The spooky mystery of Ben MacDhui.

(I did a quick search on ATS for this story and found no results.)

Seasons greeting to you all, Now that your bellies and beer mugs are full I thought it's about time to share a tale of high strangeness from the picturesque glades of Scotland.

Ben MacDhui (or Ben MacDui) is a mountain that lies in Scotland, and is only bested in height by Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the English isles. But there is something atop the summit that has terrorized those who have dared climb it's slopes, the terror being that intense that those who've fled the mountain have never returned...

And the perpetrator of these terrifying ordeals has a name-Am Fear Liath Mòr or 'the grey man of Ben MacDhui'. And even if you don't catch a glimpse of this figure, his presence is enough to terrify you, as mountaineer Norman Collie found out:

"I was returning from a cairn on the summit in the mist when I began to think I heard something else other than 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 footsteps 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 at the top of Ben Macdhui and I will not go there again by myself I know."

Mysterious Britain

Even more terrifying is that those who've had this experience claim that they had no control of their legs, or even worse they felt that something was pushing them towards a cliff to their doom....

Peter Densham, another person who knew the area well, reported feeling “overwhelmed with panic” after hearing the footfalls around him while within a heavy mist. Like so many others, he left the mountain in haste, scrambling perilously close to a cliff’s edge and feeling as though something intangible was trying to send him over it: “I tried to stop myself and found this extremely difficult to do. It was as if someone was pushing me. I managed to deflect my course, but with a great of difficulty”.

Spooky Isles

Many other accounts are detailed, most of which describes a terrible feeling of dread followed by irrational terror, and the feeling of being pushed by some unexplainable force. So if the grey man is capable of such deeds without making an appearance, what would happen if some unlucky soul happened to catch a glimpse of this legend?

Luckily for us (and unlucky for others) people have claimed to see this figure, which has been described as either being a malevolent spirit or the Scottish big foot. But don't let me spoil the fun, let's read a description of the legendary figure:

From the few descriptions of the creature he is said to be quite large and broad shouldered, standing fully erect and over 10 feet tall, with long waving arms. He is also described as having an olive complexion or, alternatively, covered with short brown hair.

Scot Clans

Other reports claim that the grey man is a tall, misty silhouette (or mist monster as I'd describe it) which would be far more unnerving than seeing a cryptid in my opinion.

So there you have it, Something sinister is stalking the slopes of a Scottish hillside, but what is it? who knows, maybe you should make the journey to Ben MacDhui and find out for yourself...

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


Decent thread apart from the "in the English isles"bit.The U.K. or even the British isles don't happen to be the English isles.I take it you are American before you would write such a thing.Reminds me of a parcel I saw when at work last week for Royal Mail.A USPS parcel addressed to Aberdeen,England!When will it sink in that the U.K. isn't all England? Like your colonial masters were British not English.

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


thousands climb Ben Macdhui each year - I have been up it 3 times myself

and yet we have a handful of anecdotal tails

the "evidence" is sadly underwhelming

Thanks, was in the mood for a mysterious story tonight, being a bit bored.

Thecakeisalie
So there you have it, Something sinister is stalking the slopes of a Scottish hillside, but what is it? who knows, maybe you should make the journey to Ben MacDhui and find out for yourself...

Hey, you aren't the owner of that inn at the bottom of the mountain are you?

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


Thanks for such an interesting read. S&F
I've never heard of this before , it sounds spooky indeed.

Ben McDhui


Grey Man

reply to post by glen200376

Decent thread apart from the "in the English isles"bit.The U.K. or even the British isles don't happen to be the English isles.I take it you are American before you would write such a thing.Reminds me of a parcel I saw when at work last week for Royal Mail.A USPS parcel addressed to Aberdeen,England!When will it sink in that the U.K. isn't all England? Like your colonial masters were British not English.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're Scottish. I meant no offense by calling it the 'English isles', I was merely referring to the landmasses of Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland. I'm of Irish descent so I see where I went wrong, how about we rename the 'English Isles' and change it to the 'Celtic archipelago?'

And no I'm not American.

reply to post by Cinrad

Hey, you aren't the owner of that inn at the bottom of the mountain are you?

Indeed I am. We are booked out at the moment, but feel free to visit the tavern and have a hearty meal.

Happy hour is between 5-7, and if you come dressed in the hide of your recent quarry you receive your first mead free! be sure to ask the concierge for directions...if you dare.

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


I loved your story, it was ideal for a stormy Christmas day! Mist monster sounds creepy, I like the way you think.

There are so many stories like this in Scotland and I just love it when I hear a brand new one. Merry Christmas, Thecakeisalie, thanks for this!

