UFO mystery as lights baffle residents

The sight of the unidentified objects has been the subject of many phone calls and emails in the past week from those eager to share their experiences.

Elizabeth Hillier saw about a dozen of the lights in the sky above Aldwick Felds at about 10pm last Thursday, January 1.

"It was quite bizarre," she said. "I got my husband and daughter to come out and have a look as well to make sure I wasn't seeing things."

She described the objects as travelling from the direction of the Royal Oak pub in North Bersted over to Rose Green.

One of the lights was on its own in front. Then came another five, followed by the final six together. There was no pattern to the lights' positions.

"They were definitely not planes," said Mrs Hillier, whose daughter is an airline cabin crew member.

"There was no noise as they went across the sky. They seemed to get higher and higher before they went out of sight."

Earlier that day, Mary Churchill saw two orange lights over the Barrack Lane area as she looked up into the sky at 1.05am. She often sees the stars when she calls in her dog from her garden at night. On this occasion, the street lights were out to make the sky extremely black.

"I saw the orange lights. They came from Bersted and went towards the sea.

"They were quite silent and moving very fast without making any noise. It was strange seeing them," she said.

Aldwick resident Julie Neil was another to see an unusual phenomena in the sky early on new year's day. In her case, she witnessed an orange object '“ like a large three-pointed star '“ as she travelled along Gossamer Lane at about 12.45am. The lack of noise from the object made her curious about it.

Meanwhile, Gerry Gleed was in Felpham on Christmas Day and saw five orange orbs in the sky. The first two appeared at 5.25pm when he was in his car on his in-law's driveway. The flickering objects were flying straight and level, one behind the other, as they silently headed south west.

They disappeared from sight behind houses after about five to ten seconds.

He was outside again at 8.10pm and watched as three of the orbs travelled in the same manner due west.

A degree holder in aeronautical engineering, he said: "In my opinion, these were controlled air vehicles of some kind '“ as the different directions of travel of the two groups would suggest.

"Drawing purely from my experience of watching light aircraft that constantly fly over my home in Littlehampton, I judged they were at an altitude of between 3,000-5,000 feet and, if I was correct with the altitude, they would be travelling at about 300 to 500 knots."

He dismissed his initial thought that the objects were lanterns because they were flying very fast, straight and level.

"I considered the weather conditions and there was little to no breeze at ground level and so thought it unlikely that there would be a wind of any strength at the low altitude that lanterns would be flying," he added.

Additional comments about the Observer story have come from places such as Rugby, Herts and Gloucestershire.

n A Felpham woman has also joined the Observer debate about unknown objects in the sky.

Shirley Varndell reported her awe at seeing the mystery matter perform aerobatics above Felpham in the early afternoon of a mid-December day.

"The only way I can describe it is that it looked like a Delta wing from a Vulcan bomber but it was more rounded and elongated than that," she said.

"It was doing incredible aerobatic movements. I just stood there watching it.

"It was fairly big but it was moving very quickly, flipping back on itself.

"I don't know what it was but it wasn't an aeroplane and it wasn't making a noise."

She was just looking at the sky when she spotted the object in the clear sky between several clouds.

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