Features
Look up and Keep an eye open
Some years ago we had a tea and coffee thief at my place of work - never did find out who it was. However, Terry a good friend and colleague gave me a tip.
He had a simple solution - "People never look up. Put our stuff on a higher shelf and the thief will steal somebody else's". It worked a treat, we never lost as much as spoonful of sugar after that.
Over the years I've taken particular notice and Terry was right - people look down far more and only exceptionally look up at all. With this in mind I started research into local UFO sightings and expected to struggle finding enough information for a Rotherham Web feature. I soon found out how wrong I was - there's enough information out there to write a book let alone a small feature. The following is just a selection of the main points from just a few of the numerous stories and witness accounts...
UFO sightings in Rotherham and South Yorkshire
Rotherham, South Yorkshire - Sunday 6th June, 2004 at 18.14
It had been a hot sunny day with clear skies. Only a few minutes before the sighting, I had taken a photo of a rainbow over the south of Rotherham.
I had my camera with me and heard my neighbours talking and looking at something in the sky. My initial thoughts were that it was a hot air balloon. It was moving at speed and at a constant height, from W to E through the sky. I took shots knowing this was not a hot air balloon, it was much further away than I would expect to see a balloon. I went to get my binoculars , it had gone from sight 30 seconds later. It looked like a black line in the sky - about 2.5 centimeters in length.
(There have been sightings of similar objects around the world).
http://www.ufoinfo.com
Parkgate, Rotherham - 9 Black Circles In The Shape Of A Question Mark - February 18, 2006 at 17.15
Eight small black circles and one larger hovering in the shape of a large question mark, but laid on its side the small shapes disappeared leaving just the larger object. I observed this whilst I was at work at a scrap stockyard at Corus Engineering Steels. The objects were to the north west and they were hovering, holding the same formation. The objects were all black in color. The skies were clear but it was getting towards sunset. The smaller objects seem to disappear leaving the one larger object. There was no lights as they were just black in color. They were in a formation of a question mark which had fallen on it's side. They were hovering above a steel plant melting shop, which uses electric arc furnaces. We make a lot of special alloy steels for the use in aviation industry.
http://worldufos.blogspot.com
Stainforth, Doncaster - 30 January, 2003 at 21.40
Around 9.40 pm we were walking on a road going from Stainforth in South Yorkshire towards Fishlake... Jupiter was nicely prominent up to our right a lot of stars were twinkling too the moon was below the horizon at that time. We had got just about half way to our destination and were both remarking what a really nice night it looked in the sky around us if you take the way were walking as the 12 o'clock position . the 10 o'clock position suddenly flared a roundish shaped blue light it was momentarily stationary then suddenly moved about a 15 to 20 degree arc in sky. In a matter of a few seconds the speed was nothing that we could have ever imagined possible to occur from a standing start - it went from a given height in an upwards diagonal plane to the right behind the only patch of cloud that was to the front of us. We immediately said was it a shooting star we saw - but why was it coloured blue? Why did it go up rather than downwards? Then after a pause we both realised that it had also been totally silent no noise whatsoever - oherrrrrrr!
http://www.apra.org.uk
Mexborough - Friday 7th September, 2007 at 23.00
This is our personnal witness statement from the start to finish of what my wife and I observed on the evening of Friday 7th September, 2007.
It was shortly before 2300 hours, my wife and I had been out walking our dog and we were heading on our way back home. When we got close to the end of our road my wife pointed out to be a very bright luminous piercing light in the sky to the south of us giving the appearance that it was shooting sprays of light out from it. There were no clouds that evening and no moon in the sky.
The light remained stationary for a while roughly two miles away above the fields and to the right of a local farm, which stands on a wooded hilltop overlooking the village of Old Denaby. We crossed over the road just as this light began to move north toward Mexborough on a flight path that would take it over the rear of our house.
We went into the house and I got my digital camera out of the display unit. I then immediately went outside the back kitchen door into the garden where I stood on the gardens bench seat for a better vantage point to view and to capture this light on camera as it passed overhead. Unfortunately the glow went out but I still managed to get a single photograph of the underside of a strange circular object passing overhead.
The object was a greenish-orange colour with a number of small lights on its outer rim. My dog was barking frantically and running up and down the back yard setting off our security light obscuring my view. When the security light went out again the object had gone. The time was now exactly 2300 hours by my wristwatch. However, it is interesting to note that shortly after the object had gone overhead, a large heavy sounding aircraft followed in that same direction, north toward Adwick upon Dearne. The plane was undercover of darkness with only its flight lights on, but no cabin or passenger windows lit or visible.
www.outtahear.com
M1 South Yorkshire (Doncaster - Maltby) - Red Light - December 25, 2007 at 18:15
Number of witnesses: 2 Number of objects: 1 Shape of objects: Red Light. Weather Conditions: clear and fine night.
