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British Bigfoot?

People may have seen something but it won't be a flesh and blood creature, it will be just the cosmic joker making an appearance
In this instance we do have the folk legend of the 'Green Man' and 'Woodrose', so it can't be dismissed solely as the postmodern influence of American Bigfoot tv and media (of which there is a huge amount over here). I do feel that some - perhaps many - UK researchers don't like to admit a Bigfoot sighting may have been a human in a ghillie suit glimpsed during poor visibility (light, weather, driving etc...). That said, some sightings have too much detail and personally I believe they are paranormal in origin
 
I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.

I got to Horsforth roundabout. This was around 02-45am. As I started the approach down the hill, to Rodley, I began to feel overwhelmingly terrified. The nearer I got to the dip in the valley, the more the panic was rising. There was no explanation for this at all. I tried to wake my husband, with no success. I tried to get a grip of myself, to no avail. There were no cars around at all; in fact, when I thought back, I hadn't seen another car on the road, either direction, for at least three quarters of an hour. With the sheer terror beginning to escalate, I was almost at the bridge when I "saw" it. (I say "saw" because I didn't dare look at it directly; I had the overwhelming feeling that if I looked at it, I would die). Stood at the side of the road and looking directly at me, was a very tall, shaggy, brown or black, fur covered shape. At my estimation, it must have stood over 2m tall, around 1.2m wide, with no visible limbs or eyes, but I sensed that the eyes were there somewhere, as I could feel them boring into the car. Needless to say, I had to get away from this "thing", so I accelerated away from it. As I passed, I stared straight ahead, not daring to look left. I looked back in the rear view mirror, to see "it" step off the kerb and into the road where I had just driven. By the time I reached our house, I was panic stricken, I needed to get in and lock the door. My husband couldn't understand what was wrong with me. I explained what had happened, but he said that it was probably a tree and my mind was playing tricks on me! I knew what I had seen and it was no tree.
ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".
 
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I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.


ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".
The description of the figure sounds quite BB like but the whole experience sounds more like a Pan sighting. Perhaps Pan has gone out of fashion a bit nowadays?
 
The description of the figure sounds quite BB like but the whole experience sounds more like a Pan sighting. Perhaps Pan has gone out of fashion a bit nowadays?
That's a really interesting observation. There's certainly a lot of Panic in these kind of tales. Whatever's going on certainly 'serves the same purpose culturally', that people are outside and suddenly have a massive unexpected freak-out. (And in the American accounts in Sasquatch Chronicles, there's this sense that the creature is perfectly at home in nature, like supernaturally good at moving about and surviving in its environment, and inspires such awe and terror in its beholders that they don't want to go out there ever again in many cases). There are probably many other comparisons to draw. I like your point.
 
I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.


ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".

The bridge over the Aire, and its associated road, appears on OS maps sometime between 1908 and 1945.

Here’s the course of the modern A6120 overlaid on a 6” OS map:

9A5C2F9E-86EF-46CE-818B-1AEC3235BBEF.png


The A6120 is the pale line running from top right to bottom left; curving line of River Aire in centre of image

Here’s the view of the bridge as seen approaching from the north, the direction in which the witness was travelling:

E81E38F8-36CE-4BD1-B1B0-F5BC79D9780D.png


The cars on the left in the middle distance are on the bridge itself

The map shows that the new A6120 was driven through the heart of Burke Wood and the western end of Swaine Wood. Perhaps BB’s habitat was disturbed and he’s still hanging around, peeved?

maximus otter
 
The bridge over the Aire, and its associated road, appears on OS maps sometime between 1908 and 1945.

Here’s the course of the modern A6120 overlaid on a 6” OS map:

View attachment 58025

The A6120 is the pale line running from top right to bottom left; curving line of River Aire in centre of image

Here’s the view of the bridge as seen approaching from the north, the direction in which the witness was travelling:

View attachment 58026

The cars on the left in the middle distance are on the bridge itself

The map shows that the new A6120 was driven through the heart of Burke Wood and the western end of Swaine Wood. Perhaps BB’s habitat was disturbed and he’s still hanging around, peeved?

maximus otter
I've noticed more than one report of a paranormal creature (including British Bigfoot) in circumstances where a new road has just been built across presumably native woodland and and land not much disturbed for perhaps centuries. I wish I had made a note but the one that jumps out is the Sandling, Kent 'bat creature' sightings* in 1963, which all happened not long after the M20 ploughed through that area. The height of weird paranormal creature sightings seems to have been the 60s and 70s and this is also when our motorway and dual carriageway network was being constructed, hmmmm...........


