Unidentified Nocturnal Lights Reported By Pilots Over Gloucestershire England On Feb 15

This event happened above Gloucestershire county, located in England, on February 15 between 8:15 and 8:45 pm local time and involved two Air Midwest aircraft. The pilots are said to have over 25,000 flying hours between them and were completely baffled as to what they saw. According to the article linked below, many people on the ground have seen similar strange aerial objects in that area too.

“Our aircraft approached the lights on an interception track but were unable to gain on the objects as they appeared to move further south of Gloucester as our aircraft approached.

“We were unable to identify the lights.”

The company, based in Wolverhampton, stressed that the lights “defied our normal expectation of standard aircraft or meteorological activity”.

It has ruled out hot air balloons and said they have not come across any explanation of what the objects could be.

And it said it would welcome any explanation for what the pilots, with more than 25,000 flying hours between them, actually say.

www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk...

February 15 Screen Shot From Air Midwest's Facebook Page:

www.facebook.com...

Picture Of Unidentified Nocturnal Light Posted On Air Midwest's Facebook Page:

www.facebook.com...

February 17 Facebook Comment Made By Air Midwest Concerning Sighting:

We are all pretty amazed here at air midwest by the interest in this post. But we must clarify we are not claimed we encountered an extraterrestrial situation. We encountered unexplained airborne lights that defied our normal expectation of standard aircraft or meteorological activity... We considered it could be night glow hot air balloons but we are not aware any any such activities taking place and the objects observed seemed to move from their original location to another with a rapidity not in line with balloon activity.. but of course the apparent changes of location could have been an optical illusion due to night effect. In conclusion our pilots, both senior flight instructors and highly experienced commercial airline pilots with over 25,000 flying hours between them, together with there crews observed airborne lights the nature of which they were unable to identify. For this fact alone we obviously can only describe the observations as ‘Unidentified Flying or Airborne Objects’. Hence referring to them as UFO’s, as that is what they were. We have no idea as to the origin of the objects and as yet we have not yet come across any standard explanation for what the objects could have been. We look forward to any information this week that could offer a suitable explanation for what our crews observed. Many thanks for your interest - Air Midwest.

Last year, there were other strange sightings of aerial anomalies hovering over Gloucestershire, England.

September, 2018 Article On Colored Lights Sighted Over Gloucestershire:

Now there have been even more UFO sightings in Gloucestershire. There seem to be quite a few identified flying objects in the skies in the county.

There has not been a shortage of UFO news coming through recently.

Last week there were also reports of red, white and blue lights in the skies hovering over Cheltenham and Gloucester between 9pm and 1am.

www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk...

Picture Of Aerial Anomaly Hovering Over Cheltenham In July 2018:


Aerial Anomalies Filmed Over Gloucestershire In March 2018:

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Nice find, even better wright up. I have been noticing what's seems to be uptick in pilot reported UFOs. What's causing it? Hard to say. Maybe pilots aren't as fearful to report innocent's like this these days, maybe UFO activity has picked up for some reason, or maybe it's just drone's. Hopefully we will get an answer in my lifetime.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Finally, a clear photo. Although, the photo doesn't show what the pilot(s) described: a large square glowing orange light over another large square orange glowing light, slightly offset, and with space in-between.

Yellow-orange lights say, a flickering observed...does seem very reminiscent of lanterns, which can also be very bright or diffused depending on the conditions.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

These are the credible reports I love.
Thank you for posting this.

The daylit image of the UFO with the green Hugh in its Center is pretty damn good.

I am a drone expert, look me up if you must.
I can honestly say that picture is not any type of drone I have seen.
And I’ve seen most frames.
I have NDA’s with drone companies from Ukraine, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, USA and Canada.
Unless it’s a home made frame, I have never seen that shape before.
I wonder how long it was visible before disappearing.
The longest airtime of a commercialy available VTOL drone is usually around the 30 min mark.

