today's video is a classic scary story it's about a group of people in Scotland who go into this Infamous Cemetery in the middle of the night and they encounter something very bizarre and amazingly they actually manag to get a photo of it and so if you stick around till the end of this video you will see that photo but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a week so if that's of interest to you please ask the like button if you can quickly use their cell phone to just make a a simple quick call to your parents and then as soon as they hand it over immediately factory reset it and throw it off a cliff also please subscribe to our Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into today's story [Music] late one night in November of 1999 a 66-year-old minister named Colin Grant opened up the iron gates of a cemetery called gry Fryer's kirkyard the cemetery was one of the oldest and most famous cemeteries in Edinburgh Scotland now the cemetery was basically pitch black however there were a few old iron lanterns that lined the Cobblestone path that cut through the cemetery and so Colin pushed open these big Gates and he stepped on to this path and he began walking and on either side of him for as far as he could see were all these headstones some of which dated back to the 1600s and as he kept walking he could see up ahead even in the darkness the huge Gothic style church that sat right in the center of the cemetery now at first glance this Cemetery just kind of looked like a pretty typical old Cemetery albeit a pretty spooky one but to Colin he knew there was Far More Than Just a graveyard here deep underground in the cemetery below where all the people have been buried at their headstones was basically another Cemetery there was like this Mass burial pit that the cemetery had been built on top of and in this lower level Cemetery which in no way was marked I mean this is basically a hidden Mass burial were thousands of people who had been starved and tortured to death hundreds of years ago and so Colin stopped for a second on the path and just kind of stared ahead at this church and for a second he thought about just turning and leaving because he did not want to be here he was really only here because the city had begged him to come here Colin in addition to being a minister claimed to be a psychic which meant he could speak to the dead and so the city in desperation had asked him to come to this Cemetery tonight and perform an exorcism and so as much as Colin did just want to turn around and leave he knew he really had a duty here not just to the city but really to the people of the city because if he didn't do this exorcism there was a good chance more people were going to get hurt the only thing that was making Colin a little bit less afraid In This Moment was he actually was not alone in the cemetery there were two people with him there was a journalist and a photographer from a local newspaper who were basically tagging along to document this exorcism and so after taking a minute to compose himself Colin continued walking deeper into the cemetery with these two following behind him and then before reaching the big church Colin left the path and began cutting through the grass passing by different headstones on the way to perhaps the most infamous building in the entire Cemetery the black melum the black mum was this tall Stone Crypt with a rounded top that had been built sometime in the late 1600s and as Colin got closer to this pretty creepy looking building that sat basically on the side of the cemetery Colin began to feel this really intense sense of dread come over him and the closer he got that dread began to kind of manifest itself in like a pit in his stomach and eventually he began feeling really scared of this building and eventually Colin actually had to fully stop about 10 or so feet away from the building because he just felt like he couldn't go closer it felt evil and then Colin turned and looked at his companions the journalist and photographer to see if maybe they were reacting to this melum but the two of them were just standing there with blank Expressions on their face like obviously not thinking that anything Sinister was happening here you know even though the city had asked the minister to be here to perform this exorcism in this melum you know it didn't mean everybody believed what was going on here and clearly these two didn't they were totally skeptical but this didn't offend Colin he was used to people not believing in the things he believed in and he knew as soon as he actually began his work you know doing this exorcism they would change their mind and so at some point Colin told the photographer that hey you know I'm going to go in the mausoleum now CU I have to do the exorcism before I do take a picture of the melum and so the photographer just raised her camera and took a picture of the melum Colin thanked her and then he turned and began walking towards the building and when he got right in front of it he looked up and he read the name across the top of the crypt and it said George McKenzie and as Colin read that he could feel his heart rate start to spike so back in the late 1600s George Mckenzie was a Scottish Lord who worked for the king of England enforcing the king's religious laws but at the time these laws were very unpopular and there was one group called The covenanter who hated these laws so much that they actually mounted a full-scale rebellion in 1679 but their Rebellion failed miserably and this is when George McKenzie came in he captured over a thousand covenants and he marched them all into this huge field which would later become the grey friers kirkyard Cemetery but at the time it was just a big open field and he held them there and for weeks he had these people starved and tortured and mutilated and if anybody tried to run or resist because they knew they were doomed I mean they all knew they were going to die here if anybody took off he would capture them cut their head off and then Place their head on a spike around the perimeter of this field until after several weeks the entire field is just ringed with decaying bodies and bloody heads on spikes and so after a few months of this basically everybody in that field had been murdered in some horrible way by George McKenzie and their bodies were all dumped into a mass grave in gr Fryer's kirkyard and covered over and then you know hundreds of years later a proper Cemetery would be built right on top of that mass grave and then when George McKenzie died later on I mean he lived a normal happy full life after doing all these horrible things they built him this beautiful mausoleum in grey frier kirkyard and so here's this horrible person George McKenzie who's a mass murderer and he's put to rest in this beautiful Mausoleum just you know feet away from this Mass grave of all these people he killed for almost 300 years after Mckenzie was buried gry Fryer's kirkyard was