Singer Morrissey’s chilling encounter on the Saddleworth Moors near Manchester adds another layer of mystery to one of Britain’s most haunting landscapes
The Saddleworth Moors, sprawling between Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, have long been a landscape of mist and mystery.
Heather sweeps across lonely hillsides, fog rolls in without warning, and silence stretches for miles.
It’s a place where nature’s beauty and human tragedy collide — and where, some say, restless spirits still roam.
Among the moors’ eerier tales is one shared by Morrissey — the ex-Smiths front man whose lyrics have often danced with darkness.
Morrissey’s Autobiography reveals Ghost Sitghting
In his 2013 Autobiography, Morrissey recounts a chilling incident from 1989, when he was driving alone across the deserted moors late at night.
According to Morrissey, out of the gloom appeared a young man, suddenly running in front of his car.
The figure was pale — “completely grey,” Morrissey writes — and looked like a Manchester pop hopeful from the mid-1970s.
Picture a lanky youth with possibly longish, feathered hair, skinny trousers or flares, and a glint of glam-rock ambition in his eyes — the kind of lad who might have dreamed of Top of the Pops stardom while wearing a small anorak against the moorland chill.
The stranger seemed desperate and pleaded for help. But Morrissey felt certain that what he was seeing wasn’t entirely of this world. In his words, he “instinctively knew it was a spirit”.
Rather than stop, he kept driving — perhaps thinking that heaven knows he’d prefer a less spectral encounter that night.
Moments later, when he glanced back, the mysterious figure had vanished into the heather, leaving Morrissey alone on the empty road once more.
While Morrissey himself doesn’t link his vision to any specific tragedy, speculation has swirled around the moors’ grim history.
Saddleworth has long been shadowed by sorrow, not least because of the infamous Moors Murders of the 1960s.
Although Morrissey’s description doesn’t match any known victim, the moors’ reputation as a place touched by darkness has fuelled theories about who — or what — he might have encountered.
Others suggest the figure could have been the ghost of a lost hiker, a victim of an accident, or simply a spirit bound to the lonely hills. These moors have claimed many over the centuries, from shepherds caught in sudden storms to wanderers lost in thick fog.
Morrissey’s ghostly tale remains one of the moors’ best-known modern mysteries. It’s a reminder that even those accustomed to the spotlight can find themselves spooked by the spectral side of Britain’s wild places.
So next time you’re driving across Saddleworth Moors after dark, keep your eyes peeled. You never know who — or what — might emerge from the heather, seeking help but belonging to another world entirely.
And if you glimpse a grey figure in a small anorak looking ready for the charts — well, this charming man has certainly seen stranger things.
Have you seen anything strange on the Saddleworth Moors? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
