In August, I was back on the east coast of Yorkshire. The scenery can be quite breath-taking but I was not really there for the same reasons as other tourists.

Coming out of lockdown, it was good to get away for the day and have a good old fashioned adventure road trip. Yet, what I found that day still has me puzzled and a little surprised.

Whenever I travel to this place I have to go across the North Yorkshire Moors. This is an area which is a rugged landscape and during the winter months, the weather can be unforgiving. So having packed the car with my 72 hour kit, I set off with the aim of arriving mid-afternoon.

The east coast of Yorkshire, like many other coastal areas can be dangerous during the hours of darkness, so I always like to arrive during daylight hours in order to get a feel for the ‘lie of the land’.

Walking along the coastal path I spotted something that looked a little odd.

What appears to be a large handprint of some sort, was pressed into the mud on the path. It had been suggested to me that this was a collection of footprints from walkers along the cliff tops, but if that were the case, it would not explain why the print was at 90 degrees to the direction of the walkers’ path. In essence, to make the print, multiple walkers would have had to have been walking across the path, rather than along it.

A little further along the path, I found the print below. It is a little harder to see this one, but this one is following the direction of the path.

My boot in the picture is a UK size 12, European 47 and was included to give an idea for scale.

Now before people get over-excited by this, we first have to accepted that our brains are simply picking out patterns and making them into something they’re not. That is a well known phenomena called ‘Pareidolia‘.

However, if it wasn’t a case of pareidolia, it opens up a whole load of scary questions. What could have left the prints? Are they a manmade hoax? Or something a little more sinister?