Introduction
Our fear of the unknown has been a part of our cultural psyche since the dawn of time. It’s not just what lies beyond our Earth that terrifies us — it’s the things that go bump in the night in our own backyards too. Join me today as we delve into some of the most eerie cryptid sightings in Scotland.
The field of cryptozoology is the attempt to prove or disprove the existence of legendary creatures and monsters through a scientific lens. While many cryptozoologists will focus mainly on eyewitness testimony and second-hand evidence, like photographs or video footage, others will go out into the field to get first-hand evidence.
While not recognised by the scientific community, cryptozoologists do important work as they often disprove urban legends by showing evidence to be nothing more than hoaxes, putting the minds of entire communities at ease. It’s an interesting field, but one that will often result in disappointment for most. In my mind, these people do important work, but it’s very important not to get caught up in the whirlwind of excitement and end up viewing evidence with bias.
Cryptids themselves are an integral part of our cultural folklore. From Bigfoot to Nessie to even the more elusive Chupacabra or the Jersey Devil, there’s at least a cryptid or two from every nation on Earth.
The Strange World of Scottish Cryptids
Scotland is no stranger to myths. Often thought of as a mysterious and ancient land shrouded in legend, we have a long history of bizarre monsters and encounters with the fey (wee folk). Our fairies aren’t exactly what you see in Disney movies though — they’re nightmarish.
We’re the homeland of Celtic folklore, the home of the Loch Ness Monster and creatures like the Nuckelavee or the vampiric Baobhan Sith. We have stories of big cats and werewolves, goblins and cursed card games with the devil. We’ll take a look at some of the most prevalent creatures and their stories today.
The Loch Ness Monster
Of course, we have to get the big one out of the way first. Nessie is known all over the world.
The earliest reported sighting I could find is from the 6th century when an Irish monk called Saint Columba reported a strange beast in the waters of River Ness. As with most accounts dating back this far, it’s impossible to find much else other than the monk’s own words.
The modern day Nessie phenomena began in around 1933 when Hugh Gray, a roadside construction worker, reported seeing a huge creature in the loch. It would gain momentum the following year when the famous Surgeon’s Photograph surfaced in The Daily Mail. This bizarre image, presented by Robert Kenneth Wilson, would baffle those curious about the legend. It’s often believed he was the one who took the image, but he was merely the one who revealed it to the press. He wished to remain anonymous, hence the name The Surgeon’s Photograph.
The photograph was met with skepticism over the years. Stewart Campbell published an article in The British Journal of Photography in 1984 that took a critical photographer’s eye to the image. He claimed the image was taken from a much larger photo and had been deliberately cropped to deceive viewers. He showed the original and The Daily Mail version side by side and it was clear to see that the object in question was much, much smaller than previously believed.
It wasn’t until 1994 after a long investigation by The Sunday Telegraph that the true identity of the photographer was revealed, along with proof that the image was, in fact, an elaborate hoax. The photographer was Marmaduke Wetherell, and he had been mocked for his involvement in previous failed Loch Ness expeditions. With the help of his stepson, a sculptor named Christian Spurling, the pair collaborated to create their monster with the use of a toy submarine.
Spurling would confess to this on his deathbed in 1994, explaining how the hoax was created and endured, and his family members backed this up.
So why was Marmaduke so incensed that he would fool the cryptozoology community for sixty years? It’s simple. He returned from an exhibition to Loch Ness with a mountain of evidence, including footprints. I couldn’t find whether these were casts or photographs, but either way, the Natural History Museum quickly concluded the prints were from a dried hippo’s foot.
Marmaduke and Spurling selected Robert Kenneth Wilson to deliver the photograph because he was a doctor. Therefore, people would be less suspicious of him and his intentions to collaborate on such a hoax.
It’s an interesting piece of history and it really shows that, no matter how enduring a piece of evidence may be, it’s important to maintain a critical eye.
Nessie has been back in the news recently with two reports. The most prominent one currently is from twelve-year-old Charlotte Robinson, who snapped an image of what some believe is the creature while on holiday. Her photo is shown below.
Personally, I don’t find this evidence so compelling and part of me wonders if the news media are blowing this up because it involves a child — after all, who doesn’t want to make a kid happy? I wonder how much scrutiny this image will undergo. It’s much too blurry and pixelated to offer concrete evidence. At this stage, this object centre-stage could be literally anything from debris to an otter to even a bird sailing across the loch.
Another piece of evidence was also recently announced that I do find much more compelling.
This sighting took place in 2018, but the witness, Chie Kelly, didn’t come forward out of fear of ridicule. However, with the attention given to little Charlotte’s photo, she felt the time was finally right to step forward.
