Speaker 1: Hello, It's Richard mcclinsmith here with a couple of announcements.
Speaker 1: After the amazing success of last year's Crimewave at Sea,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to announce that we'll be setting Saiale again
Speaker 1: next year February eighth to the twelfth of twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed this
Speaker 1: last year, and I'll be participating fully next year with
Speaker 1: the show. So he fancies some spooky true crime on
Speaker 1: a cruise round the Bahamas, This one's for you. Go
Speaker 1: to Crimewave at seed dot com for more information. Tickets
Speaker 1: will go on sale on Friday, February thirteenth, so listen
Speaker 1: out for more announcements there. Further to that, I'm also
Speaker 1: hugely excited to say I'll be attending crime Con US
Speaker 1: and UK this year. So for the US we're going
Speaker 1: to be in Las Vegas twenty eight to the thirty
Speaker 1: first of May. Go to Crimecon dot com to buy
Speaker 1: ticket and use voucher code unexplained for ten percent off.
Speaker 1: And in the UK we'll be in Birmingham on April
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth and London on the third and fourth
Speaker 1: of October. These are all really special events that do
Speaker 1: a lot to put survivors of crime front and center,
Speaker 1: and I'm really honored to be taking part for crime
Speaker 1: Con UK. Go to Crimecon dot com UK to buy
Speaker 1: tickets and again use voucher code Unexplained for ten percent off.
Speaker 1: You can also find all the links on my website
Speaker 1: at Unexplained podcast dot com. Forward Slash events, The small
Speaker 1: room was filled with a shocked silence. The audience were
Speaker 1: gathered in the back room of an inn for the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty five annual General Meeting of the Cairn Gorm
Speaker 1: Club in the Scottish Highlands to listen to tales of
Speaker 1: new hikes and climbs in the Cairn Gorm Mountains. But
Speaker 1: they were not expecting to hear a story like this.
Speaker 1: The speaker was Professor John Norman Collie, an experienced mountaineer
Speaker 1: and man of science. Everyone listened intently, some open mouthed,
Speaker 1: as Colligue spoke of his memories from a fateful day
Speaker 1: decades earlier. While hiking on Ben mcdowey, a thick mist
Speaker 1: had suddenly enveloped Collie in it. He experienced something so
Speaker 1: terrifying that he hadn't spoken a word about it for
Speaker 1: thirty five years Collie described how, after reaching the large
Speaker 1: stone cairn that marked the mountain's summit, he was cautiously
Speaker 1: navigating his way back down the path when the mist ascended,
Speaker 1: Swirling thickly by turns, it revealed, then swallowed up the
Speaker 1: dark gray, almost monsterlike shapes of rocky outcrops. With no
Speaker 1: visual cues to guide him other than the thin line
Speaker 1: of rocky path beneath his feet and its compass bearing,
Speaker 1: Collie proceeded slowly. Taking a wrong turn could send him
Speaker 1: towards one of the precipitous cliffs that flanked the peak.
Speaker 1: The crunching of his boots on the trail was the
Speaker 1: only sound to be heard. Then, Collie said, he began
Speaker 1: to think he could hear something besides his own booted feet.
Speaker 1: For every few steps he took, he thought that he
Speaker 1: heard another set of feet making that crunching sound behind him,
Speaker 1: almost like an eerie echo, except that someone or something
Speaker 1: was taking only one giant stride for every three or
Speaker 1: four of his own. Summoning the most rational part of
Speaker 1: his scientist's mind, Collie told himself it was nonsense, he'd
Speaker 1: just imagined it. But to be sure, he then stopped
Speaker 1: and listened. Then he heard the sound once again, then again.
