The Bathgate Mumbling Voices, The Silver Man, UFO's and many more!!
The North East Coast of Scotland has a number of reports made of Strange Creatures, Hairy Upright ApeMen sometimes known as the Silver Man or the Running man, Fast foot or the Raah by ordinary people going about their everyday business who are confronted by Impossible Creatures and Events they struggle to explain. Many of the experiences you will read in this article are new and unpublished, some you have heard before, but I included them as the description and location are important and they share a similarity within the events.
Bathgate Hills 'Fast foot' Man/Creature seen by Family 1988 - In the Bathgate Hills of Lothian there is an area known as The Knock Forest due to the strange woodknockings that are reported there, said to be haunted I feel this maybe a case for the Cryptozoology researchers rather than the Paranormal experts as a strange figure was spotted and reported not too long ago. This Figures was seen running in the forest by a family, this Man-like Creature travelled at an estimated speed of 70 miles per hour.
In the summer of 1988 on a forest road to the south-east of Cairnpapple by a family out for a late-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.'
Another strange encounter from the Bathgate Hills. 2004 - Report in Witnesses own words: Hey all, I thought I'd share one of the scariest moments of my life so far even though there have been a few other strange things I can't explain that have happened over the years. One night back in Nov 2004 myself and 3 of my mates where sitting in my car up in the Bathgate hills area of West Lothian, Scotland at about 2am. It was raining but it was a very fine light drizzle type of rain and it was forming into small beads of water on my car because I had waxed it earlier during the day so the rain was just runnin of the bodywork.
Bathgate and Pentland and their wonderful hills have many of the things we are used to seeing in the Cryptid Creature reports and Unexplained events here in the UK, there is an old abandoned quarry, standing stones and a StoneHenge at the Cairnpapple site. The Knock forest has its own stone circle, and the hills themselves have another four standing menhirs or ancient stone sites.
The Wildman Of The Pentland Hills - Student Nurse KD recounts a tale told to her brother about 16 years ago by an activity leader who was running his activity group. The person in question used to be involved with the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, and ran a number of outdoor activities and spent a lot of his personal time outdoors. He was camping one night near woodland when he had gone away from his group of friends to relieve himself. He saw something he couldn't identify which was large and black and was moving on two legs and he got such a fright he fell over a wall and ended up "on his a*se in the woods"
In the hopes of answers he apparently looked into black cat sightings for a while afterwards to see if that explained what he saw but he came to the conclusion that a cat that size would not have been able to walk on two legs. The location of this sighting is somewhere in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh and would have happened around 1998. Kay herself said that she has heard a few strange things from people when doing camping activities in Scotland, such as tents being collapsed in the middle of the night, and suggested that maybe approaching hiker and camping forums may be a good place to get information. Her helpfulness and open attitude are very much appreciated. This is documented with her permission.
A Life Changing Out of Body Experience - Gary Richards Witness Report: This happened in September of 2011. I've been an avid camper most of my adult life and I have a small group of close friends that I go into the Pentland hills with. The hike from the bus stop in Bonaly is quite arduous as you are climbing several hundred feet in all, around 2 miles straight up, we had two full packs each full of gear and supplies which took well over 2 hours as neither of us are very fit. We got up to our usual spot around 7 pm, our camping spot is to the left of the public foot path heading south west through the hill range (about 250 yards from the path) and we always camp in the same place right at the end of the tree line which is down a man made embankment. This spot is great because there is little wind and there is a small stream for fresh water, directly to the South is the start of a very dense Pine Forest which is pitch black even in the height of daylight, to the South West it is open land that leads to a very scenic and beautiful Reservoir which is surrounded by Pine trees. To the North West there is a very small Pine forest which I would estimate is only around 2 hectares and at the bottom of this area is where we set up camp.
