PlasteredDragon
Elite Member
Hello my friends.
I just spent a few hours writing a spooky story about metal detecting. I hope you like it, I've borrowed some events from my life to flesh out this story, but it is entirely a work of fiction. Feel free to skip it if you don't like creepy stories.
====================================
They say you shouldn't go off into the wild alone. There are animals out there that can hurt you like bears or mountain lions, there are hunters who might shoot you accidentally, there are places where you can fall and become injured, treacherous crumbly surfaces unsafe to climb, heavy tree limbs that can fall on you in high wind, remote bodies of water where you can drown, and if the area was inhabited in times long past, old wells and cisterns that you can fall into and become trapped in. Beyond that, there is always the risk of coming across the wrong sort of person -- a thief, an addict, or someone working a meth lab out in the middle of nowhere. Cellphone reception tends to be terrible out in the woods or the mountains -- when you get into trouble you can't count on that to save you. People disappear all the time in the wilds, so it's always prudent to have someone else come along. This is a story about the last time I decided to go into the wilds alone.
My hobby of choice is metal detecting. Pretty sure I will do it until the day I die. It's a fairly niche hobby, most people don't know anything about it. Say "metal detecting" to the average person and they probably imagine an old guy in oversized shorts swinging a machine on the beach for 12 hours and going home with thirty cents, either that or they think of someone who destroys lawns to find a few nickels and dimes. Neither of those stereotypes is true of course -- metal detectorists are generally people who love history and delight in finding old relics from centuries past that are scattered all over the place, just a few inches below the surface. There is something both spiritual and visceral about finding a personal item lost 150 years ago, and being the first person to touch it since the owner dropped it, wondering who they were, what they were doing, what kind of world they lived in, or the yawning expanse of time while the item waited there, undiscovered, until you unearthed it. Of course, sometimes you find bizarre things you can't explain, and on rare occasions, something you wish you hadn't found at all.
I got into the hobby originally because I was having health issues. I've never been particularly healthy, having occasional bouts of asthma, having suffered pneumonia on multiple occasions, and having teeth so rotten and prone to infection, I eventually had them all removed in 2007. Toothless at only 40 years old! But with respect to getting into metal detecting, the health issues were purely of my own creation. I was working from home as a software engineer during the day, and I had a side job as a photographer. Both jobs required a lot of sitting. Coding all day, photo editing all night. I might easily sit for 12 to 16 hours every day. This is really bad for you, and eventually it will catch up with you. It caught up with me in 2011 when I suffered a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot had formed in my leg and traveled up to my lungs, greatly reducing my ability to get oxygen. This condition can be fatal, but luckily, the clot wasn't big enough to cut off my oxygen entirely. I spent a week in the hospital and have been on blood thinners ever since. The doctors wanted to know how I was living my life, and when I told them, they made it clear that I was going to have to choose between the programming or the photography. Although I loved the photography, it was the software development that was paying all my bills, so I reluctantly put my camera away and closed my little studio.
Around the same time, I had begun watching metal detecting videos on YouTube and had started getting interested in wanting to try it myself. Since it involved a lot of walking, hiking, and physical work it seemed like a good choice for me. I might sit during the day for work, but in the late afternoon or on weekends I could get out and wander, looking for treasures and curiosities. It wasn't long before I had picked up some detecting gear, and began finding all sorts of cool things. I loved old relics and personal items, but I especially loved old coins... mostly because old coins have the date they were made stamped right on them. The age of old jewelry or buttons can often be estimated, but if you find a coin that says 1738 on it, you can be almost certain it is from 1738. Finding coins also provides corroborating evidence for the dates of surrounding artifacts. If you find three coins from the 1820's, an old skeleton key, and some old jewelry all in the same spot, it's a fair bet that the key and jewelry are also from the early 1800's. It's part detective work and part storytelling, and I loved it.
With the increased physical activity, I lost weight and began having less trouble health-wise. I joined internet forums on metal detecting, met other detectorists, made some good friends, and began attending meetups and conferences on the subject. It was at one such conference where the speaker was giving advice on detecting that the topic of detecting alone came up. The speaker was unequivocal. "Don't go out there alone." He explained many of the dangers just as I did a moment ago. I was pretty quiet during this part of the presentation, because I almost always go detecting alone. I never know when I am going to be able to find an hour or two to get out there and trying to pull people together at the last-minute cuts into time that I could spend detecting. "I know what I'm doing," I told myself, "half the people who disappear in the woods are folks who have no business being there anyway."
