Revealed: UK's spookiest sightings

(UKPA) – Sep 28, 2009

Big cats, ghosts, aliens and a host of unexplained supernatural phenomena have been revealed in a study of the paranormal in the UK during the last 25 years.

A phantom hitch-hiker getting into motorists' cars, a Lancashire time-slip road taking you back to the 1940s and the ghost of a one-legged priest were among the reported incidents.

It is all revealed in the work of paranormal researcher Lionel Fanthorpe, 74, from Cardiff.

The study provides a breakdown of Britain's spookiest places and focuses upon unexplained incidents reported to the police and leading paranormal organisations since the 1980s.

UFOs have been the most widely reported case of paranormal activity with 109 reports made across the UK.

One of the most well known sightings took place in Scotland in January 1986, when two police officers saw an orangey-red UFO travelling at slow speed and appearing to fall to the ground.

They described the object as resembling a flying clothes pole.

Second most reported are general phantoms (also defined as ghosts or apparitions) with 50 reports including seven ghosts of policemen, a phantom monk, as well as a number of ghostly human shapes and medieval figures.

For Mr Fanthorpe - who works with his wife of 52 years, Patricia - comprehensive inquiry is always key.

He takes his credo from Charles Fort, the celebrated writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena who died in 1932 aged 57. He said: "The highest form of investigation was never to regard something as so firmly proved that we don't need to look at it again neither should we laugh out of court anything that seems so ridiculous that it isn't worth investigating."