Creepy/Scary Outdoor Stories

Well I have one more, not outside again- inside Chinatown in Manila if that is OK. Used to ride the Rabbit Bus there to practice Shaolin from the airbase- really fun times, about a 100 years ago, seems like now.

Martial law was still on in the Philippines. You had to be inside by midnight. My pardner and me usually went together sometimes some other GI's but at first it was mostly us. In most KF gyms you drink hot tea not water, and our gym had house keepers "tea girls" that would do the cleaning and make the tea prior to practice, the gym was in a very old area with a lot of history and had been a kwoon for years.

Well the tea girls started to complain about ghosts, multo! shadows and weird feelings like a pat on the back and such things- it went on for a while no one paid much attention. Again- like my other story, they did not want to go in there alone and never after dusk.

Later some of the Chinese guys started to see and feel some things
in the gym, more talk about strange goings on- but no action. Shadows and murmurs.

Then--

One night, my friend went down there alone- a good practice talking to the guys after class- he missed the last bus. Not good! the P.C. might rob you if the caught you out after cerfew or worse- we found that out later but that's another story. He ran back to the gym from the rabbit station, a teacher was there and told him just to crash on the couch in the office till morning, catch the bus back to base at dawn. Cool thanks Sifu! Teacher leaves, alone he covers up with a sheet until--

Sleeping in the office, he heard some noise in the gym WTH? woke up with some foot steps, then clanking of iron rings and the swish, swish swissshh of a chain whip in the gym- door to the gym was shut. Door rattled. oh hell no! He said he shut his eyes covered his head with the sheet and prayed for the rest of the long night . Morning came he beat feet to the Rabbit bus station.

True? or not dunno- I was not there, but my friend never lied to me and was one of the toughest guys I ever met. A real kung fu man in the real meaning of the word, never got close to him in skill. Damn sure he did not scare easy but that night he said he was scareed.

Later they had a Taoist priest come in and have a discussion with what ever it was in the gym- put some yellow paper talismins up, and it stopped for the most part.

But nobody wanted to be alone in there after dark ever again...
 
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Thanks for sharing that story, Bai Lang!

Speaking of haunted kung fu schools, the first school I trained at when I moved to Taiwan for many years starting in the mid-1980s was in a large basement of a building in an older part of Taipei near the Qing Nian Gong Yuan (Youth Park). The styles taught were Northern Tanglang (Praying Mantis style) and Chang Chuan (Long Fist). I never heard anything strange about it until my second year training there. An overseas Chinese from Australia was freaked out, saying he saw a ‘shadow’ or ‘shadow man’ standing near a doorway when he was practicing alone and nobody else was around.

As he was telling more people, a student from Japan started saying (in Mandarin), “I THOUGHT something was strange here...one day when I was practicing here alone, little pebbles started flying past me and landing nearby. Nobody else was here. I thought, ‘how weird’.”

Another Taiwanese student who sometimes slept at the school said that a few times when he was on the cot alone, he would hear someone mumbling in his ear, but he couldn’t make out what was being said.

The elderly teacher, a master originally from Shandong, China, got wind of all this talk and started becoming angry. He said (in his heavily Shandong-accented Mandarin), “There’s no ghosts here! I have the Guan Gong statue on the altar!” Then he told everyone to shut up about it. I personally never experienced anything weird in the 3.5 years I trained there, but enough others had that I don’t doubt it. The overseas Chinese from Australia who first openly brought it up was a big, tough guy and a good fighter, someone who didn’t scare easily. But he was pretty freaked out by this.

Jim
 
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Welcome thanks for your story as well!
"There’s no ghosts here! I have the Guan Gong statue on the altar!" That's what I thought too but in the gym in my story they had a Guan Gong on the other side of the door on the wall. And what ever it was or was imagined came in the office and scared spooked the tea girls sometimes when the door to the gym was open. Lots of unusual things in the kung fu world, we can't explain a lot of it. Some people think the practice 'attracts' some 'energies'. I asked my 90 year old mentor once "Why does Chinese astrology work so well?" (He came from a wealthy pre 'liberation' family- his Dad was a very skilled 'hobby' astrologer, my teacher learned some of it and scared some people by doing their 'charts'- to dead on the money accurate, freaked them out!) He said "Don't know really, Chinese people- have a lot of ancient, mysterious stuff". That's for sure-!
 
