The Eternal Army of Otterburn

The moon cast a pale light onto the vast fields of Otterburn, Northumberland on a cold August night in 1388. The clatter of armour, spears, swords and shields mark out the positions of two opposing armies. A man humiliated should never be underestimated, and that was exactly what Sir Henry Percy was. Sir James Douglas of Scotland had stolen a precious banner emblazoned with a blue lion emblem after winning a previous skirmish, and now Percy was determined to get it back. Only one of these rivalrous men would leave the battlefield alive that night, but if some reports are to be believed - the English and Scottish armies still sometimes gather there in spectral form under the silent moonlight.

## Henry Percy and Percival Hall

Percival Hall and John Ellesden were out late driving their sheep one night in 1888. Suddenly, a chill was presumably sent scuttling down their spines when they heard the inexplicable sounding of trumpets and horses' hooves. Looking up at a nearby ridge from which the mighty din seemed to be emanating, likely with understandable apprehension, the boggled pair spotted a cavalry division of medieval knights. They were clad in 14th century armour - and they soon divided into three columns before making a beeline away from the witnesses.

Refusing to let the spectral soldiers get away, the two men clambered to the top of the hill over which the ghostly knights had vanished. Hall was greeted immediately by a head-first plunge into strangeness - there was a historic battle raging just below him. The ethereal figures of men in armour clashed, slashing at and impaling each other with the unmistakeable clamour of metallic armour plates smashing together. Oddly, Ellesden saw nothing - but was still allowed to hear the clashing of swords and the braying of terrified horses. Although it is not stated, it can probably be presumed that the terrified shepherds fled the scene as soon as their legs would permit them to do so.

## A Taxicab and a Spectral Army

The legendary phantom army of the area would appear to Mrs. Dorothy Strong while she was sat in the comfortable leather seat of a taxicab in November of 1960. According to a report published in the presumably now-obsolete *Weekend* magazine, Dorothy's vehicle was making its way through the Otterburn area when it suddenly came to a total halt. The engine died immediately, and the fare-meter '*went haywire*'. Dorothy described it as seeming as if '*it was being forced against an invisible wall*'.

The great number of military wraiths had surrounded the vehicle, and were now closing in all around it. Their armoured forms got closer and closer to the defenceless car and its presumably-terrified passengers, before immediately fading away '*into thin air*' - vanishing as quickly and mysteriously as they had arrived.

It is interesting to note how interference with the engine of a vehicle was noted as being present in this incident. This phenomenon is usually linked with UFO sightings, and 'invisible walls' are also sometimes described in UFO encounters and various other odd phenomena including timeslips and 'reality glitches'. This intriguing case goes to suggest that mankind's many paranormal experiences might all be somehow connected.

## Sources

Rob Kirkup's Ghosts of the North East - *Otterburn Battlefield*