Most often, eyewitnesses deal with ghosts that appear to people, as a rule, in closed rooms, less often - near them, but still tied mainly to a particular house, building, structure, structure created by human hands. However, there is a category of ghosts that seem to inhabit or appear in the open air.
The fact that this usually happens in good or at least bearable weather is most likely due to people, not ghosts. After all, the latter can let them know about their existence only through meeting with a person, and he, if there is no special reason for that, in bad weather avoids being in the open air.
Of course, it is in England that the most frequent reports of encounters with haunted people outdoors. Of the many cases, it is worth dwelling on two, marked with the seal of a good investigation. The first of these was reported in one of the most famous medical journals in Scotland, namely the Edinburgh Journal of Medicine and Surgery for 1845. Briefly, the event was as follows.
In Scotland, near Alverston, there is Wolfridge Forest. Almost in the center of it there is a clearing on which there is a cross, erected in the place where the forester was once killed. It is considered to be restless, as the local residents claimed to have met the ghosts of the forester more than once.
Someone S., who served in a local military school, did not believe in these stories. Moreover, he visited that meadow more than once on a dare at midnight, but, except for the new forester or poachers, he saw no one else. And this time, heading out to hunt and passing through Wolfridge Forest at about midnight, he did not expect to find anything unusual.
He was accompanied by a dog - a cross between a Newfoundland and a mongrel, who was not afraid of either animal or man. With him S. had a gun, a pair of pistols and a saber. Here's how the medical journal describes what happened next:
“When he was already approaching that clearing, something like a human figure caught his attention, but it was not clearly visible. S. called the dog to him, which was running around, barking furiously and chasing the scared game, stroked it on the head to make it alert, and cocked the gun.
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The dog, despite this, showed extreme impatience. S. called out to the figure but received no reply. Suspecting that it was a hunter-thief, and preparing for the meeting, he drew the dog's attention to the figure - and the animal responded with a grunt.
S. continued to peer stubbornly, when suddenly a figure approached him within a hand's distance. He focused his gaze on her face, while she looked into his face. She approached him without any noise or rustle. The face was not quite clear, but still clear enough. S. could not take his eyes off the ghost's eyes. They seemed to have fettered him in place, as if he had no more will or strength left.
He was not afraid for his physical safety, but meanwhile he experienced some inexplicable horror. His gaze was so mesmerized by the ghost's gaze that he did not notice either his clothes or even his general appearance. The ghost looked at him calmly, even meekly, and thus stood in front of S., as he believes, for about half a minute, then suddenly disappeared out of sight. In total, he was visible for about five minutes.
The dog, which had previously been angry and grumbled, now stood huddled at the owner's feet, as if in tetanus: its jaw dropped, its legs trembled, and it was shaking all over. S. tried to encourage the animal with his hand, addressed him with words, but she, apparently, did not recognize him, and only then, after a certain period of time, she seemed to come to herself again. All the way to the house, the dog kept at the very feet of the owner, not retreating a step, and did not chase the game along the way, did not even notice it if it got up from its place nearby.
The dog only after two weeks recovered from the experience, but, as the magazine says, “forever lost its former vigor and liveliness. No compulsion could force her to enter that forest at night. In the light of day, she decided to do this only in front of the owner, but she trembled all the time and did not leave him a single step. The owner, however, showed more courage, he then crossed that clearing more than once at night, but the ghost of the murdered forester never appeared again.
Another case is described in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which cites the testimony of Miss Scott of Bosewells, Roxburghshire, and other eyewitnesses about encounters with a ghost, similar to an old priest, right on the road. Here's how it went.
In May 1892, Miss Scott, returning home from the store at noon, saw a tall man in black a few yards ahead of her. He turned a street corner, still in plain sight, and then suddenly disappeared, although he seemed to have nowhere to turn.
Adding a step to see what had become of the stranger, Miss Scott met her sister, who was looking around in amazement. She, as it turned out, saw the same figure, which she took for a priest, and which disappeared before her eyes. All searches were fruitless.
In July of that year, Miss Scott saw the same figure again in the same place. The upper part of it was also seen by another sister walking with her. The figure was dressed like an old priest - knee-length pantaloons, silk stockings, buckled shoes, a white tie, a low hat. Determined not to lose sight of her this time, Miss Scott did not take her eyes off the figure, and both sisters saw her slowly melt before their eyes.
