Strange Lights everywhere, Lanterns, Military or UFOs?

More and more people are seeing strange lights (orange balls of fire) in teh skies over the United Kingdom!

More and more people are seeing strange lights (orange balls of fire) all over Britain, they have even been seen in parts of Europe. But what are they? My first thoughts are that they are just Chinese Lanterns, as they have become very popular over the last few years, and make a great (silent) alternative to fireworks. But the strange, sometimes erratic sometimes synchronised pattern of the lights would seem to suggest there is something else going on.

Strange lights seen over Merseyside, UK
Strange lights seen over Merseyside, UK

Darting silently in formation, the mysterious glowing orbs light up the night sky. Some say these orange lights even weave in between each other with the precision of a synchronised flying team from some far corner of the universe. Clusters of more than 100 have been spotted across Britain and even Holland, leaving onlookers with an eerie sense that, for all the mystifying beauty of the strange objects, they may have just witnessed an armada of invading UFOs. Source: Daily Mail

4 lights seen over Holland
4 lights seen over Holland

So what are they? The MOD (Ministry of Defence) have been checking their logs to see if the lights were part of military exercise, which as you can image has excited UFO enthusiasts, especially if the MOD comes back and say “nope, nothing to do with us”.

26+ UFOs seen over Lincoln, UK

The latest sighting accrued on the 31st May 2009 around 10.30pm when Paul Slight and friends spotted lights in the sky over Lincoln, “There were 26 of them at first, dodging and darting in between each other like they were playing a game,’ he said (see 20+ UFOs spotted over Lincoln UK). The lights eventually shot straight up into the atmosphere and disappeared, which is not very lantern like. Earlier in May 2009, a set of 4 lights were seen in Holland. They have also recently been seen in Merseyside, Cambridgeshire and of course London.

I’ve quickly gone through all the recent sights of Strange Lights here on Cryptoworld and added the tag Strange Lights, which you can use to find all of the stories.

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CW Staff
CW Staff

In the late 80s I started investigating UFOs and crop circles and joined the CCCS (Centre for Crop Circle Studies) and a local group researching strange sightings and reports along the south coast of Dorset (UK). In the early ’90s I started my own research group called SPS (Strange Phenomena Studies), this was renamed in 2004 to Cryptoworld.

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32 Comments

  1. there have been a lot of UFO sightings recently all over the world.though i think some of the lights people are seeing are actualy military crafts that are arriving soon after a sighting , they are either tracking or just trying to find thier location. my self and two kids were fishing this past weeekend in arkansas USA, and i was taking the kids pictures when one flew over and behind them. i caught it in five photos . about ten min later 5 small army looking jets flying close together with lights on flew over the same area.

  2. I saw some of these lights over Hartstown park in Blanchardstown Dublin 15, Ireland tonight.
    It was approx 10.45pm. I saw 6 large orange lights shoot up into the sky to form what looked like a pencil shape. They then formed a singular line and made their way across the sky disappearing one by one into the same point.
    Just as the last one disappeared another one appeared and followed the same line across and disappeared like all the rest.
    They were beautiful 🙂

  3. those lights over hartstown park were called lucky lantrins,my family and friends set them off after celebrating a wedding at the weekend

  4. Myself, along with many others saw these strange orange lights in the sky over Oxford, late Saturday night (20th June). There were approx. 50+ over a period of about half an hour. They came across the sky in groups, every now and then one would fall from the group or shoot off in a different direction.
    Little green men?, Lanterns?, Weather balloons? – you tell me!!!

  5. I saw the strange orange lights over london on saturday 20 june 2009 as well, approximately just before sunset whlst the sky was still quite light. Thought they were helicoptors but what drew my attention was that there was not a sound in the air. At first I saw one at a time, drifting across the sky and then suddenly ascending upwards, the size of the light remained the same throughout. Eventually, several (about 8-10) travelled along together. Any one else see it in London?

  6. we saw about 9 strange orange orbs off tynemouth on 4 th of july about 10 o,clock.they hovered like slow motion motorbikes then drifted through the clouds directly north???

  7. i watched a big red ball of light over birkenhead 25th july 2009 at 23.10pm i thought it was a aeroplane or helicopter( or possibly a comet even though it was way too low)
    coming over, but there was no sound just a pulsating big ball of light which proceeded over our house and seemed to go higher and higher and smaller and smaller until it went out of sight. the sighting lasted about 2 minutes i havent seen anything like it. Anybody have any solid plausible or rational explanation for what i saw please. anybody wishing more detail or has any info please let me know and i will be glad to supply msn or email addy. many thnx : daniel

  8. Funny that AREA is a hot area.I have visited my Grandparents that reside there -Last visit 1973.Today, I have witnessed over 150 -who’s counting ~Strange connection : )

  9. Hello.
    Just been walking dogs at home in Nairn, Highlands of Scotland and saw two orange lights moving west to east along the Moray Firth. One was about 1000ft, the other slightly higher and spaced by about half a mile. They were toally silent and not particularly fast moving. They were following the coastline and went out of sight after a couple of miles.
    What what what??!!!

