Spookiness

[phsculpture]

Just wondering about others' experiences regarding spooky places. Earlier this year I was travelling back from Kaputar and thought to overnight on the way back to Sydney at a NP to the west of Orange that I'd not visited. It was about 3pm when I rolled in, sunny and clear, birds were singing, etc. Noone else was there, but for some reason I got totally spooked. Still don't know why. Usually I prefer deserted campgrounds, and comfortable with the solitary experience, but not at this one. Something felt wrong. I wandered around a bit then decided, no. I knew of another NP about an hour away, which I'd not been to (Nangar) so headed for that. Completely different experience, perfect for what I wanted, in every way. I still wonder about this.

And related, I guess, was a story I was told about the jail at Lithgow ending up being built on a place which for Aborigines had 'bad energy'. I'm not sure how true this is, but it's interesting how some places feel right, and others don't, for no obvious reason.

Anyone else had this sort of experience?

[GPSGuided]

Only on Halloween nights, like tonight.

[icefest]

I get that feeling sometimes, during cold, moonless nights.

Then I think of this Douglas Adams quote: "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."

[perfectlydark]

Hmm generally dont get that out bush although 2 weeks ago in this pine forest section in one of the forests adjacent to barrington tops I stayed a minute and felt sufficiently spooked to want to get out. Cant imagine having lunch at the "picnic area" there. Couldnt tell what it was just felt wrong

[GPSGuided]

Ok, let's all owe up. Who has seen ghosts or paranormal phenomena?

[north-north-west]

There are places like that. Reibey's always gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies. Sometimes Pics can be like that, but she's a moody beast: sometimes she loves you, sometimes she doesn't care and sometimes she just wants to be left alone. And then, some days, she's just plain hungry. I always got out quickly on days like that.

[cooee]

Ok, let's all owe up. Who has seen ghosts or paranormal phenomena?

Until one taps me on the shoulder, i'm still a non believer.

[cooee]

Having said that, anyone been to Aradale? Ararat. Mmmmmm, put the wind in my sails.

[Giddy_up]

Wild animals posses that same sensory instinct when something is not right. I assume human beings would have also had it many many moons ago but we have dumbed down much of that capacity. I would not discount any one whom could "feel" something was not right. Trust those instincts.........

[stepbystep]

There's a place near Mt Dale in The Darling Ranges I used to pass through as a kid. Never failed to freak me out. I found out years later it was a sacred site in Noongar lore...

[Drifting]

The portion of Lamington that's along the edge of the caldera is pretty strange. I've known a lot of folks who lived in that region, and across to Mt Warning, and they have many interesting stories. Springbrook Plateau has a long and well-documented history of bizarre occurrences. My in laws used to live there, and they saw/heard plenty of odd stuff. I witnessed a bit too. Spooky place. They used to have something that would hit the sides of their house, all times of day and night- it sounded like someone hitting it with a pole. You'd look out windows or go outside, and there'd be nothing there. Other neighbors reported the same, and other things, including seeing the ever-evasive Yowie, which it seemed like more people had seen than not, and usually had a fairly uniform half-man, half-ape description.

The valley we used to live in in NE Victoria had at least one big cat living in it. This wasn't a matter of conjecture among residents, but rather a matter of fact. One lady told us it had been at her back door a few months before, sitting and watching her in the kitchen. An older bloke told us it got trapped in his shed, and he went to shoot it but it got away. Those were two stories of many. I heard it call a couple of times, very distinctive, and we found prints as well, behind our house. I spent 10 years working with panthers in the US, so I guess I'm qualified to categorize a big cat print. Once, when there was a big bushfire, we found prints where it had been at a dripping tap, and then went after our poor geese. They were never the same again. It didn't get in to them, but they were so freaked out I ended up getting rid of the poor things.

Oz is a funny place sometimes. My wife calls it "Old", as if it were something primal, and watchful. But it seems like the scariest things are what we've brought with us.