*according to Bufora there was more than one sighting
 
I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.


ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".
LOL Brilliant. My youngest's about to go to uni in Horsforth! He's a hairy kid (so hairy that when he was born they did tests on him in case he had a rare condition but no, he was just a hairy baby) so some new sightings may happen when he's staggering back from a pub at midnight... Esp if he's wearing shorts.
 
Edit: Just posted on Lordmongrove's '70s Weirdness' thread that I have just realised the 1983 'Beast of Exmoor' activity (sightings and sheep killings) took place as the new Link Road was being built across Knowstone Moor, a focal point of the sheep killings and big cat activity and an area pretty much undisturbed since prehistoric times (home to a Bronze age saucer barrow). The 'beast' was never captured or shot despite the Royal Marines being called in.

So no, not a 'Bigfoot' but many believe a paranormal creature of the same ilk...

A link about the construction:

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1983/jul/01/north-devon-industrial-development

So another possibility but I will need to find out out when actual construction started, the dates might not fit and it could be argued that the River Barle, Exmoor (Somerset) sheep killings in the late-70s were down to the same creature or creatures that then moved down into the North Devon Exmoor foothills where Knowstone Moor is located (today it is a nature reserve with the road running through the middle).
 
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I've noticed more than one report of a paranormal creature (including British Bigfoot) in circumstances where a new road has just been built across presumably native woodland and and land not much disturbed for perhaps centuries. I wish I had made a note but the one that jumps out is the Sandling, Kent 'bat creature' sightings* in 1963, which all happened not long after the M20 ploughed through that area. The height of weird paranormal creature sightings seems to have been the 60s and 70s and this is also when our motorway and dual carriageway network was being constructed, hmmmm...........


*according to Bufora there was more than one sighting
This seems to have been the case with some road ghost outbreaks (clusters at Blue Bell Hill, and the Stocksbridge Bypass immediately spring to mind). Unfortunately, when major changes were made to the A3 in my neck of the woods, nothing kicked off that I'm aware of - although, interestingly, the changes resulted in the road going through the tunnel, and restoration of heathland on the former route.
 
This seems to have been the case with some road ghost outbreaks (clusters at Blue Bell Hill, and the Stocksbridge Bypass immediately spring to mind). Unfortunately, when major changes were made to the A3 in my neck of the woods, nothing kicked off that I'm aware of - although, interestingly, the changes resulted in the road going through the tunnel, and restoration of heathland on the former route.
Stocksbridge is a great example. I enjoyed listening to Dr David Clarke on 'Mysteries and Monsters' tell his first hand account. The initial sightings became a bit distorted and a lot of :bs: has been written since but David is convinced the initial accounts were and are unexplained
 
The description of the figure sounds quite BB like but the whole experience sounds more like a Pan sighting. Perhaps Pan has gone out of fashion a bit nowadays?
Like Eponastill says, that's a really interesting observation.
The map shows that the new A6120 was driven through the heart of Burke Wood and the western end of Swaine Wood. Perhaps BB’s habitat was disturbed and he’s still hanging around, peeved?
The other detail your map shows is that the new road went right through Horsforth Cemetery. I had no idea that had ever existed. Maybe it was the disturbance of this habitat (if that word still works in these circumstances) that wakened the beast. I've found another account of a spectral figure on a footpath very close to Horsforth roundabout, too. There's a new housing development going up around there just now, I wonder if the new occupants will be troubled by any of the old ones.

That said, I'm assuming the sighting took place no earlier than the late 1980s (the OP's flickr account consisted of her name and the number 69, which can only refer to her birth year), so BB took its own sweet time to express that peevishness...
 
Agree that Sinclair is a tremendous investigator, and has a work-ethic that's positively Stakhanovite.

