Real UK Goblin Sightings: Chilling Stories from Witnesses Across Britain

For centuries stories of goblins have been told across the United Kingdom, creatures said to lurk in caves, forests and forgotten places. In this episode we're exploring the legends, sightings and strange encounters surrounding these mysterious beings. I'm Leon Leighton and this is the real unexplained stories. Story one The Knockers of Pen Rain Mine South Wales by David When I was nineteen I worked a short contract near Bethesda. My job wasn't glamorous. I was carrying tools, cleaning debris, and helping the older men with whatever they needed doing. The mine itself was a scar in the mountain, damp echoing and filled with tunnels that snaked far beneath the ground. The men I worked with were tough. They all carried certain superstitions. One of them was about the knockers. At first I thought it was just a nickname for loose rocks shifting or for the noise of hammers echoing down the tunnels. But the older miners said no. The knockers were something else, little men, goblin like, things that lived down deep in the mine. They'd knock on walls to warn of cavins or trick you deep into the dark, depending on how you treated them. I laughed it off at first, until that night I had gone down the mine alone. It was a Friday shift, near closing. One of the older men had left a tool bag behind, and my foreman taught me to fetch it, so I grabbed a headlamp and strapped it on my helmet and went back down into the tunnels. The air was cooler, heavier, and every sound seemed to travel forever. I found the bag easily enough, sitting near a support beam, but on my way back I heard it three knocks. Slow, deliberate coming from deep in the rock. At first I thought it was another worker, but the place was empty. I called out and my voice echoed back to me. Then the knocking came again. Closer this time, just like someone just behind the stone wall. My lamp flickered. I swear I saw movement at the edge of the light, small hunched shapes darting out of sight, too quick to focus on, but definitely there. The fear set in, then I ran. My boots slipped on the slate dust. I nearly dropped the bag from my scramble to the exit. But the knocking didn't stop, it followed me, on the walls, on the beams, on the floor itself. When I finally burst into the open air, the older men looked at me like they already knew. One of them muttered, The knockers have had a look at you boy. I quit the job not long after, but sometimes when I'm in quiet places, like basement tunnels or even underpasses, I swear I hear it again. Those three knocks. I wonder if those little men ever really let you go. The Wallanton Park Norms in late September 1979. Six children were playing near a pond in Wallington Park, Nottingham. They were between the ages of eight and ten years old, just kids out after dark, when they claimed something extraordinary happened. Out of the trees came figures, dozens of them, no taller than two feet. They wore pointed hats and had long white beards and clothes that looked like something out of a fairy tale. But it wasn't just how they looked that unsettled the children. These beings weren't walking, they were riding in strange bubble-like vehicles that hovered just above the ground, moving with a soft buzzing sound as they circled the children. The encounter went on for nearly 15 minutes. The children later said the figures chased them back towards the park gates, weaving in and out of the trees, their buzzing crafts darting across the grass. When the story got out, reporters swarmed the area. The children were interviewed separately, and each one described almost exactly the same thing. Some even drew what they'd seen, bearded like men in pointed hats, seated inside rounded crafts that floated above the ground. Sceptics called it childish imagination, a shared fantasy, but the details matched too well, and the sincerity of the children's accounts left others convinced they had seen something real. Were they goblins, fairies, or something stranger? Still nobody knows. What we do know is that forty years later the Walton Park norms remain one of the UK's most bizarre and chilling encounters. The Red Cap of Hermitage Castle by Anonymous Scottish Borders eighteen hundreds. Hermitage Castle, built in the mid thirteen hundreds, has long been called one of the most haunted ruins in Scotland. Its bloody history begins with William de Soulees, the cruel lord accused of dark sorcery and murder. He was said to be untouchable by iron, rope or blade. When the people finally rose against him, legend claims they boiled him alive in molten lead. Locals believe that his cruelty left a stain on the land, and the stain