quiet it was not considered a haunted place that all changed though in 1998 so that was one year before Colin showed up to perform this exorcism that year in 1998 g a homeless man broke into the black mosum and he fell through the floor and landed in one of those Mass burial pits of those people McKenzie had killed and apparently basically right after this happened visitors to the cemetery began reporting the same thing that anytime they were in or near the Black melum they'd get pushed or tugged on or scratched or burned or even strangled I mean people were coming out of the cemetery terrified and so quickly people in town began to speculate about you know what was going on in the cemetery and quickly a story began to circulate around town that maybe when that guy fell through the floor in the mum that that had released George McKenzie's evil spirit and his Spirit was responsible for all these attacks and so it went on like this for about a year until finally this young woman was found outside of the black mosum unconscious looking like she'd been strangled and when she came to she had no memory of what happened and so people assumed this had to be another attack by the spirit of George McKenzie and so by this point the city was totally fed up with this they didn't know what to do and so they said you know what let's just try an exorcism let's have someone go into that melum and literally confront the spirit of George McKenzie and banish him get him out of here and stop this madness and so ultimately Colin was hired to perform this exorcism thank you to better help for sponsoring today's video as a kid whenever I have something on my mind I would just go talk to my parents or my siblings about it it was normal you just talked about your feelings but in 2017 when I was an adult and I had just gotten out of the military and I was really struggling mentally because I just could not quite adjust getting back into civilian life I definitely was dealing with some PTSD and I was definitely depressed you know I had things going on but I just couldn't talk to someone about it it was like I lost the ability to just talk about my feelings and so I ended up bottling up all these horrible thoughts I was having and I began lashing out at everybody in my life and eventually it got to a place where I actively thought you know I think my family would be better off without me here but luckily my family would intervene because they saw me totally spiraling and they encouraged me to go seek out professional help and I'm glad I did because I really think that actually saved my life now while therapy is not a one siiz fits-all solution I believe it really is a great starting point for anybody who's struggling and a great option for therapy that's very accessible is better help better help is entirely online which means you can get the help you need right from the comfort of your own home all you have to do is fill out a quick survey online and then you'll be matched up with a licensed therapist who is trained to listen and give you helpful unbiased advice let betterhelp connect you to a therapist who can support you right from the comfort of your own home visit betterhelp.com slmr Ballin or select Mr Ballin during sign up and enjoy a special discount on your first [Music] month as Colin stood there you know reading the name George McKenzie and mentally preparing himself to go inside of this horrible place he realized he just couldn't do it this was too much and so Colin is just standing there feeling totally stressed out he's embarrassed he feels like a coward he has no idea what he's going to say to the photographer and journalist who've literally come out here to document what he's going to do and now he's not going to do it but as Colin turned around to basically blurt out this really embarrassing news that hey guys we got to leave he realized he actually knew something else he could do that in many ways might actually be better than going into this Mausoleum and doing an exorcism and so without saying anything Colin just turned and began speed walking over to this big field that was not too far away from the black melum and when he got there he just began chanting prayers and walking in circles flicking holy water didn't explain anything he was doing to the journalist and the photographer who'd followed him over there and are just watching him like what's going on here they got no idea he's not clarifying and for hours this is what he did he just kind of paced in this field you know just kind of doing what looked like stereotypical you know exorcism type behavior and that's what the journalist and the photographer assumed he was doing and so as Colin did whatever he was doing in this field the photographer whose name was Susan Burl just began doing her job you know again thinking that he was doing the exorcism and so she just started taking pictures of him and then finally around 2 a.m. so again this has been hours of Colin doing this thing he's doing Colin just abruptly stops and walks over to Susan and the journalist and Colin looks horrible he's totally Haggard his hair is all disheveled he's sweating he's pale and his head is down and he says to the two women I failed he explained to them that his original intention was to go into the black mosum and confront George McKenzie spirit head on and banish him from the cemetery however he had had a change of heart at at the door and decided to go this other route which was to go to this big open field in the middle of the cemetery and attempt to free the spirits of all those covenantor who had been tortured and killed by George McKenzie Colin's thinking was you know if I can free all of these poor tortured Souls that maybe once they're gone George McKenzie spirit will also go away and while according to Colin he was able to free you know 200 some odd tra souls he said there were many more that still needed to be freed and he just didn't have the strength like he couldn't do this right now and so he said you know I have to rest and do this at another time now the journalist and the photographer were totally over this and did not care at all it's 2: a.m. they don't really understand what he was doing they don't really know if this was The Exorcism or if it was something else but to them they're like okay fine we'll get out of here it's late it's not a big deal and so the three of them they began walking out of the cemetery and right when they got in front of the church so basically between where the black Mausoleum was and where that field was where Colin had been for the past several hours Colin abruptly stopped and he told the journalist and the photographer that actually you know what he had a little strength left and he felt like it was his duty to try this again because he knew he could free more souls and so he was going to give it another go and so the journalist and the photographer are like okay and so Colin you know he gets out his Bible and he