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.
Related articles
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (seaofshoes.typepad.com)
- Paranormal experiences series: Switching videos or I know I’m getting older but… (areyouanempath.com)
- Paranormal experiences or you expect me to sleep with that going on? (xeraphax.wordpress.com)
Psychic Empath 
Got your own experiences or comments? I’d love to see them.