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That said, I think there's usually enough of a connection to make the connection, and I find myself doubting more and more (albeit not entirely discounting) that the noise in question was from an animal - at least one of the usual suspects; not simply because of the nature of the sound, but because of the conditions at the time, and the likelihood that any animal would be foraging at that elevation in those conditions.
Deer, owl and fox yes, but not Mountain Hare. At least one witness describes hearing a voice, in the podcast it is "dear god help me" and in the thread in the OP it is someone calling for rope. Pretty sure hares can't do this but why didn't the other witnesses hear this? Could some paredolia be involved?

Good mystery though! We will probably never know.
 
...Could some paredolia be involved?...

I wondered about this in relation to environmental sounds, but it would be odd that such a phenomenon had not been noticed before.

I think it's conceivable - especially in the mountains - that people in different locations could hear apparently different elements of sound emanating from the same source, at the same time. I think this kind of selective auditory filtering might be mentioned in Affleck Gray's book on the Big Grey Man, and I'm not sure it's unusual even in much more domesticated surroundings.

...Good mystery though! We will probably never know.

Yes. I like it - especially, I think, because it has not been over sullied by the internet; there's just enough information to set the story and whet the appetite for more, but it's not been so thoroughly wrung through the redditiser that you no longer know when you are reading some actual information or just references to other references, with a little bit of bollocks added to every retelling. Not many of them about.
 
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I've been involved in a search party on Dartmoor, when someone had heard 'cries for help'. It was later established that the noise came from a peacock in a garden further down off the moor.

I'm sure the person who heard someone shouting for help was quite convinced it was a human (otherwise they wouldn't have dragged us all out - we were students staying at a local Youth Hostel), but thankfully they were mistaken.
 
Deer, owl and fox yes, but not Mountain Hare. At least one witness describes hearing a voice, in the podcast it is "dear god help me" and in the thread in the OP it is someone calling for rope. Pretty sure hares can't do this but why didn't the other witnesses hear this? Could some paredolia be involved?

Good mystery though! We will probably never know.
Ah! I didn't look at the podcast - I tend to avoid them myself 'Min.'
However, I do know how on that mountain one can suddenly be shrouded in dense clouds that come upwards, so you can't see them coming. Last time I was up there (long ago now) a girl apparently walked clean off the snow edge and fell hundreds of feet even though the edge is red-flagged. I very... very nearly did the exact same thing myself. Fortunately, I was aware I was beginning to walk into a bit of a situation what with the white of the snow as well, so I did the best thing and backtracked my own steps which then allowed me to find my way to eventually find my way down the mountainside.
 
Deer, owl and fox yes, but not Mountain Hare. At least one witness describes hearing a voice, in the podcast it is "dear god help me" and in the thread in the OP it is someone calling for rope. Pretty sure hares can't do this but why didn't the other witnesses hear this? Could some paredolia be involved?

Good mystery though! We will probably never know.
Could also be some people just messing about on the mountain after drinking too much iron-bru!
 
Could also be some people just messing about on the mountain after drinking too much iron-bru!

Surprisingly my first thoughts were along this line for real - only not Irn-bru - the whole area is relatively accessible.
That's why we have folk in inappropriate gear getting rescued so often in the hills in Scotland, you can get quite remote rather quickly.
I have met folk who would pass for Rab C Nesbitt complete with rolled up newspaper and carry out bag in some very remote places in the hills, and neds can make some pretty blood curdling yells as a matter of course.
 
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Just read the thread linked to on the climbing forum.

One thing in its favour is - it was heard by a fair few people, in different parties. And amongst all of them, there must have been a number of really experienced climbers who had climbed maybe for years here and similar places. They'd know all the sounds wild animals make - those sounds are only alien to people who live in cities and don't have hobbies that get them out in the countryside, or didn't grow up in the countryside...
 
They'd know all the sounds wild animals make - those sounds are only alien to people who live in cities and don't have hobbies that get them out in the countryside, or didn't grow up in the countryside...
I am not so sure. Rabbits are extremely common everywhere, even cities yet how often have you heard one scream?

Here is a description of, admittedly an Irish Hare but the subspecies are not all that different.
https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/haunting-cry-of-hunted-hares-26485709.html

Hares cry and their screams of fright are spine-chilling. It is as if a child or young girl were being tortured or terrorised. I heard such screams once when a hare was shot and wounded and I have never forgotten them.

Edit to clarify - I mean the subspecies of Irish Hare and Mountain Hare such as you find on the bens.
 
