Music and Fear

I am not sure if this post should go in this category.

A friend from Germany told me about a time she and her friend visited a small village and felt something so alarming that they ran. These are her own words, with her permission. It just came up in a conversation about her visiting a castle during a recent holiday.

To me, it did not sound like a haunting, precisely, but I would be interested to know if any-one has experienced anything similar. I've also heard of some-one hearing strange music whilst climbing Moel Famaur, a mountain near Mold in north-east Wales, associated with a female ghost.

Quote:

A: The most eerie feeling I had once in a swamp region in northern
Germany, close to the coast - I and a friend heard an odd music, and
then we had a feeling of immediate danger. We ran like the devil was
after us, and in fact that was how it felt. To this day, I have no idea
what was the source of that feeling, and to this day I am convinced
that running like hell that night had been the right thing, and in fact
may have saved our lives.

Me: What was the region called? Is there any legends of things happening
there? That sounds otherworldly, like those legends of music luring
people, and will o' the wisps making people follow them into swamps.

A: It's a swamp in a little village called Preetz, close to the Western
Germany coast of the Ostsee (Eastern Sea), and if there is any legend
of faeries or otherwordly things alive in that region, I do not know
it. But it felt - very, very much so that I did not want to find out
why we had that feeling.The point is, we had it both. And we both felt that staying to find out for just a few more seconds would be a very, very bad idea.We went back there the next day and there was nothing. But we did not search around very much, either.

Hi Lethe

Sounds like what is sometimes known as Mountain panic, or panic in wild places. I have heard of many similar instances see:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/thegreyman.html

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Some researchers have named such experiences 'Mountain Panic' which is basically a blind panic in wild places. Either as a feeling of a powerful presence, or just an overwhelming sense of fear about nature or something that lies behind nature. This kind of encounter is not uncommon: Chris Townsend the respected long distance walker and author mentions such an experience in 'The Munro's and the Tops'. In Glen Strathfarrar on a track by the Allt Innis a'Mhuill. Chris had an overwhelming feeling of a presence watching him, waiting for him to leave. Rennie McOwan mentions a similar experience in his 'Magic Mountains', and I have heard first hand accounts of similar experiences in wild places. The mechanisms behind this are not at all clear.

We have recieved a few e-mails over the years of similar experiences the common factor being an isolated or 'wild' area.

Lethe, this brought back memories of something that I witnessed more than fifteen years ago in Wales.
Our school had organized a field trip to visit Caerphilly Castle. While we were visiting the ruins a couple of boys sneaked away and roamed around at random, probably looking for some way to get themselves in troubles.
After a while they came back running and palefaced, utterly terrified. They told our teachers that they had wandered around by themselves and then decided to leave the castle grounds to have a bit of fun when, having arrived in an area when nobody was present, they heard a strange faint "metallic" (that's the word they used) music from behind. As in the case you reported they didn't stay around but simply turned and run as fast as they could. Of course they could have made everything up but they looked genuinely terrified at the time and, what's more important, they got themselves into trouble for their confession. Also they were the usual types who are always trying to look particulary tough to impress girls and running to our teachers with their tails between their legs surely didn't help their cause. How we laughed in their faces...
One of the boys later reported he heard the same music a couple of times while returning home in the afternoon.
That's how I remember the story.

Sometimes, when you are on your own in a lonely place, you suddenly become 'aware' of the vulnerability of your circumstances. You realise that, if you had an accident or were approached by someone with evil intent, there would be little you could do about it. I have, sometimes, had such thoughts and walked more purposefully!

Thank you for these replies! I did read the article about the Grey Man, and the fear experienced in remote and lonely places. I read a good article in the Fortean Times about it a couple of years ago. It was the music that I found hard to explain and which seems somewhat odd. I was raised in the country and at home wandering about alone, even at night, and I've never heard any natural noises, save perhaps running water which sounded like * music * .

Any sound containing harmonics can, potentially, sound like music if it is not recognised. Once you recognise a sound eg. a waterfall, it won't sound musical any more because your brain knows what to expect.

Quote :

Any sound containing harmonics can, potentially,
sound like music if it is not recognised. Once you recognise a sound
eg. a waterfall, it won't sound musical any more because your brain
knows what to expect.

That's true. I think I would recognize music and probably think it was music, coming from somewhere, a parked car, or house or something. I didn't ask her what kind of music, actually.