Ben MacDhui’s
principal claim to fame is that, at 4296 ft (1309 m), it is the highest
mountain in the Cairngorms range and is second only to Ben Nevis throughout Scotland. However, it is
also famous – indeed, infamous – as Scotland’s ‘haunted mountain’, thanks to
the sinister, ostensibly supernatural entity known as Am Fear Liath Mor, the
Big Grey Man (BGM), said to haunt its lofty peak.
PANIC
ON THE PEAK, FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG
What is so
remarkable about the Big Grey Man case is the extraordinary range of mysterious
phenomena associated with it, and which are every bit as dramatic as they are
diverse. Take, for instance, various reports of irrational panic linked to this
supposed being’s presence, which include the following, defining BGM account.
The BGM first attracted
major attention beyond the immediate environs of Ben MacDhui in December 1925,
when internationally-renowned mountaineer and London University’s Professor of
Organic Chemistry John Norman Collie (1859-1942) startled his audience while
speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Aberdeen’s Cairngorm Club by
recalling a truly bizarre event that had happened to him when climbing Ben
MacDhui in 1891. (Over two decades prior to the meeting in Aberdeen, Collie had
spoken of his Ben MacDhui experience to a local New Zealand newspaper, but
this had not attracted such interest.)
Prof.
James Norman Collie, photographed in c.1912 (© University College London
(UCL) Chemistry Collections)
While descending
through a heavy mist from the Cairn at this mountain’s flat, barren summit:
"…I began to think I heard something else than merely the
noise of my own footsteps. For every few steps I took I heard a crunch, and
then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three
or four times the length of my own.
"I said to myself, ‘This is all nonsense’. I listened and
heard it again but could see nothing in the mist. As I walked on and the eerie
crunch, crunch, sounded behind me I was seized with terror and took to my
heels, staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles nearly down
to Rothiemurchus Forest.
"Whatever you make of it I do not know, but there is something
very queer about the top of Ben MacDhui and I will not go back there again by
myself I know."
The anomalous
sound of footsteps not in sync with those of the ‘ear’-witness has also been
reported on several other occasions from Ben MacDhui. In 1904, while gathering
biological specimens on the mountain for Aberdeen University, Hugh Welsh and
his brother often heard the sound of pacing footsteps, both at night and during
the day, but never succeeded in tracing their origin. Similarly, in 1940, while
spending a summer’s night beneath a huge block of stone on Ben MacDhui’s slope
known as the Shelter Stone, Scottish author R. Macdonald Robertson and a friend
were awakened by the growls of Robertson’s bull terrier, and clearly heard the
sound of crunching steps approaching them along the gravel path leading to the
Stone, until, abruptly, they faded away again, and the dog then relaxed.
Ben
MacDhui's Shelter Stone, c.1905 postcard
Even stranger
was the experience of fellow author Wendy Wood, also in 1940, who heard while
upon the Lairig Ghru (an arduous but much-traversed pass through the Cairngorms)
what sounded to her like an enormously resonant Gaelic-speaking voice directly
beneath her. After vainly searching the snow all around in case someone was
trapped underneath it and was calling out for help, she became very
apprehensive and duly began descending the mountain. As she did so, however,
she heard what she later described as “gigantic footsteps” following her where
there had previously been no sound, upon which she experienced a blinding
panic, sending her fleeing downwards in absolute terror.
A comparable
scenario (missing only the Gaelic voice) was experienced in 1945 by competent
mountaineer Peter Densham. Eating his lunch at the summit, he suddenly heard
crunching footsteps emanating from the Cairn close by, but as he stood up to
investigate, an inexplicable wave of uncontrollable fear washed over him,
causing him to flee wildly, so wildly in fact that he barely stopped himself
plummeting headlong over a treacherous cliff known as Lurcher’s Crag.
On 26 September 2006, the following account was posted
on the Cryptomundo cryptozoology website by a correspondent with the user name
‘big max’:
"I was climbing back
down Ben MacDhui in May 1988 when I experienced the footsteps phenomenon
mentioned by others. It was pretty misty and I was alone. But it was like
’something’ was behind me, only 10 metres or so, keeping track of me. I
back-tracked to see if anyone was there. I didn’t see anything, but it was
weird enough to scare me, particularly as the sounds occurred both when I was
moving or stationary. It was only after I told this story to a Glasgow cousin years later that I first heard
about the Grey Man."