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Based on my own experience on my own in the kitchen this afternoon, I suggest it was someone half way up a mountain who had recently changed their AOL password on their laptop and was now trying to get their Samsung phone to log onto AOL using the new password. I certainly emitted some blood curdling vocalisations.
 
Based on my own experience on my own in the kitchen this afternoon, I suggest it was someone half way up a mountain who had recently changed their AOL password on their laptop and was now trying to get their Samsung phone to log onto AOL using the new password. I certainly emitted some blood curdling vocalisations.
Suppose you could call that a mountin-impass!
 
I am not so sure. Rabbits are extremely common everywhere, even cities yet how often have you heard one scream?

Here is a description of, admittedly an Irish Hare but the subspecies are not all that different.
https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/haunting-cry-of-hunted-hares-26485709.html



Edit to clarify - I mean the subspecies of Irish Hare and Mountain Hare such as you find on the bens.
True, Min. You're right. I grew up in the countryside and have kept bunnies and that's a sound I think I maybe heard once, and didn't even know they could do it, when I heard it.

That said, I think the animal noises thing here is a red herring (disgusted at myself with that pun) because enough people reported hearing actual words...
 
That said, I think the animal noises thing here is a red herring (disgusted at myself with that pun) because enough people reported hearing actual words...
Herring.jpg
 
True, Min. You're right. I grew up in the countryside and have kept bunnies and that's a sound I think I maybe heard once, and didn't even know they could do it, when I heard it.

That said, I think the animal noises thing here is a red herring (disgusted at myself with that pun) because enough people reported hearing actual words...
Well, I might have missed some accounts somewhere but I have only seen two reports of words. One from the forum thread in the OP where someone heard a voice calling for a tight rope before the screaming started -this is not necessarily related as every account says the area was busy. And another from the podcast linked in post 24 where a climber hears a voice at the end of the screaming saying "please help me, dear god help me". I don't want to sound too dismissive but if all the climbers had reported the same thing I would be more convinced that it wasn't just pareidolia caused by the terrifying screams, the descending mist etc.

I also find it odd that there is an animal which lives in the area and which is capable of emitting screams "as if a child or young girl were being tortured or terrorised" and it hasn't been mentioned at all, not even to discount it. The only accounts I found of Mountain Hare screams when I searched for it (apart from @Sid above ) were from the Republic of Ireland where, shamefully, hare coursing is still legal. Which suggests it is not at all common. And thank goodness for that!

I mean, I wasn't there of course so I can't possibly know for sure but I'm just saying..
 
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Well, I might have missed some accounts somewhere but I have only seen two reports of words. One from the forum thread in the OP where someone heard a voice calling for a tight rope before the screaming started -this is not necessarily related as every account says the area was busy. And another from the podcast linked in post 24 where a climber hears a voice at the end of the screaming saying "please help me, dear god help me". I don't want to sound too dismissive but if all the climbers had reported the same thing I would be more convinced that it wasn't just paradolia caused by the terrifying screams, the descending mist etc.

I also find it odd that there is an animal which lives in the area and which is capable of emitting screams "as if a child or young girl were being tortured or terrorised" and it hasn't been mentioned at all, not even to discount it. The only accounts I found of Mountain Hare screams when I searched for it (apart from @Sid above ) were from the Republic of Ireland where, shamefully, hare coursing is still legal. Which suggests it is not at all common. And thank goodness for that!

I mean, I wasn't there of course so I can't possibly know for sure but I'm just saying..
True, the words vary and as you say, don't seem to have been heard/perceived by everyone. And that is an environment where you have some good conditions for paradolia...
 
Manx shearwater?
See twitter.com/_bto/status/11899990691643388352
"Legend has it that the call of this bird so scared Norse sailors, that they thought the Scottish island of Rum was inhabited by trolls."
 
Manx Shearwaters really do make some very disconcerting sounds - individual vocalisations can be very weird, and the racket made by colonies is quite unbelievable. I tried sleeping in a tent I'd pitched way too close to one in the Hebrides - it was never going to happen (back then, I hadn't realised that the birds breeding colonies are actually busier at night - and I'd been ambushed by the relative peace of daytime hours).

However, Manx Shearwaters are almost entirely ocean going, and their land habitat is generally limited to breeding colonies on offshore islands. There's always the possibility of individual errant birds, I suppose - but on top of an inland mountain is so out of their usual way that it seems quite unlikely.

The biggest problem though is that they migrate - and are in much sunnier climes at the time of year that the Ben Nevis incident took place.
 
