Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This week, let's talk Weird Things in the Sky.  The "Washington Times," March 6, 1922:

LONDON. March 6--A winged, mystery, visible only at night, that is said to emit a light "like a bicycle lamp" is haunting nearly to distraction the village of Rushall.

"An illuminated bird that shrieks and whistles and sheds a light on haystacks and trees," "an owl with a bright star on its head," "a bird with phosphorescent eyes"--"I have visited the eerie haunts of this phenomenon so eerily described to me," says a correspondent in the London Dally News. 

"That there is 'something doing' in spectral luminosity in this village of 200 inhabitants there seems to be no possible doubt. Personally I offer no explanation of the winged light, but merely report the result of my impartial investigations."

"George Saunders, who lives In a row of thatched cottages near the church, told me his story as follows: 

"It was a dark night and raining. The bird seemed to fly from its usual clump of trees some 300 or 400 yards away. It flew up and down the hedgerows and along the church wall. In the last few weeks we have seen it many times. We have watched it from the bed room window, and have left it perched high on the neighboring trees and gone off to sleep. 

"I have seen it as close as twenty or thirty yards. It has flown round a straw stack, and the light from it has shown plainly upon the straw." 

The light is said to follow the motion of an owl in flight, skimming the hedges and ditches as if on the prowl for prey. It is noiseless, but on nights when it has been invisible people have heard weird screeches, and Mrs. Saunders and her granddaughter have stood and listened to what she described as "a rough whistle." rather loud. It comes at all times of the night. It was seen in the early autumn. 

In the same row of cottages live Mr. and Mrs. Newby, simple old folks, who give the impression that they are not equal to inventing yarns about will o' the wisps or nocturnal phenomena. 

"One Sunday night quite recently," said Mr. Newby, "I saw the bird, and I said to my wife that I thought it was someone coming across the meadow with a lantern. The light has come quite close while I have been in the backyard, and it has settled on a tree in the orchard." 

Not all the eye witnesses can testify that the outline of the bird has been visible to them at the same time as the light. George Newby, however, a cowman at the Hall, a big house which appears to be in the zone of the winged mystery, said: 

"I was going to the cow house one night when I distinctly saw an owl fly from the trees and past the house." 

Somewhere near its head it had a light, which shone out like a bright star." 

All these good people indignantly reject the idea that they are being bamboozled by a practical joker.

I wasn't able to find anything more about the story.