Amusing Investigation Lesson Learnt... (A good example of jumping to conclusions)

In light of all the rampant speculation threads, bad investigation, and ppl jumping to conclusions around here recently, I thought I'd share an amusing (I think!) story that happened about 13 years back. It taught lots of ppl I know a good lesson in Empirical Evidence and research... and not to jump to conclusions.

I'll start by saying that I am not arrogant to believe that we are alone in the Universe, and I think it is inevitable that there are other civilisations out 'there'. Statistics alone dictate as such. As for seeing 'things', I can't report any bona fide UFO experiences.

I believe in explaining all the variables we can first, looking at all possible alternative before we look to the other end of the scale. As such, in my experience, *very* few sightings make it through this kind of examination.

I am a trained Lawyer, and have 3+ years post University education to date.

Anyway, to the story...

Date/Time - 8pm one evening, mid November 1994.
Weather - *very* cloudy and overcast.
Location - Cardiff, South Wales, United Kingdom

I had a phone call from a friend who said he had seen a formation of 'circular lights' move very slowly over his house. He described them as follows:

A circular formation of 15-20 lights, that were slowly rotating, and once every few minutes, changing formation. He estimated them to be low level and just above the clouds, as at no point had he seen anything other than the lights... no shape or hint of a solid craft.

I had a joke with him about if he had been out on the town or started the beers early, but by coincidence I turned on the radio to a local BBC station. They had a 'breaking story' about strange light seen by hundreds of people over Cardiff that evening, starting at around 6pm.

As the evening progressed, there was another report stating that nothing had been seen on the Radar screens at Cardiff International Airport, and the Police were now investigating! Very interesting.

So, I went outside and looked up. OMG! What I saw was close encounters stuff!

I too saw a circle of 15-20 slowly moving lights in the sky, just above cloud level etc. There was a crowd of 20-30 people watching them giving it the whole OMG! WE ARE NOT ALONE! thing and calling their friends, it literally was pandemonium.

I was not convinced. So I jumped in the car, and decided to follow the lights... for about 20 mins I followed them up into the mountains just out of town, and noticed that a lot of people were doing the same. With camera, video cameras, you name it. Police cars were there, traffic was everywhere.

Anyway, the radio reported it as 'UFOs seen over capital', flights were going to be grounded at the airport, and the Police could not explain it all.

Well, I carried on following the lights... another 20 miles or so further on, I saw what looked to be searchlights coming up from the ground that corresponded to the lights in the sky... I left the car and walked from there. I got to a large country estate...

There were a group of guys dressed in black on the main entrance, who said it was private property and I could go no further... Very odd.

Then the Police turned up, and things became a lot more clear!

Turns out that the estate was owned by a local millionaire businessman, who was holding a birthday party for his daughter... and as part of that, they had hired a 'light show'.

This involved illegally bright searchlights being shined to a point just above the clouds as part of the 'display'. At no point had they bothered to tell the authorities.

The Police soon closed them down.

To this day, there are hundreds, if not 1000's of ppl in Cardiff who still think they saw UFO evidence that night!

Helpfully, the local radio station just didn't mention it again as they were too embarrassed to have been spreading the false info! Leading to huge speculation of a coverup!

Trust no one ppl! Not even your own eyes!

Excellent post!!

I believe that there maybe such things as beings from another planet but like you, I like to explore all the possibilities before jumping to any conclusions. Being a in the meteorological line of work, I get to see all sorts of things that to the untrained eye, appear to be out of the ordinary. Even if you explain it to some people, they still refuse to accept the real answer.

That's interesting because I saw something similar a few weeks ago and half expected it to appear here as a UFO sighting.

This was in Florida, so no relationship, but there were four lights zipping around in circular patterns for about an hour. My first thought was 'searchlights' but you couldn't see the beams, just the low clouds lit up like the lights were inside.

I can see how it could be mistaken for 'ufos'.

What a great story! Thanks for sharing.

Good on you for taking the initiative and DOING something other than gawking. It must have been a bit of a let-down after getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Too bad it turned-out NOT to be a real UFO.