Paul Owens
Overtoun Bridge
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Overtoun Bridge, at Dumbarton, Scotland is the scene of the world's greatest dog leaping mystery. With hundreds of dogs leaping from the walls and parapets of this ancient bridge what might lie behind this terrifying canine phenomenon?
Have teams of animal experts, scientists, ghost hunters, psychics, and dowsers solved the riddle? Did the bridge's wealthy builder Baron Overtoun hold the key to unlocking the mystery? Or is it the ghost of his wife Lady Overtoun who is responisble for spooking the dogs on the bridge?
Author Paul Owens has four decades of personal experience with Overtoun and uncovers its dark, supernatural past. With ghosts, presences, shadows, spirits, and strange energies, all being experienced around the bridge, might the paranormal offer a clue in solving this canine mystery?
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The Overtoun Bridge
Mystery
© Joe Porter
I will be speaking on the Overtoun |Bridge Mystery at the Supernatural Secrets Symposium at the University of Glasgow, Queen Margaret Union, Saturday 6th of June 2026.
Tickets available at the door or at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/supernatural-secrets-symposium-tickets-1422209339419
© Joe Porter
© Joe Porter
© Joe Porter
We were joking because we knew the history of the bridge but thought there’s no way dogs jump off. As we said that we saw Sophie jump off.
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Louise McPhail
Sun
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.
Lottie Mackinnon
The New York Times
THE RAINBOW BRIDGE
In Norse Mythology the Rainbow Bridge was a walkway that stretched between Midgard (the world) and Asgard, (the realm of the gods.) Those who crossed it did so into the divine world and from the divine world into this one.
The famous Poem "Rainbow Bridge", describes a bridge where dogs cross into the afterlife. Overtoun Bridge is the only real life Rainbow Bridge in the world. It has been dubbed "a thin place" where heaven and earth have overlapped, and where supersensitive dogs are sensing a portal into another world.
