A UFO on the A70 and other out-of-this world encounters ( THE SCOTSMAN )

Events of a seemingly paranormal character are surprisingly common and can occur just about anywhere. Most of us spend a lot of time travelling on roads. Therefore, it's perhaps only to be expected that many encounters with the strange will occur on our highways and byways. Reports have come from all over the British Isles, with Scotland producing its fair share.

 

A popular view is that ghosts are spirits, but I have my doubts about that notion, not least because there are reports of inanimate objects, such as cars, appearing in an apparitional form. For example, a Dr Martin Moar informed me of an experience that he and a fellow climber had had while driving on the Isle of Skye in the early 1970s. Just before a small hump in the road, they pulled into a passing place to make way for an oncoming car. The approaching vehicle disappeared behind the hump but didn’t reappear, and there seemed to be nowhere it could have gone without being seen.

Over the years, there have been multiple reports of motorists encountering apparitional figures on the A75 and B721 roads between Gretna and Dumfries. For example, in March 1995, a couple called Garson and Monica Miller were driving towards Annan on a stretch of the A75 known as the Kinmount Straight when the figure of a man jumped out in front of their vehicle. A Donna Maxwell had a similar experience on the old A75 (now known as the B721) in the summer of 1997. The most dramatic story about the A75 concerns two brothers who allegedly encountered numerous apparitional figures, both animal and human, on the A75 one night in April 1962. However, I strongly suspect that this particular tale is an invention. Furthermore, some of the material available on the internet concerning ghostly phenomena on these roads is inaccurate and unreliable.

Road users sometimes report seeing out of place big cats. In October 1980, a live female puma was found in a baited trap on the Cannich Estate in the Highlands. That could be seen as lending support to the view that a population of flesh-and-blood big cats is living wild in this country. However, there are aspects of the big cat phenomenon suggesting that many of these entities could be of an apparitional or paranormal nature.

 

Peter McCue

 

The use of hypnosis to elicit recollections of supposed alien abduction experiences is controversial, given the possibility of fantasy and suggestion creating false memories. But setting aside the hypnotically elicited material, this case is still intriguing. In terms of an environmental theory, it might be suggested that Wood and Wright had experienced an electromagnetic event that had affected their brains, causing a period of amnesia. However, it’s noteworthy that Wood’s amnesia appears to have begun and ended at the same time as Wright’s. Since people’s physiology varies, that would perhaps be surprising if they were responding to some sort of ambient magnetic field or radiation. There’s also the question of where they and their car were during the period of missing time. Did they pull off the road and sit in the vehicle in some sort of trance for an hour or more, and while still in that state, was Wood able to drive away before he and his companion snapped back into normal consciousness? On the other hand, if the event is construed as an actual physical abduction, there’s still the question of what happened to the car during that period.

Paranormal Encounters on Britain’s Roads: Phantom Figures, UFOs and Missing Time by Peter McCue, published by The History Press, £12.99, is out now

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