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Mystery helicopter over London 23/9/10 btwn 0000 & 0100h

pornosonic1975

pornosonic1975

Devoted Cultist
Joined
Aug 31, 2009
Messages
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I don't know if this is in the right category but I thought that I would share what I saw last night.

I am a Police officer based in London and we were dealing with two men that were arrested. We had just searched a flat in Holborn and were transiting through Camden town towards the next flat in Islington, N4. As we drove through Camden Town, past the Worlds End Pub, I saw a number of people looking upwards towards the sky and to the west when I heard a Camden Officer call up on the radio and say:

"Does anyone know anything about a helicopter which is hovering over Camden?"

The response was negative. As we carried on to our destination, I tried to look for the Helicopter but did not see it (I was sat in the back of the car). We then reached the destination and it turned out to be a false address, so we left. As I looked out of the window, I saw a large white helicopter pass overhead (I am unfamiliar with the area so cannot state the direction) at about 500-1000ft. It made the normal noise and had not marking and was similar in size and shape to a Jet Ranger. It was a clear, cloudless full-moon night and I could clearly see two large cigar shaped pods which were outboard of where the landing spats would be. They were too small to be floats and were about the same length of the landing spats. At the rear of the tail also was a bright white light. The Helicopter was displaying fairly normal navigation lights otherwise.

I know for certain that the Met Police helicopter, I99 was not in this area at that time and in any case, this is black and yellow.

has anyone else experienced a similar thing either last night or in fact, ever?
 
I once saw two of those "Osprey" things the US military operates flying low in formation over central London whilst sitting on a train at Kings Cross.

I didn't even know they were actually using them outside of video games until then!
 
When? That's interesting! What was strange about this chopper was that I have been in London doing all kinds of shifts for NINE years and have never, ever seen another helicopter other than I99 fly at night. In fact, I'm certain that I heard somewhere that only I99 is allowed to fly at night over London but I stand to be corrected.

I mean, I often see Chinnook's, Merlin's, Puma's and the odd Lynx but always in the daytime.

As you can probably tell, I am also an aviation enthusiast and am very good with aircraft recognition but there was something about this aircraft that was just not 'right' and out of place.
 
It was about 6 years ago I think, not at night. Late afternoon I suspect as I was heading home after a weekend in London.

On the subject of seeing strange aircraft in out-of-context environments, I would swear that when I was at junior school (would have been about 1987) a friend and I (both slightly obsessed with warplanes) watched an X-29 fly over our school in Lancashire.

http://www.rctalk.co.uk/forum/mainuploa ... ur/x29.jpg

We weren't very far away from the BAe factories at Wharton and Salmesbury so it's not inconceivable that they were getting a demonstration flight or something, but there can't be many aeroplanes around with forward-swept wings like that, can there?
 
Hi Pornosonic1975

I saw something earlier in the week which I thought odd..

However my timing and description is a bit out. It was between 10.00 and 11.00 on Tuesday 21st. I was hosting a party on the roof of the old Dickins and Jones building on Regent St. Because we were 5 floors up we had a good view. I was standing with my back towards the Oxford Circus area and the helicopter flew slightly south west-north east above me (so flew diagonally above). Slightly north east from that location does bring you to Camden.

Anyway back to the story; as I was one of the hosts I had to stay sober (no mean feat when everyone around you is drunk!) for the sake of my company who were throwing the party. It was a warmer night as we'd had a warm sunny day but there were 2 patio heaters on anyway. It was also a clear night and a full moon.

As we were all talking we heard the helicopter approach and a few people looked up; it had the appearance of being massive without being too low. We didn't feel a breeze from it for example, and it wasn't a deafening noise, it just seemed so huge. Maybe this was because we were so high up, or because the darkness and the light from the patio heaters distorted our perception I have no idea. It just seemed really odd and I remember being a bit unnerved at the time.
Now I work in London and I'm used to seeing/hearing Police helicopters on a very regular basis, but this just seemed so...big!

When I turned back to my guest I asked "wow, did you see that?" she drunkenly replied "see what"?

Anyway I sort of forgot about it until it was mentioned here. Seeing a helicopter is not a fortean event generally, but I was baffled for a bit!
 
UncleSilas said:
http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=33536&headline=Southwark%20Park%20in%20helicopter%20mystery
Click to expand...
As this is your first post, I'll just point out that's it's usual here to paste at least an edited version of what's said on the site you link to. And this link is a fine example of the reason why - it doesn't open (on my computer at least)!

So is the mystery solved, or deepened? I don't know!

I hate bare naked links! :twisted:
 
The link doesn't work because they're on to us. In fact the whole of the site doesn't work.

But as I am very clever (and handsome to boot), this is the cached version of the story

Southwark Park in helicopter mystery

Friday, 24 September 2010

ANOTHER mysterious night-time helicopter landing in a park has led to fresh speculation it is being used by the military in secret training missions.

Rotherhithe locals have been baffled by a series of nocturnal helicopter visits to Southwark Park in recent months.

In May we revealed how an RAF Chinook caused thousands of pounds of damage to the park’s sports pitch when it attempted to land at the site.

The powerful downdraft of its twin rotor blades is believed to have torn up the artificial turf as it neared the ground. Eyewitnesses told how the pilot aborted his landing and flew off, leaving the pitch in Hawkstone Road, Rotherhithe, ruined.

