Whispers in the Hills

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Scotland's highlands are amongst the most beautiful and remote places in the world.

But to many, this stunning landscape of mountains, lakes, and coastal villages also bears a notable air of mystery and foreboding.

Even today, these ancient lands remain steeped in folklore and supernatural tales.

Once one begins to dig into the stories of high strangeness in the Scottish Highlands, it becomes clear why it is often considered one of the most haunted places on earth.

In prehistoric times, virtually all of Scotland was covered by glaciers, country-sized swaths of ice that helped carve the highlands we know today.

Coincidentally, these natural formations also eliminated virtually all traces of human habitation before around 10,000 BC.

This has only served to deepen the mystery surrounding who or what might have called the Highlands home before us.

Thanks to the work of archaeologists and historians, we do know that those humans who did arrive in this rugged landscape not only had to eke out a living in the harsh northern climate, but that their lives were steeped in ritual and superstition.

This is evidenced by enigmatic monuments like the Kalanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis and Skara Brae on Orkney, structures so old that they predate the Egyptian pyramids.

By the Iron Age, Scotland had become home to the Celts and the mysterious Picts.

These painted warriors were quick to battle and continued to prefer the isolation afforded them by their harsh mountainous land long after England fell to modernity.

To the invading Romans, Caledonia, as they called it, was so treacherous and infertile that it simply wasn't worth adding to their growing empire.

And so, the highlands remained a place of mystery and magic.

Even today, residents still speak plainly about seeing fairies and other mystical beings or warding off evil spirits with talismans and charms.

Many still leave offerings of bread or milk outside at night, guarding their children's bedsides from changelings and other mischievous creatures.

Locks and coasts are said to be home to salkies, shapeshifting seals that walk on land, and kelpies, beautiful water horses that lure travellers to their watery doom.

The further north one travels, the more immersed they become in a rich tapestry of folklore.

In remote areas, witchcraft is both feared and respected.

On the isles, grown men still speak of encounters with the Banshee or the lesser-known Bin-Nir, wailing spirits seen washing the bloodstained clothes of those about to die.

Skeptics say Highlanders are simply too isolated and attached to tradition, arguing that the area's mist-covered mountains, dark locks, and remote glens naturally give rise to such stories.

Yet these sceptics often overlook the fact that many Highland tales stretch back hundreds or even thousands of years, and accounts of strange events throughout the area's history persist.

For believers, it's not just a place but but a feeling, a sensation that something ancient and unknowable lies beyond the ruins of Hadrian's Wall.

Sometime in the 1980s, an elderly woman was attending a house party in Inverness, a city just north of Loch Ness.

She'd lived in the area almost all her life and rarely got the opportunity to be social.

This party was a welcome occasion to reinvigorate relationships with her neighbours.

When she arrived, she saw that there was over a hundred people in attendance, including many she had never met before.

At some point during the night, she struck up a friendly conversation with a young couple who were speaking to several other partygoers about the issues they were having at home.

It seemed they had purchased a small cottage on the outskirts of town, only to discover that it was haunted.

A lover of ghost stories, the elderly woman asked for more information.

The two then described being awoken by the sound of dull thuds coming from their fireplace several nights in a row.

The first time it happened, they assumed it was just some kindling bursting from the heat.

The cottage was old after all, and they needed to keep the wood burning at all hours to stay warm.

However, the next night, they heard the exact same thing.

And not only were the thuds equally loud, but they perfectly matched the spacing and tempo from the previous evening.

After three nights of this, the husband had gone to investigate.

At this point in the retelling, the couple's faces went pale white.

They described in vivid detail how they'd entered the living room to see an apparition of a young woman standing near the fireplace.

They described her as being dressed in a vintage gown, her face streaked with tears.

Her long brown hair clung to her damp cheeks, giving her a haunting appearance.

Thinking she was an intruder, perhaps one who was mentally ill, the husband had attempted to call out to her.

However, She did not acknowledge his presence.

He tried several more times but to no avail.

They were still under the impression that this was a real physical person, despite her odd ghostly appearance.

The wife recounted how even through her disquiet, she felt pity for the young woman, who was obviously sobbing even though she wasn't making a single sound.

