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Speaker 1: Ambling across the South downs a large stretch of chalk hills,
Speaker 1: valleys and woodland just to the north of the south
Speaker 1: coast of England, you might chance upon a peculiar collection
Speaker 1: of beech trees perched atop a prominent spot on its
Speaker 1: northern edge. The trees, first planted by local landowner Charles
Speaker 1: Goring in seventeen sixty but later replaced after being destroyed
Speaker 1: by a hurricane in nineteen eighty seven, marked the spot
Speaker 1: of an ancient circular structure believed to date back to
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age, known today as Chanctonbury Ring. The original
Speaker 1: purpose of the site remains unknown, with suggestions ranging from
Speaker 1: the mundane, such as it having been first used as
Speaker 1: little more than a livestock enclosure, to the sublime, with
Speaker 1: others believing instead that it may well have been some
Speaker 1: kind of religious or mystical shrine. Some, however, have claimed
Speaker 1: it to have been used for an altogether different purpose,
Speaker 1: and that the ring had in fact been created by
Speaker 1: the devil. A worthy feature, you might say, for an
Speaker 1: area of England long thought to have hosted more than
Speaker 1: its fair share of unexplained phenomena. Some have put the
Speaker 1: bizarre activity that seems to plague this quiet part of
Speaker 1: the countryside in the County of Sussex to a curse
Speaker 1: placed on the local village of Clapham by a disgruntled
Speaker 1: resident back in twelve eighty eight, after losing a legal
Speaker 1: case against a local parson. Robert the Falconer, was said
Speaker 1: to have damned the accursed village and all its meager holdings,
Speaker 1: stating that the priesthood of a false god would soon
Speaker 1: come to know its fate. Others, however, argue it had
Speaker 1: begun a long time before, with chancton Berry believed to
Speaker 1: be the site of an otherworldly power, being thought to
Speaker 1: have once been the location of a former Druidic temple
Speaker 1: used for ancient and mysterious rituals. Back in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: local resident and famed occultist Victor Neuburg, along with his
Speaker 1: cohort and sometime lover Alister Crowley, was said to have
Speaker 1: taken a keen interest in the area. According to local law,
Speaker 1: if one were to venture to the ring at midnight
Speaker 1: on a Midsummer's Eve and walk its circumference twelve times,
Speaker 1: the midnight drew, it would appear, or even the devil themselves.
Speaker 1: Other local tales speak of a white bearded Saxon soldier
Speaker 1: believed to have been killed at the Battle of Hastings
Speaker 1: in ten sixty six, seen scrabbling about the floor looking
Speaker 1: for something, while some report the sightings of hazy lights
Speaker 1: and strange apparitions seen in the area at night, with
Speaker 1: some suggesting that they might have something to do with
Speaker 1: a nearby plague pit. Perhaps the most romantic of all
Speaker 1: the ghost stories that shroud the area is that of
Speaker 1: the ghost of Prince Agasicles Cionisus, a famed astrologer from
Speaker 1: Carrier in western Anatolia. As legend goes, it was in
Speaker 1: the early seventeenth century that the prince began using Chanctonbury
Speaker 1: Ring to observe the stars, when one night, after writing
Speaker 1: the words zapelli ubi kakidie bury me wherever I have fallen,
Speaker 1: he fell down dead. It is said that to this
Speaker 1: day the astrologer can still be seen wandering the ring
Speaker 1: of trees at night. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm
Speaker 1: Richard McClane smith. It was the more of all Hallow's
Speaker 1: Eve back in nineteen seventy eight, when Reverend Harry Snelling
Speaker 1: made his way to the town of Goring in West
Speaker 1: Sussex for a routine dental operation. Riding the bus into town,
Speaker 1: the sixty five year old recently retired vicar chatted amiably
Speaker 1: with his former parishioners before arriving at the dentist just
Speaker 1: in time for his appointment later that afternoon. Having arrived
Speaker 1: in Findon, four miles from the town of Stenning, where
Speaker 1: he lived, Snelling called his wife from a phone box
Speaker 1: and asked if she could pick him up. However, since
Speaker 1: their car had broken down recently and was still in
Speaker 1: need of servicing, Snelling had no other choice but to
Speaker 1: make the journey on foot. A short time later, with
Speaker 1: dusk descending, Snelling was seen heading off the main road
Speaker 1: and striking out across the downs in the direction of
Speaker 1: his home. As evening turned to night, Snelling's wife waited
Speaker 1: anxiously for her husband's return, but Harry never made it home.
