![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootScotland is as faerie-touched, as haunted, as phenomena strewn a land as a hunter of the Unlikely could wish for. I was brought up on tales of kelpies and selkies, trows and Wee Folk, and love it all. Dad did not tell me so very much about ghosts but I like them too, and if you can chuck in a flying saucer, so much the better. In fact, any old piece of folklore, ancient, modern, whatever, pleases me, the stranger the story the more I like it.
When I learned that we were a bare few miles from Cairnpapple,an old bronze age set of tombs, I wondered, just wondered, if there would be strange phenomena in these hills; What kind of Moonraker, hailing from Wild and Weird Wiltshire, would I be if I didn't have some curiosity?
Well, now I know. The place is teeming with stuff. The FB page is full of shiversome tales, including the invocation of a zombie on these very hills by a young missionary who went to Africa and turned to the dark side, his monicker being Dan Dan the Medicine Man (!) probably a local variant of the Bogey/Candyman. But the biggy round here is that of the silverman and here is the story as cited in the Modern Antiquarian:
'Cairnpapple is steeped in ancient mystery and magic. Its bleak, rounded summit, three miles north of the Lothian town of Bathgate, was sacred to early man, and on clear day you can see why. The view from the hilltop is spectacular, extending from Goatfell on Arran in the west to the Firth of Forth in the east. On the summit Stone Age people erected a ring of upright stones, later used by Bronze and Iron Age man to construct tombs for the cremated bodies and funeral pottery. No wonder it has been described as one of Scotlands most important prehistoric sites. But the Bathgate Hills conceal a baffling modern mystery- 'The Strange Case of the Silver Man'.
This being, entity or elemental, call it what you will, was encountered in the summer of 1988 on a forest road to the south-east of Cairnpapple by a family out for a let-night drive. At the wheel of the Fiesta was David Colman, father of three, and at the time a 33 year-old mature student. His front seat passenger was his wife Kathleen, while their two sons and a daughter, aged between six and 14, were in the back. The strange encounter took place on a starry night on a road running parallel to Ravencraig Wood, popularly known as the Knock Forest, less than a mile from their home in Bathgate. The jaunt was unplanned, the youngsters having persuaded their father to take them for a ride in the new car.
As he headed for a small but steep incline topped with a dangerous right-hand bend, Davids attention was instantly drawn to his right side. In a split second he saw a glowing figure, in classical running posture, moving extremely fast, possibly between 50 and 70 miles an hour! The figure was bulky and well over six feet tall.
'As it ran in the opposite direction from the car it had its head turned back towards us and appeared to be scowling' David told me.
Silence gripped the occupants of the car.
Then Kathleen asked her husband: 'You did see that, didn't you?'
David replied: 'See what?'
The children shouted in unison: 'You saw the silver man, daddy!'
Although the youngsters had unwittingly christened the bizarre creature, David said: 'The figure was white, not silver, but I suppose it appeared that way to the children. When I questioned them more closely they said the figure was crouched at the side of the road. As we approached, it took off through the forest.'
Kathleen supported Davids account.
'There was complete silence until I asked David if he had seen the figure,' she said. 'The expression on his face told it all.' Kathleen, who saw the figure disappear into the forest, went on: 'It was a human shape, and I thought it was a male. I had a feeling it was not happy. It was not silver, more like a negative image. I remember the children were very excited.'
1988! Too long ago! But ten years later, a visitor to the FB page tells his own experience:
ok here’s what happened. Me and my mate Stan were about 18 and as you did in 1997 we drove about the hills in our fiestas and talked about girls. On this night, I was driving and he was in the passenger seat - both completely sober for the avoidance of doubt! We were heading from bathgate towards beecraigs on the road between galabraes and the knock hill, where you are. As we came round the left turn at raven Craig the road dips just before the steep short hill to the knock car park on our right hand side. In that dip I saw a pure white male figure speed across the road right in front of my car. It was so close my instinct was to hit the brakes, I did and stalled the car, lights out, music off! Wondering what to do next and what just happened my mate Stan said, “did you just see that?” Describing exactly what I’d seen. I fired up the old 1.3 litre engine and used all 80bhp to get back to the streetlights! Then about 20 years later I googled Bathgate hills ghosts out of boredom and realised this was a thing!
On reading these, my first thought was 'What is it about fiestas around here?' It made me wonder if the teller had come across the story and somehow absorbed it, unwittingly created a memory. It's just one possibility.
And of course the cherry on the cake; cryptids!
I heard a story of a local guy who took his sons camping at Beecraigs. Late at night they heard a noise outside the tent.
Dad and sons stuck their heads our the tent to see what was making the noise.
A few feet away, directly in front of the tent, two glowing red eyes were staring at them. From the height of the eyes, it seemed to be like some large beast.
The man was extremely frightened and did the only thing he could.... He zipped the tent shut again.*
They got out of there early in the morning and vowwed to never return!
A friend from Whitburn told me this story. He knows the guy... He says he's not the type of person who makes this stuff up.
* Who would actually do this? Who sees a pair big red eyes glowing at them and decides that the best course of action is to hide in a tent presumably made of canvas/some sort of fabric, waiting for whatever to claw it open?
Most of the page is about more believable local history and beautiful photographs of the hills, woods and waters, which charms me without anything extra. This weekend I hope to coax R into the hills in search of nothing but a beautiful day. But it's nice to know that should I need some Woooooooo, there's loads of it about. And of course I have to go investigating!
