Original headline: LIGHTS IN SKY SPARK UFO CONTROVERSY
Sky-gazers in the Shepton Mallet area [Somerset, England] on Saturday night (July 31) are now questioning whether "the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one". On the last evening in July, when an unusually large, blue, full moon was making the national news headlines, mid-Somerset had a more surprising display of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
Various residents saw what they describe as three lights in the sky, first seen at about 10pm and with other sightings reported at around 11pm.
One reported sighting of the UFOs came from Stoney Stratton, near Evercreech, where a birthday party barbecue was taking place in the back garden of a cottage. The three lights were said to have moved upwards slowly and then disappeared.
Another family were also in their rear garden at Shepton Mallet and saw the three lights, where they described two as like "orange balls of flames" and the other as a "yellow flickering flame".
The family, who wish to remain anonymous, took video images of the UFOs and the woman looked at the glowing spheres through a pair of binoculars.
"They appeared one at a time, rising in the sky, then they stopped and then shot up quite quickly and disappeared.
"About 20 minutes later, we saw them again." One Shepton Mallet couple reached prime-time breakfast television on Tuesday morning this week with their account of their UFO sighting and the camera footage which they had taken.
Tina and Stuart Covell-Palmer of Roman Villas saw the objects in the sky as they were at their front door saying farewell to their neighbours, Sally and Kevin Tanner, who also witnessed the glowing lights.
Mrs Covell-Palmer said: "They were moving slowly and started going upwards diagonally, then changing to vertically. One of them was spinning and the others were orange balls, varying in colour.
The television station contacted Denis Plunkett, a UFO expert, and showed him the footage.
He did not believe they were aircraft or military as they moved too quickly.
Two theories have already been suggested by locals, although experts are being consulted on the video images. The first suggestion is from a Shepton Mallet man who claims his Chinese lanterns were responsible for the UFO sightings, although there is doubt that his garden illuminations could have been seen from both Stoney Stratton and Shepton Mallet.
The second theory is that the New Wine and Soul Survivor event at the Bath and West Showground had a laser light show or similar on Saturday evening.
At the time of going to press, organisers were unavailable to confirm or deny that they held any sort of light show at that time.
A former chairman of Shepton Mallet Town Council said that he also witnessed the sky-bound phenomenon and said that it reminded him of the searchlights that he saw during the war.
The debate looks set to continue. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it a meteor? Or will it remain an unexplained flying object?
