Nearly a quarter of a million racing pigeons have gone missing from more than 50 races across Britain, as mysterious weather conditions lead to them vanishing.

Dubbed ‘the worst day in the sport’s history’ the sudden disappearance of so many birds has left pigeon fanciers perplexed and bereft.

The loss of so many pigeons was first reported following a race from Peterborough to the North East, in which more than half of the 9,000 pigeons taking part failed to reach their destination.

Since then, many more have gone missing, although some birds have later been found as far away as Holland and Majorca.

Dene Simpson, a race controller for the South West Wales Federation of pigeon fanciers, said: “We’d let ours go from Swindon at midday on the same Saturday in June – that’s a 92-mile journey with the wind behind them, so it shouldn’t have taken that long.

“But, of the 1,400 that went out, only about 200 to 300 made it home. And when we looked on social media later on, we saw that lots of other federations around the UK had experienced something similar.”

Many race controllers, such as Dene said there have been no warning signs that something odd was about to happen.

He like many others feel some freak weather conditions affected the homing abilities of the pigeons that prevented so many from finding their way back to roost.

He said: “I think something invisible to the naked eye occurred, something that messed with the birds’ internal Sat Nav and caused them to veer off course drastically.”

The events have been likened to the loss of ships and aircraft over the South East coast of the US and Caribbean, which is known as the Bermuda Triangle.

These disappearances have been linked to everything from bizarre weather conditions to aliens and even inter-dimensional time travel.