0521 am.. Kinloss... "Neatishead are running a trace on this and cannot explain it. If they are helicopters they are fast approaching the end of their endurance as it is well ( Over Two Hours ) since the first report let alone how long they were up there before they were actually sighted."

0552 am.. Conocoast .. "We can still see the lights and they are on their original bearings and flashing the same colours but they seem higher and dimmer."

0708 am.. Flt Lt McFarlane, Neatishead ... "We had a report from Northwood that a civil flight had also reported strange lights in the area. They fit exactly what was seen from the ground, multi-coloured, flashing, stationary lights."

0731 am.. Flt Lt George, Northwood... "This echo is still on our screens and we cannot explain this at all from it being a meteorological phenomena but then again we have visual sightings also as well. The civilian flight that reported these lights as a flare was six miles away at the time. All very strange."

1109 am.. Neatishead .. "The object still has not moved, London radar and Waddington can also see it."

1920 am.. Anglia Radar ... "There is nothing there now. We are of the opinion that it was the Boston Stump."Wind ..force 4 Visibility ...20 miles

     Exciting for Researcher The sighting excited UFO researcher Alec Clarke …. "I am sceptic by nature and I don't believe in little green men but this is the best lead I have seen so far on my career." We showed Mr Clarke the transcript of the conversation. And Mr Clarke, 20 of Hevingham, has been interested in the subject for years and spent 18 months working full- time as an aerial phenomena researcher. He said he believed the sightings were unlikely to be Venus rising. He said.. "The average man in the street often mistakes Venus, it is the queen of UFOs, but something showed up on radar, there were multiple witnesses on land, sea and air, and they were all professional observers who should recognise the difference between Venus and a UFO.

    Mysterious bright lights in the sky were today being investigated by the Ministry of Defence to see ( if they posed a threat to national security). The MoD said it was taking seriously several sightings of two large Unexplained Objects hovering in the skies over the Wash.

   Mystified personal at RAF Neatishead, near Wroxham, spent hours tracking the lights of the UFOs, sighted over Boston on Saturday. And coastguards at Great Yarmouth was kept busy co-ordinating reports from police, shipping , and the RAF.

Nigel Sereant, spokesman for the MoD, said today …

"We don't know what they are. We are investigating to see whether they are a threat to our security."

Skegness police called the coastguard at 3.14am on Saturday after seeing a number of objects flashing in the sky, ( they later took video footage of the UFOs ).

   Boston police also reported a light in the sky.    Flt Lt Keith Sweatman, of RAF Neatishead, said ...

 The UFOs were described by witnesses as very large, a mile up in the sky, and with blue, white, red and green flashing lights.   A spokesman for Skegness police said .….

"We had calls overnight which suggested a large bright object over the coast . In the past, sightings like this have been either a plane of a weather balloon." But Great Yarmouth Coastguard records show a force four wind was blowing at the time. The objects were monitored in ( the same position for at least seven hours.)

   Witnesses reported no aircraft noises in the area. Military radar reported no aircraft, civil or military, in the area apart from the civilian flight which reported "strange lights."

   Military officials said late on Saturday morning that no airforce planes had been scrambled to investigate as the objects were not seen as a threat.But a military jet was seen heading up the Norfolk coast towards the area at ( 9am on Saturday.)

   Nigel Sergeant, Ministry of Defence spokesman, said .….   "We don't know what they are. We're investigating to see whether they are a threat to our security."  "We're trying to prove that it does not represent any sort of security threat and that it was not an aggressive intrusion into our airspace. "This is one of the bigger sightings recently and has caused quite bit of interest."

This is the UFO that baffled police and, coastguards and RAF staff as it hovered a mile in the sky over the Wash.

(A picture shows a small white spot in the sky) Emergency services and a North sea tanker reported two, large unexplained object hovering in the sky. There were also reports of an unidentified flying object being spotted on radar screens across the area.         (A picture was taken from a video shot by police at Skegness, Lincolnshire.)

An investigation was launched by the Ministry of Defence which has concluded it was a false alarm. An MoD spokesman said the radar reading was caused by Boston stump, a 200ft church tower, and the multi-coloured lights by a star.

But this does little to explain a sighting from a tanker Conocoast of "two lights flashing red, blue, green and white."The object was visible for more than six hours on Saturday and, during a conversation with Great Yarmouth coastguards, Flt Lt

George, of RAF Northwood in Middlesex, said at the time ...   "This echo is still on our screens and we cannot explain this at all apart from it being a meteorological phenomena but then again we have visual sighting as well. The civilian aircraft that reported these lights as a flare was six miles away at the time. "All very Strange"

Witnesses to the UFO sightings include Clare Simmons who was driving with three friends to great Yarmouth along the A47 on Saturday between 7.30pm and 7.45pm when they saw a strange light in the sky. Hairdresser Clare, 34, of Aylesdury Close, off St Clements Hill, Norwich, said ..…. "we saw what looked like a stationary white lights. They looked like a light show, similar to the effect of a lighthouse, they would all go round in a circle, stop, and then 10 seconds later they would go around again.