Speaker 1: The timing suggested a very large stride, which paused as
Speaker 1: if waiting for Collie's next move. Trying to pull himself together,
Speaker 1: Professor Colly resumed walking and once more came that eerie crunch, crunch, crunch,
Speaker 1: coming from behind him. This time all reasoning left the
Speaker 1: normally rational Collie seized with terror. As he described it
Speaker 1: to his audience, he started to run, staggering and stumbling
Speaker 1: over the rocky ground as fast as he could for
Speaker 1: almost five miles. He continued on, bumping and ricocheting between
Speaker 1: the boulders that flanked the trail until he finally reached
Speaker 1: the comparative safety of the rothy Murker's forest below. Concluding
Speaker 1: his story, Professor Colly told his stunned audience to make
Speaker 1: of it what they would. All he could say was
Speaker 1: that there was something very strange about the top of
Speaker 1: Ben mcdowey, something that had so frightened him that he
Speaker 1: would never go back there again. You're listening to Unexplained
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith today. If you go hiking
Speaker 1: in the Scottish Highlands, you're unlikely to have the mountain
Speaker 1: paths and peaks to yourself, even in the dead of winter.
Speaker 1: Walking the mountains, along with winter sports like ice climbing
Speaker 1: and skiing, are popular pastimes for locals and tourists alike,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't always this way. In the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: walking Scotland's mountains for fun was mostly a pastime for
Speaker 1: a small group of wealthy and educated Victorian gentlemen, men
Speaker 1: like Sir Hugh Munroe, who combined his delight in cataloging nature,
Speaker 1: including his collections of butterflies and fossils, with his new
Speaker 1: found hobby of ascending Scottish peaks. He drew up a
Speaker 1: list of all two hundred and eighty two Scottish mountains
Speaker 1: with an elevation of three thousand feet or more, first
Speaker 1: published as Munro's Tables in the Journal of the Scottish
Speaker 1: Mountaineering Club in eighteen ninety one. The list gave rise
Speaker 1: to a new sport reaching the top of all of them,
Speaker 1: known as Monroe bagging. Sadly, Sir Hugh never quite managed
Speaker 1: to summit all two hundred and two himself, dying during
Speaker 1: a flu epidemic at the end of World War One
Speaker 1: with only three peaks left unclimbed. John Norman Collie was
Speaker 1: born in eighteen fifty nine near the city of Manchester
Speaker 1: in the north of England, but he had strong Scottish roots.
Speaker 1: His father was from Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland, so the
Speaker 1: family moved back there when Collie was still a boy.
Speaker 1: Like Monroe, Collie fell in love with the outdoors and
Speaker 1: Scotland's wild, mountainous country. He would go on to become
Speaker 1: a professor of medicine, conducting pioneering work on the use
Speaker 1: of X ray photography, but he always found time for
Speaker 1: hiking expeditions into the Scottish mountains, especially the Cullins of Sky,
Speaker 1: where he helped establish new routes along with local mountain
Speaker 1: guide John Mackenzie. In eighteen ninety five, he was part
Speaker 1: of the first ever attempt on Nanga Parbat, a twenty
Speaker 1: four thousand foot high peak in the Himalayas. Collie was
Speaker 1: already and experienced and respect figure in Scottish mountaineering when
Speaker 1: he went walking in the Cairngaum Mountains in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Back then, such ventures were much more of an expedition
Speaker 1: than the comparatively easy day trips of today. At the time,
Speaker 1: the Cairn Gorms were relatively remote and in some places
Speaker 1: still relatively unexplored. Rail and good road links had not
Speaker 1: yet been built. You could often be out among the
Speaker 1: rocks and heather all day and not see another human soul.
Speaker 1: The cair Gorms consists of a high plateau reaching almost
Speaker 1: four thousand feet above sea level, pierced here and there
Speaker 1: by domed summits the eroded stumps of once much grander mountains.
Speaker 1: The highest of these is Ben mcdowey, at four thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety five feet above sea level. It
Speaker 1: is the second highest peak in Britain, behind Ben Nevis,
Speaker 1: on Scotland's northwest coast. The landscape that surrounds Ben mcdowey's
Speaker 1: summit is desolate and bolder strewn scattered here and there
Speaker 1: are free standing rocky outcrops. The Arctic alpine vegetation is sparse.
