UFO Photos

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

"At 7 p.m., on 20 September, 1676, a strange spectacle—a meteor?—was seen in Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Kent, Hampshire, Essex, and London, and in many other parts of England at the same time. It passed very near the earth. It appeared in the dusk, with a sudden light like that of noonday, so that the smallest pin or straw could be seen on the ground. Above in the air was seen, at no great apparent distance, a long appearance of fiery sort, like a long arm with a great knob at the end. As it vanished, it seemed to break into small fires or sparks, like rockets."

Next year, in May, 1677, the famous astronomer, Edmund Halley, Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford University, reported observing a "great light in the sky all over southern England, many miles high". Later, on 31 July, 1708, from 9 to 10 p.m., a similar apparition, thought to be 50 miles high, passed over Sheerness, and the 'Buoy at the Nore', Suffolk, and London. It moved "with incredible speed, and was very bright. It seemed to vanish and left a pale white light behind it. There were no hissing sounds and no explosion".

Ten years later, in 1686, strange reports came from Gottfried Kirch, a German astronomer at Leipzig. I translate from his Latin:

"On 9 July, 1686, at 1.30 a.m., a burning globe furnished with a tail, appeared apparently $8\frac{1}{2}$ degrees from Aquarius, and remained immovable for one-eighth of an hour. Its diameter was about half that of the moon. It emitted so much light that at first one could read without a candle. Afterwards, it vanished in its place, but very gradually. This phenomenon was also seen by others at the same time, and especially by Schlazius, at a city eleven miles away in Germany, from Leipzig. The time was about midnight, and the altitude about 60 degrees from the southern horizon. It seemed about 30 miles high in the sky, and darted obliquely downwards, where it left two globules to be seen only with an optic tube (telescope). Note that a similar phenomenon was seen at Leipzig, on 22 March, 1680, and also at Hamburg, at 3 a.m., when it seemed 40 miles high, in the NNE."

Halley had received another report of a similar phenome-

A very bright, noiseless object photographed by Paul Trent over McMinville, Oregon, U.S.A., in 1950. Its speed was very high, as the blurring on the photograph indicates. The object appears to have a superstructure. Photo by courtesy of Mr. P. Trent, McMinville, U.S.A.