The Paranormal Database

Joyous Footsteps

Location: Kirkconnell - Kirkconnell House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1980s
Further Comments: According to the current owners (2023), phantom footsteps are heard running around after the birth of a child, as if celebrating the new arrival. In another incident, a ghostly former nanny, perhaps displaying concern, manifested over a grieving woman.

Headless Woman

Location: Kirkcudbright - Bridge in the Buckland Valley
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Although frightening, the headless woman on the bridge had a reputation for helping the underdog and was credited for foiling a robbery by scaring the (potential) victim away. It was thought that she had been robbed and murdered close by and was determined to prevent others from suffering the same fate.

Cornerless Buildings

Location: Kirkcudbright - Various buildings in the area
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Still present?
Further Comments: To prevent the Devil hiding and causing chaos, several buildings in the area were constructed without corners.

Lost Lost Soul

Location: Kirkland - Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Nothing is known about the ghost which haunted this bridge, other than it no longer does so.

Pink Lady

Location: Kirkmahoe - Carnsalloch House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Named by one media outlet as 'one of the most haunted buildings in Scotland', the site was supposedly home to a ghostly pink lady, and a headless horseman who would traverse the driveway. Fire heavily damaged the house in 2018.

Hooded Dead Figure

Location: Lochmaben - Woodland around Lochmaben Castle
Type: Vampire
Date / Time: 1991 onwards
Further Comments: Tom Robertson investigated the woods after hearing stories that animals had been found drained of their blood. He encountered a tall figure dressed in sacking with a hood over its head, which black eyes and grey face. The creature leapt into a tree and swung away. Eight years later Robertson went looking for the creature again, finding it and taking a couple of photographs.

Lockerbie's tall glowing figure.

Tall White Figure

Location: Lockerbie - Area near Dryfe Bridge, next to old cemetery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: August 1899
Further Comments: A local man fled this area after encountering a tall white figure which was surrounded by a glowing halo. The entity vanished.

Hound

Location: Mainsriddle - Road between village and Prestonmill, area once known as Dairymaid's Hollow
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Pre-1890
Further Comments: A black dog which was said to haunt this area was once heard invisibly passing by three women, although one of them speculated the sound may have been a peacock. A woman in white was also seen by a doctor using the road.

Now Gone

Location: Marwhirn - Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Nothing is known about the ghost which haunted this bridge, other than it no longer does so.

Never reward your brownie.

Hard Working Brownie

Location: Moffat - Bodesbeck Farm
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A helpful brownie would help with the harvest each year, much to the delight to the farmer. However, when he finally decided to reward the entity with milk and bread, the creature left him.

Footsteps

Location: Moniaive - Doctor's private residence
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1890
Further Comments: A doctor's housekeeper reported often hearing footsteps in a room upstairs, although the source would never be found. After a while, the doctor fell ill and died, on the spot where the footsteps had been heard most frequently.

Skirt

Location: New Abbey - Sweetheart Abbey
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: July 2003
Further Comments: Seen climbing the stairs behind a safety railing, a witness reported seeing a long grey skirt without a torso.

Faceless Woman

Location: Newton Stewart - Cairnsmore manor house (8 miles outside the village)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: November 1956
Further Comments: Two builders leaving the empty house for the last time after completing a month contract heard continuous heavy rumbling from the upper floor. Both men ran upstairs, concerned part of the old manse had collapsed. The noise stopped when they reached the first floor, but they glimpsed a woman in a long dark dress who vanished. Not wanting to lock up the house with someone inside, they searched for the woman and found her in the attic; her grey featureless face looking towards the men sent them running.

Gunman

Location: Newton Stewart - Caldons farmhouse (9 miles north of town)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1941
Further Comments: This farmhouse phantom could be seen standing outside the building, pointing a rifle into a room through an open window.

Old Fashioned Man

Location: Newton Stewart - Glebe Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1996, 1998, 2006
Further Comments: Several strange events have occurred on or around the bridge. In 1996, a group of teenagers playing nearby spotted a man wearing old fashioned clothing - when they went to see who it was, he disappeared. A kangaroo-like creature was seen in 1998, while in 2006 wailing was heard from under the bridge.

The woodland's lady in white.

White Lady

Location: Newton Stewart - Slaughterhouse Woods
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s onwards
Further Comments: The woodland takes its name from a disused slaughterhouse. The white female form seen drifting in the area is thought to be the ghost of a woman involved in a car accident nearby.

Currie the Pirate

Location: Portpatrick - Dunskey Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Three ghosts were said to haunt this site; a chambermaid who jumped off the nearby cliffs, a piper who became lost exploring secret tunnels, and a pirate named Currie.

Early Poltergeist

Location: Ringcroft - Mackie's Farm (no longer standing)
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1695
Further Comments: An early poltergeist case, with the offending spirit releasing Mackie's herds from his barn and bruising people with stones and sticks. Priests who came to exorcise the entity were driven away, though the spirit finally left on its own accord - after forming a large black cloud that drifted away, normality returned to the household.

Abraham Crichton

Location: Sanquhar - Churchyard and district
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The area was shunned by locals, as Crichton's shade would try to grab anyone who came too close. The ghost was finally exorcised by a preacher armed with Bible and a sword.

Gourlay

Location: Sanquhar - River Nith
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Gourlay was murdered by his lover and her two sons after he witnessed the trio murder a peddler. He was drowned in the waters of the Nith, and it is here that his cries of help are heard.

John Wilson

Location: Sanquhar - Sanquhar Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Wilson was murdered just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his ghost still protests. A blonde-haired lady dressed in white also haunts the castle - she was murdered in the late sixteenth century, though her body not discovered for almost three hundred years.

White Lady

Location: Shinnel (aka Shinnell) Water - Paul's Pool
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1890
Further Comments: A white lady was said to haunt this little waterfall along the river, hovering while bathed in moonlight.

A strange serpent on the sand.

Speared Serpent

Location: Solway Firth - General area
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: After finishing off the local fish population, a large serpent came ashore and started snacking on the local population. Survivors set a trap for the creature; a long line of sharpened wooden stakes were placed along the waterline, which the beast impaled itself upon.

Betsy Jane

Location: Solway Firth - Waters of the Solway
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 25 December - Betsy Jane appears, and the Rotterdam prior to a maritime disaster
Further Comments: Laden with a golden profit made from selling slaves, God extracted revenge on this heinous practice by sinking the ship and killing all the crew on Christmas Day, just prior to the vessel docking. The passenger ship Rotterdam, which sunk in the nineteenth century with the loss of all hands, is still seen, normally as a warning prior to a major disaster at sea. A hearty mix of other spectral vessels has also been reported.

Phantom monk of Loch Soulseat.

Monk

Location: Soulseat - Banks of Loch Soulseat
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1979, 1987
Further Comments: A ghostly hooded figure has been spotted moving along the bank of the loch before vanishing into trees.