Posted: January 10, 2009
Date: January 1, 2009
Time: Between 12.15 to 1.05 a.m.
Number of witnesses: 2
Number of objects: 10
Shape of objects: Large orange orbs, flying in formation.
Weather Conditions: Freezing, fairly clear sky, no wind or breeze, dark night.
Description: I was outside with my partner, welcoming in New Year and watching fireworks over the rooftops nearby, when we noticed 3 large orange orbs flying towards us, high overhead, just inland of the sea, moving directly East to West. They moved at constant speed but in a clear triangle formation. They were large orbs or balls, and bright orange in colour. They appeared to be flying as high as usual commercial aircraft would over this area, estimate maybe 15,000ft, but with no sound or blinking of lights (we're both very familiar with various aircraft lights, living on flight-paths of Gatwick, Heathrow and a small local airport). These were much, much larger than aircraft lights, and much brighter, steady orange lights.
Given the height they were at, they must have been of considerable size!
They reached a certain point in sky, still over the coastline, almost directly in line with the house, then seemed to shoot upwards and vanish one after another.
Several minutes later, another 3 appeared from same direction, and followed exactly the same sequence and triangle formation, reaching the same point in sky, in line with the house, then suddenly moved upwards and vanished.
I took a short video on the mobile phone, but it has not captured them anywhere near as clearly as could be seen with naked eye. I took a few still pics also, but these have come out as showing the objects as white circles or disc shaped, and not as clear or bright as what we could see ourselves.
We couldn't take our eyes off them, even though we were freezing cold and would rather have gone back into the warm house, we stood there discussing what we had seen. My partner is very logical and analytical and tried to find a possible rational explanation but couldn't find any to fit what we saw.
We were still stood discussing it when another 3 appeared, and again they followed the same path and formation before moving upwards vertically and vanishing, one by one, in the same spot. Then a final one, travelling alone, and seemingly much brighter and larger than the previous ones flew over. This too disappeared upwards in same location.
There was no wind, and no logical explanation for the triangle formation, flight path nor the sudden upwards movement before vanishing. They were definitely not fireworks, and from the size, height, speed, flight path and formation (and sudden upwards movement before vanishing) they definitely weren't balloons, planes or helicopters. We did wonder if they could be something related with the military, but we are within commercial airspace here, and even then we could not work out what sort of military craft could disappear so suddenly like these things did, or move so silently.
We were both 100% sober (non-drinkers), nor are we taken to flights of fancy. My partner has never seen a UFO before. I've had one brief daylight UFO sighting in the past, witnessed by others, but am not a UFO spotter or anything of that ilk.
Later on, we joked about not going outside alone in case one of us was "beamed up", we were only joking about it, as neither of us is afraid of being outside in the dark or anything like that, however, the fact is we were both a bit spooked by it. There was a strange and eerie feel about the whole thing. We both felt (independently of each other) almost as if maybe we had been spotted, or had been watched by these things, before they disappeared in the same spot above the house. We each had a sense that maybe they were watching us as much as we were watching them! Sounds strange, but true.
It's certainly given us something to ponder in 2009!
There may be plenty of other people who saw them? It was New Year, so quite likely a few folks were outside watching fireworks? Would be good to know if anyone else saw these unidentified flying orange lights!
-----
UFOINFO Note: As with other similar reports I asked the witness to have a look at the UFO Balloons website to see if this is what might have been seen and received the following reply:
Hello,
I did check the balloons video. It's possible this is what we saw, but I wouldn't have expected balloons to fly in such exact formation, nor suddenly ascend at exactly the same spot and vanish, especially with no wind, unless by large coincidence. Also, these looked more clearly like lights, as opposed to flames. But we'll keep an open mind. Best wishes!
Thank you to UFOINFO for this report. http://www.ufoinfo.com/