Speaker 1: It's a place where, apart from the howl of the
Speaker 1: wind and patter of rain on the rocks, the occasional
Speaker 1: calls of birds like ptarmigan, snow buntings and red grouse
Speaker 1: are the only sounds. The weather can change rapidly one
Speaker 1: moment benign, the next harsh. It's a landscape in which
Speaker 1: clouds descend or mists rise. The visibility can fall to
Speaker 1: just a few feet, making it easy to become disorientated
Speaker 1: and lost. Had the tale that Collie told the ken
Speaker 1: Gorm Club that evening in nineteen twenty five been told
Speaker 1: by another man, it might not have been believed. But
Speaker 1: with his status as an experienced mountaineer and rational man
Speaker 1: of science, the story made a great impression on those
Speaker 1: present that day and those who heard of it later.
Speaker 1: This was not a man to imagine phantoms or likely
Speaker 1: to panic on a summit. In time, the sinister being
Speaker 1: was given a name m for Leah Moore in Scott's
Speaker 1: Gallic in English, the Big Gray Man of Ben mcdowey,
Speaker 1: or simply the gray Man, and so for over a
Speaker 1: century something described as a presence or as a creature
Speaker 1: has been said to haunt the summit and surrounding passes
Speaker 1: of Ben mcdowey. The Big Gray Man has joined a
Speaker 1: list of creatures, some of which have existed for centuries
Speaker 1: in the legends and folk talk of mountain peoples around
Speaker 1: the world, like the Yetti from the Himalayas, Bigfoot from
Speaker 1: North of America and the y Ren or wild Man
Speaker 1: of China. Welsh mythology also has its own version of
Speaker 1: the being, called Brennan the Leward in English, the Gray King,
Speaker 1: described as a silent, semi corporeal figure who hides in
Speaker 1: the mountain mists, preying on unsuspecting travelers, especially children. When
Speaker 1: Colly's account was reported in the local press, the professor
Speaker 1: soon discovered, to his immense surprise, that he wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one who'd been terrified on those very same slopes.
Speaker 1: One letter after another arrived through his door, detailing accounts
Speaker 1: from climate who had previously been too afraid or too
Speaker 1: ashamed to share their experiences. Just like Collie, several confessed
Speaker 1: as similar feelings of terror caused by a being that
Speaker 1: they had sensed was with them on the mountain. Hugh
Speaker 1: Welsh was hiking to the summit with his brother in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh four, where throughout the day and night they
Speaker 1: heard footsteps that sounded to them as if someone was
Speaker 1: walking nearby through soaking wet gravel. Both men were utterly
Speaker 1: convinced that something was stalking them. Only in a few
Speaker 1: of the cases reported to John Colly did people report
Speaker 1: actually seeing something. Those who did claim to glimpse a large,
Speaker 1: dark shape looming towards them. Others described a very thin
Speaker 1: being over ten feet tall, with long arms and broad shoulders,
Speaker 1: either with dark skin and hair, or else an olive
Speaker 1: complexion or covered with short brown hair. Occasionally some said
Speaker 1: they'd seen an unusual looking footprint, but more often the
Speaker 1: apparent creature seemed to stay hidden in the mist. The
Speaker 1: reports dried up for a time until after the onset
Speaker 1: of the Second World War, several more vivid reports of
Speaker 1: the specter began to surface. From nineteen thirty nine to
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. Peter Densham was the leader of the
Speaker 1: Cairngorms Royal Air Force Rescue Team. One day towards the
Speaker 1: end of his service, Densham was participating in a rescue
Speaker 1: exercise on Ben mcdowey. As he neared the summit, he
Speaker 1: heard what he described as strange noises on the mountain side,
Speaker 1: although at first he felt sure that they were merely
Speaker 1: caused by stone shifting. Then, around dusk, as the light
Speaker 1: began to fade, a dense mist closed in on his location. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: Densham reported feeling a sensation of pressure increasing around its neck,
Speaker 1: followed by another crunch in the gravel to his left.
