139

Between 8 PM and 9 PM

Ken Morse, a telecom engineer was at home in Ridley Way, a lane with houses only on the west side of the road. Ken explains his sighting in his own words:

“At the time of the sighting, our electricity supply was on three phase open wires running the length of the lane and was subject to power outages during windy weather. I have seen the wires blowing about in high winds and sparking on contact, resulting, unsurprisingly, in a power cut. Events leading up to sighting:

On the night in question, my wife was out and I would have been in charge of putting my then five-year-old daughter and nine-month-old son to bed – though I have no recollection of doing this! Once this was done, I would have settled down to watch television. This is where I’m hazy on the time but I suspect it was between

8 pm and 9 pm.

Part way through the programme I was watching, the power unexpectedly went off. As usual, when this happened, I would look out of our east-north-easterly-facing lounge window, to determine whether this was a local fault in our lane or whether the houses on Oldway across the field were also in darkness. On this occasion, they were.

The weather was clear and dry with no wind, when, looking out of my ground floor window, my attention was immediately drawn to a triangular formation of three bright blue-white “stars” that had just passed over the lane, south of my house, and were moving slowly in a roughly eastward direction.

(See attached simulated photo of what I saw which was produced for this report. The grey area in the top corner is the overhanging guttering of our dormer bungalow).

My initial reaction was that moving so slowly it must be close to commercial aircraft cruising height. I discounted this when I realised that if it was solid it would be absolutely enormous and if it were three separate craft, the lights were far more powerful than those found on any normal aircraft.

I opened the lounge window to see if I could hear anything. As usual, in our lane at night, there was complete silence. I strained to see whether there was a black triangle between the lights but the background sky was so dark it was impossible to tell. I was then hoping it might block out stars as it passed under them but so few stars were visible that night even though it was a clear sky that again I was unable to confirm the existence of a solid body between the lights.

It (or they) maintained the formation in a straight line until it disappeared over the tree in the photo in the direction of West Cross and Swansea Docks. In all I must have watched it for just over a minute but it seemed a lot longer.

The object was first seen at an elevation of about 35 degrees with 90 degrees directly overhead. It was clear they were forming the corners of an equilateral triangle with one light leading point and the other two at the rear. I reiterate, I cannot say of it was solid. Ridley Way runs NNW to SSE. The objects were about 40 degrees south of east when first seen. Without another observation from a different location it is impossible to determine how far the object(s) were along those bearings and therefore the height and distance away at which they (it) were flying.

Observations:

1. The three blue-white lights were equally bright (much brighter than any star or planet), well defined and did not sparkle or flash.

2. There was nothing visible between the lights and thus no black triangle or central light in evidence.

3. There were no other navigation lights (red/green) or any other strobe/rotating beacon lights of any kind to make me think they were commercial or military aircraft.

4. It was completely silent.

5. The relative distance between the lights was maintained until I could no longer see it.

6. The lights did not illuminate anything on the ground or any part of the craft as far as I could see.

7. The lights were still visible as it flew eastward suggesting they were 180 degree lights and not just downward facing spotlights.

8. There was nothing else unusual in my field of view.

9. Transatlantic commercial planes flying over at night at about 35,000 feet and around 500 mph have very faint lights and can be heard. See Flightradar24.com (REF 3) for altitude information.

10. Taking all the above into account, it would seem to indicate that what I saw was likely to be a large, low flying, slow moving possibly solid triangular object with a bright light at each corner. I have observed meteor showers, a comet, faint earth satellites, Iridium satellite flares, and the International Space Station. None of these bear any resemblance to what I saw that night. I have never seen anything in the sky before or since that couldn’t be explained.

The following day, the Evening Post carried some of the witness’ stories of the sightings that occurred that night and one explanation I remember was high altitude refuelling. If what I saw was high altitude refuelling they must have had very long fuel lines because at 35,000 ft I would estimate they must have been over a mile apart! Not to mention having incredibly bright lights (see point 9 above).

High altitude refuelling involves a leading tanker plane followed only yards behind by the plane being refuelled. I’m guessing at that height at night it would look like one aircraft and not three separated by a considerable distance.

If the power had not gone off (caused by the object?) I would not have been looking out of the window and would have missed it. I may have been the only person to witness this particular sighting over Bishopston. It appears to be very similar to the recent sighting over the Cwmfelin Club.

Ken Morse 21 August 2015.