Yes. This forms a part of my own ongoing research into the phenomenon.
There's also that tradition that supernatural beings won't cross running water. Was thinking of this the other day when someone was telling me of a field near here where they sensed some towering, really huge, fast moving dark "presence". Just that field. I said "Ah it's like Springheeled Jack, that thing, right?" and she was taken aback that I knew the exact field she meant and I'd had a similar but rather less tangible, experience there. Thing is the field has a stream at one side which is its boundary and you feel nothing once you cross the stream... You just have to get to it.

Same field I once found a sizeable piece of iron hidden in some tree-roots (a lone, very old oak that seems to once have been part of a now lost hedge-line). Something about it made me think it had been deposited there deliberately, a long time before. It looked like a massive piece of 19thC gate furniture, not sure what it was. Like running water, this was also once thought protective.

ETA: I'm aware Jack was a manufactured Victorian phenomena but we went on to have a fascinating conversation about thought forms or sometimes a fictional preternatural thing having some resemblance to a real one or something found in older lore.
 
The other detail your map shows is that the new road went right through Horsforth Cemetery.
Ignore me, it didn't. As the screenshot below shows, the new road passed a little to the west of the cemetery (outlined in red). The blue hashes show the site of the new housing development. I don't know what the factory complex at the bottom of the image is/was, but suspect that is also fated to become housing.


Horsforth Cemetery.png


ETA - as Max has already pointed out.
 
There's also that tradition that supernatural beings won't cross running water. Was thinking of this the other day when someone was telling me of a field near here where they sensed some towering, really huge, fast moving dark "presence". Just that field. I said "Ah it's like Springheeled Jack, that thing, right?" and she was taken aback that I knew the exact field she meant and I'd had a similar but rather less tangible, experience there. Thing is the field has a stream at one side which is its boundary and you feel nothing once you cross the stream... You just have to get to it.

Same field I once found a sizeable piece of iron hidden in some tree-roots (a lone, very old oak that seems to once have been part of a now lost hedge-line). Something about it made me think it had been deposited there deliberately, a long time before. It looked like a massive piece of 19thC gate furniture, not sure what it was. Like running water, this was also once thought protective.

ETA: I'm aware Jack was a manufactured Victorian phenomena but we went on to have a fascinating conversation about thought forms or sometimes a fictional preternatural thing having some resemblance to a real one or something found in older lore.
In a Peter Underwood book there was a case from Dartmoor of a tall, long-legged 'man' that chased alongside a car whilst flapping its arms like a bird. Apparently the car had accelerated past a speed any human could attain but it was still there alongside them.... Apparently the car was traveling downhill and, knowing Dartmoor, that probably meant a bridge of some sorts at the bottom... anyway, the creature vanished (?)
 
In a Peter Underwood book there was a case from Dartmoor of a tall, long-legged 'man' that chased alongside a car whilst flapping its arms like a bird. Apparently the car had accelerated past a speed any human could attain but it was still there alongside them.... Apparently the car was traveling downhill and, knowing Dartmoor, that probably meant a bridge of some sorts at the bottom... anyway, the creature vanished (?)
Do you know what book that was in? I'm wondering if I have it.
 
I don't know what the factory complex at the bottom of the image is/was, but suspect that is also fated to become housing.


View attachment 58037

l *think* it’s the helpfully-named Horsforth Centre: “…a group of independent practitioners and therapists who provide completely confidential counselling, coaching, psychotherapy, supervision and training in pleasant and relaxed surroundings…”

maximus otter
 
l *think* it’s the helpfully-named Horsforth Centre: “…a group of independent practitioners and therapists who provide completely confidential counselling, coaching, psychotherapy, supervision and training in pleasant and relaxed surroundings…”

maximus otter
You've gone a bit too far round the ring road, I think. A bit more googling tells me that the mystery site used to belong to Leeds City College, but is now derelict - see these pics from a couple of years ago. The site does indeed form part of the housing development.

You may be more interested to learn that just to the south, and on the opposite side of the ring road, is the Aireborough Rifle and Revolver club.

LCC Horsforth campus.png
 
Edit: Just posted on Lordmongrove's '70s Weirdness' thread that I have just realised the 1983 'Beast of Exmoor' activity (sightings and sheep killings) took place as the new Link Road was being built across Knowstone Moor, a focal point of the sheep killings and big cat activity and an area pretty much undisturbed since prehistoric times (home to a Bronze age saucer barrow). The 'beast' was never captured or shot despite the Royal Marines being called in.

