Team Members Present: Kathleen, Mary and Derek

On Saturday the 22nd of November 2008 three of us went to investigate the reported sightings of a young girl between the ages of 9 and 13 years old. We had received reports of three sightings of this spirit, one on the Kirkinner to Sorbie road and two on the Kirkinner to Garlieston road. The one on the Sorbie road was the harder of the two to pin down to anywhere specific so we decided to concentrate mainly on the Garlieston area since both of them had been reported as being on the stretch of road known as the Garlieston Straight.

The Garlieston Straight was not new to us. We had heard of the two sightings there before, and had, before we officially launched on Halloween, carried out a practice investigation there to try to familiarise ourselves with some of the differences and difficulties of carrying out an investigation at an outside location as opposed to an indoor one.

We arrived at the area around 8:00 at night where we had arranged to meet a local man who lived in Garlieston. He himself was one of the people whose encounter with this young girl's spirit had appeared in the Galloway Gazette, and we were keen to hear his story first hand.

He told us he had his experience while driving home from work one night at the beginning of the year (2008). As we drove him out to where this incident occurred, it became clear to us that we had carried out our practice investigation at the opposite end of the Straight from where he had his experience. The man recounted to us that he had been driving home from work one night in the rain when he spotted a young girl walking along the road on the left hand side. As he passed the youngster he decided to stop and see if she was okay, since he found it strange that a girl so young would be out there on her own at that time of night. He reversed the car to see if she needed any assistance and when he looked over his shoulder the girl was nowhere to be seen. This shook him up a bit since he was fairly certain about what he had seen. He was even more shaken up when he turned round and looked out of the windscreen only to find the child in front of him. As he watched trying to put some kind of logic to what he had just witnessed, the young girl crossed the road seemingly oblivious to him and walked into the woods around about the old milestone that sits at the side of the road there. He drove forward to see where she had gone only to find that the youngster had totally disappeared. This proved too much for him and he took off. Although badly shaken by his encounter, his concern for a young girl out alone that late at night was still bothering him. So along with a friend of his, since he was not prepared to go back out there on his own, they went to see if they could find any trace of her. They found no trace of the young girl, however they came across some people husky racing but they had no youngsters with them of any sex, let alone female.

He said that even standing there relating the story to us was making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. As we were driving him home he told us of a local farmer who had according to him seen the little girl several times. We contacted this individual a couple of days later and he denied having ever seen this spirit. Whether this was true or whether he just did not want to talk to us we do not know.

After having dropped the man off, we returned to the road end leading into Kilsture forest near the milestone where the young girl apparently disappeared into the forest. We parked the car up and checked the equipment we had brought with us for the night. We were going to be a lot lighter on the equipment side of things than if this had been an indoor investigation. One thing we had learned on our practice investigation was that outdoors you are limited as to the amount of equipment you can carry. So on this occasion we decided that we would only use the Sony Hi 8 camcorder, an analogue Dictaphone and a couple of cameras - one digital and one 35mm. The weather had been forecast as really cold with a report of it turning wetter later in the evening. We had made sure we were dressed appropriately.

We began to walk along the road towards the milestone. We had also decided to try the camcorder with the backlight on as opposed to the night shot facility. We were very pleased with the results since we got a far more atmospheric picture than we did using the night-shot. Although one draw back was that it drained the battery at a very fast rate. We asked if there were any spirits present and could they make themselves known to us. At one point Mary commented on the strange rustling noises we were hearing, but these turned out to be nothing other than the herd of cows in the field at the end of the forest. We did not appear to have had any luck up to this point unless future study of Dictaphone tapes, photos and film footage were to show up anything we may have missed at the time. So we headed back to the car to heat up a bit.

It was as we were sitting in the car that we decided to re-enact Scott's drive along the road and film it from inside the car. It should be noted at this point that when we did our practice investigation it was in summer when the leaves on the trees from both sides of the road meet over the middle of the road creating a tunnel effect and gives the place an eerie look. This time it was winter and the bare trees and bleak surroundings made the whole area somewhat more desolate and foreboding. We drove along the road filming as we went. We had to stop a couple of times to allow ordinary traffic to pass us. Although this is a country road and it was late into the evening there was still a fair amount of traffic around reinforcing the need to vigilant about our surroundings and to be aware of our own safety. Nothing of note happened while we were driving along road but the footage does give the observer a chance to get a feel for the remoteness of the area and the reason why the local man we met earlier was concerned abut seeing a young girl out there on her own at that time of night (approx.10-10:30pm).

We decided that while we were in the car we may as well take a drive along the Kirkinner to Sorbie road since there had also been a sighting of a young girl on that road as well (the other side of the forest) and also to see if we could spot an old deserted tied cottage set back in the woods that we had heard about which was also reputedly haunted. We set off along the Sorbie road to see if we could find this abandoned tied cottage. We had received some directions as how to find it and they had also said that it might not be visible from the road in the dark. Sadly this proved to be the case and none of us were feeling brave enough to wander off into the woods to look for it alone - not on this night anyway! We drove the whole length of the Kirkinner to Sorbie road taking a look round the area of Sorbie tower.

Having had a break, we headed back to the Garlieston Straight to carry out the rest of our investigation. At around 23:00hrs the threatened rain and sleet moved in and this limited the use of the equipment outside, so we decided that having come this far we would carry on our vigil from the inside the car. We were unsure as to whether to keep the lights inside the car on or off so we sort of jumped between the two for a bit, finally deciding to just leave them on. We also had the camcorder recording these vigils. It was as we decided to leave the lights on that things started to get weird. We tried to turn the interior lights in the car on but for some unknown reason they would not switch on. Derek immediately reached for the ignition to start the car, fearing that the battery had somehow suddenly drained. The car started first go and as it did the interior lights duly came on. It should be noted that the interior lights came on every single time after that - we know because we tried them frequently. It was as we were discussing this that Derek suddenly had a strange feeling of what he described as all over emptiness. He said the best way to describe it was that it was like that hollow feeling you sometimes get in your stomach only throughout your whole body. Just at this point Mary stated that she was suddenly overcome with feelings of despair and melancholy, and there is no doubt that she looked very ill at ease and not at all like her normal self. As Kathleen and Mary were discussing this Derek said I can hear voices. Kathleen said "You're joking!" at which point the voices stopped. Derek then informed Mary that he had heard voices coming from the back of the car. Thinking to himself "That's bloody impossible!" he concentrated on these strange voices and still hearing them he said out loud that he could hear voices. Kathleen asked him how he could be so sure of this. He said that it sounded like somebody talking at the back of the car, something he had heard hundreds of times when taxi driving because when he heard voices like that when taxiing he would look round in the hope that it was a potential fare. Mary asked if it had sounded like the voice of a young girl. He said no, if asked he would say that it sounded more like that of a grown woman. He also said that now he thought about it, he only heard one voice talking in a conversational manner as if talking to someone else. Just after the incident concerning the female voice, Kathleen became quite emotional. She put it down to the fact that lots of strange things were happening, causing her to feel a bit scared and worried as to what may occur next. She was keen to take some time-out from the unsettling situation and suggested the team went a short drive.

We decided to take a drive along the Straight one more time. Again nothing of note happened on the drive and after spending some more time at the road end near the milestone with no further happenings we decided to call it a night and head home. The Garlieston road in particular is a strange and eerie pace at the best of times no matter what time of the year you go. The group as a whole feel as if there is definitely something going on along that stretch of road.