Swindon UFO Research

Police Chase UFO over Swindon

When the Swindon UFO desk received a report of an orange ball of light in the sky on the 27th of July, thoughts immediately turned to lanterns. It was a good job that lanterns were not automatically assigned as culprits, which during those lantern sighting rich days, could have so easily been the case.

The sighting occurred at a BBQ on the 26th of July at 22:03, flying in a northerly direction over the Old Town area of Swindon. The object was witnessed by twenty people, one of whom was a plane spotter who had given the height of the object as 2,000ft. The object, still on a northerly flight path eventually vanished. The witness immediately called the Police and reported the incident. At the same time a group of investigators from Swindon UFO Research were sat on top of Fox Hill, near Liddington, approximately 4 miles away from the sighting location.

The witness report:
We were in Old Town, Swindon having a BBQ, when at around 10.05pm a bright amber coloured light appeared and went across the sky in front of us, then it stopped and hovered for around a minute. It then started to move again in a slightly different direction. As it moved away, the light was pulsating until it disappeared about a minute later. It made no sound as it moved
I phoned the police to report this to see if they knew what it was, to which they said they would investigate it. A couple of minutes later, we saw the police helicopter fly over us in the direction that I said the object had gone. The police phoned me back to tell me that they had investigated and that "we were being taken over by aliens, but not to worry as they had them in custody. Did I think that I could identify them".
The explanation that the police gave to me for this was that there had been an event in Queens Park, Swindon and that they had been using lasers and that what I had seen was a laser.

The witness was asked to write a detailed account in her own words and also agreed to a verbal interview which lasted approximately forty five minutes. The witness believed that the police helicopter had been dispatched as part of the investigation. On asking if the police had stated this as a fact the answer was no. At the end of the interview the witness was reminded that SUFOR had not received the written affirmation. This was received the following day.

In this statement the witness indicated that the police had stated the helicopter was dispatched as part of the investigation. The response from the police [It was aliens] was also of concern. This did not sound like a normal response from one of their call centres.

The records of the SUFOR investigators who were on Fox Hill at the time of the incident were checked. They reported nothing at the time of the sighting, but did have a record of the air ambulance/police helicopter at the same time and travelling in the same direction as the helicopter the witness had sighted. The sky watch notes indicated the helicopter had landed at the Great Western Hospital.

More information was needed at this point. SUFOR requested more information on the investigation carried out by Wiltshire Constabulary and also from the Air Ambulance control centre. Taking into consideration that the Swindon Mela festival was also in full swing at this time, the organisers were also contacted to enquire about their lighting set-up and the presence of any lasers at the festival.

The Air Ambulance control responded quickly and stated that their aircraft had been in Devizes and had travelled to the hospital in response to an emergency. This was good news as it ruled out the aircraft as being the source of the initial UFO sighting.

The festival organisers were in touch within the week. They confirmed no lasers were being used and that the stage lighting would not, in their experience, cause such a sighting. This concurred with some of the investigation conclusions already reached, in that reflected lights and lasers did not seem to match the profile of the sighting. Lanterns had also been ruled out at this time.

A few weeks later the phone rang at the UFO desk. One of the police officers who had investigated the report from the witness had called to answer the queries concerning the events of that evening. He confirmed the witness report and confirmed that although he had not suggested lasers as the cause of this sighting, a colleague of his who was at the festival had made the suggestion. The officer confirmed that at no time was he aware of the helicopter being dispatched as part of the investigation.

At this point several facts had been established. The police helicopter/air ambulance was not responsible for the sighting. It was not involved in any way in the investigation and its movements had been confirmed by Wiltshire Constabulary, Air Ambulance Control and the sky watch members.

An interesting clue at this time was noted in the investigation notes. The estimation of height was given by a witness who had experience of watching aircraft. By what frame of reference did he estimate this height? Was he calling (perhaps unwittingly) on his experience of watching air craft lights?

No more sightings were reported of this object and despite hoping for another sighting, the phone stayed silent. In August 2008 the Swindon Gay Pride festival was held and the next morning the phone rang. Two orange lights were spotted over Old Town in Swindon. The behaviour matched the previous sighting, but this time there were two of them. The UFO was also confirmed by another witness at a different location.

Was this something to do with the festivals themselves?

The location of the police helicopter was checked and it was confirmed that the aircraft had not been flying at the time in question; in fact it was having its annual service and had not been airborne all day.

Some kind of aircraft was now the prime candidate of these sightings, but what kind of craft would fly low over Swindon, illuminated only by one or two orange lights and have the ability to hover?

There was a sighting back in 2006, when a red triangle was viewed over Swindon Town on two consecutive nights. At the time it was suspected to be an aircraft of some description, but the case was never investigated. Was this the same aircraft? A little bit of history here, it was this sighting that started a chain of events which lead to the formation of SUFOR a year later.

By chance, on the 20th of August, a SUFOR investigator happened to be looking out of their kitchen window and witnessed two bright orange lights flash across the sky. They quickly grabbed their camcorder and waited. Within a few minutes the light returned, this time as a single orange light. The video does not do the glow of the light justice. It was as if someone had taken orange luminous paint and dabbed it on the black sky. The investigator had no trouble in identifying the object – it was definitely a helicopter as they easily indentified the engine noise both when it appeared as two lights and later as a single light source. But the noise was only really apparent as the aircraft was near the investigator. At the start of the video, with the aircraft two miles away, the engine noise could not be heard.

SUFOR posted the video onto their website and asked visitors to identify the object. One response correctly identified the object as a helicopter, but added extra information. The contact indicated it was a Military Lynx Helicopter using high resolution infra-red cameras to carry out urban surveillance. The contact was known to SUFOR and a trusted subject matter expert in video analysis.

The original witnesses were contacted and shown the video. They agreed this is what they saw. Two cases solved perhaps, but another mystery to replace them. Were the military carrying out urban surveillance over the Swindon Mela and Gay Pride festivals?

We confirmed the location of the helicopter on the video. This put the aircraft directly over the Red Light district of Swindon. At this time, it was local knowledge that the authorities were actively monitoring this area.

An email was sent to RAF Lyneham asking them to confirm the military presence. A polite response from them requested that any UFO reports should be made to the M.o.D. A response was sent back indicating that it was not a UFO, it was a military aircraft and could the RAF explain it’s presence over Swindon.

A few days later the response arrived from Lyneham. The tone was slightly firmer and stated that they would not give further comment.

As a UFO investigation group, SUFOR had solved the cases of orange lights over Swindon, but in doing so, may have created a far more interesting story. Since the second contact with RAF Lyneham there have been no further sightings of the aircraft over the town.

Case References:
SUF-CSE-019-160809
Title: Old Town Orange Light
Date: 16/08/08
Time: 21:30

SUF-CSE-014-260708
Title: UFO over Old Town
Date: 26/07/08
Time: 22:05

SUF-CSE-0028-200808
Video of the helicopter in action.