Here are a couple of overdue references to put the site and conditions in some sort of context. I think it’s worth the nudge because words like ‘popular’ and ‘busy’ and 'accessible' are getting quite a lot of use, which is fair enough when used as a relative term – but without being tempered by reference to context there’s a danger that any actual relativity is getting lost along the way

Ben Nevis.jpg


The video below was filmed not far off exactly two years after the event - hard by the location and in similar conditions to those described:


Both witnesses in the podcast, and others in online sources linked to earlier, mention being around Comb Gully (below Number 2 Gully). They place the screams as coming from above their position - and Tower Ridge is named as the apparent locus of the sounds.

In good weather Tower Ridge itself is classed as a ‘scramble’, but Wiki assigns a Scottish Grade IV rating to it in winter (which I think is some sort of ‘Severe’ - but I’ll admit that I find the various grading systems a bit unwieldy at times – especially when translating one to another). It’s worth pointing out that even a ‘scramble’ is not quite as innocent as that definition might imply – the British Mountaineering Council also grade scrambling, but I’m not sure where Tower Ridge sits in that league. The BMC also take pains to emphasise that scrambling is not – simply by definition - any less dangerous than climbing with rope and protection, and that it depends entirely on context.

That said, there’s no reason that a potential screamer climbed up the hard way – they could have walked up using the so-called ‘tourist route’ up from the west, but that itself is no picnic on a winter’s day.

...I also find it odd that there is an animal which lives in the area and which is capable of emitting screams "as if a child or young girl were being tortured or terrorised" and it hasn't been mentioned at all, not even to discount it...

I'm pretty sure I have come across hares being referenced as a possible source of the sound, but unfortunately it's not anywhere I bookmarked - and now I think about it, I wonder if it's something that's come up in conversations with friends, rather than online (I've got several Scottish friends who work and play on the mountains - and have tapped all of them for information on this). There is a reference here (I did bookmark that one) to stoats and hares both being present at the summit in winter, and although many mountain dwelling animals seek less exposed ground in winter, it's clear that some individuals are still present - and a stoat taking a hare will certainly result in some disturbing noises.

I can certainly imagine the terminal squeals of a hare being disturbing, especially in certain environmental conditions, and even to those familiar with the sound - but, to me, all the descriptions 'feel' like they are describing something with more lung behind it; although, in the right conditions, the pitch involved would be high enough to be clear over considerable distances, the witnesses seem to be describing something of higher volume. But that might be my own impression, and the gaps I’ve filled myself.

Another thing that is worth pointing out is that the conditions were described as foggy and cloudy. The high-pitched scream of a hare or rabbit is the sort of high frequency short wavelength sound that is subject to considerable damping in such conditions. I have no idea of percentage changes etc – all I know is that a sound that might travel clear across the top of the Ben on a bright summer’s day will be very much less well travelled when the air is thick with water droplets.

It would also be something of a coincidence if all of those unconnected people – including ice-climbers, who by definition are out on the hill in winter - had all heard a hare being killed for the first time, all at the same time. If you see what I mean.

All of that said - for what it's worth my top two most logical options are that someone had a fatal accident and that their body is jammed up somewhere and has not been discovered; or that someone had a near miss, screamed like a banshee's baby, and was afterwards too ashamed to fess up, and got any companions to swear to secrecy.

The former option will I'm pretty sure elicit two immediate responses. In defence, I personally have absolutely no problem believing that a body can lay up unseen and undiscovered, even near a relatively popular climbing route. As I’ve said in relation to various subjects over the years – there’s really not much to us, rapidly becoming less as time and nature takes its course, and people have been lost for long and sometimes for good in much more accessible places. In response to a second obvious objection: Although climbing the Ben without an oppo in such a season would strike me as foolhardy, being pretty familiar with the climbing/mountaineering community I also have no problem believing that people do it: the activity is generally much less cliquey and less full of alpha-twats than it used to be - but it still attracts the odd chronic misanthrope with a tendency to massively overestimate their indestructability.

However, although I think the above is just about possible, I'm not sure it's likely, which, unfortunately, leaves me thinking that the second possible option offered above – the drabbest and least exciting of the lot – might be the only one that seems, at face value, to answer all the possible objections.
 
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Manx Shearwaters are almost entirely ocean going, and their land habitat is generally limited to breeding colonies on offshore islands. There's always the possibility of individual errant birds, I suppose - but on top of an inland mountain is so out of their usual way that it seems quite unlikely. The biggest problem though is that they migrate - and are in much sunnier climes at the time of year that the Ben Nevis incident took place.
[on top of an inland mountain is so out of their usual way that it seems quite, (suggest) most unlikely.] might be more accurate!
 
