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Glowing orange/yellow/white UFO close to the ground

Calqhoon

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 4, 2005
Messages
50
Apologies for the length of this post, but this is one of the most memorable things that has ever happened to me, so I'll try to go into as much detail as possible.

When I was about 8 years old I was round at my great aunt's house for a small family get-together. For some reason I had gone upstairs on my own to a spare room at the back of the house and looked out of the window. I saw what appeared to be quite a large craft, shaped like an up-turned cereal bowl (with a lip at the rim). It was glowing fairly brightly, and 'pulsating' from yellow, to orange, to white.

It had what looked like curved stylised doors and windows around the side, but they looked more like some sort of decoration, as they were just outlines, which were glowing white/yellow. It must've been very close to the ground, as the base of the object was obscured by the apex roof of the house behind the one I was in (both regular, 2-story terraced houses).

From the position it was in, it would have to have been hovering above a cemetary 3-4 roads to the west (when I come to think about it, almost any fortean event that has happened to me, such as the post I made in the Premonitions thread about dreaming of a flood, occurred within half a mile of that cemetary, although I did live in various different houses near it between the ages of 4 and 14). The fact that it was to the west may be significant, as it would've been mid-evening, and it was summertime, so it's possible that it was the setting sun that I saw, but I don't know how that would account for the "doors and windows" decoration I saw around it, or the slight lip towards the base.

I shouted to my family, but they couldn't hear me as they were all downstairs, and I remember wanting to quickly run to get them but not being able to. Eventually I did manage to get downstairs, but by the time my family came upstairs (I don't think I told them what I thought Ihad seen, I think I just said I didn't know what it was), it had disappeared.

I'm at work at the moment, so I don't have time to tell the rest of the story right now, but believe me, it gets stranger :)

I'll complete this as soon as I get a chance. If anyone has questions, don't hesitate to ask. :p

Tom
 
Yes, more please! However, can you explain a bit more about this statement:
I shouted to my family, but they couldn't hear me as they were all downstairs, and I remember wanting to quickly run to get them but not being able to.
Do you mean you were being held there against your will? e.g. a physical force or being 'told' mentally to stay there?
Why don't these kind of things ever happen to me?
 
Cheers for the feedback MD :)

I'm not sure whether I was physically able to move or not, but the only thing I can really liken it to would be the paralysis people sometimes experience in dreams (I know I often used to as a child), where you want to scream or run but can't. can't remember 100% as it was a few years ago (I'm 21 now).

This also links into the next part of the story, but I'll leave that for another time as I'm at work and they don't take kindly to me slacking. Pity I do it so often then isn't it ;)

As for things like this happening to you, the only advice I can give is "BELIEVE" :lol:
 
Tell the second half of the story soon as you get a chance. Interested in knowing what else might of taken place.
 
shaped like an up-turned cereal bowl (with a lip at the rim).

So the rim would have been at the bottom, yet you say the bottom was obscured by houses? So how could you see the lip?
 
Slejpner1 said:
shaped like an up-turned cereal bowl (with a lip at the rim).

So the rim would have been at the bottom, yet you say the bottom was obscured by houses? So how could you see the lip?

Sorry, I should clarify. The actual bottom was obscured by the roof of the house, but I could see where it began to sort of 'widen out'. I'll try to do a little sketch when get home tonight.
 
Part Deux

Ok, here's part 2.

That same night I was taken to bed with a fever, which I think was attributed to something I had eaten at the buffet earlier. This got worse and worse and worse, but eventually I must've fallen asleep. This is when I had the most frightening dream of my life (although, recounting it, it doesn't sound scary, but at the time I was absoloutely petrified). I'll recount the part I remember, I don't know whether there was more to the dream or not.

