Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

I think we've had enough of real life horror, so here's a 'true' tale from Niederbayern - lower Bavaria.

Depending on your attitude towards the supernatural, it's either a true tale of the restless dead, or a strange case of mass hysteria - both uniquely chilling... /1

Tittling is a small town near Passau, in Bavaria. It's roughly equidistant from both the Czech and Austrian borders, and is surrounded by thick, dense woods. It's a place that's still a little behind the rest of the world, in a strange sense... /2

At the beginning of 1975, drivers travelling between Tittling and the town of Thurmannsbang started to report coming across a woman in black - normally aged in appearance - hitchhiking by the side of the road.

Some of these drivers picked her up... /3

Drivers who picked up the woman would report that she told them that there would be a beautiful spring, a bountiful summer, but a 'bloody Autumn'.

She would disappear before the drivers reached Thurmannsbang. /4

At one point, the police told a perplexed driver that they were the third person to report meeting the woman in one day. /5

At one point, a couple of students claimed to have filmed the woman as they were shooting with Super 8 in the woods.

Apparently - nobody seems to know where the footage is - she can be seen crouched, shuffling down a hillside. /6

By April, police in the region were receiving so many reports of this woman, that they had enough.

Anyone reporting the woman would be fined 1000DM, lose their license and be referred to psychiatrists. /7

Yet there were still sightings - tourists and what not, who weren't away of what had been going.on.

Unfortunately, she wasn't so cooperative with the 'parapsychologists' who flooded the region. Not one managed to capture any evidence of her. /8

The year of the 'Schwarze Frau' is now long in the past, but it is still discussed - on the internet, among the elderly, by 'ghosthunters'.

Last year @BR_Presse made a podcast series about the incident, called 'Blutige Herbst' - 'Bloody Autumn'. /9 br.de/radio/bayern2/…

So... Mass hysteria? A real incident of the supernatural? A prank by the bored inhabitants of a reasonably rural reason? An appearance of Perchta, the ancient alpine goddess of Southern Germany?

Well, I leave that up to you. /FIN

PS. Autumn 1975 was reasonably peaceful for Bavaria.

Strikes me, she didn't tell us exactly which Autumn she meant...