The Canal Haunting

An SPI Case File

© Brian Allan 2003

Word Count: 1,696

SPI's involvement in this unusual case came as a result of a letter that appeared in a local newspaper, the 'Falkirk Herald'. The letter told of two men out walking their dogs through the Union Canal navigation tunnel when they suddenly saw a dark shadow move past them, their dogs became panicked and they quickly continued on through the tunnel. They would not re-enter the tunnel on the way back, preferring to take the much longer way round above ground. I contacted the Falkirk Herald by telephone to request details regarding the person who had written the letter, but for reasons of privacy they could not release them, instead I gave them my own contact details to pass along which they did, but unfortunately the writer, for whatever reason chose not to contact me. Following this slight setback, we decided to pay a preliminary visit to the canal tunnel.

It had been decades since I was there last and rather than the dark, dank, forbidding cavern I remembered for my childhood, there had obviously been an effort to improve the area and lighting had been installed running the full length of the tunnel which is over one third of a mile long.

 Later enquiries revealed that the lighting was installed in 1994. In fact, the entire area has been smartened up considerably to coincide with the construction of the nearby, unique, 'Falkirk Wheel' rotary boatlift and it is now a popular site for walkers and cyclists who regularly use the towpath. The tunnel is a symbol of the engineering heritage for which Britain and Scotland are rightly famous. Constructed as part of a late 19th century, four-year canal project, it was blasted out of solid rock to provide a vital link between two of Scotland's main, industrial, water highways, the River Forth and the River Clyde. In its early days it provided a badly needed service with its horse drawn barges taking coal and other raw materials into the heart of Edinburgh but as the industries it served became fewer and rail transportation became easier and cheaper, it gradually slipped into disuse. The original reason for the construction of the tunnel was due to the fact that a powerful local landowner, who owned Callander House and the surrounding land, refused to have the canal running through his estates, so a tunnel was the only answer. This added considerably to the construction costs to the point where one of the major contractors went bankrupt. The canal was formally closed to traffic in 1965 by Act of Parliament although it had effectively ceased to be used as a commercial thoroughfare decades before this.

When we first visited the site, it was a beautiful day in early summer, but as we approached the tunnel mouth, the ground beside the towpath rose steeply above our heads blocking out the sun and the temperature dropped rapidly. Although the lighting was on, the tunnel was still quite dark, as though the stone somehow absorbed the light and water dripped incessantly from the rough-hewn stone of the roof. We walked into the tunnel for about one hundred yards and there was a distinctly unnerving atmosphere about the place, I took a few photographs and feeling chilled we returned to the sunlight. Given the nature of the reported phenomena, I contacted another investigator, Archie Lawrie, who at the time was the case co-ordinator for the Scottish Society for Psychic Research (SSPR) but in this instance Archie attended the investigation in a private capacity and not on behalf of the SSPR. Archie also has access to a talented Edinburgh based medium, Mrs Francis Ryan; whose services I felt were our best way to make any progress in this particular case.

We arranged to meet on Sat 10th May to visit the canal and have the medium assess the situation. Once again the weather was good and after the short walk from the main road to the canal we strolled along the towpath towards the tunnel. Marianne turned to me and asked if there was some connection with a head injury because she was experiencing a sharp and sudden headache, her impression was that someone one has died from a blow to the head, 'passed' was the expression she used. We entered about twenty yards into the tunnel and waited for the medium to comment on what she sensed. She was immediately aware of a spirit emerging from the far wall and the names Brian & May were important, they were somehow connected, this was very positive and emphatic, someone had been murdered by blow to head and dumped in canal, but the body was never found. It was a man aged around 30 and he was engaged to be married; he was not malignant, he just wanted to be recognised and found.

Frances suddenly stretched out her right hand, she was being shown dice, there was gambling involved and she felt that the murder concerned a violent disagreement over a gambling debt. I walked further into the tunnel towards an area indicated by medium, the area was opposite the towpath and beside the fourth wall light, and this she said was location of body. As I turned and walked back towards the group I felt a distinct chill on my back, Marianne told me that a spirit was directly behind me, the spirit of the murdered man was following me out. She had seen him as an indistinct shape as he detached from the opposite wall, but still she sensed no malice in him. I felt my back become warmer and Marianne said that he had gone back again. She turned to face the wall beside to towpath and looked up. 'He was murdered up there, and was brought down to be thrown into the water, and he came here on a motorcycle combination'. I asked if she could show us where and we left the damp chill of the tunnel. We walked about 100 yards way from the tunnel entrance and climbed up a fairly steep, but fortunately short, slope leading to a raised area parallel to the canal and just off the public road. She indicated piece of bare earth, 'The motorcycle was parked right here,' I glanced to my left, the man had obviously come down off the main road at Prospect Hill and parked overlooking the canal. I asked if she could give us any details regarding a possible date when all this had occurred, she paused for a moment, 'I feel this happened in the 1940's around 1947 or 48 and he came from the west coast, probably the Glasgow area'. This new information at least gave us something to go on.

After we had all gone our separate ways, I began to make enquiries about the last time the canal had been dredged, because having been brought up in the area, I know from experience that to my knowledge it had never been dredged. I contacted British Waterways who were able to tell me that the canal had not been dredged since before the Second World War and it had only recently been dredged in 2000 in preparation for the opening of the Falkirk Wheel. The dredging contractor had removed the spoil, which was contaminated by toxic waste products from the ICI plant in Grangemouth, and transported it to an especially opened 'cell' at Avonbridge Quarry; the 'cell' was then permanently sealed up. There had been no reports of any human remains found. This is explainable for a number of reasons, one, because the hydraulics of the river may gave moved the skeleton, and two, because the crew of the dredger would not have been looking for human remains. In view of the information we had, we decided to inform the Falkirk police force to see if they had any missing person records that might shed some light on the grim discovery and we made a statement at Falkirk police office on Saturday the 18th of May. We later discovered that the police had also contacted both British Waterways and the dredging contractor in pursuit of their enquiries.

Some weeks later I was contacted by a national newspaper who was interested in doing a feature on the case and the ensuing article produced one very interesting phone call. A gentleman from the Aberdeen area who asked to remain anonymous contacted me, and he told me of an alarming experience he had while cycling through the tunnel. He was with a friend, and as they cycled through the tunnel he stopped to take some photographs. As he concentrated on his camera he was sure his friend reached out to take it from him and he instinctively flinched and turned way he look up to see that his friend was several yards away. Once again he concentrated on the camera and yet again he was certain that someone reached out for it. As he glanced up he could see that his friend had not moved, so he quickly took a few photographs and they speedily left the tunnel. When I asked him where this had occurred, he described the area close to the fourth light fitting where the body had been dumped.

Epilogue

Unfortunately, the police were unable to provide any substantive evidence; since our information suggested that the victim came for Glasgow, they contacted the Strathclyde police force who may have had some 'missing person' information retained as a box file. Bearing in mind that this was long before the days of computer storage or central databases, all this information, if it were still there, would be filed away in some dusty folder. Unfortunately because, as we found out later, the police were unable to help, all we have to go on is the evidence supplied by the medium and perhaps she was correct about the motives of the spirit, because since we reported the matter, there have been no further reports of anything unusual or alarming in the tunnel. As the she remarked at the time, perhaps all the poor soul wanted was recognition.