THE DEVIL RIDES AGAIN?  REVELATIONS FROM ANDREW MILES....

Copyright Valerie Martin

Why does haunting take place?    Is the Devil playing outrageous tricks again?

"Dear Valerie.... Paul Blackmore's Chanctonbury Story....I was enthralled by Paul's chilling and detailed account. Chanctonbury Ring -- even to this day, from here in distant Ontario, the name still echoes ominously.

My brother Richard, back in 1979, experienced something equally weird at the Ring. On leave from the Royal Marines, Richard was at that time a fearless soldier and a marksman. For a joke he got together with some friends to camp under the beeches at Chanctonbury. They had heard the same nonsense that Paul's mum had warned about. That the place was haunted, that unknown forces lurked among the trees, that evil spirits followed and teased human visitors. To my brother and his friends this all sounded like moonshine and they set up camp under the Ring without incident.

Once the campfire was going brightly they enjoyed bottles of beer and Richard was the center of attention, sharing stories of being a Marine in Deal, doing thirty mile marches with full kit and sleeping under torrential rain on Dartmoor. When the fire went dim and the bottles ran out everyone crawled to their canvas.Just as Richard entered his tent he thought he saw, some distance away in the gloom of the trees, a bluish-white blob of light, moving back and forth in the woods. He thought nothing of it and retired to his sleeping bag.

During the early hours of the morning, when the sky above was still studded with stars and dawn was still hours away, and the fire was out, everyone was awakened by a flash and a bang. Military instinct caused dreaming Richard, the Royal Marine, to jump up and reach for his rifle. Surely that was a thunderflash. But he was camping and sleeping, and his rifle was back at barracks.

But everyone had heard the strange bang and came bleary eyed out of canvas to see what was going on. Richard, being a natural leader, said that they were under attack by a friendly enemy and the best thing to do would be to go back to sleep. Everyone obeyed.

Jokes with thunderflashes, blanks and smoke bombs were commonplace among the Marines, especially during leave when comrades followed each other from pub to pub, looking for an oppurtunity to pounce. But this was Chanctonbury Ring, high up on the Downs. Who would protract such a joke? Surely there was some drunken sod doing this, military or otherwise.

In the morning Richard and his friends awoke and looked at each other, with tired expressions. They had all had a rather sleepless night. But at least they had survived.
Chanctonbury Ring surrounded them and the shadows were long as the sun lazily rose and brightened.   They walked about, stretching limbs and yawning. And then they all saw it.

Hovering above the ground, perhaps thirty feet away, was a ball of light, about the size of a tennis ball. It was electric blue and dazzling to the eyes. Suddenly it floated towards them and then shot up into the trees with a flash and a bang. And then it was gone, leaving everyone blinking with disbelief.

To this day my brother Richard does not know what he saw. Perhaps it was ball lightning, perhaps it was a very clever joke played by his military friends or perhaps they had all had too much beer.

Whatever it was, it was extremely strange. It happened to my super-skeptic brother, it happened to his friends. It happened at Chanctonbury Ring.  All the best, Andrew".

What a spooky picture this story presents to make us all start thinking.

Continue to read  A Chanctonbury Encounter with the Devil