Then, without warning, She roughly struck her head against the wall above the fireplace.

The house filled with the familiar sounds of rhythmic thudding.

As her head met the wall again and again, blood seemed to seep through the wallpaper, running down in thick crimson streaks.

The couple became almost paralysed with fear before the wife screamed out for the woman to stop.

But instead, the apparition simply began to decay, like smoke dissipating on a breeze.

After a second or two, she was gone.

Somehow, the couple managed to fall into an uneasy sleep that night.

However, what they first attempted to pass off as a dream or shared hallucination soon became a frequent event.

The knocks, the apparition.

It was as if she was following some sort of precept pattern that would repeat itself night after night.

As the couple finished their story, the old woman could no longer avoid the sickening feeling rising in her chest and throat.

Finally, she worked up the nerve to ask them about the location of the cottage.

Their answer confirmed her worst fears.

It was the same cottage where she'd lived with her family some 40 years earlier.

As tears filled her eyes, she explained to the couple that her husband had been away serving in the British Army during the Second World War, leaving her alone to care for their two young children.

One day whilst tidying the house, she had come across some letters in her husband's belongings.

Missing him terribly and unable to control her curiosity, she finally decided to read a few of them.

To her utter shock, she discovered that they were love letters from another woman.

The discovery left her completely devastated and she quickly succumbed to despair.

As the couple stared wide-eyed, the woman described how she'd spent the night crying uncontrollably, standing by the fireplace and banging her head against the wall, unable to process the betrayal.

In fact,

She had struck her head so violently that it left marks on the plaster and on her.

To prove her point, she parted her fringe to reveal several rough scars on her forehead.

It was as if the pain she felt that night had been so strong that it left its mark on the cottage, or perhaps even on time itself.

Even though she was still alive and only living a few miles away, a part of her was somehow still haunting the cottage where she'd suffered one of the worst upheavals of her life.

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Located off the west coast of Scotland, the Isle of Skye is the largest and most well-known of the Inner Hebrides islands.

It is a place of breathtaking natural beauty, steeped in history, folklore, and a mystical aura that draws visitors from around the world.

Aside from its dramatic scenery, which ranges from jagged mountains and craggy cliffs to rolling green meadows, the island boasts hundreds of relics of its ancient past, including Neolithic chambered cairns, Iron Age brocks and Viking settlements.

Many who visit Sky describe it as having a mysterious energy or pull.

a sort of supernatural force so strong that it can cause a person to behave in strange ways.

Some people recall experiencing lost time whilst exploring the island or feeling themselves compelled to take unnecessary risks out on the beaches and bluffs.

On top of this, there have also been thousands of sightings of spectral entities, such as the Ghosts of Tumpen Church, a site where hundreds were burned alive in a war between clans.

But from the 1930s up to the 1960s, the Isle of Sky was haunted by a far more more modern spectre, known simply as the Wee Black Car.

Over three decades, locals and tourists alike recounted seeing a vintage black car speeding down the island's winding narrow roads.

In order to avoid an accident with the out-of-control vehicle, drivers would pull over to the side, allowing the hurrying driver to pass.

But as the vehicle sped into the next curve or into a dip in the road, it would fail to to emerge, as if it had never been there.

By the 1950s, the sightings became so commonplace that they were treated as a sort of local oddity.

It was common to see children sitting by the side of the road, watching for black cars and hoping that the next one might disappear before it passed.

Sceptics meanwhile put the sightings down to bad visibility, fog and the winding roads.

Clearly, the car wasn't simply disappearing without a trace, but vanishing out of sight behind a bush or patch of thick air.

Nevertheless, nobody on the island was known to possess an old vehicle anything like the one people reported seeing.

Still, even superstitious residents were adamant that there had to be a logical explanation for the mystery.

One such sceptic was John McTavish, a ferry worker stationed at Kylikin, a small village connecting the island to the mainland.

McTavish had heard the stories for years, but always dismissed them.

Though he hesitated to call it an outright hoax, he often suspected that some of the island folk were leaning into the sighting in an effort to increase tourist revenue.

But in 1962, everything changed for John.

He would have his own experience whilst driving to work early one morning.

