The ghostly spectre captured on a Welsh mountain on Halloween

When Frank Sengpiel was out walking in the stunning surrounds of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park yesterday he certainly didn’t expect to witness a ghostly figure captured in front of him.

It was fitting however that it was Halloween and as Frank walked up Pen y Fan, he witnessed a haunting vision.

Luckily for Frank, he knew what he was witnessing wasn’t a supernatural vision but his own reflection – thanks to one of the rarest weather phenomenon on the planet.

The ancient hills and mountains of the national park are of course filled with myths and legends and what the walker witnessed was certainly in keeping with the mystical and magical history of the Welsh peaks – a phenomena known as a Brocken Spectre.

Frank said: “I walked up Pen y Fan yesterday morning in thick fog but emerged from it just before reaching the top, looking down on a blanket of white. And I experienced the Brocken Spectre for the first first time, amazing to see and very fitting on Halloween!”

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According to this description from the Met Office a Brocken Spectre is: ‘A large shadow of an observer cast onto cloud or mist. It is named after the German mountain on which it was first noted.

‘When an observer stands on a hill which is partially enveloped in mist and in such a position that their shadow is thrown on to the mist, they may get the illusion that the shadow is a person seen dimly through the mist. The illusion is that this person or ‘spectre’ is gigantic and at a considerable distance away from them.

‘The sun shining behind the observer projects their shadow through the mist, while the magnification of the shadow is an optical illusion which makes the shadow on nearby clouds seem at the same distance at faraway landmarks seen through the cloud.

‘Similarly, the shadow falls upon water droplets of varying distance which distorts perception and can make the shadow appear to move as the clouds vary and shift. This all combines to make the rather disorienting effect of a giant shadow moving in the distance.

‘A Brocken Spectre, an optical illusion where an observer casts a shadow across the mist, giving the effect of a giant in the distance

‘The term ‘Brocken Spectre’ was coined in 1780 by Johann Silberschlag, a German pastor and natural scientist who frequented the Harz mountains. The term has been popularly used throughout literature, mentioned in works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll amongst others.’