Location. Edinburgh, Scotland

Date: 1980 Time: evening

Two building contractors contacted the Philosophical Society in Edinburgh, a society whose aim is to explore the unexplained powers of man, aliens, and nature. The Philosophical Society is always a good bet to find expertise about the unexplained. The two men, service veterans, were in a state of fear and alarm and were afraid for their lives. They related that there had been a rock-fall at Johnston Terrace and a split had opened up in the castle rock, and they had been called to come and seal it up, being ex-servicemen and experienced soldiers now in the trades and who had signed the official secrets act. They had parked their van next to the metal railings on Johnston Terrace and looming directly overhead the uprising volcanic rock upon which Edinburgh Castle had been built. Before the time of the medieval version of the castle, it had been used as a place of Druidic sacrifice but today the only tattooing that officially takes place is the Edinburgh Festival’s famous Military Tattoo. The rock fall had been a bit messy, and already Edinburgh’s ever-present traffic wardens had placed some traffic cones on the pavement. They used a small ladder to jump the railings and then they climbed up the few feet necessary to get a close look. There was a space beyond the split in the rock.

Once their eyes got accustomed to the dark through the split of the rock could be seen a passageway. This is of course a breach in castle and Ministry of Defense security and would need to be investigated and a full report submitted to their local reporting officer over a pint of Belhaven Ale later on. The split in the rock was wide enough for them to squeeze through. They decided that although this could add a couple of hours to their job, Military intelligence could pick up any parking ticket that might come about. Getting into the dark, their eyes got acclimated to the dim light and they both found that they could easily stand up – for they were in some sort of passageway. Knowing as they did that although NATO had some sort of facility inside the rock, which was probably a communication center, there were not the reassuring signs of standard trades in the making of this passageway. There was no, concrete, electric lighting, metallic vents and air conditioning or little health and safety signage. They were thinking maybe this was some additional storage area that nobody really bothered about. Well, they seemed to wander around inside the castle rock, and at some point, they were behind the wooden paneling at the officer’s mess, and at one point they could see Princes Street and the city center through a small gap in the rock. Partial lighting filtered through rock crevices. Aware no doubt that there is also a military command center in the rock too they continued to explore when their corridor ended abruptly, because at that point the floor just stopped, and a black pit yawned open before them.

Realizing that they had been lucky not to fall in, one of the men dropped a small rock down into the darkness to attempt to gauge the depth of the drop. There was no sound. Suddenly a glowing, green reptilian ten-foot ‘monster’ leaped up out of the pit into the corridor before them. Clawed and snarling, it came towards them slowly at first. The men backed away, then they turned and ran…and the monster gave chase. The men made it back to the entrance at Johnston Terrace and today the brickwork that seals the castle rock and the ‘monster’ can still be seen.

The story itself doesn’t actually stop with the tradesmen because at the same time in the row of houses opposite the caste in Johnston Terrace there used to be an undertaker and today it is a restaurant after a change of ownership. These properties sit in the uprising side of the castle rock. The then owner of the proper, the undertaker, had several basement levels and had become very worried about the noises coming from his lowest basement. Being an undertaker tended to add to the drama somewhat, but one night he had had enough of the noise, so he plucked up courage, phoned a friend and together they headed down to the lowest basement. He was starting to think that perhaps of his clients was objecting. He and his friend reached the lowest cellar which smelled damp, and the old brass light which clunked on to reveal a world of peeling paint and old junk. It was dark and the door to the cellar room where the thumping noises were coming from was ajar. There were scuffling and thumping noises just behind the door at the far end of the room. Picking their way over old, moldy, 1950’s bric a brac making sure that their careless feet didn’t alert their intruder, they crept up to the noisy room. They pushed the door open and to their horror they saw a large, luminous green, reptilian monster leaping about. They ran. Thankfully, it did not give chase.

HC addendum

Source: Andrew T. Hennessey “The Turning of the Tide” pp. 23-24 Type: E