FROM
BIG GREY MAN TO MOVIE STAR!
In 2007, the
winning entry in the category of Best Highland Amateur Film at the annual Fort
William Mountain Festival was a 10-minute-and-one-second-long video entitled
‘The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui’, produced by an eight-person team of film
makers (including Richard Cross, Jez Curnow, and Peter George) from
scottishhills.com. It was also screened at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival
in 2006, and can presently be viewed at http://www.biggreyman.co.uk and on YouTube.
It features a number of local figures and mountain experts airing their
thoughts on the subject, as well as shoots at various locations on and near Ben
MacDhui, including a cold Winter Solstice at Corrour Bothy on 23 December 2005, a walk along the Lairig Ghru in
March 2006, and a visit to the mountain’s summit in May 2006.
AFFLECK GRAY AND THE BIG GREY MAN
The definitive
publication on the subject of the BGM is The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui:
Myth or Monster? – written by the aptly-named Affleck Gray, first published
in 1970 (a second edition appeared in 1989, and a third in 1994), and
containing a foreword by the acclaimed Scottish climber Sydney Scroggie.
Packed with
newspaper accounts and eye/earwitness reports relating to mystifying happenings
on this mountain, this fascinating book was authored by a man well-versed in
the majesty and mysteries of the Cairngorms, as Gray was born and bred in Upper
Strathspey, and investigated BGM reports throughout his life as a hobby.
His contributions were also featured in the above-mentioned BGM film.
BGM
SIGHTINGS
In spite of its
descriptive ‘Big Grey Man’ name, surprisingly few visual BGM encounters are on
file, and even those are far from consistent. When Prof. Collie’s account of
his Ben MacDhui experience was originally published in New Zealand, it stimulated
another renowned mountaineer, Dr A.M. Kellas, to write to him with details of
an astonishing encounter made by himself and his brother, Henry Kellas, while
climbing Ben MacDhui. Eschewing mere footsteps, the Kellas brothers claimed to
have seen a huge figure, at least as tall as the 10-ft-high Cairn and described
by them as “a big grey man”, walking out of the Lairig Ghru Pass and around the
Cairn towards the summit where it passed out of sight. Moreover, while awaiting
the entity’s reappearance, they were suddenly struck with acute fear, and
raced, panic-stricken, down the mountain, convinced that the entity was
pursuing them.
Ben
MacDhui in the Cairngorms, taken from Carn Liath in the Grampians (public
domain)
One night in
1942 while resting at the Shelter Stone and looking out towards Loch Avon, climber
Sydney Scroggie suddenly spied:
"...a tall, stately, human figure, appear out of the blackness
on one side of the loch, and clearly silhouetted against the water pace with
long, deliberate steps across the combined burns just where they enter the
loch."
Despite rushing
over to the spot, Scroggie found no footsteps or any other evidence of the
figure’s erstwhile presence, but experienced such unease that he swiftly
returned to the Shelter Stone.
During October
1943, while walking alone along the Lairig Ghru, mountaineer-naturalist
Alexander Tewnion abruptly heard long striding footsteps behind him, and to his
horror he saw through the mist a strange shape looming forth and then charging
directly towards him. Drawing out his revolver, Tewnion shot three times at the
figure, but it continued approaching him, so Tewnion fled downwards to Glen
Derry.
Does
Ben MacDhui harbour its very own version of bigfoot? (© William Rebsamen)
Even more
incredible, however, was the entity reportedly spied one night on Ben MacDhui
by a friend of climber-writer Richard Frere. Having pitched a tent beside the Cairn,
Frere’s friend awoke, to see a brown shape standing between his tent and the
moon. So as soon as the shape moved away, his friend peered outside his tent,
only to discover (according to Frere’s subsequent description) that just 20 yards
away:
"...a great brown creature was swaggering down the hill. He
uses the word “swaggering” because the creature had an air of insolent strength
about it: and because it rolled slightly from side to side, taking huge
measured steps. It looked as though it was covered with shortish, brown
hair…its head was disproportionately large, its neck very thick and powerful.
By the extreme width of its shoulders compared to the relative slimness of its
hips he concluded its sex to be male. No, it did not resemble an ape: its hairy
arms, though long, were not unduly so, its carriage was extremely erect."