Undaunted I continued to go out alone, and up until the autumn of 2018, nothing untoward happened. Plus, I was making killer finds out in those remote locations, so I was definitely going to keep returning. I had landed this one permission that was a few hundred acres of deep woods. There was a small pond there, a river, and the remains of an old mill from the 1800's. The woods were full of old rock walls and cellar holes left behind from homesites long gone. It was a place that had been settled once a long time ago, but abandoned eventually and reclaimed by the wilds. But all that activity in the 1800's and possibly earlier meant there were a lot of relics and old coins to be found there. It's amazing how much junk people lose all the time... rings, pendants, keys, buttons, buckles, necklaces, tools, coins, pocket knives, and so on.
Although the site is remote, I know I am not the only person who visits it, because I have found modern trash there as well -- mostly beer cans, bottle caps, new coins, bullets and bullet casings left behind by hunters. But the site was so productive I would often remain there until after dark, always trying to find one more coin, just one more relic. The thrill of the find is a real high, and it is a little addictive. Sometimes I just have to shut the detector off so that I can get back to the car without constantly stopping to dig up just one more target.
After several weeks working the site, something about it changed. I had reached a plateau with a small clearing in the woods. It was elevated such that through the trees I could see the pond and the mill buildings far below. The clearing was roughly circular, perhaps 200 feet in diameter, and covered in scruffy meadow grass with a couple of sandy patches. Deer were abundant in the area so the grass never got too tall. I suspected that those who had lived here long ago used this as some sort of meeting area, as it was really too small to be a farm field, but just right to be a town green, and there were old homesites dotting the woods all around me. In the center of the clearing was a very old and imposing oak, so massive that it served as the defining characteristic of the spot. I had done some detecting in this field twice before, but hadn't hit it really hard yet. On both of my previous visits, the meadow seemed like an idyll -- charming, serene, and bathed in sun, the rustling of the wind in the trees, and the chatter of songbirds, chipmunks, and squirrels.
But not today.
Today the place felt more like a mausoleum. The sky was overcast, there was no breeze to speak of, and the whole place just felt ... off somehow. As I gridded my way across the field, back and forth, crossing the occasional sandy spot, listening to the beeps and warbles of my machine, it eventually occurred to me that my machine was the only thing I *could* hear. No birds, no squirrels, no rustling leaves, heck not even any buzzing flies or mosquitoes which would ordinarily be a nuisance. Nothing. Just the crunch of the browning autumn grass under my feet, and the squawking of my detector. This unnerved me a little, but it had been a 45-minute hike out there, and I was sure there were relics to be found, so I dismissed it and kept hunting. But as time wore on, I found myself becoming more and more creeped out. I started to get the distinct impression that I was being watched. But every time I looked about, there was nobody there. As the day turned to dusk, the sense of being observed grew unshakable, and I kept seeing hints of movement out of the corners of my eyes. By then my head was snapping about like it was on a swivel every few minutes. But, as always, nothing. Not a blessed thing. I couldn't understand what had got me so spooked, but I was no longer enjoying myself, so I decided to quit for the day.
"Okay, that's enough." I said aloud. Hearing my own voice made me feel a little better. I shut off my detector and set off down the trail to where I had parked. Within a few minutes of leaving the clearing I started to feel better, and started hearing normal forest sounds again, most notably a pair of barred owls hooting at each other. By then it was really getting dark and there was no moon so I was using my flashlight to see, but still making good time. When I was about five minutes from my car there was a flicker of dim blue light that briefly illuminated the trees around me. It had come from somewhere behind me so I turned to look back. At first, I saw nothing, but then the light came again. I didn't know what it was, because the source of the light was obscured, but I could tell that it was coming from the clearing which was now far behind me. Some mist had settled over the area making it look like a big orb of bluish flickering light was up there. It wasn't rhythmic in any way... it was the kind of flickering you might see from a transformer emitting big electrical arcs, but there was no sound of sparking to accompany it. It only lasted for 4 or 5 seconds, and then all was dark again, but that was enough for me. I was DONE. I think I made it to the car in about two minutes, literally threw my gear in the backseat and tore out of there.
