Mysterious lightsH

[Titan performanc]

Hello to everyone, from a noobie to your forum. I was born in 1958, and have lived in Ramsgate in east Kent UK all of my life. Despite what I am about to tell you, I would describe myself as a sceptic. I do have a keen interest in all things UFO, and regularly watch the variety of documentaries on offer on Sky tv, in fact it was watching one of these about the Dragon's Triangle in Asia, that inspired me to contact your forum administrator, and ultimately register as a member. I have always had a very keen interest in astronomy, and would describe myself as a star gazer, and I admit to expecting to see something wonderful and yet, unexplainable, in the night sky sooner or later. To date, my best sighting was not a UFO, sadly, but I witnessed what was later explained as space debris re-entering the atmosphere about 25 years ago. It was a huge firey ball with a flaming tale that passed overhead towards Holland, and disappeared over the horizon, or into the sea....I couldn't tell which, however, I had a grandstand view on a frosty night, as I was on a cliif top at North Foreland near Broadstairs.
Right, the reason for this post.....I am hoping that a forum member will have some more information about a sighting I had back in the seventies. Yes, it's a long time ago, but I was not the only witness, and from memory, a police officer's account ended up in our local paper.
Unfortunately, I cannot be precise about when this occurred now, but I am guessing at 78....that said, 77 or 79 are possibles. I remember it was an overcast evening in Ramsgate, with the lights of the town creating an almost orange tint to the sky. I had climbed the steps to the back door of my flat and happened to notice a couple of lights in the sky to the east. These took my interest, and as I watched, more and more appeared in the same area, maybe as many as 15. They were slow moving, some seemed to be visiting others, and then going away again, but all moving slowly around kind of randomly. The brightness of all of them was consistent, and although not terribly bright, they were clearly visible in the overcast sky. I would describe them as a yellowy white, and similar to an average star in size. Needless to say, I was totally intrigued, and watched as they moved back and forth, staying in the same area of the sky for maybe 20 minutes. Eventually, they faded, and I went indoors. There was no internet back then, so I did nothing about my sighting, but I am sure a story appeared in our local paper shortly after. I think the story had come from a police officer who had seen strange lights over the sea off Margate, which is around 5 miles away from where I lived. In hindsight, this was a great UFO sighting, which could not be explained easily, and I would love to find out more about it if possible. I'm wondering if it is documented somewhere, or any other forum members have any knowledge of the event.

Thanks for reading........Paul.

[Miss Deetective]

Hi Paul...welcome a board!! Thanks for sharing your sightings. I hope that some of our British posters can help you out with that sighting you had.
Of course be prepared for the usual....weather balloons, satellites, swamp gas or chinese lanterns......so can you eliminate things like that???

[Carol Nistri]

Hi Paul,welcome,how far are you from Bentwater and how impressed are you with this sighting?

[SETI Bechtel]

Don't forget to eliminate 'cigarette butt tossed from car window'.
I saw that as an excuse in Project Blue-Book to account for a UFO sighting. Thank you Air Force for the hard work debunking the UFO enigma!

[Titan performanc]

Originally Posted by Carol Nistri

Hi Paul,welcome,how far are you from Bentwater and how impressed are you with this sighting?

Hi Carol.....sorry but I don't know where Bentwater is, as It's not in my road atlas.....can you enlighten me please.
This sighting was not some exciting or glamorous event, but it was real, and there was absolutely no logical explanation for so many lights moving around in the sky. I watched it with my girl friend, and we were totally mystified. As I said, we watched for a long time, as more and more of the lights appeared and slowly seemed to be visitng other lights, and then move away again. It was very strange indeed. The sky was overcast, there were no stars visible at all, but I couldn't say how high the cloud cover was.

[Titan performanc]

Right, just googled Bentwater....I presume it's near Woodbridge, as it seems to be linked in the google results.
In answer to your question....I would guess that by road the distance is around 100 miles or a little over, but a lot less by crow. Straight over the Thames Estuary, it's probably half that.

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by SETI Bechtel

Don't forget to eliminate 'cigarette butt tossed from car window'.
I saw that as an excuse in Project Blue-Book to account for a UFO sighting. Thank you Air Force for the hard work debunking the UFO enigma!

Well.....if you were really drunk or whatever you might think it was a ufo...

[Wilhelm]

Originally Posted by dr wu23

Well.....if you were really drunk or whatever you might think it was a ufo...

If you didn't know what it was, then it would certainly be a UFO. At least it's an object, unlike some undefined lights in the sky.



Honestly, when I first read all these ridiculous explanations like Swamp Gas and Venus, I thought the Gov't was surely trying to hide something...

But, then came YouTube, and now there is documented proof that there are plenty of people who mistake the planet Venus, airplanes, fireflies and all manner of ordinary things for UFOs.

[dejarma]

Originally Posted by Wilhelm

If you didn't know what it was, then it would certainly be a UFO. At least it's an object, unlike some undefined lights in the sky.



Honestly, when I first read all these ridiculous explanations like Swamp Gas and Venus, I thought the Gov't was surely trying to hide something...

But, then came YouTube, and now there is documented proof that there are plenty of people who mistake the planet Venus, airplanes, fireflies and all manner of ordinary things for UFOs.

yes, well put Wil... i agree

[spaceboy]

Originally Posted by dejarma

yes, well put Wil... i agree

this is true......but the next time Venus shoots a ray out and destroys some missiles during a test, I wanna hear about it....