The Phantom Army of Souther Fell
On Midsummer's Eve, people in the Lake District watched an army march along a mountainside where no army could go: soldiers, horses and carriages, in rank after rank.
What was reported
On Midsummer's Eve 1735, a farm servant near Souther Fell in the Lake District said he saw a long line of soldiers marching along the steep side of the fell. People laughed at him. Two years later his employer saw the same thing, and in 1745 a crowd of 26 people watched it for more than an hour as dusk fell: troops, horses and carriages moving across the mountain.
When they climbed up the next day, there were no hoof prints or tracks on the steep slopes. The witnesses signed statements, and the account was printed in local histories.
Explanations offered
One idea is that 1745 was the year of the Jacobite rising, and the witnesses saw a real body of troops exercising elsewhere, reflected or projected by an unusual mirage. Others put it down to the evening light on mist and rocks, or a legend that grew in the telling.
- When
- Midsummer's Eve, 1735 and 1745
- Where
- Souther Fell, Cumbria, England, UK
- Witnesses
- A farm worker in 1735, then 26 people in 1745
- Status
- Unexplained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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