Speaker 1: The next day, after he was reported missing, twenty five
Speaker 1: police officers from the surrounding area were immediately dispatched to
Speaker 1: search for him, focusing their attention on the most likely
Speaker 1: route he would have taken to get home. For the
Speaker 1: best part of a week, the police, assisted by search
Speaker 1: dog teams, a raft of volunteers and even a light
Speaker 1: air craft tried desperately to find any sign of the man,
Speaker 1: but in the end found nothing. A few days later,
Speaker 1: the search was called off, With no reason to suspect
Speaker 1: anything otherwise. It was assumed that Snelling had either tragically
Speaker 1: ended his own life or had collapsed and died somewhere
Speaker 1: and was yet to be found. At the time of
Speaker 1: the reverend's disappearance, Charles Walker worked as a sales assistant
Speaker 1: in Worthing, just five miles south of where the retired
Speaker 1: clergyman was last seen alive. In his spare time, however,
Speaker 1: Walker had become somewhat of an expert on the peculiar
Speaker 1: history of his local area, collecting and documenting evidence that
Speaker 1: seemed to suggest that something very sinister had been brewing
Speaker 1: there for quite some time. Could it be he thought
Speaker 1: that there was a little more to the Reverend's disappearance
Speaker 1: than first met the eye. Having always been fascinated by
Speaker 1: the possibility of the paranormal, it was back in April
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two that Charles Walker's interest was really piqued.
Speaker 1: It was then that the region's numerous apparent mysterious happenings
Speaker 1: were given a thoroughly modernized slant. Three friends from Walker's
Speaker 1: hometown had ventured up towards Chanctonbury Ring late one night
Speaker 1: when they noticed a soft light flickering from within it.
Speaker 1: Having assumed it to be nothing more than a bonfire,
Speaker 1: they were surprised to find when they arrived at the
Speaker 1: trees moments later, that the light had gone out and
Speaker 1: there was no sign of anyone else around. It was
Speaker 1: only then, as one of the group later recounted, that
Speaker 1: a sudden wush from above drew their attention to the
Speaker 1: dim red glow of some kind of object that was
Speaker 1: hovering just above the tree tops in front of them.
Speaker 1: A moment later, they watched it as it shot up
Speaker 1: into the sky, though its possible significance to the wider
Speaker 1: story was not yet apparent to Walker. It was around
Speaker 1: the same time that local police officer Peter Goldsmith disappeared.
Speaker 1: It was in June of that year that Goldsmith, who
Speaker 1: like Harry Snelling, also lived in Stenning, left work after
Speaker 1: completing his shift for the day, but never made it
Speaker 1: back home. It wasn't until six months later that a
Speaker 1: local farmer, helping to coordinate a hunting party at a
Speaker 1: nearby farm just west of Stenning discovered Goldsmith's dead body
Speaker 1: hidden under a thick growth of brambles at the edge
Speaker 1: of the farm land. The body was found curled up
Speaker 1: on its left side, as if Goldsmith had merely gone
Speaker 1: to sleep. A bottle of brown liquid was also found
Speaker 1: next to the body. While curiously clutched in the hand,
Speaker 1: police found what was described as some kind of metal
Speaker 1: disk like a token. With many assuming the liquid had
Speaker 1: been some kind of poison the coroner was stumped when
Speaker 1: it was in fact found not to have been poisonous
Speaker 1: at all. With no definitive cause of death, there was
Speaker 1: no choice but to record an open verdict, with some
Speaker 1: form of suicide thought to be most likely. However, many
Speaker 1: were left wondering not only how search teams had failed
Speaker 1: to spot Goldsmith's body despite investigating that area extensively, but
Speaker 1: also how on earth he managed to place himself under
Speaker 1: such a thick, impenetrable mesh of brambles, which had to
Speaker 1: be cut away in order to extract the body. Though
Speaker 1: brambles can grow up to three inches in a day,
Speaker 1: the extent to which the body had been hidden was
Speaker 1: something of a surprise. Over the next few years, Walker,
Speaker 1: having joined a local paranormal research group, continued to keep
Speaker 1: an ear out for any peculiar activity, but what he
Speaker 1: craved most was to experience something himself, and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have long to wait. It was in August nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: but Walker, then in his early twenties, along with three others,
Speaker 1: made a late night research trip to Chanctonbury Ring. Walker
