Footsteps Behind Me - Nobody There!!!

[TigerBright19]

A few years ago I worked at my local hospital and walked down this corridor many times to get from the old maternity ward to the main filing room which (rumour has it) was originally the morgue about 60 years ago and was later converted into a filing room.  During one evening I walked down the corridor just as normal and began to hear footsteps approaching from behind.  I thought it was a nurse judging by the sharp echo of her heels on the floor and her rapid walk coming up from behind.  As her footsteps approached I instinctively stood to one side to let her pass, but just as she reached me there was suddenly silence and I immediately turned around and saw nobody here.  It left such an impact with me (hairs standing on the back of my neck), that I hesitated to go down that corridor again, but each time I had to go there I had to sing and hum to myself to take my mind of it.  It was luckily a short-term contract and I was kind of glad when it was over.  I was reluctant to mention what I had experienced until I heard other people mention their experiences in this alleged haunted corridor with rumours of a maternity nurse / midwife who killed herself.  I took this photo the day I left.

 

 

 

Anyone relate to a similar experience?

 

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Aaron2016

[Crikey]

23 minutes ago, Aaron2016 said:

Anyone relate to a similar experience?

 

Yup, it sounds like the paranormal phenomena called 'False Arrival'

One Saturday afternoon in the 1970's when i was in my 20's i was home alone while the rest of the family were out shopping in town, and i spent the time up in my room building a plastic model ship.

Around teatime i heard voices in the street outside below my window that sounded like the family returning, then i heard our front gate unlatch, then i heard the key go in the front door, then heard their voices and footsteps spill into the hallway.

Then there was dead silence.

I went downstairs to greet them but there was nobody there, i looked in the living room, kitchen, even the garden and garden shed, but nothing, they were nowhere to be seen.

An hour later they came back for real and i asked my mother if they'd arrived earlier and gone back out again, but she said no, and hadn't a clue what i was talking about.

So i just put the earlier arrival down to a trick of the mind or a "waking dream" or whatever, and felt fascinated and privileged to have experienced it.

A few years later i happened to learn from a paranormal book that the phenomenon is fairly common, and is called "False Arrival" where people hear footsteps but there's nobody there.

　

 

[+and-then]

Don't mean to mock you but why couldn't it just be acoustics?  Echos? 

[Kittens Are Jerks]

1 hour ago, Crikey said:

Yup, it sounds like the paranormal phenomena called 'False Arrival'

It's not a paranormal phenomenon. Nor is it an unusual one. If you, for example, have an expectation that someone is about to arrive, you might hear them at the door even though they are not yet there. Another example is losing a loved one, but still hearing them come home at their usual time. It's just our brains conditioned to hear certain things, at certain times, at certain places. These occurrences fade over a period of time as the brain readjusts to the new situation.

[Grim Reaper 6]

I think it is a time traveler, who just switched the time they were in!

peace

[+Not A Rockstar]

I have had similar experiences when I worked overnight in a locked down airport in nowhere for a few years. I'd be working on my college work or reading and suddenly hear a voice or steps and have to get up and check as I was security, to keep the place safe while closed. Nearly never found a soul anywhere around. I think active places with a lot of energy during the day, like transit hubs or busy hallways, retain something of it and can do this at random. 

If you add in suggestibility - that a suicide happened there, it used to be a morgue, and your own tiredness, it's far less random to happen  

What is neat is when you are still and can record the footsteps. Useless as proof as the naysayers will insist it was an echo or someone else was off camera doing it for a fake, but, you can prove it for yourself, which is all that matters, really. 

False Arrival is also interesting, but, I am not sure they are the exact same thing.

Great picture. It suits a sort of 1960's Twilight Zone set.

[Crikey]

Let me toss a couple more "False Arrival" accounts into the playpen-

The first was in a TV prog about the paranormal a few years ago.. The manager of a small engineering firm told how he was working late on his own one night doing the accounts in the old control tower on a disused airfield where his firm was renting some hangars, then he heard footsteps plodding up the stone stairs and stop outside his door. After a short silence he impatiently called out "Well come on in then!", but nobody did. He went and opened the door but there was nobody there.

The second  happened to two people in the street, they left their house with a friend, but halfway down the street the friend realised he'd forgotten something, so he ran back to the house to get it, and his two friends strolled slowly on. Soon they heard his footsteps running up behind them but when they turned round he wasn't there. Shortly after, he came running up for real.

[quiXilver]

I leave for work early, before 5am. 

Usually dark when I'm driving in.

There's a stretch of the 405 as it wends through the Santa Monica "mountains" that separate The Valley from The South Bay.  Through this stretch there are several miles with no entrances/exits as it's undeveloped.  For whatever reason, the few lights on this stretch will be out, causing the area to be very dark, unlike the rest of Los Angeles Light Pollution Central.

