Tell your creepy Forest Story

a reply to: MiG19
Wow I knew where this story was going once you spotted the Japanese man. It' as if you were having a subconscious premonition of what was to come the next day when you started thinking about the person from the past. This story gave me a chill.

a reply to: AceWombat04

I realise that it's years since you posted this but I was having a browse through old threads and came across it- I saw what sounds like an almost identical creature years ago in a wooded area close to Aberystwyth, UK. Me and a friend were walking in the woods years ago (Probably about 12 or 13 and I'm 30 now) and we had an overwhelming sense that something didn't want us there. We got pretty unsettled and decided to walk back towards town. As we were walking down the path we both stopped and looked back at the same time- we didn't hear anything behind us, more sensed it. When we looked back we could see something moving very quickly through the bushes, probably moving about as fast as a human could run but this was thick undergrowth, dotted with gorse bushes, and there's no way a human could have run through it at that speed. We both turned around again and sped up- at this point there was an unspoken agreement that we felt if we kept calm we would be fine, but if we panicked and ran, whatever it was would start chasing us! After a couple of minutes of speed walking down the path as quickly as we could, we were within sight of the town so we stopped and had a bit of a nervous giggle about the situation. We both turned again, fully expecting to see nothing behind us. Standing probably about 100 feet away from us on the path was something that looked very similar to what your friend described. It was stood perfectly still, facing us. Although it was too far away to see any facial expression, I was absolutely sure it was staring straight at us. It was definitely taller that the creature your friend described- I would guess at least 7 feet tall, maybe more. This was the point that we decided running was probably a good idea after all, and we absolutely legged it and didn't stop until we were in the town centre. We told my Mum, who was very interested and not at all surprised (She's very interested in cryptozoology and nothing phases her) and she told us not to worry, just not to go into the woods again! My friend never told her parents as they were very strict and point blank refused to believe anything remotely out of the ordinary, and she probably would have go in trouble for "lying". Over the years the incident almost started to feel like something that we had imagined. I have since lost touch with her, but there were a few years when every time someone mentioned that they were going to the woods we would tell them to watch out for "Wolfbear"!

I just discovered this site and realize no one has posted for about a year now. Can anyone recommend more great reading? I love learning about these types of encounters.

a reply to: allieallerson

Go to almost any second hand bookstore, many of them, if not most, will have books of local ghost or creature legends. Most of them you can not find anywhere but locally. If they don't have 'em, they'll usually know someone who might.

Anything by David Pauliddes (sp?) will be interesting, and entertaining.

Loren Coleman is a good read to learn a bit about Sasquatch.


Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures Book by Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, is a book I enjoyed. I've never had a chance to go to one of those lakes--but someday, dammit.

Those are the three I recall just off hand, there are many, many more.

Heh. I had forgotten about this great thread.

While it is not my story, this is a story my great grandmother told my mother (and grandmother) on many occasions, which they in turn related to me. So, it has become a family heirloom of sorts, which always tend to come up when ever the topic drifts into the "strange" or "mysterious" :-)

My great grandmother lived in the eastern part of Norway, and this happened a while back. I don't have a definite time frame, but it must have been around 1900 (give or take a few years). As none of this is verifiable anyway, I guess it doesn't matter much.

My great-grandmother was (according to my mother and grandmother) a quite religious person, as was my great grandfather. I get the feeling, however, that a lot of the people back then were to a large degree tolerant of some of the more puzzling facts of existence, despite having a Lutheran Christian faith. And they seemed to take the weird in their strides, somehow, while not making a big deal or a faith-crisis out of it. Anyway, there is no doubt that there were a lot of open minds back then toward what are now consider "mere folklore", and people took a lot of things quite seriously that most would laugh at today. Until it happens to them, of course...

So, this is the story:

My great-grandmother and my great-grandfather were on their way back from a gathering at the local church one evening, which was quite a ordinary occurrence and there was nothing really special about it at all. Now, the farm that they lived on was some distance away from the church, so they were riding in a cart drawn by the farm horse. The road went through some pretty dense woodland, and in order to get home they had to cross a small creek that lay between the farm and the church. There was a small bridge that spanned the creek, which was quite a narrow creek, and it was when they got close to this bridge that something quite strange happened to them.

According to the story it began when the horse suddenly stopped and refused to go any further. This was allegedly a pretty solid and docile animal, so this kind of behavior was uncharacteristic. The horse was not frightened, or restless, but it just stopped and would not move, no matter what they did.

Suddenly they noticed a group of "small people" a little distance away from the bridge. These were, apparently, all female and dressed in long skirts, blouses and head scarves (which was common dress at the time). According to my great-grandmother, they were no larger than 20-30 cm tall, and seemed to be quite preoccupied with some sort of silly game where they would jump back and forth over the small creek. They didn't seem to even notice the horse or the cart, or indeed the two humans watching them.