Speaker 1: would later claim that it was sometime around eleven PM
Speaker 1: when one of the group, William Lincoln, stepped into the
Speaker 1: center of the ring, only to be suddenly snatched up
Speaker 1: by an invisible force and thrust five feet into the air,
Speaker 1: and there he would stay for the best part of
Speaker 1: a minute, seemingly levitating in mid air as he screamed
Speaker 1: to be released, before finally being sent sprawling to the ground.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long after that that the dogs started to
Speaker 1: go missing. The reports began appearing in local papers in
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen seventy five, though many believe it had
Speaker 1: been happening for some time. The first to be reported
Speaker 1: was a three year old and well trained chow dog
Speaker 1: that was walking with its family in Clapham Wood, just
Speaker 1: to the north of Clapham Village in an area known
Speaker 1: as the Chestnuts, when it suddenly bolted off into the trees,
Speaker 1: never to return. Only a week later, a two year
Speaker 1: old Collie, an intelligent working farm dog, was being walked
Speaker 1: near the same spot when it too shot off into
Speaker 1: the undergrowth, never to be seen again. Not long after,
Speaker 1: a golden labrador, while walking in the same woods, became
Speaker 1: distracted by something unseen in the trees, before darting off
Speaker 1: in search of it. The dog's companions, alerted to its
Speaker 1: location by the sound of its desperate whimpers, were devastated
Speaker 1: to find it in some distress and unable to walk.
Speaker 1: After it was later found to have somehow been paralyzed.
Speaker 1: The dog was unfortunately put down, and soon more people
Speaker 1: came forward to report their own experiences walking with their
Speaker 1: dogs at the same location, describing how they or their
Speaker 1: dog had clearly out an uneasy, ominous atmosphere in those woods.
Speaker 1: Back at his home in Worthing, Charles Walker, as ever,
Speaker 1: followed the stories with a keen interest, keeping copies of
Speaker 1: the articles for future reference. A few months later, a
Speaker 1: body was found in the woods. Are you always taking
Speaker 1: care of your family? Do you often take care of
Speaker 1: others and not yourself. Now it's time to take care
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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast. Sixty six year old Leon Foster had been
Speaker 1: missing for three weeks when a couple outlooking for a
Speaker 1: horse that had escaped a nearby paddock noticed a pair
Speaker 1: of boots sticking out from the undergrowth. When police arrived
Speaker 1: soon after, they found it to be the body of
Speaker 1: Leon Foster. Straw discovered under and around his body, and
Speaker 1: the remains of a makeshift shelter tied around the trunk
Speaker 1: of a near by tree, suggested that he'd been living
Speaker 1: in the woods for some time, with most assuming that
Speaker 1: he'd simply died of hunger or exposure while living outside. However,
Speaker 1: with the coroner once again unable to ascertain a precise
Speaker 1: cause of death, an open verdict was recorded. It was
Speaker 1: around this time that Walker began to wander if all
Speaker 1: these mysterious incidences, from the disappearances to the UFO sightings,
Speaker 1: not to mention the area's apparent supernatural history stretching back centuries,
Speaker 1: might somehow be linked. Over the next few years, drawing
Speaker 1: on the various reports of peculiar activity and the litany
Speaker 1: of local folklore claiming that Chanctonbury Ring and the surrounding
Speaker 1: area was somehow a focal point of occult activity, he
Speaker 1: wondered if it might be possible that perhaps an occult
Speaker 1: organization was using the area for various purposes. In October
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, Walker wrote to the local paper asking
Speaker 1: its readers for any information they might have on such
Speaker 1: a group. Within days, he was inundated with replies from
Speaker 1: the mundane to the outlandish, none of it, however warranted.
Speaker 1: Following up, Deflated, Walker had resigned himself to having found
Speaker 1: nothing useful when one night in early November, having just
Speaker 1: settled down to watch TV, his phone rang. Answering the call,
Speaker 1: Walker was greeted by an assertive sounding man with a
Speaker 1: low voice and an RP accent. Though the man wouldn't
Speaker 1: identify himself, he claimed to have the information that Walker
Speaker 1: was looking for, and suggested the pair of them meet
Speaker 1: up to discuss it further. Though Walker couldn't say exactly why.
