Bothies are nearly always welcoming places of refuge, shelters to escape the wet and cold weather of the Highlands for a few hours or a night. However, for one young hiker and his friend, the bothy they picked to sleep in provided them with the most terrifying night of their young lives.
In the winter of 1973, 18-year-old Phil Macneill and his friend Jimmy Dunn set out on what they assumed would be an exciting adventure hiking in the remote Lochaber hills and mountains around Ben Nevis.
When the light began to fade, they decided to seek shelter in the nearby Luibeilt Lodge, a former deer stalking lodge, where the pair were told people were said to have been living but were happy to welcome strangers and hikers in need.
They had planned to use Luibeilt as a base camp.
Phil, who revealed all of the details of that terrifying night to the popular paranormal podcast, BBC Radio 4's Uncanny, stated that they had visited it in the afternoon before setting off but that it had been locked.
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As it was 9 pm, it was "pitch black" according to Phil, and much like the afternoon, the doors still appeared to be locked, desperate due to cold conditions, they decided to enter via an unsecured window.
Phil explained that things immediately didn't feel right, he said: "It was much colder inside than outside. It felt odd. It just didn't feel right."
Those feelings only became more severe as they looked around the place, noting that it appeared that the place had been "vacated very rapidly".
"The table was set for Christmas," he added. "There were Christmas crackers on the table, but Christmas hadn't happened. The place looked as if people had upped and left all of a sudden."
And it wouldn't be until later on, when they finally settled into their sleeping bags on the floor of one of the rooms they would realise why.
They began to hear unsettling noises coming from the bedroom upstairs, the only unfurnished room in the building, including the sound of footsteps and large items being moved around.
The pair did their best to ignore the noises, eventually nodding off, before being awoken at around 4am.
"The noises aren't just in the room above, they're in our room. The entire room erupts. There are things flying around all over the place."
A "petrified" Phil said that eventually after some time, the noises died down and the room fell silent again, and they were able to light a candle. However, it was then suddenly sent "flying across the room".
Stunned, they could only look on as the sound of footsteps upstairs began again, this time coming directly down the spiral staircase straight to the room they were hiding in.
Phil explained that he grabbed his ice axe and rushed to the door of the room, swinging it wide open certain someone would be there but though the footsteps had stopped right outside, no one was there.
Terrified the pair climbed back out the way they had come in and outside shone their head torches up to the bedroom where all the noises were coming from. They were shocked to see the olive green curtains that had been open earlier were now closed. The pair ran for their lives heading back to the closest town.
Speaking to Uncanny host Danny Robins, Phil explained that he, Jimmy and another pal returned just a few years later and discovered a message painted in stark letters on the wall: "This house is haunted; this house is evil".
Now little more than a shell of what it was, Luibeilt is abandoned and uninhabitable, with much of the roof and windows gone.
Edinburgh-based paranormal psychologist Evelyn Hollow, who also contributes to the show, believes Luibeilt is a classic case of poltergeist activity, with Phil himself unable to explain what happened to them that night rationally.
What do you think? Is Lubielt haunted? You can listen to the full episode of Uncanny here.
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