[1] On several occasions,lights described as distress flares have been reported by hikers, resulting in rescue teams being called out to the area, only to find nobody during their search.
There is no physical evidence in the form of photographs or video of any of the claimed lights, despite being close to the very busy A628 road.
[6][7] Legends and folk tales hold that the lights are witches or spirits and possibly omens of death or disaster.
[1][2] According to one local story, the lights are the torches of the ghosts of Roman soldiers “who tramp across the moor every year on the night of the first full moon in Spring”.
[2] Sightings of the planet Venus and flash lights of game keepers hunting foxes on the moors at night have also been suggested as the cause of misidentifications.