It is with great pleasure that we welcome Neil Arnold to the CFZ bloggo with this first guest blog. I have known Neil for fifteen years now since he was a schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older...For several decades Clapham Woods in West Sussex, has been the subject of many a dark whisper and wicked rumour. Tales of ghosts, murders and black magic often emerge from the ancient woods, and I’ve been stalking the shadows as part of research for my Sussex-based monster book.
My favourite and certainly, creepiest story pertaining to Sussex, and there are many, concerns a sighting of a truly dreadful creature. This manifestation even made the Littlehampton Gazette, in 1975 around the autumn. Even national radio and the popular topical BBC programme Nationwide, featured the story. At the time the area was caught up in a flap of high strangeness. News crews, journalists, UFO investigators, and paranormal enthusiasts flocked to the area, but rarely after dark.
Two dogs had gone missing in the area, and when researchers stumbled across a footprint measuring eight-inches long and almost four-inches wide, but showing four-claw mark indentations (and a fifth claw mark towards the rear of the main pad), it was clear that something bizarre was going on. Twelve inches in front of the print, was another, almost identical print. The investigators were equipped with a Geiger counter, as well as other paraphernalia. Suddenly, the needle of the counter began to act oddly when the counter was swept over the prints, and then, from the darkness a grey pillar of mist appeared. With the main A27 road in ear shot, the researchers decided it best to head for home, but then the monster appeared. The hazy shaft of mist before them took on the form of a great bear-like creature.
The apparition then faded within ten seconds.
From then on Clapham Woods would become known for its paranormal activity. It was once rumoured that a bear cult operated clandestinely in the thickets, and maybe they’d raised some kind of tulpa-like energy forever to haunt the shadows of the ‘birdless grove’.
Strange symbols, time lapses, animal sacrifice, phantom hounds, secret societies and several obscure cults. Clapham Woods is certainly one of those special places. Blue Bell Hill in Kent, and Cannock Chase in Staffordshire seem to offer similar bouts of high strangeness, whether in the form of strange animal sightings or peculiar activity and folklore. Whether by strange coincidence, the grounds of Verdley Castle, situated also in West Sussex, are supposedly haunted by a giant bear. It is alleged to have been the last bear in England.
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