  10. hiya all ,i too see these light in the sky on many occassions always near my house in essex but although i have seen them once every month its always on a saturday but they are big bright orange balls that look like fire balls they dont act like chinese lanturns as they have always moved at a very fast pace and within a few mins of watching them they stand still and disappear/burnout at 1st i thought it was a hot air balloon but it did a u turn and then stood still in mid air and disappeared but the speed of it was way 2 fast for air balloon i recorded it on my camera and mobile but it does not look anything like it did in the sky in camera and video it was bouncing all round screen like a fly with an itchy butt so couldnt make out what it was on there either any1 have a clue dates that other people have seen them have been the same dates i have and they live far away some even hundreds if not thousands of miles away how are chinese lanturns gonna get this far without burnin out and i have never seen them in my area before in all my 19yrs of living here
    anything be interested to hear others opinion
    thanks
    lilyflowers

  11. While walking into my in-laws house Friday 20th November 2009 about 6 orange lights were moving across the clear sky high above. They caught my attention because I”ve been a star gazer since I was a boy, and I”ve never seen anything like it before. The lights were moving at a constant speed at first and then slowed right down, but what was most unusual was the co-ordination of the objects. They were dancing around each other in a figure of eight formation. When I called for the family to come and see, my father-in-law came out and told me he had seen them an hour previous to this. After a few seconds the lights disappeared but we kept looking. Eventually after 5 minutes we spotted another cluster of orange glowing lights. This group was different, a close cluster of about 6 lights and 2 other lights further away from the group but all moving at the same speed. By this time the whole family were outside. Once this cluster was gone we waited about 2 minutes and a larger group of lights came moving across in a more random manner.
    This all happened in Airdrie, Scotland.

  12. I saw lights that had the exact description as the italicized text above last night when I was heading to my car. I’m in Charleston, Illinois.

  13. Just got called outside by my daughter at 11.55pm to witness a ball of light moving swiftly and without noise from the south to the north. I live in Blanchardstown and the ball veered slightly northwest heading for the Ashbourne area. Very spooky as am used to all kinds of aircraft heading over us due to the new runway and have never seen the like of this before. Thought it might be a private jet coming in to land but there were no blinking lights and it did not start to decend as they usually do. The private jets usually use St. Bridget’s church as an incoming to land signal but this light came over from the Dublin Mountains due south of my home.

  14. Just seen these over raf brize norton in oxford. I know its new years eve but never seen anything like it. Called air traffic controll and they knew nothing. Defo not fire works as no noise, now explosion and must have traveled miles and miles from east to west until they vanished from sight. Too fast for lanterns going at jet speed.

  15. I have seen one of these things for the last several nights (6/7/8/9 March 2010) over Muswell Hill, North London. It’s diificult to estimate its height. But. it seems to below the level that passenger flights use when they are queuing to land at Heathrow. That’s a guess. They are shaped like blurry crosses and are bright orange. They travel at quite high speed from North-East to West in an absolutely straight line which doesn’t seem like lantern behavious. But, for the last week or so the prevailing winds have been East to West and quite strong – so, perhaps they could be lanterns. There again, can a lantern travel so fast in a straight line and disappear into the far distance never losing height? The orange does seem to be the colour of fire – but fire which retains its strength.

  16. I have seen the same thing as james has mentioned above, but i have been seeing these for the past year or so, every night. i have a sky light in my attic where you can see a perfect skyline view of london, i live in thurrock, east london. These are very weird, i have looked at them through binoculars, but they are just an orange cris cros blur!! very strange!! really want to find out more!

  17. I was driving back home from Northern Ireland with my mother on the 17/04/2010 , and was passing through Co.Cavan, just outside Cavan town to be exact, in the Republic of Ireland and about 10.30 my mother seen 6-7 orange lights, quite like balls of fire, quite low in the sky(appeared to be the same height as an aircraft which recently took off). When we pulled in there were only 4 left but in formation like this.—> * *
    * *
    One disappeared soon after, whilst another two moved close together, and then proceeded to disappear.The last one got brighter and brighter and grew in size slightly but then slowly disappeared. There were a few cars pulled in looking at this too. What I find strange is, is that all of Irish airspace is closed at the moment due to the ash cloud hanging over Europe due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, so it couldn’t be a plane!

  18. London 12: 45 a.m. on Sunday 9/5/10, I saw 3 light orange lights flying approximately SW over Wimbledon Common (as far as I can tell). Each separated by 30 second intervals, following the same flight path. For while each traveled faster than commercial jets, then appeared to slow but go higher until they looked like orange stars and then faded.

  19. 3 very bright orange circular lights traveling north-south approx 30 seconds apart no noise. Maintained same speed and altitude. Over Tullamore central Ireland about 22.55 Sunday 23/05/2010

  20. I seen this light Monday June 7th, 2010 in East Bethany, New York. It floated across the sky and slowed at one point to an almost stop. No noise at all, just a silent steady flow across the sky.

