Spectral dog?

Talking to my mother the other day, I was reminded of this weird experience I had as a kid. I can't offer any proof, it was something only I experienced and it was a long time ago now and I only vaguely remember it - so here's the best I've got.

I grew up in a large village in the Southeast of England, coming from a large family, most of whom were local. It must've been around 1981-2 that my Uncle and Aunt who had just got married moved into a flat above the undertakers where my Uncle worked. The undertakers no longer exists, but was an old family run business and catered to the surrounding communities (it's now a tool hire shop). I'm fairly sure though that my experience isn't related to it being an undertakers.

I must've been around 3 or 4 at the time, because it was in my pre-school years, old enough to toddle around and walk about a mile with my mum to visit them when I moved in. Even though I was from a large family, at the time I was the only child from my mums' 5 brothers and sisters and the first of my nans' grandchildren, so I got plenty of attention from a doting and kind family. So we went to visit my Aunt and Uncles new flat, there was a large forecourt area and you went into their flat around the side of the main building and then up a flight of stairs, only the first time I went there, we went through the door and I flatly refused to go any further than the foot of the stairs, I said there was a "big dog" at the top of the stairs and that it was "mean and angry", no one else could see this dog, but I inisisted that it was there and it scared me. My nan took me to feed the ducks down the road instead, which was nice of her.

What I find strange is that I've always been a dog lover, my great-grandma used to have a dog that I adored, a little jack russel, some people up the road had a great dane and a collie and I used to ride on the back of the great dane, lovely animal. I remember the collie was a bit "bitey" and moody, but I wasn't scared of it, I just didn't annoy it. I was quite a smart little kid, I had loads of attention, being the only child from a massive family, so I always had someone to read to me or play games, so maybe I developed quite fast (not that it matters). Strangely though, no one could talk me into going up those stairs, we went back a few times, but I always saw this dog and couldn't be talked into going any further... although looking back on it, it seems strange no one just carried me up the stairs. I spoke to my Uncle about this a few years back and he said they never felt settled in the flat, but that nothing strange ever happened there apart from what happened with me - I think they only lived there for a year before moving to a house.

I've only had 1 other experience in my teen years that was kind of similar, but totally unrelated and (maybe) I'm quite empathic, I'm really good at picking up on peoples true natures and moods, but I don't think this is a special talent.

Any thoughts on this?

Wow, that's a good story!

First of all, I know for sure that there is "Human Spirits", and "Animal Spirits", but what I think is that maybe it wasn't a dog that you saw, maybe something else too.

I mean, you were 3-4 at the time, and you didn't know about demons/angels and stuff like that, so maybe the closest thing you identified it to was a dog?

Maybe, I can't believe I forgot this in my first post, but I was certain that the dog was an Alsatian a breed I find to be quite friendly and I was a kid that loved dogs and was really interested in them and learning their names. I just didn't think the dog wanted anyone to be there and that it was "angry".

There are many Native American beliefs about changing into your animal form. Not saying there were Native Americans there, but it could be something similar to that belief. I can definitely believe that Animals have spirits just like humans but It does not add up if the Animal Spirit is angry.

Dogs do not have the same level of conscious thought as humans do, and in that they would be much LESS likely to haunt a place out of anger. As far as I know, dogs don't really have anger problems. Territorial problems perhaps but not anger. And if it were a territorial issue, the dog would have undoubtedly attacked without hesitation.

Are you familiar with legends of the "black dog"? Could it have been something of that nature? It sounds like it, but of course only you could determine if that was the case.

I'm an American, but evidently some of these "black dogs" have been imported here over time with the settlers from over in the UK. I say that with all confidence since my grandfather encountered one years ago. It was at a bridge over a large creek in a wilderness area of of West Virginia. He was aware that it wasn't a "natural" dog, in that it had glowing red eyes, would not cross over the creek to where he was, and then just vanished.

It was large, black, angry, and had "glowing" red eyes (his description).

Does that sound like what you recall?

I'm not familiar with the story/legend... what is it?

There were no glowing eyes or anything out of the ordinary other than I knew it was angry and no one else could see it.

reply to post by jokei


My grandfather had a picture with him and his dog in it he showed me when I was around 10 or so.

I told him how cool it was you could see right through his dog. He just laughed and said it was because he was dead when the pic was taken.

It was plain as day a see through dog and all he had to say was, "Best damn dog I ever had never even left me in death, I loved that dog"

About 2 years later his house burned down along with every single picture he had. First thing I asked him was if he had the dog picture and he said nope it went up with everything else. I think that's was the moment I really became interested in, not so much ghosts but, the unexplained at that time anyway.

Originally posted by jokei
I'm not familiar with the story/legend... what is it?

There were no glowing eyes or anything out of the ordinary other than I knew it was angry and no one else could see it.

They are called "devil dogs" here, and "black dogs" or "black shuck" there. The legends of them here are mostly found in the rural Appalachians (where I grew up). That's the area where most of the poorer immigrants from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland went to during the colonization,and they brought the legends with them.

