Claims of strange lights in the sky over Streatham in the last few weeks:
'On Tuesday night at around 10.30pm Gary Richardson, 42, was out walking his dogs when he saw a UFO displaying unusual-shaped lights slipping silently over Mitcham towards Streatham, before suddenly disappearing. Three weeks ago TV editor and sci-fi fan Mark McConnell called the Guardian newsroom reporting that he had seen a similar object, three lights giving off a dull glow, hovering 200ft over St George's hospital on the night of August 14'.
Full story in This is Local London, 12 September 2009
Showing posts with label UFOs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UFOs. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Monday, September 01, 2008
Mysterious Mitcham
Mitcham is undoubtedly in South London, but is a bit too far west for our usual Transpontine coverage. On the other hand it does have in James Clark a chronicler of the urban folklore and general weirdness that is right up our street. So take a look at Mysterious Mitcham for the full low down on Mitcham Fair and its grottoes, the Phantom Cyclist of Mitcham Common plus many other tales of ghosts, UFOs etc.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Close Encounters of the Brockley Kind
The Ministry of Defence this week released formerly classified documents on UFO sightings in the UK. The files are available free of charge on the National Archives website for the next few weeks, after which you have to pay. As David Clarke notes in a very helpful overview of the material, the military have been recording unusual air activity since the early 20th century, but things really hotted up after the 1947 'flying saucer' excitement in the USA. The majority of 'Unidentified Flying Objects' actually do get idenitified 'as bright stars and planets, meteors, artificial satellites, balloons, aircraft seen from unusual angles and space junk burning up in the atmosphere. However, there are some cases on record where no common explanation can be found' sometimes known as 'unidentified aerial phenomena'. Of course the fact that they are unexplained is not evidence that they are spacecraft from other planets – that is only one of numerous conjectures.
Having trawled through some of the files (some of them are 300 page pdfs) I have found a somewhat sketchy report of a Brockley sighting: at 9:30 pm on 3 May 1986 a secretary walking outdoors in misty conditions saw a green light in the sky above the 'railway line at Brockley' described as 'In a vehicle – of sorts. A ring, brilliant’ which moved 'In an arc. Very fast'.
Other South London reports include:
- an 'orange sphere' moving rapidly above Stockwell on 10th July 1986;
- a 'shimmering silver' object 'bright and reflective' seen by an Air Traffic Controller from Waterloo Bridge on 19th July 1985, with at least 12 other witnesses (also reported by somebody on the South Bank outside the Chrysanthemum floating pub who noted its 'high speed movement in several directions');
- A 'large flashing light' spotted by a Home Office civil servant on 19th May 1985 from Hungerford Bridge apparently moving from 'over the Festival Hall at considerable height' to 'over the National Theatre gradually appearing to get smaller';
- 'One large dart shaped object, silver in colour' spotted from Streatham on 3rd May 1985 moving over Wimbledon (Heathrow airport reported that 'they had a silver aircraft on approach to land at that time').
Of course we also had the Peckham Rye 'was it a plane? was it a balloon thing?' thing last year.
Brockley and Stockwell reports are in file DEFE 24/1924, the others in DEFE 24/1923. There's really not much more detail than I've included here, but let me know if you find anything else in the other files.
Update (17th May 2008): the South London Press also covers this story. They mention a sighting in October 1984 when a “circular, saucer shaped” craft with a “dark band pulsating light” was spotted at 10.30pm over Waterloo Bridge before flying down towards St Paul’s Cathedral.
Having trawled through some of the files (some of them are 300 page pdfs) I have found a somewhat sketchy report of a Brockley sighting: at 9:30 pm on 3 May 1986 a secretary walking outdoors in misty conditions saw a green light in the sky above the 'railway line at Brockley' described as 'In a vehicle – of sorts. A ring, brilliant’ which moved 'In an arc. Very fast'.
Other South London reports include:
- an 'orange sphere' moving rapidly above Stockwell on 10th July 1986;
- a 'shimmering silver' object 'bright and reflective' seen by an Air Traffic Controller from Waterloo Bridge on 19th July 1985, with at least 12 other witnesses (also reported by somebody on the South Bank outside the Chrysanthemum floating pub who noted its 'high speed movement in several directions');
- A 'large flashing light' spotted by a Home Office civil servant on 19th May 1985 from Hungerford Bridge apparently moving from 'over the Festival Hall at considerable height' to 'over the National Theatre gradually appearing to get smaller';
- 'One large dart shaped object, silver in colour' spotted from Streatham on 3rd May 1985 moving over Wimbledon (Heathrow airport reported that 'they had a silver aircraft on approach to land at that time').
Of course we also had the Peckham Rye 'was it a plane? was it a balloon thing?' thing last year.
Brockley and Stockwell reports are in file DEFE 24/1924, the others in DEFE 24/1923. There's really not much more detail than I've included here, but let me know if you find anything else in the other files.
Update (17th May 2008): the South London Press also covers this story. They mention a sighting in October 1984 when a “circular, saucer shaped” craft with a “dark band pulsating light” was spotted at 10.30pm over Waterloo Bridge before flying down towards St Paul’s Cathedral.
