TALK of Bolton's missing dinosaur is far from extinct as people across Bolton remained convinced they have seen it.

Dozens of people have written letters and emails and called the Bolton Evening News to say they are sure they saw a model of the impressive beast at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery in the late 1960s.

But museum staff are mystified. They have no record of a replica dinosaur which people say was a Brontosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex.

One of the theories raised is that it may have been loaned to Bolton from the Natural History Museum in London and later returned.

Natural History Museum staff are now investigating in case they can shed light on the puzzle.

Back in Bolton, museum staff and council staff have been left scratching their heads about how the dinosaur appeared to a generation before, vanishing without trace.

David Hough, aged 58, of Paderborn Court, Bolton, said it was unlikely museum visitors had experienced a collective hallucination.

"I certainly wasn't in a delusional state," he said.

"And I don't think the hundreds, probably thousands, of other visitors were either.

"It is astonishing that the council doesn't know what happened to it. It was very popular and a wonderful model - awesome. If we hadn't seen it, we wouldn't remember it."

Alice Sainsbury, aged 68, of Daisy Hill, said: "When my husband Tom and I moved here from Hull in 1967 we used to take our two young children to see the dinosaur.

"Years later I was friends with a curator from the museum. The funny thing was even he hadn't heard of the dinosaur. You would think that he'd have known everything. The model was terrific - my children nearly broke their necks looking up at it."

Kath Goulding, from Farnworth, said: "It is possible it was loaned. My husband Carlton remembers seeing it in the 1960s when he was about 11 years old, and I saw it in the 1970s.

"It's a remarkable situation that no one can shed light on it. It must have meant a lot to many people."