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A 'Manta-Ray' Flying Creature In The Lake District?

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Anonymous

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Huge winged creature over England
Posted by Neil Mitchelson <[email protected]>
On September 30, 2003

http://www.cryptozoology.com/sighti...show.php?id=840

Six or seven years ago I was camping with friends in the Lake District, England - I think it was in October. We were situated between Little Langdale and Coniston. A local farmer had agreed to let us use one of his fields and so we pitched our tents before it got dark and gathered firewood for the evening.

It hadn't been dark too long, in fact there must have been a full moon as the clouds were well lit up from behind, the fire was burning well and we were all seated around it talking. I lay back and watched the clouds for a while and to my left I noticed a dark shape beneath the clouds, moving from my left to my right. I watched it quietly for a while trying to figure out what it was.

At first it looked like a balloon in the distance but as it got closer I realised that it was flying against the wind and I could see it undulating slightly. I kept watching as it moved into a position more directly overhead, listening carefully for the sounds of an engine and watching for lights but there was only silence and the light of the moon on the clouds above.

As it flew over the top of us it became apparent that it was not balloon shaped at all but was shaped more like a manta-ray fish but with a short tail and the undulation I had detected was actually the tips of its "wings" gently flapping. It was huge, I would estimate its wingspan at 35 feet.
I wanted to know if the rest of my party (approximately ten) could see the same thing I could, but was conscious that I could not suggest to them what I was watching - I needed independent statements, so I simply pointed skyward and said, "can anyone else see that?" Everyone looked and all were astounded by what they saw. Afterwards I questioned them one by one and each gave a description in line with what I had seen.

Some time later I was reading a book about superstition and found a passage which reffered to a similar creature being sighted in the same area a couple of hundred years earlier by climbers who found it sunning itself on the mountain side, when they disturbed it they said it "vanished".
 
Are there any other reports of sightings within the last few decades?

Carole
 
Odd one this, you hear reports of Manta Ray shaped UFOs, but not usually living ones.
 
Hmm, IIRC, that neck of the woods has both a history of strangeness in general and is also laced with fault lines...
 
I highly doubt it is an adult rod, as the common house fly doesn't get that big.

I believe on this very site in the UFO section, there is a thread on rods that demonstrates that the "rod" artifact on cameras can be created by fast moving insect.

Of course, that may just be a coincidence.
 
I wonder, could it be related to sightings of that Ptereodactyl over nearby Sheffield?

there's a thread mentioning it somewhere on here
 
Ath said:
I highly doubt it is an adult rod, as the common house fly doesn't get that big.

I believe on this very site in the UFO section, there is a thread on rods that demonstrates that the "rod" artifact on cameras can be created by fast moving insect.

Of course, that may just be a coincidence.
Click to expand...

Sorry!

Maybe it's just an adult 'rod artitact on a camera created by a very fast moving insect'.

:rolleyes:
 
Seems a bit more of a UFO than a crypto thing... could it be some unusual "stealth" type aircraft? The outline of some of those stealth bombers remind me a bit of a manta ray, tho that doesn't explain the flapping wings...

The Sheffield pterosaur was linked to an escaped bird of prey (condor or turkey vulture or something), wasn't it? Sheffield is not *that* close to the Lake District, anyway... the Lake District is on a level with Newcastle... tho northern England in general has a bit of a tradition of dragon-type creatures...

Aside from being dark, what did it look like it was made of? Shiny/scaly/metallic, or duller looking, more like something organic?

Oddly enough, the topic headline made me remember reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child... i had a very vivid mental picture of the winged creatures the Ringwraiths rode on as something between a pterodactyl and a manta ray, which also was quite similar looking to a stealth bomber... i was sure it was from the Ralph Bakshi cartoon, but the flying Wraiths weren't shown in that, so it must have come from something else, or just from my imagination...
 