A large red glaring light which looked to be about 1.5 miles away and 750 feet high just appeared in front of us. I thought it was a flair but the light remained stationary for around 30 seconds.
Suddenly the light went out and a smaller, pin prick sized, red light remained.
This light hovered for a few moments before traveling away horizontally eastward at a tremendous speed.
http://www.ufoinfo.com/
Barnsley, South Yorkshire - 6th September, 2007
Sighting happened above Redbrook, near the M1 Motorway, the objects were quite low, less than the height of a (electricity) pylon. "The witness saw 5 very bright lights in the sky travelling slowly in synchronisation
http://www.beamsinvestigations.org.uk
The Cosford Incident - March 30th, 1993
It all happened on the night of March 30 1993. Across South-West Britain, from South Yorkshire to Cornwall, many people who were out that night saw something remarkable in the skies. The descriptions which came flooding in to police stations and government offices were highly consistent. A large object with at least two visible lights and perhaps a third blinking a little way behind made its way slowly across the night sky. Most reports said it was soundless, though at least one, from a professional meteorological observer, said it emitted a low hum. Many witnesses said that the two bright lights left a vapour trail in their wake. The Met observer said he saw beams from the aircraft scanning the earth’s surface.
The next day the reports arrived on the desk of Nick Pope, the civil servant who manned the “UFO desk” at the Ministry of Defence. Havingread widely in the UFO literature since assuming his position, he had no doubt often wondered whether he would ever get to be in on one of the great UFO cases like those he had come across in books. As he excitedly surveyed the reports in front of him, it seemed to him that, at last, his moment had come.
Pope ordered the sequestration of all air traffic control data. After reviewing it with RAF personnel, he concluded that it showed nothing out of the ordinary. Giant craft traversing British airspace, seen by a number of witnesses, including policemen, RAF personnel and the professional meterological observer, yet not showing up on radar.
Surely this was a danger to the realm! No one could say that this was of “No Defence Significance”, the phrase which was the British government’s standard response to inquiries about UFOs. Pope sought and received permission from his superiors to pursue a full investigation of what he dubbed “The Cosford Incident”, since the UFO was said to have crossed the airspace of RAF Cosford, and some of the witness reports came from RAF police personnel stationed there.
For some time, rumours about a secret American aircraft called Aurora had been circulating. Almost nothing was known for certain about Aurora, not even whether it actually existed, but it was said to be a replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird, which was a reconnaisance aircraft capable of travelling at speeds of more than Mach 3 so high up in the atmosphere that it was almost in space.
In Washington D.C. the British embassy inquired about whether the American government had any experimental triangular-shaped aircraft which might have strayed into British airspace on the night in question. The Americans denied it, but said they had been receiving reports of weird triangle-shaped aircraft too. They wondered whether the British had any experimental aircraft which answered the description!
http://www.ufoencounters.co.uk/the-cosford-incident.html
Cigar-shaped UFO in North Doncaster - October 14th 1977
On October 14th 1977 schoolboy Timothy Cox was playing a game of football outside his home in North Leverton, when he sparked a UFO alert. The 7-year-old watched an object in the sky over Cottam Power Station for several seconds before he ran inside to alert his parents.
He said it was "bomb-shaped with a blue light and pieces falling from the fin at the rear." The little boy claimed it appeared to land in the Gainsborough area. Police and RAF took the sighting so seriously that patrol cars were sent out, and radar screens were checked. An RAF spokesman suggested later that the boy was reliable "as he had been brought up with aircraft and knows what they look light...and he gave such a clear and accurate description that we thought it was too much to be imagination."
Black Triangle seen in Doncaster - 28 July, 1998 at 01.30
Early one summer morning, Stainforth mum Debbie Scorer walked out of her house to find a giant triangle hovering above her. To this day she does not know what the object was, but it is the first of three weird sightings Debbie has discussed with UFO 2000. Debbie, of Fifth Square, Stainforth, Doncaster, went out into her garden after thinking she had heard the sound of a helicopter. When she went outside she saw the huge shape above her home with moving lights along the sides. The whole thing was slowly moving just above the rooftops.
The second experience was with her whole family as they drove through Stainforth where she, boyfriend Tony Curran and children Jamie and Thomas saw a light in the sky. They described it as a big orange with the appearance of light and darker segment shapes. They first sighted it over houses and followed it until they reached the end of Stainforth' s Kingsway, where it moved off towards Dunscroft Broadway.
Balloon-shaped UFO in Retford - 4 October, 1999 at 16.00
A object was seen by a couple on their way to Doncaster it was described as looking like a hot air balloon, it then went behind some power lines where the witnesses lost sight of it.
