II have never been one for believing in ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, and I wouldn’t have been much of a soldier if I was feared of the dark. But, has my belief system been challenged since I ventured into the realms of night photography? Have I learned that sometimes things aren't quite as they seem?

Read on!

Of course, working in darkness your ears do more work than in daylight particularly when the lights go out. When the blackness descends the imagination can get a little overactive. Roe deer “barking” in the woods might alarm those who are unfamiliar with the sound and boulders being rolled along a stream bed after heavy rain sounds just like a group of men talking in the distance. So, if you’ve ever heard unexplained and mysterious voices out in the darkness, was there a stream nearby and was it after heavy rain?

Given time to adapt to the dark (about half-an-hour) night vision can be quite effective but using a powerful torch for “light painting” as I do can wreck your night vision even with one eye closed (intended to protect the night vision in your master eye) so I’ve given up trying. Consequently, when the lights go out it’s black, particularly in a forest.

One night, while standing in pitch darkness after taking the shots for the image above and with a cup of coffee in my hand their suddenly came a commotion from the trees in front of me that sounded like the very gates of hell had opened. It was a sound the like of which I have never heard before and which is difficult to describe. It was predominantly hissing, but not like a snake or a human, this was an angry throaty guttural sound... and there were at least two whatever it was doing it. Not for a second did I expect disgruntled Orcs to emerge from the darkness, but I may have uttered aloud something that I won’t repeat here! There followed a combative ruckus in the trees ahead of me followed by an ear-splitting screech then a resounding silence... before a female Tawny owl called, several times, with that familiar “twee-eet” which was dutifully answered from some way off by a male Tawny’s “twoo” which is where the belief that single owls all go “tweet-twoo” comes from.

I later learned that my “Orc melt down” was probably one or more adult Tawny owls chasing their own offspring away from their territory, something they do if there’s insufficient food there to support them all. So that was easily explained. Provided that is what it was! You can just imagine scared of the dark (with good reason) ancient man hearing that sound and inventing a more “imaginative” explanation for what they were hearing.

But things have been much weirder.

In northern Scotland, the Findhorn is a major salmon river that rises in the Monadhliath mountains in the centre of the Scottish Highlands and flows north to empty into the Moray Firth - an inlet of the North Sea, - near the town of Forres in the county of Moray. A few miles south of the town there is a feature on the river which you can see shrowded in snow bottom right of the image above called “Randolf’s Leap” where the river narrows dramatically between rock slabs to a “leapable” width.

Picturesque as this spot is though, it does boast a history that is not for the faint of heart. Near to the leap (off to the right above) is a battle site (that led to the naming of the leap) while the connected castle ruin of Dun Phail, (on the other bank beyond the river bend) that is said to be the most haunted place in Scotland with connected tales of beheaded messengers and the castle laird’s son and companions burned alive in a nearby cave. Strong stuff and I know people who say it creeps them out being at “Randolf’s” even in daylight and are incredulous that anybody would be mad enough to go there at night. But go there I do, and it was after one balmy August night that some serious weirdness ensued.

I’d been night shooting by the river downstream of “the leap” as seen above and on getting back to my car, finished off my coffee and sandwiches standing at the back of my X-Trail with the tailgate open and the interior light turned on. Re-victualed I headed home.

Parking in the street outside my home I went inside for a well-earned bevvy. A few minutes later the car alarm went off. Obviously, the seat belt had moved or something and I reset the alarm.

The next night, just after dark, the car alarm went off again. The car hadn’t moved, so that was odd but regardless, I reset the alarm. The next night, at the same time the car alarm went off again. Now this was getting strange. The car still hadn’t moved so why would the alarm go off and at the same time every night? The alarm though, was reset.

The next night... the same! To say I was spooked would be an exaggeration, but this was beginning to bother me, and tales of beheaded skeletons at Dun Phail castle and men burned alive a stone’s throw from where my car had been parked a few nights earlier did enter my head. Berating myself I shook it off and reset the alarm.

I’ll admit that I was a little trepidatious the next night as I stood at the window watching the car and I can attest that, when it’s quiet and you’re wating for a car alarm to go off... and it does it’s quite startling. What the hell was this?!

I’ve been in a few stressful situations in my life but what I saw when I opened my front door that night still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was virtually dark and in the light from the adjacent streetlight I could clearly see somebody sitting in the back seat of my car! It was the biggest hit of adrenaline I’ve ever experienced and turned my whole belief system on its head. It was a few seconds before I gathered my thoughts and reverted to type and yanked open the car door to confront the intruder... There was nobody there. Heart pounding, I dressed back and looked back into the car and went from the biggest shot of adrenaline to the biggest wave of relief followed by anger at me thinking what I just had. My walking poles, and their wrist loops, were in the back of the car but protruding out over the back seat and from the angle I saw them from they, and the shadow that they cast in the light from the adjacent streetlight, looked like a person. My ghost was a trick of the light. But what was going on with the alarm? I could only reset it and go back inside.

The next night I waited. Nothing. The next night the same. On the next day I went out to go “out on the ground” and what I saw could easily have been missed. Dead on the dashboard was a pretty substantial moth which, attracted by the interior light, must have got in while I was standing with the tailgate open at “Randolf’s Leap”... and it was right below where the car alarm motion sensor is... right in line with the streetlight. The car alarm was going off at the same time because the moth was flying up at the streetlight when it came on at the same time every night... and setting off the alarm.

I like watching documentaries about various aspects of the supernatural and debunking them and the experience with the moth just goes to show how perfectly natural occurrences can be misconstrued as something they are not.

That wasn’t my only freaky experience while out photoging though, I’ll maybe get around to that some other time.

Just as a footnote, “Randolf’s Leap” is completely miss-named. The image above was taken from the very spot where I assume the fleeing commander of the defeated force in the battle I mentioned above, one Alexander Comyn, landed after escaping the victorious force led by Thomas Randolf, the Earl of Moray after whom, for whatever reason, since it wasn’t him that did the leaping, “the Leap” was named.

Following the battle the Earl of Moray besieged the Comyn castle at Dun Phail and had messengers who’d attempted to help break the siege beheaded. It was Alastair Comyn, son of Alexander who, along with his companions, was found in a nearby cave and burned alive after being given away by his ever-faithful dog.

Now, why would anybody find it spooky at such an idylic spot?!

AREN’T YOU SCARED TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS ON YOUR OWN AT NIGHT?