Unknown flying Creature in Scotland

Here's another related sighting:
http://www.cryptozoology.com/sightings/sightings_show.php?id=953

Unknown flying Creature in Scotland

10 Years ago in October 1993, the first saturday of the month, I was on a family holiday at a place called Kylesku in the North West Highlands of Scotland, in the County of Sutherland. On our first night there I went out with my two uncles at about 10.30pm to have a torchlight walk down the driveway of the cabin where we were staying. This is a very remote and lonely part of Scotland with only one track roads and not many people living there. The nearest town was about 50km away with most of the land being mountainous land with no trees- only bog, moorland and heather for miles.

Anyway, while walking down the driveway in the dark having not yet put on the torches we heard a flapping noise above like a pair of large birds wings in flight. We turn our torches on and looked up. It was very dark but we caught the shape of a large flying creature in our beam. The creature was large, had a pointed head like a large beak, was grey- brown in colour. I didnt see any other colours on it. It made a large sweeping movement with its wings to fly which gave the beating/flapping sound like a steady beat that we heard. It was flying quite slowly so we saw it for 12-15 seconds before it flew over a small rise which was too rough for us to go up.

The size of the creature was what most startled us. One of my uncles exaggerates a bit when he says that it had a wingspan of 20 feet, but I would say it could not be any less than 10 feet (and my other uncle says 12ft) as it covered the breadth of the driveway and a bit more to the side. We only saw it from below and then behind so I didnt see its eyes to see what colour they were but the wings seemed to be curved at the end. It didnt really seem to notice us.

I have no idea what this was- there is a bird here called a heron which flys in a similar way but I have seen many of them and they are all much smaller. Eagles usually fly faster and seagulls are way too small. The creature certainly scared us and we didnt go out at night again there.

I hope some of you find this of interest. If anyone has seen a similar creature or knows what it is please let me know: [email protected]

Best Wishes

Damian
--------------------

Two points in this regard:

1. Do herons normally make a "beating/flapping sound like a steady beat" as they fly? The sound could be an indicator of the creature's weight. We have herons flying quite low above our street but I don't believe I've ever heard any loud sound from above, as their wings are relatively light.
2. Is there anyone here living in that area of Scotland or who's been there?
 
Living in that area (and looking out over the mountains as I type) I can say I've never heard of any winged beasts or black flying things. The biggest birds around these parts are the buzzards and herons - they're pretty common and can get to be five feet from wing tip to wing tip, but not usually any more than that. The black beast sounds like a hang-glider, although I'm not sure how strong the thermals are after dark - maybe over water? Either that or he'd be a nutter.
 
There is a theory that UFO's are 'Sky-Beasts'.
Creatures which spend their whole lives in the air, in the same way that fish spend there whole lives under water.

So it was probably one of those.
 
In the early Eighties people claimed to have seen a Pterodactyl in the skies over Bradford, West Yorkshire. :eek:

Maybe it went to the Lakes for a holiday? :D
 
This reminds me of a novel I read at school, called Buzzbugs, by (a google reveals) Bruce Carter. It was about a village being terrorised by gigantic flying insects... set I think in the Cumbrian fells (or possiby the Welsh valleys). Not much on the web about it though.
 
Gloria X's sighting sounds like a misidentified eagle (either golden eagle or white-tailed sea eagle, both found in/around northern Scotland) to me. A lot bigger than a buzzard or even a heron, both reach about 8ft in wingspan, and birds of prey are notoriously easy to exaggerate, especially in bad lighting.

On the other hand an eagle doesn't sound at all like a plausible ID for the Lake District "manta" IMO... tho a hang glider is something i didn't think of ;)
 
A few years ago a mate and me were cycling round one of the major Cumbrian lakes - I can't recall which one - when an <i>enormous</i> bird flew over us, about 10 feet above. I presume it was an Eagle Owl or something, but neither of us had a clue until then that there were such big birds in the UK!
 
ew

wow imagine if one of those "flying creatures" took a little potty break on your vehicle. and i complain about the birds in the trees over my car. shheesh.
 
Anonymous said:
Some time later I was reading a book about superstition and found a passage which reffered to a similar creature being sighted in the same area a couple of hundred years earlier by climbers who found it sunning itself on the mountain side, when they disturbed it they said it "vanished".
Click to expand...