An MOD spokesman later confirmed it had been on a special training mission and was practising a “mock organ pick-up from Guy’s Hospital”.

But a number of other landings in the same park under the cover of darkness have remained unexplained.

Last week yet another helicopter touched down at the location in complete darkness, leading to speculation its pilots were equipped with night vision equipment.

The South London Press has learnt that park security wardens even attempted to intercept the mystery aircraft, but it flew off before they reached it.

Jerry Hewitt, secretary of the nearby Hawkstone Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association, witnessed the latest visit during the night on September 14.

He said: “A single rotor helicopter with no marking that I could make out landed on the cricket oval inside the park.

“It was not a police helicopter or medical helicopter.

“I would presume the helicopter was equipped with night vision equipment because it was going to put down in the dark.

“This would be a highly dangerous thing to do without that kind of equipment.

“It’s a mystery and I would guess these are military aircraft taking part in secret special operations.”

No one from the MOD was available to comment on the latest incident at the time of going to press.

*edited once to correct my comment
 
Thank you, O clever (and handsome) one! ;)
A single rotor helicopter with no marking that I could make out landed on the cricket oval inside the park.
Click to expand...
I say, chaps, that's just not on! :shock:
 
It works perfectly for me. There's even a mock up of what the helicopter would look like, close to the ground in the area.
 
rynner2 said:
Thank you, O clever (and handsome) one! ;)
A single rotor helicopter with no marking that I could make out landed on the cricket oval inside the park.
Click to expand...
I say, chaps, that's just not on! :shock:
Click to expand...
I rode a moped over the cricket square, in the little village in Bedfordshire where I lived for a while as an adolescent. I got into ever so much trouble, when the grounds keeper saw me.

That cricket field is long gone, swallowed up by a modern sports facility and tennis courts. Right outside the village pub it was. :(
 
coaly said:
It works perfectly for me. There's even a mock up of what the helicopter would look like, close to the ground in the area.
Click to expand...
I just tried it again, and now it does work for me! :shock: (And I tried it several times earlier,to no avail.)

I think someone is messing with our minds...
 
Worked fine for me. It might just be a dodgy server.
 
When I lived in Gillingham, there used to be occasional landings of helicopters on the Brompton Sports Ground (which my flat overlooked) - the most exciting being a Chinook at about 1.00am (Whilst another circled overhead just above rooftop height)! :shock:

Mind you, that area is MoD land and pretty close to the Chatham Royal Engineers barracks.
 
Assume all black helicopter touch downs are a member of the royal family in search of late night Pringles from a convenience store, until proved otherwise.
 
Colpepper1 wrote
Assume all black helicopter touch downs are a member of the royal family in search of late night Pringles from a convenience store, until proved otherwise.
Click to expand...

Are you insinuating that the Queen imbibes in "exotic cigarettes" and gets the munchies... :shock:
 
No, but Andrew and William are qualified helicopter pilots...
 
I live in North London and have seen a few strange things from my fourth floor flat window. However, one of the banes of living in London is the constant helicopters flying over us at all times of the night and early morning. It really is very annoying.
 
Noel Edmunds is said to fly about in strange black helicopters, dropping, and picking up Debbie McGee. (Not a lot!)
 
Considering my own strange helicopter sighting on the 17th of Sep [Black helicopter over M11 in the UFO section], maybe we should merge the threads as it seems there is a lot of 'helicoptering' going on at the moment?!
 
Maybe it was Bear Grylls jumping out of it and trying to survive in the wilderness of London's outer suburbs?
 
Zilch 5 wrote
Maybe it was Bear Grylls jumping out of it and trying to survive in the wilderness of London's outer suburbs?
Click to expand...

Scarier and more dangerous than trekking through the Amazon/Death Valley/Borneo.

I mean, has he ever queued for a kebab in Lewisham at 2am?

:shock:
 
I got woken up at ~1am recently - say a few months ago - by a helicopter hovering, it seemed, about 100 feet above my flat (unable to get a look at it unfortunately). But then again I live in Clapton, Hackney - which is 'trident' country, and I know from experience that they can throw a helicopter up there in minutes to try and catch the weekly gun murderer.

The Epping forest/Hackney marsh/Thames route seems to be the preferred route for a wide variety of army/police/odd helicoptors coming in from the North East to central London, seen all sorts of strange whirlybird hardware coming in and out that way.
 
I would imagine the helicopter was laying chem trails in order to alter weather conditions.
 
...and also laying down decoy chinese lanterns to hide the real UFO's in the sky...
 
And adding extra fluoride to the water.

Wonder why so many people just disappear? Dissolved in Hydro fluoride acid.
 
I was once told that at night the helicopter will shine the search lights a street away from where the person they're tracking is. This will make him think the police don't know where he is but they are actually watching him on infra red.

Anyone else heard this?
 
Living in Caversham (north Reading) between June 2008 and May 2010, I would often hear a helicopter at night (23:00-3:00). It seemed to fly back and forth, back and forth over the RG4 area for an hour or more and always be within sight of my flat. (so I could tell it wasn't landing) I could look up high through my my front windows, then it would move west so I could see it up high through my back windows. It created an awful ruckus, keeping me up on the nights it flew. It seened to occur at least once a week- sometimes more often but never with a discernable pattern. I tried Googling for more info with no luck. Sure had me stumped.
Tranining excercises? But really, who trains at night over a urban area where people are trying to sleep? :(
 
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