Was strange light over Shropshire a UFO?

Wednesday 11th May 2011, 11:18AM BST.

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A video of strange orange lights in the skies above Shropshire and Mid Wales has become a hot topic on the internet after it was posted on YouTube.

The video entitled “Orange UFO on the Shropshire/Wales border” was filmed on May 1 and appears to have been shot in the early evening.

Phil Hoyle, from the Shrewsbury-based UFO Investigation and Research Unit, today said the lights did not appear to be Chinese lanterns and claimed they could not be explained.

He said the unit received a number of sightings and videos and images from people in Shropshire and Mid Wales. He said that although many could be dismissed as military aircraft or helicopters, a number are much harder to decipher.

Mr Hoyle said: “The video has allegedly been taken near Welshpool and it is inconclusive as to what the lights are.

“There are a number of things that are going on all down that border region as well as Newtown and into Radnorshire.

“A lot of these sightings are definitely not Chinese lanterns because of their sheer size. We are trying to trace the person who took the footage.”

Meanwhile, according to the results of a new “star count”, just one in 100 people have truly dark night skies where they live.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and the Campaign for Dark Skies, who organised the star count earlier this year, said the results showed that, despite some work to reduce light pollution, the problem remained across the country.


  1. 1
    John dingley

    PLANES! Planes, at a distance coming toward you will appear as not moving and you will not hear them. Then as they move in a very shallow turn they begin to appear to move. The light gets smaller because it is not head on any more and the more the plane turns the more likely you are to see the flashing safety lights. Variations in light intensity can be due to small movements of the plane itself , up and down or air pollution. The more side on it is the faster it will appear to go.
    Planes approaching an airport, like Liverpool. Check with them to find out airplane approach times, they should correlate. Try using a sensitive microphone with a parabolic reflector.
    I have lived next to an international airport for thirty years and have observed all these situations many times. Many thanks John Dingley

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  2. 2
    3rdEye

    I’ve seen the exact same orbs with family and friends on numerous occasions! I can say with 100% certainty that these are NOT Chinese Lanterns as I’ve seen these as close as my parents rooftop and they are incredible. The experience we had with them last November had a profound effect on our lives but no one seems to take it seriously until they see them with their own eyes! They are very real, unique and quite beautiful to witness. Because of a similar colour people assume they are Chinese lanterns and I originally would have thought the same until I saw them up close with my own eyes, along with family! It won’t be long before these are being officially recognized as a truly unknown phenonemon and not laughed at by skeptics!

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  3. 3
    Michael

    The goverment needs to come clean about UFO’s. It’s not fair to the people that see them to be labled

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  4. 5
    thom

    Guys, they’re Chinese lanterns. Duh.
    Seriously. Try thinking once in a while.

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  5. 6
    David Sheriff

    Hello,

    Definitely not Chinese Lanterns……this is too bright and is stationary…..as Phil states……how did the cameraperson come to see this and where exactly was it.

    This is an ORB.

    Tchau David Sheriff ( Astronomer & Ufologist aged 65 now living Brasil )

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  6. 7
    UFO = Unidentified

    Of course its a UFO it isnt anything from earth and its flying so it came from space FULLSTOP.

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  7. 8
    mark rickards

    looks like a helicopter to me doing a night track on stolen vehicles

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    • patsy chambers

      It is moving to slow for a helicopter……I have seen lights live this before in the sky over Pomona ca. and no. Hollywood ca……it looks like a UFO to me and not a helicopter…..and when I saw the light like this one I was moving slow…..and some time it would get real bright and appear to go out….the was time I was a light like this one was 04/28/11

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      • Peter

        ‘It is moving to slow for a helicopter…’ (sic)

        Last time I checked, helicopters could hover. It’s one of several things that distinguish them from fixed wing aircraft. Many of them also carry ‘night sun’ searchlights too.

        Isn’t it funny though – whenever one of these self-appointed ‘experts’ spots such a ‘phenomenon’, they only ever have the lowest spec camera equipment with them – never, apparently, even a decent pair of binoculars nor a tripod to help with clarity of images.

        I’m also guessing from the large number of typos and misspellings in the subtitles that we’re not dealing with an intellectual here. Another ‘news’ story conjured up by one of the SS’s staff with a rather fanciful, and indeed fantasist hobby I’m afraid.