We really need to know whether this book exists. It's one of the few details that is capable of verification.
 
gyrtrash said:
In the early Eighties people claimed to have seen a Pterodactyl in the skies over Bradford, West Yorkshire. :eek:

Maybe it went to the Lakes for a holiday? :D
Click to expand...
Crikey. I haven't thought about this in decades. But I distinctly remember the, uh, flap. This would have been around the same time as the mysterious laughter I heard apparently emanating from my window ledge.

A decade or so ago I did see an unusually large bird flying over Heptonstall. My neighbour saw me peering up in some perplexity, and told me that apparently an osprey had been seen locally, but for me to keep it quiet. He seemed to think it would attract trophy hunters.
 
The Kylesku sighting l’d be inclined to identify as a white-tailed sea eagle, which can have a wingspan of eight feet. l used to live on Skye, and we had a pair nesting on the far side of the ben; we saw them many times.

Having said that, l’ve spent quite a few days on the hills and lochs of Kylesku and l never saw anything larger than a buzzard, or “tourist eagle” as we natives used to call them. :rolleyes:

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
The Kylesku sighting l’d be inclined to identify as a white-tailed sea eagle, which can have a wingspan of eight feet. l used to live on Skye, and we had a pair nesting on the far side of the ben; we saw them many times.

Having said that, l’ve spent quite a few days on the hills and lochs of Kylesku and l never saw anything larger than a buzzard, or “tourist eagle” as we natives used to call them. :rolleyes:

maximus otter
Click to expand...
This is so surreal...

Didn't know you lived in Skye!

Was just talking the other night about wee granddaughter's first year at Primary school and end-of-year, 'Parent's night', presentation of their school work.

Delightful picture on classroom wall, drawn by one of the five-year-olds illustrating, 'What did you do during the holidays'?

Evidently been spending time with grandad, who was a keen ornithologist and seemingly they had rare sighting of a Hobby - perhaps a little known raptor in the UK.

Drawing depicts, 'Grampa took me bird watching and we saw a Hobbit'...
 
Incidentally, if you are confident an anomalous bird sighting is responsible for a, UFO, make sure you can back that up comprehensively.

Trust me, I know...

1550917925033873.jpg
 
The company Festo created a flying manta ray shaped robot some years back.
 
Back to the original sighting, although I see the post was many years ago: from 2003, describing an incident in the mid to late 1990s.

The post is now attributed to "anonymous guest" so we are not able to judge the reliability of the witness. The report could be entirely sincere and accurate; sincere but poorly described; or simply a story posted to entertain.

