22 December - Cranbrook, Kent

An interesting report from a qualified private pilot:

"My family and I were leaving a restaurant at about 10:30pm. My wife was walking ahead of me, when she turned around and looked up. She pointed out two bright-ish yellow lights in the sky.

It was difficult to estimate their height, but there was a reasonable cloud cover, which I am estimating was around 2,000 feet, and they were below this. The two lights were moving together, but independently of each other. They moved at what I would call a helicopter speed, roughly northwards, but there were no aircraft strobes visible; they were moving away from us, so they were not landing lights, and were too yellow anyway.

What really struck me also was that there was no sound from them at all. With aircraft you usually hear the engines at some stage, and helicopters invariably give off that 'thump thump' sound as they pass over. These were absolutely silent.

One disappeared after about 30 seconds, I assumed into cloud, but the other remained visible for at least a further 20 seconds. I have to say these type of lights were something I have never seen before in my life. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like that?"

We were not aware of any corroborative reports from Kent that night.  Again, the characteristics of these light suggests fire lanterns, but in this case it is more than useful that the witness was a pilot; he is sure that the lights were steady and bright - so not obviously being lit by a small burner; he is also certain that the lights were not moving at the whim of the wind - although acknowledging that without knowing the exact height it would be difficult to determine exact wind direction and speed at the time.

11 December - Brixton, London

From the witness:

"Having been woken by my alarm at 7.20am, and just before taking the stairs down, for no reason I felt like looking to the sky through the small double glass window. The sky was fairly clear and blue and felt very cold. All I could see in the sky was normal; airplanes and birds, a nice day.

Suddenly, a huge ball of light orange-yellow (like fire-plasma) materialised in the sky at low altitude. I also saw a bright and white but very small ball of light coming out of the building very fast and integrating into the big orange-yellow ball. My reaction was to quickly set my mobile phone (V3Motorola) to take pics, but like in a second the UFO vanished, I never saw it flying away, I think it just vanished in front of my eyes.

Then I checked the pics and even though they don't show exactly the same I saw (I mean colours and size), at least they are proof/record of what I saw in such a fraction of time."

Certainly an unusual sighting. While the witness sent us a few images from the cameraphone, the size and resolution makes analysis of the images very difficult; and as such it is impossible to verify the images against the observed UFO and apparent beam.

17 November - Shrivenham, Wiltshire

At around 5.00pm the witness was watching football when he noticed a 'ball of flame' appear and cross the sky:

"..it looked like the flame on an air balloon, but was travelling too fast to be an air balloon (and it was dark, so I doubt they'd be flying then) . The only other thing I thought it could be, was an afterburner on a jet, but it was going too slow and it made no sound."

The most likely explanation was a bright meteor or bolide.

4 November - Southampton

A very unusual daylight UFO sighting:

"The sighting was over Southampton on what was a sunny crystal CLEAR day, about 3 or 4pm.

I was getting the washing in when a very bright white light caught my eye. It was above me and VERY high in the sky - too high to be a civilian aircraft. At first I thought it was something entering the atmosphere and burning up and sure enough it disappeared, then it flashed again and remained almost pulsing but with no great regularity. when the the light would disappear there was no object to be seen. sometimes the light seemed to last longer than bursts.

I have heard about pulsing propulsion system, or even explosions being detonated to propel craft. I would be very surprised for it to be an afterburner as it was just a bright white light. If it was sunlight reflecting off of metal it would have had to have been highly polished and unpainted. I watched it travel across the sky until it went out of sight. It travelled at roughly the same speed as a satellite would across the night sky - which for its altitude would have been very fast.

The nature of it the light makes me dubious of reflection, it would never not shine for more that 10 or 15 seconds at a time, sometimes the light would last for longer periods - and yet it flew on a straight course and so therefore changed its angle to me. without changing its own angle to the sun (by altering course) but changing its angle to me - why wasn't it always reflective? I suspect it may have been a weather balloon, maybe a satellite - but it certainly made me stand and watch it for a few minutes until it disappeared in the distance."

At this time of year when the sun is low it does and can create more fleeting illuminations of aircraft, such 'flashes' tend to be short as the respective angles of sun, aircraft and observer change rapidly - its unusual for an aircraft to be illuminated and be flashing with such frequency while flying normally.

There is a supposed (as it has yet to be confirmed by the USDoD, USAF or the likes of Boeing/Lockheed etc) pulsating propulsion known as the Pulsed-Wave Detonation Engine (PWDE), which uses the outer surface of the aircraft and the surrounding pressurised air as the combustion chamber; however this is still largely conventional in that it produces an obvious exhaust, and as it pulses/detonates it produces a cloud of exhaust gas on the more general contrail - often called 'doughnuts on a rope'. As it is a conventional (if exotic) propulsion, the biggest giveaway is the boom/explosion of each pulsing detonation - from this report neither a trail and/or sound were evident.

3 November - Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

The witness and other family members noticed three lights in the sky at roughly 9:30PM on Saturday:

"They were travelling quite slowly. At first we thought they may have been aircraft or helicopter lights but were moving too slow. The lights were all the same colour, they were a Red White colour.