We both have one man tents which we set around 3 meters apart with the entrances facing one and other. We set up and spent a good night having a catch up around the fire till we were both tired. We shut the camp site down and entered our tents. By this time it was dark but the dull glow of the fire provided a small amount of light, I didn't bother hanging a torch in my tent but Andy did, he then decided he would read for a bit and I was so tired I decided to just get some sleep. Andy left his tent wide open, bug screen and all, but I closed my tent off completely and turned over to go to sleep.
Only around 5 minutes had passed since I turned over to get some sleep when a very strange sensation started to come over me, it wasn't tiredness more like a light weightlessness (here's where things get weird). My mind was yanked out of my body (like some giant vacuum cleaner had sucked me out) and I found myself floating about 12 feet above my tent looking down. This was an incredibly unsettling experience and from investigations I have done since, this is called, 'an involuntary out of body experience'.
As I was floating there my attention was drawn to the dense Pine tree Forest to the South West of the camp, where this very tall dark figure started to emerge from the tree line. I remember thinking to myself, "What the fXXX is going on!". I watched this massive thing walk straight passed the fire and walk right between the two tents and into the small pine forest to the north east only about 50 yards from our camp. My mind/awareness was yanked again being pulled in the direction that this creature was going. At this point I was filled with a mixture of dread, confusion and curiosity, the creature walked into the tree line and I followed. When in the small pine forest I watched this figure walk another 50 yards and come to a stop ( I kind of floated down so I was about 10 feet away from it mid torso). The figure/creature turned around and looked straight at me completely silent and still.
It was difficult to tell scale but it looked massive, but not bulky more athletically built, all covered in black hair (so black) the facial features were hard to make out, but it had a cone shaped head and deep set black eyes. It stood on 2 legs and had very long arms. I don't know why I did this but I tried to reach out to it for some reason and I saw my hand stretch out in front of me and move towards its chest. As I moved closer I focused where my hand was going and looked nowhere else. My hand touched its chest and I could feel it's coarse thick hair and I looked up and into its eyes and it stared straight back into mine, and I didn't feel afraid anymore. There was an overwhelming sense of peace that seemed to move right through me and at that moment I was sucked back into my body (like I had been shot through a gun).
When I came back into my body I snapped back to consciousness, I was soaking with a cold sweat and to my utter surprise my mate Andy was shouting and screaming in his tent. I quickly opened up my tent to make sure he was OK and what I saw was a wreck of a man staring back at me. He was white as a ghost and said to me, "Did you just see that thing just walk straight through our fXXXXng camp man?!?!" It was at this moment I realised that I had not been dreaming and that's when the panic set in. We have never vacated a campsite so quickly in our lives and we where down that hill in record breaking time.
We talked very briefly about what happened when we got back to Bonaly, but when I told him what happened to me he lost his shXt and just about had a break down. After that day I have never been back and Andy and I have never spoken again.
On studying the map I realised there does seem to be a possible route or pattern to the reports in this part of the UK. it would seem from south of the Bathgate Hills there is a corridor of sorts, a line of sighting reports that continue up the North East Coast past the Forth Estuary. There is even a report coming very close to Urban Edinburgh and the busy road network there.
A Family See an Ape Like Creature on a busy Bypass - A Family see a Gorilla type Ape Creature close to a busy main road. This all happened on 6th Dec 2014, around 6pm in the evening, and reported in February 2015 by a work colleague: He describes driving home from watching a football match in Falkirk (a Hibs v Falkirk away game, that puts the date at 6th Dec 2014). He was with his 2 teenage children and a friend and they were driving on the city bypass near Edinburgh at around 6pm when he saw through the window what he described as "something that looked like a cross between a chimp and a gorilla" moving on all fours along a strip of embankment just under the Calder roundabout on the west side of the city bypass. He stated "it was moving at some speed. It seemed like it was scared and in a rush to get into some cover, it was pretty big too"
When he came round he was lying face-down on the grass with his dog nearby, although the strange objects had disappeared. He found that he couldn’t speak and his legs hurt. When he returned home his wife was concerned at the state he was in. He appeared dishevelled and his clothes were torn. Police were contacted and found strange marks in the soil beneath where the craft was said to have been hovering. They also determined it was likely his clothes had been ripped by a sharp, upward pull.
