Spring-heeled Jack in modern day? Sighting near Peckham last week

So this is going to sound mental but bear with me. Thursday night, around 11:30pm, I was walking near Peckham and I saw... something. Tall figure, moved abnormally fast, almost bounced rather than ran. My first instinct was "guy on a mobility scooter" but it was definitely bipedal and definitely faster than any person should be able to move.

I know Spring-heeled Jack is Victorian history but the description kind of fits? Before anyone says "you were spooked and misremembering," I'm quite rational normally, been to university, don't do drugs, just saw something my brain couldn't immediately categorize.

Anyone else had something similar in London recently? Or am I just embarrassing myself?

Could've been someone on a skateboard or parkour person? London's full of people doing free-running at stupid hours. Or just someone moving fast and your brain went "that's too fast." The human eye is terrible at judging speed in dim light.

Spring-heeled Jack would be incredible if real but the original sightings were also probably misidentified normal stuff - carnival performers, escaped animals, people with springs on their shoes (which was an actual thing briefly). The legend became so famous that every weird sighting gets mapped onto it.

That said - Peckham has a lot of odd sightings reported on the regional groups. Not necessarily supernatural but unusual stuff gets reported there regularly. Might be worth checking local community pages to see if anyone else saw your bouncy person?

You're not embarrassing yourself mate. You saw something you couldn't explain, you reported it factually without assuming it was paranormal. That's exactly what this forum is for. Whether or not it was anything unusual is separate from whether you had the experience.

The movement description is interesting - the "bouncing" thing comes up in a lot of Spring-heeled Jack accounts. Could be a specific type of athletic movement that appears alien to people who don't see it often? Or could be something actually weird. Wish you'd got footage on your mobile mate.