Then as quickly as we had seen them they disappeared. They travelled over Bury St. Edmunds. We have not seen anything like it before. It was not a firework as it travelled a steady path and remained the same colour through out. When the lights disappeared they seemed to fade away, then they were gone."

The characteristics of the colour, flight and indeed the way the lights disappeared strongly suggest this was another flight of fire lanterns - these become more of a nuisance in ufological terms each year - especially here in the UK.

2 November - Ripley, Yorkshire

From the witness:

"Me and my partner were travelling through Ripley around 7.30pm with my sister following behind in her car; I noticed there were around 13 orange lights to my right, my initial thought was that they were street lights but as I gazed I noticed that they were moving; 'Were they suspended by wire?' I thought - but they moved too much to be suspended.

I decided to ring my sister on her mobile to see if she had seen them for which she said she did; "What were they?" she asked; I suggested we went back to have another look. We made our way back and stopped at the police station to get a better look. They were still in the same position but then one by one they started to move away soon they disappeared out of sight.

The following day my sister decided to look up it up on the web but there was no sighting reported on that day but she found an article 31st August 2007 about similar sightings however one explanation was that they could have been Chinese lanterns. I have looked at websites where these lanterns are advertised and I can definitely say that these were not what I spotted that night.

My question is did anyone report such a sighting that night? There was one witness; but they said they may be micro lights...this too is impossible."

We were and are not aware of corroborative sightings from the Ripley area for that night. It is interesting that the witnesses do not believe they were watching fire lanterns, although the general observation/description is strongly suggestive of such.

22 October - Dublin, Ireland

The witness was outside in her garden when she noticed a bright light streaking across the sky; this appeared to move like a meteor, but it left a trail - itself unusual as this event occurred behind/above the level of clouds.

Some meteors/bolides can produce and leave an ion trail that can linger for 10s of minutes and even hours.

7 October - Leicestershire

"We were on our way home on the M1 northbound from Great Yarmouth to Cheshire and suddenly lights appeared in the sky to the East of us, they covered a large are of the sky. They were dots of light arranged in a circular pattern and there were about 8 of these patterns and they were all rotating clockwise "I think" around a central point creating another circular pattern. These stayed with us for about 10 minutes coming and going in there intensity, this freaked my friend and I out and were glad when they stopped. There were other vehicles on the motorway surely some one else noticed them? I described them on our local sports website as like a disco ball lighting up the thin clouds but the lights were all white.

I would be very interested to find out who else saw them, one of our pool players directed me to this link after reading under "lights in the sky" on the APRA site."

This appears to be another of the laser/light show 'sky circle' events; everything logical suggests a laser show, but as the witness himself comments "Why hold one at 2.30-ish in the morning?"

1 September - Lyneal, Shropshire

"Last night (Saturday September 1st), whilst returning across the Fernwood caravan park nr Lyneal N Shropshire, my wife and I saw strange lights in the sky whilst holidaying in the area.

The light started as a glow in the cloud, then swept around to the right to form a cluster of individual lights which then began to twirl as if the whole cloud base was moving to and fro, left and right, then sweeping bask left to form a glow in the sky again.

The light/s was mono/white light, and this pattern of movement and spinning carried on for some fifteen minutes, and was continuing as I carried on to bed.

The time was approx. 10:30, and I can confirm this as I tried to take a video on my mobile phone which was unsuccessful, but which is timed at 22:26 01:09:07.

I called a neighbour and asked him to verify that I was not seeking things before retiring, consoling myself that the sighting was probably some form of laser light show from a dance event (or some such), especially as the pattern was so repetitive."

August - Wells next the Sea, Norfolk

"We were on holiday in north Norfolk earlier this month at the Pinewoods site (Wells next the Sea, Norfolk) and were travelling back there around 11.15 at night, somewhere between Holt and Wells, when we saw a formation of strange lights.

I think the likeliest explanation was some kind of advanced laser display. They looked quite faint, several hundred feet up, pulsed and gathered into a swirl - a bit like a crop circle - across quite a large expanse of sky, and appeared for about 30 seconds, at regular intervals of about the same time.

I rang BBC Radio Norfolk next day and asked on air if anyone had seen them as well/could identify them, but wasn't able to follow the show as we were out in the car when I the called me and our radio doesn't work. But they are posting me a recording of show.

They also appeared - this time there were two formations, one after other - the following night and I watched them from our lodge on the site. I'm pretty sure I could see from time to time though what appeared to be beams coming from the ground though - which would probably confirm my theory of course. But intriguing nonetheless."

26 August - Dorset

"On Sunday the 26th August, six of us were sitting out side looking for Mars as the sky was clear and the moon was nearly full visibility was good. It was about 9.30 ~10pm ish.. We were looking over to Bulbarrow Hill in Dorset, and saw two red/orange objects that at first we thought were stars, but realised they were moving slowly together. They were not flashing like an aircraft and seemed to be quite large, the second one stopped and suddenly became really bright and then it seemed to pour out an orange light underneath it which looked like molten metal which left a long line of light the object then went down slowly and straight in the same direction as the light.

