the damp stones of trebinje: a sleep-deprived ghost hunter's fever dream
i've been chasing whispers for three days straight, sleep's a luxury i can't afford, and these numbers keep pulsing in my vision like a broken neon sign: 4257227 and 1840013730. they came from an evp session in the bofia catacombs - you know, that creepy maze under the old town of trebinje? i was listening back, headphones on, the usual static hiss, and then a voice, thin as tissue paper, spat out those digits. first number: four-two-five-seven-two-two-seven. second: one-eight-four-zero-zero-one-three-seven-three-zero. repeated like a mantra. i thought i was losing it. i'm a ghost hunter, not a mathematician, but numbers have a way of haunting you when you're already sleep-deprived.
after a mountain of caffeine and a headache that felt like my skull was a drum, i realized they might be coordinates. i googled 'convert weird numbers to gps' - yeah, i'm that desperate - and ended up with a half-baked theory: treat them as decimal degrees by sticking a dot after the first two digits. so 4257227 became 42.572227, and 1840013730 became 18.4001373. i know, it sounds like a drunk man's guess, but when you've been staring at orbs for twelve hours, you'll try anything. i dropped those into google maps and a point popped up in the hills above trebinje, bosnia. my heart did a backflip. trebinje? that's a quiet little town near the montenegrin border, all stone bridges and sleepy cafes. i'd been there once, years ago, for a festival. never thought i'd go back for ghosts.
i checked the weather like a ritual before any investigation. the app said: temperature 13.5°c, feels like 13.26, minimum 12.77, maximum 14.23, pressure 1006 hpa, humidity 90%, sea level pressure 1006, ground level 992. let me translate: cold, damp, heavy air that presses down like a wet blanket. perfect haunting conditions. low pressure means the world feels muted, sounds carry weirdly, and cold spots are sharper. i packed my gear: emf meter, voice recorder, infrared camera, and a flask of bosnian coffee (because sometimes you need to see things that aren't there, right?).
neighbors? if you get bored, mostar's an hour north, and dubrovnik's a couple hours south, but i'm telling you, the hills around trebinje hold their own secrets. i hopped on a rattling bus from dubrovnik, the kind where the driver blasts turbofolk at full volume and everyone's half-asleep by the time we cross the border. three hours of winding roads, my stomach doing somersaults, and then i stepped out into trebinje's market square. the air was thick, the sky a leaden blanket, and i could feel the static in my teeth. this is the kind of night where ghosts don't bother with subtlety.
i headed straight for the ottoman fortress on the hill, the one with the broken walls and the view over the trebišnjica river. i'd read a rumor online - probably on some shady forum - that it was haunted by the spirit of a soldier who never made it home. someone told me that during the balkan wars, the fortress was used as a prison and bodies were buried in the walls. i don't know if that's true, but the temperature dropped five degrees in seconds when i stepped inside the courtyard. classic cold spot. my emf meter spiked to 8.2, then flatlined. i recorded a whisper that sounded like 'leave' - but it was probably the wind. still, my sleep-deprived brain didn't care. i set up my gear and waited.
the numbers kept nagging at me. later, as i sat on a crumbling parapet, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: '4257227 1840013730'. no message, just the numbers. i nearly dropped it. maybe it was a prank, maybe the ghosts were trolling me. i laughed, a little hysterical, and took another swig of coffee. the humidity was 90%, my clothes were clung to me, and the pressure made my ears pop. i felt like i was underwater.
around 2 am, i saw something. a pale shape flickering near the old gate, like a person made of fog. it moved without sound, then vanished. my recorder caught a faint sigh. was it real? i'll never know. but the numbers - they're still in my head. maybe they're coordinates to another spot, maybe they're a code. i'm going back.
anyway, if you're into this kind of thing, here's exactly where i was. (and yeah, i verified the coordinates. they're weird, but they point here.)
the view from up there is insane, even on a murky night. you can see the whole valley, the river snaking through, and the old town's red-tiled roofs. i grabbed a couple of shots with my infrared cam, but they're creepy as hell. here's one of the fortress gate:
and here's the bridge at dawn, when the fog was still hanging low:
if you're planning a trip, i'd recommend checking out the sarajevo ghost tour - those guys really know their history and equipment: Sarajevo Ghost Hunters Association. also, yelp has a great listing for kafana konak, where they serve the strongest bosnian coffee that keeps you awake through the witching hour: Konak. and the local paranormal society's forum is a goldmine for rumors: Trebinje Paranormal. just don't go alone on a night like this - the damp gets into your bones, and the numbers might start talking.
i'm still not sleeping. i keep seeing 4257227 in the static on my tv. maybe it's a sign. maybe it's just the lack of coffee. either way, i'll be back. the hills have teeth, and they're whispering.