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11 AUGUST 2015 – CRAY RESERVOIR, BRECON BEACONS

Kris and Phil Prevel, and friend, Gill Wood, were driving along the A4067, passing the Cray Reservoir at 10.45 PM, on their way to the Brecon Mountain Centre to view the Perseid meteors. They had just passed the reservoir when:

Kris explains: “We saw a brilliant orange orb ahead of us, almost the colour of orange fire and a quarter the size of a full moon. We lost sight of it as we travelled through trees, saw it again for a second, before we dipped down in the road and lost sight of it altogether.

There were cars behind us and no safe place to stop. It was an amazing sight, wish we could have stopped. The three of us saw it, I definitely think it was in the air, my husband tried to reason it as being a beacon flaming on a hill and Gill wasn’t sure what it was. It was strangely beautiful to me.

The orb was far bigger and brighter than the one I saw over my house a few months ago [April 2015]. I was thrilled to have seen it. It seemed to have a round centre with a brighter edge around the circumference like a corona....like looking through a pinhole at the sun and seeing around the edges so to speak....but bright orange. We saw quite a lot of people camped out on chairs at the top of Crai, they must have seen it.”

She added in notes supplied to SUFON that the centre of the object was like looking into the heart of a well lit fire, surrounded by a white/yellow circumference or corona. The outer edge was a bright orange diffused light – not flame.

On the night of 5-6 September 2015, SUFON held a sky watch at Cray Reservoir and several military flares were seen over Sennybridge. Kris was present and saw the flares. She is of the opinion that what they saw that night in August was not a flare.

To make sure, she emailed the MOD on 11 September to enquire if there had been any manoeuvres in the area on 11 August. She received a reply from the DIO (Defence Infrastructure Organisation) Secretariat, stating that there were no units training in this area on that date and time in question.

They also volunteered the information that the Mountain Rescue also had no call that day, so it could not have been a distress flare.

It is interesting to note that this sighting was in the exact same place as that experienced by Brian Harry and Robert Griffiths in August 1991 (again in August), when a huge orb was seen, accompanied by five smaller orbs over the reservoir. Could there be a link?

Source: SUFON Files: Kris Prevel.