UFO Lands and takes pictures in Bentley - January 4th, 1979
On January 4th 1979, galeforce winds, thunder and lightning were the least of the New Year terrors which faced a family in Bentley. Jenny Strutt and her two children Paul, 13, and Jane, 15, were left petrified by a saucer-shaped object which appeared behind their home in Rosslyn Crescent. The family were so disturbed that they called the police. Paul said the UFO was 50ft long, and the size of two buses. "It frightened me to death," he said. "It was massive. The top part looked like it was taking photos. Every time it turned round in the direction of our house it sort of made a white flash." A spokesman for RAF Finningley said all military planes were grounded and suggested the family had simply seen a civilian plane flying at an unusual angle.
Boffins Baffled by Fireball in Skies over Doncaster - 9th June, 1995
Astronomers were left baffled by a mysterious-sighting in the skies above Doncaster. But the glowing object spotted by more than 30 people last Tuesday night could be part of a Satellite, experts claim. Hexthorpe Mother of four Lessley Cooper contacted the Courier after seeing "a red ball with an orange tail" in the sky above her bouse - shortly after ll.l5pm on May 30. "We've been inundated with calls from people across Doncaster and most say they saw the same object spotted by Lesley Cooper," said David Sankey, Doncaster's Official Quest International UFO investigator. "The phone was red hot all weekend with people from Armthorpe, Edlington, Elenthorpe, Carcroft, Wheatley and Bessacarr, telephoning to share their experiences. Most callers said the object was about the size of a football, travelled in a south- easterly direction and was in the sky for no more than 30 seconds. But speculation the weird object could be a UFO has been ruled out by Britain's leading astronomers. It will be several weeks before experts can give a full explanation for the phenomenon. But Howard Miles OBE, Director of the British Astronomical Society's Artificial Satellite Section, believes there are several possibilities. He told the Courier "My first reaction is that it could have been the small fragment of an artificial satellite a natural, piece of interplanetary material or even a fragment of space debris."
http://www.donny.co.uk
Sheffield, South Yorkshire - March 1979
Source: Alien Abduction, The British Catalogue
A man and a woman watched a gray colored, disk-shaped object hover over a fish and chip shop. Two beings could be seen through a transparent top on the craft. Following the event, the woman began to experience psychic phenomena, including noises and objects moving around in her house.
http://www.scientificexploration.org
Strange Rumbling Sound/White Glowing Object in Sky - Rotherham, November 24, 2006 at 02:45
Duration: Three to four minutes.
About an hour ago I heard the same loud noises that occurred about a year ago over my town. Last year at around 7:30pm I heard several weird loud rumbling noises in the sky, but didn't see anything. At the time of the noises everyone was out on the street talking about it all thinking its some sort of building collapsing. The rumbling noises sounded very similar to thunder but faded out much more quicker (thunder usually fades out slowly but these didn't even fade out they just stopped straight off with an echo), and the noises didn't have booms at the start either like thunder usually does. These noises were so loud and freaky, they scared the hell out of me and my family. There were about 15 of these noises last year before they eventually stopped and they each lasted around 5-7 seconds but each one varied. Like I've already mentioned about an hour ago I heard these exact same noises (about 7 of them this time) coming from the sky but most people ould be asleep at the moment and would probably not have heard them this time round. They didn't last as long this time and they only took about 1-2 minutes to eventually stop altogether. Weirdly enough just after the noises this time I saw a strange white glowing object in the sky (almost like a star) just fade away but I have no idea of weather or not it was related to the noises in any way. There's nothing else I can say really other than how freaked out I am by these strange loud noises and I would love to find out sometime what they were. Hopefully they will occur again sometime so I can record them onto a sound device and share them with other people around the internet and elsewhere.
http://www.shadowresearch.com
Strange light (UFO) seen during thunderstorm - Kimberworth Park, July 6th, 2006 at 22.15
Posted by Dave Churchill
Earth Mysteries, UFO, WeatherA weird fireball, first thought to be a firework whizzed over a family and their home in Spring Croft, Kimberworth Park, Rotherham (UK) at around 10.15pm on Sunday (2nd July 2006). The incident happened during a huge thunderstorm, and at first the family thought it was a firework, but the light continued to fly through the air in a north-easterly direction. They watched the light, expecting an explosion, but nothing happened, then suddenly it changed direction and flew quickly to the east, towards Swinton, where it appeared to plummet to the earth.
The family became alarmed and thought it was going to crash, but there was nothing, no explosion not even a muffled bang.
The object was an orange light with an aura to it, and thought to be flying around 1,000ft up, but they couldn’t really tell what size it was.
http://cryptoworld.co.uk
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