[MichaelJ]

One night in 1973 I was camped at Templeton's Crossing, on the Kokoda Track. It had rained every other night but this night was clear, with a full moon. There was a noisy little creek, and forest all around. It had been a somewhat difficult day's walk but there was something about that place that made it impossible to sleep at all that night. It was nothing frightening or threatening- just a very strong presence. At the time I was too young to know much about the details of the fighting in that area, but as many of you will know, it turned out that the crossing was the scene of some pretty violent combat in 1942, and a lot of people would have been killed within 50 yards of my camp-site. Probably just as well I was only fourteen at the time and didn't know. As I said, there was nothing unpleasant or sinister about it, but forty years later I still have a very clear memory of that little clearing by the creek and the presence there of such a deep, deep sadness.

[Lindsay]

Not out in the bush, but when I was in the Navy I was sent the the UK for training. One night I was part of the duty watch and was doing security rounds in the early hours of the morning. This involved unlocking various buildings and going inside to check all the rooms and equipment spaces, then locking up again. In one building I felt a sense of unease that built up to the extent I was practically running for the door once I done all the checks I had to do. When I got back to the security office I mentioned this to the blokes there and was told that this was not an uncommon occurrence in that particular building. It seems a bomb had hit the building in the 1940s and killed 20 odd sailors inside. Ever since there had been an uncomfortable presence in the place.

[perfectlydark]

I dont remember this at all but my dad says as a kid I used to talk about "an old lady" that came and talked to me at night. My 3yo daughter recently came and told me (no racism here im simply quoting her) "daddy, black bad man over there. Hes scary". Scared the living hell out of me. Im also a sceptic but my wife and her brother swear on their lives they experienced poltergeist activity in their childhood home. My wife is prone to drawing fantastic conclusioms to things but my brother in law isnt.
I dont know, many things will have a simple evolutionary explanation (eye detection for example for that "being watched" feeling weve probably all experienced at some point) othera maybe something else. I cant discount something just because it defies explanation

[stepbystep]

They say young children are in tune with 'the other side', parallel universes, whatever you want to call it, and by the time we're 5 or 6 we lose it and become the boring skeptics we need to be to cope with this life!

[perfectlydark]

Lol either that or our brains are much more creative

[phsculpture]

Wild animals posses that same sensory instinct when something is not right. I assume human beings would have also had it many many moons ago but we have dumbed down much of that capacity. I would not discount any one whom could "feel" something was not right. Trust those instincts.........

Yes, this what what I was getting at. I'm not superstitious, or into the Yowie thing. Very rational, practical, etc, but have been making art for a long time, so I do tend to trust the instincts. Although there was plenty of wildlife around - emus and chicks, birds everywhere - there was a strong sense of something unpleasant.

The same elderly Aboriginal man who told my Blackheath friend about the Lithgow jail also said that a particular stretch of the Oberon road was not the best place to break down, without elaborating. When I lived in New York I got to know a shaman quite well (she is Swedish by way of Brazil) and it was fascinating to get some insight into ways of understanding our environment other than through skeptical or rational viewpoints, which was the way I certainly was raised (in Sydney).

[Rob Gosford]

They say young children are in tune with 'the other side',

what was that movie ? with a blank stare, he says "i see dead people"

[stepbystep]

They say young children are in tune with 'the other side',

what was that movie ? with a blank stare, he says "i see dead people"

“Auguries of innocence
"He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.”

William Blake

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Spookiness... What a load of bollocks! I don't particularly like the dark, but I don't get spooked by things which don't exist (Preparing for the barrage of abuse for that comment)

When I was a flying instructor, I worked for about two years training airline cadets from China (who are the most easily spooked people you will find).
At night when they were heading off on their own flights, we would sneak up behind their aircraft as it was waiting in line to takeoff (in the pitch black) and grab the elevator at the back of the plane and move it up and down slowly. Inside the cockpit, the controls would move up and down in their hands.

