| Encounter: |
Late one night between 1960 and 1962, two RAF
officers were travelling by car (a Mini) back from Norwich to RAF Coltishall.
Passing over Coltishall bridge, they turned left into the High Street and
were quickly forced into a sudden stop as "an enormous black dog" crossed
the road from left to right in front of them.
"As
it loped across our line of sight it slowly turned its head, to glare
directly and disdainfully into our astonished faces, presenting us with a
pair of fiery red eyes. It then slowly swung back its head and continued its
measured progress onto the cobbles (if my recall of the village is sound)
that stretched up to the shops/houses on the far side of the road. As it hit
the cobbles it quite literally vanished."
Comparable to
the build of a Labrador, its back however was level with the roof of the
Mini (approx. 1.35m or 53"). "To put it bluntly, it was a perfectly
proportioned giant black dog."
The two officers looked at each other in
disbelief, then sped off to the air base. |
In the early 1950's, a young
woman and her future husband were idling on the Coltishall side of the
bridge at nightfall. Walking towards them from 'Coltishall Island'
(TG268197, a triangle of land with a petrol station on it, at the meeting of
three roads) they saw a black dog, so large, that at first the woman thought
it was a pony. As it passed them, the dog turned its head towards them, but
continued on, and faded away before it reached the other side. Both
witnesses were very scared by the encounter, but managed to cross the bridge
themselves soon afterward. The woman still thinks of the incident with fear
every time she has to use the bridge.