Kirk Newton Running Creature 1986/7 - Date of incident: approx 1986/87, late evening, Kirknewton, West Lothian. A historical encounter was reported in February 2015 from a work colleague, who tells of when he was a teenager growing up in the town of Kirknewton in West Lothian. He estimates the year to be around 1986/87. He states that he and his friends were daring each other to walk into one set of local woods one night and they eventually decided to go together, as they were approaching the woods they saw in the moonlight what is described as a large dark figure running across a field adjacent to the woods. It was reportedly running alternately upright and then down on all fours. It then vaulted a fence "It just glided over this fence and it looked like it had a really long neck. We thought it was trying to cut us off so we ran for it.
"He also reports that "strange stuff" used to happen in the local woods, one example he was able to give was when they were out with a friend and his dog and approached an old walled burial ground in the woods. The dog stopped suddenly and tried to run away, straining on its lead. He states that it seemed frightened and desperate to get away, they decided to leave too. He was kind enough to show me the exact location of the incident, it is on the outskirts of the small town and the area has a lot of thick, old woodland and a nearby quarry which seems to be becoming the norm in many of the reports from Scotland. It is also on the edge of the Pentlands hill range.
A UFO seen late 1980's - A Mr A Ferguson whilst parking his lorry saw a strip of bright silvery light in the sky. The Object was speeding towards the Dechmont Law area.
Cairnpapple Two Sightings 2003 2009 - Early in the winter of 2003 I had recently passed my driving test and was going for a run in my car with my friend ? and his girlfriend. I am from the Falkirk area so we came up through Torphichen and were not really heading in any particular direction. I was just happy to be driving and the view from the car was perfect. I saw a sign for Cairnpapple and recognised it so i started heading up that way and I passed the lay by at Cairnpapple we were headed towards the Knock Hill area when my mate pointed out what looked like a man standing at the top of the hill looking down at us? I slowed the car down to look and saw he was right "I said oh yeah so it does" By this point we were slowly passing the Knock Hill and the dark figure came down the hill at great speed, he was really moving at some pace. We got a big fright and I drove away as fast as I could. It didn't look like your average person would look and this figure was all dark in colour. And it moved at a pace miles faster than I could.
Cairnpapple is a henge Neolithic monument. There is an ancient legend of the Pictish Brown Men from this site, and indeed one witness claims as a boy to not only seeing one, but losing his coat to it in the process. He stated "I wanted to point out that during my childhood at a picnic on Cairnpapple hill with my mother and brother that my brother who had gone off to play had given his new coat to a ‘brown boy’ on the hill who subsequently disappeared with it. Both boys were out that day with their mother, one boy went off on his adventures and came back coatless, when asked he told his mother he had given the coat to a 'brown boy' that he had been playing with.
The North East Coast of Scotland has a number of reports made of Strange Creatures, Hairy Upright ApeMen sometimes known as the Silver Man or the Running man, Fast foot or the Raah by ordinary people going about their everyday business who are confronted by Impossible Creatures and Events they struggle to explain. Many of the experiences you will read in this article are new and unpublished, some you have heard before, but I included them as the description and location are important and they share a similarity within the events.
Bathgate Hills 'Fast foot' Man/Creature seen by Family 1988 - In the Bathgate Hills of Lothian there is an area known as The Knock Forest due to the strange woodknockings that are reported there, said to be haunted I feel this maybe a case for the Cryptozoology researchers rather than the Paranormal experts as a strange figure was spotted and reported not too long ago. This Figures was seen running in the forest by a family, this Man-like Creature travelled at an estimated speed of 70 miles per hour.
In the summer of 1988 on a forest road to the south-east of Cairnpapple by a family out for a late-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.'