Now, you might assume that when I said this story was about the last time I went out alone, I was talking about this specific excursion... but unfortunately, you'd be wrong. I am a very rational, skeptical person, and I am not given to flights of fancy. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, or alien visitors. At the time I was pretty spooked (well okay, downright scared) but once I was back home and had time to think it over, what had really happened? It was quiet, I felt uneasy, I didn't see anything unusual until I was leaving, and even then, all I saw was a brief light. For all I knew there were some hikers or hunters that had wandered into that field after I left it, and they could have caused the light. Maybe by waving around one of those high-tech LED flashlights or taking nighttime photos with a diffuse strobe flash. Plus, there was no arguing with the finds I had made, two copper coins from the 1790's, a French coin from the 1650's, and a very old silver ring, probably from the early 1800's.
I had to go back, before I lost the nerve to do so.
So, on the following weekend, back I went. Although there was some lingering uneasiness, it evaporated pretty quickly. It was a bright sunny day, and the place appeared as beautiful as ever. I hiked up to the plateau, and it was utterly disarming. A gentle breeze was blowing from the southwest, the birds were singing, and almost nothing had changed. By the big oak there was some new trash, some food wrappers and beer cans, and the remains of a campfire. So, someone had come here after dark, and they possibly were the cause of the light I had seen. I shook my head at how silly I was and laughed aloud. I returned to where I had left off and continued my grid pattern. The unease was entirely gone. I felt completely safe. After about an hour I reached a sand patch very close to the center of the field where I picked up an unusual signal. It sounded like several small targets and one very large one. When I say large, I mean about 4 or 5 feet long, but less than half a foot wide. It was a high tone, so I figured it was probably a piece of copper pipe.
The sand was so loose I barely needed to dig at all, I started brushing it away where I had heard the small targets and uncovered a shiny modern quarter, and two dimes. Modern coins don't really interest me, so I just dropped them in my pouch without looking at them. Then I moved to the larger target and started scooping the sand off it. It was a black metal pole, somewhat corroded and scratched up, with a thick electrical wire lazily wound around it. I worked my way along the pole, uncovering more and more of it until I reached the end where it was attached (via a pivot bolt) to a large oval ring encased in black plastic. For the second time that day I laughed aloud. It was a metal detector! The oval at the bottom of the shaft is the part that is swung over the ground. It's called the "coil". I know it sounds unlikely, but I am actually not the first detectorist who has found a metal detector while out metal detecting. Obviously, people had been coming to this field for years and detecting. I felt bad for whoever lost it. It looked like it was the same model as mine, which was not all that surprising, since I was using a very popular model. But it did look very old. This machine had seen a lot of use.
Sometimes people would put decals on their machines with their name and phone number (something I had never bothered to do), so there was a chance I might be able to get it back to its owner. The sand was so loose I stopped trying to dig the machine out and just grabbed the shaft and tried to pull it from the sand. It was really stuck but eventually I gave a big heave, felt it shift, and it emerged from the sand, along with the arm of the skeleton that was still holding it.
I shouted an expletive as I jumped back.
I hadn't just found a metal detector. I had found a metal detectorist, or what was left of him. It was the same model of detector I was using, but it had no personal decals. Part of the skeleton was now uncovered as well, and I froze when I saw the skull. It had no teeth. Not like they had fallen out post mortem, the jaw was smooth -- healed over, this guy had all his teeth removed when he was still alive.
Like me.
I don't remember much about the hike back to the car. It was kind of a blur. I had called the cops from the meadow. Reception was good up there. When I got to my car the police were waiting for me. I showed them where the body was, explained that I had disturbed it by accident, gave them my contact information, and left. As I was walking away, I heard one of the investigators remarking as he was looking at the remains "Male, mid to late fifties."
I spent that night in quiet reflection. I resolved then never to go out detecting alone, and never, EVER to return to the old mill site. After brooding for a while, I went to dump out my finds pouch, remembering only then the shiny quarter I had found right next to the body. I had completely forgotten to tell the cops about that. I glanced at it and suddenly felt completely cold as I noticed the date.
2027.
I love metal detecting. I'm pretty sure I will do it until the day I die.
