Birmingham UFO Group Report
Originally forwarded by Richard Hall
Author: Dave Hodrien
Last Updated: 25/08/2011
Sighting Details
Back in 2009 Kristopher Clinton and a work colleague had an unusual sighting while out at High Park, Glasgow. It was about 1.30am and the men were walking home from their night shift through the park. It was a calm and clear night.
As they walked, Kristopher’s work mate suddenly pointed something out to him in the sky. They saw a collection of small amber coloured lights. The lights were not in any particular formation and seemed to be randomly positioned against one another. They also appeared to be stationary. After a short time the lights seemed to start fading away. As they did other lights seemed to appear at a different position to the original ones. This continued, with lights appearing for a random period of time then fading to darkness. There did not seem to be any particular formation to them. Whenever the lights were visible they did not move at all.
The men were puzzled by what they were looking at and continued to watch the lights for up to 45 minutes. After this time they decided to continue home, with the lights still appearing at random in the sky. They could not think of anything which could explain what they had seen.
Sighting Analysis
No doubt the lights appeared very unusual to the witnesses. However I feel that it is likely they were watching a launch of multiple Chinese lanterns. Lanterns usually appear as amber coloured orbs of light as Kristopher describes. When there is a breeze blowing, lanterns tend to float on a path across the sky and seem to follow each other. However when the weather is calm they will float up into the sky and move about slowly in different directions or sometimes hover quite still for periods of time. Lanterns usually flicker in brightness due to the lit flame inside them. The more distant they are the more this effect is increased, and at great distance they can only be visible when burning brightly and seem to vanish for periods of time before suddenly reappearing. Of course while they are out of sight they can drift, which accounts for the fact that the lights kept on appearing in different positions in the sky.
The fact this sighting took place in the early hours of the morning on a clear night probably means that what was witnessed was a launch of many lanterns from a celebration somewhere near to the park. It is unlikely that lanterns were being launched for the entire 45 minutes, but they can remain burning for quite a length of time, and with no wind to blow them would have remained in the same area of sky. I feel that this adequately explains what was seen.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2011