The Haunted Bothy (Part Two)

Following the terrifying events at Lùibeilt Lodge, Paul returned to his flat in Gibson Street, in Glasgow’s West End. Unsurprisingly, for a full six months after the events of February 1973 Paul found sleeping almost impossible. He only attempted sleep with the light on, suffered anxiety at the thought of going anywhere alone; and frequently felt the strange sensation that someone else was present in the room with him; even when he knew he was alone. Paul then began to observe unusual and unnerving occurrences in his flat — things of which he claimed to have had no knowledge, prior to 1973; or had not previously noticed. Before the frightening events at Lùibeilt Bothy, Paul had taken little heed of ghost stories. In fact, he was unaware of his flat’s rather disturbing past. A group of American students who had rented the same Gibson Street flat in 1958 had previously reported the existence of repeated poltergeist activity within the building. They claims were reported in an article published in the (somewhat sceptical) Glasgow Herald on 14th July 1958:

‘Three American students, inexperienced, no doubt, in the life and peculiar aura of the Glasgow tenement have given up their tenancy of a flat in Gibson Street, which they are persuaded is haunted. They have heard things which have convinced them that they share their dwelling with a poltergeist, a mild, murmuring elemental, that sometimes turned off the radiogram and occasionally pushed egg boxes and bread boards off the kitchenette shelf. It is a wordless visitant that mumbles in two voices, but never so distinctly that the listener can distinguish what it is trying to say. It is reported that the neighbours of the extra-sensory perceptive American students in Gibson Street say that they themselves have never heard anything ghostly. This, however, does not mean that the noises are not there, or indeed that they have not heard them, but simply that the sounds, being without mystery, are not registered on their consciousness.’

Yet, despite Gibson Street’s disturbing reputation, Paul had previously been blissfully oblivious to any unusual sensation or phenomenon. It was as if the strange presence he had experienced that night at Lùibeilt had somehow returned with him to Glasgow.

The kitchen in Paul’s flat included a hidden passageway, which was accessible via a small door, and led to a small basement. As Paul explained, ‘I began to harbour the idea that perhaps there’s something down there, after what happened at the lodge. Everything had taken on a different sort of feel, and maybe Gibson Street had as well.’

What followed next was even more disturbing. On an otherwise normal day in 1974, while undertaking some minor renovations in the kitchen, Paul pulled back the carpet tiles from the floor. Underneath the tiles, positioned on top of the floorboards and taped into position, Paul came upon the unmistakable shape of a crucifix, carefully fashioned from old newspapers. Right at the centre of the cross there appeared to be a large and mysterious bloodstain. At that very same instance, he noticed a sealed trap door in the floor, which had also been concealed under the carpet tiles. The whole incident caused an eery feeling of uneasiness to wash over him. Then, perhaps most unnervingly of all, at the exact moment his hand instinctively moved towards the trapdoor handle, the fitted lightbulb above him in the kitchen unscrewed itself, fell from the ceiling and shattered beside him. He vacated the flat soon after.

Surprisingly, Paul bravely ventured back to Lùibeilt Lodge in 1974, and again in the summer of 1975. He was determined to better understand the mystery of the bizarre, and seemingly, paranormal activity he had encountered eighteen months earlier. He was again accompanied by his fellow climber Jack, and a further witness, Daniel, who was a sceptic and made the perfect, independent observer. Upon their arrival something immediately struck the three men. Paul would later remark, ‘It was clear from the scribblings on the walls and ceilings that other folk had suffered difficult nights there too.’

Despite this unsettling welcome, initially all seemed peaceful inside the old lodge. Night fell. The party settled in the living room, lit their candles, and climbed into their sleeping bags.