In the dream I was in the back seat of a car with a family I didn't know. There were a mother and father in the front seats and two children in the back seat with me; a boy on one side and a girl on the other. I don't remember any dialogue from the dream, but I remember them being friendly towards me, like they were friends of my parents or something, people who knew me but I didn't know them. The car was driving around the exact area where I had seen the UFO, a couple of streets behind (to the west) of my aunt's house. Although the family seemed to be very friendly towards me, I remember feeling that I was there against my will, that I had no way of getting out of the vehicle. One strange detail that I remember very clearly was that the children were eating little jelly animals (like Gummy Bears, but they were things like zebras and giraffes), but they were licking the backs of them and sticking them to the seats in-front. I don't remember connecting the dream with my earlier UFO sighting at the time.

This dream scared the bejeesus out of me, and I woke up delirious and shouting for my mum. She was trying to give me some medicine (Calpol :p), but I kept screaming at her to get away from me because everything was "going fast". It felt like everything in the room was trying to attack me. I got the same feeling occasionally for a few years, less and less often, but my head still feels funny now if I think hard about how it used to feel.
 
Thanks for sharing.

A couple of quick questions:

1. How large would you estimate the object to be?

2. You say you have had odd experiences centring aroudn the graveyard - have there been other reports from other people?

The paralysis and illness is interesting.
 
Thanks for the reply Emp.

As I say, it was a around 13 years ago, if not more, and I know how time effects perception of size in visual memory, but if it was above the graveyard as I estimated, then it was probably somewhere between 20-30ft diameter. As I say, that's just a guess. I couldn't really judge how close it was, although in order to be that low for that amount of time I doubt it would be able to hover directly above houses without someone else noticing. Of course, we know nothing of alien technology (not that I'm presuming that it WAS an extra-terrestrial craft), so maybe it was cloaked to everyone but me, I guess we'll never know!

I don't think I've heard any other tales about the graveyard, but being a graveyard there's bound to be a few. I lived in a small cul-de-sac about 20 houses in all), the end of which is right up against the railings of the cemetary. I remember an urban legend from when I was a kid, that the alley running down one side of the cemetary was called 'dead-dog's alley' and that there was some kind of ahunting or murder that took place there, though I severyl doubt there's a single shred of truth to that :lol:
 
As promised, here is my artist's interpretation of it. While i know how to use photoshop, I'm a far cry from being an artist (look, I can't even draw a bloody circle!). It was going to be a simple sketch but I thought I'd go the whole hog and get it as close as I could to the real thing. I've drawn it bigger than I saw it IRL and can't really recall what colour the sky was at the time, but it would've been somewhere between 5-8pm, sometime in the summer (UK), but IIRC it was a clear sky. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v179/ ... ds/ufo.jpg

I clearly remember my mum asking me to sketch it, some time after it had happened.

One very strange thing is, a while later (2-4 years) when I was 9 or 10, I won a kids' poetry competition (rubbish poem it was too) and got a book voucher. I spent this on a book published by Osbourne about the unexplained. I had never had an interest in the subject before, but I chose this one for some reason (I remember my mum forbid me to look in the 'ghosts' section, in case it gave me nightmares). In the book I was amazed to find a drawing of a UFO that someone had seen (in Mexico IIRC) that looked almost exactly the same. In the picture in the book the whole craft was visible, and a couple of details were different (I think it lacked the 'windows' I had seen).

I know this isn't sounding particularly credible and as a man of science myself I am open to any comments and skepticism you folks wish to express. If I weren't, I'm sure I wouldn't be posting this on here!. :)
 
^^ I know what you mean about the feeling in your head about the movement. I know the exact feeling. I've completely broken it down and realised why it was scary, and defeated it. I urge you to do the same if you haven't already done so. It helps.
 
Jolly good then, here's a crack at it.
You've 'implanted' your own false memory. You saw the picture in the book first, then bacame obessesed with the shape. You mixed up a 'night terror/illness' memory with the picture, and over the years convinced yourself you actually saw such a UFO which made you sick and scared.

I know I had quite the interest in 'Flying Saucer' books at the age of nine or ten, and would save and save my allowance so to buy the most preposterous rubbish ever to see print ! (Remember, this was way back in the post war UFO flap days.)
 
