Staffordshire's Cannock Chase, a landscape steeped in natural beauty, holds a far darker reputation as a hotspot for paranormal activity. Among its many eerie legends, one spectre has consistently terrified and intrigued visitors for decades: the apparition of a young girl with completely black eyes.
Decades of Dread: The Legend of the Black-Eyed Girl
Since the 1980s, there have been persistent reports of encounters with this unsettling entity. Described as having a playful, giggling demeanour but characterised by her soulless, entirely black eyes, the figure is said to roam the woods. Author and paranormal investigator Lee Brickley, who has written four books on the area's strange phenomena, even claims a personal sighting. "She appeared about a hundred metres in front of me. She stared right at me for about thirty seconds, then vanished without a trace," he recounted.
Modern Encounters: From Campers to Dog Walkers
The legend is far from a historical curiosity. During the pandemic, two 17-year-olds, Kylie and Ben, were camping in Birches Valley when they heard rustling and a child's giggle at midnight. Upon investigating with a torch, they saw a figure that moved in "ways humans simply can't move." The giggling intensified, echoing around them, before the child darted away. The next morning, they found strange stick formations and neat piles of stones around their tent, and Kylie later spotted the black-eyed child watching them from behind a tree as they left.
In a more recent and alarming incident reported by Birmingham Live, a dog walker near Castle Ring felt an overwhelming sense of doom as his dog grew agitated. He then felt a physical tug on his coat. Turning, he came face-to-face with a pale girl in ragged clothes with "completely black eyes." "She giggled in a way that hurt my ears and sent chills down my spine, and then she skipped off into the trees," he said. Brickley notes this encounter is significant due to the rare physical contact, raising serious questions about the nature and potential danger of these sightings.
A Portal for the Paranormal?
Adding to the evidence, the YouTube channel Furious Otter has released drone footage over the forest which they claim shows the black-eyed girl—a figure in loose white clothing moving through the trees. This chilling visual evidence coincides with Brickley's broader theory about the area. He believes Cannock Chase acts as a "paranormal portal" where entities from another world can cross into our own.
This is supported by other documented phenomena from The Paranormal Database, including sightings of shambling dark figures at Castle Ring, a tall creature with red eyes, and legends of demonic Gabriel Hounds. Brickley himself has witnessed a figure in an old soldier's uniform vanish at the German War Cemetery. "I believe the woods are haunted with many spirits of the dead, but there are also lots of monster sightings that happen here," he explained, suggesting some presences may originate from a "much darker place."
The accumulation of testimony, from the 1980s to the present day, paired with modern video evidence, ensures the mystery of Cannock Chase's black-eyed ghost child remains a deeply unsettling and active chapter in the UK's paranormal folklore.