Here are a couple of overdue references to put the site and conditions in some sort of context. I think it’s worth the nudge because words like ‘popular’ and ‘busy’ and 'accessible' are getting quite a lot of use, which is fair enough when used as a relative term – but without being tempered by reference to context there’s a danger that any actual relativity is getting lost along the way

View attachment 34633

The video below was filmed not far off exactly two years after the event - hard by the location and in similar conditions to those described:


Both witnesses in the podcast, and others in online sources linked to earlier, mention being around Comb Gully (below Number 2 Gully). They place the screams as coming from above their position - and Tower Ridge is named as the apparent locus of the sounds.

In good weather Tower Ridge itself is classed as a ‘scramble’, but Wiki assigns a Scottish Grade IV rating to it in winter (which I think is some sort of ‘Severe’ - but I’ll admit that I find the various grading systems a bit unwieldy at times – especially when translating one to another). It’s worth pointing out that even a ‘scramble’ is not quite as innocent as that definition might imply – the British Mountaineering Council also grade scrambling, but I’m not sure where Tower Ridge sits in that league. The BMC also take pains to emphasise that scrambling is not – simply by definition - any less dangerous than climbing with rope and protection, and that it depends entirely on context.

That said, there’s no reason that a potential screamer climbed up the hard way – they could have walked up using the so-called ‘tourist route’ up from the west, but that itself is no picnic on a winter’s day.



I'm pretty sure I have come across hares being referenced as a possible source of the sound, but unfortunately it's not anywhere I bookmarked - and now I think about it, I wonder if it's something that's come up in conversations with friends, rather than online (I've got several Scottish friends who work and play on the mountains - and have tapped all of them for information on this). There is a reference here (I did bookmark that one) to stoats and hares both being present at the summit in winter, and although many mountain dwelling animals seek less exposed ground in winter, it's clear that some individuals are still present - and a stoat taking a hare will certainly result in some disturbing noises.

I can certainly imagine the terminal squeals of a hare being disturbing, especially in certain environmental conditions, and even to those familiar with the sound - but, to me, all the descriptions 'feel' like they are describing something with more lung behind it; although, in the right conditions, the pitch involved would be high enough to be clear over considerable distances, the witnesses seem to be describing something of higher volume. But that might be my own impression, and the gaps I’ve filled myself.

Another thing that is worth pointing out is that the conditions were described as foggy and cloudy. The high-pitched scream of a hare or rabbit is the sort of high frequency short wavelength sound that is subject to considerable damping in such conditions. I have no idea of percentage changes etc – all I know is that a sound that might travel clear across the top of the Ben on a bright summer’s day will be very much less well travelled when the air is thick with water droplets.

It would also be something of a coincidence if all of those unconnected people – including ice-climbers, who by definition are out on the hill in winter - had all heard a hare being killed for the first time, all at the same time. If you see what I mean.

All of that said - for what it's worth my top two most logical options are that someone had a fatal accident and that their body is jammed up somewhere and has not been discovered; or that someone had a near miss, screamed like a banshee's baby, and was afterwards too ashamed to fess up, and got any companions to swear to secrecy.

The former option will I'm pretty sure elicit two immediate responses. In defence, I personally have absolutely no problem believing that a body can lay up unseen and undiscovered, even near a relatively popular climbing route. As I’ve said in relation to various subjects over the years – there’s really not much to us, rapidly becoming less as time and nature takes its course, and people have been lost for long and sometimes for good in much more accessible places. In response to a second obvious objection: Although climbing the Ben without an oppo in such a season would strike me as foolhardy, being pretty familiar with the climbing/mountaineering community I also have no problem believing that people do it: the activity is generally much less cliquey and less full of alpha-twats than it used to be - but it still attracts the odd chronic misanthrope with a tendency to massively overestimate their indestructability.

However, although I think the above is just about possible, I'm not sure it's likely, which, unfortunately, leaves me thinking that the second possible option offered above – the drabbest and least exciting of the lot – might be the only one that seems, at face value, to answer all the possible objections.
Has anyone been reported missing in the vicinity? Are any fairly experienced winter climbers missing?

That would surely be the question. If it were a human cry, being as this happened six years ago, why has no subsequent crime or disappearance since been apparent? Okay, it happened during the depths of winter, but Ben Nevis is fairly well stomped during the summer.

I would have found it easier to believe the cry to have been of human origin if it HAD been summer - ill equipped couple off for a ramble, argument or accident ensues with concommitant screaming. But the depths of snowy winter would mean that anyone up there would need to have been reasonably well equipped just to have got that far. And even someone climbing solo (the 'misanthrope' hypothesis) would have had to leave a vehicle at the bottom or a tent or some form of his discarded equipment would have been found?
 
v
Has anyone been reported missing in the vicinity? Are any fairly experienced winter climbers missing?

