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Aircraft crash sites on Outer Edge / Midhope Moors

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There are 2 crash sites from wartime missiles on midhope moors one is a V1 flying bomb, what is the other? the blast area is at least 4 times bigger than a V1 and all the wreckage is aluminumn its definatly not aircraft there are no rivets, nor anything else that resembles aircraft wreckage,( pipes bakelite glass rubber wood screws etc) bomb craters usually have steel splinters surrounding the area and there are none.

The blast area is wide and shallow which might indicate a surface explosion as per parachute mine but i have a few recogniseable pieces and these dont match with anything either allied or axis which was air dropped can you help this has been a mystery of mine for 30 years.

map ref 185 965

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Hiya CAT,

At reference 183971 is the V1 water filled crater i have wreckage which confirms the crash site, at 185965 about half a mile away is the unknown explosion site i also have wreckage from this area non of which is recogniseable as being from aircraft although its aluminium, its almost certainly been in a massive blast due to the damage i have the remains of what look like 3 fins and hydraulic fittings, no parts have rivets, theres no wiring, steel, bakelite, rubber or indeed anything else that might suggest aircraft.

This reference in many books is marked as a V1 although R Colliers book Dark Peak Wrecks classes it as "unknown"

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Thanks Spartan. I haven't been to 183971 but if the weather is OK this week I will go and give it a good looking at. The photo I posted is supposed to be the V1 site at 185965.

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GHOST FLIERS

 

Originally published in Supernatural Peak District (Robert Hale: London, 1999)

 

 

 

'It was so vivid. It was just like being on a runway. You were just like planted on a runway and a plane was coming straight for you and you are in the way, that's what it was like.'

 

A Sheffield woman called Doreen Ashall described will never forget the 'ghost plane' which turned an ordinary day out into a magical mystery tour. Doreen had been on a day-trip to Derbyshire with her husband Gordon, their daughter and son-in-law. The family were travelling in the Ashall's four wheeled drive and had reached a crossroads at Grindleford when they saw what Doreen described as 'a huge old plane' flying low in the sky, and apparently heading straight towards them. Gordon, who was driving, almost went into a ditch and Doreen said she was tempted to duck her head as the plane swooped silently above the startled foursome before disappearing from sight. The couple were so certain the plane would have collided with one of the nearby rocky fells if it had continued in its flightpath that they stopped at a nearby cafe and alerted the police in Chesterfield. The duty officer checked with local airports and reported back to the puzzled family that 'there was no record of any aircraft in the vicinity at that time.'

 

The Ashalls were left with an experience that was both striking and real to them but for which there was no obvious explanation. Doreen said: 'It was definitely real and I saw everything and no one can tell me did not see it. I'm sure I saw what I saw.'

 

Equally sure was a Chesterfield man called Tony Ingle, who was so puzzled by what he saw in the sky over the Peak District that he contacted a local newspaper. Tony was enjoying a holiday break at a caravan park at Hope when he decided to take his golden retriever Ben for a walk one sunny April afternoon in 1995. As they strolled along leafy Aston Lane, Tony suddenly put a foot backwards in time...and was astounded to see what appeared to be a wartime aircraft flying between forty and sixty feet in the air above him.

 

'It was very eerie...I could see the propellers going round but there was no sound,' Tony said. 'It was getting lower and lower and I thought "crikey, this thing's going to crash..." It was bizarre...I could see it was banking as if trying to turn, and then it seemed to go down just over a hedge. I ran up the lane to see if I could see anything. I expected a plane to be in the field but there was nothing...just lambs and sheep. Everything was silent, you could hear a pin drop...the best way I can describe it was as if someone had died; it was terrible, a very eerie sensation.'

 

Tony has been back to Aston Lane many times but Ben refuses to go anywhere near the field where the plane appeared to crash. 'He just cowers and won't budge and the only time I tried to pull him along he just slipped his collar,' he said. Before his experience, Tony did not believe in ghosts but now he is not so sure. 'I have racked my brains for a logical explanation but I can't find one. I can't explain it; I saw that plane all right, and it disappeared before my eyes.'