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Bai Lang said:
Welcome thanks for your story as well!
"There’s no ghosts here! I have the Guan Gong statue on the altar!" That's what I thought too but in the gym in my story they had a Guan Gong on the other side of the door on the wall. And what ever it was or was imagined came in the office and scared spooked the tea girls sometimes when the door to the gym was open. Lots of unusual things in the kung fu world, we can't explain a lot of it. Some people think the practice 'attracts' some 'energies'. I asked my 90 year old mentor once "Why does Chinese astrology work so well?" (He came from a wealthy pre 'liberation' family- his Dad was a very skilled 'hobby' astrologer, my teacher learned some of it and scared some people by doing their 'charts'- to dead on the money accurate, freaked them out!) He said "Don't know really, Chinese people- have a lot of ancient, mysterious stuff". That's for sure-!
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I've experienced 'paranormal' incidents on and off throughout my life, both here in the States and when I lived in Taiwan. The experiences I had in Taiwan were the "creepy" ones, whereas the ones I've experienced here have not been creepy. I believe it had to do with Taiwan being a densely-populated small island with a long, sometimes tragic history. In Taiwan, every Taiwanese male has to do a 2-year mandatory military service, and I can't count how many told me their paranormal experiences they had while serving. One told me it was because the government bought the land the barracks were built on for cheap, because nobody else wanted to build on it for whatever reasons.

Because I've had so many experiences in my life, I found it a bit odd that I never experienced anything odd myself when I trained at that particular kung fu school.

Here in the States, I knew of (and met) a well-known and highly reputable (in the kung fu world) elderly Taoist master who was a master of Qigong (legitimate; I had a healing session with him, and it was very powerful); a master of Tai Chi, Choy Lay Fut kung fu, and various Taoist systems. I've heard of a couple incidents where he was asked to banish entities from haunted buildings. One of the guys who told me was a cop/martial artist who is very skeptical of most things, but was present (not on duty as a cop) during one of these "banishing rituals" or "exorcisms," and said that, although all the windows were closed and there was no wind outside, at the end of the ritual a heavy wind started inside the building and blew out the front door. After which he said the hauntings were apparently over. The cop/friend didn't like to discuss it much, because he thought that talking about it might attract "things." Which is kind of odd for someone who considers himself a skeptic.

Jim
 
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Yes, some people are more 'open'* to such things than others ( *for lack of a better word) I think that is quite true. I had one friend who was very,very ill to the point- I was worried that he might die. He met a Taoist master who healed him with Tui na and some kind of energy work I was shocked at the positive transformation- if I did not see it I would not have believed it. He said the Taoist kept "ghosts*" in a jar captured from people who had been troubled by them- according to my friend. Don't know anything about that- but I don't scoff at such things any more. "More things in heaven and earth Horatio than we can know" as Shakespeare said.
 
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I’ll share something regarding my dad that I’ve been reticent about sharing publicly up to now. A bit of background:

My dad was born in Ventura, CA, in 1921, the youngest of 8 children. They grew up on a produce farm owned by my grandfather, who had made his way here from Japan as a teen in the late 1800s. My grandfather had been large for a Japanese (or even a Westerner) for that time; he stood just over 6’ tall, and was physically solid from a lifetime of hard labor. He was also mean from a hard life. At one time, the farm was one of the most productive in Ventura County, but they eventually lost the farm and everything else when the family, along with many other Japanese-American families, was sent to an internment/concentration camp at the start of WWII (this one was in Poston, Arizona).

I give this background because my dad was “salt of the earth” and had no time for, and little interest in storytelling or fantasy stories. His only indulgences were fishing, bowling, and watching westerns (movies and TV shows). Over the years, my dad related many real-life stories that he and/or others in his family experienced that would be considered paranormal in nature. Some I’ll probably never share, as they are too close to the family.

What I have decided to share (somewhat reluctantly) differs from the common “ghost” story. My dad was very a clear-headed blue-collar worker his entire life. But every once in a blue moon (I can count the number of times on the fingers of one hand), he would point to what he called “the little people” or “the children,” usually in the corner of a room. Of course, I didn’t see or sense anything. I kind of believed but wasn’t sure, so I mostly blew it off. He never acted scared or surprised; he acted as if he were merely making an observation, then went back to whatever he was doing. My mom, until her later years, was a true skeptic and didn’t believe anything unless she saw it, so obviously she just ignored it.

Only once did my dad describe what “the little people/the children” looked like. He described them as several inches high, with dragonfly wings, and that they made a high-pitched sound that he didn’t understand. He also said they were always accompanied by a similar but larger, dragonfly-winged, man-sized being who stood in the background that he said was “in charge of the little ones” but unlike the smaller ones, it never interacted directly with my dad.

One time after my dad’s passing, I mentioned it offhand one day, and my mom confessed that one time when she stepped into the kitchen/dining room area, she saw my dad standing there, looking down with a smile on his face, and several tiny, shadowy beings holding hands and dancing in a circle around him. She said she saw it for only a couple seconds, and when she shook her head and looked again, she couldn’t see them anymore, but my dad still stood there, looking down with a peaceful smile. She said it was the first and only time she ever saw anything “unusual” and that it gave her a bit of a chill, but she never discussed it with my dad.