Another strange encounter from the Bathgate Hills. 2004 - Report in Witnesses own words: Hey all, I thought I'd share one of the scariest moments of my life so far even though there have been a few other strange things I can't explain that have happened over the years. One night back in Nov 2004 myself and 3 of my mates where sitting in my car up in the Bathgate hills area of West Lothian, Scotland at about 2am. It was raining but it was a very fine light drizzle type of rain and it was forming into small beads of water on my car because I had waxed it earlier during the day so the rain was just runnin of the bodywork.
Anyway I had reversed the car upto some bushes in a small gravel type car park and parked it there an we started to chat back and forth. After about half an hour I heard a man's voice coming from the back of my car but he was talking in a different language, one I couldn't understand, it was also very low more like a mumbling noise. Anyway I looked at my mates and by their expressions I could tell they all heard it as well. We ignored it and kept on talking, then we heard it again but it was louder this time. As soon as I heard it for the second time I reached for the keys to start the car and basically planted my food on the pedal to get it out the car park as fast as I could, wheels spinning and everything.
We reached a mates house in a nearby town an I got out to let the passenger out of my car and we both noticed markings going from the roof above the drivers door, then going down the rear passenger window and then onto the rear quarter panel of the car. It looked like someone or something had tried to grab onto the car as I was pulling away but they/it couldn't grip it because it was raining and also as I had waxed it that day. At this point I am really scared and so is my mate who was sitting at the window where the markings where. We then noticed triangle and circle markings on the 2 rear passenger windows they looked like suction marks. One of the triangles was pointing upwards an the one on the other window was pointing downwards.
After I saw the other markings that was it, I actually started to cry with fear an I am used to being able to sit up in them hills on my own for hours and hours. When I used to use the CB radio when I was younger I would be there till all hours but now I won't go near them on my own or even with my mates because it really does freak me out,. I start crying when talking about it even after 2yrs, I am even crying now as I type.
Just a short walk away there is another hilly area called the Pentland Hills, which also have some very strange reports.
The Pentland Hills Howls 2007 - Witness Report: A few years ago now when I was wild camping I heard a strange howl that doesn't fit with any wildlife I know. "I think it was around 2007. I was in my tent when I heard it, i'm not sure about the time but I think it was sometime after midnight. Now I don't remember exactly what date it was but it could have been sometime between July and August. The howl seemed to come not far from Torduff road. The howl was quite long and seemed loud and it sounded like a cross between a wolf and a man to me. The pitch of the howl was quite low I think. I only heard it the once as I recall."
The Wildman Of The Pentland Hills - Student Nurse KD recounts a tale told to her brother about 16 years ago by an activity leader who was running his activity group. The person in question used to be involved with the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, and ran a number of outdoor activities and spent a lot of his personal time outdoors. He was camping one night near woodland when he had gone away from his group of friends to relieve himself. He saw something he couldn't identify which was large and black and was moving on two legs and he got such a fright he fell over a wall and ended up "on his a*se in the woods"
In the hopes of answers he apparently looked into black cat sightings for a while afterwards to see if that explained what he saw but he came to the conclusion that a cat that size would not have been able to walk on two legs. The location of this sighting is somewhere in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh and would have happened around 1998. Kay herself said that she has heard a few strange things from people when doing camping activities in Scotland, such as tents being collapsed in the middle of the night, and suggested that maybe approaching hiker and camping forums may be a good place to get information. Her helpfulness and open attitude are very much appreciated. This is documented with her permission.
