I am so glad I found this topic i'd love to share my experience. I have always been a huge lover of all things paranormal. I have read books on the paranormal for years. I will share my experience which you may or may not believe I am not sure what I think of it myself.

I have visited several haunted locations, one of my favourites is Edinburgh I have been there 3 times and gone on all the ghost tours. I went in March last year with my partner who is unsure if he believes in the paranormal. We went on a tour of the Edinburgh Vaults I went to the South Bridge Vaults, having never been in these ones previously. What attracted me to these Vaults is I had read several articles about something described as an 'entity' haunting the vaults. As it was March there weren't many tourists around and our group consisted of 4 Italians and just myself and my partner. The Vaults are basically a series of chambers formed in the arches of the South Street Bridge. They are underground and were lived in by the poorest people in the city.

When we first entered the Vaults I was a little nervous, it is very dark and damp inside, you walk through a series of rooms and in each room they tell you a little about the history of the vaults. We went through 3 rooms eventually arriving in the final vault which is where the entity is said to live. The room was lit only by a candle which the tour guide put out when she was telling us the story about the entity. The room was so pitch black I couldn't see a thing, as there were only 6 of us in the group myself and my partner were furthest back in the vault. The Italians were scared and stood as close the the exit as they could. The guide began telling us stories of how people had been knocked out and scratched by the entity as well as how a small girl who was with her mother was led to the back of the vault by a hand she thought was her mothers. I didn't think much of the stories at the time although the atmosphere in there was rather frightening. I clung tightly to my partner and at the end of the tour we left feeling a little scared but ok.

We then went to a coffee shop for a drink and started reading the leaflets and looking at the pictures of scratches tourists had inflicted on them by the entity. It was only then when my partner took his coat and fleece off we saw he has three prominent scratch marks across the top of his arm. Now looking for a rational explaination I thought he may have done it himself but as he pointed out it was cold and he had a coat and a fleece on which he hadn't removed all day and the marks were bleeding like when you catch yourself and they also looked raised. I was a little freaked out but we still carried on and went on a cemetary tour later that night.

We arrived back at out hotel room at about 1am and my partner decided to have a shower to warm up, as he took his clothes off he has several scratches down his back, his stomach, thighs and arms, all red and angry and all like they were made by three fingers, we were so freaked out, I took several pictures of these scratches as we were going back into the city the following day. We hardly slept all night and my partner who is a big man and in the army was sat there with the hairs on his neck standing on end and goosebumps all over.

The next day we tried to think of a rational explaination for what had happened but couldn't come up with any, my partner has very short nails and the he couldn't reach the one area on his back to even inflict the scratch that was there. We went back and spoke to the tour guide showing her some of the scratches and the actual pictures, she didn't seem suprised at all and said that this was a regular occurance.

I still have no logical explaination for what happened, my partner is adament that he never felt anything when we were in the vaults apart from a slight draft which we put down to the fact it was an old building. Even now we still get shivers thinking about it. I have spoken to others who have been there and had similar experiences and others who say that it is nonsense.

I am still very curious about the paranormal and would love to go back to Edinburgh just to see if it happened again, I would definately encourage you to visit the vaults if you go, the history alone is great even if you don't believe in the ghostly side of things.