The Unexplained Happenings Which Have Occurred In Japans Aokigahara Forest Which is Known As: The Suicide Forest

Hello & Welcome to Unexplained Mysteries Paranormal. In this Podcast Episode, Host - Harvey More, dives deep into the Unexplained happenings and the paranormal phenomena which occurs after criminological events that at one of the worlds most infamous forests, named Aokigahara Forest which is known as The Suicide Forest. 

Now you might ask what happens in this forest and why? Well, this forest is commonly known for people committing suicide in the forest grounds, going missing and never been found or being found as corpses and paranormal occurrences to be known. 

Harvey More, firstly, goes into a bit of History of this location. Aokigahara Jukai translates loosely to the “sea of trees.” It covers an area of about 13.5 square miles, located in the Yamanashi Prefecture to the northwest of Mount Fuji, the highest mountain peak in Japan. The forest is located slightly less than 100 miles west of the capital of Tokyo. Volcanic eruptions about one thousand years ago formed the land on which the forest sits. Because the ground underneath it is hardened lava, tree roots cannot grow deep into the ground. As a result, the floor of the forest is a tangle of moss-covered roots and uneven surface.

Harvey then goes into some of the eerie stories that have took place at the Suicide Forest, from suicides, people going missing, bodies being found, and what explorers in the past have encountered whilst being in the forest and many other theories that could be possible to explain the phenomenas that occur at this eerie & abnormal forest.

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Team Leader & Founder: Harvey More
 Videographer & Photographer: Georgia Hardingham
 Researcher & Host & Script writer: Harvey More
 Editor & designer: Harvey More
 Co Founder & Assistant Lead: Georgia Hardingham 
Publisher: Apple Podcasts Connect 
 Producer: H&S Media Productions
Creative Oversight: Kic Studios
 Outlet Publisher: Buzzsprout 
 Team: Harvey|Georgia|Sue|Sallianne|Russ