Speaker 1: Densham couldn't articulate what was happening in that moment. All
Speaker 1: he knew was that he had to leave immediately. Overcome
Speaker 1: by terror, he began running down the mountain, only to
Speaker 1: find that he was heading straight towards a precipitous ravine.
Speaker 1: As he later told his son, it was as if
Speaker 1: someone was deliberately pushing him in that direction. It was
Speaker 1: with no little effort that he found he had to
Speaker 1: force himself to correct course before continuing his way down
Speaker 1: the mountain safely. Some weeks later, Densham experienced an even
Speaker 1: eeria encounter. This time he was accompanied by a climbing partner,
Speaker 1: Richard Frere. As the two men neared the mountain summit
Speaker 1: once again, the landscape became shrouded in a dense fog.
Speaker 1: The fog became so thick that the two men quickly
Speaker 1: lost sight of each other. As Densham steadily continued on
Speaker 1: his way, he heard the faint sound of Frere's voice
Speaker 1: and another voice to talking to each other. Assuming his
Speaker 1: friend had bumped into another climber, Densham joined in the
Speaker 1: discussion from a distance The conversation continued for a while
Speaker 1: until the other voice dropped out, at which point Densham
Speaker 1: asked Frere who he'd been talking to, but Frere was
Speaker 1: confused the whole time. He thought he was just talking
Speaker 1: to Densham. Three years later, and Richard Frere was back
Speaker 1: on the mountain standing alone. At one point he heard
Speaker 1: the eerie sound of what he took to be someone
Speaker 1: singing a single, high pitched note. On hearing Peter Densham
Speaker 1: and Richard Frere's stories, a mutual friend who wished to
Speaker 1: remain anonymous, confessed that around that same time he had
Speaker 1: been camping on Ben mcdowey one night when he suddenly
Speaker 1: awoke with an inescapable feeling of dread. He opened his
Speaker 1: tent and looked outside. There he saw a large figure
Speaker 1: with dark hair, standing silhouetted in front of the moon.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty eight, the naturalist and mountaineer Alexander Tunian
Speaker 1: published an article in The Scots Magazine in which he
Speaker 1: described a solo climbing trip in the Cairngorms from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three. One afternoon, he wrote, just as he reached
Speaker 1: the summit of Ben mcdowey, a mist swelled up from
Speaker 1: a famous pass below known as the Larry Grew. Tunian
Speaker 1: pulled on some extra layers as the weather conditions rapidly
Speaker 1: became dark and oppressive, and a fierce wind sprang up,
Speaker 1: feathering and whistling among the boulders around him. Then he
Speaker 1: heard a loud footstep pierce the mist, then another and another.
Speaker 1: Straining his eyes toward where the sound came from, Tunian
Speaker 1: claimed that a strange shape suddenly loomed up out of
Speaker 1: the mist. As he attempted to make out what exactly
Speaker 1: it was, the figure appeared to recede for a moment,
Speaker 1: only to emerge from the mist yet again, and this
Speaker 1: time to charge at the climber. Managing to keep his composure,
Speaker 1: Tunian whipped out a revolver and fired three times at
Speaker 1: the ghostly figure, but this failed to make it retreat.
