Yet more sightings of strange lights in the sky may have turned Shropshire into the country’s UFO capital but some believe the real truth was out there - at a barbecue in Telford.
The latest report of a UFO sighting in the county came on Sunday night when four mysterious lights were seen in the skies above Ironbridge. Lauren Crouch saw the lights and managed to photograph them.
Check out the photo gallery below to see what you think
She said: “We saw strange orange lights in the sky last Sunday at 9.40pm in Ironbridge.
“There were four of them flying one after another. They made no noise but flew over one by one at quite a speed and disappeared in a matter of minutes.”
Samantha Roberts may have a more down-to-earth explanation for the lights, as she was at a family barbecue in Wellington Road, Muxton, Telford, the night before. She thinks the cause of the sightings may have originated there.
Samantha, from Denbigh, North Wales, said: “I was at a birthday barbecue at my partner’s aunt’s home and during the evening we lit some Chinese-style flying lanterns which we let off into the night sky.
“They were quite big, each measuring about three feet long, and there were about eight of them. I remember us joking after we let them go that they looked like UFOs.”
Samantha believes some people may well have mistaken the silent, ghostly, floating lanterns for UFO.
The theory is supported by a hotel manager who claimed last month that a series of mysterious lights seen over a Shropshire barracks may have been a similar set of Chinese wedding lanterns.
Three soldiers at Clive Barracks, Tern Hill, near Market Drayton, had seen 13 lights zig-zagging across the sky earlier in the month but staff at the nearby Tern Hill Hall Hotel said the sighting could have been of lanterns which had been let off at the hotel by wedding guests.
Hotel manager Stuart Willatt said the lanterns were about a metre wide and were a balloon with a wax wick at the bottom, which burns. About 40 or 50 were released and he said some must have drifted over towards Newport and over the barracks.
By Simon Hardy
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17 Comments
A bit boring now.
Every single UFO sighting is going to be put down to lanterns.
Of course there is intelligent life in the universe - its pretty strange that some people just do not want to admit or think about it.
The universe is far bigger than shropshire - and I for one find it very strange that people are not prepared to believe in aliens
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So they lit the lanterns the evening prior to the sightings, and they were still lit 24hrs later!!
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Yawwwwwwnnnnnn change the record shropshire star!
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I fail to believe that every sighting seen of these lights are down to chinese lanterns. i saw them outside the pub that night and ive seen lanterns lit before n these were different. alot of the sightings up and down the Uk were at the same time so how can it be lanterns.
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Excuse me, Mates. Can you kindly direct us to the Andromeda Expressway. Nothing personal, but your signs are kind of spotty in this section of the galaxy.
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wedding at madeley court hotel had these awhile ago , they are very beautiful to watch and its said they can travel upto 5 - 10 miles still lit, not to sure about still being lit 24 hours later tho, a bit doubtful
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Absolute rubbish. Unless these things can fly horizontally at several hundred mph in a line, one red and two white very very bright like the ones I saw.
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It’s not just Chinese lanterns. It’s moonshine too! The truth is out there… some people just have trouble using it.
Presumably because the Shropshire Star makes them famous by printing every single drunken hallucination!
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merc - if you saw something go to the doctors! no one cares!!
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Run for your lives, we’re being invaded by chinese lanterns.
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Man - I take offence at your comment, my husband took the photo of one of the orange lights and we certainly were not drunk. We were only curious to know what they were…I don’t think those lanterns would only travel a few miles in 24hrs though.
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May be some of you should stop being so rude and ignorant. We watched lanterns at the weekend and they didn’t stay lit for that long. Not all reports about UFOs come from drunks and idiots.
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Some of the comments made have been really rude and unjustified. Not all UFO sightings have come from drunks, idiots or those hallucinating. Are you seriously saying that there can not possibly be intelligent life out there. I don’t know for sure, so i’m cetainly not going to laugh or poke fun at anyone who has seen something strange in the sky.
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Man are you saying that everyone who reports a ufo is just a fame unhungery, drunken idiot?
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I’m sure that there is intelligent life in the universe just not on the Shropshire Star website LOL
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Serotonin hits the nail smack bang on the head.
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we not saying there isnt anything out there it could be anything but why does everyone think thats its going to be little green men with huge eyes!!
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