Years after my dad’s passing, I was speaking to an older friend of mine one day, who was a massage therapist (who inspired me to become one myself), and for some reason the subject of the paranormal came up. She had grown up on a reservation in a household with an abusive stepfather. She said that often, when things at home became unbearable, she would escape from the house and go sit in a field to be alone. She said that as a little girl, occasionally little beings that she called “fairies” would come to her in that field. She described them as several inches to a foot tall, with dragonfly wings. She also said there was always one large one accompanying them, but it stayed a distance away and never interacted with her. This description was eerily similar to my dad’s description of “the little people/the children,” but my dad never used the word “fairies”. The only real difference with my friend’s description was that she said sometimes the little fairies appeared to her almost as a moving, 2-dimensional “pattern”. She said it was hard to explain.

Prior to that, I had never discussed anything paranormal with this friend, and certainly never mentioned my dad or “the little people” to her.

Jim
 
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We are not alone. Few, are sensitive enough to see. The rest of us cling very hard to our precious illusion of "reality". Cool for your Dad!
 
James Y said:
I’ll share something regarding my dad that I’ve been reticent about sharing publicly up to now. A bit of background:

My dad was born in Ventura, CA, in 1921, the youngest of 8 children. They grew up on a produce farm owned by my grandfather, who had made his way here from Japan as a teen in the late 1800s. My grandfather had been large for a Japanese (or even a Westerner) for that time; he stood just over 6’ tall, and was physically solid from a lifetime of hard labor. He was also mean from a hard life. At one time, the farm was one of the most productive in Ventura County, but they eventually lost the farm and everything else when the family, along with many other Japanese-American families, was sent to an internment/concentration camp at the start of WWII (this one was in Poston, Arizona).

I give this background because my dad was “salt of the earth” and had no time for, and little interest in storytelling or fantasy stories. His only indulgences were fishing, bowling, and watching westerns (movies and TV shows). Over the years, my dad related many real-life stories that he and/or others in his family experienced that would be considered paranormal in nature. Some I’ll probably never share, as they are too close to the family.

What I have decided to share (somewhat reluctantly) differs from the common “ghost” story. My dad was very a clear-headed blue-collar worker his entire life. But every once in a blue moon (I can count the number of times on the fingers of one hand), he would point to what he called “the little people” or “the children,” usually in the corner of a room. Of course, I didn’t see or sense anything. I kind of believed but wasn’t sure, so I mostly blew it off. He never acted scared or surprised; he acted as if he were merely making an observation, then went back to whatever he was doing. My mom, until her later years, was a true skeptic and didn’t believe anything unless she saw it, so obviously she just ignored it.

Only once did my dad describe what “the little people/the children” looked like. He described them as several inches high, with dragonfly wings, and that they made a high-pitched sound that he didn’t understand. He also said they were always accompanied by a similar but larger, dragonfly-winged, man-sized being who stood in the background that he said was “in charge of the little ones” but unlike the smaller ones, it never interacted directly with my dad.

One time after my dad’s passing, I mentioned it offhand one day, and my mom confessed that one time when she stepped into the kitchen/dining room area, she saw my dad standing there, looking down with a smile on his face, and several tiny, shadowy beings holding hands and dancing in a circle around him. She said she saw it for only a couple seconds, and when she shook her head and looked again, she couldn’t see them anymore, but my dad still stood there, looking down with a peaceful smile. She said it was the first and only time she ever saw anything “unusual” and that it gave her a bit of a chill, but she never discussed it with my dad.

Years after my dad’s passing, I was speaking to an older friend of mine one day, who was a massage therapist (who inspired me to become one myself), and for some reason the subject of the paranormal came up. She had grown up on a reservation in a household with an abusive stepfather. She said that often, when things at home became unbearable, she would escape from the house and go sit in a field to be alone. She said that as a little girl, occasionally little beings that she called “fairies” would come to her in that field. She described them as several inches to a foot tall, with dragonfly wings. She also said there was always one large one accompanying them, but it stayed a distance away and never interacted with her. This description was eerily similar to my dad’s description of “the little people/the children,” but my dad never used the word “fairies”. The only real difference with my friend’s description was that she said sometimes the little fairies appeared to her almost as a moving, 2-dimensional “pattern”. She said it was hard to explain.

Prior to that, I had never discussed anything paranormal with this friend, and certainly never mentioned my dad or “the little people” to her.

Jim
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This is the most interesting one to me so far. Maybe this is where myths about fairies and leprechauns etc began
 
When I lived in the Philippines I heard many stories about forest dwelling creatures/fairies kapre, tikbalang etc. At the time as a young man I scoffed at them, I don't do that anymore. Older you get, more you see- more open your mind gets.
 