These images were taken on a Canon camera, most likely a dSLR, and are much clearer than any videos or photos captured on a standard mobile phone.
Time will tell how the images stand up to expert scrutiny, though.
Children of the Night
The Gorbals Vampire
Something strange took place in south-east Glasgow during the fifties. Often cited as an example of mass hysteria and panic, this is an interesting piece of Scottish history that shows how easily people can be caught up in a whirlwind of rumours and gossip.
The Gorbals no longer exist, but they were an area of poverty where overcrowding was rife even though many abandoned and derelict buildings stood. This meant the community was mostly close knit and news would travel fast throughout the working class community.
It’s also worth noting that during this time, American comics were sweeping the minds of youths all over the UK. TV shows like Saturday Night Stories and Sunday-Night Theater wove exciting tales of intrigue with themes of witchcraft and ghosts and no doubt many children would have stayed up late to watch these shows without their parents knowledge. They probably passed comics with similar ideas around playgrounds and imaginations would have run wild.
Our story begins in late September 1954 when Glaswegian children shared rumours about a tall, skinny man with iron teeth who haunted the South Necropolis cemetery. Some kids were absolutely certain they’d even witnessed the creature skulking about the shadows.
The rumours escalated to the point where children began claiming the vampire had captured, killed and eaten two children. Parents started worrying about their children too — they didn’t believe it was a vampire but what if there was a crazy man on the loose stalking and harassing children? It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.
I wondered if there had been any unfortunate criminal cases involving children which may have sparked these fears and rumours but, oddly, I couldn’t find anything for this time period. Certainly not anything involving cannibalism.
Now, anywhere else, this would have been enough to keep children huddling under their duvets in fear. Not Glasgow, though. We’re built differently. You may recall the words of a famous recent Glaswegian hero and airport baggage handler, John Smeaton, who famously helped avert catastrophe at Glasgow airport in 2007 when would-be terrorists attempted to bomb the terminals.
Glasgow doesn’t accept this. This is Glasgow. We’ll set about ye.
John Smeaton
And that’s exactly what the local youths did.
Soon, gangs of armed children and teenagers took to the street, armed to the teeth with makeshift weapons. Some carried baseball bats or planks of wood with nails hammered in. Others crafted their own spears by sharpening sticks and others smashed up glass bottles. Within days, Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis was being patrolled nightly by armies of youthful vigilantes, dead set on ending the vampire’s reign of terror. They spent their evenings prowling through the cemetery, checking under benches, behind headstones and trees, anywhere that a potential ghoul might linger.
Days passed. There wasn’t the slightest trace of anything spooky. Many children got bored and the numbers of would-be vampire hunters dwindled over time. That is, until the national media heard about the story and, doing what newspapers do, they published it and stirred up the entire nation into a panicked frenzy. Things got so out-of-hand that Labour MP Alice Cullen had to step in and push a bill. This bill is set in stone to this day. It’s called the 1955 Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act and covers the distribution of visual material deemed inappropriate for young minds.
Things became so tense that the police themselves had to intervene, telling the public there was no ‘vampire’ and this was nothing more than mass hysteria getting out of control. It’s said they had to issue several official statements which I would have absolutely loved to have read, but I couldn’t find a record of the actual statements online during my research.
Eventually, the panic died down and, lo-and-behold, there were no further sightings of the fabled Gorbals Vampire. It’s a wild story but I love it — everything about it is just so Glasgow, especially the gangs of ten-year-old vampire hunters roaming the streets at night. It must have been a sight to behold. It’s one of those crazy stories that exploded without a single shred of evidence, showing just how intense hysteria can be and how easily the rumour mill can whip communities into a frenzy.
The Lochmaben Vampire
A lesser known case is that of Tom Robertson’s encounter with a supposed vampire in the ruins of Lochmaben Castle. I first heard about this tale on one of the many paranormal podcasts I listen to on YouTube. I can’t remember which one, sadly, but it always stuck in my head because it had photographic evidence.
Now, whether the evidence is genuine is another thing we’ll touch on at the end, but for now, let’s tell the eerie tale of his harrowing encounter with the undead.
Tom Robertson is a ghost hunter who was asked by the locals to investigate dead animals in the castle grounds in 1991. He claims that during this first encounter, he was merely 15ft away from what he described as a ghoul. It’s a textbook description. I’ll let his own words paint the creepy picture.
Its face was as grey as granite, its eyes as black as coal. The skin seemed transparent except for the purple veins protruding from the creature’s dead, withered tissue. It was tall but round-shouldered and a hood was pulled over its head, dressed in sacking.
