NORTH WEST ‘Mini Flap’

Here I am trawling the news wires and such thinking to myself ‘It’s all gone a bit quiet’ when suddenly we appear to be caught up in a localised ‘Mini Flap’ two sightings in as many days one photographed and one captured on video ‘Has the invasion started’?

The first report comes from the researchers at MARA a UFO research group based in the North Western part of the country.

Light in the sky over Runcorn, UK 16th December

The following report came in from MARA member Mark Rosney.

As I left work tonight I saw something odd in the sky. I managed to take a picture (see below).

Summary Sighted: 5:20pm 16th December, Direction: South West (not MARS!) Elevation: approximately 15 degrees.

Sighting Description:

As I left work tonight I saw a meteor in the sky and that made me look skywards. As I walked towards Halton Lea shopping centre in Runcorn, a slowly moving bright white light caught my attention. As I walked, the light became obscured behind some trees and I thought to myself, when I catch sight of it again I'll see landing or navigation lights, thinking it was an aircraft.

When I did catch sight of it again, on the pedestrian bridge which goes over East Lane expressway, the light slowed to a stop. Then the brightness intensified to about magnitude -6 to -7. I suddenly remembered my camera in my bag. I loosed off a few shots but all these suffered from camera shake. Then I leaned the camera on the bridge rail and took one more shot before the batteries failed.

This is the one shown opposite. The light slowly changed colour from bright white to red/orange then purple to blue before disappearing completely (blinking out). Sky conditions were clear with just a little bit of thin cloud cover (as illuminated by the moon as a halo of ice crystals). Duration of observation 3 - 5 mins. My first thought was that it was an aircraft, but it slowed to a stop, went through a gradual colour change and blinked off as though someone had thrown a switch. It could not have been a planet or star as it was moving at first. No navigation lights were visible. If I had to choose something conventional I would have to go for a flare, but I feel this is also unlikely. Any suggestions?

If anyone would like the full size picture (262K) to analyse for themselves, please e-mail Bill Bimson If you have any further information on this sighting, please e-mail Mark Rosney

This story features on the MARA website.

http://www.mara.org.uk/Recent_news1.htm

I can hear the noisy, negative thinking, debunking sceptics already.

A light in the sky is no evidence of a UFO. Yes I agree but let’s give the witness some credibility here.

Runcorn in Cheshire is situated between two of the North West’s busy airports Manchester Ringway and Liverpool John Lennon, there is a third airport within 20 miles or so at Blackpool but this is nowhere near as busy as the others.

Our witness is a local he is quite aware of what fly’s around the skies of Cheshire that is why this sighting was strange enough for him to capture on camera. The hardened debunkers will say ‘It was an aircraft’ but those even harder nosed UFO people might draw the fact to our attention that not too many miles away from this sighting is the little village of Holmes Chapel.

Jodrell Bank radio telescope is situated there and one of it’s jobs is to share time with SETI in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Perhaps ET might just have found SETI?

Since publishing this item Mark Rosney has informed us that he thinks he might have the answer to his sighting.

Quote: from an email received 20^thDec 2005

I went out again tonight - first chance I have had since I only work in Runcorn Mon - Fri, and had a look at the location again. Venus was highly visible in the immediate proximity of where I shot the light. I have been in correspondence with a nice chap from Yorkshire who pointed out that Venus was a likely candidate, but I dismissed this at first because I thought it would be too low to be seen from where I was.

The amazing light effect could have been scintillation which does occur frequently especially for objects below 30 degrees, which could have been intensified by light shining through ice crystals high up?!!

Anyhow, for me this is now an IFO, and I have leaned a few lessons - 1. hang around longer (I couldn't that night as I was going for a bus) 2. check astronomical tables more carefully 3. keep a spare set of batteries handy! Hey ho.

UFODATA

Good on you Mark. It’s nice to hear from a researcher who just does not stops researching when involved in a sighting that produces evidence.

Venus has had the best fooled at one time or another.

Don’t give up the observations though.

Two reports in two days we claimed, well here is the second one.

The Kirklees district of West Yorkshire covers mile after mile of some of the most remote countryside in Yorkshire, from the flat lands of Wakefield right up to the highest motorway peak in the UK at over 1000ft high in the Pennine hills.

The Pennines of course are the geographical border between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

The witness viewed the sighting in broad daylight in an area that crosses to the Lancashire side of the Pennines.

Here’s how the story was reported in the local newspaper.

UFO sighting claim - watch the video!

Dec 15 2005.

By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A CROSLAND Moor woman has captured images of a strange object in the skies above Huddersfield.

Now she is hoping someone can identify the object, which she saw on Monday afternoon.

Teresa Millward, 28, of Crosland Moor, said: "It was very strange and slow-moving. It was shaped a bit like a triangle.

"I watched it travelling into the distance over the town, then it returned and seemed to move sideways."

She added: "I thought it was a hang glider or a balloon, but when it came closer I could see it was neither of those things."

Teresa photographed the UFO using a digital camera and recorded its movements on video.

Teresa, who is in a wheelchair while recovering from an accident on holiday in New Zealand, described Story originated

The area in question is a magnet for Hang Gliders, Para gliders and other ‘Off their head’ Sports so once again the debunkers out there will claim this is probably what was seen.

The witnesses video was linked from the newspapers website but I could not download the film for you to see on our site, so I simply provided a link from this article to the Huddersfield Examiner site.

Here’s one of those strange things Ufologist love about a story, something for the conspiracy boys to get hold of.

The link now reports ‘The content you require is not available’

MMMmmmm.

Well I saw the video when it was first posted and the web quality was 56k dial up at best. The detail was hard to make out but there was a triangular shape visible in the distance over the hills.

So far I have written to the Huddersfield Examiner asking if they will pass my contact details on to the witness so I can try to acquire a first generation copy of the sighting that we can host at full res here on UFODATA. As yet I have had no reply, so if anyone does know the witness could you please ask them to contact UFODATA via email for a chat in the first instance.

This artists impression from Frank Warrens site doesn’t really reflect what was seen on the video but we will use for illustration purposes here.

The picture shows Huddersfield Railway Station which in reality is about 8-10 miles at least from the locality of the sighting.

What I would like to suggest is that anyone with any free time over the next few days might just consider getting out and watching the skies.

The Huddersfield event happened in broad daylight whilst the Runcorn sighting was a nocturnal event.

Keep watching those skies you never know.

Thanks to the witnesses for sharing their experiences with the UFO community and of course please respect the researchers and reporters work that bring such articles to us.