At this point my great-grandfather got off the cart, took the horse by the bridle and led it across the bridge, and told my great-grandmother quite sternly not to look at them. With him leading it, the horse crossed the bridge without any incident, and they continued on their way. My great-grandfather was quite adamant that they mustn't look back, according to my great-grandmother, so they didn't and just kept staring straight ahead until they were a long way from the bridge. Nothing else happened to them, and they never saw the small figures again to my knowledge.

Now, this is the story as I heard it from both my mother and my grandmother. Both are gone now, but they both believed it happened and that my great-grandmother wouldn't make anything like this up. Both were also very religious (Lutheran) but yet had no problem accepting that there would be (apparently) small women jumping back and forth across a creek. My grandmother called them "little people".

The rational explanation from our materialistic perspective is, of course, that it is a made-up story. I can't quite understand why my great-grandmother should make up something as unspectacular as this, and not something a bit more dramatic when she was at it, but I cannot deny that it is possible. Lying would seem a bit out of character, though, according to my family who knew her.

There are also some more puzzles to this, which makes it in my (very biased) opinion a bit more likely that something odd did indeed happen to them. The most important thing is that my great-grandfather would (according to my mother and grandmother) never talk about it. Whenever my great-grandmother would mention this incident, he would not comment or say anything about it. My mother could not understand why, but there it was. My great-grandmother, however, would talk freely about it.

The other puzzling thing is that he seemed to know what to do, which I find a bit odd. Maybe he was just good with animals, with regards to the horse, but there is also this insistence about not paying any heed to the "little people" or indeed looking back at them. I always found this part of the story intriguing.

Anyway, there it is. I guess from a folklore perspective, this ties into the multitudes of stories about "little people", dwarfs and gnomes, which we have a lot of in Scandinavia. The only difference, of course, is that it happened to my great-grandmother, and that she insisted it was true all her life.

I have discovered that the world isn't always as straightforward as we like to think, so I will keep an open mind about this. Besides, who am I to disbelieve my own great-grandmother :-)

It's a good story, anyway.

Cheers,

BT

Thank you for your stories, Ive read and enjoyed each one, so, I guess I should contribute.

About 15 years ago, I was camped on a mountain top, near Wollombi, NSW, Australia. Alone.

I was woken from my sleep by the most awful sounds, terrifying.

Something was pacing around my very thin tent making the scariest sound. It was a growling noise, but the sound was almost mechanical.

It prowled and growled around my tent, it seemed like for hours. I would turn the flash light on and off to try to scare it away.

I decided it must be a koala, and thought that was OK, started falling a sleep, then started thinking about koalas claws, the strength of the arms, and I decided koalas are just furry goanna's (large tree /lizard related to kimonos, can cause damage).
This freaked me out, thinking of those powerful arms, tearing open my tent with their strong long claws.

So, I was pretty freaked out. I'de fall asleep and be woken by his growls and prowls. Some times he would move away, but he kept coming back.

The growl is what was so freaking, it didn't sound natural. I'm pretty brave, I've followed a ghost to stab it (till it went through a wall) and patrolled property with weapons at night blah blah.
The growl was terrifying.

OK, sleeping bag over the head freaky. I'de never heard a koala before.

In the morning, I got up and went to start the fire.
The dirty little bastard had torn up everything paper that he could find and pissed on my back pack.

That night he returned to do his war dance around my tent, of course waiting until I was asleep.

I was prepared and being a big sook, I just popped a heap of sleeping pills and went to sleep.

During the day, I chose a perimeter and peed all around it, hoping to stake my claim.

I named him Stinky Bill. I later bought my sledge hammer up and I'de go walking with my kids, looking for Stinky Bill. The children were enchanted, it became a mission to find Stinky Bill.

I wanted to find him, asleep during the day, and hit his tree with the sledge hammer and wake the little mongrel up.

Never did find him, but when I lived their for a while, he would come and play with my dogs at night.

When my young bitch was on heat, I kept her in the caravan at night. Stinky Bill would scratch at the door, and under the caravan making horrible noises.

I don't know if he was horny or lonely, but he was definitely angry.

We never did see Stinky Bill, we heard him, sometimes smelt him, but never actually saw him in all the years we were visiting /living there.

Was Stinky Bill a koala? Or was he a Yowie?

My son and I were walking in a park In a real suburban area. Major roads all around.
We venture off the path to check out a huge tree that fell.

Walking up to the tree we hear a faint conversation between 2 or more people.
We get kinda starrled thinking people are on the other side. No one there.

We look at each other strange. Everything is quiet but 3 second later we hear what sounds like
People talking a few feet ahead. But underground.

So we slowly walk to that spot and you can hear what sounds like people talking from the untouched dirt.

And the sounds moves in a straight direction, which we can clearly hear and follow.

We follow the sound for about aminute until we hit a pond and cant go any further.

For years we have looked for any pipes to enter, metal detector doesnt hit unless you are on a very powerful setting in a small spot . Which goes mostly goes under a stream.