UFO Reports from the UK 

UFOs over Kent

[ Updated: 27/07/2008 ]

18 July 2008 - Ashford

Another possible fire lantern report:

"I wanted to bring to your attention something witnessed by myself and my wife at our home near Ashford Kent. We live in a rural area,  in a secluded spot, there is no light pollution to be seen at night, thus making where we are located an ideal spot for observing the night sky.

At 23:10  I was looking at the planet Jupiter through my 15x70 magnification binoculars, a few short moments later I was joined by my wife who also wished to view Jupiter as it was a very still night with a clear sky, perfect for viewing. At 23:20 both our attentions were drawn to a large, very bright glowing orange light heading in a Northerly direction from the South. The object was travelling at some speed when it suddenly stopped, for a second or two in our clear view. My wife continued looking at this through the binoculars, describing it at as being like a large flame coloured ball. There was no sound at all to be heard or any flashing lights, thus ruling out aircraft of any sort. The object then began gaining height and travelling in an Easterly direction.

We were quite frankly bemused by what we had just seen, having seen endless satellites and the international space station passing through the night sky and instantly knew it not to be anything like that. Another possible thought being that of a fire lantern (as we see have been well documented on the internet) but the speed of movement, stopping and complete change of direction doesn't seem possible to me for one of these lanterns? This is the first unidentified object we have witnessed in the night sky and have been left wondering as to what it may have been?"

22 December 2007 - Cranbrook

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.

17 August 2007 - 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?

20 April 2007 - Sidcup

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.

14 April 2007 - Gravesend

"IG" of Gravesend reports numerous lights travelling across the sky in various formations is again suggestive of the dreaded fire lanterns.

29 August 2003 – Tonbridge, Kent

From “RL”:

"Last night about midnight, I was having my last cigarette before I bed down for the night.  There in the night sky I saw a airliner flying towards London; seconds later I saw a bright light in which I thought was another airliner heading towards it, but it seamed higher in the sky.

I concentrated more on the light when slowly it faded, I then thought it may have entered a cloud so judging the speed I watched closely in the area then all of a sudden there was a blink of a bright light.  I rushed in-doors and turned the house light off returning back outside hoping to see a much clearer view -to my amazement there was no clouds in the sky, then all of a sudden a small bright light flared across the same area.

After thinking about what I saw putting in the context, bright light, then fading bright blink of light it may well been a meteor hitting the earths atmosphere, I do believe in UFOs and other beings out there in space."

Our first thought was that these two objects may have been a bright satellite and an Iridium flare, but available data doesn’t confirm a known-object in the right time in the direction(s) the witness was facing.

11 January , 2001 - M20, nr Snodland, Kent

The witness 'NK', was travelling alone along the M20 near Snodland between 10.45 and 10.50pm.  His attention was taken by three large steady bright yellow lights in an equilateral formation above the motorway, at probably no more than 200m up.  NK was travelling at about 70mph, and he was so taken aback and intrigued by the lights that he slowed up, and almost veered off the road!  He rapidly came up from behind to go under the lights, and as he was now doing around 50mph, this seemed strange to him, as he was apparently overtaking what he took to be aircraft landing lights, so any such aircraft was moving impossibly slowly (it would also be unusual for any aircraft to have bright 'landing lights' facing backwards). 

As he went under the lights, they dimmed, and NK could make out a clear triangle.  The lights were too far apart for them to be a helicopter, and there was no sign of the normal navigation lights that all aircraft are obliged to display.  No sound was heard, but with general road noise, and a CD playing, then external sounds may not have been obvious.

NK went home and surfed websites for UFO groups to report his sighting to. 

Summer 1997 - Sandwich, Kent

An older sighting - reported to us by "PK" - but I'm sure you'll agree one that is more than curious.

"I worked as a security guard at a factory in Sandwich. It has now been almost seven years and still I can remember it quite clearly.

I was on a night shift, and at approximately 01:00hrs I saw a black triangular craft with what appeared to be three coloured discs on the undercarriage, the discs appeared to be Red, Green and Blue, however they also appeared very dim, I can only describe this as traffic lights that were unlit.

The other thing that was interesting was that the triangular craft was flanked by two military jets, that I could clearly make out due to their sound and their flashing lights, the only sound I could make out as possibly coming from the triangular craft was a hum however I cannot confirm this due to the other craft noise.

All three craft were clearly visible and were not that high, so I could clearly see their shapes, against a well moonlit night.  The three craft headed out to sea and in the direction of Belgium. This triangular craft may well be a plane that had decided to not have his flashing light going, however I do not know of any plane having three discs that almost fill the undercarriage.

The discs on the craft were large almost covering the whole of the undercarriage, they were too big to be any kind of flap for possible landing gear, they were also very clearly displaying the colours stated. The black craft was a perfect triangle, with no jagged edges or visible rear tail fin. I do not know or believe this to be a stealth purely as there was no sign of a normal aircraft undercarriage only the large coloured discs. Due to the media interest in the stealth fighter/ Bomber since the first Gulf War, I believe I would have recognised it. I should point out that the escort aircraft were half the size of the triangular craft, although that could be because they were flying higher.

If you have any images of a stealth undercarriage that clearly show that there were discs instead of the regular flaps for the landing gear, email them to me and I will confirm if they are what I saw, or any other aircraft with this peculiarity on their undercarriage, I have not found any aircraft on the internet that would appear to have discs."

As I said, very curious. I am struggling to recall another FT sighting with these large coloured discs or 'lenses' underneath - clusters of lights or even large spotlights yes, but such large lenses no.

The fact that an escort of fighter-like aircraft were alongside only makes this more intriguing. As PK observes, these discs do not conform to any sort of undercarriage doors, and while we do know of some unusual lights even on the B2, nothing like as described here. It would be easy to speculate that these disks were some part of EM projection mechanism, or were they more akin to some sort of antigravity projectors - who knows?

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