Tom Robertson
He then stated that the creature suddenly leapt up into the branches like a monkey and he fled back to his vehicle. He would return eight years later, and this is where he snapped the photo of the supposed creature. Apparently, they came face to face and despite Tom having the creature’s full attention, it just stared at him. He left soon after.
The tale gets even more bizarre when Tom claimed he was contacted by a woman from New Orleans who requested he capture the vampire alive and was soon thereafter called by a mysterious anonymous person he believes to be Michael Jackson.
You could not make this up.
As far as paranormal encounters go, this one is a little weird. Firstly, the evidence could be easily faked. That’s not to say it is, however — just that it could be. That’s the problem with humanoid entities with no clear definable features. You can’t say for definite whether it’s someone dressed up in rags or even Halloween decoration left in the woods to spook people curious about the vampire legend.
It’s also interesting to note that many versions of vampiric folklore specifically state that these creatures have no reflections and can’t be captured on camera or video as a result but keep in mind that lore varies from region to region and there’s every chance what Tom encountered may have been another type of entity entirely.
Lochmaben has a prominent vampire legend dating back to the 17th century surrounding a man named William Dees. It’s rumoured that when he died, he transformed into a nightmarish creature and began attacking the community. Townsfolk exhumed his coffin, found he hadn’t decomposed at all and decided to drive a stake through his heart and then burn the body. There are variations of the tale, but that’s the generally accepted version.
It’s certainly an interesting story, and as bizarre as it sounds, I always believe that truth can often be stranger than fiction. However, only Tom Robertson knows the truth and the genuine validity of his photographic evidence. I’m hesitant to discount his experiences outright, having had unbelievable first-hand experience with the paranormal myself, although I’m leaning on the sceptical side of things.
Still, it’s interesting how vampires are prevalent in Scottish folklore. Vampire folklore shares many similarities to fey mythology — inability to enter homes without invitation, inability to cross water, etc — and that leads me into our next topic: the fey.
The Demonic Water Horses of Legend
The wee folk, or fey, have been a part of Scottish culture since time immemorial. Most famous is the exciting tale of Tam O’Shanter by poet, Robert Burns, which tells a harrowing account of a man who gets too close to a gathering of witches and has to flee into the night pursued by a horde of supernatural creatures.
While Tam O’ Shanter is agreed to be a more witchcraft focused poem, I find it has many parallels with fey folklore. For starters, after a night of drinking and mirth, the poem’s hero makes his way home, where his attention is grabbed by the sound of another midnight revelry. This is a common theme in fey mythology — fey love lavish parties and celebrations. The sound of faint music or general merrymaking often heralds their presence.
When Tam’s presence is noted by the supernatural gathering, an intense chase takes place with hoards of witches and warlocks on his tail. This reminds me of the old tales of faerie processions or troops, where a vast amount of fey folk whisk through the night, similar to the Wild Hunt of European folklore.
The leader of the chase, an entity known as Nannie Dee, rides upon a horse. While the poet never explicitly mentions any magical qualities to the horse, it’s worth noting that, as the horse is part of a supernatural procession, it most likely has some parallels to the horses in Scottish fey lore.
The chase comes to a halt when Tam and his horse cross a bridge. The pursuers can’t cross running water and this is another curious aspect common in several occult mythologies, such as vampires and fey. It’s also worth noting the significance of water in religion — Christianity, for example, believes in baptism by water to purify and cleanse the soul. Perhaps unclean beings cannot pass over the water as a result? It’s certainly interesting to think about.
But returning to the general topic of Scottish fey, I touched on Nannie Dee’s horse. There are several horses in Scottish fey folklore, from the kelpies to the dreaded Nuckelavee which boasts a horse’s body and a man’s torso. Both fey are reported to be extremely malevolent, with both being noted to take great pleasure in causing chaos and harm, even death, to those unfortunate enough to cross paths with them.
So why are these mythical beings included in a story about Scottish cryptids? Simple: there’s too many reports to entirely discount their existence. Besides, don’t creatures like Bigfoot, Dogman and the Jersey Devil flirt with the concept of mythology?
When stories like these endure for centuries and there are so many word-of-mouth accounts over those years, it’s hard to ignore them. There’s no smoke without fire, as they say, and what’s saying that there’s not some element of truth to these terrifying encounters? Besides, stories like this exist all over the world.
In Malaysia, the Kaw-kaw’s description reads exactly like our kelpies. They’re spirits that take the form of horses and drag people to their deaths in the water. Europe’s Nix is another example of the exact same creature being recorded with the same modus operandi and appearance. Same with Ireland’s Noggle. All descriptions of these creatures read like the same entity and it makes me wonder: why do so many regions in the world have the exact same water horse?