took form in the red cap, one of the most feared goblins in British law. A red cap is no harmless trickster. It's described as a small, twisted old man in iron boots wielding a pick or spear. Its cap is soaked in blood and if that blood ever dries the creature is said to die, so it hunts rentlessly to keep the red fresh. One traveller in the eighteen hundreds recorded his encounter at Hermitage Castle. At dusk while walking the outer walls he heard footsteps, heavy metallic echoing against the stone, and when he turned he saw it, a figure barely waist height with grey skin, burning eyes and a dripping red cap. He ran, but the red cap gave chase. Its iron boots struck sparks from the stone, gaining on him. Despite its size, only when he crossed into the ruins of the chapel did the creature stop, snarling at the threshold, as if something unseen stopped its way. The account written down at the time matches dozens of others from the borders of Scotland. Even today visitors claim to hear boots on empty staircases and to feel its eyes watching them in the dark. The red cap of Hermitage Castle isn't folklore for children, it's a predator, and it has haunted those stones for more than 600 years. The Goblins on Dartmoor by Sarah Devon, England 1997. I was 22 years old when it happened. A group of us had gone hiking out on Dartmoor in late autumn. The Moor has its own atmosphere. Endless rolling hills, jagged granite rocks coming out of the ground like broken teeth. And when the mist comes in, you can barely see a few feet ahead. We set up camp near one of the old stone circles, the kind that looks ancient and out of place, as though they had been standing there forever. It was quiet, just the wind and the sound of sheep in the distance. But that night after the others had gone to sleep, I woke up to a strange noise. At first it sounded like giggling, faint, high pitched, almost childlike. Then I heard footsteps crunching on the heather, small quick footsteps circling the tents. I unzipped the flap just a little. In the glow of the dying campfire I saw them. Three, maybe four figures, no taller than a child, but twisted, hunched. Their faces were pale, with sharp little teeth that caught the firelight. They were tugging at ropes of the tent, pulling at our packs, moving with a kind of skittering speed that made my skin crawl. One of them turned, its eyes reflected the fire. Two bright and natural glints in the dark. It tilted its head at me, and for a moment I thought it was smiling. I shut the flap, and I didn't move until sunrise. When morning came, some of our supplies were gone. One of the pucks had been dragged several feet away, the straps torn. Everyone laughed it off and blamed animals, but I know what I saw. People talk about dark mode pixies and spirits, but what I saw that night wasn't playful or harmless. They were goblins and they were watching us. The figures in the woods by Mark Northumberland 2014. In 2014 I was in my late twenties out on a solo hike near Kilda Forest. It was late autumn. I planned a simple route, a few hours out and back, but I got overconfident. Instead of sticking to the trail, I cut across through the trees thinking I knew the woods well enough. That's when I realized how easy it is to get turned around in Kilda Forest. The deeper you go, the more trees close in. After a while I noticed how quiet it was. There was no birds, no wind, just my own boots crunching on the leaves. The silence was heavy, like it was pressing down on me. Then I heard it a laugh. High pitched, mocking. It came from behind me. I spun around. Nothing. Then it came again to my left. Then my right. Always close, but never where I looked. At first I thought maybe it was kids messing about, but it was a weekday afternoon. I hadn't seen another person for hours on the trail. I walked faster, trying not to panic, but the laughter followed me, faint at first, then louder. That's when I caught the first glimpse. Something moving between the trees, low to the ground. Quick. I told myself it was a deer, but deers don't laugh. The longer it went on, the more glimpses I got. Shapes darting from trunk to trunk. Small, too small to be adults, too fast, jerky to be children, and always just out of focus. Then one of them stepped into the open. It was no child. It stood maybe three feet tall, hunched with arms too long for its body. Its head was oversized, its face sharp, twisted, and its eyes its eyes reflected fading light like an animal's. It just stood there watching me. Before I could move, another peered to its left, then another crouched low, gripping the bark of a tree. With long pale fingers, I realized I was surrounded. I ran. I didn't even