We thought that it was a plane and that it was in trouble and crashing, we ran inside to go up to the attic to get a better view. We could still see the light of the object hovering it then started to climb in height again straight up the path it came down, it then flew to the other object and both just vanished - didn't fly off into the distance just completely vanished. I can't find an explanation for what we saw, but we certainly spent the couple of hours trying to work it out.

Did anyone else see this on the same night?"

A very strange sighting, with no immediately rational explanation.

17 August - Kent

"I'm not sure what I saw, but on the 17th at 9.30pm in our garden there was strange lights around 20 foot from the ground. Revolving discs of very faint lights around 10 foot across with a main continuous line just inside of these lights. The whole thing was spinning fast.

It pivoted onto its side and then horizontal, it was then I could see lines coming down from the main discs to a point. At the end of the point was a ball.

Situated at the top of Keycol Hill in Kent this circle started to get larger and then small again. It started to move down the hill and disappeared into the neighbours garden. I looked out later but no sign.

It was only visible with our outside light shining on it, when this light was turned off you couldn't see it. I checked to see if any party's were going on or if it could have been a reflection from our pond but it changed in size and the rate at which it was spinning would have meant something revolving in the garden and there was nothing. There was also nothing up in the sky. These whitish colour discs looked like swarms of insects caught in the light but they were in such definite circles and all spinning."

A very curious sighting, not least that the UFO was only apparently visible, or illuminated, by a ground-based light source?

17 August - Somerset

"I went to bed about 12.00pm and almost fell off to sleep I woke up about 4.00am for no reason and almost immediately looked out the window like I was drawn, the curtains were ajar for air to come in, I seen this very large light in the sky really bright and round like a large headlamp it also had 2 more smaller lights underneath the large one and they too were bright the smaller lights moved up and down.

The aircraft was moving from side to side and seemed to take a few seconds before it dropped a few feet then went back up again. Hovering over the sky it then went past over the house which normally is not a flight path so I thought that was unusual I didn't really think of it much, I thought strange and fell back to sleep it was only this morning that once alert I have realised what I might have seen with no evidence to back my story - a UFO! I believe that is what I saw, there was no loud engine noise but a humming noise which I heard as it went over the house. I have not told anyone my story only my husband and he is fascinated by this story and was sad I did not wake him to see it, but Ii will take my phone which has a camera on upstairs in the future in case they return? I did not see anything apart from the lights which were very bright indeed yellow headlamps I will never forget!"

There are so many elements of this sighting that illustrate the 'classic' UFO sighting, not least the illogical manner in which the mind casually observes and almost dismisses the fact it is witness to a very unusual event; it is only in the following hours and days that the importance became apparent.

12 August - Bilton, Warks

"At 9-15pm I saw 3 objects orange in colour which seemed to be pulsating and flickering again fly over the rear of our property but this time in the opposite direction to last time --west to east. Again the 3 objects were approx the size of footballs and flying very low, about the height small aircraft fly and the objects appeared one after the other about 30 seconds apart from each other flying in a complete straight line and with no sound what so ever!"

12 August 2007 - Shoreditch

"At approx 12.30am on Saturday 12th August 2007 myself and about four customers were sitting in the pub's beer garden when one of our number saw a number of slow moving objects, bright orange in colour, moving from south to north in formation.

There were two horizontal line of four with one light centrally above them and they were moving very slowly. As we watched one by one the 'lights' were extinguished until only the lone light at the top was visible, after about ten seconds this light went out as well.

The following day another customer reported seeing something similar from around two miles north. Can anyone enlighten us?"

In common with many sightings/reports this summer, we are 99% certain that fire lanterns were responsible for both of these sightings.

7 August 2007

"I couldn't sleep as it was hot and humid, there was a feeling like a thunder storm was coming but it didn't come. So I got out of bed and looked out of my window towards the really very clear sky where I could see all the stars very brightly. Whilst leaning and looking for about ten minutes I saw a brighter star-like shape, a bit larger than any other star and much brighter.

The star moved from east to west over my house, I ran out the back to see it move over our house. It was very high up in the sky and every few minutes it would stop and zig-zag for a few seconds and then go back to it's straight line. It stopped about four times all the time i could see it properly until it just went into the horizon. The air felt like a thunder storm feeling coming although nothing did come. It also made me fee on-edge for the night and the next night. The following day we had a power failure in our home and the surrounding area did too.

This place where it happened is very rural and very quiet. the skies were clear so I could see all the stars at night."

9 August - Northwich, Cheshire

"I was watching the stars from my home at around 11:30 when I witnessed two unexplained lights. One light was moving speedily across the sky with another zigzagging and flying around the other as if chasing it. The second light then disappeared and the other continued moving speedily across the skyline almost buzzing in a juddery type motion making sharp movements. It then did a sharp backwards z movement and disappeared for about a minute before reappearing travelling in the opposite direction making more sharp juddery movements before it disappeared in roughly the same position as the first light had disappeared previously. It appeared at times to have lights spinning around it. It was hard to distinguish as it was so high up and if stationary you would have mistaken it for a star.

