Thread: Bush Ghosts

Manly men needn't read my further.

So occasionally when I'm out enjoying nature, for no reason at all sometimes I'll just absolutely get the willies, hairs on the back of the neck standing up, the whole shebang. If it happens it's usually in relatively thick NZ native bush, and it doesn't even have to be that far from civilisation. I'm not even sure what it is, maybe a sudden cold gust comes out of nowhere that sends shivers down the spine, or just an overwhelming sense of being watched by something, but just not by the venison that should be in the freezer. It's not a fear of the dark or anything - can happen mid morning, and I've always got more than enough equipment and nav sense to get me out of (almost) any situation.

I'm not sure what my imagination is more worried about - something human, like some Deliverance/hills have eyes types who don't believe in the same social contract/rules based order that I do, or something supernatural. I'm a scientist according to an expensive piece of paper I studied for, and while I don't really go for any of the usual ghost stories, some specific locations and experiences give me reason to pause. Actually that's the wrong term: usually my pace quickens a little more than I should and move on.

Am I the only big scaredy cat here? Has anyone got any stories or thoughts they'd be able to share?

Think there's been a few posts over the years about this.
Many of us have walked through spots that gave us the get out of here asap feel over the years.
Z

Sorry couldn’t help it

The NZ bush is the safest place you can be. Be at peace with it.

I get this feeling around certain people and sometimes places or things. It's not a fear, but an intuition or discernment that something is not right. I used to get spooked when I was a child, but over the years I have learnt to trust it.
Working in the prison I got that feeling a lot in certain areas. One in particular was the worst.

More into UFO'S out in Wop wops seen some weird stuff .

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I find I hear more voices near rivers, which makes sense

I've experienced some badly haunted houses ( esp one in Oporua) and got a bit spooked in the bush but I find it reassuring if I feel that way to stop and remind myself that instead of being a thing apart, i am one with the bush; I belong there

Also speaking of weirdo spots, has anyone stumbled across the black lodge in the Tauherenikau valley just near Tutewai? (sp?)

A rock bordered path leading to a structure made of manuka poles studded with symbols of semi-pagan/ black magic - it had no feel to it but someone had made it to try to freak people out, pity the vibe was dull as dishwater but points for trying, I guess

I find it's the live people who give me grief.the dead are where they are and so far don't bother me much at all. Yes got the heebee geebees at times but not often out in the boonies,usually around farm sheds....

Yes, felt something a couple of times. Do I believe anything supernatural is going on? No, just my brain getting carried away.

Had one experience like that, beautiful sunny afternoon amongst the beech trees in North Cant... put the right willies up me.

Never went back, but was relaying it to an old forestry bloke some 20 years back... the location was out back of Oxford...

"It wasn't the Wharfdale track by any chance?" he asked... There was a hushed silence as we looked at each other and both felt a fresh shiver down our spine...seems we had both experienced it pretty much the same place many but years apart.

In my own experience I'm sensitive to the feel or vibe that you get in most places, usually man made. It's the same kind of thing you get in churches/cathedrals etc which is to me, a very "at peace/serene" vibe. (I'm not religious btw but love the architecture)
I've walked into some pubs in different parts of the world, had one beer and left because the vibe was "not good" I've walked into numerous houses and felt palpable bad juju and later found out that "bad things" happened there or particularly nasty individuals lived there for a long time. Conversely I've walked into other places and felt nothing but good vibes, it's a thing imo.

Many moons ago, I bought an old area school, first built in 1920, long since closed. My first night there I could feel something, nothing sinister just a presence. I had lit the fire and it was at the point of not needing my attention, as I crouched by the fire watching the flames take hold and considering which bit of next size firewood I was going to place, prior to closing the door...the temperature dropped like a stone, as if someone had opened the door to a room size freezer. It was July in Northland, so winter but it just doesn't get really cold up there. My neck hairs were at attention and the fire dropped to the faintest of flickers, kind of like when you turn one of those flame effect gas fires down to almost zero. I could feel a presence right behind me, again not malevolent or sinister just there. Glancing over my shoulder there was nothing visible of course so I turned back to the fire and muttered "Can you stop playing with the fire, it's freezing in here" and just like turning the knob on that flame effect gas fire, my wood fire leapt back into life, crackling away like nothing had happened. Over the following 6 months, every now and then I would feel that same presence and I always found myself looking at just above waist height.....now being it had been a school, it's entirely possible that my subconscious was pre-disposed to "look" at child height but, I never figured it out and after a while that presence became absent, right up until 4 years later when I was quitting the place....and I got just a flicker on the day I moved out.

