The truth is out three ...
FORGET Area 51, Roswell or the forests of California where ET touched down, the skies above Sudbury are the best place for UFO sightings, according to a Great Cornard teacher.
Sue Crawte, from Head Lane, was outside in her garden at about 9.30pm on Wednesday when she spotted a bright orange glow in the sky.
“At first I thought it could be Mars, but it moved and then another light came, and then another,” said Mrs Crawte, head of media studies at The Thomas Gainsborough School.
“I called my husband Dave out as I thought ‘What on earth is that?’. We couldn’t believe it.”
Mrs Crawte said that over the space of five minutes, a total of six orange lights, spaced evenly apart in a line, appeared in the sky above Sudbury before getting smaller and disappearing.
Since spotting the curious display, she has looked at possible explanations, including Chinese lanterns and missile tracers from military bases.
“I really don’t know what it was, there was no noise, no flashing lights,” said Mrs Crawte.
Daniel Newman, who lives in Broom Street, also saw the lights.
“We were driving back from Bures and there were six lights, going up at an angle and hovering,” said Mr Newman, 19. “I thought they were odd, my mum thought they were planes stacking to get into Stansted Airport, but I don’t know.”
In September 2010, the Free Press reported how Katrina Squirrell and Pam Kinsey spotted a similar group of lights as they walked along Waldingfield Road at night.
The women explained how the lights appeared above houses opposite People’s Park in a triangular formation, then a circle, then a straight line. The Chinese lanterns theory was also suggested to them, but failed to explain the sudden change in formation.
A spokesman for Colchester Garrison said four helicopters from Wattisham were flying on the night, but could not say if they were near Sudbury.
“They tend to display green and red lights and it is very rare for them to do a six-strong flight, that is not a usual formation,” he said.
Stansted Airport’s Webtrak flight monitoring system shows just two planes flying over the Sudbury area between 9pm and 10pm, 40 minutes apart. Stansted has a stack near Sudbury where planes can be instructed to circle before landing.
A National Air Traffic Services spokesman said: “We had no reports of any incidents last week that would match the sightings. The movement of the lights certainly doesn’t tally with landing formations.”
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Weather for Sudbury
Thursday 23 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North east