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hello and welcome back to Unexplained Mishro's Paranormal. I'm your host, Harvey Moore. Can you believe how fast we've come into this year already? I mean, it's just unbelievable. Well, in today's episode, I'll be focusing on a story that's a mix between true crime and the paranormal. As we know, both fields are a common occurrence together, typically paranormal phenomena following from a criminological event. Well, let's talk about the well-known forest in Japan, nicknamed as a suicide forest. Now, firstly I'd like to apologise for my sniffling or coughing, or if I sound like a frog is in my throat, because currently I've got a nasty, nasty cold, um, as you can imagine with weather changes during this time of the year, it's um it's very unpredictable what you g whether you're gonna catch a cold, viruses. But yeah, excuse my voice, um, but let's start off with today's podcast with a secrets and shadows question. Now, how many murders does one have to commit to be classified as a serial killer? Make sure to stick around to the end of this podcast to find out the answer. Aokigahara, also known as Aokigahara Jukai, is a dense forest in Japan. Located near the foot of Mount Fuji, the forest has a great natural beauty but is associated with darkness and the paranormal. It is often referred as a suicide forest because many people have committed suicide there, and many mysteries have occurred, especially in the contemporary times. Authorities have become so concerned about the number of people who take their lives in the forest that they have instituted measures to prevent it, including signs encouraging people to think about their families and information promptly posted for how to call for help and the use of drones to detect people in the woods. Now let's go into some of the background behind this location. Aoki Gahara Jukai translates loosely to the Sea of Trees. It covers an area of about 13.5 square miles, located in the Yamanshi Prefecture to the northwest of Mount Fuji, the highest mountain peak in Japan. The forest is located slightly less than 100 miles west of the capital of Tokyo. Volcanic eruptions about 1000 years ago formed the land on which the forest sits. Because the ground underneath it is hardened lava, tree roots cannot grow deep into the ground. As a result, the flora of the forest is a tangle of moss-covered roots and uneven surface. Despite not having a deep root system, the trees are fed by the rich volcanic soil and grow into a dense canopy. Now, this canopy filters the sunlight that reaches into the forest and adds the overworldly appearance of a elkigahara. It is also very still, both in movement and sound. The closeness of the trees limits any breezes or airflow, and there are fewer animals than in most forests. Visitors comment that the forest is notably quieter than most woods, with fewer bird or insect sounds present. Well, this certainly doesn't sound like any other normal forest. Now, according to the Yamanchi government, there were more than 100 suicides committed in Ayokigahara Forest between 2013 and 2015 alone, which CNN reported. The victims, whose remains are found deep in the sea of trees, often travel from far away to join countless others who have ended their lives in these mist-shrouded woods. The Japanese government no longer gives statistics on suicides in Aeokigehara in an effort to deter people from coming there to do it. But how did this scenic and serene forest at the base of Mount Fuji become so intimately associated with suicide? Well, media outlets reached out to Lindsay Nelson, a political science professor at Media University in Tokyo, who writes about Japanese horror films, including a chapter on the suicide forest in her book called Circulating Fear, Japanese Horror, Fractured Realities and New Media. And she said, There are conflicting stories as to when Aeokigahari's association with suicide began, says Nelson. But one of them dates back centuries to a makabra practice by certain sects of Buddhist monks. Mount Fuji, like other mountains in Japan, is considered a sacred space as are the forests that surround them. For more than a thousand years, ascetic Buddhist monks have retreated to the forest to practice extreme forms of self-denial and meditation that ended in death. According to one tradition, monks would meditate in the forest for thousand days, subsisting on nothing more than leaves and bark. Then they would be buried alive to continue meditating in an underground crypt. The ultimate goal was to transform the body while still alive into a Sokishimbitsu, a type of mummy. The remains of 18 of these self-mummified monks are still displayed in parts of Japan, although scientists believe they actually were mummified after their deaths. Perhaps this ancient form of ritual suicide provided a model for Japanese people looking to escape their modern lives by disappearing into the woods, or perhaps there is more direct connection between Aoki Gahara and Suicide. Logan Paul, who had earned over 15 million subscribers to his channel by 1st of January 2018, uploaded a video in which he and several companions visited Aoki Gahara in order to document, explore the forest's supposed creepy qualities. Whilst filming, the group discovered several personal items including discarded sleeping bags and clothing, as well as what appeared to be disused campsites. They then unexpectedly came upon a body of a suicide victim, to which Paul exclaimed, I think there's someone hanging right there. With him and his group subsequently approaching the corpse and filming it, blurring the faces of the person who identifies a mystery, this video was then uploaded directly to Paul's channel, shocking many and receiving widespread condemnation. One member of the group could be heard saying they did not feel good as they viewed the corpse, to which Paul asked, jokingly, if the person had never stood near a dead guy before. After receiving swift backlash and even some praise for raising suicide awareness, Paul stated that he was misguided by shock and awe after removing the video and filming a subsequent apology. Paul said that he should never have posted the video and should have put the cameras down and stopped recording what we were going through.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I'm ashamed of myself.