Thirty years ago, I was 17 years old, walking home at 12:27, just after midnight. I was in a town in Northern Ireland and had to cross a large park. Our family was Protestant Christian, but I had become an atheist. This was to the dismay of my parents; however, when you are a teenager, you suddenly know everything about everything, quite oblivious to the real fact that you know practically nothing at all about anything. However, they put it down to a phase young people must go through at some point.
Away in the distance, I heard a very very strange noise coming from behind me. It was about 3/4 of a mile away and I could see that distance across the green parkland when I turned around briefly. I was wondering just what was making the strange noise. It was more than strange; it was like nothing I had ever heard before and was distinctly different and really "unnatural", for want of a better description. It was a type of wailing. I turned and started walking on again while listening to the really weird noise.
Things then got really outside of the norm as whatever was making the noise crossed the distance from where it was about 3/4 of a mile away to right behind me in about three seconds or perhaps less. Now I knew that there is nothing on the planet that can move that fast, or make that noise. It was suddenly right behind me, one pace behind and following me. I stopped walking and turned around to face it. As I turned, the noise stopped. There was absolutely nothing there and nowhere it could have went to. However, considering the speed it moved, I thought it could be hiding behind one of the large beech trees a little distance away.
I was working logically at this stage, looking for rational explanations. I had heard of the Banshee and was thinking that that is what it must be because of the unearthly wailing noise it was making. I expected to see a Banshee when I turned around (a fairy woman in Irish -- a little white woman with long hair sometimes combing it as they wail). Nothing was there, however, and there was complete silence as the noise stopped as I turned round.
I then started to walk again and hadn't taken half a step and the wailing started again right behind me. That was when I started to realise that this was supernatural. However, still walking and still thinking partly logically, I decided to spin round really fast to face it and hopefully catch it out before it could go anywhere. I turned very fast, about halfway round again the unearthly noise stopped. I looked everywhere, spun round a few times thinking it might be behind me, then I thought it could be in the air above my head and looked up. Nothing anywhere, absolutely nothing.
I started to walk again and the unearthly wailing noise started again right behind me before I had half a step taken. I then just kept walking and it kept wailing, I knew there was nothing I could do about it. After a minute or so I came to a built up area and the noise stopped following closely, drifted back, faded away and eventually stopped.
I went into my house and both my parents were awake watching T.V. I told them the story, initially saying to them that you are just not going to believe what happened to me a few minutes ago, but I'll tell you before anything happens, no point in saying after. My father then said that the Banshee follows our family as a death warning, that someone in the family will die, and that he had heard it the night before his brother died, but again could not see it though it was near him. My father became worried that he might die himself.
One week later to the very minute, my grandmother died.