Speaker 1: It was, Unlike all of the other sponders to his request,
Speaker 1: something about this caller seemed genuine. Walker Julie agreed to
Speaker 1: meet up with him, assuming they would set a date
Speaker 1: to meet, either at his home or somewhere neutral. But
Speaker 1: the man had something else in mind. Tonight, he said,
Speaker 1: at nine pm. Walker looked at the clock on his wall,
Speaker 1: the hands now pointing to eight thirty. I'll be waiting
Speaker 1: for you in Clapham Woods, by the crossroads and the chestnuts,
Speaker 1: he said, and then he hung up. It was pitch
Speaker 1: black when Walker arrived twenty minutes later at the top
Speaker 1: of tip Nor Lane, a small rise overlooking the forest beyond.
Speaker 1: Making his way toward the entrance road, he noticed the
Speaker 1: car park to the woods was completely empty, with only
Speaker 1: the sound of an occasional car passing along the road
Speaker 1: behind him. Walker pushed on through a gate and into
Speaker 1: the trees behind. With the gentle roar of distant traffic
Speaker 1: having disappeared altogether and only the sound of his own
Speaker 1: footsteps for company, Walker pressed on toward the crossroads, anxiously
Speaker 1: listening out for any hint of someone else approaching. Arriving
Speaker 1: at the meeting point at nine on the dot, Walker
Speaker 1: called out for a response, but heard nothing in return.
Speaker 1: The place was deserted. Only then did Walker realize his
Speaker 1: hands were shaking, but not from the cold night air.
Speaker 1: Lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves, Walker began to
Speaker 1: pace up and down, trying to keep warm as he waited.
Speaker 1: By the end of a second cigarette, Walker was beginning
Speaker 1: to suspect that it had nothing but a practical joke,
Speaker 1: But just as he started to make his way back out,
Speaker 1: he heard someone whisper out from behind some nearby trees.
Speaker 1: Don't attempt to look for me, the voice said, for
Speaker 1: your safety and mine, It is imperative you do not
Speaker 1: see who I am. Walker froze, immediately recognizing it as
Speaker 1: the man he had spoken to earlier. After Walker agreed
Speaker 1: to keep looking the way he was facing, the man
Speaker 1: began to talk. I am an initiate of the Friends
Speaker 1: of her Cartie, named after the Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft,
Speaker 1: and the Night. We are the group you've been looking for,
Speaker 1: he said, and it would be in your best interests
Speaker 1: to stop looking. Unperturbed, Walker asked the man if the
Speaker 1: group had anything to do with the recent disappearances, out
Speaker 1: going into too much detail. The man replied that their
Speaker 1: rituals occasionally required a blood sacrifice, if that was the
Speaker 1: answer he was looking for. And so it continued as
Speaker 1: the increasingly nervous Walker listened carefully as the man explained
Speaker 1: how the group had been operating in that area for
Speaker 1: at least ten years because the atmosphere of the woods,
Speaker 1: as he described it, was perfect for their purposes. But
Speaker 1: when Walker inquired as to what that purpose was exactly,
Speaker 1: the man fell silent. He then explained to Walker that
Speaker 1: they had friends in very high places, before warning him
Speaker 1: again to back off and that they would stop at
Speaker 1: nothing to ensure the safety of their cult. Then there
Speaker 1: was another silence. When Walker called out moments later, it
Speaker 1: was clear he was once again alone. Worrying out of
Speaker 1: the forest, Walker was relieved to finally make it back home.
Speaker 1: A few days later, while cycling home from work, Walker
Speaker 1: heard a car pull up close behind him. He barely
Speaker 1: felt the bump before finding himself sprawled on his back
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road, watching aghast as the
Speaker 1: car sped off into the distance before he could make
Speaker 1: note of its details. After lying low for the next
Speaker 1: six months, in the spring of the following year, Walker
Speaker 1: renewed his search for evidence of the Friends of Hikart's activities.