Speaker 1: At this point, like several men before him, his nerves
Speaker 1: got the better of him and he turned and ran,
Speaker 1: not stopping for breath until he reached the valley of
Speaker 1: Glenderry below. Tunian commented in his article that he'd never
Speaker 1: traveled that path so quickly before or since. He believed
Speaker 1: that what he'd seen was the big gray man. During
Speaker 1: the early nineteen twenties, former president of the Moray Mountaineering
Speaker 1: Club Tom Crowley was descending from a peak to the
Speaker 1: west of Ben mcdowey when a huge, gray, mist shrouded
Speaker 1: figure with pointed ears, long legs, and fingerlike talons on
Speaker 1: its feet came into view. There's no record of whether
Speaker 1: Crowley turned and ran Meanwhile, in his book one hundred
Speaker 1: Strangest Unexplained Mysterets, writer Matt Lammy describes the experience of
Speaker 1: three men who claimed to have come face to face
Speaker 1: with an eerie, dark, human shaped figure in a forest
Speaker 1: in Aberdeenshire, on the eastern side of the Cairngorms. They
Speaker 1: claimed to have seen a face looking at them from
Speaker 1: between tree branches, which was, in their words, human but
Speaker 1: not human. One of the men claimed to have thrown
Speaker 1: a stone at it, causing it to disappear into the trees.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, the same trio were driving in
Speaker 1: the area when the men alleged that the same bipedal
Speaker 1: creature suddenly appeared from out of the trees and pursued
Speaker 1: their car, running it up to forty five miles per hour.
Speaker 1: After some time, it eventually gave up and apparently stood
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road, just watching as the
Speaker 1: car and its frightened occupants sped away. Despite the various reports,
Speaker 1: no photographs of the so called Big Gray Man have
Speaker 1: ever been taken. Photographer John Rennie did take shots of
Speaker 1: a series of footprints measuring nineteen inches long and fourteen
Speaker 1: inches white, that he found in the Spey Valley below
Speaker 1: the mountain, believing them to be those of the creature.
Speaker 1: It was only later that he discovered they weren't footprints
Speaker 1: at all, but caused by a natural process that occurs
Speaker 1: when rainfall melts the snow. Some skeptics are of the
Speaker 1: firm belief that there is no Big Gray Man, and
Speaker 1: that he is in stead dead, a manifestation of a
Speaker 1: well known mountain phenomenon. Born in seventeen seventy, James Hogg
Speaker 1: was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist. In seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 1: the author was walking on Ben mcdowey when he encountered
Speaker 1: what he described as a giant blackamore, an archaic term
Speaker 1: for Muslims from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, at
Speaker 1: least thirty feet high. Hogg wrote that it had all
Speaker 1: the appearances of a giant, long limbed, gray silhouette of
Speaker 1: a man, which seemed to stand against the backdrop of
Speaker 1: the clouds behind it. At first, the author was struck
Speaker 1: powerless with astonishment and terror, but his terror began to
Speaker 1: subside when he realized that the figure was aping his gestures.
Speaker 1: When Hogg raised his arm, the gray man raised his.
Speaker 1: When he held its leg to one side, the apparition
Speaker 1: did the same with the exact same timing, took off
Speaker 1: its hat at the same moment he did. With a
Speaker 1: flash of relief and comprehension, Hogg realized that the gray
Speaker 1: Man was just his own shadow. These days, this atmospheric
Speaker 1: phenomenon is well known to hikers and mountaineers. It's called
Speaker 1: a Brocken specter, named after the brock And Peak in
Speaker 1: Germany's Hartz Mountains, where as on many Scottish peaks it's
Speaker 1: a frequent occurrence. It's caused when a low angled sun's
Speaker 1: rays filter through low cloud or fog to produce the
Speaker 1: shadow of a person, which appears elongated, almost like something
Speaker 1: coming out of the mist on which it's projected. The giant,
Speaker 1: gray humanoid shape is often surrounded by a rainbow hued halo,
Speaker 1: giving it a ghostly, almost angelic appearance. Non Believers in
Speaker 1: the Big Gray Man have also pointed out to the
Speaker 1: strange sounds that some climates have heard, that the wind
Speaker 1: can make extraordinary sounds as it howls and whistles over
Speaker 1: exposed rocks, outcrops, and boulders. One mountain on the eastern
Speaker 1: side of the Grampians, called Loch Nagar is even named
Speaker 1: the Lock of the Outcry, or in Gallic, Loch Nagara,
Speaker 1: due to the frequent moaning and howling of the wind
Speaker 1: among its rocks, while a past to the south is
Speaker 1: called baloch and Scarnia, or rocks that make noises. And
Speaker 1: yet experienced mountaineers who've reported hearing the creature would almost
Speaker 1: certainly be familiar with just such a thing. And if
Speaker 1: the Big Gray Man is merely an optical illusion, what
Speaker 1: of the alleged encounters that have happened after sunset, not
Speaker 1: to mention the inexplicable sounds of footsteps and the sudden
Speaker 1: sense of panic that is said to accompany them. Mountain panic,
Speaker 1: more formally known as high place phenomenon, can affect people
Speaker 1: in different ways. Physiologically, is thought to be caused by
Speaker 1: the brain misinterpreting a survival safety signal to back up instead,
Speaker 1: sometimes leading to a desire to jump from a high place,
Speaker 1: which only intensifies the sudden onrush of anxiety. It can
Speaker 1: be induced by a lack of oxygen, stress, and fatigue.