In the pre-dawn hours, the coastal roads were quite treacherous.

Visibility was poor and the snaking highway hugged the edge of the island so closely in places that there was almost no margin for error.

Just as dawn began to break, McTavish noticed a car in his rearview mirror.

To his surprise, it seemed to be outpacing him, despite being a far older vehicle.

Even though he'd driven this exact road hundreds of times, he would never risk going so fast.

Nevertheless, he soon realised he would have no choice but to reduce his speed and let the driver pass, as it was showing no signs of slowing down.

Just as he did so, the vehicle barreled past him.

its black frame silhouetted against the light from the rising sun.

The way the rays were cast, John should have been able to clearly see the occupants.

However, he saw only two jet-black shadows sitting inside.

As his eyes followed the car around the next bend, he saw it slowly fade away,

not into the distance, but into the ether itself.

The unnaturalness of it all sent an eerie chill up his spine.

Confused and shaken, he resumed his his journey, convinced he had finally encountered the legendary Wee Black Car.

Unfortunately, John's experience did not end there.

A few weeks later, whilst he was working the crane at the Kyleken Ferry, a black 1934 Austin drove onto the boat, the exact model he had seen in the weeks prior.

It seems a minister was helping the anxious driver, who had been afraid to drive up the ramp herself.

However, something went terribly wrong.

One moment, everything was fine.

The next, John was watching helplessly as the vehicle accelerated across the deck and plunged into the water below.

Despite rescue attempts, the woman and the child inside drowned.

The epilogue to this strange story is that from that day onwards, the Wee Black car was never seen by anyone on the island

again.

These are far from the only experiences which seem to suggest that time, and possibly space, work differently to our conventional understanding.

To the southeast of Glasgow lies a vast wooded area, stretching between the towns of East Kilbride and High Blantyre.

Crisscrossed by multiple rivers, the area was once the site of numerous stately mansions and castles, many of which have long since been reduced to ruin.

According to residents, those who enter the woods often speak of bizarre experiences, lost time and other paranormal events.

In the late 1960s, Teenager Scott Campbell was cycling through these woods when he spotted a breathtaking mansion.

It appeared to be a blend of a castle and Victorian estate, featuring an octagonal central tower with tall merlons and a long multi-story residence.

He admired the site for several minutes before continuing his ride.

An hour later, retracing his path, Campbell was shocked to find the mansion gone.

Dismounting, He attempted to reposition himself to replicate his original view, but the building had vanished.

Uneasy but rationalising it as a mistake, he continued home.

That night at the pub, he described the mansion to friends who initially assumed he had seen one of the remaining large buildings in the area.

But when he detailed the octagonal tower and merlons, their expressions changed.

One left the table, returning with an old book.

Opening it, he revealed a painting of a stately home in front of a river, its central feature an octagonal tower with tall merlons.

The text read, Colderwood Castle by Blantyre.

Campbell confirmed it was exactly what he had seen.

His friends explained that Colderwood Castle had been demolished in 1951.

leaving only scattered ruins.

Stunned, Campbell revisited the area multiple times, even exploring the ruins, but never again saw the mansion.

For the rest of his life, he could not explain how he had witnessed a castle that no longer existed, nor how he described it in perfect detail without prior knowledge.

Tales like this are hardly unique, nor are they confined to a single time period.

Recently a woman named Rose took to Reddit to explain her own bizarre experience in the woods south of Glasgow.

She reported that she set out on a trip to survey the flora and fauna of a nearby gorge.

Before heading out into the woods, she had a quick phone call with her friend who invited her to meet up just after midday.

As it was only 9am, they agreed to meet at around 12.30 when she'd completed her survey.

Later, Rose would describe the day as sunny and chilly, but otherwise unremarkable.

After crossing the river at Culderside Meadow, she walked upriver for several kilometres.

As there was no path in this part of the woods, she had to hike up some rather steep slopes and around several winding tributaries.

After a short while, she arrived at the Hermitage Islet in the river, where she set down her backpack and decided to take a few photos.

Leaving her mobile phone behind, she strolled up the slope where she found the old cul-de-side boundary stones.

