AN OCTOPUS-shaped UFO and lumps of ice the size of a cow are just two of the suggestions behind Ecotricity’s wrecked wind turbine, which remains a mystery this week.

Engineers from the Stroud-based energy firm are still investigating the cause of the damage, which left a 290ft generator with one missing blade and another mangled on a wind farm in Conisholme, Lincolnshire.

One resident told a national paper she saw ‘lights moving across the sky towards the wind farm’ while another described seeing a ‘massive ball of light with tentacles going right down to the ground’ shortly before the 4am crash on Sunday, January 4.

Other suggestions, which Ecotricity has since ruled out, are that the turbine was struck by a giant ice formation which either fell from a passing plane, or formed on the blade of a nearby turbine and was flung across.

Speaking on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme last week, managing director Dale Vince OBE said a range of possibilities are being investigated, but any lump of ice capable of causing such damage would have to be the size and weight of a cow.

The Health and Safety Executive described the mystery as ‘unique’, and said even the strongest gale-force winds are unlikely to be responsible. Engineers have recovered the fallen 65ft blade, which has now been sent to the turbine manufacturer in Germany for analysis. Since the incident was first reported last week on the front page of The Sun, it has attracted intense media interest from all over the world, including newspapers in Australia and Thailand.

A spokesman for Ecotricity, said: “We do not want to speculate and are investigating every avenue to determine exactly what happened.

“The truth is out there and if there is a rational explanation for this we will find it.”