Had the utterly baffling experience one morning, while traveling @ about 80mph uphill, heading north to the studio on an empty road.  In rearview mirror, saw a vehicle approaching very quickly, which stood out at the time, because I was driving fast in my opinion so I knew he/she was hauling @$$ to be overtaking me so quickly.

It's five lanes each direction in that spot, but I moved over from the middle lane to the second to the right and that's when I realized, no more lights, no car, nothing.

 

Slowed down to a crawl... nothing.

No exits, no one pulled off road, no crash.

 

Just me and a strange memory.

[+susieice]

This is weird because I've had something like this happen to me. I was outside my apartment building waiting for a friend to pick me up. I saw her pull into the parking log and when I went to walk over to the car, there was no one there. A few minutes later, she pulled in. I told her what happened and asked her if she drove through the lot for some reason and she said no. She had just gotten here. Strange, I saw this clear as day and have never had anything like this happen again. I thought at the time that maybe my mind was playing tricks on me as I was expecting her to pull in at any moment.

[Crikey]

As I mentioned earlier, I had my "False Arrival" experience while I was concentrating hard on building a fiddly model ship, and the chap in the control tower was concentrating hard on doing the accounts when he had his.

Okay here's my theory-

Perhaps we're all born with a "psychic shield" or "force field" or "buffer" around our brains to protect it from assorted supernatural phenomena?

But if we're engaged in doing something that requires a lot of mental concentration, our "shield" is weakened because we're draining power from it to concentrate on tasks that require a heavy mental workload.

Hence, both of us experienced false arrivals or "visitations" by - who knows? Perhaps a whole troop of demons impersonated my family, i just don't know...

Oh, and here's something else - we hear of students killing themselves after prolonged heavy swotting for exams, so maybe they were concentrating so hard on their studies that mental power was drained from their shield and all sorts of nasties got into their heads...

Maybe that's why the sabbath is meant as a rest day for us to relax and re-charge our shields?

"Report Mr. Spock"

"We're being scanned captain, source and origin unknown"

"Shields up, red alert"

Edited January 22, 2020 by Crikey

[Crikey]

Regarding footsteps, they might (in some cases) be a ghost that can't quite materialise into a visible form, unlike in this clip from 'The Stone Tape' where footsteps are heard first, then comes the materialisation-

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Crikey

[Susanc241]

7 hours ago, Crikey said:

Regarding footsteps, they might (in some cases) be a ghost that can't quite materialise into a visible form, unlike in this clip from 'The Stone Tape' where footsteps are heard first, then comes the materialisation-

 

Thanks for that clip.  I remember watching it when it was first broadcast.  The idea of the 'stone tape' theory fascinated me then and still does.  Do you know where the whole thing is available to watch?

As to false arrival, I have experienced this quite a few times, mainly hearing the car come onto the drive and/ or the front door opening but nobody there.  Always at a time when I was expecting my husband to come in.  Interesting subject.

 

 

[TigerBright19]

On a related note.  My father used to work in a Victorian police barracks (originally a children's hospital) and before it closed his colleague heard and saw something on the top floor office which caused him to run out of the building in a hysterical state and my Dad could not convince him to return ever again.

 

The building has been closed and sealed off for many years.

 

My Grandmother was a house maid in the 1930's and worked for a wealthy lady who was deeply involved in spiritualism.  Several members of the family died in the house, and she mentioned a number of unusual events which occurred there, but the one that she recalled the most was a night when the family were out and she heard the sound of a car driving up to the house, the car stopping, footsteps on the gravel approaching the front door, and the servants bell ringing for her to answer the door, but when she opened the door there was nobody there, and no car in sight.  The old house has now been abandoned for years.

 

The abandoned home of Emily Leonora De La Cherois

 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Aaron2016

[Crikey]

3 hours ago, Susanc241 said:

The Stone Tape..Do you know where the whole thing is available to watch?

 

It was on youtube the last time I looked, try the link below..Basically a small group of high-tech electronic experts rent an old country house to work on their projects, but discover the place has a ghost so they switch all their efforts into trying to trigger and capture it.

SPOILER ALERT- There's a twist at the end because they never stopped to consider what made the screaming chambermaid run up the stairs and fall to her death in the first place..

 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Crikey

[Crikey]

Here's another notable scene from The Stone Tape, their computer senses there's some unspeakable horror in the house and it tries to warn them-

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Crikey

[Susanc241]

SPOILER ALERT- There's a twist at the end because they never stopped to consider what made the screaming chambermaid run up the stairs and fall to her death in the first place..
 

I remember the ending very well, but I won’t spoil it.   Thanks for link - will watch it later when I have time.