A hen party made a hasty exit from an isolated estate in Argyll and Bute after spotting something unsettling in one of their photographs. The group, celebrating a friend's upcoming wedding near Loch Eck, had taken a series of pictures in quick succession when they noticed a small boy seemingly crouching behind a wooden stump in the background.
In the image, the revellers are seen striking poses with arms aloft, some wearing masks, while the faint figure of a child appears at the bottom left. The women reportedly fled after researching the property and uncovering a local tale about a boy who sleepwalked into the loch and drowned.
The story bears striking similarities to the legend of The Blue Boy, associated with the 17th-century Coylet Inn overlooking Loch Eck, which is reputed to be haunted. The legend was dramatised in a 1994 BBC television film of the same name, starring Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, and is believed to have been shot at the same location.
In a 1994 interview with The Herald, screenwriter Paul Murton recounted the tale: "I was talking to the hotelier about it and he mentioned the Blue Boy. This, he said, was a young child who had been on holiday with his parents in the hotel and he had been sleepwalking during the night. He had strayed outside, fallen into the loch, and drowned. When they found his body it was blue with the cold." He added that staff had noticed cutlery and plates often out of place, and wet footprints in the upstairs corridor.
The images, which first surfaced last summer, have ignited a heated online debate about the boy's presence, with some questioning their authenticity. One Reddit user commented: "Welp..not going to be sleeping tonight."