Speaker 1: One morning, whilst walking through the grounds of the Church
Speaker 1: of Saint Mary the Virgin, just south of Clapham Woods,
Speaker 1: Walker was distracted by the sight of the town's manor
Speaker 1: house next door, but more specifically by the medieval barn
Speaker 1: that still stood on it grounds. The house had been
Speaker 1: occupied for some time, but seeing that the barn door
Speaker 1: was open, Walker began to wander. Quickly, checking that no
Speaker 1: one was around, Walker leaped over the church wall scooted
Speaker 1: up the driveway and ducked into the barn. Looking up,
Speaker 1: he gasped at the sight of a bizarre mural on
Speaker 1: the wall, about three foot high in size. It was
Speaker 1: apparently composed primarily of a demonic looking entity with a huge,
Speaker 1: horned head, scaly body, and forked tail. In its hands,
Speaker 1: it held a sword and chalice, ancient symbols of fertility,
Speaker 1: and behind it a bank of flames licked up from
Speaker 1: the ground. Hearing a sound outside, Walker looked out to
Speaker 1: see a man running toward him. In panic, he bolted
Speaker 1: away as the man gave chase, before managing to lose
Speaker 1: him in the woods. Over the next few years, Charles
Speaker 1: Walker continued hunting for evidence not only of the apparent
Speaker 1: occult group's existence, but also of their connection to the
Speaker 1: many strange events that had taken place in the area
Speaker 1: over the last few years, but the group and its
Speaker 1: members remained elusive. In August nineteen eighty one, officers at
Speaker 1: Worthing Police station received a package with a battered and
Speaker 1: disheveled wallet inside, along with a crudely drawn map of
Speaker 1: some woods located on the Sussex Downs, about a mile
Speaker 1: to the northwest of Stenning. Examining the bank cards in
Speaker 1: the wallet, police found the name Harry Snelling embossed on
Speaker 1: the front of them. As an accompanying letter explained the
Speaker 1: center of the package. A tourist from Canada named Michael
Speaker 1: Rain had found a human skeleton while walking across the
Speaker 1: Downs the previous week, which he believed to be the
Speaker 1: remains of Reverend Snelling. Since he had an important flight
Speaker 1: to catch, Worried that he would be dragged into a
Speaker 1: lengthy police investigation, Rain decided instead to send the wallet
Speaker 1: as evidence of his find and a map to explain
Speaker 1: where the remains could be located. Following the instructions, later
Speaker 1: that day, police found the skeleton at the north edge
Speaker 1: of some woodland close to a property known as Whiston House.
Speaker 1: Not only were they surprised to find that the bones,
Speaker 1: despite having supposedly been there for almost three years, had
Speaker 1: not been much obscured by surrounding vegetation, but also that
Speaker 1: the area in which they were found had been thoroughly
Speaker 1: searched numerous times before. It was long after the discovery
Speaker 1: of Snelling's remains that others began to notice the suspicious
Speaker 1: number of unexplained deaths and other events that seemed to
Speaker 1: be plaguing this quiet, unassuming area of the English countryside.
Speaker 1: Writing in the paranormal magazine, unexplained that year Toy Newton,
Speaker 1: without any reference to the Friends of Hikati, made his
Speaker 1: own effort to document the bizarre collection of events. A
Speaker 1: few months later, he received a curious letter from a reader.
Speaker 1: Dear Sirs, it began in your article on Clapham Woods.
Speaker 1: You ask of the mysterious events a link to a
Speaker 1: black coven. I can tell you they are, but it's
Speaker 1: much more than that. They are called the Friends of Hikati,
Speaker 1: and they meet in the woods and the barn up
Speaker 1: by the church and make ritual sacrifices. At the time
Speaker 1: of Orion. The Archer people get headaches and strange feelings
Speaker 1: at Clapham because the place is building up vibrations so
Speaker 1: they can get the force that they want. Sometimes this
Speaker 1: strange force has even started fires, but everything is hushed up.
Speaker 1: They can make people do what they want. I can't
Speaker 1: sign my name, but be warned they are much more
Speaker 1: powerful than a black coven, unexplained. The book and audiobook,
Speaker 1: featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on
Speaker 1: the show, is now available to buy worldwide, who can
Speaker 1: purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores.
Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show.
Speaker 1: Where have you listened to podcast? And feel free to
Speaker 1: get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the
Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an
Speaker 1: explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can
Speaker 1: reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter
Speaker 1: at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward
Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained Podcast. Now, it's time to take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
Speaker 1: video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most
Speaker 1: insurance or employers. Download the app or visit telldoc dot com,
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started, That's t
Speaker 1: e ladoc dot com. Slash Unexplained Podcast