 

Coincidentally Tony's sighting came just a short while after plaques commemorating two wartime tragedies, which claimed the lives of a dozen Allied airmen, were unveiled in the hills of the Peak. The air crashes, just two of fifty separate accidents which have claimed the lives of more than two hundred pilots and crew since the Second World War, have added to the sinister reputation of the mountains among fliers. These tragedies of half a century ago have become woven into local folklore and have more recently provided the backdrop to a string of reports describing 'ghostplanes' which have baffled both the emergency services who have responded to calls of crashing planes and local historians who have struggled to explain them.

 

For experiences of Tony Ingle and the Ashall family are certainly not unique. Over the last ten years the high moors between Sheffield and Manchester have become the scene of dozens of sightings of phantom planes. They are generally described as large, prop-driven machines of Second World War vintage, make no noise and vanish before the eyes of startled witnesses, often leaving them with the impression that the plane has 'crashed.' A number of witnesses have said that the plane they saw was so low they instinctively felt the urge to 'duck' their heads as it passed overhead. No sign of a crash has ever been found when searches have been carried out by the police and mountain rescue teams.

 

 

 

Aviation historians who have studied the reports have said the description given by Tony Ingle in particular resembles a WW2 vintage C-47 Dakota or a Wellington bomber. Strangely enough, there have been crashes of both types of aircraft in the same area of the Peak District within living memory which have claimed the lives of air crew from several nations. Almost exactly half a century before Tony Ingle's sighting, on 24 July 1945, a Dakota crashed into the Peakland hills with the loss of all six US aircrew and an RAF passenger travelling on the plane. The C-47 came to grief above Shelf Moor near Glossop on a routine supply trip from Leicester to Scotland. Captain George Johnson ignored advice which suggested he should fly up the East Coast to avoid deteriorating weather. Instead he took a short cut across the Pennine mountains and became lost and disorientated in mist before the plane crashed into the crags of Bleaklow.

 

Of the existing Dakotas still operating today, just one is flown by the RAF and 11 are operated by Air Atlantique which runs the largest civilian Dakota operation in the world. A film crew who made a mini-documentary on the ghostplane mystery ran checks with the company and were able to establish that none of these planes were airborne at the time of Tony's sighting. The single Dakota operated by the RAF was flying that day, but was more than 150 miles away at the time.

 

Sadly the forum doesn't give space for the whole article (it being 26,500 characters long!)

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About two years ago, a friend related a very similar story. After work, he went for a spin on his motorbike along the winding roads of The Peak District. It was a lovely Summer evening as he left Hathersage, rode under the railway bridge, over the River Derwent and had just passed The Plough Pub when his pillion passenger slapped his shoulder. They both saw what he described as a WW2 type of aircraft, so close they could see its rivets and so low it caused them to duck. The plane disappeared over some trees and assuming it had crashed, turned the bike around and made for the field. Nothing could be found, no wreckage, no fire, just a few cows munching grass.

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Hi cat

if you have a walk up cut-gate let me know if you want company, but I can't make this week or any Tuesday.

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Just wondering if anyone else has seen it before? Saw it ages ago when i went to thornbridge as a kid and its always been in my mind. Looked out the window of the coach into the sky and I saw an old WW plane above, turned away for a second to tell everyone, turned back to look at it and it just dissapeared! Never have believed in Ghosts and still dont, but what i saw that day was rather strange and inexplainable :|

 

Anyone else had an experience like this?

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Every single night. Sometimes a pink elephant is the pilot. Flys around my head too!

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Every single night. Sometimes a pink elephant is the pilot. Flys around my head too!

 

You never cease to make me smile. Cheers Rampent.:hihi:

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You never cease to make me smile. Cheers Rampent.:hihi:

 

Your welcome!

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I've camped out in the peaks too many times to count, i've never seen a ghost plane though. :suspect:

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