It was no way a star fluttering and the nearest lighthouse is miles away."

Witness…. Richard West and his family saw unexplained lights in the sky above their Waterloo Road home in Norwich, on September 13. Mr West, a postman, said ...

"At 8.15pm I went outside and saw a star -like object coming towards me. I called to my wife and son and they saw this as well.

"After a few moments we saw a star-like object flying very fast across the sky. Later we saw many more moving in irregular patterns, some much higher and brighter than others. "They did not curve when they changed direction, just turned sharply."

Friday, October 11. 1996

UFO .. RAF investigators work on new theory about those strange lights in the sky .... STUMPED ?....

The truth is out there. But even agent Mulder of the X .Files would find it hard to believe. The great East Anglian UFO mystery was solved last night - and turned out to be just a storm and a church tower.

The weekend sightings of coloured flashing lights over the Wash captured the imagination of would -be X- Files sleuths across the region. Letters and telephone calls flooded into the EDP after the sightings, which coincided with the appearance of a mysterious object on radar. One theory was that the culprit was plant Venus. But Norfolk RAF investigators have now found logical explanation -and have ruled out the possibility of little green men peering down on us.

Flight Lt Keith Sweatman, of RAF Neatishead, said ..

"We now know that the radar trace was ( Boston Stump ) the church tower at Boston. "And the weather people said that the coloured lights in the sky coincided with an (electrical storm) over the Wash.

Not any More ...The great Wash UFO sighting finally Explained. "You get weird experiences with electrical storms, and they can produce lots of different colours." The 200ft church tower would have been ruled out if it had been picked up by more advanced RAF radar, which can computer-enhance images.

But the air traffic control radar have similar facilities, and operators jumped to the conclusion that it must have been linked with the flashing red, blue, green and white lights, seen by the tanker Conocoast.

Following the weekend sightings, an investigation was launched by the Ministry of Defence to ensure they did not pose a threat to national security. That has now been discounted. The mystery is expected to be cleared up once and for all in the next couple of days when experts at RAF Neatishead view video footage of the lights. They are waiting for the video to arrive after being sent from Boston Police.

Flight Lt Sweatman stressed they would be keeping an open mind. "I don't totally discount UFOs." he said. "I'm not a disbeliever, but I'm not a believer either."

Video Evidence.  A painter and decorator from Norwich was so amazed when he saw this UFO he tripped and fell over while filming it. The strange object flitting across the night sky in Norwich last November was variously described as a (Farleys Rusk) with two bites taken out of it, a (batman symbol) and an axe head after Glenn Webster captured it on film.

Mr Webster, of Appleyard Crescent reached for his video camera when he saw the huge object (zig-zagging) outside his window. The excitement the picture generated among UFO experts made the filming worthwhile for Mr Webster, even though he tripped over his hi-if while filming it.

Unidentified flying object investigators across the country today urged the Ministry of Defence to "Come Clean" over reports of mysterious bright lights in the sky over The Wash. The sightings reported extensively in the Evening news last week, have sparked national debate and were the subject of a UFO conference at the weekend. We have been inundated with letters and calls from people who are angry that the ( Royal Airforce ) did not send up planes to investigate the sightings, which baffled police, coastguards, and RAF staff last Saturday. And they say the MoD "insulted the intelligence of the world"by brushing the sightings off as a false alarm.

Irene Bott, president of Staffordshire UFO group, brought the Wash sightings up at the Lancaster UFO Studies conference in Morecambe on Saturday.  She said RAF Neatishead, near Wroxham was an early -warning station and should have automatically scrambled someone from RAF Coltishall or Kinloss in Scotland to investigate.

"If they did not, they either know what it was or it is something they are dealing with - something they put there and not want us to know about." Mrs Bott said the mysterious lights were seen by reliable witnesses and could not be explained as being reflection of an electrical storm or Boston stump - the famous 200ft tower of the Lincolnshire town's parish church.

Tony Dodds, director of investigations for Quest International and UFO Magazine, said the idea that it was a storm was ludicrous. "Surely to God the RAF can tell the difference between a storm and a mystery object in the sky."

God help us if we ever get invaded," he said. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said... "We have no further comment to make." Weird goings on ... Boston Stump.. was it involved in the mystery or not.