Do ghosts exist? I believe so, not in the casper sense but I believe some souls get stuck here or maybe leave an imprint, in much the same way events do (Just take a walk in Glencoe in Scotland, the sensation walking around there is visceral)
We all have that 6th sense, some are more tuned into it or willing to "hear" it than others, especially in this modern science based world and I think that most have made choices based on a gut feeling on occasion that's worked in their favour. Our gut is what has us make a judgement on meeting someone as to whether they're good or maybe someone you wouldn't choose to be around. We've all been there where on meeting someone and later being asked "What do you think of so and so" and sometimes the answer might be "Dunno, there's something odd about them" and I've seen a ghost, just the once, in broad sunny daylight, looking back into the house and a girl of about 12 years old walked right in front of the ranchslider and out of sight into the hallway. I could see her as clear as this screen I'm looking at. Never saw her again.

Going back to feeling odd out in the bush, films like Deliverance can pre-load our imaginations. Most here have probably watched Jaws when it first came out and I bet had if even for a fleeting moment, thoughts of that big bugger next time they went for a dip in the sea and I think Deliverance is the land based version of that, more suggestive as it's bad fuckers rather than scary monsters.

There have been a few times I've felt like I'm being watched out there, always in the bush never out on the open country and I think again it's that 6th sense kicking in. As Trout said, it's the safest place in the world and I get a real sense of being "at home" when I'm out there. I've also noticed the same heightened situational awareness whilst hunting mirrors my experience in the towns and cities.

Whilst we might be doing all this human stuff, on another level we are just monkeys wearing clothes and our senses are just another set of tools we can utilise.

While I have no knowledge of anything supernatural...I would point out two things...we dont know what it is we dont know yet....and history tells us there is still so much to learn...If we look at history we find so much "magic" that has turned out to be science we had not worked out yet....Think of what people would have thought about sickness that is spread by various means beyond early comprehension.....especially something with long incubation / hibernation periods... I remember one from not that long ago where 4 mean all got very sick with sore muscles, fatigue and no energy, hurts to move. Each of the four men lived in different states (USA) and did no know the other was sick. They did know each other but had not been in contact for around 8 months or so....

It turns out that 8 months before they had been hunting iand had cooked some of the meat they had shot as there was too much to take home (one large bear) It had not been cooked properly but the meat that was taken home was cooked properly later....The poorly cooked meat had a worm parasite in the eggs in the muscle meat. After consumption and exposure to acid it hatches and goes looking for muscle via the bloodstream...Once in muscle it hibernates for a period then burrows and lays eggs that lie dormant in the muscle until eaten (exposed to acid ) there fore repeating the cycle..Now imaging that happend a few hundred years ago...Would anyone think to associate a meal 8 months prior to an unknown fatgue afflicting a person?

Thus I am open to the suggestion that there is potential 'supernatural ' sensations that afflict or affect some people....and that anything like this is entirely because we do not understand what scientifically is causing it....People can see or believe they have seen (or felt) somthing that cnnot be explained...I may not believe it is what they think it is but I would not go as far as saying that I dont believe they didnt experience something and that they have interpreted it in a way so they can make sense of it....

Agoraphobia. It's not just open spaces it's being somewhere where you can't quickly change your environment if something went wrong

Yeah, one time. Very isolated area deep in the bush. Was camping with a mate, sharing a 3 man tent. I woke up with a very dreaded kind of panicky feeling, at almost the same time mate woke up suddenly and shouted “whos out there”. He couldn’t explain what he meant by this later. Cant help feeling there was a presence we both picked up on…the chance of someone else being in that area at that time was almost nil.

Dad walked into some big clearing in the ureweras and said he got a real bad feeling. Turns out there had been a massacre there