Return to introduction or Go to next location Mow Cop - A UFO Hotspot
At night, from the summit of Mow Cop many aerial lights can be seen crossing the skies, but these are aircraft taking off and landing at Manchester’s international airport. However, there have also been reports of unexplained lights, brighter, faster and following trajectories outside the usual air lanes. Modern UFO investigators’ interest in Mow Cop began in December 1989 when a mysterious flying spectacle in the vicinity made national headlines. At five in the morning air traffic control at Manchester airport detected a strange object hanging stationary in the sky high over the Cheshire Plane which then moved in the direction of Stoke-on-Trent at high speed before disappearing from the radar. At the same time, two police officers in a patrol car at Mow Cop also witnessed a brilliant white light holding still in the sky before moving in their direction and then flaring up and disappearing. Many such strange lights have been reported above Mow Cop, such as one described by witnesses as an orange ball of light which rose from the hill and shot silently into the air before vanishing high in the sky at around 11.30 on the night of 28th May 2005.
Some UFO investigators think that the strange lights seen from Mow Cop are secret military aircraft, while others believe they are alien craft attracted by the presence of the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, which on a clear day can be seen at the heart of the Cheshire Plane sixteen kilometres to the north-northwest. Other researchers, however, think that they might be a natural but little understood phenomenon known as earthlights. It is thought that under certain atmospheric conditions some peculiar property of the bedrock around Mow Cop is responsible for electromagnetic fields that create spheres of hovering, luminous plasma similar to ball lightning. Some investigators link such earthlights with crop circles, and the area around Mow Cop has had its share of these controversial anomalies. When I visited the hilltop site, locals were keen to point out fields in the surrounding area where crop circles had formed over recent years. DirectionsMow Cop is approximately three a quarter kilometres north-east of Kidsgrove, OS Landranger Map 118, grid reference 855573. LinksMow Cop: An Interactive History The UFO tracked by air traffic control in December 1989 The 2001 UFO flap in southern Cheshire UPIA Report on orange light seen at Mow Cop 2005 Return to introduction or Go to next location
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Over the years, the area around Mow Cop in north Staffordshire has been something of a hotspot for UFO reports. The village of that name, which lies on the Staffordshire-Cheshire border just to the north-east of Kidsgrove, is named after the isolated rocky hill that rises above it. At 335 metres above sea level, Mow Cop provides a panoramic view of Cheshire to the north and much of Stoke-on-Trent to the south. It is certainly an evocative setting; on top of the rocky tor that marks the highest point of Mow Cop, there stands a ruined castle like something out of a Gothic romance. It was actually built as a mock ruin by a local landowner in 1754 to add dramatic effect to the skyline as seen from his home at nearby Rode Hall.