Ardrossan Herald | News | MORE 'UFOS' SPOTTED OVER THREE TOWNS

Published: Friday, 16th May, 2008 12:00

MORE 'UFOS' SPOTTED OVER THREE TOWNS

By Fiona Simpson

MORE strange lights have been seen floating over Saltcoats on Sunday night and it is thought that they also appeared in Kilmarnock last weekend.

The Herald has been inundated with phone calls about the four strange lights spotted on Sunday, April 27 and now another Saltcoats man has told the Herald that he spotted them again on Sunday night.

Tony McLernon, 19, was in his home on Rosa Place when he noticed the lights floating in the sky above, he said: “I only saw one of them at first. It was a big orange light that was moving side to side. It then suddenly shot off and went behind my house. I ran inside and looked out my bedroom window, in the direction it went. This one light had now joined two others and was moving in a strange way. After a couple of minutes they shot up into the sky and disappeared. They looked just like the lights pictured in the Herald last week.

When asked what he thought the strange objects were he said: “To be honest I don’t really believe in wee green men but when I saw these lights flying around Saltcoats I don’t really know what to believe.

“They were nothing like Chinese lanterns, which you mentioned last week as I went and googled it to see what they did and the way this one light moved, well it was like something was controlling it.”

Two separate witnesses have also sighted the mysterious lights in Kilmarnock, last weekend.

On Saturday, May 3 around 10.40pm a 32-year-old woman, who wishes to remain anonymous noticed a bright light floating behind her home, she said: “I got a bit of a fright when I saw them because at first I just thought it was a plane or helicopter. But when I went out into the garden, it wasn’t making a sound and was closer than I realised.

“It was orange and yellow in colour and wasn’t that high of the ground. It was like the middle of it was a ball of fire. It is just so strange, I have never experienced anything like it before.”

Another witness spotted the same bright, orange light the night before and was floating in the skies over the New Farm Loch junction on the M77.

Mark Roberts of the Scottish Ufological Research Association (SURA) told the Herald: “At approximately 10pm a reliable witness reported to have seen a luminous white light flying from East to West either across the top or just behind of Kilmarnock.

“The witness was driving from Ayr to Kilmarnock via the motorway and cut off at New Farm Loch junction and drove along the back road towards Galston to try and get closer to the object.

“The object suddenly disappeared and was not to be seen. The sighting lasted for around one or two minutes. There is unfortunately no photo or video due to the fact the witness was driving.”

To try and get to the bottom of these unexplained innocents the Herald got in touch with several experts in the field of UFOs.

Nick Pope, who used to run the British Government’s UFO project and is now one of the leading experts in the unexplained, exclusively told the Herald: “It’s difficult to be certain, but this looks like it could be another sighting involving so-called Chinese Lanterns.

“These are increasingly popular in the UK and are used at weddings, parties and indeed in some deliberate attempts to generate reports of UFOs. They are often let off in groups and then appear to drift in the wind.

“If the

witnesses describe a different movement I’d have to think again, but Chinese Lanterns have been responsible for an increasing number of UFO sightings in the last year or two”

The sightings have also been viewed and discussed across the natation and one UFO enthusiast from Germany contacted us to explain the bizarre sightings, Werner Walter said: “Your actual UFO sighting is very ordinary here in Germany. Since 12 months ago we have been getting the exact same reports at the weekends in our UFO-Center from all across the nation. To date about 600 times. It is always the same thing- relatively cheap Asian Skylanterns. When they are seen in the night sky it can look like a scene from Spielberg’s Close Encounter.

“We have also done our own experiments with these Skylanterns and found that they spark calls of UFOs across the country and I believe what you have seen could be the same.”

However, the Herald is not satisfied with this explanation and will be testing this theory for ourselves later on in the week. Check out the website, www.ardrossanherald.com, for our video footage of the Chinese lanterns and see if you agree. Also see Werner Walter’s experiments through our site.

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