I just spent a few hours writing a spooky story about metal detecting. I hope you like it, I've borrowed some events from my life to flesh out this story, but it is entirely a work of fiction. Feel free to skip it if you don't like creepy stories.
====================================
They say you shouldn't go off into the wild alone. There are animals out there that can hurt you like bears or mountain lions, there are hunters who might shoot you accidentally, there are places where you can fall and become injured, treacherous crumbly surfaces unsafe to climb, heavy tree limbs that can fall on you in high wind, remote bodies of water where you can drown, and if the area was inhabited in times long past, old wells and cisterns that you can fall into and become trapped in. Beyond that, there is always the risk of coming across the wrong sort of person -- a thief, an addict, or someone working a meth lab out in the middle of nowhere. Cellphone reception tends to be terrible out in the woods or the mountains -- when you get into trouble you can't count on that to save you. People disappear all the time in the wilds, so it's always prudent to have someone else come along. This is a story about the last time I decided to go into the wilds alone.
My hobby of choice is metal detecting. Pretty sure I will do it until the day I die. It's a fairly niche hobby, most people don't know anything about it. Say "metal detecting" to the average person and they probably imagine an old guy in oversized shorts swinging a machine on the beach for 12 hours and going home with thirty cents, either that or they think of someone who destroys lawns to find a few nickels and dimes. Neither of those stereotypes is true of course -- metal detectorists are generally people who love history and delight in finding old relics from centuries past that are scattered all over the place, just a few inches below the surface. There is something both spiritual and visceral about finding a personal item lost 150 years ago, and being the first person to touch it since the owner dropped it, wondering who they were, what they were doing, what kind of world they lived in, or the yawning expanse of time while the item waited there, undiscovered, until you unearthed it. Of course, sometimes you find bizarre things you can't explain, and on rare occasions, something you wish you hadn't found at all.
I got into the hobby originally because I was having health issues. I've never been particularly healthy, having occasional bouts of asthma, having suffered pneumonia on multiple occasions, and having teeth so rotten and prone to infection, I eventually had them all removed in 2007. Toothless at only 40 years old! But with respect to getting into metal detecting, the health issues were purely of my own creation. I was working from home as a software engineer during the day, and I had a side job as a photographer. Both jobs required a lot of sitting. Coding all day, photo editing all night. I might easily sit for 12 to 16 hours every day. This is really bad for you, and eventually it will catch up with you. It caught up with me in 2011 when I suffered a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot had formed in my leg and traveled up to my lungs, greatly reducing my ability to get oxygen. This condition can be fatal, but luckily, the clot wasn't big enough to cut off my oxygen entirely. I spent a week in the hospital and have been on blood thinners ever since. The doctors wanted to know how I was living my life, and when I told them, they made it clear that I was going to have to choose between the programming or the photography. Although I loved the photography, it was the software development that was paying all my bills, so I reluctantly put my camera away and closed my little studio.
Around the same time, I had begun watching metal detecting videos on YouTube and had started getting interested in wanting to try it myself. Since it involved a lot of walking, hiking, and physical work it seemed like a good choice for me. I might sit during the day for work, but in the late afternoon or on weekends I could get out and wander, looking for treasures and curiosities. It wasn't long before I had picked up some detecting gear, and began finding all sorts of cool things. I loved old relics and personal items, but I especially loved old coins... mostly because old coins have the date they were made stamped right on them. The age of old jewelry or buttons can often be estimated, but if you find a coin that says 1738 on it, you can be almost certain it is from 1738. Finding coins also provides corroborating evidence for the dates of surrounding artifacts. If you find three coins from the 1820's, an old skeleton key, and some old jewelry all in the same spot, it's a fair bet that the key and jewelry are also from the early 1800's. It's part detective work and part storytelling, and I loved it.
With the increased physical activity, I lost weight and began having less trouble health-wise. I joined internet forums on metal detecting, met other detectorists, made some good friends, and began attending meetups and conferences on the subject. It was at one such conference where the speaker was giving advice on detecting that the topic of detecting alone came up. The speaker was unequivocal. "Don't go out there alone." He explained many of the dangers just as I did a moment ago. I was pretty quiet during this part of the presentation, because I almost always go detecting alone. I never know when I am going to be able to find an hour or two to get out there and trying to pull people together at the last-minute cuts into time that I could spend detecting. "I know what I'm doing," I told myself, "half the people who disappear in the woods are folks who have no business being there anyway."
