Strange lights, silent craft and unsolved encounters – the region’s UFO mysteries

WHAT WAS IT? An artist’s impression of the triangular shaped object witnessed above Nevada and Arizona in 1997, which was almost identical to that witnessed in 1999 above the skies of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire

The Way it Was

In partnership with Hull History Centre

By Neil Chadwick, archivist/librarian

Perhaps the greatest unanswered question for mankind is ‘are we alone?’

Some will say yes. Others will say no. Some sit on the fence, whilst others have little thought or opinions on the topic.

Over the last 70 years or so, incidents, reports and footage have emerged, some from non-official channels, some via whistleblowers, and more recently from government agencies.

Whilst originally typing this back in 2025, NASA were monitoring an interstellar object hurtling through the solar system. Whilst it has since been identified as a comet, some individuals have gone further to suggest that this object may well have been an alien craft!

Its elongated shape and lack of a cometary tail led to some suggesting this was indeed an alien spacecraft. We now know it to be a piece of rock left over from the creation of the universe.

Whilst most UFO-related stories emerge from the United States, this isn’t something unique to our friends across the pond. Brazil, Australia, Africa, France and Russia have all reported numerous UFO sightings. Here in the UK hundreds of UFO sightings, now commonly referred to as UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) have been reported.

Perhaps the most famous is the incident at Rendelsham Forest, in Suffolk, in 1980, when the US military who were based there reported strange lights which became linked with a UFO.

One explanation put forward was the nearby lighthouse at Orfordness as the culprit. Audio recordings from the incident and resulting testimonies appear to discredit the lighthouse as the explanation for these strange lights though.

The Calvine UFO sighting in Perthshire, Scotland, is another famous incident. In August 1990, two men were walking above the moors at Calvine. After taking shelter under some nearby trees, they watched a diamond-shape craft as it hovered silently before ascending vertically. They managed to snap a photograph of the craft.

But what makes this more interesting is it appeared to be chased by an RAF jet which was also captured in the picture.

EARLY SIGHTING: A Hull Packet report from 1801

Numerous sightings of UFOs have been witnessed in Hull and the wider East Yorkshire and Humber area. Some have been de-bunked, others remained unexplained.

An early reported sighting was in 1801. The Hull Packet reported that ‘On Friday night, 19 June 1801, between midnight and 1am a beautiful phenomenon was observed at Hull’, resembling, it was reported by witnesses, as ‘an immense moon, with a black bar across it’, before ‘gradually formed itself into seven small distinct moons, or globes of fire’ and ‘a faint blue light fell upon surrounding objects’.

It is after 1947 that the UFO phenomena began to gather momentum.

Roswell is arguably the most famous incident. In 1967, three witnesses in Gloucester Street, off Hessle Road, described it as a cigar-shaped showing two red lights, silently moving at the speed of a Zeppelin.

That same year, a mystery object was seen by children in Longhill Park in the November. These children reported a silver egg shaped object landing. The children ran towards, it but it took off with no noise. 

This was dismissed with a small helicopter thought to have landed nearby, though this was never fully ascertained.

Two years later, in October 1969, a Keyingham family reported being followed by three lights whilst driving. The lights were shaped like a spearhead with one leading and two trailing. This was a second reported sighting in Holderness that week.

Between 1970-71, around half a dozen UFO sightings were reported, including one at Spring Cottage. In 1971, two Hull police officers were on patrol on Green Lane, Wincolmlee, as they watched a UFO pass over the city.

Things then go quiet for much of the 1970s in Hull. However, in 1983 a bright light was spotted above the trees over the Old Hymerians sports ground. It was described as having a small trail behind it, like a comet but with no sound and no flashing lights.

Laughing it off, the witness was shocked to learn of a similar sighting in Leicestershire on that same night.

In 1995, at least six people witnessed strange lights in the early hours of May 20. One person thought it was helicopters, but others didn’t believe this the case. Another witness saw the same lights hovering but there was no sound like they’d be with conventional aircraft. Humberside Airport together with RAF Leconfield reported no flights that night. 

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: Information cards noting reputed UFO sightings which were recorded and reported in the local press and other sources

In recent years, the most well-known sighting is from 1999, when on the evening of February 22, witnesses from Cleethorpes, Grimsby, Hull and Flamborough reported seeing a triangle or diamond shaped object. There was no noise, no vapour or contrails like you’d get with aircraft.

Some reported the craft to be as low as 200-300 feet and was moving slowly as though it may fall from the sky at any point. Witnesses reported a triangular shaped object, almost identical to that seen with the Phoenix Lights which was observed over the skies of Arizona and Nevada in 1997. And like the Phoenix Lights incident, no plausible explanation has been put forward to what was above the skies of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire that night.

The year 1997 appears to have been a period of high UFO activity over the skies of Hull.

Two sisters were left stunned when they saw craft which looked like upside-down plates by the River Hull in March of that year.

In August, a mysterious UFO was said to have been sighted near the Humber Bridge. Described as a silver dome-shaped object, like a jumbo jet but without wings, which appeared to be cigar shaped and changed to a circle. It stopped, hovered before moving off.

And again in 1997, two shoppers on Kingswood were left baffled when a silver oblong object shot across the sky at high speed.

A month later, residents in east Hull reported lights moving slowly over a period of an hour from 10pm to 11pm. Despite several eyewitnesses, this phenomenon was attributed to the Northern Lights.

Whilst sightings have been debunked, usually with a plausible explanation, some accounts are indeed more difficult to explain.

Many support the idea that we are indeed visited by beings not from this earth. More so when multiple witnesses – with no connection - report seeing the same thing miles apart from each other, as with the case of the 1999 sighting which was witnessed across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

Perhaps the most interesting, and arguably scariest incident is said to have occurred in 1994, when a mum and daughter saw giant orange balls hovering in the sky above their bungalow at Sproatley.

They reported an enormous white ball with a mystery shutter that loomed above them. They both ran into the bungalow. The sky changed colour, and they heard a loud noise like an aeroplane taking off.

Despite being frightened, one of them pointed a camera at the window hoping to capture a picture of what was going on. The image they captured was said to have been that of a humanlike creature. 

The History Centre holds the papers of Sir Patrick Wall. He was a British commando during the Second World War and later a Conservative MP for Haltemprice.

In his later life he became President of the British UFO Society and spoke in parliament on the UFO phenomena. His papers here at the History Centre includes UFO sightings and research covering the 1950s to the early 1990s.