UFO or not UFO: that is the question

UnexplainedMysteries.com-- Tom Kane: I've seen one or two odd things in my lifetime but I have to admit I’ve never seen so many UFOs in one place since I moved to Cyprus a year ago. At the ripe old age of twenty-four I once saw what looked like a star in a bright blue clear sky on a sunny summer afternoon near Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. I and two companions were walking down a small lane when I noticed a ‘star’ in the sky. I pointed it out and all three of us looked up at it. As we watched the ‘star’ grew smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared.

Our reaction to this was stunned silence. What was it we had seen? My belief was that it was a vehicle leaving earth orbit. I did check the papers that day (no such thing as the internet in those days) and couldn’t find any evidence of a launch by NASA. Now that’s not to say there were no launches. The former USSR and the US military could well have launched a spy satellite and wouldn’t have advertised the fact in the local paper.

That was my first UFO. The second came on an equally sunny and cloudless summer afternoon.

It was about twenty years later and I was walking home from my local shops in Rotherham. Again, I was looking at the sky – something I do a lot, I must say. I happened to notice, again, a bright star in the sky. This was at about one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The object was really bright and quite large for a star. I assumed it was a planet, but couldn’t believe I could see a planet in such a clear sky at that time of day. Then the object moved. I was standing still, watching this object for a couple of minutes, when it simply shot across the sky extremely fast and disappeared. Gob smacked would be an apt description. That ‘encounter’ has stayed very vivid in my mind.

The third encounter was witnessed by myself and a scene of crime police officer.

It was another sunny day, but slightly hazy and with a little bit of cloud. I was at home, outside my house, where the scene of crime officer was dusting my car for fingerprints. It had been stolen a couple of days before and the police had kindly found it for me and told me where to collect it. The scene of crime officer was telling me how easy it is to steal my make of car, giving me pause for thought about my wisdom in choosing to buy a Vauxhall Astra, when I looked up into the sky. What I briefly saw was a huge object passing over us. ‘What on earth is that?’ I said. The officer said, ‘What’s what?’ I looked down at her and said, ‘That, in the sky above us.’ We both looked up as the object moved slowly above us. What I could see was something that had depth to it. I was big and sort of egg shaped. It seemed to have what I can only describe as aerials sticking out of it. It reminded me of the big mother ship in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.

The scene of crime officer and I looked down and looked at each other. I could see in her eyes that she too had seen something unusual. We both looked up again… and it had gone. That was my last encounter in the UK and it was about five years ago.

My wife and I moved to Cyprus a year ago and since that time I have seen three UFOs The latter happened about three days ago and was altogether startling and bewildering and was seen by both my wife and I. The first two were a little tamer, but nonetheless startling.

It was late evening and quite dark in August 2009. We were on our veranda looking across the valley. We live in the hills above Paphos and the stars at night are very striking and the Milky Way is something to behold. We occasionally see shooting stars and have a good view of the ISS at certain times of the year.

[Read More]