Cumbria police investigate UFO sighting over Penrith
Last updated at 13:24, Thursday, 02 October 2008
Cumbria police have investigated an alleged UFO sighting over Penrith late last month, a spokesman confirmed today.
As a call-handler at the force’s HQ in Penrith listened intently, a man on the end of the phone explained that he wanted to report something strange he’d seen in the night sky north west of Penrith.
What he’d initially dismissed as a shooting star turned out to be something entirely different, he said.
The man then described seeing an oval object, travelling in a straight line northwards, at around the height of a small aircraft.
Bright white at the front, it had an orange mid-section, with its rear leaving what looked like a trail of sparks.
Cumbria police confirmed today that officers spent an hour investigating the sighting on the night of September 22, speaking to experts at RAF Culdrose in Cornwall, and scientists at Edinburgh’s Seismic Research Centre.
Neither could throw any light on the sighting.
The incident has come at the end of a three-month period which has seen at least a dozen mysterious UFO sightings in the skies over Cumbria, says one enthusiast.
After failing to find any explanation for the latest report – described by police as a yellow light-ball – officers told the caller it must have been a natural phenomenon. But the caller was clearly not convinced, and posted his account of the encounter on an international UFO website.
He described how he first spotted it at 9.45pm as he was about to lock his front door and go upstairs to bed.
The man said: “When I looked out of the hall window, I noticed what a calm, clear night it was and how the stars seemed to be really bright – brighter than I have ever seen them before.
“Then I noticed a bright light heading towards my house. At first, I thought it was a shooting star. Then as it got closer I could make out details that dismissed it as a shooting star. It flew at the height of a small aircraft and was bright, really bright white at the front with orange in the middle.
“What really grabbed me were the sparks coming from the back, nothing like a meteor. It was way too slow for that and the speed was constant and the angle the same. It was not heading towards the ground as a comet would, but steady in its path.”
The man asked police to check for seismic readings over Scotland in case the object later hit the ground. He said police initially suggested it may have been part of a military exercise.
Cumbria Police confirmed the sighting, their investigations of it, and the conclusion of officers that it had been a natural phenomenon, but the force declined to comment further.
Sharon Larkin, of North West Cumbria UFO Investigations, said: “There has been a rise in sightings in Cumbria in the last three months: about a dozen of them – some over the Solway, some over Cockermouth, and others above the Lake District.
“They’ve included bright white lights moving slowly across the sky. We’ve investigated and they’re all unidentified at present.”
Have you seen a UFO or something in the sky you can't explain? Tell us below
First published at 13:15, Thursday, 02 October 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk
I saw something this morning, as i opened my curtains and looked out like the guy said the stars looked overly bright then out of the corner of my eye i saw a really bright light at first i thought it was just atmospheric electrostatic discharge until it did it again seconds later but it was more like a beam!!
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I saw a bright light in the sky at around 5.30pm on Thursday the 5th of Jan 2012.I thought the bright light at first was a aeroplane however, there was an aeroplane to the far right of my window and was very small compared to this object.The object was around 400 metres away but this is only a guess, it was very hard tell. It was dark at this time and was definatly was not the moon or a star, it was to big and to bright. I went out side to see the object but the row of houses at the rear of my house bloking my view. The light hovered for around 10 mins remaining very bright and glowing. Then started to the move further away and then of the right and then disappeared. When the object was still I looked very closely, the object seemed to have hints of green underneath. My mother also saw the object for around a minute just before it moved away out of view. I was lucky enough to take 3 pictures of the object and a very small video on my I pod. The pictures show unusaul shapes in each picture. I then downloaded them to the laptop and used edge detection on windows movie maker. It shows evidence that the object was really there. It really doesn't look natural.
Posted by Andrew E Armstrong on 6 January 2012 at 22:55