remember deciding to. My body just moved, and that's when they give chase. The laughter erupted all around me. Branches snapped, leaves scattered, footprints padded over the ground. They didn't run like people. It was quicker, more insect like, as if they scuttled as much as they sprinted. Every time I thought I'd lost them, something moved just ahead, driving me on, steering me. It felt like they were hurting me, not just chasing me. I didn't know how long I ran. Time lost meaning in those woods. My chest burned, my legs ached, but the fear kept me moving, at least. I broke out onto the forest road and saw my car. I sprinted the last stretch, fumbling with the keys, half expecting to feel a hand or a claw or something on my back. When I finally looked behind me, the tree line was still, silent and nothing moved. I sat in the car for almost an hour before I could drive, my hands wouldn't stop shaking. But for weeks after I had nightmares, I'd wake to sounds of that laughter, convinced something was at the edge of my bed. Once walking home at night I heard the leaves crunching behind me and froze. My heart was pounding, waiting for the sound of those small quick footsteps. I haven't hiked alone since, and I've never come back to Kill the Forest. People call goblins folklore, fairy tales, make believe, but I know what I saw that day, and I know that they let me go because if they wanted to, they could have taken me easily. The Roadside Goblins by Claire The Peak District 2008. It was the summer of 2008. I was driving home late from a friend's house in the Peak District. It was just after midnight, and the roads out there are pitch black, no street lights, just headrows and trees pressing in on both sides. About 10 minutes from home, I noticed movement in the beams of my headlights. At first I thought it was a fox crossing the road, but then I saw it stand upright. It was small, maybe three feet tall, with long arms that swung oddly as it shuffled across the tarmac. Its skin looked grey, almost sickly, and its eyes caught the light like glass. I breaked hard the tire screeching. The thing froze, just staring at me. Then an instant, three more figures started from the hedge, running low and fast across the road. My heart pounded. As I sat there in the car, idling. I should have just driven on, but I couldn't. Something kept me frozen. And then I realized they hadn't run off. They just stopped in the road, just beyond the reach of the headlights. I could hear them small footsteps on the tarmac, scratching metal off the crash barrier, and a faint high laugh echoing in the dark. When I finally put the car into gear, something banged against the rear door, hard enough to rock the vehicle. I flooded. The laughter rose behind me, mixed with the sound of footsteps scattering into the hedges. When I got home, I checked the car. There were scatters down the back door, fresh ones, deep as if they'd clawed into the paintwork. I didn't tell anyone at first, but in the weeks after I started waking up at night to tapping on my window, just once or twice, always faint like something testing the glass. I never saw them again. But even now I avoid that road after dark because whatever those things were, they wanted me to stop, and I think if I had, I wouldn't be here to tell this story today. The Goblins of Bodmin Moir by Thomas Cornwall 2014. A group hearing stories of Bodmin Moir, the beast, the ghosts, the endless tales of strange lights drifting over the bogs, but nobody ever told me about the goblins, not until that night. It was October 2014, the kind of autumn where the wind carries a bite and the night seemed to fall earlier every day. I was twenty three at the time, and I agreed to hike out across the moor with two friends, Callum and Ben. We weren't locals, but Callum's grandfather had lived in Cornwall all his life, a miner before the pits were closed, and Callum had inherited that strange fascination with the place. We started early that morning, walking across miles of rough track, the kind where thorny scrub claws at your boots, and the heather crunches under every step. Bodman has a way of making you feel small. It's an endless roll of brown, purple and grey, with granite outcrops rising like broken teeth in the distance. Even in daylight it feels haunted. By the time the sun had begun to sink, we found ourselves near Dorsemary Pool, a bleak stretch of water with more legend than beauty. Some say it was where Arthur's sword was cast away. Others whisper darker stories, things that lived beneath its surface, pulling the curless under. The three of us set up camp not far from its edge. The air had dropped cold already. You could even see your breath hanging