Category: alternative memories

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Paranormal experiences series: The road along side Hanging Rock or this was no picnic.

Rock Formations - Hanging Rock, Victoria, Aust...

I’ve discussed two incidences where songs I remember were never produced in the way I remember them to be.

Now, it is reasonable to put such things down to faulty memories, and let’s face it, who hasn’t mis-remembered something they swore they knew happened?

However, this particular incident is very hard to explain away.

There’s this rather famous book by Joan Lindsay called Picnic at Hanging Rock. It’s about the disappearance of three girls back in Woodend, Victoria, Australia, back in the early 1900s. During the 70s, it was made into a movie.

Hanging Rock is a real place near Woodend, and is a tourist destination. It is a large rock, which can be climbed and explored.

I used to go there a lot during the late 80s and early 90s and it’s fair to say I’ve had my fair share of unusual experiences there.

I would usually go at night with my best friend at the time, Paul. Like me, he had a fascination for unusual places.

Hanging Rock had two main roads on each side of it. Both continued straight from the highway to the dirt roads on the other side.

Me and Paul would go up there at night: Sometimes by ourselves, sometimes with friends.

One night we drove there and the trip was uneventful as it normally was. It wasn’t until we started to drive up the road leading to Hanging Rock that I began to feel that something wasn’t quite right. Something about the road didn’t seem to be real and I commented on it. Paul felt it as well.

The night was mild, the moon was waning, but it still shone plenty of light.

There are huge steel gates that allow entry to the park where Hanging Rock is, and you can’t really miss them, but somehow we did.

We kept on driving and soon came across a dirt road instead of the sealed one we were driving on. It took me by surprise since I had come a lot further than I thought I had. In fact, I went straight through a give way sign.

“Oh well done,” said Paul, “But, I suppose it’s late.”

“I didn’t think that we’d come this far,” I said. “Did we pass the gates?”

“We have, but I didn’t see them. Nor did I see the sign saying 100 meters to Hanging Rock. This is the dirt track that I once went up with some other friends. We went up it three time and we still couldn’t find the gates.”

We drove on for a bit and I decided to turn back since the road didn’t seem to be going anywhere of interest and Paul was feeling a bit uneasy about continuing. Instead we decided to go back and find the gates.

And find them, we did as we went back down the road. They were closed. Sometimes they were left open, and we’d go in and climb the rock. (Even if it was at night.)

Paul suggested we check the other side to see if the gates were open there, and I agreed, so we did. However, there was something totally wrong about the road.

“This is a dirt track. It should be a sealed road,” I said.

“I know, go on,” replied Paul, rather calmly. “Continue up it.”

I saw the sign that said Hanging Rock Tourist Road, and soon after we came across the gates on the other side. They were also closed.

As I continued down the road that led from the gate back  to Woodend, I saw a car coming towards us in the distance.  It then turned and disappeared. About 30 seconds or so, later, I got the where the car had turned. Now I had been up that road many times. It’s a straight road with barely any turn-offs. Paul, who was far more familiar with the layout of the area also knew that, too.

“Left turn, Gary,” he said.

I stared incredulously at the road. “There is no ‘T’ intersection on this road,” I stated.

“I know,” he simply said.

“So why is there one now? And what road was the car on that was coming towards us?”

Paul had no answers, but he was unnervingly calm about it, too. Mind you, from his own stories, this was not the first time something like this had happened to him.

I turned to the left and the soon made a right hand turn and found myself on the proper road again.

This road had appeared out of nowhere. It didn’t look new, and even if it was, it had been put there in a matter of weeks. If you know anything about Victorian roads, it takes months, or even years for anything to be completed.

Somehow, the layout of the area had changed around us.

What was even more interesting was when I asked friends who were familiar with the area about that road; they would describe the T intersection. They didn’t remember the road being straight.

There are some things you just can’t explain away with logic.

Next: Other inconsistencies.

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Paranormal experiences series: The original version of Wuthering Heights or what the…

The Kick Inside

I’ve found that my as I get older, I find it easier to forget things. This is mostly because there is so much information coming in now that it’s just not possible to retain it all. It’s as though everyday has a heap of new things that I should remember, but I can’t because something else comes in right away after to remember, too.

Still, I’ve found that my childhood memories, especially when it comes to music, are still very strong and accurate.

Music is how I time stamp my memories. Songs will bring back feelings and emotions of the time, and often bring tears to my eyes.

So, when an anomaly turns up, I sit up and take notice.

I’ve already discussed the Say My Name incident, and how somehow it was a different artist singing that song, or at least to my memory.  And while I’m prepared to say that I was simply wrong, it does bring up a similar incident that happened back in the mid to late 70s.

Before going to sleep, as a preteen, I would listen to the radio, and the songs I heard back then remain in my memory to this day, even the obscure ones that no one else seems to remember nowadays.

One song I recall, though for no particular reason, was Wuthering Height.  Like most songs at the time, it was just there, with no real attraction. I didn’t hate it, but wouldn’t have gone out of my way to get it. Not that I could afford to buy any records back in those days anyway.

In 1978, Kate Bush released her first single, Wuthering Height, and I thought to myself, at the time, I prefer the original version and I said as much.

The version I knew was sung by a female artist who had a much lower voice, which was reminiscent of someone like Karen Carpenter. Unfortunately, I don’t know who sang that  particular version.

Over the years, in the back of my mind, I resolved that one day I was going to look that version up, and get hold of it.

Sometimes it takes a few decades for me to get around to doing something (seriously!) and one day in the noughties, I decided to finally do it.

However, I soon found that it wasn’t possible.

The problem was that there was no original version. Kate Bush had written this song in 1977, and she was the original artists.

I’ve checked this fact a number of times, wondering if I had got my information wrong somewhere, but it is correct.  There was definitely no version of that song before Bush.

To hear a song that does not exist, several years before it is released raises some interesting question. The biggest one being: How?

Still, one can be forgiven for thinking that maybe I was mistaken or have a faulty memory (though, as I said, my memory of music is uncannily clear from my childhood.)

Even if I did agree with you, this was not the only thing of that nature that occurred.

Next: The road alongside Hanging Rock.

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