Undaunted I continued to go out alone, and up until the autumn of 2018, nothing untoward happened. Plus, I was making killer finds out in those remote locations, so I was definitely going to keep returning. I had landed this one permission that was a few hundred acres of deep woods. There was a small pond there, a river, and the remains of an old mill from the 1800's. The woods were full of old rock walls and cellar holes left behind from homesites long gone. It was a place that had been settled once a long time ago, but abandoned eventually and reclaimed by the wilds. But all that activity in the 1800's and possibly earlier meant there were a lot of relics and old coins to be found there. It's amazing how much junk people lose all the time... rings, pendants, keys, buttons, buckles, necklaces, tools, coins, pocket knives, and so on.
Although the site is remote, I know I am not the only person who visits it, because I have found modern trash there as well -- mostly beer cans, bottle caps, new coins, bullets and bullet casings left behind by hunters. But the site was so productive I would often remain there until after dark, always trying to find one more coin, just one more relic. The thrill of the find is a real high, and it is a little addictive. Sometimes I just have to shut the detector off so that I can get back to the car without constantly stopping to dig up just one more target.
After several weeks working the site, something about it changed. I had reached a plateau with a small clearing in the woods. It was elevated such that through the trees I could see the pond and the mill buildings far below. The clearing was roughly circular, perhaps 200 feet in diameter, and covered in scruffy meadow grass with a couple of sandy patches. Deer were abundant in the area so the grass never got too tall. I suspected that those who had lived here long ago used this as some sort of meeting area, as it was really too small to be a farm field, but just right to be a town green, and there were old homesites dotting the woods all around me. In the center of the clearing was a very old and imposing oak, so massive that it served as the defining characteristic of the spot. I had done some detecting in this field twice before, but hadn't hit it really hard yet. On both of my previous visits, the meadow seemed like an idyll -- charming, serene, and bathed in sun, the rustling of the wind in the trees, and the chatter of songbirds, chipmunks, and squirrels.
But not today.
Today the place felt more like a mausoleum. The sky was overcast, there was no breeze to speak of, and the whole place just felt ... off somehow. As I gridded my way across the field, back and forth, crossing the occasional sandy spot, listening to the beeps and warbles of my machine, it eventually occurred to me that my machine was the only thing I *could* hear. No birds, no squirrels, no rustling leaves, heck not even any buzzing flies or mosquitoes which would ordinarily be a nuisance. Nothing. Just the crunch of the browning autumn grass under my feet, and the squawking of my detector. This unnerved me a little, but it had been a 45-minute hike out there, and I was sure there were relics to be found, so I dismissed it and kept hunting. But as time wore on, I found myself becoming more and more creeped out. I started to get the distinct impression that I was being watched. But every time I looked about, there was nobody there. As the day turned to dusk, the sense of being observed grew unshakable, and I kept seeing hints of movement out of the corners of my eyes. By then my head was snapping about like it was on a swivel every few minutes. But, as always, nothing. Not a blessed thing. I couldn't understand what had got me so spooked, but I was no longer enjoying myself, so I decided to quit for the day.
"Okay, that's enough." I said aloud. Hearing my own voice made me feel a little better. I shut off my detector and set off down the trail to where I had parked. Within a few minutes of leaving the clearing I started to feel better, and started hearing normal forest sounds again, most notably a pair of barred owls hooting at each other. By then it was really getting dark and there was no moon so I was using my flashlight to see, but still making good time. When I was about five minutes from my car there was a flicker of dim blue light that briefly illuminated the trees around me. It had come from somewhere behind me so I turned to look back. At first, I saw nothing, but then the light came again. I didn't know what it was, because the source of the light was obscured, but I could tell that it was coming from the clearing which was now far behind me. Some mist had settled over the area making it look like a big orb of bluish flickering light was up there. It wasn't rhythmic in any way... it was the kind of flickering you might see from a transformer emitting big electrical arcs, but there was no sound of sparking to accompany it. It only lasted for 4 or 5 seconds, and then all was dark again, but that was enough for me. I was DONE. I think I made it to the car in about two minutes, literally threw my gear in the backseat and tore out of there.
