- Two diamond-shaped craft moved swiftly and silently above
the fields on the outskirts of Melbourne. Windowless and metallic, they
sped bullet-like through the sky in close formation before disappearing
into the clouds.
-
- The sleepy Derbyshire market town remained generally
unmoved, but one pair of eyes was fixed to the heavens in wonder.
- Retired telecommunications worker Brian Hampson (66),
of Station Road, Melbourne, contacted Derbyshire UFO expert Omar Fowler
after seeing the UFOs last March.
-
- Leaning on the windowsill of his living room, Brian remembered
the moment with a faraway gaze.
-
- "I have a clear view of the flight path for East
Midlands Airport from my front window," he explained. "So I am
very familiar with the general comings and goings from the airport.
-
- "I was watching an aeroplane coming in to land from
the west on this particular evening.
-
- "I could see the lights of the plane travel over
our house, but as I watched, a strange thing happened.
-
- "Another set of lights appeared. They were moving
along a strange trajectory, from east to west - it was a route that definitely
was not a normal flight path.
-
- "I started paying more attention because the lights
appeared to be heading straight towards the landing plane, and I thought
it could be a near miss."
-
- For a moment, Brian stood transfixed looking out of the
window, wondering what would happen next, but with a sigh of relief, he
realised that the craft was not going to hit the plane.
-
- "The second set of lights was much higher, and there
was no danger of them making contact with the plane," he added.
-
- "But I carried on watching the lights because I
knew there was no flight path in that direction, and I gradually realised
that they were not the lights of an aeroplane.
-
- "They were much paler in colour than aeroplane lights
- they were amber coloured, and they formed the shape of two diamonds."
-
- Keen to get a better view, Brian rushed for his binoculars.
-
- "Through the binoculars, I could see many more lights
within the formation," he said. "I could even see what looked
like metal ridges, lit up by the lights on the underside of the craft.
-
- "I could tell that it was actually two separate
craft travelling almost side by side - one was slightly behind the other."
-
- As they travelled across the sky above Brian's house,
the rear diamond moved forward, travelled for a while alongside the other,
and then moved slightly ahead of the second craft.
-
- "It is very difficult to judge their speed when
you don't really know how high they were, but I think that they must have
been travelling at about 150mph," he said.
-
- "They appeared to be travelling perilously close
to each other - just like when you see the Red Arrows doing one of those
flying displays."
-
- The craft then disappeared into clouds which were gathering
in the west.
-
- Brian said he remained open minded about the diamond-shaped
craft. He believes that they could be some sort of secret military drone
craft, the likes of which he has never seen, but he does not rule out the
possibility that they could be the transport of an alien life form.
-
- "You have to believe that these things are possible,"
he said, "There are just so many reported sightings of UFOs that you
can't just dismiss them.
-
- "And I also think that there is a lot of suppression
of information going on with UFOs, so we will probably never discover the
truth."
-
- Omar Fowler, of the Derby-based Phenomenon Research Association,
explained that Brian's experience was quite a typical encounter.
-
- "This is the usual sort of thing that people see,"
he said. "It is normally just a matter of seeing an unusual shape
moving across the sky, often for just a few seconds.
-
- "Brian's experience does differ from the kind reported
by most people, who see the shapes as triangles rather than diamonds."
-
- Omar, who runs the society from his Sinfin home, is determined
to discover the truth about UFOs by meticulously logging reported experiences.
-
- He used to work at Farnborough air base, where he was
involved with developing experimental aircraft.
-
- "That work sparked my interest in extra-terrestrial
visitors, and after years of recording incidents, I am convinced that alien
life exists and visits Earth regularly," he added.
-
- "While UFOs remain an unusual sight in the night
sky, I would estimate that there are 15 or more types of alien that visit
our planet every year."
-
- For Patricia Winfield, UFOs are not an unusual sight.
The 48-year-old, of Earlham Close, Kirk Hallam, has seen numerous craft.
-
- "I saw my first when I was 13 years old," she
said. "I was looking out of the window of my parents' house in Ilkeston,
and I saw a huge bright light in the night sky.
-
- "It hovered there for quite a while, and then another
light joined it, and a few seconds later, they both moved away very quickly."
-
- The sightings continued after Patricia married husband
Derek. On a visit to Barton-on-Humber 26 years ago, a menacing disc invaded
their peaceful walk.
-
- She said: "We were on a grassy hill in the middle
of the day when the craft appeared. It hovered silently just a few hundred
feet above us. We watched flabbergasted, but another man was terrified.
He told us to get away from it - that it wasn't of this world.
-
- "We don't tell people about the incidents, because
I am afraid they will think us mad."
-
- But an exhibition opening at Leicester's National Space
Centre this weekend could prove that Patricia's experiences are not that
mysterious.
-
- Startling images claimed to be proof of aliens will be
shown to the public. Hundreds of flying saucers were captured on film by
the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a spacecraft a million miles from
Earth observing the sun.
-
- NASA originally dismissed the images as being the result
of a camera fault, and now refuses to comment. Investigators are
- convinced they are alien spacecraft - an intimidating
prospect.
-
- But Patricia and her family have never been afraid during
the sightings. They saw another UFO just three months ago.
-
- Patricia's 11-year-old son, Ian, was watching television
when he saw a cigar-shaped UFO through the window.
-
- "He called Derek and me over to look at the craft,
which was clearly visible through the French windows," Patricia said.
-
- "We went outside, and it hovered on a slight tilt
for a few minutes. It had no windows - it was just a solid dark mass edged
in lots of red lights. After a few minutes, it moved on, and we were left
unable to believe what we had just seen."
-
- Patricia also contacted Omar to report the sighting.
-
- "The Winfield family's is quite an unusual case,"
Omar said. "I think that the ability to see these craft can sometimes
also be based on psychic abilities, and I think that this family is particularly
strong in that field."
-
- But with any amount of psychic ability, the busy industrial
back streets of Osmaston seem an unlikely setting for alien activity.
-
- Yet 80-year-old Roy Crabtree says that he regularly sees
a UFO in the skies over his Osmaston home.
-
- "It comes back every two months," Roy explained
as he pointed up at the grey sky above Grosvenor Street.
-
- "Regular as clockwork it is - a big triangle of
lights, just hanging there in the sky.
-
- "I first saw it six months ago, and since then it
has come back every two months.
-
- "I can't quite put it down to a day, but I know
that it will be back in about another five weeks or so.
-
- "It doesn't move at all. It hovers, as though they
are just monitoring us. Sometimes it stays for just a couple of nights,
but sometimes it stays for weeks.
-
- "I've drawn a sketch of it," he explained,
taking a scrap of paper from his pocket.
-
- "It is made up of hundreds of little yellow lights,
which just look like stars. But they bunch up together to make three triangles."
-
- Roy has no doubt about the source of the lights.
-
- "I believe that we are not alone," he said.
"There are bound to be other beings up there, watching us."
- And with a last glance up to the massing grey clouds,
he stepped in from his back yard with a shudder.
- "But we shall just have to wait and see," he
chuckled. "Just wait and see."
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