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Aoki Gohara was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 production broadcast 10th of September 2018, in which four poets traveled to the region to write and record poetry. The poets are Rai Takako, Jordan A. Y. Smith, Osaki Sayaka, and Yotsumoto Yasuhiro co-authored a bilingual Japanese slash English anthology of the poems and short writings on Aeokigihara titled Sea of Trees: Poetic Gateways to Aeokigahara, in 2019, a British backpacker named Liam Carter ventured into Aeokigahara Forest, exploring 13 square miles sea of twisted pines at the base of Mount Fuji. He planned to camp overnight, lured by the forestary beauty, but by dawn he was sprinting toward park rangers, breathless and trembling, clutching a rusted child's lunchbox. Inside were three things: a crumbling photo of a family dressed in 1950s clothing, a handwritten note in kanji that read, They're still here, and a lock of hair tied with frayed red ribbon. Now, Liam refused to speak to the media. He left Japan the next day. The lunchbox vanished from police evidence within a week. Locals have whispered about Yuri Mura for centuries, nestled with Aokigahara, the village supposedly thrived during the Ida period, its residents worshipping ancient spirits in the forest. But in 1910, nearly 300 villages vanished overnight. Homes stood intact, meals half-eaten, toys scattered, livestock wandering, no bodies, no struggle, just silence. The government scrubbed the village from the maps. Survivors in nearby towns claimed they heard unnatural howls that night. Some spoke of shadowy figures with no faces, dragging villages into the trees. In 1962, a team of twelve researchers from Tokyo University entered Aokigahara to study its geology. Equipped with cutting-edge real-to-reel recorders, the plan to document their findings. On day three, their transmissions grew erratic. Now, this is their tapelog which has been translated to English. So it reads Day 1. Soil samples show abnormal iron levels. Trees here grow in perfect spirals, no scientific explanation. Day two, Kobayashi swears he saw a child in a red kimono. No villages exist here. We're alone. Day three. The compasses don't work. We're walking in circles. There's singing. Female voices. The final tape, recovered a mile from their abandoned campsite, ends with a researcher screaming, They're under the roots! Don't let them. The team was never found. Since the year 2000, over 140 people have vanished in Aoki Gahara. Most are suicides, but some cases defy logic. His camera was discovered in a tree 30 feet high. The last photo, blurred figures encircling his tent. Then in 2015, a family of four hiking near the forest's edge called police, claiming something was tracking them. Rescuers found their car idling, doors open, GPS blinking at coordinates leading to a cliff. No bodies. In 2021, a drone surveying the forest captured thermal images of a cluster of human-shaped heat signatures in an area marked unhabited on maps. The footage was deleted by authorities hours later. In 2020, a 24-year-old nurse named Emi Sato emerged from Ayalkigahara after missing for six days. She had no memory of her ordeal but woke up with three claw-like scratches across her back and a single sentence scribed in a notebook. Emi's case went viral, but officials dismissed it as psychosis. Then, two weeks later, a forensic artist reconstructed a face from her subconscious drawings. It matched a 19th century wood block print of a Yuri Mura elder named Hitoshi Koroda, a man who had died 130 years earlier. Now, some scientists blame toxic underground gases causing hallucinations, but why do disappearances cluster around specific coordinates? Rumours persist of a secretive group practicing rituals in the forest. In 1998, police found an altar adorned with dolls and fresh offerings directly above a cave system. Aokigahara lies on a dragon's vein, a key line where spiritual energy converges. Paranormal investigators claim that it's a portal. Locals insist Yuri Mura never disappeared. It's still there, hidden by the forest, its residents trapped between worlds and hungry for company. Now in 2023, Dr. Kenji Moray, a retired geologist, illegally hiked into ALKigahara's restricted zone 5 with a GoPro. His livestream drew 20,000 viewers before cutting off. A moss-covered stone wall, its rim smeared with a black tar-like substance. Viewers swore they saw a pale hand gripping the edge. Morai's camera was found in a stream. His last audiophile, a whisper. They're not ghosts, they're guardians. Aoki Gahara's rangers have a rule, never follow the voices and never answer your name. But every year more vanish. Shoes pile up at the forest's edge, flickering lights appear in the distance, and at night the trees creak with a rhythm that sounds almost like breathing. Out of all this, one question still remains: is the forest hiding the lost or keeping something else from escaping? Well, if you got to this point of our podcast, that means we've done well to bring you creepy uh I mean entertaining content. Well, what did you guess for our Secrets and Shadows Q ⁇ A? Hmm, well, let's repeat today's question. How many murders does one have to commit to be classified as a serial killer? Well, the answer is murdering three or more people would be classified as a serial killer. Three or more is a standard threshold. However, some definitions may include as few as two killings if there is a clear pattern and a cooling off period. Hmm, I really wonder why and what comes into serial killers well, any type of murderer's head when committing such an irreversible crime that cannot be reversed and you're stuck with it for the rest of your life. Um I really don't understand what comes into their mind. But that's what we're here for, aren't we? To investigate and what happens through people's minds when these crimes are committed. Anyway, let's call that a day and leave our minds to arrest until another true crime story. And we hope you enjoyed. Why not join us regularly? Hit that follow button and turn on the notifications so you know when there's another creepy story to listen. If you're not already, make sure to follow our other platforms Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. And also check out our website at www.unexplainemysteriesparanormal.co.uk. And if you just want to view our podcast website, why not visit unexplained mysteries paranormal.bruscrap.com. If you have a story that you'd like to share with us, make sure to drop us a message or a voice note with your story either on Instagram or fan mail right here, which you'll find a link above the description of this podcast to send us a test. And as always, until next time, sleep tight.