Now, you might assume that when I said this story was about the last time I went out alone, I was talking about this specific excursion... but unfortunately, you'd be wrong. I am a very rational, skeptical person, and I am not given to flights of fancy. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, or alien visitors. At the time I was pretty spooked (well okay, downright scared) but once I was back home and had time to think it over, what had really happened? It was quiet, I felt uneasy, I didn't see anything unusual until I was leaving, and even then, all I saw was a brief light. For all I knew there were some hikers or hunters that had wandered into that field after I left it, and they could have caused the light. Maybe by waving around one of those high-tech LED flashlights or taking nighttime photos with a diffuse strobe flash. Plus, there was no arguing with the finds I had made, two copper coins from the 1790's, a French coin from the 1650's, and a very old silver ring, probably from the early 1800's.
I had to go back, before I lost the nerve to do so.
So, on the following weekend, back I went. Although there was some lingering uneasiness, it evaporated pretty quickly. It was a bright sunny day, and the place appeared as beautiful as ever. I hiked up to the plateau, and it was utterly disarming. A gentle breeze was blowing from the southwest, the birds were singing, and almost nothing had changed. By the big oak there was some new trash, some food wrappers and beer cans, and the remains of a campfire. So, someone had come here after dark, and they possibly were the cause of the light I had seen. I shook my head at how silly I was and laughed aloud. I returned to where I had left off and continued my grid pattern. The unease was entirely gone. I felt completely safe. After about an hour I reached a sand patch very close to the center of the field where I picked up an unusual signal. It sounded like several small targets and one very large one. When I say large, I mean about 4 or 5 feet long, but less than half a foot wide. It was a high tone, so I figured it was probably a piece of copper pipe.
The sand was so loose I barely needed to dig at all, I started brushing it away where I had heard the small targets and uncovered a shiny modern quarter, and two dimes. Modern coins don't really interest me, so I just dropped them in my pouch without looking at them. Then I moved to the larger target and started scooping the sand off it. It was a black metal pole, somewhat corroded and scratched up, with a thick electrical wire lazily wound around it. I worked my way along the pole, uncovering more and more of it until I reached the end where it was attached (via a pivot bolt) to a large oval ring encased in black plastic. For the second time that day I laughed aloud. It was a metal detector! The oval at the bottom of the shaft is the part that is swung over the ground. It's called the "coil". I know it sounds unlikely, but I am actually not the first detectorist who has found a metal detector while out metal detecting. Obviously, people had been coming to this field for years and detecting. I felt bad for whoever lost it. It looked like it was the same model as mine, which was not all that surprising, since I was using a very popular model. But it did look very old. This machine had seen a lot of use.
Sometimes people would put decals on their machines with their name and phone number (something I had never bothered to do), so there was a chance I might be able to get it back to its owner. The sand was so loose I stopped trying to dig the machine out and just grabbed the shaft and tried to pull it from the sand. It was really stuck but eventually I gave a big heave, felt it shift, and it emerged from the sand, along with the arm of the skeleton that was still holding it.
I shouted an expletive as I jumped back.
I hadn't just found a metal detector. I had found a metal detectorist, or what was left of him. It was the same model of detector I was using, but it had no personal decals. Part of the skeleton was now uncovered as well, and I froze when I saw the skull. It had no teeth. Not like they had fallen out post mortem, the jaw was smooth -- healed over, this guy had all his teeth removed when he was still alive.
Like me.
I don't remember much about the hike back to the car. It was kind of a blur. I had called the cops from the meadow. Reception was good up there. When I got to my car the police were waiting for me. I showed them where the body was, explained that I had disturbed it by accident, gave them my contact information, and left. As I was walking away, I heard one of the investigators remarking as he was looking at the remains "Male, mid to late fifties."
I spent that night in quiet reflection. I resolved then never to go out detecting alone, and never, EVER to return to the old mill site. After brooding for a while, I went to dump out my finds pouch, remembering only then the shiny quarter I had found right next to the body. I had completely forgotten to tell the cops about that. I glanced at it and suddenly felt completely cold as I noticed the date.
2027.
I love metal detecting. I'm pretty sure I will do it until the day I die.
But I would hunt that place until 2026 then never go back. 