After taking a few photos and looking for some rare plants, she noticed that the sky was darkening, as if it was going to rain.

Rather than be caught out in the open, she decided to head back.

According to Rose, she'd spent no more than 30 minutes at the top of the hill, but when she began her walk back, she saw several signs that something was amiss.

The wind was colder, and the skies continued to grow dark despite not releasing a drop of rain.

She also reported feeling disorientated and uncomfortable, even though she'd been in these woods dozens of times before.

By the time she arrived at the hermitage, it was so dark that she had to turn on her torch in order to see.

When she did, she noticed that the river was significantly higher than it had been earlier.

Confused, she took out her mobile phone and was shocked to discover that the time was now 8.30pm.

Somehow, more than 10 hours had passed.

As far as Rose was concerned, it should have been around 11am.

As waves of fear and confusion washed over her, she began gasping for breath, her mind frantically trying to make sense of this discrepancy.

On top of losing an entire day without any explanation, she had half a dozen missed calls from the friends she had agreed to meet up with.

But even that wasn't the strangest part.

When Rose finally got home that evening, she found that her digital camera, the one she'd used to take photos whilst up on the hill, still had all the correct time codes embedded in the photos.

This proved that it had indeed been just after 10am

when she'd taken them.

Many people are quick to disregard stories like these, in many many cases chalking them up to mistaken identity, hallucinations or even hoaxes.

However, it's important to note that stories of time and space discrepancies are not uncommon, particularly in places with long and complex histories.

Whilst each of these tales possess their own unique paranormal elements, there are some distinct similarities.

In the old woman's case, there seems to be evidence of what's known as residual haunting, or the stone tapes phenomenon, situations in which emotions or traumatic events become embedded within a location.

Many paranormal researchers equate it to a recording, where a glitch in time and space will replay a single moment of high emotional energy.

In this case, the young mother's anguish over her husband's infidelity may have imprinted itself onto the cottage, replaying the event for anyone sensitive to its energy.

How else would one explain the couple having so much knowledge of a single tragic event that likely happened before either one of them were born?

This same sort of space-time disturbance can be seen in the story of the Wee Black car, only in reverse.

In this case, some force seemed to be projecting a premonition of what was to come.

The evidence would suggest that the deaths of the people in the old car was so traumatic that that the island was foretelling the event in a 30-year run-up to its occurrence.

Or perhaps the car was an omen or warning of the impending disaster.

This would be supported by the fact that once the tragedy occurred, the sighting ceased altogether, as if the need for the warning had passed.

The case of the car is also difficult to explain away as there were hundreds of sightings over decades before the fateful event took place.

As for the Calderwoods, it's possible that Mr.

Campbell experienced a time slip.

Though Rose's experience happened decades later, it's possible that she walked into the same time distortion but didn't notice due to the fact that there were no man-made buildings around.

The entire time she was taking photos, she could have been dozens or even hundreds of years in the past.

Meanwhile, time in her own reality would have continued, and not necessarily at the same pace.

Sceptics might argue that Campbell misremembered his route or that Rose hit her head.

But why then have so many other people experienced similar phenomena in precisely the same area?

Many paranormal investigators and even some theoretical physicists believe that time is not linear as we perceive it, but that the past, present and future coexist simultaneously.

In places where the fabric of time is thinner than elsewhere, previous or future events might intrude upon us, if only for a short while.

Could the Highlands be one such place?

Might this explain why the peoples who live here have always been superstitious and strangely in touch with nature?

These explanations simply don't appease those who know the Highlands best.

Whether it's ghosts, aliens or some mystic ancient evil, they believe that there is a power here, one which can distort reality, manifest creatures of all kinds and if it wants to, even harm.

Whatever these stories tell us, the Highlands of Scotland remain a land where history and mystery are inseparably entwined.

Though sceptics may seek to rationalise these events, their resonance lies in their ability to connect us to the tapestry of Scotland's past.

The stories of high strangeness in the highlands compel us to ask what secrets the land holds and whether we will ever fully understand them.

Whether you believe these tales are products of the imagination or glimpses of something otherworldly, all we know is that thousands of years after the glaciers disappeared, we still understand little

about this corner of the world.

Bedtime stories.