Cannock Chase in Staffordshire has a paranormal portal and is the home of the mysterious Pig-Man, says guest writer LEE BRICKLEY!
When most people hear the words “paranormal portal” images of Point Pleasant in West Virginia or Sedona in Arizona undoubtedly spring to mind. But did you know these supernatural vortex areas also exist in good Old Blighty?
Well they do, and Cannock Chase in Staffordshire is one of the most active “portal” areas in the entire country, home to many ghastly ghouls and devilish monsters.
With strange sightings galore, this weird forest seems to hold numerous seriously dark and disturbing secrets, particularly relating to the origin of a creature known locally as The Pig-Man.
A terrifying rhyme exists in the area, recited by many residents, young and old, that goes:
“When night falls, enter the woods at your peril
For inside, lurks something worse than the devil
Avoid at all costs, the gathering place
Where at midnight, the pig-man roams on Cannock Chase”
Sightings of this beast have been surfacing for over 70 years, ever since WW2, so is this savage assailant more than just an urban myth?
The witnesses certainly believe so. Let me share a short sighting report with you from Cannock Chase residents John and Anne:
“In October 1993, whilst walking around Castle Ring, myself and the wife heard some strange noises coming from the surrounding trees. Thinking it was likely to be a local couple enjoying an illicit liaison, we quickly moved away from the sound and headed back in the direction of our car. Upon reaching the steps down to the car-park, I happened to turn around and lay my eyes on the strangest creature I’ve ever seen.
“This thing was 7 feet tall, from the neck down it looked like a man, even wearing clothes, but it’s head was far too big for a human and it had an elongated face with a snout-like nose. We started walking more quickly towards our car and got inside. That’s when we started to hear this really high pitched squealing noise that sounded like a pig being killed. That really spooked us….”
Interesting eh? Well, that is only one report of many.
Reports of the Pig-man of Cannock Chase
These instances have been rumoured as far back as the 1940s, a time when Cannock Chase was home to two huge military training camps and a POW camp for Germans and Austrian soldiers captured in England.
Some locals believe the British military created the rhyme themselves as a means of keeping civilians away from the POW camp, but if that’s true, the sighting reports just don’t make sense, unless…
What if the army was well aware of the pig-man sightings during WW2, and attempted to cover them up and establish calm amongst their trainee recruits by claiming they were responsible for the creation the beast? Too far down the rabbit hole? Perhaps.
Whatever the real facts about the Cannock Chase Pig-Man and his origin are, he is certainly raising neck-hairs with increasing regularity.
If you’re interested in knowing more about this Staffordshire hot-spot, you can read all about the fiendish creature and the whole paranormal sherbang in my new book “UFOs Werewolves & The Pig-Man: Exposing England’s Strangest Location – Cannock Chase” available now from Amazon.
The truth is sn-Out there
LEE BRICKLEY is the author of UFOs Werewolves & The Pig-Man: Exposing England’s Strangest Location – Cannock Chase.
Until I moved away(oddly enough in 1993)I lived on the fringe of Cannock Chase at Little Haywood for forty years and have to say I had never heard any of these stories; neither had my late mother who lived in the village for 73 years. Where they came from, I just don’t know in that case.
Castle Ring is at the southern end of the Chase, but I’d have expected stories of that sort to get to our end over the years.
One of the POW camps (predominantly housing Italians) was beside the Rugeley to Stafford road, where the sewage works now stands.
We had another local ghost on the same road, a young woman in white (with or without a bicycle according to taste) who reputedly haunts the area around Weetman’s Bridge across the Trent. I may have encountered her myself – there is a dip in the road just before the bridge, and dipped headlights reflecting from the wet road surface on the rising side of the dip do take on a vaguely human outline.