NUFORC Sighting 31041

Occurred: 1978-08-30 22:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2003-08-31 01:39 Pacific
Duration: 3-4 mins
No of observers: 0

Location: Bristol (UK/England), , United Kingdom

Shape: Cigar

"like someone had hung christmas deccy's in the sky"

It was at night and I was 12.I was sat outside on my own feeling fedup staring into the gutter when I noticed it was very bright, and felt immediately cheered by the prospect of a full moon so I looked up and got a big surprise. Directly across the road were four semi detached houses and a huge silver ball above them. It had the same kind of shine you get from turned aluminium, like someone had stuck christmas decorations in the sky. To the right was a lane filled with a small copse of trees and across the road on the skyline there stood a hirise block of flats, above the entire lenght of one of the blocks was a silver cigar/cylinder shaped object. There was no sound, and I guess I sat and stared at these things for about 3 mins. It wasn't scarey it felt kinda peaceful, but then it occured to me to go get a grown up so I ran inside but by the time I'd convinced my mum to come and have a look they were gone.

At the time we lived about 2 miles upwind from a chemical complex so theres no way you could ever smell anything but sulphur so I can't say if there were any accompanying smells.

I've read alot of ufo stuff over the years in order to try and solve this one for myself, but so far nope. The ball wasn't the moon and the cigar thingy wasn't quite the right shape for a zepplin, the closest descriptions I've ever come across have been here so I'll share this now with more brains in the hope someone can work it out. Growing up where I have I've seen the prototype probes and delta winged aircraft, so I'm aware of some of the more peculiar objects in the sky at weird hours, but short of viewing a 5th dimensional object I can't explain this one.

NUFORC Note:

Witness elects to remain totally anonymous. Date is approximate. PD

Posted 2003-09-04