Reactions would vary, but in many cases would see the engine shut down in an instant, the canopy slid back, and a terrified, screaming trainee running across the dark taxiways (arms flailing wildly) back to the operations building.

We would help propagate the myth by talking about an accident at the airport years ago, and the ghosts of victims of the crash returning to haunt pilots by sitting in the empty instructors seat (right next to the pilots) and pulling on the controls (the planes had dual controls, obviously).

I remember ONE of about 300 cadets we trained while I was there, who had the sense join the dots LOGICALLY and SCIENTIFICALLY. He pushed his engine up to takeoff power and flattened the instructor who was standing behind.

[Nuts]

My wife calls it "Old", as if it were something primal, and watchful..

Many years ago I spent a few weeks on Mt Roland. I was a bit edgy at first but not 'spooked', it really just felt like there was a... presence.
Watched but not in a particularly unfriendly way (not particularly friendly either). I had the feeling 'they' didn't mind nor particularly care, but I never felt alone.

Meh, coulda just been the weed of course

[Rob Gosford]

They say young children are in tune with 'the other side',

what was that movie ? with a blank stare, he says "i see dead people"

i found it !
the movie was called "The Sixth Sense" (1999)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSNyiSetZ8Y

the boy wasn't bushwalking, but he was surrrre spooky

[Rob Gosford]

Meh, coulda just been the weed of course

ahhh yes, don't mind a bit of weed myself......the Lantana weed comes to mind. Beautiful stuff. Have it growing each side of the garden shed. Its just coming into yellow spring flower now

[Drifting]

I love the way Nuts quotes me, and it looks like I was the one smoking lantana on Mt Roland! LMAO...

I've found that watchful feeling in a few places here. Wife and I were in north central NSW and I stopped at this reserve literally in the middle of nowhere for lunch. She wouldn't even get out of the car. I shrugged and drove on to the next town, where we found out that an Aboriginal tribe had been massacred at the reserve some years ago. So who knows.

[geoskid]

I love the way Nuts quotes me, and it looks like I was the one smoking lantana on Mt Roland! LMAO...

Haha - yeah, you were no where near the weed - we'll blame it on Rob -"Rob it's your fault, dude"

[Rob Gosford]

I love the way Nuts quotes me, and it looks like I was the one smoking lantana on Mt Roland! LMAO...

well i don't know how that happened ! i feel like a complete DOPE

always PREVIEW before hitting Submit, hey ?

[Strider]

Chauncy Vale, Bagdad. Been there once, never going back.

[Rob Gosford]

Just wondering about others' experiences regarding spooky places.
Anyone else had this sort of experience?

@ Strider: i know what you mean about not going back.

my 2 cents worth in answering phsculpture's question ........
i was going back a few months ago to have a gander down Dubbo Gully Rd firetrail and 10 Mile Hollow trail at Mangrove Mountain here on the Central Coast, to view the historic pioneer cemetary and Fairview Homestead (it was mentioned here in another thread some time back). First went down there a few years ago to visit the pioneer cemetary, and half way between the pretty Dubbo Gully wooden bridge and the pioneer cemetary, to break the stillness of the morning, i heard this load CRACK BASH (and then scuttling in the bush) to my left near a clearing just before the cemetary. And here's me on the way to a cemetary in the middle of NOWHERE and i hear THAT ! Apart from that, the area has an aura of sadness.......i felt it the whole way on the walk from the car and back. It is CREEPY around that bridge and cemetary. I'll never go back. Its depressive when i think about it now. Am now derranged and scarred for life aaaaahhhhrrrrggggggggg

.

[north-north-west]

I've found that watchful feeling in a few places here.

It's an old land. A lot has happened. Some of it has left traces.

[geoskid]

They say young children are in tune with 'the other side', parallel universes, whatever you want to call it, and by the time we're 5 or 6 we lose it and become the boring skeptics we need to be to cope with this life!

What do you think about what 'they' say Sbs, in particular about scepticism being boring?