I shouted to my family, but they couldn't hear me as they were all downstairs, and I remember wanting to quickly run to get them but not being able to. Eventually I did manage to get downstairs, but by the time my family came upstairs (I don't think I told them what I thought Ihad seen, I think I just said I didn't know what it was), it had disappeared.

Hi Calqhoon,
Thanks so much for sharing your story. About the part of your story quoted above, how long did you stand watching this thing? Was there "missing time" on your part or did any of the clocks or watches stop? Was there any loss of electricity during this time period?

Thanks again for sharing,
JandZmom
 
Thanks for the replies folks.

Human_84: Yeah, it gradually went away as I grew up, but my head still goes a little funny if I think about it too hard. Glad you got yours to go away though, it wasn't in any way a nice feeling. Akin to claustrophobia or something similar, feeling like everything is already too close to you and is quickly getting closer.

Prof_Pret: I've considered that myself, but I distinctly remember my mum asking me to draw a little sketch of the UFO some time later (between a month and a year later, as I say, I don't know), which was definately before I bought the book, as IIRC we were sitting in my mum's room in the house near the cemetary. by the time I won the poetry competition I was 10 and had moved house. I think the next step in this is to speak to my mum and see what she remembers about it! I remember trying to ask her about it when I was a bit younger. She didn't really want to talk about it, I think the delerium I'd had that night scared her. Plus she was quite a strict Christian at the time and probably didn't want to get into 'all that mumbo jumbo'. She might be more welcoming now I've grown up a bit.

jandzmom: I don't really know, as far as I'm aware there was no timeslip/missing time or whatever, as I think my family downstairs would have wondered what I was doing and come and found me. I'd probably just gone upstairs to use the bathroom, which was right next door to the room I saw the UFO from.

As I say, my memories are mostly a little foggy, and I know how time and experiences can distort memories too, so i've tried to compensate for that. I just wish I still had that book, but I think mum threw it away when she went through her religious phase. My memory says it was Mexico, but once again without the book I wouldn'tbe able to say for sure.

A bit of Googling is needed here I think :) I looked at Carlos Diaz's photos from Tepoztlan today, and while the colour of the craft is very similar to whatever I saw, the pattern and shape aren't at all.

I've narrowed the year down to 1990-1992, when I was aged 6-8 (born in '84). I have a feeling it was my aunt's birthday, perhaps her 70th (as major birthdays are the only time we'd gather the family from around the country, other than Xmas). I'm not sure when her birthday is, but if it's in the summer then I may well be able to get an exact date, as I'm sure my sighting was in the summer.

Looks like I've got my work cut out for me. Thanks again for listening everyone :)

(EDIT: After a little Googling I think the book may have been published by Usborne not Osbourne. I'll see what I can dig up.)
 
Cheers for the reply Emps.

Oh yeah, I think I mentioned at the beginning it could've been the setting sun (I would've been looking to the west), but in my mind's eye I distincly remember the very even pattern accross the object. Of course, it could have been a trick of the light. Also I'm not sure I would've been able to look directly at the sun, the object wasn't so bright that it hurt my eyes at all, it was just sort of illuminated (as far as I can remember).

Of course I'll never be able to find a definate answer to what I saw, but I'd love to hear different theories and possibilites. I haven't checked all your links yet Emps as I am at work, but I will do ASAP :)


Tom
 
Calqhoon said:
The fact that it was to the west may be significant, as it would've been mid-evening, and it was summertime, so it's possible that it was the setting sun that I saw, but I don't know how that would account for the "doors and windows" decoration I saw around it, or the slight lip towards the base.
Exactly how precisely 'west' were you looking? (A map might help.)

I ask becuse in UK, in midsummer, the sun sets about NW, quite a way around the horizon from west. So if you were actually looking a little south of west, that would probably rule out the sun as an explanation, for example.
 
rynner said:
Calqhoon said:
The fact that it was to the west may be significant, as it would've been mid-evening, and it was summertime, so it's possible that it was the setting sun that I saw, but I don't know how that would account for the "doors and windows" decoration I saw around it, or the slight lip towards the base.
Exactly how precisely 'west' were you looking? (A map might help.)