In the stillness of the Highland night the house was eerily quiet. Then unexpectedly the silence was broken by a faint, but distinct, muffled, scratching noise. This time, the sound appeared to be coming, not the room upstairs, but from outside the cottage. The disturbance appeared to be emanating from the rough gravel track that separated the bothy from the Abhainn Rath river. It was the definite sound of a heavy object being slowly dragged over the gravel. The men were certain of that. Menacingly, the ominous noise seemed to grow louder, as the unknown object moved closer and closer to the bothy. In the darkness the three friends could see nothing until, as suddenly as it had started, the noise stopped and the glen returned to silence once more. That calm lasted only a brief moment, however, until an even greater fear gripped the trio. In their terror, they became aware that the shuffling, dragging noise had moved inside the house — on the other side of closed door to the room in which they were now cowering, All around them was a cloaking, impenetrable darkness, save for the faint, flickering illumination of their solitary candle.

This time, instead of rushing to the door, Paul instinctively held out his fist in a gesture he had recently learnt was a demonic pagan symbol,

‘I clenched my fist, leaving my thumb and my little finger extended out of my clenched hand, in a demonic sign and I cast a huge shadow with my outstretched hand on the ceiling. The effect of the gesture made it feel as though there was an incredible reversal of the noises.’

Within minutes the terrifying sounds has vanished into the distance and the remainder of the night passed peacefully until the three men could escape in the daylight.

Still determined to unearth the truth, Paul and his colleagues returned to the property on one more occasion, during the long, hot summer of 1975. On this occasion, as they entered the mysterious property they came face to face with a message painted in large capital letters on the wall above the stairway. It read simply:

‘THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED; THIS HOUSE IS EVIL’

It appeared that Paul and Jack were not the only people to have experienced the horrors of Lùibeilt Lodge. They left immediately and did not return.

Nevertheless, Paul did not forget his unsettling experience. He attempted to contact other walkers and climbers, who may have stayed at the isolated bothy, through various climbing groups and forums. His strange experiences were investigated in a balanced and even-handed way, by the BBC Sounds Uncanny podcast (now a television series). Psychologist Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe felt that, if the presence of other people in the house could be discounted, then both men may have been feeling the effects of tiredness and the extreme cold. Dr O’Keeffe claimed that this can influence levels of consciousness, alertness and judgement and may have led to mundane sounds being misinterpreted as something more sinister.

Dr O’Keeffe also stated that sustained exposure to very low temperatures, ‘can influence levels of consciousness, alertness and judgement and may have led to mundane sounds being misinterpreted as something sinister.’ In fact, certain experiments conducted by the army have shown similar results. The ‘haunted’ bothy is a surprisingly common occurrence in Scotland. Perhaps a combination of extreme fatigue and cold may well account for this.

However, this still does not explain the fact that both men experienced simultaneous and identical sensations.

Another explanation, often used to explain reports of poltergeist phenomenon, is the existence of background noises, such as traffic or underground trains, or infrasound (low frequency emissions from electrical devices, pylons, etc). However, Lùibeilt Lodge is extremely remote and is characterised by its extreme silence. In truth, it is harder to find a more remote and utterly quiet place on the mainland of Britain.

Another possible solution to the men’s experience is the possibility that an animal may have created the unusual sounds and disruption. A similar phenomenon was reported at Ben Alder Cottage on Rannoch Moor. In that instance, the strange sounds were proven to be simply a stag using its antlers to scrape and bang on the outside walls of the property. It was also believed that the legend of a ghostly encounter at Ben Alder had been fabricated, or at the very least exaggerated, by the tenants to dissuade hillwalkers from wishing to stay there. However, the complete lack of footprints (animal or human) approaching Lùibeilt Lodge seems to discount the presence of an animal or person large enough to create the unusual sounds heard by the two climbers.

Edinburgh-based paranormal psychologist and writer Evelyn Hollow, a regular contributor to the Uncanny podcast, offered a different explanation for the occurrences. She stated that Scotland is ‘saturated’ by the paranormal and is ‘one of the most haunted countries in the world’, suggesting that the phenomenon was indeed a poltergeist — a potentially violent ghost that can move objects.

Before we dismiss Paul’s compelling story, there are several points worth making and coincidences which cannot be ignored.

He has never wavered or changed his version of events, and remains utterly convinced by his experiences. Neither has he sought to gain from them. In fact, the opposite is true.