There are six things that are unusual about the report.
  1. The object was moving into the wind. This implies that it was powered or able to propel itself. However, there is also the possibility that the direction of the wind at surface level, in a mountainous area, may not be the same as the direction of the wind at a higher level where it is not interacting with the contours of the ground. Of course, the direction of the wind at altitude can also be inferred by the movement of the clouds, but in the upper atmosphere, different layers of air may may move in different directions. It is possible that the object was drifting with the actual wind at its own altitude, rather than flying against the wind as the observer experienced it at ground level. Also, a glider can make headway against the wind, as can a steerable kite.
  2. The object was making no engine noise, as might be expected of, say, a microlight. Engine noise can usually be heard from a long way away, but this depends on wind speed and direction. Sometimes, the noise may be drowned out by ambient sounds, including the roar of wind in your ears, or the sound of a nearby radio, a camp stove, passing vehicles, etc.
  3. The object was unlit. Any aircraft flying in this area would be carrying mandatory lights. Technically, this even applies to kites, although kite flyers often disregard the rule and it is seldom enforced.
  4. The object was undulating like a manta ray. This may be the observer's perception. However, if it was close enough for the undulation to be clearly visible, then I would expect it to be close enough for a positive identification. One thought that came to my mind on first reading was that it was a sheet of plastic blowing in the wind. Of course, it would have to be moving with the wind at its own altitude.
  5. The shape of the object. The report describes it not only as undulating like a manta ray, but shaped like one too. The manta ray is designed to swim in salt water. It is more or less neutrally buoyant and therefore the undulating swimming motion is only required for propulsion. It would be a poor design for a flying machine or a flying creature, both of which would normally be heavier than air, meaning that the undulation would need to produce lift as well as propulsion. We only need to look at the animal and bird kingdoms, and the history of manned flight to see that nothing heavier than air flies in the manner of an undulating manta ray. This "design" did not evolve with the pterosaurs, the birds, or the bats, nor in the world of flying machines. Flying machines break down into the following categories:
    1. Fixed wing: the conventional aeroplane, but also hang gliders and microlights.
    2. Rotor wings: helicopters and autogyros
    3. Lifting bodies: rare at low altitude.
    4. Lift by thrust (like a jump jet taking off) rare.
    5. Flettner rotors: horizontal rotating cylinders that use the Magnus effect to do the same basic job as fixed wings.
    6. Ornithopters: flying machines with flapping wings. These are rare, are usually only the size of toys. When they are large enough to be manned, they are seldom capable of sustained flight.
    7. Kites, which need to be tethered, but can be steered in such a way that they move against the wind. There is an incredible variety of shapes of kites, including designs that resemble manta rays. Many of them have tails, and the tail and trailing edge of the sail will undulate.
    8. Lighter than air: balloons and airships. These are normally bulbous, and would not resemble a manta ray.
  6. The altitude of the object and/or its size. It is incredibly difficult to judge altitude, distance or size against a background with no fixed reference points. True story: On my first attempt to climb Snowdon, there was snow and thick cloud and it was almost a white out. Some distance ahead, I saw the clock tower of the famous cafe, next to a crag that looked like it might be the summit. I headed towards these and discovered that the "clock tower" was merely a trig point and the "crag" was a rock small enough to step over. (I later discovered there is no clock tower at the café.) Point is that the OP, looking up against a starry sky, would have no way of accurately assessing either the altitude of the item or its size against such a background. The wingspan of 35 feet, although given in good faith, can only be a meaningless estimate with no reliable basis.

I'd suggest the following possible explanations:
  • Most likely: Someone nearby flying an unlit tailed delta kite, either steerable, or being reeled in at the moment when it was observed —which would explain its movement against the wind. I have an 11 ft (3.4 m) delta kite, and larger sizes are commercially available. I have sometimes flown kites at night and I can imagine the pleasure of doing so against a starry sky.
  • Possible: A sheet of thin polythene — even a torn bin liner — being carried on the wind, although it would have to be moving with whatever wind was at that altitude.
  • Extremely unlikely: an unlit microlight aircraft, or at least one with the lights not visible from immediately below.
  • Just a good story. I have no reason to accuse the OP of making it up.
The original post reminded me somewhat of an idea of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Writing in the era when new records were being broken by aviators (and, of course, aviatrices <wink>) he wrote at least one short story in which a pilot, flying higher than anyone had flown before, encountered a previously unknown ecosystem of creatures who spent their entire life cycles in the upper atmosphere and were analogous to the creatures now known to inhabit the deepest parts of the oceans.

The Horror of the Heights: a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/HorHei.shtml#1
 
Hear hear! thought provoking /and/ enjoyable.
 
I've just posted something on The Murmuration game thread, which might have relevance here.

The description of the first phase of the OP's experience could fit the shape and movement of an unidentified murmuration at night time (balloon-like, undulating, flying against the wind). The later, 'manta-ray', sequence could be the result of pareidolia - murmurations seem very prone to making apparently recognisable shapes.

As I said on the other thread - just a thought.
 
Spookdaddy said:
I've just posted something on The Murmuration game thread, which might have relevance here.

The description of the first phase of the OP's experience could fit the shape and movement of an unidentified murmuration at night time (balloon-like, undulating, flying against the wind). The later, 'manta-ray', sequence could be the result of pareidolia - murmurations seem very prone to making apparently recognisable shapes.

As I said on the other thread - just a thought.
Click to expand...
Would they not be roosting, though? The starlings, I mean, not the manta rays.

Also, while I've never been close enough to a murmuration to know, it seems unlikely that they would be as soundless as the OP suggests - would there not be at least the flurry of hundreds of small wings, if not actual bird calls - and starlings can be noisy buggers, not to mention talented mimics? There must have been some suggestion of noise for the nineteenth-century parsons who tended to come up with these collective nouns to have plumped for this one.
 
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