when I was 5 years old we moved into a house in a rural area just west of st louis missouri. our rear property line was also the property line for a privately owned peice of land that was just over 2500 acres. the first several years we didnt wander too far into the woods, as we didnt know the owners of that land yet, and had a lot of work to do cleaning up our own property (clearing brush, building a barn and fences, etc). well, I was probably around 12 years old (give or take a couple years) when we had permission to hike, camp, ride horses, fish, hunt, cut a few trees for firewood etc on that land when one day we were riding on what once was a wagon trail, now a deer trail which we widened a bit to accomodate riding our horses and we came into a valley (in itself nothing strange, hills and valleys all over the place) but the horses would not go into it. sometimes horses get spooked or just get testy and dont feel like it but something gave us chills, and we also had my german shepherd, my moms golden retriever and my brother jack russel terrier with us and they also wouldnt go into the valley. we ordinarily would have made the horses continue into it but decided to go around partly do to all the animals, and ourselves, being creeped out, and also due to the fact that this small valley was very overgrown with poison ivy, black berry bushes and other dense brush, and the deer trail went around the valley.
several days later I was playing in the woods with my shepherd, following a small creek, probably pretending to be davie crockett or some other wilderness character that fascinates young boys. suddenly my dog jumped in front of me sideways so his shoulder was pressed into my knees, hackles up and a low rumble coming from his chest (not so much a full growl but a growl that he wasnt sure if he wanted to let out) and when I tried to step around him he jumped in front again. all during this I had the same chill/goose bump feeling and realized it was the same valley where none of the animals were willing to go. due to being young and creeped out I walked quickly in the other direction constantly looking over my shoulder and feeling like I was being followed. 5 times my dog very quickly spun around behind me and gave a loud bark (the type he would give when someone was approaching our door) and would growl, slowly back away and then finally turn. it wasnt untill we got back home that his hackles went back down and he started acting normal.
that night we were outside late because our mare was due to foal any day and was pacing around and acting like it was time (as a side note she didnt have it for several more nights), it was around 10-11 at night and we started hearing barking, howling, and yelping a long way off (the creepy valley was about 1-2 miles from our house, probably no more than 1 mile as the crow flies, not sure). me, my dad, and my older brother grabbed flashlights and my dad grabbed his single shot 12 gauge and we went to investigate with my german shepherd, thinking one of our neighbors dogs got into a fight with a coyote or another dog, or got tangled up in some old strands of barbed wire we found now and then growing through trees. we followed the noises and came again to the creepy valley. this time my dog was on a leash incase we came to a frighten or injured dog, and once my dad and my brother walked into the wooded valley the dog was willing to cautiously go too. we didnt find anything but a clearing in the middle and a burned ring about 15 feet across. there were symbols carved and burnt into trees all around, but nothing else and no signs that anyone had been there for quite some time so we went back home.
the next day our neighbor who had lived there for over 12 years came by to see if we had a new born horse yet and we started talking about trail riding and he asked if we had tried to go into a little valley over in a direction where he pointed. we told him about our experiences and he said that about a month after he moved in he heard noises and called the police. they arrested 12 people who they caught butchering a live cocker spaniel. satanists. said they also found remains of several other animals. and after he went home he came right back and showed us a news paper clipping from that arrest, in the article it said that 30 years before this arrest 6 men and 5 women were arrested in the same place for killing a baby.
I beleive in the possibility of aliens, bigfoot, loch ness, and other unexplained phenomenon. because of that wooded valley, I deffinetly beleive in ghosts.