A general overview, and springboard to further investigation can be found here

Conan-Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles" would be an example.

reply to post by nenothtu


Now that's very interesting to me... and in no way am I making a correlation here, but not very far from a) this incident and b) where I grew up was a large country estate/house called Baskerville hall ~ we used to cycle up there as kids (later than my"expience") to try to sneak into the grounds as there were rumours of burial chambers in the grounds.
We actually managed to find an underground burial chamber located in the grounds as kids, although nothing transpired whilst we were there, it was just an eerie place.

View Larger Map

That's the google maps link that I've gotten... (badly) Interestingly, if you scroll North a little there's a bank of 3 large satellite dishes that always struck me as odd as a kid as we had a large BBC monitoring station about 3 miles from my house and this placement seemed totally unrelated.

Anyway... there was rumour from some of the old folks in the village I grew up in that the Hound Of the Baskervilles tale was actually based on something that happened locally and the story was "relocated" to Yorkshire for the ease of the story.

Although, I don't think this is realistically related to my experience at all, it's just interesting background detail.

On the wiki link I provided, it says that the Hound of the Baskervilles was based on a legend from Dartmoor involving squire Cabell, that phantom black hounds would appear around his burial chamber, and his shade would go riding with them on the hunt.

The mountaineers up in our Appalachians have kept a lot of the legends from the old sod alive, although many have met with modifications over the years. This appears to have been one of them. Some claim to have seen Will O' the Wisp, and claim to have actually heard the Bhean Sidhe up there, things like that. I myself have seen things there I can't readily explain, but those would be stories for another thread, I reckon.

The Google Maps link didn't work (nothing to click on).

Edit: another link I found says there are 3 contenders for the basis of the Hound of the Baskervilles story, all in Devon. It may be difficult to pin it down. I also found references to 3 Baskerville Halls, and don't know which one, if any of them, to look up in Google Earth.

[edit on 2009/7/5 by nenothtu]

With a bit more digging around these links should be abit more useful, the final one is of the satellite dishes.

As for the local old-boys claiming it was really "the" Baskerville hall, probably just pub talk.

51.513076,-0.952109

51.510906,-0.951433

maps.google.com...,-0.951433&t=h&sll=51.512869,-0.952978&sspn=0.003332,0.009624&ie=UTF8&ll=51.516741,-0.953407&spn=0.003332,0.009 624&z=17

Do you mind me asking the name of this village?

Not at all...

The village I grew up in was called Sonning Common, but the flat was probably (technically) in an area called Peppard Common, it was right on the border although only about a 30 minute walk from where I lived.

Thanks for the links. The first one went straight to the Hall, the second to a patch of woods just south of it, and the 3rd one, with a little tweaking, took me to the satellite dish array. For some reason, only half the link came out in the thread, but I cut and pasted, and will try to post the fixed link here

I'll wrap all 3 up into a single KML file for Google Earth of anyone wants it.

Lovely place you have over there! How far is this area from your original sighting of the Phantom Dog? The reason I ask is because of the possibility that others have seen phantom dogs in the area, associated them with the story, and thus gave the hall the same name locally. It's a possibility I suppose which could neatly wrap up an explanation.

Yeah, I figured the location of the "real" Baskerville Hall that the book was based on would be the subject of some amount of local pride and pub talk, human nature being what it is. That's probably why I found multiple places when I went Googling it. One was in southern Wales (in Powys at "something"-on-Wye), and evidently has held that name since about 1839 or so. It's now a hotel.

Conan-Doyle himself gave some clues as to the basis of the story, but the debate still rages on, and I suppose it always will.

Especially in local pubs, after a pint or two.

Edit: It looks like Sonning Common is a little over a kilometer and a half from the Hall, and Peppard is around 2 1/2 km from the hall, so I reckon your sighting was only a couple thousand meters from it, right?

[edit on 2009/7/6 by nenothtu]

The distance from the hall would be about a mile and a half (by foot).

I forgot to mention that the 2nd wooded area was where there was (is) an underground burial chamber, as kids we'd dare each other to go down there, sooner or later we got less wary of the place and as we got older we went down there with beers and would sit round a big fire infront of the place. It was a bit of a strange set-up, the big house never seemed to be occupied properly, all the windows were open and clear, no curtains, just empty rooms, yet there were always lots of different cars parked outside it.

It was a really nice place to grow up in, always seemed too quiet at the time though.

Wow, that is strange. Very bizarre. I can't necessarily say how I can react to this, because animal entities or whatever are... Well, I'm not very familiar with them.

It is interesting nonetheless. Thanks for sharing.

Most excellent story dude.

At that age of course it's hard to be sure how much you can trust your perceptions and recollections. But I remember seeing a spectral cat maybe 4 or 5 times in my parents' summer place when I was about 10. I was the only person who could see it. Once I mentioned my pet ghost cat (much to my father's chagrin) to a neighbor, and he mentioned that the house's previous owner (an eccentric Senator) had a favorite cat named Humphrey who perfectly matched the description of my ghost cat. His cat had died two summers before of old age, shortly before the Senator put the house on the market. I didn't see the ghost cat too many times, and it was always from a distance of ten feet or so, but I always felt so peaceful and happy in Humphrey's spectral presence.

It is strange... my mum remembered me talking about it and everyone thought it was strange (I guess). Most of the story as told is what I've been filled-in on recently, although I do vaguely recall it.

I asked if there was anything anyone might know, if it was to do with the history of the place, but the only thing that came up was that it was above an undertakers.