My UFO Sighting 28/12/08

I’ve had another UFO sighting! It happened on Sunday (the 28th) at about 1.15PM local time as I was traveling to work. I was walking along Bulan Road, Headington, Oxford when I saw it. At the time I was on the phone to my friend Ustane (see links column) and was able to describe the sighting to her as it happened. The object was about 20 or 25 degrees above the horizon and lay slightly south of due west. I crossed over to the far side of the road because it was obscured by the houses on the near side. It took the form of a circular white disc, like a golf ball or ping-pong ball; I thought that it might have been slightly elongated at its four o’clock limb, but I can’t be sure; it was too small and far away to be seen clearly. It was very small, less than a quarter of the apparent size of the moon, and very distant I found. The weather was cold and bright, and thick clouds were passing over a clear blue sky; it was quite windy and they moved fast. I stood still and used one of the houses as a static gauge to check the object’s movement and it didn’t move at all in the minute or so I observed it. I include an artist’s impression of the sighting. (Well the artist is me actually, so I use the word “artist” in its broadest possible sense! I’m well aware that I'm no Neil Hague!) I watched the object as I continued walking along the road. Eventually a cloud moved in front of it, showing me that it was fairly distant, at least further away than the clouds. I decided not to try to photograph it because I only had my mobile phone camera and that is very poor quality; the object would certainly not have shown. I kept looking for the object as I resumed my journey to work but when the clouds parted it was nowhere to be seen.

What was it? I don’t know and I wish I’d had the chance to have a better look at it. I’m happy to declare that I’m no Skeptic. I’m a “Woo” and proud of it! But I hope my fellow Woo’s won’t regard it as a betrayal of my principles when I admit that the object could simply have been a balloon, airship or another kind of aircraft. However it is odd that it appeared not to move at all at first and then a few minutes later had moved so fast that it had vanished! If it was a balloon then it wasn’t a regular one, the type Richard Branson regularly flies over Oxford; it was far too high up. It would have to have been an unmanned high-altitude balloon, or might even have been that cliché of the UFO-debunker, a weather balloon! Unless I see it again we’ll never know. Nevertheless I did a bit of net-trawling, including checking out the local news (http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/news/ ) for any balloon-related events, but there were none. I also phoned the Oxford Mail and related my sighting to their newsdesk. They’ve not got back to me yet. It would be interesting to see if anyone else had spotted it! I asked around at work and nobody could help me, but one girl told me she had a sighting a few months ago in the same area; she lives there. A metallic object “like a plane” appeared in the sky outside her bedroom window. Although it resembled an aeroplane it didn’t move or make any sound. It hung motionless in that position for many hours. My witness had never spoken of it and had dismissed it; she actually came across as quite embarrassed to be even discussing it with me. I wonder how many other UFO sightings are left unreported and forgotten, repressed by the witness because “UFO’s don’t exist, do they? Everyone knows that.”

(Addendum: Someone at Contact International suggested that I might have seen the planet Venus. I didn't think so because it didn't look like it, but then I wondered if freak atmospheric conditions might make Venus look different. Then I found out that Venus is in another part of the sky anyway. Whew! What a relief! I'd have felt a bit of a plonker if I'd made such a song and dance over seeing Venus.)

(Another Addendum: I've heard back from a lady at BUFORA and they're not persuing my case. That's understandable I suppose; there are bigger fish to fry, not to mention broken wind-turbines! What I experienced two weeks ago was no close encounter, but I still thought it was worth reporting; I hoped that other people might have seen it too. The lady at BUFORA thinks I probably saw that cliche for UFO-debunkers: a weather balloon. I doubt that, but despite my doubts I can't prove that what I saw was NOT a weather balloon or something similar. I wish I'd got the chance to see it up close and for longer, maybe film it and get more evidence. It's frustrating. Never mind, I'll keep watching the skies.)

(I've made a HPANWO TV film about my sighting where I show you the location of the event: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-ufo-sighting.html)