Came across this idea while doing some research for a documentary project and it genuinely stopped me in my tracks. There does seem to be a pattern when you start mapping the reported locations - a lot of them hug old rail corridors, especially disused ones.
My instinct as a filmmaker is that its worth cross-referencing the sighting reports with old Ordnance Survey maps to see if the lines were built over older droving routes or ley lines. Those paths were used for centuries before the railways came along, so maybe whatever is being seen is following something much older than the tracks themselves.
Has anyone actually done a proper geographic analysis of UK sightings specifically? I've seen a few US researchers do this with American cases but not much from over here. Would love to know if anyone in the north of England has noticed this, because some of the Peak District reports I've been looking at seem to follow the old Woodhead line quite closely.