I have never seen anything like this before and so I am wondering whether there have been any other reports or there could be a logical explanation?"

4 August - Lowestoft, Suffolk

"On Saturday whilst at home in Lowestoft, that apparently familiar object appeared shortly after 10.30 pm. On the following Tuesday I heard Suffolk radio discussing the subject.

My first sighting witnessed the object relatively low west of my position, and it was fast. On all successive passes the object was seen high & directly above, approximately 15 minutes between passes. This continued until around midnight.

On the first, lower, faster pass I am certain an array of 'normal' aircraft recognition lights was visible, but not on the higher passes.

The most unusual aspects of this sighting which I have never experienced previously is the vivid orange glow & absence of any noise.

I suspect USAF may have a silent propulsion in the making, but why test here when they have huge expanses of 'private' desert in which to experiment on home soil?"

We have been in regular contact with the witness on this report, not least as Brian James was going to be in the Lowestoft/Kessingland area in September*. Apparently this UFO has been seen sporadically since 2002; from the time between passes this clearly is not orbital, although it is difficult to conceive how this 'vehicle' is effectively orbiting the Earth as it gains altitude in only 15 minutes; with this sort of velocity you break Earth's gravity and do not orbit - so either it is using a lot of energy to gain altitude but orbit, or there may be a flight/series of these going over.

*Despite 6 hours of skywatching on 3 clear nights on Kessingland Beach, nothing unusual was seen!

5 August - Hinckley, Leics

"At approximately 22:16 GMT in the sky I spotted from my living room's window a blazing orange light at an indeterminable altitude and moved out into the garden of the house to get a better look, as did the two people sharing the house with me - whom I had summoned to view the light.

With a clear view of the object, it was evident that it was circling in a linear pattern repetitively, billowing smoke behind it. The light itself was in the region of 10 times brighter than a standard-intensity star. After circling for what might've been twelve times under my observation, it suddenly dimmed by about a factor of 4, the smoke ceased and, accelerating to a speed I have never seen in an aircraft, flew across the sky towards the south-east. Throughout this entire process - which lasted for about 30 seconds, including the visible flight of the orange object - there was absolute silence.

The three of us observers agreed that for one thing, it couldn't have been a plane; the circling, spiralling motion, the brightness and smoking, the lack of sound and the speed of the object after acceleration makes it extremely unlikely. Secondly, it couldn't have been a meteorite; meteorites do not spiral in smooth circles in the air and then suddenly change direction, accelerating off into the distance - as far as I'm aware, at least. It couldn't have been a rocket or firework for the reasons of lack of sound, speed of travel and, well, it didn't explode."

28 July - High Wycombe, Bucks

"As BEAMS was notified of the sighting in Stratford in Warwickshire, I decided to email you to tell you of an unexplained sighting of lights in the sky over High Wycombe at about 11pm on Saturday 28th July 2007.

We were just leaving our friends house when we all saw a formation of lights above the rooftops of the houses opposite. It was pouring with rain at the time and there were no stars or moon on view. The formation was shaped like a kite (a diamond formation with a tail coming off one of the points). We were trying to work out what these lights might be when we realised they had started to move. The diamond formation gradually became a curve with attached to the tail (like a laid down S)

The lights were moving fairly slowly to our right and the lights gradually disappeared from the beginning of the formation as they moved right. As the last but one light disappeared, the last one went quickly backwards to the left. There were approx. 11 lights in the original formation and we could not hear any noise from them. They appeared to be too close together to be aircraft of any sort and it seemed unlikely to be lanterns or anything similar because of the change in the formation and the way the last one went in completely the opposite

direction. We were looking in a NNE direction when we saw them."

18 July - Blandford, Dorset

"At approx 2pm I was driving from Shaftesbury to Weymouth when I was just getting into Blandford, I said to my girlfriend "Look at that what is it?"

It was a dark silver oval object falling from the sky it was huge, It was approx 5 miles away in the distance, It was falling from over 1000 ft and fast in a straight line, there must be some explanation for this? We lost sight of the object after passing a few trees, the object had gone."

8 July - Peterborough, Cambs

"I just wanted to report that at 1:27pm I saw two objects in the sky, and from what I saw I could not identify them as any kind of aircraft. They were a totally solid, round dark shape.

It was a bright sunny but cloudy day, I saw the first UFO in front of the cloud. It then moved right next to the right side of the cloud. It stood there for a few seconds then moved left and disappeared into the cloud. It appeared again then stood exactly in the same place as it did before.

Then a second object appeared out of the cloud then hovered underneath the first object for a second or so. Then the second object moved back into the cloud then appeared again. It repeated this a few times as if playing hide and seek!