I ask becuse in UK, in midsummer, the sun sets about NW, quite a way around the horizon from west. So if you were actually looking a little south of west, that would probably rule out the sun as an explanation, for example.

Here's a link to Multimap for you; http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi? ... amp;icon=x

I was in a house right near the south end of Wycliffe Road, the cemetary is the green area with the trees to the West if you click 'Aerial'.
 
Great links thanks Emps.

It could have been a combination of the onset of the fever and the setting sun. Fever plays dreadful tricks on the mind.
 
It may not have been the sun that directly caused the sighting it could have been a Sun dog, which appears as an optical illusion in which a second sun appears above the setting sun. I'm sure a quick google will give you all the information you need on the phenomena. Though i can't explain the very even pattern you describe.
 
The shape has thus far confounded me as to finding a pic of a similar one. What's troubling is, I immediately thought upon seeing your drawing "Ah yes, the such and such incident", but I haven't been able to turn up any historical pics at all resembling it. Sure, lots of saucers, tons of triangles, coupla cylinders, but no domes (or upside down cereal bowls). Either I'm mis-remembering UFO pics, which is sadly quite possible, or I'm going to all the wrong websites. !!!???
 
Calqhoon said:
Here's a link to Multimap for you; http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi? ... amp;icon=x

I was in a house right near the south end of Wycliffe Road, the cemetary is the green area with the trees to the West if you click 'Aerial'.
Ah yes. The streets do not run North-South there, so looking straight out of the back windows you'd be looking 15 to 20 degrees south of west, which does seem too far from a summer sunset for the sun to be directly responsible.

So I think I'll go with 'flying saucer' as a working hypothesis! :D
 
I must admit that the sunset does seem the most likely option.

Prof_Pret: Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any pictures either. I think a search at my local library may be in order this lunchtime. I'm pretty sure it was published by Usborne, so that's my first port of call.
 
Calghoon stated:
I haven't been able to find any pictures either.

I'll keep up the internet search as soon as the boss nips out to woo some clients. There's a tonne of UFO pic sites, difficult to sort out the decent ones.
 
Nice work Prof, thankyou, much appreciated! IIRC, the artist's impression I saw in this book was also orange and had a very similar pattern around it to whatever I saw (must remember to refrain from calling it a 'craft', lest I sound like a nutter). I have thought (briefly) about the possibilty of the book being an 'implanted memory', but I don't think that's possible, as I know i did win the poetry competition, and I did spend that book token on something! Strangely enough, come to think of it, I must've written the poem around (within a year or so of) the time of my sighting. I suppose what I chose to spend the book token I received on is purely down to chance, but since I had never had any interest in the paranormal IIRC it does scare me a little!

The only one of those pics that struck a chord with me is the last one you posted, although whatever I saw had a uniformly pulsating glow between orange, yellow and white (the whole object changed colour as one).
 
Calqhoon: I know the Usborne book you mention only too well. I actually collect old Usborne books and am a great fan of the books they did on the unexplained. The image you mention is from All About UFO's, which was part of the World of the Unknown series. This series was also later published as a compilation volume under the title Mysteries of the Unknown. I've scanned in the relevant image. At least I assume this must be the one! Correct me if I'm wrong. :)

usborne_ufo.jpg
 
That's creepy !!! It looks identical to your drawing, Calghoon. In fact, if I might put on my deerstalker for a moment, by jove it looks TOO much like your drawing. Watson, I submit that this whole episode is one of mis-remembering childhood trauma. Well??
 
Thanks very much Ted! That's the exact one! I've tried so hard to find that, but at least I know I wasn't imagining it now! As I mentioned earlier, I didn't think that the one in the picture had "windows" like the object I saw did. Once again, glad I didn't mis-remember that! You have my eternal gratitude!

Prof: Absoloutely, that's always a distinct possibility, although I do remember my mum making me draw the object I saw, which (judging by the house we were in at the time) would've had to have been before I'd bought the Usborne book.

I've yet to speak to my mum and see what she remembers, although that will be my next port of call I think.
 
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