A Life Changing Out of Body Experience - Gary Richards Witness Report: This happened in September of 2011. I've been an avid camper most of my adult life and I have a small group of close friends that I go into the Pentland hills with. The hike from the bus stop in Bonaly is quite arduous as you are climbing several hundred feet in all, around 2 miles straight up, we had two full packs each full of gear and supplies which took well over 2 hours as neither of us are very fit. We got up to our usual spot around 7 pm, our camping spot is to the left of the public foot path heading south west through the hill range (about 250 yards from the path) and we always camp in the same place right at the end of the tree line which is down a man made embankment. This spot is great because there is little wind and there is a small stream for fresh water, directly to the South is the start of a very dense Pine Forest which is pitch black even in the height of daylight, to the South West it is open land that leads to a very scenic and beautiful Reservoir which is surrounded by Pine trees. To the North West there is a very small Pine forest which I would estimate is only around 2 hectares and at the bottom of this area is where we set up camp.
Only around 5 minutes had passed since I turned over to get some sleep when a very strange sensation started to come over me, it wasn't tiredness more like a light weightlessness (here's where things get weird). My mind was yanked out of my body (like some giant vacuum cleaner had sucked me out) and I found myself floating about 12 feet above my tent looking down. This was an incredibly unsettling experience and from investigations I have done since, this is called, 'an involuntary out of body experience'.
As I was floating there my attention was drawn to the dense Pine tree Forest to the South West of the camp, where this very tall dark figure started to emerge from the tree line. I remember thinking to myself, "What the fXXX is going on!". I watched this massive thing walk straight passed the fire and walk right between the two tents and into the small pine forest to the north east only about 50 yards from our camp. My mind/awareness was yanked again being pulled in the direction that this creature was going. At this point I was filled with a mixture of dread, confusion and curiosity, the creature walked into the tree line and I followed. When in the small pine forest I watched this figure walk another 50 yards and come to a stop ( I kind of floated down so I was about 10 feet away from it mid torso). The figure/creature turned around and looked straight at me completely silent and still.
It was difficult to tell scale but it looked massive, but not bulky more athletically built, all covered in black hair (so black) the facial features were hard to make out, but it had a cone shaped head and deep set black eyes. It stood on 2 legs and had very long arms. I don't know why I did this but I tried to reach out to it for some reason and I saw my hand stretch out in front of me and move towards its chest. As I moved closer I focused where my hand was going and looked nowhere else. My hand touched its chest and I could feel it's coarse thick hair and I looked up and into its eyes and it stared straight back into mine, and I didn't feel afraid anymore. There was an overwhelming sense of peace that seemed to move right through me and at that moment I was sucked back into my body (like I had been shot through a gun).
When I came back into my body I snapped back to consciousness, I was soaking with a cold sweat and to my utter surprise my mate Andy was shouting and screaming in his tent. I quickly opened up my tent to make sure he was OK and what I saw was a wreck of a man staring back at me. He was white as a ghost and said to me, "Did you just see that thing just walk straight through our fXXXXng camp man?!?!" It was at this moment I realised that I had not been dreaming and that's when the panic set in. We have never vacated a campsite so quickly in our lives and we where down that hill in record breaking time.
We talked very briefly about what happened when we got back to Bonaly, but when I told him what happened to me he lost his shXt and just about had a break down. After that day I have never been back and Andy and I have never spoken again.
On studying the map I realised there does seem to be a possible route or pattern to the reports in this part of the UK. it would seem from south of the Bathgate Hills there is a corridor of sorts, a line of sighting reports that continue up the North East Coast past the Forth Estuary. There is even a report coming very close to Urban Edinburgh and the busy road network there.