Speaker 1: The symptoms, like the feeling of losing control of a situation, dizziness,
Speaker 1: or shallowness of breath, can vary, but a universal symptom
Speaker 1: is a sense of impending doom, which can strike when
Speaker 1: you least expect it. Magazine editor Sarah Collins was alone
Speaker 1: on a chairlift at almost four thousand feet above sea
Speaker 1: level while on holiday in the Canadian Rockies when the
Speaker 1: thought suddenly came into her head to jump. Surveying the
Speaker 1: magnificent array of mountain peaks around her, Collins was gripped
Speaker 1: by a sense of dread and the feeling she was
Speaker 1: about to lose control of her body. A former sufferer
Speaker 1: of obsessive compulsive disorder, she'd successfully developed techniques for suppressing
Speaker 1: recurring intrusive thoughts and had considered herself cured, but on
Speaker 1: this occasion she was experiencing a combination of jet lack
Speaker 1: and the sense of being in an unfamiliar environment. Now,
Speaker 1: she became overwhelmed by a full blown panic attack. Collins
Speaker 1: gripped tighter and tighter onto the metal bar in front
Speaker 1: of her, the only thing between her and the abyss below.
Speaker 1: For ten long minutes, she had the feeling that at
Speaker 1: any moment she might give in to the impulse to
Speaker 1: launch herself off the chair. Eventually, the calming voice of
Speaker 1: mental health professional that she'd been treated by years ago
Speaker 1: came back to her. Collins described the antidote as being
Speaker 1: akin to allowing yourself to just float rather than thrash
Speaker 1: the water when you think you're about to drown. Gradually,
Speaker 1: she persuaded herself to relax her grip on the bar
Speaker 1: and lie back in the chair. She survived the ride.
Speaker 1: Could it be that mountaineers who have seen the Big
Speaker 1: Gray Man have often been suffering from mountain panic, experiencing
Speaker 1: symptoms recognized by psychologists as often brought on by a
Speaker 1: combination of isolation and exhaustion. Even experienced and well trained
Speaker 1: adventurers can succumb to hallucinations under the combined assault of fatigue,
Speaker 1: low oxygen, the cold, and a desolate landscape. There are
Speaker 1: many accounts of hill walkers and climbers experiencing the high
Speaker 1: place phenomenon across the British Isles, in places as far
Speaker 1: afield as the Isle of Sky, the Grampian Highlands and
Speaker 1: the mountains of England and Wales. Almost all accounts of
Speaker 1: the Big Gray Man include a sense of being overtaken
Speaker 1: by feelings of dread, sometimes so much that some on
Speaker 1: Ben mcdowey have reported being drawn towards the precipitous drop
Speaker 1: at a place called lurch Ats Crack, almost prepared to
Speaker 1: throw themselves over the edge. So intense is the feeling.