A few Industrial models can compete with 2 hours of battery life.
With an exception of a Hybrid Fuel-Electric, from Quaternium, that stayed in the air for 5 hours.
Most companies do not have $250,000k to dedicate to a UAV program. So we see a lot of commercial drones being used by companies- DJI types for example.
All commercial drones will have Orientation and No approach lights - red and green.
With red Orientation lights remaining static without the option to turn them off.

Anyway, definitely interesting to say the least.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Some of the main ley lines (UFO motorways) run very close to Cheltenham.

At first the red circle reminded me of Jetflames, perhaps off the radar surveillance by sinister entities?
Lanterns are a good guess Smurfy.

Yellow-orange lights say, a flickering observed...does seem very reminiscent of lanterns, which can also be very bright or diffused depending on the conditions.

Although don't they flicker a lot, especially at that altitude and there was no mention of any flickering which given that there's two of them I'm not sure if it could be that or not.
It could be a set of drones, do drones come up on radar at all?
Does the airport say if there were any readings on the radar when the Pilots saw them, normally the first thing Pilots do after noticing a UFO is check radar to rule if it's an tangible object or just an optical illusion(which I suppose is probably impossible at night time).

The picture of the greenish object during the daytime looks spherical like the classic images of UFO's. Maybe a large air balloon? (I swear I don't work for the Govenment!)

Good to see so many sightings in the UK, I keep an eye on the sky as much as I can here in Ireland but don't see much myself, think there were some sightings not long back though.

a reply to: RoryRahl23

Lanterns are a good guess.

The report says the lights where first spotted at Gloucester, and then again as far south as Weston-Super-Mare.

The distance between those two points is 53 miles. No way would a lantern travel that distance.

Picture Of Unidentified Nocturnal Light Posted On Air Midwest's Facebook Page:

Is that HAL 9000?

Any passengers on this flight witness these lights?

a reply to: alldaylong

"The fuel source in each sky lantern will burn for approximately 8-10 minutes. When used in ideal weather conditions, sky lanterns will easily reach heights of over 1000 feet (typically between 700 and 1600 feet). They will typically make it between 2 and 5 miles from the original launch site before extinguishing and harmlessly floating back to earth to biodegrade. It is important to note that weather, location, and environmental variables affect the course of sky lanterns, so each flight will vary."

-weddingdaysparklers.com...

Guess your right! Although perhaps a modified one could be possibly built? I googled modified lanterns but that was a no go, that's not to say that an engineer couldn't be building DIY ones that work the same way just with extra supplements of oil in a wick or simply a large block of wax stuck onto the loop.

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: shawmanfromny

Finally, a clear photo. Although, the photo doesn't show what the pilot(s) described: a large square glowing orange light over another large square orange glowing light, slightly offset, and with space in-between.

The photo was not taken during the event. It is just a still from a Shutterstock animation video.



Link to Shutterstock animation

Note, the photograph is not what the pilots saw, but gives an illustration of their encounter

From

Express and Star news link

Also this event didn't take place on the 15th but on Thursday 14th.

Posted on the 15th February and discusses "last night"

Air Midwest February 15 at 9:54 PM · The has been a lot of interest in the fact that our pilots observed ‘UFO’s’ last night during night flying exercises.

More press interest in our UFO encounter last Thursday night...

a reply to: shawmanfromny

If you look on Stellarium then you can see that Sirius (Dog Star) was in the Southern sky during Thursday 14th February. I would say that a twinkling (scintillation) Sirius was to blame.

Imagine seeing something like this in the sky while flying?

The brightness, twinkling and color changes sometimes prompt people to report Sirius as a UFO! In fact, these changes are simply what happens when such a bright star as Sirius shines through the blanket of Earth’s atmosphere. The varying density and temperature of Earth’s air affect starlight, especially when we’re seeing the star low in the sky. The shimmering and color changes happen for other stars, too, but these effects are more noticeable for Sirius because Sirius is so bright.