A Family See an Ape Like Creature on a busy Bypass - A Family see a Gorilla type Ape Creature close to a busy main road. This all happened on 6th Dec 2014, around 6pm in the evening, and reported in February 2015 by a work colleague: He describes driving home from watching a football match in Falkirk (a Hibs v Falkirk away game, that puts the date at 6th Dec 2014). He was with his 2 teenage children and a friend and they were driving on the city bypass near Edinburgh at around 6pm when he saw through the window what he described as "something that looked like a cross between a chimp and a gorilla" moving on all fours along a strip of embankment just under the Calder roundabout on the west side of the city bypass. He stated "it was moving at some speed. It seemed like it was scared and in a rush to get into some cover, it was pretty big too"
He estimates that it was around 4 feet high at the shoulder when down on all fours. He states that he turned to his daughter who was in the front passenger seat and asked if she had seen it too and she confirmed that said she had. He did not see its face, just the shape of it. This location is highly unusual, there are no reports of escaped chimps or any other primates at that time from Edinburgh zoo or the wildlife park in Stirlingshire
The Polton Mill Wolfman Sighting - Polton Mill Wolfman Sighting -The following story comes from a researcher friend. I first heard this same account 15 years ago and was told it on good authority from another researcher who interviewed one of the witnesses directly. Three guys, a painter and decorator crew were driving up to storage blocks in Polton Mill to resupply for the next days job, When they were up at the storage locker they saw a 7 or 8 foot upright 'Wolf being' standing on the roof of the building, it jumped down and landed in front of them all in the van, their boss rapidly reversed and they drove off. They never returned to those warehouses, which meant the cost of all those supplies they decided to take on the chin, losing masses of replacement materials.
The Polton Mill Wolfman Sighting - Polton Mill Wolfman Sighting -The following story comes from a researcher friend. I first heard this same account 15 years ago and was told it on good authority from another researcher who interviewed one of the witnesses directly. Three guys, a painter and decorator crew were driving up to storage blocks in Polton Mill to resupply for the next days job, When they were up at the storage locker they saw a 7 or 8 foot upright 'Wolf being' standing on the roof of the building, it jumped down and landed in front of them all in the van, their boss rapidly reversed and they drove off. They never returned to those warehouses, which meant the cost of all those supplies they decided to take on the chin, losing masses of replacement materials.
The sighting reports above are not the only ones in this area just to the West in an area that can be accessed from the Hills of Bathgate and Pentland where there are strange reports of a UFO abduction and a strange running creature.
The UFO Dechmont Incident. 1979 - When forestry worker Bob Taylor took his dog for a walk in the woodland near Deans, Livingston, he did not expect the next few hours would generate headlines around the world as police launched an investigation into his possible abduction by aliens. The Dechmont Woods incident on November 9, 1979, led to a small village in West Lothian being dubbed “the twilight zone” after Bob reported seeing a large “flying dome” hovering above the forest floor. He described it as being made from a dark metallic material with a rough texture. It also had an outer rim with small propellers. As he approached, two spheres dropped down and started forcefully dragging him towards the dome, their protruding spikes hooking on to his trousers, and, after smelling a strong acid scent, he described being choked and eventually losing consciousness.
When he came round he was lying face-down on the grass with his dog nearby, although the strange objects had disappeared. He found that he couldn’t speak and his legs hurt. When he returned home his wife was concerned at the state he was in. He appeared dishevelled and his clothes were torn. Police were contacted and found strange marks in the soil beneath where the craft was said to have been hovering. They also determined it was likely his clothes had been ripped by a sharp, upward pull.
"He also reports that "strange stuff" used to happen in the local woods, one example he was able to give was when they were out with a friend and his dog and approached an old walled burial ground in the woods. The dog stopped suddenly and tried to run away, straining on its lead. He states that it seemed frightened and desperate to get away, they decided to leave too. He was kind enough to show me the exact location of the incident, it is on the outskirts of the small town and the area has a lot of thick, old woodland and a nearby quarry which seems to be becoming the norm in many of the reports from Scotland. It is also on the edge of the Pentlands hill range.
A UFO seen late 1980's - A Mr A Ferguson whilst parking his lorry saw a strip of bright silvery light in the sky. The Object was speeding towards the Dechmont Law area.
