Mystery surrounds the identity of 10 orange lights seen in the sky above Northampton on Saturday night.

A number of people called Northamptonshire Police after watching the strange lights, which reportedly moved across the sky, with one of the lights then exploding.

Alun Bye, from Spinney Hill, Northampton, said: "They appeared to rise from Kingsthorpe and go towards Milton Keynes at about 10pm.

"At first they looked like stars but got bigger.

"I thought they could have been balloons, but they had no baskets and were noiseless."

Mr Bye attributed the lights he saw to night flights at the model helicopter convention held at the University of Northampton at the weekend.

Organiser Jeff Barringer said helicopter flights had stopped at 9.20pm although he added the lights could be "linked" to the convention.

Other sightings were also made in Spinney Hill and in The Headlands area of Northampton, with eyewitnesses describing the lights as being present until about 10.30pm.


Comment: Similar lights were also spotted around the same time, some fifty miles south above Stevenage while 100 miles north residents of Sheffield observed up to 100 orange and green lights. A Chinese lantern epidemic!?


Colin Bicknell said: "These craft were very bright balls of pulsing orange light.

"They had no other lights at all.

"These craft were totally silent and the one that exploded made no sound either."

Headlands resident Mark Edwards said he noticed the light "quite high up" with no noise coming from it.

He added: "It moved quite quickly to the south then disappeared behind clouds.

"Then about two minutes later another one appeared and did exactly the same, this was followed by one more straight after."

Janet Stawarz, from Spinney Hill, described seeing 12 lights in the sky, which she said "seemed to be on the same pathway, like they were just following one another".

Bob Pinckard, also from The Headlands, said he was left "completely confused" after spotting the lights.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said: "The MOD examines reports solely to establish whether United Kingdom airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity.

"Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported."

The Chron was also contacted by people living across the UK who spotted similar lights on Saturday, following previous articles about unidentified lights in the sky.

Reports came in from East Yorkshire and Scotland.