By applying
trigonometry in relation to surrounding objects, Frere’s friend calculated that
the entity had been at least 21 ft tall.
As recently as 23
December 2005, while making their BGM film, team member Peter George was
standing alone that evening outside a stone shelter hut in the Lairig Ghru
called Corrour Bothy, looking out into the darkness, when:
"Out of the corner of my eye, over to the
left towards the stream, I caught a glimpse of a tall grey figure. At first I
thought it was one of our party, although all of them were inside the bothy.
Turned to look properly and couldn't see anyone."
Just a trick of the light, or something more?
And although it was seen not on Ben MacDhui itself but on
the neighbouring peak of Braeriach, mention must also be made of the bizarre
entity reputedly encountered there by climber Tom Crowley. After looking round
to see what was responsible for the sudden sound of footsteps behind him while
descending this peak, Crowley was horrified to see a huge “…undefined misty
figure with pointed ears, long legs, and feet with talons which appeared to be
more like fingers than toes”. An altitude-induced hallucination, surely…?
THE
SOUND OF MUSIC?
Yet another
strand of this already much-tangled tale involves the hearing of mysterious
music on Ben MacDhui’s lonely peak. So could the BGM be a veritable minstrel of
the mountains? During one ascent of Ben MacDhui, later described by him in an Open
Air article (Winter 1948), Richard Frere had reached the Lairig Ghru and
was sitting there, immersed in an inexplicable bout of darkest despair, when,
as well as sensing some invisible being close by, he suddenly heard an
extremely high singing note, which continued unabatedly throughout his ascent
to the summit and return to the Lairig Ghru – even though simple tests
convinced him that it was not due to any effects of reduced pressure upon his
eardrums. Then, without warning, the singing and sensation of a nearby presence
ceased, and he was momentarily struck with a bout of absolute terror, followed
by blissful serenity as he reached Rothiemurchus Forest.
The
summit of Ben MacDhui (© Oliver Mills/Wikipedia)
Unaccountable pipe
music was heard by acclaimed author Seton Gordon while climbing Ben MacDhui
with a friend in 1926, and BGM authority Affleck Gray also experienced strains
of origin-lacking music here. Moreover, just a few years ago, a writer signing
himself ‘Jack’ reported online (originally at
http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/stories/johnsexperiencebenmacdhui.html but this page no longer exists) that he
had heard the sound of faraway music while at the Lairig Ghru.
YETIS
AND URISKS AND DEVAS, OH MY!
Not
surprisingly, faced with such a startling array of anomalies, the many
explanations proposed for the BGM phenomena over the years have been equally
disparate. Some, of course, can be readily discounted. For instance, with only
a single putative report (that of Frere’s anonymous friend) on file, coupled
with basic anatomical limitations, the necessity of a viable populations being
present, and the undeniable fact that the Cairngorms hardly compare in terms of
remoteness with the Himalayas or even North America’s vast Pacific Northwest
forests, the prospect that the BGM is an elusive 21-ft-tall yeti-like (or
True Giant bigfoot-like) creature of cryptozoology can be swiftly dismissed.
'Homage to Diana', a painting depicting Pan, by the Italian Baroque artist Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)
A zooform
identity offers greater leeway, unconstrained by size and breeding limitations,
and is also able to explain such anomalies as footsteps made by an unseen entity,
the inducement of blind panic, and even sourceless music. However, as we have
no notion what zooforms are or even if they genuinely exist, to label the BGM
as one is simply replacing one mystery with another. Other, even more exotic
notions put forward are that the BGM is a Pan-like being of Scottish folklore
known as a urisk (hence the sensation of panic experienced by those who sense
its presence nearby), or perhaps some form of nature spirit such as a deva.
Leading from
those thoughts is the possibility that the assortment of unexplained phenomena
experienced on Ben MacDhui indicates that it harbours a 'window area' - an
interface between different dimensions or alternate worlds. If so, there is a
good chance that such a significant portal would have a guardian, to deter
would-be intruders or trespassers. Is it just coincidence that this is the
precise effect so successfully accomplished by Ben MacDhui's formidable BGM?