Speaker 1: And then, of course there is infrasound. It has been
Speaker 1: known for some time that infrasound can affect human physiology
Speaker 1: and psychology. There have even been clinical experiments to test it.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, at the School of Mechanical
Speaker 1: Science and Engineering at Waalsong University in wu Han, China,
Speaker 1: a study was carried out to honor to the changes
Speaker 1: of blood pressure, heart rate, and the subjective feelings of
Speaker 1: subjects exposed to infrasound. The study adopted two different infrasonic
Speaker 1: treatments based around the sound wave frequency of two herts
Speaker 1: and four herts. During the experiment, One group was exposed
Speaker 1: to infrasound of two herts at a volume of one
Speaker 1: hundred decibels for one hour, while a second group was
Speaker 1: exposed to four herts at a volume of one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty decibels for one hour. Any noise with a
Speaker 1: frequency over twenty hertz, the lower limit of human hearing
Speaker 1: was minimized. To avoid any interference with the results. A
Speaker 1: blood pressure meter and cardio tachometer were used to measure
Speaker 1: any changes in the subjects blood pressure and heart rate.
Speaker 1: It was found that exposure to both frequencies of infrasound
Speaker 1: made the subjects feel headachey, fretful, and tired. When exposed
Speaker 1: of four hurts over an hour, the blood pressure and
Speaker 1: heart rate of most participants rose. In natural settings, infrasount
Speaker 1: can be generated by the wind. You may remember in
Speaker 1: season seven, episode twenty one, Wild is the Wind, we
Speaker 1: told the story of the Reverend James Pike and his
Speaker 1: wife Diane, who some suspect was driven mad by the
Speaker 1: wind while on a research trip in the Judean Desert.
Speaker 1: Pike died in mysterious circumstances on the expedition. Wind generated
Speaker 1: infrasount has been implicated in causing feelings of uneasiness, anxiety,
Speaker 1: and paranormal sightings for some time, and mountains are frequently
Speaker 1: windy places. In nineteen ninety eight, in the Journal of
Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research, researcher Vic Tandy published a
Speaker 1: study showing how a nineteen hertz standing airwave just below
Speaker 1: the human ability to hear it may, under certain conditions
Speaker 1: create sensory for no nomina in humans suggestive of a ghost.
Speaker 1: In the paper titled the Ghost in the Machine, Tandy
Speaker 1: advised researchers of paranoral experiences to try and rule out
Speaker 1: this potential natural explanation for their investigations. All that being said,
Speaker 1: As recently as twenty twenty two, Scottish newspaper The Daily
Speaker 1: Record ran a story about a guest staying at mar
Speaker 1: Lodge in the cair Grants who'd left a post on
Speaker 1: a wildlife sighting board at a ranger's hut. Most posts
Speaker 1: on the board reported things like the sighting of adders
Speaker 1: or eagles, or bemoaned the appearance of biting midgie's, But
Speaker 1: on the twenty seventh of September one spoot guest wrote
Speaker 1: something a little different. According to them, they had spotted
Speaker 1: a creepy gray silhouette standing at the summit of Ben mcdowey.
Speaker 1: Whether it was in fact a Brocken specter, just the
Speaker 1: mind playing tricks on them, or indeed a real living
Speaker 1: thing lurking in the mist, just like the mystery of
Speaker 1: m for Leah Moore, the big gray Man of Ben
Speaker 1: mcdowey that remains to this day unexplained. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Diane Hope and produced by Richard McClain Smith.
Speaker 1: Diane is an audio producer and sound recordist in her
Speaker 1: own right. You can find out more about her work
Speaker 1: at Dianehope dot com and on Instagram at in the
Speaker 1: sound Field. Thank you as ever for listening Unexplained as
Speaker 1: an Avy Club production podcast created by Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book
Speaker 1: and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can
Speaker 1: purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with
Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on
Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can find
Speaker 1: out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us
Speaker 1: online through X and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast