LIVERPOOL UFO
from UFO DATA Magazine - July/August, 2006
Every now and again a series of events come together and, depending on how these events are interpreted, you can end up with a classic UFO encounter.
This particular case starts on the 5th June 2006 with the multiple reporting of strange lights and a military jet flying
very low in the night sky.
Our first witness, ‘Nicky’, contacted researcher Chris Rolfe, explaining that her husband had actually photographed the strange light that had been reported in local papers from the 5th June 2006. “We can confirm the time of the photograph as 22:12 my sister in law was leaving our house at the time of the event and happened to glance at her watch.
“It was my husband who initially witnessed the ball of fire in the sky., my sister-in-law, my son and I then joined him.
“Looking directly up from our home we watched what looked like a sphere, burning bright and covered in flames. It was glowing an orange, yellow light and had another light glowing in front and on top of it. The only way to describe it is like a comet without its tail.
“There was no noise, it was a normal sunny evening, no high winds or heavy breeze. The object was not high in the clouds but flying low slowly over our house. My husband asked my son to fetch his digital camera, which he could not get to work at first. It only came to life when the object had passed over our house.
“It shot vertically into the clouds, back down and left, it then shot up vertically again, turned black, which then looked like a black ball, free-fall and then shot off towards the East Lancs road and out of sight.
“We contacted the police to report it, they were very interested as they had received calls from the Wirral and Huyton.”
Actual object (right) Close up (left)
There are several similar accounts of this strange light being observed, but there are also several reports of a very low flying military jet performing high speed ‘afterburner engaged’ manoeuvres. One report came from somebody who was contacted by a friend on MSN messenger, telling him he was watching a strange green glow in the sky travelling towards Huyton from Liverpool and heading his way. Sure enough, two minutes later he saw the green light appear on the horizon followed by a very loud roar and two bright orange lights.
This particular witness believes what was seen on both occasions was the cockpit lights or navigation lights of the jet followed by the after burners when the plane climbed steeply away.
UFO DATA
The original MSN report does not mention noise, nav lights or afterburners, so you have to accept the possibility that the jet might have been following the green light or just in the sky at the same time.
The first report in this account mentions that the glow or light source appeared to go off as the object turned black, now there is some suggestion that the glowing object was in fact a ‘flying lantern’ or bin bag balloon and that the fact this thing went black could be the fire burning out. If this was the case, though, you would expect the balloon to simply fall to the ground, but it didn’t, in fact it slowed down, lost altitude, but then shot off into the clouds.
Researchers have been busy on this one and Merseyside Police admit they had received five individual reports of either strange lights, low flying aircraft or both but they would not elaborate apart from stating that Liverpool Johnm Lennon Airport had said that the sightings may well have been that of a military jet operating in the area.
The MOD were as ever forthright in their confirmation that they do not investigate ‘UAP’ sightings unless a threat to our airspace is involved and pointed out the do’s and don’ts of low-level flying over populated areas, however their spokesperson did point out that there had been a warehouse fire in Manchester and perhaps remnants of the blaze could answer the unidentified lights reported some 20-plus miles away.
There have been several researchers involved in this incident and UFO DATA Magazine is grateful to all for their help.
Chris Rolfe (UFOMEK), Dave Sadler (www.upia.co.uk), Bill Bimson (MARA) and Steve Johnson.
IN CONCLUSION…
One other thing that makes an interesting addition to the reports is that The British Geological Survey, responsible for logging earth tremors etc., have recorded movements across Cheshire, North Wales and West Lancs. They suggest the recordings were caused by an RAF Typhoon on exercises over the Irish Sea. All well and good, but it is worth remembering that ‘Earth light’ researchers such as Paul Deveraux are convinced that earth tremors are thought responsible for short discharges of light across fault lines.
This could be one possibility.
Another could be a flying lantern released by a witness at around 2 minutes past 10 that night over Haydock.
Of course it could also have been a genuine UFO.