A pair
of Japanese hanging scrolls, c1300, depicting Bodhisattvas descending from
Heaven
Very different again
is the proposal offered up by practising Mahayana Buddhist Sir Hugh Rankin and
Scottish mystic the Reverend Countess of Mayo among others that the BGM is in
fact a Bodhisattva – one of the five “perfected men” controlling our planet’s
fate. Yet as such beings are notably benevolent, such an identity hardly
corresponds with the malevolent persona of the BGM.
GEOLOGICAL
HOLOGRAM, OR OPTICAL SPECTRE?
During the
1970s, inorganic chemistry specialist Dr Don Robins proposed that some minerals
may be capable of encoding a type of electrical energy, in turn yielding a moving
image that could be projected under certain specific conditions, i.e. a
veritable geological hologram. Could it be that the BGM is one such hologram,
stimulated by certain specific, mountain-related mineralogical attributes, and
exhibiting an additional aural component? Yet if so, why are such montane
manifestations limited (at least in Scotland) to Ben MacDhui
and its environs? In contrast, as documented by modern-day BGM investigator
Andy Roberts, bouts of mountain panic entirely comparable with those reported
from Ben MacDhui have been documented from many other mountains in Britain and elsewhere
in the world.
Even more
radical is the oft-mooted suggestion that the BGM may be an electromagnetic
phantom – an apparition reflecting wavelengths of radiation beyond the vision
of most humans (hence the rarity of sightings in contrast to the greater number
of reports of footsteps), but whose presence is still sensed. It would
certainly be interesting to see what might be exposed, for instance, if a
camera containing UV-sensitive film were to be pointed in the direction of
crunching footsteps heard on Ben MacDhui.
Brocken
spectres, 1873 engraving
As for those
rare sightings, the most popular explanation is that the entity observed is
merely an optical illusion, probably of the Brocken spectre kind.
Under certain climatic conditions in mountainous areas, a person’s shadow is
very greatly magnified and is sometimes cast upon a bank of mist or cloud,
yielding the afore-mentioned spectre effect. Very unnerving to unsuspecting or
uninformed observers, it could certainly yield the huge, monstrous forms
claimed from Ben MacDhui, and if coupled with local precipitation might also
explain the sound of supposed footsteps.
Another relevant
phenomenon related to optical illusions is the autokinetic effect, in which a
stationary object seen from a distance sometimes appears to move – an illusion
caused if there is an absence of visual clues in the proximity of the object.
If this is added to the innate capacity of the human mind to “fill in” missing
details when viewing an unfamiliar object briefly or during poor viewing conditions,
it is not difficult to understand how a stationary, inanimate object might seem
to resemble a moving, humanoid entity.
THE
MONARCH OF THE MIST – WALES'S
VERY OWN BGM?
And finally: Reports
of BGM-like entities in Britain are not wholly
confined to Ben MacDhui, or even to Scotland. According to
traditional Welsh folklore, Wales's answer to the
Big Grey Man is the Grey King, also known as the Brenin Llwyd or Monarch of the
Mist. A brooding silent figure allegedly frequenting Snowdon, Cader Idris,
Plinlimmon, and other lofty Welsh peaks, this awesome preternatural entity is
said to be an ancient earth spirit, sitting aloof and alone at the summits, enrobed
in mist and clouds. Sometimes it will send the caliginous mountain mists down
the slopes to envelop unwary climbers so that they lose their way, trekking helplessly
over the edge of unseen precipices to their doom.
The
valley
of Cader Idris,
domain of the Brenin Llwyd?
In times past, the
Brenin Llwyd was greatly feared as a child-stealer, and even the mountain guides
were nervous of venturing into its domain. It also appeared as the evil
supernatural villain in the children's fantasy novel The Grey King (1975)
by Susan Cooper, the fourth of five books in her Arthurian series, The Dark
is Rising.
In summary:
there is no single, easy explanation for the multi-faceted mystery of Ben
MacDhui’s BGM. Some aspects seem to be of psychological origin, others
ostensibly paranormal, and there may even be facets featuring geological or
other physical phenomena that are still unverified by science. Indeed, more
than a century after Prof. Collie’s classic experience here, reports from Scotland’s haunted
mountain of the grim grey entity that may (or may not) lurk within its misty realm remain as tantalising and tenuous as
they were then, as intangible, in fact, as Scotch mist itself – and we all know
what they say about that!
This ShukerNature blog article is excerpted from Kryptos - a future book of mine, currently a work-in-progress.
,+Italian+Baroque+painter.jpg)
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