It's difficult to say. There is nothing there now on the actual track, as I hope the picture shows. Sheep do roam on the moor, and it is a popular dog-walking spot, but Spencer would have been close enough to recognise either beast for what it was. The vegetation won't have changed in variety over the past 25-ish years, although individual plants will have died off and others grown. All the versions of Spencer's photo that I have seen are so unclear that I certainly wouldn't want to rule out extra confusion caused by the backdrop. As for size, comparing the researcher to the "alien", the latter looks considerably shorter.
What I will say is that any one of a dog, a sheep, or a person (with or without a bicycle) is a much likelier proposition than an actual alien being. Old Billy Ockham tells us as much. But I repeat that the distance in the original photo is misleading - that thing is only about 10-12 metres away from the photographer - he would have clearly seen what it was. I find a genuine misunderstanding hard to believe. Added to that, there are the strong hints from the investigators in Comfortably Numb's facebook thread that this was a hoax, plus the fact that, out of all the places on the moor, this encounter happened to occur in a conveniently sheltered hollow. Sure, the Cosmic Joker moves in mischievous ways, but still. As things stand right now, I'm leaning towards deliberate hoax. Anyway, thank you for keeping this thread alive - it was the pretext for a genuinely enjoyable trip out onto the moor, and I'm glad I appear to have provided some useful information.
@SimonBurchell thank you for the map images - that's the spot, all right.
