Since the days of the legendary Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, Scotland has seemingly been an epicentre of Wildman sightings in the UK.
What follows below is the eyewitness testimony of one such Scottish Wildman encounter that took place in Aberdeenshire in the winter of 2019.
The report has been abridged, yet is still presented verbatim, in the witnesses own words:
"Hello, we’ve encountered something that we think was a British Bigfoot in Aberdeenshire (N.E. Scotland).
We stayed in a holiday cottage in the middle of the countryside in mid-December 2019. We'd stayed there the previous winter as well and adored the place and had a wonderful time.
We returned last year and spent a really uncomfortable 10 days there. I saw no animals besides the sheep in the field and they acted oddly. I remember saying at the time 'there's something up'; they didn't go near the bottom part of the C-shaped field or spread out; they were bunched at the middle of the top part of the field the entire time.
There was a horrible creepy feeling that my Husband and I both felt the entire time. On many of the nights we kept hearing this strange long, low siren call which hadn't been there the previous time echoing around the woods late at night. It was after midnight, as well. We were a few miles away from two towns, but neither had any reason to have a siren going, let alone after dark to all hours. My Husband and I were both creeped out. I was up at all hours of the night checking on the kids and seeing if the doors were locked.
The previous holiday my Husband and Eldest (aged 6 at the time) would go out for night walks, star gazing and watching animals playing in the late evening and night. Not the second time; we were afraid to go out, there was just a constant feeling of dread which didn't much improve during the day. Everywhere around the cottage there was just a feeling of needing to be on alert for danger which was bizarre. At the house we heard bangs, knocks and clangs out in the woods.
We also went to visit a nearby rock formation and there were a few people there with dogs that were acting up. My kids love dogs, so we were happily chatting to the owners and so many of them said they were acting up; wanting nothing to do with a walk and pulling to go back to the car.
One night after getting back to the house and locking the door. I was putting some ice cream we had been eating into another container in the kitchen. Normally, I would store it in the outside freezer, but had decided not to, because of the malevolent feeling in the air. I remember that I was too scared to even look at the windows and I had consciously pointed my head at the floor, in case something was in the window (there are no curtains in the kitchen).
Then I heard two knocks on the window and looked up to see what had made the sound. It looked like a chimpanzee hand, very dark skinned, with hairy, bare palms. It knocked again with two fingers, the second two were curled in. It then leaned into the window and gaped at me, I didn't see teeth but I could have been distracted by the glowy green (towards the yellow end spectrum) eyes. It kind of had a Homer-Simpson-like protruding muzzle; not a proper muzzle, but definitely protruding. Like, if you were to puff up your cheeks. It wasn't as sharp a glow as a cats, it was blurry. The head appeared domed but not pointy. Its fur was black or very, very dark brown fur. I was about 2.5m away and not happy.
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| The kitchen, where a huge face stared menacingly at the witness while tapping on her windowpane! |
I looked away so it wouldn't think I was challenging it, backed to the door, turned the lights out, closed both doors (kitchen to hallway, glass door) and hallway to living room (solid wooden door) so that no light got out. I checked the front door again and tucked the curtains closed in the living room, and sat on the arm of the sofa to stop people getting past me.
I didn't tell my husband, I was afraid that he'd go into the kitchen to see, with a poker and that outside door is from the 90's and flimsy! I was scared that if it decided to come in it'd be through it no problem. I could not say anything in case my husband went out and it kicked off, endangering him and our children.
It thumped on the window within minutes, as soon as I'd sat down. We heard it over the TV loud enough to startle everyone, I blamed it on my jacket falling and stopped my husband going to check. I was terrified it'd look through the little window by the fireplace. I put a DVD on and persuaded my husband and son not to go for a walk, saying it was creepy outside.
That night I didn't sleep well, I'd get up and look out the window and see that the sheep were in a circle, horns out, not grazing or sitting down, just looking towards the house. It was a clear night, the moon was out. All night I heard the clack of a stone moving (gravel drive) or scrunching, about 4 or 5 times usually toward the other side of the house in front of the kids bedroom. Next door's dog was going skeppy angry and whining for hours.
The next morning no wildlife; before we left for the day, while they were eating breakfast I checked all around the house, in the byre windows and around the back of it. The grass in front of the window was trampled, but no prints; it was very dry and the ground was packed. I noticed that there was a smudge on the window, where the thing had knocked, that was too high for a person to reach. There's 4/5 steps up to the kitchen level of the house and its face was a few inches above my eye level, and I'm 5 foot 7 inches tall.
It’s horrible to talk about now, it was wider than the damn windows though and its head filled one of those panes of glass, it was broader than the entire window! The face was snarling and menacing, I'm not sure if it had no teeth or decided to slow reveal them as I bugged out too soon, but its expression was readable and it was not happy. It lurked outside most the night, I was up at 2, 3, 5 and it only buggered off towards 6.
Thinking back on its appearance, it had heavy jaw, with more muscles up the sides; a lot more powerful looking than a humans, but the chin didn't come to as much of a point. Its face was a lot longer looking and flatter than a humans too, with more space under the nose and from the mouth to chin and a protruding brow ridge. The nose was broad, very fleshy looking, and didn't stick out much. It had a Homer Simpson like mouth that stuck out a bit, and its eyes were bigger than a gorillas, more human-like and had a green watery reflection that wasn't sharp like a cats. I didn't really see its ears, but noticed that the hair on its head was longer.
Its fingers were like a gorillas, but huge, broad and rubbery looking and had fuzz on the back and wiry hairs towards the top. It only extended the first two fingers and knocked the glass with both of them, one after the other. It was right-handed. Its thumb looked funny, but I can't say how. At that point that it leaned in, I noped out of there!
If it growled, it was very faint and I'm now unsure. Nothing huge and loud. When I remember it, it's kind of flashbulb memory, it feels like my ears go 'hurrrrrrrr!' to themselves deep inside, then I get that ear wash pounding sound, but first there's that 'hurrrrr!' which coincides with it leaning in.
At the time I had no idea what it was, was it real? Was it a monster? Was it some sort of spirit thing? It was threatening, it was something unknown and I hid it from everyone. Thinking about it gives me the screaming abdabs, the hair on the back of my everything is standing up and my back's gone cold just talking about it. It still scares me!
Another strange thing happened the following day, which I later connected to the incident. We were visiting a local beauty spot when I heard a thump, a crunch of vegetation, and a stick cracking. I looked over expecting to see a deer but saw nothing. There were no sounds of birds or anything, everything was completely silent. I still had no idea what I'd seen the night before and was trying very hard not to think about it. Then two stones came flying out of the treeline; they sailed high up into a birch tree's branches before landing by my feet. They were about an inch across, and I could see dirt still on them. I was well impressed with the aim as both of them landed within 6 inches of each other.
Then the air changed and felt rumbly, static and thick. It was like the air had gone fuzzy and was pressing on my face. I thought 'Okay, there's something here that wants me to go away, I'd better head down now'. I had a pagan friend who believed in land spirits and who had told me that one of these spirits, called a Cailleach, was said to throw stones when it was angry."
The area in which this sighting took place is on the borders of the Cairngorms National Park; a pristine area that has long been associated with tales of the Wildman. Could this sighting constitute a modern day report of the Big Grey Man or maybe, one of his descendants?
Written by Andy McGrath
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