There are certain regions of the UK, says Danny Robins, presenter of the wildly popular podcast, Uncanny, that have more ghost stories and more ghost belief than others.

“Scotland,” he notes, “is definitely one of those. Ususally that goes hand in hand with having a tragic past - a past where there’s been a sense of injustice and unfair deaths and sadness.

"A sceptic would tell you that ghosts are a way of processing that. We invent ghosts to try and ward off the horrific realisation of that tragedy.  A believer would tell you that we get ghosts because so many people have died there – and when people die tragedy, they come back with unfinished business.”

As a result, some of the most compelling and mindboggling tales that have been told on Uncanny, come from Scotland. We bring you two of them.

Luibeilt Lodge nr Kinlochleven

The haunting of Luibeilt bothy, near Kinlochleven in the Highlands, says Danny Robbins, is, “alongside the Room 611 at the Belfast residence one of the two stories we have featured that keep getting talked about.”

The story is of a trip by a hiker, Phil MacNeill, and his friend, in which, in 1973, they visited the remote former deer-stalking lodge in the Highlands, and found it deserted and with its table laid with crackers as if left just before a Christmas dinner.

It involves a strange chill – the inside of the building was colder than the outside, footsteps and strange noises, and then the eruption in the living room of the sounds of objecst being thrown all over the place.

The Luibeilt tale is not only much debated, but it also lures visitors to take the 10-mile walk out to the deserted building which is now a ruin – and is linked to a story of poltergeist-like events experienced by Phil at Glasgow’s Gibson Street.

“People go to Luibeilt and they take photographs and sometimes camp the night. It's interesting. That area of Scotland it takes place in is an area really deeply scarred by tragedy – the clearances, witch trials, Glencoe massacre. Lots of things have happened in that area that might leave a tragic imprint.

What is it about this story that Robins thinks is so compelling?

“There’s a lot of talk about the Enfield poltergeist - that’s the big UK case that keeps getting recycled, movies get made about it – but when I try to think of some of the best examples that support the idea of ghosts existing, I look at things like 611 and Luibeilt. There’s more going on here and a greater variety of witnesses over a greater period. More phenomena. Also there is Phil, who is someone who has spent his life obsessed with what happened to him in that bothy in the Highlands and is on a real mission to understand it.

Covenanters’ Prison, Greyfriars Kirkyard

The story that a tomb in the Covenanters’ Prison area of Greyfriars Kirkyard is haunted is so famous that ghost tours of Edinburgh take visitors within its dark walls to experience its chill.

Robins was particularly struck by a live episode of Uncanny which featured the story of Gemma a young woman who had visited as a 17-year-old with some schoolfriends on such a tour and noticed a strange phenomenon afterward.

The tale goes that a tomb in the site, known as the Black Mausoleum, is haunted by an entity known as the Mackenzie poltergeist, said to be the ghost of Sir George Mackenzie, the King's Advocate dubbed Bluidy Mackenzie for his brutal persecution of the Covenanters.

Visitors have reported hot spots, cold spots and cuts, bruises and burns on their bodies – often under their clothes. There have been sightings of a white figure and photographs have been taken of an unidentified shape in the tomb.

Gemma, up until then, had been sceptic, and had been on other ghost tours of Edinburgh and had nothing at all but, following the trip to the Covenanter’s Prison, what she and her friends noticed the next day was that all of the girls in this high school party had found bruises in the same place on their legs.

“I have been to Greyfriars Kirkyard,” says Robins. “I’ve been on many a ghost tour of Edinburgh. And you know it’s a city that feels deeply atmospheric, deeply spooky. That was an interesting one - that’s somewhere where ghosts have become tourism. It’s almost as if, if you don’t have a haunted experience you’ll be deeply disappointed. If you’ve not come away with wounds from ghosts, phantom scratches, you’ll want your money back.”

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Gibson Street, Glasgow

Danny Robins has described this street, in Glasgow's Woodlands as possibly "the poltergeist equivalent of the Bermuda triangle". 

Over the years, there have been numerous witnessings of strange phenomena. In 1958, a group of American students living on the street recorded strange ghostly voices and witnessed objects moving around seemingly of their own accord, including "dancing eggs'".

It's also a site at which Phil MacNeill had another experience. He had been living at 36 Gibson Street when he went to Luibeilt and on his return he became convinced there was something strange in the sub-basement. He found a mysterious trapdoor and, under the carpet, a cross laid out in newspaper. A light bulb fell from its fitting onto the floor.

Robins, in the podcast, asked,  "Did something from Luibeilt follow Phil home? Or did something from Gibson Street follow him there?"

Another person contacted Uncanny to tell a tale of how, while he was living at a house on the street, his housemate's boyfriend was thrown across the room.