Affleck Gray - who knows more of the folklore of the Monadh Ruadh (Cairngorms) than anyone - wrote the definitive book on am fear liath mhor:

www.amazon.co.uk...

Well worth a read.

Decide what to beleive after you've read it .....

Ben Nevis isn't in the English isles.

Its a Scottish mountain. In Scotland. Not England.

You see, England and Scotland are different areas - just like America and Canada. Or Brazil and Greenland. Different.

Hope that helps.

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


This would be a fun experiment to take:
2 GoPro cameras would be needed

Climb up the mountain with one camera pointing to the front of you, and the other pointed to the rear of you. Then hike down the mountain. If the "Grey Man" attempts to get you, BOOM! you have it on video.

I've heard many stories about this phenomenon, and would loved to test out a few theories, but I don't live there (which sucks) Have fun.

..standing fully erect and over 10 feet tall, with long waving arms.

Scot Clans

Sounds more like a flasher

reply to post by Guyfriday


Ha!A GoPro salesman!Caught you out!

That middle pic up there^^^^^^^^Is a cloud/sunlight corona shadow selfie picture.It'll end up on Y*utube in an alien video.

reply to post by Ericthedoubter


Funny, anyways you could just use any two cameras and still do the same thing.

Most of the stories I've heard about the "Grey Man" is that people feel like they are being watched, followed, or stalked. Having a camera pointed in front and towards the rear would allow a person to review the video (front and back) if they get that feeling while descending the mountain.

As many of you already know, I live in Scotland, and I've heard lots of tales like this.
But... Every incidence of the "Grey Man" that I've ever heard of has happened "in the mist".

There is a strange phenomenon which happens in the mist, when the sun is out...
Your own shadow is cast onto the mist, and it appears as... guess what? A Large Grey version of you!
(One of the photos earlier in the thread looks like it could be a representation of this.)

Mist itself is very disorienting, especially up a mountain. Add to this the movement of shale/pebbles as the climbers walk along, and add in the "Huge" grey shadow and a Legend is born.

I suspect that this particular grey-man is just an ordinary human shadow cast onto the mist, the rest would be the result of fear/panic/imagination.

Great story, but simple explanation I think?

G

PS - One of the UK TV shows filmed this very phenomenon... I think that it may have been Countryfile?
Will try and find a linky.
PPS - Couldn't find the Countryfile link, but here's a quote from the biggreyman website...

Amongst the many theories several suggest possible explanations. Foremost is that of the Brocken Spectre, a meteorological phenomenon which only occurs when an inversion (or gaps in the cloud) allow the viewer to see their own shadow cast upon cloud. The effect is indeed spooky - with a giant grey shadow stretching from your feet into the atmosphere and in certain conditions it is accompanied by a circular rainbow which surrounds the shadow (known as a Glorie).

LINK to Quoted website
Cheers
G

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


The Celtic Archipelago sounds kinda nice, but the English people would never go for it...they're not one of the Celtic nations anyway, so I wouldn't expect or want them to. Scotland, Ireland and Wales are all Celtic, and England generally is perceived as Anglo Saxon. Huge difference. It's a wee bit like calling Alaska part of the Texas Isles.

Tis a good tale though. I would be more worried about big cats such as panthers than 10 foot tall hairy men personally.

While I must admit that I've never seen the Grey Man, I've been on Ben MacDhui when the mist came down, and I can assure you that, with or without any Grey Men, when that happens it's a profoundly spooky place! Anybody up there on their own would automatically feel a chill down their spine, and anything which might make you think something was following you would be a hundred times more believable than usual. And the acoustics get very odd indeed.

I think the best explanation has to be something similar to the Brocken Specter - the Grey Man is your own magnified shadow. Since the laws of optics force it to remain at a constant distance from you, of course it will seem to follow you. This hypothesis could be tested by moving towards it to see if it retreats, or, even better, jumping up and down waving your arms in a very silly way to see if the Grey Man does it too. But under those conditions, I can't blame anybody for instinctively running for their life instead of performing a cool-headed scientific experiment.

By the way, the claim by a certain well-known cryptozoologist that the Grey Man is actually a hitherto undiscovered Scottish population of surviving gigantopithecus (or gigantopitheci - I'm not that well up on the correct Latin plurals for extinct hominids) - the illustration earlier in this thread is his idea of what it looks like - is evidence of either a tongue very firmly in a cheek or clinical insanity. The area has very little tree cover, and there's exactly zero possibility of an entire tribe of creatures half the size of King Kong going unnoticed for longer than - ooh, about 10 minutes, maybe?