  21. Location: Miami, FL
    Date: June 20, 2010
    Time: 9:05 p.m. EST

    Seems their were a lot of sighting of very similarly described objects all over the glob last night and over the past few weeks…

    Last night my partner and I were sitting on the couch at home watching the opening of the series finally of the Tudors at 9:05 pm EST, when I spotted the first in a series of about 15 orange/red glowing orbs. During the event, several planes had departed Miami International Airport flying out of the airport from the west to the east.

    The first orb quickly passed by us flying in a SE to W/NW direction and disappeared from site within 5 minutes. Then about 15 minutes later the sky had filled with the same orbs, about 15 in total. They drifted to the south of us for about 10 minutes, then quickly departed in a W/NW direction until they were no longer in view. We each took several pictures with our iPhones, however little detail can be seen in the photos.

    The objects moved slowly and silent passed us and then appeared to increase in speed and quickly disappeared while traveling in a west/north west direction. The only sounds in the sky were coming from the jetliners departing Miami International Airport which passed about 2 to 5 miles south and parallel of the UFOs. The UFO’s appeared in random groups of one, two’s and three’s and appeared to be flying at an altitude that matched the jetliners flying out of MIA.

  22. Two weeks ago (the last week of June) we saw two separate sightings of single orbs, both heading south following the same path. The second one headed towards a perfectly circular ball-shaped cloud and disappeared into it. The cloud was rather small… My son saw a triangular shaped ufo on Saturday night (July 10) and my daughter saw another orb while staying at her grandmothers about 40 miles from here last night (July 11). It appears they truly are everywhere.

  23. Well ive just seen along with my parents and several neighbours my first sightings of these strange lights that really do lool like Chinese Lanterns.. But they are alot bigger!!
    They are exactly as all of the above have described!! Their so beautiful too!! My friend emailed me to say he saw some In the UK the previous day and lord behold i saw them tonight (Monday 19th July in Dublin)
    Rumours are of a meteor shower around this date , if its true it could be an explaination.
    The only thing is , people have been seen them over the last year or so? So what could they be?
    Their now a World wide talking point, and if the Goverments know something? well their not telling us!! 🙂

  24. I saw some lights up in the sky moving in perfect formation synchronised ..stretching about the length of about 2 football pitches I’d say (at least) …bright, glistening, flickering orange.. and moving without the noise of a jet or helicopter.. don’t know what it was but it was big, long and very very close (relatively speaking) ..first thought was that a crane had been erected and was in view from the road I was driving on .. but there were too many.. and it was too long.. so I did the movie thing and stopped the car to have a butchers or whatever and this thing began to move.. I could still see the stars and clouds but these lights were moving in perfect synch’ …as if it were one big object… anyway! all now I don’t really know what the hell it was ..but I know it wasn’t a set of chinese frrriggin lanterns.. lol.. I’m not even sure that I care what it was either.. life goes on!.. ‘for now’ (woOoOoOoo!!.. ) ..Just thought I would share as I only just stepped in and was curious to see if anyone else saw anything over wimbledon/raynes park area.

  25. My boyfriend & I saw lights and fireballs very similar to these photos while out walking our dogs about 2 weeks ago, mid-November 2010, in Highlands County (central), FL.

  26. I live in Central IL and last night 9-3-11 at about 1030 pm my friends and i were in the front yard of my house, I was looking up and saw three bright orange balls of light in the southwestern sky just barely above the trees. I yelled to my boyfriend to come check it out. He is an amateur astronomer and he said they were not comets or shooting stars because they were stationary in the sky then 5 other people including a 7 year old child saw them. The first three that were in the triangle shape moved apart and 6 more looked like they came in pairs from behind the trees. Once they were in the air the six moved in tight formation very fast in between the original three. One a little brighter sped off into the southwest sky and then all the others went into the same direction and disappeared. It was very spooky no sounds the lights didnt flicker or anything. anyone else see them?

  27. Just this evening (12th Nov) I have seen some of these lights over Oxford (UK). They were orangey coloured and seemed to have a slight flicker. There were four of them, evenly spaced, moving in a slightly north of west direction pretty fast. I am used to seeing planes in the sky, as planes heading west from Heathrow pass over regularly, and these were not planes. I thought they might be lanterns too, but for their height, they seemed too big. They also seemed to be moving too fast. No noise, and they were equidistant from each other.

  28. me and my other half saw 4 orange lights in the sky then look up and they gone there are not Chinese lanterns or helicopters or plane because there were no noises. it was in Southampton on Saturday 11TH of August 2012 just after 22:35pm PS any body know what it is send a message back please .

  29. I’ve been seeing these lights in the sky for the past two months at least over London! How is it no one has mentioned them two have been floating over for weeks, then tonight I see for and they were in the same formation as the pic from holland what are these lights? How comes no mention of them on the news?

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