NIGEL WRIGHT: I know that orange 'orbs' are not Chinese lanterns

For years now we UFO investigators have had to deal with weird, orange, glowing orbs that seem to appear from nowhere and move across the skies by day and by night. These strange visitors to our skies seem to pop up in some very odd places: over large bays, over moorland and hills. Indeed, they have even been seen floating over fields later displaying crop circles!

Up to now there have been mainly two fields of thinking over these strange “orbs.”

1) They are a form of plasma energy, or ball lighting.
2) All of the sightings refer to Chinese lanterns, released by over-enthusiastic wedding guests etc.

Ah, if only UFO research was that simple! I am very sad to report that, contrary to what many of our sceptical critics may think and say, there is a VAST difference in the way in which these very pretty paper lanterns move gently, with the wind, across the sky and the more rapid, and non-wandering, routes taken by the more intriguing, and true “orbs.”

Over the last ten years or so I have been very lucky in witnessing both varieties by day and by night. In Devon, over the Lyme Bay area and Exmouth, I saw steady, glowing orange orbs, floating in a clear, blue cloudless sky. They moved steadily in a straight line for about two to three minutes before simply fading away. I have also witnessed the same phenomenon, moving over the area of Woodbury common, an area of wild gorse land just outside Exmouth. This time it was in the early hours of the morning. Again, the weather was fine, with no cloud cover.

Now, lets deal with the two explanations given by sceptics.

1) PLASMA ENERGY
To have been plasma energy or ball lighting one would have expected there to have been a local geomagnetic or weather-generated event occurring at the same time as the ball of light appeared. At NO time during my sightings was there any type of such an event occurring in the area involved.

2) CHINESE LANTERNS
I have observed these nice, little Chinese toys and will agree that if one has little or no experience observing objects in the skies, especially at night, then it might - just might - be possible to mistake this type of short-living paper lantern for a more substantial and far more solid object. If your object continues to travel in a perfectly straight line for at least three minutes at quite a rapid speed, then I would stake a king's pension that it was NO lantern.

Now for the really interesting thing: I recently moved up to the northwest. I live in Morecambe, quite close to the nuclear power station at Heysham. Quite soon after moving up here, I was taking my family out for a early evening drive along the main coast road from Morecambe to Hest Bank. It was just about dusk and the sky was not quite fully dark. Suddenly, from the right of the road appeared a glowing, orange light, quite low in the sky.

At first I was, I admit, prone to thinking 'Ah!..a Chinese lantern.' Then, as I and the rest of my family watched the light (I had pulled up on the side of the road to observe it) this orb continued going up into the sky, gaining height as it went, and speed. Again, this would be sort of consistent with a lantern. However, there were two things about this sighting that made me wonder. First: the light itself at no time flickered at all. All the lanterns I have ever seen (and there have been several both here and in Devon) do indeed flicker. Second: my wife decided to try and capture a photo of this orb on her phone camera. As she tried to frame the object on her phone screen, the phone camera jammed up, and not only did it refuse to take a photo of the object, but all of the photos stored on the phone were deleted! Now, no doubt an expert in phone cameras may be able to explain this but the really interesting thing is that the phone and camera began to work perfectly well immediately after the object disappeared from sight over Morecambe bay and continues to do so until this very day.

Having seen all of this, I was getting a bit excited about this area's possibilities re. UFO hunting! However, the next sighting to get my juices really flowing happened right outside my own front door during a cloudy but dry early evening a few months later.

From the direction of the power station at Heysham came a floating orange orb. This travelled across the sky towards the sea for about five minutes or so. Eventually it disappeared out of sight, somewhere over Morecambe bay. Then, as I looked towards the direction of the power station, or to be more precise, the direction of a large, old aircraft hanger-type building that lies just to the east of the power station itself, there came a sight that left me totally bemused!

From what appeared to be ground level, or as near as can be, came two orange orbs, one very quickly followed by another. These orbs rose at an angle of approx. 45 degrees to the ground, at a very quick speed. They seemed to reach the cloud base, which was about 1000ft or so, in a matter of two/three seconds, and disappear up into the clouds themselves! There was NO way these were lanterns, not unless they have taken to launching these lanterns by high-speed catapults! The only thing these strange orbs reminded of was the tail flames of ground-launched rockets, such was their speed!

I have never read any account of such 'launched' orbs having been sighted before. I am, however, intrigued by the location of the sighting. In my life as a journalist I have often been amazed by life's little trick of throwing up opportunities of getting new leads on stories. This was such a case. A few weeks later I was given new information about the waste recycling plant and the aircraft hanger. According to my informant, the recycling plant is run by ICI, and the hanger is used for growing or storing potatoes.

As you can see from my photo of this building, it must take one heck of a lot of spuds to fill this hanger! This is a very big hanger, which, again according to information given to me, dates from WWII. The whole area around the hanger and recycling plant is a bit of an odd mix of farmland and commercial properties and aerial masts etc. As I surveyed this area I realised just how easy it would be to hide a whole array of secrets amongst the mix of everyday buildings and other perfectly normal objects across this landscape. Add to this mix of objects and buildings the huge array of power substations and power lines etc. that run to and from the power station at Heysham, then there presents a new opportunity to hide even more guilty government secrets! Add to this the presence of Bae Systems at Preston, not too far away, and one's mind can run away with one at the plots you could imagine.

Now, of course there may very well be absolutely no secrets to hide around this part of the Lancashire coastline. The only thing I can state for sure is the behaviour of the orange orbs that I saw taking off from around that part of the local area.

Does the nearness of Heysham power station have anything to do with the sighting? Does the really large, old aircraft hanger type building nearby, have a bearing on the events? I really don't know! But I have a strange feeling in these old investigator's bones of mine, that they do indeed have a bearing of some kind.













Images (from top): Heysham power station; Hanger; Entrance to recycling centre.