The enduring fascination with ‘haunted’ Luibeilt Lodge

For the Christmas special, a new witness has come forward – historian and keen hillwalker John Beech.

He said he and a friend sought shelter at Luibeilt while on a climbing trip on an October day in the 1980s.

John said: “This storm came from nowhere – torrential rain, gale force winds and it was pitch black.”

The lodge was in a poor state of repair but was a better prospect than trying to brave it outside.

After laying out their sleeping bags, John and his friend heard heavy footsteps above them.

“You couldn’t mistake it for anything else. I used to live in tenement flats,” said John.

They heard footsteps on three occasions before deciding to head upstairs to investigate, believing someone was playing a joke on them.

John said: “I shone my headlamp into this room and thought: ‘This is impossible’

“There were no floorboards. No-one could walk across that. There was just a series of joists.”

He said he later heard a story from mountain rescuers who described seeing the lodge’s front door handle being repeatedly turned but finding no-one on the other side of the door.

John said he did not believe in ghosts, but keeps an open mind.

Uncanny’s resident sceptic, psychologist Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe, said there were many rational explanations for the unsettling experiences.

These included vibrations and sounds made by hydro-electric power schemes in the area.

During their visit to Luibeilt, Danny, Simon and Phil said they heard sounds they could not easily explain away.

Danny added: “I had a strange sense of someone being outside the tent.”