Date: December 23, 1993
Time: Approx: 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. (rush hour)
Location of Sighting: Junction Road Sheffield UK.
Number of witnesses: 2
Number of Objects: 1
Shape of Objects: Hazelnut, possibly triangular?
Full Description of Event/Sighting: Initially a steady bright white light viewed looking east towards Sheffield City center from Junction Road, Hunters Bar (S11 8AX). We were waiting for a bus, which was delayed in heavy rush hour traffic and noted the light. It was much bigger than Sirius or any of the planets, and appeared brighter than a star usually does, Like a floodlight without the flood" was how I described it at the time.
As it was close to Christmas and we first presumed it was something to do with a Christmas show of some kind. After noticing and mentioning the light we continued waiting for our bus and chatting, the light remained and did not change in appearance for quite some time before the conversation turned to the object once again. "What is that, the star of Bethlehem?" we joked.
After approximately 40 minutes from first noticing the light, something began to happen which is a little difficult to explain. More lights, at first not as bright as the first, began to appear in close proximity to the left of the first light. The first 'new' light to appear left a space between itself and the original light, the space was then promptly filled with a few more lights. The whole motion gave the impression that we had been viewing something from one side/corner for the past 40 minutes and that object was now slowly turning to face us head on.
If this were true, then the side we were looking at must have been concave to account for the order the 'new' lights appeared in. We were under the impression that the object was approximately over the city center, about a mile away. If that were true, the object was enormous as after it turned to face us it was about the same width of the roof of 1 house in the foreground.
Here's a Google street view, it's not quite from the right angle though. (Vike Factor Note): Wasn’t able to get the map to work, the web address was not correct)
We did point at the sky and get excited, nobody seemed to take much notice of us or the object/lights we could see even though the traffic was stationary in the rush hour.
All of the lights now pulsated from left to right and now looked more like tube lighting you would find on cinema floors, white, grey and slightly blue. It may sound strange, but the pulsating was almost 'alive', like blood pumping through the body. We couldn't discern the edges of the object nor the exact shape it was almost an impression of a shape, black, like a 'hole' in the sky or camouflaged. It made no sound, well none that we could hear.
The object started to move slowly towards us, initially we thought it was heading straight for us, but as it got closer it became apparent that it was heading slightly to our right, SW. Two helicopters arrived from the SW on our right and then two also came on the left, all 4 were heading in the direction of the object, the object 'shot off' at incredible speed past the helicopters on our right then stopped and remained still, it now looked much smaller.
The helicopters appeared to be looking for something, after a minute or 2 the helicopters on our right turned around as though they were heading to the objects new location. The object shot vertically into the sky and disappeared, it looked like a shooting star. The helicopters flew around searching, our bus arrived and we went to the supermarket.
The mundane supermarket experience brought us back down to earth and we mentioned that we would not really believe our own eyes if we had been alone. Later that night we asked everyone we knew if they had seen anything, one friend said he'd been Christmas shopping, seen lights above the direction of the town hall and just presumed it was a Christmas light show.
I called someone to report the incident, not the police, but unfortunately I can't remember exactly who I called (I could try to find out), they told me it was space debris burning up on re-entry to the earths atmosphere and there had been many sightings of it in Scotland recently. I am not an astronomer by no means, but had been on a astronomy course and felt I could tell the difference between a celestial body, space debris burning up, terrestrial aircraft and the object we saw
If you have seen anything like this in the same area please be kind enough to contact Brian Vike at:
sighting@telus.net with the details of your sighting.
All personal information is kept confidential.
Sightings.com website: http://www.sightings.com/