Japan has the Kawa-no-kami, another deity that shows itself as a horse. The Kawa-no-kami offers protection to rivers but turns malevolent when it deems people are disrespecting the land or harming the waters. What’s saying the Kelpie doesn’t operate with a similar mindset?
It’s worth noting that Kelpies, similar to the Nuckelavee, are associated with a strong pungent odour that can alert people to their presence. This is interesting and eerie because similar smells are reported in historical demon encounters and even in many alien abduction cases. But the theory that aliens are demonic is an entirely different article for another day.
It’s also interesting that only the Kelpie and the Nuckelavee are associated with these pungent demonic odours. It’s what made me think of Robert Burn’s Tam O’ Shanter poem in the first place, given the explicit references to the dark arts and the devilish nature of those present at the merrymaking.
Water horses aren’t the only commonly reported fey in Scotland, however. There’s a myriad of other supernatural beings that I’ll most likely write about at another time. There’s simply too many to catalogue in one article.
But going back to the demonic angle and the parallels between aspects of fey and vampire folklore, it’s fascinating how they also mirror demonic mythology. They’re both known for shapeshifting, trickery and pacts that never end well, and the use of salt to protect against demonic forces is especially interesting, given that salt was used to draw circles of protection against the fey. It’s also reported that, if one found oneself under the influence of the fey, the spell could be broken by counting grains of salt.
Definitely food for thought. Maybe with some added sodium for good measure.
Conclusion
From the misty moors of the Scottish Highlands to the gloomy, damp streets of Glasgow city, there’s a ghoul around every corner, it seems.
Perhaps some of these tales are just the ramblings of folk who’ve had a wee bit too much whisky? Or maybe — just maybe — there’s an inkling of truth to all of them. Are there really prehistoric aquatic creatures lurking in the murky depths of Loch Ness? Did an iron-fanged vampire really stalk the foggy streets of Glasgow? Are kelpies just a drunken angler’s patchy recollection of the crashing waves that swept his friend to sea?
We’ll most likely never get a concrete answer on the validity of these stories either way, but it’s curious to think about what’s out there in the world. Who knows? Perhaps in a century’s time, the kelpie will be uncovered as a perfectly normal product of evolution that we just haven’t yet catalogued.
Scotland is a vibrant land rich in fables and folklore. Should you ever visit our shores, I’d recommend keeping some salt in your pocket in case you run into the fey. You should be safe, though. Honestly, the city streets are probably more scary than the moors at night. You never know who or what is lurking just around that corner…
References
Don’t Take Pictures. “The Loch Ness Monster Turns 83: The Story of the Surgeon’s Photograph.” [Online]. Available: https://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2017/4/19/the-loch-ness-monster-turns-83-the-story-of-the-surgeons-photograph
The Telegraph. “Sighting of Loch Ness Monster days after new photographs taken.” [Online]. Available: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/01/sighting-loch-ness-monster-days-after-new-photographs-taken/.
New York Post. “New sighting of Loch Ness Monster captured in photos.” [Online]. Available: https://nypost.com/2023/08/31/new-sighting-of-loch-ness-monster-captured-in-photos/
Folk Horror Revival. “British Folk Horror TV of the 50s.” [Online]. Available: https://folkhorrorrevival.com/2019/11/21/british-folk-horror-tv-of-the-50s/
Herald Scotland. “Back from the Dead: The Ghastly Tale of the Gorbals Vampire.” [Online]. Available: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14695521.back-dead-ghastly-tale-gorbals-vampire/.
Glasgow World. “Gorbals Vampire Explained: Was the Glasgow Folklore Monster Real?” [Online]. Available: https://www.glasgowworld.com/news/gorbals-vampire-explained-was-the-glasgow-folklore-monster-real-3891719
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) — Legal Guidance. “Obscene Publications.” [Online]. Available: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/obscene-publications#:~:text=Children%20and%20Young%20Persons%20(Harmful,a%20tendency%20to%20corrupt%20children
Daily Record. “Ghosthunter claims he saw a vampire in Lochmaben.” [Online]. Available: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/ghosthunter-claims-saw-vampire-lochmaben-2583208.
HubPages. “A History Of Scotland’s Real-Life Vampire Sightings.” [Online]. Available: https://discover.hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/A-History-Of-Scotlands-Real-Life-Vampire-Sightings.
National Trust for Scotland. “Through Thick and Thin: Interpreting Tam O’Shanter in Alloway.” [Online]. Available: https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/through-thick-and-thin-interpreting-tam-o-shanter-in-alloway.