Rational Explanations Collide With Local Legend

"I was sure she was dead. Something overcame Bonnie as soon as we approached the bridge. At first she froze, but then she became possessed by a strange energy and ran and jumped right off the parapet."
"It was a miracle that she survived."
"Other bridges don't have troubled spirits lurking about."
Lottie Mackinnon, Dumbarton, Scotland

"The lady [White Lady of Overtoun, widow of John White] lived alone in grief for more than 30 years after her husband died in 1908."
"Her ghost has been lurking around here ever since."
Marion Murray, resident, Dumbarton, Scotland

"I've walked the bridge. The first time I reached a point, and it was as if the air got thinner and my stomach jumped, a bit like when you miss a step going down a flight of stairs. The second time, I just couldn't stop feeling like something bad was going to happen."
"There was a woman with a dog at the edge of the bridge, and the dog would not take a step forward. Later, I found out that a couple of dogs had jumped to their death from the bridge that weekend."
Jenna, 20, from Glasgow

Overtoun Bridge  Dog photo: Ray Larabie

A legend and a mystery. Ms. Mackinnon's Bonnie is a Border collie whom Lottie Mackinnon was walking in Dumbarton, over the Overtoun Bridge. She describes her dog's strange behaviour ending in the dog leaping off the bridge into the wooded ravine below. Suddenly, uncharacteristically, frighteningly. The woman felt certain her dog would not survive. She was fortunate it did.

Evidently an estimated 300 dogs are said to have done the very same thing; arrested in motion at a certain place on the bridge, then some peculiar force compelling them to leap over the rampart into the forest far below. Since the 1950s when this strange, unaccountable phenomenon began occurring with local dogs, fifty have died. The valley bed, littered with rocks that they dashed themselves upon killed them.

Northwest of Glasgow, Dumbarton residents started to regard Overtoun, a hundred-year-old bridge stretching across a 15-meter gorge, the "dog suicide bridge". The bridge leads to grounds surrounding a 19th-Century manor, Overtoun, built by a wealthy industrialist, James White. The bridge is actually an extension of a long drive leading to the manor. And the grounds are a popular walking destination for nearby residents.

Overtoun house Author :dave souza

The bridge was built in 1894, in the manner of the Gothic era, as was the manor house. "After 11 years of research, I'm convinced it's a ghost that is behind all of this", stated Paul Owens, author of a recently published book featuring the mystery of the bridge. He had grown up in a nearby town, and had obviously been familiar with the area and the legend around Overtoun as locals are wont to discuss such things.

Local residents believe the paranormal is the answer to the mystery, that the restive ghost of the widow of the manor's builder's son, called irresistibly to dogs to end their lives there, at the bridge. An animal behaviorist -- David Sands -- looked into the phenomenon of the bridge and its deathly attraction to dogs, in 2010. He conducted a number of experiments that led him to believe that the dogs were attracted at the site to the scent of animals living below in the ravine.

He held that the limited perspective of the dogs, along with their lack of knowledge that the path changes from level ground to a bridge spanning a deep gorge, linked to the challenging odours wafting upward from the ravine enticed the dogs to try to track the animal scents as dogs are wont to do, often giving chase to other animals when on walks through forested areas.

While his theory makes sense, the mystery remains for local residents over the fact that it is this bridge and this one alone, not other bridges over ravines where mammals roam below that appears to have this irresistible draw to dogs, leading to their sudden, explosive action where they leap from the bridge into the vast empty space, to land in the densely treed ravine below, some to survive and others not.

Overtoun Bridge in Dumbarton, Scotland, has played host to a bizarre trend of canines leaping off it.  Credit: gerard ferry

"I was up there one summer’s day and I felt a very strong jab — like a phantom finger — twice in my back. It was the sensation you get when you fear someone might push you over the edge of a train platform."                                                                                                            "It’s a very strange place. One of the things peculiar to the location is that it can seem very peaceful and tranquil, but it can turn at a moment’s notice."                                                                                                          Paul Owens, Author

No! Not Black: Cream and Sugar, Please....

"Coffee today is like God in the Old Testament. It will either save you or kill you depending on how much you believe in its magic powers."
"After a certain point, all that ridiculous information can make you wonder, is science bullshit?"
John Oliver, Last Week Tonight

"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter than muscatel wine!"
"I must have my coffee..."
Johann Sebastian Bach, 1732, aria, 'Kaffee Kantate'

Coffee, according to some scientists is packed with vitamins from Bs 1,2,3 and 5 to minerals such as magnesium. An antioxidant powerhouse. Anyone imbibing an average amount of coffee daily, say two to three cups (ha!), derives more antioxidants than they might from their daily consumption of fruits and vegetables. Which might, of course, speak to the fact that most people ignore the need to consume produce on a daily basis, but coffee lovers cannot overlook their daily cravings.

Coffee starts the day for almost everyone, and its most immediate effects are reliably, that energy surge, pinpoint focus, alert state, mellow mood and enhanced cognitive function. Deprived of that morning coffee life gets bogged down, we can't start the day, feel cranky and tired, and everything's a rotten bore. Nothing perks up mood, attention and ability to function quite so much as that requisite coffee.

Oh, there's much more, there's long-term benefits. How about a reduced risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's? Oh, and, just incidentally a lowered risk of various types of cancer. Coffee, according to the American Diabetes Association, can assist in lowering the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. A 2011 Harvard study even claimed a 20 percent lower risk of depression for coffee drinkers.

And if that's not enough, how about the World Health Organization's dietary recommendation for 2015 - 2020 associating health benefits linked to consuming three to five cups of coffee daily? Oh, you didn't need to be convinced? What on Earth did people do before 1600 and the introduction in the West to that wonderful brew?

Well, at about that time in history, coffee was considered a cure for alcoholism in Britain. Not everyone was convinced, however. There was a Women's Petition Against coffee promulgated in 1674 that read: "We find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour. Never did Men wear greater Breeches, or carry less in them."

So coffee's a boon to humankind, isn't it? Except ... except for a few niggling, perhaps unwarranted doubts. The consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest based in Washington warns that any coffee consumption at all during pregnancy may result in low birth weights, in miscarriage and !gasp! childhood leukemia.

A significant positive association was linked in a 2010 meta-analysis of 5,347 lung cancer cases and 104,911 non-cases which concluded that high, very high coffee intake may lead to lung cancer. Researchers at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, linked coffee consumption to a 20 percent risk increase for urinary tract cancer, through a 2010 study.

Oh, and there's more; the claim that coffee makes people less intelligence. People who drink coffee black, some studies contend, are likelier to be psychopaths. Yes, there are the trifling irritations resulting from coffee use, when too much caffeine can lead to anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, digestive issues and high blood pressure. 

Coffee, above all, is a.d.d.i.c.t.i.v.e.....

Bottoms up!