So no, not a 'Bigfoot' but many believe a paranormal creature of the same ilk...

A link about the construction:

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1983/jul/01/north-devon-industrial-development

So another possibility but I will need to find out out when actual construction started, the dates might not fit and it could be argued that the River Barle, Exmoor (Somerset) sheep killings in the late-70s were down to the same creature or creatures that then moved down into the North Devon Exmoor foothills where Knowstone Moor is located (today it is a nature reserve with the road running through the middle).
Any help?
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=A361
 
I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.


ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".
I'm of a mind that this is not a true sighting. This individual has "borrowed" several sightings from other people. This, to my mind is the Flixton roundabout sighting (Truth Proof) relocated to Leeds.
 
In a Peter Underwood book there was a case from Dartmoor of a tall, long-legged 'man' that chased alongside a car whilst flapping its arms like a bird. Apparently the car had accelerated past a speed any human could attain but it was still there alongside them.... Apparently the car was traveling downhill and, knowing Dartmoor, that probably meant a bridge of some sorts at the bottom... anyway, the creature vanished (?)

The story of the tall being flapping its arms reminded me of a similar one in Theo Brown's Devon Ghosts:

Not long after I came to live in Chudleigh (in 1950) I was told by a resident that a section of the A38 appeared to be nastily haunted. There was a sharp dip in the road, and anyone coasting down this on a bicycle was liable to find themselves paced by a tall figure which held its arms out horizontally and flapped. This disconcerted riders who swerved and crashed. There have been several instances of this but none I think lately.

That would have been before the A38 that we know was built, so I'm not sure where the old A38 went then or exactly where this might have been.

It might be the same story that Chips Barber refers to in Tales Of The Teign. According to him, at least three cyclists have been chased by an arm-flapping 'spectre' until they'd fallen off their bikes. But he gives the location as 'between Pitt Hill and the village of Hennock' — which is, I believe, just inside Dartmoor National Park.

Neither accounts mention cars being chased though, only bicycles.
 
The story of the tall being flapping its arms reminded me of a similar one in Theo Brown's Devon Ghosts:



That would have been before the A38 that we know was built, so I'm not sure where the old A38 went then or exactly where this might have been.

It might be the same story that Chips Barber refers to in Tales Of The Teign. According to him, at least three cyclists have been chased by an arm-flapping 'spectre' until they'd fallen off their bikes. But he gives the location as 'between Pitt Hill and the village of Hennock' — which is, I believe, just inside Dartmoor National Park.

Neither accounts mention cars being chased though, only bicycles.
I have a haunted Dartmoor book by Sally and Chips Barber - I'll have to dig it out and see if the story turns up there.
 
I'm of a mind that this is not a true sighting. This individual has "borrowed" several sightings from other people. This, to my mind is the Flixton roundabout sighting (Truth Proof) relocated to Leeds.
I really should explore the Truth Proof series more closely - I'm very fond of that part of the world, and I'm discovering more family connections, too. Meanwhile, could you summarise the Flixton incident for us?

What other accounts do you think that individual has appropriated?
 
I wonder whether this account should be considered as a British Bigfoot sighting, although later commenters on that thread try to tie the apparition in to Kirkstall Abbey, which is a couple of miles to the east. It's a stretch of road I frequently travel on, and I walk the dog on the riverside path at that point, too. So it's of slightly more than academic interest to me, this one.


ETA there are actually three bridges in quick succession along that stretch of the A6120: over the railway, the river Aire, and the Leeds -Liverpool canal, in that order as you come down the hill from the Horsforth roundabout mentioned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the River bridge is the one in the "dip of the valley".
The thing that interests me is that the feeling of impending doom came on well before the sighting. So the mind of the person was already in an altered state. Which suggests to me that the point that should be investigated is the point at which the feeling of terror kicked in, rather than the point at which something was seen.
 
I really should explore the Truth Proof series more closely - I'm very fond of that part of the world, and I'm discovering more family connections, too. Meanwhile, could you summarise the Flixton incident for us?

What other accounts do you think that individual has appropriated?
I've just watched Elusive this morning on Free Movies and I think it was staxton. If you go on the Truth Proof website there are links to videos and a database of sightings.
On the WHIT FB page are links to videos. Some elements of the teams Bempton experience were appropriated and exaggerated on a life feed.
 
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