Dark Peak – The Movie
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Re; Dark Peak – The Movie
This is a photo taken during a night shoot at the crash site of RB29 Superfortress ‘Over Exposed’ on Bleaklow last year. It is a long exposure photo of part of a wing. Over Exposed is the best known of all the crash sites in the Dark Peak and has attracted the attention of those who add to these tales with ghost stories.
The reason I am uploading it is to link to the story of a horror movie due for release in 2013. Called Dark Peak, it is low (ish) budget movie about a group of hillwalkers who stumble across something scary at an aircrash site in the Peak District…
The blurb currently available about the movie says it is based on a true story, which is untrue. It refers to the large number of ‘unexplained’ crash sites in the Dark Peak.
These things are mostly harmless but the crashes are not unexplained. There is no Bermuda Triangle for aircraft in the Dark Peak. There are at least 7 crash sites on Bleaklow but lots of hills in Britain have more than their fair share of crash sites. Those on the hills and moors will have visible remains, where those that fell on towns or farmland have been picked clean or ploughed over. Anyone living in the UK is never more than a few miles from an air crash site.
The British hills’ variable weather often with foreign crews unused to those conditions, developing technologies in recording altitude and position, enthusiastic and pioneering young aviators, aircraft not adequately serviced or aircraft that had been shot at and the numbers in the air during and after the war all combined to produce a frequency of air crashes unimaginable today.
Still, can’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. Will I watch Dark Peak if and when it comes out? Of course I will!
For more on ghost stories associated with Dark Peak crash sites, please see the comments thread of this photo which also has details about the crash.
View other photos of the crash site of Over Exposed here
Links to some movie art and a trailer to give you some idea of what to expect. Type darkpeak if it asks for a password. The first scenes are at Winnat’s Pass near Castleton and the ruined road is below Mam Tor; it was closed after a landslide in 1979. The other scenes are at the wreck site of Over Exposed on Bleaklow.
Spooky.!!!
Mmmm, theres been much ado about the Peak District triangle …..even a news report on a slack news day ….all bollocks of course ….high ground, inexperienced pilots , poor weather and low cloud, combined with basic navigation equipment / dead reckoning and the odd mechanical failure all in a variety of combinations create the reasons for the crashes . No ghostly force, no spectres luring pilots to their doom.
Great shot though Ian …not a lover of horror flicks you will have to tell me how it goes 🙂 …i have still not recovered from seeing Harry Potter in a ‘Woman in Black’ !
That sounds more like a title to some seedy porn film actually 🙂
this is amazing
Great shot Ian. It kind of looks like the wreck is underwater, on the seabed. I’ll have to check the movie out, when it’s available. I also read the comment thread associated with the other photo. I’ll tell you my tale of the supernatural, through it doesn’t involve a crash site. I lived with a roommate in an old farm house in Oregon for four years. It was over 90 years old, which is ancient for the Pacific Northwest. My room was on the second floor and my roommate would come home late night or stay at his girlfriends for days. The house was set far back from the road and we had a long driveway which my room faced, so I would hear and see when he came home. I would often hear noises downstairs as if he was home, but I hadn’t seen or heard him arrive. Sounds of doors opening and closing, footsteps and activity in the kitchen. I would go downstairs to say hello thinking maybe I some how missed his arrival, but there was no one there. I never experienced of anything unusual upstairs but the second floor was added to the house much later and I thought if there was some spirit in the house maybe it stayed on the ground floor. I never felt afraid or that there was any thing negative associated with the "activity", but I don’t know how to explain it. Happy Halloween!
Loved that you are working to maintain the integrity of these crash sites, rather than having opportunistic popular media turn them into some sort of cultish fantasy, which detracts from the real life reasons and horror behind it all. an emphatic good for you on that one. as for the movie … not for me, as for your series. wow, that third shot down – brilliant.
great info raising for awarenesss Ian, hope a dose of this reality filters out into the universe before any bullshit hype overtakes it. i feel i’m reacting strongly too this, hope you don’t mind, i must be a little sensitive on this sort of thing, hmmm.
Amazing shot and great words too!
Always love these shots you take. the context and background about the place adds depth.
From the thumbnail, it looks like an aerial shot of a dimly lit town below. Great description – might even watch that film myself !!
What a beautiful moody shot Ian!!!
Janwillem
Nightshots very effective Ian, atmospheric!
They should have signed you up as consultant for the movie .. but then I guess it wouldn’t have been low budget 😉
nice de-bunking and nice exposure of Over Exposed
If I was a pilot not too sure I would fly around here
Due to the darkness around and evening horizon this picture gains a new dimension and spooky mood… Well taken, Ian.
B-29 was so modern plane… It was much ahead of its times when introduced. In the 40’s radar and sonar were already invented and in use, and I wonder why they didn’t have any devices working like TAWS which could prevent controlled flight into terrain. Wasn’t it technically possible?
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomitheos] Thank you
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/peacelovescoobie] Great stuff Keith! I don’t believe in ghosts and that, but I would love to see one, it would change how I think about everything. Yours is hard to explain because it happened often and you were wide awake. Reminds me of a night I once spent in a bothy (mountain hut) in the Scottish Highlands. It was a wooden hut with wooden floorboards, and there was a small outer room which the front door opened onto, and one bigger room with a couple of bunks in it. I was on my own, perched on one of the bunks. It was late at night but I was awake and drinking tea. I heard the bolt slide on the outer door and the sound of someone stomping into the outer room resounded through the wooden hut. I was quite pleased at the thought of some company, and put the kettle back on the stove to brew some more tea for them… But the sound stopped and no-one came in. I got up, went to the outer room, then looked out the front door into the night. But there was no-one there, I was quite alone. Happy Halloween!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/angwickham]
"i feel i’m reacting strongly too this" Lol! I don’t mind it Ang, there are worst things people can do with crash sites. There are lots of war/horror movies out there anyway. You never know, it might raise a wider appreciation for these places.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/janspencer] Thanks Jan.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramizq1]
Good to see you again mate, thank you for taking a look.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelling_man_2008]
Yeah I will too, but haven’t much idea of what to expect.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/het_broertje] Cheers Janwillem
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotpixuk] Thanks Tone
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/cachelog] Lol. Flattery will get you everywhere.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/amybigkiss] Thanks Amy. Just getting my two pen’orth in.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/billycurrie] You’d want to be sure the navigator had his eye on the ball.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bazylek] Thanks Robin. I don’t know about that technical detail. These crashes still occurred well into the 50’s and beyond; there is a crash site (see below) where ground proximity warnings were not fitted to BAe Hawks which contributed to a crash as recently as 1999 and that although they were meant to be fitted to Hawks thereafter, the inquest into that crash in 2002 found that it still hadn’t happened.
That’s a brilliant shot Ian. I love shots that are hard to tell what they are at first. Thanks for the heads up about the movie too, I’ll check it out.
Corr that movie link looks pretty scary. I’m up for watching that myself. Love your long exposure, more because of the fact your shot is chilled and cold in blue / my night time long exposures always turn out orange and red, really warm. It works for the shot, that damaged piece looks like it has so much detail there is a google map down there and I just want to drag and drop my orange man on to have a closer look around ^_^
Cool Shot.
Some great photos going on there guys
Must have missed this first time around, but was just checking back to see if all the crash sites were WWII, or if there were others, obviously there were othees, but I guess most were in or around that time, and as you say, the remains tend to be less accessible. Anyway, what a belter of a shot, you can certainly see why people think these places are haunted, agree it has an underwater, other-worldly feel.
PS have now had a quick skim through the set, so have seen the date range, will have a proper look in time