I tried to record them on my mobile phone but it ran out of memory! I did get one of the UFO on it but I had to zoom in. On the film it appeared from the right of the screen and does a very fast U-turn and the film ran out."

14 June - Stratford upon Avon, Warks

On Sunday 15 June we received a report of an event from Stratford upon Avon the previous evening:

"Six of us witnessed the lights over Stratford upon Avon, at around 10:30 - 10:45. First of all 4 bright orange lights came slowly across the sky from south to north. Then they slowed down and arranged into a formation resembling the Plough (star constellation). Then a similar light appeared from the south and met up with the formation and completed the constellation. Following this stationary period (approx 1-2 mins) they formed a single vertical line and then one by one slowly faded.

The whole experience lasted approx 5-8 minutes. The plough like formation was also witness by a further group of 5 people who were just outside of Stratford."

This event was featured considerably in the popular media and UFO websites and forums, the curiosity being that most reports and discussions didn't occur until a week later, with claims of the UFO event sighting to have occurred on the 22nd June. It might be possible to consider two consecutive weekends of events, but the reports described such a similar, if not identical, event that we may have to conclude that the media were simply a week late in reporting, without checking the data! Regardless of the date or dates, the description and other video footage clearly show a flight of fire lanterns.

22 June - Yorkshire

"I have just returned from a weeks holiday in Robin Hoods Bay. On our last night in the bay (Friday) we were walking our dog at about 11.00pm; we walked down the steps from the dock along the sea wall facing the big hill of Ravens Car, Boggle Hole etc etc.

We noticed a bright orange/yellow light which appeared to be moving up the hill. at first I thought it was a car but it seemed far to bright and there is no main road running up that hill. The light then continued moving up the hill and then I realised that it was actually mid air, it came to the top of the hill and carried on moving up into the sky. It moved fairly slowly but progressively. it climbed higher and higher much higher than a helicopter (for a brief moment we thought it may be a helicopter) the object then moved slightly to the left (our right) climbed a bit higher still and entered a small cloud. It never came out of the cloud it just disappeared. It was very strange as there was no sound or other coloured lights on the object, it seemed to fade as it got higher.

We cannot explain it; my boyfriend is very quick to dismiss peoples claims of seeing UFOs, but even he said he cannot explain what he saw. The duration of time from when we first saw the object to when it disappeared was around 2-3 mins."

23 June - Wareham

"My wife and I witnessed at least six objects at 23:10 hrs yesterday. They seemed to have multi coloured lights (red, green) and were travelling from west to east. After going behind a small amount of cloud they simply vanished. They was no noise from any engines.

A bit odd but thought you might want to know."

14 May - Corfu

"At approx 21:00hrs (19:00hrs GMT) in a clear sky over Agios (Corfu) Greece, I saw a rapid moving star like object.

It appeared to extinguish then re-light in shallow zig-zag pulses shooting across the entire night sky from East to West. I estimate it must have taken just two seconds, three at the most.

Could it be the development and/or testing of a Pulse Jet Engine? Has anyone else seen this?"

[Certainly an intriguing sighting, and oddly not the only report/sighting of a rapid light that the observer suspected to be of an experimental or development propulsion system - see the reports from Lowestoft/Suffolk.

20 May - Cheshire

"At 10.30pm, I was with my girlfriend outside my house in Hollingworth when we both saw and object in the sky that we can only describe as a ball of fire.

As we tracked it through the sky, we could actually see the flames coming off this object which didn't diminish or get any bigger. At first we thought it was an aircraft in trouble as it was on a similar flight path as the planes which come over on their way into Manchester airport but this was not only silent, it was just a ball of fire and looked relatively low in the sky and was about the size of a small car.

I then thought it was probably a balloon or some burning paper from a bonfire that had taken to the air but as mentioned before, it didn't burn out and it seemed bigger than a piece of rubbish on fire.

The 'light' kept a straight course and actually gained altitude as we watched it for 7 minutes or so we could see it. As it got higher and further away, it faded as it reached cloud level until the cloud eventually obscured our view.

The direction of the light was roughly in the direction of Stockport/Macclesfield slightly off course from which direction the planes take when coming in to land at Manchester. I was just wondering if there had been any other reports of this sighting and if indeed any authority has commented on this or explained its origin? It could have possibly been a weather balloon that had caught fire but it was on fire far too long and would've burnt out pretty quickly. This 'ball of fire' remained the same size and didn't get any dimmer or brighter for the 7 minutes we watched it."

19 May - Suffolk

"Last night a friend and I both witnessed two sightings within 30 seconds of each other of an unidentified object flying north east over Aldeburgh (Suffolk). We assumed the first to perhaps be a comet, but were struck by its glowing orange colour, somewhat like a round fireball.

The second of these sightings was identical to the first, but we were able to focus on it for longer- and the object appeared to be shaped like a cone, or spinning top- again a very bright, glowing orange colour, as if on fire, and rotating very quickly while crossing the sky. This second sighting confirmed that these objects could not be possibly have been comets, nor could they have been aircraft, due to their colour, round cone-like shape, and the speed at which they were travelling. It was a clear night, and there was very little light pollution. The sightings were at roughly at 10.00pm. Neither of us have any particular interest or belief in the existence of UFOs- which is why these sightings seemed striking enough to write in about."