When I learned that we were a bare few miles from Cairnpapple,an old bronze age set of tombs, I wondered, just wondered, if there would be strange phenomena in these hills; What kind of Moonraker, hailing from Wild and Weird Wiltshire, would I be if I didn't have some curiosity?
Well, now I know. The place is teeming with stuff. The FB page is full of shiversome tales, including the invocation of a zombie on these very hills by a young missionary who went to Africa and turned to the dark side, his monicker being Dan Dan the Medicine Man (!) probably a local variant of the Bogey/Candyman. But the biggy round here is that of the silverman and here is the story as cited in the Modern Antiquarian:
'Cairnpapple is steeped in ancient mystery and magic. Its bleak, rounded summit, three miles north of the Lothian town of Bathgate, was sacred to early man, and on clear day you can see why. The view from the hilltop is spectacular, extending from Goatfell on Arran in the west to the Firth of Forth in the east. On the summit Stone Age people erected a ring of upright stones, later used by Bronze and Iron Age man to construct tombs for the cremated bodies and funeral pottery. No wonder it has been described as one of Scotlands most important prehistoric sites. But the Bathgate Hills conceal a baffling modern mystery- 'The Strange Case of the Silver Man'.
This being, entity or elemental, call it what you will, was encountered in the summer of 1988 on a forest road to the south-east of Cairnpapple by a family out for a let-night drive. At the wheel of the Fiesta was David Colman, father of three, and at the time a 33 year-old mature student. His front seat passenger was his wife Kathleen, while their two sons and a daughter, aged between six and 14, were in the back. The strange encounter took place on a starry night on a road running parallel to Ravencraig Wood, popularly known as the Knock Forest, less than a mile from their home in Bathgate. The jaunt was unplanned, the youngsters having persuaded their father to take them for a ride in the new car.
As he headed for a small but steep incline topped with a dangerous right-hand bend, Davids attention was instantly drawn to his right side. In a split second he saw a glowing figure, in classical running posture, moving extremely fast, possibly between 50 and 70 miles an hour! The figure was bulky and well over six feet tall.
'As it ran in the opposite direction from the car it had its head turned back towards us and appeared to be scowling' David told me.
Silence gripped the occupants of the car.
Then Kathleen asked her husband: 'You did see that, didn't you?'
David replied: 'See what?'
The children shouted in unison: 'You saw the silver man, daddy!'
Although the youngsters had unwittingly christened the bizarre creature, David said: 'The figure was white, not silver, but I suppose it appeared that way to the children. When I questioned them more closely they said the figure was crouched at the side of the road. As we approached, it took off through the forest.'
Kathleen supported Davids account.
'There was complete silence until I asked David if he had seen the figure,' she said. 'The expression on his face told it all.' Kathleen, who saw the figure disappear into the forest, went on: 'It was a human shape, and I thought it was a male. I had a feeling it was not happy. It was not silver, more like a negative image. I remember the children were very excited.'
1988! Too long ago! But ten years later, a visitor to the FB page tells his own experience:
ok here’s what happened. Me and my mate Stan were about 18 and as you did in 1997 we drove about the hills in our fiestas and talked about girls. On this night, I was driving and he was in the passenger seat - both completely sober for the avoidance of doubt! We were heading from bathgate towards beecraigs on the road between galabraes and the knock hill, where you are. As we came round the left turn at raven Craig the road dips just before the steep short hill to the knock car park on our right hand side. In that dip I saw a pure white male figure speed across the road right in front of my car. It was so close my instinct was to hit the brakes, I did and stalled the car, lights out, music off! Wondering what to do next and what just happened my mate Stan said, “did you just see that?” Describing exactly what I’d seen. I fired up the old 1.3 litre engine and used all 80bhp to get back to the streetlights! Then about 20 years later I googled Bathgate hills ghosts out of boredom and realised this was a thing!
On reading these, my first thought was 'What is it about fiestas around here?' It made me wonder if the teller had come across the story and somehow absorbed it, unwittingly created a memory. It's just one possibility.
And of course the cherry on the cake; cryptids!
I heard a story of a local guy who took his sons camping at Beecraigs. Late at night they heard a noise outside the tent.
Dad and sons stuck their heads our the tent to see what was making the noise.
A few feet away, directly in front of the tent, two glowing red eyes were staring at them. From the height of the eyes, it seemed to be like some large beast.
The man was extremely frightened and did the only thing he could.... He zipped the tent shut again.*
They got out of there early in the morning and vowwed to never return!
A friend from Whitburn told me this story. He knows the guy... He says he's not the type of person who makes this stuff up.
* Who would actually do this? Who sees a pair big red eyes glowing at them and decides that the best course of action is to hide in a tent presumably made of canvas/some sort of fabric, waiting for whatever to claw it open?
Most of the page is about more believable local history and beautiful photographs of the hills, woods and waters, which charms me without anything extra. This weekend I hope to coax R into the hills in search of nothing but a beautiful day. But it's nice to know that should I need some Woooooooo, there's loads of it about. And of course I have to go investigating!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2020-07-17 02:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, really! A ghost that only appears to people in subcompact cars is something! Do you think it might also appear to people driving Minis?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 09:58 am (UTC)We also have the Mustang, so if it's a competitive ghost, maybe it will be stimulated by our mighty motor 😀