Mysterious 'Rocket-man' spotted over village

Feb 19 2009

what I thought was one in the middle moving quite slowly. I got up to take a closer look and realised it was a flying man. I searched the sky for the plane he had baled out of, but could see nothing.

“All I could see was this man travelling in a controlled, straight line, travelling from Ryecroft shops across to Gentleshaw Common. I immediately went upstairs to get my binoculars and went out on the backyard, but he was gone. Some kind of Dan Dare spaceman - that’s what it looked like.”

He added: “The only explanation is that he was wearing a jet pack, although I was surprised he was travelling over a densely populated area.”

One householder, who asked to stay anonymous, said: “I don’t know where he’d been drinking, but they certainly serve some pretty strong stuff. Either that, or I witnessed the world’s worst case of wind.”

* Jet packs may sound decidedly sci-fi, but they’ve been with us since 1961.

Their proper name is Bell Rocket Belts and they were developed for use by the army, but soon ditched because of the equipment’s short flying time.

They fly at around 250m and reach speeds of just above 30mph. Despite being impractical, the Bell Rocket Belt sprang to fame when Sean Connery used one in Thunderball.