Comments on: Thirteen Years Ago…and Big Grey Man

By: captiannemo

captiannemo — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:59:40 +0000

One day I walked deep into a wooded gully where it was suddenly dead still.

No sound not a breeze and an almost panic feeling that I had to get out of there.

With the hair standing up on my arms I just slowly backed out.

I somehow knew not to turn around just back out.

I can understand the feeling.

By: big max

big max — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 02:41:28 +0000

I was climbing back down Ben MacDhui in May 1988 when I experienced the footsteps phenomenon mentioned by others. It was pretty misty and I was alone. But it was like ’something’ was behind me, only 10 metres or so, keeping track of me. I back-tracked to see if anyone was there. I didn’t see anything, but it was weird enough to scare me, particularly as the sounds occurred both when I was moving or stationary. It was only after I told this story to a Glasgow cousin years later that I first heard about the Grey Man.

By: sasdave

sasdave — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:40:40 +0000

When I had my bigfoot sighting (mid to late 70’s) it was difficult to figure the height. It took 3 steps to cross the 32′ road. Is there a mathematical equation to figuring the creatures height. As it was walking not running.

By: cfcbhoy

cfcbhoy — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:48:35 +0000

“In truth, as far as I know there has only ever been one report of a 20 ft tall hairy hominid on Ben MacDhui. There is no need to take it seriously. The rest of the reports of the ‘Big Grey Man’ seem to involve more ghostly apparitions or wierd feelings and sounds.”

Glad someone else posted this, the big grey man, if anything is more supernatural than cryptozoological. Climbers that encounter it generally report hearing heavy breathing or footsteps and rarely see a thing, coupled with feelings of overwhelming depression or fear.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:38:37 +0000

20 feet seems to be pushing it as far as biological feasibility goes. All animals are bound by certain physical laws and a bipedal hominid this large would be too heavy to carry around its own weight very effectively. Thats why you find the largest animals in the world living in the water, where their body weight is supported. I’d believe it more if it was a quadroped, but even then, why would it evolve to be that large on open land? What would be the trigger that would spur this sort of selection for enormous size? It just would not be efficient in this particular niche to be so large. What would it eat? There would have to be more than one of these enormous creatures running around to maintain a viable gene pool as well and a bunch of 20 foot tall land animals are bound to be discovered. I think it makes a good story, but I don’t think it is a good candidate for being a real animal.

By: Lyndon

Lyndon — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:27:14 +0000

In truth, as far as I know there has only ever been one report of a 20 ft tall hairy hominid on Ben MacDhui. There is no need to take it seriously. The rest of the reports of the ‘Big Grey Man’ seem to involve more ghostly apparitions or wierd feelings and sounds.

This area is NOT ‘hairy hominid’ territory. I know the area and the mountain very well. It might be ghost territory but hairy homind territory it is not.

By: RockerEm

RockerEm — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:30:49 +0000

Wow, I wish I knew about this when I went to Scotland in 2004. This is interesting, I’m going to investigate further on this.

By: C.M.

C.M. — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:39:02 +0000

Yes there are a lot of stories of giant “human” bones out there, which always seem to turn to dust when touched or get mysteriously lost or something like that. If the stories have any basis in actual events, I think people letting their imaginations running away with disarticulated skeletons of various species of megafauna (think elephant skeletons and cyclopses) is more likely than structurally infeasible supergiants.

By: greatanarch

greatanarch — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:15:40 +0000

The Cairngorms are remote by UK standards, but they are not the Himalayas. A 20-foot primate hiding on a bare Scottish mountain? You would be better employed looking for a T. Rex hiding in Central Park.

The ‘Grey Man’ effect, a feeling of sourceless terror, is real, but it is psychological not cryptozoological in the strict sense. The Greeks seem to have experienced something similar in isolated places: they called it ‘panic’ fear after the god Pan.

By: sausage1

sausage1 — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:12:51 +0000

On the British mainland Gaelic arrived (or existed) in two waves, Goidelic (Erse or Irish, Manx and some Scottish dialects) and Brythonic (Welsh and the now dead language Cornish, also the Breton dialect in France).

The Big Grey Man is a common sight for walkers and climbers in this region of Scotland. It is a phenonemenon caused by your own shadow being reflected back at you, if I remember correctly, which I usually don’t after four pints of Abbot Ale. I have it in a Big Boys Book of Climbing somewhere, but the gist is that what you are seeing is yourself. If you come across this phenomenon, wave to it, stick your tush out and do star jumps. The big beastie will do exactly the same.