© UK UFO filesWitness sketch of UFO over Ardingly, September 1989.
On Monday, Sept. 4, 1989, a witness in Ardingly, W. Sussex, England, watched as an object came out of the southwest sky and traveled directly overhead at 9:04 p.m. The same object returned and moved back along the same path at 9:20 p.m., according to recently released British UFO files.
© Google MapsArdingly, W. Sussex, England, and nearby Ardingly Reservoir.
The witness, who was outside and standing in a field facing southwest, called Gatwick Airport to report the strange craft, and indicated there were other witnesses. Visibility was good with minimum cloud cover.
Port Washington, Wisconsin 1998
More than nine years later, in Port Washington, Wisconsin - Oct. 15, 1998, near 10:30 p.m., a woman stepped outside her home to walk the family dog.
"As I stood looking at the beauty of the stars," she wrote, "facing a slight northwesterly direction, an enormous flying craft appeared--almost as if it had been 'Star Wars-like uncloaked'. I was immediately struck by it's seeming closeness to the earth, it's relative silence, and it's almost COMICAL display of two huge single-row banks of lights on either side of it's triangularish front---it looked almost exactly like the row of lights on police cars in these colors: red, clear and blue."
© UnknownIllustration provided by the witness.
Occurred: 10/15/1998 22:35 (Entered as : 10/15/98 22:35)
Reported: 1/19/2000 13:41
Posted: 3/4/2003
Location: Port Washington, Wisconsin
Shape: Triangle
Duration: 1-2 minutes Craft a cross between Triangle/Chevron/Arrowhead/Diamond; clear, starry night; witnessed what I believe to be: quiet, low humming craft with 2 bright banks of lights, approximately 500-1000ft above ground, seemingly about
I did not report this experience before, because I did not think anyone except my spouse would believe me. I am a pragmatist, based in our known realities of scientifically proven facts, but what I saw was most tangibly real...even my dog stopped and looked up at this item. I decided to report this today after reading about the police in southern Illinois who gave descriptions very similar to my own.
At age 47, on or about the 15th of October, 1998, (may have been 10/10-10/27), I took our Cairn Terrier outside for her last "potty break" between 10:31 and 10:37 pm. My spouse had gone to bed just minutes earlier. It was a very mild, clear, star-filled evening. As I stood looking at the beauty of the stars, facing a slight northwesterly direction, an enormous flying craft appeared--almost as if it had been 'Star Wars-like uncloaked'.
I was immediately struck by it's seeming closeness to the earth, it's relative silence, and it's almost COMICAL display of two huge single-row banks of lights on either side of it's triangularish front---it looked almost exactly like the row of lights on police cars in these colors: red, clear and blue.
My next thought was: "well, if this is a secret USA project, they sure want to be seen!". It was close enough for me to wonder if those inside would wave at me.
As this object approached, I chose to stay and watch what would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience instead of getting a witness. As this seemingly slow and quiet craft approached our property, I tried to gauge it based upon a 40-50 ft. tall pine tree in the next yard. My mind was trying to move fast to get a size estimate. With it's unusual shape, it was difficult. Nor do I possess the advanced physics/mathematical skills to measure items based upon horizon/angle, etc.
To me: this item was rather symmetrical, i.e., width from widest point-to-widest-point appeared to be 150-200 feet; front-to-rear, perhaps 200-250 ft, based upon it's distance from the pine tree's top and width of view it took up in my line of vision. Our city block is approximately 250 feet long, and each lot facing our street is 150 feet deep. I believe this object, if on the ground, would have just about filled the property space of one-half of our entire block--perhaps more. I remember wondering why anything so huge would risk flying this low so near to 4 electric company smoke stacks located on the waterfront of our city.
© UnknownIllustration created by husband of witness.
Description: first impression: a triangle. When I was directly underneath it, my next impression was: pentagon with a flair; my last impression: pentagon with enough of a flair to be considered an arrowhead. Rear of craft as it was flying SE, away from me over Lake Michigan: flat rear/slight sides to main body, just like the back end of an arrowhead. Other descriptive items: as it passed over me, I thought I detected some type of circles on the bottom of the craft; the bottom of the craft was the darkest part of my visual experience.
As the craft first came toward me, I was fascinated by the banks of lights--what appeared to be rather halogenic red/clear/blue....but then I noticed that there was a beacon light on the top of the portruding "cabin". This craft DEFINITELY had a curved cabin with either windows or perhaps black reflective surfaces.
However, this cabin was NOT sharp-angled like the stealth bomber type. This cabin seemed proportionate to the rest of the object, i.e., it was not a small bump in the middle of a disk. This craft was not a "thick" craft...at least it did not appear so to me from the front/bottom/rear views I had of it as it almost silently cruised toward/over/away from me.
© UnknownIllustration created by husband of witness.
Behavior of Craft: seemingly "slow cruising"; it did a flat bank from it's more southerly direction of travel to a southeasterly direction and it did this RIGHT over my head, i.e.,our street runs perpendicular to Lake Michigan on a slight NE/SW angle, so when I was watching this craft go directly away from me after it passed overhead, it had to be traveling in a slight southeasterly direction over Lake Michigan (I believe a straight-line shot across Lake Michigan would have placed it in Indiana/Ohio eventually?--it did the bank directly over my head; at no time did this object exude any type of exhaust/exhaust noise--only a low humming.
We experience many helicopters flying overhead here. If one takes a typical Flight-For-Life type helicopter on a scale of 1 to 10 for noise, with the helicopter's noise being a "10", then this craft, many times the helicopter's size, was barely a "1 to 2" in noise level.
At one point, it felt as though I could almost reach out and touch, it seemed so close to me.
Characteristics
Other Characteristics: Nothing struck me as it being "out of this world weird" except it's enormous size and quiet functioning, and two bizarre banks of "cop car gumball" lights. This object seemed to have a dull body surface in a darker color, i.e., it was not silver/white/red/blue/green/purple/orange, etc. It was, perhaps gray/brown/black.
Two cases may just be a coincidence
British Ufologist Nick Pope responded April 26 to my request for an opinion on similarities between the two cases. "I could recall no details of the 1989 case," Pope said, "and could therefore make no meaningful comments on any similarities between the two incidents."
© Google MapsPort Washington, WI - which is just north of Milwaukee.
Special thanks to Greek UFO researcher Dimitris Hatzopoulos who studied the UK files and made the original comparison. You can visit his UFO web site here.
One final interesting case - also from 1998 - occurred in Florida. The following is the unedited witness statement from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database.
© Randall Shilling/MUFONDrawn by Randall Shilling, January 2006, in MUFON Florida State Director Bland Pugh’s living room.
Stacy Mcglammery and I were lying on the beach looking at stars, as it was a pretty, clear night; it "flew" directly overhead about 350ft above us; moving north to south at about 35mph; we at first thought it was a hang glider but quickly saw it "reveal" itself into a distinct object that had an inner glow of unearthly color and characteristics that are too strange to describe in a few words, but it looked "alive".
It remained in 100% form for a few seconds,then "blurred" away just as it had become definitive, and vanished. NO sound. It has changed my life.Called the radio station for other possible witnesses, they made a joke about it. We were 100% sober/aware.
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