in front of your face like smoke. We got a fire going, boiled some water and sat with mugs of tea. The light flickering over our faces. That's when Callum brought up the knockers. Have either of you heard of them? he asked, staring into the flames. Ben shook his head, half remembered the word but nothing more. They were goblins, Callum said. The old miners swore by them. They'd knock on the walls underground. Sometimes it was a warning, like if the tunnels were about to collapse, but other times it was just lead men deeper into the mine to make them lose their way. My grandad swore he saw them more than once. Small things, ash grey skin, faces twisted up, like stone always watching from the dark. I laugh, thought it it didn't sound natural. It sounds like fairy stories. Callum didn't smile. He just kept staring into the fire. He said they were real. He said once you hear the knocking, you'd never mistake it for anything else. The moor was quiet around us except for the sign of wind. That quiet pressed harder after his words like the land itself was listening. We tried to brush it off telling stories of our own, but as the night settled in, the silence grew heavier. The fire burned low, the shadows stretched further, and somewhere out there something began to move. It started faint at first, a tapping sound. Soft like knuckles on wood. It came from the rocks behind us. We turned, swung our torches sweeping across the darkness, nothing but stone and scrub. But then it came again. Tap tap tap. Louder this time, closer. Callum's face had gone pale. That's what I was talking about, he whispered. He sat frozen. Then came another sound, a low scratching, like fingernails dragging across slate, and beneath it the sound of laughter. But it wasn't human. It was guttural broken, like someone had taught a wild animal how to laugh. That was when I saw it. At the very edge of the firelight something shifted, a figure, no taller than my chest, hunched, its skin the colour of ash, its arms far too long for its body. Black eyes glistened as it peered at us from the dark. I fumbled with my torch, and when the beam caught it, the thing hissed, bringing jagged teeth before ducking away. Two more followed it, crawling on all fours, then rising upright as if to mock us. Their faces were twisted, stretched into wide grins that never changed. Ben swore under his breath. What on the earth are those? They're the knockers, Callum whispered, his voice shaking. They followed us out here. The creatures circled us, always keeping just beyond the fire glow. Whenever the flames dipped, they crept closer. I could hear them knocking stones together, clacking their teeth, whispering words I couldn't understand. We spent hours like that. The fire became our only shield. Every time I added wood, I felt their eyes boring into me, waiting for the light to go out. At one point Ben tried shouting at them and throwing stones into the dark, but the goblins only laughed harder, their voices echoing across the moor and a horrible chorus. Sometime after midnight, one of them hurled a rock into our camp. It landed inches from the fire, scattering sparks. That was when Callum lost it. He grabbed a burning branch, screaming and ran towards them, but for a second the moor lit up, and I swear I saw at least half a dozen figures darting back into the shadows, more than the free we'd counted. But they didn't go far. All night they paced. I could hear their footsteps, their whispers, their occasional tap tap tap that made my screen cull. None of us slept. We just sat wide eyed, clutching whatever we could find as weapons. When dawn finally bled across the sky, the moo fell silent. No more tapping, no more laughter. Exhausted we packed up camp. I wandered over to where I first seen one of them step out of the dark. There in the grass there was a circle burned black, as though the firelight itself had scorched the ground when it touched their skin. We didn't speak much on the way back. Callum refused to ever set foot on the moor again. Ben insisted it had to be some trick. Wild people, kids messing about. But I knew better, even now years later, when I'm home alone and the house creaks in the dark, I sometimes hear it again. Three taps, tap tap tap, like knuckles on wood. And I know they're still out there waiting for another fire to gather around. Where the goblins are nothing more than folklore or something stranger lurking in the shadows. The stories continue to be told to this day. Thank you for listening to the real unexplained stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review and sharing the podcast with someone who enjoys the unexplained. Until next time, stay safe out there.