Posted: June 1, 2009

Date of Sighting: 31st. May '09
Time: around 12.30 a.m.

Witness Statement: I was sitting out enjoying the stars on a lovely, clear night watching for shooting stars to fall with the moon, just less than half full, setting to the west, out of sight behind the cottage, and there still a glow to the north from the absent sun, and had seen a number of unspectacular meteorites, when two large luminous 'birds' appeared traveling quite swiftly and steadily across the sky high up above me moving from just north of west to just south of east, where they gradually disappeared. My initial perception was that they were a pair of geese or swans flying in unison and somehow lit up by the rays of the departed sun. But at that time of night the sun must have been far too far below the horizon for that to have been possible. Also, in my judgment, they were flying far too fast for birds.

Yet, that is what they most resembled, to me.

Perhaps they could have been some kind of aircraft but there was no sound and they seemed to move slightly in relation to each other much as birds do and in a manner quite unlike that of aircraft.

Since this sighting I have learned of the widespread release of Chinese Lanterns and of their being the perfectly obvious explanation for a great deal of 'UFO' sightings. However, I do find it difficult to reconcile the phenomena I witnessed with these lanterns as the size and speed seems inconsistent to me. I wish I knew what the prevailing wind direction and speed had been. Knowing that might help to reconcile me to the idea that these were a pair of glowing bird-shaped lanterns.