After some discussion with the witness, he concluded that it was likely that they had been watching fire lanterns.

A corroborative UFO sighting from 1993?

"I was searching on the Internet for sightings of UFO's on the M42 near Birmingham and came across your article "1993 - M42 nr Birmingham".

The reason I was searching for such an article was that in the summer of 1993, I (10 years old at the time), my mother, grandmother, aunt and sister were travelling back from Cornwall on the M42 near Henley-in-Arden at around midnight when we all sighted a UFO about 70-80ft above the motorway. The UFO was clearly visible above the motorway a bright white coloured, slightly elongated/cigar shaped vessel. All of us in the car saw it and were unable to fathom what it could be. Some detail was visible on the vessel as it was that low. My mother tried to stop the car to have a closer look but we were too scared and made her carry on (it was close enough already!) The object had initially appeared as orange coloured from some distance away but as we got closer it became more white in colour. Even my grandmother's (who was in her 60's at the time and speaks mainly Punjabi) first remarks were "Look! spaceship!".

No matter how much I tried to rationalise what we all saw as a balloon or helicopter I couldn't escape the fact that it was neither of those things. Everyone else that was in the car feels the same. I remember my mother reporting it to a UFO society at the time but I can't remember which."

7 May - UFOs over Cheltenham

"I have big bay living room windows, I was looking out last night and I saw a craft that was two constant lights in tandem, it moved quickly towards me and came to a halt just above my house, it just sat there still. To my astonishment as I looked further up as I got near my window, there was another real close, exactly the same both 2 lights, with what looked like a red light in the middle that came on at times.

They definitely were not helicopters or planes, the way they moved freely and changing direction was different. I have seen a black triangle clear as day 11 years ago, but this was something different; seemed to come towards me after I spotted it, I dont know where the other came from."

An older report from Stretford...

"Hi, I recently stumbled across your website trying to get a search on UFO sightings over Stretford in Manchester.

The reason for this is because back in 1997 I had a sighting that was so profound it's always stayed with me since my childhood, I am now currently 20 and decided to find out what it was. I will go on to explain the craft and would hope that you have received any information that's similar to it's shape and size I would be very interested in hearing it, but I hope my info will help towards your website and research.

The night was very clear and there were no clouds in the sky. The area I live was quite secluded and the stars that night were very visible. Me and three others were sat outside in my street; that's when I looked up and saw the craft.

It was so unbelievable and crystal clear. You could see the edges of the craft. It was the exact shape of a hexagon with three absolutely huge red spherical lights and was moving rapidly across the sky. The ship then shot about a mile across to the right instantly and starting it's accent upwards and finally went out of view (looked like it was heading out into space it moved that rapidly and disappeared so quickly). The whole thing lasted about 30 seconds. What struck me was how much detail I could see, it must have been not that far above us and also how bright the red lights were. The craft was completely black but you could clearly see a shape from it's silhouette in the starlight."

2 May - Stockport

At 9.30-10 30 in a clear sky "It was yellow/red in colour flashing on and off, I would say about the size of your thumb no clear outline; it moved across the sky in a line stopped for about 2/3mins then moved away. [It] returned about 30 mins later stayed in the sky for about 10/15 mins, then moved off again this was seen by about 8 other people at the same time. It was not a plane as we see planes every few mins as the fight path comes over our house to Manchester airport. It made no sound. At first I thought it was a plane engine on fire until it stopped and was flashing on and off. This happened on Wednesday night."

20 April - Sidcup, Kent

Another new report:

"At about 21.00 hrs tonight we have seen around 50 orange lights moving across the sky. They were totally silent, and in some sort of weird formation, some in a triangle shape. Neighbours were out in the street watching them. They all passed in about 30 minutes and just started to disappear!. Really weird!"

The 2nd such report from Kent within a week, and again seemingly very suggestive of a flight of fire lanterns.

18 April - Beeston Ryland, Notts

Another new report:

"I live in Beeston Ryland near the final approach for East Midlands airport; I smoke outside in my garden so have nothing better to do than watch the skies, which has become a bit of an obsession. I have just been out side and saw what looked like a massive shining star, it was moving in a westerly direction; it appeared to get higher and higher then all of a sudden the lights when out on it then just vanished!

This is the second time I have seen it. Does anyone have an explanation?"

In certain respects this sounds like a sighting of the ISS going over before fading as it is eclipsed by the body of the Earth; however, this UFO/light was travelling in the opposite direction to the ISS's orbit.

17 April - Cheshire

"At around 22.55 hours I spotted an intense white light in the night sky, occasionally spikes of white light emitted from it as did intermittent neon green spikes of light; it stayed in one spot for around 7 minutes or so. I happen to own a telescope, and took it into the garden to view this UFO, the lenses are quite cheap but I could see through the 'scope a white sphere which had no particular evidence of any other colours.

