An unusual sighting over the night sky north of Inverness has left a Wick woman mystified.

For Cathy Gunn spotted a "glowing, tumbling light" two weeks ago at Embo, near Dornoch.

"Around 11.30pm to 11.45pm my husband and I were walking back to our caravan when I noticed a bright yellow light in the sky over Tain. It appeared to be moving towards us, but it looked like it was rolling around rather than flying," she revealed.

"At first I thought it was a plane flying north that had exploded or was on fire but as it came nearer all I could see was this glowing light radiating from whatever it was."

Mrs Gunn and her husband, David, were spending a weekend relaxing at the caravan park when they encountered the mysterious sight after leaving an evening function. The 61-year-old said she just happened to look up when she got outside to see the glowing light in the sky.

"It was so strange. It was almost like a fireball, but there was no red in it. It was a sort of glowing, tumbling light.

"There was no noise from it. It moved quickly towards us then off to the side and then back again," she added.

Mrs Gunn does not believe it was a Chinese lantern as it was a calm night, with very little wind and the object's movements seemed deliberate and were very quick.

At the time she asked her husband if it could be a very strong torch or light being shone from the ground, but he replied that there was no beam visible.

It was only once the couple were back home and started telling people about the sighting that they thought it could be something otherworldly.

"We were both trying to take in what we had seen - wondering what it could have been and quite honestly the idea of aliens never entered my head," she explained.

"We chatted and laughed about our experience to family and friends and our young grandson went to school and told his teacher and pals what his Granny and Grandad had seen and no-one really believed him, but then I wouldn't have either.

"Then an article appeared in the Caithness Courier when a group of students saw 25 bright lights moving in the sky at the beginning of May and others had reported seeing lights recently."

The incident Mrs Gunn referred to involved students holidaying in Foyers who spotted a group of 25 orange lights in the night sky.

The students were adamant that the objects were not Chinese lanterns, as two of them moved to avoid colliding with one another.

The spectacle occurred at around the same time as Mrs Gunn's sighting.

RAF employee, Karl King, later spotted what he described as "an orange fireball" in the sky over Inverness.

A spokeswoman for the RAF was yesterday unable to shed any light on the recent observations, stating that the force had recently stopped dealing with the recording of UFO sightings.