Otterburn in Northumberland is the site of a battle fought in 1388 when the Scots, led by Douglas, defeated the English. In November 1960 a Mrs Dorothy Strong was in a taxi when she suddenly witnessed the phantom army that had been reported by others in the area.
Her story is extraordinary in that it seems to also indicate some parallels between this rather ancient phenom enon of battle ‘replays’ and the more modern one of UFO sightings, particularly that of vehicle interference: ‘Suddenly the engine died, the fare-meter went haywire and the taxi was as if it was being forced against an invisible wall. The soldiers seemed to close in on us and then fade into thin air.’
Did the presence of a spectral army affect the taxi’s electrical circuits; did some mechanism of the taxi’s electrical circuits cause the ‘replay’ of the spectral army to appear; or did some quite unconnected force manage both to interfere with the circuits of the taxi and at the same time trigger the replay?