Cairnpapple Two Sightings 2003 2009 - Early in the winter of 2003 I had recently passed my driving test and was going for a run in my car with my friend ? and his girlfriend. I am from the Falkirk area so we came up through Torphichen and were not really heading in any particular direction. I was just happy to be driving and the view from the car was perfect. I saw a sign for Cairnpapple and recognised it so i started heading up that way and I passed the lay by at Cairnpapple we were headed towards the Knock Hill area when my mate pointed out what looked like a man standing at the top of the hill looking down at us? I slowed the car down to look and saw he was right "I said oh yeah so it does" By this point we were slowly passing the Knock Hill and the dark figure came down the hill at great speed, he was really moving at some pace. We got a big fright and I drove away as fast as I could. It didn't look like your average person would look and this figure was all dark in colour. And it moved at a pace miles faster than I could.
That incident remained pretty much unexplained and yes it gave us a scare but I didn’t think too much of it and had forgotten all about it. Until a few years later in spring 2006. I was out for a drive with my mate. We were bored and it was a nice night so I decided to head to the Bathgate hills. If it was clear we could wander up to Cairnpapple and get a good view of central Scotland. It had been snowing about a week before and the snow had melted back home but there was still a little bit by the side of the road. This didn’t put us off as there hadn’t been very much. We parked up at the Cairnpapple lay by and headed up the stairs. The field before Cairnpapple was snow covered and although we were not dressed for it we kept heading in anyway. We had a laugh falling in the snow repeatedly and I fell waist deep into a cairn at the Cairnpapple site. We were there for a few minutes before getting cold and started to head back. The wind was picking up and visibility was a bit poor by this time. We left the gate of Cairnpapple and walked back into the field and within 15 seconds we both heard a noise from behind us as if something was coming towards us moving fast, from the direction we had just been. I turned around but could not see anything, neither of us could. All we knew is that it was coming fast or at least it sounded as if it was moving really quickly at speed heading in our direction. We ran as fast as we could and we ended up losing the way back to the stairs, after a panicked hunt for the steps we found them and we rushed down them, got in the car and drove away. We couldn’t explain what had happened to us and were shaken up and very confused. We kept talking about it and deciding whether to go back or not. I couldn't stop thinking about it and what had happened.
You would think that after two scary experiences I would avoid the place but in winter 2009 I returned from Australia and it had snowed, I was hunting for a good place to sledge with my friend. I suggested the Bathgate hills would be a good place due to height and that there would be no shortage of snow. It was pretty late we arrived at about 00:15 am and headed up Cairnpapple first. Once we were up we realised quickly that the snow was way to0 deep so we walked to the Cairnpapple site to have look. Once again after leaving the fence and moving into the field something we couldn't see started to chase us. My friend was really frightened and started to run. At this point I remembered the previous encounter and calmed her down and explaining it would stop in a second if we left the area of the steps, we moved as fast as we could without losing the way to the staircase and got back in the car. The snow was really heavy now but she pointed out footprints leading into the field we had just came out of.
These were fresh footprints and caused us to become very scared. Whilst trying to leave in the car I got stuck approaching the Knock Hill and it took us a while to manage to get up the hill. I had to drive carefully due to the conditions and as we approached the Knock Hill again there were fresh footprints in the snow coming from the field and going into the car park at there. These footprints looked like they had been made by someone running. After that we were really shaken up and I shared my previous experiences with her. The next day we returned with a friend and retraced our steps. There were no animals in the field at this time and it was very peaceful. My friend that was speechless for the car journey back to Falkirk and never that slept that night, but still we returned over and over and continue to do so, to try to understand.
Cairnpapple is a henge Neolithic monument. There is an ancient legend of the Pictish Brown Men from this site, and indeed one witness claims as a boy to not only seeing one, but losing his coat to it in the process. He stated "I wanted to point out that during my childhood at a picnic on Cairnpapple hill with my mother and brother that my brother who had gone off to play had given his new coat to a ‘brown boy’ on the hill who subsequently disappeared with it. Both boys were out that day with their mother, one boy went off on his adventures and came back coatless, when asked he told his mother he had given the coat to a 'brown boy' that he had been playing with.
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