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I wish I had asked my dad more. He was a quiet man of few words, but I recall as a kid he would occasionally tell me about some of his family’s experiences. Usually he would tell me these stories while we were fishing. I was his youngest kid, and was his only child who went fishing or spent a lot of time with him. When he did share his accounts, the details were always consistent; they never varied, and he wasn’t one to embellish. And TBH, I don’t think he could have made up a fictitious story anyway, as he wasn’t really creative in that way.

I myself have had what I now know to be paranormal experiences since I was around 4 years old, but I feel that “the little people/the children” were there only for my dad. I’ve wondered if they came to him as a child, similar to the way they came to my massage therapist friend, when she would sneak out of her childhood home to escape an abusive situation and go sit in a field. In her case, she told me that after a few years she no longer saw the “fairies.” But apparently my dad saw them now and then for his entire life. It seems like the males in our family, especially on my dad’s side, had/have sensitivity for such things. My older brother and I have had experiences, but not my older sister. Most people assume that women are naturally more sensitive/intuitive, or more “in tune” with these kinds of things, but not in our family.

Jim
 
This occurred outdoors, but isn't specifically related to the forest per se...

A dear friend passed away and so a few of us took his ashes up to a favorite swimming hole in a Catskill mountain stream. We camped overnight and poured out his remains into the water. I had a disposable camera (remember those?) with 2 exposures left, so I took a picture of my friends as we were saying our farewells to our fallen comrade. It was very emotional but also cathartic, and we eventually hiked out of there and parted ways. When I got the film developed, there was an extra exposure that somehow came after the final photos I took, even though the counter on the camera said it was out of shots after the last 2 I took of my friends. The picture was blurry and oddly-colored and for some reason I just stuffed it back in the envelope and dismissed it.

Some time passed, and one day I was collecting photos of our dead friend taken by various photographers in our artsy little subculture, and I found one that struck an odd nerve. It was blurry, oddly lit, and he had a weird expression on his face. I went to my envelope of pics from the posthumous camping trip, and to my shock but not quite surprise, when I turned the abstract blurry extra exposure around a few times I realized it had an unmistakable resemblance to the old photo of my dude! Now I don't know that I believe in ghosts, nor do I necessarily believe that a disembodied spirit would be interested in or capable of manipulating camera film, but I have read of people being able to project blurry images from their mind onto photosensitive paper or film. So I guess it is possible that, while sleeping, the psychic energy of my grief for our deceased buddy may have been absorbed by the flimsily-encapsulated disposable camera's film as I slept with my head on the backpack in which it was stashed. That's the closest-to-rational explanation I can come up with as to why a bit of overexposed film would look so much like an existing picture of someone who died. I have put the two pictures into one frame, and I look at it once in a while to make sure I'm not imagining the whole thing, but it's just as I saw it years ago.

I also have a photograph of a dream I had, also on a disposable 35mm camera, but that's another story.
 
I apologize for resurrecting this older thread, but I wanted to share this cool video about the Superstition Mountains. I thought others might find it interesting, too.


Jim
 
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If you want to see a lot of stuff go mountain biking. I have seen more wild human activities and rare animal species riding than I ever could have walking.
 
SubaruSTi said:
If you want to see a lot of stuff go mountain biking. I have seen more wild human activities and rare animal species riding than I ever could have walking.
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I will definitely agree with this.

Living in San diego there's a large homeless population and riding bikes in certain trails can be sketchy. I've seen some wierd stuff for sure.
 
Here's the only one I have. We moved in 91 into our current house. Back when Klodike, my PB was still kicking. So anyways a nice summer day and I had started to work what was called a super trick at Kodak. So sitting home watching a ball game as I recall, well I smell a strong odor of a cigarette. Windows were cranked out so figured it might be the neighbor kid. Klondike was laying on the couch and all of a sudden he gets up and goes through the door way from the family room right into the living room and stops dead in his tracks and starts this deep thunderous growl. I'd only heard that a couple of times coming from him. So I sit up and look into the living room and there by the fireplace there is the figure of an old man in a cardigan sweater and white shirt and tie flicking a cigarette into the fire place. So I say WTF, and hey and I'm up outta my chair. Figure who the hell is that. Klondike is still growling and he looked like a porcupine with every single hair on him sticking straight out. Get into the living room and nothing is there save for the odor of a cigarette. So saw my neighbors a few days later and told both about the experience and the fella's wife said without a doubt it was the former owner a Mr. Kazmarek. Never meant the guy etc. But I described what I saw about the person I saw to a tee and that is what she said he looked like and he was a heavy smoker. So there ya go. stay safe
 
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