        Perhpas you’d be better sticking to Dungeons and Dragons and ‘Trekkie’ conventions?

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      • twisting my melon

        How can it be too slow for a helicopter when they have the ability to not move..

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  8. 9
    mark

    orbs?? lolololoololol

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  9. 10
    tom

    Have seen same thing at wrekin

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  10. 11
    Clarey

    I have seen many of thing like this over the past 9 years, espically around the Wrekin and Lith Hill area in Shrewsbury. Last year i saw 3 identical lights fly over me at 3am (Church Stretton area) all of them were the same distance apart (as in the video clip) and went from really bright to flashing lights, no lights to full brightness, slow to fast and there was no definately sound. I did come to the conclusion though that they must of been helicopters of some sort (that make minimal sound?? I’m not an expert)as we do have RAF Cosford airbase.

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  11. 12
    barry

    i live directly under an international civil flight route, and NO, planes don`t look this way. Unimportant wich degreee from my eye, wich speed and so on.
    Planes don`t light like balls and planes have only 3 colors and they just blink.
    There is no physikal explanation why this static blinking lights should glow like a little sun in a THOUSAND colors.

    I`ve seen some things in heaven wich aren`t planes. Standing there for HOURS and shining in every color of the visible spektrum.

    This aren`t lanterns and this aren`t planes or helikopters or stuff.

    My grandfather told me a story about 2nd WW, he was in poland and in the night a glowing light fellt from the heaven and all thought “shotted plane” but it does`nt hit the ground.
    It levitated in the height of ~ 1000 feet.
    Moved around like a lightning and disappeared into nothing. His comrades said, “this must be the wunderwaffe of the SS”.

    For all skeptics out there: the UN already said in 1987 “there is a ufo phenomenon” so stop beeing so stonelike. It`s a matter of fact that mankind sees this things since thousand years, check the art or middleage and so on.

    The Time is near, they will return. Laugh about me, they talk to me in my clear dreams since im living. I met my grandpa there, he died before 20 years. He smiled and said “don`t fear them, fear the humans”

    opa, ich vermisse dich !

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  12. 13
    Darren

    These lights are fixed wing aircraft with their landing lamps on, either on approach to an airfield or training. The person who filmed this footage will not confirm the area where he took the footage even though I have asked him numerous times. Unfortunately he will not tell us this info but we suspect that it may not be and air field in Shropshire or Powys as RAF Shawbury only has helicopters on training sorties, and Welshpool airfield is civilian and it is unlikely that there is this amount of activity at nigh time there.
    However its a good try and it’s good that people are managing to film these. Shropshire is a hive of straneg aerial activity currently and I have to echo Phil’s comment on the Radnor area as this is really a place where alot of sightings are happening. With this is mind I feel that we are building towards something more substantial and we ask people to try and get images or video footage of sightings if possible.

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  13. 14
    Stephenie Klink

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  14. 15
    R Suppards

    Aerial activity at such a time is readily explained. It was the flying pig of the Alternative Vote “Yes” campaign.

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  15. 16
    Nistagmus

    I cannot identify the large tree like object (or UTO to us experts) that the film-maker concentrates on. Often they get explained away as Chestnuts, but the shape is all wrong. Now it could be an Oak, but I guess we’ll never know. And how to explain it’s two glowing white eyes ? The government will no doubt keep schtum and I’ll have to place it in my ‘unexplained’ file.

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  16. 17
    Barbara

    Surely it is a UFO; anything that appears to have no apparent means of support (i.e. flying) and cannot be identified is as the title suggests an unidentified flying object. It doesn’t matter whether little green men exist or not, that is nothing to do with UFOs.

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  17. 18
    jeff

    if it was Unidentified and Flying and it was an Object it was a UFO end of.

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  18. 19
    jeff

    was this light seen between 9 and 10 at night? it may have been the International Space Station as this travels about 17,000 MPH and is about 250 mile above you travelling roughly west toward east

    or even a supply vessel coming back to earth

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  19. 20
    Andy

    It was extra terrestrial visitors.

    Interstellar tourists come to sight-see following Welshpool’s recent award as the armpit of the universe.

    Report abuse



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