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13th
June 2001, Neath Valley South Wales
From
Sian,
"I
was sitting opposite my front room window on the night of Wednesday. My
attention was distracted suddenly from the television by a bright white light in
the sky high up over the northern horizon, on the opposite side of the valley.
It suddenly appeared in a cloudless blue sky just before dusk, when visibility
was good. It was like an explosion and appeared to be about four times the size
of a planet visible to the naked eye. The light lasted about 2 seconds and just
before it disappeared, I saw at its centre what looked like a metallic silver
coloured cylindical object which I thought was the body of an aeroplane, as if
being illuminated like a reflection, by the sun. The sun was however setting
behind and not in front of this object and although I assumed it must have been
an aeroplane, there was no visible vapour trail and there was no sign of any
object in the sky either at or near where I saw the light. My husband hurriedly
fetched my binoculars and after scanning the sky there was nothing to see
anywhere, no moving specks, no aeroplanes.
I
know this was the night when you could see Mars, but Mars would have appeared as
a red planet (which we opten look at in clear skies) and was apparently rising
in the South East (A DIFFERENT DIRECTION) at about 2140 12 degrees above the
horizon. This object was much higher and a different colour and direction.
Could
there be a simple explanation as to what I saw ?"
Our
first thoughts were that Sian had been fortunate to have a very clear view of an
Iridium flash. However, checking on databases such as Heavens Above,
revealed that NO confirmation could be made of an Iridium being visible at the
witness's location (and she had been able to give us very accurate measurements
of latitude & longitude.
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