Derwent Valley, Peak District

Sightings of what appear to be ghostly versions of the wartime Avro Lancaster bomber which was used with devastating effect by the RAF against the cities of Nazi Germany. On several occasions a phantom Lancaster has been spotted skimming across the still waters of the giant Ladybower reservoir in Derbyshire’s Derwent Valley. Stories which have been circulating in the area for almost twenty years describe how the ghost flier appears on moonlit nights and vanishes before the eyes of spectators. A typical sighting reported to writer Wayne Boylan came from a couple called the Shaws who were returning home along the Snake Pass after a visit to relatives in Glossop one still, moonlit night in October 1982. They had pulled into a layby beside Ladybower for a breath of fresh air when Mr Shaw caught sight of something flying across the waters of the reservoir towards them. The object swung around to his right and continued up the reservoir, and he concluded that it must have been a hang-glider. It was at then that the flying object turned again and flew back towards the couple and at that precise moment there was a sudden burst of moonlight which revealed the familiar outline of a  Lancaster bomber of World War Two vintage. Mr Shaw said: ‘It continued flying over the reservoir for about two hundred yards and then, quite suddenly, vanished before our eyes, leaving myself and my wife stunned at what we had witnessed.