1138

4 PM. Partly cloudy.

Mark Fluharty, an ex-US Marine, was sitting next to his greenhouse in his back garden in Grangetown, Cardiff, next to the River Taff. He saw a formation of a dozen or so objects approaching from the south-south-west, which he initially thought was a flock of birds and so didn't pay much attention. When they got closer he could see that they were not birds, but round, disc-shaped objects about 200 feet in altitude.

They were dark in colour, but a few of them flashed lights. Mark realised that the flashing had helped him think that they had been birds at first, caused by light reflecting off the wings as they flapped. The ones that flashed were mixed in with the others.

When the objects were directly overhead he could see their shapes, size and colour more clearly.

"They were the size of a fighter jet, only they were round Most of them were a blackish colour and the ones that flashed lights were using red lights to look as if they were changing shapes but they weren't. It was an optical illusion until it was not. They flew overhead directly north in formation. My first thought was that they were drones from the military But there was no noise coming from them and you could hear noise from any helicopter or plane at that height. That really astounded me. It was the one time I did not have my phone with me so I could snap a picture. Again I did not really think they were UFOs, was not much of a believer in that, but I always kept a I don't know attitude towards the subject. That way I can't rule it out until then. The next day after I told my wife about what I saw.

She was looking on line and found a picture of a UFO formation seen in Salt Lake City, Utah the same day only 4-6 hours difference from when I saw them. The picture looked exactly like what I saw that day. I am an ex-US Marine. I don't drink, and I certainly do not do drugs and that means I do not hallucinate. I was trained to be very observant as a Marine. The only thing I can say from a military aspect is of they wanted to be seen, they could easily have been seen as they were not travelling at a high rate of speed by any means. It was as if they wanted to be seen."

Mark created a graphic to illustrate what he saw.

Duration of sighting: About 10 minutes

Source: SUFON Files: witness submission May 2021.