That's all the info I can give you, this is the first time I've witnessed anything like this. I'm hoping that I wasn't alone in what I have witnessed, please let me know if this was sighted by others."

This is a new report, so far we do not know of corroborative sightings.

14 April - Gravesend, Kent

"IG" of Gravesend sent us some digital photos taken of lights/objects seen from his home at 11.30pm.  Unfortunately the camera's focus and narrow depth of field means that the lights appear more like 'orbs'; however the report of numerous lights travelling across the sky in various formations is again suggestive of the dreaded fire lanterns.

10 April - Wakefield, Yorkshire

Another report of a laser-like light event:

"In the South/South West we saw a circular shape with blue, green and yellow lights alternately flashing in the centre, with a red light rotating around the outside. It hovered in the same place for 30 minutes then faded quickly and disappeared.

If you have any other sightings that correspond with this one, we would like to know that we are not the only ones who saw it!"

There is a strong similarity to event at Radstock in Avon on 30th January. 

So far we know of no other similar reports for the Wakefield area that night.

8 April - Cranleigh, Surrey

A group of people were still playing hockey just after dusk when their attention was drawn to an orange/amber pulsating light high in the sky to the south. Initially it was moving slowly, but as it was pulsating it then speeded up and started to 'shine' more constantly; it then stopped in the sky before slowly fading before vanishing from sight.

29 March - Bampton, Oxon

At around 10.30pm "JG's" wife called him to his kitchen, as she was observing a bright light away in the distance, estimated ot be 4-5 miles away.  JG didn't have a camera available, but did have some 7x50 binocs; through these he could see the light or object was a rather obtuse triangular or conical shape with the longest side upwards; the object seemed to be comprised of many different lights making up the whole.

The object was in view for some 20 minutes before it went out or vanished.

It is worth noting that Bampton is close to RAF Brize Norton, home to many different aircraft types, but notably C-17's, Tristar's, VC10's and VC-10K tankers; it is hard to see how an aircraft in circuit could have appeared like this object in one position for 20 minutes.

15 March - Wigan

The witness was in his back garden (waiting for his dog..) at 7.15pm; he looked around the sky at the stars that were visible; however his attention was drawn to and by 4 amber/orange star-like lights flying towards him high in the sky.  Two of these lights then shot off while the remaining 2 continued their path overhead before disappearing in the distance. 

The witness has never seen anything like these before, while it would be easy to think these could have been man-made (possibly fire lanterns?) or perhaps NOSS satellites in formation (although 2 could not have dramatically accelerated away); the witness describes their relatively fast motion as zig-zagging or almost dancing while moving in a general straight line - a common aspect to the well-known 'West Country Flap' sightings or a formation of lights in 1993; indeed a family UFO sighting from 1974 was of a fast moving light that zig-zagged while flying on a set path.

mid-March - Eclipse UFOs - the Misinformation Media

In the week after the Lunar eclipse, the local papers (and their websites) - notably the Oxford Mail and Witney Gazette - ran the story of the UFO(s) seen over Witney during the eclipse.  On 8 March the Oxford Mail then ran a supplementary story 'explaining' the sightings... 

A police officer who lives in Witney had apparently bought a single Chinese lantern/fire balloon which he launched on the Saturday evening (at an unspecified time) to mark his wife's birthday.  Naturally as this was explained by a police officer the paper assumed case closed - never let the lack of facts get in the way of a story!

Needless to say that even if this lantern launched over Witney had been responsible for the sighting(s) over Witney at 10.00pm; it clearly could not and does not explain the sighting of 4 separate lights over central and north Oxford an hour later.

11 March - Benson, Oxfordshire

Although unusual, this type of report of a UFO 'hearing' as opposed to sighting is not unique:

"At approx 01.50 whilst in bed I awoke for some reason. Whilst lying in bed I became aware of a sound that seemed to be outside the house. I can describe it accurately as a low pitched slow rhythmic buzzing sound, the sound you'd expect some electric device to make. Over a few minutes it began to get louder, and seemed to be coming closer.

At this point I opened the curtains and looked out of the window. I could not see anything, but the night was very clear with no or almost no cloud cover, I could make out the constellations quite clearly. I moved to the other side of the house and checked out of another window, again all was still and unmoving just as one would expect.

Returning to the bedroom my wife was awoken by my movements and upon waking could confirm she too could hear the noise. Now I opened the window and the sound definitely got louder and clearer emanating definitely from outside. Again I checked the sky and surrounding area, and could not see anything. I closed the window and returned to bed listening to the sound. It still remained the same speed of pulsing and gradually over the course of twenty minutes till (definitely) 02.10 disappeared from my range of hearing.

I should point out at this time that I live near RAF Benson in Oxfordshire and am quite used to Helicopter craft [Merlin and Puma] making night manoeuvres around the district. I can categorically confirm that this was not a helicopter, nor a plane and moving (which I assume by the Doppler shift in sound as it passed) very slowly.