The following year, in June, Miss Scott, walking near the same place one morning, saw the same ghost. Wanting to reveal the secret at all costs, she ran to overtake him, but he seemed to be sliding ahead of her, then stopped, turned and appeared before her, giving her the opportunity to notice to the smallest detail the features and clothes of a Scottish priest of the last century; then the figure disappeared again off the road.
Others have attested, independently of Miss Scott, that they have seen the figure at the location indicated. A Miss Irwin noticed the old priest's original attire and was watching him walk here and there along the hedge when, to her amazement, a figure suddenly disappeared some three yards away.
The figure then did not appear until 1897, when Miss Scott and one of her sisters saw her again, recognizing the delicate white features and clothing of the ghost. At that moment they did not think about him at all and denied the possibility of hallucinations or someone else's tricks. In July 1900, Miss Scott saw the figure again twice in the vicinity, and the next day she wrote to the Society for Psychical Research.
Interestingly, the people who worked on that road, when asked if they had met a ghost on it, answered negatively. Neither did the man see anything who walked this road to the village every morning and returned in the evenings. Perhaps, according to the ghost, they shouldn't have noticed him at all …
Of course, such meetings took place later. One of them was reported by the famous Russian psychic V. I. Safronov. He receives many letters, some of them telling about encounters with ghosts.
“I was less than seven years old,” said one of his correspondents, “and our family lived near the city of Istra, Moscow Region. With my comrades, I played hide and seek not far from the house in a vacant lot, where there was a hay head. I got to "drive". The older guys fled to their homes, but I, not knowing about their betrayal, continued to search. It was getting dark, but it was still very light.
Suddenly, at a short distance from me, I saw a group of people walking along the path from the house of the Arkhipovs' neighbors. I rushed to catch up with them, deciding that they were my peers. But when I ran up to them at a distance of several steps, I was literally dumbfounded, because I recognized them as uncle Nikita Arkhipov, his wife and a child of my age, who had recently died one after another. They did not react to me in any way. I immediately ran away."
Undoubtedly, meeting with a whole group of posthumous ghosts is not an easy ordeal, especially for a child. An adult is also lost, even if the ghost he meets clearly shuns his colleagues in other being and appears before a person outside the usual collective at night and at the edge of the forest. Such a meeting was reported in 1996 by Lev Vaisman from the village of Zverevo. Here's how he said it was:
“We parted with a friend after midnight. From his dacha to mine you can walk along the street, but there are so many dogs in the yards, they raise such barking … And one Caucasian shepherd dog has already pushed through the bars of the gate several times and bit unlucky passers-by. So I decided to walk to my site along the edge of the grove: further, longer, but calmer and there was no one to be afraid of and nothing to be afraid of.
June midnight is quite bright, so I noticed a light silhouette moving in front of me from thirty meters. I thought: someone else is midnight. I decided to speed up to catch up with my fellow traveler, to talk, since I know almost all the owners of the dachas.
I accelerated and already from about ten meters I saw the details that, to put it mildly, alerted me. Someone was wearing a sort of gauze cloak with a hood. The cloak is up to the heels, but under the gauze there are no visible details, as if it was thrown over the fog in the shape of a man. I immediately didn't want to catch up with the pedestrian, I even stopped to let him go further. And then I clearly saw that the silhouette looked around. Mist was indeed glowing from under the hood.
I was literally washed over by the cold. I turned slowly, ready to run back. But I couldn't just run, I couldn't just move my stiff legs. He stood with his back to the silhouette, looked around and sighed with relief. The silhouette in the thicket disappeared, at least in front, where the lantern on the pole was already shining, it was not visible. I went further. But, passing the place where the "pedestrian" looked back at me, I saw "him" with a peripheral vision, looked point-blank - no one, turned my head - I seemed to see.
Now I started running. Horrified. He rushed in, turned on the light at the doors, on the veranda, and in both rooms, and left it there all night. Who have I seen? Why are you scared? I don't know, but even remembering this meeting I feel cold."
Indeed, not only remembering, but also reading about it, especially for emotional people, with a vivid imagination and, God forbid, at night, is also not an easy task …
It is not always possible to find out what binds the ghosts to their favorite places in such cases. Sometimes in the messages this issue is simply not touched upon, like the last three of them, and as for the Wolfridge Forest, everything is in order there: he "got worried" after the forester was killed in it.