Strange Place: Ben MacDhui, Scotland

At 4296 feet, Ben MacDhui in Aberdeenshire is Scotland's highest peak. The only other feature that makes it remarkable is its resident monster, the "Grey Man of Ben MacDhui" ("Am fear Liath Mor"). Some say it looks like a sasquatch or a gorilla, but most people who've experienced it say the Grey Man isn't a physical creature at all - it's an eerie presence, a strange atmosphere of the unreal that permeates the entire mountain and manifests itself in countless ways. A feeling of dread or inexplicable panic announces its arrival.

In 1925 eminent mountaineer Norman Collie confessed that he had been inexplicably panic-stricken in 1890 while hiking alone on Ben McDhui. Descending from the plateau, he heard heavy and widely-placed footsteps crunching on the rocks somewhere above him. At first he believed he was hearing things, but the sounds didn't cease. Collie became terrified and dashed down the mountain, four or five miles to the Rothie-murchus forest.

Another mountaineer, Dr. A.M. Kellas, had a similar story: He and his brother Henry were searching for crystal by chipping at rocks on Ben McDhui when both men saw an enormous figure approaching them from the plateau. They didn't get a good look at it as they fled down the mountain, but the men were convinced the creature was a giant.

The man in charge of airplane rescue work in the Cairngorms during WWII, Peter Densham, also experienced a rush of panic while sitting alone on the plateau of Ben McDhui in 1945, but his weirdest experience occurred when he was with a friend named Richard Frere. The two men had been searching for a plane that went down in the area, and were resting against the cairn on the plateau. Suddenly, Frere began talking to himself as though carrying on a conversation. Densham listened closely and realized that a disembodied voice was talking to both of them. The two men chatted with this voice until it trailed off and they were left standing by themselves on the mountain. Strangely, neither man could recollect what they had said to the voice.
On another occasion, Frere heard a thin, high musical note coming from the mountain itself and felt gripped by panic.
A friend of Frere, camping near the cairn at night, glimpsed a furry creature 20 feet tall "swaggering" down the mountain.

Aberdeen lawyer George Duncan was convinced he and a friend saw the Devil himself on Ben McDhui as they descended from Devil's Point along Derry Road. A tall figure in a hooded black robe approached the men, waving its arms.

The strangest occurrence happened to Sir Hugh Rankin and his wife Robina, both Buddhists. They were cycling on Ben McDhui one day in the mid-'50s when they felt the eerie presence behind them; turning, they saw a man in flowing robe and sandals whom they instantly recognized as a perfected holy man, a Bodhisattva. For ten minutes, the master spoke to his disciples in Sanskrit as unearthly music played all around them. Then he abruptly vanished, and the music ceased.