At this time the event remains unexplained, yet has intrigued me so much that today I will endeavour to contact the RAF at Benson to confirm any night manoeuvres and contact the local press to see if anyone else witnessed anything."

In reply to our response to the report, it was interesting to see how the witnesses perception to the subject had changed:

"I've asked neighbours and they report hearing nothing out of the unusual and I must admit to being laughed at a few times. I now understand something of the stigma these reports get from people, I can't imagine how someone with 'real' evidence would feel!

I've seen things in the skies over the years, things I cannot identify for certain, but whose most likely explanation is mundane, but this event has played on my mind permanently since. If only I had some visual evidence! If there was a movie scene of a giant spacecraft slowly moving across a town, the sound effect I experienced would be perfect!"

3 March - Lunar Eclipse, and what else above Oxfordshire?

The night of Saturday 3 March saw remarkably good sky conditions across the country for a very favourable total Lunar eclipse; I watched (and photographed) the event from beginning to end.

On Sunday 4 March we received a phone call from a lady in central Oxford, who during the eclipse at around 11.00pm had seen 4 bright amber lights flying low over central Oxford coming in from the east; these lights were so low that the light beams could be seen in some low mist; the witness and her husband were convinced an aircraft was crashing.  However, these lights made no sound at all, despite their proximity to the ground; and as they got closer, the witness could see no structure or fuselage between the lights.  The 4 lights then split into 2 pairs, one pair veered to the north, and the other to the south.  The witness, who was shocked by what she had seen, went inside and phone her daughter who lives in the north of Oxford; the daughter looked out from her home and also saw 4 low bright lights coming in from the east.  These lights clearly were not the same as seen by the original witness some minutes earlier.

On the Monday we then received a report from Witney, where a witness and his family had seen a low-flying amber light coming from the south at around 10.00pm; again the witnesses had believed a low-flying plane may have been crashing; this light then veered to the east.  This witness had also phoned family who lived north of Witney, who had also seen the same or similar light.

1 February - London

On 2nd February the witness contacted us to report a sighting of a large number of lights over London at 5.30 pm the previous day - this proved to be a mass sighting reported to many group, forums and the media.

The witness reported 50+ yellow/orange lights floating silently over north London; moving slowly but apparently climbing slowly, before each light vanished.  The witness clearly knew these were not aircraft or orbiting space vehicles.

The description seemed to be yet another sighting of a mass launch/flight of fire balloons/lanterns.  The witness - who has a degree in aerospace engineering - to his credit conducted his own research with balloon importers, and watched various clips of video footage of these.

On 3 February the witness contacted us again to confirm that he had simply misinterpreted a flight of these lanterns.  Subsequently Camden Council confirmed that they had licensed a private party to launch fire lanterns from a public area - hence the need for a license.

While this witness confirmed that the sighting had indeed been of fire lanterns, debate still rages amongst other groups and researchers, many of whom are determined to ignore the reports of witnesses and continue to promote this as a mystery.

30 January - Radstock, Somerset

At 7.10pm the witness was standing in her field when she noticed what she described as a strange 'cloud'; in that the cloud was circular, comprising two concentric circles of white lines, the inner one of which was revolving. 

The witness couldn't believe her eyes, but watched this show for 5 minutes before the lights started moving, at first diagonally and then in a sweeping circular motion before suddenly vanishing.

While no corroborative evidence has been found, this again is very suggestive of a laser display - see the UFO report pages for further examples down the years.  However, the witness was well over a mile from habitation and lights, and feels sure she would have been able to see the source of a laser display.

21 January - Lancashire

A UFO report from "MM":

"At 7.30pm, I was approaching Read from Clitheroe and noticed some flashing lights which looked like an low altitude aeroplane flying directly towards me from the Blackburn area, so thought nothing of it. It was only when it got closer that I noticed the it was quite large and had a strange light pattern, still very much like a plane but there was something out of the ordinary about it, then it turned round and started to head back to Blackburn. Again I passed it off as just a passenger plane making a turn for an airport.

However, within a few minutes it was heading back towards me, this is when alarm bells started to ring because a plane that size would not be flying as low as this was unless it was on its landing approach; I took more time to look at it in detail and noticed that it wasn't like anything I had ever seen before; the light pattern underneath looked like a diamond of 4 lights at the rear and one light right at the very front. Yes I agree this looks like a plane, but how many passenger size planes have the wings set at the rear? The UFO/plane then continued to fly over the Ribble Valley until a small fighter-like plane intercepted it and then followed it wherever it went, the fighter plane stayed behind and above the other plane for quite sometime, following its every move; soon after the large UFO/plane disappeared."

21 January - Bishops Stortford

3 witnesses saw something strange over Bishops Stortford; it was a very clear night and the witnesses saw a large  unequal 'triangular shape' sweep across the sky, blotting out stars as it went.  At first they assumed it was night-flying birds (geese or swans), but it was too big, and there was a solidity or opaqueness to the mass, with an odd almost reflective colour; there also appeared to be 3 or 4 lighter coloured 'panels' on the underside.