Monday, April 07, 2008
East Dulwich Jug Band
I went down to the Plough in Lordship Lane last Wednesday for the second of the monthly East Dulwich Jug Band 'Plough Sessions'. The premise is to have an open access night on the first Wednesday of every month with everyone invited to come along to write, record and perform a song on the same night (all acoustic instruments welcome except guitars). After a year there will be a whole album of new songs and it will be time to think of a new project. So far the songs have had a local theme. The first session wrote a song about Spring Heeled Jack, a Victorian phenomenon of sightings of a man/creature able to jump over walls and scare the hell out of the residents of South London and other places.
2nd Plough Session
Last week's song theme was Peckham Rye, and the final song included lines that alluded to William Blake, Only Fools & Horses, Harriet Harman's recent Peckham walkabout and the supposed UFO sightings last year - the chorus was 'It's a long way from Rye Lane, to the Stars and back again'. All performed by a 31-piece band featuring most of Dulwich Ukulele Club, three fiddles, percussion, kazoo, banjo, mandolin (that was me), slide guitar and various singers. There was a jug but nobody seemed to know how to play it, so there's definitely an opening there for the next session on May 7th at 8 pm! By the way, they are performing as the South Bank Jug Band at the Festival Hall this Wednesday at 11 am.
All of this is adding nicely to that great body of South London Songs.
2nd Plough Session
Last week's song theme was Peckham Rye, and the final song included lines that alluded to William Blake, Only Fools & Horses, Harriet Harman's recent Peckham walkabout and the supposed UFO sightings last year - the chorus was 'It's a long way from Rye Lane, to the Stars and back again'. All performed by a 31-piece band featuring most of Dulwich Ukulele Club, three fiddles, percussion, kazoo, banjo, mandolin (that was me), slide guitar and various singers. There was a jug but nobody seemed to know how to play it, so there's definitely an opening there for the next session on May 7th at 8 pm! By the way, they are performing as the South Bank Jug Band at the Festival Hall this Wednesday at 11 am.
All of this is adding nicely to that great body of South London Songs.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
East Dulwich UFO?
From South London Press (9 August 2007):
'Stunned star spotters were shocked to see mysterious lights flying above East Dulwich on Saturday, fuelling rumours of secret military experiments or visitors from the space in the area. Lawyer Richard Pringle, 33, of Peckham Rye, was walking home with his flatmate about 11.30pm when he spotted the UFOs rise above the Crystal Palace skyline.
He said: "We were both completely sober and we could see a row of four lights coming up over the hill and over Dulwich Village. If it was a plane you would have said it was at about 15,000 feet and you couldn't see any lights flashing or anything, you could just see a constant orange glow". Mr Pringle said the lights were followed by two more chains of four lights which moved as if propelled by an engine. He added: "There is no way you would have normal planes flying like that. People have said it's possibly planes from a military base nearby."'
Some discussion of this too over at the East Dulwich Forum, with suggestions including Chinese Wedding Lanterns, and account of the sighting (presumably from same person):
'Me and my flatmate (both rational professionals and sober at the time) were walking up peckham rye on the east side of the common at about 11 pm on saturday 4 august and saw 3 or so lines of quite small orange fiery lights, each line with about 4 lights in it, moving almost vertically up from the horizon near crystal palace masts, then, when they were fairly high in the sky, their trajectory flattened out sharply and they began to travel east over east dulwich and peckham rye. the speed and altitude were similar to that of a jet plane, but the flight path, formation, numbers and appearance were quite different. we watched for a few minutes. we left the road and went into our apartment building to get binoculars and look from our roof terrace; in the couple of minutes it took to get there, they had disappeared. did anybody else see this?'
The MOD wesbite records another sighting in East Dulwich on 19th January 2003 at 1 am, with a description of 'Lights, that were formed in a worm shape, wriggling around in the sky'.
'Stunned star spotters were shocked to see mysterious lights flying above East Dulwich on Saturday, fuelling rumours of secret military experiments or visitors from the space in the area. Lawyer Richard Pringle, 33, of Peckham Rye, was walking home with his flatmate about 11.30pm when he spotted the UFOs rise above the Crystal Palace skyline.
He said: "We were both completely sober and we could see a row of four lights coming up over the hill and over Dulwich Village. If it was a plane you would have said it was at about 15,000 feet and you couldn't see any lights flashing or anything, you could just see a constant orange glow". Mr Pringle said the lights were followed by two more chains of four lights which moved as if propelled by an engine. He added: "There is no way you would have normal planes flying like that. People have said it's possibly planes from a military base nearby."'
Some discussion of this too over at the East Dulwich Forum, with suggestions including Chinese Wedding Lanterns, and account of the sighting (presumably from same person):
'Me and my flatmate (both rational professionals and sober at the time) were walking up peckham rye on the east side of the common at about 11 pm on saturday 4 august and saw 3 or so lines of quite small orange fiery lights, each line with about 4 lights in it, moving almost vertically up from the horizon near crystal palace masts, then, when they were fairly high in the sky, their trajectory flattened out sharply and they began to travel east over east dulwich and peckham rye. the speed and altitude were similar to that of a jet plane, but the flight path, formation, numbers and appearance were quite different. we watched for a few minutes. we left the road and went into our apartment building to get binoculars and look from our roof terrace; in the couple of minutes it took to get there, they had disappeared. did anybody else see this?'
The MOD wesbite records another sighting in East Dulwich on 19th January 2003 at 1 am, with a description of 'Lights, that were formed in a worm shape, wriggling around in the sky'.
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