- Strange lights in the North-east night sky have baffled
the experts.
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- Sixteen lights travelling rapidly across clear skies
were spotted over two nights by a Fyvie resident.
- Air traffic control bosses and aviation experts have
ruled out aircraft or satellites, because the lights were travelling too
fast to be planes or orbiting objects.
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- Astronomy experts say the lights could not have been
"shooting stars" because they were travelling too slowly and
from different directions.
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- One North-east UFO expert was at a loss to offer a straightforward
explanation and said the mysterious sightings should be logged as genuine
close encounters with unidentified flying objects.
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- The high-level Fyvie flyovers first appeared on Thursday
about 10.30pm and were still crossing silently overhead more than two hours
later.
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- They took only seconds to cross the sky, then gave a
repeat performance on Friday night and into Saturday morning.
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- Resident and Evening Express reporter Graham Lawther
said he spotted the first lights at 10.35pm on Thursday.
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- He said: "I had stepped outside for a good view
of Mars, which is closer to the earth now than it has been for thousands
of years, on what was a crystal-clear, moonless night.
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- "But I also saw a small white light, high in the
atmosphere, appear in the southern sky and fly extremely fast to the north.
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- "It was far too rapid for an aircraft. It was across
the whole sky in under 10 seconds and a plane would have taken several
minutes."
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- Mr Lawther saw seven identical, fast-moving pinpricks
of light between 10.35pm and 11.20pm, and six more from 12.15am-12.45am.
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- Three more were witnessed on the Friday night, between
10.20pm and 10.35pm, the first heading south and two more quickly heading
north.
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- The lights, which appeared to be at the altitude of a
high-flying aircraft gave off a white glow.
- A RAF Kinloss spokeswoman said: "We had no activity
in that area on either day."
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- A National Air Traffic Services spokesman said: "I
have checked with our colleagues in Aberdeen and Prestwick, which covers
the upper air space.
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- "There are no reports of any sightings from either
night."
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- A spokesman for the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh said
the lights could have been satellites in high orbit.
- He said large satellites were occasionally seen with
the naked eye, though never 13 in less than two hours.
- He said they were almost always observed shortly before
dawn or after dusk, when sunlight reflected off their highly polished surfaces.
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- Our skies are hotspot for saucers
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- The North-east is a global hotspot for UFO sightings.
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- Aberdonian Ian Taylor, who has been studying the subject
for more than 50 years, said folk travel to this region from all over the
country in the hope of a close encounter.
- Lights and objects were regularly seen near Muchalls,
Portlethen, Deeside and the area north of Aberdeen, he explained.
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- The ex-RAF man said it would be difficult to explain
away the sheer number of the latest phenomena in the skies above Fyvie
as aircraft, satellites or shooting stars.
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- "These were obviously aerial objects, either generating
their own light or reflecting light," said Mr Taylor.
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- "What was seen was straightforward UFO activity."
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- Mr Taylor said no one should jump to the conclusion that
the sightings were necessarily "craft from another planet" but
said they were certainly unexplained observations of unidentified objects.
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- "The frequency of sightings up here is immense,"
said Mr Taylor, who lives in Aberdeen's West End.
- "If you are willing to go out and look in the evening,
particularly in the winter time, you would be able to see things you would
not believe."
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- Recent North-east sightings have included:
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- * A hovering ball of light seen from Kincorth for two
hours last January.
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- * A silent red light following a couple in their car
on the A90 just south of Aberdeen in December 2002, which shot off vertically.
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- * Two "bright globes" spinning above Cruden
Bay in October 2001, which faded after 10 minutes.
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- * A black wing-like object, which glowed and buzzed a
couple's home in Aboyne - and which was also seen by a man driving between
Daviot and Oldmeldrum.
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