That would surely be the question. If it were a human cry, being as this happened six years ago, why has no subsequent crime or disappearance since been apparent? Okay, it happened during the depths of winter, but Ben Nevis is fairly well stomped during the summer.

I would have found it easier to believe the cry to have been of human origin if it HAD been summer - ill equipped couple off for a ramble, argument or accident ensues with concommitant screaming. But the depths of snowy winter would mean that anyone up there would need to have been reasonably well equipped just to have got that far. And even someone climbing solo (the 'misanthrope' hypothesis) would have had to leave a vehicle at the bottom or a tent or some form of his discarded equipment would have been found?
My thoughts - exactly, 'catseye.'
I've looked at some of the reports, and they quote
heard the screams as they looked up into the clouds. It is surely a well know fact that any sounds emanating from amongst thick clouds - and at great height, (not to mention the winds in gulley's) would obviously distort, and muffle to a high degree.
 
Has anyone been reported missing in the vicinity? Are any fairly experienced winter climbers missing?...

None that I can find reports of. But as I said, lone walkers and climbers are not unknown even in very inclement conditions, it's also not unknown for bodies to lay unnoticed relatively close to well trodden areas for long periods of time. And, what I should have added, it's not outside the realms of possibility that the absence of a confirmed loner may not be noticed immediately, or even soon. It's unlikely, but not impossible. (I'm pretty sure you'll find examples on the All The Lonely People..., thread.)

For what it's worth, I'm into this for the mystery of it - I'm not wedded to any particular explanation, and the chances are there'll be a relatively logical one; but that doesn't stop it being a damn fine mystery - at least for now.

What doesn't satisfy me are the assumptions and explanations which rely on the fact that all the people who experienced this - and there were quite a few, many of them clearly experienced in their field - were all equally mistaken as to what they heard, all equally inexperienced in regard to the environmental sounds of a mountain in winter, all equally unaware of the tricks that sound plays in wintry mountain conditions, all equally unaware of the various animal sounds that might occur in such a habitat. To my mind, that seems probably as bizarre a proposition as anything else one might offer.

...It is surely a well know fact that any sounds emanating from amongst thick clouds - and at great height, (not to mention the winds in gulley's) would obviously distort, and muffle to a high degree.

You are, of course, perfectly right. But you're kind of assuming that all of the the people who reported the incident were not aware of this 'well known fact' - rather than considering the alternative, which is that they were perfectly aware of it but did not find it a satisfactory explanation at that time, and in the particular circumstances.
 
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None that I can find reports of. But as I said, lone walkers and climbers are not unknown even in very inclement conditions, it's also not unknown for bodies to lay unnoticed relatively close to well trodden areas for long periods of time. And, what I should have added, it's not outside the realms of possibility that the absence of a confirmed loner may not be noticed immediately, or even soon. It's unlikely, but not impossible. (I'm pretty sure you'll find examples on the All The Lonely People..., thread.)

For what it's worth, I'm into this for the mystery of it - I'm not wedded to any particular explanation, and the chances are there'll be a relatively logical one; but that doesn't stop it being a damn fine mystery - at least for now.

What doesn't satisfy me are the assumptions and explanations which rely on the fact that all the people who experienced this - and there were quite a few, many of them clearly experienced in their field - were all equally mistaken as to what they heard, all equally inexperienced in regard to the environmental sounds of a mountain in winter, all equally unaware of the tricks that sound plays in wintry mountain conditions, all equally unaware of the various animal sounds that might occur in such a habitat. To my mind, that seems probably as bizarre a proposition as anything else one might offer.
I absolutely get that. I am just idly investigating possibilities. As this occurred six years ago, any obvious answer should have, by now, become apparent (other climbers reporting strange noises at different times/discovery of a body/report of missing person/earthquake, etc). It's the fact that the whole event seems to have been a 'one off' that makes it so fascinating!
 
...It's the fact that the whole event seems to have been a 'one off' that makes it so fascinating!

Exactly this. People do get spooked by natural sounds, especially in certain environments - but for so many to have heard the same thing and reacted in the same way at the same time? If that was an explanation in and of itself then you'd think there would be lots of other examples of such mass misconception up on the hills - because, after all, many of the sounds proposed are not at all rare.

But, as you say, this seems like a 'one off' - and my response to such things tends to be that even if nothing unusual has happened, something unusual has happened. (That is, even if the stimulus is mundane - something about the response is itself out of the ordinary.)
 
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