begins kind of doing the same thing he was doing out in the field you know walking around chanting Bible verses spraying holy water all around and then at some point for reasons he did not explain to either Susan or the journalist he pulled out 12 candles from his backpack that he had brought along and he put them in a circle on the ground right in front of this church it also encompassed this big Celtic cross that was on the ground and Colin was inside of the circle and he lit all these candles and the whole time again you know he's chanting out these Bible verses and he stands up and right after all the candles have been lit suddenly Susan and the journalists noticed that the candles begin to Flicker and it's not windy at all inside the cemetery like they shouldn't be flickering and at the same time Colin seemed to sense that something was happening around him and he turned his whole body his whole presence and he looked over at the black Mausoleum and began chanting these Bible verses louder and louder like he was aiming them at the black molum and as he was doing this the candles were flickering more and more and more and at some point Colin actually picked up one of these candles and kind of held it out at the black melum and so at this point the journalist and the photographer Susan they're sensing that something weird is happening here like this is spooky what they're seeing like why are the candles flickering what's going on with Colin like what's happening here and for a minute the two of them kind of abandoned their actual job which is to document what they're seeing and they just stood there kind of witnessing this totally bizarre event but then Susan sort of broke out of it she lifted up her camera and right as Colin is passionately chanting out these verses She takes a picture of him and the second she does the flash lights up the cemetery and then after the flash goes away Colin it was like the light went out on him and he just crumpled to the ground and so the journalist immediately ran over to Colin to see if he was okay and Colin who's like barely conscious at this point he just kept repeating this is going to kill me this is going to kill me and so Susan was about to run over and join her colleague and make sure Colin was okay but before she did she glanced down at her camera to see the picture she had taken of Colin right before he collapsed and as she glanced at it she couldn't believe what she was looking at At first she thought you know maybe this is some trick of the light like this can't be right but then she zoomed in on the photo and when she looked closely she screamed here's the photograph that Susan took as you can see Colin the minister is standing there with the candle out stretched and behind him is the big church and on the church on the left side there are windows now this church was locked up nobody was inside the church at the time but you can clearly see in the left window there is a figure in that window looking out at Colin now of course this is not evidence enough to make everybody believe that oh that must be George McKenzie's Spirit staring out at Colin he's the reason Colin collapsed but I'll tell you this photograph is not the end of the story remember after Colin collapsed to the ground after this photo was taken the journalist ran over and all Colin kept saying was this is going to kill me this is going to kill me well it would turn out he'd be right not long after this failed exorcism Colin would die inexplicably his death would come as a total shock to his friends and family no one has ever been able to debunk the photo that Susan took that showed that dark figure in the window of the church meaning nobody knows what that was the church really was supposed to be empty and locked and so how is there somebody or something in the window nobody knows a lot of people think that could be the evil spirit of George McKenzie you know striking calling down and Susan manage to capture it on film but you know it's up to you if you believe that or not but I will say to this day people go into that cemetery and come out with scratch marks on them and you know claiming they were pushed or pulled or strangled and so that cemetery is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the world and George McKenzie Spirit who supposedly haunts it is considered to be one of the most dangerous poltergeists in the world as well before I became a professional strange dark and mysterious Storyteller I served in the military and during my time in the military I had some pretty wild experiences but what I remember most about my time in service was not my own stories but rather the stories I heard from other service members keep in mind service members are sent to some of the most isolated and treacherous places in the world that very few people go to and so some of the stories that come out of those places are totally creepy and weird and even more than that a lot of these stories sort of stay inh house they stay in the military just because it's kind of a cultural thing you know people don't necessarily want to go out and tell the world about the totally unsettling and inexplicable thing they saw while they were deployed it's like people might think they were crazy but there's lots of stories like that and so if hearing some of those crazy military stories appeals to you well boy do I have a podcast for you it's called wartime stories and it's hosted by Luke lman who himself is a veteran he was a reconnaissance Marine which I can tell you is kind of a big deal and so because he has access and placement he's been able to extract some of these stories from the military and he shares them on the show and if you wanted to kind of generalize the types of stories you're going to hear on this podcast it's like the strange dark and mysterious meets the battlefield and Beyond the wartime Stories podcast is free and it's available on any podcast platform so all you have to do is you know go to your favorite platform and look up wartime stories or you can search for Ballin Studios because it's produced under Ballin Studios you click on the show give it a follow and boom you can start your bench new episodes drop every Monday so if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious well you got yourself a brand new weekly show so that's going to do it if you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more strange dark and mysterious content well you're in luck because we have a whole slew of strange dark and mysterious podcasts under the Ballin Studios umbrella we have the Mr Ballin podcast Mr ballin's medical Mysteries we have wartime stories Bedtime Stories We Got Run full they're all free they're all awesome you got to go check them out go to any podast podcast platform and just look up ball in studios and boom you'll see all our podcasts that's hundreds of hours of free content to binge right now thank you so much for the support until next time see you