For those who believe in the existence of the poltergeist phenomenon, there is a possible explanation for the manifestation that Paul experienced at Lùibeilt Lodge. In 1890, a forty-year-old gamekeeper and deerstalker named John McAlpine lived at the lonely cottage with his wife. Sadly, he committed suicide on a particularly bleak April day. His death was subsequently reported in the Oban Times on 26th April 1890,

‘McAlpine went out for a walk in the morning in his usual health, but later in the day his wife found him hanging from a rope tied to a cross beam.’

He had hanged himself in the strangely unnerving bedroom above the room in which the two climbers had attempted to sleep.

The lodge is no stranger to other dark tragedies and still exudes an overwhelming sense of isolation. Dr Brander, whose medical practice covered this part of the Highlands at the beginning of the twentieth century, called it ‘the loneliest spot in the Highlands of Scotland.’

In February 1907 the bodies of three navvies were found by a shepherd in the thick snow on a nearby hillside. It was thought that the three men had been overcome by a bitterly icy snowstorm while making their way to the dam construction project at Kinlochleven, ten miles away. Their efforts to reach the shelter of the lodge had failed as they succumbed to the intense cold.

In September 1920, the next gamekeeper to reside at Lùibeilt Lodge also passed away inside the lonely cottage. The intense sadness and loneliness of the place finally grew too much for William Elliot, who died on the fifth anniversary of his son’s death in the Great War. His son, Private Hugh Elliot, had joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but sadly succumbed to his injuries in the trenches of France during September 1915. The tragic atmosphere of Lùibeilt Lodge appears to have far-reaching tentacles.

The rundown cottage was eventually abandoned. Nevertheless, even as recently as 1994 a hillwalker hiking past the ruins of Lùibeilt Lodge suddenly crossed paths with another person who unexpectedly appeared from out of the misty gloom. Having not seen another soul for ten hours, the walker was startled and expressed his surprise. The ghostly figure passed him without speaking or making even the slightest sound. When the walker turned around, the man was gone. Two years earlier, in 1992, a group of three girls out hiking had taken shelter in the lodge during a storm, only to be frightened by a knocking sound on the door. Luckily, it was still daylight and the trio decided to brave the weather and leave the cottage. As they passed down the track, in the driving rain, the girls had the distinct impression of a shadowy figure close behind them. However, when they turned around, they were alone. They ran away in fright, never to return. Although little more than a shell remains today, the location still maintains a lonely, sad, and uneasy atmosphere. In summer 2023 a hillwalker suffered from projectile vomiting after visiting the tumbledown lodge.

Curiously, a Rowan tree has now appeared next to the ruins. In Celtic culture the Rowan was traditionally planted to ward off evil spirits. Mysteriously, this tree has grown in a misshapen and grotesque fashion. As if its natural inclination to grow towards the ruins of the lodge has somehow been countered by an unseen force.

One intriguing question remains. What links this lonely lodge to a flat in Gibson Street, Glasgow, many miles away? Eerily, there is a rather surprisingly link.

There have been many stories of unexplained occurrences in Gibson Street. Hardly surprising, given its litany of brutal murders, violent deaths, and suicides over the past two centuries. These include the three women who kicked a man to death in 1921, a murderous assault in 1883, and the man found hanging in suspicious circumstances in 1862. However, there is one remarkable connection that links Paul with both his flat at 39 Gibson Street and the lonely Lùibeilt Lodge.

Modern ancestral research has enabled us to make an interesting discovery. A one-year-old child had been living at 39 Gibson Street at the time of the 1851 census. This child would have been forty years of age in 1890, at the same time that forty-year-old John McAlpine took his own life at the lonely bothy. Incredibly, that child’s name was also John McAlpine. Were they one and the same person? If so, then Paul may have unwittingly provided the restless spirit of John McAlpine with a conduit to his childhood home.

Whatever we choose to believe, sceptic or believer, this unearthly story of the paranormal is surely enough to send a shiver down even the most resolute of spines.

You can read more of Mark’s stories or order a signed copy of any his books, you can do so via his website at www.markbridgemanauthor.co.uk

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