Hey Everyone! Great thread, I'm a long time visitor to ATS but only just created an account due to some incredible photos a friend of mine took a few
weeks ago. But because of the 20 post rule I can't start my thread just yet...lol.
So instead I thought I might tell you about a few things my family and myself have experienced, as we too fall into the same category of people who
seem to attract (or are possibly more susceptible to) strange/paranormal happenings. I've loved reading some of your accounts and this is the reason
I've lurked on ATS for so long, it's comforting to know there are people out there who have experienced similar things and don't roll their eyes
when you tell them about your weird past haha.
So bare with me while I share my families story of the strange.
My mother was raised with 4 other siblings in an incredibly remote and isolated place called Utopia, in Northern Queensland during the 1960s. It was
untouched, pristine, ancient land and from the stories my uncles and her have told me it was like paradise, hence the name.
They lived in an old homestead surrounded by dense rainforest, gullys and creeks, with their nearest neighbours miles away. This place was very old,
my mum and uncles had found numerous aboriginal cave paintings hidden away in dense scrub and there were certain places they wouldn't go due to "bad
feelings" they would get. One place was a beautiful watering hole with a massive white stone slab, they would walk miles out of their way to avoid
this place as they felt the energy there was very bad, to the point they thought the land would swallow them up. When they talk about this they always
relate it the story of Picnic at Hanging Rock, a famous Australian story where a couple of young girls were playing in an ancient aboriginal gorge and
vanished off the face of the Earth.
They would often visit neighbour's together, but because of how remote they were it meant long walks through the bush to get there and back. They had
their first encounter with "the little hairy men" one night when they were returning home from a friends place a few miles away. On the way home
they had to climb over a sort of natural Rock wall on the path, you could go around it by walking 10-20 meters into the scrub or just scale it. My
uncle John was the oldest and would climb over then reach his arm down and pull the next person over. He pulled my mum and my uncle Alex over the
wall, then reached his hand down to grab Parn, the youngest of my uncles. Uncle John felt a hand grab him firmly from the other side of the wall and
yank at him just as Parn crashed through the scrub, not wanting to be left on the other side of the wall. When John realized that the hand on the
other side wasn't Parn my mum and uncles freaked out and bolted home. The "thing that grabbed me" as he calls it was incredibly strong with coarse
hair up its arm.
Uncle John had another incident in the homestead which he never spoke about to anyone... my mum and uncles were in their teens during their time in
Utopia, and one night had left uncle John at home and taken the car out with my grandma into town which was a fair trip. When they returned home my
uncle, a 6'5 monster of a man even at 17, was hysterical, crying and hiding in the living room. He wouldn't say what was wrong and refused to leave
the living room, claiming "it wanted to take me" over and over again until he fell asleep in my grandma's arms. He has never spoken about what
happened, but my mum, uncles and grandma have told us about it...
But that wasn't the first weird thing they had seen or heard in their old house. Almost everyone that stayed in their house claimed to have heard
or seen things, the most common reoccurring thing was an old couple who would stand at the stove before vanishing, and the sound of an old wooden
train or toy that would move from room to room.
There was also a room in the house that men couldn't sleep in, women could sleep in there with no problem, but no man could bare that room and the
bad energy in it.
My mum and uncles witnessed orbs so many times while growing up in Utopia that they became normal to them, they would follow them sometimes on their
walks home slowly moving above the canopy, like a guide. Other times they chased them, then disappeared, reappearing only to disappear again. Like
most of the things they saw they attributed it to the land and aboriginal spirits they felt dwelled there.
Once they left Utopia the weird things stopped, but 20 years later my uncle Alex, my mum and my dad sailed to Antarctica on a yacht... where they
again saw orbs, but it was so profound for my mum that she still talks about it with a sort of love, or reverence. As they got closer to Antarctica,
during the night their yacht was paced by balls of light in the water, they would stay submerged and follow for a few minutes before diving deep out
of sight at crazy speeds.
Bored yet?
I'm next, thanks for reading so far