky had become cloudy, and artificial light didn’t reach the water. It appeared to be coming from the water, beyond the safety fence. For a moment, I felt like jumping the fence to investigate, but something made me turn away. After a few steps, the crying stopped, leaving only the sounds of tide and wind.

  Suddenly I remembered that, as a child, an old sailor had told me that the seas hold many creatures, some of whom will save your life when the ship sinks, while others will lure you to destruction with love songs, enchantments, and calls of distress from dark places; so when the kind man goes over into the darkness to give help, he is taken away by these creatures - and bodies are never found.