Tracking down answers to UFO mystery

AS reports of strange objects lighting up the night sky continue to pour into the Grimsby Telegraph newsroom, one man believes he has solved the UFO mystery.

We reported how several readers had contacted us after seeing unusual orange lights in the skies above North East Lincolnshire – and now many more have come forward to say: "I saw them too!"

The phenomenon has also caught the attention of the national media, with sightings of clusters of orange lights in Merseyside, Lincoln and Cambridgeshire being reported in the Daily Mail.

Mr Patton thinks he has found the answer to the UFO sightings.

Richard Dawson, from the West Marsh area of Grimsby, is becoming a "firm believer" after his "amazing" sighting on Saturday night.

He looked out of the window to see, in the distance, "a bright orangey-red ball just sitting there doing nothing, too big to be an aircraft light or helicopter or even a flare."

He said: "After about five minutes, it appeared to just vanish completely as if going behind a cloud – yet there were no clouds in sight that night!"

Another reader spotted three orange lights in the sky while travelling along Clee Road from Cleethorpes to Scartho on the same night.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said: "I really don't know what they were. They were too close together and too big to be stars.

"One of the lights went towards town and one just disappeared in front of us. I don't know what happened to the other one. It was very strange."

But David Patton, 51, of Suggitts Lane, Cleethorpes, thinks he has found the answer – a red LED, or a light emitting diode, with batteries and a burst balloon which he discovered on the pavement near his home.

He said: "It was just lit up on the pavement. At first I thought it was one of those lights you hang on a dog collar.

"Maybe there are other ones in a different colour, or from a distance it might look orange.

"That LED is quite bright. If you've got that inside a balloon it's going to show up quite well. I reckon that's the UFO people have been reporting."

Another theory, put forward by an anonymous caller from North Somercotes, was that the lights are remote controlled military aircraft being flown over the east coast.

He said: "They are particularly centred over the east coast and it looks similar to a plane moving but there's no noise. I think they are test-flying something at Donna Nook."

Nick Pope, the former head of the MoD's UFO Project, said the mystery objects were most likely to be Chinese lanterns.

"I'm not disparaging the whole UFO phenomenon, but I'd say 99 per cent of UFO reports involving orange lights in the sky these days are attributable to these lanterns."