EarthSkywebpage

originally posted by: tommyjo
a reply to: shawmanfromny

If you look on Stellarium then you can see that Sirius (Dog Star) was in the Southern sky during Thursday 14th February. I would say that a twinkling (scintillation) Sirius was to blame.

Wouldn't pilots with 25,000 flying hours of experience between them be more aware of such stars than anyone else? And necessarily so?

USAF airman stomping through Rendlesham Forest in Dec 1980 were allegedly fooled by Sirius, too, but wouldn't they ALSO be more aware of it than most people?

Well, one would hope they would.

a reply to: tommyjo

The pilots climbed to 7000ft and at that point the object was below them, it was not a star.

I might start believing this stuff has no terrestrial explanation as soon as the people that post these kinds of videos stop putting the woo-woo music and sound effects in 'em. Zero credibility rating.

Unless the flying objects have large speakers and the music is coming from them, of course

originally posted by: TheTruthRocks
I might start believing this stuff has no terrestrial explanation as soon as the people that post these kinds of videos stop putting the woo-woo music and sound effects in 'em. Zero credibility rating.

Unless the flying objects have large speakers and the music is coming from them, of course

While adding unnecessary music is annoying, I'm not sure why anyone would assume that the sighting suddenly has no credibility at all as a result.

originally posted by: TheTruthRocks
I might start believing this stuff has no terrestrial explanation as soon as the people that post these kinds of videos stop putting the woo-woo music and sound effects in 'em. Zero credibility rating.

Unless the flying objects have large speakers and the music is coming from them, of course

Posters add background music to fill-out the silence that would inevitably make some viewers believe either they had gone deaf or the sound had stopped working on their device. That they choose eerie or cheesey music is probably just down to personal taste. You have the option turn the sound off if it annoys you so much.

As for Sirius and Chinese Lanterns...give over...highly experienced pilots, I'd like to think, would not be fooled by such things. When they say "unexplainable", that's exactly what they mean.

originally posted by: ConfusedBrit

originally posted by: tommyjo
a reply to: shawmanfromny

If you look on Stellarium then you can see that Sirius (Dog Star) was in the Southern sky during Thursday 14th February. I would say that a twinkling (scintillation) Sirius was to blame.

Wouldn't pilots with 25,000 flying hours of experience between them be more aware of such stars than anyone else? And necessarily so?

USAF airman stomping through Rendlesham Forest in Dec 1980 were allegedly fooled by Sirius, too, but wouldn't they ALSO be more aware of it than most people?

Well, one would hope they would.

You would think so but even experienced pilots can be deceived. Think about it? Look at all the aviation in that area on that night of the 14th February and wonder why nobody else is reporting it? What about the passengers on the airliners that were using the upper air routes? Pilots can get fixated on such lights and be totally baffled. Some people expect to see a star or a planet as they perceive it to be but factor in atmospheric conditions and it can be completely baffling. That is why the likes of Sirius and others get reported as UFOs.

originally posted by: Xabi87
a reply to: tommyjo

The pilots climbed to 7000ft and at that point the object was below them, it was not a star.

Perceived to be! Atmospheric conditions and scintillation can cause all manner of illusions.

From the Facebook page.

We then climbed 5000 ft and they seemed level at that height and stationary......

we climbed 7000 ft and commenced a turn to observe the lights. At this point they seemed lower than us in the same place and stationary.

Flying at night and observing such an event as scintillation can lead people astray. They expect to see a star or a planet as they usually see them without the weird effects of scintillation. Even the pilots agree that the perceived movement of what they saw could have been an optical illusion.

From the Facebookj page.

....but of course the apparent changes of location could have been an optical illusion due to night effect.

Might not be anything but a U-2 spy plane has been operating out of RAF Fairfield recently. The base is located in Gloucestershire not sure whether it's related though as air traffic control and other radar stations would pick it up