ABOUT FACTS NET Paranormal

 

Picture Source: Clipart.com

In 1956 I was returning from Langley Mill, it was night time. I decided to cut across the fields. I intended to head for the pathway between the two pit hills leading towards Peacock Town. I came across a sunken garden and not wishing to climb up the high field behind it, I cut across it. To my surprise I found a brick-arched entrance staring me in the face. It was approximately 20 feet wide, by 15 feet high. The entrance was not visible from the nearest of the two houses, because of overgrown vegetation.

I told my friends about that entrance and the four of us decided to pay it a visit. There was rubble in front of it and it was covered with weeds, obviously no one had been here in quite a while. We entered the brick-lined tunnel which was about 20 feet wide, 150 feet long and 20 feet high. The tunnel got increasingly narrower as you got near the end. On our left was a high wall, separating what looked like several old stables. At the end, the tunnel had dribbled down to about 12 feet wide and 10 feet high, still giving us plenty of room to walk in an upright position. High stacks of rotting wood were everywhere. We rested, then looked around. We shone our cycle lamp around the area and noticed a low tunnel entrance on our right, but we would have to crawl through it. It was obvious that mining had taken place here. We didn’t get very far become we came across a rock barrier. We couldn’t move it so we had to give up but decided to come back in a couple of days with hand tools to try and get past the barrier.

When we came back we brought four cycle lamps, with new batteries, a ‘Ringer’ and a hammer. The ringer, as used down the mines, was/is six feet long, by approximately an inch in diameter of solid steel. The barrier soon gave way. We encountered four more barriers in the tunnel and broke through each one. Since the barriers were constructed from the opposite side from where we were traveling there MUST be another entrance somewhere. Our curiosity knew no bounds. Where was the other entrance?

We traveled about 250 feet and then came upon a six foot iron door-frame, all twisted on its left hand side. This stood above a several foot drop into a large cavern. Here, the coal mine itself appeared to end. There was no coal refuse anywhere.

On the West side, lay a yard wide diameter hole in the center of the floor. On inspection, it appeared to be several feet deep, with a small tunnel opening at the bottom, leading Eastward. The Northern half of its edge was worn glassy smooth – slicked, just as if ropes had run over its edge there for years.

We stayed in the cavern about 20-30 minutes. As the others turned to struggle up the several foot height to the twisted door frame, I flashed my light one more time. It was then I noticed a darker shadow at the base of the solid rock on the North side. Investigating it, the darker shadow turned out to be a very small tunnel entrance. It was low and only about a yard wide. I led the way in and it was very tight. Inching forward stretched flat out, our backs still rubbed against the tunnel’s roof. The tunnel was about 20 feet long. At the tunnel’s end we found ourselves in another tunnel that was only 4 feet by 4 feet, but was made of solid, light gray rock. The walls, floor and ceiling were absolutely flat. There were no past coal seams here. The air in the tunnel remained fresh, this was not typical of a coal mine.

We crawled through for about 100 yards. the floor sloping gradually downwards again, and then we found ourselves blocked again. We tried but couldn’t break through. We were exhausted and had to rest.

While resting I decided to shine my light around the tunnel and noticed a dark shadow behind us. I couldn’t believe my eyes, it looked like a man. I asked one of my friends to shine his light in the same spot. He saw it too. By now everyone was shinning their lights in that direction. Our blood ran cold as we realized that now there was a man resting against the wall behind us, a man who wasn’t there a few minutes ago when we passed by.

Someone said “he looks dead!”. That was it. Gone was our quest for the hidden exit. All we wanted was to be out of there. For another ten minutes we attacked that obstinate barrier. We still couldn’t breach it. We were extremely scared. What if he wasn’t dead and came toward us? I shone my light at the man one more time, but he wasn’t there. We had all seen him so we know he existed and wasn’t just a mean shadow caused by a rock or such. We waited apprehensively for a minute or two, wondering if he’d ‘pop up’ again. We really wanted to get out of there. Unfortunately we had to go back the way we came and that meant passing the spot where we had seen the body or man, we weren’t sure. I kept my eyes purposely focused straight ahead of me. If he came back, I didn’t want to know. I reached the area where he’d sat, not turning my head, but a sudden movement caught my attention. I looked through total fear. Another movement. We all remained motionless for one brief moment, then I saw what he’d left behind. Several large, whitish maggots writhed on the tunnel floor. Above them, a couple of dozen maggots wriggled on the tunnel wall just about where his shoulders had rested. Now there support was gone and they were falling to the floor. That did it, it was literally every teenager for himself and the Devil take the hindmost.

We were exhausted and had to take a break.The sweat of pure fear poured down our faces. Suddenly, a noise roared into our ears. It sounded as if someone was slowly climbing toward us. We didn’t stop to find out. The several feet of height up to the twisted door frame was scrabbled up easily. What is height at such times?

A few weeks later, we returned to the entrance with more of our friends. The entrance was half collapsed by huge rocks. I had no intention of going in there again anyway. Did that entrance collapse of its own, or was some mysterious power at work here?

Many years went by and I often thought of my experiences in that tunnel, then about two years ago I found out something relating to the area that I hadn’t known. Apparently, many years ago, an old miner had stepped out of the cage at the wrong landing and plummeted around 130 feet to his death, and he wasn’t the only one, other miners also died there. Does that old fellow claim all the area’s underground tunnels as his own? If so, he’s quite welcome to them.